Pathway to Japanese Literature

Near Kaikoen’s castle gate, beside the stone wall bordering mulberry fields, Mr. Sakurai came upon Captain Masaki.
The two exchanged familiar greetings they shared each morning at the private school.

Wearing an expression of inquiry about the man employed through the school’s caretaker,

“What of Otokichi?”

“He’s probably in Nakadana.”
Mr. Sakurai answered.

Nakadana was a valley several blocks away from there, where they had discovered a new small mineral spring.

The sloping terrain along Mount Asama’s foothills formed several deep valleys near Komoro Castle ruins, as though artificially excavated.
One shallow section of the valley had been cultivated to surround the former samurai lands, and there, backed by mulberry fields and bamboo thickets, stood Mr. Sakurai’s residence.
Mr. Sakurai waved his numb hand and, together with the captain, moved his lanky frame toward the valley dense with pine groves.

The valleys were wrapped in green leaves.
The two followed the path beneath the high cliff and emerged onto a hill with cultivated fields.
The undulating waves of land became cliffs tinged with red earth in that area, then descended further toward the valley bottom connected to the riverbed.
On the cliff’s midslope, the caretaker Otokichi had brought his younger brother and was engaged in tasks like creating paths and clearing away stone blocks.
Otokichi was a farmer at heart, a man who worked as a caretaker while also managing tenant fields.
His younger brother was also a sturdy young farmer.

Beside where the brothers were working, the teachers also encountered townspeople.
The people's conversations were dominated by the mineral spring's properties and the new bathhouse's design.
On their way to swim in the Chikuma River, some town children also came to look around.
Among them were students from the private school who had come to play, and they bowed toward the teachers.
The stones the students playfully dislodged struck other rocks, kicked up clouds of dust, and rumbled as they rolled down toward the base of the cliff.

Circling among the excavated rocks, the teachers took turns peering into the dimly lit hole.
The floating hot spring deposits clung to the surrounding rocks like somber moss and swayed with faintest motion.

The new bathhouse’s location was tentatively set on the flatland beneath the cliff.
In the wilder parts of shaded valleys stood thickets where beech groves grew rampant.
Mr. Sakurai invited Captain Masaki to survey various sites.
He proposed relocating only his existing study—the structure itself—to the mineral spring’s vicinity.

The villages visible on the opposite bank, the rustic suspension bridge, the stretch of flatland extending along the riverbed, the mountains near and far—these vistas delighted the teachers. The ample sunlight also delighted the teachers. This valley was relatively fertile, having been cultivated up to the upper slopes. The young rice fields spread out before them appeared like a sea of green waves. The accessibility from the former samurai district also delighted the teachers. That tree-shaded path was not very far from Captain Masaki's residence either.

From the next day onward, Mr. Sakurai finished his duties at the private school and came to check on things whenever he had time.
Even when those trying to run a bathhouse beneath the cliff did not come around, days when Mr. Sakurai was not seen there were rare.
Whether it was clay pipes being laid there or stones for the stone walls being hauled here, something newly changed always met Mr. Sakurai’s eyes.
By the time the young rice fields along the riverbed began turning yellow, his small villa was steadily taking shape each day.
Hastening to finish before frost came, they rushed construction both above and below the cliff.

The snow came.
The valleys remained deeply buried through the lingering days of March.
When the snow finally began to melt, Mr. Sakurai once again came walking in attire suited for mountain hiking, wearing leg gaiters over his remarkably sturdy legs and keeping his left hand—afflicted by chronic rheumatism—tucked into his coat.
Amid the remaining snow could be seen mineral water seeping up to the cliff path, half-finished construction work, and brown beech leaves that had clung through winter without falling.
Mr. Sakurai inspected even the stone walls that had nearly collapsed from frost damage.

When this villa had become somewhat habitable and a gate made of natural wood had been erected at its entrance, the bathhouse at the base of the cliff commenced operations without awaiting full completion.
Separately, there existed a retired couple who built a hut midway up the cliff, intending to sustain their old age through the mineral spring.

From before the new school year in spring, the private school put up a municipal signboard.
At the same time, they welcomed a new teacher named Takase.
During the pre-school year break, Mr. Sakurai guided Takase, who had arrived from Tokyo, and took him there.
When viewed from the hilltop, the flag marking the Nakadana Mineral Spring already fluttered in the shadowed valley’s sky.
Thin wisps of smoke were also beginning to rise from the bathhouse.

Mr. Sakurai took Takase and descended the path along the newly opened cliff.
When Mr. Sakurai was still in his vigorous prime and teaching English at a private school in Tokyo, Takase had been one of his students.
Later, when Mr. Sakurai served as pastor at Takanawa Church while teaching at a girls' school on the side—a time when he lacked children of his own to depend on—it was again Takase whom he had considered as someone to inherit the Sakurai family name, even broaching the subject of adoption.
Now this same Takase had come to work under Mr. Sakurai as an instructor at the private school.
To Mr. Sakurai's eyes, he seemed less a mere disciple than something akin to a son.

Following the stone wall and winding along several bends, they found the bathhouse.
On one side still lingered the smell of wood shavings.
The bathhouse adjoined newly cleared fields, with a grape trellis visible beyond its glass windows.
From the bluish-black transparent mineral spring rose thin wisps of steam.
Mr. Sakurai—unable to suppress a natural sigh of contentment—soaked in the comfortably heated water while gazing at Takase, reunited with him after so long, occasionally wiping sweat from his face with a rustic pale indigo towel.
Though its nature ran cold, he told Takase their proud story of how they had shouldered hoves themselves and struck upon this mineral spring’s vein.

“Mr. Masaki would come dressed like a farmer, shouldering a shovel and…”

Whenever the teacher spoke, “Mr. Masaki, Mr. Masaki” kept coming up.
Mr. Sakurai also explained how the captain working with him at that private school—a military man from the region who was now receiving a pension—had retired to spend his remaining years reading and tilling the soil beside the cherished castle ruins of his hometown.

“Even Mr. Masaki and I—well, we’ve ended up becoming shareholders of this mineral spring.”

With that, Mr. Sakurai stepped out to the sink area’s water basin and spoke while wetting his salt-and-pepper hair.

To Takase, who had just arrived from Tokyo, everything he saw and heard struck him with fresh impressions.

The two left the bathhouse and once again ascended the cliff path. When they stopped by the hut midway along the path to greet its occupant, the retired man emerged with the countenance of a contented farmer and handed over the key entrusted to him by Mr. Sakurai.

“Mr. Takase, let me show you my villa.”

Having said that, Mr. Sakurai invited Takase and headed toward the small building leaning against the cliff.
They passed through a spot where he said, “This is the source of the spring.”
Mr. Sakurai opened the black door built into the rocks and showed it to Takase.
There, the mineral spring that had welled up from the hidden depths of the earth lay stagnant.

“Well, let me show you around.
The tatami mats haven’t been fully installed yet.”

Mr. Sakurai used the key he had received from the retired man to clatter the lock, then guided Takase into the dark, unoccupied house.
When they slid open the closed storm shutters, the village on the opposite cliff, the cultivated fields, and the Chikuma River rushing below came into view from atop the blue-green tatami mats.

Takase went to the railing and heard the faint clucking of a chicken carried from across the river.
Mr. Sakurai also stood beside him and gazed out.

“Mr. Takase, does this house seem familiar to you—”

When Mr. Sakurai said that, Takase too remembered.
Takase had once passed through Komoro and visited Mr. Sakurai's dwelling.
Though its form had been changed, it was his former study.

“Since this building stands ready here, I am happy to offer it to all of you… Please use it whenever needed.”

As he spoke, Mr. Sakurai showed Takase the newly constructed addition, then led him down to inspect even the tower’s lower level.
The space appeared destined to become either a dining area or storage room.
The dark stone wall they had built by cutting into the cliff face remained fully exposed.

They returned to the riverside viewing room.
Mr. Sakurai opened a cabinet to retrieve items like the tobacco tray.

“But you’ve turned quite white too, Mr. Sakurai.”

Takase remarked.

It was after Mr. Sakurai had withdrawn to this region that he grew his long, magnificent beard.

Following the elderly yet still vigorous Mr. Sakurai, Takase soon left this small tower and retraced his path through the valley back toward town.

At a time when each rainfall brought increasing warmth even to the mountaintops, sunlight fell upon the somewhat dampened soil.

“Mr. Sakurai, how did your house in Takanawa turn out?”

“The house in Takanawa? That was—you know—an utterly absurd affair… I was completely hoodwinked in the end…”

Takase knew well of Mr. Sakurai’s time in Takanawa. He knew of the house Mr. Sakurai had built—likely intending permanent residence—in that scenic location with its spacious garden planted with fruit trees. He knew Mr. Sakurai’s second wife from that period. In those days, Mr. Sakurai had still been youthful, sometimes dressing his wife in light Western clothing as they strolled together around Sarumachi… Takase knew even Mr. Sakurai had lived through such an era.

Talking all the while, the two walked.

When they ascended the sloped narrow path, there lay the outskirts of the former samurai district.
Among the old mansions, there were some where people no longer lived.
Crumbling earthen walls and decayed pillars; there were also places where only foundations remained in the mulberry fields.
From between the desolate remains of mansions, a part of Komoro Town could be seen in the distance.

“Mount Asama is erupting.”

With that, Mr. Sakurai pointed out the smoke drifting toward Jōshū’s sky to Takase.
The familiar mountain range of Mount Asama, unlike when he had passed by during his travels, appeared even more distinctly to Takase’s eyes.

As they approached Mr. Sakurai’s residence, students from the private school were coming and going through the old estate-style gate one house before. They were boarding youths. All came from farming families. Having rented a room in that house, Takase first unpacked his belongings at his temporary quarters and decided to take his meals only with Mr. Sakurai’s family. Pushing open the side gate, Mr. Sakurai invited Takase toward the backyard of his residence.

Mr. Sakurai’s surroundings resembled those of a semi-rural farmhouse. In the backyard stood a country-style storage shed. There was a drainage pool. A vegetable plot had been prepared. Near the engawa veranda lay an overturned large birdcage, with chickens pecking about the area. His current wife had children of her own, but unlike pale city-bred children, even when called “young masters,” they looked sturdy and sun-browned.

To Takase’s eyes, accustomed to Tokyo’s bright houses, even the space beneath the roof seemed dim. It was astonishing to think that someone as fastidious as Mr. Sakurai could sit so calmly smoking in this grubby hearthside.

Having heard that Takase had come, a young man from the town came to meet him too.
His greetings were as considerate as asking why Takase had come to such a rural place.
Mr. Sakurai’s current wife—a woman who had graduated from a mission school—entertained everyone skillfully despite the considerable age difference between her and her husband.
Even when speaking of Mr. Sakurai to guests, she affectionately called him either “Mr. Sakurai” or “Sakurai.”

“Shall we make some coffee for Mr. Takase?”

“I was just thinking the same thing—”

After exchanging such words with his wife, Mr. Sakurai passed through the engawa where the children were playing with Takase and went to his room. It was a serenely quiet living room adjoining the garden’s flower bed. Only that space had been immaculately decorated and arranged according to Mr. Sakurai’s taste. There stood a small desk with Chinese poetry collections. On one side was a folding screen that had remained since the time of his former young wife. At that moment, Mr. Sakurai took out his recent Chinese poetry and showed it to Takase. The area around Nakadana Mineral Spring—from that hidden path leading to the villa to the village on the opposite bank—was included in Mr. Sakurai’s recent works. His life—which until that year had seemingly found no true place to settle—was expressed through these Chinese-style verses.

That evening, Takase went over to the neighboring house and wrote a letter addressed to friends in Tokyo in the room he was temporarily renting.
From a room or so away came the clamor of boarding students engaged in some activity.
It appeared there were others renting partitioned rooms as well, and from the direction of a torn sliding door came muffled voices of impoverished conversations murmuring in hushed tones.
Even after laying out his bedding beside the travel luggage, due to the unfamiliarity of the place and the mice's commotion, Takase found it difficult to fall asleep.
His heart remained half in Tokyo.
The thoughts of those who worried for him lingered in his mind until late into the night.

Early in the morning, Takase went outside and gazed at the mountains.
In the distant mountains, patches of lingering snow still remained, but around Mount Asama it had already melted completely, revealing jagged ridges like fangs, valleys rich in shadow, and traces of towering collapses.
Clouds like pale smoke, tinged with morning light, floated near the mountain peaks.
For Takase, who had come wearied from the city, the mountains themselves first granted vitality and stimulation.
He drew the clear, sharp mountain air deep into his starved lungs.

On the day when the new term's classes began at the private school, Takase went along the garden path to invite Mr. Sakurai, steeling himself to meet strangers.
Mr. Sakurai, ever an early riser, had left home well before the appointed hour.
Only Mrs. Sakurai remained in the backyard, surveying the fields with housewifely diligence.

"But Mr. Takase—this is truly the countryside," she remarked.
"Even those mulberry fields beyond belong entirely to this estate—"

Mrs. Sakurai explained as she showed him around.

Passing through flower beds where new grass sprouted between blooms, Takase exited through the rear gate onto a mulberry-lined path.
Across one shallow ravine rose a hill whose summit held the private school's grounds.
Through gaps in the trees glimmered whitewashed walls and classroom windows.
Takase circled the valley's edge and found Mr. Sakurai waiting where cultivated land sloped upward.

“I tried growing oats here.
Our fields are cultivated by the school caretaker.”

Mr. Sakurai pointed out the stone-filled cultivated field.

When they entered the private school’s garden, young cherry trees stood both on the low embankments and around the classrooms. Their hands could reach the reddish branches bearing swollen buds. At the main gate’s fence, acacia trees were planted, and nearby, the caretaker Otokichi was sweeping the garden while bent over. Students from nearby areas who commuted from distances of one or even two *ri* came wearing straw sandals.

Since it was still early, Takase had time to see Mr. Sakurai’s room.
The corner of the second floor above the classrooms was where Mr. Sakurai’s desk and Western-style bookshelves were arranged.
As if recalling the happy times when he was in America, Mr. Sakurai sat down with his back to the bookshelf and had Takase sit as well.

“This is a nice study.”

Having said this, Takase went over to the window.
From the Tateshina mountain range, the distant plateau region deep within Minami-Saku could be seen from there.
Nearby, part of the samurai district’s thatched roofs could be seen, and here and there were willow treetops tinged faintly blue.
Late spring finally drew near to the mountain heights.

“Mr. Takase, I shall present this one to you.”

What Mr. Sakurai took out from the bookshelf as he spoke was an old, leather-bound small Western book.
Mr. Sakurai adjusted his pince-nez on his prominent nose, flipped through the old Western book as if sniffing the fragrance of his bygone life, then handed it to Takase.

Captain Masaki appeared in the direction of the secretary’s office.
When Mr. Sakurai and Takase went to that room together, the Captain was waiting at a large desk in the corner.
Takase had already grown close with the Captain.

“Captain Masaki has collected quite a number of Chinese books—he possesses many fine calligraphy copies as well,” Mr. Sakurai said to Takase.
“You might consider borrowing something to examine as well.”

“Well, yes... I’ve been gathering them bit by bit. Since I have nothing to leave for my children, I thought I’d at least leave behind some books...”

Captain Masaki laughed while thrusting both hands into his black hakama.

That day, Takase was introduced to Dr. Hirooka for the first time.
It was said he commuted by train from Ueda Town.
To Takase, the scholar appeared as different in age as parent and child.

“Mr. Takase has kindly come to our private school under a three-year agreement.”

Mr. Sakurai spoke with Dr. Hirooka about the newly hired faculty member.

When Takase returned to this second floor after finishing his first class, the second down train from Tokyo had just arrived.
A loud steam sound erupted right in front of the private school.
The younger students went out beyond the gate, each clinging to the fence on the trackside trying to watch the passing train.

“The train noise is simply unbearable—if that blasted thing goes off during class, it echoes through the windows so badly you can’t even hold practice.”

Captain Masaki briefly came to Takase’s side and spoke before they both looked down from the window facing the station through which Dr. Hirooka’s figure could be seen hurrying out in great haste. Making sure to carry even an old cane from his furoshiki bundle, Dr. Hirooka strained not to miss boarding the Ueda-bound train.

Around the time the upbound train from Echigo passed in the opposite direction—leaving its whistle echoing behind as it headed for Tokyo—Takase too returned through the school garden. A hush like that of a harbor after a ship’s departure enveloped the surroundings while cherry trees cast dense and faint shadows across the ground. Walking alone through mulberry fields along the valley path back home, Takase contemplated his self that had fled from urban pretense—from futile resistance and mental strain—from everything artificial. Couldn’t he make himself fresher and simpler? For this purpose alone had he declined other teaching offers and ventured into this desolate countryside—to try digging soil with his own hands.

“Mr. Takase—just how old are you, exactly—?”

Mrs. Sakurai came around from the neighboring house through the garden and asked Takase.
She came out to the veranda and showed the child the chickens.

Takase stood in the garden and answered, “Twenty-eight.”

“You’re still quite young.”

“Speaking of which—how old are you?”
“A woman’s age is something that’s hard to tell, isn’t it?”

“Me? I’m two years older than you—”

Mrs. Sakurai smiled somewhat sarcastically with a look of having pried into unnecessary matters, then turned her gaze back again to the chickens with the child.
Pale yellow chicks hid in numbers beneath the mother hen’s wings.

Mr. Sakurai came around through the garden.
Following Mr. Sakurai, who proposed guiding him to a rented house found in town, Takase soon left this mansion.

From near the stone monument in front of the castle gate, they crossed the railway tracks and walked along a sunken path mixed with sand.
On the elevated cultivated land where rows of stone walls and mulberry fields were visible, the remnants of the Ōtemon gate could be seen from the rear side.
Mr. Sakurai pointed out the high tiled roof to Takase.
When Mr. Sakurai first moved to Komoro, he told Takase how the upper floor of the castle gate—with its windows fitted with thick lattices and heavy doors—had served as his temporary residence—as if recounting a fairy tale.

When they climbed the slope, they emerged at the Ōte ruins.
A narrow stream flowing toward the samurai district ran through that section of the town.
As they walked, the two exchanged talk of Dr. Hirooka and other matters.

Mr. Sakurai said thoughtfully,

“Dr. Hirooka is currently running a mathematics private school in Ueda, but he must be facing considerable adversity… Well, we too decided to have him come assist us for some time out of sympathy… And besides, you see, if our private school is to equip itself like a middle school and seek accreditation, it would be rather inconvenient not to have someone with a proper title.”

Takase also laughed.

Following the narrow stream led to an area extending behind Honmachi.
The thatched-roof house enclosed by a larch hedge was where Mr. Sakurai had brought Takase to inspect.
Signs of a former sweet red bean soup shop rental nearby remained visible—fusuma sliding doors riddled with holes, soot-stained walls, and grimy shoji screens.
Around where the kotatsu had once been placed, scorch marks disfigured the tatami mats, patched clumsily with paper.
It showed every mark of having been lived in harshly.

“Well, this is what we have to work with.”

“Well, this is about what you can expect,” Mr. Sakurai said to Takase, and together they went to look around the inner areas.

“There simply aren’t any other houses available for rent at present… Oddly enough, if you just put up some walls here and replace those tatami mats, you’ll find it somehow becomes livable.”

Mr. Sakurai spoke again.

Though of the same samurai residence-style architecture, this building appeared to have been constructed somewhat later and had come into the possession of a town merchant dealing in silkworm egg cards.
Takase decided to rent the place with a small field plot attached.

Around the time Otokichi the caretaker came and built a new hearth measuring about three shaku square, Takase moved there from Mr. Sakurai’s neighboring residence.

Behind the house ran another narrow stream flowing between rocks.
It was rough cold water from the mountains.
Though unfit for drinking, when even sand ceased flowing it served well for washing faces.
There too Takase found raw stimulation.
In this crude yet new dwelling, Takase made preparations to welcome his betrothed.
At month’s end he married.

For Takase, who long spent his years in Tokyo, even the immediate surroundings of the private school offered much to catch his eye.
The cherry blossoms in the garden revealed themselves as double-layered when fully opened, those clustered like bouquets blooming profusely near the classroom windows.
The dense shadows of the blossoms fell upon the faces of teachers strolling during break time and upon the white walls of the building.
The students hid behind trunks, clung to branches, and frolicked beneath them like little birds at play.

“Dr. Hirooka is quite the uninvolved person, isn’t he?”

When Takase said this in front of Mr. Sakurai and Captain Masaki, the captain laughed and—

“It’s not that he doesn’t get involved—it’s that he can’t…”

“It’s not that he doesn’t get involved—it’s that he can’t…” he said.
Such was Captain Masaki’s dedication that he rolled up his sleeves from kimono to haori without hesitation, showing his resolve to work for the private school.

When Takase returned home from this school that felt half like a household, the hoe he had ordered had arrived.
Koyasu, who worked as a gymnastics teacher at the private school, had delivered it.
Koyasu’s house was a blacksmith’s in town.
The grandfather with a chonmage topknot had forged it for him.
Takase carried the hoe—its iron head weighty and handle sturdy—and went toward the field he had rented behind his house.

A strange-looking farmer emerged: Takase.
Takase wore a hood, had his hem tucked up, and didn't wear any work pants.
Moreover, he was barefoot.
People passing outside the fence chuckled as they went by.
Even so, Takase began working without concerning himself.
From the upturned soil would occasionally emerge delicate split-husk leaves clinging to plum seeds.
He felt an indescribable pleasure transmitted directly from the earth to his body.
At times, he would take soil from the field and rub it against the weak skin of his own legs.

The school caretaker was also a teacher to Takase.
Otokichi came around to inspect and taught him how to hold the hoe from the very basics.

Day after day, Takase would finish his assigned hours at the private school and head straight to this field upon returning home.
One day, when Otokichi came bringing potato seeds in a basket, Takase had finally just finished leveling the field.
His wife—Oshima—had wrapped her still-newlywed hair in a hand towel, revealed glimpses of a red underskirt, and in city-like attire ill-suited for assisting with digging, was carrying dirt-clumped weed roots and stone fragments.

“Ma’am, you’re really putting in the effort, aren’t you?”

With a laugh, Otokichi called out and looked at Takase’s hoed field.
The hoe cuts were too shallow.
Otokichi took the hoe from Takase and showed him how to cut deeper.

“This area’s naught but burnt stones and sand, it is.”
“Unlike the Joshu area, you can’t grow decent vegetables here.”

Otokichi said.

He planted the potato seeds he had brought to demonstrate, and even taught them how to plant leek seedlings.

From the field where Takase was attempting to plant a few vegetables, one could see the white-walled merchant houses extending across the cultivated land, while in the direction of a shallow valley, the roof of a watermill was also visible.
It was a place where the narrow stream carried the clanging of pots from nearby homes, sounding distinctly characteristic of the town’s backstreets.
In the region at the foot of the volcano where men and women labored intensely, Takase found himself and his wife.

At the private school, they began further expansion of the school building.
Due to a shortage of teaching staff, Dr. Hirooka moved his entire household from Ueda to join them before the start of the new academic year the following year.

The new teacher named Koyasu was also someone Takase had requested to come while making a trip to Tokyo.
Koyasu was someone Takase had never met either.
It was an introduction through someone.
At the private school, everyone waited to see what kind of new teacher would come.
When Koyasu arrived, he turned out to be unexpectedly approachable—a youthful scholar.

With this, the teachers' room became quite lively.
Mr. Sakurai, with eyes that still retained the vigor of middle age, sat before a large brazier and spoke animatedly.
Captain Masaki would roll his strongly scented cut tobacco and frequently bring up "my time in the military."
At times, even when Otokichi rang the bell, everyone remained engrossed in conversation around the brazier.

“Mr. Masaki, try putting on these glasses for a moment.”

“I’m still too young for reading glasses—Oh! This is remarkable—holding them slightly away rather than close makes things even clearer—what do you make of it, Dr. Hirooka?”

“Yes, it does appear clearer.”

“How dreadful…”

Even with such conversations, time passed pleasantly.

Nakadana, with its nearby hot spring, was a place well-suited for everyone’s social gatherings.
When Koyasu had somewhat acclimated to the land, Takase too was invited and walked straight from the private school to see Nakadana.
By the time about a month had passed since Koyasu arrived from Tokyo, the valley where wisteria flowers had once bloomed hanging from high cliffs had already become a shaded path with densely grown leaves.
So deep it was almost dark.

When they emerged onto the hilltop, a tepid faint wind came crossing over wheat fields beginning to yellow.
The sound of wheat ears brushing against each other reached them.
The thicket's intense fragrance—so enveloping it seemed to crown them—left the two silent.
They exchanged two or three phrases before walking wordless again.

As they began descending the cliff path, the pair finally broke into laughter.
Near the retired couple's hut, they encountered Mrs. Masaki ascending from the bathhouse direction.
Mrs. Masaki passed by with her child, her complexion glowing from the thermal waters, offering them a courteous greeting as she went.

At the bathhouse, Mr. Sakurai and Dr. Hirooka were also present.
Mr. Sakurai was drying himself off and about to step out when Dr. Hirooka alone remained soaking comfortably in the mineral spring.
Beyond the glass-paned door, grapevines stretched luxuriantly, and an apple orchard planted across the fields was visible.

“Mr. Koyasu, you have quite a good physique—”

When told this by Dr. Hirooka, Koyasu stroked his firm calf that seemed shaped by years of diligent study.

“What do you think of my finger?”

At that moment, Dr. Hirooka spread out his left hand and showed his half-missing ring finger.

“Oh!” Koyasu’s eyes widened.

“You probably didn’t notice it easily. This has its own history—a memento of B.S., you see.”

Dr. Hirooka spoke as if recalling his vibrant university days, even demonstrating with his crushed finger how he had failed to catch a hot ball.

When the three left the bathhouse together and headed up toward Mr. Sakurai’s villa, he was pouring water on a garden stone near the window, ready to welcome them all.
Mr. Sakurai pointed out to Takase the acacia saplings he had attempted to grow atop the stone wall.
Inside the gate, Mr. Sakurai’s favorite flowers had also been planted.

A plaque carved with the name of the tower was hung at the villa's entrance.
The reflections of bright, deep green leaves filled the riverside room overlooking the Chikuma River, casting their light even upon the faces of the bathers gathered there.
Beyond the railing that turned yellow twice yearly, a view harmonizing with the greenery appeared like a painting.
While serving tea to his guests, Mr. Sakurai described the abundant frog choruses heard over young rice fields and the evening glow of village lights across the river.

Soon the three left their teacher alone in this retreat and started back toward town.
As Dr. Hirooka walked at his characteristically slow pace, his companions would periodically pause to wait before resuming their brisk stride.

“But even women—everyone works here, you know,” Koyasu said to Takase as they parted ways.

Takase also came to a stop and said, “After all, it’s because they work so hard that the women’s disposition has become so robust.”

“That’s right. They work hard indeed… and live with such frugality… But Mr. Takase, what’s completely lacking in the girls around here is charm.”

Koyasu laughed heartily, his voice brimming with genuine mirth.
“It’s like they’re all just rugged rocks,” he added.

“But you know, it’s strange how those rocks have grown on me,” Takase said playfully.

Koyasu parted ways and went on ahead.
Beside the high stone wall beyond the railway crossing, Takase waited for Dr. Hirooka, who was walking slowly toward him.

“Mr. Takase, I too have come to become part of Komoro’s earth.”

With an uncharacteristically hesitant tone, Dr. Hirooka began speaking and descended the stone-walled steps toward the impoverished back alleys alongside Takase.

“……I’m cultivating morning glories now……I grew them often in Ueda……I can’t say if they’ll thrive this year, but…perhaps you might come see them?”

As they walked on conversing like this, droplets suddenly began pattering down.
Dr. Hirooka, seeming anxious about his home’s morning glory trellis, hastily took his leave of Takase and departed.

By the time Takase reached the area around the earthen bridge buried in sand and large stones, rain began falling on his face.
Under the eaves of a poor house stood a girl with brown—or rather grayish—coarse hair gazing listlessly toward the street.
Takase did not hurry his steps, walking while rather enjoying the rain that fell on his face.
And he rejoiced that even his body—which had done nothing but catch colds when he first endured that bitterly freezing winter threatening to kill him on this mountain—had now developed some resistance.
When he returned home drenched in sweat, the white potato flowers blooming in that year’s fields hung drooping.
The scent of rain-beaten dry earth seeped even into his study where new books stood neatly arranged.

When July arrived, Dr. Hirooka waited for Takase at his house in Arachimura.
Not too far from the town where Takase lived, ascending a narrow slope would bring one to the storefront of the blacksmith at the gymnastics teacher’s house.
Adjoining stone walls lined with tall white storehouses, it stood surrounded by bamboo groves and flowing streams.
Being near rice fields made it deeply humid.

“Good morning.”

With that, Takase called out and came from the side of the main house toward the backyard.

In the heavy dew, Dr. Hirooka was walking here and there between the shelves lined with morning glory pots.
At that very moment, Dr. Hirooka’s wife was working at the wide-open kitchen entrance with her eldest daughter when she came around to the garden.

Mrs. Hirooka spoke in a hasty yet refined tone befitting someone raised in a good household,

“Our household is utterly mad for morning glories—no sooner had we come to Komoro than we turned the entire garden into morning glory pots! This trellis was built for us by Mr. Oto—oh, such a fine trellis—”

Mrs. Hirooka said to Takase. She had spoken in a manner suggesting she couldn’t leisurely admire the morning glories, yet she didn’t seem entirely without an appreciation for her husband’s favorite flowers. She had thoroughly memorized even the names of the various rare varieties of morning glories that Dr. Hirooka planted and took pleasure in.

“Mr. Takase, would you like to see one of my precious morning glories?” Dr. Hirooka said as he retrieved the ‘Tenaga’ variety—trimmed short—from among the numerous unglazed pots. He took it to the engawa facing the garden. With the pot placed between them, he had Takase sit down and seated himself as well.

Mrs. Hirooka was attending to the children as well while,

“Shigeru, shouldn’t you bow to the schoolteacher who’s come in? —And Isamu, why on earth are you standing there again? —Truly, Mr. Takase, once you grow old like me, it’s all restlessness and vexation—”

The spray of Mrs. Hirooka’s nagging even reached the eldest daughter.
The eldest daughter blushed with innocent cheeks and brought tea to the guests and the father.

Amidst the chaotic jumble of numerous children, when Dr. Hirooka took a break and gazed at the morning glory pots, it was as if he had forgotten everything.

"What’s blooming now are just the Marusaka variety or Botan species," Dr. Hirooka said to Takase.
"When they become true Shishi or Tenaga varieties, they inevitably bloom later."
"Before long, I would like to invite the teachers from the Private School… Even if there’s no particular occasion, if everyone could gather… I do hope we might be able to offer them a drink with this…"

The next morning, Takase headed out to the private school and arrived at the railway crossing as usual.
There were private school students crossing the railway tracks.
Right there at that spot, he encountered Koyasu coming from Yoramachi.
It was the place where everyone would meet each time as if by prior arrangement.
Takase waited for Koyasu and walked together with him toward the private school.

The retreating figure of Dr. Hirooka walking ahead along the railway-side fence could also be seen.

"Dr. Hirooka's going ahead," Takase said.

As they walked on, Koyasu continued, "They say back when that professor was commuting from Ueda, he once got so drunk he ended up rolling around in the snow on the street—or so the story goes."

"I heard that too."

"Why would someone like Dr. Hirooka come to settle in such a rural area?"

"That—you see—no one knows—"

Near the Private School's gate, the two caught up with Dr. Hirooka.

The topic of morning glories emerged from Dr. Hirooka’s lips there as well.

“Mr. Takase, they bloomed anew this morning.”

“Your morning glories remain rather too intricate—I still can’t quite grasp them,” Takase said with a laugh.

“Some townsfolk come sporadically to view them… There are enthusiasts… Yet I still haven’t truly grown accustomed to this land…”

Dr. Hirooka said, half to himself.

Captain Masaki walked around the stone walls of the mulberry fields, smiling as he approached.

When everyone gathered and went to check the teachers’ office, they found Mr. Sakurai had already arrived early and was settled in.
Mr. Sakurai also mentioned that he had once walked to Nakadana in the morning.

The greenery of the trees in the Private School's garden deepened.
Under the crisp acacia tree, students sat on stones opening their books.
Within the dense shade of cherry leaves, a sumo ring formed where carefree wrestling cries rose.
For Takase, now experiencing his second July on this mountain, the valleys and hills visible from school windows had become deeply familiar.
The paddy fields became his sanctuary—pulling weeds, breathing earthy scents, observing farmers' labor, listening to infants nursing in fields—where he wandered whenever time allowed.
Summer-white clouds that once vanished returned outside the window.
Takase came to discern everything from those heat-laden clouds heavy with shadows to distant water vapor clusters drifting across the blue sky.

During every break, Takase went to the window.
Memories from his earliest childhood surfaced in his heart.
He recalled that he too had been a country boy with long hair who wore handmade straw sandals.
He remembered going to the river to catch loaches.
He recalled picking up a blue-speckled feather that a jay had dropped under an enoki tree.
He recalled the insect that had been on the chestnut tree.
He remembered crushing that insect, taking thread from its greenish flowing blood, soaking it in vinegar, stretching and drying it solid, and using it to catch fish.
He also recalled catching live frogs, skinning them, impaling them upside down on sticks, attaching paper to pieces of frog meat to give to wasps searching for food, and through such methods discovering the location of wasp nests.
He remembered not only relishing things like bee larvae—unknown to city folk—but also munching on raw sweetflag leaves drooping by the paddies, Japanese knotweed, and what they called "sui leaves" straight from the tree.

The memories of Takase’s boyhood that had been sleeping in his chest revived one after another. He recalled that in the skies of his long-unremembered birthplace, he had once glimpsed fox fires burning beyond distant mountains. He recalled how eerie nightjars would often swirl overhead in the evening. He recalled seeing one of the students at the village elementary school he first attended who was said to be possessed by a fox……

Dr. Hirooka came to the window.

“Where is your hometown, Dr. Hirooka?” asked Takase.

“Echigo.”

Dr. Hirooka answered.

In the early afternoon, as Takase was about to leave the Private School, suddenly outside the gate,

“I’ll beat you to death, you bastard!”

A shout rang out.
Otokichi's brother was swinging a large stone aloft, aiming at someone.

“That’s just their way of joking around.”

Dr. Hirooka came there too and said this while smiling at Takase.

The crude behavior of these people left Takase dumbfounded.
Yet those barbaric antiques pleased him more than the tedious chatter of city life.
He said he wanted to stay longer in this region, working among these approachable teachers, to better understand the simple lives of farmers.
His heart raced toward valleys beyond valleys, mountains beyond mountains.

About two years passed.
Even when his promised term had ended, Takase did not request leave to return.
"For studying, the countryside is better."
Saying such things, he instead settled himself firmly.

Two more years passed.
At the Private School, they expanded the classrooms and increased the teaching staff.
A loyal teacher named Kusakabe emerged for the Private School, and the Western-style painter Izumi began commuting from his home in Kogata County once or twice a week.
However, the lively laughter of before gradually diminished.
Everyone came to work in silence.

Because the teachers' office had become cramped even while serving as the secretary's office, they opened up a classroom in the second-floor corner and relocated there. They placed a large brazier in the space. The water in the iron kettle was always kept boiling. Captain Masaki would occasionally come to roll imported cut tobacco, but he no longer engaged in lengthy conversations as he used to. He would shut himself away in the secretary's office, practicing calligraphy alone whenever time allowed. Mr. Sakurai came only when necessary, drank the tea that Otokichi drew and served, then returned to his own room next door. When his teaching duties ended, Mr. Sakurai would don a hooded hat resembling a hermit's headgear and make his way home—either to his residence or the Nakadana villa—passing beneath the garden's cherry tree whose branches had grown so thickly intertwined that it could no longer be called a young sapling.

Koyasu too fell silent.
Koyasu married the daughter of a town doctor and began commuting from a new home he had established in the samurai residence area.
Kusakabe—who had joined later—was another teacher who seemed naturally inclined to silence.

In the air of this teachers’ office, Dr. Hirooka made his old silver pipe—carved with what seemed like venerable designs—emit resonant puffs.
Takase habitually shrugged his shoulders, savoring his tobacco, and would go down the stairs to teach his students.

One day, after finishing his assigned teaching duties, Takase passed by Dr. Hirooka’s classroom.
Dr. Hirooka had just completed his daily routine but remained standing before his desk explaining something to the students.
On the desk lay marble dust, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, a cup, and other items.
The candle flame burned steadily.
Dr. Hirooka tilted the cup in his hand slightly to demonstrate.
When carbon flowed between the glass plates, the candle flame extinguished as abruptly as if doused with water.

Takase stood in the doorway watching.

The innocent students gathered around Dr. Hirooka’s desk, their mouths agape and eyes wide.
When Dr. Hirooka explained that any bird or mouse placed in the cup would die instantly, one student who heard this sprang upright.

“Sir, wouldn’t an insect work?”

“Indeed, insects don’t require oxygen like birds and such do.”

The questioning student promptly left the classroom and materialized beside the peach tree outside the window.

“Ah, he went to get an insect!”

Some students looked toward the window.
The young man who had gone out into the garden searched through the shadows beneath the cherry branches, then soon returned and offered his catch to Dr. Hirooka.

“Is that a wasp?” Dr. Hirooka said with evident distaste.

“It’s furious—it’ll sting! It’ll sting!”

In front of the students clamoring all at once, Dr. Hirooka leaned back, making as if to avoid being stung.
The wasp was pushed into the cup.
The students who saw that laughed for no reason.
“Dead! It’s dead!” some were saying, while others jeered, “What a weakling!”
The wasp spun around frantically inside the glass, writhing as though testifying to some profound truth, then died.

“Has it already given up the ghost, then?” Dr. Hirooka laughed.

Before long, Dr. Hirooka joined Takase.
When the two returned to the teachers' office, no one remained there.
The door to Mr. Sakurai's room was closed.
Captain Masaki had already departed as well.

Dr. Hirooka went to retrieve his bow that had been left in the secretary’s office and returned to Takase’s side.

“How about the bow? This part has not been bending well lately, has it?”

Together with Dr. Hirooka, who had spoken invitingly, Takase soon descended the stone steps in front of the school building.

The students had mostly gone home.
The sound of Otokichi alone remaining behind to clean the classrooms only made the surroundings feel more hushed.
Otokichi’s wife had come to assist her husband while carrying a child on her back and was working inside a classroom near the gate.

Dr. Hirooka spoke to Takase in a friendly tone.

“I hear Mr. Otokichi’s wife used to be in service at Mr. Masaki’s place.”
“While Mr. Otokichi was going to work on the fields at Mr. Sakurai’s house, they must have grown close… I suppose Mr. Sakurai was the one who arranged their marriage, don’t you think?”

As the two passed by the window where the sound of dusting could be heard, a woman’s face as red as a quince blooming in rocky crevices was reflected from within the glass pane.

It was the season of fresh greenery, and the leaves of the private school's acacia trees shimmered in the sunlight.
Like a thicket, the densely clustered slender branches stretched upward so high one had to crane their neck to see the top.

Takase and Dr. Hirooka walked side by side toward Kaikoen (Historic Park).
Dr. Hirooka carried a bag holding his bow and a satchel containing items like a bow rack and rosin.
Around the old castle ruins, even the mulberry fields atop the stone walls along which the two walked were said to be remnants of imposing estates that had once stood there in antiquity.
The terrain, altered in various ways for the railway with mounds of sand and stones, came into view before their eyes.

A doctor on horseback greeted them and passed by.
He was one of the former samurai who had remained in the area.

Dr. Hirooka watched him depart and said, “That doctor busies himself with chickens, horses, songbirds, morning glories—he does everything.”
“When chrysanthemum season comes around, he grows those too.”
“You’ll always find one such doctor in any countryside.”
“‘...But those others—they’re not proper doctors, just medicine peddlers... Can’t even hold a decent conversation...’—he’d proclaim with such grand airs.”
“But he’s an amusing sort—when visiting nearby homes, he’d tell patients, ‘If you can’t pay the fee, just bring something from your fields once your onions grow.’ That’s why farmers take to him.”
“An eccentric, wouldn’t you say?”

Such a scholar also had a history of participating in the Restoration War, and the story of his first battle at nineteen often came up.
At the private school, Captain Masaki was of course a former shogunate hatamoto, and Mr. Sakurai too was one of them.

Passing through the castle gate bearing a large plaque inscribed “Kaikoen,” the two emerged among stone walls enveloped in fresh greenery.
This area was where students from the private school often came to play during lunch breaks.
The massive, darkened stone sides—towering structures cloaked in ancient moss—rose on either side of them.

One of the former ashigaru passed by the two of them, carrying water and nodding in acknowledgment.

The archery range, initiated by Captain Masaki and Mr. Sakurai among others, was located in an extremely quiet spot beneath the main keep where they had built a hut hidden among maple and zelkova trees.
It was exactly there that the two encountered Captain Masaki and the gymnastics teacher.
A few other familiar faces could also be seen.
There was a time when everyone from the private school would gather there en masse, but gradually Koyasu stopped coming frequently, and Mr. Sakurai rarely showed his face.
For Takase to retrieve the archery equipment he had left at the park teahouse and accompany Dr. Hirooka was quite unusual for him.

“To begin with, tomorrow will mark one year since I started practicing the longbow,” said the gymnastics teacher, who had taken up archery later than others in their group.

“Even after a year of practice, if you stop for a while, you can’t hit anything at all—it feels rather like a joke, doesn’t it?”
Captain Masaki, who drew the powerful bow, laughed as well.

Within the archery range that had grown desolate—where the air of decay permeating the old castle combined with the pine forest’s hush as if holding its breath—a peculiar silence now reigned.
Through the young leaves of an ancient zelkova with peeling bark stretched the great slope of Mount Asama lying across the May sky.
From beyond the Mulberry Fields behind the archery range came the sound of farmers’ hoes cutting through soil.
This place lay separated by a valley thick with shrubbery—close too to Captain Masaki’s residence.

Dr. Hirooka drew the weakest bow, but through earnest practice had become able to hit targets consistently.
He brought a target he himself had strung and went to replace the existing one.

“Well now, this is surprising.”
“One-point-two shaku.”
“I’ll place my full trust in this,” said the captain as he looked toward the fresh target and nocked his arrow.

“Plink,” blurted the gymnastics teacher disjointedly.

“That won’t do.”

Captain Masaki made his bow twang, laughed nervously, and lapsed back into gloomy silence.

Until nearly the time when the farmers working the mulberry fields began heading home, Takase remained with the group.
Dr. Hirooka moved as one who’d discovered a perfect refuge there, his treasured hawk-feathered arrows flying toward the white target as though he’d forgotten all else.

Leaving Captain Masaki and the others within the park grounds, Dr. Hirooka and Takase retraced their path toward the castle gate.

Along the way, Dr. Hirooka seemed to recall something,

“...Our Yū—with that build of his—can hold his own in sumo among the children, you see.”
“Just recently he received a bowstring as a reward, but his sumo name is rather amusing.”
“When I asked what it was called—‘Hill Deer.’”

Feigning ignorance, Dr. Hirooka stuck out his tongue.
Takase also burst into childlike laughter.

"My brother's boy has a name too, you know."
"When I asked what they called him, he said, 'Since his father loves archery, we named him Yaatari for good aim,' you see."
"Yaatari, mind you."
"Children truly are such peculiar creatures, aren't they?"

While sharing these stories with Takase during their return, Dr. Hirooka chanced upon an archery companion near the castle gate.
He belonged to the former samurai class.
The man was trudging back from the Chikuma River valley with a fishing net slung over his shoulder.

“These days, even archery has been abandoned, you know.”

With that, the man said in a lively tone and continued,

“I’ve concluded the shizoku are finished.”
“In Komoro, the only one left with any backbone is Masaki at the private school.”

Dr. Hirooka and Takase stood before that person for some time.

“Look—the time of ruin has truly come for the castle’s surroundings… Why, just two or three years back, you could still go to the river and catch ayu sweetfish or haya minnows.”
“Even if they say they’ve disappeared, they were still here until two or three years ago… These days, there are no fish left… And these pine woods—why, they’ve long since passed into others’ hands…”

While seeing off the figure of the person who had spoken rapidly and parted briskly, the two once again began walking toward home.
Indeed, Dr. Hirooka walked very, very slowly.

On days when Izumi—who commuted from near the Eboshisan foothills, either taking the train from Tanaka or walking to Komoro while sketching along the way—appeared at the private school once or twice a week, he would still engage in lengthy conversations with Takase.
This painter had built a studio in his hometown mountain village with fine views shortly after returning from his wanderings through Europe, but claiming he couldn’t just seclude himself focusing solely on research, he would come.

Whenever this person came, Takase would often bring up the peasant painter Millet.
And he looked forward to hearing about the French countryside from Izumi.
Takase borrowed and read various critical biographies of Millet that Izumi had, and at times translated a passage from them to read aloud to Izumi.

“Have you read Tolstoy’s *Cossacks* translated by Mr. Yamada?”
“It depicts a Russian youth heading into the Caucasus, you see.”
“In the end, that book concludes with the protagonist sighing about how peasants remain peasants and we remain ourselves—but even folks like us experience such sentiments sometimes.”
“As for me, I consider myself rather fond of farmers.”
“I’ve stayed at students’ homes… tried striking up conversations… found all sorts of opportunities, even ate konjac stew at Otokichi’s house with that retired couple there… Still, I can’t shake the feeling I’ll never truly understand farmers’ hearts.”

There were times when Takase would speak to Izumi like this.

From the direction of the private school where everyone continued working in silence, Takase set off for home, walking along the sandy afternoon road.
He emerged at the station entrance.
On both sides of the thoroughfare, flags advertising local specialties—udon noodles, beef, horse meat—along with flyers for Zenko-ji pilgrimage groups fluttered restlessly in the breeze carrying new leaves.
Suddenly, amidst the jumble of train timetables, beer and liquor advertisements, and smoke from food stalls, Takase spotted Dr. Hirooka’s smiling face.

Dr. Hirooka, with an expression that seemed to say “Ah, Mr. Takase?”, went over to the Mistress—likely someone who worked there—standing in the dirt-floored entrance at the shop’s front.

“Mistress, is there anything special happening today?”

After asking this, he sat down beside the train-waiting customers together with Takase, who had just come over and stood there.

Even Dr. Hirooka, who normally disregarded his attire, was unusually displaying a smart necktie against his aged Western suit that day.
And he conversed cheerfully with Takase.
Occasionally, light French expressions would flow from Dr. Hirooka’s mouth.

“That spot is too close to the edge. Please move further back—”

Being told this by the shopkeeper, Dr. Hirooka looked around his surroundings.
There were local farmers coming to tie their horses at the front entrance.
Strangers, merchants carrying loads, and a man in a crested haori over straw sandals peered toward them before passing through the sunlit thoroughfare.

"Ever since Dr. Hirooka began commuting from Ueda, thanks to you, our household has managed to expand somewhat."

So the mistress added while working.

Before long, the sake flask Dr. Hirooka had ordered arrived.
In the newly built back room with a small chabudai low table prepared, Takase sat facing Dr. Hirooka.
Just enough for a sip had been laid out there.

Dr. Hirooka began pouring for himself while asking the parents about their children in this household.

“Mr. Takase, please do keep talking,” said Dr. Hirooka with an encouraging nod. “This household feels so welcoming—you saw how capable the mistress is—I simply can’t pass by without stopping in like this.”

“I’ve actually grown able to drink some since coming to Komoro,” Takase offered.

“You see?” Dr. Hirooka’s eyes crinkled. “People here drink like fish overall. Must be this cold climate’s doing.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Now who at the school holds their liquor best? Mr. Masaki could drink most under the table.”

Takase declined the offered drink, content to let conversation flow. From his school jacket’s pocket emerged a weathered leather tobacco pouch, its rustic clasp clicking open. Compared to his citified self of years past—hair now grown long around ears reddened by country winds, eyes shadowed with pensive smoke—he seemed transformed as he lit up, listening through tendrils of fragrant haze.

“What do you think, Mr. Takase—about that son of mine I’ve asked to come to the private school this time? Unlike his younger brother, he’s actually quite mild-mannered, you see. He’s been good at art since elementary school—always getting top marks in that subject. When I asked him, ‘What do you plan to become?’ he said, ‘When I grow up, I want to be like Mr. Izumi…’ Do you think he’ll ever amount to anything like that…?”

Dr. Hirooka continued speaking while taking measured sips.

“It’s strange—my wife dotes so absurdly on our younger son.”
“She’ll agree to anything the boy says.”
“When I insist that’s no good, it always becomes an argument… My wife claims, ‘You’re always favoring Shigeru—this softness of yours is why no one listens anymore!’… The older brother’s the weaker one, so naturally I end up supporting him…”

Dr. Hirooka wiped his entire face—cheeks, forehead, everything—with a hand towel.

“But Mr. Takase, I do wonder how we’ve grown so close… You have two children now at your place, don’t you? Children truly wear one down to the bone.”
“With just two, it’s still manageable.”
“Look at us—we’ve got a whole swarm of them… And every last one’s a bottomless pit!” Dr. Hirooka began, then chuckled as if remembering something. “Though of course, as a parent, I can’t very well tell them, ‘Don’t eat so much—stop at three bowls or something!’”

The candid talk made Takase laugh.
Dr. Hirooka continued,

"Look, after Yu comes a girl."
"Born in Ueda... Truly doesn't heed her parents... I suppose children shaped by hard times turn out that way... Left to wander as she grew... We couldn't properly tend to our children... And yet when I consider it, my wife has managed remarkably well."
"When it comes to enduring hardship, my wife's strength surpasses my own..."

A stone-like silence continued for some time.
Before long, a slight drunkenness rose to Dr. Hirooka’s face.
Only his scholar-like long eyebrows had become distinctly streaked with gray, standing out within his faintly flushed face.
Dr. Hirooka, seemingly enjoying himself, moved both hands and his body—now crossing his legs, now sitting up straight—as he looked toward Takase.
And changing the tone of the conversation,

“Now that you mention it, the French language does contain clever wordplay in the most peculiar places, doesn’t it?”

Having said that, he skillfully pronounced a few connected words for him to hear.

“Perhaps I should become your disciple too, Doctor?” said Takase.

“Why, won’t you give it a try?”

“In the novel I’m reading now, French words keep appearing and causing me trouble.”

“Why don’t we truly try studying it together?”

Never did Dr. Hirooka’s eyes shine more brilliantly than when discussing French.

Eventually, Takase left Dr. Hirooka alone at the house and went out to Aioi-cho Street.
As he walked to his own house, he encountered several people offering country-style greetings.
Men with long beards were here and there.

The day off arrived.

The fact that Takase had rented the house behind the riding ground had now lasted so long it could no longer be called a temporary residence.
He tried to claim the day as his own and spend it freely.

He went to look at the southern shōji.
Outside the engawa was a hedge of Japanese larch.
Due to the wind and snow, the hedge had become quite damaged.
The lonely croaking of frogs heard every year once again reached the shōji from the direction of the watermill.

He went out to the northern engawa and looked.
Near the eaves of the rotting thatched roof appeared the trunk of an apple tree—weakened each year by insect damage—that came into Takase’s view.
The short, misshapen branches had put forth young leaves that year as well.
A faint sweet scent suddenly wafted to his nose.
He leaned against the engawa, gazing at the apple blossoms and leaves basking in the May sunlight, but when his wife Oshima came and stood there casually, he wore the flushed look of a man half-sick.

“Somehow—I feel like I’m going mad.”

When Takase said jokingly, Oshima looked up at the sky from the engawa.

"Why don't you cut your hair and put on a hat?"

she replied lightly.

Suddenly, a large bee buzzed its wings and flew into the room.
Oshima hurried over to where the child was napping.
The bee that had entered from the garden passed through to the front.

"What's Mariko up to?" Takase asked about the elder daughter who had been born in this house.

"She's playing outside."

“Isn’t she at it again with Mr. Carpenter’s daughter?”
“That girl was truly startled.”
“I can’t have her playing with such a rough child, I tell you.”

“I do think so too, but she insists on playing even when it leaves her in tears.”

“Next time they come inviting her, turn ’em down flat.—Don’t let ’em into our house—I’m dead serious, this ain’t some joke.”

The couple talked to each other, worrying about their child.

It was such invigorating weather that those full of youthful vigor couldn’t remain still.
Takase had neglected visiting the samurai district for some time.
But that day, rather than visiting his colleagues at the school, he tried to wander the rice field paths he loved, letting his feet lead him wherever they would.
In the afternoon, he left the house.

Mountain streams flowed between rocks everywhere.
Taking the path he never tired of walking, when he emerged behind Akasaka, green barley fields unfurled before his eyes.
Wheat ears that had ripened five times gleamed white anew.
Walking along fields behind Ara-machi with its rows of earthen walls and white-plastered buildings, he eventually reached the backside of Yora-machi at Komoro’s outskirts.
An enormous rock lay buried between the fields.
There, he met one of the town youths working the land.

He could no longer be called a youth.
He was a man who had taken a young wife and established a household.
For a while, Takase sat on a stone by the field and watched his acquaintance work the soil.

The man leaned sideways, putting his weight into his hips as he dug up clods of earth while speaking.
The wind swept through green barley fields, the mountain stream murmured, and amidst it all, frog croaks mingled—their conversation reaching each other in fragmented bursts.

“Our hope is to at least build proper homes for Mr. Sakurai and Dr. Hirooka... seeing as how they’ve labored for the town...”

And the acquaintance said from the field.

After bidding farewell, as Takase began his return, a vigorous chorus of frogs arose.
The vast depths of Chikuma River valley overflowed with their croaking.
Toward the Hida borderlands, distant white snow still crowned the ridges of the Japanese Alps, but Takase made no effort to linger anywhere and savor the view.
A peculiar loneliness crept upward from the frog-filled valley depths.
Frightened, Takase turned back toward his wife and child as though fleeing.

“Dad!”

Finding the child who had called out, Takase joined Mariko near the hedge in front of his house.

“Mariko, let’s go home.”

While speaking in a soothing manner, Takase led the child into the front garden.
There, hoes for working the fields were placed in a corner.

Oshima was sitting on the raised threshold, nursing her second daughter.

“Mariko went to Kaikoen earlier with the maid (servant girl) to play.”

Oshima told her husband and looked again at the nursing infant’s face.
The child had grown enough to grasp the breast while nursing.

“Give me some too!” Mariko said, noticing her mother munching.

“You mustn’t say things like ‘Mommy,’ okay?
“Give it to me.”

Oshima was chewing dried cuttlefish for solace.
Having made the nursing infant release the breast and spoken to the elder daughter, she stood up and headed toward the cupboard by the hearth.

“Come on, I’ll give you some bread. Come out,” she called to her daughter.

“No! Mariko doesn’t want bread—dried cuttlefish!”

Mariko shook her head, but soon went to her mother’s side, and the two ate bread together.

“You said you’d give me some, you said you’d give me some, but then Mommy ate it all up!” Mariko whined.

Takase, who was laughing while watching this scene, said to Mariko as she came over to him.

"You mustn't play pranks like this."

“Idiot!” Mariko taunted her father with contrarian mockery.
"—as if this were an utterly ordinary exchange."

Takase sighed and retreated inside.
When Oshima brought tea to her husband’s side, he sat alone in his study—doing nothing but sitting there.

“I’ve grown strangely uneasy.
“There’s nothing to be done but sit here like this and watch.”

Takase told his wife.

That evening came the sound of pebbles striking the southern door compartment.
Someone had thrown them in from outside.

“Who’s there?”

Takase ran to the shoji screen and stepped out onto the damp veranda to look.

“Throwing stones into people’s homes—who’s there?—enough with the pranks already—I mean it—”

Grumbling irritably, he peered through the larch hedge.
The neighborhood troublemaker girl—wearing a glare fierce enough to make parents weep, yet oddly pretty—darted behind the earthen side wall to hide.

“Why are the girls around here so rough?”
“You can’t even tell if they’re boys or girls!”

Thus Takase said to Oshima from the veranda through the hedge where she stood outside: “When they came earlier to invite her, I told them Mariko wouldn’t play with the carpenter’s daughter anymore… But this time Mariko went out herself… They must have quarreled… Throwing stones… Whether they’re maids or babysitters—all the women around here are just so rough…”

Oshima spoke in a helpless tone and stood gazing at the evening sky.
Dusk was approaching.

"Mariko, come inside," she called to the child playing nearby.

"A ghost'll come! Get yourself home now!" shouted the maid as she passed by carrying water from the well.

Though Mariko was becoming quite the mountain girl, she didn't only bring her parents to tears.
After supper, Mariko brought out a doll to show them.
"Give us a smile now," she coaxed, making the doll dance about.

“Mama! Mama—tra-la-la—fiddle-dee-dee—hi-diddle-dum—coochie-coo—moochie-moo—”

Without learning it from anywhere in particular, Mariko had picked up these things and would dance around the house before bedtime.

A May night characteristic of the town’s backstreets gradually deepened.
The neighborhood girls who came to Oshima’s place for penmanship lessons also lit lanterns and went home.
In the surrounding area, many houses had already closed their doors for the night.
In the hushed outdoors, the members of Takase’s household heard a voice whose owner they couldn’t immediately discern.

“Mr. Takase—”

“Takase, are you there—”

The voice drew near beyond the hedge.

“Ah.”

Takase pricked up his ears and went to his wife, who was fidgeting and trembling there.
When Oshima descended to the garden entrance and opened the door, Dr. Hirooka and the gymnastics teacher came bustling in from the dark outdoors.

Takase carried the lamp to the edge of the raised floor.
The ruddy, carefree faces of Dr. Hirooka and his companion—as if they’d declared *“Let’s give the stable yard a good scare”*—were illuminated by that lamplight.
Both were dressed in leg gaiters and straw sandals.

“Here, bring some water.”

Takase told his wife.

Oshima, somewhat relieved, brought water from the kitchen entrance.
Dr. Hirooka was so drunk he could barely keep upright, yet as if trying to maintain his usual composure, he strained his bleary eyes to peer intently at the couple’s faces and the water in the cup lit by the lamp.

The hand trying to take Dr. Hirooka’s cup trembled.
Oshima pushed it toward Dr. Hirooka.

“I must apologize… Today we went rambling in the mountains… became thoroughly drunk… Madam, there’s no excuse…”

Dr. Hirooka leaned his hands on the raised threshold and spoke in an honest, good-natured tone, as if apologizing.

The gymnastics teacher laughed heartily.
He placed a hand on Dr. Hirooka’s shoulder in a show of support, though he himself remained quite merry.

With unsteady steps, the two men went swaying out into the night.
Takase carried the lamp outside to light their path, but when he returned indoors afterward, an even deeper silence of desolate night remained.

Beneath the roof that seemed to sag with neglect, Takase lay down late that evening.
Each time he opened his eyes, shadowy forms of ravenous rats flickered hazily about his pillow—their black shapes vanishing and reappearing.
Sometimes terror would seize him as if creatures crawled up his very limbs, jolting him fully awake.
Deep in the night, Takase roused his wife; together they clattered about the kitchen setting mousetraps.

From summer through autumn that year, the private school experienced various unforeseen events.
Dr. Hirooka was gravely ill for over three months at his house in Aramachi-ura.
Just as Dr. Hirooka—whom everyone had believed beyond saving—managed to cling to life, Captain Masaki now collapsed.
Captain Masaki left his children in his wife's care and died with the school project still half-completed.
The captain's remains were interred in the samurai district.
The numerous Japanese and Chinese volumes he had left for the children were sold off under relatives' supervision to settle his affairs.

Mr. Sakurai’s long, distinguished beard had grown noticeably whiter.
Every day at the private school, Takase would gaze at his teacher’s beard—resembling deep snow accumulating—before returning home again.
By the time Dr. Hirooka—having narrowly escaped death—had thoroughly sworn off alcohol, tidied the morning glory pots left to his wife all summer on their trellis, and sorted their seeds, fierce frost already gripped both Takase’s roof and the fields behind his house.
The biting winter wind arrived.
The soil, rocks, even people’s complexions began appearing gray.
Days came when sunlight itself looked gray through that pallid haze.
Then unexpected snowfall descended in crushing abundance.
It buried doorways.
On north-facing roofs lingered a foot of permanent snow.
Distant rooster crows sounded muffled, as though everything lay smothered beneath a shroud.
When sunlight pierced the gray sky to touch southern shoji screens, snow glared back with crystalline brilliance.
All day long drips from eaves tapped out their monotonous, lonely rhythm.

Takase, hunkered down for winter, clung to the brazier, while Oshima went to the kotatsu to warm their child’s freezing hands and feet there.
When melted snow outside piled up again, when revealed soil disappeared once more, when sunlight grew distant and faint, the couple found themselves with their children in a half-frozen world.
Clusters of water vapor—indistinct from clouds—hung in the cold sky like gatherings of fine threads.
Gazing at the long gleaming icicles hanging from northern eaves like swords, with quiet resolve, the husband and wife saw through another year.

An even colder day arrived.
The snow that fell on the north-facing roof and garden froze solid, showing no sign of melting day after day.
Icicles reached two to three feet in length.
When Oshima went to the hearth to give milk to the child, sometimes it had frozen a pale green, making it impossible to let the child drink.
The water flowing through the kitchen drain froze solid.
Even many of the stored vegetables froze.
The maids who went to fetch water wore hoods and gloves, carrying buckets as they shivered in the cold, but when they returned, the skin on their hands had cracked, with red blood oozing here and there.
When it came to this, Oshima could no longer care about appearances.
She tried by all means to keep the child from freezing.
On evenings when Takase read by the sound of freezing-cracked pillars in every room, the cold seeped through to his very bones.
Oshima pressed the child against her skin at his side to warm them.

Enduring this interminably long, cold season while living as if buried in the earth proved no easy feat even for a single winter. Takase and his wife waited restlessly for spring.

When the mountain peak's bitter cold had finally begun to thaw from its most severe state, Takase at last emerged from his bug-like dormancy and started looking around his surroundings once more.

Due to the cold that year, even the private school produced one casualty among its students.

On a day when warm rain fell as if nature had suddenly revived, Izumi came by train from Kogata specifically to mourn the young man's death.
This youth had been a student Takase too had instructed for four years.
Walking together with Izumi, Takase made his way toward the student's house.

As they were about to descend the slope town called Akasaka, Dr. Hirooka joined them.

“After all, it was a cold spell not seen in ten years.”
“It’s a wonder someone like me didn’t freeze to death.”
“Even young people couldn’t endure this cold.”

Dr. Hirooka said this and walked while gazing at the rain pouring down on the soiled snow.

The barely visible dark soil, the yellowed bamboo groves, the still-withered persimmons and plums—every trunk and branch of the trees within the three men’s sight lay drenched in rain, and there was not a single one that didn’t wear a dark, soiled, sleep-tousled appearance.

Holding up a large Western-style umbrella and chatting as they came up from the foot of the slope were Koyasu and Kusakabe.
The members of the private school gathered together in the rain.

The fact that they had lost a promising private school student—moreover at eighteen years of age—drew everyone’s hearts there.
He had gone to help paper shoji screens at his brother’s tailor shop one evening, then suddenly taken to bed; when the fever spread from his lungs to his heart and three doctors extracted fluid from his heart under observation, four gō had come out.
He had fallen ill for about forty days and died.
As Dr. Hirooka stood talking in this way, Kusakabe—who had left the local area to specialize in botany—knew about the deceased student’s childhood and recounted how from around age ten he had cared for his ailing mother: cooking breakfast each morning, even tying up her hair before heading off to elementary school… Even during his own illness, he had insisted on having his bed placed where his mother could see him.

The ceremony was held at the student’s home.
There, starting with Mr. Sakurai, his wife could also be seen.
Mrs. Masaki sat in a corner of the room with her head bowed.
The private school’s alumni had propped umbrellas in the narrow garden and sat along the veranda.

That day, Takase learned for the first time that the deceased young man had been a Christian believer.
Beside the coffin draped with black cloth and adorned with a blue cross and artificial peony flowers stood Mr. Sakurai as officiant.
The hymns were sung by congregants.
Mrs. Masaki - who had developed religious inclinations - held open a hymnal together with Mr.Sakurai’s wife.
Mr.Sakurai read from Chapter Five of Second Corinthians.
When he delivered memorial words for their lost pupil,the aged mother clutched her Bible and wept.

In the drizzling rain, Takase went together with his other colleagues to see off [the deceased] to the cemetery in the samurai district.
The remains were buried on a quiet hill covered with pine trees.
Hymns were sung at the cemetery.
By the stone monuments there and under the pine trees there, classmates stood gazing at this scene.

One day, a woman with a metropolitan air—holding what seemed to be a pale Western-style umbrella—came to visit Takase’s house in Babaura.
This woman dressed in fashionable attire was a friend of Oshima’s from Tokyo.
By now, even on the mountain peaks, the snow had completely melted, and the warm spring sunlight shone upon the moss-covered thatched roofs and the earthen walls where radishes were hung to dry each year.

At that very moment, Oshima, with her hair wrapped in a hand towel, was intently stretching laundry in a sunny spot of the entrance garden.
When her friend arrived there, she stood staring at her for a while with a look that seemed to say, “So this is Ms. Oshima?”

Oshima hurriedly put away the laundry board, removed the hand towel from her head, and welcomed her old friend whom she hadn’t seen in about six years.

“Oh, Ms. Okamoto—”

And her friend nostalgically called her by the surname she had when she was still a maiden.

While waiting for a train, they talked, and Oshima's friend boarded one heading toward Nagano.

That day was Sunday.
Takase returned from elsewhere wearing pale yellow work pants with cuffs rolled up, a hand towel hanging at his waist, his eyes alone gleaming within a gloomy countenance.
Oshima had gone to bring out her prized pickles from the kitchen entrance and, while serving tea to her husband by the hearth, laughed as she spoke of the friend who had visited.

“Since I was doing laundry in such comical attire, she made quite an astonished face…”

“So we’ve all become such country bumpkins now, eh?”

Takase also laughed and looked around the surroundings.
On the sooty walls, calendar-adorned woodblock prints distributed by town merchants as year-end decorations—some from last year and even the year before—were pasted up to delight children's eyes.

"But even you—Komoro dialect seems to slip out without you noticing," she said. "When I listen from the side to you talking with people—things like 'yougo wasu' and 'metameta' come out…"

"You've become quite impossible to overlook."

Both of them wrinkled their noses and laughed.

“What did your friend say about that, huh?” Takase asked.

“Since her husband is currently abroad, she asked me to tell you, Mr. Takase, to come visit for a while.”

“To me?! If she’d said ‘Come visit because my husband’s home,’ I’d get it—but inviting me over precisely when her husband’s away? That’s just absurd!”

The two laughed again.

Mariko became as mischievous as the carpenter’s daughter.
If the north wind came—oak leaves would immediately rustle—in that very instant,

“Damn you! I’ll hit you!”

Shaking her hair, the daughter ran off toward her playmates.