Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

I am a cat.
I have no name yet.

Where I was born remains entirely unclear.
All I recall is mewing in some dim, damp place—that much I remember.
It was there I first laid eyes on those creatures called humans.
Later I would learn this specimen belonged to humanity's most vicious breed—the student lodger.
They say these student lodgers occasionally snatch us up to boil and devour.
But back then I knew nothing of this, so felt no particular fear.
Only that strange floating sensation when he scooped me onto his palm and whisked me upward.
When I steadied myself enough to peer at his face—that became my inaugural glimpse of humankind.
That peculiar impression lingers even now.
A face meant to be fur-fronted stood utterly bare—slick as a kettle.
In later years I met many cats, but never another such monstrosity.
Worse still—its very center jutted obscenely outward.
From this protrusion's cavity came intermittent smoke puffs.
Choking fits ensued—truly insufferable.
Only later did I realize this was humanity's beloved tobacco.

For a while, I sat comfortably in the palm of this student lodger's hand, but after a short time, he began whisking me about at tremendous speed.
I couldn’t tell whether the student lodger was moving or only I was moving, but my eyes spun wildly.
My stomach turned.
Just as I had resigned myself to certain death, there came a heavy thud, and sparks shot from my eyes.
I remember up to that point, but no matter how much I try to recall what happened after that, I can't make sense of it.

When I came to my senses and looked around, the student lodger was gone.
The many siblings that had been there were nowhere to be seen.
Even the mother had vanished without trace.
Moreover, this place differed utterly from where I had been before—unbearably bright.
I couldn't keep my eyes open.
"Hmm, something feels wrong," I thought as I sluggishly crawled out—only to meet excruciating pain.
I had been suddenly thrown from atop the straw into a bamboo thicket.

When after much struggle I finally crawled out of the bamboo thicket, there was a large pond ahead.
I sat before the pond and tried to think what I should do.
No particular plan came to mind.
After a while, I hit upon the idea that if I cried, perhaps the student lodger would come retrieve me again.
I gave a tentative mew—but no one came.

Meanwhile, a rustling wind swept over the pond as dusk began to fall.
I grew terribly hungry.
I wanted to cry, but no sound would come out.
It couldn’t be helped; I resolved to reach wherever food might be and began stealthily circling the pond to the left.
I found it truly unbearable.
Enduring that, I forced myself to crawl on until at last I emerged into a place that somehow smelled human.
Thinking that if I could get in here, something might work out, I slipped through a broken hole in the bamboo fence and crept into a certain mansion’s grounds.
Fate indeed works in mysterious ways—had this bamboo fence not been broken, I might well have starved to death by the roadside.
How true rings the saying about finding shelter under a single tree.
This hole in the fence has to this day remained my passage for visiting Mikeko next door.
Now, though I had managed to sneak into the mansion, I had no idea what to do next.
Before long, darkness fell; hunger gnawed; cold bit deep; rain began to pour—matters had reached a point where delay was no longer possible.
Since there was no other choice, I walked on and on toward wherever seemed bright and warm.
Looking back now, I realize I had already entered the house at that moment.
It was there that I encountered humans other than that student lodger once again.
The first one I met was O-san.
This woman proved even more violent than the student lodger; no sooner had she seen me than she grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hurled me outside.
Ah, realizing this wouldn’t work, I squeezed my eyes shut and resigned myself to fate.
However, I simply couldn't endure the hunger and cold any longer.
I seized another moment of O-san’s inattention and crawled up into the kitchen.

Before long, I was thrown out again.
I remember being thrown out only to crawl back up, crawling back up only to be thrown out again—repeating this very cycle four or five times.
It was around then that I came to thoroughly detest this O-san.
After stealing O-san’s Three-Horse and getting my revenge during this time，the knot in my chest finally loosened.
As I was about to be tossed out for the last time, the master of this house came out while bellowing something like “What’s all this racket?”
The maid dangled me toward the master and said, “This stray kitten keeps coming up to the kitchen no matter how many times I throw it out—it’s impossible!”
The Master twisted the black hairs beneath his nose while staring at my face for some time, then said “Then keep it inside,” and withdrew into the inner rooms.
The master appeared to be a man of few words.
The maid resentfully hurled me into the kitchen.
Thus did I finally resolve to make this house my own dwelling.

My master and I rarely came face to face.
His occupation was said to be that of a teacher.
When he returned from school, once he entered his study, he would hardly ever emerge for the rest of the day.
The household believed him to be a most diligent scholar.
He himself made a show of being a diligent scholar.
However, in reality, he was not the diligent scholar they made him out to be.
I would sometimes sneak into his study on stealthy paws, only to find him often taking a nap.
He would sometimes drool onto the book he had started reading.
He had a weak stomach, his skin taking on a sallow hue that showed signs of inelasticity and lethargy.
Yet he ate heartily.
After devouring a large meal, he would drink Takadiastase.
After drinking it, he would spread out his books.
Having read two or three pages, sleepiness would overcome him.
He would drool onto the book.
This was the nightly routine he repeated.
Though I am but a cat, there were times when I pondered:
Teachers are truly an easy lot.
If one is born human, becoming a teacher seems the only sensible path.
If one can maintain their position while sleeping this much, then even a cat could manage such work.
And yet, according to my master himself, nothing proved more trying than being a teacher—whenever friends visited, he would grumble about this and that.

When I first took up residence in this house, I was thoroughly unpopular with everyone except the master. Wherever I went, I would be kicked aside with nobody willing to engage me. How little I was valued could be understood from their never even bestowing a name upon me to this day. Having no alternative, I devoted myself to staying near the master who had taken me in as much as possible. When he read his morning newspaper, I would invariably climb onto his lap. When he took his afternoon naps, I always mounted his back. This wasn't so much out of affection for him as necessity—there simply existed no other being who would tolerate my presence. After various trials, I established my routine: mornings atop the rice tub, nights upon the kotatsu, and fine afternoons napping on the veranda. Yet nothing compared to slipping into the children's bedding at nightfall to sleep alongside them. These children—aged five and three—shared a single futon in one room each night. Though I always managed to wriggle into some space between them, disaster inevitably followed should either child awaken. The little ones—particularly the ill-mannered younger one—would immediately commence howling "The cat's here! The cat's here!" even in midnight's depths. This would rouse our notoriously nervous and dyspeptic master from his slumber, sending him charging in from the adjoining chamber. Just recently, I suffered a sound thrashing across my hindquarters with his ruler.

The more I lived with humans and observed them, the more I found myself compelled to conclude that they are selfish creatures. Especially when it comes to those children with whom I occasionally share bedding, they defy all description. When self-indulgent moods strike them, they’ll flip one upside down, shove bags over heads, toss bodies out, or cram victims into stoves. Moreover, should I make even the slightest retaliatory move, the entire household gangs up to chase and persecute me. Just the other day, when I merely sharpened my claws on the tatami, the mistress flew into a rage and has since barred me from easily entering the sitting room. Yet when others trembled upon the kitchen floorboards, the household remained utterly unperturbed. My esteemed neighbor Mr. White across the way never misses an opportunity to declare whenever we meet that nothing surpasses human heartlessness. Mr. White recently gave birth to four jewel-like kittens. Yet on the third day, that house’s student lodger carried them all to the back pond and discarded them, so I’ve heard. With tears streaming down his face as he recounted the whole affair, Mr. White insisted that for us felinekind to fully realize parental love and lead beautiful family lives, we must wage war against humanity and annihilate them utterly. Every single one of his arguments struck me as perfectly sound. Furthermore, Mr. Mikeko next door fumes indignantly about humanity’s utter failure to grasp the concept of ownership. Among our own kind, whether it be a dried sardine’s head or a mullet’s belly, whoever finds it first holds rightful claim. Should any dispute this law, settling matters through physical force proves perfectly acceptable. Yet these humans appear wholly devoid of such principles—every delicacy we discover inevitably falls prey to their plundering hands. They brazenly seize what we should rightfully eat through brute strength alone. Mr. White resides in a military man’s household while Mr. Mikeko has a lawyer for an owner. Being merely one dwelling in a teacher’s abode, I find myself rather more optimistic than those two regarding such matters. Each day need only be endured as it comes. However mighty humans may be, their prosperity cannot last forever.

Well, I suppose it would be best to patiently await our time.

Since selfishness had come to mind, I shall now relate how my master brought failure upon himself through this very trait. By nature, this master possessed no particular talent that set him above others, yet he compulsively dabbled in everything. He wrote haiku submissions for Hototogisu, composed new-style poetry for Myōjō, penned error-riddled English essays, occasionally fixated on archery, practiced Noh chanting, and at times sawed away horribly on a violin—yet pitifully, none of these ever came to fruition. Despite his weak stomach, once he embarked on something, he grew strangely fervent about it. He would sing Noh chants in the outhouse and remain utterly unperturbed even after the neighborhood dubbed him “Toilet Master,” persistently repeating “This is Taira no Munemori de gozaru.” Everyone would burst out laughing at his “Munemori!” declarations.

What came over my master? About a month after I took up residence here, on his monthly payday, he rushed home carrying a large bundle. When I investigated its contents, it turned out to be watercolor paints, a brush, and paper called Whatman—clearly he had resolved to abandon Noh chanting and haiku from that day forth in favor of painting. True to form, from the very next day onward he spent every daylight hour in his study painting obsessively, forgoing even his usual naps. Yet when one examined his completed works, no living soul could discern what they were meant to depict. Whether through self-awareness of his ineptitude or mere coincidence, I once overheard him confiding the following when his friend the aesthetician visited.

“I just can’t paint with ease.”
“When you look at others’ work, it seems simple enough, but when you take up the brush yourself, you belatedly realize how difficult it is.”
This was the master’s lament.
That was indeed an honest assessment.
His friend peered at Master through gold-rimmed glasses. “Of course you can’t paint well from the start. First of all, you can’t create proper paintings through indoor imagination alone.”
“Long ago, the Italian master Andrea del Sarto once said.”
“If you want to paint, you must copy nature itself.”
“In heaven there are stars.”
“On earth, glistening dew abounds.”
“In the air there are birds.”
“On the ground there are beasts.”
“In the pond there are goldfish.”
“In the withered tree there are winter crows.”
“Nature itself is a grand living painting,” he declared.
“How about it? If you want to paint proper paintings, why not try doing some sketching from life?”

“Huh, did Andrea del Sarto ever say such a thing?”
“I had no idea.”
“That makes perfect sense.”
“That’s absolutely right,” Master marveled with unbridled admiration.
Behind the gold rims, a mocking smile could be seen.

The next day, as usual, I was taking a comfortable nap on the veranda when Master, unusually, came out of his study and began busily doing something behind me.
Suddenly waking up and opening my eyes slightly for about a minute to see what he was doing, I found him wholly engrossed in mastering Andrea del Sarto.
I couldn’t help but let out an involuntary chuckle at this spectacle.
As a result of having been ridiculed by his friend, he was now attempting his first sketch—of me.
I had already slept enough.
I desperately wanted to yawn.
However, thinking it would be a shame to move when Master was so earnestly wielding his brush, I endured and kept still.
He had now drawn my outline and was coloring around the facial area.
I must confess.
As a cat, I was by no means a superior specimen.
Whether it be my back, my coat, or my facial features, I dare say I never considered myself superior to other cats.
However, no matter how plain I may be, I simply could not recognize myself in this bizarre form that my Master was currently depicting.
First, the color was wrong.
I possessed skin of a pale gray tinged with yellow, mottled like lacquer, akin to that of a Persian cat.
This much, I believe, was an undeniable fact no matter who looked upon it.

However, looking at Master's current coloring, it was neither yellow nor black, neither gray nor brown—nor even a mixture of these hues. It was a color that defied description beyond being a single hue. What's more strangely absent were eyes. Of course, this being a sketch of me sleeping made it somewhat unavoidable—but without even a suggestion of eyes visible, one couldn't tell whether it depicted a blind cat or merely a sleeping one. Secretly, I thought even Andrea del Sarto would have been stumped by this. Yet I couldn't help respecting his earnestness. Though I wanted to stay still for his sake, the urge to relieve myself had been building for some time. My muscles twitched restlessly. With no more moments left to spare, I reluctantly excused myself—stretching both forelegs out fully, lowering my head, and unleashing an enormous "Aaah" of a yawn. Now matters having reached this point, staying put served no purpose. Having already ruined Master's plans regardless, I thought I might as well take care of business out back—so I began sluggishly crawling away. Then Master shouted from the parlor with a voice blending disappointment and rage: "You fool!" This master had an invariable habit of yelling "You fool!" when berating others. While one couldn't expect better from someone who knew no other insults, I found it rude how he mindlessly hurled this epithet without appreciating how long I'd endured. Had he ever shown me a kind expression when I climbed his back normally, I might have borne this abuse—but to call me a fool for answering nature's call when he'd never once accommodated my needs? Outrageous. Fundamentally, humans grow arrogant through conceit about their own abilities. Unless some being slightly stronger than humans emerges to chastise them, there's no telling how far their insolence might progress.

I could tolerate this level of selfishness, but I have heard reports concerning human depravity that were several times more lamentable than this.

Behind my house lay a tea garden of about ten tsubo—roughly thirty-six square meters.
Though not spacious, it was a stylish and pleasantly sunny spot.
Whenever the children grew too boisterous for peaceful napping or boredom unsettled my stomach, I would always retreat there to cultivate my noble spirit—such was my custom.
One tranquil late autumn afternoon around two o'clock, having enjoyed a satisfying post-lunch nap, I set out for this tea garden to stretch my legs.
Sniffing each tea bush root in turn, I reached the western cedar fence where a large cat lay sprawled unconscious across crushed chrysanthemums.
He slept stretched out in endless slumber, snoring thunderously—utterly indifferent to my approach or presence.
That an intruder could sleep so soundly in another's garden left me secretly awestruck at such audacity.
He was a pure black cat.
The midday sun cast transparent rays upon his pelt, making his shimmering fur appear to harbor invisible flames between its strands.
His physique commanded such majesty he might have been called sovereign of all cats.
He stood easily twice my size.
As I stood transfixed before him—admiration and curiosity overriding caution—a gentle late autumn breeze stirred the paulownia branches above the cedar fence, scattering two or three leaves into the chrysanthemum thicket.
The Sovereign snapped open wide his perfectly round eyes.
I remember it still.
Those eyes shone with more splendor than the amber humans prize so highly.
He didn't twitch a muscle.
Gathering light like twin lances from their depths upon my meager brow, he growled, “What the hell’re you?”
Though his vulgar speech ill-suited a sovereign, the canine-crushing force behind that voice left me thoroughly cowed.
Thinking silence perilous, I declared, “I am a cat.”
“Haven’t got a name yet,” I added with forced nonchalance, feigning composure.

However, at this moment, my heart was indeed beating more violently than usual.

He said in a tone of great contempt, “What? A cat?
“A cat calling me a cat—ridiculous!”
“So where the hell d’you live?”
Utterly audacious behavior.
“I live at the teacher’s house here.”
“Figured as much.”
“Lookit you—skinny as hell,” he sneered, puffing himself up like royalty.
“Judgin’ by how y’talk, ain’t no fancy-house cat.”
“But seein’ how fat n’ glossy y’are—must be eatin’ good. Livin’ soft, eh?”
I had no choice but to ask, “And who exactly are you?”
“Me? I’m Black from the rickshaw shop.”
He declared it with arrogant pride.
Kuro from the rickshaw shop was that notorious ruffian cat everyone knew around here.
But being strong just ’cause he worked at a rickshaw shop—with no education at all—meant nobody wanted to deal with him.
He was the target of their united avoidance policy.
Hearing his name gave me an awkward itch in my tailbase, while also stirring some contempt within me.
First things first—I decided to test just how ignorant he really was through some strategic questioning.

“Between a rickshaw puller and a teacher, which one is superior?”

“Rickshaw pullers are obviously stronger! Take a look at your master—nothin’ but skin and bones, I tell ya!”

“You do look rather strong yourself—as one would expect from a rickshaw cat. Living at the rickshaw shop seems to let you feast well, huh?”

“What’s it to ya? No matter where I go, I ain’t never gonna starve. You ain’t gotta keep circlin’ round the tea garden—why don’tcha try taggin’ along behind me for once? You’ll get so fat in under a month folks won’t recognize ya!”

“Let’s leave that wish for another time.”
“However，I think the teacher lives in a house larger than the rickshaw shop’s.”
“You idiot! What good’s a big house if it don’t fill your belly?”

He appeared greatly offended, his ears—like peeled winter bamboo—twitching incessantly as he departed boldly.
It was from this point that I became acquainted with Kuro from the rickshaw shop.

After that, I encountered Kuro frequently.
Every time we met, he exuded bluster befitting his rickshaw shop origins.
The immoral incident I had previously heard of was in fact something I learned from Kuro.

One day, as usual, while Kuro and I were lounging in the warm tea garden chatting about various things, he repeated his usual boasts as though they were novel, then posed me the following question.
“How many mice’ve you caught so far?”
I prided myself on being far more intellectually developed than Kuro, but I had resigned myself to being no match for him in terms of raw strength and courage. Yet when faced with this question, even I couldn’t help but falter.
However, facts being facts and lies being impossible, I answered, “Truthfully, I’ve been meaning to catch them but haven’t yet.”
Kuro vibrated the long whiskers that stood stiff from the tip of his nose and laughed uproariously.
Fundamentally, Kuro was a cat who, for all his boasting, had certain deficiencies; if one listened to his bluster with an impressed rumble in their throat, he proved remarkably easy to manage.
From the moment I became acquainted with him, I had quickly grasped his rhythm; in this situation, foolishly defending myself would only worsen my position. I resolved it would be wiser to let him prattle on about his own exploits and muddle through.
So I meekly enticed him by saying, “Given your age, you must have caught quite a few.”
Sure enough, he charged through the gap in the wall with a roar.
“Ain’t that many—thirty or forty, I reckon,” was his proud reply.
He continued: “I can take on a hundred or two hundred rats by myself any day, but weasels—damn things—ain’t worth the trouble.”
“I once had a hell of a time with a weasel.”
“Hmm, I see,” I chimed in.
Kuro blinked his large eyes and said.
“It was during last year’s big cleaning.
“When my master took a bag of lime and crawled under the veranda, you wouldn’t believe how this huge weasel bastard came scrambling out in a panic!”
“Hmm,” I said, feigning interest.
“A weasel ain’t nothin’ but a rat that’s a bit bigger.
“Chased the bastard all over, thinkin’ I finally cornered him in a mud ditch—ain’t nothin’ to it.”
“Well done!” I cheered.

“But just when I had him cornered, that bastard let out one last stinkin’ fart.”
“So damn foul I couldn’t breathe—now just seein’ a weasel turns my stomach!”
Here he raised his front paw and rubbed his nose two or three times, as if still smelling last year’s stench.
I couldn’t help pitying him slightly.
Thinking to lift his spirits, I ventured, “But with mice—they’re done for once you set your sights on them.”
“You’re such a master mouser—must be all those mice you eat keeping you so plump and shiny.”
This attempt at flattery backfired spectacularly.
He heaved a profound sigh and growled:
“Ain’t worth thinkin’ about.”
“Work my tail off catchin’ mice—but nothin’s more shameless than humans!”
“They swipe every mouse I catch and haul ’em off to the police box!”
“Cops don’t know who caught ’em, so they pay five sen each time!”
“My master’s made over a yen fifty off me—but never feeds me decent!”
“Humans—world’s slickest thieves!”
Even uneducated Kuro grasped this logic, his hackles rising in fury.
Growing uneasy, I made polite excuses and slunk home.
From that moment, I resolved never to hunt mice.
Nor did I become Kuro’s lackey chasing other delicacies.
Better to nap than feast.
Living with a teacher makes even cats adopt teacherly traits.

If I'm not careful, I might develop a weak stomach before long.

Speaking of teachers, it appeared my master had finally realized he had no hope in watercolor painting, for on December 1st he jotted down the following in his diary.

At today’s gathering, I met someone by the name of XX for the first time.
I hear that person was quite the libertine, and indeed he cuts the figure of a seasoned man of the world.
Given that this type of man is naturally favored by women, it would be more accurate to say that XX was compelled to indulge in libertinism rather than having actively chosen it.
I hear that person’s wife is a geisha—it’s enviable.
Generally speaking, most people who speak ill of libertines are themselves largely unqualified to engage in libertinism.
Moreover, among those who style themselves as libertines, many lack the qualifications to engage in libertinism.
These are not compelled by necessity, yet they push themselves to do it anyway.
Just like my efforts in watercolor painting, I have no intention whatsoever of ever improving.
Despite this, I alone remain convinced that I am a man of the world.
If one can argue that drinking at restaurants and visiting geisha houses makes someone a man of the world, then by the same logic, I too could become a passable watercolor painter.
Just as it would be better not to paint my watercolor paintings at all, an uncouth country bumpkin is far superior to a foolish man of the world.

The theory of being a man of the world was rather hard to swallow.
Moreover, while expressing envy over someone having a geisha for a wife constituted a vulgar notion unworthy of any educator's utterance, his critical eye regarding his own watercolor paintings remained undeniably sound.
Despite this self-awareness coursing through him, my master's vanity clung stubbornly to his bones.
Two days later, on December fourth, he penned these words in his diary.

Last night, I had a dream where I painted a watercolor—convinced it would never amount to anything—tossed it aside, and someone had framed it splendidly to hang in the alcove. When I saw it framed, even I had suddenly become skilled. I was delighted. As I spent the day gazing at it alone, thinking, "This is truly splendid," the night passed, I awoke, and with the morning sun, it became clear that it was just as inept as before.

It appears that even in his dreams, my master trudges along burdened by his lingering attachment to watercolor painting. With this disposition, he is of a caliber that naturally precludes him from becoming a watercolor painter, let alone Master’s so-called “man of the world.”

The day after Master dreamed of watercolor paintings, the gold-rimmed-glasses aesthetician visited him for the first time in a long while.
He sat down and immediately opened with, “How’s the painting coming along?”
Master replied calmly, “I’ve been focusing on sketching as you advised—through this practice, I’ve come to better discern forms and subtle color variations I’d previously overlooked.”
“It seems Western art developed to its current state precisely through this longstanding emphasis on sketching from life.”
“Truly worthy of Andrea del Sarto!” he exclaimed, making no mention of his diary entries while expressing renewed admiration.
The Aesthetician laughed while scratching his head. “Actually, that was all a fabrication.”
“What do you mean?” said Master, still oblivious to having been deceived.
“What do I mean? That Andrea del Sarto you keep praising—”
“—was a story I completely made up.”
“I never dreamed you’d take it so seriously! Ha ha ha!” he crowed in evident delight.
Listening from the engawa, I couldn’t help but imagine what would be recorded in today’s diary.

This Aesthetician was a man who found his sole amusement in spouting such irresponsible statements and deceiving people.
He, as if giving no consideration whatsoever to what reverberations the Andrea del Sarto incident might have transmitted through Master’s emotional state, launched triumphantly into the following spiel.

“Ah, when I occasionally tell a joke that people take seriously, it wonderfully provokes a comedic aesthetic sense—most amusing.”
“Just recently, I told a student that Nicholas Nickleby advised Gibbon to abandon writing his life’s great work—The History of the French Revolution—in French and instead publish it in English. That absurdly sharp-witted student then solemnly repeated my exact words at a Japanese Literature Society lecture—utterly comical.”
Yet there were about a hundred listeners present at the time, all earnestly absorbing every word.
“Here’s another amusing tale.”
“The other day at a gathering with a certain literary figure, when Harrison’s historical novel Theophano came up, I declared it the supreme masterpiece among historical novels.”
“When I remarked how the heroine’s death scene strikes one with an almost spectral intensity, the teacher sitting across from me—who never admits ignorance—chimed in, ‘Ah yes, that passage is truly exquisite prose.’”
“Thus I discovered this fellow hadn’t read the novel either—just like myself.”
The master with his nervous dyspepsia widened his eyes and demanded:
“But what would you do if someone actually read it after hearing such fabrications?”
His manner suggested that while deceiving people posed no issue, being exposed would prove troublesome.
The Aesthetician remained unperturbed.
“Why, I’d simply claim I confused it with another book,” he cackled.
Though sporting gold-rimmed spectacles, this Aesthetician shared traits with Kuro the rickshaw cat.
Master silently blew smoke rings, his face practically shouting, “I could never muster such audacity.”
The Aesthetician fixed him with a look declaring this was precisely why he’d never paint well. “But joking aside, painting truly is arduous work. They say Leonardo da Vinci instructed his disciples to sketch stains on temple walls.”
“Indeed, spend time studying rain-stained walls in an outhouse and remarkably skillful pattern paintings emerge naturally.”
“You should try sketching there attentively—you’d surely produce something intriguing.”
“You’re deceiving me again, aren’t you?”
“No, this particular story is genuine.”
“Isn’t it a strikingly acute expression? Even da Vinci might have coined such a phrase.”

“It certainly is striking,” Master conceded halfheartedly.
However, he still didn’t seem to be sketching in the outhouse.

Kuro the rickshaw cat later became lame.
His glossy fur gradually lost its luster and began to fall out.
The eyes I had praised as more beautiful than amber were now filled with eye discharge.
What particularly caught my attention was his diminished vitality and the deterioration of his physique.
On that final day when I met him in the tea garden, when I asked "How are you?" he replied, "I’ve had my fill of weasels’ deathbed farts and fishmongers’ shoulder poles."

The maple leaves that had woven two or three tiers of crimson among the red pines scattered like a dream of old, and even the red-and-white camellias near the stone basin—which had alternately shed their petals—fell completely without remnant. On the three-and-a-half ken south-facing engawa, the winter sun set early, and now that days without the cold wind blowing had grown rare, I felt my nap time had been curtailed.

Master went to school every day.
When he returned home, he shut himself in his study.
When people came, the teacher complained, "I hate it, I hate it."
He rarely painted watercolor paintings either.
He had also given up Takadiastase, saying it had no effect.

The children went to kindergarten without ever taking breaks.
When they returned home, they sang songs, bounced balls, and sometimes dangled me by the tail.

I don't eat any fancy meals, so I haven't grown particularly fat, but I remain reasonably healthy without lameness, passing each day as it comes. I never catch rats. I still detest O-san. They still haven't bestowed a name upon me, but since desires know no bounds, I've resolved to spend my days in this teacher's household as a nameless cat.

Two

I had become somewhat famous since the New Year, and though I was but a cat, it was gratifying to feel my nose held high.

On the morning of New Year’s Day, a picture postcard arrived at Master’s place. This was a New Year’s greeting from a certain painter friend of his, with the upper part painted red, the lower part deep green, and in the center, a pastel drawing of a crouching animal. Master, in his familiar study, viewed the painting sideways and tilted it vertically while remarking on the skillful use of color. Having already expressed some admiration, one might have expected him to stop—yet he kept examining it from every angle. He twisted his body this way and that, stretched out his arm like an old man scrutinizing three-life physiognomy charts, then turned toward the window to hold it right up to his nose. If he didn’t stop soon, his knees would start shaking and it would become unbearably precarious. When I finally thought the trembling had subsided, he muttered in a small voice, “What on earth did they paint here?” Master seemed impressed by the postcard’s colors but had been struggling to discern the animal’s true form all this time. While thinking it was such an incomprehensible picture postcard, I half-opened my sleeping eyes with dignity and looked calmly—there was no mistaking it; this was my portrait. Though perhaps not as versed in Andrea del Sarto as Master fancied himself to be, the painter had properly composed both form and color. No matter who looked at it, this was undeniably a cat. To those with even modest discernment, it was splendidly clear that among cats, this depicted none other than myself. Watching him labor so intensely over something this obvious made me feel almost sorry for humankind. If possible, I would have told him this painting was of me. Even had they failed to recognize it as myself, I at least wanted them to realize it was a cat. But humans are ultimately creatures not graced by heaven to comprehend our feline tongue, so regrettably, I let it be.

I must briefly inform my readers: humans possess a most disagreeable habit of evaluating me with contemptuous tones whenever they deign to notice us at all—casually dismissing us as “mere cats.” This notion that cats were concocted from the dregs that spawned cows and horses—and from those beasts’ excrement no less—might indeed prevail among teachers who preen in their ignorance like strutting peacocks, but such delusions make for pitiful spectacles.

Even we felines cannot be fashioned through such crude means! To human eyes we may appear uniform—a homogeneous mass lacking individual distinction—but enter feline society and you’ll discover complexities where even your proverb “ten men, ten minds” proves inadequate.

Our eyes differ—our noses too—the texture of our fur and rhythm of our gait vary endlessly. From whisker spread to ear angle to tail carriage—no two alike! When accounting for beauty and homeliness, preferences refined or vulgar—we embody infinite diversity!

Yet human eyes remain fixed on empty skies while prattling about “self-improvement”—blind even to my physical distinctions! They say “like seeks like”—mochi sellers know mochi best; cats alone comprehend feline matters.

Human progress avails naught here! Their actual mediocrity compounds this failing—how could they grasp truths beyond their vanity? My Master exemplifies this limitation: an unsympathetic oyster clinging to his study shell who’d never comprehend love’s first principle being mutual understanding!

He clings there still—this ill-tempered mollusk—mouth forever shut against the world while affecting airs of enlightenment! His delusions manifest clearly when confronted with my portrait—mistaking it for some wartime bear painting during this second year of Russo-Japanese campaigns!

As I lay half-asleep on Master’s lap pondering thus, the maid soon arrived with the second picture postcard. When I looked, there was a letterpress print of four or five foreign cats lined up in a row holding pens, opening books and studying. One of them had left its seat to perform a comical dance called nekojya at the corner of a desk. Above this, in bold Japanese ink was written “I Am a Cat,” with a haiku inscribed at the right: “Reading books, leaping about—a cat’s spring day.” This had come from Master’s former student—anyone might have grasped its meaning at a glance—yet my obtuse Master still seemed uncomprehending as he tilted his head in puzzlement and muttered, “Hmm... could this be the Year of the Cat?” It appeared he still hadn’t noticed how famous I’d become.

Just then, the maid brought a third postcard.
This time, it wasn’t a picture postcard.
It read "Happy New Year," with a note alongside apologetically requesting that regards be conveyed to the cat as well.
Even my obtuse Master seemed to have finally understood now that it was spelled out so plainly; with a “Hmph,” he appeared to take notice and looked at my face.
The look in his eyes now held a hint of respect that hadn’t been there before.
Considering that Master—who until then had never been acknowledged by society—had suddenly gained this newfound prominence entirely through my influence, I concluded this degree of regard in his gaze was only fitting.

Just then, the gate’s lattice clinked—clink, clink, clink-clink-clink.
It was likely a visitor; if so, the maid would answer the door.
Since I had resolved not to go out except when Ume-kō from the fishmonger came, I remained unperturbed, sitting on Master’s lap as before.
Then Master looked toward the entrance with an uneasy expression as if he had barged into a loan shark’s den.
Apparently he found it unpleasant to receive New Year’s guests and entertain them with drinks.
If humans could become this stubborn, there’d be nothing to criticize.
If that was how it was, he should have just gone out early—but he didn’t possess that much courage.
He was truly revealing the disposition of an oyster.
After a while, the maid came and announced that Mr. Kangetsu had arrived.
This man called Kangetsu had been Master’s former student but now reportedly surpassed him in every way after graduating from school.
For some reason this man often came to visit Master.
Whenever he came he would reel off phrases about whether there might be women in love with him or not—whether the world seemed fascinating or dull—whether things felt terrifying or alluring—and then leave.
That someone would deliberately seek out a withered human like Master to share such stories made no sense from the outset—yet there remained something particularly amusing about that oyster-like Master occasionally chiming in with responses during such talk.

“It’s been quite some time since I last paid my respects. The truth is, since late last year I’ve been rather occupied, so even when I meant to visit, my feet simply wouldn’t turn this way,” he said with an enigmatic air, twisting the cords of his haori.

“And what direction *do* your feet turn?” asked Master gravely, tugging at the sleeves of his crested black cotton haori—a garment with short sleeves from which coarse lining protruded about five bu on either side.

“Heh heh... A slightly different direction,” chuckled Kangetsu-kun. I noticed one of his front teeth was missing that day.

Master changed tack. “What happened to your tooth?”

“Well, you see, I ate some shiitake mushrooms at a certain place.”

“Ate what?”

“That is—I ate some shiitake mushrooms. When I tried to bite through a cap with my front tooth, it snapped right off.”

“Losing a tooth to shiitake—how dreadfully senile. It might make decent haiku fodder, but hardly conducive to romance,” he remarked, lightly smacking my head with his palm.

“Ah! So this is that celebrated cat! He’s grown rather plump—why, he could hold his own against Kuro from the rickshaw shop! A fine specimen!” Kangetsu-kun lavished praise upon me.

“He’s grown considerably of late,” Master declared proudly, roughly patting my head. Though flattered by the admiration, my skull ached faintly.

“Two nights past, I hosted a modest concert,” Kangetsu-kun resumed.

“Where?”

“The location hardly merits your concern. With three violins and piano accompaniment, it proved quite engaging.”

“When there are three violins together, even poor playing becomes audible.”
“The two were women—I joined them and thought I played rather well myself.”
“Hmph. And who might these women be?” asked Master with envious inflection.
Though Master typically maintained a countenance like withered wood and cold crags, he was far from indifferent to women; once after reading a Western novel featuring a character who developed fleeting infatuations with nearly every woman encountered, he’d marveled at this satirical truth—that one could grow enamored of nearly seventy percent of females passing in the street.
Why such a capricious man led an oyster-like existence remained utterly beyond feline comprehension.
Some attributed it to failed romance; others to weak digestion; still others to timid poverty.
Regardless—being no figure for Meiji history books—it mattered little.
Yet his envious inquiry about Kangetsu-kun’s companions stood undeniable.
Kangetsu-kun cheerfully gripped edge-sliced kamaboko with chopsticks and bisected it using half his front teeth.
I fretted over further dental casualties, but this time catastrophe stayed its hand.
“Oh, they’re young ladies from my former locale—you wouldn’t know them,” came his detached reply.
“Naa—” Master elongated the syllable while omitting its ‘hodo’ suffix in contemplation.
Perhaps deeming the moment ripe, Kangetsu-kun proposed: “Splendid weather! If you’re free, let’s stroll—the city’s lively since Port Arthur fell.”
Master wore an expression more curious about the women than military victories before resolving: “Very well—let’s go,” rising decisively.
He still wore his black cotton crested haori over padded Yūki-tsumugi silk—a twenty-year-old brotherly memento.
However durable Yūki-tsumugi might be, perpetual wear proved unbearable.
Thinned sections revealed mending stitches when held to light.
The master’s wardrobe recognized neither year’s end nor New Year’s dawn.
He possessed neither casual wear nor formal attire.

When he went out, he tucked his hands into his sleeves and strolled off nonchalantly.
Was it because he had no other clothes to wear, or because even if he did, changing them was too much trouble? I could not tell.
However, this much at least did not seem to stem from a failed romance.

After the two had left, I discreetly appropriated the leftover kamaboko that Kangetsu-kun had bitten into.
I am no ordinary cat these days.
I believe I am at least qualified to rank alongside Momokawa Jyoen's successors or that cat who swiped Gray's goldfish.
As for Kuro from the rickshaw shop—he scarcely merits my consideration.
Even were I to partake of a mere morsel of kamaboko, none would dare censure me.
Moreover, this custom of covert snacking hardly belongs solely to our feline kind.
Our O-san frequently purloins rice cakes during the mistress's absences—pilfering and partaking in equal measure.
Nor is O-san alone; even the children, whom the mistress touts as models of refined upbringing, display this propensity.
Four or five days prior, the two youngsters roused themselves absurdly early and faced each other at the dining table while their parents still slumbered.
Their daily ritual involved sugar-sprinkled portions of Master's bread, but on this occasion, the sugar pot stood upon the table with spoon at ready.
With none present to apportion their treat, the elder first scooped a spoonful onto her plate.
The younger promptly mirrored her sister's measure with equal precision.
After a protracted mutual glare, the elder reclaimed the spoon to augment her hoard.
The younger retaliated by matching her sister's portion anew.
Thus commenced an escalating contest—spoonful piled upon spoonful—until their plates bore mountainous heaps while the pot stood emptied of its crystalline treasure.
At this juncture Master emerged yawning from his chamber and callously restored every grain to its vessel.
Observing such scenes, one might concede humanity surpasses cats in crafting fairness from selfishness—yet their wisdom proves decidedly inferior.
Though I thought they should simply devour their plunder before it towered so high, my counsel being inaudible as ever, I watched mutely from atop the rice tub—couldn't help feeling sorry for them.

Master, who had gone out with Kangetsu-kun, returned home late that night—where or how they walked, I couldn’t say—and sat down at the breakfast table around nine o’clock the next day.
From my usual perch atop the rice container, I observed Master silently eating his zōni soup.
He would take a bite, then another.
The pieces of mochi were small, but he ate six or seven of them regardless, leaving the final piece in the bowl as he set down his chopsticks with finality.
When others acted so selfishly, they would never tolerate it; however, he—wielding Master’s authority with pride—remained utterly unperturbed as he gazed upon the charred remains of mochi floating in murky broth.
When his wife took out Takadiastase from the back of the sliding door cupboard and placed it on the table, Master said, “That doesn’t work, so I won’t drink it.”
“But I hear it’s supposed to be very effective for starchy foods, so you should take it,” she urged.
“Whether it’s starch or whatever, it’s no good,” he stubbornly insisted.
“You’re so fickle,” the Wife muttered as if to herself.
“It’s not that I’m fickle—the medicine just doesn’t work.”
“But you yourself were saying just the other day how well it worked—how well it worked—and taking it every single day!”
“It worked back then, but lately it doesn’t work at all,” he retorted in parallel structure.
“If you keep starting and stopping like this, even the most effective medicine won’t work! A weak stomach isn’t like other illnesses—it won’t get better unless you show more patience,” she added, glancing at O-san.
“That is indeed the truth.”
“Unless you try taking it longer, you can’t tell whether it’s good or bad,” said O-san without hesitation.
“I don’t care—I won’t drink it! What do women know? Shut up!”
“Well, I am just a woman after all,” retorted the Wife as she thrust Takadiastase before him.
Without a word, Master stood up and entered his study.
The Wife and O-san exchanged glances and smirked.
At such times, following him would lead to trouble, so I quietly circled through the garden to his study veranda and peeked through a shoji gap—there was Master reading Epictetus.
If he understood it as usual, there might be something slightly impressive about him.

Five or six minutes later, he slammed the book down onto the desk as if hurling it.
While I kept watching, thinking it would likely be something like that, he next took out his diary and began writing the following.

Kangetsu-kun and I strolled through Nezu, Ueno, Ikenohata, and around Kanda.
Before a teahouse in Ikenohata, a geisha in spring kimono with hem patterns was playing battledore.
Her clothes were beautiful but her face remarkably plain.
For some reason she resembled my cat.

There was no need to specifically cite me as an example of ugliness.
If I went to Kitadoko and got my face shaved too, I wouldn't look so different from humans.
This human self-conceit is truly vexing.

When we turned the corner at Hōtan, another geisha came along. This was a woman with a slim figure and elegantly sloping shoulders, dressed in a light purple kimono worn with natural grace. Showing white teeth in a laugh, she said, “Gen-chan, about last evening—I was just so busy.” Yet her voice—hoarse as a wandering crow’s—so diminished this striking appearance that even turning to see what sort of man “Gen-chan” might be felt tiresome, and he walked out onto Onarimichi with hands tucked in sleeves. Kangetsu appeared somehow restless.

There is nothing as difficult to comprehend as human psychology.
Whether Master was angry, elated, or seeking some solace in a philosopher’s will at that moment—I hadn’t the faintest idea.
Was he sneering at the world? Did he want to mingle with it? Was he fuming over trivial matters? Or was he detached and transcendent above worldly concerns? I could grasp none of it.
When it comes to such complexities, cats are simple creatures.
If we want to eat, we eat; if we want to sleep, we sleep. When enraged, we rage with all our might; when sorrowful, we cry as if our lives depend on it.
To begin with, we never keep something as useless as a diary.
There simply is no need.
Humans with duplicitous natures like Master might need diaries to express their hidden selves—those aspects unfit for public display—in shadowed rooms. But for us of the feline race, every action—walking, resting, sitting, lying down, even excreting waste—constitutes a true diary. Thus we need not trouble ourselves with such cumbersome methods to preserve our authentic selves.
If one has time to keep a diary, they might as well just sleep on the veranda.

I dined at a certain restaurant in Kanda.
After drinking a couple of cups of Masamune for the first time in a while, my stomach feels in great shape this morning.
I believe an evening drink is best for a weak stomach.
Takadiastase is of course no good.
No matter who says what, it’s useless.
No matter what you do, what doesn’t work just doesn’t work.

He attacked Takadiastase without reason.
He seemed to be picking a fight by himself.
This morning’s irritation briefly showed its tail there.
Perhaps the true nature of human diaries resides in such aspects as this.

The other day, ○○ claimed that skipping breakfast would improve my stomach, so I tried abstaining from morning meals for two or three days, but my stomach just growled incessantly to no effect.
△△ strongly advised me to abstain from pickled foods.
According to his theory, the root cause of all stomach ailments lies in pickled foods.
The logic was that if one simply abstained from pickled foods, they would dry up the source of stomach ailments, making recovery beyond doubt.
After that, I didn’t touch pickled foods for about a week, but since there was no particular effect, I’ve started eating them again recently.
When I asked ××, they insisted it had to be abdominal massage therapy.
However, the ordinary kind doesn’t work.
If you have someone perform the old Minagawa-style massage once or twice, most stomach ailments can be completely cured.
Yasui Sokken also greatly loved this massage technique.
Since even a hero like Sakamoto Ryoma reportedly received treatment from time to time, I promptly went up to Kaminezaki to have myself massaged.
However, they claimed that unless they massaged my bones, I wouldn’t heal, or that unless they once inverted the positions of my internal organs, a complete cure would be difficult—and proceeded to administer a truly cruel massage.
Afterwards, my body turned limp as cotton and I felt like I’d contracted sleeping sickness, so after just one session I gave up and quit.
Mr. A insists that one must not eat solid foods.
After that, I tried living for a day drinking only milk, but this time there was a splashing sound in my intestines as if a flood had broken out, and I couldn’t sleep all night.
Mr. B said that if you breathed using your diaphragm to move your internal organs, your stomach would naturally function properly, so you should try doing this.
I tried this to some extent, but my stomach felt somehow uneasy, which was troubling.
Moreover, though he would occasionally throw himself into it fervently as if suddenly remembering, he would forget all about it after five or six minutes.
If he tried not to forget, he would become preoccupied with his diaphragm, rendering him unable to read books or write essays.
When the Aesthetician Meitei saw this state and mocked, “It’s not like you’re a man in labor—you should quit,” he recently abandoned it.
Mr. C suggested that eating soba might help, so I promptly tried alternating between broth-soaked and plain varieties, but this only gave me diarrhea without any beneficial effect.

I have tried every possible method to cure my chronic weak stomach, but all have been in vain.
However, the three cups of Masamune I shared with Kangetsu last night certainly proved effective.
From now on, I will drink two or three cups each night.

This, too, would surely not last long.
Master’s mind shifted as ceaselessly as my own eyeballs.
No matter what he did, he remained a man incapable of persistence.
What’s more, while agonizing over his stomach ailment in diary entries, he maintained an absurd facade of stoicism in public.
The other day, a scholar friend had visited and propounded a theory—from some peculiar viewpoint—that all illnesses stemmed solely from ancestral sins and one’s own transgressions.
Having evidently conducted thorough research, it stood as an impressively structured argument with crystalline logic.
Regrettably, Master possessed neither the intellect nor erudition required to refute it.
Yet suffering through his gastric woes at that moment, he’d evidently sought some defense to salvage dignity—offering this misguided riposte: “Your theory intrigues me, but Carlyle too had a weak stomach,” as if declaring his own frailty honorable through mere association.
To which the friend retorted flatly: “Carlyle’s weak stomach doesn’t mean every ailing patient becomes a Carlyle,” leaving Master speechless.
Thus his vanity-rich yet frailty-plagued reality rendered tonight’s declaration of commencing evening drinks rather farcical.
Reflecting now, his gluttonous zōni consumption this morning likely stemmed from last night’s Masamune revelries with Kangetsu-kun.
I too found myself craving a taste of zōni.

I may be a cat, but I’ll eat just about anything. I don’t have the energy for expeditions to back-alley fishmongers like Kuro the Rickshaw Cat, nor am I privileged enough for luxuries like Mikeko at the two-stringed koto teacher’s house on New Street. Consequently, I’ve remarkably few dislikes. I’ll gobble up bread crumbs dropped by children and lick the bean paste off rice cakes. Pickles taste wretched, but I once forced down two slices of takuan for experience’s sake. Once tried though, most things turn out edible after all. Fussy declarations of “I hate this” or “I hate that” reek of spoiled indulgence—utterly unbecoming for a cat residing in a teacher’s household.

According to my master’s telling, there was some French novelist called Balzac. The man embodied extravagance—not culinary indulgence mind you, but as a novelist he poured lavishness into his prose. One day while naming a character for his novel, Balzac tried every possibility yet found none satisfactory. Just then a friend visited, so he dragged him out walking. Clueless about Balzac’s purpose yet tagging along anyway, this friend watched him scrutinize shop signs through Parisian streets all morning—still no suitable name emerged by afternoon.

They wandered aimlessly till evening when Balzac suddenly spotted a tailor’s sign on their return. There it read “Marcus.” Clapping his hands, Balzac cried: “This! This alone! Marcus—what perfection! Add an initial Z before it and you’ve got an impeccable name! It must be Z! Z.Marcus—sheer brilliance!”

“Add the initial Z to Marcus, and you’ll have an impeccable name.”
“It simply has to be Z!”
“Z. Marcus is simply perfect!”
No matter how skillfully one thinks they’ve crafted a name themselves, there’s always something rather deliberate about it that makes it uninteresting.
“Finally coming up with a name he liked,” he reportedly exclaimed in delight, completely forgetting about his friend’s inconvenience—but if one must spend an entire day exploring Paris just to assign names to human characters in novels, it seems quite a cumbersome process.
Luxury would indeed be splendid if one could indulge in it to this extent, but for someone like me, burdened with an oyster-like master, such inclinations never arise.
I suppose that this mindset of “Anything will do as long as I can eat” is compelled by one’s circumstances.
Therefore, my current craving for zōni is by no means a result of luxury; it stems from the thought that one should eat whatever one can when possible—and from recalling that my master’s leftover zōni might still be lingering in the kitchen.
…I went around to the kitchen to check.

The mochi I saw this morning was stuck to the bottom of the bowl in the same color as when I saw it this morning.
I must confess I had never once put a piece of mochi in my mouth.
It looked both appetizing and slightly unsettling.
I used my front paw to scrape closer the greens covering the top.
When I looked at my claws, the mochi's outer layer had stuck to them, sticky and gooey.
I sniffed it and caught a whiff like transferring rice from a kettle's bottom to a tub.
Should I eat it? Should I not? I looked around.
For better or worse, there was no one around.
O-san was batting a shuttlecock with her usual expression, whether winter or spring.
The children were singing "What Are You Saying, Mr. Rabbit?" in the inner parlor.
If I was going to eat it, now was the time.
If I let this chance slip, I would have to live without knowing mochi's taste until next year.
In that moment, I perceived a truth as only a cat could.
"A rare opportunity compels all animals to do even what they dislike." Truth be told, I didn't particularly want this zōni soup.
The more I stared at the mochi clinging to the bowl's depths, the more repulsive it became—I grew to loathe eating it.
Had O-san opened the kitchen door then, or had I heard children's footsteps approaching from within, I would've abandoned that bowl without regret—zōni wouldn't have crossed my mind again till next year.
But no one came; no matter how long I hesitated, no one came.
I felt an urgent prodding—"Eat now! Don't eat now!"—pulsing through me.
Peering into the bowl, I willed someone—anyone—to come quickly.
Still, no one came.

I had to finally eat the zōni soup. At last, I dropped my entire body weight onto the bowl's bottom and bit into about an inch of the mochi's corner. Considering how much force I'd put into that bite, I should have torn through most things—but what a shock! When I thought it time to pull my teeth free, they wouldn't budge. When I tried biting another section, I found myself immobilized. By the time I realized the mochi was demonic, it was too late. Like someone sinking deeper into a swamp with each struggle to free their leg, the more I chewed, the heavier my mouth grew until my teeth locked completely. My teeth met resistance, but with only that resistance, I couldn't resolve the situation. The Aesthetician, Professor Meitei, had once remarked about my master, "You're a man who can't be pinned down"—how astute that was. This mochi proved equally unpinnable. No matter how much I chewed, it felt like trying to divide ten by three—no end in sight. Amidst this torment, I unwittingly stumbled upon the second truth: "All animals intuitively foresee suitability." Though I'd now formulated two truths, the mochi clinging to me left no room for joy. My teeth ached as if being ripped from their roots by the glutinous mass. If I didn't finish eating quickly and escape, O-san would come. The children's singing had stopped—they'd surely come running to the kitchen. In desperation, I whirled my tail furiously to no effect; pricked up then flattened my ears—still nothing. Upon reflection, ears and tails held no relation to mochi. Realizing these were failed swings, failed raises, failed lays, I quit. Finally, it dawned that only my front paws could dislodge this menace.

First, I raised my right paw and stroked around my mouth.
A few strokes weren’t going to settle the matter.
This time, I extended my left paw and swiftly traced a circle around my mouth.
But such incantations wouldn’t exorcise this demon.
Thinking persistence was crucial, I moved them alternately left and right, yet my teeth remained stuck in the mochi as before.
Ugh, this was such a pain! I decided to use both front paws at once.
Then—strangely enough—I found myself standing on my two hind legs.
I somehow felt like I wasn’t a cat.
Whether I was a cat or not hardly mattered now; resolved to keep clawing until this mochi demon released me, I frantically scraped at my entire face.
The violent motion of my front paws kept nearly toppling me over.
Each near-fall forced me to adjust with my hind legs until I was darting around the kitchen—here! there! everywhere!
I couldn’t help marveling at how skillfully I maintained this absurd posture.
The third truth abruptly manifested:
“When faced with peril, one performs feats beyond ordinary capability.
This is called divine grace.” Blessed with such grace yet battling the mochi demon with all my might, I suddenly sensed footsteps approaching from deeper within the house.
Certain disaster loomed if caught; I redoubled my frantic kitchen dashes.
The footsteps grew steadily closer.
Ah! How cruel—divine grace proved insufficient.
At last came discovery by the children.
“Oh! The cat’s eating zōni and dancing!” came a shrill cry.

The first to hear this voice was O-san.
Discarding both the shuttlecock and battledore, she came flying in from the kitchen with an “Oh my!”
The mistress, in her crepe silk kimono with family crests, said, “What a nasty cat!”
Even the master emerged from his study and said, “You fool!”
Only the children kept exclaiming, “How funny! How funny!”
And then they all roared with laughter in unison.
I was furious, I was in pain, I couldn’t stop dancing—I was done for.
Just as the laughter was finally about to subside, the five-year-old girl exclaimed, “Mom, the cat’s really something!”, and with a force that could turn back raging tides, they all erupted into laughter again.
I had witnessed quite a few heartless actions from humans, but never had I felt such resentment as I did at that moment.
Finally, even the divine grace vanished somewhere, and I was reduced to my usual four-legged stance, forced to endure the humiliation of rolling my eyes wildly until I could bear no more.
Even my master, who usually showed little compassion, must have taken pity on this spectacle of abandonment, for he ordered O-san, “Just get that mochi off him.”
O-san looked at the mistress with a gaze that seemed to say, “Why don’t we make him dance some more?”
The mistress wanted to see the dance but didn’t want to see it badly enough to kill him, so she remained silent.
“If you don’t remove it, he’ll die. Hurry up and get it off him,” the master said, turning to the maid again.
O-san, looking as indifferent as someone roused from a dream halfway through her meal, grabbed the mochi and yanked it.
It wasn’t Kangetsu-kun, but I thought all my front teeth would snap.
The pain was unbearable—whether it hurt or not, she mercilessly yanked at the teeth deeply embedded in the mochi.
By the time I had experienced the fourth truth—“All comfort must pass through hardship”—and glanced around nonchalantly, the family had already retreated into the inner rooms.

At times like these after such failures, staying indoors where O-san might see me felt vaguely awkward.
Thinking it best to lift my spirits with a visit to Mikeko at Shinmichi's two-stringed koto teacher's residence, I slipped out through the kitchen's rear.
Mikeko was renowned throughout the neighborhood as a great beauty.
Though undoubtedly feline, I possessed a reasonable understanding of human sentiment.
Whenever I grew weary of my master's sour expressions or O-san's hostile glares at home, I invariably sought out this female companion's company for conversation.
Before long my heart would grow light, all former worries and hardships forgotten, as though reborn.
Truly, womanly influence knows no bounds.
Peering through a gap in the cedar fence to confirm her presence, I found Mikeko sitting demurely on the veranda with her New Year collar.
The curvature of her back defied description.
It represented curvilinear perfection.
The arch of her tail, the angle of her limbs, the languid flick of her ears—all defied portrayal.
There she sat with refined composure in a sunlit spot, her posture serene yet dignified, while fur smooth enough to shame swan down caught the spring light, rippling imperceptibly as if stirred by phantom breezes.
I gazed in rapture until regaining my senses, then beckoned with a forepaw while softly calling, "Miss Mikeko! Miss Mikeko!"
"Oh Sensei!" Mikeko descended from the veranda.
The bell on her crimson collar jingled.
"Ah, you've added a bell for New Year's," I mused admiring its pleasant chime as she approached, tail swaying leftward with her greeting: "Oh Sensei, happy New Year."
Among our feline kind, we greet each other by raising our tails rod-straight and sweeping them leftward.
In all this district, only Mikeko addressed me as Sensei.
As previously explained, I remained nameless—yet dwelling in a teacher's home earned me this respectful title from Mikeko alone.
Being called Sensei proved not entirely disagreeable, so I responded with repeated "Hai, hais."

“Oh, happy New Year! That’s quite a splendid adornment you’ve managed there.”
“Yes, my teacher bought it for me at the end of last year. Isn’t it lovely?” she replied, jingling it with a *jingle-jangle*.
“That’s a fine sound indeed. In all my born days, I’ve never seen such a splendid thing.”
“Oh my, they all wear them,” she jingled the bell again.
“It’s a lovely sound, isn’t it? I’m so happy!” she jingled the bell again and again—jingle-jangle-jingle-jangle.
“Your teacher seems to dote on you tremendously,” I remarked, unconsciously letting slip a hint of envious comparison to my own circumstances.
Mikeko, ever the innocent soul, giggled innocently. “It’s true! Just like his own child!”
Even cats aren’t necessarily incapable of laughter.
It is a mistake for humans to think there are no other beings capable of laughter besides themselves.
When I laugh, I do so by triangulating my nostrils and vibrating my Adam’s apple—which is precisely why humans fail to perceive it.
“What exactly is your master?”
“Oh, your master’s a bit odd too, isn’t he?”
“He’s Master.”
“He’s the Master of the two-stringed koto.”
“I’m aware of that,”
“What exactly is your master’s status?”
"He must have been quite a distinguished figure in his day, I suppose."
“Yes.”

While waiting for you, the princess pines……………

Inside the shōji screens, the Master began to play the two-stringed koto.
“It’s a lovely sound, don’t you think?” Mikeko boasted.
“It sounds pleasant enough, but I can’t quite grasp it.”
“But what exactly is it called?”
“What?
“That’s just… you know.”
“Master absolutely adores that... Master has reached sixty-two with that.”
“He’s quite robust, isn’t he?”
“Since he’s lived to sixty-two, you’d have to call him robust.”
I replied, “Ah.”
It felt a bit foolish, but since no brilliant response came to mind, there was nothing to be done.
“Even he was originally of very high social status.”
“He always says that.”
“Huh, what was he originally?”
“He’s something like the daughter of the nephew of the aunt whose sister married into the household of Lady Tenshō-in’s official scribe.”
“What did you say?”
“The sister of Lady Tenshō-in’s official scribe who married into…”
“I see.
“Please wait a moment.”
“The sister of Lady Tenshō-in’s official scribe’s…”

“Oh no, that’s not right—the sister of Lady Tenshō-in’s official scribe’s…”
“Very well—Lady Tenshō-in’s relation then?”
“Yes.”
“The official scribe’s relation?”
“Exactly.”
“Who married into—”
“It was the younger sister who married into that household!”
“Ah! My mistake.”
“The younger sister who married into—”
“The daughter of that aunt’s nephew,” she concluded.
“The daughter of the aunt’s nephew?”
“Yes. Now you understand?”
“No.
“This grows ever more tangled—I can’t discern the thread.”
“So what relation does this make him to Lady Tenshō-in?”
“Must I repeat myself?
“From the beginning I’ve said: the daughter of the nephew belonging to the aunt whose sister married into Lady Tenshō-in’s official scribe’s household!”
“I follow each word yet grasp nothing.”
“If you follow them, that suffices.”
“Indeed,” I yielded helplessly.

There are times when we must utter logically constructed lies.

Inside the shōji screens, the sound of the two-stringed koto suddenly stopped, and Master’s voice called out, “Mikeko! Mikeko! It’s mealtime.”
Mikeko said cheerfully, “Oh, Master is calling for me, so I must be going now, all right?”
There was no use objecting.
“Well then, please come visit again,” she said, jingling her bell as she ran out to the edge of the garden—but suddenly came back and added, “You look terribly pale.”
“Is something wrong?” she inquired with concern.
Since I could hardly say I’d eaten zōni soup and danced about, I replied, “There’s nothing particularly wrong, but I’ve had a headache since doing some thinking.”
“I thought talking with you might help, so I actually came out here, you know.”
“I see.”
“Do take care of yourself.”
“Goodbye.”
She did seem at least a little reluctant to part.
With this, the zōni’s vigor had completely recovered.
I felt better.
Thinking to pass through that familiar tea garden on my way back, I stepped on partially melted frost pillars and emerged from Kennin-ji’s crumbling wall—only to find Kuro from the rickshaw shop once again yawning atop a cluster of withered chrysanthemums, his back arched like a mountain.
I wasn’t the sort to be frightened by Kuro these days, but getting dragged into conversation would be a hassle, so I tried to slip past him unnoticed.
As part of Kuro's nature, the moment he perceived that others were looking down on him, he never remained silent.
“Hey, Nameless Gonbei! Lately you’ve been actin’ mighty high and mighty, ain’t ya?
“Just ’cause you eat the teacher’s scraps, don’t mean you gotta put on such a damn haughty face.”
“Putting on airs ain’t funny at all.”
Kuro did not yet seem to know of my newfound fame.

I wanted to explain, but since he was clearly not someone who would understand, I resolved that it would be best to first exchange basic pleasantries and then make my exit as swiftly as possible.
“Ah—Happy New Year, Kuro.
“Still as lively as ever, I see,” I said, raising my tail and swinging it briskly to the left.
Kuro merely raised his tail and offered no greeting.
“What’s there t’be happy ’bout?”
“If it’s New Year an’ y’re feelin’ all high an’ mighty, then you must be someone who’s got somethin’ t’celebrate damn near every day o’ the year.”
“Watch it, y’damn windbag’s mug!”
The phrase “windbag’s mug” seemed to be abusive language, but I couldn’t grasp its meaning.
“I’d like to ask—what exactly does ‘windbag’s mug’ mean?”
“Hmph—even though you’re stuck in a sorry state yourself, there ain’t no need t’explain why! That’s why you’re a damn New Year’s fool.”
While “New Year’s fool” has a poetic ring to it, its actual meaning proves even more obscure than that “windbag’s mug” business.
For reference, I wanted to ask a little more, but since it was certain that even asking would yield no clear answer, I remained standing there silently, face to face.
I found myself somewhat at a loss.
Then suddenly, Kami-san from Kuro’s household raised his voice loudly: “Oh! The salmon I put up on the shelf is gone!”
“This is bad!”
“It was that Kuro’s beast who took it again!”
“There’s no cat more detestable than this one!”
“When he comes back any minute now, you just wait and see what I’ll do!” he bellowed.
Shaking the tranquil air of early spring without restraint, you—who wouldn’t so much as rustle a branch—vulgarize this august era to no end.
Kuro wore an insolent expression that practically declared, “Yell all you want,” thrusting his square jaw forward as if to ask, “Did you hear that?”

Until now, absorbed in dealing with Kuro, I hadn’t noticed—but looking down, there beneath his feet lay a piece of salmon bone worth two sen and three rin, filthy with mud.
“You’re still at it, I see,” I blurted out, forgetting our earlier exchange.
Kuro wouldn’t easily regain his composure over such a trivial matter.
“What do you think you’re doin’, you bastard?”
“What’s with you still fussin’ over a piece or two o’ salmon?”
“Y’damn well talkin’ down t’folks now, ain’tcha?”
“With all due disrespect, I’m Black Rickshaw Cat!” he declared, and in lieu of rolling up sleeves, hiked his right front paw up backward toward his shoulder.
“I’ve known from the start that you’re Kuro.”
“Even though you know, what’s with you still doin’ it?”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped, blowing hard on something hot.
If they were humans, they’d be grabbed by their collars and shoved around.
Just as I was growing somewhat exasperated and thinking to myself that this had become quite a predicament, Kami-san’s loud voice rang out again.
“Hey, Nishikawa-san! I say, Nishikawa-san! This person’s got business with you.”
“Bring a pound of beef right away.”
“Got it? Understand? A pound of beef—the tender part!” The voice ordering beef shattered the surrounding silence.
“Hmph—makin’ such a racket just ’cause you’re specially orderin’ beef once a year.”
“Braggin’ ’bout a pound o’ beef t’the whole damn neighborhood—what an utterly hopeless fool,” Kuro sneered, planting all four legs firmly.
I had no way to respond, so I simply watched in silence.
“A pound ain’t nearly enough for me, but whatever—just bring it here. I’ll eat it soon enough,” he said, as though placing an order for himself.
“This time it’s a real feast.”

“Splendid, splendid,” I said, trying my best to send him on his way.
“None o’ your damn business.”
“Shut it.”
“Shut up!” he snapped, suddenly kicking the crumbling frost pillars and sending them splattering onto my head.
While I was startled and brushing the mud off my body, Kuro slipped under the fence and vanished somewhere.
He must have gone to check on Nishikawa’s cow.

When I returned home, the drawing room felt uncommonly spring-like, and even Master’s laughter sounded cheerful.
"Hmm," I thought, climbing up from the opened veranda and approaching Master’s side to find an unfamiliar guest present.
His hair was neatly parted; wearing a cotton haori adorned with a family crest and ogura hakama, he appeared to be an extremely serious student lodger-style man.
Looking at the corner of Master’s hand warmer, I noticed a Shunkei-nuri cigarette case alongside a business card that read “Introducing Mr. Ochi Tofu from Mizushima Kangetsu”—thereby learning both this guest’s name and his status as Kangetsu-kun’s friend.
The conversation between host and guest had already begun midway through, so I couldn’t quite grasp the context, but it seemed to concern none other than the Aesthetician Meitei, whom I had introduced previously.

“He said there was an amusing scheme and insisted I simply had to come along,” the guest replied calmly.
“What do you mean by ‘scheme’ regarding going to a Western restaurant for lunch?” Master asked as he refilled the tea and pushed it toward the guest.
“Well, I didn’t understand what this ‘scheme’ was at the time, but given that it’s him, I assumed there must be some interesting gimmick…”
“So you went together? I see.”
“But it was quite astonishing.”
As if declaring “Did you see that?”, Master thumped my head resting on his lap.
It hurt a bit.
“It must have been another one of those foolish farces you witnessed.”
“That man has that habit of his,” he said, suddenly recalling the Andrea del Sarto incident.
“Heh heh.”
“He said to me, ‘Why don’t we try something unusual to eat?’ so…”
“What did you eat?”
“First, while looking at the menu, we discussed various dishes.”
“Before placing the order?”
“Yes.”
“And then,”
“Then he tilted his head to look at Boi and said, ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything unusual here,’ whereupon Boi—not one to back down—suggested things like duck roast or veal chops. But he declared, ‘I didn’t come all this way to eat such commonplace fare!’ Since Boi didn’t understand what ‘commonplace’ meant, he just made a strange face and stayed silent.”
“I suppose so.”
“Then he turned to me and grandly declared, ‘If you go to France or England, you can feast on Tenmei-style elegance and Manyō-inspired richness! But here in Japan, no matter where you go, Western cuisine feels like it’s been stamped from a mold—I simply can’t bring myself to eat it.’ With that exasperated air—has that man ever actually been abroad?”
“What, would Meitei ever go abroad? He has the money and time—if he wanted to go, he could go anytime, you know.”

“He’s likely reframing a future trip he intends to take as a past experience through wordplay,” Master declared, clearly smug about his own cleverness as he forced an ingratiating chuckle.
The guest remained unimpressed.
“Is that so? I assumed he’d traveled abroad at some point and was listening in earnest.”
“What’s more, he described snail soup and frog stew with such vivid detail—as if he’d personally sampled them overseas—”
“He must’ve picked that up from someone else. The man’s a consummate fabricator.”
“It does appear so,” he replied, eyes fixed on the narcissus blossoms in the vase.
His demeanor betrayed mild disappointment.
“So this ‘scheme’ you mentioned refers to that episode?”
“No, that was merely the preamble—the true substance follows.”
“Hmm,” Master interjected with theatrical curiosity.
“Then he proposed—since snails and frogs were clearly beyond our means—‘Why don’t we settle for something like *tōchimenbō*?’ Being caught up in the moment, I carelessly agreed.”
“How peculiar—this *tōchimenbō*.”
“Indeed it was strange,” he conceded, bowing slightly as if apologizing to Master, “but Mr. Meitei delivered it with such conviction that I failed to question it.”
“What happened next?” Master pressed indifferently.
Not a flicker of sympathy softened his features.
“When he barked ‘Bring two portions of *tōchimenbō*!’ at Boi, the waiter clarified ‘You mean *menchibō*?’ But Mr. Meitei sternly corrected him—‘Not *menchibō*, *tōchimenbō*.’”
“Does this *tōchimenbō* actually exist?”
“I confess I found it dubious myself,” he admitted, “but given Mr. Meitei’s composure and reputation as a Western culture expert—not to mention my firm belief then that he’d been abroad—I joined in urging Boi: ‘*Tōchimenbō*, yes!’”
“How did Boi respond?”
“Well—in hindsight it’s absurd—Boi hesitated before saying ‘Terribly sorry, but we’re out of *tōchimenbō* today. Might I suggest *menchibō*?’ At this, Mr. Meitei looked crestfallen and lamented ‘Then our journey here was for naught.’”

“Then he said, ‘Couldn’t you arrange to let us have some *tōchimenbō*?’ and handed Boi a 20-sen silver coin, whereupon Boi replied, ‘In that case, I’ll at least consult with the chef,’ and went to the back.”
“It seems he was absolutely desperate to eat tōchimenbō.”
“After a while, Boi came out and said very regretfully, ‘If it’s a special order, we can prepare it, but it will take some time.’ Upon hearing this, Mr. Meitei calmly replied, ‘Well, since it’s New Year’s and we’re free anyway, why don’t we wait a bit and have it here?’ As he spoke, he took a cigar from his pocket and began puffing away. Having no other choice, I pulled out the *Japan Newspaper* from my pocket and started reading. Then Boi went back to consult again.”
“Awfully troublesome, isn’t it?” said Master, leaning forward in his seat with all the eagerness of someone reading war dispatches.
“Then Boi came out again and said regretfully, ‘Lately, the materials for *tōchimenbō* have been depleted—even if we go to Kameya or Yokohama’s Fifteenth District, they’re nowhere to be found—so for the time being, I’m afraid we must decline.’ At this, Mr. Meitei looked at me and kept repeating, ‘How troublesome! And we came all this way!’ Since I couldn’t very well stay silent, I echoed his sentiment: ‘How regrettable! Utterly regrettable!’”
“Quite right,” Master agreed.
What exactly was “quite right” about that? I couldn’t fathom.

“Then Boi, seeming genuinely apologetic, said something like, ‘Once we get the ingredients in, please do come back and ask for it again.’”
When Mr. Meitei asked what ingredients they used, Boi just chuckled sheepishly and didn’t answer.
When he pressed further, asking if the ingredients were Japan-school haiku poets, Boi chuckled sheepishly and said, “Ah, precisely! That’s why even if we go to Yokohama these days, we can’t procure them. It’s truly regrettable.”
“Ha ha ha! So that’s the punchline? This is hilarious!” Master burst into uncharacteristically loud laughter.
The knee shook, and I nearly tumbled off.
Master laughed, unconcerned by this.
It appeared he’d suddenly become cheerful upon realizing he wasn’t the only one taken in by Andrea del Sarto.
“Then, when the two of us stepped outside, he said, ‘How about that? Went smoothly, didn’t it? Using that oak-faced fellow as our premise was rather amusing, don’t you think?’ and looked terribly pleased with himself.”
“Though we parted ways with me expressing my utmost admiration, the truth was, lunchtime had been delayed, leaving me utterly famished and in quite a bind.”
“That must have been quite an inconvenience for you,” Master expressed sympathy for the first time.
I had no objection to this.
For a while, the conversation lapsed, and the sound of my purring reached the ears of host and guest.

Tōfū-kun gulped down his now-cold tea and said formally, "The truth is, I've come today because I have a small request to make of you, Professor."
"Ah? What might that be?" Master responded in kind.
"As you know, I've always been fond of literature and art..."
"Splendid!" Master encouraged.
"A few fellow enthusiasts and I recently organized a Recitation Meeting. We plan to continue gathering monthly for study in this field—we already held our first session around last year's end."
"May I ask—when you say 'Recitation Meeting,' it sounds like something involving rhythmic delivery of poetry or prose. What exactly do you do?"
"Well, we'll begin with works by classical authors and gradually move on to our own compositions."
"When you say 'classical authors,' do you mean works like Bai Letian's 'Song of the Pipa'?"
"No."
"Something like Buson's *Spring Breeze on the Horse Embankment*?"
"No."
"Then what did you perform?"
"Recently, we staged one of Chikamatsu's love suicide plays."
"Chikamatsu? You mean the jōruri playwright?"
"You mean the jōruri playwright Chikamatsu?"
"There aren't two Chikamatsus."
"When speaking of Chikamatsu, it can only mean Chikamatsu the playwright."
As I thought my master utterly foolish for repeating this obvious point, he continued obliviously petting my head.
In a world where people believe themselves loved at first glance from bush-side encounters, such minor errors hardly warranted surprise—so I stayed motionless beneath his ministrations.
"Yes," answered Tōfū-kun, watching Master's expression.
"So do you recite solo, or assign roles and perform them?"

"We assigned roles and attempted a collaborative performance."
"Our primary aim was to prioritize expressing each character's personality through empathetic portrayal, supplemented by hand gestures and physical movements."
"The essence lies in faithfully embodying people of that era—whether portraying a young lady or an apprentice shopboy, we perform them as living entities."
"So it's essentially theater without staging?"
"Yes, comparable to lacking costumes and painted backdrops."
"If I may inquire—did it prove effective?"
"I would consider it reasonably successful as an inaugural attempt."
"Regarding this 'love suicide play' you referenced performing earlier—"
"It concerns the scene where a boatman transports clients to Yoshiwara."
"That must have been quite an elaborate production," remarked the Teacher with a thoughtful tilt of his head.
Sunrise-tinted smoke expelled from his nostrils grazed his ear before curling around his cheek.
"Oh, nothing so complex."
"The dramatis personae consist merely of a client, boatman, courtesan, tea house maid, brothel manager, and *kenban* agent," Tōfū-kun replied airily.
The Master grimaced at "courtesan" before posing his first question about terminology.
"Would this 'tea house maid' equate to a menial servant within pleasure quarters?"
"I haven't conducted thorough research yet," Tōfū-kun hedged, "but presumably she serves at teahouses while the brothel manager functions akin to an overseer in women's lodgings."
Despite his earlier claims about character embodiment, Tōfū-kun clearly lacked substantive understanding of these roles.
"So the tea house maid belongs to teahouses while brothel managers inhabit pleasure houses."
"When we say *kenban*—does this denote a human entity or physical location? If human—male or female?"
"I believe *kenban* refers to male personnel most likely."

“What exactly does the *kenban* manage?”
“Well, my research hasn’t reached that point yet.”
“I’ll investigate it properly in time.”

If they were to attempt a joint performance like this, some preposterous result would surely come of it, I thought, glancing up briefly at Master’s face.

Master was unexpectedly earnest.
“So besides you, what kind of people participated as reciters?”
“There were various participants.”
“The courtesan role was played by K-kun—a law student—but with his mustache and those cloyingly feminine lines, it made for quite an odd sight.”
“And there’s a part where that courtesan flies into a fit of anger...”
“Must one actually get angry during a recitation?” Master inquired with concern.
“Well, facial expressions are paramount,” Tōfū-kun maintained his literary air.
“Did you manage to conjure up a proper rage?” Master quipped.
“The anger proved somewhat beyond our first attempt’s capabilities,” Tōfū-kun quipped back.
“By the way, what role did you take?” Master asked.
“I was the boatman.”
“You? The boatman?”
“If someone like you can play a boatman,” he remarked in a tone implying even he could manage being a kenban.
Then bluntly added, “Was the boatman role too much for you?”
Tōfū-kun showed no sign of offense.
Calmly continuing, he said, “That boatman role turned our grand event into a fiasco.”
“It seems four or five female students were lodging next to the venue—who knows how they found out—but they apparently detected our recitation meeting and came eavesdropping beneath the windows.”
“There I was, fully embodying the boatman’s role, finally hitting my stride—thinking ‘This is working!’—when... Well, my gestures must’ve been too extravagant. Those girls who’d been stifling giggles burst out laughing all at once. Shocking, utterly shocking—and mortifying! With our momentum shattered, we couldn’t possibly continue, so we disbanded then and there.”
If this qualified as a successful first recitation meeting, one shuddered to imagine failure.
Unintentionally, my Adam’s apple rattled.

Master began stroking my head even more gently.
Being laughed at and loved by others was something to be grateful for, yet there was also something slightly eerie about it.

“That’s quite a turn of events,” Master declared, delivering what amounted to a eulogy so early in the New Year.
“Starting from the second session, we intend to strive even harder and make it more splendid. In fact, the very reason I’ve come today is entirely for that purpose—I was hoping to ask Sensei to join our association and lend us your support.”
“I could never work up such anger,” the passive Master immediately began to refuse.
“No, we don’t require you to work up any anger. Here is the list of supporting members,” he said, reverently producing a small chrysanthemum-bound notebook from his purple cloth bundle.
“I humbly request that you kindly sign and affix your seal here,” he said, placing the notebook open before Master’s knees.
There, lined up in perfect order, were the names of all the present-day renowned literary doctors and literary bachelors.
“Well, I don’t particularly mind becoming a supporting member, but what obligations does it entail?” Master inquired with evident concern.
“When I speak of obligations, there’s nothing particularly we’d insist upon. It would suffice if you would simply inscribe your name here to kindly express your support.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll join,” said Master, his tone suddenly turning carefree the moment he learned there were no obligations attached.
With an expression that said he’d even sign a joint pledge for rebellion now that he understood there was no responsibility involved.
Moreover, having even just his name registered among those of such renowned scholars was an unparalleled honor for Master, who had never encountered such a thing before; thus, his enthusiastic response was only natural.
“Excuse me for a moment,” said Master, entering his study to fetch his seal.
I plopped down onto the tatami mat.
Tōfū-kun picked up a piece of castella from the dessert plate and stuffed it into his mouth in one bite.
He seemed to struggle for a while, munching noisily.
I recalled this morning’s zōni soup incident.
By the time Master brought the seal from his study, the castella had settled in Tōfū-kun’s stomach.
Master seemed not to notice that the castella pieces on the dessert plate had completely disappeared.
If he were to notice, I would undoubtedly be the first suspect.

After Tōfū-kun left, Master entered his study and looked at his desk to find a letter from the Aesthetician had arrived unnoticed.

"I extend my most felicitous New Year's greetings.
......"

Master thought the opening was uncharacteristically sincere.
Letters from the Aesthetician rarely contained such earnestness; for instance, one he'd received not long ago read: "Since then, I have not become particularly enamored with any women, nor have any love letters arrived from any quarter; thus, I have been passing my days in peace, gradually fading away—I humbly beg your kind forbearance."
Compared to that, this New Year's letter struck an exceptionally conventional tone.

“Though I should greatly desire to pay you a visit—contrary to your passive disposition—I am endeavoring to greet this unprecedented New Year with maximally proactive principles; hence days upon days pass in such a whirlwind of activity that I trust you shall kindly infer my circumstances…”

Certainly—given that man’s nature—he must have been busy gallivanting around during New Year’s; Master silently concurred.

“Yesterday, having stolen a moment’s respite, I had resolved to treat Tōfū-kun to tōchimenbō; however, due to an unfortunate dearth of ingredients, I was unable to fulfill this intention—a matter of profound regret. …”

Master smiled silently, seeing that things were gradually settling into their usual pattern.

“Tomorrow is a karuta meeting at a certain baron’s residence, the day after tomorrow is the Aesthetics Association’s New Year’s banquet, the day after that is Professor Toribe’s welcome party, and the day after that…”

"How tedious!" Master skimmed through it.

“As enumerated above—what with Noh recital meetings, haiku gatherings, tanka circles, new-style poetry assemblies, and other such relentless convocations—I must dutifully attend without pause for the foreseeable future. I therefore humbly substitute this New Year’s greeting in place of a personal visit and beg your gracious pardon for this unavoidable breach of etiquette. …”

“There’s absolutely no need for you to come,” Master wrote in reply to the letter.

“On the occasion of your next esteemed visit—it having been so long—I am resolved to at last serve you a proper dinner.”
“Though my humble kitchen lacks any delicacies, I am resolved henceforth to at least prepare tōchimenbō.……”

He was still harping on about tōchimenbō.
"How impertinent!" Master felt a flicker of irritation.

"However, due to recent shortages of ingredients for tōchimenbō—indeed, it may prove entirely unfeasible to prepare it in time—I shall instead kindly allow myself to serve peacock tongues for your gustatory pleasure on that occasion.……"

"Trying to balance both options, is he?" thought Master, growing eager to read what followed.

"As you well know, from each peacock, the amount of tongue meat amounts to less than half a pinky’s worth—thus, to fill the stomach of such a voracious eater as yourself…"

“That’s a lie!” Master declared dismissively.

“I do most earnestly believe we must capture twenty or thirty peacocks.”
“However, while peacocks are sporadically observed at zoos or Asakusa Hanayashiki, they are nowhere to be found at ordinary bird vendors—a matter over which I have been most assiduously laboring.……”

Master showed not a shred of gratitude, likely thinking, *Could it be he’s just toiling away on his own whims?*

“This peacock tongue cuisine, in days of yore during Rome’s zenith, enjoyed such immense popularity that it epitomized opulent refinement—a delicacy I have long secretly hungered to savor. I most earnestly beseech your kind comprehension of this matter.……”

"What 'understanding'? Ridiculous!" Master remarked with utter coldness.

“Subsequently, until around the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, throughout all of Europe, peacock had become an indispensable delicacy at banquets.”
“I do recall that when the Earl of Leicester invited Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth, peacock was most assuredly employed.”
“[…] even in the renowned banquet scene painted by Rembrandt, a peacock lies upon the table with its tail splendidly unfurled…”

‘If you have time to write such exhaustive histories of peacock cuisine, you can’t be all that busy,’ he grumbled.

“In any case, continuing to indulge in such lavish feasts these days, even I shall inevitably develop a weak stomach like yours before long...”

“Becoming like you would be excessive.”
“There’s no need to establish me as the benchmark for weak stomachs,” Master muttered.

“According to historians’ accounts, the Romans held banquets two or three times daily.”
“When one partakes of sumptuous feasts two or three times a day, even those with the hardiest stomachs inevitably develop digestive disorders; thus naturally, like you...”

“Again with ‘like you’? How impertinent!”

“Yet they, having exhausted their research to reconcile luxury with hygiene, recognized the necessity of maintaining their digestive systems in normalcy even while indulging in immoderate quantities of delicacies—and thereby devised a singular secret method……”

“Hmm...” The Master suddenly grew earnest.

“After meals, they would always bathe.
After bathing, by means of a certain method, they would vomit everything they had swallowed before bathing, thereby cleansing their stomachs.
Having achieved success in cleansing their stomachs, they would return to the table and partake of delicacies to their heart’s content; once sated, they would again enter the bath and expel all they had consumed.
“By doing so, they could indulge in delicacies as greedily as they pleased without causing the slightest harm to their various internal organs—thus achieving two benefits at once, or so I have foolishly pondered…”

Indeed, this was undoubtedly a way to kill two birds with one stone.
Master looked envious.

"In this twentieth century—with its self-evident proliferation of transportation and banquets, now coinciding with the second year of our military nation's multifarious campaign against Russia—I am firmly convinced that we citizens of the victorious nation have reached an imperative juncture where we must by all means study this Roman technique of bathing-and-vomiting."
"Otherwise, I secretly lament that even this earnest great nation's people will all become stomach invalids like you in the near future……"

‘Like me again?’ Master thought. ‘What an infuriating man!’

“At this critical juncture, should those among us conversant with Western affairs delve into ancient histories and legends to rediscover long-abandoned secret methods and apply them to Meiji society, we would not only attain the virtue of preventing calamities before they sprout but also repay our debt for habitual indulgences—or so I most respectfully submit……”

He tilted his head, sensing something distinctly odd about this logic.

“Therefore, though I have been diligently perusing the works of Gibbon, Mommsen, Smith, and other authorities since some time ago, I deeply regret that I have yet to discover even a clue to said method. However, as you are aware, once I set my mind to something, I am of a disposition that never abandons it until success is achieved; hence I firmly believe that the revival of the vomiting technique is not far off. Upon making said discovery, I shall promptly inform you; kindly be so advised. Therefore, regarding the aforementioned tōchimenbō and peacock tongue feast I previously mentioned—these shall be prepared only after said discovery is made. By doing so, I humbly submit that it would prove convenient not only for my own circumstances but also for you, who already suffer from a weak stomach. In haste, with apologies for brevity.”

"What? So I was tricked after all? The writing was so earnest that I ended up reading through to the end in dead seriousness," Master thought.
With a laugh, he said, "Meitei must have an awful lot of free time to play such pranks during the busy New Year season."

Then four or five days passed without incident.
Finding it dull to spend my days merely watching the white porcelain narcissus gradually wilt and the blue-veined plum in its vase slowly begin to bloom, I visited Mikeko once or twice but failed to meet her.
At first I thought she was out, but on my second visit learned she lay ill abed.
Hiding beneath the spider lilies by the hand-washing basin, I eavesdropped on a conversation between that esteemed instructor and the maid behind the shōji screen—this is what I heard.

“Does Mikeko eat her meals?”
“No, she hasn’t eaten anything since this morning—I kept her warm and resting on the kotatsu.”
It was somehow not very cat-like.
It was exactly like being treated as a human.

On one hand, I felt envious when comparing it to my own circumstances, but on the other hand, I felt happy thinking that the cat I loved was receiving such lavish treatment.

“This is quite troubling. If she doesn’t eat, her body will only grow weaker.”
“Indeed. Even we maids couldn’t work the next day if we went a day without meals.”

The maid answered as if cats were superior creatures to herself.
In truth, this household might value felines more than servants.

“Did you take her to the doctor?”
“Yes, but that physician was most peculiar.
When I brought Mikeko to his office, he tried taking my pulse instead—as if I’d caught her cold!
‘The patient isn’t me,’ I said.
Then when I put Mikeko on his lap, he just smirked: ‘I know nothing of cat ailments. Leave her be—she’ll recover on her own.’ Isn’t that heartless?
So I snapped, ‘We’ll manage without your help! This is no ordinary cat!’ Then I tucked Mikeko into my robe and marched straight home.”
“How dreadful!”

"A phrase like 'How dreadful!' would never be heard in my household," I mused. Indeed, such refined language could only flow from a maid serving someone connected to Lady Tenshō-in—a truly elegant turn of phrase.

"She seems to be whimpering..."
"Yes, I'm certain she's caught a cold and has a sore throat. When one catches a chill, coughing naturally follows..."

This maid—attendant to someone of Lady Tenshō-in's circle—indulged in excessively polite language.

"And these days there's this new affliction called tuberculosis..."
"Truly! With novel diseases like tuberculosis and plague multiplying these days, one can't drop one's guard for an instant."
"In this age where those lacking proper shogunate-era virtues amount to nothing, you must take care."
"Is that truly so?"

The maid was deeply impressed.

“Even though she caught a cold, it didn’t seem she went out much though...”
“No, you see, she recently made a bad friend.”

The maid spoke with great self-satisfaction, as if divulging state secrets.

"A bad friend?"
"Yes, that filthy male cat at the teacher's house on the main street, sir."
"The one called 'teacher'—is that the person who makes those uncouth noises every morning?"
"Yes, that's the one who makes a sound like a goose being strangled whenever he washes his face."

The description of a goose being strangled was an apt metaphor.
My master had a habit of emitting strange sounds without restraint every morning when gargling in the bathroom, poking his throat with a toothpick.
When in a bad mood, he gargled with wild abandon; when in a good mood, he gargled with even more vigor.
In other words, whether in a good mood or a bad one, he gargled vigorously without rest.
According to his wife, he had no such habit before moving here, but once he started doing it one day, he hadn’t missed a single day since.
It was a rather troublesome habit, but why someone would persist so diligently in such a thing was utterly beyond the imagining of us cats.
That aside, to call me a "filthy cat" was quite the harsh criticism. I pricked up my ears to hear more.

“What sort of curse could come from making such noises? Before the Restoration, even footmen and sandal-bearers knew proper decorum—you wouldn’t find a single soul in samurai districts washing their face like that.”
“How very true indeed!”

The maid expressed excessive admiration while excessively appending deferential particles to her speech.

“A cat with such a master must be nothing but a stray—give him a proper thrashing next time he shows up.”
“I most certainly will! There’s no doubt Mikeko’s illness stems entirely from that wretch’s doing—I’ll see proper vengeance done.”

What an outrageous false accusation I suffered! Since this one was hardly ever approachable, I ended up returning without meeting Mikeko.

When I returned home, my master sat in his study holding a brush with an air of deep contemplation.
Were I to tell him what I'd heard at the shamisen instructor's house, he'd surely rage—but blissfully ignorant, he kept grunting while pretending to be some sacred poet.

Just then Mr. Meitei drifted in—the same who'd sent a New Year's card pleading temporary busyness.
"Working on new-style verse?"
"Do show me if you've produced anything worthwhile."
"Well now," my master began ponderously, "I thought this rather fine prose, so I've resolved to translate it."
"Prose? Whose work?"
"Anonymous."
"Anonymous pieces can surprise—never dismiss them outright. Where's it from?"
"The Second Reader," my master answered serenely.
"The Second Reader? What about it?"
"The exemplary passage I'm translating happens to reside within The Second Reader."
"Preposterous! You're plotting revenge for that peacock-tongue affair at the crucial moment!"
"I'm no liar like you," he retorted, twisting his mustache.
Unfazed.
"There's a tale where someone asked San'yō about recent fine writing—he presented a mule driver's debt notice as prime contemporary prose. Following that logic, your aesthetic judgment might prove unexpectedly sound after all."

“Go on and read it—I’ll critique it for you,” declared Mr. Meitei with an air of aesthetic authority.
The Master began reading in a voice reminiscent of a Zen monk intoning Daitō Kokushi’s final admonitions.
“Giant, Gravity.”
“What’s this ‘Giant Gravity’ about?”
“That’s the title—‘Giant Gravity.’”
“What an odd title—I can’t grasp its meaning.”
“It refers to a giant named Gravity.”
“Rather contrived phrasing for a title, but I’ll humor you since it’s just a heading.”
“Now let’s proceed to the main text—your voice makes even this drivel entertaining.” “No tampering with my translation,” warned the Master before resuming his recitation.

Kate gazed out the window.
Children were playing by throwing a ball.
They threw the ball high into the air.
The ball rose higher and higher.
After some time, it came falling back down.
They threw the ball high again.
Again and again.
Each time they threw it, the ball fell back down.
“Why does it fall? Why doesn’t it just keep rising higher and higher?” Kate asked.
“Because the giant lives within the earth,” the mother answered.
“He is the giant Gravity.
He is strong.
He pulls all things toward himself.
He draws houses to the ground.
If he does not pull, they will fly away.
Children, too, will fly away.
Have you not seen leaves fall?
That is Giant Gravity calling.
He makes books fall.
It is because Giant Gravity calls ‘Come.’”

The ball rose into the sky.
Giant Gravity called.
"When he called, they came falling down."

“Is that all?”
“Hmm—isn’t that rather simplistic?”
“Well now, this is remarkable.
“To think it ultimately amounts to nothing more than an honorable return courtesy from Tōchimenbō!”
“It’s not any return courtesy—I translated it purely because it’s well-written! Don’t you think?” he said, peering through his gold-rimmed glasses.
“I must say I’m flabbergasted.
“That even you could display such literary prowess—why, I’ve been completely taken in this time! I surrender, I surrender!” he declared, simultaneously conceding defeat and holding forth to himself.
The Master remained utterly oblivious.
“I never intended to make you surrender.
“I simply translated it because I found the text amusing.”
“Why, it’s positively delightful!
“Now that’s what I call genuine artistry!
“Astounding!
“I’m humbled!”
“There’s no need for such humility.
“Having recently abandoned watercolors, I thought I’d try my hand at writing instead.”
“Why, this work defies comparison to those watercolors of yours with their perspective-free monochrome uniformity!
“My deepest admiration!”
“With praise like that, I feel newly inspired,” said the Master, stubbornly clinging to his misinterpretation.

Just then, Kangetsu-kun entered, saying, “Excuse me for the other day.”
“Oh, my apologies.
“Now that I’ve had the honor of hearing such a masterful composition and exorcised Tōchimenbō’s lingering spirit,” hinted The Aesthetician with his usual cryptic flair.
“I see,” he replied with an equally opaque response.
The Master alone showed not even the slightest sign of buoyancy.
“The other day, someone named Ochi Tōfū came through your introduction.”
“Ah, he visited? That Ochi Tōfū is quite honest but has eccentric tendencies—I feared he might prove bothersome, but he insisted on an introduction...”
“It hasn’t been particularly troublesome...”
“When he called here, didn’t he expound upon his own name?”
“No, it seems he refrained from such talk.”
“Is that so? Wherever he goes, he makes a habit of explaining his name to new acquaintances.”
“What manner of explanation does he give?” interjected The Aesthetician, poised for entertainment.
“He becomes most particular when people pronounce ‘Tōfū’ phonetically.”
“Well now,” said The Aesthetician, extracting a cigarette from his gold-tooled leather tobacco pouch.
“‘My name is not Ochi Tōfū,’ he always clarifies—‘it’s Ochi Kochi.’”
“How peculiar,” he remarked, drawing Unkui smoke deep into his belly.
“This stems entirely from literary zeal—reading it as ‘Kochi’ forms the compound ‘distance and proximity.’ Moreover, he prides himself on his full name’s rhyming scheme.”
“Thus he complains that phonetic readings of ‘Tōfū’ disregard his painstaking efforts.”
“Why, this borders on genius eccentricity!” declared The Aesthetician, thoroughly enjoying himself as he expelled Unkui smoke from his belly through his nostrils.
Midway, the smoke lost its way and recoiled toward his throat’s exit.

The Teacher gripped his pipe and coughed violently, choking back.
"The other day when he came over, he said he played a boatman at a recitation meeting and got laughed at by female students," the Master said with a laugh.
“Right, exactly!” said The Aesthetician, tapping his knee with his pipe.

Feeling uneasy, I moved a little away from their side.
"That recitation meeting—you recall?"
"The other day when I treated you to Tōchimenbō—"
"That very topic arose."
"They say they plan to invite distinguished literary figures for the second gathering and earnestly request your attendance."
"When I asked if they intended another Chikamatsu domestic drama, he replied, 'No, we've selected something far more contemporary—Konjiki Yasha.' So I inquired what role he'd been assigned, and he declared, 'I'm playing Omiya!'"
"Tōfū as Omiya should prove most diverting."
"I absolutely intend to attend and offer vigorous applause!"
"That does sound amusing," said Kangetsu with an odd chuckle.
"But what's commendable is that man's unwavering sincerity—utterly devoid of frivolity."
"He's nothing like Meitei," declared the Master, settling scores with Andrea del Sarto, peacock tongues, and Tōchimenbō in one stroke.
Unperturbed, Meitei laughed. "After all, someone like me is mere Jyōriku cutting board material."
"That assessment seems apt," said the Master.
The truth was, the Master didn't comprehend "Jyōriku cutting board," but years of teaching had perfected his art of dissembling—a skill he now deployed in social settings.
"What does 'Jyōriku cutting board' mean?" Kangetsu inquired earnestly.
The Master gazed toward the alcove. "I purchased those narcissus returning from the bathhouse at year-end—remarkable how they've endured," thus forcibly burying the Jyōriku matter.
"Speaking of year-end—last year's close brought me a most peculiar experience," said Meitei, twirling his pipe like a sacred kagura dancer.
"What manner of experience? Do enlighten us," said the Master, as though casting Jyōriku concerns behind him with a relieved exhalation.

Mr. Meitei’s peculiar experience, when recounted, proceeds as follows.

“I believe it was around December twenty-seventh.”
“That Tōfū fellow had sent advance notice requesting my presence at his residence for some elevated literary discussion—I waited eagerly since morning only for you never to show up!”
After lunching while reading Barry Pain’s comic sketches by the stove—a letter arrived from my mother in Shizuoka—elderly folk do persist in treating one like a child forever.
“Endless admonitions about avoiding winter night excursions and how cold baths require stove-warmed rooms lest I catch chills.”
“Truly parents are blessings—even my carefree self felt profoundly moved then.”
Yet idling thus seemed criminal waste.
Some magnum opus must elevate our house’s name.
Resolved I became—while Mother lived—to engrave ‘Meitei’ upon Meiji’s literary firmament.
Reading onward—“You’re fortunate indeed!”
“With Russia at war and youths suffering for our nation—here you lounge through year-end bustle like New Year’s leisure!” —Not that I lazed so!— Followed by names...
Reading those fallen schoolmates’ names—how bleak existence felt.
“At letter’s end—”
“Since I too approach life’s twilight—perhaps this New Year’s zōni celebration shall be my last...” Such lonesome words deepened gloom—how I wished Tōfū would come! Yet you never arrived.
Dinnertime found me drafting Mother’s reply—twelve lines perhaps.
Her letters span six feet—such artistry eludes me—ten lines suffice by firm resolve.
A day’s inertia bred strange stomach pains.
Resolving to make Tōfū wait should he come—imagine me strolling out while mailing letters!
Unusually avoiding Fujimicho—feet carried me unwitting toward Dote Sanbancho.
That evening hung clouded—a biting wind swept moatward chill.
From Kagurazaka direction came train whistles passing beneath embankments.

A profoundly lonely feeling came over me.
Year-end, death in battle, senility, the transience of life—such things swirled through my head.
People often speak of hanging themselves, and I recalled thinking how during such moments one might suddenly feel tempted to die.
I tilted my head up slightly to gaze at the embankment’s crest and found myself standing right beneath that Hanging Pine before I knew it.

“What’s this ‘pine tree’ business?” the Master cut in abruptly.

“Kubikake no Matsu—the Hanging Pine,” replied Meitei, hunching his shoulders.

“But the Hanging Pine is in Kōnodai, isn’t it?”
Kangetsu rippled the conversation’s surface.

“The one in Kōnodai is the Bell-Hanging Pine, while Dote Sanbancho’s is the Neck-Hanging Pine.”
“It gained this name from an old legend—anyone who comes beneath this pine feels compelled to hang themselves.”
“Though dozens of pines line the embankment, would-be suicides always choose this particular tree.”
“Two or three times a year without fail, someone dangles from it.”
“They simply can’t muster the will to die on any other pine.”
When I looked up, a branch extended perfectly over the roadway.
Ah, what exquisite form!
Leaving it unused felt criminal.
‘If only someone would come,’ I thought, wanting to test it with a human weight—but scanning my surroundings revealed not a soul.
No choice—perhaps I should hang myself instead.
No! That would mean certain death—too perilous by half.
Yet I recalled how ancient Greeks enlivened their feasts with mock hangings.
One would place his neck in a noose on a platform while others kicked it away.
The trick was to loosen the rope and leap free as the platform fell.
If this tale held truth, there was nothing to fear. Reaching for the branch, I found it bent obligingly.
Its graceful curvature was truly aesthetic.
Imagining my neck suspended there, swaying weightlessly, filled me with unbearable delight.
I resolved to proceed—then remembered poor Tōfū might arrive and wait in vain.
“So I decided to first meet Tōfū as agreed, hold our discussion, then begin anew—and thus returned home.”

“So that’s what made the town prosper?” asked the Master.

“That’s quite interesting,” said Kangetsu with a smirk.

“When I returned home, Tōfū hadn’t come. However, there was a postcard from him saying that due to some unexpected hindrance he couldn’t come today but would look forward to meeting me at length another day, so I finally felt relieved and thought joyfully that now I could hang myself without reservation. ‘So I promptly slipped into my geta and hurried back to the spot to check……’ he said, looking solemnly at the Master and Kangetsu.”

“What did you see?” the Master asked, growing a bit impatient.

“We’re finally reaching the climax,” said Kangetsu, twirling the cords of his haori.

“When I looked, someone had already come and was hanging there ahead of me.”
“Just one step too late—I did a regrettable thing, you see.”
“When I think about it now, I must have been possessed by the god of death at that moment.”
“If we were to let someone like James explain it, I suppose the shadowy realm beneath the subconscious and the real world I inhabit resonated with each other through some kind of causal law.”
“Isn’t it truly a mysterious thing?”
Meitei maintained his composure.

The Master, thinking he’d been fooled again, said nothing as he stuffed his mouth with Kuya-mochi, mumbling indistinctly.

Kangetsu was carefully smoothing the ashes in the brazier, smirking with his head bowed, but soon opened his mouth.
His tone was exceedingly calm.

“Having listened to your account, this does seem rather strange and not easily believable at first, but as I myself have recently had a similar experience, I find I cannot harbor any doubts.”

“Oh? Did you too feel compelled toward hanging?”

“No, mine didn’t involve hanging. This occurred around last year’s end—indeed, nearly the same day and hour as your incident—which makes it seem all the more uncanny.”

“This is fascinating,” said Meitei, stuffing his mouth with Kuya-mochi.

“That day there was a year-end party combined with a concert at an acquaintance’s house in Mukōjima, and I went there bringing my violin.”
“Fifteen or sixteen young ladies and married women had gathered, making it quite a grand affair—everything was so splendidly arranged that one might consider it the most delightful event in recent memory.”
“After dinner and the concert concluded, conversations started up all around, and as it had grown quite late, I was thinking of taking my leave to return home when the wife of a certain doctor approached me and whispered, ‘Are you aware of Miss ○○ko’s illness?’ Now, when I had met her just two or three days prior, she appeared perfectly normal without any sign of ailment, so I was startled and pressed for details. It seems that on the very evening I saw her, she suddenly developed a fever and began incessantly rambling delirious words. That alone would have been concerning enough, but they say my name occasionally comes up in those ravings.”

Of course, the Master did not utter trite phrases like “How dreadful!” and Mr. Meitei too listened in solemn silence.

“When they brought in a doctor to examine her, he couldn’t identify the exact illness—only that her fever was so severe it was affecting her brain. He said if the sedatives didn’t take effect properly, she’d be in grave danger. The moment I heard this, a most unpleasant sensation welled up within me.”
“It felt like being trapped in a nightmare—the surrounding air seemed to solidify into a dense mass that constricted my body from all sides.”
“Even on my way home afterward, this matter consumed my thoughts until I could scarcely bear the anguish.”
“That lovely, vivacious, healthy Miss ○○ko...”

“Kindly wait a moment—I must interrupt.”
“While listening just now, I’ve heard ‘Miss ○○ko’ mentioned twice—if it’s not too intrusive, I’d like to inquire about her.” He turned to look at the Master, who gave a vague “Hmm” in reply.

“No, let’s omit that part—it might trouble the person involved.”

“Do you plan to proceed shrouded in such obscurity?”

“Please refrain from mockery—this is a most earnest matter…… In any case, contemplating how that lady had suddenly fallen so ill filled my heart with thoughts as fleeting as scattering blossoms and falling leaves. All vigor in my body seemed to strike at once, leaving me abruptly sapped of energy. Staggering and stumbling, I somehow reached Azuma Bridge.”
When I leaned against the railing and peered down, I couldn’t discern whether it was high or low tide—the dark water appeared congealed yet sluggishly shifting.
From Hanakawado’s direction came a rickshaw dashing across the bridge.
Watching its lantern light recede, I saw it gradually diminish until vanishing at the Sapporo Beer sign.
I gazed again at the water.
Then from far upstream came a voice calling my name.
“Strange—no one should summon me at this hour.” Peering across the water’s surface revealed nothing but darkness.
Certain it was mere fancy, I began departing—only for that faint voice to call again from afar after two steps.
I halted once more and strained my ears.
At the third summons, though clutching the railing, my knees began quaking uncontrollably.
“The voice seemed distant—perhaps rising from the riverbed—yet unmistakably Miss ○○ko’s.”
“I involuntarily cried ‘Haaai!’”
My booming reply echoed across still waters, startling even myself as I jerked upright to survey my surroundings.
No people, dogs, or moon met my gaze—only void.
“At that moment, engulfed by this ‘night,’ a fierce urge arose within me to seek that voice’s source.”
When Miss ○○ko’s agonized cry pierced me anew—pleading, desperate—I answered “I’m coming now!” and leaned halfway over the railing to stare into black depths.

“It truly seemed like the voice calling me was forcing its way up through the waves,” I said. “Thinking ‘It must be under this water,’ I finally climbed onto the railing. I resolved that if I was called again, I would jump in, and as I stared at the current, a pitiful voice once more rose up, thread-like. Thinking ‘It’s here!’, I leapt up with all my might and then fell resolutely, like a pebble or something.”

“Did you finally jump in?” asked the Master, blinking his eyes.

“I hadn’t imagined matters would progress so far,” said Meitei, lightly pinching the tip of his own nose.

“After jumping in, I felt faint and remained dazed for some time. When I finally came to my senses, it was cold, but there was no trace of wetness anywhere—nor did I feel as if I’d swallowed any water. I should have been submerged, yet it was truly perplexing. Realizing something was amiss, I looked around—only to be astonished. Though I’d meant to leap into the water, I’d mistakenly jumped down onto the bridge’s center instead. At that moment, I was utterly disappointed. A mere directional mix-up had prevented me from reaching where the voice originated.”
Kangetsu smirked while fidgeting with his haori cord as usual.

“Ha ha ha ha! This is amusing.”
“It’s strange how closely this resembles my own experience.”
“It would still make material for Professor James, wouldn’t it?”
“If you wrote a sketch essay titled ‘Human Sympathy,’ it would surely astonish literary circles…… And how did that Miss ○○ko’s illness turn out in the end?” pressed Mr. Meitei.

“When I paid a New Year’s visit a few days ago, she was playing battledore with the maid inside the gatehouse, so it appears her illness has fully recovered.”

The Master, who had been sunk in contemplation from the outset, finally opened his mouth and declared with competitive zeal, “I have one too.”

“What do you mean, ‘have one’? What could you possibly have?”
Of course, Meitei paid no heed to the Master.
“Mine also happened around the end of last year.”

“It’s strange how everyone’s stories from the end of last year are such coincidences,” Kangetsu said with a laugh.
In his chipped front tooth was stuck some Kuya-mochi.

“Still the same day and time, isn’t it?” retorted Meitei.

“No—the dates seem different.”
“It was around the twentieth.”
“My wife said she wanted to hear Settsu no Daijō instead of a year-end gift, so I thought there was no reason not to take her. But when I asked what today’s performance was, she checked the newspaper and said it was Unadani.”
“Since I dislike Unadani, I decided to skip it that day.”
“The next day, my wife brought the newspaper again and said, ‘Since today’s Horikawa, it should be fine.’”
“When I said Horikawa was just lively shamisen pieces without substance and we should skip it, my wife made a displeased face and withdrew.”
“The following day, my wife declared, ‘Today is Sanjūsangendō. I absolutely must hear Settsu no Sanjūsangendō.’”
“‘You may dislike Sanjūsangendō or not,’ she pressed with an insistent argument, ‘but since it’s me who wants to hear it, you could at least accompany me—isn’t that right?’”
“‘If you want to go that badly, we’ll go. But this being a once-in-a-lifetime event with huge crowds, there’s no chance we’ll get in without reservations.’”
“‘Proper procedure requires negotiating with teahouses to reserve seats,’ I explained. ‘Since we’re skipping that formality, let’s regrettably cancel today.’ My wife glared fiercely and retorted, ‘I’m just a woman who doesn’t know these complicated ways! Ohara’s mother and Suzuki’s Kimiyo both attended splendidly without any reservations! Must you teachers make everything so difficult? This is unreasonable!’ Her voice trembled tearfully.”
“‘Well then, we’ll try going regardless.’”
“When I surrendered and suggested we’d eat dinner first then take the train, she suddenly became urgent: ‘If we go, we must arrive by four o’clock! No time for dawdling!’”
“When I asked why four o’clock was essential, she parroted Suzuki’s Kimiyo: ‘We must arrive early to secure seats.’”
“‘So after four o’clock it’s hopeless?’ I pressed. ‘Absolutely hopeless,’ she confirmed.”
“And then—strangely enough—a sudden chill came over me starting right then.”

“Is it your wife?” asked Kangetsu.

“What? My wife’s alive and kicking,” said the Master.
“It’s me, you see.”
“I felt myself shrivel up all at once like a punctured balloon—and before I knew it, my eyes grew dizzy and I couldn’t move.”

“Acute illness, eh?” remarked Meitei.

“Ah, this has become a real problem.
Since it’s my wife’s once-a-year wish, I absolutely want to grant it.
I usually just scold her, ignore her, impose personal hardships on her, and make her look after the children—never once repaying her efforts in cleaning and fetching water.
Today, fortunately, I have time, and there are four or five bills in my pocket.
If I take her, she can go.
My wife probably wants to go, and I want to take her.
I truly want to take her, but with these chills and dizziness, I can’t even step down to the entryway, let alone ride a train.
Ah, the more I thought how pitiful it was, the more chills I felt and the dizzier I became.
Thinking that if I could quickly have a doctor examine me and take some medicine, I’d surely recover before four o’clock, I consulted my wife and sent for Dr. Amaki—but unfortunately, he had been on duty last night and hadn’t yet returned from the university.
They said he should return around two o’clock and would come immediately upon arriving.
This was troublesome. If I could just drink some almond water now, I’d surely recover before four o’clock—but when luck turns against you, nothing goes as planned. Even that rare chance to enjoy seeing my wife’s delighted smile seemed about to slip away.
My wife made a resentful face and asked if I really couldn’t go.
‘I’ll go! I’ll definitely go!’
‘I’ll recover by four o’clock without fail—just wait calmly.’
‘Go wash your face and change into your kimono,’ I said aloud—though my heart swelled with boundless emotion.
The chills grew increasingly severe; my eyes swam ever more violently.
If I didn’t fully recover and keep my promise by four o’clock—given how narrow-minded she was—there was no telling what she might do.
It had become utterly pitiful.
What should I do?”

Considering unforeseen eventualities, he began to think that explaining now the principle of impermanent phenomena and the path where all living beings must perish—thereby instilling her with enough resolve not to panic should unexpected changes occur—might indeed be a husband's duty toward his wife.
I promptly called my wife to the study.
When I said, "Though you're a woman, you must know Western proverbs like 'many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,'" she retorted, "Who knows such foreign gibberish? You're fully aware I don't understand English, yet deliberately use it to mock me—how splendid! Since I can't speak English anyway, if you love it so much, why didn't you marry some missionary school graduate instead?"
"There’s no one as heartless as you!" she raged—and with that furious outburst, my carefully laid plans were completely derailed.
"I must explain to you all—my use of English wasn't malicious in intent."
"It truly came from sincere love for my wife, so if it’s interpreted that way, I’d be left with no ground to stand on."
Moreover, with my mind already unsettled from persistent chills and dizziness, and being somewhat rushed to make her quickly grasp these principles of impermanence, I ended up inadvertently using English without realizing—having completely forgotten my wife doesn’t understand it.
When I thought about it, this was my fault—a complete oversight.
This failure made the chills grow increasingly severe.
My eyes grew ever dizzier.
My wife went to the bathhouse as instructed, removed her undergarments, applied makeup, took out a kimono from the chest, and changed into it.
She waited with an air of readiness to depart at any moment.
I was beside myself with worry.
Wishing Dr. Amaki would come quickly, I checked the clock—it was already three.
Only one hour remained until four.
"Shall we get going?" said my wife, opening the study's sliding door and peering in.
It may seem strange to praise one's own spouse, but I'd never found my wife more beautiful than at that moment.
Her skin gleamed against her black crepe haori after being scrubbed clean with soap.
Her face shone from both tangible and intangible sources—the soap's luster and her hope of hearing Settsu no Daijō.
I became determined to fulfill that hope and take her out without fail.

‘Well then, I’ll muster my resolve and go,’ I thought, taking a deep puff—when at last Dr. Amaki arrived.
Everything proceeded smoothly as planned.
When I described my symptoms, Dr. Amaki examined my tongue, grasped my hand, tapped my chest, stroked my back, flipped up my eyelids, rubbed my skull, and pondered for a while.
“This seems somewhat concerning,” I said, to which the doctor calmly replied, “There’s nothing particularly wrong.”
“Would it be all right if he went out briefly?” asked the wife.
“Hmm,” Dr. Amaki pondered again.
“Provided his condition doesn’t worsen…”
“I’m feeling unwell,” I interjected.
“In that case, I’ll give you an emergency dose and some liquid medicine.”
“Hmm… Somehow… This seems to be taking a dangerous turn.”
“Not at all—it’s nothing to worry about. Just don’t work up your nerves,” said Dr. Amaki as he left.
It was thirty minutes past three.
The wife sent the maid for medicine.
Under strict orders, she dashed out and dashed back.
It was fifteen minutes before four.
There remained fifteen minutes until four.
Then around quarter to four—though there’d been no issue until then—I suddenly felt nauseous.
The wife poured liquid medicine into a bowl and set it before me, but when I lifted it to drink, something from deep in my stomach roared up in rebellion.
I had no choice but to set down the bowl.
The wife pressed, “You’d better drink it quickly.”

"You must drink quickly and leave soon, or it’ll be improper."
Resolved to drink it all at once, he brought the bowl to his lips again—only for the retching to persistently interfere once more.
As he picked up the bowl to drink only to set it down, picked it up again only to set it down once more, the pillar clock in the tearoom chimed ding-ding-ding-ding to mark four o’clock.
"Now it’s four o’clock—I can’t keep dallying—so I pick up the bowl again, and isn’t this strange? Truly strange! The moment the clock struck four, the nausea completely subsided, and I could drink the medicine without any trouble at all."
"Then, around ten past four, I finally understood why Dr. Amaki was considered an excellent physician—the chills in my back and the dizziness in my eyes vanished like a dream, and the illness I thought would linger for days was instantly cured. It was truly delightful."

“So then did you go to Kabukiza together?” asked Mētei with a look of utter bewilderment.

“I wanted to go, but once four o’clock had passed, my wife insisted we couldn’t get in anymore—there was nothing to be done, so I abandoned the plan.”
“If only Dr. Amaki had come just fifteen minutes earlier, I could’ve discharged my social duty and satisfied my wife too—but that mere quarter-hour difference ruined everything. What an absolute pity.”
“Even now when I recall it, I shudder at how perilously close we came to disaster.”

Having finished his tale, the teacher finally took on the air of having fulfilled his duty.
With this, he might think he’d saved face with both of them.

Kangetsu bared his chipped tooth in his usual grin and said, “That was a shame.”

With a feigned look of innocence, Meitei muttered as if to himself, “How fortunate your wife is to have such a considerate husband.”
Behind the shoji screen came the sound of the wife clearing her throat—ahem.

I had been quietly listening to the three of them take turns speaking, but found it neither amusing nor sorrowful. I concluded that humans possess no talent beyond forcing their mouths to move simply to pass time—laughing at unfunny matters or delighting in unamusing things. I had long known of my master's selfishness and narrow-mindedness, but his usual reticence had left some aspects of him perpetually elusive. Those incomprehensible traits had carried a faint air of menace, but hearing this recent tale suddenly filled me with contempt. Why couldn't he just listen to their conversation in silence? What could he possibly gain by stubbornly spouting such foolish, pointless drivel? I don't know whether Epictetus ever instructed people to behave thus. In short, my master, Kangetsu, and Meitei were hermits of tranquility—appearing as detached and pure as loofahs swaying in the wind, yet in truth still clinging to worldly desires and selfish impulses. The competitive spirit—their urge to prevail—flickered through even their casual banter; one step further and they'd become denizens of the same burrow as the vulgar masses they routinely scorned—a pitiful sight to feline eyes. Their sole redeeming quality lay in avoiding the irritatingly clipped speech patterns common among half-educated dilettantes.

As I thought this, the three's conversation suddenly became uninteresting, so I went around to the entrance of the two-stringed koto instructor's garden to check on Mikeko's condition.
The New Year pine decorations had already been taken down, marking the tenth day of the new year. A radiant spring sun shone from deep, cloudless skies upon all creation below, bathing even the modest thirty-square-meter garden in such vivid vitality that it seemed to have retained the pristine brilliance of New Year's dawn.
On the veranda lay a single zabuton cushion, with no sign of anyone around, and the shoji screens were tightly closed—perhaps the instructor had gone to the bathhouse, I wondered.
It didn’t matter if the instructor was out, but whether Mikeko had improved even a little—that was what concerned me.
It was quiet with no sign of human presence, so I climbed onto the veranda with my muddy paws and lay down right in the middle of the zabuton cushion—it felt pleasant.
As I drowsily forgot about Mikeko and dozed off, I suddenly heard voices from behind the shoji screens.

“You’ve worked hard.”
“Is it finished?”
The Teacher was, after all, not out.

“Yes, I’m sorry for the delay. When I went to the Buddhist sculptor’s workshop, they said it had just been completed.”
“Let me see it then.”
“Ah, how beautifully made. Now Mikeko can rest peacefully.”
“The gold leaf won’t peel off, will it?”
“When I insisted on quality, they assured me this would outlast even human memorial tablets.”
“...and they mentioned that modifying the strokes of the ‘honor’ character in Neko Takashi Shinnyo would improve its elegance.”
“Very well—let us set it on the altar at once and burn incense.”

Mikeko stood up on the futon, sensing something amiss in the atmosphere.
Ding—"Namu Neko Takashi Shinnyo, Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu," intoned the Teacher's voice.
"You should perform the memorial rites too."

Ding—"Namu Neko Takashi Shinnyo, Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu," the maid’s voice sounded this time.
I suddenly felt my heart racing.
I stood on the zabuton without moving my eyes, like a wooden cat.

“What a truly regrettable thing has happened.”
“It likely began with just a slight cold.”
“If Dr. Amaki had prescribed medicine, it might have helped.”
“It’s entirely Dr. Amaki’s fault—he dismissed Mikeko too carelessly.”
“You shouldn’t speak ill of others.”
“This was simply her time.”

It appeared Mikeko had indeed been examined by Dr. Amaki.

“Ultimately, I believe that stray cat from the teacher’s house on the main street lured her out recklessly.”
“Yes, that beast caused Mikeko’s death.”

I wanted to explain myself a little, but recognizing this as the moment to endure, I swallowed my saliva and listened.
The conversation paused briefly.

“The world isn’t free, I tell you.
“A beauty like Mikeko dies young,
“while ugly stray cats remain healthy and up to mischief…”
“That’s exactly right.
“Even if you searched far and wide with bells and drums, you wouldn’t find two cats as lovely as Mikeko.”

Instead of saying “two animals,” she said “two people.”
It seems the maid believes that cats and humans belong to the same species.
Come to think of it, this maid’s face bears a striking resemblance to us of the feline tribe.

“If only someone could take Mikeko’s place...”
“If that teacher’s stray were to die, everything would fall perfectly into place, I tell you.”

This “perfect arrangement” would pose something of a problem for me.
Having never experienced death myself, I couldn’t say whether I welcomed or feared it—though I recalled that time when, seeking refuge from the cold, I’d crawled into the fire-extinguisher pot only for the maid to slam the lid shut without noticing me inside.
The agony of that moment still chilled me to contemplate.
According to Shiro’s explanation, had that torment continued but a moment longer, it would have meant my end.
While I wouldn’t object to substituting for Mikeko, if dying necessitated enduring such anguish again, I’d rather not perish for anyone’s sake.

“But even for cats—having a priest chant sutras and create posthumous names—they should have no lingering regrets.”
“That she certainly is—a truly blessed soul.”
“Though if I may voice one complaint, that priest’s sutra seemed rather perfunctory.”
“When I remarked it seemed too short, Gekkeiji-san said, ‘Ah, I performed just the essential rites—after all, for a cat, that’s ample to reach the Pure Land.’”
“Oh dear… But that stray…”

Though I had repeatedly declared having no name, this maid kept calling me “stray-stray.” What insolence.

“With sins this profound, even the most venerable sutras won’t grant him peace.”

I knew not how many hundreds of times “stray” had been repeated after that. When I abandoned this endless conversation midway, slid off the futon, and leapt down from the engawa, all eighty-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty strands of my fur stood erect as I shuddered. Since then, I never ventured near the Two-Stringed Koto Instructor’s neighborhood. By now, the Teacher himself must have received that perfunctory memorial service from Gekkeiji-san.

Lately, I lacked even the courage to go out. The world felt somehow languid to me. I became as neutered a cat as my master. I gradually came to think it wasn’t unreasonable that people kept attributing my master’s self-imprisonment in his study to unrequited love.

Since I still hadn't caught any mice, there was even a time when O-san proposed expelling me; but as my master knew I was no ordinary cat, I continued to laze about and dwell in this house.
Regarding this point, I deeply appreciated my master's benevolence while not hesitating to express admiration for his discernment.
That O-san abused me without understanding who I was didn't particularly anger me.
When Hidari Jingorō would emerge to carve my portrait into temple gate pillars and Japan's Steinlen took pleasure in rendering my likeness on canvas, those dullards would finally feel ashamed of their ignorance.

3

Mikeko died.
With Kuro no longer around for company, I felt some loneliness, but having fortunately gained human acquaintances, I didn’t find myself particularly bored.
Some days prior, there had been a man who wrote to my master requesting a photograph of me.
Another time came when someone specially delivered Okayama’s famed kibidango addressed directly to me.
As I gradually received more sympathy from humans, I began forgetting I was a cat.
Before I knew it, I’d grown closer to humans than felines—lately harboring not the slightest notion of rallying my kind against those two-legged creatures.
Not only that, but I found it encouraging how I’d evolved enough to occasionally consider myself part of human society.
This didn’t mean I scorned my own kind.
Seeking comfort among those of similar disposition was merely natural inclination; having this labeled fickleness or betrayal proved rather vexing.
Those who wielded such slanderous language mostly seemed inflexible men of petty character.
Having thus shed feline habits, I couldn’t remain fixated on Mikeko and Kuro’s affairs.
I still felt compelled to judge human thoughts and deeds as equals.
There was nothing unreasonable in this.
What galled me was how my master—still viewing me as some common furball—devoured every kibidango without so much as a greeting, acting like they were his birthright.
Nor had he bothered taking that photograph.
While this bordered on grievance, Master remained Master and I myself—our differing perspectives being inevitable.
Persisting in my human masquerade made describing estranged cats’ antics rather troublesome.
I resolved instead to discuss Messrs. Meitei and Kangetsu’s reputations.

Today being a fine Sunday, Master shuffled out of his study, arranged his brush, inkstone, and manuscript paper beside me, then flopped belly-down onto the floor and began muttering incessantly.
Assuming he was making those strange noises as a prelude to drafting his manuscript, I watched intently when, after a short while, he boldly wrote “Incense One Stick.”
Wondering whether this would become a poem or haiku—“Incense One Stick” seemed a bit too clever for Master—no sooner had I thought this than he abandoned that phrase, started a new line, and swiftly wrote: “I have been thinking of writing about Natural Hermit since earlier.”
The brush came to an abrupt halt at that and remained motionless.
Master held his brush and tilted his head, but as he seemed to have no brilliant ideas, he began licking the brush tip.
Just as I observed his lips turning completely black, he next drew a little circle beneath them.
He added two dots inside the circle to create eyes.
In the center, he drew a nose with flared nostrils and pulled a straight line horizontally for the mouth—this was neither prose nor haiku.
Master, having apparently lost patience with himself, half-heartedly scribbled out the face.
Master started a new line.
According to his reasoning, he seemed to vaguely believe that simply by starting a new line, it might turn into a poem, a eulogy, a tale—or something of the sort.
Then he dashed off in genbun-itchi style: “Natural Hermit is a man who studies space, reads the Analects, eats roasted sweet potatoes”—a somewhat jumbled sentence.
Then Master unhesitatingly read this aloud and laughed with an unusual “Hahaha! How amusing!” before drawing lines through “eats roasted sweet potatoes,” muttering “Too harsh—I’ll strike that.”
Where one line would suffice, he drew two or three parallel marks that spilled into neighboring rows.
Seeing eight such lines yielded no inspiration, he abandoned his brush and began twisting his mustache.
Just as he contorted his whiskers upward and downward—as if determined to wring prose from them—his wife emerged from the tea room and planted herself before Master’s nose.
“Hey you,” she called.
“What?” Master’s voice boomed like an underwater gong.
Seemingly displeased with his response, she repeated “Hey you.”
“What now?” he retorted while thrusting fingers into his nostril and yanking out a nose hair.

“This month’s funds are a bit short, but…” “There’s no way they’re short. We already paid the doctor’s fees and settled the bookstore bill last month, didn’t we? This month must have a surplus,” he declared with composure, gazing at the plucked nose hair as though it were a marvel of the world.
“Even so, since you refuse to eat rice but instead eat bread and lick jam...”
“How many cans of jam have you gone through anyway?”
“We’ve used eight this month.”
“Eight? I don’t recall licking that much.”
“It’s not just you—the children lick it too.” “Even if they did, it couldn’t amount to more than five or six yen,” Master replied nonchalantly, carefully planting each plucked nose hair one by one on his manuscript paper.
With bits of flesh still attached, they stood upright like needles.
Master, having made an unexpected discovery and appearing deeply impressed, gave a light blow.
Thanks to their strong adhesive power, they didn’t budge.
“Damn stubborn things,” Master muttered, blowing with all his might.
“It’s not just the jam—there are other necessities we must buy,” retorted the wife, her cheeks flushed with displeasure.
“There might be,” he said, once again sticking his finger into his nose and yanking out a nose hair.
Among the red and black strands of various hues intermingling, there was one pure white hair.
Master, looking thoroughly astonished as if to bore holes through it with his gaze while clamping the nose hair between his fingers, thrust it before his wife’s face.
“Oh, how revolting!” The wife grimaced and pushed back his hand.
“Look at this! A white nose hair!” exclaimed Master, appearing deeply moved.
Even the wife, laughing despite herself, retreated to the tea room.
She seemed to have given up on the financial discussion.

Master took up Natural Hermit once more.

Having driven away his wife with a nose hair, Master plucked more nose hairs as though declaring himself at ease and frantically tried to write his manuscript—yet his brush refused to budge.
“Eating roasted sweet potatoes is superfluous—I’ll omit this part,” he finally struck out the phrase.
“Incense One Stick is too abrupt—I’ll stop here,” he declared without hesitation and struck it out.
What remained was reduced to a single phrase: “Natural Hermit is a person who studies space and reads the Analects.”
Master thought this seemed somehow too simplistic but muttered, “Ah, what a bother—I’ll scrap the text and just write an epitaph.” He then swung his brush in a cross shape and vigorously painted a clumsy literati-style orchid on the manuscript paper.
All his painstaking efforts ended in failure, with not a single character surviving.
Then he flipped it over and wrote: “Born in space, studied space, died in space.
As he strung together the nonsensical words ‘Space! Interval! Natural Hermit, alas!’, Meitei came barging in as usual.
Whether Meitei considered others’ homes no different from his own was unclear—he barged in unannounced; nay, sometimes floated nonchalantly through the kitchen entrance—a man who must have shaken off all concerns, reservations, formalities, and troubles at birth.

“Is it Giant Gravitation again?” Meitei asked the teacher while still standing.
“No, I don’t always write about Giant Gravitation.
I’m composing an epitaph for Natural Hermit,” he declared with grandiosity.
“So this ‘Natural Hermit’—another posthumous name like Gūnen Dōji, eh?” Meitei continued spouting nonsense.
“Is there actually someone called Gūnen Dōji?”
“There’s no such person—I just figured that’s about the gist of it.”
“I don’t recall any ‘Gūnen Dōji,’ but this ‘Natural Hermit’—he’s someone you know.”
“Who on earth goes around presumptuously bestowing such a name?”
“It’s that Sōroki we all knew.
After graduating, he entered graduate school to research spatial theory but studied himself to death—peritonitis.
For all his oddities, Sōroki was my dear friend.”

“It’s fine if he’s your close friend—I’m certainly not saying it’s bad.”
“But just who was it that transformed Sōroki into Natural Hermit?”
“Well, I’m the one who gave him that name.”
“‘After all,’ he boasted of Natural Hermit as though it were an exceedingly elegant name—‘there’s nothing more vulgar than posthumous names given by priests.’”
Laughing, Meitei said, “Well, let me see this so-called epitaph of yours,” and took up the manuscript. “What’s this… ‘Born in space, studied space, died in space’?”
“Space! Interval! Natural Hermit, alas!” he boomed, reading it aloud.
“Ah, this is excellent—truly befitting Natural Hermit!”
“Pretty good, eh?” said Master with a pleased look.
“You’ll carve this epitaph into a Takuwan stone and toss it out behind the main hall like some discarded strength-testing stone, eh?”
“Elegant indeed—I suppose Natural Hermit’s spirit can rest now.”
“I intend to do just that,” the teacher replied with utmost seriousness. “I must excuse myself for a moment. I’ll return shortly, so amuse yourself with the cat or something.” Without waiting for Meitei’s response, he strode out with an air of nonchalance.

Having been unexpectedly tasked with entertaining Mr. Meitei, I could no longer keep up my grim expression; thus, with an ingratiating meow, I put on a charming display and tried climbing onto his lap.
Then Meitei cried, “Whoa, you’ve gotten fat! Let me see—” and with utter rudeness grabbed the scruff of my neck to dangle me mid-air.
“With its hind legs swinging like this, it couldn’t catch mice... What say you, Mrs.—does this creature even hunt rodents?” Finding mere feline torment insufficient, he called to the Teacher’s Wife in the adjoining room.
“Rodents? It’s worse—this thing danced after stealing New Year’s zōni!” she blurted out, dredging up ancient sins.
Dangling like some circus act, I burned with humiliation.
Meitei kept me suspended.
“A face made for dancing indeed!”
“Mrs., this cat wears a treacherous countenance!”
“Why, it resembles those two-tailed fiends from Edo picture books!” he declared airily, badgering her without pause.
The Teacher’s Wife—visibly irked—set aside her sewing and emerged into the parlor.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting—you should be going now,” she said, refilling the tea and placing it before Meitei.
“Where do you suppose he went?”
“Since he never tells anyone where he’s going, I can’t say for certain—most likely to see the doctor.”
“Ah, Dr. Amaki? What a misfortune for him to be saddled with such a patient!”
“Oh,” replied the Teacher’s Wife tersely, unable to muster a proper response.
Meitei paid no heed.
“How’s his stomach been lately—any improvement?”
“I can’t tell whether it’s better or worse—no matter how much he sees Dr. Amaki, his stomach will never heal if he keeps gorging on jam like that,” she replied, implicitly venting her grievances.
“Is he really eating that much jam? He’s acting like a child!”
“It’s not just jam—lately he’s been devouring grated radish under the pretense that it’s stomach medicine...”
“Well I never!” exclaimed Meitei.
“It started after he read in the newspaper that grated radish contains Taka-diastase.”
“Ah! So this is his scheme to offset the jam deficit!”
Meitei looked thoroughly amused by her complaint.
“The other day he even made the baby taste it...”
“With jam?”
“No—grated radish... Can you imagine?”
“‘Come here, little one—Daddy has something tasty for you,’ he’d say—just when you think he’s being affectionate, he pulls these idiotic stunts.”
“A few days ago he lifted our middle daughter onto the chest of drawers...”
“What sort of scheme was that?” Meitei interpreted everything as intentional design.

“There’s no scheme or anything—he just told her to jump down from there! A three- or four-year-old girl couldn’t possibly do such a tomboyish thing!”
“Ah, this truly lacks any scheme whatsoever.”
“But for all that, he’s a harmless soul with no poison in his belly.”
“If there were poison in that paunch of his, there’d be no managing him!” retorted the Teacher’s Wife heatedly.
“Now now, no need to grumble so much.”
“Getting through each day without complaint like this is blessing enough.”
“Kushami doesn’t indulge in hobbies, cares nothing for clothes—he’s settled into being a plain family man,” declared Meitei with uncharacteristically cheerful sermonizing.
“But you’re quite mistaken...”
“Is he scheming something in secret?”
“It’s a world where you must never lower your guard,” he replied airily.
“He may lack other diversions, but he buys books recklessly without reading them.”
“If only he showed some restraint! He goes to Maruzen on his own whim, brings back stacks of books, then feigns ignorance when bills pile up at month’s end. Last year’s New Year was dreadful with all those accumulated payments.”
“Let him bring however many books he likes—no harm done.”
“When collectors come demanding payment, just keep saying ‘I’ll pay now, I’ll pay now,’ and they’ll leave.”
“But we can’t keep delaying forever,” said the Teacher’s Wife sullenly.
“Then make him understand and reduce his book expenses.”
“No matter what I say, he won’t listen! Just the other day he snapped, ‘You’re no scholar’s wife—you grasp nothing of books’ value!’ Then lectured me about some tale from ancient Rome—”
“‘For your edification,’ he said.”
“How intriguing! What sort of tale?”
Meitei grew animated.

Rather than expressing sympathy for the Teacher’s Wife, he seemed driven by curiosity.
“Well, you see, in ancient Rome there was a king named Tarquin or something...”
“Tarquin?
“Tarquin is a bit odd, I must say.”
“I can’t remember difficult names like those foreign ones.”
“He was apparently the seventh generation or something.”
“Indeed, this seventh-generation Tarquin is quite odd.”
“Well, did something happen with this seventh-generation Tarquin?”
“Oh dear—if even you start mocking me, I’ll be at my wit’s end!”
“If you know, then you should just tell me instead of being so mean!” the Teacher’s Wife snapped at Meitei.
“Teasing you or anything like that—I’m not the sort to do such mean things.”
“I just thought the seventh-generation Tarquin was a bit off... Wait—hold on—the seventh king of Rome, right? Though I can’t recall exactly, it must be Tarquin the Proud.”
“Oh, whatever his name is—what did this king do?”
“A woman came to this king’s place with nine books and asked if he would buy them.”
“I see.”
“When the king asked how much she wanted for them, she named an exorbitant price. Since it was so high, he tried to get her to lower it a bit, but then the woman suddenly took three of the nine volumes and threw them into the fire.”
“What a waste!”
“In those books, there are prophecies or something else that can’t be found anywhere else, it’s said.”
“Hmm...”
“The king thought that since nine volumes had become six, their value must have decreased somewhat, so he asked how much she wanted for the six—but she still wouldn’t lower the price by a single penny. When he protested that this was outrageous, the woman took three more volumes and threw them into the fire.”

“The king still seemed reluctant to let go and asked how much she wanted for the remaining three volumes, but she still demanded the price for all nine,” said the Teacher’s Wife.
“Even when nine volumes became six, and six became three, she wouldn’t lower the price by a single penny from the original amount. If you tried to make her reduce it, she might burn the remaining three volumes too—so in the end, the king paid a high price for those three scorched leftovers… ‘So does this story make you appreciate books’ value even slightly?’ he thundered at me—but honestly, I still don’t see what’s precious about them,” declared the Teacher’s Wife, asserting her household’s dignity while pressing Meitei for a response.
Even Meitei seemed momentarily flustered. He took out a handkerchief from his sleeve to dangle before me, then suddenly exclaimed as if struck by inspiration: “But madam!”
“It’s precisely because he buys books recklessly and crams them everywhere that people call him a scholar or such.”
“The other day when I saw a literary magazine, there was a critique of Mr. Kushami.”
“Truly?” The Teacher’s Wife turned sharply.
Her concern for her husband’s reputation revealed their marital bond.
“What did it say?”
“Oh, just two or three lines.”
“It said: ‘Mr. Kushami’s prose flows like wandering clouds and running water.’”
The Teacher’s Wife smiled faintly. “Only that?”
“Books may be professional tools—we can’t help that—but he’s simply too obstinate!”
Meitei, approaching from fresh angles, delivered an artfully ambiguous reply that both echoed and defended: “Obstinate he may be slightly—but that’s how all scholars are.”
“Just recently when returning from school needing to go out again immediately—changing clothes seemed too troublesome! So he sat at his desk eating dinner without removing his overcoat.”
“I placed the meal tray on the kotatsu frame—there I sat holding the rice tub, feeling utterly absurd…”
“Rather resembles some modernized head-inspection ritual.”
“But that’s precisely what makes Mr. Kushami himself—he’s anything but commonplace,” Meitei offered with strained praise.
“Whether commonplace or not, women wouldn’t know—but regardless, it’s too uncouth.”
“Still better than being commonplace,” he rashly supported. The Teacher’s Wife looked displeased: “Everyone keeps saying ‘commonplace this, commonplace that’—but what exactly is commonplace?” she demanded, reversing tactics to seek definition.
“Commonplace? To define it—well—it’s rather difficult to explain…”
“If it’s that vague,” pressed the Teacher’s Wife with feminine logic, “then even commonplace sounds preferable, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not ambiguous—I understand perfectly! It’s just hard to explain.”
“So you just label anything you dislike as ‘commonplace,’ don’t you?” The Teacher’s Wife had unwittingly struck at the truth.
Cornered, Meitei now had no choice but to define this elusive “commonplace.”
“Madam, ‘commonplace’ describes those twenty-eight- or twenty-nine-year-olds who lie about brooding in silence, then unfailingly grab a gourd to stroll along Sumida Embankment whenever the weather turns fine.”
“Do such creatures even exist?” she parried, feigning comprehension.
“It’s all too convoluted—I simply don’t follow,” she finally surrendered.
“So we’re to graft Major Pendennis’s head onto Bakin’s corpse and let it marinate in European air for a year or two?”
“Would that birth our commonplace specimen?”
Meitei answered only with laughter.
“Why bother with such elaborate alchemy? Let me propose a simpler formula.”
“Take middle school students, add Shiromiya’s head clerk, divide by two—voilà! A perfectly commonplace being emerges.”
“Is that so?” The Teacher’s Wife tilted her head, skepticism clinging like persimmon tannin.

“You’re still here?” said the Teacher who had returned unnoticed and sat down beside Meitei.
“Still here? That’s harsh—didn't I say I'd leave soon if you waited?”
“Well everything certainly matches your description,” said the Teacher’s Wife glancing at Meitei.
“I heard all your embarrassing stories while you were out.”
“Women talk too much—humans should stay silent like this cat,” said the Teacher patting my head.
“You made an infant taste grated radish?”
“Hmm,” laughed the Teacher.“Even modern babies are clever.
“Now whenever we ask ‘where’s spicy?’ he sticks out his tongue unfailingly—remarkable.”
“Training them like circus dogs! Cruel!”
“Kangetsu should arrive soon.”
“Kangetsu coming?” The Teacher frowned suspiciously.
“He comes.”
“I mailed instructions for him to reach Kushami’s residence by one o'clock.”
“Inviting people without consultation! Typical!”
“Why summon Kangetsu at all?”
“This isn't my scheme—Professor Kangetsu himself requested it.”
“He must rehearse some Physics Society lecture apparently.
“Wanted me as audience—thought you'd benefit too since you've ample leisure—
No objections from unoccupied men! Listen well,” declared Meitei conclusively.
“Physics lectures baffle me,” protested the Teacher indignantly against this presumption.

“However, this isn’t some dreary topic about nozzles fitted with magnets.”
“It’s called ‘The Mechanics of Hanging’—a truly unconventional subject that merits your full attention.”
“Since you’re the one who botched hanging yourself before, you should listen carefully—but as for me…”
“Given you’re the type who gets shivers at Kabukiza Theatre, we can hardly decide you shouldn’t hear it,” he quipped in his characteristic flippant tone.
The Teacher’s Wife stifled a laugh, glanced at her husband, and retreated to the adjoining room.
The Teacher wordlessly stroked my head.
For once, his touch was remarkably tender.

About seven minutes later, Kangetsu-kun arrived as requested. That evening, having a lecture to deliver, he wore an uncommonly splendid frock coat with a freshly laundered white collar stiffly raised, enhancing his dignified appearance by twenty percent as he calmly greeted them: “I’m a bit late.” “We’ve been eagerly awaiting you,” said Meitei. “Let’s begin then—what say you?” he added, looking at the Teacher. The Teacher gave a perfunctory “Hmm” in response. Kangetsu-kun showed no hurry. “Might I have a glass of water?” he requested. “Oh-ho! Going full formal now? Next you’ll be demanding applause!” Meitei exclaimed boisterously. Kangetsu-kun withdrew his manuscript from an inner pocket and began calmly: “As this is a rehearsal, please offer criticisms freely.” With this preface, he commenced his lecture recitation.

“The act of subjecting criminals to death by hanging was chiefly a method practiced among the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and if we trace back to ancient times, hanging was primarily employed as a means of suicide.”
“Among the Jewish people, there existed a custom of executing criminals by pelting them with stones.”
“When we study the Old Testament, the term ‘hanging’ is recognized to signify the act of suspending a criminal’s corpse to be devoured by beasts or birds of prey.”
“According to Herodotus’s account, it appears the Jewish people had already developed a profound aversion to leaving corpses exposed at night even before their exodus from Egypt.”
“It is said that the Egyptians would behead criminals, nail only their torsos to crosses, and leave them exposed at night.”
“The Persians…”

“Kangetsu-kun, you seem to be drifting further from hanging—is this acceptable?” Meitei interjected.
“As we are about to enter the main discussion, I ask for your patience a moment longer.”
“…Now regarding the Persians, they too appear to have employed crucifixion for executions.”
“However, whether they crucified them alive or nailed them postmortem—I must confess uncertainty on that detail…”
“Such details matter little,” said the Teacher through a bored yawn.
“There remain many points I wish to discuss, though this must inconvenience you…”
“Rather than ‘inconvenience you,’ ‘bother you’ sounds better—don’t you agree, Kushami?” Meitei corrected again, prompting the Teacher’s indifferent reply: “Either suffices.”
“Now I shall properly commence presenting my thesis.”
“‘Presenting’ reeks of rakugo storytellers’ jargon.”
“As a lecturer, you should employ more dignified language,” Meitei interrupted once more.
“If ‘presenting’ is vulgar, what phrasing would satisfy you?” Kangetsu-kun demanded testily.
It remained unclear whether Meitei was listening or merely heckling.
“Ignore these distractions and proceed, Kangetsu-kun,” urged the Teacher, seeking swift resolution.
“A willow indignantly expounding—how poetic,” Meitei remarked airily.
Kangetsu burst into involuntary laughter.
“My research confirms strangulation’s first judicial use appears in Odyssey Book Twenty-Two,”
“Specifically when Telemachus executes Penelope’s twelve maidservants by hanging.”
“Though reciting the Greek text would be permissible, I refrain lest it seem ostentatious.”
“Consult lines four hundred sixty-five through seventy-three for verification.”
“Enough Greek posturing—you reek of academic pretense! Don’t you concur, Kushami?”

“I concur wholeheartedly. Such ostentatious displays are most unbecoming of refined discourse,” declared the Teacher with uncharacteristic alacrity, promptly aligning himself with Meitei.
Neither man could decipher a single Greek character.
“In that case,” continued Kangetsu-kun, “I shall excise those particular passages for tonight’s purposes and proceed to... well... elucidate the subsequent arguments.”

“When reconstructing this act of judicial strangulation through modern analysis,” he resumed, “we discern two distinct methodologies.”
“The first method involves Telemachus securing one end of the rope to a pillar—assisted by Eumaeus and Philoetius—then fashioning perforations at intervals along its length.”
“Each aperture would receive a maidservant’s head in sequence,” he explained, “whereupon tension applied to the opposite extremity would elevate the entire assembly.”
“Like laundry shirts swaying in some occidental washhouse?” interjected Meitei.
“Precisely,” affirmed Kangetsu-kun. “The second technique requires affixing one terminus similarly to a pillar while suspending the other from the ceiling ab initio.”
“From this elevated cordage depend multiple subsidiary ropes bearing knotted loops—collars for our condemned—whose sudden elevation follows the removal of their footrests.”
“A veritable curtain of hemp terminating in pendant orbs, if you will.”
“These ‘lantern weights’ elude my ocular experience,” mused Meitei, “though your analogy suffices provisionally.”
“Having established these parameters,” Kangetsu-kun pressed onward, “I shall now demonstrate through mechanical principles why the first method proves fundamentally unsound.”
“Intriguing formulation,” remarked Meitei.
“Indeed intriguing,” grunted the Teacher through another yawn.

“First, let us assume the women are suspended at equal intervals.”
“Furthermore, we shall posit that the rope connecting the necks of the two women nearest the ground remains horizontal.”
“Therefore, let α₁, α₂…α₆ represent the angles formed between each rope segment and the horizon, T₁, T₂…T₆ denote the tension forces acting on respective rope sections, and T₇ = X indicate the force exerted on the lowest portion of the rope.”
“W naturally corresponds to the women’s collective weight—this I trust requires no further elaboration.”
“Does this framework meet with your comprehension?”

Meitei and the Teacher exchanged glances and said, “We’ve mostly got it.” However, since this “mostly” was a standard arbitrarily established by the two men themselves, it may not have been applicable to others. “Now, according to the well-known theory of equilibrium concerning polygons, twelve equations are established as follows: T₁cosα₁=T₂cosα₂……(1) T₂cosα₂=T₃cosα₃……(2)……” “That’s more than enough equations,” said the Teacher brusquely. “The truth is, these equations form the very core of my lecture,” said Kangetsu-kun, looking deeply reluctant to proceed. “Then perhaps we should just proceed with the core parts?” suggested Meitei, appearing somewhat apologetic. “If I omit these equations, the painstaking mechanical research will be completely ruined…” “No need for such hesitation—just skip right ahead and omit them,” the Teacher said nonchalantly. “Very well—though it pains me to do so—I shall comply with your instruction and omit them.” “That would be best,” Meitei said, clapping his hands briskly at such an odd juncture.

“Next, shifting our discussion to Britain, we find the term ‘galga’—meaning gallows—appearing in *Beowulf*, from which we can conclude that capital punishment by hanging must have been practiced since this era.”
“According to Blackstone’s theory, if a criminal condemned to hanging should fail to die due to improper rope conditions, they ought to receive the same punishment again. However—and this is curious—there exists a passage in *Piers Plowman* stating that even a villain must not be hanged twice.”
“Now I can’t say which account holds true, but history provides numerous cases where botched executions required multiple attempts.”
“In 1786 occurred the hanging of one Fitz Gerald—a notorious scoundrel.”
“By some queer mishap during his first attempt—when he leapt from the platform—the rope snapped clean through.”
“They tried anew with a longer rope—only for his feet to touch ground and cheat death once more.”
“The tale concludes that on their third attempt—with spectators lending hands—he finally met his end.”
“Well now!” Meitei interjected with sudden vigor at this juncture.
“A most incompetent demise,” chimed in even the usually dour Teacher.
“Another curious phenomenon—hanging purportedly increases one’s height by an inch or so.”
“This was medically verified—I assure you there’s no error.”
“Capital notion! What say you Kushami—should we hoist you up? An inch might render you human-proportioned!” Meitei wheeled toward him.
To all’s astonishment, the Teacher gravely inquired: “Kangetsu-kun—could one revive after such elongation?”
“Utterly impossible.”
“The spinal cord stretches under suspension—to speak plainly—it’s less growth than structural failure.”
“Then let us abandon this topic,” conceded the Teacher.

The lecture’s continuation remained quite lengthy, and Kangetsu-kun had been poised to delve into the physiological effects of strangulation, but with Meitei interjecting absurd remarks like some wandering eccentric and the Teacher periodically letting out unapologetic yawns, he ultimately abandoned his efforts midway and departed.
As for how Kangetsu-kun comported himself or how eloquently he spoke that evening—being an event that occurred far away—there was no way for me to know.

A few days passed uneventfully, but one afternoon around two o'clock, Mr. Meitei once again breezed in with his usual nonchalance, like a carefree boy who had stumbled in by chance. Upon taking his seat, he abruptly said, “Have you heard about Ochi Tōfū’s Takanawa incident?” with the vigor of someone delivering an extra edition announcing the fall of Port Arthur.

“I don’t know. Haven’t met him lately,” said the Teacher with his usual gloom.

“Today, I’ve come all this way despite being busy because I thought to bring you the report of that Tōfū’s blunder.”

“You come out with such grandiose claims again—you’re nothing but a scoundrel through and through!”

“Ha ha ha ha ha! Rather than ‘scoundrel,’ I’d say you’re utterly lawless. I must ask you to make that distinction—it’s a matter of my honor.”

“It’s the same thing,” sneered the Teacher.

He’s the pure reincarnation of Tennen Koji.

“I hear Tōfū went to Sengakuji Temple in Takanawa last Sunday.”
“In this cold? He should’ve stayed home—visiting Sengakuji these days makes him look like some country bumpkin who doesn’t know Tokyo!”
“That’s Tōfū’s affair.”
“You’ve no right to interfere.”
“No right indeed—none whatsoever! But there’s that Loyal Retainers’ Relic Exhibition in the temple grounds—you know it?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t? But you’ve been to Sengakuji before?”
“Never.”
“Never?!”
*No wonder he leapt to Tōfū’s defense,* I thought. “Shameful—a true Tokyoite ignorant of Sengakuji!”
“You don’t need temple lore to teach,” said the Master, growing more Tennen Koji-like by the minute.
“Fair enough—but when Tōfū entered that exhibition hall, a German couple appeared.”
“At first they asked him something in Japanese.”
“But our man Tōfū—ever itching to flaunt his German—”
“He rattled off a few phrases flawlessly.”

“So he managed it surprisingly well—though when he thought about it later, that was precisely the root of his troubles.”
“Then what happened?” asked the Teacher, finally drawn into the conversation.
“The German saw Ōtaka Gengo’s maki-e inrō and asked if they would sell it to him.”
“And then Tōfū’s response was priceless—he said, ‘Since all Japanese are upright gentlemen, it’s absolutely out of the question.’”
“Tōfū was quite spirited there, but then the Germans—thinking they’d found a proper interpreter—kept pelting him with questions.”
“About what?”
“Well, if he could just grasp their meaning there’d be no issue, but they fired off queries so rapidly he couldn’t catch anything.”
“When he did catch something, they’d ask about pickaxes or sledgehammers.”
“Since Mr. Tōfū had never learned how to translate Western pickaxes and sledgehammers properly, he was utterly stumped!”
“Quite so,” said the Teacher sympathetically, relating it to his own educator’s plight.
Just then idlers began gathering around them one by one, drawn by curiosity.
Eventually they surrounded Tōfū and the Germans completely to gawk.
Tōfū flushed crimson and grew flustered.
“Carried away by his initial bravado, Mr. Tōfū found himself thoroughly deflated.”
“So how did it end?” “Seems Mr. Tōfū finally snapped—said ‘sainara’ in Japanese and bolted home. When I asked why ‘sainara’ instead of ‘sayonara,’ he claimed it harmonized better with Westerners! Marvelous—even in crisis, he clings to his precious harmony.”
“‘Sainara’ aside, what became of the Westerners?”
“They stood there dumbstruck, I hear—ha ha ha! Isn’t that rich?”
“Not particularly.”
“You making a special trip to recount this nonsense is far richer,” said the Teacher as he flicked cigarette ash into the brazier.

Just then, the lattice doorbell clanged so violently it seemed ready to leap from its hinges, and a piercing woman’s voice rang out: “Pardon me!”
Meitei and the Teacher involuntarily exchanged glances and fell silent.

As I observed how rare it was for a female guest to visit the Teacher’s house, the owner of that piercing voice entered, scraping her double-layered silk crepe kimono across the tatami. She looked to be a little past forty. From her receding hairline, her bangs rose like a levee under construction, towering so high they jutted upward at least half the length of her face toward the sky. Her eyes sloped like the sides of a road cutting, pulled taut into straight lines that opposed each other left and right—a straight line being described as thinner than a whale. The nose alone was absurdly large, appearing as though someone had stolen a human nose and plopped it dead center on her face. Like a stone lantern from Yasukuni Shrine transplanted into a three-mat garden, it dominated the space single-handedly yet somehow seemed ill at ease. This was what one might call a hook nose: having strained upward with all its might at first, it then humbly drooped midway as if reconsidering its audacity, peering down at the lip beneath it. With such a prominent nose, when this woman spoke, it seemed less that her mouth was talking and more that her nose held the conversation. Out of respect for this magnificent proboscis, I resolved henceforth to address her as Nose-Nose. After completing her introductory pleasantries, Nose-Nose glared around the parlor and declared, “What a splendid residence you have.” The Teacher muttered “Liar” under his breath while puffing on his cigarette. Meitei looked up at the ceiling and prodded, “You—is that a water stain or wood grain? There’s an odd pattern up there,” subtly prompting a response. “Obviously a leak,” replied the Teacher. “Splendid!” Meitei remarked with feigned admiration. Nose-Nose seethed inwardly, condemning them as social incompetents.

For a while, the three of them sat in a triangular formation, remaining silent.

“There’s a small matter I wished to inquire about—that’s why I’ve come,” Nose-Nose restarted the conversation.
“Hmm,” responded the Teacher with glacial indifference.
Realizing this approach wasn’t working, Nose-Nose pressed on: “Actually, I reside quite nearby—in that corner house across the side street.”
“Ah, the Western-style mansion with the storehouse? No wonder there’s a nameplate reading ‘Kaneda’ there,” said the Teacher, who seemed to finally recognize Kaneda’s property though his respect toward Mrs.Kaneda remained unchanged.
“The truth is, I’ve come for a discussion, but my husband’s companies keep him dreadfully busy,” she added with a look suggesting she’d delivered a masterstroke.
The Teacher remained utterly unmoved.
Nose-Nose’s imperious manner of speech—wholly inappropriate for a first meeting—had already grated on him.
“It’s not merely one company—he oversees two or three simultaneously.”
“And serves as director in every one—you’re surely aware of this already?”
Her expression demanded awed submission.
By nature, this household’s master deferred obsequiously to doctors and professors yet held businessmen in astonishingly low regard.
He maintained an unshakable conviction that middle school teachers outranked industrialists.
Even were this belief insincere, his obstinate disposition rendered him incapable of currying favor with financiers or magnates.
However powerful or wealthy his interlocutor might be, he remained indifferent toward those he deemed incapable of advancing his interests.
Thus beyond academic circles, he existed in sublime ignorance—particularly regarding commerce, where he knew neither who did what nor where.
Knowledge of such matters would have inspired no reverence regardless.
As for Mrs.Kaneda, she’d never imagined such an oddity could exist beneath the same sun that shone upon her corner mansion.
Having mingled extensively with society’s elite, she knew declaring herself Mrs.Kaneda invariably commanded deference—whether at soirées or before nobility itself. How much more then with this soot-stained pedant! She’d fully expected mere mention of residing in “the corner house across the side street” would awe him before he could inquire about her husband’s profession.

“Do you know someone called Kaneda?” the Teacher casually asked Meitei.
“Know him? Mr. Kaneda’s a friend of my uncle.”
“He came to a garden party just the other day,” Meitei replied with perfect solemnity.
“Hah! And who might this uncle of yours be?”
“Baron Makiyama,” Meitei declared with intensified gravity.
Just as the Teacher opened his mouth to speak, Mrs. Kaneda whipped around to face Meitei.
Meitei sat composed in layered Oshima tsumugi and what might have been antique chintz.
“Goodness! You’re connected to Baron Makiyama? How inexcusably rude of me not to have realized!”
“‘We’re eternally indebted to the Baron—I often mention him at our inn,’” she gushed with sudden formality, even bowing. Meitei chuckled, “Oh? Ha ha ha!”
The Teacher gaped silently at this exchange.
“I understand His Lordship has shown particular concern regarding my daughter’s marital prospects...”
“Oh? Has he now?” Even Meitei sounded faintly startled by this abrupt turn.
“While we’ve had offers from countless quarters, our standing naturally precludes casual arrangements...”
“Quite so,” Meitei conceded with evident relief.
“But it’s precisely that matter which brings me here,” Nose-Nose snapped, swiveling back toward the Teacher with restored assertiveness.
“They say a certain Mizushima Kangetsu frequents your house—what manner of man is he?”
“What business have you with Kangetsu?” the Teacher retorted sourly.
“Her ladyship naturally wishes to assess Mr. Kangetsu’s character for matrimonial considerations,” Meitei interposed smoothly.
“That being precisely what I hoped to ascertain...”
“So you mean to bestow your daughter upon Kangetsu?”

“It’s not as though I’m eager to do so,” retorted Nose, abruptly discomposing the Teacher.
“There are plenty of other offers coming in anyway—I’ve no need to force anyone to take him.”
“Then you needn’t ask about Kangetsu!” the Teacher shot back vehemently.
“But there’s no reason for you to hide it,” Nose countered, her tone turning combative.
Meitei sat between them, holding his silver pipe like a sumo referee’s fan while mentally roaring “Yo-i-yo-i” at their bickering.
“So you’re claiming Kangetsu desperately wants her?” the Teacher fired point-blank.
“He hasn’t said he wants to marry her, but…”
“Do you imagine he wants to?” The Teacher seemed to conclude this Nose woman was beyond reason.
“The matter hasn’t progressed that far—but Mr.Kangetsu isn’t entirely opposed either,” she recovered at the ring’s edge.
“Has Kangetsu developed some attachment to your daughter then?”
With a demeanor challenging her to produce evidence, the Teacher leaned back defiantly.
“Well, that’s likely the case.”
This time, the Teacher’s verbal volley proved utterly ineffective.
Meitei—who until now had been amusing himself as referee—set down his pipe and leaned forward, curiosity piqued by Nose’s remark.
“Did Kangetsu send your daughter love letters? Delightful! New Year brings fresh anecdotes—prime conversation fodder,” he rejoiced privately.
“Not letters—something far more intense! You both know full well!” Nose entangled them artfully.
“Do you know?” The Teacher asked Meitei with vulpine suspicion.
“I don’t—if anyone knows, it’s you,” Meitei feigned modesty over trifles.
“No—this concerns something you both know!” Nose declared triumphantly.
“Oh?” The two men exclaimed as one.

“If you’ve forgotten, I shall tell you. Last year’s end, there was a concert at the Abe residence in Mukōjima that Mr. Kangetsu attended, did he not? And on his way back that night, something occurred at Azumabashi Bridge—though I shall not elaborate further, lest it cause him undue trouble. With that much evidence alone, I believe it suffices—what say you?” She adjusted her posture primly, fingers adorned with diamond rings resting on her knees.
The great nose grew ever more conspicuous, while Meitei and the master were reduced to a state as though they were nonexistent.

Needless to say, even Meitei seemed utterly disarmed by this ambush; for a time, they sat stupefied like malaria patients in remission. But as their shock loosened and natural dispositions reasserted themselves, absurdity surged forth all at once.
The two men burst into uproarious laughter in perfect unison.
Only Mrs.Kaneda had miscalculated; she glared daggers at them, deeming their laughter impertinent.
“So that’s your daughter? Splendid—just as you say! Don’t you agree, Kushami? Kangetsu’s undoubtedly smitten... No use hiding now—let’s confess!”
“Hmph,” grunted the Teacher.
“You shouldn’t conceal it—the evidence speaks plainly,” declared Mrs.Kaneda triumphantly.
“Well then! I’ll state all relevant facts about Kangetsu-kun for your reference. Hey Kushami—you’re host here! Stop smirking! Secrets are dreadful things.”
“Hide all you want—truth finds cracks.”
“But truly astonishing! Mrs.Kaneda—how ever did you uncover this?” Meitei prattled on.
“I haven’t been negligent,” she preened.
“Rather too thorough.”
“Who told you?”
“Mr.Kami at the rickshaw shop behind here.”
“That place with Kuro?” The Teacher’s eyes widened.
“Yes—I made great use of him regarding Kangetsu.”
“Each visit here—I had Kami report every word.”
“Outrageous!” boomed the Teacher.
“I care not what you do.”
“Only Kangetsu matters.”

“Whether it’s Kangetsu’s business or anyone else’s—that Kami from the rickshaw shop is an insufferable fool!” the Teacher burst out angrily alone.
“But isn’t it their own business if they come and stand outside your fence? If you don’t want your conversations overheard, either lower your voice or move to a larger house,” said Mrs. Kaneda without the slightest hint of embarrassment.
“It’s not just the rickshaw shop.”
“I’ve also heard quite a lot from the shamisen teacher on Shindō Avenue.”
“Are you asking about Kangetsu?”
“It’s not just about Mr. Kangetsu,” she retorted sharply.
Just when one thought the Teacher was cowed, he snapped: “That shamisen teacher acts all high-and-mighty, putting on airs as if she’s the only proper human around—what a fool!”
“With all due respect, she’s a woman—not a ‘foolish man.’”
“Calling her a ‘foolish man’ is off the mark,” retorted Mrs.Kaneda, her speech increasingly betraying her vulgar origins.
With this, it seemed she had come purely to pick a fight, but there Meitei was, being his usual self, listening to the negotiations with evident amusement.
With the serene countenance of Tieguai Li observing gamecocks in a cockfight, he listened with perfect composure.

Realizing he was no match for Nose in an exchange of insults, the Teacher had been forced into temporary silence, but at last finding his footing, he appealed to Meitei: “You keep insisting Kangetsu is infatuated with your daughter, but from what I’ve heard, that’s not quite accurate—isn’t that right, Meitei?”
“Hmm, according to that account, it was your daughter who first fell ill—I heard she was uttering some sort of delirious words, wasn’t she?”
“No such thing!” Mrs.Kaneda declared in a clear, linear manner.
“Even so, Kangetsu did say he heard it from Dr. ○○’s wife.”
“That was our doing—we asked Dr. ○○’s wife to try to win Mr.Kangetsu’s interest.”
“Did Dr. ○○’s wife agree to do so knowing that?”
“Yes.
“Even if you get someone to take on a task, they won’t do it for free—we’ve had to use various resources here and there.”
“Are you determined not to leave until you’ve thoroughly dug into every detail about Kangetsu-kun?” said Meitei, appearing somewhat vexed as he used uncharacteristically blunt language.
“No, you see—there’s no harm in telling her, so let’s speak freely, Kushami. Madam, whether it’s me or Kushami here, we’ll share all the unproblematic facts about Kangetsu-kun—yes, it would be most convenient if you could listen in an orderly fashion, step by step.”

Mrs.Kaneda finally appeared convinced and began presenting her questions.
Her temporarily brusque speech style regained its original politeness when addressing Meitei.
“I understand Mr.Kangetsu holds a Bachelor of Science degree—might I inquire about his specific field of specialization?”
“At graduate school, he researches terrestrial magnetism,” the Teacher answered earnestly.
Unfortunately, this meaning eluded Mrs.Kaneda; though she murmured “Hmm…”, her expression revealed bewilderment.
“Would pursuing such studies lead to a doctorate?” she pressed.
“Are you implying this work cannot continue without a doctoral degree?” the Teacher asked with visible irritation.
“Yes.
A mere Bachelor’s degree holds little distinction these days,” Mrs.Kaneda replied airily.
The Teacher shot Meitei an increasingly sour look.
“As we cannot guarantee doctoral prospects, let’s have you inquire about other matters,” said Meitei, his usual cheer diminished.
“Is he still engaged in that earth-related... whatever it was?”
“Just three days prior, he delivered a lecture at the Physical Society titled ‘The Mechanics of Hanging,’” the Teacher stated matter-of-factly.
“Goodness! Studying hangings? What an eccentric fellow.
One dabbling in such macabre research could never become a doctor.”
“Should he personally hang someone, that would pose difficulties—but studying hanging mechanics doesn’t preclude earning a doctorate,” countered the Teacher.
“Is that so?” she asked, now scrutinizing the Teacher’s face.
Sadly uncomprehending of “mechanics,” she struggled to maintain composure.
Yet deeming further clarification beneath her dignity as Mrs.Kaneda, she sought answers through facial divination instead.
The Teacher’s expression remained stony.

“Is he not studying anything else that’s easier to understand?”
“Let me see… Not long ago, he wrote a paper discussing the stability of acorns and extending to celestial motion.”
“Do people even study things like acorns at a university?”
“Well, as an amateur myself, I can’t say I fully grasp it, but since it’s something Kangetsu-kun is pursuing, I suppose it must be research-worthy,” said Meitei with deadpan mockery.
Mrs. Kaneda, seemingly having abandoned academic inquiries as beyond her grasp, now shifted the subject.
“Changing the subject—is it not true that he broke two front teeth eating shiitake mushrooms this New Year?”
“Ah yes, Kuya-mochi got stuck right in that chipped part,” Meitei replied, suddenly perking up as if this question had finally entered his domain of expertise.
“Isn’t he a rather unappealing person? Why on earth doesn’t he use a toothpick?”
“I’ll be sure to mention it next time I see him,” the Teacher chuckled.
“If one’s teeth chip from shiitake mushrooms, it must be thought that they’re of rather poor quality—what do you think?”
“I don’t think they can be called good—don’t you think, Meitei?”
“There’s nothing good about them, but they do have a certain charm.”
“Since that incident, it’s odd that he still hasn’t had them filled.”
“It’s still acting as a Kuya-mochi trap—what a spectacle!”
“Is he keeping them chipped because he lacks the pocket money to have them filled, or is he leaving them that way out of some peculiar taste?”
“There’s no need to worry—it’s not as though he’ll proclaim himself ‘Mr. Chipped Front Teeth’ indefinitely,” said Meitei, his mood gradually recovering.
Mrs.Kaneda changed tack with her questioning.
“If you happen to have any letters or such written by him at your house, I would very much like to take a look.”
“There are plenty of postcards; take a look,” said the Teacher, bringing thirty or forty sheets from his study.
“There’s no need for me to look through so many—just two or three from among them will suffice.”

“Let me see—I’ll pick out a good one for you,” said Mr. Meitei, producing a picture postcard. “Now this one’s interesting, don’t you think?”
“Oh! He draws pictures too? How clever! Let me see,” Mrs.Kaneda said as she examined it—then recoiled. “Goodness! It’s a tanuki!”
“Why go through the trouble of selecting a raccoon dog drawing? Though I must say it does resemble one.” Her tone held reluctant admiration.
“Read what’s written here,” chuckled the Teacher.
Mrs.Kaneda began reciting in the flat monotone of a housemaid reading aloud:
“On lunar New Year’s Eve, mountain tanuki hold a garden party and dance wildly.
Their song goes: Come now—this year’s last night! Even Lady Oyama shan’t attend!
Sutteko-pon no pon!”
“What nonsense is this? Are you mocking me?” Mrs.Kaneda’s voice sharpened with indignation.
“Perhaps this celestial maiden suits your taste better?” Meitei produced another card.
The illustration showed a heavenly maiden in feathered robes plucking a biwa lute.
“This nymph’s nose seems rather undersized.”
“Nonsense! It’s perfectly average. Read the verse instead of nitpicking features.”
The accompanying text read:
“Once there lived an astronomer who nightly climbed his tower to study stars.
One evening, a heavenly maiden appeared playing unearthly music so exquisite,
he forgot winter’s bite and listened entranced till dawn.
They found his corpse frosted white—a true tale told by that lying old man.”
“Meaningless drivel! And this qualifies him as a scientist? This belongs in some cheap literary magazine!” She demolished Kangetsu’s efforts with surgical precision.

“How about this one?” said Meitei half in jest as he produced the third card.
This time, a sailboat was printed in letterpress, with something scrawled beneath it as usual.
“Last night’s lodging with sixteen maidens—orphaned by fate, plovers on rugged shores; plovers weeping at Sayo’s restless sleep—their parents, sailors beneath the waves.”
“How exquisite! Marvelous—it actually tells a proper tale!”
“Does it count as a tale?”
“Oh yes, this would work splendidly with shamisen accompaniment.”
“Set to shamisen, it becomes genuine art.”
“How about this one?” Meitei randomly produced another.
“No need—having seen this much, I needn’t view more. I’ve determined he’s not entirely uncultured,” she declared self-assuredly.
Having apparently exhausted her inquiries about Kangetsu, Mrs.Kaneda said, “This has been most improper of me.
“And you mustn’t breathe a word of my visit to Mr. Kangetsu,” she added with self-serving insistence.
Her policy seemed to demand exhaustive inquiry into Kangetsu’s affairs while forbidding any reciprocal disclosure about herself.
Meitei and the Master gave perfunctory grunts of assent, whereupon she rose and emphasized, “Rest assured, proper gratitude shall follow in due course.”
The moment the two men returned from seeing her off, Meitei exclaimed, “What in blazes was that?”—prompting the Master to echo, “What in blazes was that?” in perfect unison.
From the back room came muffled giggles—the wife had clearly lost her battle against laughter.
Meitei boomed, “Madam! Madam! We’ve been graced by the very archetype of mediocrity!
“When mediocrity attains such heights, it becomes positively awe-inspiring.
“Come now—discard restraint and laugh freely!”

With dissatisfied inflection, the Teacher sneered, “First off—that face is downright unlikable,” whereupon Meitei immediately followed up: “And that nose—perched right in the center of her face with such flair.”
“And it’s crooked!”
“She’s a bit hunchbacked.”
“A hunchback’s nose is a tad too eccentric,” he said with an amused laugh.
“A face that dominates her husband,” the Teacher added resentfully.
“She’s the type who went unsold in the nineteenth century only to end up shopworn in the twentieth,” said Meitei, spouting his usual nonsense.
Just then, the wife emerged from the back room and cautioned them: “If you speak too ill of others, you’ll be reported again to the rickshaw shop’s god.”
“A little reporting does you good, ma’am.”
“However, slandering someone’s appearance is rather low-class. No one chooses to have a nose like that—and she is a lady, after all. You’re being too harsh.” In defending Mrs.Kaneda’s nose, she indirectly defended her own appearance.
“What cruelty! That’s no lady—she’s a fool, eh Mr. Meitei?”
“A fool she may be, but quite the formidable one—didn’t she have us dancing to her tune?”
“What on earth does she think teachers are?”
“To earn respect from someone like her, becoming a doctor is your only hope! Your failure to get that doctorate is entirely your own shortcoming, eh ma’am? Isn’t that right?” said Meitei with a laugh, glancing at the wife.
“Becoming a doctor is utterly out of reach for you,” said the Master, only to be dismissed even by his wife.
“Even someone like me might still make it now—don’t look down on me.”
“The likes of you probably don’t know this, but long ago, a man named Isocrates produced a great work at ninety-four.”
“Sophocles produced a masterpiece that astonished the world when he was nearly a hundred years old.”
“Simonides composed wondrous poetry at eighty.”
“Even I…”
“How absurd! With your stomach problems, do you really think you’ll live that long?” said the wife, coolly calculating his lifespan.
“Outrageous! —Go ask Dr. Amagi if you don’t believe me!— It’s all because you make me wear this wrinkled black cotton haori and patch-covered kimono that I get mocked by that woman.”

“Starting tomorrow, I’ll wear clothes like Meitei’s—lay them out.”
“Lay them out? We don’t have such fine omeshi silk garments.”
“Mrs.Kaneda only became polite to Mr.Meitei after hearing about his uncle.”
“It’s not the kimono’s fault,” said the wife, deftly dodging blame.

The Teacher suddenly seemed to recall something upon hearing “uncle” and said, “This is the first I’ve heard you have an uncle. You’ve never mentioned him before—do you really exist?”
As if he’d been waiting for this question, Meitei replied, “Ah yes—that uncle of mine! A hopelessly stubborn relic still clinging to life from the nineteenth century straight through to today,” glancing alternately at the Master and his wife.
“Ohohohoho! How amusing! Where does he live?”
“In Shizuoka—but he’s not merely living there. He mortifies me daily by sporting a topknot like some Edo-period fossil!”
“When I tell him to wear a hat, he puffs up and declares, ‘At my age, I’ve never felt cold enough for such nonsense!’ And if you suggest sleeping longer when it’s chilly? ‘Four hours suffices any proper human!’”
“He claims sleeping more than four hours is decadent—rises before dawn every morning!”
“And get this—he brags about training for years to master this ‘art.’ Says when he was young he struggled with sleepiness like any mortal, but now he can doze anywhere at will!”
“Well of course he can’t sleep at sixty-seven—it’s only natural!”
“The old fool thinks he achieved this through sheer willpower—no training required!”
“And he never goes out without his iron fan.”
“What’s he use it for?”
“Who knows? He just carries it around—probably thinks it’s a walking stick substitute.”
“But listen to this recent absurdity,” Meitei turned to address the wife directly.
“Hmm?” she offered noncommittally.
“This spring he suddenly wrote demanding I send him a top hat and frock coat immediately!”
“When I wrote back puzzled, he replied he intended to wear them himself!”
“‘Procure them urgently,’ he ordered—needed them for some victory celebration in Shizuoka on the twenty-third!”

“But here’s the absurd part—right in his instructions, it says:”
“Get me a decently sized hat, and have Daimaru take my measurements and order a Western suit…”
“Does Daimaru tailor Western suits these days?”
“Oh Sensei—he must’ve confused Daimaru with Shirokiya!”
“Even if you took his measurements, it’d be impossible, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s exactly what makes my uncle such an uncle.”
“What happened?” “Since there was no choice, I took measurements and sent them off.”
“You’re being reckless.”
“So did it work out?”
“Well, he must’ve managed somehow.”
“When I checked the local paper, there was Old Man Makiyama that day—unusually in a frock coat, carrying that iron fan…”
“Seems he kept the fan after all.”
“Yeah—when I die, I’ll put just this fan in my coffin.”
“Still, at least he wore the hat and suit properly.”
“But here’s the blunder!
I thought all was well when a package arrived from home later. Opened it expecting thanks—there was that top hat! A letter said: ‘Though you kindly obtained this hat, finding it somewhat large; please have it resized by a hatter. Alteration costs shall be remitted by postal order.’”
“‘The fee will be sent via postal order from here,’ it declared.”
“So he’s more obtuse than I am,” said the Master, visibly pleased to find someone surpassing his own obtuseness.
Presently he asked, “Then what?”
“What could I do? I took it and wear it now myself.”

“That hat, eh?” smirked the Master.
“Is that person actually a baron?” asked the wife with a puzzled look.
“Who do you mean?”
“The uncle with the iron fan.”
“Oh, he’s merely a Confucian scholar—became fixated on Zhu Xi’s philosophy during his youth at the Seidō Academy. Now he solemnly wears a topknot under electric lamps. Nothing to be done about it,” he said, idly stroking his chin.
“Even so, you told that woman he was Baron Makiyama earlier,” pressed the Master.
“You certainly did say that—I heard it clearly from the parlor,” added the wife, aligning herself with the Master for once.
“Did I now? Ahahahaha!” laughed Meitei without pretext.
“That was pure fabrication.
“If I possessed a baronial uncle, he’d have risen to bureau director by this point,” he declared airily.
“Something did strike me as peculiar,” said the Master, wearing an expression torn between satisfaction and concern.
“Good heavens, how can you utter such falsehoods without blinking!”
“You yourself possess no small talent for spinning yarns,” remarked the wife with reluctant admiration.
“I pale before that woman’s expertise.”
“There’s no cause to fear being outshone.”
“But madam, my fibs are mere whimsical inventions.
“Her deceptions all harbor calculated designs—premeditated falsehoods freighted with ulterior motives.
“They’re venomous through and through.
“When simian scheming masquerades as divinely inspired humor, even the god of comedy must lament this dearth of true connoisseurship,” he concluded with theatrical gravity.

The Master looked down and said, “Who knows.”
“It’s all the same thing, I tell you,” said the wife with a laugh.

I had never before set paw in the alley across the way. As for Kaneda of the corner estate, I naturally had never laid eyes on its structure—indeed, this marked my first hearing of its existence. In my Master's household, businessmen never once surfaced as topics of discussion; thus I, sustained by his meals, remained not merely unconnected but profoundly indifferent to such matters. Yet having now unwittingly received Mrs. Kaneda's visit—eavesdropping from my removed perch, envisioning her daughter's striking beauty, pondering their wealth and influence—I, though feline, could no longer lounge idly upon the veranda in tranquil repose.

Moreover, overwhelming sympathy for Kangetsu-kun gripped me utterly. While they'd bribed everyone from academic wives to rickshaw spouses—even that shamisen-strumming matron—to covertly investigate down to his chipped incisor, here sat Kangetsu-kun merely smirking and fidgeting with his haori cords—pitifully inept for a freshly minted Bachelor of Science! Though truth be told, confronting a woman who enshrines such a monumental nasal edifice at her face's center would daunt any ordinary soul.

Regarding such affairs, my Master proved both indifferent and impecunious beyond measure. Meitei, though financially unconstrained, being whimsical by nature, would offer Kangetsu scant practical aid. Thus only Mr. Strangulation Mechanics himself remained worthy of pity.

Even I resolved to muster courage—infiltrate the enemy stronghold, reconnoiter their movements—lest injustice prevail unchallenged. Though feline, I dwell in a scholar's home where Epictetus volumes slam desktops in fervent study—a cat set leagues apart from common witless mousers. The chivalric spirit required for this venture lay coiled within my tail's very tip.

No personal debt binds me to Kangetsu-kun—this transcends mere rash passion! Grandly stated: it constitutes celestial justice made manifest through balance and equity's divine mandate. When they spread Azumabashi incidents sans consent; plant eavesdropping hounds beneath eaves; employ rickshawmen, ruffians, thug-students, hag-laborers, midwives, witches, and blockheads to harass national assets—even cats must act!

Fortune smiled through fair weather; though thawing frost vexed pawpads, for duty's sake I'd sacrifice nine lives! Should muddy prints blossom like plum petals across verandas—inconveniencing O-san perhaps—such trifles scarce merit mention as suffering.

Without even waiting for tomorrow, I resolved with fierce determination to set out right then and there, dashing out to the kitchen—but then I thought, "Wait."
I had not only reached the pinnacle of evolution as a cat but dared say my intellectual development was by no means inferior to that of a third-year middle school student; yet alas, the throat’s structure remained wholly feline, rendering me incapable of human speech.
Even were I to successfully infiltrate the Kaneda estate and fully observe the enemy’s situation, I could not convey this crucial intelligence to Kangetsu-kun.
I could tell neither the Master nor Mr. Meitei.
If I could not speak, it would be like a diamond buried in the earth, unilluminated by sunlight; my hard-won knowledge would become mere useless lumber.
"This is folly—perhaps I should abandon this," I thought, pausing at the entrance.

However, abandoning a resolution midway felt somehow regrettable—like dark clouds passing over neighboring lands while awaiting a sudden downpour that never comes. Were the fault mine alone, that would be one matter; but when acting for what’s called justice and humanity, advancing even to the point of dying pointlessly must be the true aspiration of any man who understands duty. To exert useless effort and soil my paws in vain—well, that’s just right for a cat. Though born a feline—and thus lacking the faculty to exchange ideas through speech with Mr. Kangetsu, Mr. Meitei, or Mr. Kushami—in stealth I surpassed these scholars. To achieve what others cannot is pleasure itself. That I alone might uncover Kaneda’s secrets brought more satisfaction than universal ignorance. Even should I never tell a soul, simply making them aware of being observed would suffice for delight. With such pleasures multiplying before me, staying put became impossible. I resolved to proceed after all.

Arriving at the opposite alley, I found the Western-style house exactly as described, arrogantly dominating the corner plot.
Assuming this master must be as arrogantly composed as this Western-style house, I passed through the gate and examined its architecture, but found it to be a structure with no merit beyond pointlessly erecting a two-story edifice intended to intimidate people.
This must be what Meitei derisively calls “commonplace.”
Keeping the entrance to my right and passing through the shrubbery, I circled around to the kitchen door.
Indeed, the kitchen was spacious—certainly ten times larger than Mr. Kushami’s kitchen.
The kitchen was so immaculately polished and orderly that I thought it could rival even Count Ōkuma’s kitchen, which had been described in detail in the Nippon News not long ago.
“A model kitchen, this,” I slipped inside.
Peering in, I saw Kuro from the rickshaw shop standing in a roughly two-tsubo dirt floor area plastered with mortar, animatedly holding forth to the cook and a rickshaw puller.
Realizing he was dangerous, I hid behind the water bucket.
“That teacher—doesn’t he even know our master’s name?” said the cook.
“How could he not know? If you don’t know Mr. Kaneda’s residence in this neighborhood, you’re a blind and deaf simpleton!”
This was the hired rickshaw puller’s voice.
“I can’t really say,” said Kuro. “When it comes to that teacher, he’s an eccentric who doesn’t know anything beyond his books, I tell ya.”
“If he knew even a bit about the master, he might be scared—but no use! The man doesn’t even know his own kids’ ages.”
“Even Mr. Kaneda don’t scare him? What a damn blockhead.”
“Ain’t no need to fret—let’s all go scare the hell outta him!”
“That’s perfect!”
“He goes on about how ‘the madam’s nose is too big’ and ‘her face is unpleasant’—that’s just awful to say.”
“His own mug looks like some clay badger from Imado ware—yet he struts around like he’s the real deal! Makes you want to puke!”

“It’s not just his face—even the way he parades to the bathhouse with his towel reeks of arrogance!”
“He fancies there’s none greater than himself,” remarked the cook—for Mr. Kushami remained thoroughly detested even by his domestic staff.
“Let’s all swarm his fence and shower him with insults.”
“That’ll make him grovel proper.”
“But showing ourselves would spoil the sport. Madam’s orders—we’ll vex him with voices alone, disrupt his studies, keep him squirming.”
“I know the drill,” growled Kuro, signaling he’d handle a third of the taunts.

Realizing that this trio had indeed come to mock Mr. Kushami, I slipped quietly past the three of them and entered deeper inside.

A cat’s paws may exist yet be as though nonexistent; no matter where one walked, there had never been an instance of making an awkward sound.
I moved as though treading upon empty air, as though passing through clouds, as though striking a chime beneath water, as though plucking a zither within a cavern—savoring the sublime essence of enlightenment while knowing warmth and chill beyond words.
There was no commonplace Western-style house, no model kitchen, no Kuro from the rickshaw shop, no Gonsuke, no cook, no young mistress, no fellow workers, no Mrs. Kaneda, and no Mr. Kaneda.
I went where I pleased, listened to whatever conversations I wished, stuck out my tongue, wagged my tail, perked up my whiskers, and sauntered back home with nary a care.
In particular, when it came to this art, I was the most skilled in all of Japan.
I even began to suspect whether I might have inherited the bloodline of the cat demons depicted in those storybooks.
They say toads have luminous pearls on their foreheads, but in my tail was packed not only Shinto deities, Buddhist teachings, love’s fickleness, and life’s impermanence, but also a secret family recipe for making fools of all humanity under heaven.
To roam the Kaneda family’s corridors undetected was even easier than Nioh-sama crushing tokoroten jelly.
At this moment, even I myself was impressed by my own prowess, and upon realizing that this too was thanks to the tail I so diligently cherished, I found I couldn’t simply let it rest.
I thought to pay homage to my revered tail deity and pray for enduring feline fortune, so I lowered my head in reverence—but seemed slightly off the mark.
I had to face toward my tail as much as possible and bow three times.
When I tried to turn my body to look at my tail, my tail naturally turned as well.
When I attempted to twist my neck to catch up, my tail kept the same distance and dashed ahead.
Truly, this was a divine entity capable of containing heaven and earth within three inches of fur—utterly beyond my grasp. After circling my tail seven and a half times to no avail, I gave up in exhaustion.
My vision grew slightly dim.
I momentarily lost all sense of direction.
"Who cares?" I thought, and began wandering about recklessly.
From behind the shoji screen came Nose’s voice.
There, I came to a halt, pricked both ears sharply, and held my breath.

“What nerve for a poor teacher!” she screeched in that shrill voice of hers.
“Yeah, he’s an insolent fool. Let’s teach him a lesson for his impertinence.”
“There are people from my hometown at that school.”
“Who’s there?”
“Since we have Tsuki Pinsuke and Fukuchi Kishago there, I’ll have them tease him properly.” Though I didn’t know Mr. Kaneda’s hometown, I was somewhat taken aback that it seemed populated entirely by people with such peculiar names.

Mr.Kaneda continued speaking and asked, “Is he an English teacher?”
“Well, according to Kuro from the rickshaw shop, he specializes in teaching English riddles or something like that,” she replied.
“In any case, he’s no decent teacher.”
Even so, I couldn’t help but feel a certain grudging admiration.
“The other day when I met Pinsuke,” he went on, “he said there’s an oddball at my school.”
“‘When students asked that teacher how to say bancha in English,’ he told me, ‘the man earnestly answered “Savage tea,” making him a laughingstock among the faculty.’ He said having such a teacher around causes trouble for everyone else—no doubt that’s our man.”
“It’s definitely him!” she cried. “He’s got exactly the kind of face that’d spout such nonsense—what with that ridiculous beard he’s growing!”
“What an insolent wretch!”
“If growing such a beard doesn’t make him suspicious,” Mr.Kaneda scoffed, “then not even a single cat could be considered suspicious.”
“And that Meitei or Hebereke or whatever he calls himself!” Mrs.Kaneda added shrilly. “What an absurd buffoon! When he claimed to have an uncle who’s Baron Makiyama—as if a face like that could have a baron for an uncle! I saw through that lie immediately!”
“You shouldn’t have believed some nobody of unknown origin in the first place,” Mr.Kaneda retorted.
“Shouldn’t have believed him? You’re the one who takes things too far in mocking people!” she protested indignantly.
Strangely enough, there was not a single mention of Kangetsu-kun.
Had their discussion about reputations concluded before I stealthily arrived? Or had Kangetsu-kun already been deemed unworthy and dismissed from their thoughts? Though such concerns lingered, there was nothing to be done.
After standing still for a while, I heard the sound of a bell from the room across the corridor.
Ah—something’s afoot over there too.
Before I could fall behind, I turned my steps toward the sound.

When I arrived and looked, a woman was talking loudly by herself.
Judging by how closely the voice resembled Nose’s, this must have been the very instrument that drove the young mistress of this household—Kangetsu-kun—to dare an attempted drowning.
Alas! Through the shoji screen, I could not behold her jeweled visage.
Thus whether she enshrined a great nose at her face’s center remained unverifiable.
Yet synthesizing her speech’s manner and heavy nasal exhalations, one could scarcely imagine her leonine proboscis failing to command attention.
The woman kept chattering without hearing any response—this must have been that rumored contraption called a telephone.
“Is that Yamato?
“Tomorrow—I’m coming over—have three quails prepared—understood? —Do you grasp this? —What do you mean you don’t?”
“Oh, this is insufferable!”
“Fetch three quails.—What’s that? —Can’t obtain them?”
“Nonsense—you must procure them! Heh heh heh—‘You jest’? What jest do you mean?—How impertinently you trifle with me!”
“Who in blazes are you?”
“Nagakichi?”
“Nagakichi? You’re utterly useless!”
“Tell Ms.Kami to come to the receiver—what?”
“Am I to manage everything myself?”
“You’re intolerably rude!”
“Do you even know who I am?”
“Kaneda.”
“Heh heh heh—‘I am well aware,’ says he.”

“You’re such an idiot! I said it’s Kaneda.”
“What?—‘Thank you for your continued patronage’?—What’s there to be thankful for?”
“I don’t want your gratitude—oh, you’re laughing again?”
“You’re a complete fool.”
“You say it’s as I command?—If you mock me further, I’ll hang up.”
“Is that acceptable?”
“Aren’t you concerned?—Your silence tells me nothing! Speak properly!”
It seemed Nagakichi had either hung up or stopped responding.
The young lady flew into a rage and violently shook the bell.
At her feet, the Chin dog yelped in alarm.
Recognizing the danger, I immediately jumped down and hid beneath the veranda.

Just then, footsteps sounded near the corridor, followed by the noise of a shoji being slid open.
As I listened intently, thinking someone had arrived, a voice that seemed to belong to a maid said, “Young Mistress, the Master and Mistress are calling for you.”
“I don’t know!” the Young Mistress snapped.
“They said they have some business and told me to call you over.”
“You’re so annoying! I said I don’t know!” the Young Mistress retorted a second time.
“…It seems they have some business concerning Mr. Mizushima Kangetsu,” said the maid, trying to smooth things over.
“I don’t know any Kangetsu or Mizuki or whoever—I hate him! With that face like a gourd that’s lost its way.”
The third retort struck poor Kangetsu-kun in absentia.
“Oh, when did you start wearing your hair up?”
The maid sighed in relief and replied tersely: “Today.”
“How cheeky, for a mere maid!” she snapped, launching her fourth attack from an unexpected angle.
“And you’ve put on a new collar too, haven’t you?”
“Oh, I received this from you some time ago, Young Mistress. It was too fine for me to feel deserving, so I stored it away in a trunk. But my old one had become quite soiled, so I changed into this.”
“When did I ever give you such a thing?”
“At the beginning of this year, you went to Shirokiya and purchased it—it’s the one with the sumo rankings dyed in warbler-tea color.”
“You said it was too plain for your taste and that you’d give it to me—that’s the one.”
“Oh, how dreadful!
“Oh, how nicely it suits you!”
“How detestable!”
“I’m terribly sorry.”

“I wasn’t complimenting you.”
“You’re detestable!”
“Oh...”
“Why did you take something that suits you so well without saying a word?”
“Oh...”
“If even you look that good in it, then there’s nothing strange about it suiting me too, right?”
“It most certainly becomes you.”
“Even though you knew it suited you, why did you stay silent?”
“And you just put it on nonchalantly—how wicked of you!”
The reprimands fired ceaselessly.
Just as I listened intently to see how this situation would develop, Mr. Kaneda called out loudly from the opposite room: “Tomiko! Tomiko!”
The young lady reluctantly said “Yes” and left the telephone room.
A Chin slightly larger than myself, with a face that seemed to have its eyes and mouth bunched up in the center, followed along.
With my usual stealthy steps, I slipped out through the kitchen gate into the street once more and hurried back to my master’s house.
The exploration yielded thoroughly satisfactory results.

When I returned and looked around—having abruptly transitioned from a pristine house to a squalid place—it felt as though I had descended from a sunlit mountaintop into a murky cavern. During my exploration, preoccupied with other matters, I hadn’t noticed the room’s adornments—the painted fusuma, the shoji screens—but now, sensing my dwelling’s inferiority, I found myself yearning for what he termed “commonplace comforts.” It does seem businessmen hold greater worth than teachers. Finding this odd myself, I consulted my tail for counsel, whereupon an oracle issued from its very tip, affirming this truth twice over.

When I entered the parlor, what surprised me was that Mr. Meitei still hadn't left, having stabbed his cigarette butts into the brazier like a beehive and sitting cross-legged while holding forth on some topic.
Unbeknownst to me, even Kangetsu-kun had arrived.
The Master lay using his arm as a pillow, gazing intently at the water stains from leaks on the ceiling.
It remained, as ever, a gathering of hermits living in tranquil times.

“Kangetsu-kun, that woman who even mentioned you in her ravings—her name was secret back then, but surely you can reveal it now,” Meitei prodded.
“I wouldn’t mind if it concerned only me, but it would trouble the other party.”
“Still forbidden fruit?”
“Moreover, I made a promise to Dr. ○○’s wife.”
“A vow of silence?”
“Yes,” said Kangetsu-kun, twisting his haori cord as was his habit—a cord dyed in purple too garish for commercial sale.
“That cord’s hue reeks of Tenpō period austerity,” remarked the Master from his reclined position, utterly unconcerned with Kaneda affairs.
“Quite so! This relic predates even our Russo-Japanese modernity,” Meitei agreed. “Only a battle-torn haori slashed open at the sleeves—emblazoned with hollyhock crests beneath a war helmet—could justify such a cord’s existence! Why, when Oda Nobunaga adopted a son-in-law and bound his hair chasen-style, he surely used this very shade!”
“My grandfather wore this during the Chōshū Expedition,” Kangetsu-kun asserted solemnly.
“Donate it to a museum already,” Meitei scoffed. “Must Mizushima Kangetsu—B.S., lecturer on hanging mechanics—parade about like some relic of bachelor samurai?”
“I’d consider it, but someone insists this cord becomes me—”
“Who’d spout such drivel?” The Master rolled over, voice booming.
“Someone within your acquaintance—”
“Acquainted or not—name them!”
“A lady from my past.”

“Ha ha ha ha! You’re quite the eccentric! Shall I take a guess? It’s that woman who called your name from the depths of the Sumida River, isn’t it? Why don’t you put on that haori and perfect your Daruma imitation once more?” interjected Meitei from the side.
“Heh heh heh... She no longer calls from those depths.”
“She’s now in a pure realm there in the northwest direction...”
“Doesn’t seem all that pure—what with that garish nose of hers!”
“Huh?” Kangetsu looked puzzled.
“The Nose from across the alley barged in here earlier—we were utterly dumbfounded, weren’t we, Kusakabe?”
“Hmm,” grunted the Master, sipping tea while reclining.
“Who’s this ‘Nose’ you speak of?”
“Your eternally beloved’s venerable maternal progenitor!”
“Huh...” “A woman calling herself Kaneda’s wife came inquiring about you,” the Master explained soberly.
I observed Kangetsu-kun for signs of astonishment, delight, or embarrassment—yet found nothing remarkable.
In his customary tranquil tone, he said, “I presume this constitutes a request for me to wed that young lady?” while twisting the purple cord anew.

“But you’re completely wrong.”
“That esteemed mother-in-law happens to possess a most magnificent nose—”
Just as Meitei began his explanation, the Master interjected with a jarring non sequitur: “I say—I’ve been composing a haikai poem about that nose.”
From the adjacent room came his wife’s muffled giggles.
“How remarkably carefree of you—have you completed it?”
“I’ve made some progress.”
“The opening line reads: ‘Upon this face, a nose festival.’”
“And then?”
“‘To this nose, sacred libations poured.’”
“The next verse?”
“That’s as far as I’ve gotten.”
“Most amusing,” Kangetsu-kun remarked with a sly smile.
“Why not add ‘two shadowed hollows’ next?” Meitei instantly proposed.
Then Kangetsu offered, “Or perhaps ‘so deep within, no hair meets sight’?” As they traded such absurdities, voices clamored near the fence: “Clay badger! Clay badger!”
The Master and Meitei started, peering through gaps in the fence toward the commotion, only to hear raucous laughter and retreating footsteps.
“What’s this ‘clay badger’ nonsense?” Meitei inquired of the Master with genuine puzzlement.
“Haven’t the faintest idea,” the Master replied.
“Rather spirited chanting,” Kangetsu-kun observed.
Suddenly rising with theatrical flair, Meitei declared: “For years I have studied nasal aesthetics from scholarly perspectives! Permit me to humbly present selected findings for your enlightened consideration,” launching into mock-academic oration.
The Master stared blankly at this abrupt performance.

“I would very much like to hear it,” Kangetsu-kun whispered.
“Though I’ve conducted extensive research,” I began, “the nose’s origins remain shrouded in mystery.”
“First perplexity: if we posit this as a practical implement, two holes would suffice.”
“There exists no necessity for such haughty protrusion from the central plane.”
“Yet why,” I inquired while pinching my own nasal appendage, “has it evolved thusly into its current prominent form?”
“Yours hardly protrudes at all,” the Master interjected bluntly.
“Regardless—it hasn’t retracted either!”
“Let me caution you against conflating this elevated structure with mere adjacent orifices—a common misconception! My humble theory posits that nasal development arises from humanity’s cumulative nose-blowing exertions.”
“A theory unvarnished by wisdom,” scoffed the Master.
“As you’re aware,” I pressed on undeterred, “nasal evacuation necessitates pinching—focused stimulation that, per evolutionary principles, induces disproportionate growth in this region.”
“The epidermis naturally thickens; muscular tissues gradually ossify—”
“Until they crystallize into bone!”
“But surely,” protested Kangetsu-kun with scientific rigor, “flesh cannot transmute directly into osseous matter?”
Maintaining scholarly composure, I countered: “Doubt is natural—yet empirical evidence trumps theory! Observe this osseous reality before you.”
“Once formed, bone persists.”
“Yet mucus flows eternally!”
“Compulsive evacuation continues unabated.”
“Through this ceaseless attrition,” I concluded with dramatic flourish, “the bone’s lateral aspects erode into slender ridges—a dreadful alchemy akin to water wearing stone, or Binzuru’s self-illuminating cranium! Thus emerges the nasal bridge—unyielding monument to humanity’s sniffing folly!”

“Even so, yours remains rather bloated.”
“Given the risk of partiality regarding the lecturer’s own nasal apparatus, I shall deliberately abstain from its analysis.”
“I wish to present to you both the nose adorning that esteemed Mrs.Kaneda as the most evolved and magnificent marvel under heaven—a veritable rarity among rarities.”
Kangetsu-kun let out an involuntary snort.
“Yet when any feature attains such extremes of development, while undeniably imposing as a spectacle, it inevitably inspires an uncanny dread that repels approach.”
“That nasal ridge is unquestionably splendid, yet one might deem it somewhat excessively precipitous.”
“Even among ancients like Socrates, Goldsmith, or Thackeray—noses that structurally left much to criticize—it was precisely those very flaws that lent them charm.”
“Does this not prove that nobility lies not in a nose’s elevation, but in its peculiarity?”
“As even vulgar wisdom declares ‘dumplings over noses,’ aesthetically speaking, a specimen like my own humble proboscis strikes the ideal balance.”
Kangetsu and the Master erupted in muffled laughter.
Meitei himself chuckled with evident satisfaction.
“Now, regarding what I have elucidated thus far—”
“Professor,” interjected Kangetsu-kun, seizing his chance for retaliation, “your disquisition reeks of a street-corner raconteur’s crassness. Let us dispense with this.”
“Very well! I shall cleanse my countenance and begin anew! Ahem—I now propose to briefly address the equilibrium between nasal prominence and facial harmony.”
“Considered in isolation from other features, Mrs.Kaneda’s nose—a masterpiece that would surely claim top honors at a Kurama Mountain exhibition—is beyond reproach.”
“Julius Caesar’s nasal organ was doubtlessly magnificent.”
“But imagine excising Caesar’s nose with shears and transplanting it onto our feline companion’s visage!”
“Erecting such heroic nasal architecture upon a canvas no larger than a cat’s brow would be akin to perching Nara’s Great Buddha upon a Go board—a travesty of proportion that utterly vitiates aesthetic merit.”
“Mrs.Kaneda’s nasal splendor rivals Caesar’s in martial grandeur.”
“Yet what of the terrain surrounding this monumental peak?”

"Of course, they are not as inferior as our cat’s." However, it remains an undeniable fact that—like an epileptic Okame mask—her brows carve an eight-shaped furrow at their roots while her narrow eyes are pulled taut upward. "Gentlemen, can we not but lament this face bearing such a nose?" As soon as Meitei’s words faltered slightly, a voice from the back said, “Still going on about noses, are you?” “What a damn stubborn blowhard!” came the voice. “It’s Kuro from the rickshaw shop,” the Master informed Meitei. Meitei began again. “The discovery of an unexpected female listener in the rear is something the lecturer considers a profound honor.” “Particularly through your mellifluous and charming voice, having graced this arid lecture with a touch of elegance is truly an unexpected boon.” “I have endeavored to rephrase matters as vulgarly as possible to avoid alienating the fair ladies’ favor, but as we shall now delve somewhat into mechanical principles, it may prove rather abstruse for the Ladies present—I beg your kind forbearance.” Kangetsu-kun smirked again upon hearing the word “mechanics.” “What I aim to prove is that this nose and this face are utterly incompatible—that is to say, it violates Zeising’s golden ratio, and I intend to rigorously deduce this from mechanical formulas for your edification.” “First, let H represent the height of the nose.” “α is the angle formed by the intersection of the nose and facial plane.” “W, needless to say, denotes the weight of the nose—please take note.” “How about it—have you roughly grasped the concept?……” “Like hell I do,” said the Master. “What about you, Kangetsu-kun?” “I’m afraid I can’t quite grasp it either.”

“This presents quite the conundrum,” Meitei continued, stroking his chin theatrically. “While Kusakabe here is hopeless, I’d expected you—a man of science—to follow along, Kangetsu-kun.” He gestured at his chalkboard scrawls with mock solemnity. “These equations form the very heart of my thesis! To omit them would render my entire discourse meaningless... though I suppose we must make concessions for limited intellects.”

“Then skip to your so-called conclusion,” grumbled the Master, crossing his arms.

“But of course! A lecture sans conclusion resembles Western cuisine without dessert—all substance, no satisfaction!” Meitei flourished his pointer stick like a conductor’s baton. “Now then, synthesizing these formulas with Virchow’s cellular pathology and Weismann’s germ plasm theory—”

Kangetsu-kun’s lips twitched at the bastardized references.

“—we must acknowledge hereditary transmission of physical traits! Moreover,” he pressed on despite his audience’s glazed expressions, “while Lamarckian inheritance remains contentious, psychological dispositions accompanying said traits manifest inevitably through—”

The Master’s snort interrupted this flight of fancy.

“To put it plainly,” Meitei pivoted smoothly, “any offspring of our nasally gifted matron would inevitably develop similarly prodigious proboscises! Now Kangetsu-kun here—” he jabbed his stick toward the physicist “—being young and besotted, mightn’t notice nascent deformities in Miss Kaneda’s delicate snout.” His pointer arced dramatically toward the ceiling. “But let climate change or cosmic whim strike? Why, overnight it might balloon to rival her mother’s magnificent appendage!”

The Master shot upright like a jack-in-the-box. “Preposterous! No sane man would shackle himself to that creature’s spawn!” Spittle flew as he brandished a bony finger at Kangetsu-kun. “Abandon this folly posthaste!”

Two pointed meows echoed from the veranda—the cat’s sardonic ratification.

Kangetsu-kun merely twisted his haori cord, his smirk undimmed. “If my esteemed mentors insist...”

“Glamorous martyrdom!” Meitei crowed, slapping his knee.

“—though I’d hate to break the poor girl’s heart,” Kangetsu-kun concluded with performative melancholy.

“Heart? Pah!” The Master’s teacup rattled as he slammed the table. “That harpy’s whelp came here expressly to humiliate me! The audacity! The unmitigated gall!”

His tirade dissolved into incoherent sputtering just as fresh guffaws erupted beyond the fence—

“Pompous windbag!”

“Ain’t satisfied till he bags a mansion!”

“All bark, that one!”

The Master emerged onto the veranda and shouted in a voice that wouldn’t be cowed, “You’re too loud! What’s the idea of coming all the way under that fence?”
“Wahahaha! Savage-T! Savage-T!” they jeered in unison.
The Master, in a towering rage, suddenly leapt to his feet, grabbed his cane, and stormed out into the street.
Meitei clapped his hands and remarked, “How amusing! Well, well.”
Kangetsu twisted the cords of his haori and smirked.

I followed my master through a gap in the broken fence and emerged onto the street to find him standing idly in the middle of it, leaning on his cane.
Not a soul passed by; he resembled someone who'd been bewitched by a fox.

Four

As usual, I sneaked into the Kaneda residence.

There was no need to explain what "as usual" meant at this point.
It was a term indicating a degree equivalent to squaring 'often'.

The desire to repeat an act once done a second time, and then a third time after attempting it twice, was not a curiosity limited solely to humans; even we cats had to be acknowledged as beings born into this world endowed with such psychological prerogatives. When an act was repeated three or more times, it would finally be crowned with the term "habit," and the evolution of this behavior into a necessity of life showed no difference from that of humans.

If one were to harbor suspicions as to why I frequent Kaneda’s residence with such assiduity, I would first like to pose a counter-question to humanity. Why do humans suck smoke into their mouths only to blow it out their noses? Since they shamelessly inhale and exhale something that neither nourishes the stomach nor serves as medicine for women’s ailments, I would prefer they not loudly condemn my comings and goings at Kaneda’s. Kaneda’s residence is my tobacco.

To say "sneak in" carries unfortunate connotations—it smacks of thieves or illicit lovers, an unpleasant implication. My visits to Kaneda's residence, though uninvited, are never for pilfering bonito fillets or conspiring with that Chin-kun whose eyes and nose cling convulsively to his face's center.—A detective?—Preposterous! In my estimation, no professions sink lower than those of detectives and moneylenders.

True, I once displayed most un-feline chivalry for Kangetsu-kun's sake by observing the Kanedas' activities from afar—but that solitary instance apart, I've never stooped to behavior that might shame feline dignity.—Then why employ this dubious term "sneak in"?—Ah, therein lies profundity.

By my original philosophy, heaven exists to envelop all things, earth to bear them up—a truth no sophistry-loving human can deny. Consider then what labor mankind expended to create this cosmos: not an iota! Can one claim ownership over uncreated things? You may declare possession, but what right have you to bar others' passage?

To partition this boundless earth with fences and stakes—"This plot mine, that tract his"—mirrors some fool staking claims on the azure sky itself. If land may be diced and sold by the square meter, why not parcel air into cubic feet? Since aerial commerce proves impossible and celestial claims absurd, terrestrial ownership stands equally irrational.

Holding these convictions, I enter where I please. Not that I frequent undesirable locales—but where I choose to wander, I stroll unconcerned by compass points. The likes of Kaneda warrant no deference.—Yet feline frailty dictates we cannot oppose humans by force.

In this world where "Might makes right" prevails, however just our cause, cats' logic holds no sway. Forceful opposition risks sudden blows from fishmongers' poles, as Kuro the Rickshaw Cat learned. Faced with choosing between bowing to power or upholding reason through stealth, I naturally elect the latter.

Since carrying poles must be avoided, stealth becomes necessary. As human dwellings pose no inherent barrier, entry becomes inevitable.

Therefore, I sneak into the Kaneda residence.

As my incursions grew more frequent—though never intended as espionage—the household's affairs inevitably impressed themselves upon these reluctant eyes and etched into this unwilling mind, an unavoidable consequence of repetition.
There was Mrs.Kaneda meticulously wiping only her nose after each face-washing; Miss Tomiko devouring Abekawa mochi with abandon; and Mr.Kaneda himself—that incongruously flat-nosed man mismatched to his wife.
Not merely his nose proved deficient—the entire face lay compressed.
One might suspect karma had preserved, even forty years later, the visage of a boy whose neck had been seized by some bully king and smashed full-force against an earthen wall during childhood brawls.
Undeniably calm and harmless in expression, it remained stubbornly devoid of variation.
However enraged he became, that pancake face stayed smooth.
—How he'd eat tuna sashimi while rhythmically slapping his bald pate; how he'd sport absurdly tall hats and elevated geta to compensate for both facial and vertical shortcomings; how rickshaw pullers snickered about this to students; how those scholars marveled, "How acute your observations!"—the catalogue defied completion.

Lately, I passed through the side of the kitchen entrance into the garden, peered out from behind the artificial hill to confirm that the shoji screens were tightly closed and all was quiet, then gradually made my way inside.
If I judged that human voices were too lively or there was a risk of being spotted from the drawing room, I circled east around the pond and slipped under the veranda unnoticed from beside the lavatory.
Having no memory of wrongdoing, I needed neither to hide nor fear—yet when encountering humans who are lawless beings by nature, one must resign oneself to misfortune. If the world were overrun by Kumasaka Chōhans, even the most virtuous paragons would ultimately adopt my approach.
Mr. Kaneda, being a prominent businessman, would naturally have had no inclination to brandish a five-foot-three-inch blade like Kumasaka Chōhan; however, I heard he suffered from a disease of not regarding people as people.
If he didn’t regard people as people, then he probably wouldn’t regard cats as cats either.
From this perspective, any cat—even the most virtuous paragon of feline virtue—could never afford to let down their guard within his estate.
However, this very necessity of vigilance held a certain fascination for me, and perhaps my frequent comings and goings through Kaneda’s gate were driven by nothing more than a desire to court this danger.
I would reserve that matter for thorough consideration and humbly expound upon it once the cat’s mind had been fully dissected.

Wondering what today’s situation might hold, I pressed my chin against the familiar grassy mound and surveyed the scene before me. The fifteen-mat parlor stood wide open to March’s spring air, revealing Mr. and Mrs. Kaneda deep in conversation with a visitor.
To my dismay, Mrs. Nose’s nasal appendage had swiveled in my direction, glaring straight across the pond at my forehead.
Never in my nine lives had I been subjected to such nasal scrutiny.
Mr. Kaneda fortunately sat in profile facing their guest, concealing half his famously planar visage—though this left his nose’s precise coordinates ambiguous.
One could only deduce two holes must lurk beneath that disheveled thicket of salt-and-pepper whiskers sprouting haphazardly from his upper lip.
I fancied how pleasantly the spring breeze might whistle across such frictionless topography.
Among this trio, their guest boasted the most unremarkable countenance.
Yet precisely this ordinariness rendered him devoid of any feature worth remarking upon.
To be ordinary sounds commendable until one scales mediocrity’s summit and tumbles into vulgarity’s valley—a pitiful descent indeed.
What cruel fate condemned this vacuous face to manifest during Meiji’s enlightened reign?
As always, comprehension demanded creeping beneath the veranda to eavesdrop.

“...So my wife went out of her way to visit that man’s place to inquire about the situation...” said Mr.Kaneda in his usual overbearing manner.
Though overbearing, there was not a shred of sharpness to it.
His language was as flat and expansive as his countenance.

“Indeed, since that man taught Mizushima-san—indeed, what an excellent notion—indeed,” said the guest, delivering a veritable symphony of “indeeds.”

“But somehow, he just wouldn’t get to the point.”

“Ah yes, Kushami being unable to get to the point—that man has been hopelessly indecisive ever since we shared lodgings—it must have been most trying for you,” said the guest, turning toward Mrs.Kaneda.

“Trying? Trying doesn’t begin to cover it! In all my years of visiting people’s homes,” Mrs.Kaneda snorted through her nostrils in her customary manner, “I’ve never endured such disgraceful treatment!”

“Did he say something rude? He’s always been obstinate by nature—why, when you consider he’s been teaching nothing but reading primers for ten years as if each day were identical, you can well imagine,” the guest smoothly harmonized his tone.

“Oh, it’s beyond description—when my wife asked anything at all, he responded as brusquely as drawing a sword…”

“That’s utterly unconscionable—you see, even a modicum of learning tends to sprout arrogance, and when compounded by poverty, it breeds spiteful resentment—why, the world teems with such lawless wretches.”
“They remain blind to their own lack of accomplishment yet recklessly assail those with means—it’s positively staggering, as if they’d pilfered that wealth themselves! Ha ha ha!” proclaimed the guest with theatrical delight.

“No—utterly beyond words! Such behavior stems from naive self-indulgence and ignorance of the world’s ways, so I thought it best to discipline him properly—taught him a sharp lesson.”

“Indeed, he must have been made to answer thoroughly then—it’s entirely for his own good, after all,” said the guest, already siding with Mr.Kaneda without even knowing what method had been employed.

“But Mr.Suzuki, really—what an obstinate man he is!”
“Even at school, they say he won’t speak to Mr.Fukuchi or Mr.Tsuki.”
“I thought he’d been cowed into silence, but just recently he chased my blameless student around with a walking stick! With that thunderous face of his—how could anyone behave so absurdly? He’s clearly gone half-mad from sheer spite!”

“Huh? Why would he do such a violent thing…?” Here, even the guest seemed genuinely perplexed.

“Oh, it’s nothing—apparently someone just passed by that man while muttering something, and then he suddenly came charging out barefoot with a walking stick!”
“Even if they’d said some trifling remark—they’re mere children! And him—a bearded monk of a man, and a teacher no less—ought to know better!”

“Indeed, he is a teacher,” said Mr.Suzuki, to which Mr.Kaneda added, “Precisely because he’s a teacher.” That a teacher must endure any insult while remaining as still as a wooden statue appeared to be an opinion these three had reached through unspoken consensus.

“And that Meitei fellow—what a drunken buffoon!” Mrs.Kaneda continued. “Spouting a whole pack of utterly useless lies! I’ve never encountered such an outlandish creature in all my days!”

“Ah, Meitei?” Mr.Suzuki chuckled. “Still spinning his tall tales, I see? So you met him at Kushami’s place? One simply can’t keep up with him. Why, back when we shared lodgings and cooked together, he looked down on everyone so much that we quarreled constantly.”

“Anyone would get furious with someone like that! Well, lying’s forgivable, right? When you’re stuck between obligations or need to save face—in those moments, everyone says things they don’t mean. But that man spews nonsense even when silence would suffice—it’s utterly intolerable! What could he possibly gain from such drivel? The sheer gall of lying through his teeth with that shameless composure defies belief!”

“You’re absolutely right—they’re lies born entirely from his own whims—that’s what makes them so vexing!”

"After I went to all the trouble of seriously inquiring about Mizushima for your sake, everything turned into utter chaos."
"I was so unyielding and indignant—but even so, out of obligation—since it’s too rude to ask someone for information and have them play dumb—I later had the rickshaw driver deliver a dozen bottles of beer."
“But here’s what happened.”
"He said there was no reason to accept such things and told them to take it back."
“But when the rickshaw driver said, ‘No, this is a token of gratitude—please accept it,’ he snapped back—can you believe it?—‘I lick jam daily but have never drunk bitter stuff like beer!’ and stormed off into the back rooms! What an outrageous way to put it—isn’t that downright disrespectful?”

“That’s outrageous,” said the guest, who this time seemed to genuinely consider it so.

“That’s why I took the trouble to invite you here today,” came Mr.Kaneda’s voice after a pause.
“With such a fool, you’d think mocking him from the shadows would suffice, yet even so... complications arise...” he said, tap-tap-tapping his bald pate like someone savoring tuna sashimi.
Of course, being beneath the veranda, I couldn’t actually see whether he tapped it, but that bald pate’s sound had grown quite familiar of late.
Just as a Buddhist nun discerns a wooden fish’s tone, even from below the veranda I could instantly identify that clapping resonance as emanating from a bald pate.

“So, I thought I’d trouble you a bit...”

“If there’s anything I can do, please don’t hesitate to ask—after all, my recent assignment to Tokyo is entirely due to your various considerations,” said the guest amiably, accepting Mr. Kaneda’s request.
From his tone alone, this guest clearly appeared to be someone under Mr. Kaneda’s patronage.

Well now, this situation was developing quite intriguingly. I had come today without any particular intention—the weather being so splendid—yet never could I have anticipated acquiring such excellent material. It was like someone visiting a temple during the equinox and unexpectedly being treated to botamochi in the abbot’s quarters. Wondering what Mr.Kaneda would ask of his guest, I listened intently from beneath the veranda.

"That eccentric Kushami has apparently been advising Mizushima against marrying our daughter—right, Nose?"

“It wasn’t mere hints—‘What fool in any country would marry that man’s daughter? You must never take her!’ he told Kangetsu-kun outright!”

“How dare he speak so rudely! Did he actually say such harsh things?”

“He didn’t merely say it—the rickshaw driver Mr.Kami came personally to report it!”

“Mr. Suzuki, what do you make of this situation? As you’ve heard—it’s rather vexing, isn’t it?”

“It’s most improper—unlike ordinary matters, outsiders have no business meddling in affairs of this nature.”
“Even someone like Kushami ought to grasp such fundamental decorum.”
“What possible reason could he have?”

“Now then—since you shared lodgings with Kushami during your student years and were once intimate companions—regardless of your current relations—this is why I ask you to meet him personally and thoroughly explain where his interests lie.”
“He may nurse some grievance, but his anger stems from his own failings. Should he refrain from provocation, we’ll gladly accommodate his personal circumstances and cease any vexatious measures.”
“However, if he persists in his obstinacy—well, we shall respond in kind. To put it plainly: such stubbornness will only bring him ruin.”

“Yes, exactly as you say—since foolish resistance only brings loss to the person themselves with no benefit whatsoever, I will make sure to explain this properly.”

“Moreover, since our daughter has various marriage proposals coming in, we cannot definitively commit to giving her to Mizushima. However, upon gradually making inquiries, his academic credentials and character do not seem unfavorable. You may hint that if he applies himself and earns his doctorate in the near future, there might be a possibility of us accepting him.”

“If you tell him that, it should give him proper motivation to study.”
“Very well.”

“And another peculiar matter—though I must say it ill becomes Mizushima—he appears to heed whatever that eccentric Kushami says, addressing him as ‘sensei’ this and ‘sensei’ that, which poses quite a difficulty.”
“Well, it’s not as if we’re exclusively tied to Mizushima in any case. Even should Kushami spout some interference, it’s no particular concern of mine…”

"Because Mr. Mizushima is to be pitied," interjected Mrs. Kaneda.

"I have never met this Mizushima person myself, but in any case, if a marriage alliance with our family can be formed—his lifelong happiness—he would of course have no objections."

“Yes, Mr. Mizushima does want to marry her, but those eccentrics Kushami and Meitei keep going on about this and that.”

“That’s improper conduct—quite unbecoming of someone with proper education,”
“I shall personally visit Kushami and reason with him.”

“Oh please—though it may trouble you—I must ask this one favor.”
“Moreover, while Kushami knows Mizushima best, when I visited him recently under these circumstances, I couldn’t properly inquire about his character and academic merits. Therefore, I need you to hear directly from him about these matters.”

“Understood.”
“Since today’s Saturday, if I head over now, he should already have returned home.”
“Though I wonder where he resides these days.”

“From here, go straight ahead and turn right, then left for about a block—it’s the house with the crumbling black fence,” Mrs.Kaneda instructed.

“Then it’s quite nearby,” he remarked.
“No trouble at all.”
“I’ll stop by on my way back.”
“I should be able to find it by looking at the nameplate.”

“There are times when they have a nameplate and times when they don’t,” she added.
“They paste their name cards to the gate with rice glue, you see.”
“When it rains, they peel right off.”
“Then on sunny days they stick them back on.”
“So those nameplates are completely unreliable.”
“Rather than going through such bother, they might as well hang a wooden sign.”
“He’s truly an utterly incomprehensible man through and through.”

“That’s quite astonishing. However, if you hear it’s the house with the crumbling black fence, you should be able to find it without much trouble.”

“Yes, there’s only one such filthy house in the entire neighborhood—you’ll spot it right away. Oh, right! If you still can’t figure it out, there’s a surefire method—just look for the house with grass growing on the roof. You won’t go wrong.”

“It’s quite a distinctive house indeed! Ahahahaha!”

If I didn't return before Mr.Suzuki arrived, it would be somewhat inconvenient. I had heard enough of their conversation. Slinking beneath the veranda, circling west past the toilet, emerging from behind the artificial hill onto the street, I hurried back to the house with grass growing on its roof and, putting on an innocent face, circled around to the parlor's veranda.

The Master spread a white blanket on the veranda and lay facedown, basking his carapace in the glorious spring sun. The sun’s rays were unexpectedly impartial; even a humble abode with a roof overgrown with shepherd’s purse seemed as lively and warm as Mr. Kaneda’s parlor. The pity of it was that only the blanket lacked any semblance of spring. The manufacturer had woven it intending white cloth, the draper’s shop had sold it off believing it white, and the Master too had purchased it under orders for white—but after twelve or thirteen years, having long since passed through its era of whiteness, it was now encountering a period of discoloration into a murky gray. Whether the blanket’s life would persist through this phase until transforming into another shade of darkness was doubtful. Even now, it was already uniformly worn out, its vertical and horizontal threads so clearly visible that to still call it a “blanket” would be an act of presumption; it would have been more appropriate to drop the “blank” and simply refer to it as a *tto*. However, in the Master’s view—having lasted one year, two years, five years, ten years—it seemed he believed it must now endure for a lifetime. He was being quite nonchalant about it. Now, lying facedown on this blanket of such storied fate as previously mentioned, what do you suppose he was doing? Propping up his jut-jawed chin with both hands, he had a cigarette clamped between the fingers of his right hand. That was all. Of course, within his dandruff-covered skull, the great truths of the universe might have been spinning like a blazing chariot, but to an outside observer, such a notion would never have crossed one’s wildest dreams.

The cigarette's ember gradually crept toward the mouthpiece, and without concern for the inch-long column of ash that had burned out and fallen onto the blanket with a soft thud, the Master was intently staring at the smoke rising from the cigarette.
The smoke floated up and sank down in the spring breeze, drawing layer upon layer of flowing rings as it drifted toward the roots of his wife’s richly purple-tinted washed hair.
Ah, I was supposed to talk about the wife.
I had forgotten.

The wife had her back turned to the Master—how rude of her!
There was nothing particularly rude about it.
Politeness and rudeness are matters that can be anything depending on mutual interpretation.
The Master nonchalantly rested his cheek near his wife’s posterior, and the wife nonchalantly planted her august posterior before the Master’s face—there was neither rudeness nor fuss in this arrangement.
The couple had transcended stifling formalities like etiquette within a year of marriage—a truly transcendent pair.—Now then, having thus turned her posterior toward the Master, what scheme occupied the wife? Seizing upon today’s fine weather, she appeared to have vigorously scrubbed her jet-black hair—over a shaku long with a greenish sheen—using dried seaweed and raw eggs. Free of its usual tangles, she ostentatiously draped it from shoulders to back and, in silence, diligently sewed her children’s sleeveless garments.
In truth, she had brought out the moslin bedding and sewing box to the veranda to dry her washed hair—and thus had respectfully turned her posterior toward the Master.
Or perhaps it may have been the Master who brought his face to where the posterior was.
There, the tobacco smoke I mentioned earlier drifted richly through the luxuriantly flowing black hair, and the Master gazed without distraction at the untimely shimmering heat haze burning within.
However, smoke by nature does not remain in one place; as its inherent property is to rise ever upward, if the Master’s eyes were to fully observe this spectacle of smoke intertwining with strands of black hair, he had no choice but to move his gaze accordingly.
The Master began his observation at her waist, gradually tracing upward along her back, over her shoulders to the nape of her neck. When he passed beyond this and finally reached the crown of her head, he involuntarily let out a gasp—for there, at the very center of his wife’s scalp, with whom he had sworn to grow old together in conjugal harmony, lay a perfectly round, sizable bald spot.
Moreover, the bald spot reflected the warm sunlight and now shone opportunely.
At this unexpected discovery in such an unanticipated place, the Master’s eyes—amidst their dazzlement—showed full astonishment as he stared fixedly, heedless of his pupils dilating under the intense light.
When the Master saw this bald spot, the first thing that floated into his mind was the altar lamp that had adorned his family’s Buddhist altar for generations.
His family belonged to the Shinshu sect, and in Shinshu, it was an old custom to spend beyond one’s means on the Buddhist altar.
The Master remembered that during his childhood, in the storage room of his house, there was a dimly decorated shrine thickly gilded with gold leaf, inside which hung a brass altar lamp that always had a faint light burning even during the day.
Surrounded by darkness, this altar lamp had shone with relative clarity, so the impression from his childhood of having gazed at that light countless times must have been suddenly summoned forth by his wife’s bald spot.

The altar lamp had gone out in less than a minute.
This time he recalled Kannon's doves.
Though Kannon's doves and his wife's bald spot seemed utterly unrelated, in the Master's mind they shared an intimate connection.
When he was a child visiting Asakusa, he would always buy beans for those doves.
A plate of beans cost two Bunkyū-era coins and came in a red earthenware dish.
That dish closely resembled this bald spot in both color and size.

"It really does look similar," remarked the Master with apparent admiration.
"What does?" replied his wife without turning around.

“What do you mean—there’s a huge bald spot on your head! Do you know?”

“Yes,” replied his wife, still not pausing in her work. She showed no particular sign of fearing discovery. She was the very model of an aloof and exemplary wife.

“Did you have it when you came as a bride, or did it develop after we married?” asked the Master. If she had been bald before coming as a bride, then he’d been deceived—he didn’t voice this thought but kept it to himself.

“I don’t recall when it formed. What does a bald spot matter anyway?” she remarked airily.

“Doesn’t matter? It’s your own head!” snapped the Master, his voice tinged with irritation.

“Since it’s my own head, what does it matter?” she countered, though her right hand drifted upward to rub the bald spot in small circles. “Goodness, it’s grown quite large—I hadn’t realized it was this bad,” she added, finally acknowledging that the bald patch had become alarmingly expansive for her years.

“When women put their hair up in chignons, this part gets pulled tight—that’s why everyone goes bald,” he said defensively.

“If everyone went bald that fast, by forty we’d all be nothing but empty teakettles.”
“That’s clearly a disease.”
“It might be contagious—you’d better go see Dr. Amaki quick,” said the Master, vigorously rubbing his own head.

“You’re one to talk—you’ve got white hairs sprouting in your nostrils!”
“If baldness is contagious, then white hairs must be contagious too!” snapped his wife.

“White hairs in one’s nose aren’t harmful since they’re not visible, but a bald spot on the crown of one’s head—especially a young woman’s—is downright unsightly when it’s that bare. It’s a deformity!”

“If it’s a deformity, then why did you marry me? You married me of your own accord, and now you call it a deformity...”

“Because I didn’t know. I truly had no idea until today. If you’re going to act so high and mighty, why didn’t you show your head when you came as a bride?”

“What nonsense! What country has a system where a woman can only become a bride if she passes a head examination?”

“I can tolerate the baldness, but your height is abnormally short—it’s downright unsightly and unacceptable!”
“My height was obvious at a glance! You knew I was short when you married me!”

“I knew that—of course I knew that—but I married you thinking you might still grow.”

“Expecting someone to grow taller at twenty—you really do take people for fools!” retorted his wife, throwing down the sleeveless kimono and twisting around sharply toward the Master. Her demeanor declared that this matter wouldn’t end there depending on his reply.

“There’s no law that says you can’t grow taller even after twenty. I thought if I fed you nourishing food after you came as my bride, there might still be some hope of you growing taller,” he explained with a serious face when the front doorbell began clanging violently, accompanied by a loud voice calling, “I beg your pardon!”

At last, it appeared that Mr. Suzuki had located Professor Kushami’s Crouching Dragon’s Den with the aim of obtaining shepherd’s purse.

His wife postponed the quarrel for another day and, flustered, fled into the tearoom clutching her sewing box and sleeveless garment.
The Master rolled up the gray blanket and threw it into his study.
After looking at the business card brought by the maid, the Master made a slightly surprised face but told her to show him in, then entered the lavatory still clutching the card.
Why he suddenly entered the lavatory was utterly beyond comprehension; why he took Mr. Suzuki Tōjūrō’s calling card there defied explanation even more.
In any case, the one truly inconvenienced was Mr. Business Card, who had been ordered to accompany him to that smelly place.

The maid straightened the chintz cushion before the alcove and withdrew with a “Please sit here.” Mr. Suzuki then surveyed the room thoroughly.
After methodically inspecting each item—the counterfeit Mokuan scroll in the alcove reading “Flowers Blooming Across Ten Thousand Nations in Spring,” the cheap Kyoto celadon vase holding equinoctial cherry branches—his gaze fell upon the cushion offered by the maid, where a cat now sat with perfect composure as though materialized from air.
Needless to say, this was none other than yours truly.
At that moment, a storm brewed briefly in Mr. Suzuki’s breast—though not a flicker showed on his face.
This cushion had undeniably been prepared for Mr. Suzuki’s use.
Yet before he could claim what was rightfully his, this peculiar creature had settled there without ceremony.
This constituted the first disruption to Mr. Suzuki’s mental equilibrium.
Had the cushion remained unclaimed—a mere courtesy left to spring breezes—he might have feigned humility, enduring the hard tatami until formally invited.
But who dared occupy his rightful seat so brazenly?
With a human, one might concede—but a cat? Preposterous!
That it was a cat made this trespass doubly offensive.
This marked the second disturbance to his composure.
Finally came the feline’s insufferable demeanor.
There it sat—usurping his cushion without remorse—blinking round, unamiable eyes while staring at him as if demanding identification.
This completed the triad of irritations.
Given such provocation, one might expect him to seize my scruff and fling me aside—yet Mr. Suzuki merely watched in silence.
Though inconceivable that dignity would deter retaliation against a cat, his restraint stemmed wholly from that very dignity—a man’s need to preserve self-respect.
By brute strength, even a child could have dispatched me; yet Suzuki Tōjūrō—right hand of Kaneda himself—stood powerless before this feline deity enthroned upon two square feet of cushion.
Even unwitnessed, quarreling over seating with a beast would stain human dignity.
To seriously debate propriety with a cat reeked of childishness.

It was downright comical.
To avoid this disgrace, one must endure a certain degree of inconvenience.
However, as he endured it all his hatred toward me grew; thus Mr.Suzuki would occasionally glance at my face and make bitter expressions.
Finding Mr.Suzuki’s aggrieved countenance amusing yet suppressing my own sense of comedy,I maintained an innocent facade.

While this pantomime unfolded between us,the Master emerged from his privy having straightened his robes,took his seat with a casual"Well now"—though judging by his empty hands,Suzuki Tōjūrō’s name-card appeared sentenced to life imprisonment in that malodorous cell.
Before one could fully grasp this indignity,the Master seized both this oafish fellow and my scruff,hurling us onto the veranda with a"Hah!"

“Here, have a seat.”
“Well, this is a rarity!”
“When did you come to Tokyo?” the Master asked his old friend, offering the futon.
Mr. Suzuki flipped it over briefly before sitting down on it.

“I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to inform you, but the fact is, I’ve actually been transferred back to the Tokyo headquarters recently…”

“That’s good—it’s been quite a while since we last met.”
“This must be our first meeting since you left for the countryside, no?”

“Yeah, it’s been nearly ten years now.
“Well, I do come up to Tokyo now and then since then, but with so many things to attend to, I always end up slipping away without stopping by.”
“Please don’t think ill of me for that.
“The company side keeps one quite busy, you know—not like your profession.”

“Ten years really make a difference,” said the Master, looking Mr. Suzuki up and down.
Mr. Suzuki’s hair was impeccably parted, he wore a British-tailored tweed suit with a flamboyant cravat, and even sported a gold chain glinting at his chest—an ensemble making it utterly inconceivable he could be an old acquaintance of Mr. Kushami.
“Yeah, I’ve reached the point of needing to dangle such trinkets,” said Mr. Suzuki, fussing ostentatiously with his gold chain.

“Is that real?” the Master asked rudely.

“Eighteen-karat,” Mr. Suzuki replied with a laugh. “But you’ve gotten old, haven’t you? You do have children—just one?”

“Nah.”

“Two?”

“Nah.”

“Still more? Then three?”

“Yeah, three.”
“No telling how many more there'll be down the line.”

“You’re still spouting such carefree nonsense!”
“How old’s the oldest one now? Must be pretty grown by now.”

“Yeah, I don’t rightly know exactly—maybe six or seven.”

“Ha ha ha, teachers have it easy! I should’ve become a teacher too.”

“Try it yourself—you’d hate it within three days.”

“Is that so? It seems elegant, carefree, leisurely—you can study whatever you like. Sounds rather nice, doesn’t it? Businessmen aren’t bad either, but our sort can’t cut it. To be a businessman, you’ve got to reach the very top. If you’re lower down, you still have to flatter people left and right or end up accepting cups you don’t even want—it’s all quite foolish.”

"I’ve hated businessmen since my school days. They’ll do anything for money—what you’d call common townspeople in the old days," he declared carefreely to the businessman sitting before him.

"Well now—I wouldn’t say it’s entirely like that, but there are certainly vulgar aspects. You need the resolve to commit double suicide with money to see it through—but money’s a tricky bastard. Just the other day I visited this businessman who told me you’ve got to use triangular methods to make it—discard duty, discard humanity, discard shame! That completes your triangle! Isn’t that brilliant? Ah ha ha ha!"

“Who’d say such stupid things?”

“He’s no fool—he’s quite a shrewd man. Somewhat famous in business circles. Don’t you know him? He lives just around the corner.”

“Kaneda? What the hell’s up with that guy?”

“You’re really worked up, aren’t you? Come now—it was just a joke! A metaphor meaning you’ve got to go that far to accumulate money. You can’t take everything so seriously.”

“The triangular method can stay a joke—but what about her nose? You must’ve seen it when you went there—that nose!”

“Mrs.? Mrs. Kaneda is quite a sharp woman.”

"I'm talking about the nose—the big nose."
“The other day I composed a haiku-style poem about that nose.”

“What’s this ‘haiku-style poem’ you’re talking about?”

“You don’t know what a haiku-style poem is? You’re really out of touch with the times.”

“Ah, for someone as busy as I am, literature is utterly impossible. Moreover, I’ve never been one for such pursuits to begin with.”

“Do you know what shape Charlemagne’s nose had?”

“Ah ha ha ha! You’re quite carefree!”
“No idea.”

“Erlinton was nicknamed 'Nosy-Nose' by his subordinates. Do you know?”

“What’s gotten into you, obsessing over noses like this? What’s wrong with a nose being round or pointy?”

“It’s absolutely not like that. Do you know Pascal?”

“Do you know this one too? It’s like I’ve come here to take an exam. What’s with Pascal?”

“Pascal said something like this.”
“What did he say?”
“If Cleopatra’s nose had been slightly shorter, the face of the world would have undergone a great transformation.”
“I see.”

“That’s precisely why you shouldn’t dismiss noses so carelessly.”

“Well, fine—I’ll treat them with care from now on. Putting that aside—the reason I came today involves a matter concerning that Mizushima fellow you used to teach... uh, Mizushima... I just can’t quite recall.”
“You know—the one who’s always coming around here?”

“Kangetsu?”

“Yes, yes, Kangetsu! The very one. There’s something I wanted to ask about him, you see.”

“This is about that marriage business, isn’t it?”

“Well... it’s somewhat related to that sort of affair. When I visited Kaneda today...”

“The other day, Nose came here herself.”

“Is that so?”
“That’s right—Mrs.Kaneda said the same thing.”
“She said that when she went to call on Mr.Kushami to make proper inquiries,” he explained, “unfortunately Meitei was there and kept interrupting until everything became muddled.”

“It’s all because she came here with that nose—that’s what caused the trouble.”

“No, I’m not talking about you.”
“Since Meitei was there, they couldn’t ask detailed questions, and since she found that regrettable, she asked me to go again and investigate properly.”
“I’ve never done this sort of mediation before, but if the two parties aren’t opposed, acting as an intermediary to settle things isn’t a bad move at all—so that’s why I came.”

“Thank you for your trouble,” the Master answered coldly, though within himself, upon hearing the phrase “the two parties,” he felt inexplicably stirred.
It was like a thread of cool wind slipping through one’s sleeve on a stifling summer night.
By nature, this Master had been forged as a man of blunt obstinacy—unvarnished and unyielding—yet he fundamentally differed from those heartless products of modern civilization.
Even when he flew into petulant rages, one could still discern his underlying motives.
His quarrel with Nose had stemmed from loathing her alone; her daughter bore no blame whatsoever.
He despised businessmen and thus naturally detested Kaneda as one of their breed—yet this too had no connection to the daughter herself.
He felt neither gratitude nor resentment toward her, while Kangetsu was a disciple he cherished more than his own blood brother.
If—as Suzuki claimed—the two parties favored each other, then even indirect obstruction would be unworthy of a gentleman...and yet Master Kushami still considered himself such.
If they favored each other—but there lay the crux.
To adjust his stance toward this affair, he first needed to verify its truth from the source.

“Is the daughter eager to come to Kangetsu?”
“I don’t give a damn about Kaneda or Nose—what matters is the daughter’s own intentions.”

“Well, that’s—uh—how should I put it—well—I suppose she does want to come, doesn’t she?”
Mr. Suzuki’s response was somewhat ambiguous.
In truth, he had only intended to inquire about Kangetsu-kun and report back, and had not gone so far as to verify the young lady’s own intentions.
Therefore, even the suave and adaptable Suzuki-kun appeared somewhat flustered.

“What vague words!” said the Master, who could never rest unless he confronted everything head-on with a rebuke.

“No—it’s just that my way of putting it was poor.”
“The young lady certainly has feelings for him as well, I tell you.”
“No—absolutely not—Wait—your wife told me that.”
“Anyway, I hear she sometimes badmouths Kangetsu-kun.”

“That girl?”

“Ah.”

“What an outrageous fellow—to speak ill of him! First off, doesn’t that mean she has no interest in Kangetsu?”

“Ah, but that’s just how strange the world is! Sometimes people deliberately badmouth those they’re actually fond of.”

“What fool in any country would do such a thing?” retorted the Master, utterly unmoved by this delicate insight into human nature.

“You see—there’s no helping it when fools fill the world. Why, Mrs. Kaneda herself interprets it that way—she says her daughter sometimes calls him ‘as bewildered as a dried loofah,’ so there’s no doubt she’s smitten deep down.”

The Master, upon hearing this bizarre interpretation, widened his eyes in astonishment, made no reply, and stared at Mr. Suzuki’s face as though scrutinizing a street fortune-teller. Sensing the precariousness of the situation, Suzuki swiftly steered the conversation toward more tangible grounds where even the Master could grasp the logic.

“You must realize—with that level of wealth and such looks, they could marry her into any respectable family they wished, couldn’t they? Kangetsu may be accomplished, but regarding social standing—or rather, perhaps it’s impolite to speak of ‘standing’—from a financial perspective alone, anyone can see they’re mismatched.” Suzuki paused before delivering his masterstroke: “The very fact that her parents grew so anxious they dispatched me here specially must mean she harbors feelings for Kangetsu-kun.”

This time, the Master appeared convinced at last—a relief that allowed Suzuki to exhale inwardly. But recognizing the peril of dawdling in this conversational quagmire, he resolved to press forward with all haste and discharge his mission before another storm could erupt.

“So then.”
“As I’ve just explained, their position is that they don’t need money or property—instead, they want a qualification attached to him. By ‘qualification,’ I mean a title, you see—they’re not being arrogant by saying they’ll agree if he becomes a doctor. Don’t get the wrong idea.”
“The other day when Mrs.Kaneda came by, Meitei was here and kept saying such absurd things—not that it’s your fault.”
“Mrs.Kaneda also praised you as an honest, straightforward person without any flattery.”
“It was entirely Meitei’s fault, I suppose—so they say that if he were to become a doctor, it would give the Kanedas more social standing and prestige. What do you think—is there any chance Kangetsu-kun might soon submit a doctoral thesis and proceed to receive his degree?”
“Well—if it were just Kaneda, he wouldn’t need a doctorate or a degree. But since there’s this thing called society, you can’t just do things so easily.”

When told this, he began to think that the other party’s demand for a doctorate might not be entirely unreasonable after all.
If it came to seem not unreasonable, he found himself wanting to comply with Suzuki’s request.
Whether to keep the Master alive or let him perish was entirely at Suzuki’s whim.
Indeed, the Master was a simple and honest man.

“Well then, next time Kangetsu comes, I’ll try persuading him to write his doctoral thesis.”
“But first I must verify whether he himself intends to marry Kaneda’s daughter.”

“Interrogating him? If you take such a rigid approach, things will never get settled.”
“After all, casually sounding him out during an ordinary conversation is the quickest way.”

“Sounding him out?”

“Well, ‘drawing out his feelings’ might be misleading phrasing.”
“No need to draw anything out.”
“If you just talk naturally, you’ll understand.”

“You might grasp it that way, but I can’t comprehend anything unless it’s stated plainly.”

“If you don’t understand, so be it.”
“But allowing unnecessary interference like Meitei’s would ruin everything.”
“Even without advice, such matters should be left to his own judgment.”
“When Kangetsu-kun next visits, please ensure no one disturbs him.”
“Not you—I mean that Meitei.”
“Once that man starts talking, all hope is lost,” Suzuki continued disparaging Meitei on the Master’s behalf—when true to the proverb of summoned shadows, Mr. Meitei himself wafted in through the back door as usual, borne aloft on a spring breeze with his characteristic insouciance.

“Well, well—what an unusual guest!”
“When it comes to a regular visitor like me, Kushami tends to be dismissive.”
“People should only visit Kushami’s house about once every ten years.”
“This confection is higher quality than usual, isn’t it?” said Meitei, casually stuffing his mouth with Fujimura’s yōkan.
Suzuki fidgeted nervously.
The Master was smirking.
Meitei was munching with his mouth.
I observed this momentary scene from the veranda and thought that a silent play could indeed be easily performed.
If the Zen practitioners’ silent dialogues are transmissions of mind, then this silent play is unmistakably a scene of such transmission.

Though exceedingly brief, it was an exceedingly sharp scene.

"I thought you were a lifelong wandering crow, but here you've fluttered back before I knew it."
"People sure do want to live long."
"You never know what stroke of luck might come your way," said Meitei, showing no more restraint toward Mr. Suzuki than he ever did toward the Master.
Even among fellow boarders who hadn't met for ten years, one would expect some reserve—yet with Meitei alone, there wasn't a trace of such hesitation. Whether this made him admirable or a fool, I couldn't quite decide.

“It’s not as if I’m being pitied so much,” replied Mr. Suzuki with a noncommittal answer, yet he seemed somehow unable to settle down and kept nervously fiddling with his gold chain.

“Have you ridden an electric railway?” the Master suddenly asked Mr. Suzuki.

“Today feels like I’ve come here just to be teased by you all. No matter how much of a country bumpkin I am—I still hold sixty shares of the street railway!”

“That’s nothing to scoff at. I had eight hundred eighty-eight and a half shares, but sadly, moths got to most of them, and now I’m left with just half a share. If you had come to Tokyo just a bit sooner, I would’ve given you ten shares from the part the moths hadn’t eaten—what a shame.”

"You’re still as sharp-tongued as ever."
"But jokes aside, holding shares like that isn’t a bad idea—they only keep rising in value every year."

"Exactly—even half a share, if you hold it for a thousand years, you could build about three storehouses."
"You and I are contemporary geniuses who leave nothing to chance in such matters—but then there’s poor old Kusakabe."
"When it comes to stocks, he thinks they’re practically cousins to daikon radishes," said Meitei, taking another piece of yōkan and glancing at the Master, whereupon the Master, infected by this gluttony, found his own hand reaching toward the sweets dish.
In this world, those who take initiative in all matters possess the right to be imitated by others.

“I don’t give a damn about stocks,” said the Master, gazing despondently at the bite marks in his half-eaten yōkan. “But I did want to let Sōroki ride a train just once.”

“If Sōroki rode the train, he’d wind up in Shinagawa every single time. Better he stay safely carved into that pickling stone as Tenkaku the Hermit.”

“Speaking of Sōroki—I hear he died.”
“What a pity,” said Mr. Suzuki. “He had such a sharp mind—what a waste.” No sooner had he spoken than Meitei seized the thread.

“He had a good mind, but was positively wretched at cooking rice. When Sōroki was on duty, even I would go out and make do with soba.”

“The rice Sōroki made was burnt and reeked—so *earnest* it left even me helpless. And to add insult to injury, he’d force raw tofu on us as a side dish—stone cold and impossible to stomach!” Suzuki too resurrected this decade-old grievance from memory’s depths.

“Kusakabe’s been Sōroki’s bosom friend since those days—gorging on red bean soup together nightly. Now he’s cursed with chronic indigestion for his gluttony.”
“Truth be told, since Kusakabe slurped down more bowls, it’s only fitting he kick the bucket before Sōroki.”

“What kind of logic exists in any country? While I was eating red bean soup, you were out every night with a bamboo sword, banging on stone stupas in the back cemetery until the monks caught and scolded you—don’t you remember?” retorted the Master, now equally determined to expose Meitei’s past misdeeds.

“Ahahaha! Right, right! The monk said if we kept banging on the Buddha statue’s head, it would disturb his peaceful rest, so we should stop. But mine was a bamboo sword—General Suzuki here was going at it bare-handed! He wrestled with the stone stupas and ended up rolling about three of them—big and small!”

“The monk’s anger back then was truly ferocious.”
“He insisted we had to restore them exactly as they were, so I said we’d wait until we could hire workers—but he snapped that workers wouldn’t suffice, that we had to set them up ourselves to show contrition, or we’d be defying Buddha’s will.”

“You looked utterly wretched then—grunting in a rainwater puddle wearing nothing but a cotton shirt and loincloth…”

“What was cruel was how you kept sketching that with a straight face.”
“I’m not one to get angry easily, but that time I genuinely thought it was beyond disrespectful.”
“I still remember exactly what you said back then—do you recall it yourself?”

“Who remembers words from ten years ago? But I still recall every character carved on that stone stupa: ‘Kisen-in den Kōkaku Daikoji, An’ei 5, Year of the Dragon, First Month.’”
“That stone stupa was a masterpiece of antique elegance.”
“I nearly stole it when I moved house.”
“Truly a monument that embodied aesthetic principles and Gothic sensibility,” declared Meitei, waving about his half-formed theories of beauty like a banner.

“Fine details aside—what you actually said back then—”
“‘As an aesthetics scholar,’ you proclaimed shamelessly, ‘I must document every curious phenomenon under heaven for academic reference! Sentimental drivel like pity has no place in the mouth of a devoted scholar like myself!’”
“That cold-bloodedness made me rip your sketchbook apart with these mud-caked hands!”

“It’s entirely since that time that my promising artistic talent stalled and never flourished.”
“You blunted my edge, didn’t you?”
“I hold a grudge against you.”

“Don’t you mock me! If anything, I’m the one who should resent you!”

“Meitei was a fibber even back then,” said the Master, having finished his yōkan and cutting back into their conversation.

“I’ve never kept a single promise. Even when interrogated about it—never apologized once—they call me something like ‘the Mosquito.’ When the crape myrtle bloomed in that temple courtyard, he claimed he’d write a treatise on aesthetics before the petals fell—so I told him it was hopeless, no way he could finish it.”

“To this, Meitei retorted: ‘I may not look it, but I’m a man of unwavering will. If you doubt me so much, let’s make a bet.’ I seriously accepted—we settled on him treating me to Western cuisine in Kanda or something.”

“I was certain he wouldn’t write any book—made the bet—though deep down I was terrified. I don’t have money to treat anyone to Western cuisine.”

“But there was no sign of the Master starting his manuscript. Seven days passed—twenty days passed—not a single page written.”

“When even after all the crape myrtle petals had scattered—not one flower left—he remained unperturbed—I thought I’d secured that Western meal and pressed him to fulfill our agreement… but Meitei just acted nonchalant and ignored it.”

“Did you cook up some excuse again?” interjected Mr. Suzuki.

“Yeah, I’m truly a shameless man. I may have no other talents, but when it comes to willpower, I stubbornly insist I won’t lose to you all!”

“Not even a single page?” This time, Meitei himself posed the question.

“Of course—that’s exactly what you declared back then. ‘In matters of willpower alone,’ you said, ‘I dare not yield a single step to anyone! However—and this is most regrettable—my memory happens to be exceptionally poor. While I fully intended to write that treatise on aesthetics, I forgot all about that resolve the very next day after announcing it to you. Thus, my failure to complete the work before the crape myrtle petals fell was due to faulty memory, not weak will! And since willpower isn’t to blame, there’s no reason I should treat anyone to Western cuisine!’ That’s how you boldly justified yourself!”

“Ah, that’s Mr. Meitei’s distinctive style—utterly amusing,” Suzuki remarked, inexplicably delighted.
His tone was markedly different from when Meitei wasn’t present.
This might indeed be the hallmark of clever people.

“What’s so amusing about that?” said the Master, who still seemed angry.

“How unfortunate for you! Thus, I’ve been searching high and low for peacock’s tongue with great fanfare to make amends, haven’t I? Now, don’t get so angry and just wait. But speaking of books—today I’ve brought you an extraordinary scoop!”

“You’re a man who brings some extraordinary scoop every time you come, so I can’t let my guard down.”

“But today’s extraordinary scoop is the real deal—an extraordinary scoop priced as marked, not a penny less! Do you know that Kangetsu has started drafting his doctoral thesis? Since Kangetsu is such a man who puts on such airs of erudition, I thought he wouldn’t bother with something as dull as a doctoral thesis. But then, for him to still have some ulterior motive—it’s rather amusing, don’t you think? You should definitely inform that Nose—she might be dreaming of becoming Dr. Acorn these days.”

When Suzuki heard Kangetsu’s name, he frantically signaled to the Master with his chin and eyes, as if warning, “Don’t mention it! Don’t mention it!”
The Master remained completely oblivious.
Earlier, when he had met Suzuki and received his admonishment, he had felt nothing but pity for Kaneda’s daughter—but now that Meitei called her “Nose,” he recalled their recent quarrel.
The memory struck him as both amusing and slightly spiteful.
Yet Kangetsu having begun drafting his doctoral thesis was the most welcome news of all—a development that even Meitei himself might boast was indeed an extraordinary piece of news these days.
Not only was it extraordinary, but a delightfully pleasant one at that.
Whether someone married Kaneda’s daughter or not mattered little in the end.
What truly mattered was Kangetsu becoming a doctor.
A botched wooden statue like myself might rot unfinished in some sculptor’s corner, gnawed by insects until crumbling into plain wood—but for this sculpture I deemed well-crafted, I wished to gild it with honors at the earliest opportunity.

“Did he really start writing his thesis?” the Master asked eagerly, disregarding Suzuki’s frantic signals.

“You’re such a doubter—though to be honest, it’s unclear whether the subject is acorns or the mechanics of hanging. But being Kangetsu’s work, it must surely be something to make Nose shrink in shame.”

Every time Meitei bluntly referred to her as "Nose," Mr. Suzuki grew visibly uneasy.
Meitei remained utterly unperturbed, having noticed nothing at all.

“After that, I conducted further research on noses and recently discovered a discourse on them in Tristram Shandy. If someone had shown Kaneda’s nose to Sterne, it would have made excellent material—what a shame! Though fully qualified to leave its fame for millennia to come, it’s utterly pitiful that such a nose should rot away unused. Next time she visits, I’ll sketch it for aesthetic reference!” he declared, words tumbling thoughtlessly from his mouth as ever.

“But I hear that girl wants to come to Kangetsu,” said the Master, parroting what he’d just heard from Suzuki. Suzuki pulled a face signaling this was troublesome and frantically gestured with his eyes, but the Master remained like an electrical insulator—utterly non-conductive to subtle hints.

“How quaint—even that woman’s daughter would fall in love, though it can’t be any grand romance. Probably just some nose love at best.”

“Even if it’s nose love, it’d be fine if Kangetsu took her.”

“You say it’d be fine if he took her? Weren’t you vehemently opposed just the other day?”
“You’ve softened awfully today.”

“I won’t soften! I absolutely won’t soften, but…”

“But something must have changed,” said Meitei. “Now Suzuki—since you too deign to occupy the lowest seat among industrialists—I’ll share this for your edification. That Mr. Kaneda—to revere his daughter as the esteemed wife of Mizushima Kangetsu, a prodigy of our age, would be like pairing a paper lantern with a temple bell. We friends cannot idly overlook such a mismatch—though even an industrialist like you might find no fault.”

“You’re as spirited as ever,” interjected Suzuki. “Splendid! You haven’t changed a whit in ten years—remarkable,” he added, playing along while buttering him up.

“If you insist on praising me as ‘great,’ I might show you something more erudite. The ancient Greeks placed supreme value on physical training—they offered precious prizes in all athletic contests and devised countless methods of encouragement. Yet curiously enough, there exists no record of them granting any rewards for scholarly knowledge alone, which is why I had long harbored suspicions until this very day.”

“Hmm, that does seem rather peculiar,” said Suzuki, maintaining his practiced harmony like a seasoned accompanist.

“However, just two or three days ago, while studying aesthetics, I suddenly discovered the reason—my long-standing doubts dissolved at once!”
“It was like breaking free from a lacquer bucket! I attained thrilling enlightenment, reaching the zenith of celestial joy and earthly delight!”

Meitei’s bombastic words proved too much even for the ever-accommodating Mr. Suzuki, who grimaced as if thinking, “This exceeds my capacity.”
The Master—as though muttering “Here he goes again”—clinked his ivory chopsticks against the dish’s rim and kept his face downcast.
Only Meitei continued expounding with undiminished gusto.

“Now then, who do you suppose it was that clearly elucidated this contradictory phenomenon and rescued our doubts from the abyss of darkness for posterity? It is none other than that Greek philosopher Aristotle—hailed as the greatest scholar since the dawn of academia and founder of the Peripatetic school. As his explanation goes—hey, stop tapping that dish and listen properly!—the rewards that those Greeks obtained in their competitions were more valuable than the very skills they performed. Therefore, they become rewards and serve as incentives. But when it comes to knowledge itself—how is it? If one seeks to bestow any reward for knowledge, one must give something of greater value than knowledge itself. But could there be any treasure in this world greater than knowledge? Of course there cannot be. If one offers poor substitutes, it only serves to diminish the dignity of knowledge. They tried to reward knowledge by piling coffers of gold high as Mount Olympus and exhausting Croesus’ entire wealth, but having discerned that no amount could ever balance the scales, they gave up entirely on doing anything at all from that point onward. That gold and silver coins cannot rival knowledge should be sufficiently understood from this. Now, keeping this principle firmly in mind, let us turn to current affairs. What is Kaneda but a human with facial features stamped onto a banknote? To put it in a striking phrase, he is nothing more than a single walking banknote. If her father’s a walking banknote, then the daughter must be a walking postage stamp at best. Now, turning to Kangetsu—how does he compare? Has he not graduated with highest honors from the foremost seat of learning—with no shame—still dangling the cords of a haori from the Choshu Expedition era, ceaselessly researching the stability of acorns day and night, yet showing no sign of contentment, even now preparing to publish a grand thesis that shall soon overwhelm even Lord Kelvin himself? It is true that he once attempted to throw himself off Azumabashi Bridge, but this was merely an impulsive act typical of passionate youth and in no way an incident that troubles his standing as a purveyor of knowledge. If one were to evaluate Kangetsu-kun using Meitei’s signature metaphors, he is a walking library. A twenty-eight-centimeter bullet forged from knowledge. Once this bullet seizes its moment and explodes in the academic world—if it explodes, just you watch—it will explode—”

Here, Meitei—finding his signature adjectives eluding him and sensing an anticlimax—briefly faltered before rallying: “Even tens of millions of walking postage stamps would be pulverized to dust! Therefore, Kangetsu mustn’t shackle himself to such a mismatched woman. I object—it’d be like wedding the wisest elephant among all beasts to the greediest piglet! Right, Kusakabe?” With this dismissal, the Master fell silent again, clinking his dish with ivory chopsticks. Suzuki appeared deflated—

“It can’t be that bad,” he answered feebly.

Having just finished badmouthing Meitei quite extensively, if I were to say something reckless now, there was no telling what that unscrupulous Master might expose.
Under these circumstances, the wisest course would be to deftly parry Meitei’s sharp wit and extricate himself unscathed.
Mr. Suzuki was a shrewd man.

Unnecessary resistance was to be avoided as much as possible in this modern age; he considered pointless arguments relics of the feudal era.
The purpose of life lay not in idle talk but in action.
If events progressed steadily according to one’s own will, then life’s purpose was achieved.
If they advanced without effort, worry, or dispute, that purpose reached utopian perfection.
After graduating, Mr. Suzuki had attained success through this utopian philosophy, secured a gold pocket watch through this utopian philosophy, accepted the Kaneda couple’s commission through this utopian philosophy, and even adroitly persuaded Kusakabe through this same utopian philosophy—bringing the affair nearly nine-tenths to fruition—when Meitei, that whimsical wanderer whose mental machinations defied ordinary human norms and eluded conventional measurement, came crashing in, leaving him somewhat flustered by the abruptness of it all.
The inventor of utopian philosophy was a Meiji gentleman; its practitioner was Mr. Suzuki Tōjūrō; and now, the one being plagued by this very utopian philosophy was likewise Mr. Suzuki Tōjūrō.

“You—knowing nothing—put on airs with your ‘It can’t be that bad,’ showing uncharacteristically refined restraint! But had you witnessed that Nose’s visit, even a diehard businessmen’s ally like yourself would’ve been utterly flustered! Eh, Mr. Kusakabe? You fought valiantly then!”

“Still, I hear my reputation surpasses yours.”

“Ahahaha! What confidence! Without that thick skin, you’d never endure being mocked as ‘Savage Tea’ by students and teachers at school! Though I pride myself on strong willpower, such brazenness commands awe!”

"What's there to fear if students and teachers grumble a bit? Sainte-Beuve was an unparalleled critic through all ages, yet when he lectured at Paris University, he was so reviled that he carried a dagger under his sleeve whenever he went out to defend himself against student attacks."
"When Brunetière similarly denounced Zola's novels at Paris University..."
"But you're not even a university professor!"
"A teacher at Leadale comparing himself to such luminaries is like a minnow likening itself to a whale! Keep talking like that and you'll only get mocked harder."

“Shut up. Sainte-Beuve and I are scholars of equal standing.”

“What remarkable discernment! Though carrying a dagger would be dangerous—best not emulate that. If university professors are daggers, Leadale instructors would be mere penknives. Still, blades are perilous regardless—you ought to visit Nakamise and procure a toy air gun to sling over your shoulder instead. It’d lend you rustic charm. Don’t you agree, Mr. Suzuki?” At this address, Suzuki—finally liberated from the Kaneda matter—drew a relieved breath while...

“You’re as innocently carefree as ever,” said Mr. Suzuki.
“After ten years apart, meeting you all feels like stepping from a cramped alley into an open field.”
“Conversations among our circle demand constant vigilance—not a moment’s carelessness permitted.”
“Having to weigh every word makes it stifling—truly agonizing.”
“Guileless talk suits best.”
“And speaking freely with old student friends needs no reservations.”
Ah, encountering Mr. Meitei today proved unexpectedly delightful.
“I must take my leave now—business calls,” said Mr. Suzuki, rising.
Meitei followed: “I’ll join you—bound for Nihonbashi’s Engei Kyōfūkai myself.”
“Splendid timing! Let’s stroll together after so long,” declared both men as they departed hand-in-hand.

Five

To record every event of twenty-four hours without omission and to read them without omission would require at least twenty-four hours—however much I champion descriptive writing, even I must confess this lies beyond feline capability.
Thus, however ceaselessly my Master engaged in eccentric words and deeds worthy of meticulous depiction around the clock, it remains profoundly regrettable that I lacked both the ability and stamina to report each instance to my readers.
Regrettable though it was, there was no alternative.
Rest proves necessary even for cats.

After Mr. Suzuki and Mr. Meitei had left, the wintry wind abruptly ceased its howling, and it became as quiet as a night of steadily falling snow.

The Master retreated to his study as usual.
The children lined up their pillows in the six-tatami room and went to sleep.
In the south-facing room separated by sliding doors of one-and-a-half ken width lay the wife nursing three-year-old Menko-san in traditional counting.
The day—hastening toward dusk under blossom-hazed skies—sank swiftly, until even the clatter of passing clogs rang through the tearoom as distinctly as if held in one's palm.
From a boarding house in the neighboring town came intermittent bursts of shrill flute-playing that jabbed dull stimuli into my drowsy ears.
The world outside was likely veiled in haze.
With a stomach emptied by a meager portion of abalone broth at dinner, rest had become absolutely necessary.

From what I dimly gather, there exists in the world a poetic phenomenon called “cat romance,” where in early spring our fellow felines roam through nights of restless dreams—or so they say—but I have yet to experience such psychological transformations myself.
Fundamentally, love is the very vitality of the cosmos.
From Jupiter in the heavens above to earthworms writhing in the soil and even down to crickets, it is the way of all beings to exhaust themselves in pursuit of this path; thus it is hardly unreasonable that we cats too should display this hazy exuberance and boisterous romantic air.
Looking back, even I—who speak thus—once yearned for Mikeko.
There is even a rumor that Tomiko Abekawa, daughter of Mr. Kaneda that champion of Triangularism herself, harbored feelings for Kangetsu.
Thus I hold not the slightest scorn for those male and female cats who madly frolic through priceless spring nights with hearts emptied into labyrinths of earthly desire—yet no matter how enticed, such fervor fails to stir within me, leaving nothing to be done.
My present condition craves nothing but rest.
Being this drowsy, even romance lies beyond my reach.
Lumbering around to the edge of the children’s futon, I sank into blissful sleep……

When I suddenly opened my eyes, the master had unbeknownst to me come from his study and burrowed into the futon laid out beside his wife in the bedroom.
It was his invariable habit to bring a small Western-style book from his study when retiring.
Yet never once had he managed to read two consecutive pages of such books while reclining.
Sometimes he would bring one only to leave it untouched by his pillow.
Though there seemed little purpose in transporting what he wouldn't read even a line, this very obstinacy - impervious to his wife's laughter or protests - defined his mastery.
Night after night he labored to carry these unread volumes to bed.
On occasion he greedily hauled three or four at once.
Just recently he'd gone so far as to bear Webster's massive dictionary nightly.
I concluded this must be some peculiar ailment - much as refined souls require Ryūbundō's pine-breeze chimes for slumber, so too did he need bedside books to invite sleep. Thus for him, books became not reading material but somnolent devices.
The printed page served as soporific.

Peering in tonight as well to see what might happen, I found a red, thin book lying half-open where it was caught in the bristles of the Master’s mustache. Judging from how his left thumb remained lodged between the pages, it seemed he had remarkably managed to read five or six lines tonight. Beside the red book, as usual, the nickel pocket watch emitted a cold hue ill-suited to spring.

The wife had thrown the infant about a foot away and lay snoring with her mouth agape, her pillow displaced.
I think there exists nothing among humans as unsightly as this disgraceful spectacle of sleeping with one's mouth open.
We cats have never suffered such humiliation in our lives.
Fundamentally, the mouth exists to produce sounds while the nose handles respiration.
True, in northern regions there exist nasal-dialect speakers—humans grown so indolent they conserve energy by minimizing mouth movements—but those who block their noses and breathe solely through their mouths strike me as even more repulsive than such speakers.
Should a rat's dropping fall from the ceiling above, it would prove perilous.

When I turned to look at the children, they too were lying sprawled in a state no less disgraceful than their parents. Tonko, the older sister, as though declaring this to be a sister’s rightful privilege, vigorously stretched out her right hand and plopped it atop her younger sister’s ear. In retaliation, Sunko had raised one leg onto her sister’s stomach and was arching it defiantly. Both had indeed rotated ninety degrees from their initial sleeping postures. Moreover, maintaining this unnatural pose, they slept soundly without a word of complaint.

Indeed, the lamplight of spring was exceptional. Behind this artlessly innocent yet utterly graceless scene, it glowed richly as if lamenting the wasted beauty of the night. Wondering what time it might be, I looked around the room. All was silent save for the pillar clock's ticking, the wife's snoring, and the distant sound of the maid grinding her teeth.

This maid always denied it whenever accused of teeth-grinding. "I've never ground my teeth since birth," she'd stubbornly insist, neither promising reform nor offering apologies—merely repeating her amnesia.

Of course she'd have no memory—it was a nocturnal performance. Yet facts persist regardless of recollection. This world teems with those who consider themselves paragons of virtue even while committing misdeeds. Their blameless conviction might be charming in its naivety, but innocence cannot erase inconvenient truths. Such fine ladies and gentlemen, I concluded, shared this maid's pedigree.

The night had grown quite late.

There came two light raps against the kitchen storm shutters.
Hmm—there was no reason for anyone to come at this hour.
It was probably that rat again. If it were a rat, I’d already resolved not to catch them—let them rampage as they pleased.
—Another knock sounded.
It didn’t seem like a rat.
Even if it were one, this would be an extraordinarily cautious specimen.
The rats in the master’s house—much like the students at his school—practiced their rowdy mischief with relentless dedication day and night, considering it their divine calling to shatter their pitiable master’s dreams; creatures of such ilk would never show such restraint.
That was definitely not a rat.
Considering how one had barged into the master’s bedroom just days prior, gnawed on his unimpressive nose tip, and retreated triumphantly, this seemed far too timid for such a creature.
It was absolutely not a rat.
This time came a creak as someone lifted the storm shutters from below while sliding the waist shutter gently along its groove.
Definitely not a rat.
It was a human.
If someone were visiting unannounced after undoing the locks at this hour, it certainly wasn’t Mr. Meitei or Suzuki.
Could this be the renowned thief whose reputation preceded him?
If this was indeed the thief, I wanted to glimpse his august countenance immediately.
The intruder now lifted his great muddy feet and advanced two steps across the kitchen floor.
Just as he took what should have been his third step, he must have kicked against the raised floorboard—a clattering sound echoed through the night.
The fur along my spine prickled as if brushed backward with a shoe polish brush.

For a while, there were no footsteps.
Looking at the wife, I saw her still lying there with her mouth agape, utterly engrossed in breathing the tranquil air of peaceful slumber.
The Master was likely dreaming of his thumb being caught in the red book.
Before long came the sound of someone brushing against a floorboard in the kitchen.
It seemed even the Thief's eyes were no match for mine in the dark.
The kitchen layout must have been quite inconvenient for him.

At this moment, crouching low, I pondered.
Would the Thief emerge from the kitchen toward the parlor? Or would he turn left through the entryway to reach the study?
The footsteps emerged onto the veranda with a rustle of sliding doors.
The Thief finally slipped into the study.
After that, there was neither sound nor movement.

I finally realized I should wake the Master and his wife immediately, but as for how to rouse them, only useless thoughts spun through my head like a waterwheel, yielding no solution. Thinking to grab the futon's edge and shake it, I tried two or three times—to no effect. Next I considered rubbing my cold nose against his cheek, but when I brought it near his face, the Master—still asleep—thrust out his arm and shoved my muzzle away violently. The nose is a vital spot even for cats. The pain was unbearable. With no other options left, I attempted to meow twice—"meow-meow"—to wake them, but somehow my throat clogged at that very moment, preventing proper sound. When I finally forced out a small, low meow with great effort, I froze in alarm. The Master still showed no sign of waking when suddenly the Thief's footsteps resumed. Stealthily, ever so stealthily, they crept closer along the veranda. Here he comes—resigned to hopelessness now, I hid between the sliding door and willow trunk to observe.

The Thief’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt before the bedroom’s sliding door.
I held my breath, straining to anticipate what he would do next.
Later, when I reflected on it, I realized that if one could attain such a state of mind when catching mice, there would be no difficulty—a force so intense it felt as though one’s soul might burst forth from both eyes.
Thanks to the Thief himself, I attained an enlightenment unlikely to recur—truly a blessing.
Instantly, the third crosspiece of the shoji lattice changed color at its center as though soaked by rain.
As I watched through it, a pale red hue gradually deepened until, before I knew it, the paper tore open to reveal a crimson tongue flickering through.
The tongue vanished into the darkness after a moment.
In its place appeared a single terrifyingly luminous object on the other side of the torn hole.
It was unmistakably the Thief’s eye.
Oddly enough, that eye seemed to fixate solely on me behind the willow trunk, ignoring everything else in the room.
Though it lasted less than a minute, being glared at so made me feel my very lifespan had shriveled.
Just as I resolved to leap from hiding—unable to endure another moment—the bedroom’s shoji slid open with a whisper, and the long-awaited Thief finally stood revealed before my eyes.

As a matter of narrative order, I now have the honor of introducing to you, esteemed readers, our unexpected guest—the Thief himself. However, before doing so, I must humbly submit my modest views and trouble your esteemed consideration.
The ancient gods are revered as omniscient and omnipotent.
In particular, the God of Christianity still wears this mask of omniscience and omnipotence even in today’s twentieth century.
Yet what laypeople conceive as omniscience and omnipotence can at times be interpreted as ignorance and incompetence.
This is clearly a paradox.
But when I consider that I alone since the dawn of creation have exposed this paradox, a vanity arises within me—this sense that I am not entirely an ordinary cat—and thus I wish to present my reasoning here, determined to hammer into the brains of you arrogant humans that cats cannot be trifled with.
It is said that God created all things in heaven and earth; if so, then humans too must be His divine creations.
Indeed, this very point is explicitly stated in what they call the Bible.
Now, regarding these humans, there exists this fact: through millennia of observation, humans themselves have come to marvel greatly at their own profound mystery while growing ever more inclined to acknowledge God’s omniscience and omnipotence.
This stems from nothing other than the reality that though humans teem in multitudes, not a single one in the entire world shares the same face.
The facial features are of course fixed in number, and their sizes are generally similar.
In other words, they are all constructed from identical materials; yet despite this uniformity of components, not one has achieved identical results.
When one considers how someone devised such bizarre faces using only those simple materials, one cannot help but admire the manufacturer’s skill.
A remarkably original imagination must exist to produce such variation.
If we consider that even a master painter—having exhausted all energy pursuing diversity—could produce no more than twelve or thirteen distinct visages, then we must marvel at the exceptional skill of the god who single-handedly undertook humanity’s manufacture.
Since this skill lies utterly beyond human society’s capacity to witness, it would be no exaggeration to deem it omnipotent.
Humans seem profoundly awestruck by God in this regard—indeed, from their limited perspective, such reverence appears reasonable.
Yet from a cat’s standpoint, this same fact could instead prove God’s incompetence.
Even if not wholly incompetent, I believe we may definitively conclude He possesses no ability surpassing that of humans.
They say God manufactured as many faces as there are humans—but who can say whether this diversity sprang from deliberate design from the outset, or whether He initially sought uniformity for all, only to botch even those He could create and thus descend into this chaotic state?

The structure of their facial features could be viewed as both a monument to God’s success and traces of His failure. One might call Him omnipotent, yet it would be equally valid to deem Him incompetent. Since human eyes are aligned on a flat plane and cannot perceive left and right simultaneously, it is pitiable how only half of any object enters their field of vision. If one shifts perspective, this simple fact ceaselessly occurs in their society day and night, yet they remain too inverted and engulfed by God to grasp it. If manifesting variation in creation is difficult, then achieving thoroughgoing imitation atop that proves equally arduous. Ordering Raphael to paint two Madonna portraits without the slightest deviation would vex him as much as demanding utterly dissimilar ones—nay, producing identical works might be harder still. Asking Kōbō Daishi to write “Kūkai” with yesterday’s exact brushwork could torment him more than commanding a complete style change. The language humans use is wholly imitative in principle, passed down through tradition. When learning practical speech from mothers, nurses, or others, they harbor no ambition beyond parroting what they hear. They mimic to their utmost ability. That a language born of such mimicry naturally shifts in pronunciation over decades proves their imperfect imitative capacity. Pure imitation is thus supremely difficult. Therefore, had God made humans as indistinguishable as branded turtles, it would have better proclaimed His omnipotence; conversely, exposing these capricious faces to daylight—generating dizzying variety—becomes evidence through which His incompetence may be inferred.

I had forgotten what necessity compelled me to start such a debate.
Forgetting one's original purpose is something even humans do regularly; therefore, for a cat it's only natural—I ask that you grant me leniency.
At any rate, when I glimpsed the thief who had suddenly appeared atop the threshold after opening the bedroom's sliding door, those very thoughts naturally welled up within me.
Why did they surface?—If this question arises, I must now reconsider.—Well, the reason goes thus.

When I beheld the face of the Thief who had so composedly appeared before my eyes, it was because his visage—despite my usual suspicions that God’s craftsmanship might be the result of incompetence—possessed a feature so striking that it could instantly dispel such doubts. The distinguishing feature was none other than this: the fact that his features were the spitting image of my dear, handsome Mizushima Kangetsu-kun. I certainly do not have many acquaintances among thieves, but given the rough nature of their occupation, I had privately imagined a certain face in my mind—one with flared nostrils framing eyes the size of one-sen coins atop a chestnut-burr head. Yet reality proved as different from imagination as heaven from earth; such fancies never thrive long when confronted with truth. This Thief was a slender-built man of dark complexion bearing straight eyebrows—a most dignified burglar. He appeared twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, every detail mirroring Kangetsu-kun’s likeness. Were God capable of crafting two such identical faces, one could hardly deem Him incompetent. Indeed, the resemblance struck me so forcibly that I momentarily wondered if Kangetsu-kun himself had gone mad and come prowling by night—until I noticed the absence of faint stubble beneath his nose, confirming this was another man entirely. Kangetsu-kun was that bitter-edged handsome specimen Meitei dubbed an “active banknote,” a creation meticulous enough to ensnare Miss Kaneda Tomiko. Yet observing this Thief’s countenance revealed gravitational pull over ladies no less potent than Kangetsu-kun’s own. If Miss Kaneda lost herself in Kangetsu-kun’s gaze and eloquence, logic demanded equal infatuation with this burglar—social niceties aside. Given her sharp wit and knack for swift comprehension, she’d surely grasp this truth unaided. Thus even should Kangetsu-kun be replaced by this Thief, she’d doubtlessly bestow full affection to achieve marital harmony. And should Meitei’s persuasions shatter that ancient bond, all would yet be well while this Thief remained hale. Having foreseen events thus far, I felt profound relief for Miss Tomiko—for this Thief’s earthly existence stood as essential to her happiness as air itself.

The Thief was holding something under his arm. When I looked, it was the old blanket that the Master had tossed into his study earlier. Wearing a striped cotton short coat with an indigo-dyed Hakata silk obi tied high above his hips and his pale shins exposed below the knees, he now lifted one foot to step onto the tatami mat. The master—who had been dreaming since earlier that a red book had bitten his finger—turned over with a thud and shouted “Kangetsu!” The Thief dropped the blanket and hastily pulled back his extended foot. In the shadow of the shoji screen, two slender shins remained standing while faintly shifting. The Master groaned and mumbled incoherently as he pushed away that red book and scratched his blackened arm like someone afflicted with eczema. Afterward, silence fell as he resumed sleeping with his pillow still askew. The utterance of “Kangetsu” appeared entirely unconscious—mere sleep-talk. The Thief stood on the engawa veranda awhile longer, observing movements within the room; having confirmed the master and wife were soundly asleep, he again placed one foot on the tatami mat. This time, no voice cried “Kangetsu.” Soon he planted his remaining foot as well. The six-tatami room—richly illuminated by a single spring lamp—was sharply bisected by the Thief’s shadow stretching from near the willow-woven trunk over my head until half the wall turned pitch black. When I glanced back, the shadow of his face hovered indistinctly two-thirds up the wall’s height. Even a handsome man appears truly bizarre when viewed solely through his shadow—like some eight-headed monster. The Thief peered down at the wife’s sleeping face and smirked inexplicably. That even his laughter perfectly mirrored Kangetsu-kun’s left me astonished.

Beside the wife’s pillow lay a four-sun-square box nailed together to about one shaku five or six sun in length, placed as though it were something precious.
This was the mountain yam that Tataro Sampel of Karatsu in Hizen Province had brought back as a souvenir when he recently returned home.
Sleeping with a mountain yam displayed by one’s pillow was certainly an uncommon practice, but this wife was a woman so lacking any notion of proper placement that she would store a sugar bowl used in stews inside a clothing chest. To her mind, not only a mountain yam—even a pickled radish in the bedroom would likely be of no concern.
However, the Thief—being no god—could not possibly know what sort of woman she was.
Given that it was placed so carefully close to her person, it was only natural for him to appraise it as an important item.
The Thief lifted the mountain yam box slightly to test its weight, and since it matched his expectations—appearing to have considerable heft—he seemed thoroughly satisfied.
Just as I thought he was finally going to steal the mountain yam—and then realizing that even this handsome man was stealing a mountain yam—I was suddenly overcome with absurdity.
However, making a sound would be dangerous, so I endured in silence.

Before long, the Thief began to reverently wrap the mountain yam box in an old blanket. He looked around for something to tie it with. There lay a chirimen heko obi sash that the Master had untied and discarded when going to sleep. The Thief securely fastened the mountain yam box with this sash and effortlessly slung it onto his back—an appearance hardly likely to charm women. Then he stuffed two pieces of children’s chanchan underwear into the Master’s meriyasu underpants, causing the crotch area to bulge roundly like a rat snake that had swallowed a frog—or perhaps better described as a rat snake in its final month of pregnancy. In any case, he ended up looking quite bizarre. If you doubt how absurd he looked, feel free to try replicating it yourself. The Thief wound the meriyasu around his neck several times. Next, he spread out the Master’s tsumugi jacket like a large wrapping cloth and neatly folded into it the wife’s obi sash, the Master’s haori coat, an undershirt, and various other items before bundling them up. I couldn’t help feeling a touch of admiration for his practiced skill and dexterous method. He then joined together the wife’s obi-jime sash and decorative undersash to tie this bundle and hung it from one hand. Still searching for more loot, he spotted an Asahi tobacco bag near the Master’s head and casually tossed it into his sleeve. He took out one cigarette from the bag, held it to the lamp’s flame, and lit it. The smoke he had deeply inhaled and savoringly exhaled swirled around the milky-white lampshade; before it could dissipate, the sound of his footsteps gradually faded along the engawa until they vanished entirely. The master and his wife remained sound asleep throughout. Humans prove more obtuse than one might expect.

I required another brief respite.
If I kept talking nonstop like this，my body wouldn't hold up.

When I awoke from having sunk into a deep sleep, it was to find a bright March sky spread clearly above and the master and his wife speaking with a policeman at the kitchen door.

“So he entered here and proceeded toward the bedroom, I take it.”
“You were asleep and didn’t notice anything at all, I take it.”

“Yes,” said the Master, seeming somewhat awkward.

“Then around what time did the burglary occur?” asked the police officer, posing an unreasonable question.
If they could have known the timing, there would have been no need for anything to be stolen at all.
Unaware of this irony, the master and his wife eagerly consulted each other about this question.

“What time do you think it was?”

“Let me see…” the wife pondered.
She seemed to think that if she pondered it, she could figure it out.

"What time did you go to bed last night?"

"I went to bed after you."

“Yes, I went to bed before you.”
“What time did I wake up?”
“It was seven-thirty, I suppose.”
“So around what time did the thief break in?”

“It must have been around midnight.”

“We know it was at night—I’m asking for the approximate time.”

“I can’t say for certain without thinking it through properly,” said the Wife, still intent on considering.
Since the Police Officer had asked purely as a formality, he felt no real concern about when the break-in had occurred.
It seemed he had hoped they would simply provide any answer—even a made-up one—but as the Master and his Wife continued their aimless back-and-forth, he began to grow slightly impatient.

“In that case, the time of the burglary remains unknown, I suppose,” said the police officer, to which the Master replied in his customary tone:

“Well, I suppose so,” replied the wife.
The police officer continued without a trace of humor:

“Very well. You are to submit a written statement that reads: ‘On such-and-such month and day of Meiji 38, after securing the premises and retiring for the night, a thief pried open storm shutters at [location], infiltrated [location], and stole a certain number of items; hereby file this criminal complaint.’”
“This requires a criminal complaint—not a regular report.”
“It’s better not to include an addressee.”

“Do I need to list each item individually?”

“Yes, make a table listing each haori’s quantity and value.—No, even if you go in and look now, there’s nothing to be done. It’s after the fact of being stolen,” he said nonchalantly and left.

The Master carried out his writing brush and inkstone to the middle of the parlor, summoned his wife before him, and said, “I’m going to write up the theft complaint now, so list every item that was stolen. Come on, out with it,” he said in a tone as if picking a fight.

“Oh, how dreadful! Who do you think you are, barking orders in such a high-handed way?” retorted the wife, still wrapped in her narrow sash as she plopped herself down.

“What’s with that look? Like some failed copy of an inn-town prostitute.”
“Why didn’t you put on your obi properly before coming out?”

“If this isn’t good enough, buy me a new one then.”
“Prostitute’s obi or not—once it’s stolen, what can you do?”

“They took your obi too? What a cruel bastard.”
“Then I’ll start by listing the obi.”
“What kind was it?”

“What do you mean ‘what kind’? You think I have dozens? It was black satin with crepe lining on the underside.”

“Black satin and crepe obi with lined underside—one piece. How much was it worth?”

“About six yen, I suppose.”

“You’re wearing an obi that’s impudently expensive! Next time, get one around one yen fifty sen.”

“Do such obis even exist? That’s exactly why I say you’re heartless. A wife could look as slovenly as she likes—as long as they themselves are satisfied, you wouldn’t care less!”

“Oh, never mind that. What else?”

“A silk crepe haori. I received it as a memento from Aunt Kōno—though it’s silk crepe, its quality differs entirely from modern weaves.”

“I don’t need to hear such explanations. What’s the price?”

“Fifteen yen.”

“Wearing a fifteen-yen haori is beneath your station.”

“Isn’t it fine? It’s not like you bought it for me.”

“What’s next?”

“One pair of black tabi socks.”

“Yours?”

“Yours, I suppose? The price was twenty-seven sen.”

“And then?”

“One box of mountain yam.”

“They even took the mountain yam? Do they plan to boil it for eating or make grated yam soup out of it?”

“I don’t know what he intends to do.”
“Why don’t you go ask the thief yourself?”
“How much was it?”
“I don’t know about mountain yam prices.”

“Then let’s put it down as around twelve yen and fifty sen.”

“Don’t be absurd! Even if they dug it up all the way from Karatsu, there’s no way a mountain yam would cost twelve yen and fifty sen!”

“But you just said you don’t know.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, but twelve yen and fifty sen is simply outrageous, I tell you.”

“Even if I don’t know, what do you mean twelve yen and fifty sen is exorbitant?”
“That makes no logical sense whatsoever.”
“That’s why I say you’re an Otanchin Pareorogasus!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Otanchin Pareorogasus, I say!”
“What is this ‘Otanchin Pareorogasus’ you speak of?”

“Never mind that. And after that—my clothes haven’t shown up at all, have they?”

“The rest will do. Explain to me what ‘Otanchin Pareorogasus’ means.”

“Does it mean a damn thing?”

“There’s no harm in telling me, is there? You must really look down on me.”
“You must have thought I don’t know English and came out with that insult.”

“Stop spouting nonsense and just finish listing the rest.”
“Hurry up and file the report, or the items won’t be returned!”

“Anyway, even if we file a report now, it won’t make any difference.”
“Instead of that, explain to me what ‘Otanchin Pareorogasus’ means.”

“What an annoying woman! I told you there’s no meaning to it at all.”

“In that case, there are no more items to list.”

“Stubborn fool.”
“Then do as you please.”
“I won’t write the theft report anymore.”

“I won’t tell you the number of items either.”
“Since you’re handling the report yourself, I won’t be inconvenienced if you don’t write it for me.”

“Then I’ll abandon it,” said the Master and, as was his habit, abruptly stood up and entered his study.
The wife withdrew to the parlor and sat down before the sewing box.
For about ten minutes, both did nothing but silently glare at the sliding doors.

Just then, Tataro Sampel—the donor of the mountain yam—swung open the front door with vigor and came inside.
Tataro Sampel had been a live-in student at this house but had since graduated from law school and was now employed in the mining division of a company.
He too was a budding industrialist and a junior protégé of Mr. Suzuki Tōjūrō.
Owing to their past association, Tataro Sampel occasionally visited his former teacher’s humble abode and was on such familiar terms with the family that he would spend entire Sundays there amusing himself before returning home.

“Madam.”
“Lovely weather we’re having,” he said in a Karatsu accent or something of the sort, kneeling upright in trousers before the wife.

“Oh, Mr. Tataro!”

“Has Master gone out somewhere?”

“No, he’s in his study.”

“Madam, studying like Master does is harmful, I tell you.”
“It’s a rare Sunday after all.”

“Telling me won’t do any good—you should say that to Master yourself.”

“But ya see…” began Tataro Sampel, glancing around the room. “Don’t see the young ladies today,” he remarked half to Madam—and just then Tonko and Sunko came running in from the next room.

“Mr. Tataro, did you bring sushi today?” pressed her older sister Tonko, who remembered their prior agreement the moment she saw his face.
Mr. Tataro scratched his head.

“You’ve got a good memory! I’ll bring some next time for sure.”
“I forgot today,” he confessed.

When her older sister said, “No fair!” the younger sister immediately mimicked her with a “No fair!” of her own.

The wife’s mood finally improved as she managed a slight smile.

“I didn’t bring sushi, but I did bring you mountain yam, didn’t I? Have you young ladies eaten it?”

When the older sister asked, “What’s a mountain yam?” the younger sister once again mimicked her and asked Mr. Sampel, “What’s a mountain yam?”

“You still haven’t eaten it? Go ask your mother to boil it for you right away. The mountain yams from Karatsu are tastier than the ones in Tokyo,” Mr. Sampel boasted about his hometown, at which point the wife finally noticed—

“Thank you ever so much for your kindness the other day, Mr. Sampel.”

“How was it? Did you try them? I had a box specially made to prevent breakage and packed them tightly, so they must’ve remained nice and long, eh?”

“But last night, those mountain yams you so kindly gave us were stolen by a thief.”

“A thief?”
“What an idiot.”
“Who in blazes would have such a passion for mountain yams?” Mr. Sampel exclaimed in astonishment.

“Mother, did a thief come in last night?” asked the older sister.

“Yes,” the wife answered lightly.

“The thief came in—and then—the thief came in—what kind of face did he have when he came in?” asked the younger sister this time.
Faced with this bizarre question, even the wife was at a loss for how to respond.

“He came in with a scary face,” she answered and looked toward Mr. Tataro.

“So a scary face… like Mr. Tataro’s?” pressed the older sister without a hint of pity.

“What a thing to say.
Such a rude thing to say.”

“Ha ha ha ha! Is my face really that scary?”
“This is troublesome,” he muttered, scratching his head.
On the back of Mr. Tataro’s head was a bald spot about an inch in diameter.
It had appeared a month ago, and though he had a doctor look at it, it still didn’t seem likely to heal easily.
The first to discover this bald spot was the older sister Tonko.

“Oh! Mr. Tataro’s head is as shiny and bald as Mother’s!”

“I told you to keep quiet.”

“Mother, was last night’s thief’s head shiny and bald too?” This was the younger sister’s question.
The wife and Mr. Tataro couldn’t help but burst out laughing, but as it was too bothersome to get any proper conversation done, she said, “Now now, you dears go play in the garden for a bit.”
“Mother will give you some nice treats soon,” said the wife as she finally shooed the children away.

“What happened to your head, Mr. Tataro?” she asked earnestly.

“Bugs ate it.
It still hasn’t healed.
Do you have one too, Mrs.?”

“Oh, don’t be silly with your ‘bugs eating it.’ That’s just women getting a little bald from tying their hair up tight.”

“Baldness is all bacteria, I tell ya.”

“Mine isn’t bacteria.”

“Well now, Mrs.—you’re just being stubborn.”

“It’s not bacteria at all.
But there must be some term for baldness in English, don’t you think?”

“Baldness is called ‘bold,’ you know.”

“No, that’s not it. There must be a longer name.”

“If you ask the Teacher, you’ll find out right away.”

“The Teacher simply won’t tell me, so I’m asking you.”

“I only know ‘bold,’ I’m afraid.”
“But if it’s long, how about that, ma’am?”

“It’s called Otanchin Paleologus.”
“Otanchin is the character for ‘bald,’ and Paleologus must be the ‘head’ part, right?”

“I reckon that might be the case.”
“I’ll go check Webster’s in the Teacher’s study for you straightaway.”
“But hasn’t the Teacher changed something fierce?”
“Staying cooped up indoors on such fine days—Mrs., that stomach trouble of his’ll never mend that way.”
“You oughta tell him to go view cherry blossoms in Ueno or suchlike.”

“You take him out yourself.”
“The Teacher won’t heed a word from womenfolk.”

“Still licking jam these days?”

“Yes, just as always.”

“The other day, the Teacher was complaining:
‘My wife keeps saying I lick jam too vigorously, but I don’t mean to lick it that much.
It must be some miscalculation—surely because your daughters and you, Mrs., are licking it together too—’”

“Oh, you awful Mr. Tataro! Why would you say such a thing?”

“But Mrs., you’ve got the kind of face that looks like you’d lick it too, I tell ya.”

“How can you tell that just by looking at my face?”

“Can’t really say for sure—but then Mrs., don’t you lick it even a bit?”

“Well I do take a little lick now and then.”
“What’s wrong with tasting it?”
“It belongs to us anyway.”

“Ha! Knew it—but getting back to business, that thief was some disaster eh?”
“Did he only swipe the mountain yam?”

“If it’d just been the yam we’d manage, but he made off with all our everyday clothes too.”

“Are you already in trouble?”
“Will you have to borrow money again?”
“If this cat were a dog, it would have been useful—what a waste.”
“Mrs., you should definitely get a large dog.”
“Cats are useless, I tell ya—all they do is eat—do they catch even a single rat?”

“It hasn’t caught a single one.”
“It’s truly a lazy, utterly shameless cat!”

“Well, there’s just no helping it.
“Just get rid of it already.”
“Maybe I’ll take it home, boil it up, and eat it for all I care.”

“Oh, Mr. Tataro, do you eat cats?”

“I’ve eaten them. Cats are delicious, I tell you.”

“Quite the bold one, aren’t you?”

I had long heard rumors that among lowly students there existed barbarians who ate cats, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that Mr. Tataro himself—he who usually bestows his favor upon me—might be one of their ilk. Moreover, he was no mere student—despite his recent graduation, he now stood as an esteemed Bachelor of Laws and an officer of Mutsui Trading Company—so my astonishment at this revelation was no ordinary matter. The proverb “Regard everyone as a thief” had already been substantiated by Kangetsu’s doppelgänger’s deeds, but the truth “Regard everyone as a cat-eater” was something I too had come to realize for the first time thanks to Mr. Tataro. To live in this world is to know things; knowing things brings joy, but day by day dangers multiply, and day by day vigilance becomes imperative. Becoming cunning or base, donning a two-faced coat of armor—all were consequences of knowing things, and knowing things was the sin of growing old. This must be why there are no decent old people, I thought, huddled in a corner as I considered whether it might be wiser to meet my end now in Mr. Tataro’s pot alongside onions—when the Teacher, who had earlier quarreled with his wife and retreated to his study, shuffled out to the parlor upon hearing Tataro’s voice.

“Teacher, I hear you were robbed.”
“What a foolish thing this is!” he began, immediately rebuking him.

“It’s the intruder who’s the fool,” declared the Teacher, stubbornly maintaining his self-image as a sage.

“The intruder’s a fool, I tell ya, but the one who got robbed ain’t too clever either.”

“Someone like Mr. Tataro, who’s got nothing worth stealing, must be the cleverest of all,” said the Wife, this time taking her husband’s side.

“But the biggest fool here is this cat, I tell ya.
“Honestly now, what in the world was this cat thinking?
“It doesn’t catch rats and doesn’t even bat an eye when a thief comes.—Teacher, won’t you give this cat to me?
“Leaving it like this is no use at all, I tell ya.”

"I don't mind giving it away."
"What will you do with it?"

"I'll boil and eat it."

Hearing this savage declaration, the Teacher emitted a sickly chuckle tinged with indigestion—but as he offered no particular reply, and Tataro-kun consequently refrained from pressing his gastronomic demands, this became an unlooked-for blessing for me.
The Master soon shifted the conversation's course and,

“The cat can go hang for all I care, but with my clothes stolen, I’m freezing—this is unbearable,” he lamented in deep dejection.
No wonder he was cold.
Until yesterday he had been wearing two layers of padded garments, but today he was clad only in a lined kimono and a short-sleeved shirt. Having sat motionless since morning without any exercise, all his insufficient blood was devoted to working for his stomach, with none circulating to his hands and feet.

“Teacher, if you keep working as a teacher, that just ain’t gonna cut it, I tell ya.”
“If you get robbed even once, you’re in trouble right away—why don’t you just switch gears and become a businessman or something, I tell ya?”

“The Teacher hates businessmen, so there’s no use saying such things.”

The Wife responded to Mr. Tataro from beside them.
The Wife naturally wanted him to become a businessman.

“How many years has it been since you graduated from school, Teacher?”

“This makes nine years, doesn’t it?” the Wife said, looking at the Teacher.
The Teacher neither confirmed nor denied this.

“Even after nine years, the salary hasn’t increased.
No matter how much I study, people never praise me—‘my husband remains lonely and desolate,’” he declaimed, reciting a line of poetry he’d memorized in middle school for his wife’s benefit. His wife, finding this somewhat incomprehensible, offered no reply.

“Though he hates being a teacher, he hates businessmen even more,” the Teacher seemed to be pondering what exactly he did like deep down.

“Because you dislike everything…”

“Is it only your wife you don’t dislike?” Tataro cracked a joke unbefitting his usual demeanor.

“What I dislike most,” the Master replied with admirable concision.
The Wife turned her face away with a haughty air before looking back at him,

“You must even dislike being alive,” she said, fully intending to deflate him.

“I don’t particularly care for it,” he answered with unexpected nonchalance.
There was simply no getting through to him.

“Teacher, if you don’t start taking brisker walks or such, you’ll ruin your health, I tell ya.—And become a businessman.
Money’s as easy as breathing to make, I assure you.”

"You haven’t made a single yen yourself,"

"But you only just joined your company last year."
"Even so, he has more savings than Teacher."

"How much have you saved?" asked **the Wife** eagerly.

"It’s already fifty yen now."

"Just how much is your monthly salary?"
This was also the Wife’s question.

"Thirty yen, I tell ya."
"The company sets aside five yen each month from that and saves it up, so when the time comes, they’ll take care of it."
"Mrs., why don’t you use your pocket money to buy some shares in the Sotobori Line? They’ll double in three or four months from now."
"If you have even a little money, it can quickly double or even triple."

“If you had that sort of money, even meeting a thief wouldn’t trouble you.”

“That’s exactly why I say you should stick to businessmen. If you’d studied law and gone into a company or bank, Teacher, you’d be earning three or four hundred yen a month by now—what a waste! —Teacher, do you know an engineer called Suzuki Tōjūrō?”

“Yeah, he came yesterday.”

“Ah! When I met him at a banquet the other day and mentioned you, he said, ‘Oh, so you were a student at Kusakabe-san’s place? I once shared lodgings with Kusakabe-san at a temple in Koishikawa long ago—next time you go there, give him my regards. I’ll drop by myself soon enough.’”

“I hear he’s come to Tokyo recently.”

“Yes, until now he was working in a coal mine in Kyushu, but he recently got transferred to Tokyo, I tell ya.”
“That’s quite a good deal, I tell ya.”
“He talks to even someone like me as if I’m a friend, I tell ya.”
“Teacher, how much do you think that man makes?”

“Dunno.”

“With a monthly salary of two hundred fifty yen plus bonuses at Bon and year-end, it averages out to four or five hundred yen overall, I tell ya.”
“While a man like that’s raking in good money, you, Teacher—sticking to your readers for ten years with just one fox-fur robe—it’s downright foolish, I tell ya.”

“It really is foolish,” thought even someone as ostensibly detached as the Master—yet his attitude toward money proved no different from ordinary people’s. If anything, his very poverty might have made him crave it twice as much. Having thoroughly expounded on the businessman’s advantages until he’d exhausted his material, Mr. Tataro finally asked, “Mrs., does a man called Mizushima Kangetsu visit the Teacher’s place?”

“Yes, he does come often.”

“What sorta person is he, I tell ya?”

“I hear he’s a very learned gentleman.”

“Is he a handsome man?”

“Hohohoho, about on par with you, Mr. Tataro.”

“Is that so? About the same as me?” Mr. Tataro said earnestly.

“Why do you know Kangetsu’s name?” asked the Master.

“The other day, someone asked me to.”
“Is he really a person worth asking about such things?”
Tataro Sampel was already putting on more airs than Kangetsu even before being asked.

“He’s a far more distinguished man than you.”

“Is that so? More distinguished than me?” he said without laughing or getting angry.
This was Mr. Tataro’s defining trait.

“Will he become a doctor soon?”

“I hear he’s writing his thesis now.”

“What a fool.
Writing a doctoral thesis—and here I thought he was someone worth talking to.”

“Still as full of yourself as ever,” said the Teacher’s Wife with a laugh.

“They said they’d hand over someone’s daughter if he becomes a doctor—what kind of idiot gets a doctorate just to marry a girl? I told them they’d do better giving her to me than to that sort.”

“To whom?”

“It’s the man who asked me to inquire about Mizushima.”

“Isn’t it Suzuki?”

“No—we haven’t made any definitive statements to him yet. Because he’s a big shot.”

“Mr. Tataro, you’re all bravado in the shadows, aren’t you? When you come to our house, you strut around all high and mighty, but I bet you shrink down to size in front of someone like Mr. Suzuki.”

“Yeah. Gotta do that, or it’s dangerous, I tell ya.”

“Tataro, shall we go for a walk?” the Master said abruptly.
From the thought that he had been feeling too cold wearing only a lined kimono since earlier and that doing a bit of exercise might warm him up, the Master had proposed this unprecedented motion.
Tataro Sampel, being the act-on-impulse type, naturally had no reason to hesitate.

“Let’s go.
“Shall we make it Ueno?”
“How about we go to Imozaka and have some dumplings?”
“Sensei, have you ever eaten the dumplings there?”
“Mrs., you should go there once and try them.”
“They’re soft and cheap.”
“They even serve sake,” he spouted his usual disorderly nonsense, during which time the Master had already put on his hat and descended to the entryway.

I once again required a bit of rest. As for what antics Master and Tataro Sampel got up to in Ueno Park or how many plates of dumplings they devoured on Imozaka—such trivial episodes required no detective work on my part, nor did I possess the courage to tail them. Thus I omitted these details altogether and took my rest in the interim. Rest is a right that should be demanded by all creatures from the vault of heaven. Those who possess the obligation to inhabit this world and squirm must obtain rest to fulfill their duty of existence. Were God to declare, “You were born to work, not to sleep,” I would respond thus: “Indeed, as You say, I was born to work—therefore I beg for rest in order to work.” Even a stubborn man like my master—who did nothing but grumble at inanimate objects—occasionally took self-initiated rest beyond Sundays. For a being as sensitive and sorrowful as myself—one who exerted mind and spirit day and night—even if a cat, it naturally followed that I required more rest than my Master. Yet I remained somewhat troubled that Tataro Sampel had earlier reviled me as a useless luxury good capable of nothing but rest. Common people, being driven solely by material things and possessing no activity beyond five-sense stimulation, proved troublesome in evaluating others only through superficial appearances. They thought that unless you cut corners and broke sweat, you weren’t truly working. They said the monk Bodhidharma sat in zazen until his legs rotted away—yet even if vines crept through wall cracks to seal his eyes and mouth without movement, he neither slept nor died. His mind constantly delved into elegant philosophies like “vast emptiness, nothing holy.” I heard even Confucians practiced quiet sitting—not idle seclusion but mental austerity where cerebral vitality burned twice as fiercely as others’. Yet because they appeared composed, the world’s vulgar eyes took these sages for comatose mediocrities, slandering them as parasites. These defective eyes saw form but never essence—with Tataro Sampel being their prime exemplar—so his equating me to a dried shit-stick was understandable. What galled me was my Master—who’d read enough to grasp some truth—agreeing with this shallow man without protest, seeing no issue with boiling me into stew. Yet stepping back, their contempt wasn’t wholly unreasonable. Loud voices don’t reach vulgar ears; the adage about highbrow poetry finding few singers was ancient. To demand that form-blind eyes behold soul-radiance was like forcing monks to style hair, tunas to orate, trains to derail—or advising Master to resign and Sampel to ignore money.

After all, this was nothing but an unreasonable demand they made of me. However, even a cat is a social animal. Being a social animal, no matter how loftily one may position oneself, one must harmonize with society to some degree. Though regrettable yet unavoidable that the Master, the Wife, even O-san and the Sampel crew fail to appraise me at my true worth, it would be a dire calamity should their ignorance lead them to flay my pelt for shamisen skins or mince my flesh for Tataro’s supper tray. I—a feline of such distinction as to have received heaven’s mandate to act through intellect upon manifesting in this mortal realm—am an entity of paramount importance. There being a proverb that “the child of wealth sits not by crumbling eaves,” to willfully court peril through transcendent ideals would be not merely personal disaster but rank defiance of celestial will. Even the fierce tiger housed at Ueno must neighbor dung-smeared swine; even the wild goose netted by fowlers shares the block with spring chicks. To mingle with mediocrities demands descent into mediocrity; to be a mediocre cat demands rat-catching.—Thus have I resolved at last to hunt rodents.

I hear Japan has been waging a great war against Russia since around the tenth of last month. As a Japanese cat, my allegiance naturally lies with Japan. Were it possible, I would form a combined feline brigade to claw those Russian soldiers—such is my fervor. Being endowed with such vigorous vitality, catching a rat or two would require but the slightest will; I could snatch them even in my sleep. Long ago, when someone asked a renowned Zen master how to attain enlightenment, he reportedly answered: "Be as a cat stalking its prey." To act as a cat catching rats means that doing this much leaves no room for error. There exists a proverb—"A woman may be clever yet fail"—but no maxim states "A cat may be clever yet fail to catch mice." Thus even one as sagacious as myself could hardly fail to catch rats. Nay, there should be no possibility of failure at all. That I haven't caught any until now stems purely from lack of desire. The spring day faded like its predecessor, cherry blossom petals swirling on capricious winds through a tear in the kitchen's waist-high shoji screen, their shadows floating in a water bucket to gleam whitely under the dim kitchen lamp. Having resolved to perform a great deed tonight that would startle the entire household, I first needed to survey the battlefield and commit its topography to memory. The combat zone could hardly be extensive—perhaps four tatami mats when measured. One mat's space was divided between a sink and an earthen floor for receiving deliveries from sake merchants and greengrocers. The hearth stood imposingly incongruous in this impoverished kitchen, its red copper pot gleaming while behind it lay a two-shaku gap in the wainscoting—the location of my abalone shells. Near the tearoom, six shaku of space became dishware cupboards that further narrowed the cramped kitchen, their height nearly matching an exposed side shelf. Below sat an upturned mortar containing a small bucket whose base faced me. Daikon graters and wooden pestles hung in rows beside the forlorn fire-extinguishing jar. From amidst pitch-black crossed barrel staves descended an adjustable hook suspending a broad flat basket. This basket swayed occasionally in the breeze with dignified composure.

As for why this basket was hung here, when I first came to this house I couldn't grasp its purpose at all, but once I learned that they deliberately placed food here out of a cat's reach, I profoundly realized the spitefulness of humans.

Now I would formulate my battle plan.
If one were to ask where to wage war against the rats, it must of course be where they emerged.
No matter how advantageous this terrain might be for me, lying in wait alone wouldn’t amount to a proper battle.
Therefore, it became necessary here to study their exit points.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen surveying all four directions to determine their approach.
I felt somewhat like Admiral Tōgō.

The maid had gone to the bathhouse and had not yet returned.
The children were sound asleep.
The Master had eaten dumplings at Imozaka and returned home before shutting himself away in his study as usual.
As for the wife—what the wife was doing, I did not know.
She was likely dozing off and dreaming of mountain yams.
Occasionally a rickshaw passed by the gate, but after it disappeared into the distance, the loneliness grew more profound.
My resolve, my fighting spirit, the kitchen's appearance, and the surrounding desolation—all combined to create an atmosphere of solemn grandeur.
I could not help but see myself as Admiral Tōgō of the feline world.
Though anyone entering such a state would naturally feel exhilaration amidst the tension, I discovered beneath this excitement lay a profound anxiety.
While I feared no number of rats in my current resolute state, their uncertain avenues of approach presented tactical complications.
Synthesizing intelligence gathered through meticulous reconnaissance, I concluded the rodent insurgents utilized three possible infiltration routes.
If they were sewer rats, they would undoubtedly follow the drainage pipe from the sink to circle behind the hearth.
In that event, I would conceal myself behind the fire-extinguishing urn and cut off their retreat.
Alternatively, they might emerge through the plaster drain hole near the bathhouse and make an unexpected flanking maneuver into the kitchen.
Should they attempt this approach, I would establish a forward position atop the iron pot lid and pounce upon them from above when they passed beneath.
Reconnoitering further, I discovered crescent-shaped gnaw marks at the lower right corner of the cupboard door—clear evidence of their covert passageway.
Pressing my nose against it confirmed the faint but unmistakable rodent musk.
If they launched an assault through this breach, I would use the pillar as cover before executing a lightning claw strike from their flank.
Surveying upward revealed ceiling beams coated in lamp-lit soot resembling an inverted hellscape—a vertical battlefield beyond my current climbing abilities.
Judging it improbable they would descend from such heights, I elected to disregard this potential axis of attack.

Even so, there remained the concern of being attacked from three directions.
If it were just one rat, I'd exterminate it even with one eye.
If two came, I felt confident I could manage somehow.
But when it came to three rats—though instinctively expected to catch mice—I found myself at a loss.
Yet relying on someone like Kuro the rickshaw cat for reinforcements would compromise my dignity.
What course should I take?
When unable to devise a good strategy, I realized the quickest path to peace lay in deciding such an event wouldn't occur.
Moreover, one naturally wants to believe uncontrollable situations won't arise.
First consider—the bride wed yesterday might die today, yet her groom keeps chanting auspicious phrases about jade camellias lasting eight thousand generations without showing concern.
Not worrying doesn't mean there's nothing worth fearing.
No—it means anxiety changes nothing.
In my case too, though lacking proof that a three-pronged attack wouldn't come, assuming its absence brought mental ease.
Peace of mind sustains all creation.
I too craved this peace.
Thus I definitively concluded no three-pronged assault would occur.

Even so, the worry wouldn’t leave me, so when I gradually thought through what was going on, I finally understood.
The anguish stemmed from my struggle to arrive at a clear answer to the question of which of the three strategies would prove most advantageous.
If they emerged from the cupboard, I had a countermeasure prepared; if they appeared from the bath area, a plan to confront them; and if they crawled up from the sink, a sure method of interception—but being forced to choose just one left me utterly perplexed.
They say Admiral Tōgō agonized over whether the Baltic Fleet would pass through Tsushima Strait, emerge via Tsugaru Strait, or take the distant detour around Sōya Strait—but now, viewing this through my own circumstances, I could fully appreciate His Excellency’s predicament.
Not only did I resemble Admiral Tōgō in overall circumstances, but in this exceptional position too, I found myself sharing in His Excellency’s very struggles.

As I was thus engrossed in weaving schemes, the torn waist-high shoji suddenly slid open, and O-san’s face popped into view.
To say only her face appeared wasn’t to imply she lacked limbs.
While her body remained indistinct in the dimness, that face—glowing with unnatural vividness—imprinted itself starkly on my vision.
O-san, cheeks flushed redder than usual after her bathhouse visit, took advantage of her return to lock the kitchen door early—perhaps chastened by last night’s events.
From the study came the Master’s voice: “Place my walking stick beside my pillow.”
I couldn’t fathom why he insisted on garnishing his bedside with a walking stick.
Surely this wasn’t some drunken affectation—playing at being one of Yishui’s doomed heroes waiting to hear a dragon’s roar?
Yesterday mountain yams, today a walking stick—what absurdity would tomorrow bring?

The night was still young; the rats showed no sign of emerging.
I required a brief respite before the great battle.

In the Master’s kitchen, there was no sliding window.
In the formal parlor, a section resembling a transom—about a foot in width—had been cut out to serve as a substitute for sliding windows, allowing year-round ventilation.

A sudden gust of wind, enticing higan cherry blossoms to scatter without reluctance, startled me awake—only to find the hazy moon had already crept in unnoticed, casting the stove’s shadow diagonally across the wooden floor.
Worried I might have overslept, I twitched my ears two or three times to check on the household, only to find the same deep silence as last night broken solely by the pillar clock’s ticking.
It must be about time for the rats to emerge.
Where would they come from?

A clattering sound began inside the cupboard.
They were pressing down on the edge of a small plate with their feet, seemingly rummaging inside.
They’ll come out from here, I thought, crouching by the hole and waiting.
There was still no sign of them emerging.
The clattering of dishes soon ceased, but this time they seemed to have moved on to a large bowl or something, with heavy sounds occasionally clattering.
Moreover, they were at it right on the other side of the door—not even three sun away from my snout.
At times, scurrying footsteps would approach the mouth of the hole but retreat again without a single one showing its face.
With only a single door between us and the enemy currently rampaging on the other side, I had no choice but to wait motionless at the hole’s exit—a truly interminable test of patience.
The rats were holding a lively dance party inside the Port Arthur bowls.
If only O-san had left this door open just enough for me to slip through... That clueless country bumpkin.

This time, my abalone shell clinked in the shadow of the hearth.
Realizing the enemy had breached this front too, I crept closer on stealthy paws—only to catch a fleeting glimpse of a tail between the buckets before it vanished beneath the sink.
After a moment, a rinsing bowl clinked against a metal basin in the bath area.
Just as I turned toward this new disturbance behind me, a massive specimen—nearly five sun long—nimbly dropped a tooth powder bag and bolted under the veranda.
No chance I'd let it escape! I leapt down in pursuit, but by then its shadow had dissolved into nothingness.
Catching rats proved far harder than I'd imagined.
Could it be I lacked any innate mousing ability?

When I circled around to the bath area, they dashed out from the cupboard; when I guarded against the cupboard, they leapt up from the sink; and when I held my position in the kitchen’s center, they stirred up minor disturbances on all three fronts. Should I call them impertinent or cowardly? Either way, they were no match for a gentleman. I made fifteen or sixteen attempts here and there, exhausting my spirit and straining my heart as I rushed about in earnest effort, but ultimately not a single one succeeded. It was regrettable, but when faced with such petty foes, even Admiral Tōgō would have had no strategy to employ. At first, I had courage, fighting spirit, and even a sublime sense of tragic beauty—but in the end, driven by annoyance at this foolishness along with sleepiness and exhaustion, I found myself sitting motionless in the kitchen’s center. However, even motionless, maintaining vigilant watch in all directions sufficed—they were petty foes who couldn’t accomplish anything significant. When those I had deemed worthy adversaries turned out to be unexpectedly wretched vermin, any notion of war’s honor faded away, leaving only futility in its wake. After passing through this futility, the tension drained away until I sat dazed. Then came contempt—Let them do as they please; it’s not like I could manage anything clever anyway—and with that final scorn, unbearable sleepiness overtook me. Having followed this downward spiral of reasoning, I finally grew sleepy. I slept. Rest proves necessary even amidst enemies.

Through the sliding window opened sideways beneath the eaves, another flurry of petals came swirling in with a violent gust that whipped around me—and in that instant, a figure burst from the cupboard's mouth like a bullet. Before I could even think to dodge, it sliced through the wind and sank its teeth into my left ear.
No sooner had the black shadow swung around behind me than it latched onto my tail.
It all happened in an instant.
I mechanically leap up without any purpose.
I pour every ounce of strength through my pores in an attempt to shake off this monster.
The one clinging to my ear, having lost its grip, dangles limply against the side of my face.
The tip of the tail, soft as a rubber tube, unexpectedly slips into my mouth.
Desperately clinging on, I shake my head left and right with my teeth clamped on the tail as if to snap it—only for the tail to remain between my front teeth while the body slams into the newspaper-patched wall and rebounds onto the wooden floor.
As I start to rise, it pounces without a gap—like kicking a ball—grazing my snout before pulling back to perch on the edge of the shelf.
He looks down at me from atop the shelf; I look up at him from the floorboards.
The distance is five shaku.
In that space, moonlight streamed sideways like a broad sash stretched across the sky.
I gathered strength in my front paws and just barely attempted to leap up onto the shelf.
My front paws managed to catch the edge of the shelf, but my hind legs were flailing in midair.
At my tail, the black one from earlier was hanging on with a death-defying grip, refusing to let go even if it meant dying.
I am in peril.
I shift my front paws, trying to secure a better grip.
Each time I reposition my grip, the weight of my tail makes it shallower.
If I slip for two or three minutes, I’ll have to fall.
I am now in peril.

The grating sound of claws tearing at the shelf board reached my ears. This wouldn't do—as I shifted my left front paw to reposition it, I spectacularly failed to secure my claws, leaving me dangling from the shelf by a single right claw. The combined weight of myself and whatever clung to my tail made my body creak and spin. The monster on the shelf—which had lain motionless in ambush until this moment—seized its chance and leapt down like a hurled stone straight for my forehead. My claws lost their tenuous hold. Three masses merged into one and fell straight down, slicing vertically through the moonlight. The suribachi grinding bowl from the shelf below, along with the small bucket inside it and the empty jam can, became a single mass that dragged down the fire-extinguishing pot beneath—half tumbling into the water jar, half rolling across the floorboards. Everything made an extraordinary noise in the dead of night, chilling even my frenzied soul.

“Thief!” bellowed the Master as he came rushing out of the bedroom.
In one hand he held a lamp, in the other a walking stick, his bleary eyes emitting a gleam befitting his station.
I crouched quietly beside the abalone shell.
The two monsters hid themselves inside the cupboard.
The Master, with nothing better to do, demanded angrily to no one in particular, “What was that? Who was making such a racket?”
The moon had sunk westward, narrowing the expanse of white light to about half a sheet.

Six

This heat was unbearable even for a cat.
They say some Englishman named Sidney Smith once agonized about wanting to strip off his skin, shed his flesh, and cool down to bare bones—though even short of that extreme, I found myself wishing I could at least give this pale gray mottled fur coat of mine a good washing or perhaps pawn it temporarily.
To human eyes, cats might appear to maintain the same expression year-round, persisting through all seasons with a single unchanging facade—a life of utmost simplicity and frugality—but even we felines feel heat and cold in our own measure.
There were times I wouldn’t have minded taking a quick dip, but getting this fur soaked would make drying an ordeal, so I’d endured decades of musky odors without ever slipping beneath a bathhouse curtain.
Occasionally I’d consider trying a fan too, but lacking the means to grip one properly left me resigned.
Contemplating this, humans struck me as absurdly extravagant creatures.
They took perfectly edible raw ingredients and deliberately subjected them to boiling, grilling, pickling in vinegar, slathering with miso—all that gratuitous effort just to revel in mutual admiration.
Clothing proved no different.
Expecting these imperfect beings to wear one garment year-round like cats might be unreasonable, but there was no need for them to layer such motley fabrics over their skin.
To go so far as enlisting sheep’s wool, silkworms’ labor, and cotton fields’ bounty—one could practically declare such luxury the product of sheer incompetence.
Even granting leniency for food and clothing, their applying this excess to matters wholly unrelated to survival defied all logic.
Take head hair—a naturally growing feature best left untouched for simplicity’s sake—yet they concocted elaborate coiffures with perverse pride.
Those self-styled monks kept their scalps perpetually shaved blue.
In summer they shaded them with parasols.
In winter swaddled them in hoods.
What then was the point of exposing those azure domes at all?
Then there were those who wielded comb-like saws to part their locks down the middle with glee.
When not dividing hair equally, they etched artificial seven-to-three ratios across their skulls.
Some partings extended clear past the crown to the nape—
precisely resembling counterfeit plantain leaves.

Next came those who cropped the crown flat and sliced off the sides straight—forcing a square frame onto a round head until it resembled nothing so much as a sketched cedar fence with some gardener absurdly planted inside it all.

Then there were five-minute shaves and three-minute shaves—even one-minute shaves! At this rate I fully expected them to start shaving backwards across their scalps until we'd have negative one-minute shaves and other such novelties.

Honestly—what drives them to such exertions? Take their legs: four perfectly good limbs granted by nature! Yet they insist on using only two like some impoverished aristocrat parading about town while letting their other pair dangle useless as salted codfish tails.

From this we may deduce humanity's true idleness—so profound that boredom drives them to invent such preposterous amusements.

The true absurdity lies in how these idlers ceaselessly trumpet their busyness while wearing faces so harried you'd think productivity itself might devour them whole at any moment.

Some occasionally glance my way and sigh about how carefree I must be—as if carefreeness were some unattainable virtue rather than a simple matter of shedding unnecessary burdens!

No one demands their ceaseless bustle—they heap tasks upon themselves like madmen stoking furnaces only to wail about the heat.

Were cats to invent twenty hairstyles we'd lose all claim to leisure ourselves.

If you crave carefreeness—train as I have! Endure summer's heat in full fur without complaint.

Though I must admit—it grows rather warm.

This coat truly overheats one.

In this heat, even my trademark nap was impossible.
I wondered if there might be anything interesting—having long neglected observing human society, I considered taking a rare look today at how they might be fussing about in their drunken revelry. But alas, in this matter, the Master proved remarkably cat-like in disposition.
He took naps no less frequently than I did, and particularly since summer vacation had begun, hadn’t performed a single human-like task—so no matter how much I observed him, there remained absolutely no payoff to my observations.
If only Meitei would come at such a time—the Master’s delicate, stomach-ridden skin might show some reaction and keep him away from me for a while—I was thinking it was about time he arrived when someone began noisily splashing water in the bathhouse.
Not only was there the sound of splashing water, but at intervals came loud interjections:
“Ah, splendid!”
“This feels absolutely marvelous!”
“Another round!” he boomed in a voice that reverberated through the entire house.
There existed no one else who would visit the Master’s home while making such clamorous noises and rude gestures.
It could only be Meitei.

At last he’d come—I’d been thinking this would kill half the day—when Meitei, having wiped sweat from his brow and hunched his shoulders in his usual manner, strode up to the parlor while booming “Mrs., what’s become of Mr. Kusakabe?” and tossed his hat onto the tatami.
The wife had been lying face-down by her sewing box in the adjacent room, enjoying a pleasant nap, when a deafening noise that seemed to rattle her eardrums startled her awake. Rubbing sleep from her eyes with effort, she emerged into the parlor to find Meitei clad in Satsuma linen, having planted himself in a spot of his choosing while vigorously working his fan.

“Oh, welcome!” she said with a slightly flustered air, then bowed politely with sweat beading on the tip of her nose. “I had no idea you were here.”
“No, I’ve only just arrived.
“Just now in the bathhouse, I had O-san pour water over me, you see.”
“I’ve just barely revived myself here—but isn’t this heat simply unbearable?”
“These past few days, even if one sits perfectly still, they break into a sweat—it’s been dreadfully hot.
“—But you seem unchanged as ever,” said the Teacher’s Wife, still not wiping the sweat from her nose.
“Oh, thank you.”
“Oh, a bit of heat like this isn’t going to change me any.”
“But this heat is a different matter entirely.”
“I’ve been feeling so sluggish, you know.”
“I myself have never taken naps or such, but in this heat I can’t help but—” “Do you now?
“Oh, that’s perfectly fine!”
“If one can nap during the day and sleep at night, there’s nothing better than that,” he continued airily as ever, but finding this insufficient, added: “As for me, I don’t want to sleep—it’s my nature.”
“When I see people like Mr. Kusakabe who fall asleep every time they visit, I can’t help but feel envious.”
“Of course, this heat takes its toll on a weak stomach.”
“Even healthy folks today find it a bother to keep their heads perched on their shoulders, you know.”
“But then again, since it’s already attached, you can’t just pluck it off, you know,” said Mr. Meitei, uncharacteristically perplexed about how to handle his neck.
“You’ve still got that weight sitting atop your neck—no wonder you can’t stay seated!”
“Just the weight of this topknot alone makes me want to lie down,” he said, whereupon Mrs. Teacher, thinking he had deduced her earlier nap from the state of her hair, replied “My, what a tease you are!” while fussing with her head.

Meitei, paying no heed to such matters, declared something preposterous: “Mrs., yesterday I tried frying an egg on the roof.”
“However did you manage that?”
“The roof tiles were so magnificently sunbaked that it seemed a crime to leave them idle.
I melted butter and cracked an egg over them.”
“Goodness me!”
“But solar power proved unreliable.
When it refused to soft-boil after ages, I went downstairs to read the paper—then a visitor arrived and I clean forgot about it. This morning I suddenly remembered and rushed up to check—”
“What had become of it?”
“Far from soft-boiled—it had liquefied entirely!”
“Mercy,” marveled the wife, knitting her brows into inverted chevrons.

"But it’s strange how cool it was during the Dog Days, and now it’s suddenly getting so hot."
"That’s quite true."
"Until just recently, even in unlined kimono it was chilly enough, but since the day before yesterday it’s turned suddenly hot."
"If it were a crab, it’d crawl sideways—but this year’s climate does a backward shuffle."
"It might be declaring something like, 'Is acting contrary and governing inversely not permissible?'"
"What on earth do you mean by that?"
"No, it’s nothing."
"This climate’s reversal is just like Hercules’ cattle," he declared with growing audacity—and sure enough, the Teacher’s Wife didn’t understand.
However, having been somewhat chastened by the earlier remark about acting contrary, she merely said "Hmm" without pressing further.
If she didn’t inquire more, Meitei’s efforts in bringing it up would be wasted.
"Mrs., do you know about Hercules’ cattle?"
"I don’t know of any such cow."
"You don’t? Shall I explain?" he said, and since she found herself unable to refuse outright: "Yes."
"Long ago, Hercules dragged a cow here."
"Might this Hercules be a cattle herder?"
"He wasn’t a cattle herder."
"He’s neither a cattle herder nor someone like Iroha’s husband."
"This was when there wasn’t a single butcher shop in all of Greece."
"Oh, this is a story about Greece?"
"If that’s the case, you should have said so from the start!" interjected the Teacher’s Wife, having only grasped the country name.

“But it’s Hercules, isn’t it?”
“So Hercules is Greek?”
“Yes, Hercules is a Greek hero, I tell you.”
“No wonder I didn’t know about him.”
“So what did that man do—”
“That man—as you might expect—grew drowsy and started snoring away—”
“Oh, how dreadful!”
“While he slept, Vulcan’s child came along, you see.”
“What’s Vulcan?”
“Vulcan’s a blacksmith.”
“This blacksmith’s son stole the cow, you see.”
“But here’s the thing.”
“He grabbed the cow’s tail and kept yanking it as he dragged it off, so when Hercules woke up and went around calling ‘Hey cow! Where are you, cow?’ he couldn’t find it.”
“Of course he couldn’t.”
“Even if there were hoofprints, he didn’t lead it forward—he kept dragging it backward and backward, you see.”
“For a blacksmith’s son, that’s quite a feat,” said Mr. Meitei, who had already forgotten all about discussing the weather.

“By the way—how fares your husband?”
“Still taking his afternoon nap, I suppose?”
"Napping may be elegant when it appears in Chinese poetry, but making it a daily routine like Mr. Kusakabe does carries a touch of vulgarity."
“It’s nothing more than dying a little every day, I tell you. Mrs., if you’d be so kind as to rouse him,” he pressed, to which the Wife, seemingly in agreement, replied, “Yes, truly, that’s quite troublesome.”
"For one thing his health will only deteriorate further."
“But I’ve only just finished my meal—” she began to rise, but Mr. Meitei interjected with an utterly unperturbed expression, “Ah, speaking of meals, Mrs.—I haven’t had mine yet,” proclaiming this completely unrelated matter.
“Oh my, I hadn’t realized it was mealtime at all—in that case, I’m afraid I have nothing proper to offer, but perhaps some tea over rice?”
“No, I don’t need to have tea over rice or anything like that.”
“Even so, you—it’s not like I have anything that would suit your palate anyway,” retorted the Teacher’s Wife with a touch of sarcasm.
“No, I must decline both tea over rice and hot water over rice.”
“I’ve already ordered a meal on my way here, so I’ll just have that here,” he declared, stating something no layperson could possibly manage.
The Teacher’s Wife uttered just a single "Oh!"—but within that "Oh!" merged surprise at his claim, irritation at his antics, and gratitude for being spared further trouble.

Just then, the Master—unusually disturbed by the commotion—emerged unsteadily from his study, feeling as though his half-claimed sleep had been violently uprooted.
“You’re as noisy as ever.
You’ve ruined my perfect chance to fall asleep,” he grimaced through a yawn, his face sour.
“Oh, you’re awake now?”
“I must humbly apologize for disturbing your august slumber.”
“But once in a while, it’s fine. Now, have a seat,” he said in a greeting that blurred who was guest and who was host.
The Master sat down in silence, took out an “Asahi” cigarette from his marquetry cigarette case, and began puffing away. Then, noticing Meitei’s hat lying in the corner across from him, he remarked, “You bought a new hat, I see.”
Meitei immediately held it out before the Master and his wife with a boastful “How about this?”
“My, how lovely! The weave is so fine and soft!” said the Teacher’s Wife, stroking it repeatedly.
“Mrs., this hat is quite handy—it’ll do whatever you tell it to,” he said, clenching his fist and thwacking the side of the Panama hat—and sure enough, a fist-sized hole opened up exactly as intended.
Before the Wife could even finish her “Oh!” of surprise, this time he thrust his fist inside the hat and gave a mighty push, causing the crown to pop up into a sharp point.
Next, he took the hat and crushed the brim from both sides to demonstrate.
The crushed hat became as flat as soba noodles rolled out with a rolling pin.
He then rolled it up from one end as if coiling a straw mat.
“How about this?” he said, tucking the rolled-up hat into his pocket.
“My, how extraordinary!” marveled the Teacher’s Wife as though watching a magic show by Kaitensai Shōichi. Seemingly inspired by her reaction, Meitei then deliberately pulled the hat he had stowed in his right pocket out from his left sleeve. “Not a scratch anywhere,” he declared, restoring it to its original shape before balancing the crown on his index finger and twirling it briskly.
Just when one thought he might finally relent, he gave it a final toss backward and plopped down squarely on top of it.
“You sure that’s okay?” even the Master asked with a look of concern.
The Teacher’s Wife naturally looked concerned as she cautioned him: “If you go and ruin such a splendid hat after all this trouble, it would be disastrous. You should really stop now.”
Only its owner could take pride in this. “But isn’t it marvelous how it doesn’t break?” he said, pulling out the mangled hat from under his buttocks and plopping it onto his head—whereupon, miraculously, it instantly conformed to the shape of his skull.

“What an exceptionally sturdy hat! How ever did you manage that?” marveled the Teacher’s Wife with growing admiration, whereupon Mr. Meitei—still wearing the hat—replied, “Oh, I didn’t do a thing—it’s just made this way from the start.”

After a moment, the Teacher’s Wife suggested to her husband, “You should get yourself a hat like that too.”
“But Kusakabe already has a splendid straw one, doesn’t he?”
“But you see, the other day the children went and stomped all over it.”
“Oh my, that’s quite something they did!”
“So I think it would be wise to buy a sturdy and nice one like yours this time,” said the Teacher’s Wife, unaware of Panama hats’ prices, urging the Master insistently, “Do get this one, really—you should.”

Mr. Meitei this time pulled out a pair of scissors in a red case from his right sleeve and showed them to the Teacher’s Wife.
“Mrs., let’s leave the hat at that and please take a look at these scissors.”
“This is also an exceptionally handy tool—it can be used in fourteen different ways.”
Had these scissors not made their appearance, the Master would have been subjected to his wife’s Panama hat crusade. However, thanks to her innate feminine curiosity, he narrowly escaped this ordeal—a fortunate turn of events I attribute more to sheer luck than any clever maneuvering on Meitei’s part.
“How can those scissors be used in fourteen different ways?” No sooner had she asked than Mr. Meitei declared with great pride, “Now I’ll explain each one in detail, so listen carefully.”
“Ready?”
“You see this crescent-shaped notch here? Insert your cigar into it and snip off the tip cleanly like so.”
“Next, you’ll notice a slight modification here at the base—with this part, you can punch small holes in wire.”
“Next, flatten it and place it horizontally on paper, and it serves as a ruler.”
“Moreover, the back of the blade has measurement markings, so it can double as a ruler.”
“On this side of the surface, there’s a file attached—you can use this to polish your nails.”
“How about that?”
“If you insert this tip into the head of a screw and twist it tight, it can even serve as a hammer.”
“If you thrust it in and pry hard, you can effortlessly remove the lids of most nailed-down boxes.”
“Ah, right—the tip of this blade here is fashioned into a drill.”
“This part here is for scraping off incorrectly written characters, and if you take it apart, it becomes a knife.”
“And finally—come now, Mrs., this last feature is truly fascinating! There’s a sphere here about the size of a fly’s eye—go on, take a peek through it.”
“No, I’d rather not—you’ll just play some trick again.”
“You really must learn to trust me!”
“But just humor me and take a quick peek through here, would you? Hmm?”

“Don’t want to? Just a quick look will do,” he said, handing the scissors to the Teacher’s Wife.
The Teacher’s Wife hesitantly took up the scissors and pressed her eye to the fly’s-eye aperture, peering intently.
“How about this?”
“It’s all black—I can’t see anything.”
“It shouldn’t be black.
Turn more toward the shoji screen—keep the scissors upright... There, see it now?”
“Oh my! It’s a photograph!
Why would you paste such a tiny picture here?”
“That’s precisely where the charm lies,” said Meitei as their rapid exchange continued.
The Master, silent until now, suddenly grew eager. “Let me see too,” he demanded, but the Teacher’s Wife kept the scissors pressed to her face. “It’s truly lovely—a nude beauty!” she declared, refusing to yield.
“I said let me look!”
“Wait your turn.
Such beautiful hair.
It reaches all the way to her waist.
She’s leaning back slightly—terrifyingly tall, but a real beauty.”
“Enough! Hand it over already!” snapped the Master impatiently.
“Here then—have your fill of looking,” said the Teacher’s Wife as she relinquished the scissors, just as O-san entered from the kitchen announcing “The guest’s order is here,” and brought two wicker baskets of soba into the parlor.

“Mrs., this is my own treat,” he announced with an elaborate bow. “If you’ll pardon me, I’ll be indulging right here.” His gesture hovered between sincerity and buffoonery, leaving the Teacher’s Wife flustered; she murmured “By all means” and watched warily.

The Master finally tore his eyes from the photograph. “Eating soba in this heat’s downright reckless,” he grumbled.

“Nonsense! What one craves never harms,” retorted Meitei, flipping open the steamer lid with flair. “Ah, freshly made noodles! Though between soggy soba and dimwitted men, neither’s ever been reliable.” He began violently mixing wasabi into broth.

“You’ll make it inedible,” warned the Master.

“Broth and wasabi are soba’s soul! You’ve no palate for it,” Meitei jabbed his cedar chopsticks downward, hoisting a two-inch clump of noodles aloft.

“I prefer udon.”

“Udon’s for cart-pullers! Pitiful souls who can’t savor soba...” With theatrical precision, he demonstrated: “Novices drown noodles in broth and chomp like cattle—thus obliterating all flavor! Observe—hook them thus—”

As he raised his chopsticks, a foot-long strand dangled dramatically while twelve trailing threads clung stubbornly to the bamboo slats.

“Marvelous length, wouldn’t you say?” he prompted.

“Quite remarkable,” conceded the Teacher’s Wife, her admiration tinged with bemusement.

“You apply three parts of broth to this long strand and then gulp it down in one go.”
“Don’t chew it.”
“If you chew it, you’ll lose the flavor of the soba.”
“The real value lies in how smoothly it slides down your throat,” he declared resolutely, raising his chopsticks high until the soba finally broke free from the steamer.
As he gradually lowered the chopsticks into the bowl held in his left hand, immersing the noodle tips first bit by bit, the broth’s volume increased in precise accordance with Archimedes’ principle—rising exactly in proportion to the amount of submerged soba.
However, since the bowl was already filled to eighty percent with broth from the start, before even half of the soba on Meitei’s chopsticks could be submerged, the bowl became completely full.
Meitei’s chopsticks reached a point five inches above the bowl and came to an abrupt stop, remaining motionless for some time.
It was no wonder they weren’t moving.
Lowering them even slightly would have caused the broth to overflow.
Meitei now hesitated for a moment, but in the next instant, with the swiftness of a fleeing hare, he brought his mouth to the chopsticks—and before one could register it, a slurping sound rang out as his Adam’s apple bobbed once or twice with forced effort, and the soba at the chopstick tips vanished.
When I looked, one or two tear-like drops streamed from the corners of Mr. Meitei’s eyes down his cheeks.
Whether it was the wasabi’s potency or the strain of swallowing, this remains unclear to this day.
“Impressive,” marveled the Master. “I can’t believe you managed to swallow it all in one go.”
“How splendidly done!” effused the Teacher’s Wife in praise of Meitei’s technique.
Meitei said nothing but set down his chopsticks and patted his chest two or three times. “Mrs., you generally finish a basket in about three and a half or four mouthfuls.”
“If you take more care than that, you can’t eat it properly,” he said, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief before pausing to catch his breath.

Just then, Kangetsu-kun arrived—for some reason, despite the sweltering heat, he had gone to the trouble of wearing a winter hat, his legs covered in dust.
“Well, a fine gentleman has arrived, but since I’m in the middle of eating, I’ll just finish this up,” declared Mr. Meitei, who, seated behind the gathered company, shamelessly polished off the remaining soba in the steamer.
This time, instead of his earlier spectacular method of eating, he managed to dispatch two steamers effortlessly—using a handkerchief and avoiding any awkward pauses—a commendable feat.

“Have you finished drafting your doctoral thesis yet, Kangetsu-kun?” asked the Master, whereupon Meitei added from behind him, “Miss Kaneda is eagerly waiting—best present it posthaste.”
Kangetsu-kun emitted his usual unsettling smile and said with feigned earnestness, “I do feel guilty and want to submit it soon to put her at ease, but given the problem’s very nature, it requires considerably laborious research,” uttering what seemed unserious in a thoroughly serious manner.
“Exactly—when the problem itself is problematic, you can’t just obey the Nose’s whims.”
“Though with that Nose of hers, she’s certainly worth minding every snort,” Meitei added with Kangetsu-esque formality.
The Master remained comparatively earnest.
“What was your thesis’s subject again?”
“It’s titled ‘The Influence of Ultraviolet Rays on the Electrodynamic Action of Frog Eyeballs.’”
“How peculiar.”
“As expected of Dr. Kangetsu—frog eyeballs truly are electrifying!”
“What say you, Mr. Kusakabe? Shouldn’t we inform the Kanedas about this problem before final submission?”
Ignoring Meitei’s remark, the Master asked Kangetsu-kun, “Is such research truly so arduous?”
“Yes—it’s quite complex. For starters, the structural composition of a frog’s ocular lens isn’t nearly so simplistic.”
“Thus I must conduct numerous experiments, but first I need to fabricate a perfectly spherical glass lens as a foundation.”
“Couldn’t you simply procure one from a glassmaker?”
“Why—why,” Kangetsu-kun grew defensive.
“Fundamentally, geometric constructs like perfect circles exist only theoretically—their idealized forms have no physical counterpart.”
“Then abolish them,” interjected Meitei.
“Hence my initial goal is crafting a sphere adequate for experimental purposes.”
“I commenced this endeavor recently.”
“Any progress?” the Master inquired casually.

“Is that even possible?” said Kangetsu-kun, then quickly added as if realizing his contradiction, “It’s quite difficult. When I grind down one side thinking its radius is too long, suddenly the opposite side becomes overextended. After painstakingly correcting that distortion, the diameter goes askew again. What began apple-sized shrinks to strawberry dimensions through persistent grinding. Even when reduced to a soybean’s scale, achieving perfect sphericity remains impossible.” He rambled on ambiguously—truth or fabrication?—“I’ve ground six glass spheres of various sizes since New Year’s alone.”

“Where do you perform this grinding?” asked the Master.

“At the school laboratory—mornings through lunch breaks till nightfall. It’s grueling work.”

“So your recent complaints about being busy—even Sundays at school—are for sphere-grinding?”

“Precisely! From dawn till dusk, nothing but spheres occupy me now.”

“Behold our Sphere-Forging Doctor!” interjected Meitei. “Though if Madam Nose heard such dedication, even her proboscis might twitch in gratitude. Speaking of noses—just yesterday at the library gate, who should I meet but Roubai-kun! When I praised his scholarly devotion post-graduation, he grimaced: ‘Books? Don’t be absurd—I needed to borrow their privy!’” Meitei appended his trademark digression: “You two—the obsessive grinder and opportunistic lavatory patron—deserve paired entries in New Instructive Parables!”

The Master sobered slightly. “This endless grinding—when will it conclude?”

“At this rate? Perhaps a decade,” Kangetsu-kun airily replied.

“Ten years? Aim to finish sooner.”

“Ten years would be swift! Twenty might prove necessary.”

“Disastrous! You’ll never earn your doctorate that way!”

“Yes, I do want to put her mind at ease as soon as possible, but in any case, unless I finish grinding the sphere, I can’t perform the crucial experiment…”

Kangetsu-kun paused briefly and said, “Oh, there’s no need for such concern. Even the Kanedas are well aware that I’m doing nothing but grinding spheres. In fact, when I went there two or three days ago, I explained the circumstances in detail,” he declared with a self-satisfied look.

At this, the Teacher’s Wife, who had been listening intently to the three men’s conversation without fully comprehending it, inquired suspiciously, “But hasn’t Mr. Kaneda’s entire family been in Ōiso since last month?”

Kangetsu-kun was somewhat taken aback by this but played dumb, saying, “That’s strange. I wonder what happened.”

In such moments, Mr. Meitei proved invaluable—whenever conversation lagged, when awkwardness set in, when drowsiness descended, when trouble arose—no matter the situation, he always leapt in from the sidelines.

“Meeting someone in Tokyo two or three days ago who supposedly went to Ōiso last month is delightfully mystical.”

“What you might call a spiritual exchange.”

“When mutual longing grows intense, such phenomena frequently manifest.”

“At first glance, it may seem like a dream, but even as a dream, it’s more certain than reality.”

“Of course it’s only natural for someone like you, Mrs. Kusakabe—having settled into a life with Mr. Kusakabe here without ever loving or being loved, never having grasped the essence of romance in your entire existence—to find such things perplexing...”

“Oh! On what evidence are you saying such a thing? You really do look down on people, don’t you?” the Teacher’s Wife suddenly rounded on Meitei mid-conversation.

“You don’t seem to have suffered from lovesickness either,” the Master backed up his wife head-on.

“Well, any romantic rumors about me have all passed the seventy-five-day mark, so they might not linger in your memories—but the truth is, even someone like me has remained single to this age as a result of a failed love affair,” he said, surveying the faces around him impartially.

“Hohohoho! How amusing!” said the Wife, while the Master turned toward the garden and muttered, “You’re mocking me!” Only Kangetsu-kun remained grinning as ever. “Please do share that nostalgic tale for our edification,” he urged.

“My story’s rather mystical too—if I’d told it to the late Mr. Koizumi Yakumo, he’d have been utterly captivated—but alas, the gentleman has passed on, so truth be told, there’s little incentive to share it now. Still, since you insist, I’ll spill it all.”
“But in return,” he pressed, “you must listen through to the end without interruption,” finally launching into his tale.
“Looking back now—hmm—how many years ago was that? Let’s see—to avoid tedious precision, we’ll set it at roughly fifteen or sixteen years past.”
“Preposterous!” snorted the Master through his nostrils.
“My, what a dreadful memory you have,” the Wife mocked.

Only Kangetsu-kun kept his promise without uttering a word, appearing eager to hear what came next.
“It was one winter some years ago—I was passing through Takenoko Valley in Kambara District, Echigo Province, ascending Takotsubo Pass, and was about to emerge into Aizu Domain.”
“What a strange place!” interjected the Master.
“Just be quiet and listen.”
“It’s interesting!” the Teacher’s Wife interjected.
“But night fell, I lost my way, and hunger gnawed at me. With no other option, I knocked on the lone house at the mountain pass’s summit and explained my predicament—this and that—begging for shelter. ‘How kind of you to ask! Please come in,’ she said, thrusting an unshaded candle toward my face. When I saw the girl’s features illuminated, I trembled—ah!”
“From that moment on, I became acutely aware of love’s cunning magic.”
“Oh, come now!”
“Can there really be a beautiful woman in such a mountainous area?”
“Whether in mountains or by sea, Madam—that girl was so striking I wish you could’ve seen her! She wore her hair in a proper bunkin Takashimada style.”
“Huh—” The Teacher’s Wife gaped.
“When I entered, there was a large hearth built in the center of the eight-tatami room where four of us sat—the daughter, her grandfather, grandmother, and myself.”
“‘You must be famished,’ she said. So I pleaded, ‘Anything good—quickly!’”
“Then the old man declared, ‘For such an honored guest—we’ll prepare snake rice!’”
“Now we reach the heartbreak—brace yourselves!”
“Hmm—reasonable question.”
“But poetic tales can’t be shackled by logic.”
“In Kyōka’s novels don’t crabs crawl from snow?” At this, Kangetsu-kun merely murmured “Ah,” resuming his attentive silence.

“Back then, I was quite the connoisseur of unsavory fare—having grown thoroughly weary of locusts, slugs, and red frogs—so snake rice struck me as positively refined,”
“I promptly accepted the old man’s offer.”
He placed a pot over the hearth, filled it with rice, and let it simmer at a low boil.
Strangely enough, the pot lid bore about ten holes of varying sizes.
“Steam came puffing through those holes—a clever contraption, I thought, quite ingenious for country folk,” I continued watching as the old man suddenly stood and left. After some time, he returned with a large basket tucked under his arm.
He set it casually by the hearth—peering inside, there they were!
“The long ones had coiled themselves into tangled masses against the cold, you see.”
“Oh, do stop this story already.”
“Disgusting,” said the Teacher’s Wife, her brows knitting into sharp angles.
“But this is precisely what precipitated my great heartbreak—I simply can’t skip over it!”
“The old man grabbed the pot lid with his left hand,” I pressed on, “seized that writhing tangle with his right, and hurled them into the pot—even I gasped as if my breath had stopped!”
“Please stop now.”
“Revolting!” she shuddered persistently.
“We’re nearly at the heartbreak—bear with me a moment longer.”
Less than a minute later, I started when a triangular head suddenly jutted from a hole in the lid!
No sooner had I thought ‘There’s one!’ than another face emerged from a neighboring aperture.
“Another!” I cried as heads kept appearing—here, there—until finally the pot seethed with serpentine visages!”
“Why would they keep poking their heads out?”

“Because the pot was scalding hot—they were desperately trying to escape,”
Then the old man said something like, “Should be done now—let’s yank ’em out,” to which the old woman drawled “Haaah” in response, and the daughter curtly acknowledged “Right” before each grabbed a snake’s head and gave a firm tug.
“The meat stayed in the pot, but the bones came clean away—when they pulled those heads, those long things slid out slick as you please.”
“So they deboned the snakes?” Kangetsu-kun asked with a chuckle. “Precisely! Full deboning! Quite the clever technique, eh?”
“Then they took off the lid, mashed the rice and meat together with a ladle, and said ‘Dig in!’”
“Did you eat it?” the Master asked coldly, while the Wife grimaced and snapped, “Stop this already—you’re making me too queasy to eat!”
“You only say that because you’ve never tried snake rice, Madam. Taste it once—that flavor’ll haunt you forever.”
“Ugh! Who’d ever eat such filth?”
“Well-fed and warmed through, having gazed my fill at the girl’s face without restraint—with nothing left to desire—I obeyed when they bid me goodnight. Dead tired from travel, I flopped down and—pardon my bluntness—sank into oblivion.”
“Then what happened?” pressed the Wife.
“Come morning—that’s when the heartbreak began.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing dramatic, but…
When I rose and peered out the back window while smoking, there by the water pipe was this medicinal kettle-head washing up.”
“Old man or woman?” asked the Master.
“Couldn’t tell at first—kept watching till that kettle turned my way. Nearly jumped out of my skin!”
“That was last night’s belle?”
“But you said she wore a Shimada coiffure!”
“Night before—a proper Shimada, mind you! Splendid work.”
“But come dawn—a full-blown medicinal kettle.”

“You’re mocking people,” said the Master, averting his gaze toward the ceiling as usual.
“I too was so astounded—and frankly rather alarmed—that I kept watching from a distance. The kettle-head finally finished washing her face, casually threw on that Takashimada wig lying on a nearby stone, and calmly went back inside. That’s when everything clicked.”
“Though I thought, ‘Ah, that explains it,’ from that moment on, I became a man forever cursed to lament this ill-fated romance.”
“What an utterly preposterous heartbreak.”
“Don’t you agree, Kangetsu-kun? This is why even failed romances leave him so damned cheerful,” remarked the Master, turning to critique Meitei’s tale. Kangetsu-kun replied, “Though had she not been a kettle-head and he’d brought her triumphantly back to Tokyo, our friend here might be even livelier! Still—what a tragedy that such a promising girl turned out bald.”
“But really—how does a young woman end up losing all her hair?”
“I’ve pondered this extensively myself and concluded it must be from excessive snake rice consumption.”
“That snake rice—positively inflammatory to the humors!”
“How fortunate you escaped unscathed.”
“I avoided baldness at least,” he said, removing his gold-rimmed glasses to polish them fastidiously with a handkerchief. “Though this myopia’s been my cross to bear ever since.”
After a pause, the Master asked as if struck by sudden recollection: “But where exactly was the ‘mystery’ in all this?”
“The enduring mystery,” declared Meitei, resettling his spectacles with theatrical precision, “lies in whether she purchased that wig or simply found it abandoned!”
“It’s exactly like listening to a professional raconteur,” observed the Teacher’s Wife.

With Meitei’s idle chatter having reached its conclusion, one might have expected him to finally cease—but the Teacher, whose nature seemed such that he could not remain silent unless muzzled, now launched into another monologue.

"My heartbreak was bitter enough," he said, "but if you end up unwittingly taking in that kettle-headed woman, she’ll become a lifelong eyesore—so think carefully. Perilous business indeed."
"When it comes to marriage, some discover hidden flaws at the very last moment."
"Young Kangetsu," the Teacher interjected with unwelcome counsel, "instead of mooning about in romantic yearning and making such a solitary fuss, you’d do better to calmly devote yourself to pearl-polishing." Whereupon Kangetsu-kun adopted an exaggerated look of dismay and replied, "Ah, I would gladly spend eternity polishing pearls alone, but they simply won’t permit it—utterly vexing."
"Well, in your case it’s the other side making the fuss, but some situations border on farce."
"Take old Roubai-kun who frequented that library just to relieve himself—now there’s a peculiar case."
"What did he do?" pressed the Master.
"Oh, it’s like this."
"Roubai once lodged at Shizuoka’s Tōzai-kan—a single night—and proposed marriage to their maid that very evening."
"I may be easygoing myself, but I’ve yet to evolve to such heights."
"Naturally, since O-Natsu-san—that inn’s famed beauty—was precisely who attended him in the parlor."
"Not natural—it’s identical to your ‘mountain pass’ incident!"
"A resemblance exists. Truthfully, Roubai and I differ little."
"At any rate, he proposed to O-Natsu-san, then developed a watermelon craving before receiving any answer."
"What nonsense?" said the Master, perplexed.
Not only the Master but the Wife and Kangetsu too tilted their heads in unison.
Meitei pressed on undeterred.
He summoned O-Natsu-san and asked if Shizuoka lacked watermelons, to which she retorted, "Shizuoka has watermelons aplenty!" presenting a tray heaped with them.
Thus did Roubai-kun reportedly feast.
Having devoured every morsel while awaiting O-Natsu-san’s reply, his stomach rebelled before any answer came. Groaning "Ugh... ugh..." brought no relief, so he summoned her again to ask if Shizuoka lacked physicians. She snapped, "Shizuoka has doctors aplenty!" fetching one whose name—Tenchi Genkou or such—seemed pilfered from the Thousand Character Classic.

The next morning, his stomachache had thankfully subsided thanks to the doctor’s efforts. Fifteen minutes before departure, he called for O-Natsu-san to inquire about her answer to yesterday’s marriage proposal. Laughing, she replied, “Shizuoka may have watermelons and doctors aplenty, but we don’t have brides made overnight!” With that, she left and never showed her face again.
“After that, Roubai-kun suffered heartbreak just like me—they say he stopped coming to the library except to relieve himself. When you think about it, women are truly sinful creatures,” he said, whereupon the Master, in rare agreement, replied, “Truly so.”
“The other day when I read Musset’s play, a character in it quoted a Roman poet as saying such things.”
“What is lighter than a feather is dust.”
“What is lighter than dust is wind.”
“What is lighter than wind is a woman.”
“Nothing is lighter than a woman.—Quite penetrating, isn’t it?”
“Women are beyond help,” he declared with undue emphasis.
The Teacher’s Wife, having heard this, would have none of it.

“You claim women’s flightiness is problematic, but men’s ponderousness isn’t any better.”
“Ponderous? What do you mean?”
“Don’t call it ‘ponderous’—it *is* ponderous, precisely because of people like you.”
“How am *I* ponderous?”
“Aren’t you ponderous?” she countered, sparking an absurd debate.
Meitei, who had been listening with evident relish, finally interjected: “Ah, this crimson-faced exchange of recriminations—this must be the true nature of matrimony.”
“Indeed,” he continued ambiguously, neither wholly mocking nor approving, “couples of old were utterly devoid of substance.” Unable to restrain himself, he launched into one of his signature discursive expositions.

“They say back in the day, there wasn’t a single woman who dared talk back to her husband—but then that’s no different from having a mute for a wife, which I for one find utterly unappealing.”
“I’d love to hear someone tell me something like, ‘You’re just as heavy as your wife, aren’t you?’”
“If you’re going to keep the same wife, you’ve got to have a fight now and then—otherwise you’ll be bored stiff.”
"When it came to my mother, she’d always make some polite excuse whenever she had to appear before my father."
"And after twenty years of living together, she never went out except to visit temples—how utterly pitiful is that?"
“Well, thanks to that, she had memorized all the posthumous Buddhist names of our ancestors for generations.”
"Even in interactions between men and women—back when I was a child, we couldn’t possibly do things like play duets with our sweethearts the way Kangetsu does, or exchange souls and meet them in ethereal forms."
"My condolences," said Kangetsu-kun with a bow.
"Truly pitiable.
"Moreover, it’s not as though the women of that era were necessarily more virtuous than today’s women."
"Mrs., people these days make such a racket about how schoolgirls have become corrupt and whatnot."
"Why, they were far more outrageous in the old days!"
“Is that so?” said the Teacher’s Wife with earnestness.
“Absolutely, it’s no lie—there’s solid evidence, so I can’t help it."
“Kushami-kun, you might remember this—until we were about five or six years old, they used to carry girls around in baskets like eggplants, hoisted on shoulder poles to sell them. Right?”
"I don't remember any such thing."
"I can’t speak for your part of the country, but in Shizuoka, that’s exactly how it was."
"No way..." the Wife murmured softly, while Kangetsu-kun inquired with an air of feigned seriousness, "Is that true?"

“It’s true. My father actually haggled over the price once. I must have been about six at the time. When we went for a walk from Aburachō to Tōrichō together, some man came shouting from the opposite direction, ‘Girls for sale! Girls for sale!’ Just as we reached Second Block’s corner, we encountered him in front of Isegen—that kimono shop with a ten-ken frontage and five storehouses, Shizuoka’s finest establishment of its kind. You should visit it next time you’re there—it still stands imposingly today. A truly magnificent place. Their head clerk was Jinbee—you know, the one who always stationed himself at the cashier’s desk looking like he’d just announced his mother’s death three days prior. Next to Jinbee sat Hatsu-san, a young man of twenty-four or twenty-five whose sallow face suggested he’d devoted himself to Priest Unshō’s asceticism, surviving on nothing but soba broth for twenty-one days. Beside Hatsu-san was Nagadon, slumped over his abacus with the despondent air of someone who’d been burned out of his home...”

“Are you describing the kimono shop or human trafficking?”

“Ah yes—the human trafficking! Though I must say there’s a marvelous anecdote about Isegen itself, but I’ll spare you that digression today.”

“Spare us both and drop the trafficking tale too.”

“Impossible! This provides crucial evidence for comparing women’s virtue between early Meiji and our modern twentieth century! So when Father and I reached Isegen’s shopfront, that trafficker spotted us and called out, ‘Sir! These leftover girls—I’ll slash the price! Take ’em off my hands!’ He lowered his shoulder pole while mopping sweat from his brow.” Peering into the basket revealed two girls of about two years old—one in front, one behind.

“My old man said to him, ‘If they’re cheap enough, I’ll take them—are these the last ones?’ To which he replied, ‘Ah, unfortunately I’ve sold out all but these two today.’”
“‘Take whichever you like,’ the man said, hoisting the girls with both hands like eggplants right under my old man’s nose. My old man gave their heads a couple of taps and remarked, ‘Hmm—they make a decent sound.’”
“Then the real haggling began. After driving down the price ruthlessly, my old man asked, ‘I’ll buy them if they’re intact—you’re certain of their quality?’ The man answered, ‘Oh, the front one’s been under my watch the whole time—no issues there. But the one in back? Well, no eyes on her—might’ve developed cracks for all I know.’”
“‘Since I can’t vouch for this one, I’ll lower the price instead,’ he said.”
“I still remember that exchange vividly—even as a child, I thought to myself: women truly are creatures you must never let your guard down around. But here in Meiji 38, you don’t see fools peddling girls in baskets anymore, nor hear warnings about how risky it is to carry one in back where you can’t keep watch.”
“Therefore, I conclude that women’s conduct has vastly improved thanks to Western civilization—what say you, Kangetsu-kun?”

Before responding, Kangetsu-kun first cleared his throat magnanimously once, then deliberately adopted a calm, low voice to present his observation:
"These days, women peddle themselves on their way to school, at concerts, charity events, garden parties—'Oh please buy me!' they coo."
"Since they hawk themselves about these days with 'Take me!', there's no need for vulgar consignment sales through leftover greengrocers shouting 'Any girls for sale?'"
"As human independence develops, this outcome becomes inevitable."
"Old fools may fret needlessly, but in truth this represents civilization's natural progression—a most welcome phenomenon I secretly celebrate."
"After all, no modern boor would knock on heads to inspect merchandise like watermelons—we've progressed beyond such crude methods."
"And in our complex world, such cumbersome practices would prove endlessly tedious."
"Even at fifty or sixty, they can't secure husbands or marry properly."
Kangetsu-kun, embodying twentieth-century youth, expounded these fashionable views before exhaling a cloud of Shikishima cigarette smoke toward Mr. Meitei's face.
Unfazed by mere tobacco smoke, Mr. Meitei countered:
"Precisely! Today's schoolgirls and young ladies brim with such self-possession—their very bones and flesh steeped in confidence—that their refusal to yield to men commands utmost respect."
"The girls' school students near my residence prove particularly remarkable!"
"Truly admirable how they don tube-sleeved uniforms and dangle from horizontal bars."
"Each time I observe their gymnastics from my second-story window, I'm transported to recollections of ancient Greek women."
"Greece again?" The Master sneered.
"Beauty's origins inevitably trace back to Greece—we aesthetes can't escape its pull," Mr. Meitei continued unabated.
"Especially when watching those sun-browned students practice gymnastics with such fervor—it invariably recalls Agnodice's legend," he proclaimed with scholarly affectation.
"Another obscure name surfaces," Kangetsu-kun remarked, his smirk lingering.
"Agnodice was truly extraordinary—a woman ahead of her time," Mr. Meitei pressed on.
"Athenian law then forbade women from practicing midwifery."

“How inconvenient that must have been.”
“Wouldn’t Agnodice herself have found that troublesome?”
“What’s that—what’s this person called?”
“A woman—it’s a woman’s name.”
As she pondered deeply, this woman found it truly pitiful—and supremely inconvenient—that women couldn’t practice midwifery.
“I must become a midwife somehow—is there no way?” she thought, crossing her arms and brooding for three days and nights.
Just at dawn on the third day, hearing a baby’s “Waaah!” from the neighboring house, she had an epiphany—“Yes, that’s it!”—then promptly cut her long hair, donned men’s clothing, and went to attend Hierophilus’s lectures.
Having successfully completed the course and gained confidence, she finally opened her midwifery practice.
“But then Mrs. Agnodice became all the rage among married women!”
“Waaah! here, Waaah! there—every birth became her business.”
“Since every single one was handled by Agnodice, she made quite a fortune.”
“But human affairs mirror Saiō’s horse—seven falls, eight risings—and when troubles come they never come singly. Eventually her secret came to light, violating official prohibitions until she nearly faced severe punishment.”
“Just like watching a professional storyteller!”

“Quite a tasty tale, don’t you think? However, when the women of Athens submitted a collective petition with all their signatures, even the magistrate of the time couldn’t brush them off with perfunctory dismissals. In the end, she was acquitted, and an official decree was even issued declaring that henceforth women too should be freely permitted to practice midwifery—thus bringing about a most felicitous resolution.”
“You certainly know all sorts of things, don’t you? How impressive.”
“Yes, I know most things.”
“The only thing I don’t know is how foolish I am.”
“But I do have a vague idea about that.”
“Hohohoho, nothing but amusing things…” As the Wife dissolved into laughter, the lattice door’s bell rang with the same clanging noise as when it was first installed.
“Oh, another guest,” said the Wife, withdrawing to the parlor.
Who should come into the parlor just as the Wife was leaving but our acquaintance Ochi Tōfū-kun.

If even Tōfū-kun had come then, we might not have quite rounded up every last eccentric who frequented my master’s house, but at least we would have assembled a quorum sufficient to relieve my boredom—or so I must declare. To complain would have been ungrateful indeed. Had I been unlucky enough to end up in another household, I might have lived and died without ever realizing such gentlemen existed among humanity. By fortunate chance having become a disciple-cat under Kushami-sensei and serving daily before his tiger-skin rug, it was my once-in-a-millennium honor to observe while reclining the conduct of these peerless heroes—the Master himself naturally included, along with Meitei, Kangetsu, and even Tōfū—men so extraordinary they could scarcely be matched across all of vast Tokyo. Thanks to this, though sweltering within my fur coat—a hardship I’d managed to forget—I could amusingly pass half the day, for which I remained deeply grateful. With such a gathering, matters certainly wouldn’t end quietly.

I respectfully observed from behind the sliding door, certain that something would arise.

“I must apologize for having neglected to visit for so long.”

As Tōfū-kun bowed with a "My apologies for the long absence," his face gleamed as radiantly as it had during their last meeting.
Judging by his head alone, one might mistake him for a curtain actor from some cheap theater troupe, but the laborious formality with which he wore his stiff white ogura hakama—as if imitating a stag’s rigid posture—marked him unmistakably as an inner disciple of Sakakibara Kenkichi.
Thus only the span from shoulders to waist retained any semblance of ordinary humanity in Tōfū-kun’s physique.
“To brave this heat—most commendable,” remarked Meitei with proprietorial airs.
“Do come through,” he added, gesturing as though hosting in his own home.
“It has been too long since I last had the honor of your company, Mr. Meitei.”
“Indeed—not since that spring recital affair, if memory serves?”
“Speaking of recitals—still thriving these days, aren’t they?”
“Nothing further involving Omiya since then?”
“That was capital!”
“I gave thunderous applause—you did notice?”
“Your encouragement steeled my resolve to persevere through to the finale.”
“When might we expect your next production?” interjected the Master.
“I intend to pause during July and August before mounting something spirited come September.”
“Have you any novel concepts to propose?”
“Hmm,” grunted the Master with disinterest.
“Tōfū-kun!” Kangetsu pivoted abruptly.
“What say you to staging one of my creations?”
“Your work would surely prove fascinating—but what manner of piece?”
“A script!” Kangetsu declared with such force that all three men—as if choreographed—jerked upright to stare at him.
“A script! How extraordinary!”

“Is it a comedy or a tragedy?” Tōfū-kun stepped forward, to which Kangetsu replied with unruffled composure, “Neither comedy nor tragedy.”
“Lately there’s been such uproar over old versus new theater that I’ve devised something novel—a ‘haiku drama.’”
“What’s a haiku drama?”
“It condenses theater infused with haiku sensibilities into these two characters: 俳劇.” At this explanation, both the Master and Mr. Meitei looked thoroughly bewildered and fell silent.
“And what’s your concept?” asked Tōfū-kun predictably.
“Since it springs from haiku aesthetics, I thought excessive length or venom would spoil it—hence a single act.”
“I see.”
“First let me describe the set—it must be starkly simple.”
“Plant one large willow center stage.”
“Then make a branch jut sharply right from its trunk for a crow to perch on.”
“If only crows would stay put,” the Master muttered like a man foreseeing disaster.
“Simple enough—tie its legs to the branch with string.”
“Beneath that place a bathing tub.”
“A beauty stands sideways there, toweling herself.”
“Rather decadent,” remarked Mr. Meitei.
“Who’d play her?” he pressed.
“Easily solved—hire an art school model.”
“The Metropolitan Police might object,” fretted the Master.
“No public performance means no trouble.”
“If they quibble about this, schools couldn’t conduct nude sketching either!”
“But those sketches are educational—different from mere spectatorship.”
“If scholars like you take that view, Japan remains hopeless indeed.”

“Painting and theater are both art forms,” declared Kangetsu-kun with fervor.
“Let’s leave the debates aside—what happens next?” pressed Tōfū-kun, his eagerness suggesting genuine interest in staging the piece.
“Then from the hanamichi enters the haiku poet Takahama Kyoshi—walking stick in hand, wearing a white wick-lined hat, translucent silk haori, and Satsuma-patterned hakama tucked into half-boots.”
“Though his outfit resembles a military supplier’s uniform,” Kangetsu continued, “as a poet he must appear perfectly composed while inwardly wrestling with verse ideas.”
“When Kyoshi completes his hanamichi procession and steps onto the main stage,” he elaborated, “he lifts his verse-crafting gaze to behold a great willow tree sheltering a pale bathing woman in its shadow. Startled, he looks up to find a crow perched on an overhanging branch observing her bath.”
“Kyoshi-sensei then dwells in haiku-inspired rapture for fifty seconds,” Kangetsu concluded triumphantly, “before booming his verse—‘Could this crow too pine for the bathing maid?’—as clappers sound and the curtain falls.”
“Well? What do you think of this concept?”
“Does it not spark your interest?”
“Far better you play Kyoshi than Omiya.”
Tōfū-kun frowned slightly. “It feels... rather abrupt.”
“I believe it needs more emotional depth,” he added earnestly.
Meitei, no longer able to contain himself, broke his silence: “Magnificent! With such sparse material alone, your ‘haiku drama’ achieves true awfulness!”
“As Ueda Bin’s theory states—haiku aesthetics and humor are passive forces heralding national decline,” he continued mockingly. “How typical of Bin to articulate our cultural decay so elegantly!”
“By all means produce this trifle.”
“You’ll earn nothing but Ueda’s derision.”
“First—is this play? Farce? Some passive-aggressive hybrid?”
“Forgive my candor Kangetsu-kun,” he sneered, “but you’d serve civilization better polishing lab equipment than crafting these national epitaphs.”
“Even two hundred such dramas would merely toll Japan’s death knell!”
“Is it truly so passive?” Kangetsu retorted indignantly.

"I intend for it to be quite proactive," he began explaining a minor point. "You see, regarding Kyoshi—when Mr. Kyoshi seizes upon the crow while composing 'Is this crow smitten with the woman?', I believe that demonstrates remarkable proactiveness."

"Now that’s a novel theory," said Meitei. "By all means, enlighten us."

"As a scientist," Kangetsu continued, "I must acknowledge that a crow falling for a woman is irrational—don’t you agree?"

"Quite right."

"Yet when I state this irrational premise so boldly, it doesn’t feel forced at all."

"Is that so?" interjected the Master skeptically, though Kangetsu pressed on undeterred.

"The psychological explanation lies here: whether one feels attraction resides entirely within the poet himself—it has no connection to crows whatsoever. When we perceive the crow as lovestruck, we’re merely projecting our own infatuation."

He leaned forward earnestly. "The moment Mr. Kyoshi glimpsed that beauty bathing and was struck by inspiration—in that instant, he surely fell deeply enamored himself! Through love-clouded eyes, he saw the motionless crow gazing downward and delusionally thought: 'Ah—that rascal’s as smitten as I am!'"

"Though delusional," Kangetsu concluded triumphantly, "this very act of unapologetic projection—this brazen imposition of human sentiment onto avian indifference—is where true literary proactiveness shines! Don’t you agree, Professor?"

"A brilliant argument indeed," Meitei conceded with mock gravity. "Kyoshi would swoon at your analysis! Though I daresay your 'proactive' explanation would render any audience catatonic."

“Hey, Tōfū-kun.”
“Well, I do think it’s rather too passive,” he answered with a serious face.

The Master, apparently wanting to steer the conversation elsewhere, asked, “Well now, Tōfū-san—any notable works lately?” Tōfū-kun replied, “No, nothing truly worthy of your attention. Though I’ve been considering publishing a poetry collection soon—as luck would have it, I’ve brought the manuscript along and would value your critique.” He drew a purple furoshiki-wrapped bundle from the fold of his kimono, extracted a notebook of fifty or sixty manuscript pages from within, and set it before the Master.
The Master adopted a studious expression and declared “I’ll examine it,” whereupon opening to the first page he found:

Appearing mysteriously unlike all others

Dedicated to Miss Tomiko

was written in two lines.
The Master assumed a somewhat mysterious expression and silently gazed at the page for some time, whereupon Meitei, leaning in from the side, peered at it while remarking, “What’s this—a new-style poem? My, you’ve gone and dedicated it!”
“Tōfū-kun, how bold of you to dedicate this to Miss Tomiko!” he praised effusively.
The Master, still looking puzzled, asked, “Tōfū-san, is this Tomiko an actual person?”
“Why yes—she’s one of the ladies we invited to the recital with Mr. Meitei recently.”
“She lives right here in the neighborhood.”
“In fact, I meant to show her my poetry collection just now, but unfortunately she’s been away summering in Ōiso since last month,” he declared with affected solemnity.

“Kusakabe-kun—this is the twentieth century! Don’t make that face—hurry up and recite your masterpiece. However, Tōfū-kun, this dedication method was somewhat ill-advised. What on earth do you think this elegant expression ‘delicately’ means?”
“I believe it uses the characters for ‘mosquito’ and ‘weak,’ or perhaps ‘lopsidedly weak.’”
“Well, one could certainly interpret it that way, but strictly speaking, the original meaning conveys precariousness. So I wouldn’t write it like this.”
“How should I write it to make it more poetic?”
“If it were me, I’d write: Dedicated beneath the nose of Miss Tomiko, who appears so delicately unlike all others in this world. It’s just three extra characters, but having ‘beneath the nose’ makes all the difference in nuance.”
“I see,” said Tōfū-kun, feigning comprehension through his bewilderment.

The Master, still silent, finally turned a page and began reading the opening chapter.

In the fragrant realm where weariness perfumes your...
Is it spirit—or the trailing smoke of mutual longing

“O my self! Ah my self! In this bitter world—”

“Sweetly would I obtain that fervent kiss—”

“This is rather beyond my comprehension,” sighed the Master as he passed it to Meitei.
“A touch too mannered,” declared Meitei, handing it to Kangetsu.
“Hmm... yes,” murmured Kangetsu, returning it to Tōfū-kun.

“It’s perfectly natural you don’t grasp it, Professor—the poetic realm has evolved beyond recognition these past ten years.”
“Modern verse defies understanding whether read reclining or at railway stations. Why, even its creators grow tongue-tied when questioned.”
“We write through pure inspiration—poets bear no responsibility beyond that.”
“Let scholars fuss over annotations and interpretations—we’ve no use for such trifles.”
“Take my friend Sōseki’s recent story ‘One Night’—all haze and confusion. When I pressed him about its meaning, the wretch claimed ignorance!”
“Therein lies the poet’s very essence, I should think.”
“A poet perhaps, but what an odd fish,” remarked the Master.
“An utter fool,” Meitei curtly concluded.
Tōfū-kun remained unsatisfied.
“Though Sōseki stands apart from our circle, I implore you to read my verses in that same spirit.”
“Particularly note how I’ve counterposed this world’s bitterness against love’s sweetness—my most strenuous labor.”
“The strain shows admirably.”
“This sweet-sour interplay delights like seventeen-spice chili paste!”
“Truly Tōfū-kun’s singular genius—I bow before it!” he crowed, reveling in his baiting of the earnest poet.

The Master—for reasons unknown—suddenly stood up and went toward his study, but soon emerged holding a sheet of hanshi paper.
"Since I have had the honor of perusing Tōfū-kun’s composition, I shall now read a short piece of my own and request everyone’s critiques," he declared, somewhat in earnest.
“If it’s Tenkō Koji’s epitaph, I’ve already heard it two or three times.”
“Oh, do be quiet.
“Mr. Tōfū, this is by no means my specialty, but please listen as it’s just a diversion.”
“I would be delighted to hear it.”
“And you too, Kangetsu—do listen.”
“Not just as a formality—I’ll listen.”
“It’s not too long, is it?”
“Just over sixty characters,” declared the Master as he finally began to read his homemade masterpiece.

“Yamato-damashii!” someone shouted, and a Japanese person coughed like a consumptive.

“How strikingly abrupt it begins!” praised Kangetsu-kun.

“Yamato-damashii!”
“Yamato-damashii!” says the newspaperman.
Yamato-damashii!
“Yamato-damashii!” says the pickpocket.
Yamato-damashii leapt across the sea.
In England, they deliver speeches on Yamato-damashii.
In Germany, they perform plays about Yamato-damashii.”

“Well now, this surpasses even Tenkō Koji’s work!” declared Mr. Meitei, leaning back with a flourish.

“Admiral Tōgō possesses Yamato-damashii.
Gin-san the fishmonger possesses Yamato-damashii.
Swindlers, fraudsters, murderers—all possess Yamato-damashii.”

“Professor, please add that Kangetsu also possesses it there.”

“When asked what Yamato-damashii is, they answered ‘Yamato-damashii, of course,’ and walked right past.”
“After walking five or six paces, someone cleared their throat with an ‘Ahem.’”

“That line is a masterpiece.”
“You have quite a literary talent.”
“And then the next line?”

“Is Yamato-damashii triangular? Is Yamato-damashii square? Yamato-damashii is, as the name indicates, a soul. Since it is a soul, it is always wavering.”

“Professor, it’s quite amusing, but isn’t there a bit too much Yamato-damashii?” cautioned Tōfū.
“Agreed,” said none other than Meitei.

“Everyone speaks of it, yet no one has seen it. Everyone has heard of it, yet no one has encountered it. Yamato-damashii—is that some kind of tengu?”

The Master had intended to conclude with "Thus ends this profound mystery" as he finished reading, but even this masterpiece proved too brief and its central theme too elusive, leaving the three listeners waiting in expectation of further developments.
No matter how long they waited, not a sound came forth until finally Kangetsu asked, "Is that all?" to which the Master nonchalantly replied, "Yep."
That "yep" struck an overly casual note.

Strangely enough, Meitei refrained from his usual verbose commentary on this literary work. Instead, he turned squarely toward the Master and inquired, "Why not compile your short pieces into a volume and dedicate it to someone?"
When the Master airily proposed, "Shall I dedicate it to you?" Meitei curtly retorted, "No need," then resumed trimming his nails with the scissors he'd earlier flaunted before the Mistress—snip-snip-snipping away.
Kangetsu turned to Tōfū and asked, "Do you know that Miss Kaneda?"
"Ever since she invited me to a recital this spring, we've grown close and maintained constant contact."
"When I'm in that young lady's presence, I feel inexplicably inspired—these days my poems and songs flow forth with joyful spontaneity."
"I believe this collection contains so many love poems precisely because I draw inspiration from such female companionship."
"That's why I must properly express my gratitude to her by dedicating this volume—seizing this very opportunity."
"They say no one without an intimate female friend has ever composed truly great poetry."
"You don't say..." replied Kangetsu, smiling faintly without letting it reach his eyes.

Even a gathering of chatterboxes cannot persist indefinitely, it seemed, and the flames of conversation died down significantly.

I had no obligation to listen to their unchanging chatter all day, so I excused myself and went to the garden to search for a mantis. Dappled sunlight filtered through the green leaves of the phoenix tree as it slanted westward, and on its trunk, evening cicadas sang desperately. There might be a rain shower in the evening, depending on how things go.

VII

I had recently begun exercising.
To those who would dismissively sneer at a cat putting on airs by exercising—let me say this: such humans themselves had failed to comprehend what exercise even was until quite recently, regarding eating and sleeping as their divine calling.
They extolled “Peace and inaction are the highest virtues,” keeping their hands tucked in their sleeves and their moldering buttocks glued to floor cushions as their master’s honor while living complacent lives—they should have remembered that.
This recent contagion from the West to our divine land—this incessant barrage of nonsensical commands: do your exercises, drink your milk, take cold baths, plunge into the sea, sequester yourself in mountain retreats come summer and subsist on mist—was to be considered kin to plagues, tuberculosis, and nervous prostration.
Of course, having been born just last year and being one year old at the time, I retained no memory of how things were when humans first contracted these diseases; moreover, I must certainly not have been drifting through this mortal world then—though it might be said that a cat’s year rivals a human’s decade.
Though our lifespans were two or three times shorter than humans’, by inferring from how a single cat could fully develop within those brief years, it remained a grave error to calculate human years and feline years at the same ratio.
First off—the very fact that I myself, not yet even a full year and some months old, possessed this level of discernment—should have made it clear.
The master’s third daughter was said to be three years old by traditional counting, but in terms of intellectual development—goodness gracious—she proved rather slow.
She knew nothing beyond crying, wetting the bed, and drinking milk.
Compared to one such as myself—who lamented the world and raged against the times—she stood as an utterly inconsequential creature.
Therefore, there remained absolutely no reason to be surprised that I had compressed the entire history of exercise, sea bathing, and spa retreats into the palm of my mind.
If anyone had been astonished by such trifling matters—they must have been none other than those two-legged riffraff called humans.
Humans had been riffraff since ancient times.
Therefore—it was only recently that they began raving about exercise’s merits and prattling on about sea bathing’s benefits as if these were grand inventions.
I—for one—had known full well such things since before my birth.
First off—if you asked why seawater became a remedy—wasn’t that something you could immediately understand just by visiting the coast?
I didn’t know how many fish swam in that vast expanse—but not a single one among them had ever fallen ill and seen a doctor.
They all swam in perfect health.
When illness struck—their bodies ceased to function.
When they died—they inevitably floated.

That is why they say fish ascend in death, birds fall in passing, and humans grumble into extinction. Go ahead and ask anyone who’s traveled abroad and crossed the Indian Ocean if they’ve ever seen a fish die—they’ll all invariably say no. That’s precisely why they answer thus. No matter how many crossings you make, not a single soul has witnessed a fish taking its final breath—no, since they’re fish, we must say taking its final tide—and floating upon the waves. From this fact—that not one fish has ever surfaced though you might scour that boundless, that vast ocean night and day without rest, burning coal to fuel your search through all ages—you may immediately conclude that fish must be extraordinarily hardy creatures. Now if you ask why fish are so robust—this too must await human understanding in due course—there’s no mystery at all. It’s perfectly plain. It’s entirely because they drink seawater and perpetually bathe in it. The efficacy of seawater bathing being thus manifest for fish, it must necessarily prove equally manifest for humans. One might rightly scoff at how belatedly Dr. Richard Russell issued his grandiose advertisement in 1750 claiming that plunging into Brighton’s waters would cure all 404 ailments instantaneously. Even we cats intend to visit Kamakura and such places when the proper time comes. But not yet—now won’t do. All things have their season. Just as pre-Restoration Japanese died without tasting seawater bathing’s benefits, today’s cats have yet to encounter opportunities for plunging naked into the sea. Haste makes waste; until the cat driven off to Tsukiji today returns home safely, we cannot recklessly dive in. Until evolution’s laws endow us felinekind with adequate resistance against raging torrents—until “the cat has ascended” becomes common parlance instead of “the cat has died”—seawater bathing shall remain no easy undertaking.

I decided to postpone seawater bathing and settled on exercising for the time being. In this twentieth century, not exercising makes one look like a pauper and sounds downright shameful. It's not that I don't mean to exercise; it's not that I avoid exercising altogether. The diagnosis would be that I can't exercise—that I have no time for exercise, no leisure to spare. Just as those who exercised in the past were mocked as riffraff, those who don't exercise now are deemed inferior. Human appraisals shift with time and circumstance, changing as capriciously as my pupils dilate and contract. While my pupils merely grow large or small, human judgments flip completely upside down. Let them flip—no harm done. Everything has two sides; everything has two ends. That humans can tap both ends to make black and white reverse on the same object shows their adaptability. There's charm in how turning a square inch upside down makes an inch square. Peering at Amanohashidate through straddled legs reveals an exceptional aesthetic too. Shakespeare would grow tedious if he remained eternally Shakespeare—without someone occasionally viewing Hamlet through their legs and declaring "This won't do!", the literary world would never progress. Thus it's no wonder the very crowd that disparaged exercise now craves it desperately, with even women parading about wielding rackets. So long as they don't laugh at me exercising as some clever stunt. Now, for those who might wonder what sort of exercise I perform, I should explain. As you know, I unfortunately possess no equipment. This leaves me perplexed about handling bats or balls. Then there's the matter of having no money to buy such things.

From these two causes, I concluded that my chosen exercise belonged to the category one might call "costless and equipment-free." Now, one might imagine me plodding about or dashing with a tuna slice in my jaws, but merely moving four legs mechanically under Earth's gravitational pull to traverse the ground struck me as too simplistic and dull.No matter how they label it as exercise,I suspected my master's occasional literal-minded routines defiled exercise's very sanctity.Naturally,certain stimuli could compel even basic exertions.Bonito flake races and salmon hunts served well enough,but strip away their essential targets and they became insipid trifles.With no prize-like incentives,I craved some skillful physical art.I pondered various possibilities.Scaling from kitchen eaves to rooftops,the feat of balancing on plum-blossom tiles,crossing bamboo clotheslines—all proved futile when smooth bamboo repelled claws.Surprise-leaping onto children's backs offered thrilling sport,but excessive repetition brought dire consequences—thus I limited attempts to thrice monthly.Paper-bag headwear provided naught but stifling tedium,a failed endeavor without human collaborators.Scratching book covers risked masterly wrath while exercising only forepaws' dexterity—hardly full-body exertion.I deemed these antiquated methods.Among novel pursuits lay deeper fascinations.Foremost stood mantis hunting.Mantis pursuit lacked rat-hunting's vigor but matched its safety margins.As midsummer-to-autumn diversions went,none surpassed it.To explain my method:I'd first comb the garden for specimens.In season,finding one or two posed little challenge.With sudden whoosh,I'd streak toward my quarry.

Then, bracing itself as if to strike, it raised its scythe-like head.
Even mantises proved quite plucky creatures; since they intended to resist before gauging their opponent's strength, it made for an amusing spectacle.
With my right front paw, I gave a light tap to its raised scythe-like head.
The raised head, being soft, bent limply to the side.
The expression on Mr. Mantis's face at this moment proved most intriguing.
There was a profound sense of "Oh!" in that expression.
I darted around behind it in one leap and lightly scratched its wings from behind.
Those wings were usually folded with great care, but when scratched too vigorously, they burst open in disarray, revealing pale undergarments like Yoshino paper from within.
The mantis wore two layers even in summer—an exquisite display of effort.
At this moment, its long neck inevitably twisted backward.
Sometimes it charged forward, but in most cases stood with its neck abruptly raised.
The mantis appeared to lie in wait for me to make a move.
If it kept up this stance indefinitely, it hardly counted as exercise, so when things dragged on too long, I delivered another light tap.
After this much provocation, any mantis with sense would surely flee.
One that charged at my jest like that had to be an utterly uncivilized, barbaric specimen.
When faced with such barbaric behavior, I waited for the charge before clamping down mercilessly until it had its fill.
Most were sent flying two or three feet.
However, when the enemy quietly advanced toward my back, I felt compelled to circle the garden trees two or three times like a bird in flight.
Mr. Mantis had only managed to flee five or six inches.
Now that he had realized my strength, he lacked the courage to put up a fight.

All he could do was flee in confusion, darting right and left.
However, since I too gave chase right and left, he eventually struggled in distress, flapping his wings in a grand attempt to break free.
Originally, the mantis’s wings—harmonizing with his neck—were formed into an exceedingly slender shape; however, upon inquiry, they were said to be purely ornamental, proving as utterly impractical as human languages like English, French, and German.
Thus, when he attempted a grand endeavor by utilizing his useless appendage, it proved to have little effect against me.
In name it was a grand endeavor, but in reality it amounted to nothing more than dragging itself along the ground.
At this stage, I did feel somewhat sorry for it, but it couldn’t be helped—this was for exercise.
With an apologetic bow*, I suddenly dashed straight past to the front.
You**, unable to make a sudden turn due to inertia, had no choice but to keep moving forward.
I smacked its face.
At this moment, Mr. Mantis inevitably collapsed with his wings spread wide.
I firmly pressed down on him with my front paws and rested for a moment.
Then I released him again.
I let him go, then pinned him down again.
I pressed the attack using Kongming’s military strategy of Seven Captures and Seven Releases***.
For about thirty minutes I repeated this sequence until, when he could no longer move a muscle, I seized the perfect moment to pick him up in my mouth and give him a little shake.
Then I spat him out again.
This time, since he lay motionless on the ground, I prodded him with my paw—and just as he tried to leap up using that momentum—I pinned him down again.
When even this grew tiresome, I resorted to my final measure and munched him down.
Since it’s come up, I should mention to those who’ve never eaten a mantis: they aren’t particularly tasty.
Moreover, their nutritional value seems surprisingly scarce.

*Lit. “received your pardon” – The cat’s mock-polite gesture before attacking
**The narrator shifts to directly addressing the mantis here
***Zhuge Liang’s legendary tactic of capturing and releasing Meng Huo seven times to subdue rebellions

Following mantis hunting came an exercise called cicada catching.
To simply say "cicada" didn't mean they were all identical.
Just as humans had their greasy louts，chirping chatterers，and persistent buzzers，so too did cicadas have their oily varieties，minmin varieties，and oshii-tsukutsuku varieties.
The oily ones proved too tenacious to bother with.
The minmin types became troublesome in crosswinds.
The only truly worthwhile quarry was the oshii-tsukutsuku.
These never emerged until summer's end.
When autumn winds began slipping through every frayed crack to caress one's skin with sneeze-inducing drafts，they'd thrust up their tails and sing with abandon.
Such splendid singers they were that from my perspective，one might think their sole purpose in life was to sing and be caught by cats.
At autumn's onset，these became my prey.
This I dubbed cicada-catching exercise.
Let me inform you all：any creature worthy of the name 'cicada' doesn't lie sprawled on the ground.
Those littering the earth invariably crawled with ants.
My targets weren't these fallen wretches occupying the ants' domain.
I hunted those perched on high branches，shrilling their oshii-tsukutsuku cries.
Since we're on the subject，I'd ask you learned humans：do they sing "oshii-tsukutsuku" or "tsukutsuku-oshii"? Depending on your interpretation，this might hold no small significance for cicada research.
Given that humanity's superiority over cats resides in such matters—and since these very points form your pride—you'd best ponder this thoroughly if no immediate answer comes.
Not that it matters for cicada-catching purposes.
I simply followed their song up the tree and snatched them mid-trill.
What seemed the simplest exercise often proved most grueling.

I have four legs—a fact that makes me quite confident in my terrestrial mobility compared to other animals—and mathematically speaking, two-legged humans shouldn't outpace me either when considering basic arithmetic principles of limb quantity versus locomotion efficiency.

Yet when ascending arboreal heights—a pursuit fundamentally defying gravity—my prowess falters considerably compared to certain specialists in vertical navigation—professional simians being one matter altogether—but even among humanity itself—those distant evolutionary cousins of apes—lurk surprisingly adept climbers who demand respect despite their species' general ineptitude at most physical endeavors worth mentioning here today...

Climbing trees being an inherently unnatural act against Earth's pull—and thus no particular shame attaches itself upon failure—it nonetheless presents significant practical inconveniences during my cicada-hunting exercises...

Fortunately equipped with retractable claws serving admirably as grappling hooks—though far less effective than casual observers might presume—I manage precarious ascents only for winged quarry like cicadas—unlike stationary mantises—to take flight at critical moments rendering arduous climbs utterly futile...

Moreover exists another occupational hazard unique among insect prey—cicadas possess an uncanny knack for urinating directly into one's eyes during escape attempts...

While fleeing itself proves inevitable given their aerial capabilities—one might wish they'd refrain from such unsporting biological countermeasures...

What physiological mechanism drives this pre-flight urination? Could overwhelming pathos trigger involuntary bladder release? Or perhaps strategic deployment akin to squid ink or pufferfish spines—or even my master's pretentious Latin recitations?

Such questions demand serious entomological inquiry—indeed warranting doctoral dissertations—but let us return instead...

The Chinese parasol tree—known academically as Firmiana simplex—serves as prime cicada congregation site despite dense foliage complicating hunts...

It was said its Chinese name was Wutong.
Now this Chinese parasol tree had an extraordinary number of leaves—each about the size of a fan—so densely layered that the branches became practically invisible beneath them.
This proved a significant hindrance to cicada-catching exercises.
I couldn’t help suspecting the folk song "Heard but unseen" might have been composed specifically for my plight.
With no alternative, I followed their songs upward.
About six feet up, the Wutong obligingly forked into two branches where I paused to catch my breath and investigate cicada positions under the leaves.
Of course, en route there were always hasty fellows who’d go rustling out noisily.
Let one take wing and all was lost.
In matters of imitation, cicadas proved every bit as foolish as humans.
The rest would come streaming out afterward.
By the time I gradually reached the fork, the entire tree often fell utterly silent.
Once having climbed up only to find—despite thorough visual and auditory inspection—not a cicada in evidence, I’d settle on the fork to await another chance. Before long drowsiness would overtake me, plunging me into dark sweet realms.
With a start I’d awaken—only to tumble from that forked sweetness straight onto the garden stones.
Yet most climbs yielded at least one capture.
The tedious part was having to hold it in my mouth up there.
Thus when brought down and spat out, it usually lay dead.
Poking and prodding elicited no definite response.
The true art lay in stealthily approaching Mr. Oshii as he desperately flexed his tail, then pinning him with a sudden paw-strike.
At this moment Mr. Tsukutsuku would shriek, thin transparent wings beating wildly.
The speed and splendor defied description—truly a cicada-world marvel.

Every time I pinned down Mr. Tsukutsuku, I would demand he perform this artistic spectacle for me.
When this grew tiresome, I'd beg pardon and stuff him into my mouth.
According to cicada lore, some persist with their performances even after entering my maw.
The next exercise following cicada catching was pine sliding.
This requires little elaboration, so I shall describe it briefly.
Though "pine sliding" might suggest coasting downward, it remains fundamentally an act of climbing.
Cicada climbing served practical prey acquisition, while pine climbing existed purely for ascent itself.
This constituted their sole distinction.
Since their legendary service as banquet fare at Saimeiji Temple in Tokiwa, pines have maintained an obstinate gnarledness.
Thus nothing rivals a pine trunk's slipperiness.
No decent handholds.
No proper footholds—or rather, no adequate clawholds.
Up this clawhold-deficient trunk I would dash in one breathless surge.
Having dashed up, I then dashed down.
Two methods existed for descending.
The first involved inverting oneself to descend headfirst toward earth.
The second required maintaining one's climbing posture while descending tail-first.
Let me ask you humans—do you know which proves harder?
Your shallow intellects likely assume headfirst descent comes easier, since gravity assists.
You err completely.

You humans only know that Yoshitsune descended Hiyodorigoe headfirst, so you likely assume that if even Yoshitsune went down facing forward, a mere cat like me should naturally find headfirst sufficient enough—isn't that right? But you shouldn't dismiss this so contemptuously! Which direction do you imagine a cat's claws grow? They all curve backward—that's why we can hook onto things and pull them inward like a crowbar, but lack any power to push outward.

Let me explain through demonstration: suppose I vigorously dash up a pine tree's trunk. Being fundamentally an earthbound creature by nature's design, I'm clearly not meant to linger long at the summit—if I simply stay put, gravity will inevitably claim me through falling.

But freefall proves too abrupt! Thus I must devise means to moderate this natural tendency—this very act constitutes descending! Falling and descending may seem worlds apart, yet their distinction proves slighter than imagined: slow falling becomes descending; accelerated descending becomes falling—a mere hair's breadth difference!

Since I detest tumbling from pines outright, I must decelerate my descent through controlled means—specifically by leveraging resistance against gravity's pull! As previously established, my backward-curving claws become perfect tools when positioned head-upward—digging them in allows full utilization of their hooking power against downward momentum! Thus falling transforms into descending—a principle so elegantly self-evident!

Now try reversing positions—attempt Yoshitsune-style headfirst descent yourselves! Even equipped with claws like mine... utterly useless they'd prove!

Sliding uncontrollably, they became unable to find any purchase to support their own weight.
There, those who had painstakingly planned to descend ended up falling instead.
As you can see, Hiyodorigoe is difficult.
Among cats, those who could perform this feat were likely none other than myself.
That was why I referred to this exercise as pine sliding.

Finally, a word on fence patrolling.
The Master’s garden was enclosed in a square by a bamboo fence.
The side parallel to the veranda measured about eight or nine ken.
The left and right sides each measured no more than four ken.
The exercise I called "fence patrolling" involved making a full circuit along the top of this fence without falling off.
This sometimes ended in failure, but when successful, it brought satisfaction.
Especially since here and there stood logs with charred roots, they provided convenient spots for brief rests.
Today went well, so I tried doing three rounds from morning till noon—each attempt improved my skill.
The more skilled I became, the more enjoyable it became.
I finally managed four rounds, but when I was halfway through the fourth circuit, three crows flew over from the neighboring roof and came to a halt about one ken ahead, lining up in formation.
These were impertinent fellows!
Interfering with someone's exercise—especially these crows of unknown origin without any proper registration—since I thought there was no rule allowing them to perch on someone’s fence, I called out, "Move aside, I need to pass!"
The lead crow looked this way and smirked.
The second one gazed at the master’s garden.
The third one wiped its beak on the bamboo fence.
It must have eaten something.
I gave them three minutes' time while standing on the fence, waiting for a response.
Crows are commonly called Kanzaemon, and indeed, they were Kanzaemon.
No matter how long I waited, they neither offered a greeting nor took flight.
As there was nothing else to be done, I slowly began to walk.

Then the lead Kanzaemon slightly spread his wings.
Just when I thought they were finally fleeing in fear of my authority, they merely shifted their posture from facing right to left.
You bastards!
If this were on solid ground, I wouldn’t simply let it be, but as it stood, I had no luxury to entertain Kanzaemon during this already arduous journey. Yet neither did I wish to stand there waiting for these three to clear the way.
First off, if I kept waiting like that, I couldn’t maintain my footing.
Since they were winged creatures, they were accustomed to perching in such places.
Therefore, if they found it agreeable, they’d likely stay forever.
This was my fourth round already, and I was thoroughly fatigued.
This amounted to an exercise combined with a feat no less challenging than tightrope walking.
Even without any obstacles, I couldn’t guarantee against falling—with three of these black-clad fellows blocking my path ahead, it became an unavoidable predicament.
Ultimately, I had no choice but to abandon my exercise and climb down from the fence.
Since it was troublesome, perhaps I should proceed that way after all—they were numerous opponents, and moreover, their human-like figures weren’t commonly seen around here.
Their beaks were sharply pointed, resembling nothing so much as the offspring of a tengu.
They were clearly disreputable characters from the start.
Retreat would be safer—if I pushed too far and accidentally fell, it would only compound my humiliation. Just as I thought this, the crow that had turned left croaked “Fool!”
The next one mimicked him with another “Fool!”
With exaggerated courtesy, the last one squawked “Fool! Fool!” twice.
Even one as mild-tempered as myself couldn’t overlook this.
First and foremost, being insulted by crows within my own residence concerned my reputation.
If you argued that having no name meant there was nothing at stake—then it concerned my dignity.

I absolutely could not retreat.
As the proverb says about crows forming a mob, even three of them might prove unexpectedly weak.
Steeling my resolve to advance as far as possible, I began shuffling forward.
The crows kept feigning ignorance while chattering among themselves.
This finally grated on my nerves.
Had the fence been five or six inches wider, I would have taught them a proper lesson—but frustratingly, no matter how furious I grew, I could only inch along.
Just as I came within five or six inches of the lead crow and thought victory near, the Kanzaemon suddenly flapped their wings in unison, rising one or two feet into the air.
When the gust from their wings hit my face, I started—then lost my footing and tumbled down.
Peering up from below the fence after this blunder, I found all three still perched where they'd been, beaks aligned as they stared down at me.
Insolent wretches.
I glared daggers at them to no avail.
Arching my back with a low growl only worsened matters.
Like commoners deaf to symbolic poetry's mysteries, these creatures remained utterly unmoved by my wrathful semiotics.
Upon reflection, this stood to reason.
Until now, I'd mistakenly treated them as fellow cats.
There lay my error.
Against another cat, such tactics would have provoked response—but alas, my opponents were crows.
Being Kanzaemon crows rendered resistance futile.
The situation paralleled businessmen overwhelming Master Kushami, someone offering a silver effigy of myself to Saigyō, or Kankō defecating on Saigō Takamori's bronze statue.
Quick to read circumstances, I concluded further effort hopeless and withdrew cleanly to the veranda.

It was already time for dinner.
Exercise was good, but when overdone, it became counterproductive; my whole body felt oddly slack and limp.
Not only that, but my fur—exposed to the sun during exercise in early autumn—had absorbed the western sunlight to its fullest extent, leaving it unbearably hot.
Sweat seeping from my pores clung stickily to the roots of my fur like ointment when I wished it would just flow.
My back was itchy.
I could clearly distinguish between the itchiness caused by sweat and that from fleas crawling on me.
If it was within reach of my mouth, I could bite; if within my legs' domain, I knew how to scratch—but when it came to the very center running along my spine, that lay beyond my reach.
At times like that, I had to either rub myself recklessly against a human or perform thorough friction therapy using pine bark; unless I chose one option, the discomfort would make peaceful sleep impossible.
Humans are such foolish creatures that they use a cat-petting voice—a voice directed at me—
If we take me as reference, it's not a cat-petting voice but a being-petted voice—very well. In any case, since humans are foolish creatures, when I approached their knees with this being-petted voice, they generally mistook it for affection from him or her, not only allowing me my way but occasionally even petting my head.
However, recently a species of parasite called fleas had proliferated in my fur, so whenever I tried approaching now, I was invariably grabbed by the scruff and thrown aside.
It seemed they'd lost patience over mere specks of insects—barely visible and hardly worth catching.
Turn your hand and rain falls; cover it and clouds gather—this was precisely what they meant.
To think they could have acted so mercenary over just a thousand or two thousand fleas.
It is said that the first article of love's law prevailing through human society reads as follows:
"As long as it benefits you, you must love others."
Since humans' treatment had abruptly changed, no matter how itchy I was, I couldn't use their assistance.
Therefore, there was no sensible option but pine bark friction therapy via the second method.
So I thought I might give a quick rub and began descending from the veranda again, only to realize this too was a foolish plan where drawbacks outweighed benefits.
The reason was none other than this:

Pine trees have resin.
This resin clings with dreadful tenacity; once it fastens to the tips of one's fur, neither thunderclaps nor the annihilation of the Baltic Fleet could make it release its grip.
No sooner does it seize five hairs than it spreads to ten.
By the time I notice ten hairs captured, thirty are already entangled.
I am a tea-loving feline who values simplicity.
How I loathe this obstinate, venomous, naggingly adhesive, vindictive substance!
Were it the most exquisite cat in existence, I would still refuse its advances.
Needless to say, pine resin is utterly intolerable!
That Kuro from the rickshaw shop—with his rheumy eyes streaming in the north wind and his vulgar station—presumes to ruin my elegant gray coat? Outrageous!
He ought to consider his actions—though of course that scoundrel lacks such capacity.
Approach that bark and press my back against it? The resin would inevitably plaster itself to me.
Engaging with this witless adhesive would compromise not merely my dignity but ultimately my coat's pristine condition.
However unbearable the itch, endurance remains my sole recourse.
Yet finding both methods now impracticable fills me with despair.
Unless I devise some scheme soon, this ceaseless irritation may bring about my demise.
As I sat contemplating solutions with hind legs folded, a memory surfaced.
My master occasionally departs with towel and soap, returning thirty minutes later with his sallow complexion oddly invigorated.
If such grubby humanity benefits thus from bathing, surely greater advantages await my refined constitution.
Though my present appearance suffices without enhancement, should illness claim me prematurely—perishing after barely a year—how could I face heaven's multitude?

Upon inquiring, I learned this too was something called a public bathhouse—a contraption humans devised to kill time. Being human-made, it was surely worthless, but given my predicament, I might as well try entering. If it proved ineffective, I could simply quit. Yet would these human-built bathhouses show enough magnanimity to admit an alien creature like myself? That was the question. Since even my Master could saunter in unbothered, they likely wouldn't refuse me—but should I suffer the indignity of sympathetic rejection, my reputation would suffer irreparably. Better first to survey the terrain. Once satisfied with conditions, I'd seize a hand towel in my jaws and make the plunge. Having resolved thus, I set off toward the bathhouse with deliberate steps.

When I turned left at the alley, ahead stood a tall bamboo-like structure exhaling thin smoke from its tip.
This was none other than the public bathhouse.
I quietly slipped in through the back door.
They may call sneaking in through the back door cowardly or half-hearted, but those are just the hollow gripings of envious souls who can’t visit anywhere without using the front entrance.
Since ancient times, clever people have always made it their policy to launch surprise attacks through the back door.
It is said to be written on page five of Chapter 1 in Volume II of *The Gentleman’s Guide to Cultivation*.
The very next page even goes so far as to state that the back door is the gate through which a gentleman’s testament becomes his own virtue.
I am a twentieth-century cat, so I have at least this much education.
You shouldn’t despise me too much.

Now, upon sneaking in and looking around, to the left were pine logs split into pieces about eight inches long, piled up like a mountain, and next to them, coal was heaped like a hillock.
Someone might ask why the pine firewood was likened to a mountain and the coal to a hillock, but there was no particular reason or meaning—it was simply that I used "mountain" and "hillock" to differentiate them.
Humans, having eaten rice, birds, fish, beasts, and all sorts of vile things until there was nothing left, had pitifully degenerated to the point of even consuming coal.
Looking ahead, I saw an entrance about six feet wide left open, and peering inside found it deathly quiet despite the commotion outside.
On the other side, human voices were clamoring incessantly.
Having concluded that the so-called bathhouse must indeed be where these voices were emanating from, I passed through the valley-like space formed between the pine firewood and coal, turned left, and advanced forward to find a glass window on my right, outside of which small round barrels were stacked in a triangle—or rather, a pyramid-like formation.
I secretly understood the small barrels’ feelings, thinking how utterly against their will it must be for round things to be stacked in triangles.
To the south of the small barrels, planks about four or five feet long were left unused, appearing as if welcoming me.
The height of the board was approximately one meter from the ground, making it perfectly suited for leaping up.
“All right,” I said, and with a nimble leap, the so-called public bathhouse dangled before my nose, beneath my eyes, right in front of my face.
In all the world, there is nothing more delightful than eating something one has never tasted and seeing something one has never beheld.
If you all could spend thirty to forty minutes in this realm of public baths three times a week like my master does, that would be fine—but if you’re like me and have never beheld a bath, then you’d best go see one soon.
Even if it means missing your parents’ deathbed, you must see this spectacle.
Though the world may be vast, there exists no other spectacle like this.

What’s so spectacular about it? What’s so spectacular about it? you ask—it’s a spectacle so staggering that even I balk at giving it voice. Inside this glass window, the swarming, clamoring humans were all completely naked. They were Taiwanese savages. They were twentieth-century Adams. To begin with, if one were to peruse the history of clothing—though given its length, I shall leave that to Mr. Teufelsdröckh and refrain from unfolding it myself—humans are entirely defined by their attire. In eighteenth-century Great Britain, when Beau Nash established strict regulations at the spa town of Bath, men and women within the baths covered themselves from shoulders to feet with garments. Sixty years ago, in a former capital of Great Britain as well, a design school was established. Since it was a design school, purchasing copies of nude paintings and statues, along with models, and displaying them here and there was all well and good. However, when it came time to hold the opening ceremony, the authorities and school staff found themselves in a great predicament. If they were to hold an opening ceremony, they had to invite the ladies of the town. According to the noblewomen of that time, humans are clothing animals. They did not consider themselves mere descendants of apes clad in fur. For humans to go without clothing was to lose their very essence, like an elephant without a trunk, a school without students, or a soldier without courage. Once they had lost their essence, they could not pass as human beings; they were beasts. Even if they were mere copies or models, associating with beast-like humans would harm your dignity. "Therefore, we humbly decline to attend," they declared. So while the staff thought they were impossible to reason with, after all, women are a kind of decorative item across both Eastern and Western nations. They could not become rice pounders nor volunteer soldiers, but they were indispensable decorative props for the opening ceremony. So there was no other way—they went to a fabric store, purchased thirty-five bolts, eight-tenths, and seven-hundredths of black cloth, and clothed all those beast-like humans in garments. Taking every possible precaution to avoid impropriety, they even clothed them down to their faces.

And so, after all that effort, they had managed to complete the ceremony without incident—or so the story went.
To that extent, clothing was an indispensable thing for humans.
Lately there were scholars who went on about nude paintings this and nude paintings that, insistently advocating for nudity—but that was mistaken.
From my perspective—having never once been naked since the day I was born until now—they were unquestionably mistaken.
Nudity had become fashionable when Greco-Roman traditions were seduced by the licentious trends of the Renaissance era—since Greeks and Romans had long been accustomed to nakedness, they likely never considered this carried any moral implications whatsoever—but Northern Europe was a cold place.
If even in Japan being naked on the road was unthinkable, then were they to go nude in Germany or England, they’d surely die.
Since dying would be pointless, they wore clothes.
When everyone wore clothes, humans became clothing animals.
Once they had become clothing animals, should they suddenly encounter a naked animal, they would not recognize it as human—they would think it a beast.
Therefore, it was perfectly acceptable for Europeans—particularly Northern Europeans—to treat nude paintings and statues as beasts.
It was perfectly acceptable to deem them beasts inferior to cats.
Beautiful?
Even if they were beautiful, it was perfectly acceptable to regard them as beautiful beasts.
Now, were I to say this, some might ask whether I’d seen Western women’s formal attire—but being a cat, I had never had the honor of witnessing such garments.
From what I heard, they exposed their chests, bared their shoulders, revealed their arms, and called this formal attire.
Outrageous!
Until around the fourteenth century, their attire had not been so absurd; they still wore the ordinary clothing of humans.
Why it had degenerated into such lowbrow acrobat fashion was too tedious to explain.
Those in the know knew; those ignorant would do well to feign ignorance.
History aside, they maintained these bizarre appearances and acted proudly at night while still retaining some semblance of humanity within—yet when day broke, they hunched their shoulders, hid their chests, wrapped their arms, not only concealing every inch of themselves but considering even a single toenail exposed to others a profound disgrace.

From this alone, one could see their so-called formal attire was established through a kind of absurd effect born from fools consulting fools. If they found this mortifying, let them try exposing shoulders, chests and arms in broad daylight—even the nudist zealots had it right. If nudity was so wonderful, why not strip their daughters naked and stroll through Ueno Park themselves while at it? Couldn't they? It wasn't that they couldn't—they refrained because Westerners didn't do it. Yet weren't they actually swaggering off to the Imperial Hotel in these supremely irrational formal garments? When one inquired into the reason, there was none—they wore them simply because Westerners did. Since Westerners were strong, they must imitate them however unreasonable or foolish, mustn't they? Yield to length, bend before strength, be crushed by weight—wasn't this litany of submission utterly lacking in wit? If they insisted witlessness couldn't be helped, very well—but don't go thinking the Japanese were such remarkable beings. Scholarship followed the same pattern, but being unrelated to clothing, we'll say no more.

Clothing stands as such an essential matter for humans.
It presents a condition so crucial one might ask whether humans are clothing or clothing constitutes humans.
Human history appears neither as flesh chronicles nor bone annals nor blood records—it manifests purely as vestimentary history.
Thus when observing unclothed humans they lack human semblance.
It was as if one had encountered monsters.
Were all monsters conspire uniformly toward monstrosity then true monsters would vanish—an acceptable outcome—yet this leaves humanity itself profoundly discomfited.
In primordial times Nature forged humans equal before casting them into society.
Hence every human emerges utterly naked at birth.
Had human nature remained content with equality they'd rightly thrive thus unadorned.
Yet one nude individual proclaimed uniformity rendered striving meaningless.
No distinction rewarded their labors.
"I desire recognition—that whoever beholds me instantly knows 'tis I!"
To this end he sought bodily adornments provoking gasps of awe.
After decade-long contemplation he finally devised loincloths donned them promptly then swaggered demanding admiration.
These became ancestors of modern rickshaw pullers.
Though ten years spent perfecting simple loincloths seems excessive this judgment stems from modern projections onto primitive minds—at that time no greater innovation existed.
Descartes reportedly required decades formulating his toddler-comprehensible truth—"I think therefore I am."
Since all invention demands exertion we must concede even decade-long loincloth development exceeded rickshaw pullers' intellectual capacities.
With loincloths established only pullers wielded societal influence.
Resenting their haughty swagger through thoroughfares loincloth-clad rivals labored six years creating superfluous haori overgarments.

Thereupon, the influence of loincloths abruptly declined, and the era of haori supremacy arrived.
Greengrocers, herbal medicine shops, and kimono fabric dealers are all descendants of this great inventor.
Following the loincloth period and the haori period came the hakama period.
This was devised by a certain demon who flew into a rage, exclaiming, "What's with this haori nonsense!"—and all samurai of old and present-day officials belong to this lineage.
Thus did these demons vie to ostentatiously differentiate themselves and pursue novelty, until at last there emerged a deformity modeled after a swallow's tail—yet when one retreats to examine its origins, this development was never some fact that had arisen through coercion, haphazardness, chance, or vague circumstance.
They are all new forms born from their fervent desire to outdo one another—these garments serve as substitutes for strutting about proclaiming, "I'm not like the rest of you!"
When viewed in this light, I could make a great discovery from this psychological tendency.
To put it plainly:
Just as nature abhors a vacuum, humans detest equality—that is the truth.
In this present age where humans, already detesting equality, have no choice but to clothe themselves as if garments were their very flesh and bones, to cast off these essential parts of their nature and return to the fair era of Mokuami would be the act of madmen.
Even if they were to accept the name of madmen, they could not possibly return.
From the perspective of enlightened people, those who have reverted are monsters.
Even if one were to rally the world's hundreds of millions of people and drag them all down to the realm of monsters—thinking that this would bring equality, that since everyone is a monster there'd be no shame—it still wouldn't work.
The very next day after the world became monsters, the competition among monsters would begin again.
If they cannot compete while wearing clothes, they will compete as monsters.
Nakedness as nakedness will ceaselessly give rise to distinctions.
From this perspective too, clothing has become something that simply cannot be discarded.

And yet, the group of humans I now looked down upon below me had taken off these indispensable loincloths, haori, and even hakama, laying them all on shelves, and with utter shamelessness exposed their true madness under public scrutiny while calmly engaging in conversation and laughter.
What I had earlier referred to as a great spectacle was precisely this.
I hereby had the honor of humbly presenting an overview of this spectacle for the esteemed gentlemen of civilization.

It was all so jumbled and chaotic that I couldn't tell where to begin describing it.
Because the actions of monsters lacked discipline, it proved laborious to provide an orderly account.
First, I began by describing the bath tub.
I couldn’t tell whether it was a bathtub or something else, but I supposed it must be what they called a bathtub.
It was about three shaku wide and perhaps one and a half ken long, partitioned into two sections with white hot water filling one of them.
It was apparently called something like a medicinal bath, murky with a color like dissolved lime.
However, it wasn’t merely murky.
It had been greasily thickened into turbid opacity.
It was no wonder it looked rotten when one considered they only changed the water once a week, or so I’d heard.
The neighboring one was said to be the ordinary common bath, but this too could by no means be declared transparent or crystalline.
The value of stirring a rainwater tub was fully evident in its color.
Now came the description of the monsters.
It was quite laborious.
Toward the rainwater tub stood two young men.
They remained upright facing each other, vigorously splashing water onto their bellies.
What a delightful pastime.
Both had developed their blackened areas to a state of flawless perfection.
As I watched these strapping monsters, one began rubbing his chest with a towel and asked, “Mr.Kin, this spot here’s been hurtin’ somethin’ awful—what d’you reckon it is?” To which Mr.Kin gravely replied, “That’s your stomach. Stomach troubles’ll kill a man, y’know.”
“You gotta be careful, or it’ll kill y’know,” he earnestly advised.
“But it’s on the left side here.”

He pointed to his left lung area.
"That’s your stomach, see."
"The left's your stomach, and the right's your lung."
“Hmm,” he said, tapping his lower back this time. “I thought the stomach was around here.” Mr. Kin declared, “That’s a hernia, see.”
Just then, a man of about twenty-five or twenty-six with a thin beard splashed into the bath with a loud thud.
The soap clinging to his body floated up amid the grime.
It glittered like iron filings seen through murky water.
Next to him, a bald old man gripped a close-cropped head while holding forth about something.
Both kept only their heads above the water’s surface.
"Ah, once you reach my age, it’s hopeless."
“Old bones can’t keep up with youngsters anymore.”
“Though I still need my bath scalding hot—lukewarm won’t do.”
"You’re plenty hale, sir! That vigor’s something."
“Such vitality’s commendable indeed.”
“Vitality? Nonsense."
“Just haven’t caught sick yet.”
“Mark my words—avoid wickedness, and a man’ll see a hundred twenty.”
“You don’t say? They live that long?”
“Guaranteed! Why, before Restoration times, Ushigome had a hatamoto called Magaribuchi whose servant made hundred thirty.”

“He really lived a long life, didn’t he?”
“Ah, I lived so long I ended up forgetting my own age, you see.”
“He said he remembered up to a hundred, but after that he’d forgotten.”
“Now, the one I knew was a hundred thirty when that happened, but he didn’t die then.”
“After that, I don’t know what became of him.”
“He might still be alive for all we know,” he said as he climbed out of the tub.
The bearded man scattered mica-like flakes around himself while smirking alone.
The next bather who leaped in differed from ordinary monsters—his back bore an engraved illustration.
It seemed to depict Iwami Jūtarō brandishing a great sword to slay a giant serpent, but unfortunately remained unfinished, leaving no trace of the serpent.
Thus Mr. Jūtarō appeared somewhat anticlimactic.
“Damn thing’s lukewarm!” he cursed as he plunged in.
Another patron followed, grimacing as he entered—“This ain’t... hot enough”—yet forced a smile upon meeting Mr. Jūtarō’s gaze. “Hey there, boss.”
“Hey,” Jūtarō replied before asking, “What’s become of Mr. Tami?”
“What d’you think? Can’t lay off the sauce.”
“Ain’t just the sauce...”
“Huh—guy’s got no guts neither.—Dunno why—folks just don’t take to him—can’t say what—nobody trusts ’im.”
“Real craftsmen ain’t like that.”
“Right.”
“Mr. Tami ain’t humble—got his nose in the air.”
“That’s why nobody trusts ’im.”

“Truly. He thinks he’s got real skill because of that—which just means he’s his own worst enemy.”
“In Shirogane-cho too, all the old-timers have died off. Now it’s just folks like Mr. Moto the cooper, the brickyard boss, and our own boss here left.”
“We were born right here in this place, see? But nobody’s got a clue where that Mr. Tami crawled out from.”
“That’s right.”
“Still, it’s something how he’s managed to get that far.”
“Yeah.”
“Thing is, folks just don’t take to him.”
“’Cause he don’t mix with people,” he said, laying into Mr. Tami without mercy.

Leaving aside the rainwater tub for now, when I looked at the white bathwater, it was again extraordinarily crowded—it would have been more accurate to say the bathwater had entered into the people rather than people having entered into the bathwater. Moreover, they were supremely leisurely; while people had been entering since earlier, not a single person was leaving. After entering like this and being impressed that if left for a week the bathwater would surely grow filthy, I looked more carefully around the tub and saw Mr. Kushami, pressed into the left corner, bright red and shrinking. Pitifully, I thought someone should clear a path to let him out, but no one showed any sign of moving, and Master himself made no move to leave. He was just sitting there motionless, turning red. What a trial this must be. No doubt he had turned this red through sheer determination to get his two and a half sen's worth from the bath fee, but I—ever mindful of my Master's welfare—grew considerably concerned from my perch on the windowsill, worrying he might pass out from the steam if he didn't emerge soon. Then the man floating next door but one to my Master, furrowing his brows into eights, remarked, “This seems a bit too potent—I can feel this searing heat welling up from my back,” implicitly seeking sympathy from the assembled monstrosities. “Nah, this is just the right temperature,” came a voice. “A medicinal bath won’t work unless it’s about this hot.” “In my country, we bathe in water twice as hot as this,” someone boasted pompously. “What exactly is this bath supposed to cure?” asked a man, folding his towel and scratching his uneven head as he addressed the group. “It’s good for all sorts of things.” “It’s good for everything, I tell ya.” “That’s real stout-hearted stuff!” said the owner of a face combining the color and shape of a withered cucumber. “If it’s such an effective bath, you’d think people would look a bit healthier by now.” “It seems the third or fourth day after adding the medicine is just right.” “Today’s just the right time to get in,” declared a bloated-looking man with an air of expertise. This was probably a build-up of grime. “Would it work if you drank it?” came a high-pitched voice from somewhere.

“If you drink a cup after it’s cooled and go to bed, you’ll curiously not wake up to pee, so give it a try,” came the reply from an unidentifiable face among the crowd.

Leaving the tub area at that point, when I surveyed the wooden flooring, there they were—row upon row of unpainted Adams who wouldn’t merit inclusion in any artwork, each scrubbing whatever body parts they pleased in whatever postures suited them.
But most astonishing among them were two particular Adams: one lying supine while staring up at a high lamp fixture, and another prone while peering into a drainage channel.
These appeared to be remarkably idle specimens.
A senior monk squatted facing the stone wall while behind him, a junior monk persistently tapped his shoulder.
This must have been the acolyte serving as Sansuke’s proxy in their master-disciple hierarchy.
The actual Sansuke was also present.
Evidently suffering from a cold despite the heat, he wore thick padding while dousing his master’s shoulders from an oval tub.
Observing his right foot revealed a gauze scrubber wedged between his big and second toes.
Nearby, a man who’d greedily hoarded three small buckets kept lecturing his neighbor while urging soap usage.
Wondering about their topic, I listened in:

“Firearms came from foreign lands, y’know.”
“Back in the old days, combat meant blade against blade.”
“Foreigners being cowards—that’s why they invented such contraptions.”
“Turns out it wasn’t China after all—must’ve been other foreign parts.”
“They didn’t have ’em in Wakana’i’s time, eh?”
“Wakana’i was true Seiwa Genji stock through and through.”
“They say when Yoshitsune crossed from Ezo to Manchuria, some learned Ezo scholar tagged along.”
“So Yoshitsune’s son attacked the Ming dynasty, but when the Ming got desperate and asked the third shogun for three thousand troops—”
“What was it now... Some sort of envoy... Anyway they detained him two years then showed him Nagasaki brothel girls.”

"The child born to that courtesan was Wakana’i."
"Then when he returned home, he found the Ming dynasty had been destroyed by traitors......"
I couldn't make heads or tails of what he was saying.
Behind him sat a sallow-faced man of about twenty-five or six, listlessly scrubbing his groin with cloudy bathwater.
He seemed to be suffering from some sort of boil.
Beside him, a cheeky student of seventeen or eighteen prattled away with presumptuous 'yous' and 'Is' - no doubt some local academy brat.
Next came the most peculiar back I'd ever seen.
The vertebrae stood out like bamboo joints thrust upward from his buttocks.
Flanking this spinal column marched four coin-shaped marks on each side, arranged with military precision.
Some of these marks glowed angry red, oozing pus at their edges.
As I set about describing them all in order, I realized the task exceeded my capabilities - I couldn't do justice to even a fraction of this spectacle.
Just as I began regretting ever starting this inventory, a seventy-year-old monk in pale yellow hemp robes materialized at the entrance.
The monk bowed deeply to these naked grotesqueries. "Loyal patrons all," he intoned, "we thank you for your continued custom."
"Given today's chill, we encourage you to take your leisure - move freely between baths and soak at your ease."
"Attendant! Mind you keep the temperatures properly adjusted!"
"Right away!" came the reply from the baths.
"That Wakana’i had real charm about him," someone remarked.
"You need that sort of charisma to run a proper business!" another loudly praised the old monk.
Startled by this apparition of elderly propriety, I abandoned my cataloging project to focus entirely on observing him.
The old man soon spotted a boy of about four who'd just emerged from bathing and stretched out his hand. "Come here, young sir."

The child, upon seeing the old man who resembled a squashed rice cake, must have found him dreadful, for he let out a wail and burst into tears.
The old man, seeming slightly put out, said, “Oh, are you crying? What’s this?
“Is the old man scaring you?”
“Oh my, oh my!” he exclaimed.
Having no choice, he swiftly shifted his approach and turned to address the child’s parent.
“Why, it’s Gen-san!
“It’s rather chilly today.”
“What a fool that thief was who broke into Ōmiya last night!”
“He cut a square hole right through the door’s sliding track, you see.”
“And then… you see.”
“He apparently left without taking anything.”
“‘The fool must’ve seen a policeman or night watchman,’” he scoffed at the thief’s recklessness, then seized another patron: “Yes, yes—it’s quite chilly.”
“You’re all so young—you probably don’t feel it much,” said the old man, who alone was shivering.

For a while I had been so absorbed in observing the old man that I’d completely forgotten about the other monstrosities—even my master, who had been huddled there looking miserable, had vanished from my memory—when suddenly a loud voice rang out from between the washing area and the wooden floor.

When I looked, there was undoubtedly my master.

Though my master’s voice was extraordinarily loud and his hoarse, grating tone were nothing new, given the location, I was rather startled.

In that instant, I concluded this was undoubtedly due to him having endured soaking in scalding water for an extended period, resulting in a rush of blood to the head.

If this were solely due to illness, there would be nothing to blame him for, but that he retained full possession of his faculties even while agitated became clear once one understood why he’d produced this outrageous bellowing.

He had started an unseemly quarrel with an insignificant, cheeky student.

“Move back! You’re letting water into my bucket!” shouted none other than the Master.

Things depend entirely on perspective—there’s no need to judge this roar solely as a result of cerebral congestion.

Perhaps one person in ten thousand might interpret it as akin to Takayama Hikokurō scolding bandits.

The man himself may have intended this as performance art, but since his opponent was no bandit, the expected result was bound never to materialize.

The student turned around and answered meekly, “I was here from the beginning.”

This ordinary response—merely refusing to vacate the spot—failed to satisfy the Master’s expectations, but even in his agitated state, he must have understood neither attitude nor words warranted denouncing the youth as brigands.

Yet the Master’s roar stemmed not from dissatisfaction with seating arrangements—rather, he’d grown enraged after enduring these two youths’ uncharacteristic haughtiness and pretentious remarks despite their tender age.

Thus even faced with polite compliance, he wouldn’t quietly retreat to the changing area.

This time he roared, “You idiot! Who splashes filthy water into someone else’s bucket?!” and drove him off.

I myself had found this whelp detestable, so felt momentary satisfaction—though as conduct befitting a schoolteacher, I thought my master’s actions most improper.

By nature, the master is far too rigid.

Like coal cinders—dry and flaky yet unpleasantly hard.

Long ago when Hannibal crossed the Alps, there stood a massive rock mid-path that hindered his army’s progress.

So Hannibal doused this boulder with vinegar, lit fires to soften it, then sawed through the great stone like kamaboko fish cake for unimpeded passage—or so they say.

For a man like my Master who could boil himself in this potent medicinal bath yet show no improvement, I concluded he needed vinegar poured over him and roasting over flames. Without such measures, even hundreds of students over decades could never cure his obstinacy. These beings floating in the bath and sprawling in the washing area formed a monstrous collective that had shed civilization's required garments—they defied all conventional norms. Let them do as they pleased. Let stomachs occupy lung space, Wakana’i become Seiwa Genji, Tami-san be distrusted—it mattered not. But once they stepped beyond the washing area onto the wooden floor, they ceased being monsters. They reentered the ordinary human world where civilization's clothes must be worn—and thus compelled to act like proper people.

The Master stood precisely on the threshold between washing area and wooden floor—poised to reenter that world of pleasantries and social lubrication. Yet even at this transitional moment, his obstinacy remained an inescapable prison of illness. If illness it was, no simple cure existed. Through my humble reasoning, only one remedy emerged: have the principal dismiss him. Dismissal would leave this inflexible man destitute—destitution leading inevitably to gutter death. Thus termination meant slow-motion execution.

Though the Master reveled in his metaphorical sickness, actual death terrified him. He craved illness as luxury—provided it stopped short of mortality. Therefore, were someone to warn that persisting in this condition meant certain death, his cowardly nature would surely make him tremble violently.

At this moment of trembling terror, I thought the illness would be cleanly shed.
If it still didn't shed, then that was that.

No matter how foolish or ill he became, he remained Master.
Since poets exist who revere even a single meal's kindness from their lord, how could a cat like me not spare some concern for his master's welfare?
My heart swelling with pity grew so absorbed that I neglected observing the washing area—when suddenly curses erupted toward the white bathtub.
Whirling around at this new commotion, I saw monsters crammed into the narrow bathhouse entrance without an inch to spare—a squirming tangle of hairy shins and hairless thighs.
As early autumn dusk approached, steam from the washing area had risen in a dense veil reaching the ceiling.
Through this haze swarmed dim shapes of those creatures.
Voices crying "Hot! Hot!" pierced my ears and tangled chaotically in my skull as though ricocheting sideways.
These voices held yellows and blues and reds and blacks that overlapped like layered tatami mats, flooding the bathhouse with indescribable clamor.
They were sounds fit only for conveying congestion and madness—utterly devoid of other purpose.
I stood frozen, spellbound by this vision.
When the roaring reached its chaotic zenith—stretched taut beyond endurance—from that surging mass of bodies rose abruptly a towering figure.
He stood three sun taller than other gentlemen.
Arching his crimson face—so bearded one couldn't tell whiskers from flesh—he bellowed like a cracked noon bell: "Boil it! Boil it! Hot! Hot!"
This voice and visage alone dominated above tangled crowds until momentarily he became the bathhouse's sole occupant.
A superman.
Nietzsche's Übermensch.
Demon king among fiends.
As I deemed him monsters' foreman, someone behind the tub shouted "Hey!"
Turning again toward darkness impenetrable yet familiar, I glimpsed Sansuke in workman's coat hurling coal lumps into furnace flames.
The chunk crackled through grate bars as Sansuke's profile flared bright.

Simultaneously, the brick wall behind Sansuke glowed as if burning through the darkness.
Having grown somewhat unnerved, I promptly leapt from the window and returned home.
As I made my way back, I continued pondering.
Within this mass of nakedness striving for equality by casting off haori jackets, loincloths, and hakama trousers, yet another naked champion would inevitably rise to dominate the lesser crowd.
Equality cannot be attained through mere nakedness.

When I returned home, all was tranquil under heaven, and my Master was eating his evening meal with his freshly bathed face gleaming. Seeing me come up from the veranda, he remarked, "What an idle cat—wonder where he roams at this hour." Surveying the dining tray, I noted two or three dishes laid out despite his empty purse—among them one grilled fish of uncertain name, though doubtless caught yesterday near Daiba's shores. I had previously expounded on fishes' hardiness, yet even their toughness must yield to roasting or boiling. Far better to sustain a frail existence through lingering maladies than endure such fiery ends. Thus resolved, I sat beside the tray feigning nonchalance while awaiting my chance—for those ignorant of such dissembling arts must abandon hope of savory morsels. The Master prodded at his fish before setting down chopsticks with a grimace of distaste, while his wife sat opposite in silent study of his masticating jaws.

“Hey, give that cat’s head a little smack,” the Master suddenly requested of his wife.

“If I hit it, what are you trying to accomplish?”

“Just hit it anyway—give it a smack.”

“Like this?” said the wife, lightly tapping my head with the flat of her hand.
It didn’t hurt at all.

“It won’t cry out?”

“Yes.”

“Do it again.”

“How many times I do it won't make a difference,” said the wife, delivering another open-handed smack.
Since it still had no effect, I remained motionless.
However, the purpose behind this was utterly impossible for a cat of profound discernment like myself to comprehend.
If I could understand this purpose, there might be some way to handle it, but with his command being simply “Hit it and see,” both the wife delivering the blows and I receiving them are at a loss.
The Master, having failed to get his way after two attempts, said with some irritation, “Hey, try hitting it so it cries this time.”

With a troubled look, the wife asked, “What’s the point of making it cry?” while delivering another smack.
Once I understood their purpose, it was simple—if I just cried, I could satisfy Master.
Master was such a fool that it became unbearable.
Had he simply stated upfront that he wanted me to cry, they could have avoided two or three unnecessary repetitions of this hassle, and I wouldn’t have needed to be subjected to this process over and over when once would have sufficed.
The command “Just hit it and see” should not be used except in cases where the act of hitting itself was the sole purpose.
Hitting was their business; crying was mine.
To persist in expecting crying from the outset and to think that even my voluntary act of crying was included within the mere command to hit was utterly presumptuous.
This was what they called respecting others’ individuality!
He was making a fool of the cat.
While this was the sort of thing one might expect from Mr.Kaneda, whom Master detested like snakes and scorpions, it was utterly despicable coming from a man who prided himself on his stark-naked honesty.
However, in truth, Master was not such a stingy man.
Therefore, this command of Master’s was not the height of cunning.
In other words, I concluded that it was akin to mosquito larvae sprouting from a lack of wisdom.
If you ate a meal, it was absolutely certain that your stomach would swell.
If you cut, it was absolutely certain that blood would come out.
If you killed, it was absolutely certain that they would die.
That was why he probably jumped to the hasty conclusion that if you hit something, it was absolutely certain to cry out.
However, that conclusion—though pitiable—was somewhat illogical.
By that logic, if you fell into a river, you would inevitably die.
If you ate tempura, you would inevitably have diarrhea.

If you receive a salary, you will inevitably end up attending work.
If you read books, you will inevitably become great.
If things inevitably turn out that way, people will find themselves slightly inconvenienced.
If being hit meant I must inevitably cry out, then I was troubled.
If I were to be regarded as no different from the Mejiro time bell, there would be no point in having been born a cat.
First, I mentally humiliated Master to my satisfaction, then let out a dutiful “meow” as ordered.

Then Master asked his wife: “That ‘meow’ just now—do you know whether it’s an interjection, adverb, or what?”

Because the question was too abrupt, the wife said nothing.
To tell the truth, I myself thought this was likely because his bathhouse-induced frenzy hadn’t subsided yet.
Originally, this Master was such a notorious eccentric throughout the neighborhood that some had gone so far as to assert he was genuinely neurotic.
However, Master’s confidence was formidable; he stubbornly maintained that he wasn’t neurotic—it was everyone else in the world who were neurotic.
When the neighbors called Master “Dog-Dog,” he would declare it necessary to maintain fairness and call them “Pig-Pig” in return.
In truth, Master seemed intent on maintaining absolute fairness in all matters.
This was truly vexing.
Given that he was this sort of man, presenting such an absurd question to his wife might have been a minor incident before breakfast for the Master, but from the listener’s perspective, it sounded like something a person bordering on neurosis would say.
Thus the wife, feeling as though she’d been engulfed in smoke, said nothing.
Of course, I had no way to answer.

Then the Master suddenly raised his voice—
“Hey,” he called out.
The wife started and answered, “Yes.”
“Is that ‘yes’ an interjection or an adverb?”
“Which one? Why does such nonsense matter?”
“What do you mean? This is the critical issue occupying linguists’ minds!”
“Goodness—you mean the cat’s cry? How dreadful.”
“But a cat’s cry isn’t even Japanese!”

“That’s precisely why—”
“That’s precisely why it’s such a difficult problem.”
“It’s called comparative study.”

“So,” said the wife, who was clever enough not to engage with such a foolish question.
“So, have you figured out which one it is?”

“It’s an important issue, so you can’t expect to understand it so quickly,” he said, munching away on his usual drinking snack.
He then ate the simmered pork and potatoes next to it.
“This is pork.”
“Why, it certainly is pork.”
He swallowed it with a “Hmph” of utter disdain.
“I’ll have another drink,” he said, holding out his cup.

“You’re really going at it tonight, aren’t you? You’ve gotten quite red, you know.”

“Drink I will—do you know the longest word in the world?”

“Why, it must be ‘the former Kampaku and Daijō-daijin,’ I suppose.”

“That’s a title. Do you know a long word?”

“By ‘word,’ do you mean a Western one?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know—you’ve had enough sake. Now have your rice, okay?”

“No—I’ll drink more. Shall I teach you the longest word?”

“Oh, all right. Then have your rice.”

“It’s a word spelled *Archaiomelesidonophrunicherata*.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense—it’s Greek!”

“What does that word mean in Japanese?”

“I don’t know what it means.”
“I only know how to spell it.”
“If written out in full, it would stretch about six sun and three bu.”

What others would say only when drunk, he declared with sober seriousness—a most remarkable spectacle.

However, he was drinking recklessly tonight. Under normal circumstances, he limited himself to two small sake cups, but he had already drunk four. Even two cups would normally make him quite flushed, but having drunk double that amount, his face burned like a red-hot poker as he looked thoroughly miserable. Even so, he still wouldn’t stop. “Another cup,” he said, holding it out. The wife, at this point—
“You’ve had enough now—that’s plenty. It’s only making you suffer,” she said with a bitter expression.
“No matter how painful it gets, I’m going to practice a bit more now. Ōmachi Keigetsu said to drink.”

“What’s Keigetsu?”
Even Keigetsu himself became utterly worthless when confronted by the wife.

“Keigetsu is a first-rate critic of our time.”
“Since he says to drink, it must be absolutely proper.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Whether it’s Keigetsu or Umegetsu, telling people to drink themselves sick is just meddling nonsense!”

“It’s not just alcohol. He said to socialize, indulge in pleasures, and travel.”

“That’s even worse, isn’t it? And such a person is supposed to be a first-rate critic? Good grief! To think someone would encourage a man with a wife and children to indulge in pleasures…”

“Indulging in pleasures isn’t so bad. Even if Keigetsu hadn’t recommended it, I might have done it if I had the money.”

“It’s a blessing we don’t have it.”
“Starting to indulge in pleasures now would be disastrous!”

“If you think it’s disastrous, I’ll stop—but in return, take better care of your husband and serve me better meals in the evening.”

“This is the best I can manage.”

“Well, if you say so.
“In that case, I’ll postpone my indulgences until the money comes in, and call it a night for now,” he said, pushing out his rice bowl.
He apparently ate three bowls of tea-soaked rice.
That night, I was given three slices of pork and a salted grilled fish head.

VIII

When I explained the exercise called “patrolling the walls,” I had briefly mentioned the bamboo fence surrounding my master’s garden. However, to think that beyond this bamboo fence lay immediately the neighboring house—that is, the southern neighbor’s Jirō-chan—would be a misunderstanding.
The rent was cheap, but that was where Mr. Kusakabe resided.
With those dubbed Yotchan or Jirō-chan—the so-called "-chan" crowd—they remained separated by nothing more than a flimsy fence, yet had forged no intimate camaraderie as neighboring comrades.
Outside this fence lay a vacant lot spanning five or six *ken*, at whose farthest edge five or six hinoki cypress trees stood thickly clustered.
When viewed from the veranda, the other side appeared as a dense forest, creating the impression that the master living here was a reclusive scholar of the rivers and lakes—passing his days in a lone house in the wilderness with an unnamed cat as his companion.
However, the branches of the hinoki cypress were not as densely grown as boasted, so through their gaps one could unceremoniously see the cheap roof of Gunkaku-kan—a boarding house grand only in name—making it naturally quite laborious to imagine him as such a master.
Yet if this boarding house was Gunkaku-kan, then the master’s abode was indeed worthy of being called Garyū-kutsu.
Since names incurred no taxes, we mutually agreed to assign grandiose titles as we pleased—thus, this vacant lot of five or six *ken* in width ran east-west along the bamboo fence for about ten *ken*, then abruptly bent at a right angle to encircle Garyū-kutsu’s northern face.
This northern side was the source of the trouble.
By rights, one could boast that after traversing this vacant lot lay yet another vacant lot—so expansive did it wrap around two sides of the house—but even Garyū-kutsu’s master, not to mention myself, the enlightened feline dwelling within, found this empty space quite troublesome.
Just as hinoki cypresses dominated the southern side, seven or eight paulownia trees stood in a row on the northern side.
By now they had grown to about a foot in circumference—if only someone had brought a clog maker, they would have fetched a decent price—but such was the sorrow of renting that no matter how aware one was of this, nothing could be done.
It was a pity even for the master.
The other day, the school janitor had come and cut off a branch, but when he next visited, he showed up wearing new paulownia-wood geta with cutting-board soles and boasted—without being asked—that he had made them from that very branch.
What a sly fellow.
There were paulownia trees aplenty, but for me and the master's family, they remained trees not worth a penny.
There was an old saying that to possess a jewel was to invite guilt—this should have been called growing paulownia trees yet having no coin—what was known as letting treasure rot unused.
The fool was neither the Master nor myself—it was Denbei the landlord.
The paulownia trees kept urging, “Where are they? Where are they? Isn’t there a clog maker around here?”—yet he maintained an oblivious face and came only to collect rent.

I bore no particular grudge against Denbei, so I ceased slandering him there and returned to my main topic—to recount how this vacant lot became a source of trouble through this peculiar tale. But you must never tell my master.
This story must go no further.
The primary inconvenience of this vacant lot was its lack of fencing.
A wind-swept open thoroughfare—a back-alley shortcut with free passage for all under heaven's sun—a vacant lot laid utterly bare.
To claim there had been one would be dishonest—hardly proper conduct.
To speak truthfully, there had indeed been one.
Yet without tracing back through its history, the root cause remained obscure.
If causes went uncomprehended, even physicians would fumble their prescriptions.
Therefore I resolved to begin my account methodically from our initial relocation here.
An open thoroughfare feels refreshing in summer's heat; where no valuables exist, carelessness invites no theft.
Thus fences of any sort—palisades or thorny barricades—proved entirely unnecessary for my master's dwelling.
Yet this determination surely depended on what manner of humans or beasts inhabited beyond that empty space.
To settle this matter required first illuminating the nature of those self-styled "gentlemen" encamped across the way.
Labeling them gentlemen without knowing whether they were human or beast seemed rash indeed—yet broadly speaking,the designation held.
In this world where we speak of "beam-perching gentlemen," even thieves earn that noble title.
Yet these particular gentlemen were decidedly not the sort to burden our constabulary.
Avoiding police attention through sheer numbers instead—they swarmed beyond counting.
They swarmed en masse.
Rakuyoukan—a private middle school extracting two yen monthly to mold eight hundred such gentlemen into ever nobler specimens.
One might presume a place called Rakuyoukan housed only refined scholars—therein lay your fundamental error.

That this could not be trusted was as certain as cranes never alighting at Gunkaku-kan or there being a cat at Garyū-kutsu. Once one knew that among those styling themselves scholars and teachers there existed a madman like Master Kusakabe, it became clear that not all of Rakuyoukan's "gentlemen" were refined souls. Should anyone insist on remaining unconvinced, they needed only come lodge at my master's house for three days to see for themselves.

As I mentioned earlier, when we first moved here—there being no fence around that vacant lot—Rakuyoukan's gentlemen would lumber into the paulownia grove like Kuro the rickshaw cat to chat, eat their lunches, sprawl on bamboo grass—indeed, they engaged in all manner of activities.
From then on, they seemed to discard most lunch remnants—bamboo wrappers, old newspapers, worn-out straw sandals, broken wooden clogs—anything bearing the label "old"—right there.
The indifferent master remained surprisingly unperturbed and let it pass without lodging any protest—whether unaware or willfully overlooking remains unclear.
However, as these gentlemen received their schooling, they grew more gentlemanly by the day, gradually beginning to nibble their way north to south.
If 'nibble' seems unbecoming of gentlemen, we may dispense with it.
Yet no other term suffices.
Like desert nomads chasing water plants, they abandoned paulownias and advanced toward hinoki cypresses.
Where hinoki stood faced the formal tatami room.
Only truly audacious gentlemen would dare such action.
A day later, their audacity swelled into grand boldness.
Nothing terrifies like education's fruits.
They pressed not just against the sitting room's front—they burst into song there.
I've forgotten the tune's name—no thirty-one-syllable poem this—something livelier, catchier to common ears.
Not just the master gaped—even I unwittingly marveled at these gentlemen's talents.
Yet readers know well—admiration and nuisance sometimes coexist.
That these merged unwittingly here still pains me today.
The master surely regretted it too—yet rushed from his study to drive them out twice-thrice, declaring "This place isn't yours—begone!"
But educated gentlemen heed no such demands.
Driven out—they'd reenter.
Entering—they'd sing lively songs.

They engaged in loud conversation—though being gentlemen's talk, it carried a peculiar flavor full of "yous" and "dunno." Such language had apparently belonged to the exclusive domain of Orisuke palanquin bearers, Kumosuke porters, and Sansuke bath attendants before the Restoration; yet since entering the twentieth century, it had become the sole tongue cultivated by educated gentlemen. Some explained this as akin to how movements once scorned by society now found welcome.

When the master rushed from his study again and seized one particularly fluent practitioner of this gentlemanly vernacular demanding why they trespassed, the youth promptly forgot his refined "the hell should I know" and answered in thoroughly vulgar terms: "Thought this was school's botanical garden." The master admonished him about future conduct before releasing his grip—an act comical as turtle hatchlings returning to sea, though in truth he'd negotiated while clutching the youth's sleeve.

He apparently believed such commotion would suffice. But since Nüwa's era things have defied expectations—the master failed again. This time they cut across from north to exit through main gate; when someone clattered it open expecting visitors, laughter echoed from paulownia groves instead. Tensions escalated further.

Education's effects grew ever more pronounced. The pitiable master—admitting defeat—retreated to his study and humbly petitioned Rakuyoukan's principal for disciplinary measures via formal letter. The principal courteously replied they'd erect a fence if he waited.

Soon craftsmen arrived and within half a day completed a three-foot four-sided lattice fence along the boundary between residence and school grounds. At last he could rest easy—so rejoiced the master.

The master was a fool. No trifling fence could alter gentlemen's conduct.

Teasing people was quite an amusing pastime.
Even a cat like me would occasionally tease the young ladies of this household for amusement, so it seemed perfectly natural that Rakuyoukan's gentlemen would tease the slow-witted Master Kusakabe. The only one likely discontented by this was probably the very person being teased.
To dissect the psychology of teasing revealed two essential elements.
First: the person being teased must not remain unaffected.
Second: those doing the teasing must surpass their target both in power and numbers.
Some days prior, my master had returned from the zoo full of admiration as he recounted something he had witnessed there.
Upon listening, I learned he had seen a fight between a camel and a small dog.
When the small dog raced around the camel like a whirlwind, barking furiously, the camel apparently paid no heed whatsoever—standing motionless with its hump raised as always. No matter how much the dog barked or raged, the camel ignored it until finally even the dog grew weary and gave up. My master had laughed about how utterly insensible camels were—a perfect analogy for this situation.
No matter how skilled one might be at teasing, it simply didn’t work when facing a camel-like target.
Yet if the opponent proved too formidable—like a lion or tiger—that wouldn’t do either.
The moment you tried teasing them, you’d be torn to pieces.
There was great amusement in those moments when you could tease them into baring their teeth in anger—they would rage impotently, yet remain powerless to retaliate.
As for why such behavior proved entertaining—there were various reasons.
First: it served splendidly as time-wasting diversion.
When bored enough, one might even feel compelled to count the hairs in one’s beard.
There was a tale of some prisoner who—driven mad by ennui—had spent his days drawing overlapping triangles on his cell wall.
Nothing in this world proved more unbearable than boredom; without some event to stir vitality, existence itself became torment.
Teasing essentially constituted a form of amusement that manufactured precisely this stimulation through play.
However, since achieving stimulation required provoking some measure of anger, irritation or weakness in one’s target, those who indulged in teasing had always been limited to two types: either dimwitted feudal lords steeped in boredom and oblivious to others’ feelings, or boys whose intellects were so immature they could scarcely think beyond their own amusement—youths utterly at a loss for how to channel their vitality.
Next came its value as the simplest method to practically demonstrate one’s own superiority.

Even if one killed people, injured them, or entrapped them, one could prove their superiority; however, these acts were rather means to be employed when the purpose was killing, injuring, or entrapping—the demonstration of superiority being merely a phenomenon that inevitably arose after executing these means. Therefore, when wishing to demonstrate power while avoiding significant harm, teasing became the ideal method. Unless one injured a certain number of people, one couldn’t factually demonstrate their own greatness—and unless this materialized into fact, even self-assurance provided surprisingly thin pleasure.

Humans were beings who relied on themselves—no, even when self-reliance proved difficult, they still wished to do so. Thus they couldn’t rest until practically demonstrating to others that they could depend on themselves to this extent—that with this assurance, they could be at ease.

Moreover, vulgar people who couldn’t grasp reason and those lacking self-reliance seized every opportunity to secure this guarantee—much like how jujutsu practitioners occasionally felt the urge to throw someone. A person with dubious skills would wander streets hoping to encounter someone weaker—even an amateur—just once to test their throw.

There were other reasons too, but I’ll omit them for brevity. Bring dried bonito if you wish further instruction.

Considering these arguments, I concluded monkeys of deep mountains and schoolteachers made prime teasing targets—though comparing teachers to monkeys wasted not simian dignity but pedagogical honor.

Yet resemblance left no choice—as you know, mountain monkeys wore iron collars. However much they bared teeth or screeched, none feared retaliation.

Teachers lacked chains but were shackled by salaries—no matter how teased, they wouldn’t resign to thrash students.

Had they possessed such courage, they’d never have become teachers nursemaiding pupils.

The master was a teacher.

He may not have been a Rakuyoukan teacher, but he remained indisputably a teacher. He made an exceptionally suitable, effortlessly manageable, and perfectly safe target for teasing. The Rakuyoukan students were youths who had come to regard teasing as both a means of elevating their own prestige and an educational prerogative they were fully entitled to claim. Moreover, these were lads who found themselves utterly perplexed about how to employ their vigorous physiques and restless minds during their abundant leisure hours unless engaged in such mischief. With all these conditions aligned, it followed as naturally as day follows night that the master would be teased and the students would do the teasing—a situation no reasonable person could deem unjust. For the master to take offense at this would have marked him as the quintessence of boorishness—the very apex of fatuity. I shall now set down in meticulous detail how the Rakuyoukan students teased the master and how he consequently attained the zenith of uncouth behavior.

Gentlemen, are you acquainted with what manner of thing a four-eyed fence might be? It is an airy, simple barrier. As for me, I can come and go freely through its lattice gaps. Whether constructed or not, it amounts to the same thing. However, the principal of Rakuyoukan did not build this lattice fence for cats; he specially hired craftsmen to erect it around his cultivated students to prevent their crawling through. Indeed, no matter how well-ventilated its design, humans cannot possibly slip between its bars. To pass through these four-inch square apertures woven from bamboo would prove difficult even for Qing dynasty China’s master illusionist Zhang Shizun himself. Therefore, it undoubtedly fulfills its function as a human deterrent. When the master saw its completion, his satisfaction seemed reasonable enough—"This should suffice." Yet his logic contained a fatal flaw, a gap wider than the fence itself. There yawned an oversight vast enough to let slip leviathans that could swallow boats whole. He proceeded from the assumption that fences exist not to be scaled but obeyed—that any barrier bearing the name "fence," however crude, would deter intrusion through mere titular authority if its boundaries stood clearly marked. Having temporarily suspended this premise, he further concluded that even potential trespassers posed no threat. With hasty certainty, he decided that since no mere schoolboy could possibly squeeze through those bamboo squares, intrusion remained impossible. True enough—so long as they weren’t cats, none could slip through those geometric voids even if they tried. But climbing over? Leaping across? Such feats required no effort at all. Indeed, they provided rather amusing calisthenics.

From the very next day after the fence was erected, they continued to leap into the north side vacant lot just as they had before its construction. However, they did not venture all the way to the front of the main sitting room. If pursued, escape would take some time—so having calculated this interval in advance, they patrolled where there was no risk of capture. What they were doing remained invisible to the master in the eastern detached room. Their activities in the northern lot could only be observed by either opening the gate and peering around from the opposite hook-shaped path or gazing through the fence from the toilet window. From the window, one could survey everything clearly at a glance—locations and numbers—but spotting enemies didn’t mean apprehending them. He could only scold through the latticed window. If he tried circling from the gate to storm their position, they’d catch his footsteps and retreat across before capture—like poachers approaching sunbathing fur seals. Of course, the master wasn’t keeping toilet vigil. Nor was he poised to dash out at sounds. To do so would require resigning as a teacher to specialize in pursuit—an impossibility. The master’s disadvantage lay here: from his study he heard voices without seeing figures; from the window he saw figures without reaching them. The enemy exploited this with tactical precision. When detecting him holed up in his study, they’d raise an intentional clamor—voices loud yet origin-obscured—making it unclear whether commotion came from inside or beyond the fence. If he emerged, they’d flee or feign innocence from their side. Moreover—I take no pride in repeating this unsavory term—whenever they discerned his toilet retreat, they’d loiter conspicuously near the paulownia tree. Should he bellow thunderously from that porcelain perch, they’d withdraw leisurely to base without panic.

When they employed this tactical plan, the master was greatly perplexed.
Thinking someone was definitely there, he grabbed his cane and rushed out only to find it utterly deserted.
When he thought they weren't there and peered through the window, one or two would invariably be sneaking in.
The master would go around to check the back, peer from the toilet window, peer from the toilet again, go around once more—no matter how many times repeated, it remained the same; no matter how often said, he kept repeating identical actions.
This was precisely what it meant to be run ragged.
He had worked himself into such a frenzy that it became unclear whether teaching was his profession or warfare his primary duty.
It was at the very peak of this frenzy that the following incident occurred.

Incidents mostly arose from frenzy.
Frenzy, as the characters literally indicate, means rising upside down; on this point, neither Galen nor Paracelsus nor even the antiquated Bian Que would have raised a single objection.
However, the question lay in where exactly this 'rising upside down' occurred.
Furthermore, there was debate over what precisely rose inversely.
According to ancient European legend, it was said that four kinds of fluids had circulated within the human body.
First existed something called anger fluid.
When this rose upside down, anger emerged.
Second was something named dull fluid.
When this rose inversely, the nerves grew dull.
Next came melancholy fluid—this made humans gloomy.
Last was blood—this invigorated the limbs.
As civilization progressed thereafter, the dull fluid, anger fluid, and melancholy fluid gradually vanished without notice until in modern times only blood circulated as it had in antiquity.
Therefore, if there existed those who experienced frenzy, one would think it must have been nothing but blood.
However, the quantity of this blood was precisely fixed for each individual.
Though slight increases or decreases might occur depending on one's disposition, the general ratio remained roughly five shō and five gō per person.
Consequently, when this five shō and five gō rose inversely, the ascended areas became intensely active while other regions grew cold from deficiency.
It resembled exactly when policemen all gathered at stations during police box burnings, leaving none in the town.
From a medical perspective, that too would have been diagnosed as police frenzy.
To cure this frenzy therefore required redistributing blood evenly throughout all body parts as before.
To achieve this required bringing down what had risen upside down.

There were various methods for that. It was said that the master’s late father—now deceased—would place a wet hand towel on his head while warming himself at the kotatsu. As stated in *Shang Han Lun*, cooling the head and warming the feet being signs of longevity and health, a wet hand towel remained indispensable in longevity methods. If that failed, one might try monks’ customary practices. It was written that wandering monks without fixed abodes must lodge under trees or upon rocks—not for ascetic trials, but as an esoteric technique devised by the Sixth Patriarch while rice-pounding to reduce frenzy. Try sitting on a rock; your buttocks would naturally grow cold. Cold buttocks meant subsiding frenzy—a natural sequence beyond doubt.

Though many ingenious methods had been invented to lower frenzy, none had yet been devised to induce it—a regrettable fact. At first glance frenzy seemed all loss with no gain, yet hasty dismissal proved unwise. For some professions frenzy proved essential; certain feats remained impossible without it. Among these, poets valued frenzy most highly—as indispensable as coal to steamships. Should this supply cease even a day, they’d become mere mortals who could only fold hands and eat rice.

Yet since frenzy was madness by another name—and admitting their trade required madness being socially awkward—poets conspired to solemnly exalt it as “inspiration.” This manufactured term deceived society while denoting pure frenzy itself. Plato had championed their cause by dubbing it “sacred madness,” but sacred or not, madness found no public favor. Better they kept using this patent-medicine label of “inspiration.” Yet just as kamaboko’s core hid mountain yam, Kannon statues rotted wood within, duck nanban used crow meat, and boarding-house beef hotpot contained horse flesh—so too did inspiration conceal true frenzy.

If it was frenzy, then it was temporary madness. The reason one could avoid commitment to Sugamo Asylum lay precisely in its transience. Yet producing this transient madness proved remarkably difficult. While creating permanent lunatics came easily enough, inducing madness solely during literary composition appeared beyond even divine capability—the gods themselves rarely managed such fine-tuned insanity. Since celestial manufacturers wouldn't provide it, humans had to devise their own methods. Thus from antiquity onward, techniques for frenzy induction tormented scholars as much as those for its cure did.

One man consumed twelve unripe persimmons daily seeking inspiration, operating under the theory that astringent fruit caused constipation which inevitably led to frenzy. Another plunged into an iron bathtub clutching a sake flask, convinced alcohol consumed underwater would guarantee cerebral excitation. His doctrine held that failure would be rectified by boiling wine into bathwater—a surefire method he never tested, dying penniless before implementation.

Then came those imitating ancient masters, applying behavioral psychology theories where mimicking actions induced corresponding mental states. Act rowdy like drunkards and you'd feel intoxicated; endure zazen meditation through one incense stick's burning and you'd channel monastic calm. Therefore, they reasoned, replicating great writers' habits must summon frenzy. Hugo allegedly conceived plots while sprawled on ship decks—ergo maritime sky-gazing guaranteed inspiration. Stevenson wrote prone; therefore belly-flopping with pen in hand should send blood rushing to the brain.

Thus myriad methods were tried—persimmons, bathtubs, postural affectations—yet all failed. Artificial frenzy remained impossible, a verdict standing firm to this day.

It was regrettable, but there was nothing to be done.
There could be no doubt that a time would eventually arrive when inspiration could be summoned at will; for the sake of humanity, I earnestly hoped this era would come one day sooner.

I thought this much explanation about frenzy should suffice; from here, I would finally proceed to the incident.
However, it was an invariable rule that before every major event, a minor incident must occur.
To only recount major events while neglecting minor incidents was a chronic failing that historians had perpetually succumbed to since antiquity.
The master’s frenzy grew increasingly severe with each minor incident it encountered, ultimately leading to a major event; thus, unless I described its progression in some orderly fashion, it would be difficult to grasp just how frenzied he had become.
If this remained unclear, his frenzy would be reduced to an empty label, and society might dismiss it as not being that severe after all.
Even if one went to the trouble of working oneself into a frenzy, if it wasn’t praised by others as a splendid frenzy, there was no contest in it.
The events I was about to relate, whether major or minor, were not honorable ones for him.
If the event itself was dishonorable, then even if it was frenzy, I wished to make clear that it was genuine frenzy and by no means inferior to that of others.
He did not possess any particular quality worth boasting about to others.
If he didn’t boast about his frenzy, there was no other material worth painstakingly writing up for him.

The enemy forces swarming at Rakuyoukan had recently invented a type of dumdum bullet and, during their ten-minute breaks or after school, fervently rained down gunfire upon the northern vacant lot.
This dumdum bullet was commonly referred to as a ball, and they had devised a mechanism to launch it at will into enemy ranks using a large wooden pestle.
However much they might be dumdum bullets, since they were being launched from Rakuyoukan’s athletic field, there was no concern of them hitting their mark on the master holed up in his study.
Even the enemy was not unaware that their ballistic trajectory was excessively long, but that was precisely their military strategy.
If it was said that even during the Battle of Port Arthur, the navy had achieved great success through indirect fire, then even a ball that merely rolled into an empty lot could not fail to achieve considerable results.
Moreover, with every shot they fired, they would muster their entire military might and unleash a thunderous, intimidating roar—such was their method.
As a result of feeling intimidated, the master had no choice but for the blood vessels coursing through his limbs to contract.
In the extremity of his anguish, the blood that had been meandering through his veins was bound to reverse its course and rush upward.
The enemy's strategy could indeed be called quite ingenious.
I hear that long ago in Greece, there was a writer named Aeschylus.
This man, it was said, had a head common to scholars and writers.
When I speak of the head common to scholars and writers, I mean baldness.
To speak of why heads go bald—it was undoubtedly because the head suffered from nutritional deficiency, leaving insufficient vitality for hair to grow.
Scholars and writers used their heads the most and were generally extremely poor.
Therefore, the heads of all scholars and writers suffered from nutritional deficiency and were all bald.
Now, since Aeschylus was a writer, he too was naturally fated to go bald.
He had a slick, kumquat-shaped bald head.
Now, one day, the Master—since a head has neither overcoats nor everyday clothes, it must indeed be that head—was walking along the street, shaking that very head vigorously and basking it in the sun.
This was the root of the error.
When a bald head is exposed to the sun and viewed from afar, it shines remarkably well.

Tall trees are battered by winds; any gleaming pate must meet some impact.
At that moment, an eagle circled above Aeschylus' head—clutching in its talons a turtle captured alive somewhere.
Though turtles and soft-shelled turtles make fine eating, they've sported these stubborn shells since Greek times.
However delicious they might be, armored prey remains problematic.
While prawns might endure devil-shell grilling, turtle hatchling stew—scarce even today—certainly didn't exist back then.
The formidable eagle hovered indecisive until noticing a distant glint below.
At once it conceived its plan.
Dropping the turtle onto that shining dome would surely crack its shell.
Once shattered, retrieving the tender meat would prove simple work.
With this calculation made, the eagle unceremoniously released its cargo onto the luminous target below.
Alas—the writer's skull proved softer than reptilian armor. Aeschylus' bald crown shattered grotesquely, marking his ignoble demise.
This leaves unresolved the eagle's intent.
Whether it recognized an authorial pate or mistook polished scalp for stone determines if we might compare Rakuyoukan's foes to this raptor—though perhaps such parallels falter.
My Master's head lacks the brilliant sheen of Aeschylus' crown or venerable academics.
Yet maintaining even this shabby six-mat study—where he dozes over weighty tomes—grants him honorary membership among scholar-writers.
Thus his current hirsute state merely indicates unearned privilege; baldness remains his impending fate.
Hence Rakuyoukan students targeting his crown with dumdum bullets constitutes strategic brilliance.
Two weeks more bombardment would see his scalp—ravaged by terror and malnourishment—metamorphose into kumquat-kettle-copperpot hybrid.
Another fortnight's assault would crush the kumquat.
The kettle would spring leaks.

The copper pot would undoubtedly develop cracks.
The only one who, failing to foresee this easily predictable outcome, painstakingly strove to continue battling the enemy to the bitter end was none other than Kusakabe Sensei himself.

One afternoon, as was my custom, I went out to the veranda for a nap and dreamed of having become a tiger.
When I ordered my master to bring me chicken meat, he came out trembling with it while muttering "Y-yes?"
When Meitei arrived, I demanded wild goose hotpot from him. He began spouting his usual nonsense—"If you eat pickled turnips with rice crackers, it tastes just like goose"—so I bared my fangs and growled menacingly. Pale-faced, he stammered that Yamashita's Goose Restaurant had closed down.
"Then bring roast beef from Nishikawa! A whole pound! Hurry or I'll devour you instead!" At this threat, Meitei hitched up his kimono skirts and fled.
My swollen tiger form now occupied the entire veranda as I awaited his return. But a thunderous shout from inside shattered the dream before I could taste my meal.
To my shock, the master—whom I'd imagined cowering before me—suddenly erupted from the toilet and delivered a vicious kick to my ribs. Before I could react, he'd shoved on garden clogs and was charging toward Rakuyoukan.
Shrinking back into cat form left me both embarrassed and amused, though the master's fury and my throbbing flank soon banished tigerish delusions.
Thinking "Now this promises entertainment," I limped after him through the back gate despite the pain.
The master's "Thief!" shout pierced the air as I spotted a stubborn-looking youth in student cap halfway over our lattice fence.
Even as I thought "Too late!", the cap vanished toward enemy territory in a sprint worthy of the wind god himself.
Emboldened by this successful provocation, my master gave renewed chase with louder shouts.
Yet pursuit required fence-climbing—a step too far would make him the trespasser.
As established earlier, my master excels at working himself into frenzies.
Driven by momentum alone now, he advanced to the fence base without hesitation—ready to become outlaw himself if needed.
At this critical juncture emerged a general from enemy ranks sporting wispy whiskers and lumbering gait.
The two men parleyed across the fence boundary.
Eavesdropping revealed their petty squabble.

“That is one of our students.”

“Students who ought to know better—why would they intrude into another’s premises?”

“The ball merely happened to fly over.”

“Why didn’t you ask permission and come retrieve it?”

“We’ll take better care from now on.”

“Very well then.”

The negotiation that I had anticipated would unfold as a spectacular clash of dragons and tigers thus concluded safely and swiftly through these prosaic discussions.
The Master's vigor consisted solely of bluster.
When push came to shove, it always ended like this.
It was as if I had abruptly returned from being a tiger in a dream back to being a cat.
The minor incident I spoke of was none other than this.

After having described a minor incident, by order of sequence I must now relate a major event.

The master opened the sitting room’s shoji screen and lay prone on his stomach, pondering something. He was likely devising defensive measures against the enemy. Rakuyoukan appeared to be in session, as the athletic field was unexpectedly quiet. Only from one classroom in the school building could an ethics lecture be heard as clearly as if holding the words in one’s hand. Listening to this skillful exposition delivered in a sonorous voice, it was unmistakably the general who had sallied forth from enemy lines yesterday to lead negotiations.

“Public morality is of grave importance. Should you venture abroad, you’ll find that whether in France, Germany, or England—there exists no nation where this public morality isn’t practiced.”
“Moreover, even the lowliest individuals never fail to respect this principle.”
“Alas, here in Japan, we have yet to equal foreign nations in this regard.”
“Now, when I speak of public morality, some of you may think it a novel import from the West—but this would be a grave error. Our ancient sages already taught that ‘the Way of Confucius is unified through loyalty and empathy alone.’”
“This empathy—what we call *jin*—is none other than the very wellspring of public morality.”
“Being human myself, there are times when I long to sing at full voice.”
“Yet when I’m deep in study and hear someone in the next room bellowing songs, it’s simply my nature that I cannot concentrate on my books.”
“Therefore, even when reciting from the Tang Poetry Anthology aloud might lift my spirits, should there happen to be a sensitive soul residing next door—one who might be disturbed as I would be—I always restrain myself.”
“Thus gentlemen, you must strive to uphold public morality and never commit acts you suspect might inconvenience others.…”

The master had been listening attentively to this lecture with solemn respect, but at this point he smirked. I must briefly explain the significance of this smirk. A cynic might suspect some critical undertone lurked behind that smile. However, let me clarify—the master was no such ill-natured man. To be blunt, his intellectual faculties weren't sufficiently developed for such subtlety. The truth was simpler: he smiled from pure, unadulterated delight. With the ethics teacher delivering such an earnest admonition, he concluded they'd surely be spared further dumdum bullet barrages indefinitely. He smugly reasoned his baldness would stall, his frenzied fits would gradually subside when the time came, and he'd manage fine without wet towels, foot warmers, or makeshift beds under trees and stones. Naturally, this man—who still clung to twentieth-century notions about debt repayment—would listen to such lectures with utmost sincerity.

It appeared that the time had come, and the lecture stopped abruptly.
All lessons in the other classrooms also ended at once.
Then, the eight hundred comrades who had been confined indoors let out a war cry and burst out of the building.
The momentum was like knocking down a beehive roughly one shaku in size.
Buzzing and howling, they came scrambling out from windows, doorways, gaps—anywhere there was even a hole, pushing through without mercy.
This was the beginning of the great incident.

First, I began by explaining how these bees had arrayed themselves.
To claim there was no need for battle formations in such a war would be a mistake.
When ordinary people spoke of war, they seemed to think there were no conflicts beyond Shahe, Fengtian, or Lüshun.
Those with a poetic bent might conjure grandiose images—Achilles dragging Hector’s corpse around Troy’s walls thrice, or Yan Pi and Zhang Fei brandishing eight-foot serpent spears on Changban Bridge to glare down Cao Cao’s million-strong army.
Associations remain personal whims, but presuming no other wars exist beyond those was ill-advised.
In antiquity’s chaos, such foolish wars might have raged; yet in this era of peace, at the empire’s heart, such barbarism belonged to unthinkable miracles.
No matter the commotion, none feared escalation beyond torching police boxes.
Thus, the war between Master Kushami of Wagoryūkutsu and Rakuyoukan’s eight hundred stalwarts deserved ranking among Tokyo’s greatest conflicts since its founding.
When Zuo chronicled Yanling’s battle, he too first described enemy formations.
Since ancient times, skilled narrators had followed this convention.
Therefore, my detailing of the bees’ formation should raise no objections.
Observing their array, I noted a vertical column outside the lattice fence—a unit tasked with luring the Master into combat.
“Ain’t ya gonna surrender?”
“He won’t! He won’t!”
“No use! No use!”
“He ain’t comin’ out!”
“Won’t he fall?”
“He’s gotta fall!”
“Bark for us!” “Woof woof!” “Woof woof!” “Woof woof woof woof!”

From this point onward, the entire column joined forces and raised a battle cry.
Slightly to the right of the column, in the direction of the playground, the artillery unit occupied a strategic position and laid out their encampment.
Facing Wagoryūkutsu, a general stood ready, holding a large pestle-like implement.
Facing this one at an interval of five or six ken stood another person; behind the pestle-wielder was yet another, planted firmly facing Wagoryūkutsu.
Aligned in a straight line facing each other were the artillerymen.
According to some, this was said to be baseball practice and by no means combat preparations.
I am an ignoramus who comprehends nothing of what baseball might be.
However, from what I hear, this is a game imported from America, said to be the most popular sport practiced in schools at the middle school level and above today.
Since America devises nothing but outlandish things, they may have been considerate enough to teach the Japanese this neighborhood-disturbing game—one so disruptive it could be mistaken for an artillery unit.
The Americans likely consider this a true athletic game.
Yet even as a pure game, since it possesses sufficient power to startle the entire neighborhood, depending on its use, it could fully serve as artillery bombardment.
From what I observed with my own eyes, I could only think they were attempting to achieve artillery fire’s effects through this athletic technique.
Things can be twisted any which way with phrasing.
As long as fraudsters exist under charity’s name and those who delight in frenzy under inspiration’s guise, war could well be waged beneath this so-called game called baseball.
Someone’s explanation likely pertained to baseball as commonly understood.
The baseball I now describe is limited to this special case—siege artillery.
I will now explain how Dumdum bullets are fired.
One person from the artillery line deployed straight gripped a Dumdum bullet in their right hand and hurled it at the pestle’s owner.
As for what Dumdum bullets are made of, outsiders have no way of knowing.
They are made by ceremoniously wrapping and stitching leather around something like hard, round stone dumplings.

As previously mentioned，when this bullet left an artilleryman’s hand and went flying through the wind，the person standing opposite finally swung up that pestle and struck it back．Occasionally，a bullet that missed its mark would go astray，but usually，it was struck back with a loud “whack”．The force was tremendously fierce—enough to easily crush the head of our nervous，dyspeptic Master．The artillerymen alone would have sufficed，but swarming around them like clouds were onlookers doubling as reinforcements．The moment the pestle struck the dumpling with a *whack*，they shouted “Got him!”，clapped their hands，and cried out．“Got him!” they jeered．“Still not gettin’ through?” “Ain’t ya scared yet?” “You surrenderin’?” This alone would have been manageable，but one out of every three struck-back bullets rolled into Wagoryūkutsu’s grounds．Without this infiltration，their attack’s objective would go unachieved．Dumdum bullets were manufactured in various places these days，but being quite expensive，even in war，they couldn’t secure sufficient supply．Typically，each artillery unit received one or two．They couldn’t expend this precious ammunition every time it went *pop*．Thus，they formed a “bullet retrieval” unit to collect fallen projectiles．If bullets landed in accessible spots，retrieval wasn’t laborious，but when they flew into grassy fields or private grounds，they didn’t return easily．Normally，they’d knock them down where easily retrievable to save effort—but now did the opposite．Since their purpose lay not in play but war，they deliberately rained Dumdum bullets upon Master’s grounds．To rain them down meant having to enter and retrieve them．

The most convenient method to enter the grounds was crossing the lattice fence.
If they caused a commotion within the lattice fence, the Master had no choice but to fly into a rage.
If not that, he had no choice but to remove his helmet and surrender.
From all his fretting, his head had no choice but to gradually go bald.

At that very moment, a bullet fired by enemy forces struck true to its aim, passing through the lattice fence, shaking loose the lower leaves of the paulownia tree, and hitting the second castle wall—the bamboo fence. It was an extremely loud noise. Newton’s First Law of Motion states: If no external force is applied, an object once set in motion will continue to move in a straight line at a uniform velocity. If the motion of objects were governed solely by this law, the Master’s head would have shared the fate of Aeschylus at this very moment. Fortunately, when Newton had formulated his first law, he also provided the second—so the Master’s head narrowly escaped destruction and was spared. The Second Law of Motion states that the change in motion is proportional to the applied force and occurs along the straight line in which that force acts. Though I can't quite grasp what this means, considering those Dumdum bullets didn't pierce through the bamboo fence, tear open the shoji screens, and destroy my master's head—it must undoubtedly be thanks to Newton.

Before long, as expected, it seemed the enemy had invaded the grounds. “Here?”
“A bit more to the left?” came voices accompanied by the sound of sticks rustling through bamboo leaves.
Whenever the enemy invaded the Master’s grounds to retrieve Dumdum bullets, they always raised a particularly loud commotion.
If they had sneaked in and stealthily retrieved them, they could not have achieved their crucial objective.
Dumdum bullets may have been valuable, but provoking the Master was of greater importance than retrieving bullets.
In instances like this, the bullet’s location was clearly discernible even from a distance.
They knew the sound of it striking the bamboo fence.
They knew where it had struck, and they understood the ground where it had fallen.
Therefore, had they collected them quietly, they could have collected them quietly as much as they wanted.
According to Leibniz’s definition, space is the order of possible coexisting phenomena.
The ABCs always appear in the same fixed order.
There will always be a loach beneath the willow tree.
Bats are inseparable from the evening moon.
A ball might seem out of place on a fence.
However, the space perceived through the eyes of those who day after day hurled balls into people’s grounds had indeed grown accustomed to this arrangement.
At a glance, it could be immediately understood.
The reason they stirred up such a commotion was ultimately a strategy to wage war against the Master.

In such circumstances, even for one as non-confrontational as the Master, retaliation became unavoidable.
The Master—who had been smirking moments earlier while overhearing an ethics lecture from the parlor—rose with sudden resolve.
He charged forth violently.
With startling abruptness, he seized one of his adversaries alive.
For the Master, this counted as no small triumph.
A triumph it may have been, yet his captive proved but a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy.
A bearded scholar making war on such a foe seemed rather incongruous.
Still, the Master likely deemed this capture sufficient victory.
He dragged the apologetic youth by force to the veranda's edge.
Here we must briefly examine enemy strategy: having witnessed the Master's furious display yesterday, they'd rightly anticipated he would personally sally forth again today.
Should their forces be caught fleeing by this raging titan, complications would surely follow.
Their solution? Deploy first- or second-year boys as bullet-retrievers—expendable pawns in this conflict.
Even were the Master to detain some child and rant about principles, Rakuyoukan's honor would remain unstained; only the Master himself would be disgraced for lowering himself to such undignified opposition.
Such was their calculation.
A perfectly sound strategy by ordinary human standards.
Their sole oversight lay in failing to account for their opponent's extraordinary nature.
Had the Master possessed even baseline common sense, he'd never have charged out yesterday either.
Frenzy elevates ordinary men beyond ordinary limits, granting nonsense to those once sensible.
One who still distinguishes between women, children, rickshaw pullers and grooms remains unworthy of Frenzy's brotherhood.
None may join Frenzy's ranks without that vision which seizes middleschool freshlings as wartime hostages—as our Master so nobly demonstrated.

The pitiable one was the prisoner.
Having merely performed the role of a lowly foot soldier tasked with ball retrieval under orders from upperclassmen, he had been unfortunately cornered by the enemy commander—a man devoid of common sense and a genius of Frenzy—and, given no chance to scale the fence, was dragged before the garden.
At this point, the enemy forces could not idly watch their ally's disgrace.
Jostling each other, they clambered over the lattice fence and poured into the garden through the gate.
Their number was about a dozen, lined up in a row before the Master.
Most wore neither jackets nor waistcoats.
Some had rolled up the sleeves of their white shirts and crossed their arms.
Some had draped faded cotton flannel over their backs as a token gesture.
On the other hand, there was also a dapper fellow wearing white sailcloth with a black border, a floral monogram sewn in the same color right at his chest's center.
Each seemed a warrior worth a thousand men, their muscles robust and darkly toned as if freshly arrived from Sasayama in Tanba Province last night—though none voiced this claim.
Putting them into middle school and making them study seemed a waste.
If made into fishermen or boatmen, they might have truly benefited the nation—or so one could imagine.
As if by prior agreement, they had all rolled up their workman’s leggings high over bare feet, appearing ready to assist with a nearby fire.
Once lined up before their master, they remained utterly silent, not uttering a single word.
The Master too kept his mouth shut.
For a while, both parties remained locked in a silent staring contest permeated by faint murderous intent.

“Are you lot thieves?” the Master interrogated.
He was ablaze with fury.
The fury he’d been grinding between his molars erupted through his nostrils as flames, making his flaring nostrils quiver with rage.
The nose of an Echigo lion mask must have been modeled after humans in anger.
Otherwise, it could never have been made so terrifying.

“No, we’re not thieves.
We’re students of Rakuyoukan.”

“Don’t lie!
Since when do Rakuyoukan students include scoundrels who trespass into people’s homes without permission?”

“However, as you can see, we are properly wearing caps with the school’s emblem.”

“Those must be fakes.”
“If you’re Rakuyoukan students, why did you trespass recklessly?”

“Because the ball went over [the fence].”

“Why did you make it go over?”

“It just flew in by accident.”

“You insolent brats!”

“We’ll be more careful from now on, so please let us off just this once.”

“Do you think I would so easily allow some stranger of unknown origin to scale the fence and intrude upon these premises?”

“Even so, we are undoubtedly Rakuyoukan students.”

“If you’re Rakuyoukan students, what year are you in?”

“We are third-year students.”

“Are you quite certain?”

“Yes.”

The Master looked toward the back and called out, "Hey! Hey!"

The maid from Saitama opened the sliding door and appeared with a "Huh?"

"Go to Rakuyoukan and bring someone here."

"Who shall I bring?"

"Just bring anyone!"

The maid answered “Hmm,” but partly because the scene before the garden was too peculiar, partly because the nature of her errand remained unclear, and partly because the whole incident’s escalation struck her as utterly ridiculous, she stood neither up nor down, merely smirking to herself.
The Master was under the delusion that he was waging a great war even now.
He believed he was grandly wielding his frenzied prowess.
However, his own servant—who should naturally take his side—not only failed to approach the matter with a serious attitude but even smirked while listening to his orders.
He had no choice but to descend further into frenzy.

"I told you to bring anyone at all—don't you understand? The principal or the secretary or the vice-principal..."

"That principal..." The maid only recognized the word "principal."

"Don't you understand when I'm saying principal, secretary, or vice-principal?"

"If none of them are available, would it be acceptable to bring the janitor?"

"Don't talk nonsense! What could a janitor possibly understand?"

At this point, perhaps having resigned herself to necessity, the maid said "Hmm" and left. Her true intentions remained incomprehensible. Just as he worried she might actually drag in a janitor, unexpectedly, the ethics teacher came marching through the front gate. Having calmly waited for him to take his seat, the Master immediately commenced negotiations.

“These individuals have intruded into these premises just now…,” he began in archaic language reminiscent of *Chushingura*, then ended with a slightly sarcastic edge: “Are they truly students of your esteemed school?”

The ethics teacher showed no particular sign of surprise; with perfect composure, he surveyed the students lined up before the garden, then turned his gaze back to the Master and replied as follows.

“Indeed, everyone here is a student of our school.
“I always give warnings to prevent such incidents... but it’s quite troublesome... Why must you all climb over fences and such?”

True to form as students, they seemed to have nothing at all to say to the Ethics Teacher.
They had gathered quietly in a corner of the garden and were waiting meekly, like a flock of sheep huddled against the snow.

“It can’t be helped if a ball comes in.
Since you live next to the school like this, balls will occasionally come flying over.
However... they are being too rambunctious, you see.
Even if they were to climb over the fence, as long as they did so discreetly and retrieved it without being noticed, there might still be room for leniency...”

“That’s quite right—I do make efforts to caution them thoroughly, but with such a large number of students… I must indeed ensure stricter discipline from now on.”
“Should a ball fly over, they must go around to the front gate, request permission properly, and retrieve it.”
“You understand—given the school’s considerable size, I find myself perpetually occupied with managing these nuisances.”
“As physical education remains pedagogically essential, we simply cannot bring ourselves to forbid it.”
“While allowing this may inevitably cause you certain inconveniences, I must earnestly entreat your gracious forbearance.”
“In exchange, henceforth we will ensure they unfailingly go through the front gate and obtain formal permission before retrieval.”

“Well, if that’s understood, then all is well.”
“You may throw as many balls as you like; there will be no issue.”
“If they come to the front and request permission, that’s acceptable.”
“I hereby hand over these students to you, so please take them back.”
“Oh, I must apologize for troubling you to come all this way,” said the Master, delivering his usual anticlimactic greeting.
The ethics teacher led Tamba’s Sasayama out through the front gate and returned to Rakuyoukan.

What I call the great incident had thus tentatively reached its conclusion.

If you wish to laugh at this being called a great incident, then laugh to your heart's content. To such people, it is no great incident. I have transcribed my master's grand affair; I did not chronicle those people's momentous events. Should any carpers sneer that it fizzled out like a spent arrow from a mighty crossbow, let them mark well that this constitutes my master's defining characteristic. Let them further note that his becoming fodder for comic literature equally stems from this very trait. If you deem it foolish to contend with fourteen- or fifteen-year-old whelps, then I must concur that I too am indubitably a fool. This being why Ōmachi Keigetsu has fixed upon the Master and proclaimed he remains shackled by puerility.

I had already recounted the minor incident and now finished narrating the major one; therefore, I resolved henceforth to depict the ripples following this great event and bring my entire chronicle to its conclusion. There may be readers who consider my writings mere careless outpourings from the mouth, but rest assured I am no such frivolous feline. Each character and phrase naturally contains within it a grand cosmic philosophy—moreover, when these layered phrases connect coherently from beginning to end, mutually illuminating one another, what one carelessly dismisses as idle chatter or trivial tales will suddenly transform into profound teachings not to be taken lightly. You must never engage in such discourtesies as lounging about or stretching your legs while skimming five lines at a time. Since Liu Zongyuan reportedly cleansed his hands with rosewater whenever reading Han Yu's works, I should at least expect people to purchase magazines at their own expense rather than borrow friends' leftover copies to make ends meet when perusing my writings. What I am about to relate I myself dub 'the aftermath,' but should you think 'Aftermaths are inevitably tedious—no need to read this,' you'll come to profoundly regret it. You absolutely must read attentively through to the very end.

The day after the great incident, I felt like taking a walk and went outside.
At the corner where one turns into the opposite alleyway, Mr. Kaneda and Mr. Suzuki Fuji were standing and conversing animatedly.
Mr. Kaneda was returning home by carriage, while Mr. Suzuki had been visiting Mr. Kaneda's house during his absence and was now heading back—the two had chanced to meet.
Lately, Kaneda's estate had lost its novelty for me, so I rarely ventured in that direction; yet seeing it now stirred an odd sense of nostalgia.
As it had been some time since I last saw Suzuki too, I resolved to catch a glimpse of his face from afar.
Having made this decision, I crept closer to where the two gentlemen stood—naturally, their conversation reached my ears.
This was not my fault.
The fault lay entirely with those who spoke carelessly.
Given that Mr. Kaneda possessed such limited scruples as to employ detectives spying on my master's movements, I needn't fear his anger over accidentally overhearing their talk.
Should anyone take offense at this, they clearly misunderstand the meaning of fairness.
In any case, I did hear both gentlemen's conversation.
I didn't listen because I wanted to.
Though having no desire to hear it, their discussion came flying into my ears unbidden.

“I had just called at your residence when I had the pleasure of meeting you at this most opportune spot.”
Mr. Suzuki politely bowed his head.

“Hmm.”
“Actually,I’ve been meaning to meet with you for some time now.”
“That’s good.”

“Oh, that’s most convenient.”
“Is there something you require?”

“Oh, it’s nothing serious.”
“Nothing important, but it’s something only you can handle.”

“If it’s something I can do, I’ll take care of anything.”
“Regarding what matter?”

Kaneda was thinking, Hmm, well…

“If necessary, I can return at your convenience.”
“When would suit you best?”

“Ah, it’s nothing weighty.—Well, since we’re here, I might as well make the request.”

“Please speak freely…”

“That odd fellow, you know.
“Your old acquaintance.
“The one called Kusakabe or some such?”

“Ah—has something occurred with Kusakabe?”

“No progress whatsoever.
“That business left me thoroughly disgusted.”

“Quite justified—Kusakabe’s intolerably obstinate… If only he’d mind his station, but he carries on like a petty tyrant.”

"That’s just it. He won’t bow to money—goes around spouting impertinent nonsense about businessmen—so I thought I’d show him what a real businessman can do. We’ve worn him down quite a bit lately, but he’s still holding out. Stubborn bastard, I tell you. Astonishing!"

"He’s utterly deficient in understanding profit and loss—just keeps up that pointless bravado. Been like that since forever. Beyond saving, really—can’t even recognize when he’s acting against his own interests."

“Ha ha ha! Truly beyond saving.
I tried changing tactics and swapping methods every which way...
Finally had the school students do it.”

“What a brilliant scheme.
Did it work?”

“Seems it’s put the bastard in quite a bind.
He’ll surrender any day now.”

“Splendid! No matter how he blusters, he’s outnumbered.”
“Outnumbered for sure.”

“Exactly – alone he’s helpless. He seems properly worn down now... Wanted you to go see how he’s holding up.”

“Oh, is that so?”
“There’s no trouble at all.”
“I’ll go check right away.”
“I’ll report the situation to you on my way back.”
“It should be amusing—seeing that stubborn man demoralized will surely be a spectacle.”

“Ah, well then, stop by on your way back. I’ll be waiting.”

“In that case, I shall take my leave.”

Ah—another scheme this time! Truly, the power of businessmen was formidable! They were the force driving my cinder-like master into frenzy, transforming his agonized head into treacherous terrain for flies, and dooming that skull to share Aeschylus’ fate—all of it stemmed from businessmen’s influence.
What force caused the Earth to rotate on its axis remained unknown, but it was indeed money that moved the world.
Those who comprehended this money’s efficacy and wielded its authority with impunity were none other than you businessmen.
That the sun safely rose in the east and safely set in the west was also entirely thanks to your benevolence.
Having been raised until now in the household of a stubbornly clueless pauper, I had to admit my own failure in remaining ignorant of your mercantile grace.
Even so, my obstinate master had to realize something this time.
If he persisted in his mulishness even now, it would prove dangerous.
My master’s most precious life was in peril.

I wondered what sort of greeting he would exchange when meeting Mr. Suzuki. By observing that scene, his degree of realization would naturally become evident. I couldn’t afford to dawdle—even a cat like me grew deeply concerned about my master’s predicament. I slipped past Mr. Suzuki and hurried home ahead of him.

Mr. Suzuki was, as ever, a smooth-talking man.
Today, he didn’t so much as hint at Kaneda, busily engaging in harmless small talk with apparent relish.

“You look rather pale—is something the matter?”

“There’s nothing wrong at all.”

“But you look pale; you’d better be careful.”
“It’s this awful weather, you know.”
“Can you get a good night’s sleep?”

“Yeah.”

“Is something worrying you? If there’s anything I can do, I’ll do it. Please don’t hesitate to tell me.”

“Worries? About what?”

“No—if there aren’t any, that’s fine. I only meant if there were. Worry’s the worst poison there is. It’s wisest to live laughing and enjoying this world. You really do seem far too gloomy.”

“Laughing’s poison too, you know. Laugh recklessly and you might die.”

“Don’t joke about such things.
“Fortune comes to a laughing gate.”

"In ancient Greece, there was a philosopher named Chrysippus—I doubt you’ve heard of him."

“I don’t know.”
“So what?”
“That man died from laughing too much.”
“Huh, that’s strange... But that was back in ancient times...”

“What difference does it make whether it was ancient times or now? When he saw a donkey eating figs from a silver bowl, he found it so absurd that he burst into laughter uncontrollably. Yet no matter what he did, the laughter wouldn’t cease... until he finally died laughing.”

“Ha ha ha! But one needn’t laugh to such extremes. A little laughter—in moderation—improves one’s mood.”

As Mr. Suzuki was intently observing the Master’s reactions, the front gate rattled open—though it turned out not to be a guest after all.

“Excuse me—a ball has come in here. Please let me retrieve it.”

The maid responded from the kitchen, “Yes.”
The student went around to the back.
Suzuki made a strange face and asked, “What’s going on?”

“The student from the back threw a ball into the yard.”

“Students from the back? There are students in the back?”

“It’s a school called Rakuyoukan.”

“Oh, right—it’s a school.”
“It must be quite noisy, then.”

“Noisy doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I can hardly get any studying done.
If I were the Minister of Education, I’d order it shut down immediately.”

“Ha ha ha, you’re quite worked up, aren’t you?
Is there something that’s been getting on your nerves?”

“Whether there’s a reason or not, they keep getting on my nerves from morning till night.”

“If it’s getting on your nerves that much, why don’t you just move?”

“Who’d move? That’s outrageous!”

“Getting angry at me won’t solve anything.”
“They’re just children—let them be.”

“You might tolerate it, but I can’t.”
“Yesterday I called their teacher over and gave him a piece of my mind.”

“That must’ve been entertaining.”
“I bet he was properly cowed.”

“Hmph.”

At that moment, the gate opened again, and a voice said, “Excuse me—a ball has come in here. Please let me retrieve it.”

“I say, they’re coming quite often—another ball, you know.”

“Yeah, we made an agreement that they’d come through the front gate.”

“Ah, I see. So that’s why they come so often.”
“So-o-o, I get it now.”

“What exactly have you figured out?”

“Oh, just why they keep coming for the ball.”

“This makes sixteen times today.”

“Doesn’t it bother you? Why not just make them stop coming?”

“Even if I tried to stop them, they’d still come—there’s nothing to be done.”

“If you say there’s nothing to be done, then so be it—but must you be so obstinate? People with edges find life exhausting—it’s not worth the effort when rolling through the world. Round things can tumble anywhere effortlessly, but square things not only struggle to roll—they get their corners scraped raw every time they move. It’s not your own private world—people won’t bend to your will. Anyway... There’s no winning against those with money. You’ll only strain your nerves, ruin your health, and earn no praise. They remain utterly unperturbed—sitting back while others do their bidding. When outnumbered by the many, defeat’s inevitable from the start. Stubbornness has its merits, but persisting like this will hinder your studies, disrupt your daily work—in the end, you’ll just exhaust yourself for nothing.”

“Excuse me. A ball has just come over—may I go around to the back gate to retrieve it?”

“There they go again,” Mr. Suzuki said with a laugh.

“How utterly rude!” the Master said, his face turning crimson.

Having apparently decided he’d sufficiently accomplished his visit’s purpose, Mr. Suzuki took his leave with a casual “Well then, I’ll be off” and departed.

It was Dr. Amaki who came next.
Those prone to fits of frenzy have rarely declared themselves as such since ancient times; by the time one realizes this oddity, they've already passed frenzy's peak.
The Master's frenzy had reached its zenith during yesterday's incident, and though negotiations ended anticlimactically, matters were somehow settled; that night in his study, pondering deeply, he noticed something peculiar.
There was ample room to doubt whether Rakuyoukan or he himself was strange, but regardless, something was amiss.
Even living beside a middle school, he realized maintaining year-round irritation was rather odd.
If something was wrong, he had to act.
No recourse remained but to take medicine and soothe his irritation's source through what amounted to bribery.
Having resolved this, he decided to consult his regular physician Dr. Amaki.
Whether wise or foolish mattered not—his mere self-awareness of frenzy deserved praise as commendable resolve.
Dr. Amaki smiled placidly as ever and said, "How are you?"
Doctors invariably say "How are you?"
As for me, any doctor who omits this phrase isn't worth trusting.

“Doctor, it’s completely ineffective.”

“Hmm? How could that be possible?”

“Does any doctor’s medicine actually work?”

Though surprised, Dr. Amaki—being a mild-mannered gentleman—showed no visible agitation,

“There’s no reason it shouldn’t take effect,” he replied serenely.

“No matter how much medicine I swallow for this wretched stomach of mine, nothing changes, I tell you.”

“That is absolutely not the case.”

“Is that so? Will it improve even slightly?” he asked tentatively about his stomach.

“It won’t heal quickly. It takes gradual effect. You’ve already improved considerably as it stands.”

“Is that so?”

“Are you still experiencing fits of anger?”

“Oh, they do! I even get fits of anger in my dreams.”

“You might try doing some light exercise as well.”

“When I exercise, it only makes them worse.”

Dr. Amaki too appeared utterly exasperated,

“Let me examine you,” he said, beginning the examination.
Having waited impatiently for the examination to conclude, the Master suddenly raised his voice and,
“Doctor, I read a book recently about hypnotism that said you could cure people with bad habits and various illnesses by applying it—is that true?”
“Yes, such therapies do exist.”
“Do you still practice them now?”

“Yes.”

“Is hypnotism difficult to perform?”

“Not at all—I do it quite regularly myself.”

“Doctor, you do it too?”

“Yes, shall I try it on you?”
“It’s logically necessary that it works on anyone.”
“If you’re agreeable, let’s attempt it.”

“That sounds fascinating—please do try.”
“I’ve actually wanted to experience hypnosis for some time.”
“But I’d be in a fix if I remained hypnotized indefinitely.”

“Oh, it’s perfectly safe.”
“Well then, let’s begin.”

The discussion was quickly settled, and the Master was finally to undergo hypnosis. Having never witnessed such a thing before, I secretly rejoiced and observed the outcome from the corner of the room. Dr.Amaki first began with the Master’s eyes. Watching his method, he stroked both upper eyelids from top to bottom—and though the Master’s eyes were already closed, kept trying to establish a habit in the same direction. After a short while, Dr.Amaki asked, “If I keep stroking your eyelids like this, they’ll gradually feel heavier, won’t they?” The Master answered, “Indeed they do.” Dr.Amaki continued stroking them downward repeatedly in the same manner and said, “They’ll grow heavier still—can you feel it?” Perhaps the Master had surrendered to the process, for he remained silent without protest. The same friction method continued for three or four minutes more. Finally Dr.Amaki declared, “There—they won’t open now.” Pitifully, the Master’s eyes were finally sealed shut. “Won’t they open anymore?” “No—they won’t open at all.” The Master sat motionless with closed eyes. I became convinced he had gone blind entirely. After a time Dr.Amaki prompted, “Try opening them if you wish.” Then added: “You’ll find it impossible.” “Is that so?” No sooner had he spoken than the Master opened both eyes normally. Smirking, the Master said, “Didn’t take at all,” while Dr.Amaki mirrored his expression and replied, “No—it didn’t.”

The hypnosis finally ended in failure.
Dr. Amaki also left.

The next to arrive was—there had never been such a guest at the master's house.
For a household where the master rarely received visitors, it seemed utterly implausible.
But come he did.
Moreover, a rare guest arrived.
The reason I bother to describe this rare guest in even a single word is not merely due to his rarity.
As I mentioned earlier, I am chronicling the ripples of a major incident.
And this rare guest constitutes indispensable material for recounting those ripples.
I don't know his name—suffice to say he was a man around forty with an elongated face and a goat-like beard.
In contrast to Meitei being an aesthetician, I shall designate this man as a philosopher.
Why philosopher? Not because he postures ostentatiously like Meitei does, but because observing his manner of conversing with my master revealed him to embody that role through and through.
They appeared to be old classmates, interacting with each other in thoroughly familiar fashion.

“Hmm, Meitei… He’s like a goldfish cake floating in a pond—all fluffy and ungrounded.”
“Just the other day, he apparently dragged a friend to some aristocrat’s gate he’d never met before and declared, ‘Let’s pop in for tea!’ That’s how absurdly carefree he is.”

“And your point being?”

“I didn’t ask what became of him—but—well, he’s a natural-born eccentric, though in exchange he’s utterly hollow—a veritable goldfish cake.”
“Suzuki?—So he’s coming? Huh… I can’t make sense of his logic, but he’s certainly seen as a clever man in society.”
“A gold watch is the sort of thing meant to be worn.”
“But since he lacks depth, he’s restless and no good.”
“They go on about ‘smoothness,’ but he doesn’t understand a thing about what it really means.”
“If Meitei’s a goldfish cake, then he’s konjac bound with straw.”
“Just unpleasantly slick and trembling like jelly.”

The Master, upon hearing this striking metaphor, seemed deeply impressed and laughed heartily with a "Ha ha ha" for the first time in a long while.

“Then what are you?”

“Me? Well... I suppose I’m like a wild yam.”
“Growing long and buried in the mud.”

“You always appear so composed and untroubled—I envy that.”

“Oh, I’m just acting like any ordinary person.”
“There’s nothing particularly enviable about it.”
“What’s fortunate is I don’t feel envious of others—that alone makes it worthwhile, wouldn’t you say?”

“How are your finances these days? Prosperous?”

“Same as always.”
“Enough or not enough—it amounts to the same thing.”
“But I’m eating, so no cause for concern.”
“Not surprised, are you?”

“I’m thoroughly irritated—can’t stand it another moment.”
“Everywhere I turn, nothing but grievances.”

“Complaints are fine too.”
“If complaints arise, once you’ve voiced them, you’ll feel better for a while.”
“People are all different—even if you urge others to be like you, they can’t become so.”
“You can’t eat properly unless you hold chopsticks like everyone else, but your own bread is best cut however you please.”
“If a skilled tailor makes your kimono, it will fit perfectly from the moment you put it on, but if you have it made by an unskilled seamstress, you’ll just have to put up with it for a while.”
“But society is cleverly arranged—as you wear Western clothing, it gradually adjusts to your frame.”
“If superior parents would skillfully bring one into the world to suit the current age, that would be happiness.”
“But if one is ill-made, there’s no other path but to either endure not fitting into society or persevere until society adjusts to you.”

"But someone like me—no matter how long I wait, I’ll never fit in. It’s unsettling."

"If you force yourself to wear an ill-fitting suit, it’ll tear at the seams. Quarrels break out, suicides happen—that’s when disturbances arise, you see. But someone like you—you don’t go killing yourself over mere unhappiness, nor have you ever actually picked a fight. Really now—you’re doing just fine."

"But I fight every single day. Even when no opponent shows up, doesn’t it still count as a fight if I stay angry?"

“Ah, a one-man fight! How amusing—by all means, keep at it as much as you like.”

“I got tired of that.”

“Then quit it.”

“Though I stand before you, my mind refuses to obey so easily.”

“Well now, what’s got you so full of complaints?”

Here, beginning with the Rakuyoukan incident, the Master listed every conceivable grievance before the Philosopher—from Imado-yaki raccoon dog figurines to Pinsuke and Kishago—expounding on them at length.
The Philosopher Guest had been listening silently but finally opened his mouth and began to expound to the Master thus.

“Why don’t you just ignore whatever Pinsuke and Kishago say?”
“It’s all trivial anyway.”
“Are middle school students even worth your attention?”
“How could they possibly interfere?”
“Even if you negotiate or fight, you won’t eliminate that interference.”
“In such matters, I consider our Japanese ancestors far superior to Westerners.”
“This Western approach—all their talk of being ‘proactive’ and ‘progressive’—has grown fashionable lately, but it contains a fatal flaw.”
“First off, this ‘proactive’ business knows no bounds.”
“No matter how long one actively strives, one can never attain true satisfaction or perfection.”
“See that hinoki cypress over there?”
“Once it becomes an eyesore, you cut it down.”
“Then that boarding house across the way becomes troublesome.”
“Evict the boarding house tenants, and the next dwelling irritates you.”
“It’s endless—this Western method of theirs.”
“Napoleon, Alexander—not one conqueror ever found contentment through victory.”
“To think that lawsuits settle matters—when someone takes offense, they fight; if resistance continues, they litigate; if they win in court—that’s pure delusion.”

“Will peace of mind ever settle in, no matter how frantically you chase it until death? Because autocracy is flawed, they adopt representative government. Because representative government is flawed, they want to change it to something else. If a river acts up, they build a bridge over it; if a mountain displeases them, they dig a tunnel through it. If transportation is troublesome, they lay down railways. Therefore, they can never achieve permanent satisfaction. But given that they’re human, how far can they actively impose their will? Western civilization may be active and progressive, but in essence it’s a civilization created by people who spend their entire lives in dissatisfaction. Japanese civilization does not seek satisfaction by altering conditions outside itself. The great difference from the West lies in its development under the fundamental assumption that surrounding circumstances are unalterable. Even if parent-child relationships prove unsatisfactory, one does not attempt to reform them like Europeans in order to restore stability.” Recognizing that parent-child relationships cannot be altered from their traditional form, they devised means to seek security under those very relationships. The same applied to the relationships between husband and wife, ruler and subject, and even to the distinction between samurai and townspeople—it all followed this principle. When there was a mountain preventing passage to a neighboring country, instead of devising plans to demolish the mountain, they contrived ways to manage without needing to go there. They cultivated a state of mind that found satisfaction even without crossing the mountain. “Therefore, you see. Both Zen Buddhists and Confucians fundamentally grasp this issue at its core. No matter how great one may be, the world will never conform to one’s will; you cannot make the setting sun reverse its course, nor can you turn back the Kamo River’s flow. The only thing you can control is your own mind, you know. If you train your mind to be free, wouldn’t you remain unperturbed no matter how much the Rakuyoukan students make a racket? You’d likely pay no mind even to Imado-yaki raccoon dogs. If Pinsuke says something foolish, just dismissing him as ‘this fool’ should suffice.”

“There’s this tale about an old monk who, when struck at with a sword, supposedly delivered some clever line like ‘slicing through spring breeze in lightning’s shadow’ or such.”
“When mental discipline reaches the pinnacle of passivity, perhaps such nimble reflexes become possible—or so I wonder.”
“Now I don’t grasp these lofty matters myself, but fixating solely on Western-style activism seems misguided.”
“Look at you—no matter how fiercely you embrace this proactive approach, can you actually stop those students from mocking you?”
“Unless you wield authority to shut down that school or commit acts warranting police intervention, all your aggressive posturing amounts to nothing.”
“Pursuing this path would inevitably reduce to financial power.”
“To numbers overwhelming your solitary stance.”
“Meaning you’d have to grovel before the wealthy.”
“Cower before brats emboldened by their mob.”
“A pauper like you stubbornly picking solitary fights—that’s precisely why you’re miserable.”
“Well? Understood now?”

The Master listened without saying whether he understood or not.
After the rare guest had left, he went into his study and sat there thinking about something without reading any books.

Mr. Suzuki Fuji had instructed the master to obey money and the masses.
Dr. Amaki had advised him to calm his nerves with hypnosis.
The last rare guest had expounded that one should obtain peace of mind through passive cultivation.
Which option the master would choose was entirely at his discretion.
However, it was certain that things could not continue as they were.

Nine

The master had a pockmarked face.
It was said that before the Meiji Restoration, such faces had been quite common, but viewed through the lens of today's Anglo-Japanese Alliance era, this visage carried a faintly anachronistic air.
That the decline of pockmarks—inversely proportional to population growth—would lead to their complete eradication in the near future stood as a conclusion meticulously derived from medical statistics: a brilliant theory leaving no room for doubt, even to a cat such as myself.
How many pockmarked humans currently inhabited this earth I couldn't say, but within my sphere of social observation, not a single cat bore such markings.
Among humankind, there existed but one specimen.
And that specimen was none other than the master.
It was exceedingly pitiable.

Every time I saw my master’s face, I would wonder.
What twist of fate allowed him to maintain such an absurd visage while shamelessly breathing twentieth-century air?
In bygone days they might have held some prestige, but nowadays—when all respectable pockmarks had been ordered to retreat to upper arms—those stubbornly entrenched on his nasal ridge and cheeks brought shame rather than pride to their kind.
They ought to have been eradicated while there was still time.
Even the pockmarks themselves must have felt uneasy.
Or perhaps in their dwindling numbers they had sworn to reverse heaven’s course like some celestial rebellion, defiantly occupying every inch of facial terrain?
Thus these craters deserved no scorn.
They stood as eternal bastions against vulgar convention—noble undulations worthy of veneration.
Their sole defect lay in being downright filthy.

When my master was a child, there was a renowned Chinese-style physician named Asada Sōhaku in Ushigome Yamabushi-chō. It was said that whenever this old man visited his patients, he would always ride in a palanquin, proceeding with slow deliberation.
However, when Master Sōhaku passed away and his adopted son succeeded him, the palanquins were immediately replaced with rickshaws.
Thus were this adopted son to die and another adopted heir take his place, kakkonto might well transform into antipyrine.
Even in Master Sōhaku's time, parading through Tokyo in a palanquin had never been particularly dignified.
The only ones who persisted in such affectations were antiquated ghosts, pigs bound for steam trains, and Master Sōhaku himself.

The master's pockmarks, in their refusal to change, were no different from Master Sōhaku's palanquin—a pitiable sight to outsiders. Yet this master, as stubborn as any Chinese-style physician, persisted in exposing his fortress-at-sunset pockmarks to the world each day as he went to school to teach from his Reader.

Standing upon the lectern while carved with this relic of the previous century across his entire face, he doubtlessly imparted great admonitions beyond mere lessons to his students. Rather than repeating "the monkey has hands," he effortlessly interpreted the great problem of "the effect of pockmarks on facial appearance," silently imparting that answer to his students all the while. If humans like the master had ceased existing as teachers, those students would have had to rush to libraries or museums to study this issue, expending the same degree of effort as we do in conjuring images of Egyptians through mummies. From this perspective, the master’s pockmarks were also imperceptibly bestowing a peculiar virtue.

Of course, the master did not plant smallpox across his entire face to bestow this virtue. Even this had actually been his smallpox inoculation. Unfortunately, what was thought inoculated into his arm had somehow spread to his face. Being a child with no concern for appearances back then, he apparently kept scratching his entire face while crying "Itchy! Itchy!" It was as if a volcano had erupted and lava flowed over his face—utterly ruining the countenance his parents had given him. The master occasionally tells his wife he was a jewel of a man before contracting smallpox. He even boasts Westerners at Asakusa Kannon Temple would turn around to look at him. Indeed, that might be true. The only regret is there's no one to vouch for it.

No matter how much merit they might bring or lessons they might impart, unsightly things remained unsightly after all. Thus ever since gaining awareness of such matters, the master had grown deeply concerned about his pockmarks and attempted to eradicate this disgrace by every means at his disposal. However, unlike Master Sōhaku’s palanquin, they could not be swiftly discarded simply because one had grown tired of them. They remained clearly visible to this day. Seeming somewhat troubled by this conspicuousness, the master took to counting pockmarked faces every time he walked down the street. Each day’s encounters—how many pockmarked people he met, whether their owners were men or women, whether the locations were Ogawamachi’s Kankoba or Ueno Park—he recorded every detail in his diary. He was convinced that in matters of pockmark-related knowledge, he would yield to no one. When a friend who had returned from abroad visited recently, he even asked, “Do Westerners have pockmarks?” The friend tilted his head and said “Hmm,” pondering at length before replying, “Well, they’re quite rare.” At this, the master pressed further: “Even if they’re rare—are there any at all?” The friend answered indifferently: “If any exist, they’d be beggars or ne’er-do-wells. Educated people don’t seem to have them.” To which the master remarked, “Is that so? It’s rather different from Japan.”

Having heeded the philosopher’s advice and refrained from quarreling with Rakuyoukan, the master had since shut himself in his study, intently pondering something. Having taken the philosopher’s counsel, he might have intended to passively cultivate his vibrant spirit through seated meditation; yet for a man of such timid disposition to sit around gloomily with his arms folded like that—no decent outcome could possibly emerge. I had even realized it would be far better for him to pawn his English books and learn some tune from a geisha rather than continue like this, but a man as obstinate as he would never deign to heed a cat’s advice. Thus, I decided to leave him to his own devices and kept my distance for five or six days.

Today marked exactly seven days since then.
In Zen circles there are those who sit in full lotus with such ferocious resolve that they attain great enlightenment within seven days; thinking my master might have met some fate—whether death or resolution—I lumbered from the veranda to his study entrance to observe what transpired within.

The study was a south-facing six-tatami room where sunlight streamed onto an enormous desk. But simply calling it a large desk doesn’t do it justice—this behemoth measured six shaku in length, three shaku eight sun in width, with height to match. It was no off-the-shelf item, but rather an extraordinary bed-desk hybrid custom-made through negotiations with a local carpenter. Why he commissioned such a monstrosity, or why he ever thought to sleep atop it—having never asked him directly, I couldn’t say. Perhaps it was a passing fancy that compelled him to install this white elephant, or maybe—as we often see in psychiatric patients—he’d arbitrarily linked two unrelated concepts and fused bed with desk. However novel the idea, its sole distinction proved utterly impractical. I once witnessed him nap on this contraption only to roll clean off the veranda when turning over. Since that incident, its career as sleeping quarters appears permanently retired.

In front of the desk lay a flimsy mousseline cushion bearing three cigarette-burn holes clustered together.
The cotton stuffing visible through them had grown dingy.
There sat the master, perched rigidly backward on this cushion.
The knotted ends of his mouse-gray heko obi—soiled and tightly fastened—hung limply down to his bare feet.
This was the very sash I'd playfully pounced on just days prior, only to have my head smartly smacked.
Not an accessory to approach lightly indeed.

Still thinking? There’s even a proverb about the long deliberations of fools, I thought as I peered over his shoulder from behind—only to find something oddly glinting on the desk. I involuntarily blinked several times in succession, but thinking this was strange, I endured the glare and stared fixedly at the shining object. Then I realized this light was coming from a mirror moving on the desk. But for what purpose was the master handling a mirror in his study? Speaking of mirrors, they are unquestionably found in the bathroom. In fact, I had seen this very mirror in the bathroom that morning. The reason I specifically mention this mirror was that there were no others in the master’s house besides this one. The master used this mirror when he parted his hair after washing his face every morning.—Someone might question whether a man like him even parted his hair, but in truth, the more negligent he was in other matters, the more fastidious he became about his head. Since I first came to this house, no matter how sweltering the day, the master had never once cropped his hair to a five-minute cut. He always kept it about two inches long—not only parting it with great ceremony on the left side but also flipping up the right edge to keep it perfectly groomed. This too might have been a symptom of mental illness. I thought this elaborate parting style did not harmonize at all with this desk, but since it didn’t actively cause harm to others, no one said anything. He himself was quite proud of it. Setting aside the stylishness of his hair parting, when I wondered why he kept his hair so long, the reason was as follows. His pockmarks had not only eroded his face but were said to have long since penetrated to the crown of his head. Therefore, if one were to cut it short like ordinary people—a five-minute clip or a three-minute clip—dozens of pockmarks would emerge from the roots of the cropped hair. No matter how much he stroked or rubbed, the pockmarks wouldn’t come off. It might have seemed poetic, like releasing fireflies in a barren field, but of course this did not meet with the wife’s approval. If only he kept his hair long, he could have avoided exposing them; there was no reason he should go out of his way to reveal his own flaws. If it were possible, he would have grown hair even on his face to cover up these pockmarks too, so there was no need to pay money to have naturally growing hair trimmed only to proclaim, “I’ve been ravaged by smallpox all the way to the crown of my skull!”

This was why the master kept his hair long; keeping his hair long necessitated parting it; parting his hair required looking in the mirror; this mirror therefore resided in the bathroom; hence there existed only one such mirror.

Since this sole bathroom mirror had migrated to the study, either the mirror had contracted soul-division sickness or—without doubt—the master had brought it from the bathhouse.
If he had brought it, what purpose could he have?
Perhaps it was an implement required for that passive cultivation business.
Long ago when some scholar visited a certain wise monk, he found him stripped to his waist polishing a brick.
When asked what he was making, the monk replied: "Why, I'm striving to craft a mirror by polishing this brick."
When the scholar exclaimed that even renowned monks couldn't make mirrors from bricks, the monk roared with laughter and rebuked: "Is that so? Then I'll stop! Endlessly reading books without grasping Truth amounts to much the same!" Having heard this tale, perhaps my master had fetched the bathroom mirror and now brandished it with smug satisfaction.
Thinking matters were growing rather unhinged, I observed stealthily.

Oblivious to my presence, the master was staring at the solitary mirror with an utterly earnest demeanor.
Fundamentally, mirrors are eerie things.
They say it takes considerable courage for someone to light a candle late at night and peer into a mirror alone in a large room.
When I was first presented with a mirror shoved right in my face by the young lady of this house, I was so startled that I ended up dashing around the residence three times.
Even in broad daylight, if one stared as intently as the master did at his own face, he was certain to find his visage frightening.
Even just looking at it, it wasn't a particularly pleasant face.
After a moment, the master muttered to himself, "Indeed, it's an unclean face."
Confessing one’s own ugliness was quite commendable.
Judging by his demeanor, it was indeed the behavior of a madman, but his words held truth.
If this were to progress any further, he would have been terrified by his own hideousness.
A person couldn't be called a true sufferer unless they had felt to their very marrow the fact that they themselves were a terrible villain.
One couldn't possibly achieve enlightenment unless they were a true sufferer.
Having come this far, one would have expected the master to exclaim "How terrifying!" in the same breath, yet he stubbornly refrained.
After muttering "Indeed, it's an unclean face," he puffed out his cheeks for some reason.
Then he tapped his puffed-out cheeks two or three times with his palm.
It was unclear what sort of incantation this was.
At this moment, I had a feeling that this face somehow seemed to resemble something.
Upon closer consideration, that was O-san’s face.
Since I'm on the subject, let me briefly introduce O-san's face—it was positively swollen.
The other day, someone had brought back a pufferfish lantern as a souvenir from Anamori Inari Shrine, and her face was swollen exactly like that pufferfish lantern.

The swelling was so severe that both eyes were lost.
To be fair, while pufferfish swell into perfect spheres, O-san's polygonal bone structure made her bloat angularly, resembling a waterlogged hexagonal clock.
Since O-san would surely rage at this comparison, I'll cease and return to the master. Having inflated his cheeks to maximum capacity as before, he tapped them with his palm while muttering: "At this skin tension, even the pockmarks disappear."

This time he turned his face sideways to examine in the mirror the half illuminated by light.
"They stand out terribly when viewed like this."
"When facing the light directly, it still appears smooth."
"What a peculiar thing," he remarked with considerable admiration.
Then he stretched his right arm to its fullest extent, moving the mirror as far away as possible while scrutinizing it intently.
"At this distance, it's not so bad. Still, too close is no good."
"It's not just the face—everything's like that," he declared as if having an epiphany.
Next he abruptly tilted the mirror sideways.
Centering on the bridge of his nose, he crumpled his eyes, forehead and eyebrows all toward this focal point.
No sooner had this thoroughly unpleasant visage taken form than he apparently realized "No—this won't do," and hastily abandoned the attempt.
"Why does my face look so venomous?" he muttered suspiciously, pulling the mirror about three inches from his eyes.
He stroked his nostril with his right index finger before firmly pressing the greased fingertip against the blotting paper on the desk.
The extracted nasal sebum formed a perfect circle on the paper.
He certainly engages in all manner of antics.
Then the master pivoted his sebum-smeared finger to forcefully invert his right lower eyelid—executing what's vulgarly called "eyelid-flipping" with practiced ease.
Whether he was studying his pockmarks or challenging the mirror to a staring contest remained unclear.
Given the master's mercurial nature, his appearance seemed to shift endlessly as one watched.
But that wasn't the half of it.
Were one to charitably interpret this through konnyaku-dialectic absurdity, perhaps the master was performing these antics with the mirror as expedient means toward self-realization.
All human inquiry ultimately constitutes self-investigation.

Whether you call them heaven and earth, mountains and rivers, the sun and moon, or the stars—they are all but different names for the self. Setting aside oneself, there exists no matter that anyone can find worthy of study. If humans could leap outside themselves, the moment they do, the self would cease to exist. Moreover, the study of the self is something that no one but the self can undertake. No matter how much others may want to do it for you, or you may want to receive it, it remains an impossible proposition. Therefore, all heroes of old became heroes through their own efforts. If one could understand oneself through others' assistance, you might as well feed beef to a proxy and have them judge whether it's tough or tender. Hearing the Law in the morning, listening to the Way in the evening, poring over books by lamplight—all these are but expedient means to provoke this self-realization. In the laws expounded by others, in the paths articulated by others, nay even within moth-eaten tomes piled high enough to fill five carts—there exists no trace of the true self to be found. If anything resides there, it is but the self's ghost. Though in certain cases a ghost may prove superior to spiritless void. If one chases shadows, there may yet come a time when they encounter the original form. Most shadows never truly part from their substance. In this sense, if the master was contorting himself before the mirror, he showed remarkable eloquence. I consider this far nobler than scholars who parrot Epictetus while posturing as sages.

The mirror served as both a brewer of self-conceit and a sterilizer of vanity.
When approached with thoughts of superficial vanity, there existed no tool more adept at inciting fools than this.
Two-thirds of all deeds since antiquity where arrogance had harmed oneself and others were undeniably the mirror’s handiwork.
Just as some meddlesome doctor during the French Revolution invented an improved guillotine and thereby committed a grave sin, so too must the person who first created the mirror have slept uneasily.
However, when one grew weary of oneself and the ego withered away, there was no better remedy than looking in a mirror.
Beauty and ugliness became clear.
One was bound to realize, “To think I’ve strutted about as human until today with this face!”
The moment one realized this became the most precious period in a human's lifetime.
There was nothing as noble-looking as being fully aware of one’s own foolishness.
Before this self-aware fool, all those who put on airs had to bow their heads in awe.
Even if they intended to scorn and ridicule me with haughty arrogance, from my perspective, their very haughtiness became them bowing their heads in deference.
Master was not such a wise man as to look in the mirror and realize his own foolishness.
However, he was a man who could fairly read even the pockmarks inscribed on his own face.
Acknowledging one’s ugly face might serve as a ladder to understanding the baseness of one’s heart.
He was quite a man.
This too might have been the result of having been bested by a philosopher.

While continuing to observe in this manner, Master—oblivious to my scrutiny—after making an exaggerated face at himself, remarked, "They look quite bloodshot."
"It must be chronic conjunctivitis after all," he said, and began vigorously rubbing his inflamed eyelids with the side of his index finger.
They must have been itching terribly, but rubbing them so roughly when they were already that red couldn't possibly help.
Before long, they'd surely rot away like the eyeballs of a salted bream.
When he finally opened his eyes and faced the mirror again, they were clouded and murky like a northern winter sky.
To be fair, his eyes had never been particularly bright even at their best.
If one were to use exaggerated terms, they'd become so indistinct that pupil and sclera blurred into chaotic ambiguity.
Just as his mind remained perpetually hazy and incoherent at its core, so too did his eyes drift dimly and obscurely within their sockets.
This condition had been attributed to fetal toxins or smallpox aftereffects—I heard he'd endured treatments with willow grubs and red frogs as a child. Yet despite his mother's devoted care—if such ministrations ever bore fruit—his eyes remained as unfocused as on the day he was born.
I secretly believed this state owed nothing to fetal toxins or pox.
The reason his eyeballs wandered such dim, turbid depths was simply this: his brain consisted of opaque, murky matter whose functions dwelled in utter obscurity—naturally manifesting physically to vex his unknowing mother with needless worry.
Where there's smoke there's fire; clouded eyes betray folly.
Thus his eyes symbolized his mind, and since his mind resembled a Tenpō coin riddled with holes, his eyes too must share that coin's fundamental uselessness.

This time, he began twisting his beard.
Originally ill-mannered hairs, each strand growing in whatever posture it pleased.
No matter how fashionable individualism may be in this world, when beard hairs run wild all over town like this, one can only imagine the owner’s distress. Taking this into account, the master had recently been rigorously training them, striving to arrange them as systematically as possible.
The fruits of his diligence were not in vain, and recently they had gradually begun to fall into step.
Until now, beard hairs had merely been growing on him, but these days he’d reached the point of boasting that he was cultivating them.
Since enthusiasm grows with each success achieved, perceiving that his beard held a promising future, Master would unfailingly apply discipline to it morning and night whenever his hands were free.
His ambition lay in cultivating facial hair that fervently aspired upward, like that of His Majesty the German Emperor.
Therefore, regardless of whether the hair follicles were horizontal or downward-facing, he would grab them all in one bunch and pull them upward.
The beard must surely have been having a hard time; even its owner occasionally felt pain.
But that was precisely the training.
Whether they liked it or not, he combed them upward against their grain.
To laymen, this appeared an unfathomable pastime, but those in charge regarded it as entirely proper.
It was no more blameworthy than educators needlessly bending their students’ true nature and boasting, “Behold my achievements!”

While the master was training his beard with full fervor, the sharp-tongued maid O-san thrust her red hand into the study as usual from the kitchen, announcing, "The mail has arrived."
With his right hand gripping his beard and his left holding a mirror, the master turned toward the entrance without shifting his stance.
The moment O-san glimpsed his mustache—resembling the upturned tail of the character for "eight"—she abruptly withdrew to the kitchen and burst into laughter against the pot lid, cackling "Ha ha ha ha!"
The master remained utterly unfazed.
With deliberate composure, he set down the mirror and picked up the mail.
The first letter bore letterpress printing with sternly imposing characters.
It read:

Respected Sir,

We humbly offer our congratulations on your continued prosperity. As we reflect upon the Russo-Japanese War - riding a wave of successive victories to herald the restoration of peace - our loyal, courageous, and righteous officers and soldiers now return triumphant amidst cries of "Banzai," their jubilant songs surpassing all other joys of our nation. When His Majesty's sacred declaration of war was first promulgated, these warriors dedicated themselves to public duty in distant foreign lands, enduring bitter cold and scorching heat while single-mindedly engaging in combat. Their ultimate devotion in offering their lives to the state shall forever remain engraved in our memories as that which must never be forgotten.

With military homecomings concluding this month through these efforts, our Committee has resolved to hold a grand Victory Celebration on the 25th instant. We shall thereby represent all district residents in welcoming over one thousand returning officers and enlisted men from our jurisdiction while consoling bereaved military families. Through this ardent reception we wish to express even our meager gratitude. We therefore humbly request your esteemed support to successfully conduct this solemn ceremony - an event we believe would bring our Committee its greatest honor. We earnestly hope for your generous donations toward realizing this noble endeavor.

Respectfully yours,

The sender was a member of the nobility.
After silently reading through it, Master immediately rolled it back into the envelope and assumed an air of innocence.
He likely wouldn’t be making any donations.
Ever since he’d contributed two or three yen to that Tohoku famine relief fund, he’d been telling everyone he met how he’d been “forced to donate,” repeating it like some grand ordeal.
Since it’s called a donation, it must by definition be given voluntarily—absolutely not something to be taken.
It wasn’t as if he’d been robbed—to claim he’d been “taken from” was downright improper.
Yet despite this, Master—who seemed to regard donations as tantamount to burglary—was hardly the sort to part with money over a mere printed letter, no matter how they invoked military welcomes or noble patronage. Had they used strong-arm tactics, that would’ve been another matter.
From Master’s perspective, before welcoming any military, he wanted first to welcome himself.
Having welcomed himself, he might then welcome most anything; but while preoccupied with his own morning and evening affairs, he appeared content to leave such welcomes to members of the nobility.
Master picked up the second letter and declared, “Hah! This one’s printed too.”

In this season of autumn chill, I humbly offer congratulations on the increasing prosperity of your esteemed household. As you may know, this institution has been hindered since three years prior by certain ambitious individuals, reaching dire straits—all due to this unworthy Harisaku's inadequacies, for which I have deeply admonished myself. Through enduring hardships akin to lying on thorns and tasting gall, I have at last devised a means to independently secure funds for constructing new school buildings befitting our ideals. This entails no extraordinary measure but the publication of a supplementary volume titled *Secret Techniques of Sewing*, which I have authored through years of painstaking research into craft principles, tearing flesh and wringing blood in my efforts. Thus I humbly request households nationwide purchase this book at binding cost plus modest profit—both to advance this art and accumulate meager savings for construction costs. Though immeasurably presumptuous, if you might consider contributing to our building fund through purchasing this compendium and distributing it even to your maidservant, thereby expressing your support, I prostrate myself in earnest entreaty. Respectfully submitted,

Great Japan Women’s Highest Academy of Sewing

Principal Nuita Harisaku Respectfully bows nine times

Thus it read.
Master coldly crumpled this ceremonious document and tossed it into the wastebasket with a thud.
All of Mr. Harisaku's nine solemn bows and his trials of sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall had proven utterly futile—a most pitiable outcome indeed.

He moved on to the third letter.
The third letter exuded a peculiar brilliance.
The envelope was striped in red and white, its center emblazoned with bold happun-style calligraphy as gaudy as a candy shop signboard: "Professor Chinno Kushami, Toragawashita."
Though one couldn't guarantee some grand dame might emerge from within, its exterior alone made a remarkably splendid impression.

If I were to govern heaven and earth through myself, I could drain the West River's waters in one gulp; were heaven and earth to govern me, I'd be but roadside dust.
What connection exists between heaven, earth and me when all must follow the Way?
...the first sea cucumber eater deserves reverence for their audacity, the first pufferfish consumer esteem for their courage.
Sea cucumber devourers are Shinran reborn; pufferfish ingesters Nichiren incarnate.
As for your ilk, Professor Kushami—you know naught but pickled gourd shavings.
Those who munch vinegar-miso gourds while styling themselves men of consequence? I've yet to witness such specimens...

Even a close friend will betray thee. Parents too shall have self-interest toward thee. Even a lover shall abandon thee. Riches and honors are by nature not to be relied upon. Titles and stipends shall be lost in a single morning. The learning thou hoardest in thy head shall grow mold. Upon what dost thou rely? What in all creation canst thou rely upon? God? God is but a clay doll fabricated by humans in their desperation. The stinking remains are but coagulated excrement of humanity’s fleeting existence. It is said that one finds peace by relying on that which cannot be relied upon. Hah! A drunkard, carelessly spouting nonsensical words, staggers toward his grave. When the oil is exhausted, the lamp extinguishes itself. When deeds are exhausted, what remains? Professor Kushami, kindly have some tea.…

If one does not regard others as people, there is nothing to fear.
How can those who do not regard others as human rage against a world that does not regard them as themselves?
Those in power and prosperity seem to have achieved their status by not regarding others as human.
Only when others do not regard me as myself does one become indignant and show displeasure.
Arbitrarily assume expressions as you please.
Idiot...

When I regard others as human, and when others do not regard me as myself, the malcontented descend from heaven in fits.
This sudden outbreak of activity is what we call revolution.
Revolution is not the work of the malcontented.
It is the favored product of those in power and prosperity.
There is an abundance of ginseng in Korea; why does the teacher not partake of it?

In Sugamo, Tendo Kohei Respectfully bows twice.

While Mr. Harisaku performed nine bows, this man offered only two. Since it wasn't a donation request, he could afford the nonchalance of seven bows' worth. It wasn't a plea for funds but something far more inscrutable instead. Though eminently worthy of rejection by any magazine, Master—that paragon of mental opacity—contrary to expectations kept rereading it repeatedly, certain he'd tear it to shreds yet never doing so. Perhaps he'd resolved to wring meaning from this letter at all costs. In all creation, many things defy understanding, but nothing resists having meaning imposed upon it. Any thorny text yields to interpretation if one tries hard enough. Call humans fools or call them sages—either label sticks with equal ease. Far from it—call them dogs or pigs; neither proposition causes real anguish. Declare mountains low or space confined; no consequence follows. Crows are white, Ono no Komachi a hag, and Professor Kushami no gentleman—all pass unchallenged. Thus even this drivel could mean anything with enough sophistry. A man like Master—who'd forced explanations of unknown English for years—naturally hungered to assign significance. For one who'd spent seven days pondering why students said "Good morning" on gloomy days, or three nights devising Japanese equivalents for "Columbus," meanings sprouted everywhere—pickled gourd as moral exemplar, Korean ginseng as revolutionary spark. After some time, Master seemed to digest these abstruse phrases à la Good Morning. "Most profound," he declared. "The author must be a deep philosopher." "A brilliant insight!" he effused. This single remark laid bare his folly, yet held a grain of truth. Master revered the incomprehensible indiscriminately—a trait hardly unique to him alone.

Where matters remained incomprehensible, there lurked elements that defied dismissal as mere foolishness, and in realms beyond measurement arose a peculiar sense of nobility.
Thus laypeople loudly proclaimed understanding of what eluded them, while scholars obscured what they truly grasped through convoluted explanations.
In university lectures, those who prattled about incomprehensible matters gained renown, while those who elucidated clear concepts were known to lack popular appeal.
Master's admiration for this letter stemmed not from any clarity of meaning.
Rather because its central thesis proved nearly impossible to locate.
Because it abruptly invoked sea cucumbers and transient turds.
Thus Master revered this text for precisely the same reason Taoists revere the Tao Te Ching, Confucianists the I Ching, and Zen practitioners the Linji Lu—all works utterly incomprehensible to ordinary folk.
Yet being wholly unable to comprehend it left him unsettled, so he appended arbitrary annotations and affected an air of understanding.
This human tradition of revering the incomprehensible through feigned comprehension has ever been a delightful farce.
Master reverently rolled up the elegant happintai-style scroll, placed it upon his desk, and sank into meditative stillness with arms tucked into his sleeves.

At that moment, someone at the entrance loudly called out, "Please! Please!" asking to be let in.
The voice sounded like Meitei’s yet carried an uncharacteristically insistent edge.
Master had been hearing these entreaties from his study but remained motionless with arms tucked into his sleeves.
Whether from principle that greeting guests wasn't his duty or sheer obstinacy, he'd never once emerged from his study to welcome visitors.
The maid had gone out earlier to buy laundry soap.
The wife stayed hesitantly in the back.
This left only me to answer -
though I'd no more desire to do so than any of them.
Undeterred by protocol, our guest vaulted from the getabaki step onto the veranda, threw open the shoji screen and came clomping inside.
Between Master's discourtesy and this visitor's audacity, one hardly knew whom to fault more.
He first made for the parlor - or so I thought - sliding fusuma doors open and shut several times before finally homing in on the study.

“Hey, this is no joke! What are you doing? There’s a guest here!”

“Oh, it’s you.”

“Oh? You might as well not exist! If you’re there, at least say something—it’s like an abandoned house in here!”

“Yeah, been preoccupied with some thinking.”

“Even if you’re deep in thought, you could at least yell ‘Come in!’”

“Not like I couldn’t have.”

“Still got nerve, I see.”

“I’ve been devoting myself to spiritual cultivation lately.”

“What an oddball! If your cultivation leaves you mute to guests, that’ll be a fine mess. Getting too serene causes problems! Truth is—I didn’t come alone. Brought a VIP guest with me. Come meet them properly.”

“Who did you bring?”

“Just come out and meet them already! They’re insisting on seeing you.”

“Who is it?”

“Doesn’t matter who—get up!”

Master abruptly rose with arms still tucked in his sleeves, muttering “Trying to trick me again...” as he stepped onto the veranda and carelessly entered the parlor. There before the six-foot tokonoma alcove sat an elderly man in solemn stillness. Master instinctively pulled his hands free and plopped down beside the karakami door. Now both men faced westward—an orientation rendering proper greetings impossible. Proper folk of yore took etiquette quite seriously.

“Well, please go over there,” he urged, pointing toward the tokonoma alcove.
Up until two or three years prior, Master had believed one could sit anywhere in the parlor without concern. But after hearing someone explain that the tokonoma was a modified form of the upper chamber—a space reserved for imperial envoys—he had since resolved never to approach it again.
Especially with an unfamiliar elder sitting there so formally, this was no time to claim the seat of honor.
He couldn’t even manage a proper greeting.
He gave a slight bow.

“Now, please go over there,” he repeated it exactly as instructed.

“Well then, we cannot properly exchange greetings this way. Please take that seat.”

“No, in that case... please take that seat,” Master parroted back perfunctorily, mimicking the other’s formal phrasing.

“Well then, such modesty is most gracious.”
“On the contrary, I am most humbled.”
“Please, do not stand on ceremony. Now, this way.”

“Such modesty... is most humbling... please...”
Master turned bright red and mumbled incoherently.
His spiritual cultivation didn’t seem to be having much effect.
Mr. Meitei had been standing and watching from behind the sliding door while laughing, but deciding the time was right, he pushed the master’s backside from behind and—

“Come on out here! If you keep plastered against the sliding door like that, I’ve nowhere to sit! Quit dawdling and move up front!” he insisted, bodily pushing his way in. Master reluctantly shuffled forward.

“Kusakabe, this is the uncle from Shizuoka I’m always telling you about. Uncle, meet Mr. Kusakabe.”

“Ah! At last we meet! I’ve heard how my nephew Meitei has been troubling you repeatedly with his visits. I’d long resolved to call upon you properly and humbly receive your wise counsel when occasion permitted. By fortunate happenstance while passing through your neighborhood today, I seized this chance to offer both apologies and gratitude. I earnestly entreat you to recognize this humble connection and grant me your continued benevolence.” The old man delivered this archaic address with seamless fluency.

Being a socially inept recluse wholly unaccustomed to such antiquated formality, Master had already been flustered from the outset. Now deluged by this torrent of courtly rhetoric, all thought of Korean ginseng or candy-wrapper protocol vanished utterly, leaving him to stammer out some strained absurdity in desperation.

“I too… I too… had intended to pay my respects… I humbly beg your indulgence,” he managed. When he gingerly raised his head from the tatami after speaking, he found the old man still prostrating himself. Flustered into fresh humility, he pressed his forehead firmly back down.

The old man measured his breath as he lifted his head. “I too once maintained an estate here, dwelling long in proximity to His Lordship’s seat. But having withdrawn to those regions during the dissolution, I’ve not returned until now.”
“Now that I’ve come, I can scarcely discern directions—without Meitei’s guidance, I’d be quite incapable of conducting my affairs.”
“Though we speak of worldly transformations,” he began, “for three hundred years since His Lordship’s advent, the Tokugawa shogunate has—” but Mr. Meitei, anticipating tedium,

“Uncle, while we may owe gratitude to the shogunate, the Meiji era isn’t half bad either. Back in the day, there was no such thing as the Red Cross, right?”

“That’s not true. There is absolutely no such thing as the Red Cross. Moreover, to behold His Highness’s august countenance is something that could only be achieved in the august reign of Meiji. Thanks to my long life, I’ve been able to attend today’s grand assembly as you see and even hear His Highness the Prince’s august voice—now I can die content.”

“Well, just getting to sightsee in Tokyo after so long must be quite a treat. Kusakabe, about my uncle—he came all the way from Shizuoka for this Red Cross general meeting, so today we went out to Ueno together and are now on our way back. That’s why he’s wearing this frock coat I ordered from Shirokiya the other day—as you can see,” he pointed out. Sure enough, the old man was wearing a frock coat. He wore a frock coat, but it didn’t fit his body at all—the sleeves were too long, the collar gaped open, a pool of fabric had formed at his back, and the armpits were hiked up. No matter how poorly tailored one tried to make a garment, they wouldn’t go to such lengths to meticulously ruin its shape like this. Moreover, his white shirt and collar had come completely apart, revealing his Adam’s apple when he tilted his head back. To begin with, it was unclear whether the black necktie belonged to the collar or the shirt itself. While the frock coat was still tolerable, his white-haired topknot presented a truly bizarre spectacle. When Master looked to confirm the whereabouts of the famed iron fan, he found it properly positioned beside the old man’s knee. At this moment, Master finally regained his composure and—applying the full results of his spiritual cultivation to assess the old man’s attire—found himself somewhat astonished. He had thought Meitei’s stories couldn’t possibly be that exaggerated, but meeting the uncle surpassed even those tales. If his own pockmarks could serve as material for historical research, then this old man’s topknot and iron fan surely held greater value still. Master desperately wanted to inquire about the iron fan’s origins, but of course he couldn’t pose such a blunt question—yet letting the conversation lapse felt equally impolite.

"I imagine quite a lot of people attended?" he asked in an utterly ordinary manner.

“Well, there were so many people, and they all kept staring at me—it seems folks these days have become so nosy.”
“In the past, things were not like that.”

“Yes, indeed—things were not like that in the old days,” he replied in a manner befitting an old man.
This was not exactly a case of Master putting on airs of knowledge.
One could only view it as words haphazardly spilling from his muddled mind.

“And another thing,” continued the uncle.
“Everyone kept staring at this kōwari—this helmet-splitting iron fan—”

“That iron fan must be rather heavy.”

“Kusakabe—try holding it for a moment,” interjected Mr. Meitei.
“It’s quite substantial.”
“Uncle—please let him hold it.”

The old man lifted it with apparent effort and handed it over, saying, “Pardon the intrusion.” Master Kusakabe held it momentarily in the reverent manner of pilgrims receiving Renshōbō’s sacred sword at Kyoto’s Kurodani temple, then simply remarked “I see” and returned it.

“Though everyone calls this an iron fan,” the uncle explained, “it’s properly termed a kōwari—quite distinct from ordinary tessen.”

“And what was its purpose?”

“For splitting helmets—striking where the enemy’s vision faltered. They say it’s been used since Kusunoki Masashige’s time...”

“Uncle, is this Masashige’s kōwari?”

“No, I don’t know whose this is.”
“But it’s old.”
“It might date from the Kenmu era.”

“Kenmu era or not, Kangetsu-kun was in quite a state.”
“Mr. Kusakabe, since today’s return trip offered a perfect opportunity, I stopped by the science department while passing through the university and had them show me the physics laboratory.”
“Because this kōwari is iron, it threw off the magnetic equipment and caused an uproar!”

“No, that can’t be right. This is Kenmu-era iron—excellent quality—so there’s absolutely no danger of that.”

“No matter how excellent the iron’s quality may be, it simply doesn’t work that way. Kangetsu himself confirmed it—there’s nothing to be done.”

“That Kangetsu—the fellow polishing glass spheres? What a waste of his youth. He ought to have something more worthwhile to do.”

“Poor lad—that’s legitimate research too! If he perfects that sphere’s polish, he’ll become a proper scholar.”

"If polishing a sphere can make one a proper scholar, then anyone could do it."
"Even I could do it."
"Even a glassblower could do it."
"In China’s old parlance," he said while turning toward his master seeking tacit agreement, "those engaged in such work were called jade craftsmen—a most lowly station."

“I see,” said Master, sitting up straight.

“All learning in this modern age concerns material phenomena—impressive at first glance, yet utterly useless when truly needed, I assure you.”
“In days of old it differed entirely—samurai staked their lives in their trade, thus cultivating mental discipline to avoid panic in crucial moments. As you’re aware, such training bore no resemblance to polishing baubles or twisting wires.”

“I see,” he said, sitting up straight once more.

“Uncle—this ‘mental training’ you speak of—instead of polishing gems, it’s just sitting around with your hands tucked in your sleeves, isn’t it?”

“That’s precisely why it’s problematic. It is by no means such a simple matter. Mencius called it ‘recovering the wandering mind.’ Shao Kangjie taught that ‘the mind must be liberated.’ And in Buddhism, there’s Chūhō Oshō who instructs on gu futaiten—unyielding resolve. It defies easy comprehension.”

“There’s just no grasping it, is there? What in heaven’s name should I do?”

“Have you ever read Takuan Sōhō’s *Fudōchi Shinmyōroku*?”

“No, I haven’t even heard of it.”

“Where shall one place the mind? If one places their mind on the enemy’s movements, their mind will be taken by the enemy’s movements. If one places their mind on the enemy’s sword, their mind will be taken by the enemy’s sword. If one places their mind on cutting down the enemy, their mind will be taken by the thought of cutting down the enemy. If one places their mind on their own sword, their mind will be taken by their own sword. If one places their mind on avoiding being cut down, their mind will be taken by the fear of being cut down. If one places their mind on the opponent’s stance, their mind will be taken by the opponent’s stance. Thus it states there is nowhere to fix the mind.”

“You’ve recited that perfectly from memory.”
“Uncle’s retention is truly remarkable.”
“Though it was rather lengthy, wasn’t it?”
“Mr. Kusakabe—did you grasp any of that?”

“I see,” he repeated mechanically, letting the matter drop there.

“Now then, you—wouldn’t that be so?”
“Where should one place their mind? If one places their mind on the enemy’s movements, their mind will be captured by the enemy’s movements.”
“If one places their mind on the enemy’s sword...”

“Uncle, Mr. Kusakabe understands such matters perfectly well.”
“These days he does nothing but spiritual cultivation in his study all day long.”
“He’s left his mind so far behind that he won’t even come out to greet visitors—you’ve nothing to worry about.”

“Well now, that’s most admirable—you ought to join him in this practice more often yourself.”

“Heh heh heh, I’ve no time for such things.”
“Uncle, just because you live at your leisure, you imagine everyone else must be idling too, don’t you?”

“Aren’t you actually idling?”

“Yet within leisure lies inherent busyness.”

“Precisely—your carelessness demands spiritual training. While there exists the adage ‘within busyness lies leisure,’ I’ve never heard ‘within leisure lies busyness.’"
“What say you, Mr. Kusakabe?”

“No, I can’t say I’ve encountered that one.”

“Ha ha ha! In that case, I concede defeat.”
“Now Uncle—how about this?”
“It’s been ages—shall we sample Tokyo’s famed eel?”
“I’ll treat you at Takeha.”
“We can reach it directly by tram.”

“Eel sounds delightful, but as I have an appointment at Suigen today, I must take my leave here.”

“Ah, Sugihara? That old codger’s still going strong, eh?”

“It’s not Sugihara—it’s Suigen. You’re always making mistakes—it’s exasperating. Mixing up people’s names is rude. You must be more careful.”

“But it’s written as Sugihara here, isn’t it?”

“It’s written as Sugihara but read as Suigen.”

“How peculiar.”

“What’s strange about that? It’s called nominal reading—it’s been around since ancient times. The earthworm is called ‘mimizu’ in its Japanese name. That’s the nominal reading of ‘me-mizu.’ It’s the same as reading ‘toad’ as ‘kai.’”

“Huh! That’s surprising!”

“If you kill a toad, it turns over on its back.”
“That’s what we call nominal reading—like ‘kai’ for ‘toad’.”
“Take ‘sukashigaki’ lattice fences read as ‘suigaki’, or ‘kukudachi’ stems read as ‘kukutachi’—all follow this principle.”
“Only country bumpkins say ‘Sugihara’ instead of ‘Suigen’.”
“You’ll become a laughingstock if you don’t mind your pronunciation.”

“So, uh, are you heading to Suigen now? This is a problem...”

“If you find it disagreeable, you don’t have to come. I’ll go by myself.”

“Can you manage by yourself?”

“Walking would be difficult. Please have a rickshaw hired—I’ll ride from here.”

The master humbly complied and immediately sent O-san running to the rickshaw shop.
The elderly man exchanged prolonged farewells, placed a bowler hat atop his topknot, and departed.

Meitei remained behind.

“So that’s your uncle?”
“That’s my uncle.”

“I see,” he said, sitting back down on the zabuton cushion and crossing his arms as he sank into thought.

“Ha ha ha! He’s quite a character, isn’t he? I’m fortunate to have such an uncle myself. No matter where you take him, he’s just like that.” Mr. Meitei beamed with self-satisfaction as he added, “You must be shocked!”

“Not particularly.”

“If you aren’t shocked by that, you’ve got nerves of steel.”

“But that uncle seems to have quite admirable qualities. I greatly respect his emphasis on spiritual cultivation.”

“Is that truly worthy of admiration? Once you reach sixty, you’ll likely become just as antiquated as that uncle of yours. Pull yourself together. Letting relics take charge shows poor judgment.”

“You obsess over being outdated, but there are moments when antiquity signifies superiority. Modern scholarship charges blindly forward without end—one can never attain true satisfaction. Eastern learning, by contrast, is reposeful and profoundly meaningful. It cultivates the mind itself,” he declared, regurgitating arguments recently acquired from a certain philosopher.

“This has gotten quite serious.”
“You’re starting to sound like Yagi Dokusen there.”

Upon hearing the name Yagi Dokusen, the master was startled.
The truth was that this Yagi Dokusen was none other than the philosopher who had recently visited Garyōkutsu, persuaded the master through argumentation, and departed with unruffled composure; since the pompous theories the master now solemnly expounded were entirely secondhand ideas from this same Dokusen, Meitei’s exquisitely timed invocation of the philosopher’s name—while feigning ignorance—effectively dismantled his host’s makeshift intellectual pretense.

“Have you ever heard Dokusen’s theories?” asked the master cautiously.

“Whether you’ve heard them or not, that man’s theories haven’t changed one bit from his school days ten years ago to this very day.”

“Truth isn’t something that changes. Perhaps its constancy makes it reliable.”

“Well, it’s thanks to such partiality that Dokusen manages to persist.”
“First off, the name Yagi itself is rather cleverly suited.”
“That beard of his is positively goat-like.”
“And mind you, it’s been growing in that exact fashion since his dormitory years.”
“The moniker ‘Dokusen’ reeks of affectation too.”
“Years ago when he stayed at my place, he launched into his usual spiel about passive cultivation.”
“He kept repeating the same drivel endlessly. When I suggested retiring for the night, the imperturbable sage declared, ‘No, I’m not tired,’ and resumed his infernal lecturing.”
“In desperation I pleaded, ‘You may not be sleepy, but I’m exhausted—please do rest,’ and finally bedded him down.”
“That very night, a mouse gnawed at Dokusen’s nasal extremity.”
“Midnight uproar ensued.”
“Though he spouted enlightenment, the man clearly cherished his mortal coil—worked himself into a proper panic.”
“‘If vermin venom courses through my veins, catastrophe looms! Do something!’ he badgered until I relented.”
“As last resort, I pasted rice grains on paper scrap from the kitchen and passed it off as German miracle plaster.”

“How so?”

“This is an imported plaster recently invented by a renowned German physician. When Indians get bitten by venomous snakes, applying this provides instant relief. I told him that as long as he kept this on, he’d be perfectly fine.”

“You’d already perfected the art of deception back then, hadn’t you?”

“...Well, since Dokusen was such a trusting soul, he took it all at face value and fell fast asleep without a care.”
“Come morning, when he woke up, threads dangled from beneath the plaster and got tangled in that goat-like beard of his—it was downright comical!”

“But he seems to have grown far more accomplished since those days.”

“Did you meet him recently?”

“He came about a week ago and spent hours discussing things.”

“No wonder you’ve been parroting that Dokusen-style passive philosophy.”

“Truthfully, I was so moved by his words that I’ve resolved to dedicate myself to self-cultivation.”

“Admirable resolve, but...
Taking everything people say so earnestly will make you their fool.
Your problem is swallowing every opinion whole.
Dokusen talks grandly enough, but when tested, he’s no better than the rest of us.
Recall the great earthquake nine years back?
He alone jumped from the dormitory’s second floor and injured himself.”

“It seems he has quite the explanation for that, doesn’t he?”

“Oh yes—if you let him tell it, it’s a most profound blessing. Zen’s repartee cuts like a precipice; when it comes to what they call the spark-from-flint moment, one can respond to things with terrifying speed. While everyone else was panicking and yelling ‘Earthquake!’, he alone leaped from the second-floor window, declaring with delight that this proved his spiritual training’s efficacy—limping about in triumph all the while. What a sore loser. I tell you, there’s nothing more dubious than these types who go around bellowing about Zen and Buddhism.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Kushami’s resolve wavered a bit.

“Didn’t he spout some Zen monk’s sleep-talking nonsense when he visited recently?”

“Yes, he taught me that phrase about ‘cutting the spring breeze in the flash of lightning.’”

“That lightning bit! It’s been his tired old routine for ten years—utterly ridiculous! Why, back in our dorm days, everyone knew Zen Master Mukaku’s ‘lightning flash’ schtick. And get this—when Dokusen gets flustered, he flips it around to ‘cutting lightning in the spring breeze’s shadow.’ Hilarious! Try cornering him next time—when he’s all calm and pontificating, hit him with counterarguments. He’ll immediately get twisted up and start spouting gibberish!”

“There’s no dealing with a mischief-maker like you.”

“There’s no telling which of us is the real mischief-maker. I detest Zen priests and those who claim enlightenment. There’s a temple called Nanzo-in in my neighborhood where an eighty-year-old retired man lives. During that sudden storm the other day, lightning struck within the temple grounds and split the pine tree in front of his garden. Yet the priest remained perfectly calm—turns out he was stone deaf when we checked properly. That explains his composure! That’s how it usually goes. It’d be fine if Dokusen just attained enlightenment alone, but he keeps dragging others into it—that’s the trouble. In fact, he’s already driven two people mad.”

“Who?”
“Who, you ask? One is Rino Tozen. Thanks to Dokusen, he became utterly obsessed with Zen studies, went off to Kamakura, and finally went mad on the spot. You know that railroad crossing in front of Engakuji Temple? He jumped right into it and sat zazen on the rails. Made this grand declaration that he’d stop the oncoming train with his meditation. Well, the train actually stopped for him—so he narrowly escaped death—but then started proclaiming he’d gained a diamond-indestructible body that wouldn’t burn in fire or drown in water. Went wading around the temple’s lotus pond, gurgling and bubbling as he walked.”

“Did he die?”

“Well, a monk from the training hall happened by and saved him that time too. But after he went back to Tokyo, he ended up dying of peritonitis anyway. Officially it was peritonitis that killed him, but since he got that from eating nothing but barley rice and pickled turnips at the monastery, you might as well say Dokusen killed him indirectly.”

“Being recklessly obsessive does have its drawbacks too,” said the Teacher with a somewhat unsettled expression.

“Really, though. There’s another one among our alumni who fell victim to Dokusen.”

“That’s dangerous. Who?”

“Tachimachi Roubai-kun. That man too was thoroughly egged on by Dokusen and went about spouting nothing but nonsense about eels ascending to heaven—until he finally became the genuine article.”

“What do you mean by ‘genuine article’?”

“The eel finally ascended to heaven, and the pig became an immortal sage—that’s what.”

“What on earth is that?”

“If Yagi’s Dokusen the Zen Sage, then Tachimachi’s Butasen the Pork Immortal. There was never a man more gluttonous than him, but when that bottomless appetite collided with the Zen priest’s malice, there was no saving him.”
“At first, even we didn’t notice anything amiss, but looking back now, he’d been spouting nothing but absurdities.”
“When he came to my place, he’d say things like ‘You don’t suppose cutlets come flying into that pine tree?’ or ‘In my homeland, fish cakes swim about on wooden boards!’—constantly spewing these preposterous aphorisms.”
“While mere verbal nonsense was tolerable enough, matters reached their limit when he started urging me to dig for Kinton gold in the front ditch—that’s when even I surrendered.”
“Then two or three days later, he fully transformed into the Pork Immortal and got himself committed to Sugamo.”
“Pigs aren’t even qualified to go mad in the first place—it’s entirely Dokusen’s doing that he ended up in such a state.”
“Dokusen’s influence proves truly formidable indeed.”

“Oh, so he’s still in Sugamo?”

“He’s not merely there. He’s there gripped by megalomania, spewing grand proclamations. Lately he’s decided ‘Tachimachi Roubai’ sounds too plain, so he’s taken to calling himself Tendou Kouhei—claims to be the very incarnation of the Heavenly Way. Utterly preposterous! You ought to go see for yourself.”

“Tendou Kouhei?”

“That’s right—Tendou Kouhei. Not bad for a madman’s alias, eh? Sometimes he writes it as Kouhei (孔平). Says he must save this deluded world, so he’s been bombarding acquaintances with letters. I’ve gotten four or five myself—some were so lengthy I had to pay postage due twice!”

“Then the letter I received must also be from Roubai.”

“Did one come to your place too? How odd. It was in a red envelope again, I presume?”

“Yeah—red in the center with white on both sides. Quite an unusual envelope.”

“Ah yes, they say he specially imports those from China. It’s meant to illustrate Butasen’s maxim: ‘The Way of Heaven is white, the Way of Earth is white, but man in between is red,’ or so he claims…”

“That’s quite the symbolic envelope.”

“Madmen do fixate on such details. What’s truly bizarre is how even after losing his mind, his gluttony remains intact—every letter inevitably drones on about food. He must have written something to your place too?”

“Yeah, it’s written about sea cucumbers.”

“Roubai liked sea cucumbers, you see.”
“That makes perfect sense.”
“And then?”

“And then there’s something about pufferfish and Korean ginseng or such.”

“The combination of pufferfish and Korean ginseng is inspired! He must be suggesting you boil ginseng as an antidote if the pufferfish poisons you.”

"Doesn't seem like it."

"Doesn’t matter either way."
“He’s mad after all.”
“Is that all?”

“There’s more.”
“There’s a line saying, ‘Kusakabe Sensei, have some tea.’”

“Ha ha ha! ‘Have some tea’ is too cruel! So he must’ve thought he’d completely put you in your place! A triumph! Long live Lord Tendou Kouhei!” Mr. Meitei exclaimed, chuckling with delight as he burst out laughing.
The Teacher—having learned that the sender of this letter he’d pored over with such earnest reverence was in fact a gold-leaf-bedecked madman—now felt both indignant at his wasted efforts and ashamed of having lavished such care on a lunatic’s scribblings. Worse yet, his profound admiration for the deranged composition seeded doubts about his own mental soundness. Thus stewing in this broth of anger, humiliation, and anxiety, he sat rigidly with an expression of profound disquiet.

Just then, the lattice door was thrown wide open, and as soon as the sound of heavy boots reverberated two steps’ worth in the entryway stone, a loud voice called out, “A moment of your time! A moment of your time!”
In stark contrast to the Master’s ponderousness, Meitei was an exceedingly sprightly fellow; without waiting for the maid to announce the visitor, he called out “Come in!” while leaping over the middle room in two bounds and springing out to the entryway.
Barging into someone’s house without waiting to be invited might seem like a nuisance, but once such a person enters, they take on the role of a live-in student handling receptions—a rather convenient arrangement indeed.
However much of a fixture Meitei might be, he remained technically a guest; yet when this guest went to receive visitors at the entryway, Master Kushami in his role as host could not simply remain seated in the parlor without stirring.
An ordinary man would naturally follow suit and sally forth—but that’s precisely where Master Kushami differed.
Master Kushami calmly planted himself back down on his zabuton cushion.
However, while “calmly settling oneself” and “being calm” may bear a strong resemblance in appearance, their substance differed vastly.

Meitei, who had rushed to the entryway, was engaged in heated argument when he suddenly turned toward the interior and barked, "Hey Master! Get your behind out here this instant!"
"It's useless without you!" he bellowed.

The Master reluctantly came out, hands tucked in his sleeves and dragging his feet. Looking over, Mr. Meitei was squatting with a business card clutched in his hand, offering a greeting. He cut an exceedingly undignified figure in that posture. The business card read: Detective Constable Yoshida Torazō of the Metropolitan Police Department. Standing next to Torazō was a tall, dashing young man of twenty-five or twenty-six, decked out in striped cotton from head to toe. Strangely enough, this man stood motionless in silence, hands tucked in his sleeves just like the master. At first glance, he thought the face looked familiar, but upon closer inspection, it wasn’t just familiar—it was unmistakably the same. This was none other than the thief fellow who, the other night, had paid a late-night visit and made off with the mountain yams. Well now, this time he came openly in broad daylight through the front entrance.

“Hey, this gentleman’s a detective constable who caught that thief from the other day, so he’s come all this way to tell you to report in.”

The Master finally seemed to grasp why the detective had barged in and turned toward the thief to bow politely.
Since the thief cut a more dashing figure than Torazō, he must have hastily concluded this was the detective.
The thief must have been startled too, but seeing as he couldn’t very well declare “Actually, I’m the thief,” he stood there composed.
He still kept his hands tucked in his sleeves.
Of course, being handcuffed, there was no chance he’d take them out even if asked.
Anyone else would have understood the situation from his demeanor, but this master—unlike most modern folk—had an irrational habit of revering officials and police.
When it came to the august authority’s prestige, he regarded it with genuine terror.
Theoretically he knew policemen were just guards hired with public funds, but face-to-face he’d turn obsequious.
Perhaps this was karmic retribution—his father having been an outskirt village headman who’d spent days bowing to superiors—now repaid through his son.
It was truly pitiable beyond words.

The detective, apparently finding this amusing, smirked and said, “Tomorrow, please come to the Nihon-zutsumi Branch Station by 9:00 a.m. What exactly were the stolen items?”

“The stolen items were…” he began, but unfortunately the Master had largely forgotten. The only thing he remembered was Tataro Sampel’s mountain yams. He thought he didn’t care about the yams or such things, but trailing off after starting to say “the stolen items were…” made him look exactly like Yotaro, which was rather unbecoming. “If it had been someone else who was robbed,” he thought, “that would be one thing—but being robbed myself and still being unable to give a clear answer proves I’m not a proper adult.” With this resolve, he declared: “The stolen items were… one box of mountain yams.”

The thief, who seemed to find this quite amusing at the time, lowered his head and buried his chin in the collar of his kimono.
“Ahahaha! Seems you really regretted losing those mountain yams,” Meitei said with a laugh.
The constable alone was unexpectedly serious.

“It seems the mountain yams haven’t turned up, but most other items have been recovered. You’ll understand when you come see.”
“When we hand them over, you’ll need to sign a receipt—don’t forget your seal.”
“Be there by nine o’clock.”
“Nihon-zutsumi Branch Station.”
“Under Asakusa Police Station’s jurisdiction—the Nihon-zutsumi Branch Station.”
“Well then,” he concluded, and departed alone.
The thief followed him out through the gate.
Unable to use his hands, he left it swinging open as he went.
Though cowed yet visibly resentful, the Master puffed out his cheeks and slammed the gate shut with a violent clang.

“Ahahaha! You certainly revere detectives.”
“If you always kept up that humble attitude you’d be a proper gentleman—but reserving your courtesy solely for constables is problematic.”

“But he made a special trip to notify me, didn’t he?”

“Even if he came to notify you, it’s just his job.”
“Just treat him normally—that’s all you need.”

“But it’s not just any ordinary job.”

“Of course it’s no ordinary job. Detectives ply a most disagreeable trade. Beneath even respectable professions.”

“Say such things and you’ll land in real trouble.”

“Hahaha! Very well, let’s cease slandering detectives then. Though respecting officers might be tolerable, bowing to thieves crosses into sheer astonishment.”

“Who said anything about respecting thieves?!”

“You did.”

“What possible connection could I have with thieves?!”

“What do you mean ‘no way’? You bowed to the thief!”

“When?”

“Didn’t you just bow down humbly a moment ago?”

“Don’t talk nonsense! That guy’s a detective.”

“Do you really think a detective would look like that?”

“Isn’t that exactly why a detective would look like that?”

“You’re so stubborn.”

“You’re the stubborn one.”

“First off, would a detective come to someone’s house with his hands tucked in his sleeves like that and just stand there rigidly?”

“Detectives might not necessarily keep their hands out of their sleeves.”

“I must say, your fervent bowing was quite something.”
“He remained completely motionless the entire time you were bowing.”

“That’s just how detectives might behave.”

“You’re utterly self-assured, aren’t you?”
“No matter how much I say it, you refuse to listen.”

“I won’t listen.”
“You’re all talk—going on about ‘thieves, thieves’ without having actually witnessed any burglary.”
“You’re just obstinately clinging to your own assumptions.”

Meitei appeared to have finally given up on him as a man beyond redemption here and now, falling into uncharacteristic silence.
The Master, thinking he had bested Meitei for the first time in ages, swelled with triumph.
From Meitei's perspective, the Master's worth had only depreciated through his obstinacy, yet from the Master's view, that very obstinacy made him superior to Meitei.
The world teems with such absurd contradictions.
While stubbornly persisting in feeling victorious, one's standing as an individual plummets far below.
Strangely enough, these obstinate souls go to their graves believing they've preserved their honor, never once dreaming that henceforth people will scorn them and refuse engagement.
How blissful they are.
They say this sort of bliss is called porcine happiness.

“Anyway, are you still planning to go tomorrow?”

“I’m going. Since they told me to come by nine, I’ll set out from eight.”

“What about your school?”

“I’m taking the day off.” It was bold of him to defiantly snap, “The hell with school!”

“That’s quite the gusto, huh. Is it really okay for you to take the day off?”

“Of course! Since my school operates on monthly salaries, there’s no need to worry about deductions—it’s perfectly fine,” he admitted bluntly.
Cunning remains cunning, but simplicity stays simple.

“It’s fine if you go, but do you know the way?”

“How the hell should I know? If I take a rickshaw, it can’t be that hard,” he snapped huffily.

“I must say, your knowledge of Tokyo rivals even your Shizuoka uncle’s—truly impressive.”

“You can be as impressed as you like!”

“Hahaha, this Nihonzutsumi Branch Office isn’t just any ordinary place, you know. It’s Yoshiwara.”

“What?”

“It’s Yoshiwara.”

“That Yoshiwara with the licensed quarter?”

“That’s right—when you say Yoshiwara, there’s only one in all of Tokyo. So, still feel like going?” Mr. Meitei teased again.

Upon hearing “Yoshiwara,” the Master showed a moment’s hesitation, but immediately recovering himself, declared with forced bravado, “Be it Yoshiwara or a brothel district—once I’ve said I’ll go, I’ll most certainly go!”

Fools tend to dig in their heels precisely in such situations.

“Well, that ought to be entertaining—go on and see for yourself,” was all Mr. Meitei said.

The criminal incident that had caused such a stir was thus brought to a close for the time being.

After that, Meitei kept up his usual idle banter until dusk, then left, saying he’d be scolded by his uncle if he stayed out too late.

After Meitei left, the Master hurried through his dinner and withdrew to his study once more, folding his arms as he began to think:

"Even Yagi Dokusen—whom I so admired and strove to emulate—now appears, by Meitei’s account, hardly worth imitating. Worse still, his doctrines seem utterly nonsensical, belonging—as Meitei said—to some lineage of madness. And he keeps two undeniably mad disciples! How perilous! Should I approach them carelessly, I might be dragged into their fold.

That Tenkō Kōhei—alias Tachimachi Rōbai—whose writings I revered as profound wisdom? A pure lunatic now residing at Sugamo Hospital! Even if Meitei exaggerated, surely it’s true he reigns there as self-appointed arbiter of heaven’s will.

Perhaps I too am slightly touched? Like attracts like—if I sympathize with madmen’s words, mustn’t I share their taint? Even unwittingly dwelling near them risks breached walls and shared laughter over tea! Dire indeed!

Reflecting now, my own mind’s workings grow alarmingly peculiar—marvels laced with bizarreness! Though my brain’s chemistry remains opaque, my words and deeds increasingly lack moderation.

No dragon spring moistens my tongue; no breeze cools my armpits—yet madness festers in my molars, flavors my sinews! Graver still! Might I already be certified? Only my harmlessness preserves my Tokyo citizenship! This transcends passive acceptance—I must check my pulse first."

However, my pulse seemed unchanged.
Was my head feverish?
This didn’t particularly feel like a rush of blood to the head either.
"But I was still worried."

“If I kept comparing myself solely to madmen and tallied up points of similarity,” I thought, “I could never hope to escape the realm of madness.
This method had been flawed.
Such conclusions arose because I used madness as the benchmark and interpreted myself by drawing toward it.
If I took healthy people as the standard and placed myself beside them to consider the matter, perhaps the opposite result might emerge.
In that case, I had to start with what was closest at hand.
First—what about that uncle in the frock coat who came today?
Where should I place my mind... That one also seemed a bit suspicious.
Second—what about Kangetsu?
From morning till night, he did nothing but polish balls, bringing along a lunchbox.
This too was part of the lunatic bunch.
Third... Meitei?
That one regarded fooling around as his divine calling.
He was undoubtedly an active lunatic.
Fourth—Mrs.Kaneda.
That vicious disposition of hers completely defied common sense.
She was a pure, unadulterated lunatic through and through.

Fifth was Mr. Kaneda’s turn.
Though I’d never laid eyes on Mr. Kaneda himself, seeing how he respectfully elevated that wife of his while maintaining a harmony as perfect as zither and lute allowed one to safely judge him an extraordinary man.
Since 'extraordinary' serves as madness’s alias, it seemed fair to classify him among their ilk.
Then came—ah yes, more remained.
The Rakuyoukan "gentlemen"—mere sprouts in age yet splendid champions of manic frenzy capable of reducing an entire generation to futility.
Listing them thus revealed most appeared cut from the same cloth.
Surprisingly, my composure grew.
Perhaps society itself constituted a madmen’s gathering.
Might what we call society be this: lunatics clashing swords while grappling, snarling, cursing and scrabbling—the whole mass persisting like bodily cells, collapsing as groups only to rise and collapse anew?
Among them, those grasping reason and discernment became hindrances—hence asylums were built to cage such nuisances.
Thus ordinary folk filled madhouses while true lunatics rampaged free outside.
Isolated madmen remained branded madmen, yet let them coalesce into influential groups and they transformed into paragons of sanity.
History teemed with examples—great madmen wielding wealth and power to command lesser lunatics in violence, only to be hailed as splendid men.
"I can’t make heads or tails of anything anymore."

The above accurately depicted the mental processes of the master as he pondered deeply under a solitary lamp that night. The lack of clarity in his brain was clearly manifested there as well. Despite sporting a Kaiser-like mustache, he remained such a mediocrity that one could scarcely distinguish him from either a madman or a sane person. Not only that, but even after painstakingly presenting this problem and appealing to his own powers of thought, he ultimately abandoned it without reaching any conclusion. In all matters, he was a man devoid of the mental capacity to think thoroughly. The nebulous nature of his conclusions—as elusive as the smoke that burst from his nostrils at dawn—stood as the sole distinctive feature of his arguments worth remembering.

I am a cat.
Some may wonder how a mere feline could describe my master's innermost thoughts with such precision, but such trifles mean nothing to a cat.
I have mastered mind-reading.
When I acquired this skill matters not—spare me your impertinent queries.
At any rate, I possess it.
While dozing on human laps, I would gently rub my plush fur against their bellies.
This would generate an electric current through which their visceral workings became crystal clear to my mind's eye.
Just recently, as my master petted my head with feigned tenderness, he suddenly conceived the outrageous notion of skinning me for a fur coat—a thought I detected instantly, sending shivers down my spine.
Terrifying business.
Thus did I attain the great honor of reporting my master's nocturnal contemplations to you all.
Yet after reaching "I can't make heads or tails of anything," the man succumbed to thunderous snoring—by dawn, every profound thought had surely evaporated from his skull.
Should he ever reconsider madness hereafter, he must begin anew from first principles.
Whether he'd retrace this path to renewed confusion remains uncertain.
But however many times he rethinks it, through whatever philosophical byways he wanders, his ultimate destination will invariably be that same befuddled state of "making neither heads nor tails."

10

“You, it’s already seven o’clock,” the wife called out through the sliding door.

Whether the master was awake or asleep, he lay facing away and offered no reply.
Not replying was this man’s habit.
When it was absolutely necessary for him to open his mouth, he would say "Hmm."
This "Hmm" didn't come out easily.
When a man becomes so lazy that even replying feels like a nuisance, he acquires a certain charm—yet it is precisely such men who have never been liked by women.
Even his current wife did not seem to hold him in high regard, so one could well imagine how others must feel—and it would hardly be an exaggeration to say as much.
Given that even his own flesh and blood had cast him aside and there was no reason for strangers’ paramours to show him affection, a master who could not even keep his wife’s favor stood no chance of winning the hearts of society’s respectable ladies.
There was no need to unnecessarily expose the master’s lack of popularity with the opposite sex at this juncture, but since he himself clung to the deluded notion that his wife’s dislike stemmed entirely from his advancing years—a fundamental misconception—I merely added this observation out of kindness, hoping it might aid his self-awareness.

Having concluded that since her reminder about the appointed hour went unheeded—since he lay facing away without even a grunt—the fault lay with the husband and not herself, the wife shouldered her broom and duster with an air of "I shan't care if you're late" and departed toward the study.
Soon came the clattering sounds of her usual cleaning routine in the study.
Ultimately, whether cleaning served exercise or amusement concerned me not—being free from such duties, I could have remained indifferent. Yet regarding this wife's cleaning method specifically, I must declare it utterly meaningless.
The meaninglessness stems from her cleaning solely for cleaning's sake.
She’d swipe the duster across sliding doors once and drag the broom halfheartedly over tatami.
This she deemed sufficient to complete the task.
As for causes or consequences of her cleaning, she bore not an ounce of responsibility.
Thus clean areas stayed clean daily, while wherever dust gathered or trash lurked, it remained perpetually accumulating.
There being that old tale of Guso’s ritual lamb, perhaps this empty ritual surpassed total neglect.
Yet even so, it brought the master no particular benefit.
That she persevered daily in this futile labor marked her sole commendable trait.
Though years of habit had mechanically linked wife and cleaning in stubborn association, the actual cleansing proved as ineffective as if born before brooms existed—or as though such tools had never been conceived.
Their relationship resembled terms in a formal logic proposition—bound regardless of content.

Unlike my master, I am naturally an early riser, and by this time had already grown famished.
Given that even the household hadn’t yet gathered for breakfast, there was no reasonable way for one of my feline station to expect an early meal—but such is the wretchedness of cats. The moment I imagined the steaming soup’s savory aroma wafting from those abalone shells, I could no longer keep still.
When clinging to a futile hope while knowing its futility, it would be wiser to simply picture that hope in one’s mind and remain motionless—but such is our nature that we cannot help testing whether desire aligns with reality.
Even matters certain to disappoint when tested—we cannot accept them until personally receiving that final disappointment through experience.
I could bear it no longer and crawled out to the kitchen.
Peering first into the abalone shells lying in the hearth’s shadow, I found them as expected—utterly still, licked clean from last night—while an eerie light from the latticed window shimmered in the early autumn sun.
O-san had already transferred the freshly cooked rice into the tub and was now stirring the pot on the charcoal stove.
Around the pot’s rim, boiled-over rice liquid had dried into countless brittle streaks clinging to its surface, some resembling glued-on Yoshino paper.
Since both rice and soup were ready, I thought they might as well feed me.
Holding back now would be pointless—even if my wishes went unfulfilled, I’d lose nothing by trying. Having resolved to boldly demand breakfast—for even a freeloader feels hunger’s pangs—I let out a meow: part coaxing croon, part plaintive plea, part resentful whine.
O-san paid no heed whatsoever.
Having long known her blockheaded insensitivity to others’ feelings by birthright, precisely this made it a challenge to wail skillfully enough to stir sympathy—a test of my prowess.
This time, I drew out my cry in lingering ululation.
I believed my wailing now carried such tragic resonance that it might rend the heart of any wandering soul at earth’s farthest reaches.
O-san remained utterly unmoved.
This woman might be deaf.
A deaf person couldn’t possibly work as a maid—unless selectively deaf solely to feline voices.
In this world exists color blindness—where men fancy themselves clear-sighted while doctors deem them deficient—so this maid must suffer voice-blindness.
Voice-blindness must surely count as deficiency too.
Crippled thus, she’s insufferably haughty.

Even in the middle of the night, no matter how much I begged her to open up under the pretext of urgent business, she never once complied.
On those rare occasions when she did let me out, she would absolutely refuse to let me back in.
Even summer's night dew proved poisonous.
As for frost—to spend the night standing beneath the eaves awaiting dawn became an agony beyond imagining.
Just the other day when locked out, I'd narrowly escaped stray dogs by scrambling onto a storage shed roof where I trembled till morning.
All these tribulations sprang from O-san's heartlessness.
Though I knew crying to such a creature was futile, hunger makes beggars pray and paupers steal—thus I resolved to try anything.
On my third attempt I crafted an elaborate "nyaa-gow" cry designed to command attention.
I fancied this sound rivaled a Beethoven symphony in beauty, yet O-san remained unmoved.
She suddenly knelt and flipped up a floorboard, extracting a four-inch lump of hard charcoal.
When she struck it against the stove's edge with sharp cracks, the rod shattered into three pieces, blackening the area with dust.
Some particles appeared to drift into the soup.
O-san—never one for such details—
shoved the fragments into the stove's belly from beneath the pot.
Clearly my symphony would go unheard.
Resigned, I slunk toward the family room only to find three girls engaged in chaotic face-washing by the bath.

Now, to say they were washing their faces—the two older ones being kindergarten students, and the third so small she couldn’t even keep up with her sister’s heels—proper face-washing or skillful makeup application was beyond their capabilities.
The youngest was dragging out a soaked rag from the bucket and vigorously rubbing it across her entire face.
Washing one’s face with a rag must have felt rather unpleasant, but this was the child who found earthquakes amusing whenever they struck—such a trifle hardly warranted surprise.
Perhaps she was more enlightened than Mr. Yagi Dokusen himself.

As expected of the eldest daughter—taking her role as elder sister seriously—she clattered down the gargling cup and declared, “Baby, that’s a rag!” before lunging for the cloth.
Baby was too self-assured to readily obey her sister.
“No! Babu!” she retorted, yanking back the rag.
No one knew what meaning this “Babu” held or what roots it sprang from.
The term only surfaced when Baby flew into tantrums.
As sister and child tugged the sodden rag left and right, droplets plopped from its center—mercilessly drenching Baby’s legs. If only her feet were wet she might endure it, but her knees soaked through.
Yet Baby wore a Genroku-patterned kimono.
When I gradually inquired about “Genroku,” they claimed it meant any medium-sized design.
Who could have taught them such nonsense?
“Baby, your Genroku will get soaked. Be good now,” the sister quipped wittily.
This from the same know-it-all who until recently had confused Genroku patterns with sugoroku boards.

Having been reminded of Genroku patterns, I might as well prattle on—these children made an astonishing number of verbal blunders, often spouting errors that bordered on mockery. They’d claim mushrooms came flying during fires instead of embers, declare they were attending “Miso Girls’ School” instead of Ochanomizu, pair Ebisu with kitchenware like mismatched deities, and once even protested, “I’m no straw-shop brat!”—only for us to discover they’d confused “back-alley house” with “straw shop” altogether. My master laughed each time he heard such mistakes, but when he went to school to teach English, he likely subjected his students to errors far more absurd than these with equal solemnity.

Baby—though he himself does not say "Baby."
Baby—though she never calls herself Baby—upon seeing her Genroku-patterned kimono get wet, cried out, "Where’s Genroku cold?"
Since it would be disastrous if the Genroku-patterned kimono got cold, the maid rushed out from the kitchen, took up the rag, and wiped her kimono for her.
Amidst this commotion, the relatively quiet one was the second daughter, Miss Sunko.
Miss Sunko turned away, opened the powder jar that had rolled down from the shelf, and busied herself applying makeup.
First, she rubbed the tip of her nose with the finger she had dipped [into the powder], creating a single vertical white streak that made the location of her nose somewhat discernible.
Next, she turned the coated finger to rub her cheek, resulting in yet another white clump forming there.
Just as her adornments were completed, the maid came in and, after wiping the baby’s kimono, proceeded to wipe Sunko’s face as well.
Sunko appeared slightly dissatisfied.

I watched this scene out of the corner of my eye and made my way from the family living room to the master’s bedroom, where I stealthily peered in to check if he had risen—but his head was nowhere to be seen.
In its place, a single high-arched foot of ten and a half mon protruded from under the quilt.
He must have thought it would be troublesome if his head were out when being woken up, so he had burrowed in like this.
He was a turtle-like fellow.
Just then, the wife, having finished cleaning the study, came in carrying a broom and duster once more.
As before, from the entrance of the sliding door—

“Aren’t you up yet?” she called out, standing there for a while and staring at the quilt from which no head emerged.
Again, there was no response.
The wife took about two steps into the room, thumped the broom, and pressed again: “Are you still in bed? You.”
At this point, the master was already awake.
He had been awake—having barricaded himself completely inside the quilt to prepare for his wife’s assault.
If he just kept his head hidden, she might overlook him—or so he clung to this flimsy hope while remaining buried—but she showed no signs of relenting.
However, since her first call had come from above the threshold with at least six feet between them, he had felt reasonably secure—until the thumped broom suddenly closed that distance to three feet, startling him thoroughly.
Moreover, when her second “Are you still in bed? You” reached him inside the quilt with more than double its predecessor’s force in both proximity and volume, he resigned himself to defeat and gave a small grunt of acknowledgment.

“Aren’t they coming by nine? If you don’t hurry, you’ll be late!”

“You don’t need to keep saying that—I’m getting up now,” came the muffled reply from within the quilt sleeve—a peculiar spectacle indeed. The wife, having been fooled by this ruse countless times—only to have him burrow back under the covers moments later—couldn’t afford leniency. “Come now, get up!” she pressed.

Even though I said I’d get up, being told again grated on my nerves.

To a self-indulgent creature like the master, this proved doubly irritating.

At this juncture, he threw off the quilt that had been shrouding his head all at once.

There lay his large eyes, wide open.

“What’s all this racket? If I say I’ll get up, I’ll get up!”

“You say you’ll get up, but you never do!”

“When have I ever lied about that?”

“You always do!”

“Don’t spout nonsense!”

“Who’s the real fool here?” The wife thumped her broom by the pillow, striking a heroic pose.

At that moment, Hatchi-chan, the child from the rickshaw shop in the back, suddenly let out a loud wail and began to cry.
Hatchi-chan had been ordered by the rickshaw shop’s wife to burst into tears whenever the master started to get angry.
The rickshaw shop’s wife might be making a little pocket money by having Hatchi-chan cry every time the master got angry, but it was Hatchi-chan who bore the real burden.
Once saddled with such a mother, he had no choice but to cry nonstop from morning till night.
Had Master shown even slight awareness of these circumstances and tempered his outbursts, Hatchi-chan’s lifespan might have been prolonged somewhat—but no matter how much Mr.Kaneda may have commissioned her, for her to engage in such folly struck me as surpassing even Tenkō Heikō in zeal.
If crying only when provoked were all required, there might still have been respite—but every time Mr.Kaneda hired local ruffians to bombard our yard with Imado ware shards, Hatchi-chan had to wail regardless of cause or effect.
At this point, it became unclear whether Master was Hatchi-chan or Hatchi-chan was Master.
To strike at Master required no direct effort—a mere sharp word to Hatchi-chan served as neatly as slapping his cheek.
In old Western practice when executing fugitives beyond borders—so I’ve heard—they’d burn effigies in their stead; clearly some tactician among them versed in such lore had devised this stratagem.
Between Rakuyoukan Academy and Hatchi-chan’s mother, my incompetent master faced formidable foes indeed.
He had other adversaries too numerous to count.
Perhaps he considered the entire neighborhood hostile—but since that lies beyond our present scope, I shall introduce them gradually as occasion demands.

Upon hearing Hatchi-chan’s wailing, the master, evidently thrown into a fit of rage first thing in the morning, bolted upright on his futon. At this point, spiritual cultivation and Yagi Dokusen were all for naught. Sitting up, he vigorously scratched his entire head with both hands, hard enough to peel the skin. The dandruff that had accumulated over a month flew unceremoniously onto his neck and the collar of his nightclothes—a magnificent sight to behold. As for his beard, when I looked to see how it fared, each hair stood stiffly on end as if resolved not to remain calm while its owner raged. Every strand threw a tantrum, charging off in random directions with ferocious intensity—quite the spectacle indeed. Just yesterday, before the mirror, they had obediently lined up in imitation of the German Emperor’s majesty, but a single night’s sleep erased all discipline, returning them to their natural wild state. This mirrored how the master’s overnight spiritual cultivation would vanish by morning, his innate wild-boar essence bursting forth anew. That such a rough man with this barbaric beard had kept his teaching post all these years made me finally grasp Japan’s vastness. Only in such expanses could Mr. Kaneda—nay, even Mr. Kaneda’s dog—pass for human beings. So long as those frauds maintained their human facades, it seemed the master felt assured of his own job security. Should doubts arise, one need only send a postcard to Sugamo and consult Mr. Tenkō Heikō—the truth would out immediately.

At this moment, the master squinted his primordial chaotic eyes that had been introduced yesterday and glared fixedly at the cupboard across from him.
This was a cabinet horizontally partitioned at six feet tall with two sliding doors each on its upper and lower halves.
The lower cupboard sat so close to his futon’s edge that when he sat up and opened his eyes, his gaze naturally fell there.
Peering at it revealed patterned paper torn here and there, exposing strange entrails in plain view.
These entrails came in many varieties.
Some were printed by letterpress; others were handwritten.
Some faced backward; others lay upside down.
The moment he saw these entrails, he wanted to read their contents.
It might seem odd that this master—who moments earlier had been furious enough to seize even a rickshaw owner’s wife and grind her face into pine bark—would suddenly take interest in reading scrap paper. Yet such whims are typical of volatile hotheads.
They say a crying child will laugh if given a moon-shaped rice cake—this was much the same.
Long ago when lodging at a temple, he’d lived separated from five or six nuns by just one sliding door.
Nuns being nature’s most spiteful creatures among spiteful women—these nuns apparently saw through his temperament and would bang cooking pots while chanting rhythmically: “The crow that just cried now laughs! The crow that just cried now laughs!” This marked his lifelong hatred of nuns—not that they cared.
He wept and laughed and rejoiced and grieved more intensely than most—yet none lasted long.
To put it kindly: he lacked attachments and his mind shifted wildly. To put it plainly: he was a shallow brat with nothing but stubbornness.
Since he was such a brat after all—having sprung up ready to brawl—it was only natural he’d suddenly switch moods and pore over these cupboard entrails.
First catching his eye was Hirobumi Ito standing on his hands.
Above it read “Meiji 11th Year, September 28th.”
It seemed even Korea’s Resident-General had been chasing official decrees’ coattails since those days.
Wondering what rank Ito held then—he strained to read illegible text and found “Minister of Finance.”
Impressive indeed! However many handstands he did—he remained Finance Minister.

When he glanced slightly to the left, this time the Minister of Finance was lying down taking a nap.
Quite right.
When doing handstands, one needn’t worry about maintaining the pose for long.
At the bottom, on a large wooden board, only the two characters "thou" were visible; he wanted to see what followed, but unfortunately, it wasn’t exposed.
The next line had only the two characters 'quickly' appearing.
He wanted to read this one too, but it was torn off at that point, leaving no clues.
If Master were a detective with the Metropolitan Police Department, he might have torn off even people’s belongings without a second thought.
Detectives are people who haven’t received higher education, so they’ll do anything to present facts.
They’re beyond all remedy.
I wish they would show a bit more restraint.
If they do not show restraint, they should resolve to never allow the facts to be presented.
I hear they even go so far as to frame innocent citizens with fabricated charges and falsehoods.
For those hired by good citizens with their own money to then turn around and incriminate their employers—now that is a splendid form of lunacy.
Next, shifting his gaze to the center, he saw Ōita Prefecture performing a somersault.
If even Hirobumi Ito does handstands, then it’s only natural that Ōita Prefecture would perform somersaults.
Having read this far, the master formed fists with both hands and thrust them high toward the ceiling.
He was preparing to yawn.

This yawn—an exceptionally discordant one akin to a whale’s distant howl—finally subsided, whereupon Master sluggishly changed clothes and trudged off to wash his face in the bathroom.
Having waited impatiently, Wife abruptly threw back the futon, folded the night quilt, and commenced her usual cleaning routine.
Just as her cleaning followed its customary pattern, Master’s face-washing ritual too remained unchanged from its decade-old routine—as fixed as if carved in stone.
True to prior accounts, he persisted in his raucous gargling and spluttering.
After meticulously parting his hair, he slung a Western towel over his shoulder and made his regal entrance to the family parlor, aloofly settling himself beside the oblong brazier.

When one speaks of oblong braziers, dear reader, you might envision keyaki wood’s swirling grain or burnished copper basins—perhaps even imagine coiffed maidens kneeling formally to tap long pipes against black persimmon edges. But Mr. Kushami’s brazier defied such grandeur; crafted from indeterminate materials—keyaki? cherry? paulownia?—its origins baffled amateur eyes through sheer antiquated obscurity.

An oblong brazier’s pride lies in its polished luster, yet this specimen—never acquainted with cleaning rags—sat dull and unremarkable, steeped in gloom.
As for its provenance? Master had no memory of purchasing it.
If asked whether it was gifted? No donor ever came forward.
Pressed about theft? The matter grew curiously vague.

Long ago, when a retired relative died, Master had temporarily minded the estate. Later, establishing his own household while vacating those quarters, he’d absentmindedly brought along this brazier used there—as though it were rightfully his.

Rather unscrupulous? Perhaps. Yet such conduct thrives ubiquitously—consider bankers daily handling others’ wealth until it feels like their own. Officials too: public servants in theory, yet daily wielding delegated power until they fancy it personal property—madly denying citizens any voice.

With such characters overrunning society, we cannot condemn Master alone for thieving tendencies via this brazier affair. If Master’s a thief, then all under heaven bear larcenous hearts.

Stationed beside the long brazier with the dining table positioned before him, the master found himself flanked on three sides by his daughters: the youngest who had just washed her face with a rag, Tonko heading off to her school, and Sunko with her finger still stuck in the face powder jar—all gathered in full force to eat their breakfast.
The master gave a once-over, impartially surveying the faces of these three girls.
Tonko’s face had the outline of a tsuba from a foreign-style iron sword.
Sunko, being the younger sister, still retained traces of her sister’s features and bore about as much resemblance as a Ryukyu lacquer red basin.
As for the baby alone, she stood out uniquely, having been fashioned with an oblong face.
However, if it were vertically long, such examples would not be uncommon in the world—but this child’s was horizontally long.
No matter how fickle fashion might be, a horizontally long face was unlikely to come into vogue.
Even though they were his own children, the master often found himself deeply pondering something.
Even so, they must grow.
Not only did they grow, but their growth accelerated with the vigor of bamboo shoots in a Zen temple transforming into young bamboo.
Whenever the master thought, "They’ve grown bigger again," he felt as if pursuers were closing in from behind, leaving him in a cold sweat.
However vacuous the master might be, he was at least aware that these three young ladies were female.
Being women, he knew they must be married off somehow.
He knew this fact yet also recognized his own lack of skill in arranging marriages.
Thus, even though they were his own children, he remained somewhat at a loss with them.
If they found them burdensome, they shouldn’t have produced them in the first place—but that’s precisely where humanity lay.
When it came to defining humanity, there was nothing else.
To say they were beings who fabricated nonexistent things and tormented themselves—that alone sufficed.

Children are truly remarkable.
Blissfully unaware that their father was at his wit's end, they ate their meal with gusto.
Yet the baby defied all attempts at control.
Though only three years old, the wife had thoughtfully provided appropriately sized chopsticks and bowl—but the baby would have none of it.
She invariably snatched her sister's bowl and commandeered her chopsticks, struggling to wield these oversized implements.
When surveying society, one finds that very disposition germinating here—the pettiest incompetents, devoid of talent, become peculiarly eager to clamber into offices beyond their station.
Since this tendency takes such deep root from infancy, we'd best abandon all hope of curing it through education or moral refinement.

The baby had snatched an oversized bowl and comically long chopsticks from her sister, now reigning over breakfast with tyrannical abandon. Since she insisted on wielding tools far beyond her mastery, her destructive antics grew ever more spectacular. She first gripped both chopsticks by their base and plunged them into the bowl's depths. The vessel stood eighty percent full of rice beneath a moat of miso soup. The instant chopstick met ceramic, the precarious equilibrium collapsed—the bowl lurched thirty degrees sideways. Miso broth cascaded down her front in golden rivulets. Such trifles couldn't deter this tiny despot. She was tyranny incarnate. Now she levered the chopsticks upward with all her might, flinging rice skyward while stretching her mouth rimward to catch the airborne grains. Stray missiles—rice glued by miso sludge—splattered her nose tip, cheeks and chin like shrapnel. Countless more rained across the tatami in chaotic retreat. An utterly nonsensical dining ritual. Let me humbly advise the illustrious Mr. Kaneda and all you wielders of influence: handle others as this infant handles tableware, and precious few morsels will reach your mouths. These grains don't soar through destiny's momentum—they blunder in through disarrayed portals. Pray reconsider your methods. Such conduct ill befits seasoned manipulators of men.

Tonko, having had her chopsticks and bowl commandeered by the baby, had been making do with ones too small for her since earlier—but since they were originally undersized, even when she thought she'd filled her bowl, opening her mouth wide would devour its contents in about three bites.
Thus her hand kept reaching toward the rice pot.
Already on her fourth bowl, this marked her fifth serving.
Tonko lifted the rice pot's lid and hefted the large paddle, staring at it awhile.
She seemed torn between eating or abstaining, but finally resolved herself—judging a section free of scorch marks, she safely heaped a scoop onto the paddle. Yet when she flipped it over and scraped it hard against her bowl, the rice—too much to fit—tumbled out in a clump onto the tatami mats.
Tonko showed no surprise as she began meticulously gathering the spilled grains.
I wondered what she'd do with them—only to watch her dump every last one back into the pot.
It looked rather unsanitary.

Just as the baby attempted her great feat of flinging up the chopsticks, Tonko had finished serving the rice.
After all, being the eldest sister, Tonko could no longer bear the utter disarray of the baby’s face. “Oh Baby, this is terrible! Your face is covered in rice grains!” she exclaimed, immediately setting about cleaning the baby’s face.
First, she removed the ones that had settled on the tip of her nose.
Contrary to my expectation that she would remove and discard them, I was astonished when she immediately put them into her own mouth.
Then she moved on to the cheeks.
There was a sizable cluster here; counting both sides, there must have been about twenty grains in total.
The sister meticulously took one grain at a time and ate it, taking and eating, until she had devoured every last one on her sister’s entire face.
At this moment, Sunko—who until now had been quietly nibbling on pickled radish—suddenly scooped out a crumbled piece of sweet potato from the steaming miso soup and energetically tossed it into her mouth.
As you are all aware, there is nothing that lingers in the mouth quite like piping hot sweet potato in soup.
Even adults, if not careful, feel as if they’ve burned their mouths.
How much more so someone like Sunko, who had little experience with sweet potatoes, would naturally panic.
Sunko cried out and spat the sweet potato in her mouth onto the table.
By some quirk of motion, two or three pieces slid right in front of the baby, coming to rest at just the right distance.
The baby had always loved sweet potatoes.
Since her beloved sweet potatoes had come flying right before her eyes, she immediately threw down her chopsticks, grabbed them with her hands, and devoured them noisily.

The Teacher, who had been witnessing this pitiful spectacle since earlier, said not a word as he devotedly ate his rice and drank his soup, and by this time was already in the midst of using a toothpick.
The Teacher appeared intent on adopting an absolutely laissez-faire policy regarding his daughters' education.
Even when all three became Lady Lobster-Shikibus or Lady Rat-Shikibus and eloped with lovers as if by prior agreement, he would still go on eating his rice and drinking his soup with perfect composure.
It was utterly ineffective.
However, when I observed those who were said to be effective in today's world, they seemed to know nothing beyond lying to entrap others, sneaking around to gouge out horses' eyeballs, bluffing to intimidate people, and setting traps to ensnare them.
Even middle school youths, through mere mimicry, mistakenly believed they must act this way to command respect; they proudly carried out what should rightly have made them blush with shame, all while fancying themselves future gentlemen.
These were not what you called productive members of society.
These were what you called ruffians.
I, being a Japanese cat, did possess a modicum of patriotism.
Every time I saw these so-called productive members of society, I wanted to beat them senseless.
If even one more of these proliferated, the nation would decline by that much.
A school with such students was a disgrace to schools, and a nation with such people was a disgrace to nations.
Despite being a disgrace, I found it hard to fathom how they could idly loaf about in society.
It appeared that Japanese people lacked even the spirit of a cat.
Pathetic.
Compared to such ruffians, one had to say the Teacher was a far superior human being.
It was precisely his lack of backbone that made him superior.
It was precisely his incompetence that made him superior.
It was precisely his lack of brash eloquence that made him superior.

Having thus finished his breakfast through his utterly ineffectual manner of eating, the Master soon donned his Western clothes, boarded a rickshaw, and proceeded to the Nihon-zutsumi Police Station.
When he opened the lattice door and asked the rickshaw driver if he knew a place called Nihon-zutsumi, the driver chuckled.
His insistence on specifying "Nihon-zutsumi near Yoshiwara, where the pleasure quarters are" was somewhat comical.

After the Master had unusually departed via the front gate in a rickshaw, his wife finished her meal as usual and said, “Now off to school with you. You’ll be late.” When she urged them on, the children retorted nonchalantly, “But today’s a holiday,” showing no signs of preparing. “There’s no holiday today! Hurry up!” she scolded, but the eldest sister remained unflappable. “But yesterday our teacher said it was a holiday!” Finding this odd now herself, the wife took out the calendar from the cupboard and checked it repeatedly—there it was clearly marked in red as a holiday. The Master had likely submitted his absence notice to school without realizing it was a holiday. The wife had likely thrown it into the mailbox without knowing either. As for Meitei—whether he truly hadn’t known or had feigned ignorance—that remained somewhat questionable. Startled by this discovery, the wife said, “Well then, everyone play quietly,” and as usual took out her sewing kit to begin working.

For the next thirty minutes, the household remained peaceful, and no particular incident worthy of becoming my material occurred—but then, suddenly, a peculiar visitor arrived.

She was a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old schoolgirl.
Wearing shoes with curved heels, dragging a purple hakama, her hair puffed out like abacus beads, she came up through the kitchen entrance without asking to be shown in. This was the Master’s niece.
She was apparently a school student named Yukie—a lovely name—who would occasionally come over on Sundays, often quarreling with her uncle before leaving.
However, her face did not live up to her name—features you’d encounter if you simply stepped outside and walked a block or two.

"Good day, Auntie," she said, striding into the family dining room to plop herself down beside the sewing box.

"Oh my, you're here early—"

"Since today's a major festival day, I thought I'd come first thing in the morning—left home around eight-thirty and hurried right over."

"Oh? Do you have business here?"

"No, I just came by since it's been ages since my last visit."

"No need to make it brief—do stay and take your time. Uncle should be back soon."

“Uncle has already gone out somewhere?”
“How unusual!”

“Well today, he went somewhere strange... To the police station. Isn’t that odd?”

“Oh, why?”

“They say they caught the thief who broke in this spring.”

“So they’re making him testify? What a nuisance!”

“Oh, it’s nothing—we’ll get our things back. A policeman came specially yesterday to tell us to come collect the stolen items.”

“Oh! That explains why Uncle went out so early. He’d normally still be sleeping at this hour!”

“There’s no one as much of a late sleeper as Uncle... And when you wake him, he just fumes with anger. Just this morning, he insisted on being woken by seven without fail, so I did wake him up. Then he burrowed into the bedding and didn’t even respond! Worried, I tried waking him again, and he muttered something from under his nightwear’s sleeve. It’s truly beyond exasperating.”

“Why is he so sleepy?”
“It must be neurasthenia.”

“What do you mean?”

“He really does fly into such senseless rages.”
“And yet he manages to keep his job at school?”

“Oh, but they say he’s perfectly well-behaved there.”

“Then that’s even worse!”
“He’s just like the Konnyaku Enma, isn’t he?”

“Why?”

“Because he just is—a konnyaku Yama!”
“Because he’s exactly like a konnyaku Yama!”

“It’s not just that he gets angry, you know.”
“If someone says right, he says left; if they say left, he says right—he’s never once done as others tell him. That’s sheer stubbornness.”

“He’s being an Ama no Sagume, isn’t he?”
“Uncle treats that as his favorite pastime.”
“So if you want to get someone to do something, just say the opposite—then they’ll do exactly what you want.”
“Just the other day, when I had him buy me a Western-style umbrella, I kept saying ‘I don’t need it, I don’t need it’ on purpose—and then he went, ‘There’s no way you don’t need it!’ and bought it for me right away.”

“Hohohoho, that’s clever,” she laughed. “I’ll start doing that too from now on.”

“You should do it. Otherwise, you’re just losing out.”

“The other day, an insurance agent came insisting he enroll—he lectured for a full hour about this benefit and that benefit—but he absolutely refuses to join. We’ve no savings with three children to feed—if he’d just get insured, I’d feel secure—but he pays such matters no mind at all.”

“Yes, if something were to happen, it would be worrying, wouldn’t it?” remarked the Teacher’s Wife, uttering something domestic and unbecoming of a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl.

“Listening to that negotiation from behind the scenes was truly amusing! He doesn’t exactly deny the necessity of insurance—after all, that’s why such companies exist in the first place. But he stubbornly insists there’s no need to enroll as long as he doesn’t die!”

“Uncle said that?”

“Yes! Then the company man said, ‘Of course you don’t need insurance if you don’t die. But human life may seem sturdy yet proves fragile—you never know when danger might creep up unnoticed.’ To which Uncle retorted, ‘Rest assured, I’ve resolved not to die.’ Can you believe such outrageousness?”

“Even if he’s resolved not to, he’ll still die.”
“I was determined to pass no matter what too, but I ended up failing.”

“The insurance agent said the same thing.”
“Lifespan isn’t something you can decide for yourself.”
“If people could live long just by being determined, nobody would ever die.”

“The insurance company’s position makes perfect sense.”

“It certainly should.”
“Why can’t he understand that?”
“No—he absolutely will not die.”
“He just keeps boasting, ‘I swear I won’t die!’”

"How strange."

"It certainly is strange—utterly preposterous! He keeps insisting that saving money in the bank would be far better than wasting it on insurance premiums."

"Does he actually have savings?"

"Savings? There’s nothing there! He doesn’t care one whit about what happens after he dies."

"It’s truly worrying. Why must he be like this? Even among all our acquaintances, there’s nobody else like Uncle."

"Are there any? He’s utterly unique!"
"He’s absolutely without equal!"

"Why not ask someone like Mr. Suzuki for his opinion? With someone as calm as him, things would go much smoother."

"Yet Mr. Suzuki has a poor reputation in this household."

"Everyone’s so contrary here. Then that other one would be better—you know, the composed one—"

“Mr.Yagi?”

“Yes.”

“But we’ve been rather at our wits’ end with Mr.Yagi—since Mr.Meitei came yesterday and spoke ill of him, it might not work as well as we thought.”

“But isn’t that fine? If he remains as composed and magnanimous as that—the other day at school, he gave a speech.”

“Mr. Yagi?”

“Yes.”

“Is Mr. Yagi a teacher at your school, Miss Yukie?”

“No, he isn’t a teacher—we invited him to speak at the Shukutoku Women’s Association meeting.”

“Was it interesting?”

“Well… not particularly.”
“But you see, Mr. Yagi has such an elongated face,”
“and with that grand beard resembling Tenjin’s, everyone listened in rapt attention despite themselves.”

“What sort of speech was it?” the Teacher’s Wife began to ask—but just then, hearing Yukie’s voice from the veranda, three children came clattering into the family room. They must have been playing in the vacant lot beyond the bamboo fence until now.

“Oh! Miss Yukie has come!” exclaimed the two older sisters joyfully in loud voices.
“Don’t make such noise—all of you settle down quietly and sit properly! Miss Yukie will now tell an interesting story,” said the Teacher’s Wife as she cleared her workspace toward the corner.

“Miss Yukie, what story is it? I love stories!” said Tonko. “Is it the Kachi-Kachi Mountain story again?” asked Sunko.
“Baba wants to tell a story too!” declared the youngest daughter, thrusting her knees forward between her two sisters.
However, this did not mean she wanted to hear a story—it meant Baba intended to tell one herself.
“Oh, Baba’s story again,” laughed the older sisters, to which the Teacher’s Wife said, “Baba, you can go later. After Miss Yukie finishes her story,” trying to appease her.
“After Miss Yukie finishes her story,” the Teacher’s Wife repeated, attempting to placate her.

Baby showed no sign of listening.
“No-o-o, Ba-bu!” she shouted loudly.
“All right, all right, you can go first, Baby-chan.”
“What will it be?” Miss Yukie asked modestly.

“So...
“Bōtan, Bōtan, where are you going?”

“How amusing.”
“And then?”

“I’m going to the rice field to harvest rice.”

“Yes, you know it well.”

“If you come here now, you’ll be in the way.”

“Oh, it’s not ‘kūto’—it’s ‘kuruto,’ you know,” Tonko interjected.
Baby barked “Ba-bu!” as ever and promptly exasperated her sister.
However, having been interrupted mid-story, she forgot how to continue and couldn’t produce what came next.
“Is that all there is?” Yukie asked.

“So... No farting later! Pfft, pfft-pfft!”

“Ohoho, how naughty! Who taught you that?”

“From O-san.”

“That naughty O-san,” the Teacher’s Wife said with a wry smile. “Now it’s Yukie’s turn. The baby will listen quietly.” Even the little tyrant seemed persuaded, falling silent for now.

“Mr. Yagi’s speech went like this,” Yukie began at last.
“Long ago, at a crossroads’ very center stood a large stone Jizo statue—or so the story goes.
But since this happened to lie along a bustling route for horses and carts, it became such a nuisance that they couldn’t bear it. So the townsfolk gathered in numbers to discuss how they might move this stone Jizo statue to some corner—or so the story goes.”

“Is that a true story?”

“Now please don’t ask about such things—so when they all discussed it thoroughly, the strongest man in the neighborhood declared, ‘No trouble at all—I’ll clear it away myself,’ went alone to that crossroads, bared both shoulders and strained until sweat poured down—but try as he might, it wouldn’t budge—or so they say.”

“That stone Jizo must’ve been terribly heavy.”

“Yes, so when that man got exhausted and went home to sleep, the townspeople held another meeting.”
“Then this time, the smartest man in town said, ‘Leave it to me—I’ll show you how it’s done!’ He filled a tiered food box to the brim with rice cakes, came before the Jizo statue, and called out ‘Come here!’ while flaunting the treats. He figured even a Jizo would be tempted by such appetite, but it didn’t budge an inch—or so they say.”
“The clever man thought this wouldn’t do,”
“This time, he filled a gourd with sake, hung it from one hand, held a sake cup in the other, and came before Jizo again. ‘Well now, don’t you want a drink? If you do, come here,’ he teased for about three hours—but it still wouldn’t budge—or so they say.”

When Tonko asked, “Miss Yukie, doesn’t Jizo-sama ever get hungry?” Sunko said, “I want to eat rice cakes.”

“Since the clever man had failed twice, next he made a bunch of counterfeit bills and went, ‘Here, you want these? If you do, come and get them,’ waving the bills back and forth—but this too proved utterly useless, or so they say.”
“That Jizo-sama was really stubborn, you know.”

“Hmm, true.”
“He’s a bit like Uncle, you know.”

“Yes, he’s just like Uncle. In the end, even the clever man lost patience and quit, they say.”
“So then after that came a big braggart who declared, ‘I’ll clear it away for sure—rest assured!’ taking on the task like it was nothing at all.”

“What did that braggart do?”

“That’s the funny part. First he put on a policeman’s uniform, stuck on a fake mustache, went up to Jizo-sama and blustered: ‘Hey now! If you don’t move, it’ll go badly for you! The police won’t stand for this!’—or so they say.”
“In this day and age, nobody’s fooled by a fake police voice!”

“Really now—so did Jizo-sama move?”

“Would it move? We’re talking about Uncle here.”

“But Uncle’s absolutely terrified of the police, you know.”

“Oh really? He made such a face?”
“Then there’s nothing so frightening about it, is there?”
“But they say Jizo-sama didn’t budge an inch—just stayed perfectly calm.”
“So the braggart flew into a rage, stripped off the policeman’s uniform, tossed the fake mustache into the wastepaper basket, and this time came out dressed like some wealthy magnate.”
“In modern terms, they say he put on a face like Baron Iwasaki.”
“How ridiculous.”

“What’s a ‘Baron Iwasaki-like face’?”

“He just puts on airs,”
“and then walks around Jizo without doing or saying anything, puffing away at a big cigar—or so they say.”

“What’s that supposed to do?”

“He’s trying to smoke out Jizo-sama.”

“Just like a rakugoka’s pun.”
“Did he manage to smoke it out?”

“No use—it’s stone through and through. He should’ve quit while ahead, but then he came disguised as His Highness. How idiotic.”

“Huh? They had ‘His Highness’ back then?”

“They must have.
“Mr.Yagi said so.”
“He truly did impersonate His Highness—the audacity! For a mere braggart to mimic royalty—isn’t that sheer disrespect?”

“Which His Highness?”

“Which His Highness? It’s disrespectful no matter which His Highness!”

“Hmm, true.”

“Even using His Highness wouldn’t work, I suppose.”
“The braggart had run out of tricks to spin, so he surrendered, saying, ‘With my own methods, there’s simply no way to deal with that Jizo statue.’”

“Serves them right!”

“Yes, they should just ship him off to hard labor while they’re at it.”
“But the townspeople were so worked up that they held another meeting, though with no one left willing to take charge, they were truly stumped, they say.”

“So that’s the end of it?”

“There’s more. In the end, they hired a crowd of rickshaw pullers and ruffians to go making a ruckus around Jizo-sama day and night in shifts. They said all they needed was to torment him until he couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“My, what a laborious task.”

“They still didn’t pay any attention, they say.”
“Jizo-sama is quite stubborn too, isn’t he?”

“And then what happened?” Tonko asked eagerly.

“Then, no matter how much they made a racket day after day, since no results were showing, everyone was getting fed up—but the rickshaw pullers and ruffians were happy to keep making a racket for as many days as it took, since they got their daily wages, they say.”

“Yukie, what’s ‘daily wages’?” Sunko asked.

“Daily wages means money.”

“What do they do with the money they get?”

“They receive the money… Hohoho, you’re such a naughty Sunko-chan!”
“So Aunt, they’ve been making a racket day and night, you see.”
“At that time, there was a fool in town called Bakatake—someone who knew nothing and was ignored by everyone—or so they say.”
“When that fool saw this commotion, he said, ‘Why are you people making such a racket? Can’t you move a single Jizo-sama statue even if it takes years? How pitiful!’—or so they say.”

“For a fool, he’s quite something.”

“He’s quite an impressive fool. When everyone listened to Bakatake and thought, ‘Nothing ventured—even if it’s hopeless, let’s have him try,’ they asked him. He accepted without hesitation. But instead of all that racket, he told them to keep quiet, gathered the rickshaw pullers and ruffians, and strolled up to Jizo-sama like it was nothing.”

“Miss Yukie, are you acting all breezy like Bakatake’s friend?” Tonko blurted out this absurd question at the crucial moment, making the wife and Miss Yukie burst into laughter.

“No, I’m not friends with him.”

“Then what are you?”

“What ‘calmly’ means is… there’s no way to describe it.”

“So ‘calmly’ means there’s no way to describe it?”

“That’s not it—what ‘calmly’ means is—”

“Yeah.”

“You know Mr. Tataro Sampel, right?”

“Yeah, he gave us mountain yams.”

“He’s the kind of person who acts all composed like Mr. Tataro.”

“Is Mr. Tataro really that composed?”

“Well, more or less.—So Bakatake came before Jizo-sama, folded his arms, and said, ‘Jizo-sama, the townspeople want you to move, so get moving.’ And then Jizo-sama immediately went, ‘Oh? If that’s the case, they should’ve said so sooner,’ and plodded off—or so they say.”

“What a strange Jizo-sama.”

“Then came the lecture.”

“Is there more?”

“Yes—Mr. Yagi continued: ‘Though today’s meeting is for ladies, I’ve shared this story with particular intent. Forgive my bluntness, but women tend to avoid direct approaches, instead taking needlessly roundabout methods.’”
“‘Of course, this isn’t exclusive to women.’”
“‘In our Meiji era, even men—corrupted by civilization’s excesses—have grown somewhat effeminate. Many now waste effort on misguided paths, believing themselves to uphold gentlemanly principles. These are but畸形児—malformed children shackled by enlightenment.’”
“‘Enough of that.’”
“‘Ladies, remember this old tale. When crucial moments arise, handle matters with Bakatake’s simple honesty.’”
“‘Become Bakatake yourselves, and one-third of marital strife—those wretched clashes between wives and mothers-in-law—shall surely vanish.’”
“‘Human schemes beget misfortune through their own venom. That women suffer more than men? Entirely due to their surplus of schemes!’”
“‘Please—become Bakatake.’ That was his lecture’s conclusion.”

“Oh, so Miss Yukie intends to become Bakatake now?”

“No way! Being called Bakatake like that? I don’t want to become something like that. Miss Tomiko Kaneda got really angry too—she said it was downright rude.”

“Miss Tomiko Kaneda—you mean the one from that cross-street over there?”

“Yes, that high-collar lady.”

“Does she go to your school too, Miss Yukie?”

“No, she just came to listen because it was a women’s association meeting.”
“She’s really high-collar, isn’t she?”
“I’m just so shocked!”

“But they say she’s supposed to be quite beautiful, don’t they?”

“She’s average.”
“Not nearly as impressive as she claims.”
“Anyone would look decent with that much makeup.”

“Then Miss Yukie, if you used makeup like hers, you’d be twice as pretty as Miss Kaneda!”

“Oh hush!”
“Enough already!”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“But she truly overdoes it.”
“What good is all that money—”

“Even overdone, isn’t money better than none?”

“That may be true—but she’s the one who ought to become a bit more like Bakatake.”
“She acts so arrogantly for no reason, you know.”
“Just the other day, she’s been bragging to everyone about how a certain poet presented her with a new-style poetry collection.”

“It’s Mr. Tōfū, isn’t it?”

“Oh, so he’s the one who presented it? How utterly eccentric.”

“But Mr. Tōfū is very sincere.”
“He himself even considers doing such things perfectly natural.”

“It’s because such people exist that things go wrong.—And there’s another amusing story.”
“The other day, someone sent a love letter to that lady’s place.”

“Oh, how vulgar.
Who would do such a thing?”

“They say they don’t know who it was.”

“Was there no name?”

“The name is properly written, but it’s someone they’ve never heard of—and then there’s this letter stretching as long as a room.”
“There are all sorts of strange things written in it, they say.”
“‘That I am in love with you is akin to how a religious devotee yearns for their god; that for your sake I would become a lamb to be slaughtered upon an altar as my supreme honor; that my heart’s shape is triangular, with Cupid’s arrow standing at its center—if this were a blowgun, it would strike true……’”

“Is that serious?”

“They say it’s serious.”
“Actually, three of my friends have seen that letter themselves!”

“How vulgar, flaunting something like that.”
“Since she intends to marry into Mr. Kangetsu’s family, it would be quite troublesome if society found out, don’t you think?”

“Troubled? She’s positively thrilled.”
“We really ought to tell Mr. Kangetsu when he next visits.”
“He probably has no idea at all, does he?”

“What do you think? Since he’s off at school polishing balls all day, he probably has no idea.”

“Do you think Mr.Kangetsu truly intends to marry into that family?”
“How pitiable.”

“Why? Having money and being able to help in times of need—isn’t that a good thing?”

“Auntie, you’re always going on about money, money—how vulgar.”
“Isn’t love more important than money?”
“Without love, a marital relationship can’t exist.”

"Well then, Miss Yukie, what sort of place will you be marrying into?"

"How should I know? There's nothing like that going on anyway."

As Miss Yukie and her aunt were vigorously debating marriage matters, Tonko—who had been listening attentively despite her limited understanding—suddenly spoke up. "I want to get married too," she declared.

Even Miss Yukie, brimming with youthful spirit and expected to sympathize with such bold aspirations, found herself momentarily stunned by this outburst. Her aunt, however, remained comparatively composed and asked with a laugh, "Where do you want to go?"

“You know, I really do want to marry into Shōkonsha, but I hate crossing Suidobashi Bridge, so I’m trying to figure out what to do.”

When the Teacher’s Wife and Yukie, having received this brilliant answer and lacking the courage to press further, collapsed in uproarious laughter, the second daughter, Sunko, turned to her older sister and broached a consultation of her own.

“Big Sister, do you like Shōkonsha too?”
“I really like it too.”
“Let’s go get married into Shōkonsha together. Okay?”
“No?”
“If you don’t like it, fine.”
“I’ll just get in a carriage by myself and go off quick!”

“Baby’s coming too?” With this, even Baby ended up set to go off to Shōkonsha as a bride.

If all three could get married off to Shōkonsha together, the master would surely be relieved.

Just then came the clattering sound of a carriage stopping at the gate, immediately followed by a boisterous voice calling out, “Welcome home!”
The master appeared to have returned from Nihonzu Police Station.
The rickshaw driver handed over a large bundle wrapped in a furoshiki to the maid, and the master calmly entered the family living room.
“Ah, you’re here,” he greeted Miss Yukie while plopping down the tokkuri-like vessel he’d been carrying beside the renowned long hibachi.
This “tokkuri-like vessel” was neither a proper sake flask nor a flower vase—merely an odd ceramic object temporarily described as such for lack of better terms.

“What a strange flask. Did you get that from the police?” Yukie asked her uncle while righting the fallen object.
Uncle looked at Yukie and boasted, “How about that? Quite dashing, eh?”

“Dashing?”
“That’s…”
“Not particularly impressive, is it?”
“Why would you bring an oil jar?”

“An oil jar? What philistine nonsense!”
“That’s precisely why I’m vexed—your utter lack of refinement.”

“Then what *is* it?”

“Flower vase!”

“For a flower vase, the mouth’s too small and the body’s absurdly swollen.”

“That’s precisely what makes it interesting. You’re just as uncultured. Exactly like your aunt—no difference to speak of.” He muttered “What a nuisance,” picking up the oil jar and turning it toward the shoji screen to examine it.

“I suppose I am uncultured.”
“I couldn’t possibly do something like getting an oil jar from the police.”
“Auntie,”
The Teacher’s Wife was in no position to respond; untying the furoshiki bundle with wide eyes, she examined the stolen items.
“My goodness!”
“Thieves have evolved these days.”
“They’ve all been untied and laundered.”
“Hey, you there!”

“Who in their right mind would get an oil jar from the police?”
“I dug this up while strolling around there because waiting grew tedious.”
“Someone like you wouldn’t understand—it’s still a rare piece.”

“It’s *too* much of a rarity.”
“Just where on earth did you go walking, Uncle?”

“Where? The Nihonzu area, I tell you.”
“I even went into Yoshiwara.”
“It’s quite a lively place.”
“Have you ever seen that iron gate?”
“You haven’t, have you?”

“Who in their right mind would go see that?”
“I’ve no business going to a place like Yoshiwara where there are women of ill repute.”
“Uncle, for someone in your position as a teacher, I can’t believe you actually went to such a place.”
“I’m truly appalled.”
“Auntie! Auntie!”

“Yes, exactly.”
“It seems the number of items is insufficient.”
“Does this mean everything’s been returned?”

"The only thing not returned was the mountain yam. They tell me to appear at nine but make me wait until eleven—since when does that count as proper procedure? This is exactly why Japanese police are useless."

“If he’s going to say Japanese police are useless, then he’s got no business strolling around Yoshiwara either.”
“If that gets out, he’ll be dismissed.”
“Auntie,”

“Yes, he will be.”
“Dear, one side of my obi is missing.”
“I thought something was missing, and sure enough—”

“Just resign yourself to losing one side of your obi.”
“I was made to wait three hours and ended up wasting half a day of precious time,” he said, now changed into Japanese clothes, leaning casually against the hibachi as he gazed at the oil jar.
The Teacher’s Wife also resigned herself to the situation and stored the returned items in the cupboard before returning to her seat.

“Auntie, he says this oil jar is some rare treasure.”
“But it’s filthy.”

“Did you buy that in Yoshiwara?”
“Goodness!”

“What’s with the ‘goodness’? You don’t even get it.”
“Pretending you understand when you don’t.”

“You could find jars like that anywhere without going to Yoshiwara.”

“There’s nothing else like it.”
“You won’t come across this sort of thing easily.”

“Uncle, you’re such a stone Jizo statue.”

“Still mouthing off like a child.”
“Modern schoolgirls have become insufferably sharp-tongued.”
“You ought to read Greater Learning for Women.”

“Uncle, you hate insurance, don’t you?”
“Which do you hate more—schoolgirls or insurance?”

“I don’t dislike insurance.”
“It’s a necessity.”
“Anyone with any consideration for the future would enroll.”
“Schoolgirls are useless appendages.”

“Even if they’re useless appendages, that’s perfectly fine.”
“Even though you haven’t even joined insurance,”

“I intend to join starting next month.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“Oh, stop it with the insurance already! Instead of that, you’d be better off buying something with that set-aside money. Auntie!”

Auntie smirked.
The Teacher became serious

“You talk so carelessly because you think you’ll live a hundred or two hundred years, but develop just a bit more rationality and you’ll naturally come to feel insurance’s necessity.”
“I’m definitely joining starting next month.”

“Well then, there’s nothing to be done.”
“But if there’s money to buy things like that Western-style umbrella you forced on me the other day, maybe joining insurance would be better after all.”
“You made me take it even though I kept saying I didn’t need it, don’t need it!”

“Didn’t you need it that much?”

“Yes—I don’t want any Western-style umbrella!”

“Then return it. Since Tonko wants one anyway, I’ll pass it along to her. Did you bring it today?”

“Oh, that’s outrageous! How cruel—you went through the trouble of buying it only to demand it back?”

“You said you don’t need it, so return it. There’s nothing cruel about that.”

“I may not need it, but demanding it back is cruel!”

“What nonsense you’re talking.”
“You said you don’t need it, so I’m telling you to return it—where’s the cruelty in that?”

“But...”
“But... what’s the matter?”
“But that’s just cruel!”
“How foolish—you’re just repeating yourself.”
“Uncle, aren’t you just repeating the same things over and over?”

“You’re repeating yourself—there’s no helping it.”
“You did say you didn’t need it, didn’t you?”

“I said that much.”
“I don’t need it—but I won’t return it either.”

“Well, I never! There’s no helping it with someone so unreasonable and stubborn. Don’t they teach logic at your school?”

“Fine then! Since I’m uneducated anyway, say whatever you like. Demanding someone return something like that—even strangers wouldn’t say such a heartless thing. Why don’t you try acting a bit more like those honest villagers?”

“What am I supposed to imitate?”

“I’m saying you should be a bit more honest and straightforward.”

“You’re a fool, yet you’re so stubborn. That’s why you flunked.”

“Even if I did flunk, you wouldn’t pay my tuition anyway!”

Yukie, having reached this point in the exchange as though unable to contain her emotions, let a stream of tears fall onto her purple hakama trousers.
The Teacher stared vacantly at the hakama and Yukie’s downcast face, as though analyzing what psychological mechanism had produced those tears.

Just then, O-san appeared from the kitchen, placing her red hands neatly on the threshold. “A guest has arrived,” she announced.
“Who is it?” asked the Teacher. “A student from the school,” replied O-san, glancing sideways at Yukie’s tearful face.

The Teacher went out to the parlor.
I too—both for seed-gathering and human research—stealthily followed my master and slipped around to the veranda.
When studying humans, unless you choose a time of some upheaval, you’ll never get any results.
In ordinary times, most people remain thoroughly average, so their words and deeds prove too mundane to merit attention.

However, when push comes to shove, this mundanity suddenly swells up under some divine and mysterious influence, giving rise to strange, odd, peculiar, and altogether bizarre phenomena—in a word, incidents that would prove most instructive to us cats—appearing everywhere like a sudden gust of wind. Miss Yukie’s crimson tears were indeed one such phenomenon. Even Yukie, who possessed such an unfathomable and inscrutable mind, had seemed unremarkable while conversing with the wife; yet no sooner had the master returned and flung aside his oil jar than she—like reviving a dead dragon by dousing it with a steam pump—suddenly and unreservedly unleashed those profound, unknowable, cunning, exquisite, strange, divine, and beautiful qualities that lay hidden within her. And this beauty is a quality shared by all women under heaven. The only pity is that it does not readily reveal itself. No—it manifests ceaselessly, round the clock; however, it does not emerge so strikingly, so blazingly clear and without restraint. Fortunately, there existed an eccentric with a cowlick like my master—one who would pet my fur backward at the slightest provocation—and thanks to his peculiarities, I was able to witness such a performance. If I just followed my master’s heels, no matter where we went, life’s stage actors would surely spring into action unbeknownst to me. Having such an amusing man as my master, even within my short cat’s life, I could gain considerable experience. What fortune! Who could this guest be?

Upon looking, he appeared to be seventeen or eighteen—a student who’d been chasing and being chased by Miss Yukie. His large head was closely cropped to the point where his scalp showed through, with a dumpling-like nose planted firmly in the center of his face, and he sat reservedly in a corner of the room. He had no particular distinguishing features, save for his remarkably large skull. Even when shorn like a monk’s, it looked that large—so if he grew it out long like the Master’s, it would surely attract attention. It had long been the Master’s firm conviction that those with precisely this sort of face were invariably poor scholars. The fact might indeed be so, but at a glance, he resembled Napoleon and presented a rather imposing figure. The student’s kimono was like those typically worn by students—whether it was Satsuma kasuri, Kurume gasuri, or Iyo kasuri was unclear—but in any case, he wore a short-sleeved lined kimono called kasuri, seemingly without an undershirt or underrobe beneath. They said unlined kimonos and bare feet were stylish, but this man gave a decidedly slovenly impression. The three clear imprints of what could only be a thief’s thick thumb on the tatami were undoubtedly the fault of his bare feet. He sat properly on the fourth footprint, looking thoroughly cramped and stiff with formality. When someone who ought to be reserved sat quietly and properly, there was nothing particularly concerning about that—but seeing a rough fellow with a chestnut-burr head and close-cropped hair acting all timid created an unmistakable sense of disharmony. Such a bunch who even prided themselves on not bowing when passing their teacher must have found it excruciating to sit properly for even thirty minutes. Yet here he was, posturing as though born a virtuous gentleman and revered elder—so while he himself was clearly suffering, from an outsider’s perspective, it looked utterly absurd. When I considered how those who were so boisterous in classrooms or playgrounds could be capable of such self-restraint, it was both pitiful and comical. When faced with them one by one like this, even my master—foolish though he might be—seemed to carry some weight with his students. The master must surely have been feeling triumphant. As they said, dust accumulated to form a mountain; thus, even a single insignificant student, when many gathered together, might become a formidable group that could not be underestimated, carrying out exclusion movements or strikes. This was precisely the phenomenon where a timid person drank alcohol and became bold. To rely on the crowd and stir up a commotion could be recognized as having lost one’s sanity after becoming intoxicated by others’ energy—there should be no objection to this view.

There was no way he could look down on him.

While pushing the zabuton toward him, the Teacher said, “Here, take a seat,” but Chestnut-burr Head remained rigid and only replied, “Uh-huh,” without moving.
Behind the sarasa-patterned zabuton—its fabric fraying at the edge near his nose, seated without so much as a “Please sit here”—the living, oversized head had meekly settled itself, creating an absurd sight.
A zabuton exists to be sat upon; it is not something the wife procured from a factory for staring at.
If a zabuton isn’t sat upon, its very honor is defiled, and even the Teacher who offered it loses some face.
Chestnut-burr Head’s refusal to sit—even at the cost of his teacher’s dignity—stemmed not from any aversion to the zabuton itself.
To tell the truth, aside from his grandfather’s memorial service, he’d rarely sat formally since birth. From the start, his legs had gone numb, their tips now protesting their plight.
Yet still he did not sit.
Though the zabuton lay idle, he did not sit.
Though urged by his teacher’s “Here, take a seat,” he did not sit.
What a troublesome Chestnut-burr Head!
If he’d show such restraint here, why not exercise it in crowds? At school? At his boarding house?
Hesitating where he shouldn’t, refusing humility when required—no, rather committing outright mischief.
What a nasty Chestnut-burr Head he was.

Just then, the sliding door behind opened with a smooth whoosh, and Yukie respectfully served a bowl of tea to Chestnut-burr Head.
Under normal circumstances, he would have jeered something like "Look who's playing servant!"—but already overwhelmed merely by facing the Teacher alone, and now with a young woman of marriageable age thrusting a tea bowl at him using the freshly learned Ogasawara-school etiquette with an air of practiced elegance, Chestnut-burr Head appeared to be in profound agony.
Miss Yukie smirked from behind as she closed the sliding door.
When you thought about it, even women of the same age could be quite formidable.
Compared to Chestnut-burr Head, she had far steadier nerves.
Especially since she had just shed a crimson tear of frustration moments before, this smirk stood out all the more.

After Miss Yukie withdrew, both parties remained silent and endured the discomfort for a while; but when the Teacher realized this was becoming as tedious as performing a Buddhist rite, he finally opened his mouth.

“What was it you said your name was?”

“Korai…”

“Korai? Korai something... Your given name?”

“Korai Buemon.”

“Korai Buemon—I see, that’s quite a long name.”
“It’s not my current name—it’s an old one.”
“You were a fourth-year student, right?”

“No.”

“Third-year?”

“No, I’m a second-year student.”

“Class A?”

“Class B.”

“If it’s Class B, then I’m your supervisor.”
“I see…” muttered the Master thoughtfully.
The truth was, this large-headed student had caught the Master’s eye from the very moment he enrolled—he was far from forgotten.
Not only that—it was a head so striking it even appeared in his dreams from time to time.
Yet the carefree Master had failed to connect this head with its old-fashioned name, much less link them both to Class B of the second year.
Thus, upon learning that this dream-haunting head belonged to a student under his supervision, he couldn’t help but inwardly clap in realization.
Still, he couldn’t begin to fathom why this student—with his oversized head, antiquated name, and status as one of his charges—had come calling now.
Given the Master’s inherent unpopularity, students rarely visited his home, whether at New Year’s or year’s end.
Korai Buemon-kun marked such an unprecedented guest that he might well be called the inaugural visitor of his kind—yet the Master seemed utterly confounded by his purpose.
It was unthinkable he’d come merely to socialize with such dreary company; had it been a demand for resignation, he’d have carried himself more boldly; nor did someone like Buemon-kun seem likely to seek personal counsel. However the Master twisted it, nothing made sense.
Judging by Buemon-kun’s demeanor, even he himself might not fully grasp why he’d come here.
With no alternative, the Master finally posed the question outright.

“Did you come here just to visit?”
“That’s not why.”
“Then it’s about something?”
“Yes.”

“Is it about school?”

“Yes, I wanted to discuss something a bit...”

“Hmm.”
“What’s it about?”
“Well, out with it,” said the Teacher, whereupon Chestnut-burr Head merely looked down and said nothing.
By nature, Chestnut-burr Head was rather eloquent for a second-year middle school student—though his brainpower had not developed in proportion to his large head—being in fact the most prominent chatterbox within Class B.
As a matter of fact, it was none other than this Buemon-kun who recently demanded to be taught the Japanese translation of “Columbus,” greatly troubling the Master.
That this normally eloquent student had been fidgeting like a stuttering princess from the start must have meant there was some underlying reason for his behavior.
It could not possibly be taken as mere reserve.
The Master also felt somewhat suspicious.

“If you have something to say, just spit it out already!”

“It’s a bit difficult to talk about...”

“Hard to talk about?” said the Master while looking at Buemon-kun’s face, but since the boy remained stubbornly bowed, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. With no other choice, he softened his tone slightly and said, “It’s fine. Just say whatever it is.”

“No one else is listening.”

“And I won’t tell anyone else,” he added calmly.

“Is it all right if I speak?” Buemon-kun still hesitated.

“It’s fine,” declared the Master, making a self-centered judgment.

“Well, I’ll tell you…” he began, abruptly lifting his chestnut-burr head and squinting slightly at the Master.
Those eyes were triangular.
The Master puffed out his cheeks, blowing out Asahi smoke as he turned slightly aside.

“Well, you see… I’ve gotten into a bit of trouble…”

“What kind?”

“What do you mean ‘what’? I came because it’s a really serious problem.”

“So, what’s the trouble?”

“I never meant to do such a thing, but Hamada kept badgering me to lend it out…”

“When you say ‘Hamada,’ do you mean Hamada Heisuke?”

“Yes.”

“Did you lend Hamada some boarding fees or something?”

“I didn’t lend anything like that.”

“Then what did you lend?”

“I lent my name.”

“What did Hamada do with your name?”

“He sent a love letter.”

“Sent what?”

“So I said I’d abandon my name and just handle posting it.”

“This makes no sense.”
“Who exactly did what?”

“A love letter was sent.”

“You sent a love letter?”
“To whom?”

“That’s why I said it’s difficult to explain.”

“So you’re claiming you sent a love letter to some woman?”

“No, it wasn’t me.”

“Was it Hamada who sent it?”
“No, it wasn’t Hamada either.”
“Then who sent it?”

“I don’t know who did it.”

“You’re making no sense at all.
Then nobody actually sent it?”

“Only my name was used.”

“Even if it’s just your name being used, I still don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
Try to explain it more logically.
So who was the one who received that love letter?”

“Kaneda—the woman living across the side street.”

“That Kaneda the industrialist?”

“Yes.”

“So what do you mean by only lending your name?”

“Because that girl over there was all modern and stuck-up—Hamada said we needed a name for it—so when they said ‘use your name,’ I figured mine’d be too dull.”
“They said ‘Takeemon Furui’ would be better—so in the end, I ended up lending my name.”

“So, do you know that girl over there?”
“Or are you involved with her?”

“There’s no relationship or anything at all.”
“I’ve never even seen her face.”

“That’s reckless. Sending a love letter to someone you’ve never even seen—what possessed you to do such a thing?”

“Everyone kept saying she was stuck-up and full of herself, so we thought we’d mess with her.”

“Downright irresponsible. So you actually put your name on it when they sent it?”

“Yes—Hamada wrote the letter itself. I lent my name, and Endo went over to their place at night to drop it in the mailbox.”

“Meaning all three of you collaborated on this?”

“Yes, but when I thought about it afterward, I realized how terrible it would be if it came out and I got expelled. I was so worried I couldn’t sleep for two or three days—ended up in a daze.”

“That’s an utterly ridiculous thing you’ve done. So did you write ‘Takeemon Furui, second-year at Bunmei Middle School’ or something?”

“No, we didn’t put the school’s name.”

“At least you had the sense not to write that. If the school’s name had gotten out? Then you’d really be in for it. That would’ve tarnished Bunmei Middle School’s honor itself.”

“Do you think I’ll be expelled?”
“Well...”

“Teacher, my father’s terribly strict, and what’s more, my mother’s my stepmother—if I get expelled, I’ll really be in trouble.”
“Do you honestly think I’ll be expelled?”

“That’s why you shouldn’t do reckless things.”

“I didn’t mean to do it—it just happened. Is there any way I can avoid being expelled?” Takeemon-kun pleaded in a voice trembling with tears, repeating his desperate appeal again and again.

Behind the sliding door, the Teacher’s Wife and Yukie had been stifling giggles since before.
The Teacher maintained his pompous airs, repeating "Well..." again and again.
Most amusing.

When I said it was amusing, there might be people who asked what was so amusing. It was only natural to ask. Whether human or animal, knowing oneself was life's greatest task. If humans could only know themselves, they would deserve more respect than cats as humans. At that point, I too would feel guilty for writing such mischief and resolve to stop immediately. Yet just as one couldn't measure one's own nose height, humans seemed woefully inept at grasping their true nature—so much so that they'd pose such questions even to the cats they ordinarily scorned. Humans might put on airs of arrogance, but there were always gaps in their armor. For all their strutting about as self-proclaimed paragons of animals, they couldn't comprehend this simple truth. What's more, when they reached such unflappable composure, one couldn't help wanting to let out a derisive snort. There they went, bearing their "paragon of animals" title on their backs while clamoring, "Tell me where my nose is! Tell me!" Just when you thought they might resign from this paragon business, they clung to it stubbornly even in death. If they could maintain such brazen contradictions without batting an eye, it might count as charm. But since charm wasn't an option, they had no choice but to settle for being fools.

The reason I found Takeemon-kun, my master, his wife, and Yukie so amusing at that moment was not simply because external events had collided and those collisions sent ripples to some clever place. In truth, it was because the reverberations of these collisions produced distinct tones within each individual human heart. First, the Master remained rather indifferent to this incident. No matter how strict Takeemon-kun’s father might be, or how his mother might try to treat him as a stepchild, he wasn’t particularly surprised—nor was there any reason for him to be surprised. Takeemon-kun being expelled differed entirely in nature from his own potential dismissal. Had nearly a thousand students all been expelled, the teachers might have struggled to make ends meet; but however Takeemon Furui-kun’s fate might change, it bore almost no relation to my master’s daily existence. Where connections were tenuous, sympathy naturally grew thin. Frowning, sniffling, or sighing over strangers was by no means humanity’s natural inclination—indeed, it seemed utterly implausible that humans could be such tenderhearted, compassionate creatures. They merely performed their duties as a “tax” for being born into this world, occasionally shedding tears for social propriety or donning pitiful expressions when required—deceptive displays that amounted to an art form demanding considerable effort. Those who excelled at this deception were hailed as people of strong artistic conscience and showered with society’s esteem. Thus, the more esteemed a person became, the more suspect they were—a truth one could verify with ease through simple observation. In this regard, my master belonged decidedly to the category of the inept. Being inept, he received no esteem; receiving no esteem, he made no particular effort to conceal his inner coldness. That he kept repeating “Well...” to Takeemon-kun laid bare this reality with perfect clarity. But let me be clear: though you may be cold-hearted yourselves, you must never despise a good man like my master.

Cold-heartedness was humanity’s inherent nature, and those who made no effort to conceal that nature were honest people.
If you expected anything more than cold-heartedness in such circumstances, then I must say you had overestimated humanity.
In a world where even honesty was in short supply, expecting anything beyond that was an unreasonable demand—one that could not be relied upon unless Shino and Kobungo were to crawl out of Bakin’s novels and the Eight Dog Chronicles were to move into the neighborhood.

The Master left it at that for now and turned his attention to the women laughing in the living room—but this act of his, stepping beyond mere coldness into absurdity, took delight as he leaped headlong into farce. To these women, the scandalous love letter incident plaguing Takeemon-kun seemed as precious as Buddha’s gospel. There was no reason—they were simply grateful. If we were to analyze it, Takeemon-kun’s distress was precisely what made it precious. Gentlemen, go ahead and ask these women: “Do you find amusement in laughing at people’s troubles?” The person asked would likely call the questioner a fool; if not a fool, they’d claim such a question deliberately insulted ladies’ character. It might indeed have been an insult, but it remained a fact that they laughed at people’s troubles. In that case, it was no different from someone declaring, “Don’t you dare say a word,” while proceeding to display behavior that insulted their own character. I steal. However, this must never be called immoral. To call it immoral would be sullying my good name. They have insulted me—it was akin to someone declaring... Women were quite clever; their reasoning followed impeccable logic. If one was to be born human at all, one had to resolve not only to remain unperturbed when trampled upon, kicked, and scolded without anyone turning around—but also take pleasure in being spat upon, defecated on, and then laughed at loudly. Otherwise, one couldn’t associate with those deemed clever women. Though Mr. Takeemon had made an enormous blunder through some trivial misstep and appeared deeply contrite, he might have thought it impertinent for others to laugh behind his back at such earnest remorse—but this would merely have been childish naivety unseasoned by age. For they said that taking offense at another’s discourtesy betrayed smallness of spirit; thus if he disliked being labeled thus, he would do well to remain meekly silent. Finally, let me briefly introduce Takeemon-kun’s state of mind. He was worry incarnate. That great brain of his, much like Napoleon’s filled with ambition, was on the verge of bursting with worry.

Occasionally, his dumpling-like nose would twitch spasmodically—this was worry transmitting to his facial nerves, causing them to act unconsciously like a reflex action. He was as if he had swallowed a large cannonball, carrying in his belly an immovable lump that he could neither digest nor expel, and for these past two or three days, he had been at a loss for how to deal with it. Overwhelmed by this anguish and with no particular source of reason to guide him, he went to visit the teacher called “supervisor,” thinking that perhaps he would help him, and so made his way to the house of someone he disliked to bow his head deeply. He had completely forgotten how he used to tease the Master at school, incite his classmates, and cause trouble for him. It seemed he believed that no matter how much he teased or caused trouble, anyone bearing the title of supervisor would undoubtedly show concern for him. He was quite a simple creature. The role of supervisor was not one my master had taken up willingly. It had been received reluctantly under the principal’s orders—so to speak, akin to Meitei’s uncle’s tall hat. It was merely a name. A mere name alone could accomplish nothing. If names were truly useful when urgently needed, then Yukie could have arranged a marriage through hers alone—that would have been the logical conclusion. Takeemon-kun was not only self-centered but also proceeded from the presumptuous assumption that others must be kind to him—an overestimation of humanity. He had never imagined he would be laughed at. Takeemon-kun must have arrived at a single truth about humanity upon coming to the supervisor’s house. For the sake of this truth, he would increasingly become a true human being in the future. He would grow cold toward others' worries; he would laugh loudly when people were in trouble. In this manner, the world would come to be filled with future Takeemon-kuns. The world would come to be filled by Mr. Kaneda and Mrs. Kaneda. I earnestly hoped that Takeemon-kun would awaken to self-awareness and become a proper human being without a moment’s delay. Otherwise, no matter how much he worried, no matter how much he regretted, no matter how earnestly he resolved to reform, he would never achieve success like Mr. Kaneda’s.

Otherwise, society will before long expel you beyond the bounds of human habitation.
This is no mere expulsion from Bunmei Middle School.

As I was thus amusing myself with these thoughts, the lattice door clattered open, and half a face slid out from behind the front entrance’s paper screen.

“Sensei.”

While the Teacher was repeating "Well..." to Takeemon-kun, someone called "Sensei!" from the entrance. Wondering who it was, he looked over to see half a face protruding diagonally from the paper screen—none other than Kangetsu-kun.
"Hey, come on in," he said, remaining seated.

“Is there a guest?” Kangetsu-kun asked in return, still peering in with half his face visible.

“Don’t mind that. Just come in.”

“Actually, I came to invite you, Sensei.”

“Where are you going? Akasaka again? I’ve had enough of that area. Last time you made me walk around endlessly till my legs turned to sticks.”

“Today will be fine. Won’t you come out for once?”

“Where to? Just come inside.”

“I want to go hear the tigers roar at Ueno.”

“How dull. Come in instead.”

Kangetsu-kun apparently concluded that remote negotiations would prove futile, so he removed his shoes and shuffled inside. As usual, he wore mouse-gray trousers patched at the seat—not torn from the times or a weighty posterior, but rather, by his own account, from recent cycling practice that subjected his nether regions to exceptional friction. Oblivious that the forged letters sent to his prospective bride constituted romantic sabotage, he offered Takeemon-kun a casual “Hey” before settling near the veranda.

“What’s so great about listening to a tiger’s roar?”

“Ah, we can’t go yet. We’ll stroll about various places first and head to Ueno around eleven tonight.”

“Hmm.”

“Then those ancient trees in the park would stand dense and menacing, wouldn’t they?”

“Well, it’d feel more desolate than daytime.”

“So if you pick your way through thickly wooded paths where nobody passes even by daylight, before you know it, that sense of dwelling in this dusty clamor of a city fades away—you’ll surely feel like you’ve strayed deep into mountain wilds.”

“What are you going to do once you feel that way?”

“When you’re in that state of mind and stand there for a while, suddenly, from within the zoo, a tiger roars.”

“Does it really roar that well?”

“It will definitely roar. That roar can be heard all the way to the Science University even in daylight—so imagine it at midnight, when all falls silent, not a soul in sight, an eerie aura pressing against your skin, demonic presences assailing your nostrils…”

“What do you mean by ‘demonic presences assailing your nostrils’?”

“You shouldn’t say such things at a scary moment like this!”

“Is that right? Not something I hear much about, though. So?”

“So the tiger will roar with such force that it seems to shake every last leaf from Ueno’s ancient cedars.”
“It’s absolutely terrifying, I tell you!”

“That must be terrifying indeed.”

“How about venturing out on an adventure? I’m sure it would be delightful. You can’t truly claim to have heard a tiger’s roar unless you listen in the dead of night.”

“Hmm...” said the Teacher, as indifferent to Kangetsu-kun’s proposal as he had been to Takeemon-kun’s desperate appeal.

Having listened enviously to the tiger discussion until then, Takeemon-kun seemed reminded of his own plight by the Teacher’s noncommittal response. “Sensei, I’m really worried—what should I do?” he pressed again.
Kangetsu-kun eyed this large-headed youth with suspicion.
For reasons of my own, I discreetly withdrew to the family living room.

In the family living room, the wife was giggling softly while pouring coarse tea liberally into a cheap Kyoto-style teacup and placing it on an antimony tea saucer,

“Miss Yukie, if you wouldn’t mind, please take this out.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why?” asked the wife, her laughter abruptly ceasing as she feigned slight surprise.

“No reason,” Miss Yukie retorted, hastily crafting a smug look as she lowered her eyes onto the Yomiuri Shimbun spread beside her.
The wife began another round of negotiation.

“My, what a strange person. It’s Mr. Kangetsu, you know. He won’t mind.”

“But I really don’t want to,” she said without lifting her eyes from the Yomiuri Shimbun.
In such a state, she couldn’t read a single character, but if it were exposed that she wasn’t reading, she’d likely burst into tears again.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about at all,” said the wife with a laugh, deliberately shoving the teacup onto the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Yukie cried, “Oh, you’re terrible!” As she tried to yank the newspaper out from under the cup, it snagged on the saucer, sending coarse tea cascading from the newsprint into the tatami grooves.
“Now see what you’ve done,” chided the wife. “Oh dear!” Yukie wailed before bolting to the kitchen.
No doubt she meant to fetch a rag.
I found this little comedy rather diverting.

Unaware of this commotion, Kangetsu-kun was discussing peculiar matters in the sitting room.

"Sensei, you've had the shoji paper replaced rather neatly, haven't you? Who did the pasting?"

"A woman did it. It's been pasted quite well, hasn't it?"

"Yes, remarkably skillful work. Was it that young lady who visits occasionally who did the pasting?"

"Yeah, she helped out too. She keeps boasting that being able to paste shoji this well makes her qualified for marriage!"

"I see," murmured Kangetsu-kun while intently examining the shoji screen.

“This side lies flat, but the right edge has surplus paper creating ripples here.”
“That’s where she pasted first when still green behind the ears.”
“Ah yes, the craftsmanship falters slightly here.”
“That surface possesses a transcendent curve utterly beyond ordinary functions,” he said, deploying terminology befitting a physicist. The Teacher...
“Well...” he answered dismissively.

Having resigned himself that there was no prospect of success no matter how long he continued his pleas under these circumstances, Takeemon-kun suddenly pressed his great skull against the tatami mat—a silent farewell conveyed through this wordless gesture.
“Leaving?” said my master.
Takeemon-kun dragged his Satsuma geta dejectedly through the gate.
Poor wretch.
Left unchecked, he might pen some “Cragside Lament” and leap from Kegon Falls.
This whole affair stemmed from Miss Kaneda’s Western airs and impudent manner.
Should he die by his own hand? Let him haunt that minx straight to her grave.
The world wouldn’t miss one or two such creatures vanishing.
Kangetsu would do better finding a proper lady.

“Sensei, is that your student?”

“Yeah.”

“What an enormous head! Is he academically capable?”

“He’s not half as bright as his cranial capacity suggests, though he does pose some peculiar questions now and then. The other day he badgered me to translate ‘Columbus’ – quite a pickle.”

“Naturally – that oversized cranium must generate superfluous inquiries. How did you respond, Sensei?”

“Hm? Oh, I cobbled together some makeshift interpretation.”

“You actually produced a translation regardless? That’s remarkably diligent of you.”

“Kids won’t trust you unless you translate everything for them.”

“Sensei, you’ve become quite the politician. However, given his current state, he seems so utterly dejected that it doesn’t look like he’s causing you any trouble at all, does it?”

“He’s feeling a bit down today. He’s an idiot.”

“What’s wrong? Somehow, just seeing him briefly made me feel terribly sorry for him. What exactly happened?”

“It’s just a foolish matter. He sent a love letter to Kaneda’s daughter.”

“What? That big-headed guy did? Students these days are quite something, aren’t they? Goodness me, what a shock!”

“You must be worried too, but—”

“Not in the least bit concerned.”
“If anything, it’s rather entertaining.”
“I’ll manage just fine no matter how many love letters come pouring in.”

“Well, if you’re that unconcerned...”

“Not at all. It doesn’t bother me in the least.”
“Though I must say, it’s rather astonishing to hear that big-headed fellow wrote a love letter.”

“You see—”
“It was all a prank.”
“That girl’s so Westernized and insolent that three of them banded together to mock her...”

“Did three of them send a single letter to Miss Kaneda? This grows more bizarre by the minute.”
“It’s like three people splitting one portion of Western cuisine—utterly preposterous!”

“But they divided roles.
One writes the letter, one mails it, one lends their name.
The one who came today was the name-lender.
That’s the height of idiocy.
And get this—he hasn’t even seen Kaneda’s daughter’s face!
How could anyone act so recklessly?”

“That’s a modern-day masterpiece.”
“A true stroke of genius!”
“It’s positively hilarious that big-headed oaf wrote to a woman!”

“What a colossal blunder!”

“No matter what comes of it, I couldn’t care less—it’s Kaneda we’re talking about.”

“But she’s someone you might marry someday.”

“If I might marry her, that’s exactly why I don’t care.”
“Pfft, Kaneda’s nothing to me.”

“Even if you don’t mind...”

“Nah, I don’t care about Kaneda. It’s fine.”

“Well, if that’s how it is—afterward, he was suddenly tormented by his conscience, grew frightened, and came to my house in great distress to consult me.”

“Ah, so that’s why he looks so dejected? He seems rather timid.”
“Sensei, you must have advised him somehow?”

“He keeps asking, ‘Will I be expelled?’ That’s his greatest fear.”

“Why would he be expelled?”

“Because he did such a wicked, immoral thing.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t call it immoral exactly. Doesn’t bother me a bit. Why, the Kanedas must be boasting about it as an honor.”

“Impossible.”

“Poor lad though—even if it was wrong to do, worrying him like this will kill the boy. That big head of his isn’t so ill-favored really. His nose quivers quite cutely when he speaks.”

“You’re sounding rather carefree yourself—just like Meitei.”

“Nonsense! This is the zeitgeist! You’re too old-fashioned, Sensei—always overcomplicating things.”

“But isn’t it idiotic? Sending a prank love letter to someone you’ve never met—that’s pure lunacy!”

“Pranks are lunacy by nature.”
“Save him.”
“It’ll count as a good deed.”
“In that state, he’ll go leaping straight into Kegon Falls.”

“I suppose so.”

“Go ahead and do it. Those supposedly mature, sensible adults aren’t even stopping at such things—they’re committing far worse pranks while feigning innocence. If they’re going to expel that boy over this, it would be unjust not to purge every last one of those hypocrites first.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Then what do you say about going to Ueno to listen to a tiger’s roar?”

“A tiger?”

“Yes, let’s go hear it. Actually, I’ve had some business come up that requires me to return home in a couple of days, so I won’t be able to accompany you anywhere for a while. That’s why I came today—I was determined to take a walk together with you.”

“Oh, you’re going back? Do you have some business to attend to?”

“Yes, some business came up. Anyway, let’s just get going, shall we?”

“Right.”
“Let’s get going then.”

“Come on, let’s go. I’ll treat you to dinner tonight—and if we take a walk afterward, we’ll reach Ueno at just the right time,” he urged persistently, so the Master, now persuaded, left together with him.

Afterward, the teacher’s wife and Yukie laughed without restraint—belly-laughing uproariously, cackling shrilly, and chortling dryly.

Eleven

In front of the tokonoma alcove, with a Go board set between them, Meitei and Dokusen sat facing each other.

“I won’t play for free.”
“The loser has to treat the other to something.”
When Meitei pressed for confirmation—“You hear me?”—Dokusen, as was his habit, tugged at his goatee and replied:

“Doing that would degrade what should be a pure diversion.”
“There’s no pleasure in having one’s mind shackled by stakes.”
“Only when you cast aside victory and defeat, playing through a game with a mind like white clouds drifting naturally from mountain peaks, can you taste its true essence.”

“Here we go again,”
“Dealing with such an immortal is too taxing.”
“You’re practically lifted straight from the Biographies of Immortals!”

“Pluck the stringless zither.”

“Can’t send a wireless telegram though, can you?”

“Anyway, let’s play.”

“Are you taking white?”

“Either suits me.”

“How magnanimous of our resident sage! If you’re white by nature’s order, I’ll take black. Come then—attack from any quarter you please.”

“It’s the rule to play black first.”

“I see. In that case, I’ll humbly proceed with the standard moves from here.”

“There’s no such thing in standard moves.”

“It doesn’t matter if there aren’t any. It’s a newly invented standard move.”

Since my world was narrow, it was only recently that I first laid eyes on a Go board, but the more I thought about it, the more strangely made it seemed. They took a not-so-spacious square board, partitioned it into cramped squares, and arranged black and white stones in a dizzying clutter. And then they clamored about whether they’d won or lost, whether stones were dead or alive, sweating buckets all the while. The dimensions measured about one shaku square. Even if I scattered them with my front paw, they became utterly disarrayed. If one gathers and ties them together, it becomes a grass hut; if one unties them, it returns to its original field. It was a futile exercise. Sitting with my hands tucked in my sleeves and gazing at the board was far more comfortable. At first, with the first thirty or forty moves, the arrangement of stones wasn’t particularly bothersome, but when I peered in at that decisive moment just before the game’s outcome was determined—my, what a pitiable sight indeed. The white and black stones pressed against each other until they nearly spilled off the board, groaning in mutual strain. Even if they were cramped, they couldn’t ask the neighboring stones to move aside; nor did they have the right to order the previous stones to leave for being in the way. Resigning themselves to fate, they had no choice but to stay still without moving a muscle—hunkering down where they were. The inventor of Go was human, and if human proclivities manifested themselves in the game’s positions, then it would not be wrong to say that the constrained fate of the Go stones represented the petty nature of humankind. If one could infer human nature from the fate of Go stones, then we must assert that humans are creatures who take the vast, boundless world and shrink it down of their own accord—using meticulous knife-work to stake out their own territories so that they cannot step beyond where their two feet stand. It would be fair to sum up humans in a single phrase: creatures who persistently seek out their own suffering.

The carefree Meitei and the Zen-minded Dokusen—what on earth were they thinking?—had chosen this very day to drag out an old Go board from the cupboard and commence this swelteringly tedious game. True to form for these two gentlemen, at first they moved freely as they pleased—white and black stones darting across the board with abandon—but given the board’s finite space, its grid lines filling with each move, it was only natural that even their carefree nonchalance and Zen insight would soon give way to strain.

“Meitei, your Go is too reckless.”
“You can’t just barge into a spot like that!”

“Zen monks’ Go might not have such methods, but in the Hon'inbō school’s tradition, they exist—that’s just how it is.”

“But this will just get killed off.”

“If a loyal minister does not refuse death, how much less would he refuse a pig’s shoulder! Let’s proceed like this.”

“If that’s where you’ve placed yourself, then very well.”
“A fragrant breeze comes from the south, bringing a slight coolness to the palace pavilions.”
“Placing it here like this should secure it.”

"Oh! That placement is truly impressive," said Meitei. "Surely," he thought, "there was no need to connect." Aloud, he continued: "Now then, if I take the Hachiman Bell position like this—what will you do?"

"There’s nothing to do either way," Dokusen replied. "A lone sword leans against heaven, chilling—ah, what a bother." He brought his stone down decisively. "Resolutely, cut it off!"

Meitei’s voice rose in panic: "Oh no, this is bad, very bad! If you cut there, I’ll die! Hey, this is no joke! Wait!"

"That’s exactly what I’ve been telling you all along," Dokusen said calmly. "You can’t put a stone in a position like this once it’s come to this."

“I shall intrude here with all due disrespect. If you would be so kind as to remove this white stone.”

“Must I wait for that move too?”

“While you’re at it, kindly take out the one next to it as well.”

“You’re utterly shameless!”

“Do you see the boy? Come now—aren’t we past formalities? Don’t play coy—just remove them! This is life or death! Wait—this calls for a dramatic entrance from the hanamichi!”

“I know nothing of such theatrics.”

“You don’t need to know—just move it aside.”

“You’ve already taken back six moves since we started, haven’t you?”

“What a memory you’ve got!”
“From now on, I’ll double my takebacks.”
“So be a good sport and move it.”
“You’re as stubborn as a temple mule.”
“A bit of zazen might loosen those rigid shoulders of yours.”

“But if I don’t kill this stone here, I’ll be at a slight disadvantage…”

“Wasn’t your whole approach about not caring if you lose?”

"I don't mind losing myself, but I don't want to let you win."

"What enlightened logic! Still slicing lightning through spring breeze shadows, I see."

"It's not 'spring breeze shadows'—it's 'lightning shadows.' Yours is inverted."

"Ha ha ha! I thought we'd reached the reversal phase, yet you remain dependable as ever. Very well—I suppose I must concede."

"Life and death are paramount; impermanence hastens. I relinquish it."

"Amen," declared Mr. Meitei, slapping down a stone in utterly unrelated territory.

In front of the alcove, Mr. Meitei and Mr. Dokusen were fiercely competing over victory and defeat, while at the entrance to the sitting room, Mr. Kangetsu and Mr. Tōfū sat side by side, with the master, his face sallow, seated beside them.
The sight of three dried bonito strips, bare and neatly arranged on the tatami mats before Mr. Kangetsu, made for a curious spectacle.

These dried bonito strips had come from Mr. Kangetsu’s pocket; when he produced them, they were still warm enough to feel in his palm despite their naked state.
As the Master and Mr. Tōfū stared at the bonito strips with peculiar intensity, Mr. Kangetsu finally spoke.

"I actually returned from my hometown four days ago, but with all the errands keeping me running about, I couldn’t make it here sooner."

"There was no need to come rushing over," the Master said with his usual brusqueness.

"I wasn’t in a hurry to visit, but I wanted to present this souvenir before anything happened to it."

"Dried bonito?"

"Yes, a local specialty from my region."

"You can find things like this in Tokyo too, even if they’re local specialties," retorted the Master as he picked up the largest piece and brought it to his nose for inspection.

“Even if you sniff it, you can’t tell whether a dried bonito is good or bad.”

“So its large size is what makes it a local specialty, eh?”
“Well, go on and try eating it.”

“I’ll eat it alright, but doesn’t this one have its tip chipped off?”

“That’s exactly why I said I needed to bring it quickly.”

“Why?”

“Because mice ate it.”

“That’s dangerous.
If you eat that recklessly, you’ll catch the plague!”

“Oh, it’s harmless. A little nibbling like that won’t hurt anyone.”

“Where exactly did they bite it?”

“On the ship.”

“On the ship?
How?”

“There was nowhere else to store them, so I put them in a bag with my violin. When I boarded the ship, they attacked it that very night.”
"If it were just the dried bonito, that would be tolerable, but they mistook my precious violin’s body for food and gnawed on it too."

“Careless mice, aren’t they?”
“I wonder if living on a ship makes them lose all sense of discernment,” said the Master, still staring at the bonito while uttering something that made no sense to anyone.

“Well, they’re mice—no matter where they live, they’re careless.”
“So even if I bring them to my lodgings, they’ll likely get nibbled again.”
“Because it was dangerous, I put them in my bed at night and slept.”

“Looks a bit dirty.”

“So you should give them a quick wash before eating.”

“A quick wash won’t make it clean.”

“Then why not soak it in lye and scrub it thoroughly?”

“Did you sleep holding the violin too?”

“The violin’s too big to sleep while holding, but…” he began.

“What’s that? You slept hugging a violin? That’s poetic refinement! There’s a verse: ‘Spring departs—heavy heart clutching lute,’ but that’s ancient history. Meiji’s geniuses must embrace violins at night to outdo the ancients! How about ‘Through long nights guarding scrolls—the violin’? Tōfū, can new-style poetry handle such themes?” Mr. Meitei boomed from across the room, weaving his comment into our conversation.

Tōfū replied earnestly, “New-style poetry isn’t something that can be composed so quickly, unlike haiku. However, once completed, it will produce a wondrous sound that touches upon the subtleties of the living soul.”

“Is that so? I’d always thought one had to burn sacred straw to summon a living soul—but I suppose even new-style poetry can make it descend these days?” said Mr. Meitei, still neglecting his Go game to tease.

“If you keep wasting time talking nonsense, you’ll lose again,” the Master warned Meitei.
Meitei, unfazed,

“Whether I want to win or lose, my opponent here is like an octopus trapped in a pot—utterly helpless—so out of sheer boredom, I’ve had no choice but to serve as companion to the violin,” he said. At this, his opponent Mr. Dokusen retorted in a slightly agitated tone:

“Now it’s your turn.”
“I’m waiting over here,” he snapped.

“Huh? You already played?”

“Of course I did—ages ago!”

“Where?”

“I extended this white stone diagonally.”

“Ah! So extending white diagonally means defeat... Then I should—I should—keep at it till nightfall, but no good moves remain. I’ll let you take another turn—place a stone wherever you like.”

“There’s no such rule in Go!”

“If you say there’s no such rule, let’s play by it. I’ll bend this corner here... Kangetsu! Mice mock your cheap violin by gnawing it. Buy a proper one—I’ll have a three-hundred-year-old antique shipped from Italy for you.”

“I kindly request it.”
“And while you’re at it, I’d like you to handle settling the payment as well.”

“Would such an old thing be of any use?” The Master, who knew nothing of the matter, shut Mr. Meitei down with a single rebuke.

“You’re conflating human relics with violin antiquities,”
“Even among human relics, someone like Kaneda remains fashionable these days—so when it comes to violins, older ones are superior.”
“Now then, Mr. Dokusen—do hurry up.”
“Though not Keima’s exact words—‘autumn dusk falls swift.’”

“Playing Go with your restless sort is agony.”
“No time for contemplation whatsoever.”
“No choice—I’ll secure an eye here.”

“Oh dear, you’ve finally kept it alive after all. What a pity that was. I never dreamed you’d play there! I strained every nerve spouting nonsense to throw you off—but it was all for nothing.”

“Of course.”
“What you’re doing isn’t a move—it’s a trick.”
“Pure deception.”

“That’s the Hon’inbō style, the Kaneda style, the modern gentleman’s style! —I say, Mr. Kushami, just as one would expect from Mr. Dokusen—having gone to Kamakura and dined on ten-thousand-year-old pickles—he remains utterly unflappable.”
“Most admirable indeed.”
“His Go may be wretched, but his composure is unshakable.”

“Then a spineless fellow like you ought to take notes,” the Master retorted without turning around, whereupon Mr. Meitei flicked out his large red tongue in response.
Mr. Dokusen, appearing wholly unperturbed, pressed his opponent once more: “Now it’s your turn.”

“When did you start playing the violin? I’ve been thinking of trying to learn a little myself, but they say it’s rather difficult,” Tōfū asked Kangetsu.

“Well, anyone can manage the basics,” replied the Master.

“Since both are arts, I’ve been quietly hoping that those with an appreciation for poetry might progress faster in music too—what do you think?”

“That’s fine. You’ll surely get good at it.”

“When did you start?”

“High school days—Sensei, have I ever told you the story of how I came to learn the violin?”

“No, I haven’t heard it yet.”

“Did you have some teacher in high school that got you started?”

“Nah—there was no teacher or anything. Self-taught.”

“Truly a genius, aren’t you?”

“If it’s self-taught, that doesn’t necessarily make one a genius,” Kangetsu-kun retorted sharply.
It was only Kangetsu-kun who would bristle at being called a genius.

“That’s neither here nor there—but do tell me how you taught yourself.”
“I want to use it for reference.”

“I could speak of it.”
“Shall I recount it to you now, Sensei?”

“Ah, go on then—tell it.”

“Nowadays you see youngsters carrying violin cases about the streets, but back then you’d hardly find a high school student dabbling in Western music.”
“Particularly at my school—deep in the sticks, so rustic they hadn’t even heard of hemp-lined straw sandals—there wasn’t a single soul who’d touch a violin, of course.…”

“Seems an amusing tale’s brewing over there,” I noted.
“Dokusen-kun, shouldn’t we call it quits about now?”

“There are still two or three spots left unresolved.”

“Let them be.”
“If it’s just the general area, I’ll concede it to you.”

“Even so, I can’t accept charity.”

“What fastidiousness—quite unbecoming of a Zen scholar!”
“Let’s settle this in one fell swoop then.—Kangetsu-kun’s tale sounds rather diverting.—At that high school of his, they say students attend barefoot…”

“No such thing occurs.”

“But rumor has it they perform military drills shoeless, doing about-faces until their soles grow thick as leather!”

“No way. Who said such a thing?”

“It could’ve been anyone. They say those students would bring one enormous rice ball hanging from their waists like summer citrus and wolf it down—or rather, gnaw through it like animals. Then they’d find a single pickled plum at the core, right? They’d chomp through that bland outer layer like madmen just to reach the salty prize—now that’s what I call youthful vigor! Doesn’t this rustic tale warm your Zen-loving heart, Dokusen-kun?”

“A simple, robust, and admirable spirit.”

“There’s still another admirable thing. They say they don’t have ashtrays there. When my friend was employed there, he once went out to buy an ashtray bearing the Tsugetsuho mark—but not only was there no Tsugetsuho, there wasn’t a single item that could even be called an ashtray. When he found this strange and asked about it, they calmly replied that ashtrays and such could be made by anyone just by cutting bamboo from the thicket out back, so there was no need to sell them—or so the story goes. This too must be an admirable tale that exemplifies the spirit of simple robustness, wouldn’t you say, Dokusen-kun?”

“Hmm, that’s all well and good, but I must place one dame here.”
“Fine—dame, dame, dame. That settles it.—I was truly astonished when I heard that story. That you taught yourself the violin in such a place is truly admirable. As the *Chu Ci* says, ‘solitary and unmatched’—Kangetsu-kun is truly the Qu Yuan of the Meiji era.”
“I’d rather not be Qu Yuan.”
“Then you’re this century’s Werther.—What’s this? You want me to count by placing stones? You’re so stubbornly rigid.—Even without counting, I’m definitely losing—that’s certain.”

"But since there's no resolution..."

"Then you handle it yourself."
"I'm no accounting office."
"I must hear about Werther-kun—that genius of our age—taking up the violin, or I'll bring shame upon my ancestors. Pardon me," he said, rising from his seat to edge closer to Kangetsu-kun.
Dokusen-kun meticulously took white stones to fill white hollows and black stones for black ones, muttering calculations all the while.
Kangetsu-kun resumed his tale.

"The local character was already distinctive enough, but my fellow locals were also extremely stubborn. If there was even one weakling among us, they'd say it would disgrace us before students from other prefectures and impose harsh sanctions indiscriminately, which made everything quite troublesome."

"When it comes to students from your hometown, they're truly beyond words."
"Why on earth do they wear those plain navy hakama anyway?"
"First off, that alone is so~ chic."
"And I suppose from being constantly battered by salty winds—their complexions are rather dark, aren't they?"
"For men it's passable, but if women were like that, they'd surely be in quite a bind," interjected Mr. Meitei. With his solo intrusion, the crucial conversation veered off track.

“The women are just as dark.”

“And yet they find husbands?”

“When everyone’s dark nationwide, there’s no helping it.”

“Poetic justice, I say.”
“Don’t you think so, Kushami?”

“Black’s preferable anyway. White skin would make them vain with every mirror glance—women are utterly unmanageable creatures,” the Teacher proclaimed with a weighty sigh.

“But if all were dark nationally, wouldn’t they take pride in their darkness?” Tōfū posed this logical counter.

“Anyway, women are entirely unnecessary creatures,” declared the Teacher.

“If you say such things, your wife will be in a foul temper later,” Mr. Meitei cautioned with a laugh.

“Nonsense—it’s perfectly fine.”

“Is she not here?”

“She took the children out earlier.”

“Ah! That explains this unnatural quiet.”
“Where did she go?”

“Who knows?”
“She wanders off wherever she pleases.”

“And returns just as freely?”

“Well—yes. How enviable to remain unmarried!”
As he spoke these words, Tōfū-kun’s face clouded with faint displeasure.
Kangetsu-kun smirked slyly.

Mr. Meitei,

"When men take wives, they all start to feel that way."
“Hey, Dokusen-kun, you must be one of those troubled by your wife as well, no?”

“Huh? Wait a moment.”
“Four-six twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven…”
“When I thought the margin was narrow… there are forty-six points?”
"I thought I’d won by a bit more, but when I tally it up—only an eighteen-point difference? What’s this?"

“I’m saying you must be one of those troubled by your wife as well.”

“Ahahahaha, it’s not particularly difficult.”
“Because my wife fundamentally loves me.”

“I may have gone a bit too far there.”
“Now that’s the Dokusen-kun I know!”

“It’s not just Dokusen-kun! There are plenty of such examples,” declared Kangetsu-kun, briefly taking up the defense on behalf of wives everywhere.

“I also agree with Kangetsu-kun,” said Mr. Meitei. “In my view, for humans to reach the absolute realm, there are only two paths—art and love. Because marital love represents one of these two paths, I believe humans must marry and fully realize this happiness, or else they would be defying divine will.”

“What do you think of that, Mr. Meitei?” said Tōfū-kun, as serious as ever, turning to face him.

“A splendid argument! Though someone like me could never hope to enter such an absolute realm.”

“Taking a wife would make entering even harder,” the Teacher declared sternly.

“Regardless, we unmarried youths must immerse ourselves in art’s spiritual essence and forge a path of self-improvement to grasp life’s meaning! That’s why I resolved to start with the violin—I’ve been pressing Kangetsu-kun here for his account since earlier.”

“Ah yes! We were meant to hear Werter-kun’s violin tale.”
“Out with it then.”
“I’ll cease my meddling,” conceded Mr. Meitei, sheathing his rhetorical blade.

“The path of self-improvement isn’t something one forges with a mere violin,” declared the Teacher. “If cosmic truths could be grasped through such frivolous diversions, it would spell disaster.”

Mr. Dokusen solemnly intoned, “To comprehend these mysteries, one must release one’s grip from the cliff’s edge and possess the fortitude to be reborn from annihilation.” He delivered this Zen-inflected sermon to Tōfū-kun, who—being wholly unversed in Buddhist teachings—remained utterly unmoved.

“Well, perhaps,” Tōfū-kun conceded, “but I maintain that art embodies humanity’s highest aspirations. I simply cannot abandon it.”

“If I can’t avoid it, I’ll tell you my violin story as requested—though let me preface that I endured great hardship even before beginning my practice.”
“First was the difficulty of purchasing one, Sensei.”

“Naturally—in a town lacking even straw sandals, violins would be unheard of.”

“No, they do exist.
I’d saved the money long beforehand—that wasn’t the issue—yet somehow I couldn’t make the purchase.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a small town—if I bought one, they’d discover it immediately.”
“Once discovered, they’d brand me presumptuous and mete out punishment.”

“Geniuses have always been persecuted since ancient times,” declared Tōfū-kun with deep sympathy.

“Not this ‘genius’ talk again—I must decline being labeled as such. So then, every day on my walks, whenever I passed by the shop that had violins, I couldn’t help thinking how wonderful it would be if I could buy one, what it would feel like to hold it in my arms—oh how I wanted it, oh how I craved it—there wasn’t a single day I didn’t feel this way.”

“That’s reasonable,” remarked Meitei; “It’s oddly elaborate,” puzzled the Teacher; “You really are a genius,” admiringly declared Tōfū-kun.
Dokusen-kun alone remained aloof, twisting his beard.

“You might first wonder how a violin could exist in such a place, but when you think about it, it’s perfectly natural.”
“You see, there’s a girls’ school in this region too, and since violin practice is part of their daily curriculum, they naturally need to have some available.”
“Of course, none of them are any good.”
“They’re barely worthy of being called violins at all.”
“The shop didn’t value them much either, so they’d just hang two or three together out front.”
“Well, sometimes when I’d walk by during my strolls, the wind would hit them or the shop boy’s hand would brush against them, and they’d make this sound.”
“Hearing that noise made my heart feel ready to burst—I couldn’t keep still either sitting or standing.”

“Dangerous, isn’t it? There are various types of epilepsy—water epilepsy, human epilepsy—but yours, being a Werther, is violin epilepsy,” teased Mr. Meitei.

“No—without that level of sensory acuity, one cannot become a true artist.”

“You’re truly cut from genius cloth!” declared Tōfū-kun, his admiration growing ever deeper.

“Well, it might actually be epilepsy, but that timbre alone was truly unique. Since then, I’ve played a great deal up to this very day, but I’ve never produced such a beautiful sound. How should I put it? It’s utterly impossible to put into words.”

“Doesn’t it ring out with a jingling and clanging?” It was Mr. Dokusen who had brought up such an obscure reference, but pitiable that no one paid him any mind.

“As I walked past the shopfront day after day, I finally heard this unearthly sound three times. On the third occasion, I resolved that no matter what, I must buy it. Even if reprimanded by townsfolk, scorned by outsiders—even if pummeled to death with fists—even if wrongly expelled from school—I knew I had to possess this one thing.”

“That’s what makes you a genius,” said Tōfū-kun with growing admiration.
“If you weren’t a genius, you couldn’t possibly convince yourself so thoroughly.”
“I envy you.”
“I’ve been striving for years to stir up such intense sensations within myself—to no avail.”
“I attend concerts and listen with utmost earnestness,” he lamented enviously,
“yet never feel truly transported.”

“You’re better off remaining unmoved,” Kangetsu replied.
“Though I speak calmly now,
the agony I endured then defies imagination.
In the end... Sensei finally mustered his resolve and purchased it.”

“Hmm, how so?”

“It was the evening before the Emperor’s Birthday in November. Since everyone from my hometown had gone on an overnight trip to the hot springs, not a soul remained. I claimed illness and took the day off school to stay in bed. Lying there, I thought of nothing but how tonight I would finally go out and obtain the violin I’d long desired.”

“So you faked illness to skip school?”

“Precisely.”

“Well now, this one might be a touch of genius after all,” Mr. Meitei remarked, sounding genuinely impressed.

“When I stuck my head out from under the bedding, waiting for sunset became unbearable.”
“There was nothing for it—I burrowed all the way under, closed my eyes tight, and tried waiting like that. Still no use.”
“When I peeked out again, the fierce autumn sun was blazing against the six-foot shoji screen until I nearly burst with irritation.”
“Up near the top clustered these long narrow shadows that kept swaying in the autumn breeze.”

“What’s this ‘long narrow shadows’ business?”

“I’d peeled some bitter persimmons and hung them under the eaves to dry.”

“Hmm, and then?”

“There was nothing for it—I crawled out from under the bedding, slid open the shoji screen, stepped onto the veranda, plucked one of those dried sweet persimmons, and ate it.”

“Was it good?” the Master asked with childlike curiosity.

“Delicious! The persimmons from that region... You’ll never taste anything like that in Tokyo.”

“The persimmons are all well and good, but what happened after that?” asked Tōfū-kun this time.

“Then I burrowed back in, covered my eyes, and secretly tried praying to the gods and buddhas that evening would come quickly.”
After what felt like three or four hours had passed, I thought it must be time and stuck my head out, only to find the intense autumn sun still blazing against the six-foot shoji screen as before, with clusters of long, narrow shadows swaying gently in the upper part.

“I’ve heard that already.”

“There were many cycles of this, you know. Then I’d crawl out of bed, open the shoji screen, eat one sweet dried persimmon, burrow back under the covers, and secretly pray with all my might to the gods that night would fall soon.”

“You’re just repeating the same loop!”

“Now Master, please listen without getting impatient. After enduring three or four more hours under the futon, I thought surely it must be dark this time—but when I abruptly stuck my head out, that fierce autumn sun still blazed across the six-foot shoji screen as before, with those clustered long shadows swaying faintly up top.”

“Aren’t you just repeating the same thing over and over?”

“Then I got out of bed, opened the shoji screen, stepped onto the veranda, and ate another sweet-dried persimmon…”

“You ate another persimmon? This will go on endlessly—nothing but persimmons forever!”

“I was getting frustrated myself.”

“Hearing this is way more agonizing for me than it is for you!”

“Sensei is so impatient that it’s difficult to tell the story.”

“The listener’s having some trouble too,” Tōfū-kun muttered with implicit dissatisfaction.

“Since you gentlemen find this so trying, there’s no help for it. I suppose I’ll wrap it up here. In short, I ate the sweet dried persimmons and burrowed back down, burrowed back down and ate them, until I ended up devouring every last one hanging under the eaves.”

“Once they were all eaten, it must’ve finally gotten dark.”

“However, since that didn’t work—after I ate the last sweet-dried persimmon and stuck my head out thinking it must finally be dark—the intense autumn sun was still blazing across the entire six-foot shoji screen…”

“I’ve had enough. No matter how long this goes on, there’s no end to it!”
“Even I’m getting tired of telling it.”

“However, with that much perseverance, most undertakings would be achieved. If you keep quiet like this, the autumn sun will keep blazing until tomorrow morning. When on earth do you plan to buy the violin?” Even the usually unflappable Mr. Meitei seemed to have finally lost his patience. Only Dokusen-kun remained perfectly composed; even if the autumn sun kept blazing until tomorrow morning or the morning after, there was not the slightest sign of perturbation in him. Kangetsu-kun was also perfectly composed.

“You ask when I intend to buy it, but as soon as evening fell, I planned to go out immediately to make the purchase. The only trouble was that every time I poked my head out, the autumn sun was still blazing away—no, my suffering then was far beyond the mere impatience you’re experiencing now. After eating the last dried persimmon and seeing the sun still hadn’t set, tears welled up and I couldn’t help crying. Tōfū-kun, I wept from sheer wretchedness.”

“I suppose that’s true—artists are sentimental and sorrowful by nature, so I sympathize with your tears—but I do wish this story would advance more quickly,” said Tōfū-kun, his earnest yet absurdly polite remarks persisting precisely because of his fundamentally good-natured disposition.

“I’m eager to move forward myself, but this stubborn sun refuses to set—it’s utterly frustrating.”

“If the sun won’t set, we listeners can’t endure this any longer—let’s end it here,” the Master finally erupted, having clearly exhausted his patience.

“But stopping now would leave me in dire straits! We’re just approaching the story’s most crucial moment.”

“Then since I’m still listening, let’s simply declare that darkness has already fallen.”

“Though this violates all narrative logic, for your esteemed sake, Master, I shall reluctantly accept that night has descended at this juncture.”

“That’s most convenient,” Dokusen-kun remarked with perfect composure, prompting the entire group to burst out laughing involuntarily.

“As night finally fell, I first let out a sigh of relief and left my lodging in Kurakake Village. Since I inherently dislike bustling places, I deliberately avoided the convenient city area and had temporarily established a snail’s abode in a remote, sparsely populated farming village…”

“Calling it ‘sparsely populated’ is rather exaggerated,” the Master protested, to which Mr. Meitei added his complaint: “And ‘snail’s abode’ is overblown too. A simple four-and-a-half-mat room without an alcove would’ve been more vivid and amusing.”
“Only Tōfū-kun praised it, saying, ‘Regardless of the facts, the language is poetic and evocative.’”
Dokusen-kun said with a serious face, “Living in such a place, commuting to school must be tough for you.”
“About how many ri is it?” he asked.

“It’s only four or five blocks to school.”
“The school itself is located in a remote village to begin with……”

“Then there must be quite a few students boarding around there,” Dokusen-kun pressed.

“Yes, most farmers’ houses have one or two without fail.”

“So that’s why it’s sparsely populated?” he pressed on.

“Yes—if there were no school here, it would indeed be sparsely populated… As for my attire that night: over a handwoven cotton-padded undergarment, I wore a uniform overcoat with gold buttons and pulled its hood snugly over my head to avoid attracting attention.”
It was the season of persimmon leaves falling, and from the lodging all the way to Nangō Highway, the road lay buried under fallen leaves.
With each step I took, the crunching sound made me anxious.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone might be following me.
When I turned to look, the forest of Tōreiji Temple loomed thick and black—a darker shadow within the darkness.
This Tōreiji Temple was the Matsudaira family's ancestral temple, situated at the foot of Kōshin Mountain and separated from my lodging by only about a block—an exceedingly serene Buddhist sanctuary.
"Above the forest stretched an unbroken starry night, with the Milky Way crossing diagonally over the Nagase River—its end flowing first toward Hawaii..."

“Hawaii is rather eccentric, isn’t it?” remarked Mr. Meitei.

“After proceeding two blocks along Nangō Highway, I entered the city from Takadai-chō, passed through Kojō-chō, turned at Sengoku-chō, glimpsed Kuishiro-chō to the side, traversed Tōri-chō’s first block, second block, third block in succession, then continued through Owari-chō, Nagoya-chō, Shachihoko-chō, Kamaboko-chō…”

“You needn’t traverse so many towns,” interrupted the Master. “In essence—did you purchase the violin or not?” he pressed impatiently.

“The shop with musical instruments is at Kanezen—that is, Kanesuke Zaemonbei’s place—so we’re still quite a ways off.”

“Just buy it quickly, even if it’s a hassle.”

“Understood. When I arrived at Kanezen’s place, the lamp in the shop was blazing brightly…”

“Blazing again? Your blazing isn’t going to end in just one or two rounds—this is going to be a pain,” Meitei preemptively countered.

“No, this time’s ‘blazing’ is merely a single instance of blazing, so there’s no need for particular concern.”
When I peered through the lamplight, the violin faintly reflected the autumn glow, its curved body taking on a cold gleam.
Only a section of the tightly strung strings glistened white to my eyes.……

“That’s quite skillful narration!” praised Tōfū-kun.

“There it was. When I think, ‘Ah, that violin,’ my heart suddenly races and my legs go weak……”

Dokusen-kun snorted through his nose.

“Without thinking, I rushed in, took out the frog-mouthed purse from my hidden pouch, and from within it produced two five-yen bills…”

“Did you finally buy it?” asked the Master.

“I thought about buying it, but wait—this was the crucial moment. If I act recklessly, I’ll fail. ‘Well, perhaps I shouldn’t,’ I thought, stopping myself at the critical moment.”

“What? You still haven’t bought it yet? With just one violin, you’re really dragging this out, aren’t you?”

“It’s not that I’m dragging this out, but I simply can’t buy it yet, so there’s nothing to be done.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because it was still early evening with crowds passing through.”

“What does it matter? Even if two or three hundred people pass by—you’re an utterly peculiar man,” the Master snapped irritably.

“If they were ordinary folk, even a thousand wouldn’t trouble me. But these were school students roaming about with rolled-up sleeves and thick sticks—I couldn’t risk making a move.”
“Some proudly call themselves the Sediment Society—content to fester at the class bottom forever.”
“Those very ones excel at judo.”
“I can’t casually purchase a violin.”
“There’s no telling what might befall me.”
“Make no mistake—I want that violin dearly, but I still cherish my life.”
“Better to live without playing than die for scraping strings.”

“So you ended up not buying it after all?” pressed the Master.

“No, I bought it.”

“You’re such a frustrating man. If you’re going to buy it, buy it quickly. If you don’t want to, then don’t—but you ought to settle it quickly.”

“Heh heh heh, things in the world don’t get settled the way you want them to,” said Kangetsu-kun coolly as he lit up an Asahi and began to smoke.

The Master, apparently finding it bothersome, abruptly stood up and went into his study, only to come back out carrying a certain worn-out Western book, then flopped onto his stomach and began reading.
Dokusen-kun had withdrawn to in front of the tokonoma without anyone noticing and was arranging Go stones by himself, mimicking a solo sumo bout.

The anecdote, being excessively prolonged, saw its audience dwindle one by one until only Tōfū-kun—ever faithful to art—and Mr. Meitei—never daunted by lengthy matters—remained.

Kangetsu-kun, after blowing a long stream of smoke freely into the world, soon resumed his conversation at the same pace as before.

“Tōfū-kun, I thought this at the time.”
“Clearly, going early evening was no good—but if I came at midnight, Kanezen would already be asleep, making it worse.”
“Unless I timed it perfectly—after the schoolboys finished their strolls but before Kanezen went to bed—my whole plan would collapse.”
“But getting that timing right was devilishly hard.”

“Ah, what a quandary,” remarked Mr. Meitei.

“So I roughly estimated that time to be around ten o’clock. So I had to kill time somewhere until about ten. Going back home and starting over would’ve been too much trouble. Visiting a friend’s place to chat somehow felt awkward and unappealing—so I decided to stroll around town until the appointed hour. But while normally two or three hours of wandering would pass unnoticed, that night alone dragged on excruciatingly slow—‘Ah,’ I thought with profound realization, ‘this must be what they mean by the thought of a thousand years.’” He turned pointedly toward Mr. Meitei as if sharing an epiphany.

“There’s an old adage: ‘Hard is the fate of those who wait by the heated table for sages.’ And harder still must have been the violin dangling from the eaves—but you, fumbling about like some clueless investigator, surely suffered most of all.”
“Like a haggard stray from a house of mourning.”
“No—truly, nothing compares to the wretchedness of a masterless hound.”

“How cruel to liken me to dogs.”
“I’ve never been compared to canines before—not even in this fashion.”

“Listening to your story, I can’t help but feel as though I’m reading the biographies of artists from ages past—my heart swells with sympathy.”
“The comparison to a dog was Mr. Meitei’s joke, so don’t let it bother you and carry on,” Tōfū-kun consoled.
Even without consolation, Kangetsu-kun naturally intended to continue his story.

“Then from Kachimachi through Hyakkichō—out from Ryōgaemachi to Takajōmachi—counting withered willows before the prefectural office—tallying lit windows beside the hospital—smoking two cigarettes atop Konyabashi Bridge—and then I checked my watch…”

“Is it ten o’clock yet?”

“Not quite yet—after completely crossing Konyabashi Bridge and heading east along the riverbank, I came across three masseurs.”
“And then a dog kept barking incessantly, Mr. Meitei…”

“Hearing a dog’s distant howl by the riverside on an autumn night feels rather theatrical, don’t you think?”
“You’re cutting quite the figure of a fugitive.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“You were just about to.”

“If buying a violin makes one a criminal, then every music school student must be a felon.”

“If people don’t acknowledge what you do, you’re a sinner no matter how good the deed—so there’s nothing less reliable than sinners in this world.”
“If Jesus had been born in such an age, he’d be a sinner too.”
“Even our dashing Kangetsu-kun would be a sinner if he bought a violin under such circumstances.”

“In that case, I’ll concede defeat and remain a sinner.”
“Being a sinner I can accept—what truly vexed me was that it still wasn’t ten o’clock.”

“Go ahead and tally the town names once more.”
“If that doesn’t suffice, I’ll make the autumn sun blaze anew.”
“Should that still fall short, devour three dozen sun-dried bitter persimmons.”
“I’ll listen endlessly—keep at it till ten o’clock.”

Kangetsu smirked.

“If you’re determined to outpace me like this, surrender is my only recourse.”
“Then let’s vault straight to ten o’clock.”
When I reached Kanezen’s shop at the appointed hour—that crisp autumn night—even Mekugi’s bustling Ryōgaemachi stood nearly deserted, the clack of approaching geta echoing lonesomely.
Kanezen had already shut its main doors, leaving only a narrow sliding entrance with a shoji slightly ajar.
“I felt oddly like a dog was shadowing me—must admit, my nerves frayed as I slid open that shoji to enter…”

At this moment, the Master briefly looked up from his grubby book and asked, “Hey, did you buy that violin yet?”
“I’m just about to purchase it now,” replied Tōfū-kun. “Still haven’t bought it? Damnably long-winded,” he muttered like a man talking to his own shadow before burying himself in the book again.

Dokusen-kun remained silent, filling most of the Go board with white and black stones.

"When I mustered my resolve and rushed in, still wearing my hood, and demanded a violin, the four or five clerks and young men who had been huddled around the hearth talking were startled and turned to look at my face in unison."
I involuntarily raised my right hand and yanked the hood further forward.
When I demanded a second time, "Hey, give me a violin!" the clerk at the front—who had been peering at my face—gave an uncertain "Right away," stood up, and brought down three or four instruments that were hanging in the usual spot at the storefront.
"When I asked how much, they said five yen and twenty sen..."

“Hey—do violins that cheap even exist on earth?”
“That’s just a toy!”

“When I asked if they were all the same price, they replied, ‘Yes, there’s no difference between any of them.’ Since they said they were all sturdily crafted with care, I took out a five-yen bill and twenty sen in silver coins from my frog-mouthed purse, produced the large wrapping cloth I had prepared, and wrapped up the violin.” During this time, the clerks stopped talking and stared intently at my face. “My face was hidden under the hood, so there was no risk of being recognized, but I felt so restless that I couldn’t wait to get out onto the street even a moment sooner.” After finally managing to tuck the cloth-wrapped bundle under my coat and step out of the store, I was startled when the clerks all shouted “Thank you!” in unison. I stepped out into the street and glanced around; fortunately, there seemed to be no one in sight. However, from about a block away, two or three people were approaching while reciting Chinese poetry as if to resonate through the entire neighborhood. “This is bad!” I thought, turning west at Kanezen’s corner, hurrying along the moat’s edge to Yakuōshidō, passing Hanno Kimura until I reached the foot of Kōshinzan Hill—and finally managed to return to my lodgings. “When I got back to my lodgings and checked, it was already ten minutes to two.”

“It’s as though you’ve been walking all night long,” Tōfū-kun said sympathetically. “Finally made it through.”
“Whew—what a marathon of a sugoroku journey,” Mr. Meitei said with an exhausted sigh of relief.

“The real part worth hearing is yet to come.”
“What I’ve told you so far has merely been the prologue.”

“There’s still more?”
“This is no easy matter.”
“Most people lose patience when they meet you, I must say.”

“Patience aside, if I stop there, it would be like crafting a Buddha without enlivening it, so I’ll continue a bit more.”

“Speaking is entirely your prerogative.”
“But listening—that I’ll do as needed.”

“Won’t you listen too, Kushami Sensei?”
“I’ve already bought the violin!”
“Yes, Sensei.”

“Is this where you sell the violin now?”
“Spare me the peddler’s epilogue.”

“I haven’t reached that part yet.”

“Then spare me altogether.”

“This is vexing—Tōfū-kun, you alone show proper attentiveness.”
“The tale may lose its savor in abbreviation, but so be it—I’ll give the brisk account.”

“No need to rush through it—go ahead and tell it properly.”
“Absolutely fascinating!”

“I finally managed to get hold of the violin, but my first problem was where to keep it.”
“Since I often have visitors at my place, if I were to casually hang it up or lean it somewhere, it’d be discovered right away.”
“Burying it in a hole would make digging it out too much trouble.”

“Well, did you try hiding it in the attic?” Tōfū-kun suggested airily.

“There’s no attic—it’s a farmhouse, after all.”

“That must’ve been difficult.”
“Where did you end up putting it?”

“Where do you think I put it?”

“I don’t know. In the shutter compartment?”

“No.”

“Did you wrap it in bedding and stash it in the cupboard?”

“No.”

While Tōfū-kun and Kangetsu-kun kept up this back-and-forth about the violin’s hiding spot, the Teacher and Meitei were deep in their own conversation.

“How do you read this?” asked the Teacher.

“Which one?”

“These two lines here.”

“What’s that?”
“Quid aliud est mulier nisi amicitiae& inimica... This is Latin, isn’t it?”

“I know it’s Latin—but what does it say?”

“But you’re always boasting you can read Latin!” retorted Mr. Meitei, sensing danger and trying to dodge.

“Of course I can read it.”
“I can read it, but what the devil is this supposed to be?”

“‘I can read it, but what the devil—’ That’s harsh!”

“Just translate it into English already! Whatever it is!”

“That ‘Translate!’ of yours is rather intense.”
“You sound just like an orderly!”

“I don’t care if I’m an orderly—just tell me what it means!”

“Well, let’s set aside Latin for now and listen to Kangetsu-kun’s esteemed story, shall we?”
“We’re at the critical moment!”
“Now we’ve reached the decisive Ataka Barrier—the hair’s breadth between discovery and concealment!”
“Hey, Kangetsu-kun, what did you do next?” he suddenly grew animated and rejoined the violin discussion.
Master was pitifully left behind.
Kangetsu-kun, emboldened by this momentum, began explaining the hiding place.

“I finally hid it inside an old wicker chest.”
“This chest was given to me by my grandmother as a farewell gift when I left home—apparently it’s something she brought with her when she came as a bride.”

“That’s an antique, huh? It doesn’t quite harmonize with the violin. Hey, Mr. Tōfū.”

“Yes, it doesn’t quite harmonize.”

“Even the attic wouldn’t harmonize with it either, would it?” retorted Kangetsu-kun, shutting down Mr. Tōfū.

“It may not harmonize, but it makes a fine poem—don’t worry. Autumn dreariness hides the violin in its chest—how’s that for you both?”

“You’ve been quite prolific with haiku today, Mr. Meitei.”

“It’s not just today.
“They’re always brewing inside me.
“When it comes to my mastery of haiku, even the late Shiki would’ve rolled his tongue in astonishment!”

“Mr. Meitei, were you acquainted with Mr. Shiki?” asked Tōfū with earnest directness.

“What need had we for meetings? We bared our souls through wireless telegraphy day and night!” This outrageous claim left Tōfū speechless.
Kangetsu-kun chuckled and pressed on.

“So I’d managed to find a hiding place, but now I was stuck on how to get it out.
“If it were just a matter of taking it out occasionally, I could’ve managed to steal glances at it without being noticed—but merely looking wouldn’t do any good.
“It’s useless if you don’t play it.
“Play it, and sound comes out.
“Once sound comes out—immediate discovery.
“With just a single hibiscus hedge separating us from where the leader of the Chinden Group boards south of here—well—it’s downright perilous.”

“That must be difficult,” Tōfū-kun agreed sympathetically.

“Ah yes—this *is* a problem.”
“Since the sound itself is irrefutable proof, even Lady Kogo utterly failed because of this.”
“If it were food theft or counterfeiting bills, those could still be concealed—but music can’t be hidden once played.”

“If only there were no sound at all...”

“Wait now.
“You claim that without sound it’s manageable—but some things can’t be hidden even silently.”
“Back when we lived at Koishikawa Temple doing our own cooking, there was a man named Suzuki Fuji—this Fuji loved mirin so dearly he’d buy it in beer bottles and drink it alone for pleasure.”
“One day after Fuji went out walking, Kushami here went and stole some to drink—though he’d no business doing so—and then...”

“I wouldn’t drink Suzuki’s mirin or anything like that—you’re the one who drank it!” shouted Master suddenly.

“Oh, I thought you were safely reading your book, but you *were* listening after all.”
“You’re quite the man one can’t afford to let their guard down around.”
“You’re the very picture of sharp ears and keen eyes!”
“Now that you mention it, I did drink it.”
“I did drink it, no doubt, but you’re the one who got caught. Now listen here, both of you.”
“Kushami-sensei can’t hold his liquor to begin with.”
“He thought it was someone else’s mirin and drank it desperately, so—oh, what a sight—his whole face turned bright red and swelled up!”
“Oh, it was a sight you couldn’t bear to look at twice…”

“Be quiet.”
“You can’t even read Latin!”

“Ha ha ha ha! So when Mr. Fuji came back and shook the beer bottle, he found more than half of it missing.”
“Convinced that someone must have drunk it, he looked around and found the General stiff as a doll molded from red clay in the corner…”

The three of them burst into uproarious laughter.
Master chuckled while reading his book.
As for Dokusen-kun alone—having toyed too much with transcendent strategies beyond strategies—he appeared somewhat fatigued; leaning over the Go board, he had begun snoring away unnoticed at some point.

“There was even a time when something was discovered without making a sound.
“I once went to Ubako Hot Springs and ended up sharing a room with an old man.
“He was apparently a retired kimono shop owner from Tokyo or something of the sort.
“Well, since we were sharing a room, it didn’t matter whether he sold kimonos or secondhand clothes—but one troublesome problem did arise.
“You see, on my third day at Ubako, I ran out of tobacco.
“As you all know, Ubako’s just a lone house deep in the mountains—a dreadfully inconvenient place where all you can do is bathe in the hot springs and eat meals.
“So there I was, out of tobacco—a real predicament.
“When something’s gone, you want it all the more—the moment I realized I had none, though I’m not usually like that, I suddenly started craving it fiercely.
“To make matters worse, that old man had brought up a whole cloth bundle full of tobacco.
“He’d take it out little by little, sit cross-legged right in front of me, and puff away briskly—as if taunting, ‘I bet you’re dying for a smoke!’ without saying a word.
“If he’d just smoked normally, I could’ve endured it, but he started blowing smoke rings—vertical ones, horizontal ones, even puffing them backward like he was defying Handan’s dream pillow—or sending streams through his nose like a lion darting in and out of its den.
“In short—he was showing off his smoking……”

“What do you mean by ‘showing off by smoking’?”
“With costumes and props, you’d show them off—but with tobacco, you *smoke* to show off.”

“Oh, rather than going through such hardship, wouldn’t it be better to just ask for some?”

“But I didn’t take any, you see.”
“I’m a man too.”

“Oh, so you weren’t allowed to take any?”

“I might have been able to, but I didn’t take any.”

“So what happened then?”

“I didn’t take any—I stole it.”

“Well, well.”

“The old man had gone off to the bath with his towel, so I thought, ‘Now’s my chance!’ and started smoking frantically, one after another. But before I could even savor the pleasure, the shoji slid open with a clatter—and when I turned around in surprise, there stood the owner of the tobacco.”

“Didn’t he go into the bath?”

“Just as he was about to enter, he realized he’d forgotten his coin purse and turned back from the corridor. It’s not like someone would steal a coin purse—and besides, that would be downright rude.”

“I can’t quite put it into words.”
“That’s quite the skill with tobacco!”

“Ha ha ha ha! That old man had quite the discerning eye.”
“Anyway, forget the coin purse—when he slid open the shoji, wasn’t the room filled with stifling smoke from all the tobacco I’d been secretly puffing away for two days? Truly, they weren’t wrong when they said misdeeds travel a thousand miles.”
“It was discovered in an instant.”

“What did the old man say?”

“Ah, that’s where age brings wisdom! Without a word of reproach, he wrapped fifty or sixty cigarettes in plain paper and said, ‘My apologies—if this coarse leaf would suffice, please indulge yourself,’ then went straight back to his bath.”

“Is that what you call Edo sophistication?”

“Whether it’s Edo sophistication or drapery shop manners, who knows? But after that, the old man and I became thick as thieves. I ended up staying two weeks having a grand time before leaving.”

“So he provided all your tobacco during those two weeks?”

“More or less.”

“Have you finished with that violin business yet?” Master finally closed his book, sat upright, and surrendered.

“Not yet. Now comes the good part—perfect timing for you to listen. And let’s have Professor Dokusen over there—what was his name again? Ah yes, Professor Dokusen—snoring on the Go board hear this too.”
“Sleeping like that’s bad for your health.”
“High time we woke him up.”

“Hey, Dokusen-kun! Wake up! Wake up! There’s an interesting story. Get up now. They say sleeping like that’s bad for you. Your wife’s worried, they say.”

With an “Eh,” Dokusen-kun lifted his face, a long strand of drool trailing down his goatee like a snail’s glistening trail.

“Ah, I was sleepy.”
“Do the white clouds upon the mountain mirror my languor?”
“Ah, what splendid slumber.”

“We all acknowledge your sleeping prowess, but...”
“How about rousing yourself a tad?”

“I suppose it’s time to wake up now.”
“Do you have an interesting story?”

“Now we finally reach the violin... What was I going to do again, Kushami?”

“What should we do? I haven’t the foggiest notion.”

“Now comes the moment when I finally play it.”

“Now arrives the time to play the violin properly. Come over here and listen.”

“Still on about the violin? What a nuisance.”
“What a nuisance.”

“You lot with your stringless zithers have no such troubles—but Kangetsu’s squealing and screeching reaches every wall in the neighborhood! It’s causing quite the uproar.”

“Is that so? Kangetsu-kun, don’t you know how to play the violin without letting the neighbors hear?”

“I don’t know—if there is one, I’d like to hear it.”

“You shouldn’t need to ask—just look at the white cow in the back alley and you’ll understand,” he said, uttering something utterly nonsensical.
Having concluded that Kangetsu-kun must be drowsy and spouting such gibberish, he deliberately avoided engaging and pressed forward with the conversation.

“Finally, I had devised a plan. Since the next day was Tenchōsetsu—the Emperor’s Birthday—I stayed home from morning onward, restlessly opening and closing the lid of the wicker chest all day. When night fell at last and a cricket began chirping from the chest’s depths, I resolutely took out that violin and bow.”

“It’s finally emerging!” said Tōfū-kun. “Playing it too often would be perilous,” cautioned Meitei-kun.

“First, I took the bow and inspected it from tip to grip…”

“It’s not like you’re some second-rate swordsmith,” Mr. Meitei sneered.

“When I truly consider this my soul, it feels like being a samurai tending to his exquisitely sharpened blade by lamplight through the endless night.”
“I stood trembling with the bow in my hands.”

Following Tōfū-kun’s remark of “An absolute genius!”, Mr. Meitei retorted, “An absolute epileptic!”
Master said, “You should just play it already.”
Dokusen-kun made a face that said, “This is troublesome.”

“Thankfully, the bow was unharmed,” I said.
“This time, I drew the violin close to the lamp as well and thoroughly examined both its front and back.”
“During this interval of about five minutes, please imagine that a cricket was chirping incessantly at the bottom of the wicker chest……”

“Let them think what they will—just play without worry,” said Master.

“I still haven’t played it—fortunately, the violin’s undamaged.”
“With this settled,” I resolutely stood up…

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Please just be quiet and listen. If you interrupt me every single sentence, I can’t continue the story.……”

“Quiet, everyone.”
“Shh! Shh!”

“You’re the only one talking here!”

“Ah—right—my mistake. I’ll listen properly.”

“Tucking the violin under my arm and still wearing my clogs, I took two or three steps out through the grassy door—but wait—”

“There you are.”
“Anyway, I was certain there’d be a blackout somewhere.”

“Even if you go back now, there aren’t any sweet dried persimmons left.”

“While this muddle caused by our esteemed scholars is most regrettable, I’ve no choice but to speak to you alone now, Tōfū-kun. Listen closely—after taking two or three steps out, I turned back, threw that red blanket I’d bought for three yen and twenty sen when leaving my hometown over my head, then pfft—blew out the lamp. Utter darkness fell, and this time I couldn’t make out where my clogs were at all.”

“Where on earth are you going?”

“Do listen, will you? After finally finding the sandals and stepping outside, there under the starry moonlit sky were persimmon leaves falling, a red blanket, and the violin. As I kept veering right and ascending the slope of Kōshin Mountain on tiptoe, the bell of Tōreiji Temple boomed through the blanket, through my ears, and reverberated deep within my head. ‘What time do you think it was?’”

“I don’t know.”

“It was nine o’clock. Now I had to climb eight chō up the mountain path to a place called Ōhira alone through autumn’s long night—ordinarily, given my timid nature, I’d have been terrified beyond measure. But consumed by single-minded determination, something strange happened—whether I should feel fear or not, not a shred of such thoughts arose in my mind. It’s strange—my heart was so full of nothing but wanting to play the violin.”

“This Ōhira lies on Kōshin Mountain’s southern side—on clear days when you climb up, it’s a plain with superb views where you can look down through red pines to see the entire castle town below. Let’s see…the area’s about 100 tsubo wide, with a monolithic rock in the center roughly eight tatami mats in size. To the north lies Unuma Pond, its banks lined with camphor trees so massive it’d take three arm spans around their trunks.”

“Deep in the mountains, the only inhabited spot was a camphor-gathering hut—even by day, the pond’s vicinity felt eerie.”

“Fortunately, army engineers had cleared a path during drills, making the climb manageable.”

“I finally reached the monolithic rock’s summit, spread out the blanket, and sat down regardless.”

“Having never climbed on such a cold night before, the surrounding loneliness gradually seeped into my gut as I settled on the stone.”

“In such moments, fear alone disturbs the human mind—strip that away, and all that remains is crystalline clarity.”

“After twenty dazed minutes, I felt myself dwelling alone in a crystal palace.”

“Moreover, this solitary body of mine—no, not just body but mind and soul—had turned mysteriously translucent as if molded from agar-agar. I couldn’t tell whether I inhabited the crystal palace or housed it within my belly……”

“This has taken quite a turn!” said Mr. Meitei with mockingly earnest teasing, after which Professor Dokusen appeared somewhat impressed, remarking, “An intriguing realm of existence.”

“If this state had persisted, I might have sat on that monolithic rock until dawn tomorrow without ever playing the violin I’d gone to such lengths for…”

“Are there foxes around here?” asked Tōfū-kun.

“In this state where self and other became indistinguishable—where I couldn’t tell if I lived or died or even discern directions—a shrill cry suddenly erupted from the depths of the ancient swamp behind me…”

“There it is!”

"The voice’s echo traveled far, sweeping through the autumn treetops across the entire mountain with the gale—and then I suddenly came back to my senses……"

“Finally, some relief!” Meitei-kun feigned wiping sweat from his brow.

“Through great death comes renewal of heaven and earth,” Dokusen-kun said with a meaningful wink.
The remark didn't register with Kangetsu-kun at all.

Then, coming to my senses and looking around, Kōshin Mountain lay utterly silent—not a sound as loud as a raindrop could be heard.
Hmm, I wondered what that sound just now was.
It was too shrill to be a human voice, too loud to be a bird’s cry, and as for a monkey’s call—well, there shouldn’t be any monkeys around here.
What could it be?
When the question arose in my mind, the mental elements that had been perfectly calm until now began racing through my brain in chaotic disarray—exactly like the frenzied attitudes of city folk during Prince Connaught’s welcoming ceremonies.
Before long, all my pores suddenly opened, and the guests known as courage, boldness, discernment, and composure began evaporating away like shochu splashed on hairy shins.
My heart under my ribs began dancing a frantic jig.
Both legs quivered like the resonant hum of a paper kite.
This is unbearable.
Suddenly, I threw the blanket over my head, tucked the violin under my arm, unsteadily leapt down from the monolithic rock, dashed headlong down the eight-chō mountain path toward the base, returned to the inn, and burrowed into my futon to sleep.
“Even now when I think about it, there’s never been anything as creepy as that, Tōfū-kun.”

“And then?”

“And that’s the end.”

“Aren’t you going to play the violin?”

“Even if I wanted to play it, I couldn’t—not with that ‘Gyaa!’ sound. You wouldn’t be able to play either, I bet.”

“Somehow, your story feels rather unsatisfying.”

"You might feel that way, but it's the truth. How about that, Sensei?" said Kangetsu-kun, surveying the group with an air of triumph.

“Ha ha ha ha! This is a masterpiece. It must have taken considerable agony and struggle to reach that point. I thought we were witnessing the emergence of a male Sandra Belloni in the Land of Eastern Gentlemen, and had been listening in all earnestness until now,” said Mr. Meitei. When no one asked for an explanation about Sandra Belloni as he’d anticipated, he continued: “The scene of Sandra Belloni plucking her lyre under the moon while singing Italian-style songs in the forest shares the same melody as your ascent of Kōshin Mountain with violin in tow—though yours is a masterpiece of divergent ingenuity. What a pity—while she startled the moon goddess Chang’e, you were frightened by a mysterious raccoon dog from the old swamp, creating a vast chasm between the sublime and the absurd at the crucial moment. ...must be quite a disappointment,” he explained to himself,

“It’s not particularly regrettable,” said Kangetsu-kun, remarkably composed.

“Trying to play the violin up a mountain—this is what comes of your Westernized airs! No wonder you were frightened!” the Teacher interjected harshly.

“A hero makes his livelihood facing demonic caves,” Professor Dokusen remarked with a meaningful look.
“What a waste,” he sighed.
Not once had Kangetsu-kun ever understood anything Professor Dokusen said.
Nor was this unique to Kangetsu-kun—likely no one could comprehend him.

“Well then, Kangetsu-kun—are you still going to school these days just grinding away at your beads?” Mr. Meitei shifted the conversation after a pause.

“No, I’ve been back home in the country since the other day, so things are temporarily on hold. Since I’ve run out of beads, I’m actually thinking of giving up.”

“But if you can’t polish beads, you can’t become a doctorate, you know,” said the Teacher with a slight frown, but Kangetsu-kun himself remained surprisingly unperturbed.

“A doctorate? Heh heh heh. If it’s a doctorate, I don’t need to become one anymore.”

“But if the marriage gets delayed, both sides will be in trouble.”

“Marriage? Whose marriage are you talking about?”

“Your marriage.”

“Who would I be marrying?”

“Kaneda’s daughter.”

“Huh?”

“What do you mean ‘huh’? There was such a clear promise!”

“There’s no such promise—don’t go spreading that around! They’re acting on their own.”

“This is outrageous. Hey, Meitei—you know about that whole affair too, don’t you?”

“That affair—you mean the Nose Incident? If we’re talking about that, it’s not just you and me who know—it’s become public knowledge across the realm. Why, even the Yorozu Chōhō keeps badgering me about when they’ll have the honor of publishing both your photos under headlines like ‘Blooming Bride and Groom.’ As for Tōfū-kun here, he’s been sitting on his grand ‘Ballad of Mandarin Ducks’ for three months now. With Kangetsu-kun still not earning his doctorate, that masterpiece risks becoming a treasure left to molder—he’s apparently sick with worry over it. Isn’t that right, Tōfū-kun?”

“I haven’t been troubled enough to worry yet, but I do intend to publish a work saturated with heartfelt sympathy.”

“See here! Whether you become a Doctor or not sends ripples in all directions.”
“Get a grip and keep polishing those beads.”

“Heh heh... Apologies for troubling you all, but I’ve no need to become a Doctor now.”

“Why?”
“Why? Because I already have an indisputable wife.”

“Well now, this is remarkable! When did you manage to pull off this secret marriage? What a dangerously unpredictable world we live in. Mr. Kushami—as you’ve just heard—it appears our Kangetsu-kun here already has a wife and child.”

“No children yet.”
“After all, if a child were born before even a month had passed since getting married, that would be quite something.”

“When and where did you get married in the first place?” the Teacher asked like an examining magistrate.

“When I returned home to the country, she was properly waiting there.”
“The dried bonito I brought to your house today—this was received from relatives as a wedding gift.”

“Only three sticks for celebration? That’s stingy.”

“I merely brought three sticks out of many.”

“So she’s from your hometown. And dark-skinned after all.”

“Yes, jet-black.
Just right for me.”

“Then what will you do about Kaneda?”

“I won’t do anything.”

“That’s rather ungrateful.
Hey Meitei.
Hey Meitei.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“If they marry her off to someone else, it makes no difference.”
“Marriage is like pots clashing blindly in the dark anyway.”
“It’s pure redundancy—going out of your way to clash pots that needn’t clash at all.”
“If it’s redundant anyway, whose pots collide hardly matters.”
“The only casualty here is Tōfū-kun and his ‘Song of Mandarin Ducks.’”

“Oh, the ‘Song’ can be repurposed as circumstances require.”
“I’ll compose a fresh one for the Kaneda nuptials when needed...”

“As expected of a poet—you’re so adaptable!”

“Did you turn down Kaneda?” asked the Teacher, still fixated on Kaneda.

“No.
There’s no reason to refuse.
Since I never asked them for anything or expressed any desire to receive anything, staying silent was more than enough.—Ah, staying silent *was* more than enough.
Nowadays, with ten or twenty detectives on the case, they know every last detail.”

Upon hearing the word “detective,” the Teacher suddenly made a bitter face.

“Hmph, then keep quiet,” he commanded, but even this didn’t satisfy him, and he launched into a grand lecture about detectives:

“A pickpocket steals from your pockets when you’re distracted; a detective fishes out your innermost thoughts when you’re distracted. A burglar removes storm shutters to steal your possessions; a detective makes you slip up to steal your secrets. A robber jams a crowbar through tatami mats to take your money; a detective jams threats through your ears to take your will. Therefore, detectives belong to the same family as pickpockets, burglars, and robbers—they don’t deserve to stand upwind of decent people. Listening to their drivel becomes addictive. Never lose to them!”

“Not to worry! Even if a thousand—no, two thousand—detectives were to form ranks upwind and charge, I wouldn’t flinch. I am Mizushima Kangetsu—master bead polisher and scientist extraordinaire!”

“My, how awe-inspiring—though it does send shivers down one’s spine,” remarked the Teacher. “Truly, newlywed scholars overflow with vigor! But tell me, Mr. Kushami—if detectives are kin to pickpockets and burglars, what manner of creature would that make Mr. Kaneda, who employs them?”

“A latter-day Kumasaka Chōhan, no doubt.”

“Ah, Kumasaka had it easy!” countered Meitei. “They say ‘The singular Chōhan split in twain and vanished,’ but this alleyway impostor who built his fortune on crow’s gold? That greedy wretch will cling to life forever through sheer avarice! Cross paths with such filth, and you’ll be cursed for life—mark my words, Kangetsu-kun!”

“Oh, it’s fine. What a fearsome thief you are! I’ve long since seen through your tricks. Haven’t you learned your lesson yet? Dare to try again, and I’ll give you a taste of real suffering!” declared Kangetsu-kun with unshaken composure, his bravado worthy of a Hōshō-ryū performer.

“When it comes to detectives,” posed Professor Dokusen in his characteristically detached manner, entirely removed from current affairs, “why do twentieth-century people increasingly resemble detectives themselves?”

“It’s because prices are high,” answered Kangetsu-kun.

“It’s because they lack artistic sensibility,” answered Tōfū-kun.

“It’s because civilization has grown horns on mankind, making everyone as prickly as konpeitō candy,” answered Mr. Meitei.

Now it was the Teacher’s turn.
The Teacher began his argument with an affectedly solemn tone.

“That is a matter I have pondered at length.
“In my interpretation, this detective-like propensity in modern people stems entirely from excessive self-consciousness.”
“What I call ‘self-consciousness’ isn’t the sort of enlightenment Mr. Dokusen refers to—not ‘seeing one’s Buddha-nature’ or ‘the self merging with heaven and earth.’……”

“My, things seem to have gotten quite complicated. Mr. Kushami, since you’re brandishing such grand arguments on the tip of your tongue, even I—Meitei, though it may be presumptuous—shall boldly declare my grievances against modern civilization afterward.”

“Go ahead and say whatever you like—not that you have anything worth saying.”

“But there’s a point here—a significant one at that. You—who not long ago revered police officers like gods yet today equate detectives with pickpockets and thieves—what an absurd contradiction! But I have remained consistent from before my parents’ birth to this very day, never once altering my views.”

“Detectives are detectives. What I said before was for then, and today is today. Not changing one’s views is evidence of stagnation. The saying ‘The foolish do not change’ refers to you...”

“This is harsh.”
“Even detectives have their endearing side when they come at you so earnestly.”

“I’m a detective.”

“But since I’m not one, I can speak honestly.”
“Enough quarreling!”
“Now then,”
“Let us hear the rest of this grand argument.”

“Modern self-consciousness stems from people knowing too well the stark chasm of conflicting interests between themselves and others.”
“As civilization progresses day by day, this self-consciousness grows ever keener, until even the simplest gestures lose all natural ease.”
“Henley once said of Stevenson that he couldn’t pass a mirror without checking his reflection—a man utterly incapable of forgetting himself for even an instant.”
“Sleeping or waking, this ‘self’ clings to us everywhere, rendering human actions increasingly artificial, constricting our very beings, turning the world into a place of torment where we must live from dawn till dusk with the strained formality of youths at an arranged marriage meeting.”
“Words like ‘serenity’ and ‘composure’ become empty strokes on paper.”
“In this sense, modern people are detectives.”
“They are thieves.”
“Detectives must cultivate acute self-consciousness to slip past others’ notice for their own gain.”
“Burglars too develop it inevitably, forever fearing capture.”
“People today ceaselessly calculate profit and loss whether asleep or awake, breeding a self-awareness as sharp as any detective’s or thief’s.”
“Modern hearts know no peace—eternally jittery, eternally furtive, finding respite only in the grave.”
“The curse of civilization.”
“How absurd!”

“That’s certainly an intriguing interpretation,” remarked Professor Dokusen.
When it came to such issues, Professor Dokusen was not one to hold back.
“Kushami-kun’s explanation has well captured my intent.
People of old taught us to forget ourselves.
Modern people are taught not to forget themselves—that makes all the difference.
They remain steeped in self-awareness twenty-four hours a day.
Hence, they never know peace of mind day or night.
It’s always a blazing hell.
In all the world, there’s no better remedy than forgetting oneself.
The verse ‘Entering selflessness beneath the midnight moon’ sings of this ultimate state.
Even modern kindness reeks of affectation.
Boasting about English ‘niceties’ strains self-consciousness to its limits.
When the British emperor visited India and dined with Indian royalty, a prince—unaware he was in the sovereign’s presence—unthinkingly followed his country’s custom by scooping potatoes bare-handed onto his plate. Later, when he flushed crimson with shame, the emperor feigned ignorance and likewise took potatoes using two fingers for his own plate……”

“Is that what you call English taste?”
This was Kangetsu-kun’s question.

“I heard such a story,” said the Master, following up.
“There was an incident at a British military barracks where a great many regimental officers treated a single non-commissioned officer to a meal.”
After the meal concluded, when they brought out a glass bowl filled with water for washing hands, this non-commissioned officer—evidently unaccustomed to banquets—pressed the glass bowl to his lips and gulped down all the water inside.
Then, the regimental commander suddenly toasted to the non-commissioned officer’s health and, just like that, downed all the water from the finger bowl in one gulp.
“Thereupon, all the officers present—not wanting to be outdone—raised their water cups and toasted to the non-commissioned officer’s health, or so the story goes.”

“There’s another story like this,” said Mr. Meitei, who hated staying silent. “When Carlyle first had an audience with the Empress—being an eccentric unaccustomed to court etiquette—Mr. Carlyle abruptly said ‘How about this?’ and dropped heavily into a chair.” “Now, the numerous attendants and ladies-in-waiting standing behind the Empress all started to stifle giggles—no, not quite let them out; they tried to suppress them. Then Her Majesty turned around and gave a slight signal, whereupon all those attendants and ladies-in-waiting quietly took their seats before you knew it. They say Carlyle didn’t lose face thanks to this—what an elaborately considerate kindness!”

“If it’s Carlyle we’re talking about, he might not have minded even if everyone had remained standing,” remarked Kangetsu-kun, attempting a brief critique.

“The self-consciousness of kind people is somewhat acceptable,” Professor Dokusen continued.
“With self-consciousness, even showing kindness becomes a laborious task.”
“It’s pitiful.”
“People claim that as civilization advances, society’s harshness fades and personal interactions grow harmonious—but this is utterly mistaken.”
“How could anyone maintain composure with such intense self-consciousness?”
“True, at first glance it appears perfectly calm and peaceful—yet tremendous strain exists between them.”
“It’s like sumo wrestlers locked in a stalemate at the ring’s center.”
“Outsiders see perfect tranquility—but aren’t their very guts roiling with turmoil?”

“In the past, fights were straightforward acts of violent oppression and thus hardly sinful, but modern quarrels have grown so cunning that self-consciousness only intensifies further,” said Mr. Meitei as the discussion turned to him.
“Bacon’s maxim states that one must first obey nature’s forces to conquer them—it’s remarkable how modern conflicts are precisely constructed according to this axiom.”
“Exactly like jujitsu.”
“They think of using the enemy’s strength to defeat the enemy…”

“Or perhaps it’s like hydroelectric power,” said Kangetsu-kun. “Without resisting the water’s force but transforming it into electricity to make splendid use of it…” He had barely begun speaking when Professor Dokusen commandeered the conversation.
“Thus in poverty we’re bound by poverty, in wealth by wealth, in sorrow by sorrow, in joy by joy. The talented perish through their talents, the wise are undone by their wisdom—and hot-tempered fellows like Kushami-kun need only indulge their temper to come charging out and be ensnared in the enemy’s deception…”

“Chilling!” Mr. Meitei clapped his hands. Kusakabe smirked and countered, “You’ll find it’s not so easily done,” prompting everyone to burst into laughter.

“By what means might someone like Kaneda meet his end?” asked Professor Dokusen.

“The wife through her nose, the master through his obstinacy, the underlings through their detective work—something along those lines,” replied Mr. Meitei.

“And the daughter?”

“As for the daughter—well, never having seen her, I can’t say definitively—but she’ll likely bankrupt herself on finery, gorge herself into ruin, or become a sot. Though love-induced ruin seems improbable. She might even end up a destitute wanderer like Sotoba Komachi.”

“That’s a bit harsh,” protested Tōfū, who had dedicated himself to new-style poetry.

“Therefore, ‘mu-shu-ju ni shō sono shin’—a mind arising without abiding—is an essential teaching. Unless humans reach such a state, they cannot escape suffering,” Professor Dokusen declared repeatedly, as if expounding a personal revelation.

“Don’t act so high and mighty. You might just end up flat on your back in a flash of enlightenment.”

“At any rate, if civilization keeps advancing at this rate, I simply won’t want to be alive,” declared the Master.

“No need for restraint—just die,” Meitei declared point-blank.

“Dying is even more undesirable,” declared the Master, digging in his unreasonable heels.

“No one is born after careful deliberation, but it seems everyone agonizes over dying,” Kangetsu-kun proclaimed, offering a detached maxim.

“It’s just like how people borrow money carelessly but fret when repaying,” retorted Meitei-kun without missing a beat.

“Those who don’t dwell on repaying debts are happy,” declared Professor Dokusen with transcendental calmness, “as are those unburdened by death.”

“By that logic,” countered Meitei-kun, “enlightenment belongs to the shameless thick-skinned!”

“Precisely,” affirmed Professor Dokusen. “Zen teaches us: ‘An iron bull’s face bears an iron bull’s heart; a bull of iron wears iron resolve.’”

“So you’re saying you’re the specimen of that?”

“Not necessarily. However, people only began to agonize over death after this illness called neurasthenia was invented.”

“Indeed, someone like you is—from every angle—a man from before the age of neurasthenia.”

While Meitei and Dokusen were engaged in their peculiar back-and-forth, the Master kept airing his grievances about civilization to Kangetsu and Tōfū.

“The true question is how one might avoid repaying borrowed money.”

“There’s no such dilemma,” Kangetsu objected. “What’s borrowed must be returned.”

“Now now—this is philosophical discourse. You’d do well to listen quietly.” The Master pressed on, “Just as avoiding debt repayment poses a quandary, so too does evading death constitute our fundamental problem. Or rather, it did constitute it. Alchemy addressed this very matter—yet all alchemical endeavors have failed. Mankind’s inevitable mortality stands irrefutably proven.”

“It was clear even before alchemy.”

“Now, now—this is a debate. Just listen quietly.”
“Alright.”
“When it becomes clear that one must inevitably die, the second problem arises.”

“Hmm,”

“If one is to die anyway, how should one die?”
“This is the second problem.”
“The Suicide Club is destined to emerge alongside this second problem.”

“I see.”

“Dying is painful, but being unable to die is even more painful.”
“For people with neurasthenia, living is a far greater pain than death.”
“Therefore, they agonize over death.”
“It’s not because they dislike dying that they suffer; they worry about what would be the best way to die.”
However, most lack the wisdom for such considerations; they’re left to nature’s course until society torments them to death.
“However, those with a certain peculiarity will not be content to be gradually tormented to death by society.”
“Undoubtedly, after conducting various researches on methods of death, they will present novel ideas.”
“Therefore, as global trends progress, suicides will increase, and without fail, those suicides will depart this world through original methods.”

“Things are going to get rather turbulent, aren’t they?”

“They will!”
“Indeed they will!”
“In a play written by someone named Arthur Jones, there’s a philosopher who constantly advocates suicide…”

“Does he commit suicide?”

“But regrettably he doesn’t.”
“Yet in a thousand years’ time, everyone will undoubtedly carry it out.”
“In ten thousand years, when people speak of death, it will be considered nonexistent except through suicide.”

“That would lead to quite an alarming situation.”

“They will! They definitely will! When that happens, suicide will have been researched so extensively that it becomes a proper science—middle schools like Rakuyoukan will teach suicide studies as an official subject instead of ethics.”

“How curious. I’d almost want to attend as an observer.”
“Did you hear that, Mr.Meitei?”
“Mr.Kushami’s brilliant argument.”

“I heard it.”
“By that time, the ethics teacher at Rakuyoukan will say this, you know.”
“Gentlemen, you must not cling to barbaric relics like public morality.”
“As youths of the world, your foremost duty to heed is suicide.”
“Since it is permissible to impose upon others what one favors oneself, you may take suicide a step further and turn it into murder.”
“Especially someone like Mr. Chinsaku Kushami, the impoverished scholar across the way—since his continued existence appears to cause him considerable suffering—it is your duty to mercifully dispatch him at the earliest opportunity.”
“However, unlike in the past, since this is an enlightened age, you must not engage in such cowardly behavior as using spears, naginatas, or projectile weapons.”
“By employing the noble art of sarcasm, tormenting someone to death through mockery becomes an act of mercy for the victim and brings honor to you all.……”

“That’s certainly an entertaining lecture.”

“There’s more entertaining stuff.”
“In modern times, protecting the people’s lives and property is the police’s primary purpose.”
“But by that era, officers will be going around bludgeoning citizens to death with clubs like those used for dog culling.……”

“Why?”

“Why? Because in this age people value their lives, so the police protect them—but in that future era, citizens find living unbearable, so officers mercifully beat them to death out of compassion.”

“Naturally, anyone with half a brain would’ve killed themselves already, so those getting clubbed by officers would be either utter cowards or idiots and cripples who can’t manage suicide.”

“So people wanting death would post notices at their gates?”

“Exactly! Just stick up signs saying ‘Man seeking death’ or ‘Woman seeking death,’ and officers would swing by at their convenience to oblige.”

“Corpses?”

“Officers would still make their rounds with carts to collect the bodies.”

“And even more entertaining developments await...”

“Mr. Meitei’s jokes truly know no bounds,” said Mr. Tōfū with great admiration.
Then, as was his wont, Mr. Dokusen began to expound ponderously while fussing with his goatee.

“While you may call it a joke, you might also call it a prophecy.”
“Those who fail to penetrate truth thoroughly tend to remain bound by the phenomenal world before their eyes, mistaking ephemeral illusions for eternal facts—so when someone speaks of matters slightly beyond their grasp, they immediately dismiss it as a joke.”

“How could sparrows and swallows comprehend the ambitions of the great roc?” said Kangetsu-kun in awed admiration, whereupon Mr. Dokusen—wearing an expression that all but said *Precisely* without uttering it—resumed his discourse.

“Once there was a place in Spain called Córdoba...” began Dokusen.

“Doesn’t it still exist?” interjected Kangetsu-kun.

“Perhaps it does,” Dokusen conceded. “But regardless of its present status, their custom was this—when the evening temple bell tolled, every woman would emerge from her home to bathe in the river...”

“Even in winter?”

“That detail escapes me,” he continued, stroking his goatee. “But all would plunge into the waters—young and old, noble and commoner alike. Yet no men joined them.” His voice took on a wistful quality. “The men merely watched from afar... From those distant vantage points, pale forms could be seen moving faintly across the twilight-draped waves...”

“How poetic.”
“That would make a fine new-style poem.”
“What kind of place is that?” said Mr. Tōfū, who would lean forward eagerly at even a mention of nudity.

“Córdoba.”
“So the young men from the countryside, unable to swim with the women nor permitted to clearly observe their figures from afar, found this regrettable and played a little prank…”

“Oh? What manner of prank was it?” asked Mr. Meitei, greatly delighted at the mention of mischief.

"They bribed the temple bell-ringer to ring the sunset signal an hour early."
Then, being simple-minded creatures, the women—hearing the bell had indeed rung—each gathered at the riverbank in their half-undergarments and split trousers, splashing noisily into the water.
"They jumped in, but unlike usual, the day hadn’t darkened."

“Isn’t the fierce autumn sun blazing down?”

"When they looked up at the bridge, a great many men were standing there watching."
They were mortified, but there was nothing they could do.
"They apparently blushed crimson."

“And then?”

“You see, humans become so beguiled by immediate customs that they forget fundamental principles—that’s why vigilance is essential.”

“What an edifying sermon.”
“Shall I too recount a tale about being deceived by surface habits?”
“Recently I read a magazine containing such a swindler’s story.”
“Suppose I were to open an antique art shop here.”
“I’d display masterworks and artisan tools in the storefront.”
“Naturally, they’d all be genuine articles—not a single forgery among them.”
“Being premium items, they’d command premium prices.”
“Then along comes a discerning customer asking, ‘What’s your price for this Motonobu scroll?’”
“When I reply, ‘Six hundred yen,’ he sighs, ‘I do want it, but lacking six hundred yen at present—regrettably I must decline.’”

“Is that how it’s supposed to go?” said the Master, his tone as devoid of theatricality as ever.
Meitei maintained an expression of perfect composure,

“Well, it’s a novel,” I said. “Let’s just take it as given.”
“So I tell him, ‘Terms don’t matter—if you like it, take it home.’”
“The customer hesitates, saying he can’t possibly do that.”
“‘Then let’s arrange monthly payments—small amounts over years, since you’ll be a regular patron! Oh, no need for formalities at all.’”
“‘How about ten yen a month?’”
“‘If that suits, even five yen!’ I offered brightly.”
“After some back-and-forth, I ended up selling Kano Hōgen Motonobu’s scroll for six hundred yen—ten yen monthly installments.”

“That sounds like something taken straight from The Times’ encyclopedia.”

“The Times may be reliable, but my tale is utterly dubious.”
“Now we arrive at the truly ingenious swindling technique!”
“Listen well—if paying ten yen monthly for six hundred yen total, how many years until full repayment, Kangetsu-kun?”

“Naturally five years.”

“Of course five years. Now, do you think five years feels long or short, Dokusen-kun?”

“A single thought contains ten thousand years; ten thousand years dwell in a single thought. It is both brief and not brief.”

“What kind of moralistic drivel is this? Utterly devoid of common sense! Let me explain properly—since they’re paying ten yen monthly over five years, that makes sixty payments total. But here’s the terrifying part about habits: after repeating the same act sixty times, they’ll still feel compelled to pay ten yen on the sixty-first month. And the sixty-second. By the sixty-second and sixty-third payments, they become so conditioned that paying ten yen each due date feels as natural as breathing.”

"Humans may seem clever," he said, "but they have a fatal weakness—being led astray by habits and forgetting what truly matters."
"By exploiting that weakness," he continued, "I could keep collecting ten yen every month indefinitely."

"Ha ha ha! Surely people aren't that forgetful!" laughed Kangetsu-kun. The Master, however, interjected with uncharacteristic seriousness:

"No, such things absolutely happen.
'There was a time when I kept repaying my university loan month after month without keeping count,' he proclaimed, elevating his personal embarrassment to a universal human flaw."

“There, you see? We have such a person right here, so it’s a proven fact. Therefore, those who laugh at my earlier account of civilization’s future chronicle as a mere joke are the very sort who would consider it proper to keep paying monthly installments their entire lives even after sixty payments should suffice. Especially young gentlemen like Kangetsu-kun and Tōfū-kun—those lacking experience—must listen closely to what we say and take care not to be deceived.”

“Understood. The installments shall strictly be limited to sixty payments.”
“The installments shall strictly be limited to sixty payments.”

“Now, this may sound like a joke, but it’s actually quite instructive, Kangetsu-kun,” said Dokusen, turning to face him.
“For instance, suppose Mr. Kushami or Mr. Meitei were to advise you that marrying without permission was improper and that you should apologize to someone like Mr. Kaneda—how would you respond?”
“Do you expect me to apologize?”

“I must respectfully decline any apologies.”
“If they wish to apologize, that’s their affair—I myself have no such desire.”

“What if the police ordered you to apologize?”

“I must most emphatically decline.”

“What if it were a minister or a peer?”

“I must most emphatically decline.”

“There, you see? Humans have changed that much between past and present. In the past, it was an era when anything could be accomplished through the authority’s prestige. Next will come an era when things that even the authority’s prestige cannot accomplish will emerge. In today’s world—no matter if they are His Highness or Excellency—it is an age where one cannot impose beyond a certain extent on an individual’s dignity. To put it bluntly, this is an era where the more power the other party holds, the more those being pressed upon feel displeasure and resist. Therefore, the present era differs from the past—it is an age where new phenomena emerge, such as things being impossible precisely because of the prestige of those in power. In this world, matters that would have been nearly unthinkable from a bygone perspective now pass as reasonable. The transformations in society and human relations are truly mystifying. While Mr. Meitei’s future chronicle might be dismissed as mere jest if taken at face value, when viewed as an exposition of these underlying dynamics, doesn’t it possess rather profound insight?”

“When such a kindred spirit appears, I simply must continue my Future Chronicle, you know. To follow Dokusen-kun’s theory—those in our present age who try to force their way through by clinging to imperial prestige or depending on two or three hundred bamboo spears are like outdated relics frantically racing trains in palanquins while swatting at mosquitoes—the very archetype of obstinate fools, akin to Naganori of Ukon himself! One might as well quietly observe their antics—but my Future Chronicle isn’t some trivial stopgap solution for such petty matters. Because it’s a social phenomenon concerning the fate of all humanity. Upon thoroughly observing the current tendencies of civilization and predicting the distant future trends, marriage will become an impossibility. Marvel not—the impossibility of marriage.”

“Let me explain it like this,” began the Aesthetician. “As I stated earlier, today’s world revolves entirely around individuality.”

“In eras past—when household masters represented families, magistrates governed districts, and feudal lords ruled nations—those outside these roles possessed no true individuality.”

“Even when traces existed, they went unrecognized.”

When that paradigm shifted completely, every living being began asserting their individuality so vehemently that upon encountering anyone, they might as well have declared aloud: “You’re you, and I’m me!”

When two people met on the road, they’d pass each other while mentally sparring—“If you count as human, then so do I!”

This demonstrated how much stronger individuals had become—yet precisely because all grew equally strong, they paradoxically became equally weak.

While people could now scarcely harm one another—marking genuine progress—their inability to meddle in others’ affairs revealed a newfound fragility compared to bygone days.

Though delighted by their growing strength, none welcomed this weakness; thus they clung fiercely to their strong points while forcibly expanding vulnerable aspects—if only by a hair’s breadth—to encroach upon others.

This erosion of personal space made existence unbearably cramped.

People strained themselves taut, swelling until near bursting as they struggled to survive.

Tormented by this condition, they sought myriad ways to carve breathing room between individuals.

Thus humanity—suffering self-inflicted anguish—devised its first desperate measure: the system of parent-child separation.

“Go into Japan’s mountains even now,” he continued, “and you’ll find entire clans idling under one roof.”

“When no individuality demanded assertion—or went unasserted even when present—such arrangements sufficed.”

“But civilized folk today must assert their selfishness even between parent and child to avoid disadvantage—hence separation becomes necessary for mutual safety.”

“Europe’s advanced civilization adopted this system earlier than Japan.”

“Even when parents and children cohabitate there now, sons borrow money at interest from fathers or pay boarding fees like strangers.”

“This admirable custom persists precisely because parents respect their offspring’s individuality.”

This custom had to inevitably reach Japan sooner or later.
Relatives had already separated; parents and children were separating now—though they barely endured this state of affairs—and as individuality developed with ever-expanding reverence for it, they needed to separate further still for peace.
Yet now that parents, children, and siblings had all parted ways today—with nothing left to divide—spouses would split up as humanity’s final measure.
“People today think mere cohabitation makes a married couple.”
“That’s pure delusion!”
“To live together requires personalities sufficiently compatible for coexistence.”
“In olden days it worked—they called it ‘two bodies, one soul.’ To the eye they seemed a couple, but fundamentally they were one entity.”
“Hence phrases like ‘growing old together in shared graves’—turning into badgers rotting in the same den.”
“Barbaric stuff.”
“Unthinkable in our modern age.”
“A husband remains utterly husbandly; a wife inevitably wifely.”
“When she storms in wearing girls’ school andon hakama and Western chignon—her individuality forged like iron—there’s no bending her to his will.”
“A wife who obeys her husband’s whims isn’t a wife—she’s a doll.”
“The wiser the wife grows, the mightier her individuality becomes.”
“The mightier it grows, the less she matches her husband.”
“Incompatibility breeds inevitable conflict.”
“Thus any ‘wise wife’ worth the title clashes with her husband from dawn till dusk.”
“Splendid in theory—but each wise bride multiplies mutual suffering exponentially.”
“Between spouses lies a water-and-oil divide—were this boundary calm and horizontal, it might yet hold—but when both fluids churn against each other, homes heave like earthquake-struck land.”
“There humanity will gradually grasp this truth: cohabiting spouses mutually sabotage themselves...”

“So married couples will separate?”
“That’s worrying,” said Kangetsu-kun.

“They separate.”
“They will surely separate.”
“All married couples in the world will separate.”
“Until now, those who lived together were considered husband and wife, but from now on, those cohabiting will be viewed by society as lacking the qualifications to be spouses.”

“So people like me will be relegated to the unqualified group,” said Kangetsu-kun, boasting at a critical juncture.

“How fortunate to be born in the Meiji era.”
“As someone who compiles Future Chronicles, my mind stays a step or two ahead of the times—that’s why I’m properly remaining single from the start.”
“People make a fuss about it being the result of failed love, but the perspective of the short-sighted is pitifully shallow.”
“Be that as it may, if I continue the Future Chronicle, it goes like this, you see.”
“At that moment, a philosopher descends from heaven to proclaim an unprecedented truth.”
“Thus spake the theory, you see.”
“Man is an animal of individuality.”
“To annihilate individuality is to bring about the same outcome as annihilating humanity.”
“To fully realize the significance of being human, one must both preserve and develop this individuality, no matter the cost.”
“To enforce marriage while being reluctantly bound by outdated customs constitutes a barbaric practice contrary to humanity’s natural inclinations—perhaps tolerable in unenlightened ages when individuality remained undeveloped, but for civilized society today to nonchalantly persist in this malpractice reveals nothing short of egregious folly.”
“In this present age that has reached the zenith of civilization, there can be no reason why two individualities should be able to connect with a degree of intimacy beyond the ordinary.”
“Despite this easily observable reason, uneducated young men and women—driven by momentary base passions—rashly perform wedding ceremonies in an act of extreme immorality and ethical decay.”
“For the sake of humanity, for the sake of civilization, and to protect the individuality of these young men and women, we must exert our full strength to resist this barbaric custom……”

“Mr. Meitei, I am entirely opposed to that theory,” declared Tōfū-kun, resolutely smacking his knee with his palm. “In my view, there is nothing in this world as precious as love and beauty. It is entirely thanks to these two that we are comforted, made whole, and brought happiness. It is entirely thanks to both that our sentiments are made elegant, our character noble, and our sympathy refined. Therefore, no matter in what age or place we are born, we cannot forget these two things. When these two manifest in the real world, love takes the form of the marital bond. Beauty divides into the forms of poetry and music. Therefore, I believe that as long as humanity exists upon Earth’s surface, neither marriage nor art shall ever perish.”

“It would be splendid if they didn’t exist, but since they’ll be thoroughly eradicated as the philosopher said—nothing to be done but resign ourselves.”
“What art?”
“Art meets the same fate as married couples.”
“The development of individuality means freedom of individuality, I suppose.”
“By ‘freedom of individuality,’ I mean ‘I am I, and others are others.’”
“How could such art possibly exist?”
“Art prospers through alignment of individuality between artist and audience.”
“Dig in your heels all you want as a new-style poet—if nobody finds your poems interesting, your pitiful verses will have no readers but yourself.”
“Compose a thousand lovebird verses—all wasted effort.”
“Lucky you’re born in Meiji times—the whole world must adore them...”

“No, it’s not quite like that,” said Tōfū-kun.

“Even now, if it’s not already so dire, by the time human culture has advanced into the future and that great philosopher emerges to advocate his anti-marriage theory, there’ll be no readers left at all.”
“It’s not that they don’t read—it’s because it’s yours that they don’t.”
“Since each and every person possesses their own unique individuality, others’ literary works hold no interest whatsoever.”
“Even now, in places like England, this tendency is clearly evident.”
“Take Meredith and James—their works most strikingly exhibit individuality among contemporary British novelists.”
“Don’t they have extremely few readers?”
“Of course they’re few.”
“Such works can’t be enjoyed unless read by people with that very individuality—there’s simply no helping it.”
“As this tendency gradually develops and marriage becomes immoral, art too will completely perish.”
“Right? What you write will become incomprehensible to me, and what I write will become incomprehensible to you—on that day, between you and me, there’ll be neither art nor shit.”

“That may be so, but I just can’t bring myself to agree intuitively.”

“If you can’t bring yourself to agree intuitively, then I’ll just have to think so through twisted reasoning.”

“It may be twisted reasoning,” Dokusen-kun interjected. “But granting humans more freedom of individuality inevitably makes our mutual relations more strained. Nietzsche’s whole promotion of the Superman emerged precisely because this suffocating pressure had no outlet—he had no choice but to distort his philosophy into that shape. At first glance, it might look like his ideal, but it’s not an ideal—it’s a grievance. In the nineteenth century, when individuality had fully developed, people cowered, unable to even roll over in bed without worrying about their neighbors. So he grew desperate and scattered those violent ideas. Reading him doesn’t inspire heroism—it makes you pity him. That voice isn’t courageous striving; it’s unmistakably bitter resentment. And no wonder! In the past, when there was one great figure, society would harmoniously gather under their banner—a pleasant arrangement. If such pleasantness existed in reality, there’d be no need to express it through books like Nietzsche did. Whether Homer or Chevi Chezu wrote about superhuman characters, the feel is entirely different. They’re cheerful! They wrote joyfully because they were transcribing joyful facts—no bitterness there. But Nietzsche’s era didn’t work that way. No heroes emerge. Even if one did appear, nobody would hail them as heroic. In the past, Confucius alone could wield influence, but now we have countless Confuciuses. The whole world might be nothing but Confuciuses! So even if I boast about being Confucius, my authority means nothing. And when it means nothing—we complain.”

“Because they’re dissatisfied, they brandish concepts like the Superman only within the pages of books. We desired freedom and obtained it. As a result of gaining freedom, we feel constrained and are troubled. Therefore, Western civilization may seem somewhat favorable, but it’s ultimately no good. In contrast, in the East, they have practiced mental discipline since ancient times. That way is the right way. Behold—when everyone develops neurasthenia from the expansion of individuality and things become unmanageable, they will finally discover the value of the phrase ‘the king’s people are at ease.’ Because they come to realize that the concept of ‘governing through non-action’ cannot be dismissed as foolish. But even if they realize it, by then it’s already too late. It’s like those who develop alcoholism and think, ‘Ah, I shouldn’t have drunk alcohol.’”

“You gentlemen seem to hold rather misanthropic theories, but I find it peculiar,” said Kangetsu-kun. “Even after hearing all this, I don’t feel anything at all. What am I to make of this?”

“That’s because you champion wives,” Mr. Meitei promptly retorted.

Then the Master suddenly interjected: “If a man with a wife thinks women are splendid creatures, he’s making a colossal error. For your edification, I’ll read something instructive.” He lifted the old book he’d brought from his study earlier. “Listen carefully—this may be an antique text, but it proves women’s wickedness was already evident in that era.” As the Master spoke these words, Kangetsu-kun...

“That’s rather surprising,”
“When was this book originally written?” asked Mr. Meitei.
“It’s called Tamasu Nashi—a sixteenth-century work.”

“Utterly astonishing!
“You mean people were already badmouthing my wife back then?”

“There are various criticisms of women, but since your wife is undoubtedly included among them, you should listen.”

“Yes, I’ll listen.”
“How fortunate for us.”

“First, it states that one must present the views on women held by ancient sages.”
“Listen carefully.”
“Are you paying attention?”

“Everyone’s listening. Even a bachelor like me is listening.”

“Aristotle says that since women are all good-for-nothings anyway, if you must take a wife, choose a small one over a large one.”
“A small good-for-nothing brings less calamity than a large one...”

“Kangetsu-kun, is your wife big or small?”

“She falls into the category of big good-for-nothings.”

“Ha ha ha ha! This is an interesting book. Go on, read the rest!”

“A certain person asked, ‘What is the greatest miracle?’ The sage answered, ‘A virtuous wife...’”

“Who is this sage?”

“The name isn’t written.”

“No doubt it’s some sage who got dumped by a woman.”

“Next comes Diogenes. A certain person asked, ‘At what time should one take a wife?’ Diogenes answered and said: ‘Youth is too soon; old age is too late.’ It says.”

“Teacher, you thought about that inside a barrel, eh?”

“Pythagoras said there are three fearsome things in the world: fire, water, and women.”

“Greek philosophers come out with such unexpectedly foolish statements,” said Mr. Meitei. “If you ask me, there’s nothing in this world to fear. ‘Enter fire and not burn; enter water and not drown...’” With just that, Dokusen faltered briefly.

“‘And not melt when meeting women!’ interjected Mr. Meitei, coming to his rescue.”

The Master promptly continued reading: “Socrates declared that managing women is humanity’s greatest difficulty. Demosthenes said: ‘If one wishes to torment their enemy, there is no better strategy than to give one’s own woman to the foe—if one can subject him day and night to the storms of domestic life until he is reduced to utter exhaustion and cannot rise.’ Seneca regarded women and ignorance as the two great calamities of the world; Marcus Aurelius stated that women resemble ships in their difficulty to control; and Plautus attributed women’s habit of adorning themselves in finery to a poor strategy for concealing their innate ugliness. Valerius once sent a letter to a friend declaring: ‘In all under heaven, there is nothing women cannot accomplish through stealth. I pray Heaven may bestow its mercy and not let you fall into their schemes.’ He also asked: ‘What is woman? Is she not the enemy of fellowship? An unavoidable suffering? An inevitable harm? A natural temptation? A poison resembling honey? If abandoning women is immoral, then not abandoning them must be said to incur an even greater reproach...’”

“That’s enough, Sensei.”
“Hearing that much slander against my foolish wife leaves nothing more to be desired.”

“There are still four or five pages left, so why not listen while you’re at it?”

“That’s quite enough.”
“It must be about time for your wife to return,” Mr. Meitei teased, just as from the tearoom—

“Kiyo! Kiyo!” came the wife’s voice calling for the maid.

“This is bad! Your wife is right here!”

“Ufufufu,” chuckled the Master. “Who cares?”

“Mrs.! Mrs.! When did you get back?”

The tearoom remained silent.

“Mrs., did you hear that? Hmm?”

Still no answer.

“What he said wasn’t your husband’s opinion! It’s sixteenth-century Mr. Nash’s theory—rest assured!”

“I wouldn’t know,” the wife replied curtly from afar.
Kangetsu stifled a laugh.

“My apologies—I didn’t know either! Ahahahaha!” Mr. Meitei laughed without restraint when—*crash*—the front door swung open roughly, neither a request nor apology uttered. The thunderous footsteps barely registered before the parlor’s sliding paper door burst open with equal violence, revealing Tataro Sampel’s face peering through the gap.

Tataro Sampel today, unlike his usual self, wore a snow-white shirt and a brand-new frock coat—already disrupting his usual market value—while in his right hand he heavily carried four bottles of beer bound with rope; placing them beside the dried bonito flakes without so much as a greeting, he plopped down unceremoniously and sprawled his knees in a display of warrior-like bravado.

“Sensei, has your stomach ailment improved lately? It ain’t no good stayin’ holed up at home like this all the time.”

“I can’t say it’s bad or anythin’.”

“Shouldn’t say this, but your complexion ain’t lookin’ too good. Sensei, your face is downright yellow. Fishin’s been great lately—I hired a boat from Shinagawa last Sunday.”

“Catch anythin’?”

“Nothin’ at all.”

“So it’s fun even empty-handed?”

“Gotta cultivate that noble spirit, see? How ‘bout y’all? Ever gone fishin’? It’s a hoot—sailin’ ‘round the open sea in a tiny boat.” He addressed the room without restraint.

"I should like to sail a great ship across a small sea," Mr. Meitei countered.

"If one must fish at all, one ought to angle for whales or mermaids—otherwise it's rather pointless," responded Kangetsu-kun.

“Can you even catch such things? Literary scholars have no common sense, you see...”

“I am not a literary scholar.”

“Is that so? What are you then? For someone like me—a businessman—common sense is paramount. Master, I’ve recently become quite rich in common sense. When you’re in such environments, surrounded by certain company, it naturally comes to pass.”

“What on earth will become of it?”

“When it comes to tobacco,” he said while producing an Egyptian cigarette with a gold-tipped mouthpiece and puffing vigorously, “smoking Asahi or Shikishima just won’t do.”

“Do you have money for such extravagance?”

“Money’s tight now, but it’ll sort itself out soon enough. When I smoke this tobacco, my credibility improves vastly.”

“Easier credit than Kangetsu-kun polishing pearls—no hassle required. Lightweight credit, huh?” Mr. Meitei said to Kangetsu, and before he could respond—

“You’re Mr. Kangetsu? So you’re not getting the doctorate after all? Since you didn’t earn it, I’ve decided to take her.”

“The doctorate?”

“No—the Kaneda family’s daughter.”
“To tell the truth, I felt rather sorry about it.”
“But they kept insisting—‘Take her! Take her!’—so I finally decided to accept, Sensei.”
“Though I do worry it’s rather unfair to Mr. Kangetsu here.”

“Please don’t hold back on my account,” said Kangetsu-kun as the Master—

“Take her if you want,” came the vague reply.

“That’s splendid news indeed. So you see, there’s no need to fret over what sort of daughter one has—didn’t I say earlier that if someone takes her in marriage, they’ll gain such a fine gentleman as their son-in-law? Mr. Tōfū—here’s material for your new-style poetry! Set to work at once,” declared Mr. Meitei in his characteristic lively manner, whereupon Sampel—

“Are you Mr. Tōfū? Would you compose something for my wedding? I’ll have it typeset straightaway and distributed far and wide. I’ll even get it published in The Sun.”

“Yes! I’ll compose something—when would you need it ready?”

“Anytime is fine.”
“Even ones you’ve already made will do.”
“But in exchange,”
“In return, I’ll invite you to the wedding reception and treat you.”
“I’ll let you drink champagne.”
“Have you ever had champagne?”
“Champagne is delicious.”
“At the wedding reception, I plan to invite a band—how about setting your composition to music and having them play it?”

“Do whatever you like.”

“Sensei, won’t you compose the music?”

“Don’t spout nonsense!”

“Is there no one here who can handle music?”

“The failed doctoral candidate Kangetsu-kun is a violin maestro.”
“Make sure to ask him properly.”
“But that man won’t consent for mere champagne.”

“About champagne—”
“Four- or five-yen bottles won’t do.”
“What I’m offering isn’t that cheap swill—how about composing a score for me?”

“Sure I’ll compose it—I’ll even compose for champagne at twenty sen a bottle.”
“If you want, I’ll even compose it for free.”

“I won’t ask for it for free—I’ll show proper gratitude.”
“If champagne isn’t to your liking, how about this form of gratitude?” he said, pulling seven or eight photographs from his coat’s inner pocket and letting them scatter across the tatami mats.
There were half-body ones.
There were full-body ones.
There were standing ones.
There were sitting ones.
There were ones wearing hakama.
There were ones in furisode.
There were ones in takashimada hairstyles.
All of them were young women.

“There are this many teacher candidates.”
“I could arrange for Kangetsu-kun or Tōfū-kun to receive any of these as a token of gratitude.”
“How about this one?” he thrust a photo at Kangetsu-kun.

“This one looks good.”
“I earnestly request your assistance in arranging this.”

“Is this one acceptable too?” he thrust another photograph forward.

“That one also appears suitable.”
“Please arrange it by all means.”

“Which one specifically?”

“Any of them will suffice.”

“You’re quite the sentimentalist.”
“Master, this is the doctor’s niece.”

“I see.”

“This young lady has an excellent disposition.”
“She’s also young.”
“This one is seventeen—with her comes a dowry of a thousand yen—and this one here’s the governor’s daughter,” he continued solo, rattling off details.

“Can’t I just take all of them?”

“All of them? That’s rather greedy.”
“Are you a polygamist?”

“Not a polygamist—a carnivore.”

“Enough—just put those away already,” the Master snapped at Mr. Sampel, prompting him to...

"So you won't take any of them, then?" he pressed while confirming, slipping the photographs one by one back into his pocket.

“What’s with that beer?”

“This is a gift.”
“I bought it at the corner liquor store as a pre-celebration.”
“Please have one.”

The Master clapped his hands and called the maid to remove the cork.
The five gentlemen—the Master, Meitei, Dokusen, Kangetsu, and Tōfū—reverently raised their glasses and toasted to Sampel-kun’s amorous fortune.
Sampel-kun looked exceedingly cheerful,

“I’d like to invite all of you here to the wedding reception—will everyone attend? You’ll come, won’t you?” he said.

“I refuse,” the Master immediately replied.

“Why not? It’s the grand ceremony of my lifetime, you know. Won’t you please attend? That’s a bit heartless, ’tisn’t it?”

“It’s not that I’m heartless—I just won’t go.”

“Is it that you don’t have proper clothes? I could manage a haori and hakama for you somehow. It’d do you good to get out among people a bit, Sensei. I’ll introduce you to important figures.”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’ll cure your stomach troubles, you know.”

“It’s fine even if it doesn’t get cured.”

“If you’re going to be that stubborn, there’s nothing to be done. How about you? Will you come?”

“As for me, I’ll definitely go. If possible, I would very much like to have the honor of being the matchmaker. Champagne sansankudo and a spring evening—what? You’re saying Suzuki’s Fuji-san is the matchmaker?” He thought he understood how things stood. This was regrettable, but there was nothing to be done.

“Even two matchmakers would be excessive—I’ll simply attend as a regular guest.”

“How about you?”

“As for me—‘With one rod amid wind and moon I pass my idle days; among white duckweed and red knotweed I cast my line.’”

“What’s that? From the Tang Poetry Anthology?”

“I can’t quite make sense of it.”

“You don’t understand? This is troublesome.”
“I suppose Kangetsu-kun will attend, won’t he?”
“Given our history together.”

“I’ve decided I’ll definitely attend—it would be a shame to miss hearing the band play the piece I composed.”

“Absolutely!”

“How about you, Tōfū-kun?”

“Let me see...”
“I would like to attend and recite a new-style poem before the two of you.”

“That’s delightful!
“Master! Since I was born, I’ve never experienced anything this delightful!”
“So I’ll have another beer!” he declared, gulping down the beer he had bought himself until his face turned bright red.

The short autumn day finally drew to a close. Peering into the brazier where cigarette butts lay scattered in disarray, the fire was long gone. Even these carefree souls seemed to have exhausted their amusement, for they remarked, “It’s gotten quite late. Shall we head back now?” Dokusen-kun was the first to rise. Then one by one they said, “I’ll be going too,” and made their way to the entrance. The parlor felt as desolate as a vaudeville theater after the final curtain.

The master finished his dinner and entered his study.
The wife fastened the collar of her chilly undergarment and sewed a faded everyday garment.
The children laid their pillows in a row and slept.
The maid went to the bath.

Even those who appeared carefree produced a sorrowful sound somewhere when you tapped into the depths of their hearts.
Dokusen-kun’s feet still trod nowhere but the ground, even if he seemed enlightened.
Mr. Meitei’s world might have seemed carefree, but it was no picture-perfect realm.
Kangetsu-kun had stopped polishing beads and finally brought his wife from his hometown.
This was proper.
Yet if the proper course continued too long, it must surely have grown tedious.
Tōfū-kun too would come to realize the folly of recklessly devoting himself to new-style poetry within another ten years.
As for Sampel-kun, it proved somewhat difficult to determine whether he was a water-dweller or mountain-dweller.
If he could spend his life being treated to champagne and feel proud of it, that would have been splendid.
Suzuki’s Fuji-san just kept rolling on and on.
Roll around, and you got muddy.
Even covered in mud, those that could roll held more sway than those that couldn’t.
Having been born a cat and dwelling in the human world had now spanned over two years.
I had thought myself an unrivaled connoisseur of insights, but the other day grew rather startled when a certain Kāteru Muru—a fellow member of my species I’d never met—suddenly made a grand display of himself.
Upon closer inquiry, I learned he had actually died a century prior but, driven by idle curiosity, deliberately returned as a ghost from the distant underworld just to startle me—or so the story went.
This cat—an unfilial wretch who, when going to meet his mother with a single fish clenched in his jaws as a greeting, ultimately lost all self-control along the way and devoured it himself—possessed wit that rivaled even humans, and on one occasion reportedly composed a poem that astonished his master.
If such a hero had already appeared a full century ago, then a good-for-nothing like myself should have long since taken my leave and retired to Mukaukyō.

The master would die of stomach disease sooner or later.
Kaneda's old man had already died of greed.
The autumn leaves had mostly fallen.
Since death was the inevitable fate of all things, I thought, if living served little purpose, then perhaps dying quickly would be the wiser course.
According to those teachers' theories, humanity's fate was said to culminate in suicide.
If we let our guard down, even we cats might be born into such a constricted world.
What a dreadful prospect.
I had grown rather gloomy.
I decided to drink some of Sampel-kun's beer to lift my spirits.

I headed to the kitchen.
The autumn wind must have blown through the slightly open, rattling door, for the lamp had gone out unnoticed; yet with the moonlit night, shadows streamed through the window.
Three glasses were lined up on a tray, two of them half-filled with a brownish liquid.
The contents of the glass felt cold even if they had been hot water.
Moreover, this liquid—illuminated by the frigid moonlight and sitting quietly like fire pots—already chilled me before touching my lips, making me not want to drink it at all.
But there was no harm in trying.
After Sampel drank that stuff, he had turned bright red and begun breathing hot, labored breaths.
Even a cat might become cheerful if it drank some.
After all, my life could end at any moment.
Whatever it was, I had to do it while still alive.
Lamenting "What a shame!" from the grave's shadows after death wouldn't fix anything.
Resolved to try drinking it, I thrust my tongue in energetically and lapped noisily—only to startle myself.
A sharp sting pierced my tongue tip as if pricked by a needle.
I couldn't fathom what drunken compulsion made humans drink such vile stuff—for cats, it proved utterly undrinkable.
Cats and beer were fundamentally incompatible.
"This is awful," I thought, retracting my tongue once before reconsidering.
Humans constantly parroted that "good medicine tastes bitter," grimacing as they gulped strange brews when catching colds.
Whether drinking healed them or healing required drinking had always mystified me—now presented the perfect test case.
I'd solve this riddle through beer.
If drinking turned my stomach bitter beyond bearing—so be it—but if I became as blissfully oblivious as Sampel, I'd score an unprecedented triumph worth teaching every neighborhood cat.

Well, whatever would happen, I entrusted my fate to heaven, resolved to finish it off, and stuck out my tongue again.
Because it was hard to drink with my eyes open, I closed them tight and started lapping noisily again.

When I had piled patience upon patience and finally managed to drain a glass of beer, a strange phenomenon occurred.
At first, my tongue prickled, and my mouth felt painfully constricted as if under external pressure, but as I drank, it gradually became easier, and by the time I finished the first glass, it no longer felt particularly taxing.
Assuring myself it was safe now, I polished off the second glass without difficulty.
Incidentally, I took into my stomach what had spilled on the tray as though wiping it clean.

After that, for a while, I crouched motionless to monitor my own condition.
Gradually, my body grew warm.
The edges of my eyes grew hazy.
My ears burned.
I wanted to sing a song.
I wanted to dance like a cat.
I felt like telling Master, Meitei, and Dokusan to eat shit.
I wanted to scratch up Kaneda’s old man.
I wanted to bite off the wife’s nose.
I became all sorts of things.
Finally, I wanted to stagger unsteadily to my feet.
If I got up, I wanted to stagger around unsteadily.
Finding this amusing, I wanted to go outside.
When I went out, I wanted to greet Madam Moon with a "Good evening."
Utterly delightful.

Thinking this must be what they call drunken euphoria, I let my unsteady legs carry me aimlessly here and there in a mood that felt like taking a stroll yet not quite, until I grew terribly drowsy.
I couldn’t tell whether I was sleeping or walking.
I tried to open my eyes, but they were impossibly heavy.
If this was how it would be, then so be it.
Whether it was the sea or a mountain ahead, I wouldn’t be surprised—or so I thought as I limply stretched out my front paw, only to hear a splash and gasp—done in.
There was no time to consider how I’d been done in.
Whether I realized I’d been done in or not, everything afterward dissolved into utter chaos.

When I came to my senses, I was floating on water.
Because it was painful, I frantically clawed with my paws, but all I could grasp was water, and scratching only made me sink deeper.
Having no other choice, I jumped up with my hind legs and scratched with my front paws—a grating sound rang out as I felt slight resistance.
When I finally managed to get just my head above water and looked around, I found myself fallen into a large jar.
This jar had been thick with water plants called mizuaoi until summer, but then Kanko the crow came and devoured all the hawthorn before using it for bathing.
When he used it for bathing, the water diminished.
When it decreased, he stopped coming.
I had thought earlier that with the water level having dropped so much lately, Kanko was no longer visiting—but it never crossed my mind that I myself would end up taking a bath here in his place.

From the water's surface to the rim was over four sun. Even if I stretched out my legs, I couldn't reach. Even if I jumped up, I couldn't get out. If I stayed complacent, I'd just keep sinking. If I struggled, my claws would only scrape against the jar; when they made contact, I'd float up slightly, but if I slipped, I'd immediately sink back down. If I sank, it was painful, so I immediately started clawing. Eventually, my body grew tired. My mind grew frantic, but my legs became less responsive. In the end, I could no longer tell whether I was clawing at the jar to sink or sinking to claw at it.

At that moment, though in agony, I thought this:
This torment I faced stemmed solely from my desire to climb out of the jar.
Though wanting to escape was my greatest wish, it remained perfectly clear I couldn't.
My legs measured less than three sun.
Even if my body floated on the water's surface and I stretched my front legs to their limit from that position, there would be no way for my claws to catch the jar's rim exceeding five sun.
With no purchase on the edge, no amount of scratching or struggling—not even grinding myself to dust over a hundred years—would grant escape.
Attempting the impossible was folly itself.
This suffering arose from forcing what couldn't be forced.
How pointless it was—to willingly seek pain and embrace torture through one's own choice. What utter foolishness.

"I'll stop here.
Let things take their course.
'No more clawing for me,' I resolved, surrendering my front paws, hind legs, head and tail entirely to natural forces without resistance."

Gradually, I grew more comfortable.
Whether this was agony or salvation, I could not tell.
Whether I was in the water or on the tatami mat, I couldn’t clearly tell.
It made no difference where I was or what I did.
It was simply comfortable.
No—I couldn’t even feel comfort itself.
I severed the sun and moon, crushed heaven and earth into dust, and entered an unfathomable peace.
I die.
I die and attain this great peace.
Great peace cannot be attained without death.
Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu.
How grateful... How grateful.