Pathway to Japanese Literature

Prologue

I

“Kishimoto-kun—I think I will write to you about fragments of my recent life and thoughts. “But to tell the truth, I have no material to write about. “It’s something best settled with silence. “The deeper your friendship with me grows, the more proper it would be to remain silent. “Having left my old house and moved to a new one, I find myself rejoicing in how many more days I spend in laziness. “I cannot work. “Of course, I cannot by any means work under another’s will. “Then could I take up the whip of my own will upon my back and set out on life’s solemn path? Even that I cannot do. “The fact that I have not accomplished a single coherent task until now is proof enough. “Though I could gaze at sky, clouds, and earth all day without tiring, even half a day’s reading often wearies me. “Since moving here, I do nothing more than plant favored trees in vacant lots or idly tend gardens as mere diversion. “And then simply offer these barely sprouting vegetables in turn to insects faithful to life. “Of course there’s no reason I’d become a kitchen hand. “Given this state, country living lies entirely beyond consideration. “My life continues empty as ever. “And so upon my life’s strings weariness and laziness have laid their gray hands. “When I consider it—this must be fate’s course for one who holds no faith in modernity’s golden words of ‘life’s fulfillment.’ “Then you might ask if I regret it—but even that I cannot do. “The reason being this instinctive life impulse within my flesh has grown desperately feeble. “To fall forever is inaction’s pitfall.”

“However, even for those who have fallen into the pitfall of inaction, there remains one final faith.” “Impermanence—that philosophical concept reiterated for two or three millennia, both origin and culmination of all philosophy—through this lifeless body of mine, I sometimes find myself listening in profound absorption to its tolling bell, even now.” “This has become the fundamental tone of my life these days…”

A letter from a friend living in the Nakano area of the suburbs was spread out before Kishimoto.

This was a letter Kishimoto had received several months before. He took it out and reread it. In his youth, he too had written rather long letters to friends and received them in return, but gradually their exchanged correspondence became nothing more than brief missives concerning practical matters. Even when settling matters via postcard, they kept things as brief as possible. That alone had increased the number of letters they needed to write on their part. It was not uncommon for them to spend an entire day writing dozens of letters. From that perspective, what lay spread out before him was not a letter one could often receive from a friend. It was a letter that was not a letter, one written under the guise of correspondence. As he read on, he was struck most of all by the confession and the way of life of his friend—a man who had reached the midpoint of life as a solitary individual. When an evening came, just as a flock of small birds—having fluttered noisily between distant trees and nearby ones—fell silent one by one, two by two, their clamorous chirping subsiding unnoticed, precisely such an evening arrived around Kishimoto too. Above all, since the friend who had sent him this letter built a new house and moved to Nakano, he had fallen completely silent. He had truly fallen silent.

With the half-read letter laid out before him, Kishimoto compared his own life to that of this friend for whom he had felt unwavering respect and affection over the past fourteen or fifteen years.

II

Kishimoto continued reading further.

“……Since moving to the suburbs, my religious sentiment has grown somewhat deeper. “My Buddhism is, of course, nothing more than a Buddhist sentiment that has permeated my body. “I would rather lose myself in Nirvana than reach it. “Rather than attaining illusory purity, I would rather entrust my weary and lazy ‘self’ to this dreamlike realm for a time. “Just as one senses a mysterious dream while sleeping, I want to transform this life of weariness and laziness into one of mystery and joy. “I want to move from the religion of impermanence to the art of enchantment… Lazy as I am, even I found the suburban winter somewhat novel, so I tried keeping a diary. “Last year, on November 4th, the first frost fell. “Then, on the eleventh day, the second frost fell. “December 1st, the day of the fourth frost, was like snow. “And the seventh, eighth, and ninth were three consecutive mornings of severe frost, causing the leaves of the Japanese aralia and leopard plant to wither. “On the morning of the eighth, the first ice formed. “After the 22nd, winter conditions had fully set in, and there were increasingly more days when snow could be seen from the Tanzawa mountain range to the Chichibu mountain range. “The wind blew fiercely again. “However, generally speaking, the scenery of the early winter fields is profoundly captivating. “The pallor of frost’s color possesses a more vivid and poignant charm than snow. “In contrast, the depth of thawing soil’s color was more refreshingly expansive than after an early summer rain. “Moreover, when tattered moss moistened by thawing frost is illuminated by morning sunbeams, the beauty of earth’s colors nearly reaches its zenith. “The green of moss at this time was more vivid and lively than any other kind of green— “as if emeralds had been shattered and scattered. “It was also as though viewing an impressionist canvas.”

In the desolate winter phantasms, I had not expected to encounter such beautiful green. In that moment when both my soul and flesh were captured by such phantasmal beauty, even this dreamlike life became pleasant, and this fleeting world of dreams was cherished like a precious jewel. However, just as natural phantasms are not manifestations of any effort, their complete apprehension likewise requires no effort whatsoever. “Let dreams be dreams and let them pass…”

To the Nakano friend—who seemed to be attempting a fusion of artistic and religious living—there had been a father who left behind both suitable assets and frugal habits, granting him leisure sufficient to savor the serene silence so evident in this letter.

Kishimoto had none of that. The Nakano friend had a good wife who attended to him morning and night. Kishimoto had none of that either. His wife had died from severe postpartum hemorrhage while giving birth to their seventh daughter.

Since coming down from the mountains and beginning to live in the city, seven years had passed for Kishimoto.

During that time, death after death of those close to him continued with uncanny persistence. The death of his eldest daughter. The death of his second daughter. The death of his third daughter. The death of his wife. The death of his beloved nephew. His soul was ceaselessly buffeted. Long ago, when Kishimoto was still young and all his friends were young too, he had a friend named Aoki, but Aoki died young without ever knowing the Nakano friend. Counting from the year Aoki died, Kishimoto lived on for seventeen extra years. And so, those around him that were meant to perish perished, and he gradually became a solitary figure.

III

There was one scene that still rose vividly in Kishimoto’s memory. Having been mercilessly battered by the successive deaths of those dear to him, he felt that even now, that scene had been thrust upon him inescapably. It was when he attended a funeral rite held at the church within Kōjimachi Mitsuke as one of the mourners. A coffin covered with a black cloth and adorned with two wreaths was placed beneath the pulpit. Inside lay the remains of Kishimoto’s old school friend—a Christian man with whom he had graduated from the same school some twenty-one years earlier. The memorial service for the classmate who had died of tuberculosis was conducted with utmost simplicity inside the church where he had often come and sat during his lifetime. Before long, the coffin passed through the central rows of chairs and was carried along the wall toward the church’s exit. For the deceased—from his days as a very young student when he would preach and teach—the pastor who had even taken care of delivering the funeral sermon that day, along with relatives and friends, supported the coffin from front, back, left, and right as they carried it.

Kishimoto stood by the gray wall, gazing at the scene. On that day, besides Kishimoto, Adachi and Suga had also come to pay their respects. All three were classmates of the deceased.

“Is this all of our group?” Suga said, looking around as if searching for other fellow graduates.

“You’d think someone else might still show up.”

Adachi also said.

The people who had gathered for the funeral were beginning to disperse in their own ways. For a while, Kishimoto remained inside the church with his two classmates and stood watching the departing crowd of believers. Then came an elderly man who greeted them on behalf of the relatives. He was the administrator from their former school who had looked after all three of them. “He did such a pitiful thing.” the administrator said of their deceased classmate.

“How many children did he have?” Kishimoto asked. “Four.”

With that, the administrator said pointedly, "The aftermath will be a bit troublesome," and walked away while leaving those words behind.

When Kishimoto, together with his two classmates, was about to leave, most of the mourners had already departed. Only the deserted church building remained. Only the pointed arch-shaped decoration at the front, the high walls, and the plain pulpit—where until just moments ago the coffin adorned with wreaths had been placed—remained. Only the many long benches lined up after all mourners had left remained. Only the large vase with flowers and leaves beside the pulpit—apparently specially prepared for the funeral rites—remained. As the season was just beginning to grow warm, only the bright May sunlight streaming through the church-style windows remained.

Kishimoto found it hard to leave; gazing at the sunlight streaming through the high ceiling, he keenly felt the sorrow of those who remain. He felt that sorrow through his own body, worn down by the profound exhaustion that follows being bereaved of so many close family members. When he looked at Adachi and Suga, memories of their youthful camaraderie surfaced in Kishimoto’s heart. Next came thoughts of that deceased Aoki. The two classmates who had descended the church’s stone steps with Kishimoto had already become people who spoke of Aoki’s living days as tales from a distant past.

IV

After that, Kishimoto walked with his two classmates toward Mitsuke. After a long time had passed, he was invited to Adachi’s house and went there. The rickshaw driver who had taken Kishimoto to the church followed behind him, pulling his empty vehicle while Kishimoto walked along talking.

“How many years has it been since I last came to this church?” As they continued talking in this manner, they reached a vacant lot near the ruins of the old Mitsuke checkpoint. It was a blustery day thick with swirling dust—yellowish sand clouds came whirling toward them. Each time this happened, Adachi, Suga, and Kishimoto would turn their backs to wait out the passing dust cloud before resuming their walk. Sweltering heat lay ahead along the path where the three were headed. While discussing the brief biography of their deceased classmate—a life spanning forty-five years—that the pastor had read from the pulpit, they quietly ascended a gentle slope through terrain that still retained traces of its castle-town topography.

“Earlier, when I left my house, I came upon everyone right at the moat’s edge.” “I followed the coffin to the church.”

It was Adachi, the eldest of the three, who had broached the topic. “How many in our group have already died, I wonder?”

When Kishimoto said that, Adachi responded in his characteristically meticulous tone,

“Among the twenty graduates, four had already passed away, I suppose. This makes five.” “Hasn’t someone else died? I feel like there might be more.” It was Suga who had said that. “Who’s next?”

To Adachi’s morbid jest, both Suga and Kishimoto fell silent. For a while, the three of them walked on in silence.

“Among the three of us, I’ll probably be the first to go,” Adachi said again with a laugh.

“I’m the more questionable one,” Kishimoto couldn’t help but say. “Nonsense, you’ll be fine.” “If anyone goes first, it’ll likely be me,” Suga laughed, as if delivering a gallows jest. “But you see—if I’m to die, I feel it might well happen within these next two years…” To his classmates, Kishimoto’s words might have sounded like another macabre joke—but he found no humor in his own utterance. A sandstorm like billowing smoke swept over them again, pelting him with grit that crunched between his teeth.

That day, despite it being on their way back from the funeral, the two of them—Kishimoto and Suga—descended upon Adachi’s house. “It’s rare to have you both come together like this.” Adachi said that and went to great lengths to entertain them. Unintentionally engrossed in conversation, Kishimoto had the rickshaw driver wait at the gate and talked until dusk.

“Back when we all left school together—in those days, it felt like something interesting was waiting for us up ahead.” “So this—this is what you call life, huh?”

Without meaning to bring it up, Kishimoto said it before his two classmates. "Yeah, this is life," Suga said in a calm tone. "Whenever I think that way, I get this strange feeling." "Isn't there just a bit more to it all, huh?"

When Kishimoto said this, Adachi took up the thread, “Thinking there’s something so interesting out there—that’s where you’re wrong.”

Having gathered in Adachi’s room with Suga, Kishimoto sensed that here too a peculiar silence held sway over the three old companions. Even as comrades with scarcely any distance between them, even as they chattered and laughed so freely, their hearts remained mute toward one another.

“I simply can’t die like this.” Kishimoto once again could not help but say it. The memories of these conversations, the memories of these scenes, the memories of these events, the memories of these inner experiences—all were as vivid as they were fresh to Kishimoto. At every turn, he found himself threatened by an ominous premonition that made him feel his life’s crisis was drawing near.

V

While continuing to dwell on his classmate’s death, even the ride back in the carriage along the Kanda River from Adachi’s house remained etched in Kishimoto’s memory as something unforgettable. Even concepts like earth, water, fire, and wind—spoken of by ancient people—frequently rose to his imagination during that carriage ride. Whether it was fire, water, or earth—if he could touch the raw, primordial stimuli of nature with near-superstitious fervor, perhaps he might save himself—this too was something he pondered during that carriage ride.

The immeasurability of existence. When Kishimoto had once tried to descend the mountain with his wife and children, how could he have anticipated that such heavy, sedimented things would await him midway through life's journey? The weariness that had come to the Nakano friend had come to him too. The many people who had once led beautiful lives that elevated his spirit had all turned to emptiness. He had nearly lost all interest in life. Day after day, forlornly monotonous sounds would echo through his room's shoji screens, and he would feel himself enclosed in a boundless solitude—until he had become like a man who sat staring at cold walls, no longer receiving visitors for some time. Was this fundamentally the result of excessive labor, the culmination of a rootless melancholy that had haunted half his life, or the outcome of nearly three years spent battling hardships while raising motherless children? He could not say.

In the latter part of the letter he had received from his Nakano friend, such things were also written. “Kishimoto, it must be about time I fell silent.” “Weariness and laziness are waiting for me to return to myself.” “My eyes were weary; my heart was weary.” “When I glanced toward the edge of the flower bed, a white butterfly had found the first flower blooming in the withered bed.” “And this butterfly was the first I had seen this year.” “My favorite mountain camellias will likely come into full bloom in due time.” “For about ten days now, the Japanese cornel dogwood and star anise flowers have been blooming.” “They are all lonely flowers.” “Star anise flowers in particular resemble wintersweet and are blossoms of refined elegance.” “My heart trembles with loneliness as I gaze upon those flowers.” It was concluded thus.

The Nakano friend had no children. There had been a time when he had offered to take in and raise Kishimoto’s second son. However, the naively unmanageable child had not stayed at his friend’s house for even a week. In the end, Kishimoto kept two children with him and entrusted one to his older sister’s home in his hometown. Nor could he neglect the monthly remittance for his youngest daughter, who had been left with a wet nurse’s household along the Hitachi coast. He continued his labor in silence—silence unbroken—without cease.

Kishimoto’s forty-second year was drawing near. The anxieties about his future led him to even heed such sayings as a man’s great calamity. He had even tried comparing himself to his Nakano friend and putting it this way: His friend’s was a vivid, unstrained silence; his own was a dead silence. With that dead silence, he awaited the fierce storm that loomed over him.

Volume 1

I

Descending from the second floor of a house a few blocks from the mouth of the Kanda River, Kishimoto went out to the riverbank he usually enjoyed walking along. And he walked along that riverbank with deep quietness. As if he were walking down a long corridor just outside his own room. Each time he came to that riverbank, and each time he saw the rice wholesalers with fishing boats or the refined townspeople’s residences facing the water beyond the willow grove, Kishimoto would invariably bring to mind an unknown youth. By chance, Kishimoto received a letter from that youth and came to know that the shade of the willow grove he took pleasure in walking through was likewise a place that same youth had frequented for years. They had never met face to face, yet it was strange how they had coincidentally found the same beloved spot. Then the youth expressed a desire to meet Kishimoto. At that time, Kishimoto wrote that he met people so frequently in his daily life that it felt excessive, and sent a reply to the youth suggesting that the two of them, as unknown friends, should enjoy the shade of the same willow grove together. Kishimoto’s sentiments seemed to have reached the youth, for the latter stated they had reluctantly abandoned their desire to meet, and from that time onward, their exchange of letters continued. That familiar willow grove—through it, their hearts had connected. For that youth, the riverbank was Kishimoto. For Kishimoto, the riverbank was that youth.

Such correspondence between strangers who knew nothing of each other beyond letters—merely gazing at the same water and treading the same soil—continued for a surprisingly long time. At times, that youth would send Kishimoto postcards from his travels, writing things like, “No matter how brilliantly blue the sea may shine, no particular thought arises—the familiar willow grove is rather more tranquil,” and at other times, from his Tokyo home, he would pen in detail the lonely, seemingly helpless feelings common to youth. Gradually, Kishimoto received such letters less frequently. All contact abruptly ceased entirely.

“What has become of him?” Kishimoto tried saying this to himself as he walked along the riverbank.

The phrase from a postcard Kishimoto had once received from that youth—"There must be a stone amid those willow groves"—had lingered strangely in his mind. Kishimoto stood by a stone that seemed to match the description, gazing at the chill-inducing water flowing through the canal from below Asakusabashi, while picturing an unknown youth who appeared to be around eighteen or nineteen years old. He envisioned that youth who had once inhaled the fresh green scent of branches hanging low enough to graze his cheek—a moment when his heart had inexplicably surged with nostalgia. He envisioned that youth who had once sat upon that stone, cheek propped on his knee, imagining in myriad ways what it might be like when Kishimoto walked there.

He who had such youthful devotion directed toward him, he who was beset by unbearable melancholy, he for whom even mere letter exchanges felt imbued with some power—when Kishimoto reached that point in his thoughts, he could no longer stand by that stone.

That familiar willow grove—it seemed the youth no longer came there. Only Kishimoto remained, coming to walk as he always had.

II

After the youth had gone, even the willow grove that had bound their hearts together along the riverbank stood withered and desolate. Kishimoto's heart was not calm. Kishimoto's nearly three years of bachelorhood never allowed his heart to remain calm. "What do you intend to do? How long do you intend to keep living alone like this? What meaning does your silence, your toil even hold? Your bachelorhood has even become the subject of people's gossip, hasn't it?" Even if such things were said to him by others, he did not know how he should answer. At times he had even likened his room to a lonely Trappist monastery standing in Hokkaido's wilderness. He had even compared himself to those monks within that monastery who, first building their own graves, performed silent practices while laboring intensely in coarse clothing and simple meals. "It seems there was also someone who said, 'I intend to stop thinking about it, but I simply can't help myself.'" Kishimoto was indeed the same. Only he had continued thinking.

Near the stone wall in front of the riverbank boat inn, three or four small boats could be seen moored close together. In his desperate attempt to escape the terror of his utterly stagnant life, Kishimoto had tried earnestly rowing a small boat for about two summers. That summer and the summer of the year before that. When he could endure it no longer, he came up with such an idea. It was also that riverbank from which he would force himself down from the second floor—where he sat rigidly alone in his room until even the thought of moving became loathsome—to launch his small boat early each morning. It was also by that stone wall where he would sometimes go out onto the Sumida River’s water, still as a lake, breathe in the clear summer morning air—so pure it seemed unimaginable for the heart of a city—until his lungs were full, then row back through the passing cargo boats.

“Mr. Kishimoto.”

There was a boy who called out and walked toward him. He was the eldest son of the riverbank boat inn. “With it this cold, the boats are done for the season, huh?”

Kishimoto also said sheepishly. He often borrowed the boy of about fifteen or sixteen from the boat inn and took him along as a rowing companion when going out in the small boat. Though just a boy, he handled the sculling oar with skill. The boatman’s son looked at Kishimoto’s face while,

“I often see your Izumi around.” “Do you know Izumi?” Kishimoto said. He found it unusual to hear his child’s name from that boy’s mouth. “He often comes around here to play.” “Huh, even he comes here to play?”

Kishimoto tried mentioning his own child, who had finally started attending elementary school that year.

After parting with the guileless boy, Kishimoto walked once more along the stone wall beneath the sparse withered branches of willows. Crossing Yanagibashi and turning immediately left brought him to a sandbank at the river's edge. Two or three people stood near that sandbank gazing intently at something. Others had even stopped deliberately to stare at the empty stretch before wandering off aimlessly. "What happened here?" Kishimoto murmured to himself. The waters of the Sumida River swirling beneath Ryogoku Iron Bridge appeared to his eyes like some immense force drawing them downward.

III

Having lived near the Sumida River for about six years, Kishimoto had certainly heard the kinds of rumors every waterside resident hears, but he had never actually encountered a real case of a woman’s corpse washing ashore. By chance, he happened upon the place where such an event had occurred.

“This morning…”

One of the men who had been standing and gazing by the sandbank related this to Kishimoto. The young woman’s corpse said to have washed ashore near Ryogoku had already been carried away, the traces of the inquest neatly tidied up, with not a single straw mat left in sight. Only the rumor of the woman who had drowned herself remained there.

With the sensation of having witnessed an unexpected tragedy, Kishimoto turned back toward home. In his chest, thoughts of the marriage proposal he had recently declined kept surging back and forth. There was nothing more infuriating and mortifying than when he considered whether his weariness and fatigue, his utterly stagnant life, and this body—which had only just reached what should be a man’s prime yet already trembled like an old man’s—were all consequences of his bachelorhood. “If you’re going to marry, now is the time”—he wasn’t deaf to his friend’s concerned advice urging this, but whenever an actual marriage proposal arose, he would end up overthinking it.

Even in the household of Old Man Tanabe—Kishimoto’s benefactor—the old man had passed away, his sister had passed away, and it had now entered the era of Hiroshi, his only son who since Kishimoto’s student days had grown accustomed to calling him “Brother! Brother!” The grandmother was still spry. There had even been a marriage proposal that the grandmother had gone to the trouble of transporting her aged frame by carriage to recommend, but Kishimoto had declined that one too. Kishimoto’s own elder sister from his hometown also worried about him; from her perspective, she persistently recommended via letters the widow of her deceased son—who from Kishimoto’s perspective was his nephew Taichi’s wife—but this marriage proposal too was declined by Kishimoto.

"If it were possible, stay just as you are." “Please keep living that way forever.” Kishimoto did receive letters of this sort on one hand. However, those who sent such words were invariably much younger. Only when alone did Kishimoto come to realize how many women existed in the world under diverse circumstances. Among them were those on the path to becoming nuns yet still of marriageable age—women who had once wed and left their homes—who declared they would marry if he would have them. There were also women deeply versed in feminine arts and scholarly pursuits, lacking nothing as homemakers yet remaining virgins until nearly forty due to being born into excessively prestigious temples. Even had such women existed before, Kishimoto had never noticed them. It even struck him that solitary women might outnumber solitary men.

IV

Setsuko, his niece, was waiting at home for Kishimoto. Between the riverbank and the town where Kishimoto lived, separated by a single cross-street, there were several narrow alleys. Kishimoto could take any number of shortcuts to return home.

“Where are the children?” Even when he had merely taken a short stroll around the area and returned home, it had become Kishimoto’s habit to ask those in the household about it. He would not feel at ease until hearing from Setsuko’s own lips that the older child had been invited by friends to play in town or that the younger one was playing at the house across the street. The time when Setsuko came to help at Kishimoto’s house was from a while after she graduated school, and just around then her elder sister Teruko also came to stay with Kishimoto. The two sisters spent about a year living together while caring for Kishimoto’s children. After seeing off Teruko, who was getting married and leaving that summer, Kishimoto came to rely solely on Setsuko and arranged for her, together with the elderly maid they employed, to look after his still-young children.

When Setsuko first came to Kishimoto’s house, she was still young. Though sisters, her elder sibling had studied embroidery, sewing, artificial flower-making and such at school, while she had learned to read difficult books. When Setsuko left academia and came to Kishimoto’s house, she found across the street the home of an Ichikotsu-bushi master, one house over a descendant of a renowned ukiyo-e artist, and behind them the residence of a Tokiwazu school headmaster—even that her uncle’s study, dedicated to scholarly pursuits, existed in such a cluttered neighborhood struck her as remarkable enough to comment on. “When I told them I was staying at Uncle’s house, my school friends were so envious.” In her eyes as she spoke still lingered a schoolgirl’s radiance. That unknown youth who once walked beneath the riverbank willows—the lonely, anchorless anguish of youth he’d poured into letters to Kishimoto—this same heart Kishimoto now perceived in his niece: this girl who sheltered under her uncle’s roof and leaned on his support. Her mother and grandmother remained in their rural mountains; her father stayed long in Nagoya for business; her sister Teruko followed her husband to distant foreign lands; even the aunt’s Tokyo house in Negishi held only women caretakers; while Uncle Minsuke—Kishimoto’s eldest brother—was in Taiwan. Thus none remained to aid her but uncle Kishimoto. That summer when Teruko married, she had treated Kishimoto’s house almost as her parental home before departing on her distant bridal journey.

“Shigeru, come play!”

The voice of a neighborhood girl calling out from the front entrance could be heard. Shigeru was Kishimoto’s second child. “Shigeru has gone out to play.”

Setsuko answered from the room near the kitchen door. She had been styling the hair of a girl who often came to play. The girl was the daughter of a nearby acupuncturist. “When the children aren’t here, the house feels absurdly quiet.” While speaking to Setsuko like this, Kishimoto walked through the house. Just then, the elderly maid entered from the direction of the kitchen door.

“Setsuko, I heard a woman’s corpse washed up on the riverbank.” In a dialect-laden tone, the elderly maid recounted to Setsuko the rumor she had heard in town. “Apparently, she was pregnant.” “How pitiful.”

Setsuko was in the middle of styling the acupuncturist’s daughter’s hair, but when she heard that story from the elderly maid, she made a displeased face.

V

“Setsuko.” Calling out in a childlike voice, his younger child Shigeru returned from the house across the street. When he saw Setsuko—who had finished styling the acupuncturist’s daughter’s hair and moved to the child’s side—Shigeru suddenly clung to her hand.

Kishimoto was walking around the house while watching this scene. He gazed anew at his second son—left behind in this world as a keepsake by his deceased wife Sonoko—and at the tall figure of Setsuko standing there with the child clinging to her. During Sonoko’s years of vigor, Setsuko had commuted to school from Negishi; yet compared to the Setsuko who once visited Kishimoto’s house in short unlined kimonos, the woman now before his eyes seemed like an entirely different person, having grown into someone sisterly.

“Shigeru, come here,” Kishimoto said, holding out his hand toward the child. “Let’s see how much heavier you’ve gotten. Papa will check for you.”

“Papa says to come here,” said Setsuko, leaning her face close to Shigeru. Kishimoto firmly hugged the joyfully rushing Shigeru from behind and lifted the child’s body with exaggerated effort, as though he were hoisting an adult’s weight. “Oh, you’ve gotten heavy,” Kishimoto said. “Shigeru, now it’s my turn,” said the acupuncturist’s daughter as she approached, tilting her head up at Kishimoto. “Uncle, me too—” “This one’s heavy too,” Kishimoto declared, lifting the girl with similar theatrical strain.

Suddenly, Shigeru went over to Setsuko and began fussing as if seeking something.

“Setsuko.” The voice of that motherless child, pleading with force in its every syllable, pierced Kishimoto’s ears as if seeking something that could never be obtained no matter how much he sought it. “Shigeru must have fallen asleep—that’s why your voice sounds like that,” Setsuko said to the child. “Go to sleep now. I’ll give you something nice.”

At that moment, the elderly maid came from the direction of the kitchen door and laid out a futon in the corner of the room for the child. That was the lower sitting room where a long hearth and such were placed, located directly beneath Kishimoto’s second-floor study. Setsuko retrieved two tangerines from the Buddhist altar, placed one in Shigeru’s hand, then carried the yellow one over to where the acupuncturist’s daughter sat. “Here, one for you too.” In such moments, Setsuko’s words and actions carried a straightforwardness unique to her.

“There, there, Shigeru. Take the tangerine and go to sleep,” said Setsuko, lying down beside the child like a mother soothing her own, stroking the head of the fussing Shigeru as she calmed him. “I’m sorry, Uncle.” Having said this, Kishimoto felt inclined to talk while taking a breather by the long hearth, addressing Setsuko who lay beside the child and the elderly maid who was tidying up the room.

“Even so—compared to before—has Shigeru become somewhat more docile?” Kishimoto ventured.

“Day by day, he has been changing,” answered Setsuko. “Why, Master, compared to when I first came here, Shigeru has changed tremendously.” “From when Setsuko’s sister was here to now—” added the elderly maid. The answers from these two were precisely what Kishimoto had wanted to hear. He tried to say something more but exhaled one or two rough breaths as if to steel himself.

VI “Ugh, Shigeru.” “Putting his hand into my breast pocket or something…” Setsuko said, looking at the child’s face as if he were searching through his mother’s bosom. “If you do that, I won’t be able to let you sleep with me anymore.” “You must be good and go to sleep now,” the elderly maid said in her country drawl, sitting at the child’s bedside. “Shigeru really isn’t like a child at all,” said Setsuko, adjusting her kimono. “That’s why people say you’re a cross between an adult and a child—Kodona or whatever.”

“Kodona sure is a handful,” laughed the elderly maid with her country drawl. “Oh dear, acting up again.” “Nobody was laughing at you.” “Right now—right this moment—isn’t everyone praising you?” “Well now, since I first came to serve here, our Shigeru-chan’s grown ever so gentle and mannerly—hasn’t he?”

“There, there, time to sleep now,” said Setsuko, stroking the short hair of the dozing child.

“Ah, has he already fallen asleep?” Kishimoto sat by the long hearth and peered at the child’s sleeping face. “Children really do grow quickly. “So innocent… yet this child requires such constant attention.” “Why, when Shigeru threw those tantrums—kicking doors, tearing shoji—once he started fussing there was no stopping him… He truly was formidable back then.” “I imagine both Teru and you must have struggled terribly.”

“Shigeru really made us cry a lot,” Setsuko said as she rose with utmost quietness and gently withdrew from the child’s side. “Once he gets hold of something, he simply won’t let go—you’d have to tear even sleeves free.”

“That’s how it was, I suppose.” “Compared to that time, Shigeru has come to understand things a bit more, hasn’t he?” As Kishimoto spoke these words, the summer of that year floated up in his heart—when Setsuko’s sister, not yet having embarked on her newlywed journey, stayed to help her younger sister care for the children. When listening from the second floor, he could hear Shigeru’s crying downstairs—Teruko and Setsuko both sounded overwhelmed by the little one—each time, Kishimoto would bite his lip and rush down the stairs from the second floor to check—only to find Teruko crying alongside the child as she said, “Why can’t you understand?”—Setsuko, for her part, would hide from the wailing child and weep behind the shoji screen—though Kishimoto too thought—I must raise this child naturally; if possible, avoid such rough methods without ever resorting to a single fist—the cruel force of instinct would make him unable to bear watching the child rage without anger—“Papa, I’m sorry—Shigeru won’t cry anymore, so please look after him,” until he heard Teruko’s words, spoken apologetically on the child’s behalf, Kishimoto could never find peace of mind. Each time the child went and clung to Teruko—still Shimada before her marriage—Kishimoto recalled those words she had said: “Ugh, stop it! You’ll ruin my hair!” He recalled the words of Shigeru in his prime of mischief—pointing at Teruko and saying, “You’re getting married—nyah nyah!” The memory floated up in his heart—of Teruko coming to that lower sitting room to bid farewell before departing for a distant foreign country with her husband, saying “They’ve all grown so big after all,” as she took turns holding the two children. At that time, he recalled Setsuko being beside him and saying to the child, “Is being told you’ve grown so big really that happy?” All these scenes from past days—whether they had occurred earlier or later—mixed together and passed through Kishimoto’s heart like lightning.

“Everything stemmed from Sonoko’s death alone.”

Kishimoto said that inwardly and gazed around beneath the somehow desolate ceiling.

VII

The conversation about young ones growing up somehow or other without a mother shifted from the younger child to the older one, and just as Kishimoto was discussing Izumi, the elder brother, with Setsuko and the elderly maid, Izumi himself entered from outside.

“Where’s Shigeru?”

Suddenly, Izumi asked that from outside the garden-facing shoji. Whenever the two played together, they would often end up crying or making each other cry, and yet whenever Izumi came in from outside, he would search for his younger brother before anyone else. “Izumi-chan, we were all just talking about you,” said the elderly maid. “Aren’t you cold running around outside so much?”

“With those bright red cheeks,” Setsuko said, looking at the child who had returned with ears flushed crimson from the outdoor air. As was Izumi’s habit, this child would cling to anyone he encountered. Whether clinging to the elderly maid’s sturdy frame—a body that had known farm labor in her youth—or attaching himself to Setsuko, who sat beside the acupuncturist’s daughter so quiet one might overlook her presence. “You shouldn’t cling to people like that.”

Coming up behind Kishimoto like that, Izumi bit his father’s neck.

"But Izumi has grown so big," Kishimoto said. "The growth of a child you see every day isn’t something that stands out so much."

“The kimono has already become so short—” Setsuko added. “When I look at Izumi’s face, that’s what I think. Still, it’s amazing he’s grown this much by now,” Kishimoto said again. “He was such a frail child when he was little, you see. That flat head of his is proof enough. This child’s sisters seemed far more robust. Yet the sisters died, while Izumi—the one we thought might not grow up—has become such an adult… It’s truly unfathomable.”

“Hush now.” “Hush now,” Izumi tried to interrupt his father’s words. “Setsuko! I’ve got good news.” “Which is stronger—the police officer or the soldier?”

Such childish questions not only flustered Setsuko but had often done the same to Teruko, who had been with them until summer. “Both,” Setsuko answered the child in the same way her sister had. “Which is stronger—the schoolteacher or the soldier?” “Both.”

Setsuko answered again and gazed into the child’s eyes that seemed on the verge of awakening to understanding. Kishimoto began as if recalling, “Looking back now, it seems almost effortless—but those three years of childcare were truly grueling.” “It hasn’t been easy to manage until now.” “When your aunt passed away—well, Izumi here was only six years old at the time.” “It was during a hot summer—when something like a heat rash would appear on one child and spread to the others—you probably don’t know much about that time—but when I had four children crying at once with the eldest just six years old, there was simply no way to manage.” “At times fevers would break out.” “There were even nights when I had to go pound on the doctor’s door to wake him.” “Back then...I hardly slept at all...”

“That must have been so,” Setsuko conveyed with her eyes. “Compared to those days, things have become much easier now.” “I think just a little more endurance will see us through.” “If only Shigeru could begin attending school,” Setsuko said, glancing toward the elderly maid. “Please continue your kind support,” Kishimoto entreated formally.

With these words, Kishimoto placed his hands on the floor and bowed before Setsuko and the elderly maid.

VIII

In the lower sitting room, the chest of drawers, the tea cabinet, and the long hibachi stood arranged nearly identically to how they had been during the days when the children’s mother was alive. The old octagonal pillar clock—a memento from when Kishimoto first established a household with Sonoko—still hung in its original position, its brass pendulum swinging with the same steady rhythm. The sole alteration from Sonoko’s time lay in the walls’ color alone. What had once been walls darkened by soot and covered in children’s scribbles had been repainted a bright pale yellow. That summer, Kishimoto had invited Setsuko, her sister, Izumi, and even Shigeru to that familiar riverbank, boarding the entire household onto a small boat along with the boatman’s son to venture out onto the water together. From then on, not only were children’s pleading cries of “Papa, the boat—Papa, the boat—” frequently heard in this lower sitting room, but desks would sometimes be overturned to serve as vessels, uchiwa racks with long measuring sticks tied to them became oars, futons transformed into reed mats within these makeshift boats, and the tatami mats turned into miniature rowing spaces—until even the freshly repainted walls of the tokonoma alcove were thoroughly marred by the children’s mischievous wave drawings.

In the dim Buddhist altar, two mortuary tablets glowed golden. One was the children’s mother’s, and the other was the three sisters’. However, dust had already begun to accumulate around those mortuary tablets. The four graves Kishimoto had built—especially that of his wife Sonoko—for nearly three years, it was indeed his wife’s grave that he had gazed upon, yet his feet gradually grew distant from actual grave visits. “They’ve started to forget about Aunt too—”

Kishimoto would often say this to Setsuko and sigh.

Directly above this lower sitting room was Kishimoto’s room, where opening the glass door revealed a view of rooftops stretching into town. Even when downstairs, voices from the second floor were not heard so clearly; yet when upstairs, voices from downstairs—especially the elderly maid’s high-pitched tones—could be heard as distinctly as if held in one’s palm. When he climbed up there and sat quietly before his desk, Kishimoto’s heart continually drifted downstairs toward the children. While still assisting the young Setsuko, he found himself unable to neglect supervising the children even from the second floor. Having sent all household members outside to play, closed the gate and locked it, he attempted lying down alone upstairs—but could no longer attain such mental detachment.

Kishimoto took out his favorite tobacco. He puffed at it slowly and tried to recall the days he had lived with Sonoko. “Papa, please believe me… Please believe me…” The voice of Sonoko, who had buried her face in his arm and wept as she said those words, still lingered vividly in the depths of his ears. It had taken Kishimoto twelve years to hear that single remark from his wife. Sonoko was not like a daughter born into a wealthy family; she could endure hardships well, liked to work, and possessed many qualities to make her husband happy—yet she had also brought with her to Kishimoto’s side something utterly heedless that subjected him to intense jealousy. He had stared at his wife too intently—by the time Kishimoto realized this, it was already too late. He thought it had taken him twelve long years to finally meet his wife heart-to-heart in truth. And by the time he thought he had heard those words, Sonoko was already dead.

“When I think about myself, I can’t help feeling as if I’m split into three separate parts—my childhood, my school days, and since I came as a bride.” “In my childhood, truly, I was such a child who did nothing but cry.” These words his wife had left behind—words that seemed to come straight from the heart—still clung to Kishimoto’s ears. Kishimoto had become someone who could no longer bear to hear about a second marriage proposal without preparation. Bachelorhood meant for him a form of revenge against women. He had come to fear even loving. The experience of love had wounded him so deeply.

IX

While facing his study wall, Kishimoto continued to think.

“Ahhh… I’ve unburdened myself. “I’ve unburdened myself.”

Such sincere sighs arose within Kishimoto, intertwined with his heartache over Sonoko—who had died in what should have been the prime of her womanhood—and his grief at her loss. When he lost his wife, he resolved never to repeat such a married life again. The household marked by the clash between the sexes had taught him his lesson. He tried to transform the household his wife had left behind into something entirely different in meaning. If it were possible, he wished to begin an entirely new life. Twelve years—if I had spent them with someone and raised seven children, even if there had been losses among them, I would have thought I had fulfilled my duty as a human being sufficiently. With a feeling of having unburdened himself, he wanted to cherish the lingering scent of his wife’s hair in things like the blue jade bead hairpin. With a feeling akin to wearing his wife’s keepsake kimono—the one that had touched her skin—as sleepwear, he wanted to recall the painful disputes between husband and wife that had often manifested in silence.

Before Kishimoto’s eyes was a wall repainted with lime and clay into a bright, deep pale yellow, imparting a sturdy and simple feel. He realized he had already spent nearly three years staring at the wall of his own room. And upon reflecting, he realized that many of his own works produced toward the end of those three years were all products of “boredom.”

“Papa.”

A voice called out from the staircase, and Izumi came up from downstairs.

“Where’s Shigeru?” asked Kishimoto. Izumi gave a disinterested reply and seemed to be wanting to beg for something.

“Papa, sweet red bean soup—”

“Cut out the sweet red bean soup.” “Why—” “You’re always asking for something, always eating. If you play nicely, I’ll ask Setsuko to give you a reward.”

Izumi was not one to force through his own demands like his brother would. That very timidity in his nature struck Kishimoto as pitiable. Nothing made Kishimoto recall so acutely the private history shared solely between husband and wife as tracing what era this Izumi—left behind by his wife as a living keepsake—had been born into.

Izumi, who had gone to play by the glass door that looked out on the houses lining the town, once again went back downstairs.

Kishimoto surveyed his study, which had been his workplace for six years. The many beloved books that had once stirred the blood in his chest now lay arranged like chipped still lifes within shelves filled to the brim with accumulated dust. At that moment, Kishimoto suddenly recalled the aged protagonist of a modern drama he had seen on stage. He conjured up the image of a young girl hired solely to come and play the Western piano for that protagonist. To listen to the melody flowing from the vibrant young girl’s fingertips, the drama’s protagonist had paid money every month. And he had tried to console the sorrows and solitude of old age. Kishimoto compared himself to the drama’s protagonist. At times, he would compare to that girl in the drama those youthful people whom he invited to waterside rooms with sake—where listening to the quiet sound of a shamisen served as diversion—and Setsuko, whose mere presence in his home with the heart of a young girl brought him comfort. Three years of bachelorhood had made him, who had just heard the age of forty, taste the heart of premature old age. When he thought of that, Kishimoto resented it.

X

The sound of a child crying coming from outside shattered Kishimoto's deep reverie. After losing his wife, Kishimoto had to take on not only the role of a rooster searching for food for his chicks but also, simultaneously, that of a hen spreading her wings at the slightest sound to protect her young from all harm. When the sound of a child crying reached him, he almost instinctively rose from his seat. He stepped out onto the veranda outside the room and opened the glass door to look. Then he went downstairs to briefly look around as well.

“Aren’t the children fighting?” he warned Setsuko and the old woman to keep watch. “Those are another household’s children.”

Setsuko was standing in front of the rat-proof cupboard in the small room near the pantry entrance and answered. Somehow she had a pale complexion.

“Is something the matter?” Kishimoto asked in an avuncular tone.

“Well... there was something eerie.”

Kishimoto nearly burst out laughing at Setsuko’s remark—so unlike what one would expect from an educated girl. According to Setsuko, when she went to tidy the Buddhist altar and, while carrying things to the kitchen, noticed her palm thickly smeared with blood. She had just washed it off at the sink. She related all this to her uncle. “That’s absurd—”

“But even the old woman saw it properly.” “That’s impossible—how could blood get on your hand just from tidying the Buddhist altar?” “I thought it was strange too, so I wondered if it might be a rat or something. The old woman and I checked thoroughly beneath the Buddha’s altar…but there was nothing there…”

“You shouldn’t worry about such things. Once we know the cause, it’s surely something trivial.” “I’ve just offered the oil lamp to Buddha.” Setsuko said this as if it were an omen of something about to happen within this household. “That doesn’t suit you either.” Kishimoto chided her performatively. “When Kagayaki was here—look—there was a strange incident once. Like Grandma from home appearing at your aunt’s bedside… Even you turned pale back then. “Really, you all startle your uncle at times.”

It was the time of short days, and the downstairs room was beginning to grow dim. Kishimoto left Setsuko’s side and walked about the house, but in the end, he couldn’t simply dismiss his young niece’s words as a kind of hallucination common to those of weak disposition. He couldn’t bring himself to laugh at those who frequently moved houses, finding it eerie to remain beneath a roof where someone had died. Kishimoto went to stand before the Buddhist altar and looked. On the golden mortuary tablet that shimmered in the lamplight, the following characters could be read.

“Hōshū-in Myōshin Daishi”

Eleven

“Thou, my sorrow—remain wise and still.”

After reciting this phrase, Kishimoto brightened his study with a Western-style lamp covered by a blue paper shade. “Is your house still using lamps? How quaintly old-fashioned,” they said—to the extent that even Izumi’s elementary school friends laughed about it—Kishimoto’s household had been using Western-style lamps. In the glow of his favorite lamplight, he tried to bolster his own spirits. He imagined that even the French poet who had sung of likening his own heart to the Arctic sun—burning with crimson heat yet frozen solid—had never merely trembled in the depths of solitude and sorrow like an owl with only its eyes aglow. Repeating the profound verses left by that man, he tried to bolster his own spirits.

The yellowish light of the Western-style lamp cast Kishimoto’s large silhouette upon the wall of his familiar room—a man who found solace in sitting alone. With a heart that yearned to call that shadow a friend, Kishimoto recalled those who had lived long bachelor lives in days past; he recalled the monk from *Essays in Idleness* who withdrew from society yet still tended to his health—curing all ailments by eating potatoes—and wished that if possible, he might take the children and go as far as he could reach.

“Master, Okume’s father has come.”

The old woman servant came to the base of the stairs and called out. Okume-chan was the name of the daughter of a nearby acupuncturist who often came to visit Kishimoto’s house. The acupuncturist he had requested came up the staircase carrying a small handbox. From the cold of the past year, Kishimoto had developed back pain and feared it might become a chronic ailment. To save his own heart, he felt he must first begin by saving himself from his own body.

“It may be because I sit too much, but my back feels like it’s going to rot.”

After saying such things to the acupuncturist, Kishimoto fetched bedding and such from the room next to his study without assistance from the household. He moved it to a corner of the room and laid it out close to the wall. “As I thought, it must be hernia-like symptoms. In this sort of weather, it’s bound to get chilly, you know,” said the acupuncturist as he moved closer to Kishimoto, holding his acupuncture tools in hand. A pungent smell of alcohol reached Kishimoto’s nose. Kishimoto, lying facedown, could not see what the acupuncturist was doing, but he felt the pleasantness on his back where the alcohol had been wiped. Before long, the acupuncturist’s inserted needles entered around the center of his neck, moved to his shoulders, and reached both sides of his spine.

“Ah.”

At times, Kishimoto involuntarily cried out. However, when the thin golden needle—which seemed the longest—was inserted deep near both sides of his lower back and reached the throbbing afflicted area, a pleasure so intense it induced drowsiness emanated from the needle’s faint vibrations. He asked the acupuncturist to administer the needles to his lower back pain as thoroughly as possible.

"Am I already beyond hope?"

After the acupuncturist left, Kishimoto tried saying to himself alone. From the pleasurably intense fatigue following the procedure, he lay as if dead beside the wall for a long time. Outside the storm shutters of the room, the sound of cold rain could be heard.

Twelve

The year drew to a close.

Setsuko did not consider it a burden that the care of her uncle’s household had been entrusted to her hands alone rather than shared with her sister. She had a particular nature such that if matters were not entrusted to her alone, she found it impossible to carry out anything with any pleasure. In that sense, she behaved as she pleased, with ease.

However, that was the Setsuko who worked alongside the old servant; to Kishimoto’s eyes, there began to appear a different Setsuko who seemed somehow ill at ease. Back in the summer when her sister was still with her, Setsuko had been the sort of girl who would place yellow blooming roses in a vase on the shelf by the sink and find solitary delight in gazing at them even while helping with kitchen chores. “Izumi, would you like to smell something nice?” she said while bringing the flower close to the child’s nose. When Izumi squinted his eyes and exclaimed, “Ah, what a lovely fragrance!”, Setsuko stood beside her sister—who remarked in a cheerful tone, “How cheeky!”—and laughed with girlish teeth showing. “Even Izumi knows what’s good when he smells it!” The Setsuko sisters were well-versed in the names of Western flowers unknown to Kishimoto, but particularly the younger one was meticulous, with an innate love for blossoms, possessing a quiet and subdued disposition. When Kishimoto said with admiration, “You two really know all those names, don’t you?”, the older sister responded, “Not knowing flower names would be—right, Setsu-chan?” It was also Setsuko who brought over a pot of blooming tulips to show him, saying, “Uncle, look at this—doesn’t it have a sweet, camellia-like fragrance?” Setsuko had still been this innocent. She still retained the virginal innocence of one who had just stepped away from academic life. That Setsuko had by year’s end become a girl who sat ill at ease, lost in thought.

The kimonos left behind by Kishimoto’s wife had mostly been returned to her family home, distributed as mementos to his elder sister in their hometown, to his sister-in-law in Negishi and his niece, to acquaintances in the mountains, and generally given out to those who had been close to Sonoko during her lifetime—until barely any remained in Kishimoto’s possession. “The children were looked after in so many ways.” There had even been times when Kishimoto said this and distributed items Sonoko had left behind from the bottom of a drawer in the chest of drawers placed in the lower room to Setsuko and her sister. “Setsu-chan, come here!” At that moment, Teruko’s voice calling her younger sister still lingered in Kishimoto’s ears. Distributing the deceased mother’s mementos to the people who helped care for the children was never something Kishimoto found regrettable.

Once again, Kishimoto stood before the chest of drawers and gazed. From the drawer he usually left to Setsuko’s care, he took out something she could not freely handle. “Auntie’s mementos have gradually dwindled as I’ve been giving them out to everyone.” Kishimoto muttered this half to himself and, to comfort the despondent Setsuko, placed the items he had taken out before her.

“Such an underrobe turned up.” Kishimoto said again, trying, and gave Setsuko one with a feminine pattern that would likely please a girl. Even upon seeing that, she found no comfort.

Thirteen

One evening, Setsuko approached Kishimoto. Suddenly, she began to speak in a tone that seemed burdened.

“You must already understand my condition quite well, Uncle.” A new year had come around, and Setsuko had just turned twenty-one. Just then, the two children had gone together to play at the house across the street, and the old servant had also gone under the pretext of fetching them to have a chat. There was no one downstairs or outside. Setsuko informed Kishimoto in a very small voice that she had become a mother.

As if the moment he had tried so desperately to avoid had finally arrived, Kishimoto involuntarily trembled upon hearing it. That voice—born of being overwhelmed and unable to remain silent—though barely audible, pierced through to the depths of Kishimoto’s ears with truly dreadful force. Upon hearing this, he found himself unable to stay by his despondent niece’s side any longer. Having calmed Setsuko as best he could before leaving her presence, he remained powerless against the trembling in his chest. Dejectedly climbing the dark staircase to his room, he pressed his head between both hands.

Defying societal conventions, rejecting his relatives’ counsel, turning a deaf ear to friends’ warnings—even opposing nature itself to walk his own willful path—the stubborn Kishimoto had now fallen into this abyss-like pitfall. Even if I were to claim I had committed this transgression without intent to violate, it would serve as no excuse whatsoever for me. Even if I were to claim that over the years I had prized feminine virtue and cherished justice—daring to think myself not inferior to others in these convictions—it still amounted to no excuse at all. I had some appreciation for sake, enjoyed listening to shamisen accompaniments reminiscent of Kamigata ballads, and at times passed idle hours with performers who made their living through the arts—yet in every instance, I was merely a bystander; even if I were to claim I had never once been stirred by those stimuli, it would not only fail to serve as any justification but had instead made me suspect myself of hypocrisy: affecting nonchalance while cloaking myself in solemnity, a pretense of virtue masking falsehood. Moreover, if I possessed enough sophistication to even listen to a ballad or two, why hadn’t I managed my affairs as a bachelor more wisely—in a way that might have earned me greater leniency? Such a self-reproaching voice he even heard within his own mind.

For a while, Kishimoto could think of nothing.

In the room burned a blue-lidded lamp with desolate persistence. On the sturdy square hibachi sat an iron kettle whose water had come to boil. Kishimoto drew the tea utensils near, prepared his customary hot tea, and drank it. Taking out his favored cigarettes too, he smoked two or three in rapid succession while gazing vacantly at the crimson flames glowing within the hibachi's ashes. A cold, anguished feeling—as if directed at his own disintegrating self—rose through Kishimoto's awareness.

Fourteen

There is a bamboo blind. There is a fan. A feast-worthy spread of cold somen and such has been ordered and set out. The relatives are gathering while watching the fireworks. There is the nephew’s wife. There is Teruko from her schoolgirl days. Setsuko, who has just arrived in Tokyo from their hometown, is also there, brought along by her sister. There is Taichi, the nephew, sighing while snapping his white folding fan open and shut: “If times were better, I’d borrow a tenma boat and set sail...” The still-young Izumi, made to change into a kimono, walks happily about among those people. There too is Shigeru, held by his mother as she tries to entertain everyone while he suckles at her breast. From Ryōgoku comes the sound of evening fireworks beginning to rise—

This was a scene from the lower guest room during the time when Sonoko was still in good health. Kishimoto could still vividly see through memory the Sonoko of her prime—her womanly developed form, her figure that remained soft and supple even as she grew sturdily plump. He could also bring those memories from downstairs to his study. There he was, alone, shut away on the second floor facing his desk. At times, something would come up behind him, embrace him as if with wings, and affectionately press its face close to his. That was his wife.

Sonoko did not fear her husband’s study from that time onward. In the study, which he kept not as a painter’s atelier but rather as something cold and solemn like a scientist’s laboratory, she seemed to find even being there in such bashfulness as something dreamily delightful. Whatever Kishimoto had prompted her with in shamefacedness, she invariably reciprocated to her husband in the same manner. At times she would carry her husband’s body on her back and walk unsteadily around near the bookshelves there—all within the very same room that now lay before Kishimoto’s eyes. He who had long been so anxiously intent on guiding his wife finally came to realize, only then, what would bring joy to Sonoko’s heart. He realized that his wife too was one of those women who wished not to be awkwardly revered with propriety but to be ardently embraced.

Then Kishimoto’s body began to awaken. His hair awoke; his eyes awoke. His ears awoke; his eyes awoke. His skin awoke; his eyes awoke. His eyes awoke; his eyes awoke. Every other part of his body awoke. He came to recognize what it meant to be beside his wife—a presence he had never truly known before. He bore a heart so desolate that not even weeping in his wife’s embrace could console it; even when he dwelled on those many sorrows—at times resembling the reckless passions of libertines—it all arose from the mournful solitude he had found beside his wife, who slept soundly, unaware of everything. The venom in Kishimoto’s heart had indeed taken root in that solitude.

Ever since childhood, Kishimoto had been unable to truly comprehend the meaning of anything—whether good or bad—unless he first experienced it through his own flesh. Seeing the desolate Setsuko and hearing of the irreversible outcome, he felt ashamed of his own heart—this heart that had only just learned shame. He carried himself before Setsuko’s parents’ fury and tried to envision it. He was already forty-two years old. When he scratched his head in discomfiture, this was no longer an age where youth’s leniency might excuse all things and make apologies sufficient. He possessed no countenance he could show his brother Yoshio, who had gone to Nagoya, nor his sister-in-law back in their hometown.

Fifteen

The storm had finally arrived. To Kishimoto, who had likened his own room to a Trappist monastery and himself to a monk within it. Moreover, in a form that Kishimoto could not have even dreamed of during the time—until about half a year prior—when Setsuko’s sister had lived with her and their days were relatively lively.

In many cases, Kishimoto was cold toward women. That he had faced various temptations as a mere bystander was not because he had forced himself to restrain his own impulses, but rather stemmed from his inherent disposition that looked down upon women. Compared to his deceased nephew Taichi, who had been a lifelong worshipper of women, he had been born with a markedly different disposition. This Kishimoto was being forced into a position where he had to suffer alongside his niece—not someone he had particularly chosen from among many women. Setsuko was like a tender green sprout that had barely lifted its head from beneath a heavy stone. She was a girl who had never loved nor been loved. She possessed nothing in particular that should have tempted Kishimoto’s heart. There was only the girlishness of relying on her uncle and making him her strength. What a cruel irony of "life" this was. Kishimoto, who for three years had gazed at a single grave precisely because he did not want to treat his wife’s death—leaving behind four young children—with undue levity, found himself instead developing a sense of being trampled underfoot by the force of that death. Moreover, with extreme cruelty.

“Papa. This… morning?” Shigeru came to Kishimoto and, looking up at his father’s face with large, childlike eyes, said this. Shigeru often asked things like “Is this morning?” or “Is this evening?” “Ah, it’s morning,” he replied. “This is morning, you see. After one more sleep and waking up, then this will be morning.” Having told him this, Kishimoto briefly held the little one who still couldn’t clearly distinguish morning from evening.

To better observe Setsuko’s condition, Kishimoto went to the small room near the kitchen. He walked around the area with a purposeful air, as if attending to some business. Setsuko was working in the kitchen with the old maid. At times she would stand before the rat-proof cabinet in the small room, take out a box of bonito flakes from within, carry it to the kitchen area, and shave them. There was not yet the slightest noticeable change in her appearance. Even in her daily life. Even in her movements. Seeing this, Kishimoto felt somewhat relieved, albeit temporarily.

With the same eyes that had looked at Setsuko, Kishimoto turned his gaze to the old maid. Bent over the sink, she worked with vigorous energy. This honest and diligent woman—who took pride in her robust health while in service—had been brought for an interview by the wife of an old school friend who had died of tuberculosis. During that period, though already bearing a sickly pallor, the friend had not yet taken to his bed and would often visit Kishimoto to lament life’s misfortunes. The old maid took greatest pride in moments like washing even a single pot while listening to water gush energetically from the faucet.

Somehow, Setsuko had come to fear the old maid closest to her. Despite that, she maintained her composure.

Sixteen

“Master, what happened to you this morning? You didn’t even eat your meal.”

The old maid who had come to wipe the floors upstairs asked Kishimoto this.

“This morning’s miso soup—the kind you like so much, Master—has turned out truly delicious,” the old maid said again. “Ah, not eating once in a while is something I often do,” said Kishimoto, looking toward the old maid, who couldn’t stay still for a moment without working. “Well, as for me, it doesn’t matter. You all take good care of the children.” “After all, Master’s health is of utmost importance. If Master were to fall ill, there’s really no managing our household. Even so, it’s amazing how you’re managing everything all by yourself—the people in this neighborhood all say so. Truly, our Master is such a resolute person—”

Kishimoto listened in silence to the old maid’s words as she wiped the floor with a rag. Eventually, the old maid went downstairs. Kishimoto rubbed his hands alone. Kishimoto could not help but blush privately. If a tender-hearted person like that unknown youth who once walked beneath the willow grove along the riverbank were to learn of his actions—if they were to hear, people like Hiroshi from that benefactor’s household who called him “Brother” and regarded him as their own kin; friends who worried over him daily; even Sonoko’s female friends up in the mountains—even if Kishimoto had turned his entire body crimson, it still would not have sufficed to express his shame. He recalled his friend Aoki too—that friend who had departed this world at twenty-seven—and from the depths of his ears came a voice as if being mocked by the deceased: “You should have died much earlier.”

Kishimoto could not bring himself to consider what would ultimately become of things if this were to progress further. However, he could not avoid anticipating that there would be stones thrown at him. He could recall the words that a certain newspaper’s editor-in-chief had stated in court. According to that editor-in-chief, there exist in this world many human sins that, while not violating the law, are too glaring to overlook. Society must impose sanctions and punitive measures upon them. Journalists do not take pleasure in exposing people’s private conduct, he had stated, but they must wield their pens on society’s behalf to censure such individuals. More than the pain of these invisible stones flying toward him, Kishimoto felt sorrow imagining the spectators’ cheers.

Day and night came to seem like interminable moments. And Kishimoto’s nerves began to converge and pour toward the deep wound he had inflicted upon his niece and had himself borne.

Kishimoto went near the glass door. From the second-floor railing facing the street, he gazed at the narrow town. White shoji-screened windows were fitted on both upper and lower floors of the townhouses across the way. In those windows lived neighbors who would gossip—even about Kishimoto merely repainting his walls—asking, “Could he be preparing to welcome a bride?” A merchant’s wife, appearing determined to let no neighborhood secret escape her ears, passed through the town with a large furoshiki-wrapped bundle on her back as if returning from shopping.

Seventeen

“Mr. Kishimoto—I have now come here.” “It has been long since I last had the honor of receiving your words.” “Should it please your convenience, I shall await your arrival with this rickshaw.”

Kishimoto received this friend’s letter along with the rickshaw that had come to fetch him. “Setsuko—take out Uncle’s clothes. “I’ll just go see a friend for a bit.”

Having said this to Setsuko, Kishimoto made hurried preparations to go out. Even just having her take out his kimono from the chest now made him feel toward her an intimacy that reproached his heart and a sorrow steeped in sin. The change somehow beginning within her—and her visible struggle to suppress it—pressed upon Kishimoto’s heart with crushing weight. Silent as ever, Setsuko even prepared white tabi socks for her uncle.

It was still within the New Year season of pine decorations. Kishimoto, who had secluded himself without making New Year visits to relatives that particular year, felt as though he were leaving his home for the first time in ages. With a strangely restless heart, he listened from the rickshaw to the sound of withered blue bamboo leaves planted along the gatefront rustling in the wind as he departed. He crossed the bridge and traversed the tram tracks. People who had welcomed the new year bustled through the towns with a cheerfulness surpassing even festival seasons. When he reached a place where river steam whistles could be heard, the waters of Sumida River flowing toward Shin-Ōhashi Bridge came into view. That area held memories from Kishimoto’s boyhood.

The Moto-Sonocho friend was waiting for Kishimoto in a clean, pleasantly old Edo-style second-floor parlor that retained its traditional atmosphere. When this friend found rare moments of leisure amidst his busy life to rest near the Sumida River, he would frequently send messengers to Kishimoto's residence.

“It’s been too long.” The house was staffed with women so accustomed to entertaining guests that they addressed both Moto-Sonocho—who had straightened his posture while speaking—and Kishimoto as “Professor, Professor.” “Professor Moto-Sonocho has been awaiting your arrival for some time now.” When the thinning-haired maid said this, the older maid took over, adopting an exceedingly courteous tone, “Professor Kishimoto hadn’t shown his face here for some time, so we were all wondering what had become of you.” “Is everyone at your household also well?” “And are the young masters also in good health?”

It was in that second-floor parlor that Kishimoto would gather with friends to listen to fragments of old melodies, or sometimes come alone seeking solace for his heart. His melancholy heart, growing heavier with each passing year, could not help but seek solace in some form of music. There had even been a time when he once guided his old friend Adachi to that second floor, and Adachi laughed, saying, “It’s amusing to think that Kishimoto has come to frequent such places.” At times, he would retreat to that second floor to avoid guests he felt obliged to meet more than he desired, gather the letters he had received from various quarters into a bundle, and spend half a day alone reading through them. He was someone who preferred conversing with people whose upbringings differed entirely from his own—listening attentively to the various life stories of the women who served there, to the rumors about the elderly and young patrons who gathered there, at times surrounding himself solely with young women striving to make their way through the arts, and taking pleasure in hearing them speak of their youthful romances. Kishimoto even knew of an actor—one who had aged into decrepitude without ever having his moment in the spotlight—who had been coming for years on end to arrange flowers in that parlor’s tokonoma.

“Why don’t you pour a drink for Mr. Kishimoto?” said Moto-Sonocho, turning to the woman beside him. “I will bring the hot sake now.” While saying this, the maid brought over the sake flask that was there and offered Kishimoto a drink. “Ahhh… It’s been so long since I last came to a place like this.” Kishimoto said this as if to himself and sniffed the sake’s aroma.

Eighteen

Moto-Sonocho sat before Kishimoto. Moreover, he drank sake unaware that Kishimoto bore such deep wounds. While gazing at this friend’s face—a man who combined wisdom with passion, who might have become a great support if confided in—Kishimoto made no attempt to hint at what had befallen him. He felt ashamed even to suggest it. “Professor, the hot sake has arrived.” Accepting into his cup what one of the maids offered, Kishimoto drank sparingly while listening to their cheerful chatter. Before he knew it, his mind had wandered to his old teacher from whom he had learned long ago. The teacher had gone to the wife he had married for the third time. He had gone to that wife’s younger sister. He had gone to that hermitage where the teacher—who had sought to plant flowers and spend his old age quietly—had once lived apart from his wife. Kishimoto himself did not know whether the relationship between teacher and sister-in-law resembled his own with his niece, but at least in outcome they mirrored each other. He envisioned the teacher’s anguish—how he had secretly knocked on a certain doctor’s door late at night. He envisioned too the teacher’s regret—how he had submitted to the doctor’s reasonable words and left that gate once more. For a while, his heart drifted far from the present moment.

“Professor Kishimoto, what are you thinking about so deeply?” The older maid looked at Kishimoto’s face and said.

“Me?…” Kishimoto gazed at the cup before him. “I’m just thinking about things that can’t be helped, no matter how much I dwell on them.” “You haven’t partaken of anything at all today, have you? The sake you’ve gone to the trouble of preparing will go cold.” “I’ve been thinking that since earlier while observing you, but today your complexion doesn’t look good either,” added another maid. “Truly, Professor Kishimoto looks different every time I see him… One moment you have a ruddy complexion, and the next you’re so pale we’d think something dreadful had happened…”

The young, slender woman who had come to enliven the sake gathering also spoke. Kishimoto had favored this woman since she was just a little girl sporting a red collar and had made it a practice to often call on her to work at banquets and such. This person too had now grown tall like young grass. “In contrast to that, Professor Moto-Sonocho never changes, no matter when you see him. No matter when you see him, he’s always smiling so warmly…” the older maid began, then abruptly shifted tone. “Oh my, I must apologize for speaking only of the gentlemen.”

While saying this, the maid placed her hands on her knees and bowed respectfully.

“Please let me hear a song.”

“Please let me hear a song,” said Kishimoto. He, whose face would flush quickly from even a little sake, did not grow drunk as was his wont that day.

Nineteen

What stirred in Kishimoto a will to live was, curiously, when he listened to folk songs. One of the women who had come to enliven the sake gathering in that second-floor parlor—knowing Kishimoto’s fondness for Kamigata ballads—sang to the accompaniment of a shamisen, its tones old, somber, and quiet to the point of eeriness. “O devotion wholehearted,” These years— Someday, these feelings—

“O distant one, With all my heart I’ll never abandon— Though the world—” For whom were they meant—these lyrics of an old song whose original author none could know—flowed from lips whose hue had faded like a ripe plum. “In the brief night’s— Dreams are fleeting— The lingering scent— Is it wrong to pluck? Ownerless flower, What rustling sound— And love—that treacherous thing.” As he sat beside his Moto-Sonocho friend listening to this song, image after image of men and women tormented by carnal desires unfolded within Kishimoto’s heart.

“Professor Moto-Sonocho has such a good complexion,” said the older maid.

“Your sake is good,” said Kishimoto, looking toward his friend. “Professor Kishimoto has never truly gotten drunk before, has he?” said the thinning-haired maid, glancing between the two guests’ faces. “The Professor doesn’t drink much sake at all, doesn’t partake in amusements—though surely it’s not that he’s a misogynist—”

“The Professor lines up these young ladies and just keeps gazing at them,” the older maid interjected with a laugh. “Still, I hope you’ll always stay this way, Professor,” said the thinning-haired maid again. “Professor—I somehow don’t want to see you fall into depravity.”

"I'm a weak person too," said Kishimoto. "Oh no, that you continue to favor an establishment like ours means more than anything." "That much I've already discerned." "We understand full well your wish to hear even a single song..." "Still, I marvel that I've endured this long." "Living like that, aren't you lonely, Professor... Not even taking a wife..."

Moto-Sonocho had been holding his sake cup and listening to everyone’s conversation with apparent contentment when he suddenly fixed Kishimoto with an intense look and spoke.

“The fact that you’re still living alone, Kishimoto—it remains a question to me.”

Kishimoto sighed in secret.

Twenty

“As your friend, I do respect you, Kishimoto,” Moto-Sonocho said at that moment, chiding him under the influence of alcohol. “Truly, this man is a fool.” The thinning-haired maid clapped her hands and laughed. “Mr. Moto-Sonocho’s favorite line has come out, hasn’t it?” “Unless that ‘fool’ comes out, Mr. Moto-Sonocho can’t get pleasantly drunk in good spirits,” the older maid joined in laughing. Kishimoto had unfinished business at home and could not stay long there. Leaving his friend—who sat comfortably drunk in the second-floor parlor—he departed from the house. When he left that air where colors, music, and women’s cheerful laughter all seemed crafted solely for others’ pleasure, Kishimoto’s heart sank all the more deeply.

Kishimoto walked toward home. When he reached Ōkawabata, the sake had worn off. Feeling the bite of a bone-chilling river wind, he passed through the embankment—where in his youth he had often wandered from his benefactor Tanabe’s house—and arrived at the foot of Ryōgoku Bridge. He walked past a building bearing only a signboard relic of its former glory as a renowned boat inn, reaching a stretch of sandy shore. Murky water sluggishly flowing from the Kanda River came into Kishimoto’s view. Near where these waters joined the Sumida River, black-headed gulls flocked together along the bank. Suddenly he recalled an incident witnessed near this shore. He remembered a young pregnant woman’s corpse that had washed up there. More acutely than when he’d stared at the damp sand after her postmortem examination, Kishimoto now grasped the waterfront tragedy’s meaning. From this understanding rose an inexpressible dread.

Kishimoto hurriedly crossed the bridge. He briskly walked home. Women and children who seemed intent on playing among the New Year's pine decorations filled the narrow town with the clatter of battledores, passing time around four in the afternoon as if concluding a pleasant week. Just then at home, Negishi's sister-in-law had come visiting and was awaiting Kishimoto's return. "Oh, Mr. Sute!" the sister-in-law called out his name. This woman was both the wife of Kishimoto's eldest brother and—from Setsuko's perspective—the aunt who had cared for her during school days. "Though it's not the formal day for women's New Year calls," she added, "with our household now in Taiwan, I've come today as their proxy to pay respects."

Setsuko had changed into a festive New Year's kimono and was entertaining the Negishi aunt. Even the somewhat haggard appearance of Setsuko's facial skin was something Kishimoto alone had already sensed. He wanted to keep Setsuko as far away as possible—both from this sister-in-law, who noticed her womanly slenderness, and from her own observations as a mother of three. “Setsuko, you don’t need to sit there like that. Why don’t you go make some tea?” Kishimoto said protectively. With the long charcoal brazier between them as she sat facing Kishimoto, his sister-in-law’s gaze kept turning toward Setsuko, now grown into a woman in her prime. This sister-in-law—who could scarcely forget the trying months spent managing her husband’s household alongside Kishimoto’s late mother and his younger self—spoke to Setsuko in tones ever ready to admonish the young. The rumor that Teruko had built a happy home in some distant foreign land also surfaced.

“It’s precisely because of Uncle here that we’ve been able to manage things until now.” “We mustn’t forget such kindness—no matter how comfortable Teruko may be these days—” said the sister-in-law in a tone that measured Teruko’s social success against her own daughter Aiko’s—Aiko who had secured both a good husband and children. Then, turning to Setsuko, she added, “And you, Setsuko—how fortunate you are to have such an admirable uncle.” Listening to this, Kishimoto felt cold sweat trickle down his spine.

Twenty-One The sister-in-law returned to Negishi, leaving behind tales of how her long years of house-sitting had finally borne fruit as her time to shine arrived, rumors about Minosuke in Taiwan, boasts about her own daughter Aiko, and talk of Kishimoto—who had gone to Hitachi—and his youngest daughter Kimiko. From Kishimoto’s perspective, the hometown of his niece Aiko’s husband was in the coastal area of Hitachi. Due to this connection, Kishimoto had arranged to entrust Kimiko to a wet nurse’s household in a certain fishing village to be raised.

“Mr. Sute, you can’t go on staying alone forever.” “Why don’t you take a bride? Every time I’m asked that, even I find myself at a loss for how to respond.”

Negishi’s sister-in-law left such words behind as she departed. After such visits from female relatives, Kishimoto found it even more painful to face Setsuko. It was not the meeting of a mere man and woman, but that of an uncle and niece. Kishimoto could vividly discern the dark shadow that appeared on Setsuko’s face. The dark shadow pressed upon Kishimoto’s heart with even greater force than the angry voice of his brother Yoshio—*“You are truly an unscrupulous man!”*—which he heard echoing from the depths of his soul. Unlike her vivacious older sister Teruko, Setsuko had always been a girl of few words, but her current silence, weighed down by sorrow, spoke volumes of her unvoiced terror and grief—at times even a fierce resentment toward her uncle.

“Uncle, what will you do for me—”

Kishimoto read this voice from the dark shadow that appeared on his niece’s face. Above all else, he first received Setsuko’s lash. He was reproached most of all by the sight of her suffering.

When Kishimoto suddenly heard the sounds of the two children fighting, he was in his room on the second floor. He hurriedly ran down the stairs.

When he looked, the two children were fighting, ignoring Setsuko as she tried to stop them. The older brother struck the younger one. The younger one struck back. "What are you doing?" "What are you fighting about?! You idiots!" Kishimoto shouted. Both Izumi and Shigeru burst into loud tears. "Shigeru tore Izumi's kite—that's what started the fight," said Setsuko, holding back the struggling boy. "Izumi hit—" Shigeru sobbed to his father.

The older brother’s child looked as though he wanted to speak but couldn’t; biting his lip in frustration, he tried once again to raise his fist toward his younger brother.

“Enough, stop that.” “Stop that,” Kishimoto scolded. “Please stop now.” “You too, big brother—stop now,” Setsuko added. “My word, what have you young masters been quarreling about?” By the time the old servant hurried over, both children were still heaving with sobs.

Kishimoto returned to his room with his heart pounding. He approached the glass-paneled door and gazed out at the town at dusk. The sensation that had drawn him there while passing through the riverbank's sandy embankment began to ebb and flow within Kishimoto's chest. He found it terrifying to even consider linking that waterside tragedy to Setsuko. A cold, faint shudder coursed unnoticed through his body.

Twenty-Two

For about seven days, Kishimoto hardly slept at all. He worried by himself.

At lunchtime alone, he would often sit not with the household but by himself facing his meal tray—yet on such occasions, invariably, Setsuko would come to sit beside his tray. She rarely entrusted the role of serving her uncle to the old servant. She did this herself. And even in moments when she kept her gaze habitually cast downward, slipping her hand into the fold of her obi and striving as if to avoid meeting her uncle’s eyes, her knees always remained turned toward him. Sooner or later, an anxiety about the future—one that would not cease until it saw rupture—dominated them both. Kishimoto often sat before his meal tray, facing Setsuko in silence.

“Uncle, there’s an uncommon visitor here.”

When Kishimoto heard Setsuko’s voice calling from below the stairs, he was in his study. Every time there was a guest, his heart would grow unsettled. Each time, the urge to hide Setsuko arose within him before anything else.

It was just about the time when lamps were being lit both in the town and within the house. Kishimoto went downstairs to see. For ten years, Suzuki’s elder brother—who, from Kishimoto’s perspective, was the husband of his real sister from his hometown—had been completely out of contact. Now, in a disheveled state as if to avoid being seen, he stood beside the fatsia plant in the dimly lit garden. Kishimoto immediately grasped the significance of this unexpected guest choosing to sneak in at dusk—in his pitiful, travel-worn state, with the furoshiki bundle he held and his worn-out hat. Compared to Suzuki’s elder brother as he had seen him ten years earlier, his appearance had aged from travel. This man was the father of Taichi, his deceased nephew.

Suzuki’s elder brother, who had abandoned his wife and children and run away from home, seemed hesitant of Kishimoto’s judgment and deferentially allowed himself to be shown to the lower guest room.

“I’ve often heard stories from your brother in Taiwan.” Even as Kishimoto welcomed him with these words, Suzuki’s Elder Brother appeared uneasy, as though anticipating what his obligated brother might say next. “Izumi, come here.” “Bow to Uncle Suzuki,” Kishimoto called to the child there.

“Is this Izumi?” As the guest looked toward the child, a smile befitting the former master of the old Suzuki household finally appeared on his face. “Uncle, welcome,” said Setsuko as she came there and greeted him. “Ah, Setsuko. You’ve grown so much I hardly recognize you—you’ve still got just a hint of a baby face—” When Suzuki’s Elder Brother said this, Setsuko’s cheeks flushed slightly.

“In my household too, O-Sonoko passed away,” said Kishimoto. “All three of the children you knew have passed away.” “For a time Teru was here helping out, but she got married, and now Setsuko looks after the children.” “I heard about O-Sonoko’s passing while in Taiwan… I was greatly looked after by Minosuke over there… I often heard about you from Minosuke… After all, I’ve grown old myself, my body has weakened… So I’ve actually returned from Taiwan with the intention of seeking your counsel…”

Twenty-Three “Setsuko, it seems Suzuki’s Elder Brother is wearing an unlined kimono. “Take out Uncle’s cotton-padded kimono for him. “And while you’re at it, fetch the haori too.” Having called Setsuko with these instructions, Kishimoto had her prepare dinner for the man who had returned after a decade of travels. Putting aside for later any discussion with Suzuki’s Elder Brother—who after much hardship had finally reached his obligated younger brother’s home—Kishimoto focused first on letting the weary traveler rest. He decided to let him stay awhile and observe his condition. Those ten years had altered not only Kishimoto’s life but also the old grand Suzuki household after Taichi’s father abandoned it. No longer was there Taichi—Kishimoto’s nephew, friend, and confidant. Nor was Taichi’s wife present. There remained an adopted son who had revived the nearly collapsed Suzuki house. There was the adopted son’s wife. There was Kishimoto’s sister, still waiting for a husband who had vanished ten years prior. There was Taichi’s younger sister. And there was Kishimoto’s third son, entrusted to his sister’s care.

While worrying about Setsuko, Kishimoto listened intermittently to Suzuki’s Elder Brother’s words. Before him sat this wanderer tanned by Taiwan’s scorching sun—yet Kishimoto could still recall the man’s imposing dignity from his days as an official at the Ministry of Finance. He remembered that gentlemanly figure wearing a tiger-hunting hat fashionable during his own boyhood. When Kishimoto had first come to Tokyo at nine years old, it was this man’s house where he found shelter; those childhood days when he received lessons in reciting Chinese classics still lingered in his memory. Though Kishimoto had spent barely a year of his youth with this man and his sister, the affection shown him during that time had been deeply etched into his young heart. Years later, when great changes befell this man and his conduct drew harsh censure from others, Kishimoto alone refrained from judging him as others did—all because that early kindness still burned like a solitary candle flame in the depths of his heart.

Kishimoto had allowed this traveler to stay with him for about seven days. After those seven days, he resolved to save this down-and-out father of Taichi.

“Setsuko, Uncle is going to take Suzuki’s Elder Brother and go pay our respects back home.” After discussing this matter, Kishimoto separately advised Setsuko to undergo a medical examination during his absence. Setsuko agreed to her uncle’s words at that time. She herself said she wanted to be examined once. If only it were her misunderstanding. Kishimoto clung to that faint possibility as his last hope, hastily prepared for the journey, entrusted Setsuko with the house for a few days, and departed.

Twenty-Four

Truly abruptly, Kishimoto’s heart grew dark. Even on his way back from his sister’s house in his hometown, he had clung to the faintest hope in the doctor’s words, relying on what he had entrusted to Setsuko. When he returned and saw, he was all the more disheartened. “Setsuko, you don’t have to worry so much. Uncle will figure out a good way to handle things, so...”

Having said this, Kishimoto told Setsuko that if it came to that, it would be acceptable to register the child as his own illegitimate child. “As your illegitimate child?”

Setsuko’s cheeks flushed slightly. In his attempt to console his unfortunate niece, Kishimoto had even broached matters like future family registration—but when pressed to consider the name of the mother on that registry, such a thing seemed utterly impossible to achieve. For how many months could he protect her—how could he place her in a secure position? He felt with piercing clarity that Setsuko’s anguish was as fatal as a mortal wound to her.

Kishimoto went out to town. For Setsuko’s sake, he bought and brought back a medicinal decoction said to warm and regulate a woman’s blood.

“You ought to take even better care of your own body too.”

With those words, he handed the bag of medicine to Setsuko.

Night fell.

Kishimoto went up to his study and sat alone facing his desk. The memory of that young woman’s corpse that had washed up on the riverbank now rose in his heart with strange malice. “Setsuko is that kind of person—she might end up dying.” Nothing darkened Kishimoto’s heart as much as this thought. He who had resolved never to repeat a marital life like the one he shared with Sonoko after losing her; he who had desired to begin an entirely new existence if possible; he who had even come to view celibacy itself as a form of vengeance against women—now felt both bitterly aggrieved and enraged at his own fate, plummeting into such darkness for the sake of a woman who usually vexed him—moreover, his own young niece.

An unexpected sorrowful thought passed through Kishimoto’s mind like a flash of lightning. He came to consider whether he might atone for his sins by destroying both his self and body, leaving the aftermath to Setsuko’s parents. Not only was marriage between close blood relatives prohibited by law, but if his actions still grazed against that prohibition, he even thought of willingly accepting punishment. For he could sympathize with that anguished sentiment shared by many sinners—how they would rather submit to the law’s cold, solemn lash than endure society’s merciless pelting stones of ridicule. In the room, a blue-lidded lamp burned desolately. Its nearly depleted oil announced the night’s depth. Kishimoto laid his bedding near the wall and sat alone upon it. What sort of day would come if he slept through the night and awoke—he suddenly wondered anew. Exhausted from contemplation, Kishimoto—who had been sitting cross-armed on the futon—collapsed into sleep’s abyss as if falling.

Twenty-Five

“Papa,” Shigeru came to Kishimoto’s bedside and tried to rouse his father with a childlike voice. Kishimoto didn’t know exactly how many hours he had slept. When the child came upstairs with the old maidservant, he was already awake yet still exhausted—as if no amount of sleep could ever be enough. Hearing that youthful call, he found the will to leave his bedding. “Shigeru, Daddy can’t get up alone.” “Lend me your strength too.” “Try lifting Daddy’s head for me.”

Being told this by Kishimoto, Shigeru happily slid both hands beneath his father’s head. “Young master, help Daddy up—you really are strong.” Urged even by the old maidservant, Shigeru supported his father’s body from behind as if lifting a fallen tree trunk. “Heave-ho!” Shigeru said with effort. Kishimoto finally managed to raise himself up with the help of this young child.

“Master, it’s already eleven o’clock,” the old maidservant said, looking at Kishimoto with mild exasperation. “Ah, thank you so much. Thanks to Shigeru, I was finally able to get up.”

As he said this, Kishimoto looked around his surroundings as if assailed by a nightmare. The sun was shining just as it had yesterday. The town’s sounds were coming through the room’s shoji screens exactly as before. When he opened his eyes, the same state of mind from yesterday persisted within Kishimoto. No day better than yesterday had come. With a somewhat clearer state of mind after sipping hot tea, he faced his desk.

A draft he had recently begun writing lay on Kishimoto’s desk. It was something that could be called part of an autobiography. It had begun to chronicle the period from his boyhood to the threshold of his youth. For himself, this might well be the last time he would ever take up his brush—such a feeling came to dominate his troubled heart. He sat quietly before his desk and read through his unfinished writing—something he intended to leave behind in this world with no thought of preserving it. Having read it, he tried to endure in silence as much as he could. He also attempted to supplement the missing parts toward the end. What appeared in the draft was he himself from when he was around eighteen or nineteen years old.

When summer vacation arrived, like small birds that had been flitting here and there returning to their tree branches, the days he had spent at school gathered in Sutekichi’s heart—mingled with the sentiment of wondering how he would spend that entire summer. He thought of the family of his benefactors—Tanabe’s master, wife, and grandmother—who, at the house he was now about to return to, worried for him and took him in. He also thought of his brother Minsuke, who was lodging near the Tanabe house. While still being regarded as a child by those elders, the young bud of life that had sprouted within him had already raised its head like a bamboo shoot. The cruelty of having blamed himself relentlessly—the anguish of a heart resolved to maintain silence—the maddened acts—how could his elders ever know of the battles within his mind up to that day, battles he had not even shared with his fellow classmates? How could they know there had been a time when women like Shigeko and Tamako—graduates of Christian schools—had fostered interactions between young men and women? Let alone how the entire atmosphere surrounding such women had vanished like an illusion—so he pondered. For Sutekichi, still inexperienced in the world, everything was utterly astonishing to his heart. When he considered his current actions with the feeling of having just been born into this world, he realized that before he knew it, he had begun walking down a path of his own choosing—one unknown to his elders. He felt an indescribable terror arising from that sentiment……

Kishimoto continued reading. “……The Meiji era was still in its youthful twenties. Tokyo’s city streets still lacked electric trams. The distance from school to the Tanabe house measured about two ri, but walking such a road daily meant nothing to a student like him. Sutekichi would often detour through Sanko-machi’s valley—an area thick with old temples and cemeteries—following the rolling hills; other times he took Takanawa Street straight up Seizaka Slope before descending toward the distant lower town where the Tanabe house stood. That day, intending to wait for the horse-drawn carriage beneath Iraizaka Slope, he left his dormitory right after lunch. The road, dried by the afternoon sun following an evening shower, had grown even hotter. Yet realizing summer vacation had arrived at last, he began feeling as though he were walking home along a joyous path. There was something waiting for them far ahead. This eager anticipation felt almost like present joy itself. He keenly sensed not only his own sudden growth—his abruptly taller frame, his rapidly lengthening limbs—but also perceived young people around his benefactor’s household growing in tandem with him. Most startling was how those still seen as little girls had abruptly matured into sisterly figures. Among them could be counted the daughter of Ōkatsu from Ōdemmachō and the daughter of Taraya from Hegamigashi. Ōkatsu stood as a patron to both Sutekichi’s benefactor Tanabe and his brother Minsuke, while the Taraya family maintained close ties with the Tanabe household. Sutekichi could envision that Taraya daughter’s face—how her hair, once styled in a fresh *kamishimo* base when she attended dance lessons under her proud mother’s direction, had now been swept up into a Shimada chignon. He could even picture the pale, delicate hands of Ōkatsu’s treasured daughter—she who had grown up deep within Ōdemmachō’s merchant quarter…”

As he read on, his younger self materialized before him. A self that still blushed hotly at any stirring of emotion—innocent and untainted—manifested there. There emerged a self from when he had first set out walking with the conviction that something awaited us far ahead. Kishimoto felt himself gazing upon his own boyish form.

26

"It can't be helped." "It's already come to this." Kishimoto uttered these words aloud to himself. Without waiting for others to blame him, he sought to blame himself first. Without needing society to bury him, he attempted his own burial.

Twenty years ago, Kishimoto once went and stood on the coast near Kōzu. The dark waves of Sagami Bay had once surged close enough to touch his feet. He too had still been in the prime of extreme youth. From unceasing mental turmoil, after wandering for nearly a year, his journeying path had reached its end at that coast's water's edge. At that time, he had gone a day without eating or drinking. He had not possessed a single coin for travel expenses. Upon his body he wore something resembling a priest's robe yet not quite one. Moreover, he had presented an uncanny figure with tucked-up hempen coat, leggings, and straw sandals. His head had been shaved bald. The memory of that mental experience now returned to Kishimoto's very being. Instead of the dark waves that had once filled his vision, there now lay four graves aligned before his eyes. What had once appeared before his eyes were the actual waves of evening's sea that had surged toward him; what now lay before his eyes were illusory graves—yet in their coldness, these phantoms surpassed reality. The four graves he had stared at for three years were before his eyes as if tangible realities of a dark night. Kishimoto Sonoko's grave. Likewise Tomiko's grave. Likewise Kikuko's grave. Likewise Mikiko's grave. He could not only vividly read those four graves' epitaphs but at times even heard what sounded like his wife Sonoko's sobbing voice. Was it a voice heard within his disordered mind's depths? A voice coming from Setsuko's direction in the lower room? Or some other voice? He could not say for certain. Before he had fallen to where those phantom graves became visible, he had indeed considered various escape routes to hide his shameful self from all acquaintances' and relatives' eyes.

A distant island populated entirely by strangers was one such option. A desolate temple seldom visited by anyone was another such option. However, to find such escape routes, he was carrying too heavy a burden. He was too exhausted. He was too ashamed of himself. He had no choice but to approach the four aligned phantom graves step by inexorable step.

The day faded away in emptiness. The evening sun filled the second-floor room. The walls, the shoji screens, the glass-paneled doors—everything began to glow with a deep hue. Kishimoto's heart was truly dark. By his very nature, to resolve in his heart was to act. The voices of Izumi and Shigeru, the brothers, no longer reached his ears. Only the act of resolution now awaited him.

27

By the time Setsuko came up to the second floor, unaware of anything, the sun had already set. She handed the letter brought by the servant to her uncle. Upon receiving it and looking through it, Kishimoto learned that the friend from Motohanazono-cho had even gone out of his way to send a rickshaw along with the letter. There was a part of Kishimoto that did want to see his friend. But rather than acting from his heart, he moved half-mechanically. As soon as he read the letter from Motohanazono-cho, he descended the stairs and made hasty preparations to go out.

Outside the dark gate, a rickshaw draped with a hood waited for Kishimoto. After entrusting Setsuko with watching the house, Kishimoto wandered out aimlessly. Though not intending to bid farewell to his friend, he climbed into the rickshaw with a dark, anxious heart that could not foresee what might transpire. Within the hood, he listened to the rickshaw man’s footsteps treading the earth, the occasional jingle of the bell shaken by the man, and the wheels clattering especially loudly each time they crossed a bridge. The lights of the great city’s night districts flickered on and off against the hood’s glass. There came too the sounds of crossing countless bridges. He felt himself being jostled toward a part of town he seldom visited.

The friend from Motohanazono-cho was waiting for him at a house unknown to Kishimoto, together with a guest. There was the glow of electric lights there. The aroma of sake filled the room. Even a meal had already been prepared for Kishimoto. The Motohanazono-cho friend was busily talking and drinking with his guest. “Kishimoto, shall we drink heartily tonight?” said the Motohanazono-cho friend, raising his eyebrows. Kishimoto had barely received the cup offered by the Motohanazono-cho friend when he was also handed one by the guest who customarily showed him kindness.

“We must get Mr. Kishimoto drunk tonight.”

“Well, let’s have one more,” said the guest as well, offering yet another cup to Kishimoto. “Hey, you,” said the Motohanazono-cho friend, looking toward the guest, “how much someone like me cares for Kishimoto—yet Kishimoto remains unaware of it.” “Well, let’s have one more,” said the guest, urging Kishimoto to return the cup.

The laughter of friends reaching his ears, the brilliant glow of electric lights before his eyes—these things mingled with the anguish in Kishimoto’s heart. He caught the pleasant aroma of sake and thought of his own trembling figure as he had come all that way in the rickshaw. He thought about the deadlock he had been in up until that time when he had even come to think that there was no other way but for one of the two—Setsuko or himself—to die. The Motohanazono-cho friend seemed pleasantly drunk, but then, as if remembering something, looked toward the guest.

“Hey, you—even someone like Kishimoto should tour Europe once… I insist on recommending this…” The guest kept refilling his cup, treating such drunken talk as merely another accompaniment to their drinking. “Kishimoto,” said the Motohanazono-cho friend with drunken encouragement, “you must go see Europe… You absolutely must see it… If you can rouse yourself to go, I’ll spare no effort to assist… You need to witness what Europe truly is at least once…”

Kishimoto listened to his friend’s words, tending to remain silent. His heart, which yearned to live somehow, was drawn forth by his friend’s words filled with affection.

28

The night deepened. The surroundings grew hushed.

All the drinking companions had left. Still, even so, the Motohanazono-cho friend was drinking with his guest. So inexhaustible was the pair’s enthusiasm for drink that it seemed it would never end.

That evening, Kishimoto too grew uncharacteristically drunk. The later the night deepened, the clearer his mind strangely became. "His friend had said something good for him. 'I cannot endure any more of this dying—'" He tried telling himself. The rickshaw he had requested arrived. Kishimoto headed back through the midnight city air toward his home. The districts that could be called Tokyo’s very core had fallen asleep too; even streetcars running late into the night had ceased their clamor. On the broad avenue echoed no footsteps of passersby.

To beyond the sea. It was on the returning rickshaw ride that Kishimoto distinctly caught that voice. As if the profound "night" had come to whisper a single path to survival into his ear. At least having found a starting point in the words his Motohanazono-cho friend had spoken in drunkenness seemed to him like a precious gift indeed. I must save myself somehow. And Setsuko too. And Izumi and Shigeru too. When this thought surged within his chest—and when it seemed it might not be impossible—he was struck by a great astonishment from the depths of his heart.

Jostled about in the rickshaw for what felt like an age, Kishimoto returned to his familiar town. Even in that neighborhood where foot traffic lingered relatively late into the night, it was now well past midnight, and only the faint sound of roosters crowing from nearby coops could be heard. At home, everyone appeared to have already gone to sleep. Thinking this, Kishimoto knocked on the gate door.

“Uncle?” By the time Setsuko’s voice came and the sound of the latch being undone from inside followed, Kishimoto still had not sobered up. “Oh Uncle—this isn’t like you.” Setsuko looked at her uncle in surprise as she spoke. Even after retreating to his room, Kishimoto could not suppress the emotions surging within his chest. Just then, Setsuko brought cold water she had prepared for her intoxicated uncle. Kishimoto found himself unable to keep his turbulent feelings from this niece who remained oblivious to everything.

“Poor girl.” Unintentionally uttering this, he tightly embraced Setsuko—who resembled a small bird wounded by his own doing. “I have good news. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.” Hearing Kishimoto’s words, Setsuko stood pressing her face against the wall as if something had surged within her chest. Her ceaseless dark tears reached even the ears of the intoxicated Kishimoto.

29

When morning came, the grime within his study—which he typically scarcely noticed—caught Kishimoto's eye with shocking intensity. He paced through the second-floor room that had long served as his workspace. Not one object there remained untouched by stagnation. Even the academic endeavors he had devoted years to pursuing lay in ruins. He opened the bookshelf doors. There, dust accumulated over half a year smothered every book. He stood by the wall and gazed. What remained was only a coldness so exhaustively scrutinized it seemed blood might seep through, and terror.

A journey to a distant foreign land—at last, a single narrow path that might rescue him from the depths of this stagnation grew ever clearer to Kishimoto. Above all else, he first tried to summon strength. He pondered the lifelong mystery of ancient monks like Mongaku Shōnin—who had intended to kill his lover’s husband but ended up killing her by mistake—and yet still managed to go on living. From that, he tried to learn how to fortify himself further. For someone like Kishimoto—who had never once stepped beyond his own country—the very thought of embarking on a distant journey was no easy matter. Having lived this way for about seven years, overturning his current life—now as if rooted—from its very foundation was no easy matter. Moving Setsuko and the children to a safer position while making arrangements for matters during his absence—leaving his household behind to go alone was no easy matter. When he thought of that, a cold, greasy sweat welled up on Kishimoto’s forehead.

However, strangely enough, Kishimoto’s hips lifted. The body he had often lamented as being on the verge of rotting away; the body whose pain he had feared might become a chronic affliction; the body that still refused to obey despite his attempts at rowing small boats and undergoing acupuncture treatments; the body that would often collapse by the wall for half a day at a time, overwhelmed by intense fatigue and lassitude—finally began to obey at that very moment. He sweated from his soul. And he forgot all about the throbbing pain in his hips. I will abandon everything and go beyond the sea. To a land utterly unfamiliar, among people utterly unknown—I will go. There I will hide my shameful self. These feelings had arisen intertwined with the desire to save even Setsuko by willingly enduring hardships.

From that sentiment, Kishimoto wrote a letter to his friend from Motohanazono-cho. Not only had he resolved to cast off everything that had become part of himself, but he had also come to dedicate all rights earned through years of toil toward funding his journey. This sudden resolve for a distant journey surprised Setsuko first and foremost, more than anyone else.

30 “It’s troubling if you take drunken remarks as seriously as you do, Mr. Kishimoto.” This statement—which Kishimoto had heard secondhand from a guest with whom he’d shared drinks the previous evening—was presented as his friend from Motohanazono-cho’s opinion. To even this friend, Kishimoto could not bring himself to explain why he had been compelled to take matters so “seriously.”

That said, the friend from Motohanazono-cho sent him a letter expressing his willingness to spare no assistance. This letter encouraged Kishimoto, and the fact that there were fortunately people who approved of his resolve to travel stirred his heart all the more. From then on, Kishimoto spent nearly all his days making preparations for the journey. By around the time the plum blossoms were about to bloom, he had reached the point where he could establish the general plan for his journey. He, who had secluded himself for a long time without visiting anyone, went to Kanda and Ushigome. He also went to Kyōbashi. He also went to Hongō. He wanted to hurry with the preparations before Setsuko’s body became too noticeable to others.

“It might be good for you to see Europe at least once.” “There’s no need to rush so much—you could take your time departing.” When the friend from Banchō came to visit Kishimoto’s house, the topic arose. Though younger than Kishimoto, this friend had experience traveling abroad. “If I don’t set out when I resolve to,” said Kishimoto, “I’ll just grow old while dragging my feet.”

Though Kishimoto glossed over it like this, he felt ashamed of himself—of having a darkness he must conceal even from this friend who so kindly taught him various things.

Kishimoto had not yet spoken to his brother Yoshio about anything. He had concluded there was no choice but to rely on his brother's parental compassion—not only for looking after the children during his absence but also for dealing with Setsuko's situation. Yet being so intimately familiar with Yoshio's nature, what could Kishimoto possibly say? Yoshio had left Kishimoto's household long ago to inherit his maternal family's home. Minsuke and Yoshio—sharing the same ancestors and bearing the Kishimoto surname—stood as patriarchs of two large, ancient families. Yoshio, who styled himself a provincial commoner, held family honor and public appearances in higher regard than most. Women's chastity ranked foremost among the lessons Yoshio would write to his daughters. Even merely receiving a letter from such a brother announcing his imminent arrival in the capital had set Kishimoto's heart astir.

“I hear your father is coming.” When Kishimoto told Setsuko this, she merely hung her head and showed a despondent appearance. But the fact that she was relatively calm slightly eased Kishimoto’s mind.

While spending days busily preparing for his journey, the brother whom Kishimoto had been anxiously awaiting, wondering whether he would arrive today or tomorrow, arrived from Nagoya.

31

“Ah.” “Well, it’s been a while since I came out here.” “I’ve just come from the station and haven’t even stopped by an inn yet.” “This time I have quite a lot of business and can’t linger too long—but well, let’s talk a little.” “Are the children all well?”

While taking off his overcoat and continuing such talk, Yoshio—not only seeing his brother after so long but also regarding her as his own daughter—addressed Setsuko too, who had come to take his hat and coat. "Setsuko-chan, still working hard as ever, I see." When he heard this, Kishimoto couldn't even bring himself to look at his brother's face that remained oblivious to everything. Having welcomed this long-absent visitor from the provinces with a smile, he paced restlessly about the lower guest room. "Well then, let me treat you to a cup of tea before I go."

As he said this, the brother, familiar with the house, took the lead and went up to the second-floor guest room. When faced with this brother, Kishimoto found himself unable to voice his true thoughts and could speak only of his resolve to travel abroad. Kishimoto asked his brother only to look after the children during his absence. “That’s splendid!” Yoshio said with his usual vigor. “My household too is on the verge of flourishing greatly.” “I was just intending to bring folks from back home to Tokyo in the near future.” “If you just find a house, I’ll take care of the children.”

Yoshio’s way of speaking was always simple and brisk. After spending some time discussing rumors about Suzuki’s elder brother, who had returned to Japan after a decade away, and about the eldest brother in Taiwan, Yoshio made preparations to take his leave from his brother with an air of having pressing matters. Even if this brother’s time of triumph had not yet come, his vigorous ambition was irrepressible; not only did he gladly take charge of matters during Kishimoto’s absence, but he also expressed strong approval of the foreign journey.

The brother left.

Kishimoto called Setsuko, conveyed his brother’s words to her, and tried to offer some reassurance to her anxious heart. “But I couldn’t bring myself to ask him to take care of you—no matter how shamelessly I tried, I just couldn’t say it.”

Kishimoto said with a sigh. "If your mother were to come from the countryside, she would surely be shocked." He added this again. The sight of Yoshio's face—so pleased about his younger brother's journey abroad—remained etched in Kishimoto's eyes. By postponing any confession of his own moral failings and having his brother take charge of the children during his absence, he had effectively deceived Yoshio without ever intending to. Kishimoto could not help dwelling on how this decision to travel was a sorrowful act of deception—one that betrayed his brother, his friends, and society itself. And the more grandiose this overseas trip became—a mere student's journey blown out of proportion—the more he suffered under the weight of its compounding falsehoods. If possible, I should leave without telling anyone. I should bid farewell only to those closest to me before departing. At least by enduring hardships and trials, I might atone for all my failings—so he resolved. Still, he would eventually have to entrust Setsuko's situation to Yoshio alone before leaving. When he considered this, Kishimoto felt that even pressing his face into the dirt would not suffice.

32 Snow that melted easily, as if heralding the approach of spring, had already blanketed the town. Kishimoto had indeed decided to embark on his journey quite casually, but when he actually began making preparations, even just arranging the necessities required for traveling to a distant country demanded a considerable number of days.

The small, invisible bud of life had, in the meantime, begun to raise its head. Setsuko’s suffering and anguish—her bashful appearance that seemed desperately trying to conceal it—there was not a single aspect that did not speak of the terrifying force welling up from within her, as if driven by the relentless momentum of a spring bamboo shoot breaking through hard soil, refusing to cease until it saw the light of day. Every time he was confronted with that, Kishimoto found himself growing impatient as he waited for the travel clothes and bag he had ordered to be completed.

One day, Kishimoto was summoned to the police station, underwent a background check, and returned home. This was one of the necessary procedures to obtain a travel permit required for going abroad. Setsuko stood in the small sitting room near the kitchen entrance and told her uncle with a worried expression how changes that had begun occurring within her were now even affecting her food preferences.

“Granny said that to me.” “‘My, Setsuko-chan wants to eat such strange things!’—I just can’t help craving something like pickled plums.” Setsuko said this, her face reddening. She added that what frightened her most was being near Granny and being watched. Kishimoto still had told his two children nothing. Repeatedly he thought how his impending words would agitate those young hearts. Each time he faltered.

“Izumi, come here.” Kishimoto called Izumi to the dinner table. “Shigeru, Papa says to come out.” Izumi called his brother again.

The two children gathered by their father’s side. Since deciding to travel, there had been many guests, and Kishimoto more often than not found himself unable to sit down to dinner with his family. “Papa has a request for you. How does that sound?” “In the near future, Papa will be going away to a foreign country—will you be good and stay here keeping the house?”

With Setsuko by the meal tray and the old servant woman listening at the kitchen entrance, Kishimoto said this to the children. “We’ll stay and look after the house!” The younger brother leaned forward before his older brother even could. “Shigeru!” The older brother said in a scolding tone to the younger brother. The meaning behind Izumi’s words seemed to suggest that he himself had intended to respond to their father’s words before his younger brother could. “Both of you have to sit quietly and listen. “You must remember well where your father is going.” “Papa will go to a country called France and come back—”

“Papa, is France far?” asked the younger brother. “That’s really far,” the older brother said, explaining it like a proper elementary school student would to his sibling. Kishimoto looked between his two young children’s faces. Even the one who had declared “That’s really far” understood nothing of true distance.

33

Contrary to his expectations, Izumi and Shigeru remained unperturbed. They remained so utterly unaware of everything. They seemed to think of their father’s journey to a distant place as no more significant than him going to the countryside where Suzuki’s uncle lived or to the Hitachi coast where their sister Kuniko was being fostered. When he saw their innocent demeanor, Kishimoto wondered if he could leave them behind without causing their hearts too much pain. Kishimoto also called Granny to the side of the meal tray and,

“You’ve done so much for me. “I’ve decided I’ll be going off to a foreign country this time. “Setsuko’s mother and the others will likely come up from the hometown before long, so until then, you keep on working here.” “Oh! Master... you’re going abroad?” said Granny. “That is all well and good, but—” Kishimoto intended for not only this old servant woman to hear but also the children.

“I came to Tokyo to study when I was nine years old. After that, I was never by my parents’ side again. I studied only among strangers. But still, I’ve somehow managed to make it through to this day. When I think about that, I don’t believe there’s any reason Izumi and Shigeru couldn’t manage staying home without their father… Well, Izumi, do you think you can look after the house?”

“Sure can!” Izumi replied nonchalantly. “Even if Papa isn’t here, Setsuko will be with you, and soon Aunt and Grandmother will come.”

“Will Setsuko be here?” asked Shigeru, looking toward her.

“Yes, she’ll be here.” Setsuko put strength into her words and gripped the children’s hands. Before anyone knew how it spread, Kishimoto’s impending journey abroad became the talk of the town. He received a letter from his Nakano friend as well. In it, he wrote that while he did recall there having been such talk before, he had not imagined Kishimoto would carry it out so abruptly. He also received letters from young people. Among them were those who wrote that they couldn’t believe the rumors of his journey to a distant country while having young motherless children at hand—that they thought he had gone mad. There were also those who wrote things to the effect of whether it was truly real after all. Such rumors could not help but stir Setsuko’s small heart.

The letters arriving from all quarters at her uncle’s residence, along with the sudden influx of visitors, were enough to make her sense the fate that was rapidly closing in on her. She drew near to her uncle and spoke in a desolate voice. “You must be so terribly happy, Uncle—” These brief words from Setsuko, which seemed to celebrate her uncle’s impending journey abroad, instead wrenched Kishimoto’s heart with an unspeakable force. As though he alone were performing some noble deed. As though he were abandoning these helpless souls to flee alone to foreign lands.

“Whether Uncle is happy or not—well, you’ll see.”

Kishimoto tried to answer but couldn’t even bring himself to say it. He silently left his niece’s side.

34

Since she had ceased to fear her uncle, Setsuko’s eyes no longer spoke solely of the intense hatred she held toward him. At times, those eyes would even smile. And they merged with the dark shadows that appeared on her face and moved as one. “It’s so strange, isn’t it?” There were times when Setsuko would try to show her uncle the intense turmoil arising within her through these brief words. Yet Kishimoto found himself tormented equally by his unfortunate niece’s hatred and by her smile. In how they tormented him, there was almost no difference between that hatred and that smile.

A warm rain passed through. The sound of that rain soaking everything made Kishimoto feel the day was nearing when he would leave behind the roof he’d grown accustomed to over seven years. He had to close this house quickly. He had to hide Setsuko in the new house. Amid these endlessly accumulating tasks, Kishimoto also wanted to quietly bid farewell to those close to him. He wanted to write as many letters as possible. Kishimoto urged his car toward a theater. From his busy life, he carved out a sliver of time to spend in the theater’s box seats. It was when actors he’d met through a modern play’s trial performance took the stage. A scene from an unrelated old play began. A boy actor’s face painted white like a doll caught Kishimoto’s eye. The long sleeves fit for a girl, the coyly tilted neck, the pitifully theatrical delivery—nothing resembled Izumi and Shigeru in their mischievous state. Yet Kishimoto felt strangely drawn. His chest filled with thoughts of the children he’d leave behind in the countryside. Hot tears streamed ceaselessly down his cheeks then. He couldn’t bear to look at the stage. He couldn’t remain seated. Slipping away into a long corridor, he found dim windows lining the walls. He went to one and wept violently.

35 Kishimoto rushed to complete his journey preparations as much as possible. By the time grass sprouts began appearing in the narrow eaves around the house, he had finally managed to begin preparing for the move. Setsuko became someone who would shut herself away in the small sitting room near the kitchen whenever she had a spare moment, clinging to the kotatsu like a bird retreating to its nest. As January progressed, Kishimoto could clearly perceive her state—tormented by the growth of something unseen within her. The more his mind grew restless, the more that unseen thing—refusing to wait for its proper time—revealed a maliciously unrestrained force. Not a day, not an hour—as though it could not postpone the time allotted to it. That tiny life determined to survive even at the cost of its mother’s—against such a thing, human power truly proved helpless.

Kishimoto, who had been thoroughly shaken by Setsuko’s deathlike anguish, now went to console her from time to time with a sense of being crushed beneath the force growing within her. Setsuko showed her uncle by wrapping her youthfully full chest in a haori and spoke of the irrepressible power swelling inside her. The sole person who could share her terror and agony was her uncle. “Excuse me.”

No sooner had Kishimoto caught the voice of a female relative at the front entrance than his anxiety surged to the fore.

Negishi’s niece—Aiko, the eldest daughter of his older brother Tamisuke—came to visit during the hectic time just before the move. When Teruko and Setsuko called her “the Negishi sister,” they were referring to this Aiko. Aiko had brought Kishimoto what could be considered the best possible farewell gift. After consulting with her father in Taiwan, she wanted to adopt her uncle’s youngest child (Kimiko) as her own younger sister.

“My father has received your kindness… And with you going abroad, Uncle, I thought sending support for Kimiko would become quite difficult…”

Kishimoto gratefully accepted Aiko’s kindness. “Speaking of which, Uncle—your hair—” Aiko said, looking at Kishimoto with surprise. “My! You’ve gone quite white.” “It seems you’ve turned quite white rather suddenly over the past year or two.” “Hmm… has it really turned that white?” Kishimoto laughed it off. There was no time when Setsuko appeared more formal than when seen before this “Negishi sister.” This was not limited to Setsuko alone. Teruko, her elder sister, was very much the same way. Even among close relatives bearing the Kishimoto name, there existed a nervous tension between Aiko and Setsuko’s sisters that could only be observed among women. Not only that, but Setsuko, fearing being seen by those who might see her, tended to avoid Aiko near the kotatsu in the shadow of the shoji screen.

“Shall I have you send one over to Kimiko?” As he said this, Kishimoto took out the items that had remained at the bottom of the chest as mementos of his deceased eldest daughter and placed them before Aiko. The uncle, deep in sin, even hesitated before the niece who offered to take in his daughter and raise her as her own.

36

The time came to leave the town he had grown accustomed to. The household furnishings that had been arranged almost exactly as they were when Izumi and Shigeru’s mother had been alive—each time they took down an old clock from a pillar or moved a tea cabinet from a corner—the familiar scenery within the lower rooms crumbled away. Kishimoto sold off nearly all the books from his cherished shelves, keeping only those that would fit into his suitcase for the long journey. Then, setting aside only the seasonal clothing he thought to try wearing as loungewear in foreign guesthouses, he sold off nearly every last one of his garments—from the old haori and hakama that had been around since his marriage to Sonoko to the clothes he wore daily.

“Setsuko, I’ll leave this with you.” Kishimoto called Setsuko and pulled out a drawer from the chest to show her. There remained a set of formal clothes and a thick sash that had been carefully stored as Sonoko’s mementos until that day. That sash had served not only as a keepsake from Sonoko’s wedding day but also been used at Aiko’s marriage and again at Teruko’s. Kishimoto divided these final mementos of his wife with Setsuko without hesitation. “I leave Izumi and Shigeru to you.”

he added those words. Beside the back gate’s fence were about two clumps of bush clover roots. When the time came each year for the flowers to bloom, at Kishimoto’s house they would transfer them into large pots and place them beside the second-floor glass-paneled door. The two plants had rounded leaves and somewhat pointed ones, their flowers differing slightly in shape and hue, but when they bloomed in full, they were astonishingly beautiful. In the narrow town, it was also that bush clover that adorned Kishimoto’s study. Setsuko, who loved plants, had taken care of the bush clover roots without Kishimoto’s knowledge and had prepared them to be moved to their new residence as a memento of the house where she had lived with her uncle for over a year and a half. At last, the long-awaited morning arrived.

“Izumi-chan, Shigeru-chan, come along. Let’s get you changed into your clothes now,” Setsuko called to the two children. “We’re going to the new house over there,” the old servant woman said as she approached the children.

The old servant woman also drew near to the children’s side. The acupuncturist’s daughter came to see where the brothers were changing into their kimonos. Izumi and Shigeru, delighted at the prospect of moving to an unfamiliar town, clattered about on the tatami in their brand-new geta, looking utterly pleased.

Kishimoto went up to the second floor to look. There was the yellow wall of the room he had repainted with the intention of living there longer. There was a desolate study. He went to stand at the glass-paneled door and looked out. The stretch of town roofs came into his view after several warm rains had already passed. He even found it strange that this morning had arrived—when they could part ways without so much as a mention from the gossip-loving people.

Suddenly, the words of Hiroshi from his benefactor's household—who had recently visited—came to Kishimoto's mind. "Don't you think Mr. Suga puts things well? 'Mr. Kishimoto does surprise people now and then—it's been that man's habit since olden days,' he said."

These were the words Hiroshi had spoken when he met his old friend Mr. Suga at this house while Kishimoto was away. As if bidding farewell to the town, Kishimoto closed the second-floor door. To the house he had found in distant Takanawa, he first sent off the women and children.

37

The new hideaway was waiting for Kishimoto. Led by Setsuko and the old servant woman, the two children who had arrived before their father seemed intrigued by their sudden move to this newly developed, suburban-like land abundant with trees, and they ran circles around the single-story house enclosed by bamboo fences and wooden plank walls. “Izumi, Shigeru—be careful now,” he said. “Don’t go picking leaves from the garden plants.” Kishimoto first made sure to tell this to the children, but even just hearing the voices of the young siblings calling out to each other in their new residence stirred a completely different feeling within him.

Setsuko was working alongside the old servant woman in a manner befitting moving day. The cart still hadn't arrived. “At last. At last.”

Kishimoto said as if he had unburdened a heavy load and looked around at the hastily cleaned interior of the house. Compared to their previous residence, there were considerably more rooms here. Accompanied by Setsuko, Kishimoto walked through the quiet north-facing room where sunlight streamed in. “If Grandmother were to visit, we’d have her stay in this room,” he said to Setsuko. “It seems quiet and pleasant enough for needlework.” In front of that very room lay a small vacant space that allowed passage from the back gate to the kitchen entrance.

“Uncle, there seems to be a good spot to plant the bush clover I brought,” said Setsuko, pointing out an area near the corner of the vacant space to her uncle.

Kishimoto went to check the south-facing room. There too, Setsuko followed along. With an unusually bright expression—her figure and movements not yet weighed down by any unbearable heaviness—she showed her uncle the camellia buds in the garden, letting out soft, light breaths. In that garden, the white enkianthus with vigorously spreading new branches and the ginkgo tree that stood withered yet present—these things pleased her. “Among all our relatives, there isn’t a single one living in a house like this.”

Setsuko said this half-muttering to herself, her youthful eyes gazing around the area. Before long, Setsuko went over to the old servant woman. What she said imparted a strange loneliness to Kishimoto’s heart. To live in such a house—what pride could that bring? Was this a situation where he had to put up appearances for relatives? In this way, he muttered to himself alone where Setsuko was not present.

The commotion after the luggage arrived continued until evening. By the time dinner was finished, Kishimoto could think of nothing but having left behind the cramped town he had once lived in. The gossip-loving people who had grown accustomed over seven years no longer passed by his house at all. Not even the footsteps of people heard late into the night or the clatter of passing rickshaws remained.

“Papa, I can hear the train.” The downtown-raised children pricked up their ears. The sound of the train echoing from the sky over Shinagawa made the surroundings all the more hushed. Kishimoto lay beneath the roof of his new home and sighed so incessantly it was enough to make everyone in the house laugh.

38 Kishimoto was already halfway a traveler. He tried to avoid attracting attention as much as possible. He declined every farewell gathering he could refuse. He left notifications to various parties unsent until his travel preparations were complete. The reason he had decided not to board the ship departing from Yokohama and instead chose to go all the way to Kobe was that he intended to bid farewell to his homeland alone and in secret.

Kishimoto's abrupt resolve instead aroused the curiosity of strangers. The more he tried to move quietly on his end, the more his overseas trip became the subject of people’s gossip. The ostentatiousness of this outward display only deepened his anxiety. To people who required no explanation, he could not help but justify why he had deliberately moved his household from near Ryōgoku—through backstreet after backstreet—to such a remote town at the fringes of Shiba Ward, closer to Ebara District. Even though no one had particularly asked him about it, he spoke of how Takanawa was a place filled with memories from his youth, and how he had spent four years there on the hill with classmates like Adachi and Suga at his old alma mater. He spoke of how a family of exceedingly humble landowners lived near that alma mater. He spoke of how the family’s patriarch still possessed qualities sufficient to evoke the virtue of a village headman from the days when traces of Musashino’s wilderness lingered in that area. He spoke about how that unusually large family operated a private girls' school, a kindergarten, and a distinctive elementary school. He spoke about how that elementary school was truly family-oriented and how he had considered it the most preferable place to entrust his children. And he spoke about having moved his unoccupied house after choosing the vicinity of that academy.

Almost daily, Kishimoto would descend from the familiar heights and go out on errands. He also stopped by the houses of acquaintances in the downtown area to subtly bid farewell. At times, he even went as far as Ryōgoku and, while keeping to the riverbank where one could see the waters of the Sumida River flowing by, walked together with a certain magazine journalist. “The fact that you’re making such an effort to depart seems to have stirred up quite a lot of people.”

When Kishimoto heard this journalist’s words, he had no way to respond. He walked in silence for a while, his eyes fixed on the ground.

“And what will you do with your children?” the journalist asked. “My children? I plan to leave the house in my brother’s family’s care. My sister has arranged to come from the countryside.”

“Has your sister already arrived?”

“No, not yet… It has to be next month.” “But aren’t you departing for Kobe within this month? Your sister hasn’t even arrived yet—”

The journalist’s concerned words pierced through Kishimoto’s very being. He utterly lacked the face to meet his sister-in-law and Setsuko’s mother. 39

By the time he spread out a suitcase sturdy enough for a long journey to organize books, clothes, and such, and tried not to forget even a small supply of medicine, the feeling of heading toward a distant country had truly arisen within Kishimoto.

“Poor Izumi and Shigeru won’t have anyone to support them from now on.”

The niece from Negishi also came to visit Kishimoto in Takanawa and said such things to him. "Do you all think that way? From back when your uncle was still attending elementary school—spending one year at Suzuki’s elder brother’s house and then being a live-in student at Tanabe’s house for ages—he managed without having to think that way. You should just consider those who care for them as their parents." "Since both are still quite young, it might be better for you to depart now."

In saying this, Aiko hinted that Kishimoto was relying too much on his brother Yoshio’s family. Why was he entrusting his two children to his brother Yoshio and leaving without consulting Negishi? That was something he couldn’t even tell Aiko. “I earnestly ask you to take good care of Kimi.”

Thus, Kishimoto entrusted the matter of his youngest daughter to the niece from Negishi.

Kishimoto spent about ten days in Takanawa. The time he could spend with Setsuko and the children had now dwindled to a single day. Amidst the turbulent thoughts crowding his mind before departure, Kishimoto found a moment before dinner and stepped out alone for a walk. His feet turned toward the nearby hill. He turned toward the direction where the buildings of the school he had graduated from long ago stood. Twenty-two years had not only changed a graduate who had left that place but also altered the school as it once was. Only a single path, curving in an arc along the gentle slope from the top of the hill toward the school’s main gate, remained unchanged from days of old; however, there were no windows in the caretaker’s house beside the gate. Kishimoto entered through that gate and proceeded to walk up the single path. The familiar old lecture hall, where he had often passed with Adachi and Suga while listening to the chapel bell ringing, was no longer there. In its place stood a new, different building. He went to the back of that building to look. There, he found a crape myrtle tree imbued with old memories. It was on that hill where Kishimoto had first become familiar with foreign books, first come to know foreign literature and religion, and first begun to imagine—with a youthful heart—the lands beyond the sea. For a while, he walked around the new lecture hall. He was not merely intending to tread upon this familiar old soil and bid farewell. He had resolved to continue writing the unfinished manuscript of part of his autobiography in some distant foreign inn. He had also wanted to carefully observe the area and thereby evoke memories of his youth. The temple bell that resounded from the valley at dusk was also one of those things that brought back memories of times gone by. The sound of that bell hastened Kishimoto’s steps toward home. Setsuko prepared dinner and waited for her uncle.

Forty

For the evening meal, the entire household gathered at the farewell table. In the corner of the dining room, the Buddhist altar had also been moved from their previous residence, and Setsuko—as if on the eve of her uncle’s departure—offered a lamp there as well. Even when they saw that radiance, the two children remained oblivious to everything. After dinner, Kishimoto took the children to the brightly lit Buddhist altar. “Mama, goodbye.” Kishimoto demonstrated to the children by saying. As if he were even bidding farewell to the deceased.

“Is this Mama?” Izumi said playfully and exchanged looks with Shigeru beside him. “That’s right. This is your Mama.” When Kishimoto said this, the two children feigned ignorance and burst out laughing.

Kishimoto went to the south-facing room and busily began his preparations for departure. The number of letters he needed to write alone was overwhelming. The room was filled with items spread out to pack into the travel bags. The farewell gifts received from various quarters, as souvenirs for foreign lands, Kishimoto tried to pack into his bags and trunks as much as possible. “I wonder if tomorrow will be clear.” While saying this, Kishimoto went to check the glass-paneled door facing the garden. When he opened the storm shutters, through the dark trees, the night sky came into view. There were also stars shining in the distance. A chill mingled with warmth flowed into the room.

“Setsuko, spring is coming.”

Kishimoto glanced at Setsuko, who was wholly occupied with helping prepare for the journey, and said. Setsuko had been arranging white undergarments in the lamplight but then went and stood by the storm shutters, exchanging places with her uncle.

“Today a bush warbler came and kept singing in this garden,” she said demonstratively. When he came from the downtown area—still bustling with people late into the night—and observed his surroundings, what would have still felt like early evening in Asakusa Daichi was as quiet as midnight upon that elevated plateau. Outside, not a single sound could be heard. The sound of the old grandfather clock brought from their previous residence ticking stood out distinctly to Kishimoto’s ears.

“Truly, it’s so quiet around here, isn’t it? It feels almost as if we’re in the mountains.”

Speaking thus to Setsuko, Kishimoto hurried his preparations for the distant journey amidst the suburban-like quiet of the night. For Kishimoto, even the mere act of wearing Western clothes—which he had rarely worn—felt burdensome. He imagined a voyage to tropical regions and found himself troubled by the preparations. Gradually, the night deepened.

Of the two children, the older brother fell asleep early. The younger brother stayed awake late, keeping the old servant company with childish talk, but eventually he too sank into sleep.

Even as midnight struck, then one o'clock, the room still remained in disarray. “You should all get some rest now,” Kishimoto said to Setsuko and Granny. “Granny, you have to get up early tomorrow morning.” “You don’t need to worry about me.” “Please, don’t stand on ceremony and get some rest.” “Is that so?” replied Granny. “Truly, even just the preparations for such a distant journey are no simple matter—Master, with your permission, I shall retire first.”

“Setsuko, you should get some rest too.”

When Kishimoto said this, Setsuko’s eyes began to glisten with tears. Whenever she saw the suitcase bearing Kishimoto’s name in Roman letters, a feminine expression—one that seemed to fathom her uncle’s sorrowful resolve—appeared in her tear-glazed eyes. “Uncle, you should rest.” Even as she spoke these words, she accepted her uncle’s parting kiss amid heaving sobs.

Forty-One

The next day, Kishimoto moved to an inn near the former Shimbashi Station along with his travel luggage. There, he waited for the people he was ordinarily close to. Visitors came in an endless stream all day long. The Nakano friend also came, bringing the tea and camellia seeds that Kishimoto had requested in advance. Kishimoto tried to pack those seeds of an Oriental plant into his travel bag as a souvenir for foreign lands. “It won’t be easy for this one to sprout and grow big,” said the Nakano friend, laughing in his characteristically resonant voice—but to Kishimoto, it seemed uncertain when he might hear that laughter again. That day, he served sake to everyone.

Resolutely, Kishimoto prepared to embark on his journey. In what felt like a brief period of fitful dozing during the scant time when sleep proved elusive, the day of his departure from Tokyo arrived. That morning, nothing he wore—not the light hat suitable for travel, nor the newly tailored Western clothes—matched the sorrow that filled the depths of his heart. He could recall how a relative had once been mistakenly confined in the Kajibashi detention house for the unconvicted. He could recall the time when that relative, in handcuffs and with a rope around their waist, was about to pass through the court’s garden and silently greeted him from beneath the sedge hat they were wearing. The very image of that prisoner—one intent on receiving his own lash—was one that resonated with Kishimoto’s heart. An invisible sedge hat. Invisible handcuffs. And an invisible waist rope. In truth, with the feeling of being exiled to a distant island where it was uncertain whether he would return alive or not, he headed toward Shimbashi Station.

A cold, fine rain was falling steadily.

When he ascended the stone steps of the old station, the people who had come to see him off were already gathered here and there.

“Congratulations to you.”

The owner of a bookstore came to his side and greeted him. “Congratulations on this auspicious day.” The old courtesan who often entertained him with Kamigata ballads in Okawabata approached him. She had come accompanied by her husband—a rakugo storyteller younger than herself—and together they offered their greetings. "Oh dear, this is troublesome," he thought. This realization struck Kishimoto simultaneously with encountering the well-wishers who had come to see him off. Even unexpected acquaintances who had heard of his departure through rumors now approached him one after another.

Kishimoto met the children who had been brought by the old servant from Takanawa. The old servant wore a solemn expression and a formal haori overgarment, leading Izumi and Shigeru by the hand. “Miss Setsuko is keeping watch at home today,” said the old servant, looking at Kishimoto. “Izumi, Shigeru—you both came all this way.” Kishimoto took turns embracing the two children. Izumi looked round with wide eyes at the crowd surrounding his father, then eventually hung his head as tears welled up. Only then did this child of his elder brother seem to faintly grasp that his father was leaving for some faraway place.

Forty-Two Hiro Tanabe came from Nakasu, and Aiko and her husband from Negishi—all arriving at the station to see Kishimoto off. Hiro’s corpulent, imposing physique made Kishimoto feel as though he were seeing his deceased benefactor before his very eyes. “Uncle, congratulations on this day,” Aiko’s husband greeted him, hat in hand. Both this man and Hiro—who had once seemed so much younger through Kishimoto’s eyes—had now reached their prime working years. Among those gradually gathering at the station, Kishimoto spotted an old man with a magnificent white beard. This was his wife’s father. The old man had come from Hakodate upon hearing of Kishimoto’s foreign travels to bid him farewell. Even considering how those called Sonoko’s older and younger sisters had entrusted parting gifts through this elder, Kishimoto involuntarily bowed his head. Friends from Yoyogi, Kaga-cho, Motozono-cho, and other colleagues he worked closely with came in great numbers. Kishimoto then went to bid farewell where the crowd had gathered.

“Next time, it’ll be your turn to go abroad, right?” A person came and stood before the Yoyogi friend and spoke. “You all don’t need to come along, I tell ya.”

Yoyogi laughed, his eyes bright with excitement as he surveyed the people gathering around him. The time of departure drew near. Abruptly, the old man from Hakodate approached Kishimoto’s side.

“I must take my leave here.” “Well then, fare you well.” Beside the ticket gate’s railing, the old man gazed intently at Kishimoto and spoke. In not holding a platform ticket like the others, this old man’s disposition stood revealed. Five or six friends entered the train together with Kishimoto. When Kishimoto leaned out from the carriage window, not only those close to him but also unfamiliar young people—ones who had even read a volume of his writings—had gathered there. There was also a professor from the art school who had pushed through the crowd to come searching for Kishimoto at the window.

“I hear you’re departing for France—I hadn’t even known the date of your leaving.” “After seeing this morning’s newspaper, I hurried over.” “Yes, I’m going to that country you know so well.” At that window, Kishimoto exchanged hasty farewells with a painter he had known since his youth. “Mr. Kishimoto, please lean out a little further. “We’re about to take the photograph now.”

A voice arose from the group of newspaper reporters. Kishimoto was compelled to thrust his reluctant face out the window.

“Please—just a little further.” “Otherwise the photograph won’t develop properly.” In the camera’s sudden flash, Kishimoto laid bare his shame-ridden face. “Izumi... Shigeru—goodbye.”

While Kishimoto was watching the faces of the two children being led by the old servant, the train began to move. Kishimoto silently bowed his head to the people standing on the platform.

“What an extraordinary send-off this is. Such a gathering—this many people coming to see us off—is something we might experience only once in our lives. Really, it’s the sort of thing you’d see when someone’s bound for the West... or at a funeral.”

Kaga-cho, who had boarded together, said in a tone befitting a high-ranking official and, while standing by the window, looked toward Kishimoto. Truly, for Kishimoto, it was no different from a funeral for a living corpse.

Forty-Three

In the end, Kishimoto left Tokyo, leaving his young children behind.

Motozono-cho, Kaga-cho, Morikawa-cho, and other friends saw him off as far as Shinagawa. The Yoyogi friend, reluctant to part, proposed that they at least take the train together to Kamakura. This was because there was also a friend in Kamakura who was waiting for Kishimoto.

The train passed Tsurumi. The steadily falling rain trickled down outside the glass window. At that station too, there was an acquaintance whom Kishimoto tried to bid farewell to from the window, but could not. The station workers flickering in and out of view through the glass, the passengers boarding and alighting, the people standing dejectedly on the small station’s platform—not a single one appeared untouched by the fine rain. In Kamakura, the one waiting for Kishimoto was a friend from Shiga who had known him since his seven-year stay in the mountains of Shinano; this man’s wife and her aunt—who stood in relation as the wife’s aunt—had also been friends with Sonoko. This person of particular closeness, who had detained Kishimoto en route to Kobe and spent half a day conversing with Yoyogi, not only did so but also led the way from Kamakura all the way to Tōnosawa in Hakone to fully express their parting sentiments. The modest joys of travel along the journey, the snow at the mountain’s base seen when visiting Tōnosawa, the sound of the Hayakawa that even recalled his youthful days when he had once played with Aoki, Suga, Adachi, and others—all these indelible impressions mingled with the wordless inner vistas of Kishimoto’s heart, scenes he could disclose to no one.

Even when exchanging farewell drinks with Yoyogi and his close friend from Shiga on the second-floor tatami room of a hot spring inn—the two seated before him—Kishimoto could not express a single thing. While listening to a sound indistinguishable between the deep rain heard at the base of Hakone’s mountains and the rush of the Hayakawa River flowing down the valley, Kishimoto barely began to speak. “I too… well, I intend to heave at least one deep sigh as I set out and come back…”

“Yeah… I too have this feeling of wanting to detach from everything and heave a sigh.”

Yoyogi’s eyes were shining. Shiga, in a deeply considerate tone, looked toward Kishimoto and, “From your wife’s passing, the thought of going to France must have arisen.” “Anyway, even a year or two—I’m envious just to be able to read books leisurely on a journey.” “Kaga-cho and the others also seem quite stirred up by your trip to France.” Yoyogi said again and, in a manner that seemed to say “We’ll be apart for a while,” poured sake for Kishimoto.

From the morning he had departed Tokyo after receiving that bustling send-off, Kishimoto continued to feel cold sweat streaming down his back. Driven by this unavoidable resolve to journey—this attempt to escape with nothing but his own body—he found himself likening his plight to that of a pitiable devotee abandoning all worldly attachments to flee the “House of Flames.” That this flight of his had stirred his friends of similar age, however slightly, weighed heavily on his conscience. Unable to explain his position in any meaningful way, he confined himself to stating he was setting off for Paris with the same mindset as when he had gone to Sendai and Komoro before.

Yoyogi, who had a fondness for sake and travel, at Kishimoto’s request, attempted to sing an old ballad in a low voice. From the mouth of a friend whom he might not meet again for who knows how long, Kishimoto heard the lyrics of a favorite song, strengthening his resolve for the distant journey.

Forty-Four

It was the afternoon of the following day that Kishimoto departed Tōnosawa together with his two friends. Having come to Kōzu, there Kishimoto bid farewell to Yoyogi and Shiga. Before long, their faces too disappeared from the train window. Recalling the lively article about himself departing Shinbashi that had appeared in that day’s Tokyo newspaper, Kishimoto traveled westward alone, dejected.

Considering the date when the ship bound for Marseilles was to be met in Kobe, Kishimoto had not needed to leave Tokyo in such haste. Simply put, he could not face Setsuko’s mother and thus hurried to Kobe ahead of his sister-in-law’s arrival in the capital. Even if he had used his business in Kobe as a pretext to send a letter of apology in advance to his sister-in-law in his hometown... Moreover, even if he had not neglected to prepare the expenses for his sister-in-law’s coming to the capital on his part...

After four or five days had passed since arriving in Kobe, Kishimoto received a letter from Setsuko. It had been sent as a reply to a letter Kishimoto had written, but it contained not only updates on the children’s well-being and household affairs—it also delved into matters that touched more deeply upon her heart. In the second-floor tatami room of a pleasant inn he had found on the slope leading from Kobe’s port town toward Suwayama, he read the letter. At the very least, the mysterious change of heart that had occurred in Setsuko was written there. Compared to the Setsuko who had faced her uncle over the past four or five months with a heart in turmoil—at times with fear, at times with intense hatred, and at times even with affection—there was somehow a different Setsuko within. Kishimoto could not help but feel that from his embarking on this distant journey, some sudden change had unfolded in his unfortunate niece’s heart.

He carefully read through the letter again. Setsuko negated all apologetic sentiments Kishimoto had expressed—every last feeling of pity he had shown toward her. She wrote that when considering how matters had reached this point by now, even she was surprised at herself. She wrote that she believed she truly had been unable to resist temptation. Yet in this world existed something beyond ordinary human emotions—this much she had come to understand," her letter continued. "Why must you address me with such an aloof term as 'omae-san' in your letters? 'Omae' alone would have sufficed," she reproached. On the morning Uncle departed Shinbashi Station," she recounted, "I stood vacantly in our Takanawa house garden until the train sounds fading toward Shinagawa grew too distant to hear." Not one object among the bookcases and desk Uncle left behind failed to evoke his memory," she wrote of wandering through rooms containing his belongings. Since learning of Uncle's resolve to journey abroad," she concluded, "I had carried countless words I wished to speak—yet found myself utterly incapable of voicing them."

Forty-Five

When Kishimoto took Setsuko’s letter in hand, the emotions he had shared with her—the terror they had endured together, the anguish they had borne together—still had not left him.

“Ah… It was terrible,” he uttered. “It was terrible.”

Kishimoto looked around after saying this. Neither relatives, friends, nor even his two children remained by his side any longer. He found himself utterly alone at a Kobe inn. Recalling the ferocity of the storm he had barely escaped to reach that port, he involuntarily let out a sigh of relief. No matter how much Setsuko tried to dismiss it, profound remorse—that he had let her entire life be spent this way while leaving an indelible stain upon his own—refused to leave Kishimoto's heart. That until this day he had worried for Setsuko, cared for her as much as possible, and even considered matters during his absence on her behalf—all of this stemmed from his desperate desire to somehow save her from ruin. With stubborn resolve, he determined not to respond to anything Setsuko had written.

When April came, Setsuko sent word of her mother’s arrival in Tokyo. Kishimoto read the letter with his heart trembling and learned that her mother, grandmother, and still-young brother had safely arrived in Takanawa. Setsuko’s one younger brother was about the same age as Kishimoto’s second child. Setsuko wrote that she had gone to Shinagawa Station to meet those family members who had come from their hometown after closing up their house. She wrote that her mother had aged too. She wrote that whenever she saw her aged grandmother and mother before her eyes, she thought she must be much more resolute. She wrote that over the passing months, the dark shadow clinging to her had not left her for a single day, but now even that dark shadow had departed. And she wrote that she had come to think she must work even harder for the elderly and children.

This letter from Setsuko contained countless delicate details that penetrated Kishimoto’s very being. Within it lay laid bare even her inherently feminine nature. Kishimoto envisioned in his mind the moment when she—no longer in ordinary circumstances—had united with her mother who had come up to Tokyo. The faint trembling of her chest at that time, her demeanor that seldom lost its composure—every detail Kishimoto could picture with vivid clarity. When that sister-in-law saw the vacant Takanawa residence, when she perceived his intention to leave Setsuko and the children behind and venture overseas—merely contemplating this made Kishimoto feel his face burn as though aflame.

Having come to Kobe, what Kishimoto absolutely had to do was write a difficult letter addressed to his elder brother Yoshio, who was staying in Nagoya. He left that one letter behind and attempted to board the ship alone. Several times, he spread out paper with the intention of entrusting Setsuko’s affairs to his elder brother Yoshio. Each time, he would discard his brush and heave a deep sigh. From the Cook company’s branch office in Tokyo, they had sent notification of the berth number alongside the French ship ticket Kishimoto had reserved in advance. When he stepped out from the second-floor tatami room of the inn into the hallway, a portion of Kobe Port could be seen from the elevated position of the town built on a slope. The glimmering blue sea he was about to depart upon was also in his eyes.

Forty-Six

“A Mr. Kishimoto from Nagoya has arrived.”

The inn maid came to inform Kishimoto. At that very moment, he was experiencing influenza symptoms and had yet to make progress on the section of his autobiography he wished to write, however little, before leaving Kobe. Upon hearing of Elder Brother Yoshio’s visit, he hurriedly layered a haori over his nightclothes. He also shoved the laid-out futon into the corner of the room. If it hadn’t been for his influenza symptoms, his face would have turned pale so suddenly that it would have been impossible to hide. Elder Brother Yoshio had come from Nagoya to see Kishimoto before his departure.

“Even though my younger brother’s going abroad, I thought it too harsh to say goodbye just through a letter. “Plus I had some business in Kobe anyway, so I came over.” Kishimoto didn’t feel reassured until he heard these words from his brother. “Ah—well, the move went smoothly. “When you’re moving a whole house, there’s no end to the belongings. “Since we had your advice, we left most things back home and only packed what we needed. “I went out from Nagoya myself. “Finished tidying up the old house completely. “When the country folks said things like ‘So Mr. Sute’s gonna go abroad—leavin’ his kids behind! Can’t believe he’s got the nerve to just up and go,’ I told ’em straight: ‘A man needs that kinda courage!’”

Giyū spoke in his usual energetic tone. Gradually, Kishimoto’s head lowered. He listened to his elder brother speak while gazing at his own palms. “Since everyone in my house decided to move to Tokyo as well, the villagers even held a farewell party for us.” “Kayō was saying something rather weak-spirited, so I told her that just won’t do.” “The act of siblings helping one another is an admirable tradition passed down from our Kishimoto family’s ancestors, isn’t it?” “And it’s not just your situation—my household too is about to flourish.” “So saying, I encouraged Kayō.” “Just you wait and see—by the time you go off to France and come back, I intend to soar greatly myself—”

Listening to Giyū—with his fiery temperament—speak in this manner, Kishimoto, as a younger brother, found no opportunity to bring up the matter of Setsuko. Giyū had come all the way to Kobe to see his brother’s face and leave it at that; due to business matters, he did not linger long. I cannot let this moment pass. Kishimoto heard a voice that commanded like this within his own mind. He wanted to seize his elder brother’s sleeve in his heart, yet he could not bring himself to say a word.

In the end, Kishimoto parted from his brother without saying a word. He had been unable to utter a single word of apology to his sister-in-law, and now found himself incapable of apologizing even to his elder brother. Contemplating the depth of his own sin, he sighed.

Forty-Seven

At the inn in Kobe, Kishimoto waited two weeks for the ship. Those two weeks felt interminable to him. The distance between him and Setsuko—left behind in secrecy—already spanned Tokyo to Kobe; though this separation should have sufficed to break away completely, an invisible terror pursued him relentlessly. Day after day, anxiety churned through his chest—would something arrive from Tokyo today? Would news come tomorrow? Yet those two weeks’ reprieve let him write letters impossible in Tokyo and finalize hasty travel preparations. During this interval, he met again in Kobe a friend from Motomaru-chō who had come to Osaka on business. He read letters from his children sent from the Tokyo home left behind.

“Papa. “Thank you for the egg-shaped toy the other day. “I go to school every day and study. “Please send me letters from France. “Goodbye――Izumi” This was Izumi’s expression of gratitude for the Hakone woodwork plaything that Kishimoto had entrusted to his friend from Shiga to deliver to the Tokyo home left behind. This childlike letter, which seemed to have been completed with someone’s assistance, was Izumi’s first letter addressed to his father, written across an entire sheet of hanshi paper as one might compose a school essay. As he imagined Setsuko’s feelings—how she must have encouraged the child to write and send such a letter—Kishimoto could not help but feel profoundly sorry for her.

The sea was already calling Kishimoto.

The message from Setsuko before departure contained brief words of farewell about watching her uncle board his ship in the distance. Kishimoto's chest filled with imaginings of the unknown foreign land he was about to enter. The day after arriving in Kobe, he remembered walking along the coast and unexpectedly witnessing a group of emigrants bound for South America. He recalled how among those hundreds of migrants were people dressed in quilted work coats with leggings and hemp-lined trousers, others carrying hand pots, and even several who appeared to be young laborers' wives mixed into the crowd. He also came to feel strangely keenly aware of his own skin and hair color - things he had never noticed before.

The day of departure approached. Before he knew it, a group of journalists found Kishimoto’s lodgings and descended upon him. “I never would’ve thought you’d be holed up in a place like this.”

One of the journalists positioned Kishimoto before them, exchanged glances with the others, and laughed. Amidst this unavoidable commotion, Kishimoto received an unexpected visit from his elder brother in Taiwan.

“Ah, I’ve come at just the right time.” “The shipping company staff told me where you were staying.” said Minsuke. This eldest brother was on his way to the capital from Taiwan. Even Kishimoto had not known that.

The brothers were unexpectedly able to meet face-to-face after several years.

Compared to Suzuki’s brother, Minsuke had been tanned by the sun of a much hotter region. This eldest brother, who could be called the very picture of health, remained physically vigorous, possessing such youthful vitality and robust endurance that one would hardly take him for a man nearing sixty. Before Minsuke—who after years of arduous labor was finally entering his prosperous era—Kishimoto faced him with proper younger-brother deference. He keenly felt the decline of his own spirit.

Forty-Eight

To see Kishimoto off as he boarded his ship, Banchō came from Tokyo and Akagi from his lodgings in Sakai; both visited him at the inn. When the day of departure from Kobe finally arrived, there were also two women who had come from Mikage to see Kishimoto after twenty years. One of them was accompanied by her husband. When Kishimoto was still young, he had once taught a student named Katsuko at a school in the Kōjimachi area of Tokyo. The section of the autobiography he was writing served as a testament to the mental battles of his youth—a long, lonely path he had traversed before finally meeting Katsuko. The two women who had come to visit were former students whom Kishimoto had taught during the very same era as Katsuko. Katsuko had been nearly the same age as Kishimoto in his younger days; she had graduated from school, married her betrothed, and passed away about a year later.

“I thought you would have changed more, Professor.”

Such a former student was already a woman past forty. With the feeling of having encountered unexpected visitors, Kishimoto, together with his brother, received those guests and made preparations for departure. At times, he would go out alone beyond the sitting room and gaze at the harbor sky visible from the second-floor veranda. In the towns of Kobe that were bidding their farewells, spring had already arrived with the Higanzakura blossoms.

The French steamship that had been arranged entered the port in the afternoon. Banchō, who was well-acquainted with foreign travel, went into town and took the trouble to exchange part of Kishimoto’s travel funds into French banknotes and silver coins for him. It was also this friend who had provided him with letters of introduction to acquaintances in France and advised him on boarding houses to stay at once in Paris. Banchō watched Kishimoto making hasty preparations and said in a tone meant to encourage him, unaccustomed to travel,

“When it comes to you, Mr. Kishimoto, you’re quite the resourceful one, you know.”

“Even so, would you call me resourceful——” Kishimoto felt pleased that Banchō had said this to him. “You certainly are. When someone like me goes abroad, I have others pack even my suitcases and everything.” “After all, I’m on my own, so I’ve somehow managed to gather just the essentials.”

To Kishimoto, who was saying such things, Elder Brother Minsuke came and stood by his side, helping him into the unfamiliar Western clothes for his journey to distant lands. “Elder Brother, I have something to leave with you,” said Kishimoto as he held out a wrapped bundle before his brother. “Inside this bundle is the lined kimono that Mother wove. I brought it all the way from Tokyo intending to use it as a nightgown once abroad. But however much I try, the suitcase is simply too cramped—I’ll leave this with you.”

“This is a fine thing you’re giving me, I must say,” Minsuke said cheerfully. “Not a single thing of Mother’s remains with me anymore.” “I too had only one of those lined kimonos left in my possession.” “But it has been a very long time.” “For over a decade, I treasured it and took it out to wear every lined kimono season, yet it remains perfectly intact.” “It’s cotton with a bit of thread woven in—my favorite kimono.” “It’s a shame, but there’s nothing to be done.” “Well, I’ll present this to you, Elder Brother.”

“Well then, I’ll take it and wear it for you, I must say.”

The brothers exchanged such words. Kishimoto left his mother's hand-woven lined kimono with his elder brother as a keepsake and fully assumed the guise of a traveler.

Forty-Nine

The time had come for him who had committed a hidden sin to bear his hardships. The time had come for him to embark on a distant journey that might require this to be his last view of Kobe. It was nearly dinnertime. Together with friends and Elder Brother Minsuke who intended to see him off to the ship, Kishimoto left the inn. The two women from Mikage also followed Kishimoto and walked along. The town with its long slope came into view before everyone’s eyes. The group searched for a place to eat at the bottom of the slope. When they reached the front of a certain restaurant, the two women bid farewell to Kishimoto there. Guided by his friends, Kishimoto exchanged farewell drinks with them in a private room of that restaurant. To Elder Brother Minsuke, who offered a celebratory toast as if Kishimoto’s foreign journey were some honorable feat; to Akagi, who had gone out of his way to visit from Sakai; to Mikage, whom he was meeting for the first time; and to friends like Banchō—to each of them, Kishimoto returned a cup of gratitude tinged with shame, each bearing its own distinct meaning.

By the time they left that restaurant, the sun had completely set. The mere act of boarding a French ship where he couldn’t understand a word was enough to fill Kishimoto’s heart with profound unease. The night darkness enveloping the towns pressed in relentlessly upon him. “Isn’t not being able to understand the language also one of the charms of travel?”

Encouraged by Banchō’s words, Kishimoto walked toward the wharf together with everyone. Before leaving Kobe, he had fully intended to leave behind a letter addressed to his elder brother Giyū in Nagoya, and may have attempted it several times in that inn’s second-floor room. No matter how he tried, he simply could not write that letter. He did not know what words he could use to express his heart. There were no words there. Having no choice but to write once aboard the ship, he ultimately boarded the launch without leaving that letter.

To the main ship floating on the dark sea—besides friends and brothers—there were also a few young people who had come to see Kishimoto off. The landlady who had looked after Kishimoto for a little over two weeks also came to see him off, bringing her maid and observing the foreign ship’s appearance. This landlady was a Kansai-style woman of such meticulous thoughtfulness that she had specially wound red and white thread onto spools together with her husband—saying it was for mending any tears in his travel clothes—and presented this along with sewing needles to Kishimoto as a parting gift.

All along, Kishimoto had intended to hide himself alone aboard this French ship and secretly bid farewell to his homeland. From his state of mind, being seen off by these people was somewhat contrary to his expectations. Gathered in the second-class dining room brightly lit by dazzling electric lights, when Kishimoto saw everyone lamenting their parting from him, thoughts of the distant future filled his chest - unaccustomed as he was to travel.

To see off the people returning to the launch, Kishimoto passed through the ship's complex structure and emerged onto the deck. The friends descended one by one along the ship's ladder back to the launch from which they had come. Before long, voices calling out to Kishimoto arose from the dark waves. The launch had already separated from the ship. Kishimoto, trying to hear those voices, ran about like a madman through the shadows of the glaring electric lights on the high deck.

The ship carrying Kishimoto left the port around eleven o'clock at night. When he stepped out onto the deck once more, both sky and sea were shrouded in profound darkness. He stood silently bowing his head near the deck railing, gradually moving away from the port lights as well.

Fifty

On the third day, Kishimoto arrived in Shanghai. The letter to Elder Brother Giyū that he had intended to write after boarding the ship remained unwritten even during the voyage to Shanghai. With a sigh, Kishimoto went out onto the deck at the stern. He climbed further up the ship’s ladder and emerged onto the high, double-layered deck. At a time when there were still very few passengers, all he could find on that high deck was a lone Frenchman with a long beard gazing wistfully out at the sea. Kishimoto went near the railing at the stern. From there, he gazed at the sky in the direction of his homeland. The steamship belonging to the French Messageries Maritimes Company had departed Kobe on the evening of April 13th and entered Shanghai’s harbor by the night of the 15th with such brisk speed that it was now proceeding across the waves from Shanghai toward Hong Kong. The white waves breaking in the distance were in Kishimoto's eyes. The view made him think of the distance between himself and those he had parted from back home. Each day made him feel he was growing further still from those people. From the second floor of that residence in Asakusa, Tokyo, where he had lived for seven years; from the side of that wall where even moving his body had become something to loathe—he found himself pondering the wonder of having managed to move all the way to these waves. He compared himself to an injured beast hurrying toward the depths of the forest.

Due to the fierceness of the sea wind, Kishimoto left the high deck. He descended to the lower deck that ran like a long corridor along the ship's ladder. There too only one or two French passengers were visible. The bright yellow-green sea stretching astern drew Kishimoto's heart toward the springtime of his homeland they had left behind. He remembered how peach blossoms at Li Hongzhang's former shrine in Shanghai had whispered of spring's depth there too. He recalled wanting to show those densely clustered Chinese-style flowers to his niece who loved blossoms. He thought again of how he'd agonized over a letter meant for her father during their Shanghai voyage. He remembered Elder Brother Giyū's letter received at Kobe's inn stating even he felt moved by this foreign journey. He recollected its mention that Teruko's husband in Russian territories would surely be stirred upon hearing this. Contemplating such brotherly compassion left Kishimoto wordless regarding Setsuko's suffering.

From the funnel of the ship heading toward Hong Kong, vigorous coal smoke was carried by the sea wind, at times bowing low over the waves. Kishimoto calculated how many days a mail ship would take to reach the homeland from Hong Kong. He also reckoned that eighteen or nineteen days had already passed since his sister-in-law had joined Setsuko. Whether willing or not, he found himself compelled to write that agonizing letter during the Hong Kong-bound voyage. Should he miss this chance, his next port of necessity would be French Saigon.

Fifty-One Kishimoto went to his cabin and took out some letter paper from his travel bag. Aboard the French ship said to have few passengers at ports east of Saigon, taking advantage of the quiet moment when a six-berth room had been assigned solely to Kishimoto, he attempted to write a letter addressed to Elder Brother Giyū, whom he had left behind in their homeland. The reflection of waves in the round ship window made the room appear even quieter. He forgot even that he was being rocked by the waves and wrote. He wrote that this letter had been composed aboard a French ship during the voyage from Shanghai to Hong Kong. He wrote that it was a letter he had tried to write when leaving Kobe but could not, and had been forced to abandon his intention to send it from Shanghai. He wrote that even when departing Shinbashi and leaving Kobe, he had received unexpected farewells, yet despite this, he had bid his goodbyes in despondency. He wrote about why he had left his motherless children behind to embark on this journey—though he had kept these true feelings from everyone else, he had to inform his elder brother alone. He wrote that amidst many friends already having departed this world, and with his nephew and wife gone as well, he lamented his foolish nature—that someone like him had survived and was now causing even his elder brother to grieve. He wrote that as a younger brother, he had no right to speak of such things before Elder Brother—but that he had been compelled to endure the unbearable. He wrote that Setsuko—whom he had taken responsibility for receiving from Elder Brother—was now in an unusual condition. He wrote that this was due to his own lack of virtue. He wrote that as Elder Brother was well aware of the surroundings of his former residence, while he had naturally attended drinking gatherings due to various social connections, he had never strayed because of them. He wrote that he himself had to write such a shameful letter. Looking back now, he wrote that his taking in Elder Brother’s daughter and wanting to care for her even a little had been a mistake. He wrote that he had truly committed a sin so profound he could not speak of it to relatives or friends—that he had ruined the life of an innocent maiden and through this experienced anguish deeper than any he had ever known. He wrote that Setsuko was innocent. He wrote asking that she be forgiven. He wrote asking that she be saved.

He wrote that even moving residences, requesting her elder sister’s relocation to the capital, and placing her in a relatively safe position—all of these had been measures taken for her sake. He wrote that Elder Brother’s shock and sorrow upon receiving this letter would be beyond imagining. He wrote that he had no face he could possibly show to Elder Brother. He wrote that he had no words left to write. He wrote that he was leaving behind this shameful letter solely for Setsuko’s sake. He wrote that he would depart for a distant foreign land and wished to weep over his cruel fate. He wrote: "Elder Brother Giyū, Respectfully, Sukeyoshi."

Fifty-Two

After a thirty-seven-day sea voyage, Kishimoto arrived at the port of Marseille, France. "The thought that you might receive this postcard in beautiful Marseille—that port with its avenue of plane trees—brings me joy." Kishimoto was able to read a postcard conveying such sentiments upon arriving at the port. The ship’s purser called Kishimoto’s name and handed him the postcard. Even among the many French passengers, those who received postcards or letters at that eagerly awaited port were rare. This was because the Banchō friend who had come to see Kishimoto off when he departed Kobe had sent that postcard via Siberia from Tokyo in advance.

Kishimoto, having set foot on European soil for the first time, ascended the path between the cliffs toward Notre-Dame de la Garde at Marseille's port the day after landing. At that moment, there was one fellow traveler. At that port, Kishimoto reunited with a Japanese silk merchant with whom he had shared the voyage from Colombo Port (India, Ceylon) to Port Said before parting ways aboard ship. The silk merchant was bound for London and well-versed in foreign travel. Thanks to this, Kishimoto obtained an excellent guide. When they climbed the sunlit path alongside the high cliff to its summit, they emerged before an ancient stone temple. The vista of the European-style port town unfolded below the cliffs.

The sea glowed blue in the distance. That sea was the Mediterranean. It was the Mediterranean where Kishimoto had encountered high waves for a day during the voyage from Port Said to the port of Marseille. The yellowish-white soil of the cliff below and the new grass made the color of that sea appear even bluer. Kishimoto looked down from that high position at the twin-funneled steamship he had come on, moored near the wharf, and truly thought of how far he had journeyed.

A young nun standing at the temple entrance approached Kishimoto. Seeing him as a traveler from eastern skies afar, she extended a vessel resembling an alms bowl as if seeking alms. The nun was French. A beggar sat upon the stone steps. That beggar too was French. Kishimoto climbed the temple entrance steps together with the silk merchant. In one corner of the entrance sat an old woman selling white and pale violet wooden rosaries that would have delighted maidens in his homeland. That old woman was also French.

Kishimoto stood beneath the main hall's ceiling and looked. On the dim stone wall hung a framed painting of a ship, likely donated by seafarers who had infused it with their prayers. Guided by the temple custodian, he ventured deeper inside. The tranquil sunlight filtering through stained glass windows illuminated a golden statue of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholic style and an antiquated, tarnished organ placed nearby. That custodian too was French. There, Kishimoto now stood entirely among strangers.

Even amidst his hectic journey's turbulence, there was not a single day when the letter Kishimoto had left behind in Hong Kong bound for his homeland failed to weigh upon his mind. That evening aboard the night train, he departed for Paris together with the silk merchant.

Fifty-Three

Kishimoto entered Paris, the distant city he had long journeyed toward, on the fourth morning since disembarking from the ship. On the way to Paris, he spent a day in Lyon with the accompanying silk merchant before proceeding. Gare de Lyon was the station with a tall clock tower where he first arrived in Paris. There, he parted ways with the silk merchant bound for London, hired a hackney carriage, and rode off with his travel luggage. Even the groom’s top hat—one might call it all-weather—was a novel sight to him. He looked to the right and to the left, then crossed the Seine River for the first time. It was a late May morning when the city’s clamor had yet to grow loud. As he rode through the avenue lined with plane trees—their tender young leaves adorning both sides like those he had seen in Marseille and Lyon—even the crack of the groom’s whip and the clatter of hooves against the stone pavement pleasantly reached his ears.

A boarding house in a corner of the tree-lined street near the Paris Observatory awaited Kishimoto. In the vicinity, morning commuters, workers, a girl carrying milk bottles, women heading out to buy vegetables—all these caught Kishimoto’s eye. The boarding house maid and the caretaker’s wife came to carry his luggage, but not a single word was understood between them. He encountered an elderly, robust-looking woman in reddish-black morning sleepwear who had come out to greet him at the entrance on the first floor of the approximately seven-story building. That person was the landlady of the boarding house. What this landlady said also did not reach Kishimoto.

The landlady, who seemed accustomed to handling guests, brought a Japanese man to Kishimoto. This was an international student staying at the boarding house, whose name Kishimoto had previously heard from his Banchō friend. That he was someone who had lived abroad for a long time was immediately apparent to Kishimoto at first glance. Kishimoto grasped what the boarding house landlady was trying to say through this international student he first met upon arriving in Paris. He was also shown to his room.

After explaining things like meal times to Kishimoto, the international student said.

"The landlady asked me to tell you—'I apologize for appearing in my nightclothes; I will change into proper attire and greet you again properly later.' Because you arrived so early this morning." The landlady, who had been listening, looked between the international student and Kishimoto. "Did you understand?" She spread both hands toward Kishimoto in explanation.

When he remained alone in the room and looked around, Kishimoto still hadn’t lost the sensation of being on a long journey—as if swaying aboard a ship. For him, unaccustomed to travel, merely continuing the voyage amidst a crowd of foreigners was itself a task. The tropical light and heat exceeded his imagination. Those hues too were like a dream. At times he even experienced—on that vast, boundless sea where not a single ship or bird entered his sight, let alone distant lands—such blazing light, such desolation, and such eternity that he privately coined for it the name “Sea Desert.” Around the time they approached the Indian Ocean, all passengers began sleeping out on the deck; he too spent several sleepless nights bringing a rattan chair near the railing and gazing at the pale phosphorescent light flowing across the dark waves. The ship had also stopped at French Djibouti’s port at the Red Sea’s entrance to load coal. The desolate plains of Asia Minor and Africa he gazed upon from Suez; the Mediterranean waves he first beheld after departing Port Said; the southern tip of Italy—as he enumerated these, impressions of distant lands he had journeyed through truly flooded into his heart without limit.

Fifty-Four By learning a new language, Kishimoto resolved to forget the sorrow in his heart. The international student from the same boarding house introduced him to a language teacher living near the Observatory. She was an elderly woman who taught French to foreigners gathering in Paris, eking out a living through it, but since she gave her lessons in English, it proved convenient for Kishimoto. For the time being, he made attending the language teacher’s lessons one of his daily routines.

While waiting thus for news from his homeland, a reply arrived from Elder Brother Giyū via Siberia. Involuntarily, Kishimoto's chest trembled. Elder Brother had written from the Tokyo home left behind. He wrote that all he could do was be utterly stunned upon reading the letter you had sent from Hong Kong. "After agonizing for over ten days," he wrote, "I came up to Tokyo from Nagoya to take appropriate measures." He wrote: "Let me tell you this—what’s done cannot be undone; you must put this matter out of your mind now."

Elder Brother also wrote that since this matter shouldn't be told to anyone, he had resolved not to speak of it even to his own wife, let alone their mother. He wrote that regarding Kayo—his sister-in-law—they had settled on establishing there had been a certain Yoshida. He wrote that they would maintain this Yoshida had abandoned that person and disappeared. In truth, he wrote that Kayo herself was now with child. Moreover, he wrote that Teruko too had expressed her wish to return home soon and give birth there. He wrote that should Teruko's return coincide with events, matters might grow somewhat troublesome. Yet he wrote that worldly affairs somehow find resolution through compromise. He wrote that all here were well—Izumi and Shigeru both in good health. He wrote that you mustn't trouble yourself over home matters but devote yourself fully to your pursuits there.

Kishimoto released a sigh unknown to others. With a French language textbook tucked under his arm, he left the boarding house, passed storefronts displaying fruits and such, crossed the tram tracks of the tree-lined avenue, traced along the old stone wall of the maternity hospital, then turned toward the language teacher's house before the Observatory. And after receiving his language instruction, whenever he saw boys playing in the shade of trees near the Observatory, he would think of his own children back home while retracing the same path to return to his boarding house. Reaching that age, he felt himself beginning studies at forty.

Several times, Kishimoto took out the letter from his elder brother and read it over repeatedly. “You must put this matter out of your mind now”—toward the sentiment expressed in these words by his elder brother, he could not help but feel deeply grateful. The indescribable terror that had pursued him from Tokyo to Kobe, to Shanghai, to Hong Kong—and at times even as far as distant Paris—had by then somewhat lifted from his chest. In its place, the dread of secretly burying his sin with his brother’s assistance—even more than when he worried alone—awakened in him an indescribably dark mood. In Elder Brother’s letter, there was only mention of “that person”—even Setsuko’s name was avoided. He imagined her—alongside her mother and sister—as being in an extraordinary position.

Fifty-Five

Before long, Kishimoto received a letter from Setsuko. She informed him that she had gone to a remote countryside area in the rural district.

"So Setsuko has finally left too—"

Having said that, Kishimoto looked around the interior of the new room he had moved into next to the former dining hall. There were two windows, with the green leaves of a plane tree avenue growing thickly near one of them. Compared to when Kishimoto had first arrived in Paris, those verdant leaves had already deepened in hue, and from their shade hung something resembling small chestnut burrs—neither flowers nor fruits—dangling like blue orbs. One window stood precisely at a building's corner, revealing intersecting streets below. To Kishimoto's eyes—accustomed to gazing from his familiar second-floor residence in Tokyo's Asakusa at wooden-fenced houses and white paper-screened windows—there now appeared beyond the tree-lined avenue: the French tricolor fluttering before a maternity hospital grand as any ancient temple; a six-story building facing it; and the noren curtain of a café at the street corner. Where gossipy merchant wives once passed each morning shouldering large furoshiki bundles, French women now walked beneath his window carrying bread loaves shaped like firewood. Instead of Tokiwazu and Nagauta shamisen melodies that used to drift into his study, piano practice now sounded from upper floors of a tall building nearby. It came from directly above his head.

Going to that window, Kishimoto reread the letter from Setsuko. She wrote that after her mother had come up to Tokyo, she had dismissed the elderly maid as well. She wrote that after Father had come up from Nagoya, that discussion had taken place for the first time. "At that time, Mother made quite a fuss, but in the end, I decided to leave home for a while," she wrote. "Father, through the care of a head nurse he knew at a certain hospital, had arranged for me to come to this countryside," she wrote. She wrote that the head nurse was now a woman doctor. She wrote that she was an extremely kind person who lived in this countryside and came to see me almost daily to offer comfort. She wrote that she was composing this letter in secret on the second floor of a midwife’s house. She wrote that they had not even informed the kind woman doctor about Uncle’s involvement. She wrote that she wanted to bring Uncle’s writings from the Takanawa house here as well to comfort herself during this lonely time, but had refrained out of concern that someone might see them. She wrote that the people living in this house were both mother and daughter midwives. She wrote that this was a place one could reach from Tokyo by train in a very short time. She wrote that the croaking of frogs, typical of the remote countryside, was reaching her ears. She wrote that since there was still some time before she would take to her childbirth bed, she thought she would like to send word at least once more, but even that seemed uncertain. She also added that her elder sister (Teruko) would likely return from her husband’s post abroad soon for childbirth.

Fifty-Six

The horse chestnut and plane trees growing as thickly as a forest lay ahead of Kishimoto. He could find that pleasant shade of leaves both before the clock of the nearby observatory and within Luxembourg Park where stone statues of queens from around the eighteenth century stood in rows. When a certain friend from Tokyo—who had left their homeland before him and toured Northern European countries—stayed at his boarding house for about nine days, they walked together through the corridors of Parisian theaters and stood before the murals of Saint Geneviève inside the Panthéon. Even when he went walking around Place Denfert-Rochereau with its massive stone lion statue erected in commemoration of national defense from the Franco-Prussian War era, he never lacked for places suitable for a traveler’s stroll.

However, for Kishimoto, this journey to France amounted to conducting an experiment in living. He had plunged into something utterly new and different. To do so required correcting habits ingrained through years of life in his homeland. For someone like him—accustomed to meditative sitting—even spending entire days in a chair proved arduous. He knew no true rest from dawn till dusk. He felt as though he stood perpetually on his feet. If only I could lay this body down freely on Japanese tatami... This thought even stirred in him a childlike urge to weep. Not only had he endured sunburn, sweltering heat, and sea winds during his long voyage—he had also subjected this body, finally roused from that small Asakusa building in Tokyo, to this foreign experiment in living. When he considered how he'd left his homeland as if propelled by some invisible force, he found himself wondering what would become of his traveler's existence henceforth.

The letter from Setsuko relentlessly tormented Kishimoto's heart as he journeyed. By chance, there was a maternity hospital in front of Kishimoto's boarding house, and the fact that in each of the building's forty-odd windows children were being born or were about to be born seemed to him like some kind of sign. That stone gate was visible even from his room's window, and that stone wall ran alongside the path he took daily for his language lessons. The many windows shone their light into the night later than anywhere else in town, and seemed to speak almost every night.

“I’ll go among strangers.”

Kishimoto muttered. To go among strangers and hide his shameful self had been his intention since first deciding on this journey.

Fifty-Seven To board the Seine river steamer, Kishimoto went out to the stone bridge at Châtelet. No matter where he went, he was so dependent on Baedeker’s guidebook that he couldn’t let go of it—and yet here he was, attempting entirely on his own to visit the home of a French person he had only just met after arriving in Paris.

Kishimoto was no longer just a traveler but now also a foreigner. Compared to when he had walked Tokyo's streets with the unconscious ease of a sea fish content to swim in saltwater within that island nation, his own position—where he himself had once thought "A foreigner passes by" upon rarely seeing differently featured travelers from abroad—had now completely reversed. Whether willing or not, he could not help being conscious of the differences—the hue of his hair, his skin color, his facial contours, the shade of his eyes. Every person he encountered stared fixedly at his face. Being perpetually forced into this observed position allowed his mind no respite whenever he went out. It even made him wonder what purpose such exertion could possibly serve. By the time he reached Châtelet bridge from his boarding house, his mind had grown thoroughly hazy.

Along the high stone-built embankment, he descended to where the river steamer waited. The river water that split off to flow around the mid-river island of Cité came into his view. The Frenchman Kishimoto intended to visit was a clerk at Paris’s National Library, and he had received an invitation letter written in English from the man’s mother. Within it was written with elderly feminine kindness down to minutiae: that one should take a Louvre-bound river steamer to Billancourt; that their house stood directly from the disembarkation point, less than five minutes away; that he must mind to take a Billancourt-line vessel among various steamers. Kishimoto boarded a river steamer at Châtelet only to wastefully transfer again at the Louvre. Such was his unfamiliarity with the locale. This marked his first attempt at observing a French household. Before him lay strangers’ lives that seemed permeable to any intrusion. He could turn right or left. And through his chest passed a strange sensation—as if the narrow paths of his journey might fork left or right hereafter depending on those he would meet.

Fifty-Eight

“Foreign gentleman, here is Billancourt.” As if to say such words, the Frenchman aboard the river steamer pointed out the landing to Kishimoto. From the landing to the house Kishimoto was seeking was only a short distance. Across the embankment road lined with tall poplars stood a residential-style building facing the Seine River. That was the residence of the library clerk.

Kishimoto pushed open the gate door and made his way through the flowerbed where plants were in bloom. Before he knew it, a pet dog came running over, approached him with sharp eyes, and bristled as if about to bark.

“Are you Mr. Kishimoto?”

And then, at that moment, an elderly lady who had emerged at the stone steps of the entrance and asked in English appeared. Kishimoto knew at first glance that this was the mother who had given him the letter. “Please leave your hat and cane there. Then please come with me to the room.” Having spoken in this manner, the elderly lady guided Kishimoto.

"My son is still at the library, but he should be returning shortly." "My daughter-in-law will meet you now as well." Coming into a French household and discovering an elderly woman who would speak to him like this in English brought comfort to Kishimoto's traveler's existence, still so unaccustomed to the land.

The person who had guided Kishimoto to this house was the elderly woman’s niece. That Mademoiselle, though a pure Frenchwoman, cherished such admiration for distant Japan that she had actually taken up residence in Tokyo. Through an introduction from his friend in Banchō, Kishimoto had met her before departing Tokyo. At that time, this Mademoiselle could already speak Japanese quite fluently—to the extent of being able to read works like The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu. She was so partial to Japan that one might almost call her a Japan enthusiast. It was she who had introduced Kishimoto. The elderly woman led Kishimoto to the living room. From the various furnishings decorating the room to its paintings and sculptures, everything appeared harmonized with the elderly woman’s refined tastes. Near the window where a desk stood, the elderly woman took out a letter from her niece in Tokyo and showed it to Kishimoto,

“I wonder if my niece is living safely there. Do you think she’s started to look even a little like a proper Japanese lady?” she asked Kishimoto with a deeply concerned expression, inquiring after the Mademoiselle who had ventured to the Far East. The elderly woman spoke of how Mademoiselle was the only daughter of her brother, how she had been fond of learning since childhood, and how even while in Paris she had studied a range of classics under Japanese exchange students.

Kishimoto took out souvenirs from his homeland that he had brought as mementos of his journey from inside the wrapping cloth bundle. The elderly woman gazed at even the pattern of the wrapping cloth as if it were something rare, “Oh, in your country, do you use such things?” “What an interesting pattern!” “But well, just meeting someone from your country and being able to talk about my niece brings me joy.” “Everyone says it’s my fault—that I’m to blame for my niece going off to Japan like that… Poor girl…”

Having said this, she gave a look that seemed to fret over her niece who had abandoned France and gone away. Before long, the elderly woman gazed at the Japanese antique paintings hanging on the living room wall and spoke to Kishimoto.

“Japan, for me, was a land of fantasy, you see.”

Fifty-Nine

As Kishimoto conversed with the elderly woman, he noticed that even the long window curtains were made from an old cloth with gold-thread embroidery imported from Japan. The elderly woman—her slender frame clad in an elegant black French-style garment—walked about the room at times and moved toward the back as she searched for things to show him, yet not a single object there failed to speak of a longing for that distant foreign land. Kishimoto thought it no wonder that such a woman's niece had become someone like Mademoiselle—one might say the very embodiment of exotic tastes.

“This is my son’s wife.” The elderly woman then introduced Kishimoto to her daughter-in-law, who had changed into a kimono and come to greet them there.

While waiting for the master’s return, the conversation among the three was dominated by talk of the Mademoiselle in Tokyo. The wife spoke of Mademoiselle’s interest in painting, took Kishimoto to show him the oil painting she had purportedly created while still in France, and even brought out photographs said to have been left behind by her. “Mademoiselle, even when she was in France, asked people to style her hair in the Japanese manner. “She was so enamored with Japan.”

The elderly woman supplemented in English what her daughter-in-law tried to express mixed with French. In a thoroughly relaxed manner, she told Kishimoto how she had once lived in London—making her the best English speaker in the household—how her daughter-in-law couldn’t manage the language well while her son could handle it somewhat conveniently, how their family had previously resided in central Paris before moving to this residence in Billancourt, and how this house had been quite difficult to obtain.

Urged by the elderly woman and wife who said, “My son should be here any moment now,” Kishimoto walked with them from the entrance hallway down the stone stairs and through the garden. He stepped out beyond the gate to look. The clear water of the Seine River flowed beneath the low bank lined with trees. On the opposite slope wrapped in suburban air, red-tiled roofs of villa-like houses could be glimpsed here and there.

Under the wife’s guidance, Kishimoto went around to the backyard and walked about looking at fruit trees and vegetables. “We grew so many green onions this year,” she told him. The wife seemed eager to talk about various matters but found her English inadequate. Under the sunlit pear tree, Kishimoto encountered a nursemaid watching over two playing children. “He’s from Japan,” said the wife. Hearing this, the children warily approached Kishimoto. Taking turns, they extended their small hands. He gripped their tiny hands tightly, but his limited French left him unable to speak to them.

“I too left children behind in my country.” Kishimoto’s English likewise failed to properly convey his meaning to the wife. The amiable-looking wife showed Kishimoto not only around the garden and vegetable fields surrounding the house but also through various parts of the home—past diverse portrait frames lining both sides of the corridor stretching from entrance to interior, up to the master’s study on the second floor, into the children’s room, and finally even to the bedroom. Just then, the master returned.

Sixty

Kishimoto had already become acquainted with the master of that house at the library. By the time the master returned, dinner was ready, and Kishimoto was led to the dining room overlooking a garden abundant with trees. “During summer, we often take our meals outside this window as well.”

While listening to such talk from the elderly woman, Kishimoto sat around the dining table with the master, the wife, and the four of them. "I'm afraid we haven't prepared anything special." "For us, it's always like this." said the wife with a hospitable expression. "There are those like you, Mr. Kishimoto, who kindly come all the way from Japan to France—" said the elderly woman, glancing between her son and Kishimoto, "and then there are those like my niece, who go from France to your country."

At that moment, Kishimoto mentioned having brought tea and camellia seeds from his homeland. He spoke of wanting to have some specialist plant them as a memento of his journey. “What was it Mr. Kishimoto said he brought?” the elderly woman asked her son, then turned to address him directly: “My ears have grown dull—sometimes I can’t quite catch what’s being said.” “Seeds,” declared the master in a booming voice before laughing. After the meal, Kishimoto produced the cloth-wrapped bundle he had carried there. From within emerged seeds—ginkgo, camellia, sasanqua, wisteria, cinnamon, daphne, and others.

The elderly woman told Kishimoto that her niece in Tokyo had arranged an introduction to a professor at a French university, adding that her son and daughter-in-law would now guide him—as there happened to be a tea gathering at the professor’s house—and that he should go along to become acquainted with that fine family. “For your information, I should mention the professor is quite renowned here as well,” she cautioned Kishimoto while standing in the hallway. Anxious not to miss the final evening river steamer, Kishimoto hurried along the embankment with the couple. The wife carried roses from the garden as a gift for the professor’s wife, recounting how she had frequented their home since her girlhood days. At last they managed to board in time. When Kishimoto sat beside the couple—who had settled among unfamiliar French passengers and were amiably conversing with them—he felt an unaccustomed sense of pride.

“Is the Seine’s water always this calm?” “It’s usually like this,” replied the clerk. “Every morning I take this boat to commute to the library. Summer mornings are quite pleasant, but the evenings aren’t bad either.” As Kishimoto and the clerk conversed while gazing at the dark, tranquil river scenery, the wife sat nearby with her handbag on her lap, listening to their talk. The clerk from Billancourt also engaged in literary pursuits. The plant seeds—half of which had been shared with that household—were those given to Kishimoto by his Nakano friends when he departed his homeland. Intending to divide the remaining half with a professor said to reside near the botanical garden, Kishimoto imagined what sort of person this professor might be—the one he would soon visit alongside the clerk and his wife. He even envisioned the unknown faces likely to gather at that evening’s tea party.

Sixty-One

By the time Kishimoto walked back to his boarding house from the tea gathering at the professor’s home in Guy de la Brosse, it was already quite late. His heart remained full from that day’s experiences—his first glimpse into a French household and encounters with strangers. Before gates of houses built in imposing massive arched shapes, late returnees stood pulling doorbell cords. It was the hour when even the house guards had sunk into deep slumber.

When he climbed the dark stairs and opened the boarding house door, everyone was already fast asleep. Even after going to his room at the end of the hallway, Kishimoto did not immediately climb into bed. When he faced the old-fashioned lamp that brightened the room, Professor Broth’s voice—which had cheerfully and refreshingly said, “When did you arrive in Paris? Why didn’t you come visit me sooner?”—still lingered in his ears. The voice of that professor also lingered—the one who, in a study filled with numerous books related to Indian studies, had taken him over to a young man who still seemed to be attending university and said, “Do meet my son as well.” Then there was also the voice of those womanly figures—likely young professors’ wives invited to the tea—who gathered together as the professor took the ginkgo nuts he had presented as a travel memento to another room, and while everyone looked at those uniformly sized seeds of Oriental plants, exclaimed, “Oh, it would be a shame to plant them! I’d rather just keep gazing at them like this.” He had never imagined that upon coming to this foreign land, he could exchange such warm handshakes with those people belonging to the intellectual class. The considerateness of that Billancourt couple—to the extent of not even letting him pay for the river steamer and train tickets—was something he had never anticipated. The sensitive and elegant mother from Billancourt was also someone who seemed to perfectly embody the women of old France that he had met for the first time. The professor, whose hair had whitened with age yet whose eyes still shone with youthful vigor; the clerk, simple and exuding a manly likability—even as he climbed into the bed by the wall to sleep, Kishimoto reflected on the favorable first impressions he had received from these people and thought this warm kindness would not soon be forgotten.

However, come morning, precisely because his first impression of those people had been favorable, a traveler's persistent dissatisfaction crept into Kishimoto's heart. He considered what everyone had said and sank into a daze. Foreigners remained foreigners through and through, and a dissatisfaction born of only grazing the surface of things emerged alongside that initial favorable impression. Ever since his time in France, Kishimoto found himself repeatedly recalling the Mademoiselle who had reportedly asked someone to arrange her hair in the Japanese style. Even with such intense yearning for a foreign land, how deeply could this Mademoiselle who abandoned France possibly fathom the innermost depths of a Japanese heart? he wondered. He compared his traveler's self—dressed in Western clothes and perched on a chair—to that Mademoiselle clad in Japanese kimono and seated upon tatami mats.

In the end, there may be no path for us but through art. Through art alone—there may be no way to reach the hearts of this country’s people. This thought drove Kishimoto’s heart further toward his language practice.

Sixty-Two

In the fifth month of his journey, Kishimoto learned through correspondence from home that he had newly become a father. If he counted the three deceased girls among them, he was no longer merely the father of seven children. Outside of the publicly acknowledged children he had with Sonoko, there was a child he did not know living somewhere. He pressed his forehead—as if branded—against the glass window of the boarding house and secretly spoke those words to himself.

The letter from Giyū stated that "that person" required surgery for a postpartum breast abscess and that he was to send the necessary funds. After waiting about a month, Setsuko sent word with specific details. The birth had been difficult and strenuous, but a boy had been born—so her letter stated. She sent a detailed account. "The reason this childbirth proved so strenuous must lie in my having neglected my health," she wrote, adding that people had told her as much. She wrote that she had been permitted only a single glance at the newborn’s face. She wrote that at the earnest request of a childless couple living in the countryside, the infant was immediately taken away. She wrote that when the usual kind woman doctor came by and spoke with her, she had said with a laugh, "Your little one really takes after his father." The monk living in that countryside became the naming parent and bestowed the name "Oyafu"—she wrote that he had actually yielded this name, which he had prepared intending to give it to his own child. At the home where the newborn was taken, they had pleaded to somehow learn at least the mother’s surname—if that couldn’t be disclosed, then at least some part of Tokyo—or even just the general direction. But she wrote that the woman doctor had refused that request and not disclosed it. I suppose word must have come from father’s side; my breast had swollen painfully, and being told it couldn’t be left untreated, I wrote that I had gone to stay with the woman doctor for a time to undergo an incision procedure. Since my physical condition still isn’t quite right, I intend to remain on the second floor of this midwife’s house for a little while longer—though I wish to leave here as soon as possible—she wrote. "I have become utterly terrified of staying on this second floor—no matter what, everything here is about money money money—it feels like being in hell," she wrote. The childbirth had caused her hair to fall out alarmingly; she wrote that it had been cut so short and red she’d feel ashamed to meet you next time.

After reading this letter from Setsuko, Kishimoto let out a deep sigh from his very core. He felt as though some weight had been lifted from him. Yet precisely because of that, the lifelong stain he had once incurred could never be erased. The more he tried to bury it, the more vigorously his sin lived within his heart's depths. From his meager travel funds he had allocated all expenses until Setsuko's pregnancy; he could not neglect sending remittances from abroad to his Tokyo home; he had been compelled to cover Setsuko's surgical costs as demanded by Elder Brother Giyū. The journey itself had been arduous. Nevertheless, he resolved to press onward as far as possible.

Sixty-Three

Whether from the perspective of having hidden Setsuko at the Takanawa residence in Tokyo and setting out on his journey without waiting for his sister-in-law’s arrival in the capital, or from the perspective of leaving behind a single letter addressed to Elder Brother Giyū and departing Hong Kong, Kishimoto had not left the country with any intention of seeing his brother and sister-in-law again. Setsuko did not forget to send word to her uncle abroad, and even when she returned from a remote village in the county to Takanawa, she sent a detailed letter. By the time that correspondence reached Kishimoto’s hands, it was already year’s end, with the Noël (Christmas) season approaching. In this foreign land, his first encounter with the New Year, the Carnival typical of a Roman Catholic country, the meat-eating Mardi Gras, and even Mi-Carême—all deepened his traveler’s soul. At his boarding house, he welcomed exchange students from Keio University who had come from Munich in Germany and saw off those heading to Switzerland. Yet even when visiting the Luxembourg Museum with these people or ascending to the Gaveau concert hall, he remained a wanderer at heart.

“People can grow accustomed to any circumstance—indeed, that very ability is the natural blessing bestowed upon us,” someone had once remarked. Another was said to have declared, “Nothing is more terrifying than becoming accustomed.” Kishimoto contemplated these two statements’ opposing truths and their underlying temperaments. Ultimately, even he could not resist acclimation. The towering architecture ceased to unsettle him; he walked unbothered through foreign streets; days spent seated in rooms devoid of tatami mats brought moments when he even forgot the foreign hue of his hair and skin. Strangely, as his indifference toward external things deepened, those very things grew indifferent toward him. At his boarding house, he discovered himself a traveler from alien shores living utterly disconnected from those passing beneath his window. Like a prisoner chained in a cell, severed from all ties to the mundane world.

The dreadful sounds of the town began to cling to Kishimoto's ears. As the intense sensations born of all stimuli subsided, those sounds grew distinct. The clatter of horses clad in sword-sharp harnesses with gleaming brass fittings pulling carts; the rumble of the Mont Tholon-bound omnibus; the clanging trams along tree-lined avenues; all these resonances from stone streets reverberated between tall buildings, trembling through his room's glass pane. Hearing this, his homeland suddenly felt remote. He sensed the ennui of foreign life settling in.

Hardship was precisely what he had anticipated within his heart. By any means necessary, he had to battle against the unbearable emptiness. And he had to continue his spiritual wandering.

Sixty-Four

Easter was drawing near.

After returning to the Tokyo home left behind, Setsuko wrote of Izumi and Shigeru at every opportunity while pleading her circumstances. Kishimoto could picture her returning from that rural house all the way to Shinagawa Station and joining the sister-in-law who had come to meet her there. He could imagine her when she returned once more to the Takanawa house—where sons had been born to both her mother and sister Teruko. He could envision her feminine stubborn pride in declaring that compared to her sister’s child, celebrated by relatives and acquaintances alike, it was precisely her own child—ignored by everyone—who was truly happiest in this world. He could even conjure her from afar—now seemingly awkward around her mother—as she described how since *that incident*, her father had grown so kind he seemed a different man, even secretly placing letters from her uncle atop her desk. "I have done something truly pitiable." This pity intertwined with self-reproach perpetually welled up within Kishimoto.

To soothe his traveler's heart in a foreign land, Kishimoto went to the chest of drawers in his room. Though called a chest of drawers, it more closely resembled a standing cupboard with a mirrored door. From its drawer he took out photographs of relatives and friends from home. A photograph of Elder Brother Giyū's entire family surfaced. It had arrived recently from Tokyo. A section of the Takanawa house's garden lay perfectly preserved within that image. On the south-facing veranda sat Grandmother upon a spread futon. In the garden stood Teruko holding an infant at the forefront. Two boys perched upon a garden stone. One was Elder Brother Giyū's child, the other Shigeru. Beside his younger brother appeared Izumi's figure captured with elder brotherly dignity. Elder Brother Giyū stood present. The sister-in-law stood present. The sister-in-law cradled the male child born in that house. Kishimoto found himself unable to calmly regard even the photographed faces of his brother and sister-in-law. At the rearmost edge stood Setsuko's transformed countenance. The maidenly fullness that once graced her chest had vanished from her form. The distinctive long sweep of her hair now rendered her cheeks gaunt beyond recognition.

"Have I reduced a single person to such a state?" At that thought, Kishimoto grew frightened and hid the photograph at the bottom of the drawer.

Sixty-Five

Kishimoto awoke in his room to the sound of the goat milk seller’s flute. Even in the air of a vast metropolis like Paris, the flute's notes—so pastoral one might imagine such melodies flowing through—still reached the glass window in the morning. With a traveler’s frame of mind, listening intently to that thin, clear sound, Kishimoto sat before a small breakfast tray at the desk facing the window. When he had finished that, the maid came and gave a light knock on the room’s door. Postal matter coming via Siberia was always set to arrive with the morning delivery. At that moment, he received the accumulated newspapers, magazines, and letters all at once with a thud. Among the long-awaited letters from his homeland, Setsuko’s letter was also mixed in.

“Oh, Izumi sent over his neat copy.” Kishimoto said this and unfolded the child’s writing—characters so large they seemed remarkable when viewed from abroad—to examine them. Then he read Setsuko’s letter. To her uncle, who remained silent without directly responding no matter what she sent, she had patiently continued writing. Every time Uncle’s travel accounts appeared in the newspaper, she wrote that she found reading them to be her greatest solace. She wrote that the season when she had parted from Uncle had come around once more. She wrote that the feelings she had when seeing off her uncle departing to distant lands had returned to her. She wrote that she was frequently reminded even of the time she had stood in the garden of this Takanawa house and listened to the sound of trains arising from the direction of Shinagawa.

Kishimoto had at times anchored his traveler's heart in the verses of ancient poets, penning such musings at the start of dispatches sent to newspapers in his homeland. Setsuko invoked that classical poem, transcribing lines from another age-old verse into her letter as though they were her own unutterable lament. "Is this not the moon? Is this not springtime past? No spring remains - Only I alone Persist unchanged." She wrote that regardless of how Uncle might have perceived the household photograph she had previously sent. "In that picture," she continued, "I appear like some specter - I'm ashamed for you to see me thus." She wrote of having told her mother about this and receiving scoldings. She also wrote of the elderly maidservant who once served at the Asakusa residence. Though the old woman still visited occasionally, Setsuko explained how she placated her by lending out magazines from the house. "The maidservant cuts quite an intimidating figure," she added.

Since embarking on his journey, Kishimoto had continued receiving such letters from Setsuko. When he left Tokyo for Kobe, he had already sensed this unexpected change arising in her heart. He had departed Japan seeking to sever all connections. Yet the more he tried to distance himself from Setsuko, the more vigorously his unfortunate niece's heart pursued him. Resolutely, he maintained silence toward these letters from Setsuko. Each time he read her words, he felt his wound tear open and bleed anew. Sighing, Kishimoto sat at his desk. He retrieved a pale yellow paperbound book from atop the shelf and turned his mind toward it. Without glancing aside, he sought immersion in this new linguistic world. Even handling original texts of works he knew through English translations brought him fleeting joy. Though he owned countless books he longed to read, most remained mere shelf ornaments due to his halting language skills. Frustration gripped him - when would he ever decipher the nuance-laden emotions embedded within this country's tongue?

Sixty-Six

In his travels, Kishimoto had already encountered compatriots of various ages and differing aspirations. Having deliberately chosen a French ship to cross the seas—so eager to immerse himself among foreigners upon leaving Kobe—he tried to keep his distance from fellow Japanese residents during his initial days in Paris. Kishimoto's belief that there was no sense in compatriots clustering together abroad even stirred resentment among some residents due to a verbal misunderstanding. Voices of residents who questioned his sincerity—"Kishimoto apparently means to avoid Japanese altogether"—reached even his own ears. Yet this suspicion gradually dissolved. Artists residing near Montparnasse began appearing more frequently at his boarding house, and it was not uncommon for compatriots passing by to stop at his lodings.

Kishimoto went to his room's window. The window of the inn where a professor from Kyoto University had stayed for some time was visible from Kishimoto's room. Not only had those agreeable people he met during his travels—the professor and the associate professor from Tohoku University—come to his boarding house's dining hall at every meal, but he too had gone to the inn visible from his room and conversed freely in their native tongue until late into the night—the memory of which still felt as vivid as yesterday in his heart. The professor who had proposed meeting again in Brussels or London if circumstances allowed; the associate professor who had sent a postcard while returning home saying he'd set foot in Berlin for the first time in a year—after these men had left, Kishimoto stood alone at the window gazing at the tree-lined street. He reflected on how conversations unthinkable back home had unfolded between him and the professors gathered at that foreign inn. He also considered how travel hardships, longing for one's mother tongue, and unimaginable ennui bound compatriots met abroad like decade-old friends. Comparing himself to the professors with whom he'd strolled through Luxembourg Park or sat at Lila Coffee Shop, he could not help but recognize how deeply mired his soul was in darkness.

Daily, the mysterious woman who wandered aimlessly through the tree-lined streets appeared before his eyes through the windowpane. The people gathered in the boarding house dining room, likely taking her for an idiot, whispered among themselves and without anyone in particular naming her, bestowed the title of "Madame Caroline." "Madame Caroline" wore a hat adorned with crimson roses and white gloves, pacing back and forth through the neighborhood from dawn till dusk. The sight of this woman beneath his window—appearing to strangers as though awaiting something unknown—made Kishimoto's heart feel all the more like that of a traveler in alien lands.

"Because of my niece, I have come to know such anguish and sorrow." Drawing an analogy to a verse from a poem by a French poet, he attempted to describe his own state as a traveler.

Just then, a painter named Oka came to visit.

Sixty-Seven Oka surveyed Kishimoto’s room as if noticing it for the first time. On the wallpapered wall hung an old-fashioned, large framed copperplate print. Titled "The Death of Socrates," it depicted that philosopher’s final moments—a rather ordinary French copperplate print, no different from those found in secondhand shops along the Seine’s riverbank. The bed from Kishimoto’s nearly year-long journey had been placed against the wall where that framed print hung.

“What connection do you have with this framed picture in your room—” Oka made a remark befitting a painter and gazed at an old print reminiscent of the Rococo era when that architectural style was in vogue. “The landlady here took pride in hanging that, you know,” said Kishimoto. “Even with something like that hanging there, doesn’t it bother you?” “Lately I’ve stopped minding it at all, you know. Whether it’s there or not makes no difference to me. When traveling, there’s no helping it.”

Compared to when he was in his home country, Kishimoto gradually grew accustomed to a much simpler life. When he first arrived in Paris, he had been dismayed by the dreariness of Western-style inns and boarding houses and would often sigh, wondering if there was no one to tidy up his desk; but gradually, he came to manage everything without relying on others. He folded his kimono and shaved his beard. The weekly massage was indispensable, but even that became unnecessary. He had returned once more to the student he had been long ago. When he saw people his own age, he felt the same way and tried to entertain the younger Oka by making tea from home.

“Someone like me has been exiled to paradise, you know.” As he said this, Kishimoto rose from his chair. When Kishimoto said “paradise,” he meant a country that values arts and sciences. “Exiled to paradise?” Oka burst out laughing. Kishimoto went to fetch the alcohol lamp and kettle from under the window next to the washstand. It was something Oka had found lying in a corner of some artist’s studio and brought over previously. It was a memento left behind by an artist who had studied abroad.

“Oka, magazines and newspapers have arrived from home,” said Kishimoto. “From my children, they sent over things like neatly written letters.” “Kishimoto-san, how many children do you have?” “Four.” Kishimoto stammered. Oka paid no heed to such things. “Are they all in Tokyo?” “No, only two are in Tokyo. The third one has gone to live with my sister back home, and the youngest girl has been entrusted to someone on the coast of Hitachi. Just the fact that they’re alive now—with that alone, three of my children have already died.”

“What a fine dad you are, old man.” Gazing at the flame of the alcohol lamp, Kishimoto found pleasure even in simply conversing with Oka in their native tongue. His boarding house accommodated a philosophy student from Versailles—the son of a military officer attending Sorbonne University—and a German youth. The ease felt when speaking with compatriots could never be experienced in the boarding house’s dining room. Oka again spread out the magazines and newspapers Kishimoto had recommended and tried to read them with ravenous intensity.

Sixty-Eight

Oka had arrived in Paris about half a year before Kishimoto. Kishimoto had come to know this painter through various encounters during his travels. When they took a horse-drawn carriage together to see Perrin’s collection in Paris’s outskirts. When they visited an art shop displaying new paintings near Madeleine Temple. When they both accidentally burned themselves at a year-end party in Théâtre. Yet it was when Kishimoto was invited to Oka’s favorite Japanese restaurant and they shared drinks like traveling companions that he suddenly began feeling closeness. From that evening onward, Kishimoto came to know the secret buried deep within Oka’s heart. He learned that neither this man’s passion nor sincerity had been enough to sway the hearts of his beloved’s mother and brother. Setting aside those sincerely pledged hearts—what in this world could bring people happiness? With such helpless lamentations, Oka spoke almost oblivious to time’s passage. Having left behind an impassioned letter for his beloved’s mother, severed years of friendship with her brother, and abandoned his homeland—this man’s fury and resentment seemed impervious to any words of absolution. The kettle’s water came to a boil. Kishimoto arranged French-made bowls he’d acquired locally on a tray, poured fragrant green tea from home into them, and offered it to Oka.

Whenever he looked at this painter’s face, there would invariably surface in Kishimoto’s mind the image of a young international student. The international student—a young man of gentlemanly bearing who perfectly embodied the word *gallant*, whom Kishimoto still remembered collecting yellow leather gloves even during his stay in Paris—had left behind an account of his personal circumstances and departed for Switzerland. The international student had said there was a young woman back in his home country with whom he had been deeply intimate. That woman, who seemed to have been raised in deep seclusion, was now another man’s wife, he had also said. In the motives of the self-funded international student who had resolved to study abroad when leaving Japan, there seemed to lurk some connection to that young wife—or so his manner of speaking suggested. The international student had also been greatly troubled by that wife’s pregnancy. During the time the international student had stayed in Paris for a while, that story often came up, and Oka had been one of those made to hear it.

“There’s hardly anyone who hasn’t come to the West over a woman—” Oka was the sort who wouldn’t be satisfied unless the conversation was taken that far. Oka had such straightforwardness, like a mountain farmer. Oka placed the emptied tea bowl on the mantel,

“Last night, two or three beggar models came barging into my studio." “They rummaged through whatever they could find and had the nerve to ask me to buy them drinks... filthy wretches... but when I let them drink, they all sang songs for me.” “As I listened, I ended up feeling sorry for them…”

Even for the resident artists, enduring Oka’s storytelling during his stay must have been quite taxing. Moreover, whenever Kishimoto looked at Oka’s face—a man who had been waging such an inner battle that he hadn’t even felt like painting properly since coming to France—it only deepened his own sense of tedium in foreign life.

Sixty-Nine “I often told you how envious I was of people back home warming themselves at kotatsu—and yet here we are with Pâques (Easter) already upon us.” Having said this to Oka, Kishimoto soon left the boarding house together with him. The Roman Catholic feast they had encountered on their journey had arrived. Women attired entirely in black from their hats to their clothes were walking through the town as if on a temple visit day. When they reached the corner of the town near the square before the Observatory, the row of trees there changed—where plane trees with yellowish-green budding sprouts had stood, horse chestnut trees now adorned with fresh green leaves could be seen.

“The horse chestnut flowers are already blooming.” Oka pointed out to Kishimoto the upper part of a darkened branch where the young leaves of a seven-leaf tree had grown thickly. Flowers resembling white candles were peeking out from among the young leaves.

“Is this the horse chestnut flower?” said Kishimoto.

“What do you think? Fine flowers, aren’t they?” “A professor from Kyoto University sent me a postcard from Strasbourg—he wrote something like, ‘We often talked about how when the horse chestnuts bloomed, so I wondered what sort of flowers they’d be, but they’re rather plain things.’ It seems rather harsh to dismiss them like that.” Though each individual blossom lacked enough charm to merit being singled out for comment, Kishimoto found himself drawn as a traveler to those flowers’ somewhat lonesome appearance. “This time last year, I was precisely on board a ship.”

Kishimoto said this to Oka. Their footsteps turned from before Billière Dance Hall toward a small coffee shop. Before the tree-lined avenue of Petit Luxembourg stood an unassuming establishment where both often sat—the place Oka called “Simone’s House.” Laborer-like Frenchmen stood drinking wine at the storefront. The housewife at the counter welcomed Oka with a familiar greeting and handshake. Inside lay a room with arranged tables. As Oka and Kishimoto moved to sit there, a girl of sixteen or seventeen descended the stairs along the wall. Her French-style black attire—changed for Easter—suited her slender, delicate frame perfectly. Approaching Oka’s side with a smile, she extended her white maidenly hand. Then she came to Kishimoto too, seeking a handshake. This girl was Simone.

All the artist friends Kishimoto knew often gathered at this girl’s house. Among them all, Oka often made his way from his studio to visit this house, taking pleasure in observing its master, its mistress, and Simone—who seemed to bask in her parents’ undivided affection—and while placing his ordered cognac glass on the room’s table, he would write picture postcards or letters to his hometown there. This painter, with his sorrow having nowhere to go, had made the back room—intended for trysting couples or those awaiting others—into a hideaway during his travels, and seemed to be trying to glimpse in this foreign girl but a trace of the beloved he had parted from.

Seventy

The small coffee shop stood at the corner leading out from Val-de-Grâce Military Hospital toward Saint-Michel's tree-lined avenue, where footsteps from people traversing the narrow side street's sidewalk were audible just outside the window of the room where Kishimoto and his companions had seated themselves. The housewife, bearing the industrious temperament characteristic of Frenchwomen, never permitted her daughter to remain idle. Whenever visited, the daughter could be found assisting in the shop. Yet the housewife maintained vigilance over all directions, seldom allowing her daughter to deliver customers' orders. When business grew hectic and serving hands ran short, the housewife's sister would come to take orders in the back room. Otherwise, the housewife herself brought over coffee and such. At times in a corner of the back room, mother and daughter would commence their shared meal. Simone too would come and settle herself. There were moments when one might glimpse scenes of respectable domestic warmth ill-suited to a commercial establishment. Perched traveler-like in such a room, Kishimoto listened to rumors about the daughter from Oka.

“There’s truly no telling how devoted that housewife is to her daughter,” said Oka. “I once invited Simone to the theater. Naturally, she went to ask her mother about it. You should have seen the face the housewife made—like ‘How could I possibly allow such a thing?’” “She’s at her most charming now,” Kishimoto remarked. “But once she grows up that way, she might well go astray. She’s still truly a child. That’s precisely where her charm lies.”

Kishimoto found himself agreeing with the impassioned words of Oka. Between them arose talk of artists living with their models. There were not few compatriots who, upon coming on their journeys, lived together with French women. There were also rumors of artists who, rather than with women who made modeling their profession, were happily living in their studios with a certain modiste. “It’s turned into lovely weather, hasn’t it?” With that greeting, a painter entered from outside.

“I thought if I came to Simone’s house, Oka would be here for sure—so I dropped by, and there he was,” the painter said with a laugh. “We were just talking about you this very moment,” Oka replied, his spirits lifting. Two or three more painters followed him in. All were familiar faces to Kishimoto, their cravats tied in that youthfully artistic manner. Gathered like this, Oka—though much younger than Kishimoto—appeared rather to be one of the older members among the resident artists.

“Oka—how about it?”

The first painter to enter spoke in a manner meant to encourage and console Oka. Suddenly, the room became filled with lively laughter. The painter also looked toward Kishimoto, “Kishimoto-kun, you’ve come to Paris and yet you’ve truly never known the touch of a foreigner—I must say!” The painter’s cheerful manner—so good-natured that nothing he said could be taken amiss—sent the whole group into laughter. “I don’t want to grow old.”

When Oka said this, everyone leaned back and laughed again.

Seventy-One “Why are you sighing so much?” someone among the painters spoke up. Because his manner was so comical, everyone began giggling again. “I’ve been waiting here ready to uncork champagne for you, but I can’t tell when we’ll actually get to drink it.”

The painter sitting before Kishimoto said with a friendly tone and laughed. This painter appeared relatively aged, but upon learning his years, he proved astonishingly young. Even when fellow young artists gathered at the café like this, conversations about art seldom arose. People differing in temperament and school avoided broaching specialized topics with one another. Not even Oka—who loved talking—brought up his private discussions with Kishimoto about paintings and sculptures before everyone. Soon one painter called the waiter. The waiter, tucking a white cloth under his arm, brought worn dominoes and their soiled tablecloth to the group. He arranged the dominoes into a fan shape to demonstrate. He also brought a slate and chalk to tally each person’s score. Sunlight filtering into the dim room illuminated this small world where only Japanese had gathered. There existed only unguarded laughter, the quiet curl of French cigarette smoke, and the absentminded clatter of dominoes. Those passing outside with footsteps echoing on stone pavement; maids stopping by for standing coffee; workers and shopkeeper-like Frenchmen chatting at the counter—all remained wholly separate from this microcosm in the back room. No matter what these compatriots discussed, none could reprimand or comprehend them. Kishimoto joined the domino game and gazed awhile at cards adorned with queens and soldiers, until he realized travel’s profound boredom was no bitterness he alone felt so keenly. Many bore expressions of thorough weariness with dominoes after long stays abroad.

Before long, Kishimoto left this coffee shop. He returned to his boarding house while reflecting on the life he had been leading as a traveler since arriving in Paris. To this great metropolis’s world of pleasure—where a certain Parisian had once told him with a laugh, "Paris has everything"—he too ventured whenever an opportunity presented itself. At times, to alleviate the tedium of life in a foreign land, he would visit nearby places like Billiet’s Dance Hall; at others, he would guide passing compatriot visitors to distant Montmartre. In the same spirit with which he had once looked forward to listening to quiet shamisen music in riverside rooms near Tokyo’s Sumida River, he now took pleasure in watching Spanish-style dances on upper floors where theatergoers gathered after Parisian theaters closed for the night. But what had made him abandon everything and separate himself from friends, relatives, and even his own children—this thought did not leave his mind for a single day.

Seventy-Two

The most delightful time in Paris arrived. Among the same street trees, it was the horse chestnut that first poured lush new vitality into this antiquated capital, but the plane trees—late to bud—hurried from shoots to leaves, and as each day saw their leaves unfurl larger in shape and deeper in hue than the day before, the towns became a world of young leaves. Over the stone walls of people’s homes, lilacs blooming densely in purple and white also reached their peak. This pleasant season revived Kishimoto’s heart.

While harboring such thoughts of revival, Kishimoto nonetheless continued to experience days of strangely unsettled feelings. Having come on this journey, he did not wish for a single luxury. He wished for nothing but to calm his soul. He could not obtain that which was most crucial of all. Why he couldn’t live in a Parisian boarding house for two or even three years with the mindset of having transplanted his study from Asakusa, Tokyo—that he could not explain. With a gnawing frustration, he left his boarding house. On the tree-lined street before the maternity hospital, shadows of plane tree trunks and branches fell upon the sidewalk. In the midst of the glowing sunlight moved a group of elementary school students led by their teacher. The French boys who seemed to be setting off on an outing all passed by, eyeing Kishimoto’s face with curiosity. As he watched those innocent children pass by, Kishimoto’s thoughts turned toward Izumi and Shigeru far away in their homeland. He wondered whether Shigeru had started attending school together with his brother that year.

He walked to the front of the Observatory. There too, boys and girls were playing beneath quiet trees. The white flowers blooming high on the horse chestnut branches were at their peak, appearing like candlesticks extended toward some hidden "spring" dance. The memory returned freshly to Kishimoto's heart—that time when he had first set foot on European soil upon arriving at Marseille's port the previous year. That year or so—he envisioned himself as a traveler who had walked without cease. For him, who truly knew no rest, holing up beneath a Paris apartment's roof and walking stone pavements in shoes were nearly one and the same. Days would come when restlessness left him unable to stay indoors or remain still—days when he wandered aimlessly to parks, lingered before shopfronts here, peered into display windows there, finding no way to pass time except sitting in cafés he had no wish to enter. There were times this continued for days unbroken. A year in foreign lands had truly been for him an unbroken chain of wanderings. He stood aghast at himself for having made wandering his vocation.

After wandering among the young leaves of the townscapes, Kishimoto returned once more to his boarding house, exhausted by fruitless effort. He went to his room and stood despondently by the window. In the distant sky, he spotted white cotton-like clouds identical to those he had once gazed upon from Shinano’s mountains. He watched these early spring clouds ceaselessly shift form under gentle breezes. Not a single close friend remained at his side now. The work he had brought from home refused to progress properly. Even so, he could not neglect sending funds to his Tokyo household and supporting his children from afar. Had he finally contracted homesickness? This thought filled him with bitter frustration when it arose. At times he would press his forehead against the wooden floorboards and feel travel’s anguish so acutely that even weeping proved inadequate.

Seventy-Three

Passing by the side of Montparnasse Cemetery, Kishimoto went and stood in front of Oka’s studio.

With the sound of a key opening the bluish-black painted door from within, Oka showed his face. Finding Oka’s studio in a Parisian neighborhood on the outskirts—where one might even hear a nightingale’s song—made Kishimoto reflect each time he visited on both the inconveniences of travel and a strangely carefree existence. There was also an older artist, senior to Oka and others, whom the younger crowd called “Old Master” and teased, though he paid it no mind; the studio where he had once lived was in the same connected house.

“Mr. Kishimoto, shall I light a fire?” Oka said with a hospitable expression and went to look for the production frame kept in the corner of the studio. “You don’t need a fire anymore, do you?” said Kishimoto. “But somehow, I feel lonely without a fire—” Oka, without hesitation, snapped off the plain wood frame used for stretching canvases right before Kishimoto’s eyes and threw it into the iron stove as kindling. In the high-ceilinged room where easels, desks, beds, and such were placed came the sound of fire burning. Kishimoto pulled a chair closer to it and,

“Today I wanted to see you, so I came by.” “Thank you for coming,” said Oka. “I was just thinking of visiting you again.” Oka, brimming with passion yet unable to produce satisfactory work, seemed to agonize over his bitter idleness—a state where only inner battles persisted—and as he gazed from beside the stove at the large newly stretched canvas left untouched in the corner of the room, “Mr. Kishimoto, lately I’ve been chanting the nenbutsu—I’ve come to feel that way.”

Oka ventured something that could be interpreted in any number of ways. He continued further: “Since coming to Paris, everything old within me has been utterly destroyed—utterly destroyed indeed. If that’s how things stand, then what new path should I take? That I still haven’t found. I have no choice but to wait—to wait without rushing until it takes shape in my heart. This journey has made me a believer in the Tariki sect. I’ll chant the nenbutsu and try to move forward day by day. I even wrote to my father back home—you know how he worries about me—saying: ‘Father, I’ve come to feel like chanting nenbutsu these days, so please wait without fretting so much.’ That’s what I told him.”

Seventy-Four

Although Oka’s talk of resigning himself to fate concerned the life of an artist, to Kishimoto’s ears it somehow also seemed to speak of the painter’s heartfelt sentiments toward a passionate, intense, and lost love. Oka—who had pressed his beloved at their parting with “You can rest assured, can’t you?” and heard her firm “Yes”; Oka—who thereafter could never meet her again; Oka—who had sent an angry letter declaring her mother, intent on trampling the sincerity of their mutual understanding, to be a demon; Oka—who even after coming to Paris would sometimes wake drenched in cold sweat from dreams of murdering her brother—from those lips of Oka’s, Kishimoto caught the words: “This journey has made me a believer in the Tariki Sect.”

At that moment, there came a light knocking at the studio door from outside, and a French girl of impoverished appearance showed half her figure. The girl, not wearing a hat, glanced inside the studio and was about to leave immediately, but Oka called out to stop her. Oka searched for an empty bottle in the corner of the room and asked the girl to buy some beer. “Is she a model?” asked Kishimoto. “Yes, she comes around like that sometimes when they ask if she can model.”

On the wall of the studio hung a single landscape painting that Oka had reportedly painted along the coast of Bretagne without a frame. No matter when one came to look, that oil painting alone was never removed. Kishimoto stood before it talking with Oka and gazing intently when before long the girl returned from town carrying the bottle. “This girl and her sister are both hired as models—this one’s the younger sister. If you ask they’ll fetch beer for us like this, but usually they just come around making a nuisance of themselves,” Oka said to Kishimoto.

The girl, hearing herself being discussed in Japanese she couldn’t understand, laughed and went out. Oka brought a table to the side of the hearth, placed the beer there, and spoke of his parents back home. “When it comes to parents, I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel.” “Both of my parents are very much in harmony.” “That gives me strength.” “The other day, I received a letter from my mother.” “‘Your father has grown quite old, and since we’re relying on you alone, you must keep this in mind and strive to return home as soon as possible’—my mother wrote to me.” “If there were no parents, I wouldn’t want to return to my country.” “It pains me to hear news from home.” “Rather, I would like to stay in Paris for a long time.” “At the time of that incident as well, I can’t tell you how much my parents must have worried for me.” “I received my lover’s final letter at my parents’ house.” “Moreover, that letter seemed to be one her mother or sister had compelled her to write and send.” “It was a farewell letter.” “‘This has arrived,’ Father said with a worried look as he handed it to me, so I took it upstairs and read it…… When I still hadn’t come back down after so long, Father and Mother grew concerned—they heated a bottle of sake and called me downstairs.” “When I smelled the aroma of the sake, I couldn’t bear it anymore and started sobbing quietly by myself.” “Father had let me cry my fill and was silently watching, but when I wondered what he would finally say, his words were quite something, weren’t they?” “‘You’re such a damn unlucky bastard with women, huh…’”

Oka repeated the words his father had supposedly said and laughed mockingly at himself.

Seventy-Five

Contrasting himself with Oka, who had said he wouldn't return home if not for his parents, Kishimoto eventually left the studio and walked back toward the observatory.

“I wonder if everyone who comes on this journey suffers hardships.” Without thinking, he said that aloud, turning from Rue Pasteur toward Montparnasse station, emerging under the iron bridge of the elevated railway into the tree-lined avenue of Edgar Quinet, then cutting through the town with its meat and vegetable markets—avoiding the cemetery—to reach Montparnasse street. The area around General Née’s statue standing in the shade of the tree-lined street was where Kishimoto would wander morning and evening. From the square where six streets converged, on one side lay the entrance to Luxembourg Park, and on the other rose the Observatory’s stone tower resembling a round paper lantern. When he reached that point, the boarding house was close by.

"I wonder how my friends in Tokyo are doing…"

With such thoughts, he walked beneath the young plane tree leaves that seemed parched and withered.

For Kishimoto, there was one historical site that drew upon the traveler’s heart. None other than the legacy of Abelard and Héloïse. Though English-educated, he knew few particulars about that renowned scholarly monk. Yet his familiarity with Abelard’s name had begun long before. The love between Abelard and Héloïse.

How much Kishimoto in his youth might have imagined that unrestrained passion in his young heart. How often must the name of Abelard—who, for the sake of that learned nun, abandoned his manhood and cast off his priesthood—have arisen in his conversations during those youthful days, one can scarcely know. When Kishimoto heard from his Sorbonne-student roommate that the old university attended by this French youth was none other than the historic place where Abelard had once taught, he felt as though he had encountered an old acquaintance. Holding this in his heart, he returned to his room. Among the books he had packed in his travel bag and brought from his homeland, there was also a collection of poems by an English poet that reminded him of the past. He opened once more to a passage from the translated poem within that sang of the exploits of Abelard and Héloïse.

“Where's Héloise, thelearned nun, For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,

Lost manhood and put priesthood on ?

(From Love he won such dule and teen ! ) And where, I pray you, is the Queen Who willed that Buridan should steer Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine ? "But where are the snows of yester-year ?" (The Ballad of Dead Ladies. ――Translation from François Villon by Rossetti.)

In a boarding house by the pond in Shitaya, Tokyo, Kishimoto had cherished reciting this poem with friends twenty years earlier. Ichikawa, Suga, Fukutomi, Adachi—all his friends had been young. The voice of that perceptive Ichikawa—who had recited "But where are the snows of yester-year?" as if overwhelmed by his own youth—still lingered in Kishimoto's ears.

As night fell, a soft rain reached the young leaves of the plane tree outside the boarding house window. In the rain-filled quiet, Kishimoto tried once more to envision this tale from antiquity, seeking to soothe the ennui of his solitude.

Seventy-Six

"Do you really want to hear news from home that much, Uncle? I decided to send this letter after reading about your travels in the newspaper," Setsuko wrote to Kishimoto. Though her letters might seem frequent, she asked him to read them thinking he wished to hear from home. Setsuko’s letters gave detailed accounts of Izumi and Shigeru growing into adulthood, yet they carried an air of dissatisfaction with mere factual reporting. She wrote that her own condition—which had worried Uncle—had now finally improved enough that strangers wouldn’t notice at a glance, so he needn’t fret. Of course, she added that discerning eyes would recognize it immediately. She also wrote of being plagued by something like athlete’s foot on both hands, making kitchen work nearly impossible. She even mentioned her hair still falling out in clumps, leaving her anxious.

Every time he read such letters from Setsuko, Kishimoto would sigh deeply and strengthen his resolve that he could never return home. In his life as a traveler, there was no small number of compatriots whom Kishimoto saw off or welcomed. As the pleasant season approached, he increasingly heard news of people setting out from journey to journey. Among those who had finished their travels in Italy and left tales of souvenirs at Kishimoto’s lodgings was a graduate from Kyoto University’s archaeology department. Among those who sent word from Germany that they were now preparing to depart for Italy was an exchange student from Keio University specializing in art history. There was also an assistant professor at the art school who was leaving his room on the banks of the Seine and would soon embark on his return to Japan, as well as two painters who had newly arrived in Paris via Siberia.

“I learned that you had come to Paris while I was in Moscow.”

There was also a guest who, saying this, showed the familiar face of an old acquaintance at Kishimoto’s boarding house. This guest was someone who had come intending to spend one or two months in Paris.

After Oka came from his studio and gathered in the room with them, comrades who could speak freely began exchanging travelers' tales. Even welcoming someone as eternally youthful as this guest at a boarding house in a foreign land was an uncommon experience for Kishimoto. The well-tailored navy suit and lightweight, travel-appropriate clothing made this person appear younger still. “Isn’t there a rumor that you don’t go out at all since coming to Paris, Kishimoto-kun? Aren’t you lonely staying like that?” said the guest with a laugh.

The guest said with a laugh. "So you see, Mr. Kishimoto isn't someone who dislikes going out by any means," Oka continued, picking up where the guest left off. "He goes wherever others go, and whenever we gather to talk through the night, he's always the instigator of our all-night sessions." "They've even given him the nickname 'Iro Jizō'—isn't that amusing?" "And he's positively eager to play matchmaker in love affairs!" "Yet he himself remains content merely to observe."

“But you know, just because we’ve come on a journey doesn’t mean we have to adopt such a special mindset.” “Can’t we live with the same state of mind we had back home?” said Kishimoto.

Seventy-Seven Like all things vying in their youth that must pass, even this guest—who still appeared youthful—seemed unable to resist time’s inexorable force. Though they had immersed themselves in tales of wanderings, long after he departed with Oka, a tumult of emotions lingered in Kishimoto’s heart. “Now that we’re here, I’ll confess—I’ve committed quite some wrongs with your poetry collection, Kishimoto.” “When I think back, I wasn’t being serious either.” “Who knows how many young women I led astray using your verses as a pretext.”

The voice the guest had left behind still lingered in the room even after his departure. The face of the guest who had recited countless poems from Kishimoto's youth still hovered before his eyes. He told Kishimoto to imagine a young man lying in a meadow where a soothing breeze caressed his face, reciting those old verses. He told him to picture schoolgirls strolling through that same meadow as if gathering flowers. He claimed the windborne recitations easily captured maidens' hearts. And he insisted that Kishimoto's poetry proved most effective precisely with those sheltered girls of good family who knew nothing of the world. Kishimoto knew well that this guest possessed a pure, mesmerizing voice. This confession—neither innocent nor calculated, yet so childishly absurd it was almost laughable—left him stunned. He felt he stood before someone of an entirely different nature from himself.

“But those old fantasies of mine keep fading away.” “I suppose this means I’ve grown older after all.” “I often think—if one can’t fall in love anymore, life becomes terribly lonely.” “I tell myself I can still manage it—that’s how I find some comfort.”

This too was a voice the guest had left behind. “I can still do it too!” It was Oka who stood before the guest and declared emphatically. Kishimoto could still see the gleam in both their eyes before him even now. The poetry collection of Kishimoto that the guest claimed to have used as a means to approach women was, for its author himself, ironically a keepsake of his youthful heart—written during a time when he had been free from feminine entanglements. He had been twenty-five then, having retreated to a Sendai boarding house to compose it. That year in Sendai remained an unforgettable season of joy for him. An era he would revisit in memory even decades later. And that happiness had sprung precisely from his ability to maintain inner peace by keeping women at bay. In truth, Kishimoto was a man who had walked unswervingly from youth to this very day, resolved never to be troubled by women.

Seventy-Eight

The day had finally come when the assistant professor at the art school—who had been the subject of constant departure rumors yet never left—would set off on his journey home from the Northern Station. With a heart truly feeling as though he were seeing someone off, Kishimoto too made his way to the station. That day, most artists residing in Paris had gathered. The assistant professor being seen off was the one returning home, while those who remained were the ones seeing him off. The traveler’s sentiment ran deep even in those bidding farewell. It was as if a ship had come to retrieve people gathered on some distant island, yet only one among them was permitted to board. The assistant professor was well-liked even by the younger crowd. Whenever there was an informal gathering at the proprietress’s Japanese restaurant—excluding foreigners—where everyone sought to forget travel weariness through innocent artist-like revelry, the assistant professor would always join the youths in singing. To bid farewell to this seasoned mentor came painters from Denfert-Rochereau—one known for brandishing a rusty spear, another excelling at *Kanjinchō* performances—while from Montparnasse arrived the painter who astonished all with his vocal shamisen imitation of the Echigo lion dance. Sculptors and painters possessing hidden talents—regional ballads, folk songs, *naniwa-bushi* recitations, nonsensical sutra chants—gathered from their scattered towns, lamenting the parting. Oka saw off the assistant professor with reluctant hope that he might put in a good word for him back home. Kishimoto found himself among artists he would rarely have met save for such occasions. He met a sculptor married to a Frenchwoman who had lived in Paris for six or seven years. He met a petite compatriot painter who had come from America and resided in a studio-apartment.

After seeing off the assistant professor, Kishimoto took the underground train to Vavin Station. He had come to keenly feel that he could never return to his homeland after all. That feeling was further deepened by seeing someone returning to their homeland. As he walked from Vavin toward his boarding house—around the time of the Roman Catholic Communion ceremony—he encountered several girls near a branch of Notre-Dame who seemed to be returning from attending a church service. Maidens in pure white dresses, their faces solemn, walked through the town in many groups, led by their mothers. He worried about how he would live out the rest of his life in this country where everyone was a stranger.

“The force that has guided me until today will surely guide me tomorrow as well—please do not worry so much.” After returning to his boarding house, Kishimoto recalled these words he had written to a certain friend in Tokyo. If possible, he wished to find suitable employment in this foreign land. If possible, he wished to bring over even the children he had left behind in his homeland and live long in this alien country. For that, he needed to spend more time finding a proper language instructor and mastering the tongue. Learning this language and fulfilling the work he had vowed to accomplish upon leaving his homeland—to wield his pen as much as possible while abroad—somehow proved irreconcilable. Moreover, under distant skies where even exchanging letters required months, he often struggled to comprehend affairs back home, and at times found even his present journey arduous.

“How far does fate intend to take me?” Such questions disturbed Kishimoto’s heart. At times, he would kneel on the floor of his room, press his forehead against the hard wooden floorboards, and shed hot tears.

Seventy-Nine

Kishimoto, who had intended to immerse himself among strangers, came over the course of about a year to know the families of the Biyonkuru secretary and Professor Broth’s household, as well as the poet residing on the Lapee riverbank, the female sculptor living in the town of Madame, and the collector of Japanese art dwelling on the Bechius riverbank. However, this gnawing frustration of being an outsider traveler clung ever more tightly to Kishimoto’s heart the more he mingled with the locals.

In June, Kishimoto received a letter from Biyonkuru’s secretary’s mother. In it, starting by writing about how that elderly woman had long been bedridden, she conveyed that while he must have thought she had forgotten all about him, that was absolutely not the case—this long silence too was due to her illness. She wrote asking if he wouldn’t come for dinner next Saturday evening, adding that they all wanted to see him. By now he must have come to speak some French; she wrote that her daughter-in-law did not speak English and her son was often away, which was why they had not often invited him over. She also wrote that in letters from his niece in Tokyo, she often asked whether she might be able to see him. The elderly woman had written this letter in English. The secretary’s mother had once been reported to be in critical condition; during her illness, Kishimoto had visited Biyonkuru only to return without meeting the elderly woman.

"The elderly woman he had first met upon coming to France was the one who had thought of him most often." Kishimoto felt this in all things.

Some time after Pentecost had passed, Kishimoto received another letter from Biyonkuru. This time, it was not from his mother’s hand but from the secretary’s; as a few close friends and relatives were gathering for tea, they had arranged for Kishimoto to come as well. Compared to the time when he couldn’t even navigate the Seine without Baedeker’s guidebook, Kishimoto had at least become accustomed enough to travel to Biyonkuru whether by water or by land. With the pleasure of seeing his favorite French family, Kishimoto rode the tram along the banks of the Seine. When he stood at the gate of the secretary’s house and pushed the iron door, the family dog noticed Kishimoto and came bounding over, but it no longer showed any sign of barking.

The elderly woman was out in a garden blooming with flowers, where she had placed several chairs near the broad stone steps directly in front of the house entrance, waiting there for her guests. Long benches were also placed nearby. In the garden dappled with afternoon sunlight filtering through tree leaves, Kishimoto found himself among the elderly woman, the wife, and female guests invited for tea. He was introduced to a Russian musician married to a Frenchwoman.

“I too thought I might never see you again, Mr. Kishimoto.” “That I’ve become so robust—it feels like a dream even to me.” The elderly woman told Kishimoto this.

The elderly woman who had risen again from her deathbed was still dressed in old-fashioned black French-style clothing, and seeing her walk quietly through the garden while still somewhat tending to her own aged body seemed strange even to Kishimoto. He perceived in both her movements and words the restlessness of this woman who, after having distributed all her property and even made a will, had regained her health once more. Not only that—as they talked for a while, he came to realize that a serious matter had arisen for this household.

Eighty

The topic of the elderly woman’s niece, who had abandoned France and gone off to Japan, arose. Though it was called a tea gathering, that day’s assembly seemed to consist only of those closest to the family; people holding cups of black tea sat here and there on chairs, chatting freely. Amidst this, Kishimoto heard from the elderly woman’s own lips about Mademoiselle’s marriage arrangements in Tokyo.

The elderly woman wore a worried expression, “Bring that letter here, would you?” she said to her daughter-in-law. Her daughter-in-law went up the stone steps at the front of the house and brought over the letter from Japan.

“Mother, it’s someone named Taki,” said her daughter-in-law after looking at Mademoiselle’s letter. “Do you know an artist named Mr. Taki?” asked the elderly woman. “I know there are two artists with the surname Taki, but I don’t know either of them personally.” Kishimoto’s answer seemed to make the elderly woman even more anxious.

“Even Mr. Kishimoto says he doesn’t know him well.” The elderly woman exchanged glances with her daughter-in-law, their shared concern about what sort of Japanese man this artist marrying her niece might be passing wordlessly between them. In France, the one who was truly worried about Mademoiselle was, without a doubt, this aunt. At that moment, Kishimoto recalled how the elderly woman had once said to him, “Everyone blames me, saying it’s my fault, my failing, that my niece went off to Japan like that.” Being a foreign woman unfamiliar with the circumstances, could she truly have found a suitable spouse in a foreign land? Such worries were vividly etched on the elderly woman’s face.

“It seems this Mr. Taki had also studied in Paris.” “It’s written in the letter.” As her daughter-in-law said this and read aloud selected parts of Mademoiselle’s letter, the name of Kishimoto’s close friend from Banchō in Tokyo emerged. It also became clear that through an introduction from his Banchō friend, Mademoiselle had apparently come to know that artist. “Getting married in Japan—what will they do about the ceremony? What about religion? Mademoiselle must be at such a loss, all alone there.”

When the wife spoke, the elderly woman would chime in, “Poor girl,” she muttered. “In any case, many young Japanese artists have come to Paris—I’ll make inquiries about this Mr. Taki myself. Mademoiselle is a sensible person; there’s no need to worry she’d act imprudently.”

In this way, Kishimoto comforted the elderly woman and the wife with his words.

Shortly after the master arrived, a Japanese lawyer entered there. The elderly woman asked this lawyer about Taki. Her tone implied it was unthinkable that a Japanese lawyer—one who ought to discuss legal matters—could possibly be uninformed about developments in Japan’s art world. When the lawyer answered that he hadn’t even heard Taki’s name, the elderly woman—with both the master and Kishimoto present—spoke in an uncharacteristically harsh tone. “Neither of you know him.”

The master, wearing an expression of concern for Mademoiselle at the edge of the Orient, stood silently before Mother.

八十一 Kishimoto wanted to investigate this artist named Taki as thoroughly as possible—for Mademoiselle, who had introduced him to this French family, and for that pitiful soul said to have departed longing for Japan’s skies—so that he might reassure the aunts fretting far away. After leaving the Biyonkuru residence, even as he walked along the poplar-lined bank toward the steamboat landing, he found himself asking himself. Why would the people of Biyonkuru worry so much about Mademoiselle’s marriage?

"Is it not because the other party is Japanese—" The answer inevitably gravitated there. Even after boarding the ship, Kishimoto found himself wondering whether Mademoiselle’s exotic tastes had driven her to go so far as to marry a Japanese man.

A few days later, Kishimoto heard favorable news regarding Mademoiselle’s spouse. Even among the resident artists, Makino—a painter who had recently arrived from home via the Suez route—knew Taki well. Makino was close with Oka and was acquainted with the friend in Banchō, Tokyo. The "Parisian village"—which had sent "Rōdai," sent an assistant professor from the art school, and even by Kishimoto’s own knowledge alone, three young artists—now included Makino, Kotake (who had come via Siberia), and a few other newcomers.

“For her to have become the wife of a man like Taki—that’s a real blessing.” Heartened by Makino’s words, Kishimoto immediately dispatched reassuring news to Biyonkuru. He recorded everything he had learned from Makino about Taki’s respectable background and dependable nature, appending his conviction that Mademoiselle had made no error in her choice and that all anxieties were groundless before sending it off.

The reply from the secretary’s mother came to Kishimoto from the coastal summer resort of Séverin-Dornon. The elderly woman began her letter by thanking him for his message, explaining that though her son was currently in Paris, he had instructed her to read his correspondence and forward it to her current location; she therefore replied herself and expressed gratitude for his thoughtful efforts. She wrote that if her own brother—the niece’s biological father—had lived to see this day, she could only imagine how he might have regarded this marriage, and that such thoughts filled her with astonishment. Yet given his favorable account of circumstances and her niece’s failure to seek counsel from her, she added that they could but hope quietly from afar for this matter to resolve itself advantageously. She further described Séverin’s expansive beauty, noting how families escaping the heat had become like friends here, and how watching children frolic on sandy shores brought her comfort. Though the season had been marked by frequent rains, she closed by observing that sunny days had finally arrived. Sent by your old friend.

Eighty-Two

With a sense of having discerned an unexpected person's thoughts, Kishimoto wrote another letter addressed to Biyonkuru's secretary. If they were so anxious about Mademoiselle's marriage arrangements, he sent a letter proposing it might be advisable to have Mademoiselle consult that friend in Banchō, Tokyo regarding all matters—as he believed this friend could become her ally.

This letter appeared to have reached the elderly woman, for a reply soon arrived from the coast of Séverin. She wrote that she was sorry to have troubled him with concerns about her niece. It pained her to say it, she continued, but her niece had always been willful—never doing anything except what pleased her. Born exceedingly delicate, her parents had never imagined she would live to such an age. That they had allowed her to indulge every whim and fancy without objection was likely because she had remained frail for so long, she wrote. The niece had been born into great wealth and knew nothing of the world; thus she refused to heed any counsel from others. If she believed she could manage everything alone, then so long as she succeeded, it would indeed be splendid—this too she wrote. It seemed Mr. Taki had not even known her during his studies in Paris; while her letters described him as exceedingly reserved, she had neglected to mention what manner of artist he was. Should he have any further information for her son—who still frequented the library—she intended to send a separate letter urging her niece to consult his Banchō friend per his advice. However, if her niece feared opposition from this friend, she might well refuse even to seek counsel. She had abandoned her mother on her deathbed and departed for Japan solely for her own amusement; though they had sent telegrams urging her return, by the time she reached Paris to visit her ailing mother, all had already ended. Her selfishness was terrifying even to contemplate; they could not fathom her heart—so she wrote.

When he placed the elderly woman’s letter before him and looked at it, Kishimoto felt as though he too were being scolded alongside her. That one could only act according to their own thoughts—this applied not just to that Mademoiselle but to himself as well. Yet within his heart, he defended Mademoiselle. "For me, Japan was a land of imagination"—hadn't that been the elderly woman's own reminiscence? In a sense, wasn't Mademoiselle attempting to physically realize what her aunt had merely dreamed? When such a person was going to Japan to marry a Japanese man, why couldn't they show more sympathetic understanding? That she had abandoned her mother on her deathbed and left France might indeed have been Mademoiselle's failing—but without being driven to such extremes of resolve, how could anyone venture alone toward Eastern skies?

Eighty-Three The elderly woman’s letter contained quite harsh words. However, even people from an unknown land who would write such truthful things to Kishimoto were rarely there. He had come to realize that his journey as a foreigner was so remote from the lives of the local people. He had come to realize how thickly an air surrounded him—an air brewed among those who made their living catering to the many travelers flocking to Paris from across nations; an air exceedingly courteous yet enveloping something harshly cold; an air that had grown so professionalized through habituation that its chill went unnoticed. Each time he viewed his boarding house through eyes that had seen French households, he invariably let out a sigh.

At Kishimoto’s boarding house was staying an assistant professor from Kyoto University named Takase, who had come from Germany. This person’s room was right next to Kishimoto’s, separated only by a single wall. When he went to see the room with a single window, the branches of the tall Plane Tree row stretched closer to the windowsill than they did from Kishimoto’s room, and the deep green of the leaves proclaimed that July had already arrived. “You can see the inn where Chimura stayed from here.”

Kishimoto remarked as if recollecting and gazed at the inn's architecture across the way, visible through the verdant undersides of the leaves. The same university professor who had introduced Takase to Kishimoto was Chimura—to Kishimoto, this Chimura was the one with whom he had shared meals for a time in this boarding house dining room.

“I’m amazed Mr. Chimura managed to endure that boarding house,” said Kishimoto. “Mr. Chimura said that to me, didn’t he? ‘Even so, your room is still something to envy.’ ‘From my window here, the sun shines into your room all day,’ he said. ‘Since it’s a town made up entirely of tall buildings, there are rooms like that where the sun doesn’t shine, you know.’ ‘Calling it a hotel makes it sound nice, but in reality, it was quite pitiable for Mr. Chimura.’”

As they spoke of this, memories arose in Kishimoto’s heart—of times when he himself had barged over to that inn across the way and they had compared their traveler’s woes late into the night, or when Mr. Chimura would come to this boarding house with every meal to talk at length. “When Mr. Chimura was here, didn’t we often talk about things like homesickness?” “There was even talk like being told, ‘If you go to the West, you’ll surely catch homesickness.’”

When Kishimoto spoke again of Mr. Chimura, who had gone to Germany, Takase too responded as if recalling something. "There isn’t a single person who has come to the West and hasn’t been afflicted with homesickness to some degree, you know."

This sigh of Takase's surpassed even the recklessly bravado-filled words of travelers, sounding to Kishimoto's ears like the voice of a cherished compatriot.

Eighty-Four Takase was a young scholar who, like Professor Chimura, had established himself in economics. Compared to Chimura whom Kishimoto had met in Paris, Takase had come to Paris after enduring various hardships in Germany, making him more travel-hardened than that professor. Takase brought with him travelers' tales witnessed and heard in Germany. From his lips emerged stories of compatriots afflicted with shockingly severe homesickness. One international student had leapt from a high window to his death. Another had sunk into an extreme hysterical state. This person had been taken under the wing by compatriots blending kindness with artistic tastes and invited to see a German woman who made her living by surrendering herself to travelers. Upon suddenly seeing this lowly woman, they said he had burst into tears. Even when hearing such stories from Takase, Kishimoto could not laugh.

“How terrible,” said Kishimoto. “Our position here in Paris is exactly like that of Chinese students around Kanda in Tokyo.” “I often think such things.” “Under these circumstances, it’s no wonder one would catch homesickness.” “Now that I think of it, treating Chinese students so coldly was wrong.” “When I walked around Kanda back then, I didn’t feel that way either,” said Takase. “It wasn’t until coming to Europe myself that I understood.”

“Even those fellows back in China are all youths from respectable backgrounds, aren’t they? When I think of those people being treated as mere travelers, spending considerable money only to endure such miserable experiences, I can’t help but feel truly sorry for them. There’s nothing worse than spending money only to end up feeling miserable. When I left Japan, there was someone who said, ‘Once you go to Europe and see for yourself, you can’t tell whether we’ve risen in the world or fallen into ruin,’ you know.”

Unintentionally using Chinese international students as his pretext, Kishimoto sought to vent the pent-up endurance and indignation accumulated through bitter experiences unimaginable when he had left his homeland. Each time he thought of Oka, Makino, and Kotake—artists inhabiting studios near Pasteur—he would envision them producing their art beneath the same roof as prostitutes and back-alley housewives, unable to suppress pity for their actual circumstances. In this nation that proclaimed liberty, fraternity, and equality as its motto, he even came to doubt whether any moderately comfortable life existed here at all—the sort of life commonly found in his homeland—when there seemed only extremes of wealth and destitution.

When Kishimoto found in Takase a companion with whom to share his traveler’s reflections morning and evening, he realized these inexpressible feelings were not his alone to bear. On walks through the outdoors, he would often invite Takase to his favorite spots discovered around town—to the quiet tree-lined path behind the Observatory, to the rose garden at the Luxembourg Museum’s rear, sometimes even to the impoverished neighborhoods near the Gobelins market. Gazing from his boarding house window at Paris—a city that embodied both poetry and science—he measured his own plight against Takase’s, who seemed determined to pause and breathe amidst his long academic journey through life.

Eighty-Five

"Your journey differs from others', doesn't it? You must be hiding something even from Takase next door. Can you truly rest easy on that high pillow of yours and sleep in your bed?" Such a voice challenged Kishimoto. His corner room connected to Takase's on the maternity hospital side through tree-lined streets, and to another room facing the narrow alley where Mont-Tonnerre buses ran. That adjacent space housed a young French lawyer from the Court of Appeal who left at dawn and returned late each night, effectively absent through daylight hours. Only Takase, Kishimoto, and a young German boarded there, keeping the house hushed. From his room, Kishimoto would catch Takase's pacing footsteps through the wall. Though devoted to scientific research, Takase seemed to dabble in oil painting interiors since arriving in Paris. Those footsteps transmitted more palpable weariness than face-to-face encounters ever revealed - the fatigue of an itinerant scholar resonating through plaster.

Kishimoto went to the mirror attached to the cupboard's swing door. His own hair, which had grown noticeably whiter since embarking on his journey, was reflected in that glass. For a while, he gazed at his own figure. There in the mirror was a person who seemed somehow intent on deceiving himself.

“Dead secret.” Suddenly, such abhorrent words in English rose to his lips. Kishimoto, trying to bury all traces of his actions undetected, sought to avoid confronting the dark secret by losing himself in other matters whenever possible. After waiting over a year in distant exile, he had finally received word from his niece: “Things have progressed to where even a casual glance from someone unaware would notice nothing—please rest assured.” If Brother remained silent, if Setsuko remained silent, and if he himself simply stayed silent—then perhaps this matter could truly be buried. There had never been an instance when Brother failed to keep silent. Brother was by nature a man who tenaciously upheld any responsibility he accepted, one who prized appearances above all others—and moreover, this affair concerned his own daughter’s entire life. There had never been an instance when Setsuko failed to keep silent. After all, she was someone who would even write of currying favor by calling their former nursemaid “terrifying.” If he alone stayed silent—silent, silent—so Kishimoto resolved, he would wait for time’s redemptive power. From the outset, he had embarked on this journey prepared to endure self-inflicted punishment. The hardships had been premeditated—and if through them he might atone, redeeming his sins had been his deepest desire since departing his homeland.

“Even if I endure such torment, is even that still not enough?” He repeated this to himself.

Eighty-Six

Setsuko had rarely appeared in Kishimoto’s dream. Tormented by the oppressive heat, Kishimoto kicked off the heavy blanket and half-rose on the bed by the wall to look around—the lingering dread from the edge of his dream still clung to him.

It was a summer-like night, yet strangely cold. Kishimoto layered the cotton-padded garment he had brought from home over his nightclothes and climbed down from the bed. Approaching the window, he opened the high curtain—the pale, dreamlike light of predawn reflected in his eyes. The streets lay silent save for faint jingles from passing hansoms and policemen’s footsteps echoing between dark plane trees. The stubborn night sky, lingering longer than any twilight back home, suffused this foreign boarding house with peculiar melancholy. Both Takase next door and the French lawyer still seemed deep in sleep. Kishimoto lit a strong French cigarette he favored and retraced Setsuko’s rare apparition in his dream—her fretfully touching her chest where they’d incised a breast tumor flickered before him like some dread-filled hallucination that now made him acutely sense meanings in ordinary things.

“Uncle, you should return from France pretending not to know anything.” The words Setsuko had spoken at the house in Tokyo’s Asakusa—those words she had uttered when approaching Kishimoto as he busied himself with travel preparations—suddenly surfaced in his mind. Kishimoto recalled them alone and felt a chill. Leaving the curtain open, Kishimoto climbed back into bed. By the time he awoke after falling asleep once more, it was already quite late. That morning, the dreadful feeling from the dream had still not left him even when he got up and sat at his desk.

“Why does Setsuko act like that? Why does she keep sending such letters time and again?”

Kishimoto said this aloud as if his niece were present and sighed. For him—who tried as hard as possible not to touch upon "that matter," avoiding even things that might recall it—the mere act of receiving frequent letters from Setsuko was agony. He had once heard a German word from a Keio University exchange student who stayed at this boarding house. When told this word meant "incest" in English—a pathological trait found among those with warped minds—he shuddered at its very utterance. There were times he heard another student's tale of involvement with a young wife, times he heard how she became pregnant while her husband traveled—just hearing such stories lacerated his conscience. Especially when that youthful student began recounting his exploits like trophies of beauty and talent, Kishimoto felt searing anguish burn within him alone. "Why does vice become others' pride," he had even lamented, "while remaining my torment?" For over a year now, he had sought to seal his heart's vision by losing himself in wandering.

Even in this foreign boarding house where a single postcard from his beloved homeland was truly cherished—where he sometimes took out old letters to reread them—Kishimoto would burn or tear up the letters from his niece alone, refusing to leave them anywhere his eyes might fall.

Even in this foreign boarding house where a single picture postcard from his homeland was truly cherished—where he would sometimes take out old letters to reread them—Kishimoto burned or tore up every letter from his niece alone, refusing to let them remain where his eyes might fall. In secret, he willed Setsuko. To forget about someone like him who wandered abroad—to think instead of herself, who still had life’s long path ahead. From this resolve he avoided corresponding directly with Setsuko whenever possible, addressing any necessary replies instead to Brother Giyū. Yet just when he thought she might finally have forgotten, another letter would arrive from her—each time deepening Kishimoto’s anguish. The many letters she had sent since Kobe lingered in his heart as an unresolved question. From that clinging shadow—the shadow said never to leave her even for a day—from the moment she wrote of having finally broken free, she had somehow become another person entirely.

Despite having been made to bear such grievous wounds, she showed no trace of remorse. To Kishimoto, it seemed unfathomable—how could a woman like Setsuko, born with a maiden's youthful heart, lay bare her tender breast before one so vastly her senior, a man already half-grayed at the temples? Each time this thought came, he would dwell on Setsuko being mother to a son. Amidst men and women so prone to parting and forgetting, he pondered too how deeply rooted such bonds might grow. Unless he followed his imagination to those depths, certain passages in her letters simply refused to cohere within him.

"Is that what happens when one has a child—"

Before he knew it, Kishimoto recalled things he wished to forget and sat alone in his room in a daze. He suspected that Setsuko might be trying to protect her motherhood by dismissing the notion of their transgression. Each time he thought of Setsuko from afar, he did not merely feel the profound wretchedness of his sin. At the same time, he even came to feel an indescribable terror.

A knock sounded from outside the room's door. Kishimoto left his chair and went to open the door.

Eighty-Eight It was Oka who had knocked on the door. Whenever there was a new exhibition he would come to invite him; whenever new paintings were hung at the art shop near the Madeleine church he would come to summon him—seeing this painter’s face made Kishimoto regain his composure. Oka brought not only his own dejected reluctance to return home but always carried with him a vigorous youthful energy whenever he visited Kishimoto.

“Oka, have you heard of Abelard?” Kishimoto began. Starting with the observation that one never knew what might emerge from this great storehouse-like city when living in Paris with its long history, he told Oka how the story of Abelard and Heloise had captivated him in his youth; how upon arriving in Paris he learned Abelard had once taught at the Sorbonne; how the university’s scholarship had developed since those famed medieval monks’ era; and finally of his astonishment and joy upon discovering the lovers’ tomb at Père Lachaise Cemetery.

“At this boarding house now, there’s also a Dr. Yanagi who comes here just to eat his meals.” “He’s staying at the hotel where Chimura used to stay.” “He’s also a professor at a Kyoto university, you know.” “With Dr. Yanagi, Takase next door, and me—the three of us went to visit Père Lachaise.” “It was quite a good cemetery.” At the far end stood a marble sculpture designated as the “Monument to Death,” and with its terrain nestled against a hill offering splendid views, Paris could be seen clearly from the chapel-topped heights. “After searching exhaustively, we ended up standing before an old chapel.” “That, you see, is the tomb of Abelard and Heloise.” Inside the chapel were two reclining statues, and on the side was inscribed text. “Wasn’t it written that these people shared a spiritual love that remained unchanged throughout their lives?” “Well, it’s something like a lovers’ tomb.” “But you see, if there were a moss-covered tombstone with their two names carved on it, and you went to visit that, it might feel like a lovers’ tomb—but it’s nothing like that.” “I was astonished to see the statues of a man and a woman lying side by side so boldly.” “As expected of the country of *amour*,” Mr. Takase said with a laugh.

This traveler's anecdote of Kishimoto's brought a faint smile to Oka's lips. Kishimoto continued, "Yet it was an antiquated, hushed chapel—the sort you'd only find in a Catholic country. "You could tell many worshippers visited—the iron fence surrounding that sanctuary was completely covered with men's and women's names scribbled everywhere. "In that way, the West and Japan are just alike. "Everyone wants to partake in those two lovers' destiny, you see—"

As Kishimoto spoke up to that point, Oka cut him off. “Kishimoto-san, what do you think?” “Even at your age, do you still imagine romance?” “Well now—as one ages with age, I do believe there exists a realm of love altogether different from one’s youth—far more complex.” “However, love—or anything like it—isn’t likely to come my way ever again.” In his youth, even broaching such topics would immediately redden Kishimoto’s face. Even if there were still moments when hot tears would flow as in the past, his cheeks no longer reddened easily.

Eighty-Nine

“Kishimoto-san, I’ve come with a request,” Oka said at that moment. “To tell the truth, I haven’t eaten since this morning.”

Kishimoto widened his eyes and looked toward Oka. As fellow travelers who helped and were helped by each other on their journey, such situations were not uncommon, but the overly frank tone of Oka's words startled Kishimoto. He realized this talkative painter had been discussing "love" while keeping "hunger" at his side.

“Oka, when you have something, you have it, but when you don’t, you’re utterly lacking,” Kishimoto said in a familiar tone and laughed. “Well, let’s figure something out. Then please wait at Simone’s house and have lunch there. I’ll head out right after you.” Kishimoto’s journey, too, had its sufficiencies and insufficiencies. It was different from journeys like Takase’s, stemming both from how circumstances back home had changed over many months and from how the work he had intended to accomplish in Paris remained unfulfilled.

"The troubles of being in a foreign country—they're truly troublesome," Kishimoto muttered to himself before following Oka, who had stepped out a pace ahead. When he arrived at Simone's house, he found everyone from the proprietor to the waitstaff gathered in that familiar back room, seated around a rather late lunch table typical of an establishment catering to customers. Simone was growing more lovely by the day. She sat beside her mother, cheeks bulging with French bread as she ate. Watching this family's cheerful mealtime scene with amusement, Oka—present in the same room—had already begun a simple lunch. Kishimoto brought over some provisions he'd prepared.

Since Makino and Kotake began gathering at this coffee shop, Oka grew even more spirited. Among the three painters, Kotake was the eldest, followed by Oka and then Makino in age order. Both Makino and Kotake were people whose names Kishimoto had heard back in their home country. As for Makino, Kishimoto had imagined a much more intense person. The Makino he met turned out to be unexpectedly gentle, meticulous, and moreover, a keen artist. The lustrous hue of his cheeks harmonized well with his ruddy hair, making him appear all the more youthful. As for Kotake, Kishimoto had imagined someone far more difficult to approach. Kotake, who became a travel companion, was an artist who seemed easy to befriend, showing little tendency to dislike others and displaying a composed nature that would likely endear him to anyone. The two had not yet been in Paris long; even their travel-worthy Western clothes remained unsoiled by black soot.

“Makino is still Makino,” said Oka. “I thought you might arrive in poorer condition, but your vigor impresses me.” “Well now, I’m nothing like you, Oka,” Makino retorted playfully. “When we gather like this, it seems I truly am the eldest here,” remarked Kishimoto. “Why, Kishimoto-san has already joined the ranks of the elderly,” Makino teased with a laugh. “But back home we’d never assemble like this—after all, traveling’s what makes it interesting,” said Kotake. “And Oka’s patron *Mademoiselle*—I’ve been privileged to observe her quite often—”

“Anyway, when you travel, you do start to reflect on yourself,” Oka replied with a touch of seriousness.

For a while, Kishimoto spent a pleasant time with these people. He envied Makino and Kotake—their hearts that found everything they saw and heard interesting, unburdened by lingering doubts.

Ninety

With thoughts of the children he had left behind in his homeland weighing on his mind, and in order to provide for Izumi and Shigeru who were far away, Kishimoto hurried to complete the work he wished to accomplish at the boarding house.

It was around the latter half of July. Thunderstorms would sometimes approach outside the window, occasionally darkening the room so abruptly during daytime that lamplight became necessary. What Kishimoto sought to continue was something that could be called part of his autobiography - a manuscript he had begun writing in his former study in Asakusa, Tokyo. Sitting at his desk in the room, he felt emotions from when he first drafted that manuscript surge through his chest - emotions from when that terrible storm had loomed over him before conceiving this journey, emotions from when he'd thought in that Asakusa second-floor room that this might be his final act of writing. Even considering he could resume that manuscript again in his Paris boarding house seemed strange to him.

Kishimoto read Austria’s declaration of war against Serbia just as he was beginning his work. With each passing day, the towns grew increasingly unsettled. A strange, oppressive silence of ill omen began to envelop the towns. The only faces Kishimoto now saw daily in the dining hall were Dr. Yanagi—who came from the inn near the maternity hospital—and Takase from the adjacent room; the young German guests had vanished. Whenever they gathered in the dining hall, Takase and Kishimoto would exchange looks of shared bewilderment.

In the anxious air that seemed to presage the impending rupture of some great event, Kishimoto hurried his work. It was said that French writer from Normandy had begun drafting *The Temptation of Saint Anthony* during the Franco-Prussian War and taken up his pen during the Siege of Paris. It was said that very writer had conceived that work at exactly fifty years of age. In his traveler's state, Kishimoto imagined such things—pictured how that writer, with whom he'd often discussed matters with friends back home, had written in Paris some forty-odd years earlier—and sought to comfort and encourage himself through this. At times he would lay down the brush he'd taken up and go to his room's window. A hushed stillness hung in the air, like the calm before sudden cloudburst. He went to check the dining hall too. There stood the boarding house mistress—living with fearsome frugality—begrudging even lamp oil as she lingered dejectedly in the dim corner, brooding over her uncertain future.

“Kishimoto-san, look! That is an omen of something.” The mistress stood by the dining hall window and pointed out to Kishimoto the maternity hospital building tinged reddish-purple by the twilight air. Her niece—a red-haired, curly-haired girl who had come from the countryside near Limoges—also gazed from that window at the sunset resembling the color of blood. “I’m afraid war may be unavoidable.” With that, the mistress shrugged in a characteristically French manner.

Around the sixth day since Austria’s declaration of war against Serbia, Kishimoto finally completed a portion of the work he needed to send by post to his homeland. The tree-lined streets, usually bustling with people, felt strangely desolate, and even those out walking were few.

Ninety-One

The stage of peaceful Paris transformed with truly rapid momentum. At a time when rumors swirled that mobilization orders would be issued today or tomorrow, Kishimoto went with Takase to see off a Belgium-bound individual at the northern station. On their way back, they stopped by the eastern station. Before the station noticeboard, they learned traffic across the Franco-German border had already been severed, with railways and telegraph lines cut off. Germans and Austrians trying to leave Paris swarmed the station in travel clothes, sitting directly on platform stones while awaiting departing trains. Kishimoto encountered a laborer-like man who nearly collapsed before his eyes. Luggage-laden travelers, reluctant parters, women with tear-swollen faces—all seemed to proclaim the urgency of these times. Kishimoto hurried back to the boarding house with Takase, realizing they faced an utterly dire situation. First shutting himself in his room, he wrote to Elder Brother Giyū about the pressing circumstances. He wrote that future developments were difficult to predict. He wrote entrusting his children's care to them. Though he busily composed letters to Tokyo friends too, he discovered mail from home via Siberia had already ceased.

In the evening, he went out to see the town. He stood amidst a swirling crowd of citizens already anticipating a great war, struck by a sense of tragedy. People trying to read the mobilization orders printed with tricolor flags, presidential proclamations, and bans on cargo exports that were posted everywhere now overflowed into towns that had until then been hushed into silence. The hurried pace of the people, now tinged with an air of menace, struck Kishimoto’s heart. Wives, sisters, and even lovers—all with faces etched in concern for their husbands, brothers, or sweethearts—hurried breathlessly back and forth through the crowds.

In just over a week, Kishimoto had found himself enveloped in such an atmosphere. The abrupt changes around them were like a play's scenery transformed through the rotation of a stage set. The fall of France's renowned Socialist leader and pacifist during the war's opening act made this dramatic spectacle all the more ghastly. Kishimoto went to his room and contemplated various matters alone. He became acutely aware of his traveler's plight—having left his distant homeland only to unexpectedly find himself amid this turmoil. Around eleven that night, rain began falling, darkening the row of trees visible beyond his window.

Ninety-Two

Every last conscript was steadily making their way toward the border. The spectacle of mobilized soldiers passing through the tree-lined streets had already continued for about two days. Even reports had been received that German army scouts had invaded the eastern border of France. At the boarding house, both the mistress and her niece went to the dining hall window to try to see off a squad of infantry passing through the street. When Kishimoto approached the same window, the mistress turned toward him,

“Kishimoto-san, isn’t this simply unavoidable? That young German who stayed with us knew all about the war! When a letter came from his parents, he rushed straight out of Paris! That man was definitely a spy!”

As she spoke, she placed her index finger beside her nose as if to demonstrate, looking as though she deeply regretted having put up such a guest.

“Look, there was that strange woman who loitered around this town almost every day, right? There was that woman everyone nicknamed ‘Madame Caroline,’ right? I always thought her behavior was suspicious—so suspicious! She’s a fake imbecile, I tell you! A fake woman! I thought she wore too much white powder, but now I realize—that was a man’s face!” Once again, the mistress declared. Driven by suspicion, this French woman had not only turned her own boarding house guests into German spies but even branded the simpleton who wandered the town as one.

When Kishimoto looked at the mistress’s niece with eyes that had just watched soldiers pass outside the window, he noticed this girl from rural Limoges had a red, tear-swollen face. The mistress explained to him that both her brother and betrothed would soon depart for the front. Kishimoto went to his room.

The procession of conscripted citizens marched past the window outside in formation. All wore hunting caps and carried small luggage as they sang the French national anthem, shouting farewells to the women and children standing beneath the shade of roadside trees while passing by. Every public bus had been requisitioned for military use, silencing even the rumble of Montauban-bound vehicles. With all males aged eighteen to forty-seven said to be joining this war, a great tide seemed to sweep them away root and branch.

Foreigners residing in Paris who wished to leave were to depart quickly, while those holding nationalities other than German or Austrian were permitted to remain. Even regarding this development, the desire to enlist kept surging through Kishimoto's mind. He—whose heart told him he could never return home anyway—longed to march straight to the battlefield, but each time he reconsidered how his physical afflictions left him unable to compose a proper letter, he restrained himself. Martial law had already been imposed; Paris' city gates stood firmly shut, making all travel utterly impossible. In truth, he already found himself in a state no different than being under siege.

Ninety-Three At last, Kishimoto resolved to leave Paris after a little over a year there. For more than three weeks since the mobilization order had been issued, nothing could be accomplished. In that atmosphere where war bulletins—yesterday’s news of Belgium’s Namur fortress being in peril or today’s report of German vanguard troops nearing Lille at the border—were awaited morning and night, there was nothing to do but share anxieties with fellow citizens, exchange glances with unharmed compatriots still residing there, and speak of uncertain futures. When Takase from the neighboring room joined Dr. Yanagi in attempting to escape the war by heading for London, Kishimoto was urged to accompany them; instead, he chose to go to the French countryside, parting ways with Takase at the northern station. The painter Kotake—who had lain awake through the first night of enemy airship attacks on Paris—also joined their group and had already crossed the English Channel by mid-August.

Among the few French people Kishimoto knew, the secretary of Biyonkuru was stationed at the barracks in Versailles, the poet Lapée had joined the motor unit in Paris, and Professor Broth was worrying about his two sons who had gone to the front. The secretary of Biyonkuru especially sent a letter from the barracks to Kishimoto, writing that it was a joy to consider they now stood together on the same side of the Allied forces. From Madame Taki Shin (the old woman’s niece) in Tokyo as well came word of their intention to visit France together with her husband, but she wrote that with this war, there was nothing they could do. The lawyer attached to the Court of Appeal who had been lodging in the adjacent room to Kishimoto’s had also vanished without anyone noticing when. Even the owner of the usual "Simone’s House" coffee shop and the boarding house manager—all these people had set out for the battlefield.

On the day news arrived that Russian forces had entered eastern Germany, Kishimoto spent all day packing in his room. His boarding house was in semi-chaos from partial evacuations. The landlady and her niece had left for Limoges a day ahead of him. With limited travel now permitted, he accepted an invitation from fellow boarders to visit the landlady’s hometown. He resolved to use this chance to glimpse rural France too. Since war began, travel restrictions had tightened—passengers couldn’t carry over thirty kilograms of luggage. Anticipating Limoges’ impending chill, he stuffed his suitcase with as many clothes as his arms could bear. Books he resigned to abandon entirely. Even in cicada-less Paris streets, autumn’s breath now seeped through. A lone fly lingering on his wall alighted upon his travel bag.

A lonely evening arrived. Kishimoto remained alone in his room, recalling how he had spent over a year on this distant journey, thinking of his homeland from which all news had ceased. At least before leaving Paris, he attempted to send even a brief note to a newspaper back home; but as he sat down by his suitcase, his nerves only grew more agitated, and he ended up merely writing a letter addressed to his vacant house in Tokyo. The evening star hung in the sky outside the window. At times when he stood by the window trying to glimpse that solitary point of starlight, fierce voices rose from the street—a crowd singing the French national anthem as they passed. By nine at night, the towns had already fallen quiet; lights dwindled, and the barks of starving dogs clung strangely to his ears. He wondered what would become of those left in this city—what horrors women might face. Merely contemplating it chilled him: would days return like those during the Franco-Prussian War siege of Paris? Back then, people were said to have hidden in cellar-like basements so dark they slaughtered even rats for food. Thinking of his early departure the next morning, he hardly slept.

Ninety-Four

From Dorsay Riverside Station, Kishimoto departed by train. For this country trip, he had brought along Makino and three painters residing in Paris. The war had granted him a temporary opportunity to escape from the clamor of a great metropolis like Paris. From the fearsome clamor of trams, automobiles, and horse-drawn carts screeching along those stone-paved streets. From those cramped, layered stone buildings. From the stifling air of the dense crowds that enfeebled him.

The journey of the five companions made even the train car enjoyable.

When Kishimoto had traveled from Marseille to Lyon and then to Paris in May of the previous year, it had been a near-midnight train journey; thus, what now appeared through the window seemed entirely unfamiliar. He gazed curiously at the flat farmlands, pastures, and forests of central France rolling past. Though they could not glimpse the towering mountains reminiscent of Koshu or Shinshu back home as they neared Haute-Vienne, for Kishimoto—having spent over a year in Paris—it felt like breathing country air for the first time in ages. At a station along the way, they encountered a train packed with wounded soldiers. These men sent from the frontlines starkly illustrated the ferocity of the fighting in Belgium.

After about seven hours, Kishimoto arrived at Limoges Station with his companions. Just as townspeople had gathered near the station to see off soldiers departing for war, local men and women—as if seeing Japanese people for the first time—came peering at Kishimoto and his companions from both the right and left.

The mistress of the Paris boarding house, who had arrived in this country town a day earlier, sent her niece to the station. The mistress had been waiting for Makino and Kishimoto at her sister’s house, but the rooms had not yet been prepared. Kishimoto and his companions decided to spend the day at an inn in front of the station. Having been told to come only for meals, and with the mistress’s nephew arriving on an errand in the evening, the group of five walked toward the house on the outskirts of town. The local children, unaccustomed to Japanese people, trailed along behind and ahead of them in a curious procession. Among the artists who had come from Paris with Kishimoto, there was one who was extremely well-traveled. The local children clamored so persistently around them that some even darted around from behind to catch glimpses of their faces; in response, the painter deliberately fixed his large eyes upon the children while—

“Take a look at this!” he even playfully teased them at times. The arrival of Kishimoto and his companions was such a novelty to the local people. At a country-style house with a grape trellis in the front garden and what looked like a vegetable garden in the back, Kishimoto joined the mistress from Paris and her niece.

“This eldest gentleman is Mr. Kishimoto.” “This is Mr. Makino—he too is an artist who came to Paris.” With these words, the mistress introduced Kishimoto and the others to her sister. The petite old woman in black French attire welcomed each guest from afar with quiet composure. The local children’s curiosity proved so relentless that even as Kishimoto’s group enjoyed their cheerful supper in the dining room near the grape trellis, some peered through gaps in the stone wall. Yet returning to the station-front inn and spending the night there—hearing roosters crow through morning mist while gazing at Saint-Étienne’s tower beyond the window—Kishimoto truly felt he had reached a tranquil countryside where he could breathe deeply of clean air.

Ninety-Five

It had already been some fifteen months since he left his homeland. Fifteen months—though one might call it that—had been an exceedingly long stretch of time for Kishimoto. The past fifteen months felt like three or even four years to him. He felt as though he had already lived without seeing his homeland for a considerably long time. During that time, it seemed he had lived without being able to see the face of anyone he was usually close to or hear any of their voices. He thought of himself as a traveler who, even after walking until his legs gave out, could not reach an inn. He had come to this French countryside with heartfelt hopes. More than anything, his wish was to calm his soul. At last, it began to seem as though that wish might be granted. “Do you really like this countryside?” “There’s not even as much wildness here as you’d find on the coast of Brittany, is there?” “That said, isn’t it also lacking even the urban-like refinement one might expect from a country town?” “This place is unexpectedly ordinary, isn’t it?” So much so that one of the artists who had come from Paris with him posed this question. Nevertheless, from the day he climbed the high hill where Saint-Étienne Temple stood and gazed out from atop the stone wall of the scenic park behind that old temple at the outskirts of Limoges—a land of farming and livestock—he was profoundly reminded of his travels since first arriving in Europe. The Vienne River flowed through the outskirts of the town. A stone bridge built along the French national highway and small horse-drawn carts pulled by mules passing through the rows of trees along the riverbank were visible below. From atop that stone wall, though he could not see as far as the country house where he was staying, he could make out the red-tiled roofs characteristic of the French countryside, lined along the slope of the opposite bank abundant with farmland.

Haute-Vienne department, France; Limoges town; Boulevard Babylone—that was where Kishimoto and Makino had taken lodgings together. He had come to the rustic outskirts of the town where a woman would blow a trumpet to sell newspapers. On the third day after settling into the second floor of that house, he received a letter from Oka in Paris and learned how dire the situation had become. In Oka’s hastily written letter were the words: “You must not return to Paris—under any circumstances.” It also stated that three artists remaining in Paris had found it impossible to attempt fleeing to Britain.

Ninety-Six

From Oka, separate letters addressed to both Makino and Kishimoto arrived simultaneously.

“Finally, the curtain fell on Paris’s evacuation.” “The French government had already relocated elsewhere.” “At the embassy too, they had burned documents last night.”

Yesterday afternoon, German military planes dropped six bombs on Paris. One hit Gare de Lyon, another struck the East Station, and another destroyed shops in Saint-Martin. It now seems unavoidable that Paris will be besieged. The enemy cavalry has advanced to within eighty kilomètres. Last night, everyone gathered for a final discussion; if we cannot cross to Britain under today’s circumstances, we will all depart for Lyon. At any rate, we will leave Paris by the end of today. Thus, we have decided to leave your belongings—and of course our own—behind as they are. Ah, Paris—my Paris—has it finally been trampled underfoot by those German bastards? Seeing Little Simone tear up, I felt ashamed to leave Paris. To me, this place is but a land of passage. To them, it is a land of graves. “It’s infinitely moving.”

The fellow artists who had come from Paris departed for Lyon upon seeing this letter. In Limoges, only Makino and Kishimoto remained. After about three days passed, the final report from Paris arrived. Reading this, Kishimoto learned that twenty-one compatriots—people in painting, sculpture, science, and related fields who had been based near Paris's Observatory and Montparnasse—had each left the capital in their own ways. Eleven headed to Britain. One to America. Two to Nice. One to Lyon. Amid talk that even the Dieppe-bound train's last departure would be at three o'clock tomorrow morning and that a single step too late would mean certain siege, the report conjured images of those bound for London—whether via Le Havre or Saint-Malo in Brittany—wavering as they sought escape from war's chaos. He also learned that Oka and another sculptor had apparently been the last among their artist companions to leave Paris—a Paris where all nighttime lights had been extinguished and herds of cattle, pigs, and sheep gathered in the Bois de Boulogne forest to provision for siege. He further learned that nearly all remaining compatriots had already left Paris.

The Lyon-bound fellow artists also informed Kishimoto of the crowded conditions and unease of the train journey. According to their account, after changing trains several times—trains with conductors who didn’t even know their destinations—and waiting three or six hours at six different stations, they had finally reached Lyon from Limoges after a total of forty hours.

To Kishimoto and the others’ lodgings came people who were equivalent to the hostess’s sister’s daughter and her husband—evacuees from Paris. These people told how they had spent thirty hours on the train journey to Limoges, a trip Kishimoto and his companions had completed in seven hours. There were also accounts of crowds of refugees from not just Paris but the northern border regions overflowing even into freight trains. “Even if we’re still managing,” Kishimoto would say each time he glanced at Makino in the adjacent room, “those who were in Germany must have had an awful time—”

Kishimoto and Makino would say this to each other every time they saw one another in their adjacent rooms. Since traffic across the Franco-German border had been severed, they learned that Professor Chimura in Berlin and the Keio University exchange students in Munich—both of whom had been completely out of contact—had managed to escape to London. Many of the compatriots Kishimoto had come to know since arriving in Europe were all scattered to the winds because of the war.

They could not speak of what lay ahead. However, thanks to the kindness of the people at their lodgings, Kishimoto and Makino were able to position themselves in a relatively safe location. The housewife borrowed a desk from somewhere for Kishimoto and placed it by the window in the second-floor room. Beyond the grape trellis with sprawling vines, outside the window lay Boulevard Babylone. The pasture formed by Oka’s terrain pressed right up to the new road, and occasionally the faces of cows that came onto the red cliff would reflect in the window glass.

Ninety-Seven

A desolation like that after a great storm hung over even this countryside. All men in their prime had vanished from fields and pastures; horses had been conscripted; sheds stood empty; pottery factories lay shuttered; many shops were closed; even middle school and commercial school buildings had become shelters for wounded soldiers sent from the front. Nothing met Kishimoto's eyes but scenes befitting wartime rural life. In vegetable patches, an old man with a face full of thoughts for his child at war tilled the soil. In wheat fields, people labored to bring in the harvest using only women's hands.

Along the banks of the Vienne River, at the corner of the slope leading up to the towering Saint-Étienne Temple, stood a stone wayside shrine carved with a cross. A statue of the Virgin Mary adorned with fragrant flowers was enshrined within that wayside shrine. A hunched old woman with a curved spine was selling slender candles in front of the shrine. In the flickering light of candles burning in broad daylight, there was also a young woman in a black kimono kneeling on the stone steps, seemingly praying for the safety of someone at the battlefield.

Kishimoto, who had not fulfilled his aspiration to enlist in the military, after coming to the outskirts of Limoges, wrote what could be called a siege diary—describing scenes from the outbreak of war he had witnessed in Paris, news of remaining compatriots, and the period up until evacuating the capital with Makino and others—and attempted to send this report to those in his homeland who were worried. Sometimes he would set down his brush and walk around the house. Whether strolling through vegetable fields where pears and peaches had ripened and apples were nearing maturity, or along stone walls where red roses and white oleanders exuded their fragrance, or wandering toward pastures dotted with flocks of sheep common to the area, he never failed to savor the feeling of being a traveler. At such times, he often took along Edouard, who was the housewife’s nephew.

“Please don’t call him ‘Monsieur’—just call him Edouard.” “He’s still just a child.”

The housewife said this with the boy of about sixteen before her, but both Makino and Kishimoto continued to call him "Monsieur" and kept company with the youth—who was well-versed in local matters—morning and evening. Makino chose a nearby pasture and began his painting work. Every time Kishimoto walked there to look, he would invariably find Edouard sitting behind Makino, stretching out his legs and comparing the scenery before his eyes with the canvas. The trees within the pasture that formed Oka’s terrain, the towns of Limoges visible in the distance, and the tower of an old temple had all been incorporated into Makino’s painting. In the grass of the cow-trampled pasture, white chickens could be seen here and there. When Kishimoto went there, settled into the grass, and stretched out his legs, it was not only that he had escaped the chaos of Paris—where he had stood for four or five hours beside Takase near the police station—but he also felt as though he had found his first true rest since arriving in France, there on the banks of the Vienne.

Ninety-Eight

After living nearly two months in the tranquil countryside, not only everything since arriving in Europe but even memories from when he had left his homeland somehow coalesced in Kishimoto's heart. He thought this. If there were a judgment of life and I were made to stand as a defendant, what psychological defense could I possibly use to fully articulate what has arisen within me? How could someone who faced a life-or-death crisis requiring total self-sacrifice ever produce words that were clear, logical, consistent, or reasonable? The terror that had surged like an endless nightmare—the suspicion he couldn't suppress even toward kin and friends—his soul quaking before invisible persecutory forces—those distant waves that had rushed in dreamlike urgency—the nameless sorrow that drove him solely toward strangers—what horrific trials he had endured! What repeated turmoil of heart! What catastrophic failure of a life! Though this profound emotion grew ever clearer with time, it showed no sign of diminishing. Yet gradually, the intense mental agitation that had once possessed him began to recede. Only his feelings toward his unfortunate niece remained. It was then that he calmly reflected on his actions. He who had desperately tried to bury and conceal his sin—committed solely from a will to survive—now felt that no suffering he might endure could ever mend the deep wound inflicted upon his niece or erase the stain marking his own life. The more he castigated himself, the more he verged on finding something pitiable within.

With such thoughts in mind, Kishimoto went to the vegetable field behind the country house. He walked through a field where a narrow path ran down the center, flanked on both sides by numerous planted fruit trees. This was a place where he often came to rest with Makino as well—plucking ripe peaches directly from the branches to taste them, walking about while inhaling the earthy fragrance of the soil. The season had already reached late October. Not only were there many French blue pears tinged with pale red hanging from the branches, but now and then a ripe fruit would sway in the autumn wind and fall to his feet as though it were a stone.

The field bordered a narrow bypass on the outskirts of town on one side, while on the other, it extended to the neighboring house’s backyard where a rustic red-tiled roof could be seen. Kishimoto listened to the footsteps of people wearing wooden clogs passing along the bypass on one side and the sound of hoes tilling the soil coming from the vegetable field on the other side of the backyard as he walked among the peach and pear trees, sniffing the fragrance of fresh fruit. As if trying to take into his very being the life of the mature trees, filling his chest to the brim.

The autumn of Haute-Vienne somehow stirred a tender new heart within Kishimoto. He even recovered an interest in life that he had nearly lost over the long years. Even if his transgressions still lived within him, he became able to confront them with a somewhat tender heart.

Ninety-Nine

After mail that took forty days to arrive began trickling in, Kishimoto, while staying in the countryside of Limoges, was able to learn news from his homeland that had been completely cut off since the outbreak of war. How astonished the people back home in Tokyo must have been by the war in Europe. Setsuko too sent a letter expressing concern about it. Kishimoto decided to send commemorative picture postcards addressed to her and the children. Even if they were but a few words, writing to his niece in this manner was something rare for Kishimoto since he had embarked on his journey. He chose a postcard showing a distant view of Saint-Étienne Temple to send to his niece, and selected one featuring a pasture with a flock of sheep to send to Izumi. The former was a scene captured from near the Vienne River, where everything from the trees to the roads and bridges had grown familiar to him; the distant temple with its towering ancient stone tower was a place he would often visit to sit during Mass and other occasions. The latter showed a pasture with a forest in the background, where a single countryside house could be seen among the distant trees. The flock of sheep grazing in the shallow valley’s grass, their gentle long ears and slender legs—such unusual French countryside scenery seemed certain to delight the eyes of the children keeping watch back home. Around his lodgings—where a short walk led to the Toulouse Highway (French National Road)—pastures like those depicted on the postcard spread out ahead.

To mail the written postcards, Kishimoto left the lodging. The neighborhood children who had initially found the Japanese man curious and persistently pestered him—many had come to treat him as a friend after about two months passed. When he reached the outskirts of a certain town, he found little girls gathered there, inviting others to join their jump rope. When he walked to the banks of the stone bridge called Pont-Neuf, there was a boy who came to his side seeking a handshake. “Monsieur.” The boy would often come running up, calling out “Monsieur.” He was the only son of the small bridge-side coffee shop where Kishimoto would stop and sit whenever he went out.

The Vienne River flowed beneath that stone bridge. Intending to spend a time of rest, Kishimoto went down to the water's edge. Even when observing women washing clothes side by side along the bank, it felt too rustic to be considered the outskirts of a city in the countryside. The rhythmic pounding of laundry beaters against stone resonated across the quiet water. For a while, Kishimoto listened to those fulling-block sounds, shutting out thoughts of war. At that moment, an unfamiliar boy suddenly approached and addressed him.

“Mister Foreigner, could you tell me a little about Japan?”

Looking at him, the boy appeared to be around the age of an upper-grade elementary school student or perhaps a lower-grade student at the simpler commercial school in this town. “Which is more beautiful—France or Japan?” “Is Japan even more beautiful than France?” The boy’s question troubled Kishimoto. “How can you even compare such things?” said Kishimoto. “In your country too, there are beautiful places and places that aren’t—our country is just the same.”

“What color is the sea in Japan?” the boy asked again. “Is it yellow?”

“Why, it’s a blue color—a transparent blue color—that’s a beautiful sea.” As Kishimoto gazed into the intelligent-looking boy’s eyes and answered thus, the boy—as though imagining the distant Orient he had never seen— “A transparent blue color?” he repeated.

One Hundred

One day, Kishimoto again went out to the same bridge’s edge. The yellowed leaves of the plane trees had already begun falling almost daily. It lay where the French National Road continued onward; from the stone wall near the bridge, one could view both banks of the Vienne River, while between the rows of trees along the national road rose the stone tower of Saint-Étienne Temple. On days when a vague weariness settled over him and he thought to rest from work, Kishimoto’s feet would often lead him to the small coffee shop by that bridge. There, savoring a cup of strong coffee they warmed for him, he would gaze at the stone water fountain pillar standing at the street corner, watch women gather with water jugs, observe old women knitting as they sat nearby—rustic sights that let him delight in passing time alone. Around the thick trunks of plane trees with their mottled white peeling bark, groups of children could be seen busily gathering fallen leaves in play. Among them were two or three little girls so familiar that they would bring their collected leaves to where Kishimoto sat to show him. It had all begun when he bought them sweets from a nearby confectionery—treats sure to please children—and after that, whenever they spotted Kishimoto, these girls would come to his side.

“They’re all such good children.” “Shall Uncle take these leaves as a souvenir from Limoges?” When Kishimoto said this, the little girls happily ran off toward the row of trees, gathered countless fallen leaves, and returned to his side. Among the plane tree leaves the little girls had brought were some as large as dinner plates. “If I take ones this big, it’ll be a problem.” “Please go pick up the smallest ones for me.” When Kishimoto said this again, the children dashed out and piled up so many Limoges souvenirs on the table before him—leaves in such abundance that even when he protested, “That’s enough, that’s enough,” they paid no heed. There was also a girl, still unfamiliar, who—having been coaxed by those little girls—timidly approached him.

“Come closer to the Japanese man.” Led by the hand by the other little girls, the seemingly nervous girl also came up to him, but suddenly shook off her companions’ hands and took a step back. “Oh, how frightening!” The girl said uneasily, looking at Kishimoto. “Come here. Uncle also left behind children just about your age back home. Uncle here isn’t such a frightening person.”

Having said this, Kishimoto then requested a song from the three little girls. He had heard from both the boarding house landlady and the boy Edouard that there was a folk song composed in the dialect called Patois. Kishimoto’s request delighted the song-loving little girls. In the traveler’s sky far from Izumi and Shigeru, when Kishimoto heard a French rural folk song from the lips of innocent children, tears welled up in his eyes before he knew it.

One Hundred One

In the damp, autumnal air, Kishimoto turned back toward Babylon New Road. He happened to join Makino, who was returning after finishing his outdoor painting near the boarding house. The boy Edouard, shouldering Makino’s oil paint box in his stead, returned together from the direction of the national road at the edge of town. "Another fine painting is done!" Edouard announced this to Kishimoto and then went to announce it to the landlady walking near the grape trellis in the entrance garden.

“You’ll have quite the collection of Limoges souvenirs.” “Mr. Makino really does paint them one after another with such speed!” When the landlady, who was in the garden, said this, her elder sister also leaned out from the kitchen window and listened to what everyone was saying in the manner of an elderly woman. The landlady’s niece also showed her face from behind.

Kishimoto went up the entrance stone steps with Makino and, following the rustic staircase railing, headed toward the second floor. For Makino too, autumn in Limoges had been a time of abundant harvest; landscapes and still lifes painted in succession—their oils still not fully dry—covered nearly every inch of the second-floor room’s walls. Each time Kishimoto visited Makino’s room, he was first struck by the pungent aroma of drying oil paints. Though Makino’s travels seemed as arduous as Oka’s, this keen and meticulous painter appeared to resolve artistic quandaries through steady brushwork while Oka remained mired in unproductive agonizing. Among the painters Kishimoto had grown close to during his travels, even Oka and Makino differed so markedly in temperament. He would discuss his Nakano friend back in Tokyo or speak of Takase, Oka, and Kotake—who had fled to London to escape the war—sometimes losing himself in artistic debates until late at night; since coming to the countryside, it was Makino alone who had become his sole intimate confidant, providing both solace and stimulation.

Seeing Makino, who seemed weary from his outdoor work, remove his shoes, Kishimoto went to his rented room. The sound of the Vienne River’s waters, heard on his way back from the bridge’s edge, still lingered deep within his ears. He found himself savoring the essence of a European journey more profoundly in that second-floor room of the country house than in his cramped Parisian boarding house. He felt like a traveler who had finally found himself before the familiar glow of an inn’s lamplight. It was a room with no decorations to speak of—if he went to its single window, he could see grape leaves damp with morning and evening dew; if he went to the corner where the bed stood, a black wooden cross hung by the pillow; if he stood before the fireplace, there was nothing more than an image of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ adorning the wall, as befitting a Roman Catholic land.

Yet by shifting his focus from being in that room, he could immediately transport himself back to his former study in Asakusa, Tokyo—the study he had wrested himself from that life of utter stagnation—and dwell there in thought. Toward the end of those seven years when he had done nothing but stare at cold walls, growing to detest even moving his limbs, speaking to his family, or descending the stairs. Toward those depths of doubt where nothing remained desirable save that light, that heat, and that dreamless slumber. Toward that dead end of my existence—where I had believed those midnight hours spent sitting alone upon my bed, precisely when I felt pain as pain, meant living more fully than dwelling in numb oblivion. Toward that world of endless desolation I had likened to the “ice of existence.” Toward that extremity of fatigue. Toward that blinding hell of living death. Toward that bestial path I had plunged down alongside my unfortunate niece—

A strange hallucination appeared.

That hallucination passed through the wall of the country house room he saw in France and suggested to Kishimoto’s heart the presence of a dreamlike world. Once—not only had they surfaced in his memory but coursed through his entire being—grief, aversion, awe, arduous hardship, and trembling; all these seemed to burn and flow across the wall’s surface before his eyes like a sheet of flame.

One Hundred Two

The sound of the temple bell resounded. The sound announcing Toussaint—the Festival of the Dead—carried through skies above tree-lined town outskirts, reached between red-tiled roofs where quiet smoke rose, and came to fields where yellowed leaves lay withered. At Babylon New Road’s boarding house too they had readied potted chrysanthemums that day, with landlady and boy Edouard preparing to visit graves in a nearby village. Kishimoto had learned of Biyonkuru old woman’s death days before this Festival of the Dead. The notification letter dispatched from vacant home of that clerk—now bicycle corpsman at Versailles barracks—had wound through Kishimoto’s Parisian lodgings to reach him. Therein stated that her remains would be interred at Père Lachaise Cemetery, names of relatives—from clerk son down—listed with meticulous kinship details. For example: deceased’s niece so-and-so; deceased’s brother-in-law such-and-such. That she’d fallen ill and wasted away within war’s vast atmosphere rendered her death more tragic still. Thus did Limoges lodging’s temple bells carry special resonance to Kishimoto’s ears.

Kishimoto remembered that it had been that old woman who first welcomed him when he came to France. He remembered that as a traveler in a foreign land, it was also that old woman who had thought of him the most. He couldn’t say for certain whether that French woman—who seemed unable to forget the dynastic past—had lost the center of her heart and consequently harbored a dreamlike yearning for Eastern lands, but in any case, he remembered her as a woman of cultivated tastes, innate feminine virtues, and such refinement that her passing was truly a loss. He recalled that even during those times when he—having embarked on his journey without knowing a word of French—had no means to escape his silence as a foreigner, it was that clerk’s mother who had sent him letters of encouragement: “You should hasten to learn French. If you could read even a few books, you would not feel such tedium. If these few lines I write could bring you comfort, I would be most fortunate.” He recalled that the letter from Sevres—concluding with words expressing the sentiment, “I sincerely hope this sad war will end as soon as possible”—had been the final communication he received from that old woman.

Feeling a sense of loss that didn’t even feel like someone from a foreign country had died, Kishimoto walked alone toward the old Saint-Étienne temple.

One Hundred Three A grand Mass for the dead was underway. The temple standing high on a hill along the Vienne River's banks—with its Gothic-style stone architecture—had become something Kishimoto found appealing; even its interior structure, resembling a forest with interwoven tree branches, had grown familiar to him. He often came there to sit. That day, he had come not merely to reflect on the deceased old woman's life, but to take pleasure in entrusting his soul to that quiet architecture for a time. As though he were a long-journeyed traveler seeking rest beneath arboreal shade.

Group after group of women passed by Kishimoto—wetting their hands in the marble basin, tracing the sign of the cross on their chests as they prepared for that day’s ceremony. As it was the first Festival of the Dead since wartime began, even wounded French soldiers had gathered to mourn fallen comrades. In Roman Catholic churches, there is always displayed in some form the "Way of the Cross"—a series of religious pictorial narratives. Following the right cloister deep into where these narratives ended revealed an empty chair. Kishimoto chose a spot beside a tall stone pillar and sat among people from this unfamiliar land. The raw voices of boys and men in chorus echoed through the ancient, tarnished hall, combining with the massive organ’s music to resound solemnly. Like light filtering through trees in a dark forest, the tall stained-glass windows depicting saints shone through in hues of navy blue, purple, crimson, and green from where the stone pillars stood.

The fragrance of myrrh and frankincense wafting from the altar had imperceptibly drawn in Kishimoto’s heart. Having actually placed himself within the atmosphere of this Roman Catholic temple, he imagined the life of an extreme modern individual—one who, after fully observing humanity’s ugliness, had not only walked toward a monastery but ultimately become a man bearing a cross like a monk. He also imagined the life of the renowned French poet who, after descending into prison from a conflict with a friend rumored even to have had a homosexual relationship with him, had opened his eyes to pure wisdom from the depths of Decadence.

One Hundred Four When the chorus fell silent, only the resonance of the great organ filled the interior of the high-ceilinged stone edifice. Before long, an elderly monk clad in white vestments stood atop a high pulpit positioned as if to overlook the numerous congregants. A sermon mourning the dead on this wartime Toussaint festival then continued at considerable length. Kishimoto's mind turned toward the monk's sermon delivered in impassioned tone, then toward the antiquated pulpit shaped like a crown, and finally toward the crucifix of Jesus positioned opposite that pulpit. Yet he had unwittingly forgotten all such things. He had forgotten the two or three elderly monks in red vestments with golden crosses hanging near their chests and the dozen middle-aged priests in black vestments lined before the altar; forgotten the nuns in white headdresses mingling with their female students among the congregation; forgotten the women in full black attire seated beside him listening to the sermon; forgotten completely the long candles arranged in rows of three, their flames illuminating the altar area. He simply sat silently beside the stone pillar, returning to a traveler's state of mind—as though confronting something like "eternity," if only briefly.

The slanting autumn sun cast reflections upon the stone pillars inside the hall through the windows of the temple standing atop a high hill. Every stained-glass window shone. The tips of those windows—some designed with crosses shaped like floral wreaths, others in diamond or circular patterns—and the standing saints depicted at the centers of green and crimson hues all glowed in the setting sun. Within this old Gothic-style structure, the Roman Catholic-style decorations of tarnished gold placed inside did not stand out conspicuously. All the stone's weight, lines, and framework gathered beneath the high ceiling to form a grand harmony. The day gradually darkened during the lengthy ceremony. The evening sun reflected in the windows faded away. As though light were dissolving into a deep forest. What remained were hall lights flickering like blinking eyes, the occasional reverberation of the heavy entrance door, and twilight's solemnly deepening shadows.

When Kishimoto left this temple and approached the banks of the Pont-Neuf stone bridge, the sky still retained some brightness. Everything along both banks of the Vienne River was mirrored in the water. He thought how brief their stay in Limoges with Makino had now become. He could not imagine there ever being another time when he might return to such a French countryside to sit in his favored temple. Even while walking toward the lodging on Babylon New Road, he mentally compared Saint-Étienne to other temples in this provincial city. Amidst the stagnant and heavy air of Roman Catholicism, he tried to imagine how much "human" effort sustained that ancient Saint-Étienne temple.

One Hundred Five

In Limoges, Kishimoto had stayed from when the grapes ripened until they were eventually made into wine.

The Battle of the Marne had ended with the enemy’s total retreat; the threat of Paris’s siege had lifted, and most of those who had taken refuge in this town had already returned. The wartime hardships differed little for Makino and Kishimoto whether they stayed in the countryside or went to Paris. The boarding house landlady was preparing to return to Paris with her niece. Makino too was preparing to leave this town at the same time.

“I’ll depart a step ahead,” said Makino. “Since I’ve come this far, I’ll take the opportunity to go around Bordeaux first. You all wait for me in Paris.” Kishimoto relayed these words back to Makino. Frost now came every morning. The fireplace had become used for burning firewood. With his heart stirred by the countryside, he prepared to return once more to Paris’s atmosphere. At his journey’s outset, he envisioned in his heart the pleasure of finally seeing southern France—a land he had long imagined. Thus he set out for Bordeaux. Though he encountered none of the wartime crowds seen at mobilization’s start, he still needed to present his police-endorsed wartime pass to vigilant soldiers at ticket gates.

After parting ways with Makino and the boy Edouard, who had come to see him off at Limoges station, he became a solitary traveler. Before long, the train he rode passed through Limoges's outskirts. Though his two-and-a-half-month stay had been brief, he recalled the carefree moments spent there—moments where, for the first time since arriving in Europe, he had truly breathed sighs of relief—and sought to bid farewell to the pastures where he had often lain on grass, the towns across the river with their vermilion roofs and clustered buildings, and Saint-Étienne's towering temple spire that dominated all Limoges. By the time the Vienne River vanished from the train window, the autumn rains too had ceased.

Kishimoto, feeling he had grown sufficiently accustomed to travel that sitting knee-to-knee with complete strangers in a third-class carriage no longer unsettled him, pressed close to the train window and watched the countryside of central France as autumn verged on departure. He gazed at rain-freshened mixed woods turned golden and counted standing trees—white birches, oaks, chestnuts—on the slopes of successive hills as the train advanced. At times he would spot fallen leaves from yellow shrubs along the trackside stone walls that he mistook for wild bush clover, recalling rail journeys through northeastern Japan’s countryside, particularly around Shirakawa. The leaves that had changed color belonged to young acacia trees. Military freight trains laden with dried grass and others carrying wine barrels—likely destined as soldiers’ rations—passed by the window in endless succession.

Crossing from Haute-Vienne to the neighboring department of Dordogne and passing through a small rural station called Coquille, southbound passengers transferred at Périgueux. From around Poitiers onward, not only did the landscape visible through the train window change—with more houses appearing and even verdant vegetable fields coming into view—but even the passengers' clothing transformed in style. Just by hearing their accented speech patterns, Kishimoto gradually felt himself entering southwestern France. They passed through the Gironde region and crossed the Garonne River after nightfall. A journey that should have taken six or seven hours in peacetime now required eleven. He gazed through the train window at countless lights reflected in the dark sky. This was Bordeaux—where even Japan's embassy had relocated alongside the French government.

If he had come all this way with such anticipation, that alone was more than enough—this was what Kishimoto said to himself. He had known the joy of imagining southern France and the satisfaction of having journeyed there—even if what awaited him in Bordeaux was two days of unending rain. At the inn before Bordeaux’s Saint-Jean station, he found himself inexplicably moved to write travel dispatches addressed to his homeland. Though somewhat monotonous, the plains near Bordeaux seen from the train window, the vineyards stretching endlessly to the horizon—these vistas still lingered behind his eyes. Time and again he would spread paper before the fireplace in his inn room or pace about the space, only to lament how he still could not write as he wished. On the wall hung a small framed painting that seemed a copied seascape. Even gazing at this stirred in him the sensation of traveling near the sea after so long.

Kishimoto walked through the town while being drenched in the steady autumn rain. He went to visit the embassy there to check on how things were in Paris. Sometimes he would go see the Saint-André Temple or visit places such as the Bordeaux Museum. At times, groups of freshly mobilized infantrymen heading toward the frontlines obstructed his way. The soldiers wore new grayish-blue uniforms with yellow and white chrysanthemums pinned to their chests, the flowers even being waved from the tips of their rifles. Frenzied women joining the ranks to bid farewell to husbands, brothers, or lovers included some who clung to the soldiers' arms and pleaded as they marched.

The Garonne River flowed through this city. For Kishimoto, what most vividly recalled the deeply familiar Sumida River was neither the Saône’s streams he had seen in Lyon, nor the clear waters of the Seine, nor the Vienne flowing through Limoges—it was this rain-muddied estuary of the Garonne. There was not only a riverside view that made Kishimoto halt his steps, but at times the rain would lift, and faint sunlight glimmered on the red roofs of the factories visible across the river. Through gaps in the scattered clouds, he could glimpse a blue sky just like that seen back in Japan. Kishimoto deeply reflected on how far he had come from his homeland.

106

Recalling the joy of returning once more to that capital he had left wondering when he would see Paris again, and recalling the joy of the new world of language that had finally begun to unfold before him, Kishimoto departed Bordeaux by night train. What kind of cold wind would be whirling through that capital when he returned this time—how many compatriots would he encounter? Such thoughts occupied his mind. Outside the window was dark; even when he tried to sleep in the train car, he could scarcely manage to doze off. When all the fellow passengers in the compartment had become utterly exhausted, dawn began to break inside the train.

As morning came, Kishimoto—whose tension had conversely slackened—tried to get at least some sleep. Each time he dozed off and awoke, he felt Paris drawing nearer. It was a pleasant morning where everything he gazed upon seemed to rouse his senses. Gradually they drew closer from Paris's outskirts toward the citadel. The character of buildings reflected in the train window had somehow begun changing. The provincial elements seen around Limoges transformed into sturdy urban designs; structures that stood two or three stories tall now rose five or six; between these fortress-like edifices, the cross-sections of layered bricks became visible high above.

Around eight o'clock in the morning, Kishimoto arrived at Dorsay Quay Station. From inside the horse-drawn carriage he rode with his luggage, he looked to the right and left as they went. To eyes that had gazed upon yellowed willow leaves by the old pond in Bordeaux's park—leaves speaking of deep autumn—and upon the vivid deep green of southern magnolias, the towns now appeared in full winter scenery. The avenue trees too stood withered. Even the sound of the horse's hooves treading upon the cold streets struck his ear. He felt he had returned to a Paris more desolate than he had imagined.

Upon arriving in front of the maternity hospital, Kishimoto first paid a visit to the boarding house landlady. The boarding house landlady, who lived near the entrance stairs, suddenly rushed out of her room the moment she saw him.

“Mr. Kishimoto.” As she stood before him, the boarding house landlady’s face vividly revealed the hearts of those who had remained in Paris enduring what felt like a siege.

Kishimoto was glad to see the boarding house unchanged. The landlady and her niece had arrived from Limoges ahead of him and welcomed Kishimoto. He went to look at his room at the end of the corridor. During the two and a half months he had been away, dust had accumulated so thickly on the left-behind luggage and books that one would hesitate to touch them.

The landlady’s niece came to peek into the room and,

“Oh, what a lot of dust!” “Even so, my aunt and I spent all day yesterday cleaning!” With that laugh, she brought from the dining area the packages, newspapers, and magazines from home that had arrived during Kishimoto’s absence. Among them were items that had somehow managed to arrive intact despite the long days they must have taken. Kishimoto went to look out his room’s window. The dark winter of Paris had already descended upon its tree-lined avenues. Pedestrians were sparse. The maternity hospital’s gate across the way, the coffee shop, even the windows of the inn where Dr. Yanagi and Professor Chimura had once stayed—all seared into his vision.

107

The neighboring room was also quiet. The young Frenchman—a lawyer attached to the appellate court who had rented that room—had been conscripted and left, and there had been no word or news to the boarding house landlady since. “Poor thing, that lawyer might possibly have been killed in the war,” the landlady told Kishimoto. In the neighboring room, books and magazines left behind by that Frenchman—who seemed like someone born in Normandy or thereabouts—remained exactly as they were. Kishimoto peered into that vacant room and felt a chilling coldness more dreadful than reading gruesome accounts of the war. He felt that this coldness lay just on the other side of a single wall from his own room. Kishimoto went outside and stopped by the shop he frequented to buy cigarettes. The proprietor there had suffered an injury severe enough to lose one leg and was now said to be at a field hospital.

In the afternoon, Makino came to visit. Kishimoto learned from Makino’s account that the group of artists who had split off toward Lyon from Limoges had already returned to Paris. He also learned that there had been one or two painters who had remained in Paris all along. “Makino, shall we go see the town? I never imagined Paris would become this lonely.” “When the Lyon group returned, it was apparently even lonelier.” Kishimoto and Makino left the boarding house, talking all the while. They went as far as Rue Saint-Michel and stopped by briefly to see the people at the aforementioned “Simone’s House.” The proprietor there had headed for the Belgian front and had since gone missing.

A loneliness akin to that which follows overwhelming terror ruled the towns. Kishimoto walked alongside Makino down the long Rue Saint-Michel toward the Seine. Foreigners had departed, many citizens had evacuated, and only a scattering of elderly people, women, and children walked along that tree-lined avenue usually bustling with pedestrians. As they walked, Makino told Kishimoto about a painter who had remained in Paris throughout. He recounted how this city too had once braced for German encirclement, opening all trains for evacuees. He told how bread had been given freely to anyone who asked. He described how multitudes of citizens evacuated on foot for lack of transport. He spoke of how those people had streamed through nighttime streets in an unceasing procession until dawn.

They walked as far as Châtelet Boulevard. Once they reached that point, a somewhat Parisian flow of people could be observed. The two arrived at the banks of the Seine, crossed the bridge to Île Saint-Louis, and emerged to a place where the rear of the old Notre-Dame Cathedral could be seen. At the base of the stone wall, the shadows of dark figures lined up fishing could also be seen. The waters of the Seine also flowed with a lonely air. “Cold stone buildings and black winter trees—it truly feels like a Parisian winter, doesn’t it?”

Makino remarked with a painterly observation. Kishimoto moved like a shadow through the rows of withered trees alongside this person. While listening to their own footsteps echoing against the stone pavement, they keenly felt they were now two among the very few Japanese remaining in Paris.

108

"Withdraw from England at once. Taste the bitterness of this Paris." Thus Kishimoto wrote at the margin of a letter addressed to Takase and sent it off—a reply to when Takase in London had inquired about the subsequent state of affairs.

Despite the loneliness pervading his surroundings, Kishimoto once again turned to face his desk in his room. The towns visible beyond his traveler’s window—those spared from being reduced to smoldering ruins—and the furnishings within his room that remained unchanged both seemed to welcome him back once more. The sound of piano practice could be heard once more. Not only that faint melody—as if flowing from those unthinking fingertips—but even the sound of a young girl’s footsteps pacing the floor above could be heard from upstairs.

The buds of new words he had begun learning to forget the sorrow in his heart had now grown all at once. When he took out the books he had tried so hard yet failed to read and had stored away, only to find their meaning had somehow become clear, he felt the same joy he had known in his youth. The world of Latin scholarship—which had felt like something stored in a great warehouse—suddenly unfurled before him. He could now say, "There lies the spirit of poetry; here lies the spirit of history." For him, who had held no preconceptions to begin with, nothing made him forget travel's constraints like this new land's vista—so overwhelming he could scarcely take it all in.

Shifting his resolve to continue living abroad, Kishimoto turned his thoughts to his family in his distant homeland. The span of two full years had changed even the circumstances of relatives living far away. His niece Aiko had moved with her husband toward Karafuto. Negishi’s sister-in-law had gone to Taiwan and was living with Brother Minsuke. During his travels, Kishimoto had learned of Hiroshi from his benefactor’s household marrying and of Suzuki’s elder brother dying of illness in their hometown.

Amidst the increasingly distant news from home, it was Setsuko who sent Kishimoto detailed accounts of the vacant Tokyo house. Through her letters, he could envision how the two children entrusted to Brother Giyū’s family were growing. The sister-in-law’s words—chiding the robust children with “Is your body made of iron?”—and scenes of Izumi and Shigeru wielding sticky poles in single-minded pursuit of dragonflies—all these visions rose before him as clearly as if heard with his own ears and seen with his own eyes, made possible by the letters she sent.

"If only she hadn't written about that matter—Setsuko's letters would truly be good—"

Kishimoto would often murmur this to himself when alone. Setsuko would use even the blooming of bush clover she'd transplanted from their old Asakusa home as an excuse, never failing to write commemorating the birthday of a child Kishimoto had never seen.

109

Setsuko sent a letter written in a forceful tone: “I have finally come to understand your heart—how you scarcely send any replies despite all my letters.” Days had arrived that suggested the approach of a long winter seclusion. A cold severe enough to freeze the fountain in Luxembourg Park had arrived. A fire had been lit in the hearth of the room. Kishimoto went to its side and read the letter from Setsuko over and over. She wrote that you were probably trying to forget me now. “Then so be it—if that’s your intention,” she wrote with finality, “I have resolved never again to write letters addressed to you.” She wrote asking if even all those letters I had sent were insufficient to move your heart. She wrote that there was not a single night when my pillow stayed dry whenever I thought of you and my child. She wrote asking how you could remain so silent and still not feel any pity for me.

An indescribable emotion coursed through Kishimoto’s heart. The contempt he had long harbored toward women—born of repeated disappointments—now drew forth his own state of mind. Even when pitying or fearing his niece, it was his own feelings—never what she had imagined—that surfaced. Every time he thought of Setsuko, he inevitably recalled Brother Giyū’s words—“Forget this now”—and even his own conflicted feelings toward that brother resurfaced. He felt he could hear his niece’s final voice—the one that had lingered outside his tightly shut heart, calling endlessly to him. He imagined catching the faintest echo of a last desperate knock—as if her endurance had finally shattered against that unyielding door.

In the fireplace, a bright red fire burned fiercely. In frugal Parisian households everywhere, small turtle-shaped charcoal briquettes used during winter were mixed with coal and burned. Kishimoto sighed and threw both the letters from his niece and the envelope she herself had addressed in shaky Roman letters into the fireplace. In the blink of an eye, the paper blazed up, and Setsuko’s words vanished without a trace. Kishimoto stood before the fireplace like a grief-stricken man, watching the scraps of paper he had thrown in turn to ash.

110

After that, Setsuko’s correspondence ceased entirely, and a Parisian winter—dimly lit, gloomy, scarcely any sunlight to be seen, during the shortest days when dusk would begin to fall as early as half past three in the afternoon, when most of the day and night seemed cloaked in darkness—had once again arrived outside his traveler’s window. At last, Kishimoto welcomed a lonely wartime Christmas and spent the second year since parting from his children in a foreign inn. Yellow mimosa flowers and small daffodil-like narcissus barely comforted the heart awaiting spring—it was mid-February of the following year when a letter from Setsuko, whose correspondence had once ceased, arrived unexpectedly at Kishimoto’s lodgings. She wrote that she had resolved never to write again, but whenever she looked at the souvenir postcard Uncle had sent from his travels, she found herself breaking that resolve to send this letter. The letter detailed not only her persistent frailty—how she had grown so weak that her former self from the Asakusa days seemed to have vanished—and the unhealed rash resembling athlete’s foot spreading across both hands that tormented her, but also her deepening unease toward her mother, written in a tone unlike any before. As he began to read, Kishimoto could not help but furrow his brows, for the words of his sister-in-law conveyed through Setsuko’s letter seemed to have sensed his secret—one that should have been known only by his brother alone. At that moment, he wondered: Why would Brother Giyū adopt a policy of hiding things even from his own wife? Why hadn’t Setsuko resolved to confess her shame and apologize to her mother alone?

According to Setsuko’s letter, there were times when her mother would call her “Granny” instead of “Sis” in front of her young brothers. Prone to being a nuisance and unable to help in the kitchen as she wished, she wrote of the pain she felt when subjected to this sarcasm. Not only that—she had even written down her mother’s own words. “Calling you ‘Granny’ is pitiable, no matter how you look at it—yes, ‘Aunt’ would be better—this one isn’t your sister, she’s Kishimoto’s aunt—” She wrote that her mother’s words were always in this tone.

“Kishimoto’s Aunt.” If this wasn’t sarcasm, then what was it? Kishimoto repeated those words to himself. He was struck so deeply by her tone—unlike any before—that he could hardly bear to read through Setsuko’s letter. She wrote in a tone so sorrowful it seemed almost pathological. She sent a letter written in a tone bordering on madness. Never before had Kishimoto been shown so vividly his niece suffering because of his own doing.

111

An indescribable dread and pity remained in Kishimoto’s chest long after he had torn up and burned Setsuko’s letters. Long ago, when Kishimoto had secluded himself working as a country teacher in the Shinano mountains, he once passed through a shallow valley on his way to the school near the castle ruins. At a stream in that valley behind some shrine, he once found a small bird. Without meaning to catch it yet chasing it among the river stones all the same, his Western umbrella had struck the bird’s wing. By the time he realized he’d wounded the creature—whether it was fleeing something or ill—it was too late. The eyes that looked his way through blood were terrifying for such a small bird; he couldn’t rest until he killed the tiny sacrifice. After walking half a chō toward the railroad crossing near the castle ruins, he noticed his umbrella’s handle had broken. Those very bird’s eyes were the eyes of Setsuko as he now imagined them. Heartrending eyes. Eyes with the force of a sharp knife determined to pierce his chest.

"Why must a sin once committed cling to me so maliciously?" Kishimoto sighed deeply. A phrase that a French poet had preserved in his poetry collection rose to Kishimoto’s mind. “Que m’importe que tu sois sage, Sois belle et sois triste……” The ugliness of heart—that of an uncle in his prime of judgment leading his niece into a world unknown to her innocent, virginal self—could find its likeness even within this anguished verse. The song likening one’s innermost heart to an Arctic sun, and the verses Kishimoto had often recited in his Tokyo Asakusa residence—both had been left by that same French poet. Kishimoto thought of how a man with such decadence had once walked through this world steeped in profound solitude. The crimson yet frozen sun of that poet’s verse—even without imagining it at the Arctic’s edge—was precisely what he now beheld in Paris’s dark winter sky.

Kishimoto went out into the town and searched for medicine for Setsuko’s hands that tormented her with persistent suffering. He considered entrusting it along with the French-style black-covered notebook he had bought to send to his children—to be given to someone returning to Japan when the opportunity arose. Yet even such gestures could do nothing about the fact that a niece as unfortunate as Setsuko continued to survive in this world. That anguish descended like a shroud upon the new traveler’s resolve he had painstakingly regained in the countryside of Limoges.

112

Thick fog kept the town’s sky dark day after day. There were days when he glimpsed pale yellow light glimmering in patches of sky near rooftops, and days when he saw clusters of pink clouds in rare stretches of clear sky—yet again and again, he found himself living with a mood as dark and confined as if shut away in a box. As befitting wartime’s desolate winter, all things had frozen solid. On cold rainy evenings, Kishimoto even found himself wanting to call out the names of friends now far away. He went to the window and gazed out, recalling the words “Jaku-maku kaikun”—“Longing for you in solitude”—that a friend from Kaga-cho in Tokyo had written on a postcard’s edge.

A column of artillery carriages drawn by six horses passed through that town. Following each artillery carriage came a vehicle loaded with ammunition crates, drawn by eight horses. Among the citizens standing in the streets to watch, not a single one let out an enthusiastic cheer. All maintained a solemn silence, merely seeing off the young conscripts on horseback. The wartime air had become thick with gloom.

Kishimoto gazed out from his room at the town’s scenery—now as silent as still water—and found himself struck even more profoundly than he had been months prior. Since returning from Limoges, he had been sinking deeper into this atmosphere with each passing day. The time of intense excitement and turmoil had passed, replaced by a time of patience and restraint.

Kishimoto looked around his room. A deeper ennui than before the war had arrived there.

“Ah, it’s started again.” And whenever he thought of it, he bitterly resented how that same feeling kept recurring—the feeling of having no way to pass the time except wandering aimlessly through towns and sitting in cafés he had no desire to visit. The gray light streaming through the window would sometimes make the dark room’s interior appear like a prison. That he was surrounded by cold stone walls was another such instance. That everything from bedding to washing implements to a chamber pot was furnished within the room was another such instance. That he was entirely cut off from relatives, friends, and children was another such instance. That visitors were scarce—and even when they came, finding meager solace in idle talk of homeland cuisine or women—was yet another. That he had absolutely no connection to the outside world was another such instance. That there was an unbelievable lack of stimulation was another. That he was driven by fantasies impossible to realize was another. Not only that—Kishimoto had to bear the lash of his own whip upon his back. For one who had left his homeland resolved as if wearing a woven rain hat over his heart, this invisible confinement seemed almost natural—the loneliness, the abstinence.

113

In this desolate winter seclusion, Kishimoto’s mind often returned to his father. Frequently did he long for the father from whom he had parted in his boyhood. When staying at a foreign inn, overwhelmed by thoughts of his uncertain future, he would sometimes throw himself onto the bed in the corner of his room and bury his face in the white lace coverlet. Beside the wall where hung that old painting depicting Socrates’ death, he brought himself before his father who was no longer of this world—called out to him, even tried praying to his soul. As if with the heart of that boy who had parted from his father.

Kishimoto’s father had been born into a family with an ancient lineage spanning over three centuries in the mountainous heartland of their ancestral home. Beyond a single mountain pass in the neighboring village adjoining a deep valley stood another household bearing the same Kishimoto surname. For generations that house had filled roles as magistrates, village headmen, official innkeepers and wholesale merchants—positions mirroring those held by Kishimoto’s paternal ancestors. From this collateral branch came Kishimoto’s mother as a bride. Elder Brother Giyū had been adopted out from early childhood to inherit his maternal family’s household. This adoptive father—who from Setsuko’s perspective was her grandfather—stood as Kishimoto’s mother’s own blood brother. Kishimoto left parental care at nine, abandoning his ancestral home for scholarly pursuits in Tokyo. At thirteen while in that city he received word of his father’s death. Not only had his time living under paternal guidance been brief—so too proved the span of maternal affection granted him. The period when he shared profound intimacy with his mother in Tokyo coincided with his youth’s arduous dawn yet lasted barely two years. He learned of her death while residing in Sendai.

To this extent, Kishimoto had only childhood memories concerning his father. At forty-four years old now, even the fact that his traveler’s heart was returning once more to that person seemed strange to him. The melancholy that had pervaded half his life—that nameless, causeless melancholy from which all his words, deeds, and thoughts seemed to arise—was something he could speak of to none other than his father. For just as Kishimoto’s own half-life had been tormented, his father too had lived a life of torment. If Father had survived in this world and learned the motive behind his child’s distant journey, what would he say… Yet the one Kishimoto wished to go to in the end—even if it meant pressing his forehead to the earth to voice the anguish in his heart—was his father.

114 “Father and mother’s how intensely I yearned— *the pheasant’s cry.*” This verse rose in Kishimoto’s heart. The wanderer’s sentiments of people of old, hidden beneath these brief words, pierced him deeply. If it were not for a journey in a foreign land where one waits anxiously for a spring that may never come and frets over one’s uncertain future, he thought, would his father’s love have been stirred so profoundly? The memories of his childhood carried him back to show him the distant rural mountain village of his hometown. There was a spacious entrance. There was a rustic hearth. There was a relaxation room where Elder Brother Minsuke resided. The village gentlemen often came there to converse. There was a next room, and there was a middle room. Mother and sister-in-law were spreading out their needlework in that room where bright light streamed in. Distant mountains, sprawling valleys, even the vast plain that seemed to fade into haze—all could be seen beyond the shoji screens of that room, situated high on the mountainside. Beyond the courtyard garden’s wall, below the stone embankment, the wooden-shingled roof of his aunt’s house could also be seen. There was an inner room. There was a raised-floor room. On one side, facing a tranquil garden planted with an old pine tree of gnarled beauty and peonies, there was Father’s study with its deeply overhanging eaves. That was the house where Kishimoto was born.

Kishimoto could still vividly see in his memory the desk covered with a red felt rug in his father’s study, upon which lay the books his father loved and, at times, tools for traditional Japanese mathematics. He could still see in his memory that study’s interior—how he would move behind his father, who often complained of stiff shoulders, and while being made to recite tedious successive era names like “Kyōhō, Genroku…,” he would cling to his father’s shoulders, chanting while tapping as if reciting a sutra. He could still see in his memory the candle flame he was made to hold before the white paper spread out to fill the room, sitting by his father who wrote late into the night, rubbing his sleepy eyes repeatedly.

His father was strict—so much so that Kishimoto as a child had no memory of ever being allowed to sit upon his lap. His father was an absolute sovereign over his family, and to Kishimoto and the others, he was also an enthusiastic educator. Before studying school textbooks, Kishimoto learned three-character texts his father had written himself; after he began attending the village school, he received instruction from his father in reciting *The Great Learning* and *The Analects*. He would timidly appear before his father, clutching that book with the chestnut-colored cover bearing the Goto Ten mark. Whenever anything arose, his father would instruct him in the path of human ethics and the Five Constants, and even in his childish heart, he revered and feared his father. When his chronic nervous temper flared up, he became an utterly terrifying man. Being the youngest and still of tender age, Kishimoto did not face such harsh treatment, but Elder Brother Minsuke would sometimes be struck by a broken bow. To put it plainly, for young Kishimoto, his father was nothing but a frightening, stubborn, and unbearably oppressive figure.

115

The memories of his boyhood now took Kishimoto to show him the backstreets of Tokyo’s Ginza. There was a storehouse-style house. There was an entrance. There was a window fitted with iron bars facing the street. The sunlight streamed through the small shoji screens into the area beneath the window where the desk and bookcase were placed. That was the Tanabe house where Kishimoto, after moving to Tokyo, had taken refuge as a boy under the supervision of his uncle and aunt and the grandmother. The five or six short strips of paper received as a farewell gift from his father; the characters his father had written in that meticulous script, telling him to make them his motto after moving to the capital—Kishimoto could still vividly visualize them. As a boy, he kept those mottos in the drawer of the bookcase beneath the window, and from time to time would take out some of the short strips to look at them. Every time he looked at his father’s handwriting—phrases like “Conduct must always be sincere and reverent…”—he felt as though he were hearing the stern teachings of his father back in their hometown. Though uncertain, once Kishimoto began corresponding with his hometown, his father often sent him letters. Even after he moved to the capital, his father remained his constant advisor. He would write to his father as if composing a school essay, but whenever Uncle Tanabe told him to show it, his face would turn red. The time when his father had come from their hometown to this Tanabe house was one of Kishimoto’s unforgettable memories. Father unpacked his travel blankets and luggage and such in the back second floor of Tanabe’s house and stayed there temporarily. In his hometown days, Father had still worn his hair in the old-fashioned manner—bound and tied with a purple cord to hang down his back—but on that journey, he spoke of how he had gotten his first short haircut. “This goes like that, and that goes like this—” Such mutterings to himself were Father’s habit when trying to gather his thoughts. Once, when he took out a mirror stored in a paulownia-wood box from his travel bundle, Kishimoto asked, “Father, do men look in mirrors?” Father smiled and explained that mirrors were indeed important for men too—especially when traveling, one must maintain a proper appearance.

Father was a man of considerable eccentricity who left anecdotes wherever he went, but through his son’s eyes, he seemed more pitiable than amusing, more bizarre than abnormal. During this Tokyo visit, Kishimoto felt this especially acutely. There had even been an occasion when Father suggested visiting his school friend’s house. At that friend’s home in Sanjūgenbori, the friend’s mother—a widow—was raising her children. There Kishimoto escorted his father. Everything Father did filled the boy with unbearable anxiety. When they visited the school friend’s house, the mother welcomed them warmly, but upon leaving, Father borrowed a tray from her and laid out the large mandarin oranges he had brought as gifts. As Kishimoto watched, expecting him to present them to the mother, Father instead abruptly carried the oranges to the household altar and offered them there. To the boy’s eyes, such behavior seemed merely strange. He had no capacity to ponder whether Father’s spirit was noble or honest. For reasons he couldn’t articulate, he could only think of hastening their departure and leading Father back to the Tanabe residence. Though not entirely displeased at being reunited with his father after so long, in his heart he still preferred imagining Father remaining in their mountain village back home. He wished Father would leave Tokyo at once—return to that hearthside where firewood burned year-round—and stay there with Grandmother, Mother, Elder Brother and his wife, and the aged faithful servant.

When he later reflected, he realized this had been the sole father-son encounter since his arrival in the capital. After that, he never saw his father again.

116 It was rather after his father’s death that Kishimoto came to truly know him. When he finally entered adolescence and began to feel his own sudden growth, he once returned home upon hearing of his grandmother’s death in his hometown. By that time, Elder Brother Minsuke was already in Tokyo, and he returned to his hometown as his brother’s proxy to mourn Grandmother and visit his mother and sister-in-law, who were keeping house there. At that time, he not only saw his birthplace for the first time in years but also followed his mother—who said she wanted to show him the books his father had left—and went out to the backyard. The path between vegetable fields and mulberry groves leading from the main house’s side to the storehouse; the detached second-floor room that had been Grandmother’s retreat; the several persimmon trees planted before the storehouse—all remained unchanged from how he had seen them in earliest childhood. Mother stood on the stone steps of the storehouse with its dark wire-mesh door closed, rattled the lock with a large key in her hand, then guided him upstairs. There remained the bridal trousseau chest from when Grandmother had come as a bride. Here lay Mother’s long chest. Apart from those old furnishings, what filled the storehouse’s second floor were the many books his father had left behind. From the old bookcases stacked against the wall emerged volumes chiefly concerning Japanese classical studies. Seeing this, he perceived how deeply his father had devoted himself to that classical school of thought. When he began studying English scholarship, his father had still been alive and sent him deeply concerned letters—feelings he now came to understand.

From that time onward, he became ever more determined to understand his father. He resolved to retain in his memory even the smallest anecdote concerning Father. At every opportunity, he questioned relatives and those who had known Father. To Elder Brother Minsuke. To Elder Brother Giyū. To Uncle Tanabe. To Grandmother Tanabe. From these fragmentary tales preserved in their memories, he tried to reconstruct Father’s life. Strangely, he discovered Father more vividly within himself than through others’ accounts. He felt this most keenly whenever that sprout of life—pushing outward from within him—led him into a melancholy world where all things seemed tinged with altered hues. The older he grew, the more he dreaded how his own nature increasingly mirrored Father’s. He was twenty-six when he returned from his journey to Sendai. One summer spent at his sister Suzuki’s home in their hometown brought him fragments of Father’s voice through her speech. “Sukeyoshi’s my boy—clever lad, ain’t he? Father always said he wanted ’em to follow in his footsteps,” his sister told him in their country dialect. At that time, Suzuki’s elder brother too lived in their ancestral home, enjoying his most prosperous days. For Sister as well, it was a time of happiness.

Sister, having her brother before her for the first time in ages, turned to her husband and said with a laugh, “Oh, do look at Sukeyoshi sitting there—his hands are just like Father’s.” At that moment, he found even his father’s hands within his own body. To be sure, Father was said to recklessly put on tabi socks and such, but what remained in his childhood memory was a man far taller than he.

117

Father’s melancholy, like Kishimoto’s, had also taken root in his youth. The fact that Kishimoto had accumulated battles of the mind unknown to other youths his age was also a result of that melancholy, but he had held firm to the extent of not descending into madness. Father’s was the real thing. Though this chronic illness had tormented his father throughout his life, Kishimoto could still imagine there had been many days of health for him as well. As evidence: it was said Father had been a disciple of Hirata Atsutane; that during the Meiji Restoration he forgot his household and devoted himself to national affairs; that he became chief priest of Mizunashi Shrine in Hida Province; and that he then retired to his hometown and spent his final years educating students. The sister-in-law now living in Taiwan with Elder Brother Minsuke—who knew Father’s daily life well—had once recounted these stories to Kishimoto at the Negishi house in Tokyo. “When Father’s nerves weren’t acting up, he was such a gentle man,” she told him. “He couldn’t even bring himself to apply moxibustion to a child.”

Through this sister-in-law, Kishimoto heard about the days his father had spent in the tatami prison room at the end. Father’s senses, perceiving illusions as reality, came to be tormented by an invisible enemy.

“The enemy is attacking. “The enemy is attacking,” Father would often say. From those terrifying hallucinations, Father ultimately attempted to set fire to the paper doors of the village temple said to have been founded by the Kishimoto family’s ancestors. That was the first time they led him to the room that served as his prison. Even Elder Brother Minsuke—known until then as an obedient son—was compelled to stand before Father, bow once, and then bind his hands behind his back together with the villagers. The tatami prison room built for Father was located in a wooden shed at the rear. It was situated down stone steps along a dug well between Grandmother’s retirement room and the storehouse. In front lay an old pond; on one side it connected to a rice storehouse, while behind it thrived a bamboo thicket attached to Kishimoto’s house. There, Father spent his final dark days. Not only did Mother stay in a separate room and devotedly nurse Father, but even the villagers who customarily addressed him as “Master” took turns keeping watch day and night.

The sister-in-law’s account conveyed the minutiae of Father’s days in the tatami prison room, while Suzuki’s sister relayed his emotions. Sister was already living apart from the husband who had abandoned their home. Having briefly left her hometown, she recounted this story to her younger brother on the second floor of Kishimoto’s house in Asakusa, Tokyo. There were times when Father, even in the tatami prison room, would declare his wish to write—requesting an inkstone and brush, then scrawling the character for “bear” large and bold across paper to show others. He would laugh mockingly at himself until it seemed he might collapse in convulsions, only for sorrowful tears to stream silently down his face afterward. “As crickets chirp on this frost-laden night, I spread my robe upon the cold mat—must I sleep alone?”—Father would recite this ancient poem endlessly, listening to his own voice as if entranced before clutching the bars of his dark cell and wailing in anguish. “To make of a patriot lamenting the world and fretting over the nation a man driven to madness—is this not tragic?” These were said to be Father’s final written words left in that wooden shed. Father ultimately passed away from beriberi heart disease.

118

After Suzuki’s sister moved to the capital, during the time when Sonoko was still in good health, Kishimoto once returned home to erect a grave for his father. At that time, he stopped by the Suzuki family home in his hometown to see his sister, then walked about ten ri along the Kiso River. Even though it was his hometown, Kishimoto had walked that path through the valleys only a handful of times. Each time he passed through, the traces of the old post road had changed. When he reached his mother’s birthplace, the old grand mansion was nowhere to be seen, but there stood Elder Brother Giyū’s vacant house, where Setsuko’s mother lived with Grandmother, the two of them tending to the children. The terrain of the deep valley ended around there; following a path with many slopes through mountain forests lay Kishimoto’s village. At the temple said to have been founded by distant ancestors, old moss-covered tombstones connected to Kishimoto’s household stood in rows as if recounting ancient times. Kishimoto passed through the cemetery built on the hillside slope and emerged where part of the village could be glimpsed through a cedar grove. Two burial mounds came into view. There lay his parents.

In the village, there were still many people who had received his father’s teachings. The neighbor’s sake shop owner, who was usually on friendly terms with Kishimoto’s household, was also one of them. Invited by the man, Kishimoto climbed up to the second-floor tatami room with a fine view, where from the elevated position atop a stone wall, the site of the former mansion lay visible below. The village’s great fire had transformed his father’s house into mulberry fields. Neither the main house nor the earthen storehouse could be seen anymore. Under a sky that had somehow begun to drizzle, the autumn-tinted persimmon leaves remaining on branches amidst the mulberry fields spoke of autumn in his hometown. Kishimoto pointed to the mulberry fields together with the neighbor’s sake shop owner and reminisced—there had been his father’s study, there had stood the old pine tree his father loved. From around the time when the entire family had moved to Tokyo—as the former mansion site still belonged to the neighboring household—Kishimoto obtained permission from the sake shop owner and went out alone along the back through the mulberry fields. From when the sweet-scented persimmon flowers bloomed to when unripe fruits with green stems fell, scenes from days gone by around the storehouse front—where he had played as a boy—still lingered in his eyes. The memory remained of that day when he had stood with his mother on the stone steps before the dark wire-mesh door to look at the books his father left behind. From the second-floor tatami room that had been his late grandmother’s retirement quarters to the rear, only that area had barely escaped the flames, and Kishimoto could see the unchanged wooden shed still standing there. The sister-in-law who had gone to Taiwan had also spoken of that shed. The tall stone wall in front, the old pond, and the deep bamboo thicket growing behind conjured images of his father’s desolate, shadowed final days.

119

All these memories of his father coalesced in Kishimoto's heart as he traveled. Having lost his father early, he had received little of the parental affection that most boys enjoy. Yet growing up, he had also been spared the terrible clashes that often occur between fathers and sons. He often reflected on this—what connection could there possibly be between his studies, actions, and thoughts, and those of his father? What might have become of them had his father lived longer? From the days of his youth when he first resolved to study foreign languages—those very tongues his father despised—he realized he had already turned his back on his father's heart.

Strangely enough, in this foreign inn, Kishimoto's heart drew closer to his father than it ever had before. Father's voice once more reached the depths of his ears. On a day when the dark, cold sky stretched like an overcast copper plate without any crimson sun shining through, as he contemplated his journey's path within a frozen stone edifice,

“Sukeyoshi. “Sukeyoshi.”

And it seemed to him that his father’s voice—the one he had heard as a child—had reached his ears once more.

That was not all. Having come to the land of heretical teachings that his father had vehemently rejected and despised during his lifetime, Kishimoto had even cultivated an eye through which to view his father. During his time in his homeland, he had regretted on behalf of his father and others—those who had devoted themselves to the Hirata school’s doctrines—that they had not been content with the path walked by pioneers like Keichū and Norinaga, but instead pressed onward even into Shinto. Now he had come to consider quite seriously things such as his father and others—who had adhered to the classical spirit throughout—participating in the patriotic movements of the time and moving from scholarship into action. The year before embarking on this journey, he had compiled his father’s posthumous poetry collection as a commemorative act and, though in limited copies, had it printed and distributed among those who had known his father. Within those posthumous manuscripts were numerous travel poems that Father had composed in the land of Hida. Recalling this, he reflected that the time when Father had secluded himself in the mountains of Hida as the chief priest of Minashi Shrine was both a lonely period in his life and one filled with cherished memories. He again considered the cause of the mental illness that had afflicted his father. He tried not to take it in the romantic direction he had imagined in his youth, but rather to consider it as stemming from simpler hygienic negligence. Even if Father’s madness had indeed come from such an external virus, his heart toward Father had not changed in the slightest. The fearsome, stubborn, oppressive father had now come to appear in his eyes as one of the same weak humans as himself, with even greater familiarity than before.

Before this Father, Kishimoto brought his traveling self. When he had left his country with a heart ashamed, ashamed, still not ashamed enough; when he stood on the deck of the French ship departing the harbor in the dark night to bid his final farewells—he had truly intended for Kobe to be his final farewell as well. His journey, too, reached the point where he had to determine its future course.

120 “Your meal is ready, sir.”

A housemaid wearing a French-style striped apron opened the room’s door and came to inform Kishimoto that lunch was ready. At the boarding house, the landlady’s niece had returned to Limoges, and a country-bred housemaid had been hired in her place. Passing through the dark corridor, Kishimoto made his way to the dining area. Having spent nearly two years living as a traveler, he now saw himself as an established regular guest in that dining room.

“Now, everyone, please take your seats,” said the portly landlady as she sliced French bread. “Our country cooking—I wonder if it suits the palate of our esteemed guest who has come all the way from Normandy?”

The woman from Normandy who had come to visit her wounded husband at the Val-de-Grâce military hospital near town, and the middle-aged female tutor who made daily rounds to teach children at a certain household—these were the faces that gathered in Kishimoto’s dining room. The Lenten season of Roman Catholicism had already begun. As was annual custom, even the landlady’s celebration of “Meat-Eating Tuesday” with pork sausages had passed. That this forty-day religious period had returned made Kishimoto realize just how long he had been living in France.

“Mr. Kishimoto, have you had any letters from home? Are your children well? They must be waiting anxiously for their father.” As she spoke while joining them at the table, the landlady passed around a large platter of homemade Lenten dishes to each guest in turn. This landlady praised the Normandy visitor’s Paris-bought hat and complimented the tutor’s newly tailored kimono taste, showering them with every possible accolade—“How splendid!” and “Truly magnificent!”—leaving no praise unuttered. Being from rural Limoges, she insisted on heaping everything high—both the food and the flattery. Kishimoto ate while thinking of his costly foreign travels, having grown weary of these people’s small talk. When he returned to his room from the dining area and looked around, Kishimoto was struck by an acute awareness of being a foreigner. He began feeling this was neither a place to linger long nor a state of existence to prolong indefinitely. The warmhearted people like that elderly woman from Biyonkuru who had often worried about him had died, while current affairs had further constrained his travels. Every last French acquaintance he’d painstakingly befriended was now wholly consumed by national crisis. Scholarship and art alike had nearly all ground to a halt. Around him there was only war.

Kishimoto had come to feel that his resolve—the determination with which he had left his homeland intending to become part of this foreign soil—was ultimately impossible to sustain. Back home waited children who had no one else to rely on. Like a man bowing his head before cold and implacable fate, he lamented that he would sooner return this borrowed life than stand at such a crossroads of existence. He brought himself before his deceased father and prayed, "Take this life from me."

121

“O traveler, halt your steps. Why are you in such haste? Where do you go? Why do your eyes gleam so? Why do you ceaselessly seek things? Why do you tread with such fretful steps?

――O traveler. Did you come all this way from that star-lit east to see this country? Is what exists in this country still insufficient to satisfy your heart?

――O traveler. Evening came. Why are you tearing up? Is it your unfamiliar shoes that weigh heavy? Is this evening heavy? Or is tomorrow’s evening what pains you?

――O traveler. Why are you trembling like a small bird? Even if your life were an endless succession of long, long terrors, why do you not possess a more innocent heart?

――O traveler. Halt your steps. The season of Roman Catholicism has come to this land. You too come and rest in this evening commemorating the Lord’s Passion. “Bread to feed you—water to quench your thirst—surely such things exist here...”

At the desk in the room that served as both study and bedroom, Kishimoto took out what he had written. The French calendar hanging on the wall by the window announced that March had arrived. By that window, he read over the travelogue he had written down. When he looked around the room, he still could not free himself from the state of long winter seclusion. The town’s sky was also dark. However, around January and February, there had been many more days when the darkness persisted. He felt that a terrifying low-pressure system—a fifteen-day-long low-pressure system—had passed through the interior of his heart. Through the cold glass, the town’s sky—though still dark—already held a faint reddish tinge suggestive of spring; the roofs and chimneys of distant buildings appeared hazy, and even to his travel-weary window, frozen as if by wartime winter, it seemed that a deeply warm spring had at last drawn near.

The shrill of a military whistle reached Kishimoto’s ears for the first time in ages. A French infantry squad led by a bugler advanced from the direction of Gobelins Market, pausing to rest at the town’s edge. Through the window, he saw winter-bare plane trees surrounded by stacked rifles and knapsacks slung from shoulders. Officers dismounted their horses to rest nearby. The navy cloth wrapping the soldiers’ caps and their new winter uniforms—all grimed with dirt—evidenced their trials through wind and snow.

“There is no one who doesn’t want to live—”

“There is no one who doesn’t want to live—” he said to himself.

The women of the towns came out to console the soldiers. There was a coffee shop proprietress who generously poured wine, and a confectionery shop proprietress who piled bread pastries onto plates to offer them. Kishimoto couldn’t remain still in his room either. He hastily put on his hat, descended the stairs, and resolved to join these people. Women left behind—their faces etched with worry for husbands, brothers, and cousins—along with children and elderly folk were weaving through the resting soldiers, moving both right and left. Kishimoto drew a tobacco pouch from his inner sleeve and offered it to five or six soldiers nearby.

122 With each passing day, Kishimoto’s traveler’s heart deepened. Whenever he had free time, Kishimoto would leave his boarding house, ascend to the grand lecture hall of the Sorbonne to listen to what seemed like wartime orchestral performances, and also go sit in the Sorbonne’s old chapel—said to hold Paris’s finest religious music. He also went to walk with others along the long tree-lined avenue of Saint-Germain to the banks of the Seine. When they reached the riverbank where the old buildings of the Louvre Palace and the stone walls of the Tuileries Garden were visible on the opposite shore, the flow of the water appeared somewhat hazy, and the rows of horse chestnut trees along the bank began to bud. On such days especially, a heart awaiting spring arose in his chest.

It was a time when the new language he had nurtured over nearly two years was beginning to extend its reach. Surveying his surroundings like a traveler, he noticed things that seemed to be busily preparing themselves for the coming age. To his eyes, they appeared unmistakably as buds—buds making ceaseless, meticulous preparations. One might even say they had been sprouting and burgeoning for a considerable time already. Yet when Europe's frigid war, that cold which seeped into human marrow itself, arrived, it seemed only to further stimulate this germinating force. Such things surrounded him. And among these buds, there was none that did not represent the rebirth of what had once fallen into decay.

This observation deepened Kishimoto’s traveler’s heart even further. Even the dead Joan of Arc was coming back to life in the hearts of the French people around him. With eyes that had seen many old Catholic temples akin to pagan shrines, he looked upon Limoges’s Saint-Étienne Temple; shifting those same eyes that had seen Saint-Étienne, he gazed at Paris’s François Xavier Temple and others like it; then turning his eyes further, he came to think of the many new devotees aspiring toward the “Way of the Cross”—and in this way, he felt he could discern such buds of regeneration even within the ancient air of Roman Catholicism.

That bud whispered to Kishimoto. “Why don’t you get ready? Why not transform yourself—you who have risen from the depths of a life that has stagnated completely—into something new just as you are? Your weariness, your fatigue—if it were possible, even the anguish itself hidden in your chest’s depths—”

123

An afternoon came when he wanted to go out into the town and mingle with the passersby. Kishimoto was about to leave his boarding house when he encountered Makino, who had come from the direction of the studio near Pasteur. Oka and Kotake too had already returned to Paris from England one after another around this time. Makino brought news that Oka’s beloved had married someone else back in their homeland. Even before the war—when the art school’s assistant professor was leaving Paris, and on other occasions—Oka had still clung to a thread of hope tied to those people’s return home. Now even Oka’s beloved was gone. Sympathizing with him, Kishimoto exchanged a look with Makino.

“Oka and Kotake have gathered at my studio now,” said Makino. “We’re at a loss—there’s just no way to comfort him.” “We need even you to come—” “What good would someone like me going out there do? There’s nothing I can do, isn’t there?”

Though Kishimoto said this, he was concerned about Oka as well, and left the boarding house with Makino, who had come to fetch him. The two walked along the tree-lined avenue of Port-Royal. Around the time when the French government had relocated from Bordeaux just before the year-end Nativity celebration, the towns had gradually grown somewhat livelier, but they still remained desolate. The spectacle of war permeating every individual’s life—not least evident in the increased numbers of women walking in black mourning dresses with long black veils trailing behind them—was something the two could discern in every person they encountered in the town. In children with grimy faces; in men driving massive horses pulling coal-laden carts; in nannies clutching folding stools under their arms while leading children toward the park; in young laborers wearing hunting caps; in old women with small dogs; in women sporting hats adorned with red flowers or cherry-like ornaments and absurdly high-heeled boots that drew stares—their very attire declaring their search for that day’s bread—in all these too.

When they reached the square in front of the observatory, the two encountered a group of youths around seventeen or eighteen years old. Those youths were all students. Dressed in regular clothes with leather belts fastened, wearing armbands, their legs wrapped in gaiters, rifles shouldered, and formed into ranks, they were heading toward Luxembourg Park to receive military-style training. Among them were faces still youthful and intelligent. “Will even those people end up going to war soon?” “In our case, that was the age when we wore short hakama and attended school.”

Exchanging such words, the two saw off the French youths who seemed bound for their nation’s crisis. Compared to last year, the budding of the trees along the avenue was much delayed. The plane trees still remained in their winter-bare state. When they walked along the tree-lined avenue of Montparnasse to near the annex of Notre-Dame, they could finally see the blue buds of horse chestnut trees in that area. “Even so, the horse chestnut buds have finally become visible, haven’t they?”

Makino said as he walked alongside Kishimoto. "You’ve really endured that studio well, Makino. I somehow feel this winter has been especially long." Kishimoto replied, quickening his pace as he walked. In his heart, thoughts of going to meet Oka and matters of his own journey came and went. 124 "You all are admirable. Even so, you help each other out well." Around the time they had walked to Pasteur Street, Kishimoto looked toward Makino and said.

“The models who come to me said that too,” said Makino. “They said, ‘The Japanese are all poor, but they help each other admirably—you’d never see that from people who come from other countries.’” Makino replied and, as if heading back toward his own home, led Kishimoto off in the direction of the side street where his studio was located. The stretch from behind Montparnasse station to those tree-lined avenues was a familiar path even to Kishimoto. Being near Paris’s encircling ramparts gave it a somewhat shabby edge, but for that very reason, it also felt unpretentious. The vegetable shop where Kishimoto would often go to buy scallions when invited to Makino’s place for home-cooked Japanese meals was visible along that very street. By then, the studio was nearly within reach.

Oka and Kotake had gathered around a table with beer placed on it and were waiting for Makino’s return.

“Oh. Thanks for going through the trouble,” said Kotake, looking at Makino. “Makino, since Mr. Kishimoto has come, why don’t we all have a drink together?” said Oka, setting down his half-finished glass.

“Ah.” Makino, playing both host and housekeeper, clattered about in the studio’s corner with an air of hospitality. This sight alone summoned the mood of “Paris Village” within Kishimoto. He sat facing Oka. Oka spoke sparingly. Letting his habitually squared shoulders and fervent brow speak for him, he poured beer for Kotake and Kishimoto— as if raising cups to send off a departing soul.

“When I think how things turned out this way despite having someone who truly understood me by my side—that alone is what I find most regrettable.”

Oka said those words. “Though our situations can’t be compared—first of all, from your perspective, Oka, I was much younger and our circumstances were different. But in the sense that we opened our hearts to each other, I suppose there’s a similarity there. I contended with death itself. Even so, I could do nothing to stop the one who was leaving. I was the one who announced the separation—though in my case, the other party had a fiancé, you see.”

Kishimoto voiced before everyone something he would rarely ever mention. 125 Kishimoto had not forgotten how, when setting out on this journey to France, he had unexpectedly encountered two women who visited him at the inn in Kobe. Those he met after twenty years had become women past forty, yet the one who died two decades earlier remained forever young in Kishimoto's heart. What he unintentionally revealed before Oka and Kotake concerned Katsuko—the woman who had been an old schoolmate of those ladies encountered in Kobe. Aoki, Ichikawa, Suga, Adachi—during those years when such friends vied in their youth, Kishimoto had met that Katsuko. For him, still in youthful vigor, everything became nothing but startling revelations to his heart. Strangely enough, what the world called blindness paradoxically opened his eyes. Not only did his eyes open toward Katsuko, but he came to perceive depths in hidden things previously invisible to him. He penetrated not only the hearts of older friends around him but imagined lives of ancient poets who left passionate verse, envisioning the inevitable passion for women as woven through those historical existences. A young life began unfolding from there.

However, the young life that unfolded before him was not merely bright and joyful; rather, it was filled with scenes of devastation. He saw Katsuko, wrested from his grasp, ultimately wed to another according to her father’s command. Simply put, it was because he had been poor. He could not forget that even at the same age, had he been born into a slightly wealthier family, he might have received enough subtle encouragements to keep her. All he could offer was nothing more than a shred of sincere devotion. “I love you. My body is already as good as dead—all that remains is this heart that longs for you.” With these words, Katsuko was led away by her father and vanished. He had not only experienced this himself but had witnessed it among the friends around him. Even a clever youth like Ichikawa failed when he could not provide economic assurance to his lover’s sister or relatives. Yet Okami, born into a bonito flakes merchant family in Nihonbashi Denmacho, succeeded. This truth carved itself deeply into his youthful heart. It was precisely then that he came to understand love’s powerlessness.

The cheerful laughter of Kotake and Makino arose before Kishimoto. These two painters, who had left their wives back in their homeland, tried to comfort Oka's heart by cloaking it in unreserved laughter. Seeing Oka sitting with arms crossed as if declaring the time had come to bury everything, Kishimoto felt something resembling the sight of his younger self before him—if not precisely that. For between himself during Katsuko's lifetime and Oka now lay an age difference akin to elder and younger brother.

126 Whenever Kishimoto recalled his younger days, Aoki’s name would invariably surface in his heart—and since it frequently appeared in his conversations, it had become familiar even to Oka and Makino. In front of Oka, he recalled the words of that friend who had ended his regrettably short life at around twenty-seven years old.

“Didn’t Aoki say something like... ‘In this world, there is nothing that does not pass away. At least within that, I want to leave behind sincerity,’ like that. I’d like to suggest those words to you, Oka.”

With that, Kishimoto looked toward Oka and spoke. He talked in that studio until sunset. The remnants of that evening during that year’s New Year—when only close acquaintances in Paris had gathered to set out wine, had models sing, and enjoyed themselves like children—the faded colored paper streamers that hung from wall to wall beneath the ceiling still remained in Makino’s studio. Before long, Kishimoto prepared to take his leave. Makino said he had shopping to do in town and, while worrying about Oka, accompanied Kishimoto.

Makino said once they were out in the town.

“This time around, even Oka seems to have lost his spirit.” “Well, there’s nothing for it but to let him weep his fill,” said Kishimoto as they walked along the dusk-lit sidewalk together. “But knowing him, he’ll surely find something to clutch from all this eventually.” “Even if someone asked me to lend them my sister, I’d have to think twice,” “Fellow artists know too much about each other’s private affairs—it makes it impossible to oppose things.” “I wouldn’t want to make even my sister endure that kind of hardship, you see.”

Exchanging such words as they walked, Kishimoto parted from Makino on a Passy street bustling with passersby. It was a dusk so distinctly March-like—the kind where the buds on the horse chestnut trees lining the avenue seemed poised to unfurl all at once. There was still time before the seven o'clock dinner. Kishimoto walked back toward his boarding house through air suffused with evening warmth, thinking of emotions stirred in Makino’s studio, of friends from his youth, and of Katsuko—her memory surfacing alongside them.

“The fact that I still so often recall things like Morioka means she must have had genuinely good qualities as a woman after all.”

Along the way, Kishimoto murmured this to himself. Morioka was Katsuko’s hometown. In the old days, whenever he gathered with Ichikawa, Suga, and others in places like Demmacho or Saikyō, such coded references would inevitably arise. The heart with which Kishimoto sympathized with Oka’s dejection was none other than the heart he himself had carried long ago upon hearing of Katsuko’s marriage. It had indeed been a blow to him in his youth. Even catching sight of unknown newlywed couples in the streets had wounded his young heart. Yet hearing of Katsuko’s death struck him far more deeply. She had died still in her youthful prime—about a year after marrying—from what must have been morning sickness during pregnancy. When he heard this tale, the world around him took on a yellowish cast; he even felt as if the very dirt of the road were rising before his eyes. Dark days followed thereafter. Countless hardships assailed him. He could still recall with perfect clarity how many long months and years it had taken to restore his shattered spirit.

The journey to Sendai saved his heart. It felt as if the pure morning of his life had first dawned when he went to that old quiet city of Tōhoku. Yet he was no longer the Kishimoto of before. From that time onward, his repeated attempts to distance himself from romantic troubles, his efforts to avoid women who approached him, and his resolve to live alone—all were rooted in the bitter experience of love he had endured during those most impressionable and tender-hearted years of his life.

127

"How many years has it been since Aoki died?" Even after returning to the maternity hospital with lamplight visible in its forty-odd windows, Kishimoto went to the Western-style lamp placed atop the fireplace in his room and retraced everything that had happened since parting from his old friends. He retraced the feelings of that time when he had set out together with Aoki, Adachi, Suga, Ichikawa, and the Okami brothers.

After dinner, the boarding house housemaid came in and hurriedly closed the windows before leaving. "If light shows from the windows, the police will make trouble about it, sir." With those wartime-appropriate words, the housemaid departed. Kishimoto moved the old-fashioned lamp with its yellow cloth shade to his desk. As he faced the lamplight, his mind wandered to his pre-marriage days when he'd resisted taking a wife; to how Sonoko—whom he'd become engaged to through a senior's recommendation—had once learned from that very Katsuko who graduated early from their shared school; and further still to those joyful newlywed days when he and Sonoko had first built their nest-like home together.

“Father, please believe me… Please believe me…” Those words of Sonoko’s—the words she had spoken twelve years into their marriage as she buried her face in her husband’s arms and wept—remained the most nostalgic and unforgettable words Kishimoto had ever heard from his wife. Determined not to treat love lightly, he had endured a bitter life. In trying to reclaim what he had lost, he ended up losing even what he still possessed. When Sonoko passed away from postpartum hemorrhage, scarcely having time to bid farewell to their children, he had become a man who could only stare vacantly at the very concept of womanhood. Had he been able to believe more in what the world calls love, he might not have felt so constrained by remaining single while raising children. Had he earnestly heeded the advice of relatives and friends, he might have even considered taking a second wife. A faithless heart—that was the deep abyss into which he had plunged. It was the culmination of disappointment layered upon disappointment. From this sprang loneliness. From this sprang tedium. From this, even his understanding of how women think had crumbled.

Having come on this journey, he received numerous letters from his niece. No matter how Setsuko might write words that seemed to lay bare her small heart, he found himself unable to believe them.

128

With the wall bearing that old copperplate print of Socrates' death behind him, Kishimoto sat down near the bedside. He continued to reflect on his own past. "Even those with passion find it difficult to meet someone truly worthy of that passion."

These were the reflective words Kishimoto had jotted down in the margins of a correspondence to his homeland’s newspaper while staying at an inn on his journey awaiting spring. By nine o'clock at night, when the world outside the window had grown hushed and the footsteps of passersby on the street could only rarely be heard amidst this wartime atmosphere, Kishimoto repeated to himself the words he had written. Born with a disposition so intense that he had known passionate first love by the mere age of eight, he now contemplated the contradiction of a life where he had become unable to trust the opposite sex at all.

When Takase of Kyoto University had been in the adjacent room, the graves of Abelard and Héloïse in Père Lachaise Cemetery that he had visited together with Dr. Yanagi and others still remained vivid in Kishimoto’s eyes. That renowned medieval monk had not only shared an unchanging love throughout his life with his disciple and lover—a nun—but even after death lay side by side with her, sleeping within an old chapel darkened with age. What rested there was a symbol of a world steeped in profound ecstasy—an unimaginable embodiment of trust between man and woman. “Truly, this is the land of Amour,” Takase had said with a laugh, but Kishimoto found himself unable to laugh at that grave now. Even if their story were but a kind of legend... He recalled those profoundly still figures reclining as if in love’s nirvana within the Catholic-style chapel supported by four pillars, its four arches visible from every direction. He remembered how begonia-like flowers had bloomed poignantly within the iron fence surrounding that ancient chapel, as though bearing some symbolic meaning. Circling around them again and again, he had gazed at those two figures lying side by side from head to foot until leaving became unbearable. “It’s just like a fairy tale,” he murmured of the lovers that rose before his mind’s eye. But no life felt lonelier than one devoid of fairy tales. Would he end up a traveler wandering this world without ever meeting someone worthy of his passion? The thought filled him with loneliness.

That night, Kishimoto retired late to the bed in his room. Even before resting his head on the pillow, he sat half-upright on the bedding and recalled friends from his youth and his own younger days. Counting from when he had parted with Aoki—who had left this world so prematurely—he now contemplated how his own life had persisted nearly twenty years longer than his friend’s. He believed he had lived until that day solely with the innocent heart he was born possessing. Yet when he noticed, even that heart seemed to be slipping away.

"That’s right. Above all else, I must first return to my innocent heart." He told himself.

Never had he returned to the sentiments of his youthful days as profoundly as on that night of his travels.

129

At last, a turning point had sprouted even in Kishimoto’s stubborn heart. If he were to decide against returning to his homeland and instead attempt to venture among complete strangers, what path could possibly lie before him in this time of war? Now Frenchmen from eighteen to forty-eight or forty-nine were answering their nation’s call. Among those in arts and letters, some served with bicycle units like the clerk from Biyonkuru, while others drove transport vehicles like the poet from Rapee. Had he possessed the resolve to join the volunteer corps and disappear among strangers, there would have been a path to take—however forced. Yet Kishimoto could not bear to plunge deeper into this course and torment the children he had left behind at home. Having reached this point, he finally resolved to return to his homeland.

Letters urging him to return as soon as possible began arriving from Brother Giyū. Kishimoto wrote and sent this decision to his brother. He wrote that he wanted his brother to wait until around October at any rate—by then he intended to prepare for returning home, and since he hardly thought there would ever be another chance to make such a journey again, he wished to make this trip as purposeful as possible.

“Mr. Kishimoto, I will return to Japan via Suez.”

A picture postcard bearing few words yet immeasurable sentiment arrived from Professor Chimura. Holding it, Kishimoto felt he could almost hear the professor’s voice—a voice he had grown familiar with during their travels abroad. Chimura had sent this message as he embarked on his journey back East from London aboard a mail steamship. Takase’s departure too seemed imminent now; he who had written of his wish to return via America. Kishimoto went to his room’s window and gazed out at the inn where Chimura had stayed. The avenue of plane trees outside remained stark in winter barrenness. Through the sparse branches, he could clearly make out the window of Chimura’s old room, the curtained entrance of the café below it, and the town road the professor had walked each mealtime. The European war still raged after all those people had left; these March days in Paris observed alone—every sight and sound that met him deepened Kishimoto’s sense of being a lingering traveler. Standing at the window, he imagined Chimura’s voyage as if seeing off a distant wayfarer. His heart journeyed to the French ship that had carried him from Kobe, then to the Mediterranean viewed from its deck—to the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea. It ventured over the Indian Ocean’s expanse like witnessing an eternal midsummer nightmare, reaching Colombo, Singapore, and other Eastern ports too. Comparing outbound and homeward voyages, he pictured Chimura observing colonies through Europe-weary eyes—even if vague anxieties might lessen, he supposed the richness of travel’s sensations would grow stronger on the return journey. Imagining Chimura’s day of homeland reunion, he marveled that his own self—who two years prior had abandoned everything to rush across distant waves—now faced a similar destiny approaching inevitably through time.

130 The warm rain began to fall in sporadic drops. He did not feel as though he had been anxiously awaiting this rain. For five months now—throughout the winter seclusion of his journey—Kishimoto felt as though he had been waiting for nothing else. Since his journey to Limoges, what had been around him? In the mountainous areas near the French border, trenches had been deeply buried under accumulated snow, and blankets were being collected to rescue those on the front lines from frostbite—the citizens’ hearts that sympathized with such toils continued up to that day. Every story he heard spoke of the miseries of war. There were stories that five or six hundred thousand French people had already died since the start of the war. There were stories that by the time this war ended, few would return to Paris with their bodies intact. Every child, woman, or elderly person keeping house that he encountered in the town—there was not one who was not longing for the coming spring. Cold and bitter, cold and bitter—amidst the unavoidable anguish of this war, amidst the world’s suffering, it seemed there was scarcely anyone who did not hope that the rebirth of plants and trees would soon herald their own rebirth.

Almost daily, Kishimoto went to stand before the French calendar hanging on his room’s wall. The daylight grew considerably longer. The sky grew brighter. He could now manage without the fireplace. With each rain, he felt spring drawing near. At last, the horse chestnut buds also began to swell. Amidst all the plants reviving, he looked forward to the coming world of young leaves. The horse chestnut flowers, like white candles, bloomed among the young leaves, and it seemed that the flames of spring flowing from the cold glass windows and stone walls were no longer far away.

The evening’s softly blowing south wind bore even German airships arriving. It wasn’t some French journalist’s turn of phrase—on that first night when those “aerial pirates” dropped bombs across Paris and its suburbs, Kishimoto had slept so soundly he remained entirely unaware of the commotion. The following night, a clamorous noise awakened him on his bed. Alert cars blaring sirens raced through the midnight streets. Again, he knew the enemy airship was approaching. When he hurried out of his room, there in the kitchen stood the boarding house landlady trembling as she offered prayers. Outside, townspeople gazed up at the dark sky and the searchlight beams like lightning. Even amid such a Paris, he had grown so accustomed to the wartime air that it no longer seemed terrifying. “Instead of swallows, airships come flying now,” he remarked—words barely sufficient to draw wry smiles from the boarding house residents. More than anything, he worried telegrams of Paris’s state might alarm relatives and acquaintances in his distant homeland.

By the train window, Kishimoto thought of Izumi and Shigeru, who were waiting for him, and tried to imagine the day when news of his return—which he had notified Brother Giyū about—would reach the children’s ears. Then he tried to imagine too the day when he would see that unfortunate Setsuko again. At that thought, a deep sigh escaped him involuntarily. From the war before his eyes, Kishimoto had come to discern the hearts of the various people moving within it. He found it not difficult to imagine young Frenchmen who, much like Vronsky’s departure described at the end of Anna Karenina, would advance to the battlefield seeking their own salvation. He had also heard about Professor Broth’s son, who viewed the war as sport and was seen off at the station by close family and friends as if embarking on some pleasure excursion. When he considered that mentality, it struck him as truly pitiable. The power of rebirth emerging from death—this was not only the wish of those around him but also his own fervent hope.

Spring was awaited.

『Awakening』: A Note

“*Awakening*” is a retitling of *New Life*.

Even the act of presenting such a book of sorrow and anguish to you, dear readers, now fills me with hesitation. However, without this, I cannot clarify the path by which I reached even that *Storm*. This work originally consisted of two parts, but in truth, had I written an additional part to make it a complete trilogy—had I not attempted to write through to where the protagonist returns with the heart borne from his distant journey—it would remain a work whose overall coherence is scarcely graspable, and as a life record, it is indeed profoundly incomplete. Moreover, between the time when this was written and today, twenty years later, the circumstances have changed, the people have altered, and even my own state of mind has transformed. For this reason, for the seventh volume of this collection, I have chosen Part One instead, limiting it to the section from the protagonist’s departure on a distant journey to his contemplation of returning home, and have also retitled the work *Awakening*.

Looking at it today, I realize I had been too fixated on the term *New Life* when writing this work. The very nature of *New Life* lies in its remaining unachieved. Nor can New Life be fashioned so carelessly. From this perspective too, the retitled *Awakening* proves more fitting for the work. I began writing Part One in April of Taisho 7 [1918] and serialized it in the Tokyo and Osaka Asahi newspapers. I was forty-seven at the time. The manuscript for Part Two was completed in September of the following year. In Showa 2 [1927], this work was translated into Chinese by Mr. Xu Zuzheng of Peking University and published by Beixin Shuju. This marked the first introduction of my writings to readers in a neighboring country. As a translator, Mr. Xu apparently endured hardships beyond our imagination—the Chinese translation alone required several years. He wrote to me of this ordeal, and I cannot forget how his lengthy translator's preface began: "Due to various circumstances, this book's completion suffered long delays. Now I make this chronology my final task, while earnestly awaiting the work's swift conclusion and respectfully wishing good health to its original author."

In the latter part of the first volume of *Awakening*, there appears a passage where the protagonist reflects on his deceased father; yet viewed from today’s perspective, there are many inadequacies in how that father was portrayed. Even when I, as a son, attempted to capture my father’s likeness, this remained the case. How much more so for others’ likenesses. With that in mind, I came to realize keenly how arduous creation truly is. Moreover, as I was still in the prime of vigorous youth when I took up my pen to write this work with such profound emotion at that time, there are not a few instances where even I myself appear to have lacked composure. I did nothing but pour out both hot sweat and cold sweat while writing this. Given the nature of its content, it was also this work that stirred up various issues. However, I have remained silent in many instances. The deeper my self-reflection grew, the more it seemed only natural to remain silent—that was why.

The *Awakening* included here is, so to speak, a partial work, but even as such, I think it may be regarded as a single work. Still, there are many things I would like to set down here, but they cannot all be exhausted.

Volume Two

One

Nearly three years had passed during his sojourn in foreign lands. Kishimoto, who had often likened his circumstances to those of a man exiled to a distant island, now felt as though he were unshackling himself and undoing the bonds at his waist, attempting to break free from his desolate life of self-reproach.

The day of his return home was drawing near.

The day that was supposed to arrive before Christmas had been delayed by nearly half a year, and Kishimoto ended up spending both that third celebration encountered in his travels and the following New Year at his Paris boarding house. Counting from when he had arrived at the port of Marseille aboard that French steamship and first set foot on French soil, it had now been nearly four full years. From the determination he had when leaving his country, he had resolved to go forth without ever looking back—to journey to unknown lands, immerse himself among strangers, and strive to forget the sorrow in his heart—so much so that he had never even considered whether there might come a day when he could return alive. Perhaps the port of Kobe had been his final glimpse. The thought of turning his steps back toward the country he had left with such resolve now made him feel as though he were slinking home in disgrace. However, since the outbreak of war, all means of travel had been exhausted; prolonging his stay would only cause others worry, and he was deeply troubled by thoughts of the children he had left behind in his homeland. Moreover, having managed to maintain this nearly three-year-long ascetic practice of restraint and endurance had, to some extent, lightened his traveler’s heart. He awaited the day when he could see his children again in his homeland like a prisoner awaiting release. He had to begin making preparations for the long journey home. Among the Japanese clothes he had packed in his suitcase and brought from home were haori jackets and kimonos that he often took out and wore as loungewear. Among them was a single undergarment that remained as a memento of his wife Sonoko, who had passed away so many years ago it was hard to count. The dark blue silk lining of that undergarment had completely worn through. During his stay in Paris, the cotton-padded robe specially delivered from his friend’s house in Motomaru-cho, Tokyo had proven immensely useful; through many long winter nights, he would layer it over his Western clothes and sit at his desk savoring the loose-fitting comfort of Japanese attire—yet even this sturdy robe had now frayed to the point where white cotton showed at its hem. From late autumn to early spring each year, the suit he had worn year after year had become too worn to take back home. He was trying to shed that old suit as one might discard a red kimono. By the end of his journey, the grime of his boarding house room had also caught his eye. He was preparing to bid farewell even to that room he had long grown accustomed to. To the stone walls of the room that had at times felt like an invisible prison as well. And to the glass window of the room where he had sometimes gazed out while fretting over his journey’s uncertain future, clutching himself as if embracing his own being.

"I am being permitted to return."

He tried putting into words his own return to his homeland.

Two As Kishimoto made preparations for his return, his homeland had somehow grown distant. He could not even clearly imagine to what extent his own children - whom he had not seen in nearly three years - might have grown. What lingered in his mind's eye were only their figures as they had been when parting at old Shinbashi Station - forever frozen in childhood. The European war still dragged on; though the boarding house caretaker's husband had gone off to the front and only rarely returned on battlefield leave, the caretaker's own children left behind had grown astonishingly. While ascending and descending the stairs, Kishimoto would often approach where the French children played nearby. He frequently inquired after their ages. Their French-style attire - black jackets with knee-length shorts exposing their shins - bore no resemblance to anything seen back home. Yet gazing into the blue eyes of children who drew near him, Kishimoto tried imagining how Izumi and Shigeru awaiting him in Japan might have grown. The Izumi he would return to see was now twelve years old; Shigeru would be ten.

As he imagined Izumi and Shigeru’s growth, thoughts of Setsuko—whom he had entrusted with the children when leaving the country—also rose in Kishimoto’s heart. The niece of the boarding house landlady—who had tragically lost her fiancé, a reliable Frenchman she had been engaged to, after he went off to the battlefield and died—had now returned to the countryside near Limoges; this landlady’s niece was exactly the same age as Setsuko. She was a woman of rugged build with disturbingly red, frizzy hair—a country bumpkin through and through when she first came from Limoges to assist the landlady in Paris. Yet by the time she returned to the countryside, she had so thoroughly absorbed Parisian ways as to be nearly unrecognizable; even in her diligent, work-worn hands lingered traces of a young woman in her prime. She was taller than the landlady. Through her, Kishimoto often imagined his niece’s growth. Setsuko, whom he had always thought of as a young girl, was already twenty-four.

A letter from Setsuko arrived before Kishimoto moved out of the boarding house. She wrote in a restrained tone of praying for Uncle’s safe journey home, of the children at home being quite healthy while eagerly awaiting his return, and yet of her concern—how would Uncle think upon seeing the state of this household when he returned to the country before long?

“I couldn’t even manage a proper job of looking after things—I’m truly sorry, Uncle.”

These words too were written there. The terribly nerve-wracked, vulnerable tone that had once characterized her letters was no longer there. Particularly her most recent letter was written in an unreserved tone, making it the easiest to read among all the correspondence Kishimoto had received from her during his travels. “It’s such a relief that you’re keeping up like this, Setsuko-chan.”

Before he knew it, Kishimoto found himself uttering those words. At the same time, the fact that she seemed to be idling without having settled down even at that age pressed upon Kishimoto’s chest with a wordless force.

Three

As for the marriage proposal for Setsuko that had arisen back home, Kishimoto was not entirely unaware of it. From his elder brother Giyū in Tokyo, there had been a time when he had sent word to Paris before such matters were settled. When Kishimoto read that letter, he learned of his brother’s anxious desire to have Setsuko settle down quickly, learned that the prospective suitor was a salaried worker earning sixty to seventy yen monthly, and also came to know that this man was a descendant of a scholar renowned during the Tokugawa era. Giyū had also written expressing his hope that the marriage arrangement would come to fruition. Afterward, there was no word from his brother, and seeing that there was nothing written about the matter in Setsuko’s occasional letters either, it seemed likely that the proposal had come to nothing—

Each time he reflected on these tidings—the fact that Setsuko had secretly given birth to a child; that her breasts had undergone surgical incisions; that her body had become imperceptible to any casual observer—Kishimoto’s heart could not help but brush against those irrefutable, hidden secrets, whether he wanted to or not. Now preparing to return to his homeland after nearly three years of trying to avert his gaze, seal his mind’s eye, and lose himself in wandering forgetfulness—he had to confront that terrifying specter. He envisioned himself standing before Brother Giyū, whose very photograph radiated intimidation. He imagined facing his sister-in-law who had abandoned her children without even entrusting them to someone’s care. He pictured Grandmother—who had left her familiar hometown in ignorance to accompany that sister-in-law to the capital—and himself standing before her. Then, amidst this gathering of those he had wronged, he saw himself once more confronting Setsuko—the woman he would meet again upon returning.

Kishimoto sighed and thought of how this return to his homeland would be no easy matter. Yet with a heart ready to meet the dawn once more, he turned toward those people. He resolved to at least confess everything to his sister-in-law and apologize for all that had transpired. He resolved to do everything in his power for the unfortunate Setsuko and strive to assist with her marriage proposal. For Kishimoto, this return journey demanded no small measure of mental courage.

Four

The effects of the war had reached even the boarding house where Kishimoto was staying; the ophthalmologist guest who had been commuting to the army hospital from there departed, the tutor guest departed, until finally Kishimoto became the only remaining guest. The dining room too was utterly desolate. The landlady—who had been muttering about being unable to cope with soaring prices—finally declared her intention to close down the house and retreat to the Limoges countryside until the war's end; seizing this chance, Kishimoto resolved to leave the boarding house where he had long resided. He then attempted to relocate to an inn near Sorbonne that would prove convenient for his impending departure in every regard.

Kishimoto had not yet been able to set a date for leaving Paris. As it was a distant journey, even waiting for letters from home required considerable time. With travel being difficult in those times, he needed to make various inquiries about the route. Through these efforts, he had to determine his return journey’s course. Should he choose the long sea voyage home via the distant Cape of Good Hope, passing through the Indian Ocean to Eastern ports? Or brace himself for danger—even resolve to have his travel journal confiscated under strict wartime censorship—and take the train route home: crossing from England over the North Sea, detouring through Northern Europe he had long wished to see, then traversing Siberia? In the distant reaches of Russian territory lived Teruko—Setsuko’s elder sister—and her husband, who had sent word that they would await their uncle’s return. In any case, this was no time for an easy homecoming. Kishimoto found himself agonizing over which of these two paths to choose.

Among the artist companions Kishimoto had grown close to in Paris, Kotake had already returned to Japan, and Oka had gone to Lyon for some time. At the studio near Pasteur—the familiar one—there was Makino, who had promised to leave Paris together with Kishimoto; this painter often visited Kishimoto's boarding house to discuss preparations for their homeward journey. "What sort of things await us back home, I wonder?" Every time he saw Makino, Kishimoto found himself unable to refrain from saying this.

“I can’t help thinking those left behind must be struggling too,” Kishimoto said. “When I return, I suppose addressing those concerns will have to come first.” When Kishimoto broached these matters of his household—subjects he’d rarely mentioned before Makino—the painter nodded in response, this traveler who had endured his own grueling journey. “I’ll never make such a voyage again.”

With Makino before him, Kishimoto sighed as if recalling the nearly three years of hardship he had endured. That was the last time he saw Makino in his boarding house room.

After moving to the inn, Kishimoto felt compelled to properly prepare for his journey. When the horse-drawn carriage he had arranged finally arrived by the tree-lined street, before sending off his temporarily packed belongings, he visited the bedside where he had taken many bitter naps, stood beneath the copperplate portrait of Socrates hanging on the cold wall, and paused before the full-length mirror attached to the wardrobe door. By the time he left that room, his hair had turned startlingly white—a transformation that shocked even him.

Five

Kishimoto was no longer a resident remaining stationary in Paris but had become a traveler preparing to embark on his homeward journey. After moving to an inn near Sorbonne University, he went out on errands nearly every day. To complete the procedures for crossing to London, he visited the Paris police station, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the British consulate. To find token souvenirs for loved ones back home, he wandered through old tree-lined streets like those in Saint-Germain. The tercentenary of Cervantes had arrived at that time, with new publications commemorating Spain's renowned author of Don Quixote adorning bookstore displays. For a man like Kishimoto—devoted to arts and letters—passing these eye-catching shop windows while walking beneath rows of horse chestnut trees, their young leaves already yellowing and unfurling, deepened his traveler's mindset all the more. To bid farewell, he visited homes of French acquaintances he'd grown close to. Not a single household he knocked on failed to evoke wartime sentiments. He visited Biyonkuru's secretary's house where neither the elderly matron nor the wife could be seen—only two children appearing lonely with their housemaid. He visited Professor Broth's house.

There, one of their young sons who had gone to the front had been injured; Professor Broth and his wife went out to visit him, leaving the housemaid keeping watch with a worried expression. An evening arrived that seemed to herald the imminent end of his French journey.

Kishimoto secluded himself in his third-floor inn room and wrote a letter to his Tokyo household while listening to the bells from Sorbonne’s ancient chapel traveling through the stone buildings of the town’s architecture.

For some time, Kishimoto had held a desire he wished to fulfill as this journey drew to a close. When the time came to leave Paris, he would resolve to shave off his beard and set out on his journey home. Strange and abrupt as it may have seemed—this notion of his—to Kishimoto, who had left his homeland with a heart shrouded like one wearing a woven hat, it was neither strange nor abrupt in the slightest. Somehow, he wanted to physically manifest his current state of mind upon himself.

For a while, Kishimoto sat on the bed in his room and tried to restrain himself from acting on his own accord. However, the time had come for him to fulfill his long-cherished intention. Then he began to remove his beard. In the room was a stone washbasin built against the wall. On top of it was a full-length mirror. He stood before it and took up the razor himself. Each time he moved the razor without hesitation, the beard he had cultivated under his nose for years slid off his contorted face. With a razor that barely cut, he pressed so hard around his lips that they began to swell.

Instead of his own figure that had once taught people in his homeland, there now appeared a version of himself as though he had returned to his student days of long ago. When he finally went to the full-length mirror and gazed at his freshly shaven face, the area under his nose—previously hidden by his beard—appeared bluish-green. Here and there, blood seeped out. Kishimoto’s face was utterly transformed. Yet he stroked around his mouth with evident satisfaction, running both hands over the smooth skin. With this face, he thought, he could finally return home and face Setsuko’s parents.

Six

“Oh my, you’ve made yourself quite refreshed, sir!”

The one who first noticed Kishimoto’s transformed face—after saying something to this effect in French—was the inn servant who came to clean his room the following morning. There was no one who met Kishimoto and didn’t burst out laughing at the sight of him. The narrow circle of Japanese residents in Paris—those who seemed to be suffering the tedium of expatriate life—lamented Kishimoto’s drastic act as if it were some “village” incident, insisting that his former face—where things were as they should be—had been far preferable. Whenever there were farewell domino gatherings or small meetings at coffee shops, Kishimoto would receive remarks about his face wherever he went. “There was something nostalgic about your face when you had a beard.” “Somehow, once you shaved off your beard, a certain intensity emerged,” someone said with a laugh. “Oh my, what have you done?” “Goodness, I was truly shocked!” “It might be rude to say this, but I thought you might have gone mad,” remarked another. “What a shame you did that.” “After all, you really do look better with a beard.” “I implore you—be sure to grow it back before returning to your home country,” advised another.

“Mr. Kishimoto, your beard is gone.” “Is there some meaning behind it?”

A student staying at the same inn returned from a brief trip and asked Kishimoto about it. This man was a Keio graduate and much younger than Kishimoto, but had been a reliable support to him in various matters. "Mr. Kishimoto, I heard you once shaved your head completely—" the student said again, raising his masculine eyebrows and fixing a piercing gaze upon Kishimoto. "Does that carry some similar significance now?" Indeed, this person's words cut sharply. Kishimoto found himself at a loss for reply,

“I can’t tell how white my hair has grown without looking in a mirror, but seeing the white in my beard fills me with such unease that I can hardly bear it.” “I want to return to my student days of old.” “Thinking that, I shaved it off while you were away—” Kishimoto could say nothing more. The vigorous green of young leaves arrived as if pouring fresh vitality into the timeworn, blackened stone-built towns. Kishimoto left the inn alone, took a tree-lined street alongside the university buildings, and walked all the way to the banks of the Austerlitz Bridge. It was a slightly cloudy day, and though he couldn’t see the bright April-like sunlight, he felt this might be his last chance to go near the Seine River. Kishimoto had first arrived in Paris in April nearly four years prior, so now, just before departing Paris, the memory of those young leaves returned to his heart. With eyes that now watched the clear waters of the Seine swirling beneath the stone bridge, when he thought that in two months—or two and a half at the latest—he might gaze upon the familiar old Sumida River, it felt utterly unreal.

Seven Among all the Seine’s banks, the stretch from the Austerlitz Bridge to the island where the old Notre-Dame stood visible had been Kishimoto’s favorite spot these past three years—a place he had often visited to forget the weariness of his journey. Times when he yearned so desperately for everything back home that existence without his homeland seemed impossible. Times when his travel funds ran so low that he contemplated fasting for a day or two, his heart sinking into desolation. Times when, having wandered as far as his feet could carry him, his traveler’s heart grew so tightly shut that even at the end—when he wished to call out a name—it was neither that of the father lost in childhood nor of the deceased wife who had shared twelve years of his life, but rather that of his first youthful lover, known in days when his feelings still flowed pure and unclouded. In such moments, it was this water he sought. The Seine still flowed cold and silent beneath its high stone embankments. Keeping it to his right, he walked along the riverside promenade lined with fresh green trees toward the town where his inn stood.

Since coming to France, all that had transpired since then had somehow coalesced within Kishimoto’s heart. He recalled the plant seeds he had brought from his home country at the start of this journey and distributed among the French people. He recalled that among them were not only tea seeds gifted by his Nakano friend but also ginkgo, camellia, daphne, and other seeds of roughly seven varieties of Oriental plants collected by an acquaintance living in Tsukiji. That souvenir had been particularly prized by the French; from old Professor Broth’s hands, three seeds were given to one person, four to another, but he recalled hearing that a ginkgo had sprouted in the garden of a certain Japanese art collector. He recalled that part of those seeds had been transferred to the botanical garden and that a letter of thanks had come from its curator. He recalled how, after the war began, when he visited the professor’s residence near the botanical garden and brought up the matter himself, the professor had shrugged with a Frenchman’s characteristic manner and said, “In this war, everything’s gone to utter ruin.”

What had become of those seeds he had painstakingly brought from afar? When he recalled this, thoughts of his own journey—unable to take root in foreign soil yet now turning back toward his homeland—coalesced and came and went within Kishimoto’s heart. A man like him who had come from the edge of the Orient would remain what you might call a foreigner no matter how far he went; in the end, he could never truly enter into the lives of the people of this land. He had believed since the very start of his French journey that their only path lay through art—that only thus could they touch these people’s lives. Yet for one who did nothing but stare at books and kept his distance from local women, there could be no entry into the world of strangers. There had been a traveler who told him that starting with women was the most natural path. In that regard, he blamed himself too much. He had been too deeply wounded by his niece’s circumstances.

Eight Yet it was this very journey abroad that once again turned Kishimoto’s heart toward the prospect of marriage. Along the path back from the banks of the Seine toward the inn, Kishimoto walked while contemplating the striking difference in his state of mind between departure and return—comparing the time three years prior when he had embarked on this journey with now, as he prepared to leave this foreign land. His bachelorhood had originally stemmed from a profound aversion to women. That he, who detested women as he did, could not help but seek them out as he did—this contradiction... The more he guarded his solitude and tormented his physical form on this journey, the more acutely he came to realize his own contradictions. When he looked around, those with wives looked forward to reuniting with them, while those without looked forward to finding one; there was no one who did not return from this tedious foreign life to the embrace of their homeland. “Once I get back home, I’ll indulge myself to my heart’s content!” There were also travelers who would say such things, trying to alleviate their unrelenting travel weariness. The language of his homeland, the blood of his homeland, the people of his homeland—in the distant foreign skies where they could not be obtained no matter how he sought them, he came to know their bitter difficulty with profound clarity. If he could safely reach his homeland from here on out, he resolved to find a suitable partner and rebuild his own family, while also encouraging Setsuko—who had nearly ruined her life for his sake—to start anew with a family of her own. The resolve to turn back from his life of bachelorhood and undertake a second marriage—it was with this resolve, he thought, that he could face Setsuko again.

Before departing Paris, there had also been an artist who supported his plans for remarriage. That person was so helpful that he recalled a woman he knew back home and recommended her as a candidate. That person had even gone out of his way to send a letter back home on his behalf.

“What kind of things await me back home?” As he walked along thinking this, the actual scenery that would unfold before him seemed utterly unfathomable.

When he walked back to the tree-lined Saint-Michel street lined with merchant houses, a stationery shop’s display window caught Kishimoto’s eye. At that store, he picked out French-style black-covered notebooks and colored pencils for his children. Even the meager Parisian souvenirs he could fit into his narrow suitcase—how they would delight Izumi and Shigeru, he thought. When he returned to the inn carrying those, he happened to encounter an elderly French woman who had come to visit. Black hat, black clothing, black gloves—everything was black. She even wore a black veil over her face. The woman who had come visiting in wartime-appropriate mourning attire was the landlady of the boarding house where Kishimoto had long stayed.

The landlady came to Kishimoto’s inn to express her gratitude. For during his stay in Paris, Kishimoto had assisted this landlady with quite a few compatriots as guests. Incidentally, the landlady had brought along a French-style doll, saying it was for Kishimoto’s youngest daughter. “Both the doll’s hood and kimono—I sewed every stitch by hand.” “Even the shoes are sewn on.” “Please give this to your daughter.” “When you return to your country and unpack it to see, you will understand.” “This doll is wearing every article of clothing that French girls wear.”

After saying this, the landlady continued— “If there should be any Japanese ladies or gentlemen wishing to lodge in Paris once the war has ended, please do me the kindness of recommending them.” “For I myself have not yet abandoned this business.” Kishimoto thanked her and bid farewell to this boarding house landlady whom he would likely never have occasion to see again.

Nine

On the day of his departure from Paris, Kishimoto left the inn early in the morning and had his final small breakfast at his usual coffee shop. With bread and coffee.

There was still some time before departure. Kishimoto had long cherished a rose garden he so loved that he wished to see it one last time before leaving this city. That rose garden was located behind the art museum within Luxembourg Gardens.

When the long-awaited day finally arrived, his feet did not turn toward that rose garden but instead headed in the direction of the town where his familiar boarding house stood. He made his way toward the Panthéon through the Sorbonne quarter’s gently sloping terrain, circled the Rousseau statue beside the ancient structure, then advanced along Saint-Jacques district’s narrow stone-paved walkway. Passing before Val-de-Grâce military hospital and through an alley crammed with cluttered sundry shops, he reached the corner building that had once housed his old lodgings. The landlady having shuttered her establishment and moved away, all high windows stood tightly closed—yet there his eyes found again the window of his room where for three years he’d studied new words like a prisoner at his desk. Morning still held sway; familiar dawn faces—a milk-jug carrying girl, maids venturing for newspapers—passed beneath towering plane trees. Kishimoto reached Observatory Square and detoured to bid farewell at Simone’s house. The girl’s father remained missing, said to have become a prisoner of war or suchlike. I’ll never make such a journey again. Yet even with this resolve burning within him, the thought that he might never again behold this great metropolis summoned profound nostalgia. He walked back to his inn through Saint-Michel’s tree-lined streets.

It was not only Makino with whom Kishimoto had arranged to leave Paris; there were two other compatriots as well. All of them had been staying at the same inn as Kishimoto. At last, the time came for departure. Kishimoto loaded the travel luggage into a waiting automobile with the group and hastened toward Saint-Lazare Station. The towns disappeared from his car window one after another. At the station, quite a few people had come to see off Makino and Kishimoto. Those who since wartime had shared experiences of sheltering together, gathering regularly for dominoes, and pooling resources for Greek-style communal meals came to bid farewell to Kishimoto and the others departing for distant lands. Amid the bustle of England-bound soldiers and passengers coming and going, Kishimoto saw Makino—fully prepared for the journey.

“In the end, we’re leaving without even meeting Oka, huh?” “I wonder when Oka will return.” Kishimoto and Makino talked about Oka, who was staying in Lyon.

“Makino, I’m still undecided. “I’d prefer to return by ship with you if possible, and I’d also like to go around Russia...” “Mr. Kishimoto, are you still saying such things?” Seeing Kishimoto’s face—still hesitant even at the moment of departing Paris—Makino laughed in a hearty voice. In any case, Kishimoto decided to accompany Makino and the others as far as England. He decided to determine the remainder of his itinerary after arriving in London. After all, it was a journey during wartime.

As if boarding a rescue ship, Kishimoto moved to the train with three companions. From the window of the soon-to-depart train, he gazed at the distant high tower of Sacré-Cœur bathed in sunlight. As if even that old stone-built temple standing atop the hill were seeing him off on his return to Japan. That was the last Paris he had desired. Ten Kishimoto traveled to Le Havre, located at the mouth of the Seine. To reach that port in France’s Lower Seine department from Paris by train took a day. There, having left French soil, he crossed the English Channel by night steamer together with Makino and the others.

It was a time when travel too was difficult. The customs in Le Havre—known as the seat of the Belgian Provisional Government—already formed the first checkpoint, not permitting passage with ease; moreover, crossing from that port through the channel proved another ordeal for travelers. In the ship advancing through the relentlessly pressing sea's overwhelming darkness, anxious thoughts—like awaiting an enemy that might strike at any moment—would not let Kishimoto sleep peacefully. The rumor that a steamship had been sunk by a German submarine days earlier only deepened that anxiety. Upon reaching Southampton, there was none of the stringent security seen when departing France, yet even there the customs officials did not allow travelers to pass through easily. Makino of their group sketched a customs officer with a pencil and showed it—that being about all he could do to vouch for himself.

In any case, Kishimoto managed to safely enter London. After parting with the rest of their companions, his journey became one shared only with Makino. On the day he visited the Nippon Yusen Kaisha branch there, he gave up on his planned Siberian route. Together with Makino, he resolved to take the sea voyage home via Africa instead.

From Paris to London. Kishimoto had taken no more than a single step. Yet even that single step made him feel he had drawn nearer to his homeland. In London he waited nine days for his ship's departure. During that time came news from Paris - an acquaintance's wife from Montmorency had gone to the station to see him off. Though by the time she searched for him there, he'd already left Paris. At every turn he recalled Parisian connections: the ever-helpful acquaintance, the Keio University exchange student, all those who'd come to bid him farewell. It struck him how his journey coincided with London's Shakespeare Tercentenary - that year commemorating England's famed poet.

Three years prior, the sea that had whispered a path to survival into the half-dead Kishimoto's ear had now come to call him once more toward his homeland. That voice reached his ears once more.

He thought of the many days he would have to spend at sea from now on; he thought of how even in the early May weather still cool enough to require an overcoat when departing London, he must make preparations for his arrival back home; and in merely having to make such considerations, he felt the sky of his homeland lay immeasurably distant.

Eleven

The Nippon Yusen Kaisha steamship waited at Tilbury docks—situated at the Thames estuary—for Makino and Kishimoto to board. By the time the large quantity of British cargo had mostly been loaded, Kishimoto and his companions’ luggage had already been sent ahead to the ship. The sailors gathered near the base of the mast and watched passengers cross one by one from the small tender alongside to the deck. It was a day of intermittent cold drizzle. Wrapped in travel coats dampened by rain and sea wind, Makino and Kishimoto boarded the large steamer. Wartime conditions meant few fellow Japanese travelers, though among them was a Parisian-married couple Kishimoto had grown close to. These were people attempting a family return to their homeland. They had departed Paris around the same time as Kishimoto. All shared memories from the war’s outbreak—experiences resembling a prolonged siege.

“Traveling with children isn’t easy, is it?” Kishimoto remarked to Makino about the married couple. The fact that they had included even two young people among their travel companions made him feel all the more that this was truly the departure for a distant journey.

At last, Kishimoto found himself on the deck of a steamship departing the Thames estuary—a traveler now setting forth on his journey home. The sea was no longer a distant thing he had recalled in his Paris boarding house or conjured in imagination to pass idle hours—it was now the actual crimson-black English-style sails passing before his eyes, the actual flocks of seagulls flying near him, the actual mast and funnel of a sunken ship left to the sway of the waves. The beloved homeland was no longer merely a dreamlike realm in the distant skies but had become an actual, tangible shore steadily drawing nearer with each passing day. Standing by the railing on the stern-side deck and gazing at the large funnel from there, he saw vigorous black smoke spewing forth with ferocious intensity. It looked as if black monstrous birds were spreading their wings and soaring up one by one from there. That smoke made him feel the longing for his homeland all the more keenly within his being. The final destination of this ship was Kobe. When he thought of this, it came to seem that all manner of things awaited him in his homeland—things that would strongly stir his heart. To see his homeland again was for him both a joyous and worrisome thing.

May rain came upon the muddy waves. Kishimoto stood next to Makino, who had come to his side, and the two of them gazed out at the sea from the deck.

Twelve

At a brisk speed of some three hundred fifteen to sixteen nautical miles per day and night, the ship carrying Kishimoto passed through the Dover Strait. By the fifth day of the voyage, the white-glowing cliffs of the English coast had receded far into the distance. The ship now ventured into the midst of a deep blue ocean where no land could be seen in any direction.

“Once you’re aboard this ship, it’s as if you’re already halfway home—” Makino would say this to Kishimoto from time to time, as if suddenly remembering. The vessel resembled a wartime cargo ship more than a regular passenger liner, its three-tiered decks holding passengers so few they could scarcely be counted. Makino remained the sole compatriot Kishimoto daily encountered on the rear deck; all others were English. When combined, men and women numbered merely seven travelers bound for colonies. Such was the loneliness of voyaging in those times. Kishimoto would often find himself alone on that expansive deck. Only in such moments would those memories return to his breast as if from yesterday—the unspoken recollection of sorrowful storms; that outbound journey aboard the French steamship racing from port to port across waves; that anguished experience when he’d failed to write in Kobe or Shanghai the letter entrusting Setsuko to Brother Giyū, finally scrawling it en route to Hong Kong before abandoning it there.

Before his eyes stretched a wooden deck continuing like a long corridor. There was a white-painted ventilation duct. There was a pillar. There was an iron apparatus for winding anchor ropes. There was a distant horizon intersecting with the deck's railing line, appearing to rise and fall. When even sunlight came gleaming, there was a sea glowing with indescribable blueness. Everything merely resembled what had once existed. Kishimoto would pass by where thick ropes and ship's equipment lay piled up, often going to stand at the stern. Gazing at the endlessly spinning thin line cast into waves from the stern railing where depth-measuring instruments were installed—the memory of his outbound voyage surfaced again in his chest, when he'd gazed alone at his homeland's sky receding behind him. When he tried tracing the path of some invisible violent force that had moved through him—contemplating how his meager wisdom and strength had been powerless against it—he found himself struck anew by the sheer strangeness of his own existence being made to stand again upon this deck.

The ship was gradually moving away from the waters off the southern tip of Portugal. Unlike the outbound journey via Suez, this return voyage had to go far around the southern tip of South Africa and cross the Equator twice. From that point at sea to the Cape of Good Hope, there remained over five thousand four hundred nautical miles.

Thirteen

After a fifty-five-day-long sea voyage, Kishimoto—who had left Paris at the end of April and had departed London in May—finally arrived at the port of Kobe in early July.

"On the night we arrive in Kobe, I won’t sleep. Let’s all stay awake." Along with all the passengers who had so anticipated this pact that they had been gazing at the port lights from afar, Kishimoto spent a night near Wada Misaki lighthouse before transferring to a lighter after completing quarantine the next morning. Since Singapore, the ship had suddenly taken on passengers, making for quite a number of fellow countrymen—both men and women—disembarking together that morning. For a time, Kishimoto stayed with Makino near customs. The two still bore the appearance of travelers who had just discovered themselves upon beloved coastal soil. People who learned of the ship’s arrival and came to greet disembarking passengers had gathered at the wharf. Kishimoto gazed at these people and walked about among them. At moments he even felt inclined to bow politely to complete strangers. And he wanted to declare himself as one returned from a distant land.

“Makino. Let’s not take a car—why don’t we walk to the inn from here? I want to walk somewhere more—maybe even go barefoot and run around here.”

Around the time Kishimoto said this, the sunlight of his homeland—seen after so long—was already shining intensely down to the vicinity of the customs house. Kishimoto said this without a thought for the trouble it might cause the others. To such an extent could he not conceal the madness-tinged joy that filled his small chest.

Having asked Makino along and while walking to the same inn as before, Kishimoto encountered a familiar face from the past. The proprietor there had come to greet him. When Kishimoto arrived at the inn, there too he met someone he hadn’t seen in three years—the landlady who had once come with friends from Tokyo’s Banchō to bid him farewell at the ship during his outbound journey. Kishimoto already felt intense fatigue coursing through his body. More than anything else, he wanted to shed his travel-stained clothes. But soon after arriving at the inn, a group of newspaper reporters came calling, allowing neither Makino nor him any rest. When he had reached Shanghai during his return voyage—while the ship still lay anchored—local journalists had already sought him out for tales of his travels. At that moment, he couldn’t shake the feeling that such visitors would be foremost among those awaiting him in his homeland. The reporters, anxious to meet that day’s evening edition deadline, tried coaxing colorful travel anecdotes from him to liven their pages. Among them were faces he’d encountered both on his original departure and now during this return journey.

“Oh! You’ve shaved off your beard!” There were even those who, while saying this, had not forgotten his face.

Fourteen

At long last, in the second-floor tatami room of a Kobe inn where he and Makino were finally left alone, Kishimoto attained the longed-for rest upon the mats. “Somehow I feel like I might catch a cold—I still can’t bring myself to take off my socks.” Kishimoto declared to Makino, then kept his feet—which he hadn’t exposed except when sleeping for three years—still wrapped. In the amusing custom of wearing socks with the inn’s yukata, the two threw out their legs toward each other. The crisp tatami mat floor allowed him to do as he pleased—whether trying to sleep, rise, or sit. Kishimoto savored such profound ease that even rolling about and pacing around the entire room couldn’t fully express it. When he tentatively lay down and pressed his back flat against the tatami to test the feeling, the emotions he’d felt upon disembarking surged up anew. He still felt half at sea. If there had been a Japanese person he encountered upon landing—regardless of whether he knew them or not—he felt as though he had just returned with such a desire to cling to that person; he even began to feel like that version of himself. At the very least, the homesickness that had driven him back from afar toward this port resembled the heart of a sailor enduring a prolonged voyage. That sailor’s heart—prostrating himself upon the land, even longing to kiss the beloved soil—was nearly identical to his own heart.

"At last... At last." Having said this, he exchanged looks with Makino—both of them deeply tanned from their time under the sun. By the time the evening edition came out, the news that Makino and Kishimoto had safely returned from France had been published in the newspaper that the boarding house landlady brought to show them. The matters they had just discussed upstairs had already been typeset. With an intriguing headline and a hastily written article. Kishimoto read the newspaper containing his own story for himself. The first thing that came to his mind was imagining what bitter expression Brother Giyū would make upon reading such an article. In that newspaper, there was also a photograph of Makino and him standing side by side. That was the snapshot taken by an engineer in the vacant lot behind the customs house, capturing the two of them upon their arrival at this port. The one in London-made grey gaiters covering his shoes and wearing a light straw hat was Makino, and standing beside him was he. The glaring sunlight’s reflection made his own photograph appear far too youthful, and he could hardly accept it as his own traveler’s appearance.

“I spent three years napping in Paris. “I’ve had more than enough of my own affairs.” Having said this, he recalled how his restless traveler’s heart had denied him the composure needed to work as he wished, remembered how he had limited himself to merely writing occasional travel dispatches for his homeland’s newspaper, and brought to mind how even the many promises he’d made upon departing his country remained less than one-tenth fulfilled. “But it’s written relatively well, isn’t it?”

Makino came to his side and said this, then reread the newspaper as if it were about someone else entirely. Kishimoto realized that news of their return had already reached people in the Keihanshin region. He even imagined the moment when those awaiting him in Tokyo—beginning with Brother Giyū, his sister-in-law, Setsuko, and then Izumi and Shigeru—would learn of it. He wrote to his family home about his safe arrival in Kobe and his plans to return while visiting acquaintances in Osaka and Kyoto, but deliberately did not inform them of the date he would reach Tokyo.

Fifteen What Kishimoto felt within himself was both intense joy and fierce fatigue. He found himself unable to adequately express the magnitude of that joy or the severity of that fatigue. It was something that could not be dispelled by a day's rest or a night's sleep—a force that made him want to crave greater intensities of joy and subject himself to harsher depths of exhaustion. When he observed Makino among their group, he marveled that this painter—who had always complained of seasickness—showed no visible signs of such weariness.

While feeling such joy, Kishimoto’s feet were heavy as he was about to depart Kobe in the direction of Tokyo. He returned together with Makino as far as Osaka. Both Makino and he remained in their traveling attire; having put back on the journey clothes they had once taken off in Kobe, they continued standing by the train’s glass window almost without rest. There was the moist brightness of sunlight here, vivid green rice fields that dazzled the eye there, and thatched roofs here—he compared them to the strangely dry air he had seen in the rural areas of central France, the pastures teeming with cattle and sheep, and the red-tiled farmhouses visible through the green leaves.

In Osaka, Kishimoto was supposed to visit an unknown family together with Makino. This was because there also lived someone recommended by Parisian artists regarding Kishimoto's remarriage. This was because that person's brother and the Parisian artists maintained extremely close ties. Just as one's mind grows sharper after passing through the drowsy nighttime hours, Kishimoto felt that even in his weariness, he could think more clearly. He thought about his own remarriage. He contemplated the meaning of those ancient lives—monks who had turned back from reality-weary ascetic retreats to take wives—and how they had instructed him during his travels. He himself, who had returned to his homeland with a heart awaiting daybreak anew, considered that he was already forty-five years old. If his wife Sonoko had survived in this world, he reflected, she who had wed at twenty-two would now be thirty-nine. That year would bring his second marriage. He had no intention of taking such a young wife, yet neither could he resolve to marry a woman now nearing forty. He had pinned his hopes on a woman around thirty. This hope alone, from what he had heard through the Parisian artists, seemed likely to be fulfilled.

However, Kishimoto’s impending visit to an unknown family was different from an ordinary cheerful visit made without preparation. If upon meeting there seemed to be no compatibility, he would have to refuse. That would amount to insulting the woman. This thought made him hesitate considerably. After all, he had only just returned from his travels; he wanted a little more time for himself and wished to find a natural opportunity to become acquainted with the woman in question. He discussed this matter with Makino and ultimately abandoned the visit. At the Osaka inn, he spent the entire day conversing with guests. With Makino, he also walked through bustling summer-night towns. As he wandered through shadows cast by bright lights, his mind drifted at times to Paris’ grand boulevards and at others to African colonial ports seen during his return voyage.

Sixteen

Makino, who had been intending to head straight to Tokyo from Osaka, and Kishimoto, who had been planning to return to Tokyo while visiting acquaintances from Paris like Senmura and Takase in Kyoto, parted ways at an inn in Dotonbori. Makino had been trying to reach Tokyo as soon as possible, while Kishimoto had been trying to delay his arrival by even a single day. The closer he drew to Tokyo, the less Kishimoto’s feet moved.

“Mr. Kishimoto, why don’t we enter Tokyo together?” At their parting moment Makino urged this, but Kishimoto—after exchanging promises of future meetings—went his separate way. Why did his feet drag so when approaching Tokyo after long absence? Why did he choose to enter the city alone and desolate, shunning all welcoming committees? These sentiments remained beyond explanation even to Makino, who had shared seventy-odd days of homebound journey with him.

When Kishimoto set off toward Kyoto, there were no longer any companions by his side with whom to share that nostalgic traveler’s spirit. Yet he still acted as if Makino were beside him, gazing out from the train window at what might be called the entire Yodogawa basin as though they were both looking out together. As the train gradually climbed the sloping terrain, distant mountains began revealing their forms. He threw open the carriage window like a parched man, striving to take into his very being the panoramic view of the Yamashiro-Tamba mountain ranges. Even during the journey from Osaka to Kyoto, he never once looked away from the window.

At the Kyoto inn, the painter acquainted with Paris whom Kishimoto had met in Osaka had arrived ahead of him. The riverside behind the inn, the cooling platform, the crimson pomegranate flowers blooming along the bank, the waters of the Kamo River rushing down from beneath the Shijo stone bridge—once you reached that spot, it was so quiet that Europe’s war might as well have been nowhere to exist.

Kishimoto’s heart, still that of a traveler midway through a long journey, knew nothing of rest. In Kyoto was Professor Senmura, with whom he had shared meals at the Paris boarding house. There was Takase, who after returning home had risen from associate professor to full professor and with whom he had grown particularly close during his travels through France. To the pleasure of meeting these people was added a painter at the inn who spoke of rumors about Oka staying in Lyon and tales of Simone in Paris. For Kishimoto, a day along the Kamogawa River brought such an onslaught of sights to see, sounds to hear, and social obligations that there was scarcely a moment’s respite. And so on the day after arriving in Kyoto, even he became acutely aware of his exhaustion. Anticipating the busyness awaiting his return to Tokyo, he resolved to spend at least half a day lying down in the inn’s second-floor tatami room. In the same room sat a painter who had spread out his travel art supplies—

“The Paris crowd?” “I haven’t met any of them yet.” “I hardly ever get chances to gather with everyone either.” “Once you’re back home, they all start acting all prim—it’s unbearable. Not a shred of fun left.” Beside the painter who kept working diligently on his art while talking, occasionally pausing to listen with mild curiosity to the housemaid’s Kansai dialect drifting upstairs, Kishimoto tried to ease his agonizingly weary body. After three years abroad growing accustomed to chairs, even sitting upright on tatami mats strained him. His knees and legs throbbed. He attempted sitting cross-legged, then lying flat. Still he hadn’t reached true rest.

It was that evening when Kishimoto resolved to depart Kyoto. His feet, which were trying to head toward Tokyo, were as heavy as if dragging along chains.

Seventeen

Kishimoto, who had departed Kyoto by night train, arrived at Shinagawa Station the following afternoon. He thought of wanting to see even Tokyo Station, which had been completed during his journey, and worried there might be someone there to greet him, but if he went as far as Shinagawa, his vacant home was nearby. He had arranged to receive his travel luggage at Shinagawa as well. He did not ride all the way to Tokyo Station and got off there. The people at the vacant home, whom Kishimoto had deliberately not informed of his Tokyo arrival date, could not possibly have known he had returned alone and despondently at such a time. Indeed, within the station premises, not even the shadow of children coming to greet him could be seen. He walked around near the station exit. Still wearing his shoes, he tried treading down firmly on the hard earth. And then he waited for his luggage to be collected. Standing before the building with few passengers coming and going, he belatedly thought of how he had returned from a distant journey. This lonely entry into the capital seemed to him a fitting conclusion to his long journey—one that naturally bowed his head.

At that moment, he even forgot how painfully exhausted he was. The hired carriage he had requested arrived. The luggage was already loaded onto another carriage. Before long, the carriage carrying him turned onto the newly constructed road leading from Shinagawa to Takanawa and began climbing the long slope, swaying right and left as it went. Unlike the Parisian sunlight that seeped through that leaden, half-clouded sky, the radiance streaming down the slope was unmistakably July-like sunlight from his homeland—brilliant from its very core. The intense reflected glare filled even the sunshade-draped carriage. At times, the glare seemed so intense it might pierce into his very mind as he rode gazing at that light. Each time the carriage moved closer to the vacant home—to those awaiting him there—the blinding sunlight mingled with these thoughts, ceaselessly agitating his heart. He felt it would be unbearable to see Setsuko—more than the ache of facing his brother, more than the pain of facing his sister-in-law. Due to his own lack of virtue and sin, just imagining how she must have been transformed beyond recognition was unbearable.

The rickshaw driver, who had been panting heavily while climbing the slope, suddenly regained vigor upon reaching Takanawa Hill. Carrying a passenger who desperately wished to delay their arrival, the carriage now rolled briskly forward. As they turned into a side street, a tobacco shop appeared at the corner. Abruptly noticing the back of a boy playing nearby, Kishimoto wondered if this could be his second son.

“Shigeru? Is that you?”

Without thinking, he called out from the carriage. Shigeru, now grown almost unrecognizably tall—whether he didn’t understand who had called out to him in such a way or simply paid no heed—without even properly looking toward the carriage with its sunshade drawn, “Papa hasn’t come back yet!”

With that dismissive remark, he called out in a voice brimming with inexplicable joy and suddenly dashed off toward the house. From there, it was already close enough that the lattice door of the vacant house came into view.

Eighteen

Enduring what was unbearable, when Kishimoto alighted from the carriage he had stopped in front of his house, the first things that caught his eye were the broken sections beneath the eaves and the dilapidated short bamboo fence. The one who rushed out to the lattice door entrance before anyone else upon hearing the luggage being unloaded was his sister-in-law. His sister-in-law opened the lattice door from within as wide as it would go. "Oh, you've returned."

With that, Brother Giyū stood at the entranceway. Next, Giyū’s children and Shigeru gathered there too. Kishimoto, still in his travel clothes, stood in the entryway garden facing them all at once. He saw Setsuko standing behind Grandmother. He felt his own complexion painfully change. Before long, Kishimoto was welcomed into the house by his family. Greetings were exchanged one by one. Kishimoto bowed his head before his brother and before his sister-in-law. “Suke-san, you’ve returned?” “Oh, you’re safe and sound.”

Kishimoto also went before Grandmother—who had spoken quietly—and greeted her. There Setsuko too came out to greet him. Kishimoto simply bowed silently before her as well. “Now Ichiro and Jiro—won’t you bow to Uncle? Don’t just stand there like that.” At their sister-in-law’s urging, Brother’s two children and Shigeru lined up together before Kishimoto. Their faces showed they’d been waiting for the adults to finish exchanging greetings. “So this is Jiro...” Kishimoto gazed at the red-cheeked child he was meeting for the first time.

“While you were away, this one was born,” his sister-in-law added. Kishimoto was astonished at how much Shigeru had grown in the three years since he’d last seen him. Shigeru appeared awkward about meeting his father in front of everyone and fidgeted with his knees in a boyish manner. “Sukeyoshi, do have some tea.”

Going to Brother Giyū, who was calling from the inner room, Kishimoto came face to face with his brother for the first time. Compared to the brother who had come from Nagoya to bid farewell when Kishimoto left the country—visiting him even at his inn in Kobe—this brother too somehow looked older.

“There were even people who came to our house saying you were likely returning soon.” “Well I took all the children to Tokyo Station to meet you, but you never showed... Then people were saying they knew you’d come as far as Osaka, but after that your whereabouts went unknown, I tell ya.” “Yesterday and the day before yesterday—I went all the way to Tokyo Station twice to check.”

“I’m sorry about that. I meant to decline being met and deliberately didn’t send notice. I’ve come here directly from Shinagawa.” “So Sukeyoshi arrived from Shinagawa, I tell ya!” Brother declared loud enough for the family to hear and laughed. Something long restrained dominated the air within the house. Even the children’s faces seemed oddly formal to Kishimoto. Shigeru dashed out to inform Izumi at school of his father’s return.

Nineteen

“I’m home.”

Izumi’s voice called out from the entranceway, and soon the older child came wide-eyed to bow before his father while still wearing his short school hakama. “Oh, Izumi—you’ve grown so much!”

With Giyū before him, when Kishimoto said that, Izumi looked genuinely pleased to be told by his father—whom he hadn’t seen in three years—that he had grown so much. “So you still had school today, Izumi?” Giyū asked, looking toward him. “Shigeru came to pick me up—so my teacher said it was okay to leave,” Izumi told Giyū. “The schoolteacher was considerate enough to send him home early today,” the sister-in-law added as she approached.

“Papa, Papa—he’d say it day after day—you can’t imagine how much he waited for you to return,” Grandmother added from the adjoining room. “Thank you for your care over all this time.” “I am deeply grateful.”

As he said this, Kishimoto once again placed his hands on the floor and bowed deeply before his sister-in-law. Seeing this, Giyū gave a slight nod. “There, there—once you’ve finished bowing, children, off you go to the other room.”

Being told by Giyū, Izumi retreated to the next room where Grandmother and the others were.

First and foremost, Kishimoto attempted to retrieve the souvenirs for his brother and his own children. When he stepped over the threshold that was difficult to cross and returned to where the young ones were, he found that the place resembled his brother’s residence more than his own empty home. Even in such a reunion between father and child, speaking so familiarly was not yet permitted by the circumstances surrounding them.

“Well, shall I bring out the souvenirs?” “I have souvenirs for both Ichiro and Jiro!” When Kishimoto said this, his sister-in-law repeated it to Jiro: “That’s nice. Uncle is giving us souvenirs.” “Uncle is giving us souvenirs.” “Souvenirs! “Souvenirs! Souvenirs!”

The children raised their voices in delight and ran boisterously all around the room. “Now，Jiro，I told you not to make such a racket.” “Even though you’re the smallest，you always have to act so important！”

Even after being told by his sister-in-law, Jiro did not listen. Kishimoto brought the notebooks, colored pencils, storybooks, and such that he had taken from his travel bag and placed them before his brother’s older child and his own children. "After all, we needed three of the same things," said Kishimoto, looking toward his sister-in-law and the others.

“What about me?” Jiro said in a sad voice. “Oh! You too!”

Kishimoto distributed the animal picture book he had obtained from Paris to Jiro. Jiro was discontentedly comparing the gifts his older brothers had received with his own and Uncle’s differing souvenir, but soon cheered up and took that picture book adorned with birds and beasts to show his mother, then took it to show Grandmother, and even took it to show Setsuko. “Well then, let’s see it.”

When Giyū said this in his hometown dialect, Jiro took it to his father as well. “Somehow this book reeks of foreigners,” said Ichiro, sniffing his uncle’s souvenir before bursting into laughter.

“Unless children get something to eat, they won’t feel like they’ve received anything at all—” Giyū said to Kishimoto. “That’s true. I have some sweets I bought in Osaka—could you distribute those as well?”

Kishimoto stood up and sat down repeatedly. From the window facing the main thoroughfare, the afternoon sun shone through the paper-paneled doors of the room where Grandmother and the others were. Setsuko huddled in a corner of that room and, together with Izumi and Shigeru, spread open a storybook from a distant land to examine it.

20 The husband of Kishimoto's niece from Negishi (his eldest brother's daughter) came to meet him immediately after Giyū sent a telegram. Kishimoto encountered this dutiful nephew again at Shinbashi Station, where they had only just parted ways. "Uncle Sukeyoshi, you've returned safely—" Before these relatives offering such greetings, Giyū maintained an air of never intending to even partially reveal the motives behind his brother's distant journey. Not only that—where he could have simply said "my brother"—he deliberately used "Kishimoto Sukeyoshi," attempting to treat his sibling who had arrived despondently from Shinagawa as some triumphant returnee. To such an extent did Giyū's temperament emphasize valuing clan honor and public reputation.

“Uncle, why don’t you go ahead and take off your Western clothes—I’ve laid out a yukata here for you.” said the sister-in-law. This sister-in-law often called him “Uncle” in the same way Ichiro and Jiro did. At that moment, Kishimoto finally shed the appearance of a traveler. “Why don’t you tell us a story from your travels—”

Grandmother also came to the inner room and joined everyone. "Grandmother seems to be in good health." When Kishimoto said this, Giyū took over and,

"In this entire household, Grandmother is the hardiest." These words from his brother struck Kishimoto's ears with peculiar force. "Now that you mention it, Uncle, you never seem to change no matter when one sees you," said the sister-in-law. "Not at all," replied Kishimoto, pressing a hand to his forehead. "My hair's gone quite white already."

“And you’ve gotten quite sunburned too!” said Giyū. “I’ve been thinking the same thing since earlier,” said Aiko’s husband (the niece from Negishi), looking at Kishimoto. “You’ve gotten quite dark, Uncle. “Before, you had such a fine beard too. “Why did you go and remove such a fine beard? “Somehow your face looks a bit different too.” “Even so, have I come back smelling somewhat foreign?”

With that, Kishimoto deflected.

The travel stories Kishimoto had seen and heard in France were precisely what Aiko’s husband and others wanted to hear. Hiroshi Tanabe—who lived near Okawabata and was the son of Kishimoto’s benefactor—also learned of his arrival in Tokyo and came to visit. When three years had passed and they met again, Hiroshi had already become a splendid father. This man’s stout physique had grown increasingly reminiscent of his deceased benefactor.

In addition to these familiar guests, there were even newspaper reporters who came seeking stories of his travels, and Kishimoto, utterly exhausted to his core, forgot himself.

In the evening, the oil lamp Grandmother had lit glowed in the room containing the Buddhist altar. Kishimoto approached the altar and saw the aged, tarnished memorial tablets—Sonoko’s first, then those of his three daughters—reflected in the lamplight. The old tablets and ritual implements absent until his departure eve revealed themselves as relics brought from Grandmother’s ancestral home. The sister-in-law and Setsuko emerged from the kitchen passageway to pace near the altar. Kishimoto avoided approaching Setsuko. He still had not properly spoken since returning. He merely attempted discreet observation. The unfortunate victim mirrored in his gaze stood distanced yet less altered than imagined; this granted him faint relief. That evening saw Giyū’s household, two relatives, even Izumi and Shigeru assembled at table. To mark Kishimoto’s homecoming emerged twin servings of fresh soba. This modest feast bespoke both his brother’s thrift and their shared hardships. While stifling tearful emotions, Kishimoto gratefully received this long-awaited supper.

21 That night, Kishimoto—still carrying himself like a guest newly returned from his journey—slept inside the same mosquito net as his brother Giyū. In this newly developed town of Takanawa, people had apparently been hanging mosquito nets since a full month prior. Lying beneath the roof he had returned to after so long, breathing in the scent of the old hemp netting, Kishimoto found the worries that had plagued him all day still clinging to his chest. When he looked over at his brother, who seemed to be reciting classical Chinese epitaphs in an attempt to summon sleep, he realized loud snores were already rising from the man sharing his pillow. Kishimoto marveled that he could still shed his travel clothes under this roof at all, yet with one concern after another flooding his heart, he found himself unable to rest peacefully.

In the morning, Giyū declared it his daily routine to commute to an inn in a town nearer central Tokyo and left carrying his briefcase. In such an inconvenient suburb—a residence without even a telephone—it seemed his brother’s rationale for this commute was that no enterprise could be undertaken there.

After the children had left for school, the house fell quiet. With the air of one preparing to receive the many guests likely to visit daily for some time, Kishimoto walked about the house here and there. He even walked before the bookcase he had abandoned. He went and stood before an old chest. The octagonal pillar clock remaining from Sonoko's days still swung its pendulum with the same sound, seeming to greet his returned self like a welcoming face. Neither the discolored karakami paper nor the walls marred by the children - there was nothing that did not speak of that storm's ferocity from three years prior, the storm that had made him want to cast away every last thing.

In the corner of the back room, the travel bag still sat untouched. From the bag marked with ship cabin numbers from outgoing and return voyages, luggage tags, and stamps from foreign countries he had traveled through emerged Japanese garments that Kishimoto had thoroughly worn at his Paris boarding house. He took out underwear with frayed linings and a padded robe spilling cotton from its hem, showed them to his sister-in-law and Grandmother in the next room, then produced a travel garment whose tears he had mended in comical fashion during the return voyage to display as well.

At that moment, Setsuko arrived. She sat beside Grandmother and the others and listened to everyone’s conversation. In this gathering of women—Grandmother, who had come from the countryside unaware of everything, and Setsuko, who had kept even her uncle’s motive for traveling completely concealed from her own mother—Kishimoto saw a sister-in-law whose thoughts about his own circumstances were difficult to gauge.

In the garden arose the sound of Jiro singing to himself as he wandered about. This child would sometimes climb up from the veranda and rummage through his mother’s lap in full view of everyone. “Jiro, Uncle will see you and laugh,” said the sister-in-law. Yet even as she spoke, her demeanor made clear she adored this youngest child beyond measure—so much so that she still let him nurse at her breast despite his age. From the depths of Kishimoto’s suitcase emerged Parisian souvenirs prepared as tokens of gratitude for those who had cared for Izumi and Shigeru. He laid them before both his sister-in-law and Setsuko. All were items he had selected while strolling through boulevards like those in Paris’s Saint-Germain district. Some he had even sought out by taking the Métro from his lodging near the maternity hospital all the way to the bustling streets around the Opéra. The sentiment commemorating that distant journey lay deeper within the giver than in those who received.

“My, you’ve gone to such trouble worrying about each and every one of us.”

As she expressed her thanks, the sister-in-law's eyes glinted sharply.

22 He wanted to ask about what had happened during his long absence. The intensity of that desire within Kishimoto defied measurement. He had often thought this way during his travels, when preparing for his return. If he could safely reach his homeland—he had told himself—he would ask about that matter, he would ask about this matter. Now his sister-in-law and the others were by his side. Yet as long as his secret remained hidden from them, there was scarcely anything about his prolonged absence that he could bring himself to mention. Attempting to inquire about when his sisters-in-law had returned from their hometown to Tokyo immediately forced him to confront his own act of abandoning Setsuko and the children to flee this house. Trying to ask about when Teruko—Setsuko’s sister—had come back from Russia and stayed here instantly reminded him how Setsuko herself had temporarily left this house to escape prying eyes. Even watching Jiro play before him now brought associations that made composure impossible. The boy Setsuko had borne was precisely the same age as his sister-in-law’s child there—the one dressed in a short kimono with a drawstring pouch.

Kishimoto regained his composure and opened another travel bag he had brought from his journey. “Sister, a doll like this has turned up. Should I show it to Grandmother too? This one—the Paris landlady said, ‘Please give this to Kimi-chan (Kishimoto’s youngest daughter),’ and sent it over for her.” “Well—oh my, this doll is adorable. Wearing a blue hood and all.”

Having said this, the sister-in-law gathered close with Grandmother and Setsuko to examine the blue-eyed French doll. “Even though the doll’s clothes looked like that, did she say the boarding house landlady hand-sewed them herself? When you return home and take them apart to look, you’ll understand—‘All the clothes French girls wear are what this doll has on,’ she even made a point of mentioning that—”

When Kishimoto said this, Setsuko drew close to her mother, “The hair is brown, isn’t it.”

“It really is,” said Grandmother, picking up the doll to examine it. Somehow, Setsuko seemed to be self-conscious about her own hands. Kishimoto noticed this and casually asked.

“Setsuko, how are your hands?” “Her hands haven’t been right for over three years now.” Grandmother said in her country dialect. Setsuko, remaining mostly silent, showed her own palms—which had been suffering from something like athlete’s foot—to her uncle and gazed at them herself. “Is it still that bad? “I thought they would have healed long ago,” said Kishimoto, looking toward his sister-in-law. “While I was in Paris, I happened to find some good medicine for skin conditions, and I intended to send it to Setsuko.” “Just as there were notebooks I found at a stationery shop for the children too—one for Ichi-chan, one each for Izumi-chan and Shigeru-chan—along with that medicine, I entrusted all of that together to a friend who was returning home.” “How about that—that friend’s luggage had sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean along with the ship.” “It was sunk by an enemy ship, you see.” “The friend himself arrived in Japan on a different ship, but because of that, all that effort with the notebooks and medicine came to nothing—what a waste that was.”

Even when sharing such travel stories, Kishimoto refrained from addressing Setsuko directly, instead directing them to be heard by his sister-in-law and grandmother. Kishimoto attempted to pull back his relationship with Setsuko to the conventional position of uncle and niece. He thought that it was precisely by this policy that he could give peace of mind to his brother and sister-in-law, and at the same time, perhaps forget his own long-standing anguish.

23 “Brother, I brought this intending to give it to you.” Around the time Giyū returned from the inn, Kishimoto presented items he had taken out from his travel bag to his brother as a memento. It was a practical handbag for holding books and documents—the kind carried under the arms of people frequenting the tree-lined boulevards around Saint-Michel in Paris. “Oh! You’re giving me something nice, huh. I’ll take this one.”

Giyū was in a good mood. After Kishimoto’s return became known, the house was thrown into disarray for a time by newspaper and magazine journalists coming to inquire about wartime Paris, along with other familiar visitors. Kishimoto still could not manage the lingering fatigue he had carried over from his long journey. From the time he disembarked in Kobe until that day, he had continued to interact with people from his homeland who had been waiting for him—so much so that one could say he had almost no rest. When he returned to Tokyo and saw how things were, he even found himself thinking it would have been better had he at least lain down for half a day at that Kyoto inn.

While suppressing that fatigue, Kishimoto went to see his brother who was calling him in the back room.

“Sukeyoshi.” “Well, sit down.” “Now I have various things to discuss.” Having said this, Giyū recounted to Kishimoto the names of people who had visited during his younger brother’s absence, the names of those who had shown him kindness, and particularly the names of relatives who had provided assistance when he himself had faced temporary difficulties during Kishimoto’s absence. The brother, who approached matters with skillful thoroughness and assertiveness, carried himself like a man who would not rest until he had voiced every necessary word; then he produced a written memorandum he had prepared and showed it to Kishimoto.

“Well, I’ll just show you this for reference—”

Having said this, Giyū took out another written note.

“Kayo (the sister-in-law’s name), you should show your written note to Uncle too.” Giyū called his sister-in-law over to where just the two of them were and said this.

Kishimoto withdrew from before his brother and sister-in-law while rubbing his hands. It was only then that he realized how much his brother had struggled during his absence. He came to understand that even for his brother—who had once declared, “By the time you return from France, I too intend to make great strides,” before their parting—the opportune season still had not arrived. Nor was that all—he even perceived that those three years of his absence had likely been the most trying period in his brother’s life, even when looking back later. He also recognized the strange irony that his own unforgivable sin had somehow become one of the fragile forces sustaining this household through those three years. The past of the divided Kishimoto households had been one of mutual support—helping and being helped. Even toward his brother’s kindness, steeped in their inherited familial spirit, Kishimoto could not bring himself to say he had just returned home and scarcely had time to breathe. He simply could not express what his journey—which had only burdened others with worry—had truly entailed, nor how he wished them to comprehend the hardships he had endured raising his children through it all. His own actions—departing on that journey as if deceiving his brother and sister-in-law—that was it. Above all else, that was it. “What’s done cannot be undone—you must forget this now,” his brother had said, appearing to overlook his lifelong failures. If these were his brother’s words—words bearing such magnanimity—then no matter how unreasonable they might be, he felt compelled to obey them.

24 Kishimoto went to where no family members were present and alone held out his right hand to examine it. He asked himself questions and gave himself answers. "As expected, money troubles keep following me—there's simply no escaping it." As if showing his palm to a fortune-teller, Kishimoto stared at his own hand. He presented it again as though it belonged to someone else. In truth, it was nobody's hand at all. It was a shadowy hand extended by his own sins from some unknowable place.

Kishimoto once again reached out that hand to look at it. Unless one were intimately acquainted with the futility of those who sought to bury their sins where none could find them, how could one ever perceive the existence of such a hand? It was a hand he should have been grateful for—so much so that even venerating it would not suffice. But it was a relentlessly scheming hand. It was a hand that seemed to grasp his very weaknesses. Kishimoto gazed intently at his own hand and felt an extremely dark mood.

“Sister-in-law, now that I’ve returned too, please let me manage this household from today.” Having said this, Kishimoto went to the room where his sister-in-law was and spoke these words. From the paper case that still contained items like his travel permit, he took out funds for immediate expenses and placed them in his sister-in-law’s hand.

On the day promised via letter by Makino—who had returned on the same ship—Kishimoto went to Yokohama Customs to collect the remaining luggage. The familiar ship that had detoured from Kobe to Yokohama was still anchored there, its hull lying against the pier and black smokestacks recounting myriad events from the voyage. From beside the customs house, Kishimoto gazed once more at the nearby blue sea. The heart that had carried Kishimoto home across distant lands—that heart remained a precious thing he could not lose. By its measure, he owed apologies both to his brother and sister-in-law. Yet from the first moment he saw his brother’s unscathed face, that impulse had been checked. “You will speak no more of this,” his brother’s eyes declared. But this restraint was not Kishimoto’s own will. Naturally, he believed apologies were due to them both. More urgently still, he felt compelled to show Setsuko—who bore such grievous wounds for his sake yet sought no recompense—a contrition surpassing all others.

25

Like a pilgrim returning from a long journey, Kishimoto—who had crossed the threshold of his long-unoccupied home—had at last found something resembling rest by his children’s side. Many visitors came to see him, all people he genuinely wished to meet, and his days after returning proved busier than expected; yet even so, he resolved to show gratitude to those who had raised Izumi and Shigeru in his absence. He did all he could with his own strength to comfort his brother—who seemed to endure misfortune with smoldering resentment—his sister-in-law, who occasionally let slip complaints, and his elderly grandmother. Given his brother’s temperament—either building an imposing mansion or else stoically enduring even the humblest dwelling, incapable of half-measures in any case—even when the house’s fence fell into disrepair, he had left it to others’ perceptions. Kishimoto strove to pour at least some measure of freshness beneath this roof. In the stagnant household air—so thick it felt they might all collapse together—he clung to the hope that something might yet emerge. The Setsuko he saw upon returning rose early each morning, assisted her sister-in-law with chores, and worked without losing heart—at least outwardly. “Since you returned, Setsuko has gained much more vitality.” From these words of his brother’s, Kishimoto learned his homecoming had given her some measure of hope. After all, even when abroad, she had been his foremost concern. From that truth within him, he felt no small joy.

“Since Papa returned, even Izumi and Shigeru have visibly changed—after all, parents are parents.”

Such words from his sister-in-law, even as flattery, were pleasing to Kishimoto.

Above all else, Kishimoto’s foremost wish was to gradually recover from the intense travel fatigue that even he found astonishing. In such cases, he would go to his two children’s side. There, he stretched out the knees he had been sitting with forcibly bent in front of guests. Having grown accustomed to sitting, he would at times grimace and, supporting his aching legs, let out a groan-like sound in front of the watching children. “So, what do you think—has Papa come back with a bit of a foreign air about him—”

When Kishimoto asked this, Izumi sat beside Shigeru and gazed at his father’s face while— “You’re so foreign-smelling I got sick of it.” Izumi’s good-natured tone made his father and younger brother laugh.

26 “But you’ve both grown so much, Izumi and Shigeru,” said Kishimoto, comparing his two children. “With Izumi here, I’d roughly imagined he’d be about this size—but Papa was truly surprised at how much Shigeru had grown.” “When I stand next to Izumi, we’re about the same height.”

Shigeru looked toward Izumi and said. When Kishimoto considered that this second child sitting before him—the child who had now learned to use words like "I"—was the same young Shigeru who used to ask unclear questions like "Is this morning?" or "Is this evening?" at their old house near the Kanda River, he could not help but smile.

Kishimoto continued, “When Papa returned, I called out to you from the carriage, didn’t I? I knew right away it was you, Shigeru. That time, you gave such a strange reply and ran off—” “I didn’t think it was Papa,” answered Shigeru. “Is that so… You didn’t recognize me?” “I didn’t look properly at the carriage—the sunshade was down, so I couldn’t see well—”

The two children exchanged glances as if struck by an idea, and their father went to retrieve the travel souvenirs. They brought them carefully to their father. "Izumi and Shigeru often sent Papa things like your neatly copied writings and drawings." "In Japan, characters are written large with a brush." "In foreign countries, they all use pens." "When I saw Izumi's neat writings abroad, the characters were so large it was quite surprising." "Oh right—I often received letters from you all too."

Rather than listening to their father’s talk, the two children each tried to show him the things they had brought out there. They tried to share that childlike joy with their father as well. “Let me see that notebook. “It has a black French-style cover and such—a fine notebook, huh. “Papa bought this notebook and colored pencils in Paris. “There’s also a book of fairy tales, you know. “It’s a book of English fairy tales. “That one Papa found in London and brought back. “Both of you—take good care of these and put them away properly, you hear?”

“This book’s too hard—I can’t read it at all,” said Shigeru. “That’s because it’s in English,” Izumi said, looking at his brother. “But it’s nice, isn’t it? There are pictures in it, see?” Shigeru replied. “Papa wrote in my book too. Shall we try reading one? ‘The Day I Returned from My Journey—From Father—To Shigeru’”

Both Shigeru, who was reading, and Izumi, who was listening, burst out laughing. At that moment, Izumi, as if remembering something, “Papa is so nice, you know.”

“Why?” asked Kishimoto. “Because you were all alone eating French bread—”

“Alone? I couldn’t very well take you all along with me, could I?” “Papa, what did you go to France for—”

To this question from Izumi, Kishimoto was stumped. Outside, frogs suddenly began croaking. Gazing at his children’s faces, Kishimoto listened intently to their calls—a sound scarcely heard during his travels abroad. Upon the garden’s ginkgo, its trunk now grown sturdy in his three-year absence, and the deutzia leaves flourishing by the veranda, a summer rain characteristic of Tokyo soon poured down.

XXVII

The two children brought out more neatly copied writings and drawings to show Kishimoto, and even laid out there the picture postcards he had sent from his travels to show him.

“Oh, there’s a Limoges picture postcard here.” “This is the one I sent to Izumi-chan, isn’t it.” “It’s amazing it didn’t get lost and stayed preserved this long.” As he spoke, Kishimoto examined the French countryside postcards together with the children. There lay the outskirts of Limoges where he had spent two months, pastures grazing flocks of sheep, stretching from familiar foreground trees to the distant stone spire of Saint-Étienne Cathedral crowning a hilltop—all captured in that postcard. The autumn season depicted matched what Kishimoto had experienced during his travels, sufficiently evoking that wanderer’s melancholy along the Vienne River banks where he had often roamed.

“Papa.” “There’s a picture postcard of a ship here too.”

As Shigeru said this and held it out, Kishimoto took it in his hands to look, “This is the ship Papa rode on when he went. Papa went to a distant country on a ship like this.” “Was it really that far?” “Have you ever seen the sea?” “If you go to Shinagawa, you can see the sea,” Shigeru answered.

“I went on a school trip to Kamakura.” “I saw the sea then,” said Izumi.

What countries lay beyond the sea that these children did not know—Kishimoto found himself unable to properly put that into words.

Both Izumi and Shigeru were gazing intently at their father’s face—tanned dark by the sun and weathered by sea winds. With these children by his side, Kishimoto told them about the strange customs of natives in the various ports he had traveled through, tropical plants growing there wild. “Oh! Whale．Whale．” “Whale．” “Whale．”

The two children chattered back and forth, their eyes wide as if listening to a fairy tale, and leaned in to hear their father’s story about witnessing a whale being caught during his travels.

Kishimoto still felt like a traveler who had just crawled ashore from the sea. His mind wandered to the equator crossed during his return voyage and to Atlantic waves where swarms of flying fish soared. The Southern Cross—its cruciform shape tilted in the sky—had imprinted itself on his eyes for the first time in his life. The blue phosphorescence flowing through dark waters seemed half-dreamt light. From London's departure until reaching Cape of Good Hope, he had spent eighteen endless days severed from land's tidings, adrift on open sea. The ship had called at Durban's port in South Africa to take on coal. Sumatra's silhouette glimpsed nearing Singapore; Hong Kong's lighthouse seen both going and returning; the China Sea's waters tinged a murky yellow-green—as he tallied these memories, inexhaustible impressions from his homeward journey welled within him.

XXVIII

Abruptly, Setsuko sank into depression. It was around the time when Kishimoto, having gauged that the number of visiting guests had somewhat decreased, began going out daily on visits from his side. Kishimoto could not fathom why Setsuko—who had finally regained her vigor and been working so diligently—had so abruptly sunk into despondency, nor what had displeased her to make her wilt like a withered rose.

"What in the world has happened to Setsuko-chan?" He muttered this to himself, shocked at her condition that had changed too abruptly. Had Setsuko been scolded by Brother Giyū? As far as Kishimoto could tell, nothing particular had occurred within the household. Was there something about her mother's arrangements that she found dissatisfying? No such signs were visible.

"Surely she must have troubled her sisters like this even while I was away," he muttered again to himself, growing somewhat irritated at her nervousness and lack of self-control—at being confronted with that sullen face so soon after his return. From Kishimoto's perspective, there was no need to revisit all he felt he owed Setsuko now. All he wanted was to be forgiven for that—to start afresh from a lifetime of failures and carve a new path if possible—which was why he had changed his mind about staying abroad and returned to his homeland once more. The journey had fortunately sparked many new interests in life. He himself intended to remarry, and should a marriage prospect arise for Setsuko, he meant to support her discreetly from the shadows. He was determined to clear a way forward for her. He had even discussed this with Brother Giyū, who strongly endorsed his remarriage plans. Nothing in Setsuko's future seemed bleak enough to warrant such despair that she needed to sink into depression.

At that point, he came up with a phrase. He tried calling her profound melancholy—whose cause remained utterly unclear—"Setsuko-chan’s low-pressure system." Until that day, he had tried to avoid her as much as possible, had even refrained from speaking to her directly, and had only been watching her from afar. To put it another way, he still could not properly see Setsuko. When this strange low-pressure system arrived, he found himself unable to avoid paying close attention to the condition of this silent, unfortunate woman.

XXIX

Almost daily, Kishimoto went out to pay visits. Out of a heart yearning for old acquaintances, he wanted to call upon every relative and friend he possibly could. Shiba. Kyōbashi. Nihonbashi. Ushigome. Hongō. Koishikawa. As if he were a pilgrim going door to door. Yet every time he returned homeward toward Takanawa, Setsuko remained sunken in gloom.

When Kishimoto returned home from his journey with worry, the niece he had imagined was a person whose appearance had become terribly altered. The figure of Setsuko captured in that photograph—one he had even feared to take out from his Paris boarding house—remained in his eyes: her weakened postpartum appearance, which she herself had described as “looking like a ghost” in the image. Given that thought, Setsuko seemed only somewhat emaciated, and even her reportedly short-cut hair did not appear particularly so to his eyes. However, this only reassured him temporarily. Gradually, the fact that Setsuko had weakened—unlike before—began to be mentioned by her brother, sister-in-law, and grandmother.

“Since you came back, she might be keeping up appearances like that, but for Setsuko-chan to rise at dawn like this—why, that’s unheard of since creation itself.” “There are days when she hasn’t the strength to sweep her room.” “Folding her bedding is already the utmost she can manage—who knows how many such days there’ve been till now.” “While you were away, she might as well have done naught but sleep!” “On the rare times we sent her out, she’d near faint in the train—what foolishness!”

There were times when Giyū recounted things to Kishimoto in this manner, his speech tinged with a rural accent. His manner suggested that unless a woman was as reserved as Suzuki’s elder sister, as wise as his deceased nephew Taichi’s wife, or as courageous as the Tanabe family’s grandmother, she wasn’t worth considering as a woman.

Indeed, the real Setsuko was just as Kishimoto had feared. She was such a frail person—moreover, one so plagued by troubles with her hands that she could not even manage a needle, let alone water-related tasks—how could she ever become a proper homemaker? It was feared.

“You’ve reduced a person to this state”—as though such a voice had come to accuse him. Even if not every pathological element surrounding Setsuko was entirely his responsibility, the fundamental blow that had left her so powerless was undeniable.

The nature of Setsuko’s low-pressure system remained something Kishimoto could not fathom. He had even gone discreetly to observe his niece’s condition. Outside the north-facing room lay a narrow vacant plot connecting the back gate to the kitchen. There grew bush clover that Setsuko—ordinarily fond of plants—had transplanted from their former home near the Kanda River. Pressed specimens of those very flowers had once reached his Paris boardinghouse alongside her letters. Three years had passed, and the bush clover had grown tall. Setsuko sat alone on the veranda facing the blue-tinged foliage, her dejected posture signaling no desire to speak with anyone.

XXX

One day as well, intending to visit old acquaintances in the town where he had previously lived, Kishimoto sat down at the dining table with everyone before leaving home. It was exactly lunchtime, and everyone—from Giyū’s family to Izumi and Shigeru, who were enjoying their early dismissal from school—had gathered there. “Since Uncle returned from France, everyone in the household is still being reserved.” “Everyone here’s wearing cat hats.”

Giyū said this half-jestingly.

“Why, even Ichiro here is made to sit next to Izumi and Shigeru—if you weren’t around, Uncle, they’d all just be eating in silence like that.” “Everyone here’s wearing a cat hat.” “If this cat hat could be worn properly—now that would be something to celebrate—”

“And again,” Giyū said.

Izumi and Shigeru ate alongside Uncle Giyū with expressions that seemed to anticipate what he might say next. “Even though you’re wearing a cat hat yourself!”

The sister-in-law looked sharply at Giyū and spoke. This sarcasm from his sister-in-law made Giyū smile bitterly. Setsuko sat between her mother and Ichiro, keeping her head bowed as she ate without uttering a word. Kishimoto was acutely aware of her unrelieved tension.

"Setsuko still has that look on her face." With that thought, Kishimoto left the dining table. Why was Setsuko’s low-pressure system persisting so relentlessly? Precisely because the cause remained unknown, Kishimoto found himself feeling increasingly sorry for her. While keeping that in mind, he left the house in Takanawa and walked along the slope following Oka to the tram stop.

When he rode the train to Asakusabashi, the banks of the Kanda River came into Kishimoto’s view once more. Kishimoto stood on the bridge and gazed at the riverbank he had once frequented from the railing. He could say that the stone wall there was where he had once sat, and here in front of the boat inn was where he had once launched his small boat. He walked all the way to the town he had grown accustomed to living in for seven years. The house that had been his old residence had changed in appearance from its front gate onward, and its occupants had been replaced; only the glass door he had left behind on the second floor, visible from the street, spoke of the time before he embarked on his distant journey. He visited the old familiar houses as well. Among them were even those who, after staring fixedly at his sunburned cheeks, his whitened temples, and his beardless face, wore expressions that seemed unable to believe for a while that this visitor was indeed him who had returned from his journey.

Kishimoto crossed Yanagibashi in that town and soon emerged near Ryōgokubashi. On a day during his travels when he had cast his traveler’s emotions afar from the banks of the Saône, Vienne, Garonne, and others, the Sumida River spread out once more before his eyes. With eyes that had seen the Seine’s waters from Austerlitz’s stone bridge, he watched the Sumida River’s currents—unforgotten through three years—swirl and flow down from upstream.

31 Every time Kishimoto returned home on the Shinagawa-bound train, passing through Shinbashi, he would recall that day three years prior when he had departed on his journey from the old station. On his return journey that day too, he peered out from the train window toward where Shiodome Station and its imposing warehouses came into view, gazing at the retired stone buildings that seemed to have relinquished the city's pride and splendor to newer structures. To such an extent had he still not shed his traveler's disposition. In many instances, he would stand in a corner of the train, observe the other passengers as if they were curious novelties, and ride on with the sensibility of someone half-emerged from foreign lands.

The sister-in-law and Grandmother were preparing dinner at home while waiting for Kishimoto to return. Setsuko also worked diligently alongside everyone else. At times, Kishimoto would look toward Setsuko and think that. He wondered how the sister-in-law and the others viewed that Setsuko who seemed so deeply lost in thought. The sister-in-law wore an expression that said this was already routine, and even when Setsuko withdrew into silence to the point of not speaking to the household, she seemed not to pay it much mind.

That evening, Kishimoto spent the entire time talking with his brother in the back room. Then Grandmother also came there, "I do think we must find some way to do something about that hand of hers—" Grandmother said. Grandmother, who had come from her rural home knowing nothing of the circumstances, had regarded Setsuko’s emaciation over the past three years as something of a mystery and had fretted in various ways over her sickly condition.

For Giyū, Grandmother was a mother by obligation. The sister-in-law was this elderly woman's only daughter. Having left the Kishimoto household and inherited the Kishimoto surname from his mother's side, Giyū addressed Grandmother in a reserved tone: "Now that Sukeyoshi has returned too, I'll consult with that person and work out some method."

“After all, it’s been nearly three years since Setsuko’s hand turned bad,” Grandmother said. “We did have a doctor examine her,” Giyū cut in, “but he declared, ‘This is a serious illness—it won’t heal unless she consults a proper specialist. Even then, this hand will take an exceedingly long time to treat.’ With that, he sent her home.” “If she stays like this—truly unfit for marriage—we might try treatment first. But let’s face it—every family has its cripple. That’s how I see it, so we must accept it.”

Such words from his brother struck Kishimoto’s ears with force. On a day during his travels, after entrusting Setsuko to her parents, Kishimoto had come to believe he had somehow managed to save her from ruin. Each time he heard of marriage proposals arising for Setsuko, he felt all the more certain of her recovery. He had returned from his journey and seen. Setsuko was a frail person. Yet that she would become so crippled as to be seen by those around her as an invalid was something Kishimoto could not bring himself to believe. “Every family has at least one cripple.”

These words from his brother shocked Kishimoto profoundly.

With that weighing on him, Kishimoto went to the kitchen early the next morning to wash his face. It was a time when neither the sister-in-law nor Grandmother had yet risen. Setsuko alone stood working dejectedly. "How much longer was she going to keep making that sullen face?"

Thinking this, Kishimoto tried to turn back from the kitchen. The indescribable state of his niece at that moment exerted a mysterious power over him. Almost impulsively, he drew near Setsuko and, without saying a word, planted a small kiss on her. She was about to let out a violent sob so violently that he, startled and flustered, tried to stifle her mouth.

32

When August arrived, the death anniversary of Izumi and Shigeru’s mother came. The two children, whose school had entered summer recess, looked forward to going out with their father for the first time in ages and had been talking nonstop since the previous evening about visiting the grave.

He decided to leave early in the morning. Kishimoto invited both Ichiro and Setsuko. In the temple suburbs lived an old friend Kishimoto wished to visit, so he intended to leave the children in Setsuko’s care for the return journey and make his way alone to his friend’s house. “Sukeyoshi will stop by Mr. Suga’s place. Well then, Setsuko should go along too and bring the children back on the way home.”

With that, his brother interjected to the sister-in-law as if mediating, making it clear that "It would do good to let even Setsuko show such liveliness on rare occasions." Setsuko busily prepared herself. Amidst the children’s insistent urging, she put on new white tabi socks and was last to leave the house. “If Jiro notices you leaving, he’ll fuss—all departing people should hurry out now!”

Ignoring the sister-in-law’s voice, the three children cheered and raced ahead. When Kishimoto had walked about half a block with the children, he waited for Setsuko, who was approaching from behind holding a pale-colored Western umbrella. What concerned him most was that Setsuko often suffered from cerebral anemia while out. “Setsuko, are you all right today?” Kishimoto asked. “Yes, I should be all right.” Setsuko’s voice as she answered was modest.

“To think all your kimonos and everything are stored away in the storehouse—there are quite nice ones among them, don’t you think? You’ve got plenty with those.” “Whether they’re good or bad, this is all I have after all.”

Setsuko’s face flushed slightly. She opened the slightly faded Western-style umbrella she carried, as if resigned to things never going her way. For Setsuko, walking alongside her uncle who had returned from abroad was a first. After her depressive mood had lifted without warning, her eyes shone so brightly that day that one might wonder where any trace remained of the melancholy that had once so stirred Kishimoto’s heart. When Kishimoto met his brother Giyū’s family with an uneasy expression for the first time in three years, the Setsuko reflected in his eyes seemed smaller than he remembered. Perhaps it was because he now saw his niece through eyes accustomed to comparing her to others—the Parisian landlady’s niece, or that red-haired Frenchwoman from Limoges, robust and of the same age—that she appeared so. Walking out together like this, even Kishimoto could keenly sense how much Setsuko had matured over those three years. She was like a bird emerging from a cramped cage, breathing freely in the summer morning air for what felt like the first time in years. Unlike her smoldering self at home, that day’s Setsuko even displayed her penchant for affectation and the modest airs of a young woman comporting herself.

The children would wait for the slow-footed Setsuko along the way only to hurry ahead again. Setsuko walked with her uncle to the Seishōkō-mae tram stop, often in silence, as if the arrival of such a day felt like a dream to her.

33 They took the train to Shinjuku, then Kishimoto walked with the children and Setsuko toward Ōkubo. Setsuko showed no signs of fatigue despite Kishimoto's worries. Out of consideration for his frail niece, he made conscious efforts to slacken his pace. Ahead lay the suburb where Kishimoto had once lived for about a year—a place thick with memories of when he'd moved from the mountains with his then still-hardy wife Sonoko and three girls who would have been like elder sisters to Izumi and Shigeru—a once tree-filled suburb now entirely transformed into newly developed land.

“This part of town has completely changed—” Even in instances where Kishimoto would make such remarks, Setsuko seemed content merely to listen, appearing to desire nothing more than to walk in silence alongside her uncle. For the children—siblings heading to “Mother’s” grave after a long absence—especially for Izumi, the elder brother—the path they now walked was one that led to the suburbs where he had been born. “Izumi, this is Ōkubo.” When Kishimoto called out from behind, Izumi, walking alongside Ichiro and Shigeru,

“Ah, this is the Ōkubo where I was born,” he said nostalgically. Setsuko gazed at the backs of the three boys aligned at matching heights, then quietly followed close behind. Compared to before, the temple’s surroundings had changed markedly. Leaving Setsuko—who wanted to buy flowers for “Aunt”—at the flower shop’s entrance, Kishimoto stepped ahead into the temple grounds. Soon Setsuko arrived carrying white lilies she had chosen herself and rejoined the group beside the entrance to the priest’s quarters adjoining the main hall.

“Papa, I’ll take the incense sticks.”

The eager Shigeru was the first to say it.

Sonoko’s death—and then the myriad events that had followed in succession—intertwined within Kishimoto’s heart with what he now saw before him. The elderly temple attendant leading the way toward the cemetery with a guiding expression; the offering bucket and shikimi leaves; the smoke from red paper-wrapped incense sticks waved by the children—not one of these failed to draw Kishimoto into deep contemplation. Alongside the main hall ran a narrow path that guided grave visitors deep into the cemetery. The narrow path between old and new graves was one Kishimoto had often paced whenever he lost another daughter. He went to stand before his wife’s grave for the first time in years—before this marker where even now, he could scarcely fathom what words might reach her: “You’ve returned well from your long journey,” or “You’ve all come together so well,” or perhaps something else entirely.

“It must be nearly seven years since Aunt passed away, I wonder.” Kishimoto, carrying flowers, looked back at Setsuko, who had followed him there, and said. Silence dominated the surroundings. The row of old tombstones standing side by side also appeared as if they existed solely for those who remained. Tomb of Kishimoto Sonoko Tomb of Tomiko Tomb of Kikuko

Tomb of Mikiko

34 “So the ones next to Mom’s are Big Sis Tomiko’s and Big Sis Kikuko’s graves?” “Yeah, that’s right.”

Izumi and Shigeru exchanged these words with each other. While the temple attendant decorated the front of the grave with shikimi leaves and lilies, Kishimoto spent some time with Setsuko and the children in what felt like a proper grave-visiting moment. He washed the gravestone without the temple attendant’s help and poured water over it to show them how, whereupon Izumi and Shigeru took turns doing the same as their father. Setsuko went last and pressed her palms together in prayer before her aunt’s grave. “That was the evening of the Ryōgoku fireworks, wasn’t it...”

Setsuko said this to her uncle and moved away from the graveside with an expression recalling that day seven years earlier when her aunt had died. On a day after the relentless rain had finally ceased, the memory of Kishimoto coming to this cemetery to bury his wife flooded back before his eyes. At that time, he had sought not only to inter Sonoko but also to rebury the remains of their three daughters alongside their mother. In the earth dug by the temple attendant, muddy yellow water gushed up. The attendant thrust both hands deep into it, probed every corner of the hole with his toes, and dug out three small skulls, scattered bones, and fragments of a rotted coffin. The bright August light streamed through green leaves, illuminating this cemetery once the rain stopped. In the sweltering air, the temple attendant wiped sweat from his grimy brow as he washed mud from three skulls. Among them, the smallest and oldest had its cranial and facial bones deformed—teeth chipped away, half turned to earth. The largest retained a skeletal solidity, teeth still aligned in rows, with strands of hair clinging to the vivid forehead bone alongside soil. These were Izumi and Shigeru’s sisters. And that elderly temple attendant who had labored then was now the one decorating their graves with shikimi branches and burning incense sticks.

The memory of that moment when he smelled the brutal, nose-stinging stench of earth was likely something Kishimoto would never forget for the rest of his life. The terrifying upheaval of his soul over the passing years. This upheaval had not merely arisen continuously from his wife’s death; indeed, it could be traced back to having sprouted long before that. The death of the youngest, Mikiko; then Kikuko at five years old; followed by Tomiko at seven—he had lost all three within a single year. By that time, he could no longer even visit this cemetery. Even when his feet occasionally turned toward this temple, he would merely consider the direction he was heading and nearly collapse there.

As he recalled these things while returning to the front of the temple's priest quarters, Kishimoto noticed the voice of a child who had come to his side and was speaking to him. "Papa, is that all for today?" Izumi said with a dissatisfied look. "Is that all?" "Isn't this what grave visiting is?" Kishimoto said with a laugh. "You didn't come here to play today, did you?"

35

After spending some time at the temple's priest quarters, they eventually exited through the gate along the stone-paved path of the temple grounds. The August sunlight already shone intensely onto Ōkubo Street. An invisible throng lay ahead on Kishimoto's path - for he had brought Setsuko to this grave visit. Kishimoto walked in silence. Setsuko too walked in silence. Only the children's cheerful laughter broke their quiet. To let Setsuko and the children rest, Kishimoto searched near the house where she had bought flowers earlier. In that area, only a small shaved ice shop with a flag out front could be found - neither such shops nor this newly developed town had existed in Ōkubo during Kishimoto's previous residence.

Izumi and Shigeru sat down with their father at the front of the shop and found satisfaction just in listening to the cool-sounding shaving of ice. "Ichiro, the ice is here."

Kishimoto offered the ice-filled cups to Ichiro and distributed some to Izumi and Shigeru. “Hey Izumi, lemon ice! Papa really treated us, huh?” said Shigeru, holding his cup. “Ah, what a lovely fragrance,” Izumi said, narrowing his eyes and crunching the ice in his cup with his spoon. “Setsuko, how about some ice?” Kishimoto asked. “I’ll have a little,” Setsuko answered, rubbing her hands—hands that were unusually sensitive due to her condition.

Setsuko was not only sparing of words toward her uncle but also toward her younger brother Ichiro. When compared to her cheerful and talkative older sister Teruko, she had always been a person of quiet and sparing words by nature. But she hadn’t always been someone who fell so completely silent. Her bright eyes that day and her silent lips seemed to speak of the vulnerability of the life within her—straining to grow yet unable to do so.

The grave visit too was one of the visits Kishimoto had made since returning home. From the perspective of that desire to visit as many people as possible, he had only just begun to put his thoughts into action. Yet he felt such intense fatigue—unbeknownst to others, he had been suppressing it again and again—that he wanted to make this grave visit a stopping point and take a rest. Gazing at the sunlight streaming right up to the ice shop's entrance, he found himself all the more thinking of rest.

To accompany the children on their way home, Kishimoto decided to walk with them that far. He had been more concerned about Setsuko during their return than on their way there. The blinding sunlight proved unbearable even for him. Caring for Setsuko over and over, he accompanied her through the same newly developed town they had passed through earlier, all the way to near Shinjuku. At times, even when he tried to inquire about her needs in those constrained circumstances—speaking to her as they walked together—Setsuko would not offer a proper response. She moved along the sunlit path under the hot sun in complete silence, her face lost in memories of those three years gone by.

"Is there truly no way to save this person?"

With that thought, Kishimoto saw off Setsuko as she departed. For a long time he stood in one spot, watching the retreating figures of the three children and Setsuko’s pale-colored Western-style umbrella as she moved away.

36

Izumi and Shigeru’s summer vacation continued for about a month thereafter. During that time, the peak of summer heat arrived. An unbearable fatigue now truly assaulted Kishimoto’s body. With a force strong enough to make him abandon everything. On sweltering summer nights at the Takanawa house, there were times when he would collapse on the tatami mats in the back room as if dead.

This first summer heat since returning home not only drew out the fatigue Kishimoto had carried over from his long voyage since departing London but also seemed on the verge of summoning even that weariness from his three-year journey through France—a weariness akin to having walked almost without rest among strangers. From the sudden stillness and rest of his strained nerves, what had been lurking inside him raised its head all at once. And he became as if steamed by the heat of the drastically transformed land.

Somehow, Kishimoto’s mind grew unsettled. Every deed of Setsuko’s—bound as it was to those same sorrowful memories—acted upon him. When that strange depressive mood came over Setsuko and lingered for days on end, though he couldn’t bear to watch her agitated state, he regretted having given her that impulsive kiss. Three years of restraint and self-reproach had not strengthened him; rather, he’d begun suspecting they were making him weaker still. With this woman of such misfortune, it seemed he stood once more at the brink of being tested.

One day, Kishimoto left home intending to find a room in that neighborhood where he could study alone, should such a place exist. In his current house where nine people from two families lived together under one roof, he could not bring himself to sort through the books he had brought back from his travels. Moreover, with so many children about, he found it absolutely necessary to secure a temporary study. When he stepped out into the town's open air, that traveler's mindset—known to all who have wandered the wide world—still lingered faintly within him. This state of mind made him view his own country as if it were foreign soil. At times he felt as though he were still at sea. He felt as if he had merely disembarked and was passing two months in some transient locale. His thoughts still wandered to Cape Town in South Africa, to Durban, and to towns like Singapore where Malays, Indians, Chinese and Europeans lived intermingled. At times he doubted his own eyes. For the women walking these streets gave him the impression not of Japanese women at all, but rather of native women from the Malay Peninsula. These ocular illusions merged strangely with the inner landscapes born of his travel-weary return. He came to think with astonishment that there existed neither relation nor connection between himself—who had left his Paris lodgings feeling liberated from an invisible prison—and himself—who now sought to approach Setsuko anew. Have I truly returned home? he wondered, and at this thought was overcome by blank bewilderment.

37

Kishimoto rented a second-floor space with two rooms near his house. From early September, he used it as a temporary study, returning to the main house for meals and overnight stays. Among his children was one who required being roused nightly from deep sleep. He realized that this duty of waking the child had become quite burdensome for Brother Giyū's family. This was not something to impose on others. Driven by this resolve, he arranged bedding for three in the north-facing room—placing beside him the child who'd carried this boyhood habit that might fade with age—striving to spare his sisters-in-law the trouble. Brother Giyū happened to be away visiting his provincial hometown during this period. Setsuko, perhaps unable to bear watching her uncle's efforts, began coming to wake the child. From that day their twisted bond began rewinding itself.

Every time he went to that second floor, Kishimoto's mind would sometimes fall utterly silent. At the same time, deep within his ears, he heard such a voice.

“Have I ever truly pitied anyone? Though my heart returned from journeying as if awaiting dawn once more—turned toward all humanity—does it not turn toward the person right beside me? Can my eyes not see that half-dead person? If I don’t pity her, who will I pity?” One who had suffered the grievous experience of a terrible burn was now being dragged back into the flames. Kishimoto’s relationship with Setsuko was exactly like that. Yet he was no longer the Kishimoto of before. He was not so much a misogynist that he considered his singlehood a form of revenge. He was no longer that Kishimoto of before—the man who had resolved never to repeat a similar married life, who had tried to transform the household his wife left behind into something entirely different in meaning, who had sought to walk his own selfish path even if it meant defying nature itself within the endless, desolate desert of life. He had returned while gazing at the lights of his homeland from afar, with a resolve so strong he thought he wouldn’t sleep on the night he arrived in Kobe. He had returned exhausted from his long journey, collapsing upon the land, with a heart that even desired to kiss the beloved soil.

A profound compassion welled up in Kishimoto’s chest. That heart welled up not only to save Setsuko but also as if to save himself.

38

The more he pitied Setsuko, the more Kishimoto resolved to pour whatever strength circumstances allowed into her. The burdens he currently bore—his acts of service toward Brother Giyū and his wife and Grandmother—he now considered all for her sake. Above all, he first thought to make her self-supporting. Her frailty, her apathy—he believed they stemmed from having been left untended too long, like a garden surrendered to weeds—whether through unavoidable family circumstances or her own shadowed existence where she had perpetually shrunk from others.

Kishimoto tried to teach Setsuko—still dependent on her parents—to work. Even if they continued living as before, he wanted to devise a method that would at least let her preserve dignity through self-sufficiency. To this end, he considered having her assist with his work by learning to transcribe conversations and such, wanting under the name of compensation to support her however slightly. Thus not only did he teach Setsuko to work, but he also wished to kindle in her a heart that found life worth living.

This proposal delighted Brother Giyū, who had returned from his hometown. It also delighted his sister-in-law. “Even if we say Setsuko’s hands are in poor condition, it’s just that she can’t do wet chores—there’s no problem with her holding a brush.”

When Kishimoto said this, Grandmother, who was with the sister-in-law, chimed in, "Well, well, Setsuko here does like writing things down as she is, you know." "She often writes and reads things diligently on her own." "Ah. "That’s a fine plan!" "That sounds promising!"

Giyū also said. The sister-in-law took up that thread and,

“Father keeps calling her a good-for-nothing, a good-for-nothing—he only says bad things about Setsu, even though she could earn nine or ten yen if she tried!”

She said this, her eyes welling up with tears. Kishimoto went up to that second floor and was pleased that the proposal he had made had first encouraged Setsuko more than anyone else. He was alone in that room, took out the things that Setsuko had brought from the house along with the three o’clock tea snacks and left behind, and tried reading them. Various things were written there.

“Even if a mother has many children, it is never, ever good for her to be troubled solely by them twenty-four hours a day. In any situation, it goes without saying that one must be a deep sympathizer, a kind confidant, and a wise guide—but I desire a heart with at least some degree of independent autonomy. Through that, children can gain precious experience, and mothers can obtain the time to develop their own worlds, I think. Only upon such mutual best understanding can a true life with order and vitality be conducted. Cowardly love has no life.”

At the edges of papers that Setsuko seemed to jot down from time to time were fragmented words—feminine impressions never meant for anyone’s eyes—that had oozed out from her small, constricted chest. “No matter how slight, advice tainted with the heart of ‘ego’ has no power to move people.”

Kishimoto continued reading what Setsuko had written while smiling. It was because the words came out haltingly, like those leaking from a stutterer’s mouth.

“To wish for thoroughness in all things entails much accompanying pain. Yet the pleasure it bestows is incomparable… One must see with one’s own eyes, hear with one’s own ears, and walk with one’s own feet.”

39 Among the other writings Setsuko had asked him to read and left behind were pieces describing her state of mind while awaiting Kishimoto's return journey, alongside diary-like accounts of her time in a small hospital undergoing incision surgery for a postpartum breast abscess. All of them displayed nerves honed too sharply and a constricted feminine heart—reading them left Kishimoto ill at ease.

“Truly, an unfortunate person who has neither loved nor been loved.” Kishimoto ventured. It was the day Setsuko had come from the main house to see him, having received her mother’s permission. This assistance with her uncle’s work had gradually increased her visits. She still lacked familiarity with transcribing his conversations. Moreover, the tasks assigned to her followed no fixed schedule. That day, satisfied by her arrival, he attempted to have her tidy even the most cluttered corners of his room.

“But compared to when you were in Asakusa, you’ve changed quite a lot.”

Kishimoto looked at Setsuko and said. Setsuko remained as sparing with words as ever, yet it seemed only on this second floor could she maintain such an unburdened state of mind. She moved between the tea utensils in the room’s corner and the books piled in the alcove, tidying here and there. “I don’t think all you’ve endured has been for nothing, you know.” “In the end, I believe it’s refined you.”

When Kishimoto said this again, Setsuko acted as though there were some significance in being told such things by her uncle and let out a slight sigh. “Your feelings must have become quite different from your mother’s and the others’ by now.” “Everyone—ends up being betrayed, you see.”

Setsuko said only that much and then looked down. Somehow, in Kishimoto’s eyes, Setsuko now appeared as if she were a different person from the Setsuko of before. Instead of the girl-like person who had only recently left school, there was now someone who spoke in a manner befitting an elder sister. In place of a person who seemed to know nothing of the world’s ways, there now stood one who had passed through various sorrows and hardships. At times, Kishimoto had come to feel that he could discern in this Setsuko things that his brother and sister-in-law neither acknowledged nor sought to acknowledge. Compared to three years prior, their positions had already shifted that much.

40 In the closet of the room he had made his temporary study was stored wine that Kishimoto had bought intending to nourish his body. As a French product, and as he had grown accustomed to drinking during his travels, it couldn’t be acquired so cheaply. He took that bottle from the closet and,

“I was going to drink this myself, but here—I’ll give it to you.” “This’ll do you more good than cheap medicine.” “Take a little each day.” He set the bottle before Setsuko. “You don’t look so terribly thin to me—” he continued. “Still, you’ve grown much leaner than before, haven’t you?” “Weren’t you always rather slight to begin with?” “I used to be quite plump,” Setsuko replied faintly. “Grandmother often says it—‘How did my plump girl turn so gaunt?’”

“Your hair isn’t even that short, is it? If there’s that much, isn’t it plenty? In the letter you sent to Paris, you wrote that your hair had been cut so pitifully short and red.” “It’s finally grown this much—” Setsuko said and deliberately let the hair near her hairline fall onto her forehead to demonstrate. “You’ve endured hardships and have become much better compared to before. Somehow I’ve come to like you—I didn’t like you that much before.”

Unusually, Kishimoto said such a thing. When she heard this, Setsuko seemed to recall many things; in a manner that brought to mind the trying months she herself had endured until they could speak together again like this—all because her uncle had gone to a distant country—she remained silent with her head bowed.

Before long, Kishimoto had Setsuko carry the wine and sent her back home.

Even at that time，he still did not abandon his hope of remarriage．The idea he had brought back from that journey—that he too would build a household with a suitable partner and urge Setsuko likewise to become part of a new family—now dominated him．The matter regarding the person from Osaka whom he was supposed to visit on his way back to Tokyo from Kobe had since yielded no leads；however，his return to Japan seemed likely to present other suitable candidates．In fact，he even received a letter concerning a marriage proposal from the Principal under whom Negishi’s niece Aiko had once studied．Written in his own hand，the Principal stated there was someone he earnestly wished to recommend，adding that both parties strongly hoped this match might succeed．He further wrote details could be learned through Negishi，and noted this prospective partner shared Aiko’s graduating class．

Kishimoto's heart was somewhat swayed by this marriage proposal. Though she was a woman he had never met nor known, there existed no better lead than being able to learn of her character and circumstances through Negishi's niece who was close at hand. At any rate, after sending a polite letter addressed to the Principal stating he would consult properly with Negishi, he waited for the report from Aiko.

Inside Kishimoto’s mind, everything fell silent. The relationship with Setsuko, now twice entwined, reminded him of his own spinelessness. But he thought he must not be shackled by immediate concerns alone—he had to forge a path forward, both for Setsuko’s sake and his own.

Forty-One

Before long, detailed information arrived from Negishi’s niece. Aiko wrote down every detail with feminine observations about her classmate that Kishimoto would want to know. Regarding that person’s upbringing. Regarding that person’s temperament. Regarding that person’s Edo-style peaceful household—one that only someone who had lived in Tokyo for a long time would barely recognize. Aiko wrote even about her classmate’s appearance—though there was nothing particularly striking about her in that regard—but as a wife, she would surely make a spirited yet gentle person, and as a mother, she would surely look after her aunt’s children well. First, she wrote that she was not so strong as to bully children. Aiko also wrote that, as she was too close to her classmate whom she knew intimately from daily life, she could not bring herself to say too much on the matter; however, if Uncle’s heart was inclined, she would not hesitate to approve of this marriage proposal. She also wrote that she herself looked forward to her longtime familiar classmate entering Uncle’s household.

Up to this point, the matter actually began to take concrete form. Even as he read Aiko’s report, Kishimoto could not help but think of how his relationship with Setsuko—who had borne his child—would influence this second marriage. He also tried applying the scenario of his own remarriage on the assumption that Setsuko had married elsewhere.

“I am grateful for your letter. “I would like to consider this marriage proposal more carefully.” After sending a reply to this effect to Negishi, Kishimoto told his brother Giyū about this marriage proposal. Whenever he returned home for meals, Kishimoto was surprised to find that Setsuko’s condition had changed again unawares. What he had termed “Setsuko’s low-pressure moods” manifested upon her with greater intensity than before.

Kishimoto utterly struggled to discern Setsuko’s true feelings. The notion of his remarriage was not something others had suggested but rather a plan he had proactively conceived himself; this matter he had explained not only before Brother Giyū but had also made clear to Setsuko. Because of that, he could never have imagined that Setsuko would make such a sullen face as to not speak to anyone in the household. The closeness between him and Setsuko was no longer such a distant thing as before—when he would try to avert his eyes from her, strive to keep his distance as much as possible, and attempt to devote himself to her only from the shadows. To save her, he had already offered one arm. Setsuko tried to avoid even him.

“Ah，it was starting again.”

Kishimoto muttered to himself and felt unbearably irritated at her nervousness. Her demeanor—head bowed fixedly as if sunk in thought—made even the surroundings of the dining table unpleasant.

Forty-Two “Setsuko, what’s the matter with you?” One day, Kishimoto approached and stood before the wilted Setsuko. Her despondent appearance—on the verge of sinking into profound disappointment—had become unbearable for him to witness. He tried to soothe her again in the same manner he had once calmed Setsuko. Then, her face slightly paling, she pushed against Kishimoto’s chest with her frail strength.

Such low-pressure moods of Setsuko’s, however, did not persist as long as they once had. Intense as they were, they were brief. Afterward, with even greater affection than before, she became an even greater support to Kishimoto.

“Setsuko’s good and all, but I’m at my wit’s end with how she sometimes clams up as if a ‘low-pressure mood’ has rolled in.”

Kishimoto had even brought it up and laughed about it in front of his brother and sister-in-law during meals. Setsuko had regained her spirits to such an extent that even when addressed like that in front of everyone, she did not show any displeased expression.

Setsuko, who tended to be silent, once opened the cupboard in the small room adjoining the kitchen and took out her handbox—stored away deep inside—to show Kishimoto. Though it was called a handbox, she, constrained in every way, made do with an empty candy box. With an expression that seemed to ask him to look at it, Setsuko left Kishimoto there alone and went to the room where Grandmother and Mother were. The things she had stored away as if they were precious appeared to Kishimoto’s eyes as nothing particularly unusual. That was a collection of letters and postcards he had written to Setsuko since around the time he embarked on his journey to France. There were those he had sent from Kobe. There were those sent during the outgoing voyage. There were those sent after arriving in Paris. There were those he had sent from the countryside of Limoges. They were either letters containing practical requests—to look after the household in his absence and care for the children—or else mere simple mementos of his travels. Every single one was a keepsake of his tormented heart that had tried to detest and avoid her. Kishimoto recalled his state of mind when writing those travel letters, and also recalled that state of mind he had each time he received numerous strange letters from Setsuko addressed to Kobe or Paris—letters he would tear up and discard or throw into the fireplace—and felt repelled. At the bottom of Setsuko’s handbox was also an old two-panel nishiki-e. It was by the brush of Sandai Toyokuni and depicted a rustic Genji-like man and woman. When he saw that, he could only think that the owner of this handbox had found comfort in these modest colors in a feminine way; Kishimoto himself felt no particular pull at heart. With a heart striving not to be ensnared solely by immediate phenomena and a heart yearning to somehow save this unfortunate victim—harboring these two commingled emotions—Kishimoto went up to the usual second floor. There, he found himself together with Setsuko, who had come through from the house for a moment carrying laundry. Kishimoto stopped Setsuko, who was about to leave after putting down the laundry, and informed her of his intention to remarry.

“Is it truly impossible for an uncle and niece to marry?” Before he knew it, Kishimoto had uttered these words. He gazed at Setsuko’s face and continued, “Why can’t I just take you as my wife instead?” “After all, I have to marry someone.” “Father is a man with such ideas, you see,” Setsuko replied. “Setsuko, don’t you have any intention of entrusting your life to me—even if we can’t marry?”

Having said this, Kishimoto was somewhat startled by the words that had burst from his own lips. “Let me consider it carefully.”

Leaving that response behind, Setsuko went back toward the house.

Forty-Three

In the morning air following the short night, the narrow vacant lot leading from the back gate to the kitchen entrance brightened. After spending a muggy, sleepless night that seemed like the last heat of the year of his return from travel, Kishimoto left his bed before anyone else in the house and walked out to the back entrance. Though the morning glories had passed their peak, the fence along the neighboring boundary—completely entwined with vines—lay buried under overlapping leaves. Kishimoto walked here and there along the fence, following the lingering nighttime mood that persisted even after he awoke. The fresh-colored flowers peeking out between the leaves each seemed to startle his eyes awake. Each time, the sweltering night—half-dreamlike, spent waiting for someone until dawn—left him.

Before long, Setsuko also got up. As soon as she opened the kitchen door, she spotted her uncle. It was still so early that neither Grandmother nor Sister-in-law had risen, so Setsuko came to see her uncle for a moment before starting the kitchen preparations. Being fond of flowers, she walked from one morning glory to another, showing her uncle how many had bloomed—one here, one there—as she counted them out.

“Setsuko, how did yesterday’s talk turn out? “As for the reply you said you’d think over—”

“Setsuko, how did yesterday’s talk turn out?” Kishimoto asked. At that moment, with her inherent frankness, Setsuko made Kishimoto clearly understand her consent.

“You’ve accepted your uncle, haven’t you—”

“Yes.”

Setsuko nodded. Kishimoto had merely intended to inquire about Setsuko’s true feelings, but her “Yes” somehow pleased him. Even after Setsuko, as if noticing something in the kitchen direction, suddenly left his side, he walked through the morning air and thought of the pathos in her heart that would entrust her entire life to someone as vastly older as himself.

That afternoon, Kishimoto was on the usual second floor, waiting for Setsuko to come help with his work. He tenderly cared for Setsuko’s ailing hands and had her transcribe his travel stories and such. Whenever there was a character unfamiliar to her still-unaccustomed mind, he would write it on paper and teach her. At times, this took longer than if he himself had taken up the brush to write down those stories. Nevertheless, he looked forward to having Setsuko assist him.

After finishing a task, Setsuko began tidying up papers and pencils when something seemed to occur to her. "I have to think about when Izumi and Shigeru grow up," she said. "You're already considering things that far ahead?" With that remark, Kishimoto laughed. Her statement from the previous day about needing time to think also appeared rooted mainly in concerns about Izumi and Shigeru—specifically how she and her uncle might appear in those children's eyes once they reached adulthood.

“Even if you say that, can you truly follow through and come with me?” Kishimoto ventured. “I do think I can follow you.” Setsuko answered, but before she knew it, her eyes glistened with tears. For a little while, silence lingered between them. “This time, I absolutely refuse to be left behind.” It was Setsuko who spoke up.

"Somehow, even at my age, I can't help feeling like I'm capable of doing things even a middle schooler would do," said Kishimoto. "Setsuko, this really isn't a marriage proposal, is it?" "Oh! You're still saying such things—I wouldn't tell any lies."

Forty-Four Indeed, in one breath, Kishimoto reached this point.

As September drew to a close, he felt that the single summer since his return had passed in intense turmoil. Before him, his heart returned to the time when he had bid farewell to that distant boarding house in Paris. From the dining room of that boarding house, with a traveler’s heart that had gazed and gazed at the evening lights in the windows toward the round, lantern-like tower of the Paris Observatory, he considered his present self.

You had grown weary from your long journey. When one reflects upon it, the psychology of returnees was not as happy a thing as imagined by most people in society. There were those who suffered severe neurasthenia; there were those afflicted by intense mental despondency; there were those plagued by various illnesses; there were those struck by sudden death. Wouldn't they have been shocked? Even seeing that much—those abnormal and complex forces beyond control; that irrepressible turmoil; those hidden workings invisible to eye and unknown to others—you understood they would never let your heart remain at peace as one who had returned home. You'd only just come back from your journey—don't torment yourself so. First rest.

Such voices echoed in the depths of Kishimoto's ears. Recently, he had also received a letter from Kotake, his Paris acquaintance. Even in the reports about that painter who had returned to Tokyo before him via Siberia, there emerged the emotional state particular to repatriates. Kotake wrote with complete candor that his mind remained somehow unclear and he still hadn't begun any new paintings. Reading this, Kishimoto recalled Kotake's exhausted face from when he had returned from Lyon to Paris carrying copies of French Impressionist works among others, and nostalgically contemplated the sentiment behind this letter written in such terms.

"So, when I think about it... I guess everyone feels this way."

He couldn’t help but voice it aloud. The words of an acquaintance who had been in a state of near-total bewilderment for about half a year after returning to Japan also rose in his mind. “Ahhh—it’s as if my very soul has been turned upside down.”

He heaved a deep sigh. He recalled how during his travels he had often imagined the day of his return. He remembered how he had repeatedly asked himself what might await him in his homeland. Indeed, as he had envisioned in his traveler's heart—burying the past as past, granting his unfortunate niece a new path, establishing a household himself, even making children like Izumi and Shigeru—who had lost their mother so young—happy—then truly this world would be at peace; yet how could one who had fled all the way to distant lands possibly stand by and observe that trembling sparrow of a Setsuko? He had ended up embracing someone akin to a living corpse. From this act sprouted a sorrowful heart that sought to wash sin with sin and cleanse wrongs with wrongs. If one arm proved insufficient, he grew willing to offer both arms for Setsuko. Yet still he could not resolve to shoulder her burdens himself—not even if it meant rejecting that marriage proposal from the Negishi niece which had arrived with her consent.

Forty-Five

The figure of Setsuko, who seemed to be casting both body and soul into seeking salvation, grew ever clearer to Kishimoto with each passing day. She appeared to revel in her youthful vitality only in her uncle's company. And she seemed to have forgotten all else. Even her illness. Even her constrained circumstances. Even her fierce resentment toward her parents, elder sister, and cousins. The memories of three long years of unrelenting hardship had rendered her uncle's return from his journey dreamlike in this manner. She would often shed hot tears at Kishimoto's side.

There had even come days that demonstrated Setsuko’s actual frailty. Kishimoto asked Setsuko to go to the nearby post office. Even after walking just a little during the days following the autumn equinox, she said she had suddenly begun to feel unwell. Not long after returning from the post office, she collapsed on Kishimoto’s second floor. “Uncle, please leave me be. Let me borrow this corner of the room for a little while.”

Having said this, Setsuko quietly lay down toward the small two-room space on the second floor. She was trying to wait for her chronic dizziness to pass. By the time Kishimoto went downstairs to search for medicine for Setsuko, her forehead was still pale. “You’ve grown weaker too, Setsuko.” “Could something like that really bring on cerebral anemia?” As he said this, Kishimoto offered the medicine he had found to Setsuko. “There’s nothing in Uncle’s room—not even a blanket to cover you if you collapse here. This place might as well be my hermitage.”

Kishimoto said once more and offered a towel wrung out in cold water to tend to Setsuko.

Sometimes Kishimoto would leave his desk and go check on Setsuko. The wet cloth placed on her forehead naturally wiped away the pallor from her face. The innate dusky complexion she was born with was revealed there. Among the four siblings, her elder sister Teruko and younger brother Ichiro were born in their hometown; Jiro was born in Tokyo’s suburbs; she alone was born when Giyū’s elder brother and his wife had a home in Korea. The natural color of her facial skin was the dusky hue she had brought from Korea.

The cerebral anemia that had come over Setsuko began to appear as though it would resolve relatively mildly. Before long, Kishimoto—while tenderly caring for his quietly resting niece—reached the point where he could laugh and say such things.

“You’ve got quite a dark complexion, haven’t you.”

Having been told this, Setsuko had regained enough vigor to turn toward the wall and hide her face with both hands.

From the house, Grandmother came up to the second floor out of concern to check on Setsuko. By the time Grandmother was about to leave, Setsuko had already gotten up. "But how strange it all is." Setsuko looked toward Kishimoto and tried to express the boundless emotions welling up inside her with those few words. At that moment, there floated up in Kishimoto’s heart the memory of having received numerous puzzling letters from her during his travels. The letters from his niece that he had received in Kobe and Paris still remained a mystery to him. For the first time, he felt compelled to bring up the matter of those letters with Setsuko.

“What did you mean by sending those letters to Uncle?” To Kishimoto’s question, Setsuko could find no answer; she fell silent and lowered her head.

“I thought once again that you were thinking of your own child and that’s why you sent those letters—isn’t that the case?” “I’ll tell you everything now.”

Setsuko answered with deliberate force, replying only that much. Before she knew it, hot tears had welled up in her eyes once more. They streamed unrestrained down her womanly face.

46

“Sukeyoshi, there’s something I need to speak with you about.” “I’ll come up to your room upstairs later.”

One day, Giyū informed Kishimoto of that matter. Kishimoto awaited his brother in the second-floor room he had rented. Whenever his brother spoke with Kishimoto at the house, it was always in the back room where Grandmother or sister-in-law would be in the adjacent chamber. The mere fact that his brother was coming to speak with him in a place unheard by any family members already seemed to Kishimoto to hold some significance. He went near the second-floor shoji screen and stood looking. Autumn dragonflies were now flying vigorously through the town’s sky. It was around the time when Izumi and Shigeru had gone to the old pond nearby and become engrossed in dragonfly fishing. Even looking at the afternoon sunlight shining on the street made one think of the end of September. The neighborhood children carrying long sticky poles toward the pond were also visible from the second floor. Before long, Kishimoto caught sight of his brother approaching from the house along one side of the street.

Before long, Giyū came up the stairs from downstairs.

“Well, this is a bright second floor.” “Let’s have some tea brought up.” Facing his brother like this and sitting directly across from him alone, thoughts of Setsuko darted restlessly through Kishimoto’s heart. He simply could not bring himself to share tea with his brother in this makeshift study. In Giyū’s account surfaced matters like the long ordeal of caring for his brother’s children, and how during Kishimoto’s absence Sister-in-law had tried to renounce responsibility for Izumi and Shigeru—a demand Brother had stubbornly refused—each episode unfurling in turn.

“Once I take something upon myself, I’ll uphold it to the very end.” “It’s not just about the children.” “If I deem something unspeakable, I wouldn’t even tell my own wife.” Each time Giyū’s words grazed Kishimoto’s raw nerves, Kishimoto winced at their exposure. Giyū circled back to Izumi and Shigeru again, recounting how the children clung to him despite their aunt’s scoldings rather than warming to her.

Giyū remained in his brother’s second-floor room for nearly two hours. Kishimoto, rubbing his hands together, saw his brother off as he descended the stairs from the second floor. Once alone, he tried to gather in his heart the words his brother had left behind that day. In essence, it had been about Sister-in-Law’s grievances. Giyū had led the conversation to attribute the source of Sister-in-Law’s grievances to that profound secret shared only between brothers—the fact that he was concealing something from her. Such talk from his brother was not entirely unanticipated by Kishimoto. He had once spoken with his sister-in-law at the house. At that time, there had been instances when Sister-in-Law turned to him and said with a sharp look, “Giyū is hiding something from me,” or pressed him with questions like, “Who exactly was it that first suggested we move to Tokyo—?” For him, who had long been thinking of apologizing to that sister-in-law, there had been no better opportunity than that moment. He couldn’t help but hear a voice above his head that seemed to command, “If you are going to apologize, now is the time.” However, he had already missed his chance to apologize on that very day when he crossed the difficult threshold of the vacant house to meet his brother and sister-in-law. It was now too late to bring that up. Given how drastically his relationship with Setsuko had changed since his return, it had become all the more impossible for him to do so. No matter how much those burdened with deep sin might struggle to save each other from their mutual suffering—who would believe such a deluded notion? With that thought, Kishimoto stood despondently by the room’s shoji screen.

47

Even for Izumi and Shigeru’s sake, Kishimoto had come to feel he shouldn’t prolong this provisional arrangement—this quasi-cohabitation of two families—indefinitely. The grievances about Sister-in-Law that Brother Giyū had left behind hastened this resolve. “Uncle, did Father say anything?”

Setsuko came from the house carrying a bundle of laundry and briefly showed her face at Kishimoto’s second-floor room. She asked with a worried look about what her father had discussed in this second-floor room.

“Your name never came up at all.” Kishimoto said reassuringly. Before long, he took some money from his wallet and placed it before Setsuko. “Setsuko, this is the portion you earned. You should hand over all that money to your mother. From now on, I’ll guarantee your living expenses every month. Uncle has just returned from a journey too, and handling everything alone isn’t easy for me—” “Thank you very much.”

“Thank you very much.” As she answered, Setsuko tucked her uncle’s offering into the fold of her obi.

That day, Kishimoto closed up the second floor earlier than usual and went back home. Just as he reached the house's lattice door, he encountered two children returning from the old pond carrying long sticky poles. They were Ichiro and Shigeru. "Papa. Silver."

Shigeru showed his father the blue-silver dragonfly he had pinched between his fingers. “Hmm. You all sure know the names of all sorts of dragonflies, don’t you?” When Kishimoto said this, Shigeru looked toward Ichiro,

“Not knowing dragonfly names… hey Ichi!” “Uncle, want me to tell you?” Ichiro stood before Kishimoto. “Silver, Saltwater, Wheat Straw—and then Red Dragonfly!” “Look, the black and yellow Great Bandit—that pond sure has all kinds of dragonflies, doesn’t it?” Shigeru chimed in.

Kishimoto did not immediately go up to the entrance from inside the lattice door and instead went through the side door into the garden with Shigeru. From the garden, even the innermost areas could be seen through the room containing the long brazier. Grandmother, along with Sister-in-Law and Setsuko, could be seen busily preparing dinner while standing.

At that moment, Kishimoto approached Shigeru, who had propped the sticky pole in a corner of the garden, and spoke in a low voice.

“Shigeru, you mustn’t quarrel with Ichi and Jiro—Jiro’s still just a little one, you know. “Alright?” “And mind what Auntie tells you, understand?” Shigeru gave a quick nod before darting away from his father’s side.

The deep green camellia leaves in the garden still held their brightness. With those same steps, Kishimoto climbed from the garden onto the veranda and went to inspect the room containing the Buddhist altar. That Setsuko had begun handing over even the modest earnings she could secure for herself to her mother had subtly altered her standing within the household. "Thanks to you, Setsuko's started earning money now," said Sister-in-Law. "She brought her earnings to show me!" Kishimoto privately wondered how many years had passed since Setsuko last saw Sister-in-Law's face wearing such genuine cheer.

48 “Uncle, you dummy!” While saying this, Jiro stood on the veranda and approached Kishimoto, who was waiting for dinner time. This brother’s second child had grown so unreserved toward Kishimoto as to call him a "dummy." At times, Jiro would look at his uncle with eyes as if regarding an outsider guest. Jiro, as if trying to demonstrate the strength of having both a father and mother, “You jerk, I’ll hit you!” Jiro looked toward Kishimoto and puffed up his shoulders. Sister-in-law, catching wind of this,

“Jiro, I told you not to act so high and mighty like that,” she said as if scolding the child. Yet even as she scolded him, this Jiro remained so dear to Sister-in-Law—so utterly dear—that she seemed the type who’d find no pain even if he were lodged in her eye.

After dinner, Kishimoto tried to spend time by his own children’s side. There, Brother Giyū also came and relaxed together. Giyū began explaining the dispositions of the children he had looked after during his brother’s absence, and while pointing out Shigeru, who had come to stand nearby, to Kishimoto,

“Shigeru? This kid’s quite the comedian,” said Giyū. When told this by his uncle, Shigeru hunched his shoulders slightly and smirked faintly. Jiro came darting over. Thrilled to have his father and uncle watching, he suddenly lunged at Shigeru. On the tatami mats, the two boys began wrestling in sumo.

Shigeru let Jiro win. Watching this, Giyū reacted to the manner in which Shigeru had deliberately allowed himself to be thrown as if he couldn’t bear it,

“Even so, among Izumi, Ichi, and himself, Shigeru is still the strongest at sumo.” “Well,in the whole house,the best fighter is Ichi.” “But when it comes to sumo，he loses to Shigeru.” “Even though he’s just a child，Shigeru understands a thing or two about sumo techniques.”

Having said this, Giyū laughed. At that moment, Kishimoto looked toward Ichiro. “Ichi seems quite agile.” “Hmm, that one might be a bit of a prodigy,” said Giyū, stroking his cheek. “But he’s the precocious type—a child who gets a headache from a little studying—such weakness won’t do at all. “As for Izumi—now this one’s the quietly reserved, stubbornly sullen type. “No matter what you say to him, he just stays silent. “But Izumi’s got real perseverance. “Even if he sticks to one thing for half a day, he doesn’t get bored and keeps at it. “That sort might end up victorious in the end, you know.”

Kishimoto gazed at his own children and wondered if Izumi’s silence was perhaps an unnatural result of his prolonged absence. Shigeru, whose intense temperament had often made Setsuko cry at their former residence in Asakusa, had also been concerned during his father’s absence. Kishimoto gazed around the house. He considered the consequences of placing Brother Giyū’s children and his own together. He also considered the consequences of raising the children in a household atmosphere where they might grow attached to Brother but never to Sister-in-Law. Eventually, they would have to divide the household. He had to consider separating from Brother’s family and living apart. Preparing himself mentally for this, he thought, would be yet another act of dutiful service.

Forty-Nine As November approached, Setsuko had visibly changed. Even Grandmother—who had stayed by her side for three years worrying over her—remarked on it: to that extent had she changed. From her movements to her very voice, everything had grown vivid. "But I've truly received strength." Setsuko had reached the point where she would come to Kishimoto's second floor and say such things with visible delight.

This power—not only in Setsuko, who declared she had received it, but also in Kishimoto, who was determined to somehow keep her alive—had begun to work with great force. The more he truly thought of saving even a single person, the more he would envision Setsuko’s transformation within his heart and keenly feel within himself the joy welling up from the movement of her life. Not only that, but he also came to feel that even the relationship between himself and his niece was somehow transforming into something different.

Of course, Kishimoto had no intention of forcibly leading his niece down a misguided path, even if it meant bending her will. Between him and Setsuko lay something so deeply rooted that it threatened to bind them together anew. Their mutual suffering could never be alleviated through underhanded means. The sin he endured as an uncle was the very sin Setsuko bore as a niece. If she were to willingly share the burden of their transgression—if she resolved to entrust her entire life to him and embrace this strange fate together—he had even considered abandoning all thought of remarriage. For this reason alone, he wanted more than ever to ensure Setsuko truly lived.

What kind of life would unfold before these two? As for what might ultimately occur should they press onward—such considerations lay beyond Kishimoto’s capacity to fathom. He felt only that he had begun earnestly preparing for the dawn they would greet anew, taking as his companion this unfortunate niece who until now had walked with him through places of utter darkness.

Among the books that Kishimoto had brought back from his travels was a Rossetti art collection. It was something he had found at a stationery store near Luxembourg Gardens back when he was staying at a boarding house in Paris. It even included a French translation of Arthur Symons’s preface. The one titled *Dante’s Dream* in that art collection was well-executed as a print, and he thought it would show Setsuko a world apart from the images of rural Genji men and women created by Toyokuni’s brush. Kishimoto found pleasure in imagining placing that single print at the bottom of Setsuko’s handbox.

It was just around the time when the issue of Brother Giyū and his younger brother separating households had actually arisen. Kishimoto wrapped the memento painting from his travels in white paper and sent it to Setsuko when going home. On the back of that painting he had written these words: “Those who endure to the end shall be saved.”

Fifty Before long, the families of the Kishimoto brothers found themselves caught in a whirlwind of activity as they prepared to live apart. The elder brother sought to find a new residence and part ways. The younger brother intended to stay in Takanawa for a while and handle the aftermath. Out of gratitude for his brother’s long care of the children, Kishimoto accepted the written agreement presented by his brother and gave Giyū the funds required for relocation and enough to support his brother’s family for the time being. Everything was set in motion. Giyū had come to go out almost daily to search for a new residence. From Sister-in-law down to Setsuko and the children, everyone had sprung into action. Kishimoto himself had also sprung into action. Even though the over four months he had lived under the same roof with Setsuko were brief, they had considerably changed Kishimoto’s state of mind. The awe and dread that once arose when he faced women with hatred no longer came from that same niece. Rather than clumsily trying to avoid Setsuko, he found his own heart growing lighter instead from having extended such compassion to her.

When Kishimoto found himself alone with Setsuko on his second floor, he tried saying this to her.

“Our relationship began in the anguish of the body, but I want to somehow breathe life into this.”

Kishimoto’s words pleased Setsuko. “I do believe I can follow you—if only you would teach me everything.” “Whenever I think of you—somehow nothing but this moral anguish wells up inside me—it’s unbearable.” “I too…” From this shared emotional state, Kishimoto told Setsuko that he thought living apart would be best for both of them. Even then, Setsuko’s tightly sealed lips still showed no sign of loosening easily. She could not speak even a tenth of what she thought to Kishimoto. She more often substituted silence for words she couldn’t speak. During such silences, Kishimoto was overcome by a feeling of being unable to discern where the sad storm of the past ended and where the present—still bound to the same fate—began.

“Setsu, will you always belong to your uncle?” “Yes—forever.”

With tears that surged up as if choking her chest, Setsuko swallowed her sobs.

Fifty-One

The house that Giyū was preparing to move into with his family was found in the Yanaka district, not far from Ueno Zoo. By around mid-month, the preparations had been nearly completed. In accordance with Kishimoto’s wishes, the elder brother decided to leave only the aged Grandmother behind at his younger brother’s house.

In the end, Kishimoto found himself amid the commotion of the impending move—having ended up offering no apologies for anything, limiting himself merely to expressing his heart through actions—as if trying to send off his departing sister-in-law. “Sister-in-law, please take whatever you need,” said Kishimoto, dividing even old furniture and still-usable kitchen tools for her. The late autumn rain had already swept over the roof several times. Around the time when Sister-in-law took Setsuko to clean the Yanaka house, Giyū had said he had business in his hometown, entrusted the moving tasks to others, and was not in Tokyo himself. That day, both Sister-in-law and Setsuko returned exhausted from Yanaka.

“You’re back?”

Grandmother, who spoke consolingly; Ichiro and Jiro, who had been waiting for their mother and sister’s return; and Kishimoto and his children, trying to hear about the Yanaka house—all gathered around Sister-in-law and the others.

“I just went to clean it, and I’ve already grown sick of that house, I tell you.” “It’s so dark—no, *unbearably* dark!” Sister-in-law exclaimed to Kishimoto, then glanced at Setsuko who had returned with her by train. “Why ever did Father decide to rent such a place? Though I’ll grant the second floor alone is bright.” “Yes, the second floor is…” Setsuko agreed, looking at her mother. “But one room up there is dreadfully dark. “With walls like that, sunlight couldn’t reach it from any direction.”

“I just hope the drainage ditch isn’t too close by…” “Oh, do forgive me,” Sister-in-law said again, sounding thoroughly worn out. “Setsu—you too—do forgive me—go on and stretch your legs.” “I’m sorry, Uncle.” As she said this, Setsuko stretched her legs sideways alongside her mother’s with an air of utter exhaustion. She showed such familiarity with him that even when she thrust her white-tabi-clad feet toward Kishimoto, she made no effort to draw them back. That day, Setsuko displayed an uncharacteristic youthful vigor reminiscent of when she’d visited her aunt’s grave.

“But having someone come to help was such a relief, I must say.” “That person did everything for me.” While addressing Kishimoto in this manner, Setsuko, bending each knee beside her mother, undid the clasps of the tabi she had worn to Yanaka. “In any case, you’ve worked hard.” Grandmother also said this and appeared pleased that the time had come when Setsuko—who once grew dizzy even riding trains—could now assist with the move.

The next day, rain came from morning. Sister-in-law and her family—already packed and waiting—had no choice but to delay their move. Grandmother and Sister-in-law took turns going out to the north-facing veranda to gaze at the sky that showed no sign of clearing. Even merely leaving behind Grandmother—who had lived with them since their hometown days—here in Takanawa left Sister-in-law seeming uneasy.

“If only this rain would stop so we could hurry up and get out of here.” Sister-in-law muttered half to herself, which annoyed Kishimoto. The rain that had fallen all day not only detained the Yanaka-bound people long enough for them to thoroughly prepare for the move but also gave Grandmother and Kishimoto time to talk together at each other’s side. The housemaid Kishimoto had arranged for arrived, and even just having someone take over the kitchen work gave Setsuko that much breathing room. During Kishimoto’s travels—before Europe’s war had reached its second Christmas—the story of how rumors of his return had once reached his family back home unexpectedly came from Setsuko’s lips.

“When they heard Papa was coming back, Izumi and Shigeru stayed up late into the night.” “Eventually, Izumi fell asleep, but Shigeru—being that kind of child—stayed up all night without sleeping. They must have been so happy back then.” Amidst the packed furniture piled in a corner of the room, in the evening air growing dim with the sound of rain, Setsuko lamented the final day she would spend living in Takanawa. Having suffered from illness, she was well-versed in the names of various medicines and attempted to leave behind a written list of children’s remedies and other such references for Kishimoto.

Fifty-Two

Early in the morning, the movers hitched a freight wagon and halted the horse outside the house’s back gate. The day had finally arrived for those bound for Yanaka to relocate. Even as he waited for the packed household goods to be loaded onto the wagon, Kishimoto fretted over the overcast sky for his sister-in-law’s family about to depart. After watching the heavily laden wagon creak away, he waited for his sister-in-law and Setsuko to finish their final preparations. “Setsu, do visit Grandma often.”

“Yes, I certainly will come up.” “Anyway, I will come to help Uncle, you know.” Setsuko replied, promising to come help her uncle and visit Grandmother about once a week. The sky showed no sign of rain, but its coldly overcast hue already suggested the approach of winter. Sister-in-law and Setsuko, leading the two children, bid farewell to the neighbors who had come out to the gate to see them off and set out on that cold day. Kishimoto, thinking of his brother Giyū’s absence from Tokyo, remained standing outside until the figures of those bound for Yanaka—now consisting only of women and children—had disappeared from view.

“Somehow the house feels suddenly empty inside, doesn’t it?” Having said this to Grandmother, Kishimoto walked through each room after seeing off his sister-in-law and the others. “Grandmother, let’s make this spot with the long brazier your room.” “Since Kume will be coming soon, we’ll assign her the adjacent room.” He spoke again. Kume was a woman who had known Kishimoto’s household circumstances since Sonoko’s healthier days, addressing him repeatedly as “Sensei.” She too had come to assist at Kishimoto’s house while continuing her studies. The new housemaid he had hired was also arranged through Kume’s mediation.

In this way, Kishimoto secured Grandmother’s presence, enlisted Kume’s help, and for the first time glimpsed the simplified life that followed his separation from his brother’s family. Two days after Sister-in-law and her family had departed, Kishimoto received a letter from Setsuko and read it aloud to Grandmother. Listening to the quiet sound of rain, Setsuko wrote this letter from the three-mat room on the second floor of the Yanaka house. She expressed her gratitude for all the long-standing care she had received, wrote that the move had gone well yesterday, and mentioned that she supposed they must have talked about it over there as well. She wrote of how she had felt uneasy when walking along Ueno Park, buffeted by the cold wind under that poignantly beautiful sky. After arriving here, father’s acquaintance sent over a helpful couple, and she wrote that they themselves were treated like honored guests. Last evening, she was taken by that elderly woman who had come to help again for a walk through the bright town she hadn’t seen in so long, and even after that person had left, she stayed up late talking with her mother, but wrote that her heart was so full of conflicting emotions she couldn’t sleep well. She also wrote about her brothers’ well-being, and since she had just completed the residence registration, she took this opportunity to inform him, adding that once the house was somewhat in order, she would like to come pay her respects and return the favor.

Fifty-Three Setsuko was no longer by Kishimoto’s side. Her mother was gone, and her brothers were gone as well. Somehow, seeing off his sister-in-law to their Shitaya residence served as a turning point, and Kishimoto began to perceive a demarcation—as if drawing a line—in the small history of their household that had unfolded since the day that sister-in-law had arrived from their hometown bringing Grandmother and Ichiro. Especially for Setsuko and himself, Kishimoto happily thought that the day had come for them to live apart. For this reason—because the two of them, who sought to share a strange fate, had to learn to restrain themselves. As long as he was a weak human being, there was no guarantee that an event requiring Kishimoto to embark on another distant journey would never occur.

When he saw Setsuko off, Kishimoto felt that emotion grow more profound. At once Setsuko left behind a desolation unlike any loneliness he had known before. Just as early winter steals into Musashino fields had it already crept into Takanawa’s garden—so too did her lingering solitude permeate him, within and without. The letter she sent from Yanaka detailing her new life pierced him with peculiar anguish. He lay awake all night thinking of that ill-fated soul. Countless emotions surged from that wellspring. Until now his devotion had sprung from duty’s whip—he’d offered a hand, then both arms—yet never dared plunge his whole being into those depths. The chasm between pitier and pitied became their own divide. “Setsu—will you remain Uncle’s forever?” Even whispering this at her ear’s reach, he kept walls between them. Now at last he resolved to tear down even those final ramparts. To save her—this blossom willing to stake her youth on him—he burned with passion enough to surrender all. So thoroughly did her letter hollow him.

Such sleepless nights continued. Over the past three years, Kishimoto’s soul—tormented by the anguish of sin—had ceaselessly called out to his unfortunate niece. Only then did he become conscious of his own sincerity toward Setsuko. All his prolonged anguish, his melancholy, his endurance, his desolate solitary journey through foreign lands—it had all come to seem as though it existed solely to make him perceive this one truth. His heart had grown so eager that he wanted to push this relationship ever further. Having left Setsuko in Yanaka, Kishimoto came to understand this all the more clearly.

For about five nights, Kishimoto did not sleep well. He became unable to contain himself on his own. In the end, he wrote a letter addressed to Setsuko that could be read aloud to his sister-in-law without problem and enclosed separate written materials. Within them, he laid bare his innermost thoughts—those he had never before shown to Setsuko.

Fifty-Four

Setsuko sent the following reply.

“I smiled from the bottom of my heart.” “Even though I had become someone who hadn’t laughed for years… I did say I would tell you everything.” “Finally, that time has arrived.” “I never imagined that time would arrive so soon.” “I thought I would have to wait at least two or three years… I had said that nothing had filled my heart.” “Ever since I was a child, whenever I’ve gazed intently at various people, something always feels lacking, you see.” “I truly could not bring myself to open up.” “Our creation may have been like that at first, but before long I discovered it was what I had long been seeking.” “However, at that time, Uncle, you did not deign to open your own heart at all.” “And then, during those three long years, not even the shadow of the smallest thing could pierce my heart.” “Wealth and glory are not nourishment for my heart… In the half month since your return from your journey, this great joy—so overwhelming that nothing could pass my throat—to whom should it go?” “Would it not be the sole thing granted only to such people?” “You must have finally come to understand what that low-pressure mood was all about.” “Please accept this long-held heart of mine, and the smile that comes from its depths.”

Upon receiving this reply, Kishimoto felt gladdened first and foremost by Setsuko’s candid confession. He found himself drawn to how she sought to articulate their connection through the word “creation.” Kishimoto read Setsuko’s response over and over, discovering within her brief words a multitude of pent-up emotions. According to her explanation, though their relationship had begun in that manner, she had soon found it to be what she had long sought. These words seemed like a postscript she herself had added to those earlier letters from Kobe and Paris—letters that had long lingered as unanswered questions in Kishimoto’s mind. He could recall how, when he had gone to Kobe preparing for his long journey, her very first letter had already negated all the pity he had felt toward her. He could also remember how, each time he read her letters at his Paris boarding house, he had marveled that someone bearing such deep wounds could show no remorse. He remembered too how he had wondered whether it was possible for someone like her—a woman with the heart of a youthful maiden—to lay bare her tender feelings before someone so much older. He even recalled suspecting she might be using maternal instinct to negate any sense of transgression. All these doubts were finally beginning to unravel.

Fifty-Five

By then, even if he was not forgiven by anyone else, Kishimoto had come to realize that he was at least forgiven by that ill-fated niece. The more he became aware of his sincerity toward Setsuko, not only was he able to break free from the long-standing torment of his sins, but he also stumbled upon life’s mysterious power to transform even those lifelong failures that had once made him burn with shame—those moral failings that had driven him to the brink of self-annihilation—into something bearing an entirely different meaning.

Memories of Oka’s time in Paris—stories about that painter who would often come to the boarding house in front of the maternity hospital and leave them behind—rose unbidden in Kishimoto’s mind. Every time he saw that impassioned painter’s face glowing as he spoke of his beloved during his travels, Kishimoto would compare it to his own situation; he recalled that the era when such blood boiled within him had already passed; he wondered whether he was a traveler destined to walk through this world without ever meeting someone worthy of his passion; and from these thoughts, an indescribable loneliness would well up—this he now remembered. I can still love. When this thought came to him, he was struck by a profound joy and astonishment.

Kishimoto had now become a man resigned to bearing Setsuko. He could share no domestic happiness with Setsuko, nor could he thereby attach any hope of making his own children happy; yet he resolved to live with a new heart between them, taking the greatest pleasure in helping her and protecting her.

With such feelings, Kishimoto set about raising his children, relying on Grandmother, Kume, and the housemaid. He had already vacated that temporary study on the second floor and placed his desk and bookshelves in the back room where Giyū had been getting up and lying down. In that room, he welcomed his brother who had come visiting from Yanaka as a guest. Giyū had returned from his hometown and came to express his thanks for having been away during the relocation. “Everything’s been going smoothly at my place too, you know.” “Kayō’s overjoyed too, you know,” said Giyū.

“Well, I was worried things might not work out,” said Kishimoto in response to his brother’s account, and continued, “The way Sis talked made it sound like she wasn’t too fond of the house, but now that you’ve moved in and lived there, it isn’t so bad after all, huh?”

“Oh, not at all.” “Thanks to Uncle’s help moving us into such a fine house—I keep thanking you.”

“Well, that was splendidly handled indeed. What’s more, simply having the children living separately must make this different from our time in Takanawa.” “Too early to find fault—but too early to sing praises either, you know.”

The fact that Giyū’s remark was merely a rumor about him spread by his sister-in-law made Kishimoto laugh. That day, Giyū did not settle in for long. He left behind talk of sending Setsuko over soon and departed. The transformed relationship between Kishimoto and Setsuko had somehow reshaped even their fraternal bonds. He came not only to regard Giyū as an older brother but began developing an unprecedented sense of viewing him as a parent.

Fifty-Six

Sleepless nights continued once more. With a feeling of wondering why such a thing had come to pass, Kishimoto waited impatiently for Setsuko to arrive. Setsuko visited Takanawa with her younger brother Ichiro on a day that alternated between sudden showers and clear skies. For Setsuko and her brother, that day marked their first visit from Yanaka to see Grandmother and Uncle. Ichiro had come wearing his newly changed school’s emblem on his hat, carrying a gift, and with a solemn expression. Being together with Ichiro struck Izumi and Shigeru as something novel. Setsuko appeared even quieter than usual. She stayed mainly by Grandmother’s side, telling the elderly woman—eager to hear about the Yanaka household—various things and offering comfort. She told Grandmother she would return soon to assist her uncle, then hurried off on the long journey home with her brother.

However, even a day of such family gatherings remained unforgettable for Kishimoto. It was on that day he had laid bare his heart—one never before revealed—and faced Setsuko, who had accepted it, with expressions unlike any they had shared until then. Only after Setsuko left could he truly envision that moment in his mind: her eyes when she came along the veranda to greet him in the back room; their hearts’ visages, long obstructed by ordinary uncle-niece sentiments, finally aligned. That day, when everyone gathered for photographs in the garden, he could not forget his concealed emotions upon asking Setsuko to visit the studio—a place she knew well from town. When sending her on the errand, he secretly slipped into her obi the payment for photos she would take alone.

“What should we do? Should we stop?”

Setsuko deliberately said this while holding an umbrella outside the lattice door, then turned slightly toward him who had come out to the entranceway with her. The affection Setsuko had suppressed time and again—the warmth she let him feel—had lasted but that brief instant.

Fifty-Seven

Kishimoto received a letter from Negishi’s niece concerning the aforementioned marriage proposal. Aiko had written about her school friend in an even more enthusiastic tone than before. Her classmates from the same graduating year had made it their practice to take turns gathering at each other’s homes to renew old friendships, she wrote, adding that at her house too they had recently held a small gathering and even invited the schoolteacher who had been especially kind to them in the past. She wrote that from that teacher as well, talk of Uncle had come up, along with an urging that this marriage proposal be recommended. She wrote that her classmates from the same graduating year were now mostly those who had children in their care, and that the only one not settled into family life was that school friend. Aiko had also mentioned the principal’s wishes in her letter, writing that she believed this marriage proposal would come together if only Uncle would consent.

Even with so many people worrying about him, Kishimoto's mind was already made up. While maintaining his relationship with Setsuko, he felt ashamed in his heart for having entertained such marriage proposals. "Thank you," he wrote. "I apologize for all the trouble I've caused you, but after careful consideration, I've resolved to decline. Please convey my regards to the Principal as well."

Kishimoto sent a reply to this effect to Aiko. He imagined that if Aiko's school friend had known about his past, she would have considered his refusal a blessing in disguise. It happened to be the very day Setsuko had come from Yanaka to assist her uncle. As if she had timed her visit to Takanawa specifically to learn how this matter would conclude. Kishimoto showed Setsuko what he had written on paper and made sure to set her mind at ease.

Already, a hibachi had been placed in Grandmother’s room. Setsuko came from that room via the veranda to Kishimoto’s desk. “Even after going through all that trouble, if it ends up getting taken away somewhere someday, it’ll be truly pointless, won’t it?”

Such a brief remark, unrelated to the surrounding conversation, came out of Kishimoto’s mouth. But to Setsuko, who had heard this, the meaning Kishimoto had been trying to convey came through perfectly clear. “If it’s going to be taken somewhere—well, if it doesn’t go anywhere at all, isn’t that just fine?”

With that, Setsuko smiled.

After that, Kishimoto never spoke of such matters again. When Setsuko was near, he saw flames that flared up again and again within her, shining vividly in her eyes. At times, he saw the blood rising to her face deeply and faintly stain her cheeks.

To put it in Kishimoto's words, he and Setsuko had only just taken their first step forward. In a certain sense, they had only just managed to reach this point. He attempted to go as far as they could together through this world's journey with Setsuko as his companion. After returning to Yanaka, Setsuko sent a short letter to Kishimoto. "How many hardships you must have endured. When I think that even this stems from me, it pains me deeply. Please—please forgive everything."

Fifty-Eight

“Winter” had come to my side.

—What I had been waiting for was, to be honest, a lusterless, monotonous, sleepy old woman who shivered in poverty—ugly, wrinkled, and withered. I gazed intently at the face of the one who had come to my side and was astonished to find it utterly contrary to my preconceptions and what I had anticipated. I asked.

—Are you ‘Winter’?

“Who in the world do you think I am?” retorted ‘Winter.’ “Have you misjudged me so thoroughly?”

—‘Winter’ showed me various trees. When told, “Look at that deutzia,” I saw that while the old frost-touched leaves had long since fallen away completely, each slender young branch tinged with brown already bore new buds—and winter’s flame flowed through both those glossy young branches and the vigorous emerging buds. It was not just the deutzia; the plum tree’s natural shoots had extended in deep green, some already reaching a foot in length. The azalea had become small and crouched low, yet showed no sign of trembling violently. “Look at that camellia tree,” Winter said to me. In the winter’s green leaves bathed in sunlight lay an indescribable brilliance. Between densely packed leaves, large buds peeked out. Among those camellia flowers blooming like profound smiles, some had already blossomed and fallen before the frost arrived. Winter pointed out the Japanese aralia tree to me. There was a pale green hue verging on white, fresh in its coloring, and its flower shapes shattered the surrounding monotony.

——Over the past three years, I had spent dark, dark winters in foreign lodgings. On days when cold rain fell and the shoji darkened, I would often recall those Parisian winters. There, around the winter solstice—when daylight grew shortest—dawn would finally break around nine in the morning, and by three-thirty in the afternoon, the sun had already set. That sun which burned with a red-hot hue yet froze solid—as described in Baudelaire’s poetry—was something one could often witness while walking through Parisian streets, even without imagining the Arctic’s farthest reaches. Though the view of grasslands remaining verdant and unwithered among bare rows of horse chestnut trees made for a distinctive winter scene, it was those gray tones of profound stillness in Chavannes’ *Winter* that truly harmonized with that land’s nature.

—This year, for the first time in a long while, I was wintering in Tokyo’s outskirts. Never in those three years abroad had winter days suffused interiors with such radiant light. To glimpse skies of such bottomless blue clarity in this season felt rare indeed. It was Musashino’s “Winter” that had come whispering to my side. —“Winter” showed me an oak tree. Between leaves gleaming like strands of hair, songless small birds darted half-hidden, their faces announcing wordless hymns…

Kishimoto, trying to console his endlessly suppressed self, attempted to jot this down on the edge of paper. Deutzia bushes, plum trees, azaleas, camellias, oaks—all were visible from the veranda outside his room straight through to the garden. Camellia flowers blooming like some profound smile; songless small birds wearing expressions that seemed to announce wordless songs—these were all landscapes within his heart.

“You don’t have to say it—I already understand.”

Having left these words behind, Setsuko made clear her resolve to abandon worldly happiness and follow Kishimoto.

For those who had sinned deeply in the past to mutually abandon worldly happiness was indeed to abandon everything.

A new world of love began to unfold before Kishimoto. The fact that such sincerity could be drawn from the depths of an improper relationship—one that he felt he could never be ashamed enough of—poured courage into his spirit. From there, he grasped a power he had never known before.

Fifty-Nine

Kishimoto’s past was an astonishing succession of hardship-filled days—so much so that he, stubborn by nature, had only hardened his heart all the more tightly through those struggles. More than anything else, he first had to return to his childlike heart—this had long been his lament during his time at the Paris lodgings—but try as he might, he was never permitted to return to that heart. Whether during those long years when he had been a suffering bystander in this world—so much so that even standing before the crematorium’s iron doors and gazing at his wife’s ashes turned to dust, he had merely stared without shedding a single tear—or during those three distant years of journeying that felt like coldly confronting the stone walls of lodgings, what Kishimoto had continued to dwell upon was in truth a sorrowful truth contained within these words:

“O pitiable laborers of art! Why is it that what is so easily granted to ordinary people as freedom is not permitted to us? That too is a truth. Ordinary people possess sincerity. We ultimately hold nothing of sincerity. We are ultimately incomprehensible beings…”

Even upon Kishimoto, who had continued to dwell on such things, a strange change began to occur day by day. He came to realize that the day when he could return to his innate childlike heart had finally arrived. It was then that he discovered there was something to which he could wholeheartedly devote his passion. He discovered that joy. For those who had not walked as lonely a path as he had, how could they welcome the joy of life with such ravenous thirst? He even came to consider it a natural gift bestowed upon a traveler like himself and thus became immersed in that new joy.

Everything seemed to astound Kishimoto to his very core. He even considered it miraculous that now, in his advancing years midway through life, a woman like Setsuko had come to dwell within him. He compared Katsuko—whom he had met when vying in youth with Aoki, Suga, and Ichikawa—to Setsuko. He tried to contrast their differences. The disparity in their temperaments. The divergence in their appearances. The gap in their ages. There was scarcely any age difference between Katsuko, whom he had parted from as a young man over twenty years prior, and the Setsuko before him now. Once he had likened the generational chasm between himself and Setsuko to that separating an elderly protagonist in a modern play from the young girl whose sole purpose was to visit him and play piano melodies. He had compared it to the distance between one who sought to forget old age’s sorrows and solitude through innocent fingertips’ music, and another like tender grass still stretching toward a long life ahead. Though three years of growth had transformed Setsuko from that youthful girl’s station, the era dividing them remained insurmountable. How often he must have doubted why a young woman’s heart like hers had turned toward him. Through Setsuko’s “heartfelt smile,” he began discerning traces of a shared anguish’s grin between them.

From Kishimoto’s chest, which stood on the brink of breaking free, something even he himself found wholly unexpected came surging forth. For him, nights of fitful sleeplessness persisted for nearly a month.

Sixty

“Sorrow itself has completely vanished from me.”

In this way, Setsuko jotted down in pencil in a small notebook and left fragments of her heart’s messages at Kishimoto’s place along with other briefly written words. Among these was a passage she had written: “My body still isn’t in good shape—and on top of that, I must abstain from wine.” Before they knew it, various coded phrases had formed between them. “Creative work” and “wine.” The latter phrase had borrowed only its meaning from the words of a religious ritual that substitutes bread for the Lord’s flesh and wine for the Lord’s blood.

As if to demonstrate that Setsuko’s heart—which had been confined to an unfree existence and walked continuously through darkness—had now distanced itself from sorrow, the joy into which Kishimoto had immersed himself was even greater than that. The more desolate the path he had traversed, the greater was that joy—as if he had leapt into a vast, free world. He likened himself to a poor man who had suddenly become wealthy. A person who had never had money did not know how to use it. He could recall a relative who had emerged from Sugamo Prison long ago. He could recall that relative running around before the prison gate still wearing white tabi socks, stamping the ground as if mad and breathing the air of the free world. His new joy was the joy of one who had shed the red garment. It was the joy of one who had seen the heartfelt smile of an unfortunate victim who had never laughed.

For about a month, having neglected both food and sleep while existing in a state of utter bewilderment, Kishimoto came to realize what others would think if they saw him in such a condition. He was astonished at himself for having gone a full month without sleep. Even during his youth—when his youthful blood would set his chest racing and his mind wild—there had never been a stretch of sleepless nights lasting more than seven days. He even thought that had he been twenty years younger, he would not have possessed the strength to endure such mental turbulence. In the end, he came to regard his own passion as something terrifying.

“This is a ravaged passion. It is not like those bathed in the quiet light of love—I must somehow quickly pass through this place—this simply will not do.”

He tried saying this to himself and attempted to rouse his dazed spirit. When December had passed its tenth day, Kishimoto resolved to take a short trip. He stowed photographs of Setsuko taken alone where his eyes wouldn’t fall upon them. He stowed her letters, her notebook—every last item that might remind him of her. From between his books emerged a dark cloth fragment patterned with flowers. It was the detachable collar Setsuko had treasured and kept close to her skin each day. Kishimoto stowed even that feminine gift—the collar he’d tucked between pages as a makeshift bookmark.

He entrusted Grandmother and Kume with looking after the children during his four or five days away and casually left the Takanawa house.

Sixty-One

Kishimoto’s feet turned in the direction of Yanaka. He had someone waiting for him at Giyū’s house on business matters, and he felt inclined to invite that brother of his—who had taken no real rest to speak of—to go as far as Isobe. He also had the pleasure of visiting a hot spring near the mountains for the first time in ages, gazing at the Haruna and Myōgi ranges from the train window, and encountering highlands wrapped in mountain air and deep ravines. There was the pleasure of soaking in that murky mineral spring with its heavy salt content, listening to the sound of the Usui River flowing, and wanting to rest both body and mind wearied from a long journey.

For Kishimoto, this was the second time he was going to see the house where Giyū lived. At a time when the streetcar circling Ikenohata had not yet been extended beyond Ueno, he walked along the winter-bare park-side road toward Giyū’s house. This was the same path Setsuko used when commuting from Yanaka to Takanawa. Such thoughts lightened his heart as he walked along Shinobazu Pond’s edge. Kishimoto harbored a peculiar state of mind that arose solely from observing Setsuko at the Yanaka house. He discovered an extraordinary disparity between the Setsuko he witnessed there and the one he knew at Takanawa—though they were the same woman. This contrast testified vividly to her adaptable nature. Once, having caught her off guard, he saw her in such an unguarded state—so devoid of vitality and grace—that she seemed a stranger compared to the woman at his home. The Takanawa Setsuko appeared not only refined through hardship but physically transformed for the better by childbirth itself. He had even heard others remark on young women who, like her, shed excess weight after bearing children. Yet the Yanaka Setsuko shattered this favorable image. He felt something akin to disillusionment strike him. In that moment, he wondered: If this brought such relief, why hadn’t he come sooner to Yanaka to see her? A frigid wind lashed the face of a man who hadn’t slept properly for nights. To quell the mental turmoil driving him toward an impulsive trip to Isobe, he walked toward Giyū’s residence almost craving disillusionment.

At a place winding away from the back of Ueno Zoo, there was a narrow alley with houses crowded together in a jumble. Somehow, the winter town air was damp, and even for one who visited only rarely, it evoked a feeling of being near Shinobazu Pond—a rarity in itself. There, a nameplate bearing Kishimoto Giyū’s name was displayed.

"Oh, Uncle—" While calling out as if she had come there without thinking, Setsuko removed the latch that was fastened even during the day for caution from behind the dark lattice door.

Sixty-Two

From the moment Kishimoto resolutely left Takanawa, a sense of embarking on a small journey had already begun to rise within him. It had been agonizing until he could bring himself to abandon the work that refused to progress, but once he resolved to do so and decided to take four or five days of rest, he felt considerably more at ease. Since the day of his return to his homeland, he had done nothing but tax his mind and had yet to plan even a trip to a hot spring resort—something he had counted as one of his pleasures from beyond the seas. Thinking this, Kishimoto consoled himself.

When he came to the Yanaka house, this feeling grew considerably stronger. Even when he saw Setsuko trying to take his hat and coat in the dark, quiet entrance room, even when he was together with his sister-in-law, Setsuko, and Jiro in the downstairs room with the long brazier, even when he was telling everyone about his sudden decision to go to Isobe—he already felt half as if he were at his travel destination.

“Jiro.”

Giyū’s voice calling out could be heard from upstairs. “Oh—Uncle! Please come up tae th' second floor!”

“Jiro,” came Giyū’s voice once more from upstairs. “Jiro, please go tell your father that,” said Kishimoto. “Uncle has something to discuss, so would he kindly come downstairs?” When Kishimoto instructed him thus, Jiro—who had been playing with his sister-in-law and Setsuko—clambered up and down the ladder-like stairs leading to the second floor.

Giyū came downstairs. Giyū, who had rarely ever sat before the long brazier, went to the foot warmer in the corner of the room. Including Giyū in the conversation only made the downstairs room appear all the more like a world of women and children. At that moment, Kishimoto mentioned he had come to invite his brother to the hot spring area. “On rare occasions, that might do.” “Well…” “That would be interesting.” “I might as well join you.” Giyū placed his hands on the foot warmer and laughed cheerfully.

“Setsuko, how nice for you. Men can go anywhere so lightly,” said the sister-in-law to Setsuko in a motherly tone, then turned to Kishimoto and added, “Truly, in our household, everyone seems like they’d want to tag along even for a cure.” Setsuko silently gazed at her own palms while listening to everyone’s conversation. “In any case, we’ll depart tomorrow morning. That suits me better,” said Giyū. “Sister, would it be all right if I imposed on you tonight? Why don’t you try staying at my house for a while—it’s been so long—”

“Yes. It’s no trouble at all.” After exchanging these words with his sister-in-law, Kishimoto sighed in relief as if settling into a wayside inn. “Sukeyoshi. “Let’s talk upstairs.” Even after his brother tossed out these words and climbed the ladder-like stairs, Kishimoto lingered in the room awhile longer, trying to savor a traveler’s carefreeness. Through the glass door, afternoon sunlight streamed in—every house now seemed withdrawn for winter. The faint trickle of water through narrow town gutters sounded just beyond the panes. From where he sat, Kishimoto could hear lattice doors creaking in houses across the way—so like his brother’s that he might mistake them—and glimpse Setsuko’s domestic routine as she moved between kitchen tasks, assisting her mother. On Grandmother’s old chest from her youth lay Setsuko’s half-read New Testament among other things—the small black-bound Bible he’d given her hoping she might read it. Though she never approached her uncle without purpose, her affectionate silence worked upon him in ways none could perceive.

Sixty-Three

“Setsuko, may I borrow your room?” “Yes, please go ahead.” “Today I’d like to take my time writing some letters.” After telling Setsuko this, Kishimoto soon went up to the second floor to have a look. The steep ladder-like stairs continued in front of Giyū’s room at a dangerously sharp incline. Jiro, seeming to find it novel that his uncle had come to this Yanaka, went up and down those ladder-like stairs. For Kishimoto, even walking around the second-floor rooms with young Jiro—who, having been made to taste hot peppers instead of sweet milk, had finally been separated from his mother’s embrace—was enjoyable. In Giyū’s room, there was also a heated table. The small desk brought from Takanawa was serving its purpose in a corner.

“Sukeyoshi. Well then, I’ll go run a quick errand now—I’ll be back by dinner without fail,” said Giyū, clapping his hands loud enough to be heard downstairs. “Might as well have a cup of tea before I head out.”

Jiro appeared there. Giyū instructed Jiro to tell their mother to quickly bring the tea set. "By the way, Setsuko has been a great help in many ways," said Giyū. "The other day she got money from your place to buy a desk and the Jikai dictionary—well, we ended up with quite an interesting desk." "The *Jikai*—you can’t do without this." "A desk is certainly necessary for reading and writing, but that one’s a bit excessive for my household."

“Once she wants something, she just can’t help buying it. That’s where Setsuko’s youth still shows, isn’t it?”

Thus, Kishimoto spoke in defense of Setsuko and laughed.

He went to Setsuko’s room and looked at the new desk his brother had mentioned. In his heart, he felt Giyū’s criticism wasn’t entirely unfounded, yet... “That aside, your household has settled in Takanawa too, hasn’t it? “The current situation simply won’t do.” “You can’t keep depending on Ms. Kume indefinitely either.”

“Well, for now we’ll keep things as they are.” “Whether we move or not, we’ll manage with that arrangement temporarily.” “If Grandmother weren’t there to stay, my household simply couldn’t function—but thanks to her efforts, she manages well enough, and Ms. Kume too works quite diligently for us.” “To be honest, I was concerned because that person has been in poor health for so long—but even if it’s a bit of a strain, I want to entrust things to someone who understands our household’s circumstances.” “After all, there are children in my home.”

“Well now, you ought to establish a household soon.” “I hear you’ve finally turned down the Negishi matter.” “The other day, there was talk about this at Aiko’s place.” “After you refused them following careful deliberation, apparently a letter came from Uncle.” “I saw the photo of that friend of Aiko’s too.” “She seems rather suitable though...” Giyū’s conversation ultimately steered toward urging his brother to remarry. Kishimoto remained silent.

“Ah.”

“I shouldn’t have gone on so long.” “We can talk this through properly in Isobe.”

With that, Giyū—as if struck by a thought—took out his pocket watch, glanced at it, took a sip of the tea his sister-in-law had brought up from downstairs, and stood up with hurried motions.

Sixty-Four

Giyū left.

Kishimoto found on that second floor what was perhaps the first time since his return—a remaining half-day he could spend in lonely quiet. Even if he could make his brother understand the feelings that had led him to invite him to the hot springs, he had reached a point where he could no longer explain to his brother the emotions that kept him listening in silence to talk of marriage. I should write some letters. With the air of being at a journey's destination, Kishimoto went to borrow Setsuko’s room. Separated from Giyū’s room by a dimly lit tatami space stood the brightest small chamber on the second floor. A new desk had been placed near the window. On it lay scroll paper and a fresh brush—apparently prepared in advance by Setsuko.

It was in that very room that Setsuko had written, “I write to you from the three-mat room on the second floor of our Yanaka home,” when she first moved to Takanawa. Kishimoto found it novel to place himself there and sat down alone at the desk. “Setsuko, please leave everything as it is.” “If I can just have some tea, that will be plenty.”

Kishimoto said to Setsuko as she brought the tea set there. “Uncle’s setting off on his journey today. Tonight I’ll pay the lodging fee and have you put me up at your house.” Kishimoto said half-jokingly and laughed again. At that moment, Setsuko brought out the newly tailored striped cotton-padded garment and showed it to Kishimoto. It was something he had bought for her after insisting she select a deliberately plain striped cotton fabric—intended as work clothes for when she came to Takanawa. “Let’s make do with what we have,” said the sister-in-law, but Kishimoto, considering her long journey, had instead made a gift to her of a matching striped haori alongside it.

“Mother sewed this for me.” Setsuko said, trying to share her womanly joy. Jiro came up from downstairs. Jiro happily danced about the area and tried to cling to his sister’s side. “Jiro has become such a good boy, hasn’t he?” When Kishimoto said this, Jiro—as if parading his sister—frolicked by hanging onto his tall sister’s hand right before his uncle’s eyes.

“Compared to when we were in Takanawa, this has changed quite considerably.” Setsuko showed Kishimoto this observation.

Hearing her mother’s call, Setsuko went downstairs with her brother. On the second floor, Kishimoto remained alone. From the mingling of his nostalgia for Setsuko’s study desk and his desire to simply lie down carefree in that three-mat space, he found himself unable to write any letters. It was an unadorned little room that seemed to exist solely as a “hideaway” where Setsuko could settle her soul. The room’s simplicity—retaining only a faintly feminine delicacy around the desk—instead brought Kishimoto ease.

By the time a guest who had come to see Kishimoto eventually left, it was nearing dusk. Setsuko, with a different kind of ease than she had felt in Takanawa, would sometimes come up to the second floor to tidy and talk to Kishimoto, but each time Jiro would follow her. Even Ichiro came up to the second floor, looking curious. She found her clinging brothers bothersome and walked about escaping from room after room.

“I wonder what Izumi and Shigeru will think when they grow up.”

Setsuko approached Kishimoto’s side, taking pleasure in merely exchanging such brief words. “Whatever they may think of us, there’s nothing to be done about it, is there? I just want them to truly understand the truth… Once they’re grown and do understand, there may well come a time when they recognize our feelings—don’t you think?”

Kishimoto answered in this manner, but after that, the two of them did not speak of such things again.

Giyū returned punctually before dinner. How many years had it been since they last heard the sound of the Usui River? Such talk arose from both Giyū and Kishimoto. That evening, Kishimoto stayed at his brother’s house as if lodging at an inn, and the next morning he departed with his brother for Isobe.

Sixty-Five

The three- or four-day stay at a hot spring near the mountains gave Kishimoto—who had grown terribly exhausted—a sense of revival. By the time he prepared to return to Tokyo—slightly later than Brother Giyū, whom he had accompanied as far as Isobe—he had begun to feel a desire to reacquaint himself with his work, which had somehow eluded his grasp ever since his return home.

The study in the Takanawa house, where books he had long brought back from France lay waiting, received Kishimoto. He had come to understand that this new heart discovered between himself and Setsuko—this truth—stood irreconcilable with the old morality over which he had long agonized. Life was vast. This world held countless truths too difficult to attain yet undeniably real. This deeply contemplative heart guided Kishimoto. He now felt keenly how he had been made to stand at a parting of ways with Brother Giyū—the brother who had secretly interred his failure for the clan's honor. Even should it mean defying his brother's will, he resolved never to abandon that unfortunate niece.

Kishimoto thought of how Setsuko, much like himself, had begun walking her path in silence. For Setsuko—who was daily spoken of as a "disgrace to her parents"—the time had now come to be of use to those very parents. This was because Giyū had suddenly contracted a serious eye disease as the year drew to its close. As for what had caused his eyesight to fail so abruptly, even an ophthalmology specialist could not yet give any definitive explanation. Whether accompanying Giyū on hospital visits or handling all his correspondence, Setsuko had become indispensable to the Yanaka household. Amid these circumstances, she never neglected to visit Grandmother and her uncle in Takanawa—who worried about her—to report on her father's condition. At times she would come from Yanaka on bitterly cold rainy days, thawing her frozen body at Grandmother's hibachi while lying down briefly in her room.

“Setsuko, you mustn’t let yourself grow weak too.” Kishimoto spoke these words to encourage her where she lay exhausted, sometimes gently wiping away the tears welling in her eyes with his own lips. On a day when December’s end loomed just three days away amid relentless bustle, Kishimoto received a brief letter from Setsuko.

"In that Bible, there is a passage that says: 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' From a bit earlier on, that part has become a place I hold dear. 'Knock, and it shall be opened unto you'—we are surely the final victors, aren't we?"

It was written in pencil.

When he read this, Kishimoto was struck by thoughts of her—now approaching her twenty-fifth year, the prime of her life. It seemed he could even imagine the beating of her heart as she strove forward with all her might toward that distant future. “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you—” Kishimoto repeated the phrases written in Setsuko’s letter and imagined her life stretching onward in that same tone.

Sixty-Six “Could there be anyone else who will welcome as happy a spring as we?” On the eve before the year’s end, this short letter written by Setsuko reached Kishimoto’s hands. The happy spring she had proclaimed for the two of them still seemed to him to lie far in the distance. He feared such irrepressible words of joy might degenerate into mere stubborn refusal to concede defeat. By some means, he wished to make her relinquish her petty defiance toward those around her. Against those who—from the standpoint of ordinary human feelings and morality toward an uncle and niece—were ever ready to cast cold, harsh glances, the path he sought lay in abandoning petty defiance. He had come to regard notions like final victory as entirely inconsequential. He hadn’t even entertained thoughts of victory or defeat. Though Setsuko’s written words were brief and their intended meaning easily open to interpretation, the spring he and Setsuko awaited together was by no means—by no means—what the world would call a happy one. It was a spring that seemed to visit only those destitute souls who had renounced worldly happiness, seeking instead to bestow upon them the riches of the heart.

Before long, the new year arrived. Setsuko began wrapping herself in the coat her uncle had made for her out of concern and making the long trek over. This was because until then, she had often arrived drenched in cold rain midway through her journey without any protection from the harsh weather, and Kishimoto couldn’t bear to see her in such a pitiable state. “Father keeps going on about how I don’t need a coat or anything like that—so far I’ve only shown it to Mother.”

As she spoke, Setsuko brought the simple new coat—folded in the entryway—to the inner room, slipping her arms through its gray sleeves and tying its egg-colored inner laces before Kishimoto's eyes. She said she hadn't needed to order a custom-made one, having found this ready-made coat at a store like Matsuzakaya and simply had the measurements taken in a bit. “Even if I wore it, Father wouldn’t notice.”

Setsuko said again, subtly bringing up her father with the failing eyesight. Even just buying and providing a single raincoat for Setsuko required Kishimoto to be mindful of everyone around him. His desire to protect Setsuko couldn't simply be left to his own wishes. For he had to consider not only those times when he left her in Yanaka, but also the occasions when she came visiting his home.

“There’s no telling how much Setsu relies on you, Uncle.” “Uncle alone is her strength.” “When one is young, the person who gives you things is always the best person.”

In this way, Grandmother still spoke of Setsuko—already twenty-five—as if she were just a child.

Sixty-Seven Yet even the heart that Kishimoto had yielded to Setsuko could not advance without cycling between hot and cold. After the fierce passion had somewhat abated, an opposing chill would arise and wage war within his breast.

Kishimoto looked around his room. A voice came to test him as he tried to devote himself to solitary work. Though not what one would call a voice of outright denial, it was rather a minute whisper at the ear's depths—yet this faint voice carried something that induced a disillusioned state of mind. The voice questioned him: Could scholarship and art coexist with a woman's love? Had everything that transpired between Setsuko and him since their reunion after his return ultimately been mutual temptation? Was their bond not merely a hunger of their natures—starved after three years of isolated existence? It's always men who mount love's stage to play foolish roles; men who perpetually give—while some women know only how to receive, utterly ignorant of giving. Compared to women's composure, does not men's compounding impatience seem infuriating? These whispers made it all—the burdens borne for Setsuko's sake, the trampling by unseen persecutions, the seething resentment endured through endless patience—feel at times unbearably fleeting and dreary.

He still could not help doubting that a young woman like Setsuko had truly opened her tender heart to him. Each time he found himself trying to humor the youthful Setsuko, he felt an inexpressible exasperation. By nature, he couldn’t even humor himself. How could he humor others without feeling ashamed? There still remained, somehow, a lingering dissatisfaction. Merely protecting and guiding her had already ceased to satisfy him. The overly modest tone of her letters no longer sufficed either. To rephrase—he wished all the more for Setsuko herself to take the initiative and come to him.

Sixty-Eight

The days when Setsuko would come over from Yanaka to Kishimoto’s house had been set to approximately every Saturday. As long as it did not interfere with her every-other-day hospital visits accompanying her father, she endeavored not to neglect coming to assist at her uncle’s house. Since Giyū had developed eye trouble, Setsuko showed even more signs of having to help her mother work. Even if the income was meager, she was trying to put the monthly remuneration she received from her uncle to use for her mother’s sake. Kishimoto had just begun work on what might be called a memento of his travels; lacking the capacity to prepare proper tasks for her, he thought of asking her to assist with things like copying or proofreading—but regardless of whether such work existed, he took pleasure in imagining himself working alongside Setsuko. Once, he left his house for a walk and went to meet her partway along the road she took to come. Even from where the Shinagawa Line tram stop stood to his house was a considerable walk. That day, he went from Takanawa Street to a certain side alley where it turned, went up a slope along a hill, descended that slope, and even went to the tram stop to wait for her; but in the end, Setsuko did not come.

After the fifteenth day of the New Year, Kishimoto walked the same path with pleasure and arrived at a bend in a suburban-like road along the outer wall of a large estate. There, he waited for Setsuko, who was making her way from distant Yanaka. He fell into step beside her as she carried a plain black bundle wrapped in a furoshiki under her arm.

With an air of having pondered various things along the way, Setsuko walked quietly down the sparsely trafficked path following Kishimoto. As they reached the side of a mansion with old-fashioned latticed windows at the dead end, she turned to him and began speaking. "I've become like a man now." "Father's condition is what it is, Ichiro and Jiro are still so young—after talking it over with Mother, I've resolved to live as a man would. I'll do my best with that determination..."

Sixty-Nine Setsuko’s words, which seemed steeped in brooding resolve, drew Kishimoto into deep contemplation. Through her tone alone, he sensed she had already resolved to abandon this world.

Just then, Kishimoto noticed footsteps approaching from behind. No sooner had the footsteps drawn nearer than the person moved ahead of him and Setsuko, glancing back briefly as they passed. It was as if they sought to identify these two strangers—a man and woman—from both front and back. Though called a quiet estate-lined road, this was in truth one of Takanawa’s thoroughfares. Content merely to walk with Setsuko, Kishimoto urged her a step ahead once they reached Takanawa Street near home.

Still, Kishimoto retained a relatively detached state of mind that had persisted since around the beginning of the New Year. It was a time when that coldness intermingled with a heart that so longed for Setsuko to come. With that heart, he returned home. Not only had he hoped that Setsuko would take more initiative, but he also wished for her to see his true self more clearly. It so happened that Grandmother had gone to the Yanaka house for New Year’s visits and stayed for a while, Kume had left for a tea gathering, and on this day when both were absent, Kishimoto found an opportunity to lay bare the emotional knot deep in his chest before Setsuko.

“I’d resolved never to give my heart to anyone my whole life.” “Yet in the end, you’re the one who took it.”

Unforgettable bitter past experiences took shape in such words and spilled from Kishimoto’s lips. The tone he used with Setsuko—as if speaking to another man—left her faintly startled.

“Well, to speak in such a manner—”

Setsuko averted her eyes slightly to the side and said, as if half to herself. However, Kishimoto resolved not to hide even the suspicious heart born from the age difference between Setsuko and himself from her.

“Until now, I’d thought I’d been too considerate toward you. “I’d come to think that being overly considerate—because I saw you as a woman—was what ultimately kept us from speaking truthfully.” “Setsuko—what part of someone like me could you possibly find worth liking?” “My hair’s already gone this white... Someone like me won’t be living much longer anyway.” “There might be any number of younger men sharper than someone like me.” “How about it—if you were to get the idea to look for such a person...”

Half to ease his mind, half in jest, Kishimoto uttered these words and laughed. At that moment, he felt he had never before laid bare the ugliness of his heart so openly to Setsuko. To such an extent did his own words ring sarcastic and bitter even to his ears.

“Well then, shall we start looking from now on—even if it’s just some young person?”

Setsuko said playfully, then hid it with a bitter smile. She seemed to want to avoid this conversation now.

Seventy

What seemed on the verge of coming undone yet remained tightly bound were Setsuko’s sealed lips. Even though she had written in her letters, “The time has truly come when we can talk about anything,” in reality, Setsuko more often substituted the words she tried to speak with a silence that remained unbroken. As he faced Setsuko, the words she had spoken on their way home—“I’ve become like a man now”—those very words lingered in Kishimoto’s mind.

“What you said earlier on the way—I remembered that. You look like you’re suffering and brooding over things too.”

Having said that, Kishimoto watched Setsuko’s face—the face of someone trying to carry their relationship, which had begun with bodily anguish, to that very point. With such penitent feelings, her brooding heart—that of a young woman trying to pass her days in the prime of her youth—grew pitiable to him. “You don’t have to force yourself to say ‘man’ like that.” “It’s okay to be a woman too.” “Think of a heart of great enlightenment—if one can purify the soul, would one not also be able to purify the flesh?—”

Kishimoto’s words brought a smile to Setsuko’s lips. That afternoon, the old French story that Kishimoto had repeatedly turned to for solace in his Paris lodgings during his travels was drawn into their conversation with Setsuko. The occasional dispatches that Kishimoto had sent to Japanese newspapers during his travels had been clipped out and preserved by Setsuko’s own hands, and the names of Abelard and Heloise written within them had remained in her memory. Kishimoto still could not forget the impressions of his travels that he had come to associate with places like the old Sorbonne chapel. Strangely, the dead story came alive in his chest. In that old chapel within Père Lachaise Cemetery where he had seen them, the effigies of the monk and nun lying side by side as if sleeping began to speak. The white marble slab upon which was carved an inscription declaring how these two had exchanged a spiritual love unchanging throughout their lives still lingered before his eyes. He told Setsuko about his traveling heart—how he had circled that chapel again and again, unable to bear leaving. He also told her how within the iron fence surrounding that hall, flowering plants resembling begonias had bloomed profusely.

“That’s right...” “People who can’t stay together rush headlong to ruin.” “It’s not easy for a couple like that to keep holding on for so long.” Thus he said. Setsuko was once again listening intently to his words. This foreign tale somehow seemed to lift her spirits. He felt pleased by this and promised that if he could obtain anything else written about Abelard’s deeds, he would send it to her.

Unusually, Kishimoto felt as though he had spoken with Setsuko alone. After she returned to Yanaka, that feeling grew even more profound. The long-lingering doubts—the emotional barriers between men and women arising from age differences—began to seem like something dynamic that could be forgotten the more they talked. Yet Kishimoto's sarcasm appeared to have struck Setsuko deeply, for she appended these words to the edge of a practical letter she later sent.

“Please don’t torment me so much. There are so many, so many things I want to talk about, but you make sure never to let yourself speak them.”

Seventy-One

Kishimoto embarked on a portion of the travelogue chronicling his wanderings through foreign lands. As he began that work, snow came and repeatedly blanketed the garden outside his study. Following the seasons rich in memories leading up to his distant journey, he wrote his travelogue. With a certain emotion, he poured into it the inner workings of his heart from that time when he had no choice but to survive at any cost. He wrote the following passage in his travelogue. “…Barbarians acted out of necessity. I was exactly that. I had reached a point where there was absolutely nothing to be done, and so I moved forward. In that small building where I had lived for seven years, I left behind sad, angry words like the faint sigh of wind that came mingled with the earth’s breath. That was right. There were those who had said it was a wish for sleep without light, heat, or dreams. Would there be those who laughed upon hearing such words? If this were not merely a beautiful turn of phrase born of imagination—if in a world actually filled with such seemingly interesting things, there were truly nothing more desirable than sleep without light, heat, or dreams—what would that be like? There was a time when I trembled on my bed for about two weeks with an indescribable feeling quite similar to that. The cold of last winter had also brought out this neuralgia. My habit of sitting in meditation—though in truth I believed it sustained my health—might instead have come to induce this neuralgic pain. Moreover, my talkativeness grew wearisome, and I even abandoned the massages I had unfailingly requested three or four times a month. I had no choice but to wait for my body to recover naturally. Since there were no effective treatment methods to speak of. I tried to sleep as much as I could.

At times, like one heavily intoxicated, I slept continuously for a day or two. Our bodies may in some sense be perpetually ailing. Being unaccustomed to sleeping so little that I could forget such things, I found myself at odds with my own body in these moments. There were times I awoke upon my bed with a sensation akin to awaiting some graver malady. A strange shudder would course through my entire being. It became nearly impossible to distinguish whether this was the town's clamor beyond the shoji screens, some faint tremor imperceptible to ordinary folk, or merely my own body's trembling... Countless sorrows, loathings, terrors, arduous labors and shudders rose not only into my memory but surged through my entire frame—into my hips, even my shoulders... At times I fancied any pain might be deemed precious if truly one's own. At very least, people wish to take greater pride in their suffering than in others' joys. Yet when I sat alone on my bed through midnight hours, feeling pain precisely as pain—each time sensing this as living more fully than when numbed into oblivion—I could not help but wonder: how can human anguish persist so endlessly?... Once, before moving my household from mountains to Tokyo, I had sought a friend in Shiga's mountain village along snowbound paths. I cannot forget that cold which seemed to freeze each joint of my body. Thinking it the landscape of my heart's interior, I can still see that snow-traced way where travelers grew scarce. I recall it all—the drowsy vertigo that would seize me, the suffocating pressure as if I might collapse there, that unprecedented shuddering, that boundless white sea where death seemed imminent. Precisely—the world I'd fled to was this realm of solitude where such dizziness and trembling arose. What lies there is the accumulating white snow of 'life.' That place was verily an icy world. A sea of ice. And I drowned within that sea of ice. "Seven years in my small dwelling—farewell..."

The depths of that decadent life—into which those who had grown utterly weary of reality fell with anguished hearts—were precisely the icy world he had sought to escape into. Seventy-Two

That Kishimoto had come to regard his life at the close of his Asakusa period as one of decadence, just as he had come to view Setsuko like a flower of sin blooming within that existence—this occurred long after he had embarked on his distant journey. "People come to toy with anything and everything."

This was a brief impression he had written and sent to someone from that second-floor room in Asakusa—yet even when the poison had spread through his heart to such an extent that such words could spill from his own lips; even when women's very ways of thinking had crumbled so completely that one could scarcely claim many marriages did not end in the corruption of husband and wife; even when he coldly came to contemplate the bitter fate of being an observer of his own destruction—still he refused to consider himself a decadent. He could not remain trembling in the depths of solitude and grief, his eyes glowing like an owl’s. He could not bring himself to regard that as the ultimate conclusion of his fate. With the fervor of one who had hailed Death as his pilot, he could not help but seek something newer still in this voyage of life.

When he began writing a portion of his travelogue, memories of various events from the time of that journey and recollections of diverse emotional experiences merged with the various feelings he later traced back upon them, returning to Kishimoto’s heart. If he had persisted in that stagnant life, even had Setsuko’s situation not arisen, he thought, sooner or later he would have had no choice but to flee beyond the sea. The decadence into which he had fallen was not the pitfall of "inaction" described by his Nakano friend, but rather something of a melancholic nature that could only end with him becoming a madman. He recalled that he had been told such things by others and that he himself had often contemplated such matters. What he had come to fear most of all was "death." He recalled that this was rooted in having outlived three daughters. Looking back through the past, he recalled that never had thoughts of death crossed his mind so frequently as during that time, and how it had come to be regarded as a harbinger of ruin. He recalled a time when he had stared fixedly at a cold wall, becoming so immobilized that even speaking to others or descending the stairs felt unbearable—a moment when he had terrifyingly wondered whether death was slowly creeping up to claim his very body. He recalled how, with such feelings, he had approached the final curtain of his decadent life. The fierce storm that had arisen around Setsuko now appeared to him as a catastrophe within his past life.

The season when plants and trees revived had already come around before Kishimoto’s eyes.

No sooner had spring-like snow come and covered the garden than it melted away overnight, leaving even more grass sprouts visible in its wake. The spring Kishimoto had awaited with such impatience—wondering when it would come, when it would come—at last seemed to draw near to him. Realizing he wasn't alone in greeting this season with a heart full of profound memories, he opened the small notebook Setsuko had left behind during her recent visit.

"Why must I keep my thoughts buried so deeply within myself? I no longer had any need for that. And yet, like one robbed of the very words needed to express these emotions overflowing within my breast, I simply cannot bring myself to reveal them outwardly. A long, long silence—how dreadful! Why do I remain silent as ever, as if practicing restraint of speech? I want to speak—and you will truly listen, won’t you? Just as thick ice melts gradually under warm spring light, my lips too will surely thaw. Oh, how happy I would be if only I could speak freely—quickly, quickly!"

In this way, Setsuko had written these words in pencil at the beginning of her notebook; though the feeling of being a crew member on a shipwreck had persisted for a long time afterward, she now wrote that she wished to forget her own ill health and everything else and live together with you. She had also written that, likening it to an old poem left by someone of the past, even if there were days when crows did not caw in Ueno’s forest, there would never be a day she did not yearn for you.

Seventy-Three

With the arrival of March came a notice from the Negishi niece about her plans to relocate to Osaka. Kishimoto was still rushing to finish part of his travelogue when he received Aiko at his Takanawa house—she had come to bid farewell. Preparing to leave Negishi with her husband, Aiko lingered nostalgically over Tokyo, shifting from talk of her parents (Kishimoto’s eldest brother and his wife) in Taiwan and Teruko (Setsuko’s sister) in the Russian territories to gossip about Uncle Giyū’s household—and eventually spoke of Setsuko in this manner.

“Setsuko has changed so remarkably—she came to visit us in Negishi the other day, and we talked for quite some time.” “Well, compared to before, she’s become someone truly pleasant to meet.”

Kishimoto happily reflected that he had come to hear such rumors from Aiko’s lips—or rather, from the lips of the woman whom Setsuko called “the Negishi elder sister,” an older cousin of hers. Moreover, Kishimoto had entrusted his youngest daughter to this Negishi niece. Various discussions arose regarding Aiko’s move to Osaka. “I have something to show you.” Kishimoto said this and pointed out the new three-tiered book boxes placed in the corner of the room to Aiko. Though called book boxes, when the three were placed together, they formed something roughly the size of a bookshelf. It was a memento of his journey, made from the boards of packing crates he had brought back from Paris, with only the lids fashioned from separate panels of hinoki cypress.

“I want you to draw something on the underside of that book box lid.” “It’s been a while since I’ve seen your paintings.” “Before you go to Osaka, could you draw some peach blossoms for me?” “With that intention, I left that middle board open.”

Kishimoto said and flipped over three lids each about three feet long, arranging them before Aiko. On both sides of those lids were writings he had asked people close to him to inscribe one by one. He pointed out the characters on the left board—Kume’s transcription of a Bashō haiku in delicate, feminine brushstrokes distinctive to her hand. On the right board was Setsuko’s writing executed with a thick brush. What Setsuko had transcribed was a seven-character quatrain left behind by someone who had passed away in their twenties.

“Oh, Setsuko’s handwriting looks just like a man’s.” With Aiko’s words still lingering, Kishimoto gazed intently at the plain hinoki cypress boards. “Setsuko’s handwriting has really improved, hasn’t she?—after all, she’s made to do Father’s writing for him day in and day out.” And with that, he mentioned how he had asked Setsuko to write those discovered phrases when she came. At that time, Setsuko—acting as though she had never written such things before—took it to the room where Grandmother was and wrote it there; but when he saw the finished work, he mentioned how it had warped slightly in that manner. He imagined how old Aiko must have been as a young girl when the person who had left behind those youthful phrases in the form of a classical Chinese poem was still alive. He recalled that it was his younger self who had encouraged Aiko to study painting and, from around the age of thirteen or fourteen, had urged her to study under a certain woman who had established herself in Nanga.

“Something simple will do—just a small sketch or the like. Just draw one and leave it there for me.” “I can certainly draw it, but if you ask me to do it right now, I’m afraid I’ll be a bit at a loss.”

Aiko replied. Aiko—who seemed to live for artistic refinement—did not regard these hidden furniture decorations as carelessly as her uncle did. She stated she would first make a rough sketch and visit him again before leaving for Osaka. “It doesn’t need to be anything elaborate. “It’s just a book box lid after all.” “No, that simply won’t do.” With that, Aiko would not hear of it.

Seventy-Four

It was two days later. When Setsuko appeared from Yanaka, Kishimoto recalled what the Negishi niece had said in her presence. “Aiko was praising you—somehow I felt as happy as if I’d been praised myself.” He showed his uncontainable joy by saying this to Setsuko. His hope was born of a desire to make her cast off the bitter feelings of resistance with which she tried to rebel against her surroundings—because he believed that the time when she broke free from that would be the time when she could truly grow.

For the frail Setsuko, it was the cold rather than the heat that tormented her more than anything. Always catching colds and such, unable to properly help with work—these were words she often wrote in her letters to Kishimoto. During the coldest spells, thinking of the hardships she endured while in Yanaka, Kishimoto made sure to let her rest at his house instead. Though it was March, the weather seemed determined to cling to winter’s chill. Worried about her journey home, Grandmother and Kishimoto had Setsuko stay overnight in Takanawa that evening.

“You must remember this, don’t you?” While bringing hot tea from Grandmother’s room, Setsuko would sometimes show Kishimoto the half-collar she wore. “Didn’t I wear this in Asakusa?” she said as she showed him.

Kishimoto quietly took out a male child doll he had found in the downtown area for Setsuko when the moment presented itself. It was neither too large nor too small, and though not dressed in a kimono, features like its eyes were made adorably boyish. He had brought it back without particular intent, having simply come across it while running an errand. He slipped it beneath her sleeve.

Unexpectedly, this small gift drew endless tears from Setsuko’s eyes. The sound of her stifled sobs threatened to reach even Grandmother, Kume, and the housemaid. “What’s the matter with you?” In the end, Kishimoto spoke brusquely, trying to save the situation before Setsuko’s weeping could be heard by the others. Setsuko seemed unable to remain seated any longer. She moved to the corner of the room and cried into her sleeve, muffling her sobs as best she could.

Even by the time Setsuko left for Yanaka the next morning, hiding the doll in her furoshiki bundle, Kishimoto still had no chance to connect his ill-conceived jest to her tears. Setsuko sent Kishimoto a letter she had apparently written in the usual three-tatami room on the second floor of the Yanaka house. "Though you went out of your way to give me something yesterday, things turned out like that—you must surely have thought it contrary to your intentions," she wrote. "When I consider my position, this point is all the more recalled; though I do not envy Aiko or Teruko in the least, there is this much—" she wrote. "When I saw that innocent doll’s face, I suddenly felt sad; I remembered how that unknowing little one cried when we parted," she wrote. "The more I tried to hold them back, the more spiteful tears streamed forth one after another until it seemed I had incurred your displeasure—but please forgive all my rudeness and understand this heartfelt feeling of mine as a mother," she wrote. It was the first time Setsuko had directly revealed to Kishimoto her longing for the child she had borne. She no longer addressed him as "Uncle" in her letters as before but instead wrote "Sukeyoshi-sama," showing newfound intimacy. Kinship relations had come to seem like nothing more than a cipher in this world. What remained had come to seem as if there was only truth between people.

Seventy-Five “Though I must not love—without decree—my heart treads its path; may the realm find peace.” “Two walk the shining path; even the vows of mandarin ducks I now envy.”

My teachings, most fitting for remembrance— By the evening window where I think of you—spring rain akin even to me. Thinking of you, thinking of my child—the spring night's dreams knew no peace. For how many years have I resented our parting— The spring rain showering tender leaves became my sorrow's measure. You who will journey distant sea routes—silently enduring—

In the spring rain, crimson camellia blossoms scatter; how desolate lies the house without its master. Gazing endlessly at distant skies while yearning for you—remembering that day makes my chest constrict. Awakening from dreams, deep in night's embrace—alone I think of you; spring rain falls near my pillow.

What path's traveling robes have I cast aside? Night after spring night, I listen to this rain grown familiar. The spring rain that murmurs to my emulating self—does it fall thus where you dwell? The spring rain drenches without mercy; though two birds' wings align, I find no joy in their design. Was it you who came, or I who went? Still I cannot part dream from event. The bush clover of ancient verse I alone rehearse now sprouts with mirthful bloom. Though upon my arm sleeps one so mild, each eve—how lonely grows this wordless child.

Tears that moisten only where no radiant eyes exist—do you know, or do you not?

You still deign to wield your brush—within the bedchamber’s confines, how ashamed I feel. By the wayside, even a small red plum blossom—I glimpse my beloved child’s lips smiling in dreams. How often have I resolved to cast these thoughts aside— Innocent scarlet carp frolic in their school; their pitiable state unfolds before my eyes. How I envy the kite soaring through spring-lit skies—ah. The father who beholds what’s hidden—with each passing day, grows ever closer.

Clinging to your noble hand, today too has ended bathed in pitiable tears. In this world of ephemera leaving no trace—what do we seek that makes us go on living? "If I were to remember people of old—even in remembrance, there swells a feeling beyond endurance."

Setsuko had written these in a small notebook and left it at Kishimoto's place. She had composed these poems solely to show them to Kishimoto. Kishimoto came into possession of it around the time March 25th was approaching—the day he had once embarked on his distant journey from the former Shinbashi Station. Before long, Setsuko also sent a letter of the following sort from Yanaka.

"I apologize for disturbing you during your busy time the other day. Have you finished your work yet? When I thought you might still be occupied the other day, I considered not visiting at all—I even resolved to take back the poems I brought without showing them to you if your work remained unfinished. Yet I worried whether I might have ended up being a nuisance. If so, I beg your pardon. Should such occasions arise again, if only you would tell me so, I would endure anything... The 25th draws near now. What a tremendous difference this makes. Even after the train's sound had faded away, when I recall how I stood rooted in that same spot endlessly, it feels like a dream... We are happy, aren't we? In that copy of Rousseau's *Confessions* you gave me, there's a passage stating true happiness cannot be described—only felt. And precisely because it cannot be put into words, it's all the more deeply felt, isn't there? That truly is how it is, isn't there."

76 Kishimoto saw the figure of a gentle woman growing day by day before his eyes. Compared to how he had remembered her before, the Setsuko now visible to him had matured almost into a different person. He recalled various memories of Setsuko from her earliest youth. When she had first come to Tokyo from her hometown at fifteen or sixteen—still wearing short kimonos and often visiting the old house with her sister Teruko during her school days—Kishimoto could never have imagined her womanly life would unfold as it now had. He found it remarkable that Setsuko, emerging from a prolonged silence—not of her own making, but as if she had been practicing some ascetic restraint of speech—had now begun writing him poetic letters unlike anything he had ever seen her compose before. He reread Setsuko’s poems, imagining the feminine sentiments concealed behind their many words. That she was prepared to abandon all worldly happiness to follow him was precisely as expressed in her verse—she envied not even the bond of mandarin ducks. She had resolved to renounce marriage altogether. From the very beginning, Kishimoto had never been within her freedom to claim. Even the child she had borne remained beyond her freedom. Hers was a love that could possess nothing in this world. From this understanding, Kishimoto contemplated her faltering steps toward religion and felt a pity beyond expression.

"Don't you think it's pitiful to leave Setsuko like that? Is her youth not too soon to pass away?" At times such voices would come to test Kishimoto. But what was he to do with she herself who declared, "We are happy"? Of course he felt the depth of his sin too acutely to willingly take Setsuko upon his shoulders. If through long suffering he could somehow rescue her and bring her happiness—what more could feeble human power possibly achieve against such fate?

Kishimoto felt his life pouring incessantly toward her. He found himself remarkably aligned with Setsuko even in his aesthetic sensibilities. Her hair and kimonos suited his taste better than anyone else's. He imagined Héloïse—disciple, nun, and lover—intertwined with Abélard's life; envisioned renowned monks tormented by inescapable attachments; contemplated those who possessed everything yet owned nothing; and carried these imaginings to the passion of an ancient poet who sang, "Though I cast all away and deem myself as naught—"

77

Before long, along the path Setsuko frequented, early-blooming camellia petals began to fall incessantly. As was his custom, Kishimoto went out partway to meet her and joined Setsuko—who had come from Yanaka—near a temple adjacent to an estate. He had discovered a shortcut from that area leading to Tōzenji Temple’s cemetery while walking alone around the vicinity of his house. That day, having looked forward to walking through the cemetery with Setsuko, he first invited her in that direction. The place where Kishimoto led the way was around the back of the main hall within the temple grounds situated on the hill. To reach Tōzenji Temple’s cemetery from there, they had to descend the same continuous slope lined with new graves and cross a single cliff overgrown with thickets. Kishimoto first jumped down the cliff to demonstrate. Then he looked up at Setsuko standing among the trees at the edge of the cliff.

“Can you get down from there?” Before Kishimoto could offer his hand, Setsuko had already descended the cliff using her parasol as support and then faced him. A view of a cemetery so vast that one could not begin to count its resting dead spread before their eyes. Moss-covered gravestones stood lined endlessly ahead. Those stones spoke of being worlds removed from the present era—both in their archaic forms and in their unhesitatingly bold stonework. There were even places in that area that somehow evoked ruins. Beyond the cemetery on a slightly elevated part of the hill’s terrain, they could see four or five laborers at work, perhaps relocating old graves. Kishimoto walked with Setsuko into a stone-paved section of the cemetery. As they progressed, the laborers’ figures disappeared behind tall monuments, leaving only a sound like earth being dug to resonate through the hushed air.

Suddenly, it came to Kishimoto’s mind that his old friend Aoki had once lived within these same vast, ancient temple grounds. He recalled how, beside the grave where he and his deceased friend had once sat together—back when he was only twenty-one or twenty-two—they had spotted a young woman who seemed to have come to consult Aoki, troubled by thoughts of marriage. However, he merely brought such things to mind and made no particular effort to tell Setsuko about them. He led Setsuko along the path through the cemetery toward the hill and ascended the stone steps following the sloping terrain dense with trees.

A different scene of huge gravestones standing in rows spread out once more atop that hill. There was a quietness there as if entirely detached from the world. The light of early April, streaming from the depths of the blue sky, fell before their eyes. Kishimoto joined his right hand to Setsuko’s left and walked very quietly between the sunlit gravestones. As if they were a couple not of this world, an intimacy came through Setsuko’s hand—walking mostly in silence—and reached Kishimoto’s heart.

However, this fleeting illusion-like sentiment was shattered immediately. The area around that hill lay along the path used by people traveling from Shinagawa’s tramway to Takanawa. Setsuko had just begun descending the stone steps back the way they had come when, through evergreen trees casting shadows midway down the slope, she was first to spot the figure of someone approaching from ahead. And she stepped away from Kishimoto’s side.

“Let’s go over there.” “Let’s sit by a grave and talk.” Kishimoto said, and together with Setsuko, descended the stone steps.

78 “Why did I find someone like you among my own niece?” “Why couldn’t I have found you in someone else?” Kishimoto had returned to a section of the cemetery they had come from before saying this to Setsuko. Setsuko spread a small handkerchief on a grave’s corner and sat down on the stone still wearing her usual gray coat. “But how remarkable we found such a place,” said Setsuko. “We found it precisely because we suffered so much.” “Otherwise we might never have come to this strange place.”

Never before had Kishimoto found himself in a position where he could breathe the outdoor air so freely with just Setsuko and enjoy the open sky. Setsuko, too, seemed to take pleasure in spending even the briefest moments sitting side by side, treating them as something that belonged solely to the two of them. "Oh yes, there was something I wanted to ask you," said Kishimoto. "In the letter you sent me—you know, about how the time had come when we could talk about everything—you wrote that to me, didn’t you?" "I never thought that time would come so soon—I thought we’d have to wait at least two or three years—if I had married back then, what were you planning to do?" "I myself had intended to marry, and I had intended to advise you to marry as well." "That was my intention when I returned from my journey." "If I had married—would you still have intended to wait?"

“So, isn’t that why the low pressure arose?”

Setsuko answered, her face slightly reddening. This answer of Setsuko's did not keep Kishimoto still. In truth, it had been that strange low pressure that drew him back to Setsuko once more after returning from his journey.

“Ah, so that’s how it was. So that’s how it was.” Kishimoto said as if remembering and walked back and forth before the old gravestones lined up. That Setsuko had been waiting for three years—not for a favorable marriage arrangement or path to advancement, but for Kishimoto’s return from his journey—now left no room for doubt. What exactly had caused the melancholy that arose in Setsuko now dissolved all at once in Kishimoto’s heart, combined with the contents of the many letters he had received during his travels.

“The low pressure won’t arise anymore.”

Setsuko showed him these words in a voice steeped with emotion, then left the gravestone's edge. "The camellias are blooming." By the time Setsuko spoke these words, she had already climbed the embankment and was walking with Kishimoto along the sloping terrain dotted with new graves. The cemetery section where they'd sat together now lay visible below. "But you endured waiting like that for three years," said Kishimoto, glancing back at her as they walked. "If your hand hadn't failed you, perhaps you couldn't have waited that way."

“Yes. If this hand hadn’t been bad… I might have had to go and become a bride. I really must give thanks to this hand.” “But Setsuko—are you really alright with that? Can you stand on your own from here on out?” “Don’t you trust me that much—”

These words of Setsuko, spoken with emphasis, gave Kishimoto reassurance.

79

The time they spent at the cemetery was brief. However, even during their hours together at home until that evening, it left Kishimoto with an impression more indelible than their cemetery visit. Two or three days later, he received a letter from Yanaka. Though it was primarily about financial matters—written by Setsuko on her brother Giyū’s behalf—she had enclosed a poem scribbled in pencil separately. “Crimson camellia petals have scattered along the path where we two walked by the graves.”

Without you, without myself—two souls quietly in the spring light. The spring light, lush with fresh leaves, has softly fallen upon moss-covered stones. Taking hands, we quietly walk the stone steps; the spring breeze gently stirs stray strands of hair.

After reading this, Kishimoto realized that the impression from the cemetery had also been profound on her.

From around that time, Setsuko became someone who tried to make even the pale parts of her face as faint and inconspicuous as possible. This matter, albeit trivial, gladdened Kishimoto’s heart. The subdued appearance of her face was because she had willingly heeded Kishimoto’s advice. Moreover, he could not know how much this had made her more natural compared to before. At the same time, as he considered how the concern of one growing old had unconsciously taken the form of such advice, he could not help but feel ashamed in his heart that urging her to remain as inconspicuous as possible was, in truth, his own jealousy. Occasionally, his heart could not help but turn toward her situation of having opportunities to interact with young people. But that jealousy was of a degree that would simply pass by lightly. At one time, he had even found an occasion to try to speak his heart before Setsuko.

"A lot of women come to visit me," he said. "And even so—doesn't it bother you?" Even when he broached the subject half-jokingly like this, Setsuko only smiled bitterly and did not respond. "Jealousy naturally accompanies these feelings." "Isn't it strange that none arises here?"

When he said this, Setsuko replied in her usual manner, “You don’t have the luxury for such things…”

There were times when she had answered like that. Setsuko’s heart—yearning to devote herself entirely and follow Kishimoto—was something he deeply sensed. “Will you be mine forever?” he had asked. “Yes, forever,” she had replied, and indeed she had long since been his. Yet despite this, the aching poignancy of an attachment endlessly sought but never grasped left him powerless over Setsuko—she was his, yet not his. When night fell, his soul in its solitude would often call her name. Was she truly with him? Was he truly with her? With these thoughts, he lay alone. At times, half-dreaming, he would hear a gentle whisper deep within his ear.

"My husband."

Each time he earnestly tried to seek out that voice, there was nothing in his arms. His hand grasped nothing but emptiness.

80

Since separating from Brother Giyū's family, the simple life Kishimoto had attempted to start by enlisting Grandmother and Kume had continued for about half a year. Grandmother, who was indispensable to Kishimoto, was equally indispensable to his brother as the household's harmonizer, and circumstances arose that made keeping her at the Takanawa house long-term impossible. For Kishimoto, losing this grandmother meant not only losing his household's central figure but also feeling remorse toward Kume—who had come intending to study with him yet found herself frequently troubled by the children. He saw how the children's dispositions, unnaturally suppressed before, had suddenly softened under Grandmother's and Kume's warmth. He saw what a source of headaches it was for those who could comfort but not discipline the motherless children. In particular, he saw how once Shigeru—the second child—began fussing, he wouldn't stop until he'd cried himself out, and how this boy's tantrums, growing increasingly intense each day, reduced even Kume and the maid to tears. There was truly no choice but to raise them himself—no alternative but to take these dependent children somewhere more natural and wait for them to grow. Having reached this conclusion, Kishimoto resolved to disband the Takanawa house after all. He could no longer bear troubling Grandmother and Kume further with his children's affairs.

So he conceived of an attempt. It was about moving to a boarding house together with Izumi and Shigeru. He held the expectation that the three years of boarding house life he had experienced in Paris would be of some use in this attempt. However, he had not yet told anyone about this matter. That Kishimoto, who had given up remarrying for Setsuko’s sake, would thus leave behind what was called a family, and that he would return to the life of a traveler—this seemed to him rather a natural course of events. In that state of mind, one day he waited for Setsuko, who was coming from Yanaka.

Setsuko came to visit.

It was just when everyone in the house—from Grandmother to the children and even the housemaid—had gone out to view the cherry blossoms in Ueno that Kishimoto found himself alone, keeping a solitary watch over the empty home. Setsuko, as was her custom, first went to the room where the long brazier stood, intending to see Grandmother. “Where is Grandmother?”

When he welcomed her asking this, the inside of the house was as silent as a temple. Kishimoto recalled how, at his former house in Asakusa, he would often send his family members out, close the front gate, and savor the loneliness of being alone. “Today, everyone’s out cherry-blossom viewing—I’m the one left keeping watch. If you’re going back, you can head out now.” “Shall we go back then?” Setsuko said pointedly, then came to the inner room via the corridor. Kishimoto was the first to tell Setsuko, before anyone else, that he had resolved to raise Izumi and Shigeru entirely on his own and that he was planning to find a suitable boarding house soon and move there with the children.

“Can a man’s hands truly accomplish such a thing? Whether possible or not, I intend to raise the children myself.” This resolve of Kishimoto’s did not particularly surprise Setsuko.

81 “So Takanawa is finally coming to an end, I suppose.” Setsuko, who spoke thus, held more memories beneath this roof than Kishimoto did. For though it was he who had moved her into this house before embarking on his distant journey, she herself had passed three shadowed years within these walls.

At that moment, the state of the house they had lived in and worn down over four years now struck Kishimoto’s eyes as if for the first time. To the garden front where Setsuko had once stood four years prior, remaining rooted until the sound of trains departing toward Shinagawa faded away, a full spring had now arrived, and the lush green of new leaves deepened the vegetation’s presence. Every plant in the garden—never properly tended—appeared to have reverted completely to its wild state. The plum branches especially had grown unchecked, putting forth fresh leaves over their darkened predecessors. In a corner of the garden stood a late-blooming red camellia alongside Otome camellias. The flowers’ peak bloom and leaves’ vibrant growth, mingling with the decayed eaves’ aura, seemed to press against the old glass door at the inner room’s veranda edge.

"A house of memories like a distant evening shower—gray interwoven with silver threads." "Silver is fine, and gray too—how nostalgic—all the unrolled picture scrolls." This was the poem that rose in Kishimoto’s heart. When he considered that Takanawa was finally drawing to a close and felt lingering reluctance, it was the verse Setsuko had appended to a recent letter. Yet he refrained from reciting those lines before her, thinking it would be awkward to voice such phrases and risk making her blush.

“The camellias are blooming beautifully.” With Setsuko, who had said this, Kishimoto soon stepped down from the veranda into the garden. Beneath the slender yet sturdy camellia branches, large red flowers bloomed profusely between the leaves. There were also those that had fallen onto the garden soil, still perfectly retaining their petal shapes. Kishimoto saw Setsuko wearing a lingering look in her eyes near that camellia tree. “How about trying one in your hair?”

When Kishimoto said this, Setsuko looked here and there for buds, but every one she tried to take was out of her reach. At that moment, Kishimoto found himself in a humorous frame of mind, as if to lift her up to where her hand could reach the camellia branch.

Setsuko came down to the garden with rare cheerfulness and irrepressible laughter. She merely held up the red camellia bud she had picked to her hair for a moment, but made no move to actually put it in. For a while, Kishimoto sat on the veranda, had Setsuko sit beside him, and as they gazed at the near-noon spring sun shining on the garden soil, he sought to enjoy the shared quiet of their being together.

82

Setsuko climbed up from the garden to the veranda and went to the kitchen to prepare lunch. At noon, Kishimoto had a simple meal alone with Setsuko in Grandmother's room where the long brazier stood—the camellia buds she had brought from the garden lay placed on the brazier's wooden board. The Setsuko reflected in Kishimoto's eyes that day appeared like someone who had utterly forgotten about anyone she normally needed to consider. Moreover, surpassing even her habitually reserved self, one could scarcely tell how much more naturally this made her move. Even her plain kimono with its wide hem and dark brown border near the skirt seemed to perfectly suit her movements through the rooms.

“You really do prefer quiet things, don’t you? That might be where I coincide with you.” Kishimoto left these words behind and tried to go to Takanawa Street for a bit to find something to treat Setsuko. “Setsuko, I’m leaving the house in your care for a bit. I’ll go find some sweets or something and come back.” Having said this, he left.

When Kishimoto returned from town, Setsuko was in the back room preparing tea. Though it was still late April, he managed to find rare rice dumplings. The fragrance of steamed bamboo leaves—evoking the approaching Boys' Festival—was enough to draw talk of the child she had tried yet failed to forget from Setsuko's lips. For the first time then, Kishimoto brought up various matters regarding the male child born to him and her.

“It was definitely Oyafu, wasn’t it? That name—you know, the one the monk had prepared for his own child—didn’t you write in your letter that he specially gave it to us?” Compared to when merely thinking about this unknown child’s existence had made his heart tremble during his travels, Kishimoto now found himself able to speak of it before Setsuko with an entirely different frame of mind. With an expression that now regarded even their transgression itself as something nostalgic, Setsuko guided Kishimoto’s imagination to the rural countryside where she had gone for childbirth—to the second floor of the midwife’s house there. When they spoke of how this unfortunate yet fortunate child had found adoptive parents as kind as his birth parents and was being raised in a peaceful farming household, a special expression—like that of a young mother—surfaced on her face.

“Oh, so that family runs a fishing preserve?” “With a look like I’m going carp fishing, maybe I’ll visit them one of these days.”

Kishimoto’s words made Setsuko smile.

“But you truly never know whom you might meet or where—” said Setsuko. “I wrote to Paris about that woman doctor who took such good care of us in the countryside.” “I met her.” “At the eye hospital Father goes to…… She must be an assistant in ophthalmology now.”

For a while, Setsuko’s words trailed off. The nature of that silence came through to Kishimoto’s heart more clearly than words could.

“What about your mother?” said Kishimoto after the prolonged silence. “Does she know about ‘that matter’—” “Mother must know,” said Setsuko. “And Teruko?” “Sister might know too.” “When Sister came back for her delivery, I wasn’t in this house.” “When she went to Father to ask, they told her to ask Mother—and when she went to Mother, they told her to ask Father. Sister must have thought it strange.” “Father was still in Nagoya at that time.”

“Then what about Aiko?” “Well… what about the Nenishi sister…”

Setsuko faltered. Once again, the two of them sat facing each other in silence for a while. “Somehow, I began to feel a little strange.” When Kishimoto said this, Setsuko responded, “But we’d already talked about it.” As if letting out a deep sigh, she said this to him.

Eighty-Three

The joyful day the two of them spent secluded together eventually came to a profoundly sorrowful end. Setsuko—who cherished the doll of a boy child sent by Kishimoto about a month prior, showing faintly maternal sorrow; who dressed the doll in a black kimono and even placed a black hood on its head, concealing it in a wrapping cloth as if taking her own child along to show Kishimoto; who seemed to imply she had not yet found the right opportunity to speak of it despite wanting to—appeared most pleased to have Kishimoto understand her heart as a mother. Yet the more their conversation turned to the child born between them, the more Kishimoto was drawn into a harsh sense of reality. Setsuko, on that topic, spoke of how during her time recuperating in the countryside after childbirth, she had often been invited by the doctor to visit the house where her child had been taken in. The people of that house persistently tried to uncover her background, probing through various means; they told her that if she could not reveal her name, she should at least tell them which part of Tokyo she was from—or even just the general direction—but she refused even that, and in the end, the doctor did not disclose it.

“They do dote on him—back when the child’s eyes were bad, the grandfather there would carry him on his back to the doctor’s house nearly every day.” She related this to Kishimoto. The house interior was gradually growing dim. Though it remained bright outside, both Kishimoto and Setsuko had begun to worry about Grandmother and the others returning late.

“Setsuko, you should get ready to go home too.”

When Kishimoto said this, Setsuko began to rise from her seat, “I’m not going back.”

she made a point of saying.

At such times, there was a frankness in Setsuko’s tone that verged on making Kishimoto burst out laughing. “Grandmother and the others should have come back by now, I suppose.”