Pathway to Japanese Literature

I His name was Irenkatom. It was a name meaning "fair judge," one traditionally bestowed upon the children of those who held considerable authority within the tribe since ancient times.

Therefore, when he received this name, a not insignificant amount of hereditary property was also bequeathed to him. And it was his responsibility to ensure that these assets—however modestly increased through his efforts—were passed down without fail to the next generation. Irenkatom, a pure Ainu with no mixed heritage, felt no disharmony whatsoever with the customs passed down from his ancestors.

He possessed nothing but obedience toward the responsibilities imposed upon him. Yet unhappily, Irenkatom had not a single child. Amidst his worries, his wife too passed away, and having grown quite old all alone, he began to grow increasingly anxious. If he were to let the property passed down from his ancestors fall into ruin during his generation, it would be an inexcusable disgrace beyond any words of apology. The thought that there would be no means to pass down the treasures—protected and preserved through generations by his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father—when he himself stood on the brink of death began to torment Irenkatom year after year.

So he considered various things.

And after much consideration, as anyone would do, he relied on connections and adopted a certain mainland Japanese boy. The story that until his grandfather’s generation they had been samurai of distinguished lineage, combined with his sturdy build and alert gaze despite the scabby head, had captured Irenkatom’s interest.

At that time, that child—just about six years old—with a head like an overturned porridge pot beneath which only his splendid eyes gleamed, was brought without shedding a single tear by his terribly aged new father. For Irenkatom, who until now had no one to talk to and spent his days and nights in solitary silence by the large hearth, seeing only the face of his lone black dog, this small addition was nothing less than radiant light.

By firmly making a child his own—one meant to live by his side all his life—he seemed filled with complete hope. Over a small pot hung above the fire, he would decoct Amur cork tree bark to treat Yutaka’s sores while telling old tales and chanting ancient songs. From the massive roots, in flames that swayed upward flickeringly, large and small shadows—their half-lit faces glowing crimson as they laughed and chanted—were cast upon the rough wall behind like monstrous monks.

Having noticed this, the black dog growled. Then Yutaka pressed a burning branch toward the black dog's nose while whooping boisterously. And— Yelp! Declaring the sight of the black dog yelping and leaping sideways to flee comical, Yutaka rolled about laughing. "What’s so funny, you fool?" he said even as Irenkatom’s laughter spilled out—"Ha ha ha!" Day or night there was never a time when little Yutaka wasn’t darting about by the elder’s side.

Even when he ventured out into the vast fields, the child and Black were always there accompanying him nearby. The sun rose, the sun set, the sun rose and the sun set, and Yutaka’s height gradually increased. As he grew older, his sores healed, and Irenkatom doted utterly on Yutaka—now endowed with glossy hair, large beautiful eyes, and healthy copper-toned skin. Through both a reaction to his desolate past and an innate doting nature toward children, Irenkatom—who pampered Yutaka with a tenderness surpassing even a mother’s—became nearly absolutely obedient to him.

His stubbornness proved more reassuring than spinelessness; his silver tongue and wildness somehow made it seem delightful—as if he weren’t meant for an ordinary life. Yutaka, who had instinctively come to know these thoughts of his, felt not the slightest restraint toward Irenkatom. Year after year, as his emotions developed, he would sometimes unconsciously, sometimes deliberately, commit bold pranks—acts whose consequences only served to fan the flames of Irenkatom’s affection ever higher.

When Yutaka’s innate reckless boldness and measure of cunning, combined with his vivid countenance and resonant voice, worked upon Irenkatom, there existed a certain charm that could not but stir his heart. The seeds that had been sown unknowingly sprouted forth at the same rate as his physical growth.

Whenever he tried to get him to help in the fields, “Father, I ain’t gonna be no damn farmer!” “Damn right! “I’ll become someone even greater!” While saying this, he shot a mocking sidelong glance at his father’s mud-spattered face. Then Irenkatom formed an ambiguous smile, “Then what exactly will you become?” he asked. Yutaka smirked like an adult.

And then, “What d’you know ’bout anythin’ ’fore I’ve even become somethin’?” “Yer the damn idiot here, old man!”

Hurling this final retort, he kicked apart the carefully built field ridges and stormed off to who-knows-where. Swinging the wooden staff like a locust, Yutaka dwindled into the distance until his figure vanished into the grove on the far hill—Irenkatom kept watching with his prized far-seeing eyes for as long as he remained visible. And with a heart half-muddled with disappointment and hope, he continued to dig the soil steadily.

II

Yutaka, who had grown up racing through fields and mountains without distinction—chasing horses and chasing birds—became a son as fierce as a wild spirit. While declaring he would become someone great—he who had taken four or five years just to finish third grade—he finally lost patience and quit school when the following spring came. And so, in accordance with his view that coachman work was a shortcut to success, it was chosen as his profession at age thirteen. Irenkatom, simply overjoyed that his son could soon become a full-fledged wage earner, rather proactively approved.

While spreading word in his characteristically modest manner that Yutaka was finally becoming a splendid young man—that he was becoming a coachman—Irenkatom could not help but beam with delight. No matter how stubborn or mischievous people might say he was, there swelled a pride within him—"Do any of your thirteen-year-old sons possess the skills of a coachman like mine?" In his overwhelming joy, he spent the unprecedented sum of three yen as pocket money and had Yutaka take up residence at a carriage house in a town about three ri west of the village.

Yutaka was supposed to live and sleep at the carriage house, making round trips once each day from that town through Irenkatom’s village to another town beyond, carrying passengers.

Every single morning, the moment he awoke, he would rush through his meal and dash out to the road in anticipation of Yutaka’s gallant figure. Then one morning, he noticed that the carriage rounding the distant mountain carried a different coachman than usual. Irenkatom, crossing his arms over his chest that pounded intensely for the first time in years, fixed his gaze and peered intently—and indeed! The coachman was unmistakably Yutaka. Putting on airs, swinging a tanned leather whip grandly in his right hand while turned sideways to chat with a passenger beside him—how profoundly must his Western-clad figure have stirred the heart of dear Irenkatom.

His white teeth sparkled each time he laughed; the brilliance of his eyes darting keenly beneath a small round hat.

As he watched, the carriage gradually drew nearer.

And from where he stood, it was now only a distance of one or two chō away. Then Yutaka—who until now had kept his face turned aside—no sooner rapidly turned it forward than he suddenly half-rose from his seat, "Giddyup!"

With a shout, he struck the horse’s back with all his might. The horse, caught off guard, couldn’t withstand it. Scraping the earth and leaping up, it began to run like a maniac. The clatter of wheels bouncing and rolling along the gravel-strewn road. The clatter of harnesses. Amidst spark-like hoofbeats and a cacophonous mass of noise flying over a swirling vortex of dust, Yutaka came flying forth at the triumphant peak of his glory. Here he came! Here he came! Here he came!! And in an instant, it passed before Irenkatom’s eyes.

Through a choking cloud of dust, toward the small hat of Yutaka still racing away, Irenkatom involuntarily— “Hwoah!” With a guttural shout, he clenched his fists and stomped in a sumo stance. Then, with eyes threatening to melt away, he slowly stroked down his long beard. Thus, for the time being, Irenkatom too was a contented old man. In a short time, Yutaka’s appearance improved remarkably, and his handling of horses became increasingly skilled.

His body growing rapidly and taking on a somehow mature, adult-like air, Yutaka became the sole idol in Irenkatom’s heart—he who had to live apart from him. Indeed, the bold, ignorant, and untamed youth possessed a certain charm in both his appearance and demeanor. He certainly wasn’t ugly. While speaking ill in a clear voice, bright red lips that twisted slightly to the left with a spiteful air. Large eyes that always looked down on everyone with sharp sidelong glances. Those vivid features—the bright red lips and sharp sidelong glances—harmonized perfectly with his gaudy country-style Western suit, blazing brilliantly atop the narrow coachman’s seat.

As Yutaka grew more skilled at handling horses, he learned how to hold a cigarette and drink sake. Before long, he grew indifferent to embezzling carriage fares, and while Irenkatom sowed seeds here and there with the black dog, tending and harvesting them, Yutaka’s life transformed in ways beyond his imagination. Even before the multifarious world that had suddenly unfolded before Yutaka—who until yesterday had been a child—he remained the son who charged headlong through it all, swinging his reckless abandon like a weapon.

Boldly invading every place he went with cheerful audacity, nothing existed that could diminish his courage. For him—who possessed neither the morality to judge his own actions nor any shred of timidity—being carried about on a palanquin of provocation like some monarch proved anything but tedious. This seventeen-year-old—swollen with extravagant confidence in his looks and skills through flattery that wasn’t given freely—indulged in full-throated dissipation, emboldened by knowing someone stood ready to settle his debts.

Yutaka would sometimes go to his employer and ask him to advance twenty or thirty yen. His employer would readily lend him the money because Irenkatom was there. Then with that money, he would immediately buy a gold-engraved ring and toss it into the midst of the women, intending to give it to whoever caught it. And as they shrieked "Kyaa! Kyaa!"—scratching, tumbling over each other in their struggle—he watched this spectacle with his trademark sidelong glance, "What a pathetic display! You idiots—want it that badly? Ha ha ha ha!"

he roared with laughter, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

This was him. He was no longer the Yutaka who had his head shaved under the Amur cork tree. Open-handed and pleasure-seeking, he had fully become Inadaya's Yutaka-san. No matter how far three ri might be, there was no way this matter wouldn’t reach Irenkatom. All criticism directed at Yutaka had gathered at his doorstep. However, Irenkatom had never once called Yutaka a bad person, nor had he ever thought of him as such. He would simply say it was troublesome and that he wished he would come to his senses soon.

Moreover, in reality, Irenkatom was optimistic to a degree that surprised others. Given that Yutaka was proud and no fool, he would surely grow tired of such reckless antics before long; then, if he found him a suitable wife, that trifling debt could naturally be worked off. This was Irenkatom’s reasoning. He was certain that it would come to pass.

However, when at year’s end he had to part with seven souvenir horses due to Yutaka’s debts, even Irenkatom could not help but feel pained. But he— “You ought to stop this now, Yutaka... It’s troubling me…” was all he said.

He merely said that.

III

All the neighbors said the old man had taken on quite a burden. Some even said he was a good-for-nothing young man, as if possessed by a demon. That Yutaka was not a praiseworthy youth was something Irenkatom himself fully understood. He thought him both impossible and troublesome. But try as he might, he simply couldn't bring himself to think of him as any worse than that.

No matter what others said or what he did, there was not the slightest change in how endearing he found him. He couldn’t pinpoint what exactly made Yutaka so endearing—but even when ten out of ten people spoke ill of him in unison—why did I alone feel my affection grow all the more? That this “good-for-nothing youth,” not even bound by true bloodline—could inspire such devotion stood as both a mystery to those around them and an undeniable enigma to Irenkatom himself.

At times, he could not help but ponder the mysterious bond that connected him and Yutaka. Though rewarded with nothing but worry and loss, he could not help but dwell on this inexplicable affection that refused to fade. What made Yutaka so damn endearing...?

He began to think. However, his thoughts were by no means theoretical, nor were they scientific. The fantastic delusions—an ancestral legacy—began to stir with astonishing force, with Yutaka and himself as twin focal points. Every time he thought of the name Yutaka, another name would surely surface in Irenkatom’s heart. That name was his wife Pekeremattu (meaning "woman who shines brightly"), who had passed away long ago. Pekeremattu, who had died lamenting her childlessness until her final breath... he had come to feel that there must surely be some connection between her and Yutaka—something beyond his power to comprehend.

Could it be that Yutaka was meant to be born from her but, having died too soon, she had him come to me by borrowing another woman’s womb? To him, it seemed beyond doubt that Yutaka had come through Pekeremattu’s final wish. And so the love between my living self and Pekeremattu—now a spirit—had poured together upon him alone, making Yutaka blossom so beautifully into this world. Could he not be one the gods had sent to grant us sturdy descendants? It must certainly be so.

But then, why had the gods made him into such a wastrel? Irenkatom found himself at a loss over this. Yet how could anyone claim that Nitsnekamui—the demon ever meddling with divine works—would refrain from such mischief? After all, this was the very fiend who had tried to swallow the sun to thwart creation itself—how could such a being not seethe with envy upon seeing a child sent to me who shone too radiantly, who stood too splendid?

And the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that the beloved one was none other than Yutaka. When viewed this way, his love for Yutaka had become thoroughly intermingled with his love for his deceased wife, for the unseen gods, and for the yet-unseen descendants latent within Yutaka’s shadow. He blamed all his misfortunes on the demon, and there was also a growing resignation within him. But he had not yet come to think this far. He attributed all matters to the interplay between the gods and the demon.

Irenkatom, harboring such emotions, both suffered earnestly over Yutaka and worried about him—and yet he also carried within him this urge to sing of that very pain and love, unable to restrain himself. When he worked all alone in the vast cultivated field…

Not a sound could be heard in the surroundings. In the hushed stillness, only these sounds faintly resonated around his moving body—the rhythmic thud of earth being turned, the soft crumbling of mud, the breath keeping time with each swing of the hoe. It was so quiet, he thought. And then, for some reason, he found himself filled with a sense of nostalgia. Raising his head, he wiped his brow while looking around. As he wiped and looked up, the high, high sky—bearing a sun as beautiful as an ornament at its zenith—stood clear as lapis lazuli glass. While blinking rapidly and peering through the glare, he finally spotted three kites flying at the edge of his vision.

A toy kite made of paper or something danced swirling round and round, as though a child of the gods dwelling in the depths of heaven were whirling it about. They flew in perfect circles, narrowly grazing past one another and overtaking each other in their dance. Rising... falling... veering right... drifting left...

As he mused on how fascinating it was, the rhythm entering through his two eyes gradually began to stir his chest—his very thoughts. And before he knew it, whispers became murmurs, murmurs became songs, and upon Irenkatom’s lips, the blazing blossoms of his spirit began to bloom in resplendent glory. Riding the irrepressible wave of inspiration, closing his eyes and clapping his hands as he sang beneath the heavens with neither self nor others in mind—O Irenkatom! How radiantly your brow must shine!

He sang praises to the sun. He extolled the azure sky. O Pekeremattu, radiant as this azure firmament, with hands as deft as clouds! O my son, now fledged—brave as a young hawk, king of birds! I stand upon this land that my father and his father before him cultivated, and call out to you all—these words of an aged father, O my wife! O my son! Please listen! When each word rich in vowels, formed into brief syllabic patterns, was chanted in their archaic melodies, he himself would invariably dissolve into those resplendent ancient words.

Whether he went to the fields or to the mountains, whenever inspiration struck, he would burst into song wherever he was. In times of sorrow, in times of joy, in times when memories of the past grew unbearable, he knew only to sing.

And so spring and summer passed.

Four When autumn came, Yutaka—who hadn’t shown his face for some time—casually dropped by and declared he wanted money to go to Tokyo and start a business. “What? Where you off to? Where you off to?” After asking again and again until he realized this “Tokyo” wasn’t a mishearing, Irenkatom became truly flustered.

Contemplating all at once such thoughts—that it was such a distant place, such a dreadful place, that he would never return alive—he spoke in a stifled voice,

“Yutaka, do you even know what sort of place Tokyo is?”

He peered into his son’s face. “What do you mean, ‘what kind of place’? Father. Tokyo’s just a place where people live, ain’t it?” “This ain’t no joke!” Having said that, Irenkatom fell completely silent. He—sitting cross-legged with his thin shins spread apart, his entire body slumped as if devoid of strength, occasionally poking at the smoldering hearth with a broken branch—after some time had passed, abruptly lifted his bowed head... “You must stop this, Yutaka.” he said. Yutaka, lying on his side with his elbow propped up and puffing away at a cigarette, stopped mid-inhale to look at his father’s face—so sorrowful was Irenkatom’s voice. His tone carried the weight of half-suppressed tears. Even Yutaka momentarily wore a look of pity at this. But with a single shift of posture, he shook off that gloomy air entirely and resumed speaking in an even more brazen, self-centered tone than before.

“We ain’t stoppin’.” “I’ve already decided!” he declared flatly. “What will you do in Tokyo?” “Business.” “Business? There are countless kinds—what exactly will you do?” “We don’t know.” “We’ll do whatever we can!” “Anyway, I’ve made up my mind to go.”

“...”

“...” “I don’t have money.” “There’s no way you don’t have any, Father. You’re only growing a paltry bit of soybeans here anyway—if we sell off all these surrounding fields, it’s not like you’d miss ’em,” “There’s no way you don’t have any!” Yutaka spat into the hearth with self-annihilating force. “Sellin’ off’s your own damn fault, Father! Here I am feelin’ all guilty toward ya—ah, hell! So even though (you don’t wanna sell from your heart) I’m tellin’ ya—just sell it for me!”

“If that’s how it is, even Grandfather wouldn’t scold you, Father.”

“Right? It’s fine—you should just do it!” Before the trembling Irenkatom could even utter a word of approval or refusal in response to his son’s bold declaration, Yutaka rushed outside.

Not just in words—he had already truly resolved now to sell the roughly two and a half *chō* of farmland surrounding the house that his father had cultivated with his own hands. He had already made his calculations three months prior: if he sold that farmland, eight or nine hundred yen would come in without a word, and with that money, he could take a certain woman to T Port and live there. He had no intention of going to Tokyo or anything of the sort. However, to lend a slight advantage to his reason for wresting that amount of farmland from his father’s unyielding grasp, he had merely stretched the distance a bit—that was all.

From Yutaka’s perspective, even if he went to T Port, he had no intention of enduring there for long to establish himself. After spending such a long time in the same cramped town, seeing nothing but the same human faces and indulging in the same dissipations, it was getting him nowhere. If he changed his surroundings, he would encounter different interesting sights. His primary motive for going was this alone. However, his feelings could not be satisfied simply by accomplishing that alone.

He could not be satisfied unless some form of pain or some form of sacrifice was offered to substantiate his grand indulgences. Only by sauntering with nonchalance through the very heart of his timid companions’ envy and jealousy—pushing away his clinging father with one hand, again and again, while leading a woman with the other and jingling the money he’d snatched up in exchange for the farmland—would his life’s purpose be fulfilled. In short, his visit to Irenkatom was not a consultation. It was akin to going to deliver a verdict. Every day, with a cheerful and handsome face, he hummed a tune as he searched for buyers of the land.

Of course, compared to all the land Irenkatom owned, two chō of farmland was not such a significant portion.

He was already advanced in years and found cultivating the land himself rather painful; had it been a matter of leasing it to others, he might have consented. But he could not bear to part with it permanently. He, rooted in this soil from birth, valued nothing more than "land" itself. But there was no help for it. If it was for his "beloved Yutaka," he would endure even that. But! That Yutaka should go to Tokyo or any such place—that must never be permitted! That must never come to pass!

I am already this old. I don't know when I'll die. If I can't even meet him at my deathbed and all these things I should pass down get swindled away by some no-good Wajin of unknown origin—what in this world am I supposed to do? Just don't go to Tokyo! Despite Yutaka going so far as trying to sell his land while he himself was still alive—despite all that—he feared that when he died, he would prove unable to pass on the property to him.

When the fear that he might become unable to pass on his property upon his death took hold, Irenkatom’s mind had no room left to consider Yutaka’s character. How he could sell off every last bit of land with such a carefree, cheerful expression never crossed his mind. To Yutaka’s heart—this land that stayed silent year-round, jet-black earth demanding endless toil just to yield a single potato—held no appeal compared to those who glittered in gold and silver, clinking with mirthful clamor, wielding strong authority. This truth never crossed his mind.

Irenkatom even thought how much happier it would have been if he had died sooner rather than send his son off to Tokyo, a place that seemed to him like a nest of thieves and murderers. He no longer slept restfully even at night, offering prayers to the household guardian deity and all the gods of heaven and earth, presenting fresh inaw (ritual wood shavings), and beseeching them to expel any demon that might have taken hold of his son’s spirit.

Five

However, Yutaka ultimately defeated Irenkatom—or perhaps the mischievous demon prevailed over the prayers—and he had succeeded completely in every regard. He sold the land, pocketed all the proceeds, and departed just as he had envisioned, jingling the coins as he went. When Irenkatom—tears streaming down his face—received word that his son had declared he would "go as far as he could reach" and left, he immediately went to the home of Mr. Yamamoto, who had long assisted him with livestock and land matters.

"And please make the arrangements for me to withdraw to S Mountain," he said. S Mountain was a place far closer to the coast where he owned land as well. Despite Mr. Yamamoto’s son and the schoolteacher staying there urging him to stop—insisting it was unwise to shut himself away alone in such a desolate place—Irenkatom would not listen, pleading instead, “Please, I must insist.”

Thus, finally, it was decided that the previous house would be made into a rental, and a new hut would be built at S Mountain.

The hut, constructed entirely in the old Ainu manner, had its north and east sides bordered by mountains of mixed woods; to the east, some sixteen or seventeen chō away, lay Y Cape—a beautiful protrusion into the sea—while to the west stretched hills descending toward human settlements and the foothills of other distant mountains. And on the south side, a clear small stream that supplied his drinking water flowed with a soft, rustling murmur. There was nothing else. Amidst this desolation, the new hut—enclosed on all sides by thatch—welcomed Irenkatom and the second Black like a dear little nest.

He would stand at the hut's entrance whenever the thought struck him, gazing at the path hardened by footprints. At other times, he would climb a distant small hill and gaze at the road passing far below.

There were times when many packhorses passed by.

There were also times when spirited bicycles could race by like little swallows, their wheels glittering.

Or sometimes children would chase after carriages, whirling their whips just as Yutaka had done four or five years before. People passed, carriages passed, dogs ran…... But what he was waiting for remained unseen.

Indeed, Irenkatom had waited day and night for that sole young, beautiful head to emerge suddenly onto the western hill road like a stage trapdoor thrust upward. Did “Fly here” always guarantee one would return to their starting place? Yet Irenkatom kept waiting. He clung to the belief that those who departed must inevitably return. When would he come back? That remained unknown. And so he persisted—waiting, hoping without end.

Upon hearing only a rumor that Yutaka had been spotted in T Port, the season arrived when Irenkatom’s hut was buried in snow.

Even under normal circumstances, the road had never been easy; now buried in snow, it became utterly impassable. Completely severed from human society, he would only catch faint traces of human voices when descending once every twenty days—or sometimes once a month—to buy miso and salt.

How desolately lonely that one winter must have been for him.

Because he was truly alone with no distractions, his thoughts could do nothing but cling ceaselessly to the same problem. The more he thought, the more his heart plummeted into despair until he could do nothing at all. Thus Irenkatom—who had developed the habit of drinking a bit of sake and sleeping sprawled by the hearth for lack of better options—found himself forced to stay awake when night fell and others slept.

In the gloomy hut illuminated by the pale snowlight seeping faintly through the window gaps, he was oppressed and tormented by a corpse-like solemn silence and an increasingly unbearable sense of displacement, his mind gradually sinking into an inexplicable state of agitation.

No matter where he went within the hut—something seemed to permeate and fill every corner, rejecting and resisting him—Irenkatom could not settle quietly in any one place.

Unconsciously muttering to himself, he paced back and forth. And as he paced around without sleeping, he came to think that he himself was doing something not normal.

Why had it come to this?

He would stir up the hearth fire to make it brighter, or tap at his ears as if swatting something away. Yet his state of mind grew increasingly unsettled. Something was wrong. At this moment, a legendary fear of "night" clearly awakened within his heart. When monstrous birds circled hunting human souls, when the dead stirred back to motion, when evil spirits and wraiths ran rampant—this was his conception of night, seeped into his mind since childhood.

He who had been warned repeatedly that walking outside on a dark night would lead to encountering a monster and being killed before he could flee still harbored, even now, a deep terror and sense of mystery toward the night and darkness beyond his flimsy enclosure. When that hereditary fear welled up, he became unable to endure and prayed to the gods.

He sang chants with all his might. He played with the dog. And when the dim light of dawn began to seep in, he would finally sink into an utterly exhausted sleep. Having spent such an excessively lonely winter at S Mountain in this way, his mind deteriorated completely. His body also deteriorated. However, Irenkatom did not consider his relocation to have been a failure. He did not let slip a single word, but if he himself were to fall ill, those in the village would soon learn of it, and the neighbors might try to steal various things. But if he were here, he could leave everything to Mr. Yamamoto without informing others—this he thought was far more secure.

If he, being all alone, were to fall ill, who would send word to Mr. Yamamoto? But he had never considered that far. Gradually, as the snow thinned and the season reached the time when tree buds swelled, he tilled a small patch of ground on the east side of the hut and there sowed potatoes and peas. People began visiting him occasionally, and he found work to distract himself—alongside the plants, Irenkatom at last appeared to regain some vitality.

VI

However, that spring, from the nearby sea already fog-prone, an unusually thick mist began flowing in day after day.

The fog that surged in from far offshore split into two streams when it reached the coast.

One stream climbed straight up Y Cape and raced onward, while the other made a long detour and began moving from the tip of L Point facing Y Cape. And the two streams would meet precisely over S Mountain and flow far into the interior. This was an inevitable consequence of the mountain’s topography—embracing flatlands as it stretched toward the sea—but where it met the coastal route proved unbearable. Even when less severe in the lower village, the fog flowing through the mountains coalesced into thick gray masses that seemed ready to roar with sound.

Therefore, as soon as spring arrived, Irenkatom’s hut had to be besieged by fog so thick that not a glimpse of sunlight could be seen.

Fog today, fog tomorrow.

The heavy fog saturated with sea moisture filled the air with its peculiar odor as it seeped through the lattice of the thatch-roofed hut, leaving everything damp. Plagued by an oppressive, unwholesome atmosphere like the rainy season in his weakened state, Irenkatom endured constant headaches. Whether awake or asleep, a ceaseless buzzing and droning echoed in his ears as though insects had infested them. Feeling as though all vigor had drained from his body, he grew so sensitive that even the sight of his own dog set his nerves on edge.

At times, he would fly into terrible fits of rage and kick Black—whom he cherished so deeply—without reason. Yamamoto-san’s family members would only remark that the old man seemed to have lost some weight lately, and they paid no particular attention; he himself was certainly not the sort to dwell on his nerves. And so the days went on just like that.

One evening.

It was a fine evening of the sort where one could finally see skies cleared after ages of fog. In the field, Irenkatom—who had been pulling weeds—withdrew to the hearthside and smoked tobacco, his head swimming with an odd dizziness. Then came voices near the doorway. They muttered in hushed tones like conspirators holding whispered counsel.

A young woman’s voice said a few words, then a young man’s voice—energetic yet straining to keep quiet—responded to them. By the resonance of their voices, they were using the Ainu language. What on earth were they talking about... Irenkatom waited for the two young people who would lift the entrance curtain and visit. He waited and waited, waited until he was utterly weary, yet still they did not enter. So he rose on his own and went out to greet them. He thought they were probably feeling awkward about something.

When he went out to look, there in the corner of the hut stood a young woman with her head bowed exactly as anticipated, while a man stood some distance away with his arms crossed. Not recognizing them, he offered the Ainu-style greeting—"Whoever has come, please enter"—before retreating inside to wait. Still they did not come. Without crossing the threshold, they kept muttering on. The man spoke in an astonishingly rapid stream, though never varying his pitch. The woman spoke. Then finally their voices tangled together into indistinguishable clamor.

Thinking they were mocking him too much, Irenkatom grew slightly angry and called out, “I told you to come in—why won’t you enter?”

Saying this in Ainu, he went out to the doorway once more to look... What was going on? The two who had been speaking just moments before had vanished—not even a glimpse of their retreating figures remained.

What in the world...! What is the meaning of this? He too found this more than a little suspicious. No matter how much he considered it, it remained certain that he had seen a young man and woman. The woman wore a purple obi, and he had even seen a white ring on one of her overlapping fingers above—

That day ended with its own share of strange occurrences.

However, that did not end with just that day. The next day and the day after that, he heard voices. At times it seemed four or five people had come; at other times, he could hear what sounded like a crowd of over ten. They spoke in Ainu and Japanese, their words gradually becoming clearer and more comprehensible.

They never spoke with any semblance of decorum. They came chattering from somewhere far beyond Y Cape’s tip, riding on the wind itself. Darting around the hut’s exterior and leaping about inside it all the while, they taunted Irenkatom with jeers that “scorched his very gall,” mocked him mercilessly, ridiculed him without respite. When he grilled fish, they whined to devour it. When he boiled rice, they demanded he hand it over. What had begun as evening visits soon became relentless morning-to-night harassment. If he tried to sleep after dark, they’d plague him with outlandish antics meant to keep him awake—clamping his mouth shut until he gasped for air, throttling his throat until he choked. Scold them off, and they’d withdraw just long enough to regroup before starting anew.

Even as they tormented him this way, Irenkatom could only rage and shout against the disembodied voices and his own fraying resolve. When he tried reasoning to drive them off, they stubbornly fought back without yielding.

Under these circumstances, he could no longer remain passive. In desperation, he began scouring through the old tales he had only heard for anything related to the voice-only monsters. After much deliberation, he finally recalled the tale of the dwarf-like beings called Koropokkuru that his father had told him when he was a child.

Seven

When Irenkatom compared this with the story he had heard from his father, it became clear that what plagued him must be the dwarves known as Koropokkuru. For these dwarves knew various mystical arts—appearing only as voices without visible forms when visiting people’s homes—and moreover, since they remembered names like those of his father’s old friends and local officials when speaking of them, it became clear they must have existed since ancient times.

Moreover, such a feat as flying here upon the wind like that was by no means something large-bodied creatures could accomplish. All the more so for Irenkatom—who knew of the pit dwelling remains near Y Cape where Koropokkuru were said to have once lived—his conclusion could not help but seem not without reason.

Surely, they must be Koropokkuru—and when he began paying closer attention from then on, those voices indeed started declaring themselves to be the short-statured Koropokkuru. He had now firmly concluded they were Koropokkuru and told Mr. Yamamoto as much. In any case, with so many voices—men and women—darting here and there while chattering ceaselessly, the noise became unbearable.

The people who heard Irenkatom's story—his musings about whether even the Koropokkuru of his father's era had been so unmanageable—initially dismissed it as nonsense. Yet as people began encountering him mid-heated argument with those voices, while his words came to be believed, they could no longer deny that his mind had slipped its moorings. In the village, instead of the name Irenkatom, everyone came to call him Koropokkuru's old man.

Of course，it was true that he was not right in the head. However，he did not consider Koropokkuru appearing before him—these voices speaking unintelligible words—to be anything ordinary. He couldn’t help but wish to escape from such things. That is why he visited doctors and took medicine. His heart’s resolve stood thus：even were he to die or lose his sanity，he cared nothing for himself—all that mattered was meeting Yutaka and delivering what needed passing before then.

Every time he encountered someone who knew Yutaka even slightly, he would ask if there was any word from him. He would ask if they knew where he was.

And once each day, while scolding the Koropokkuru that clung to his head—walking and chattering—he would climb that distant hill and gaze out at the far-off road. Day after day, carriages raced by just the same, dogs barked, and bicycles glinted as they rolled away.

Irenkatom could find nothing else whatsoever.

However, one early morning, as he was cooking barley at the hearth, as usual, from a place far, far away came a sound like swish, swoosh, swish, swoosh—

Koropokkuru, Koropokkuru Koropokkuru, anakune, tumama, takkneppne

While chanting, a great many Koropokkuru flew in riding the wind. (The phrase "Koropokkuru" (and such) is said to mean that Koropokkuru are short-waisted beings.)

And then, as always, the voices of men and women began chattering noisily. But unlike their usual insults and mimicry, they were now urging him to hurry out and counterattack—claiming that Yoshitsune’s ships had launched an assault on Y Cape. “Yoshitsune has come to attack?” “Such a thing could never happen!” he retorted. Then the Koropokkuru said, “If that’s how you feel, seeing is believing—why not go check the coast yourself?” Convinced by this, Irenkatom took up the bow and arrows he had stored away and thudded off toward Y Cape.

Through woods and thickets where no path existed ran Irenkatom, gasping for breath—and above his head, the Koropokkuru were, of course, incessantly chattering away about this and that. When he reached Y Cape and looked, there indeed appeared to be something of the sort. Near the shore of a sea veiled in thin, hazy mist, five or six ships stood lined up in a row—so clearly that he could even see people bustling about—and thus Irenkatom had no choice but to conclude this was indeed the case. And then, like a flying bird, he rushed to the very edge of the cape—to where one more step would send him plunging into the sea—and twanged his bowstring while shouting at the top of his voice, began to shower curses.

"Not only did you steal books and writings from our ancestors' ancient treasury, but now you return to commit more wicked deeds? By the six bows and six arrows of the divine warriors, I will never let you escape unscathed!" While shouting such things, he waved his arms, leapt up, and challenged them to battle. Yet Yoshitsune’s forces paid no heed whatsoever and promptly rowed out to sea. When Irenkatom felt his challenge had been insulted, he flew into a rage.

Disheveling his white hair and pounding his own chest as he rampaged... when suddenly, to his fevered ears came— "Yutakaaa! Yutakaaa! Yutaka-boy..." A voice uttered something indistinct. Startled by the name he longed to forget yet couldn't, he looked sideways to find two acquaintances gripping the hem of his belt, legs braced as they hauled him backward step by step. When a shocked Irenkatom demanded what was happening, the passersby explained it was no trivial matter—"You were nearly drowned in the sea!"—recounting how they'd wrestled to subdue his thrashing form.

When he heard the explanation, Irenkatom was on the verge of tears, bitterly resenting being deceived by those Koropokkuru bastards. In days past, he had been a stalwart youth of whom it was said no beast could escape his grasp—yet now to be mocked by those Koropokkuru wretches and forced to reveal such a pitiful state must have been agony beyond measure for him. Escorted home by the two, Irenkatom offered a prolonged prayer at the sacred ritual site of the *inaw* (wooden ritual offerings).

Because of such incidents, Irenkatom’s Koropokkuru became so famous that there was no one who did not know of them. Among them were even those who kindly brought exorcism charms, grass roots, tree bark, and the like. There were also people who, claiming that the bones of a certain bird were effective, deliberately hunted them down and brought them to him.

He did not at all dislike how everyone worried about him and approached him with various kindnesses. But with something seeming to lurk behind it all, Irenkatom's heart was not at peace.

Just when Yutaka was away, they had taken advantage of this favorable turn to bring matters to such a state—he couldn't help suspecting they were scheming something.

Moreover, since it was doubtful whether all ten people acted from sincere kindness alone, his anxieties were by no means groundless. Particularly toward the attitude of a certain Japanese man living nearest him, he felt compelled to maintain intense unease and vigilance. When Irenkatom learned that Mr. Yamamoto had told him he wanted to borrow his land as compensation for making several daily visits and offering comforting words, he felt profoundly mortified.

I found both myself and others repulsive. Everything had become a burden to him.

But… No matter what might happen, that alone—the need to protect the ancestral treasures that must be passed down from hand to hand until Yutaka returned—was what kept him alive.

The treasures—maki-e utensils, tachi sword scabbards, lacquered trays, and the like—that people of olden times, from his father to his father’s father to his grandfather’s father, had painstakingly accumulated one by one through exchanges of bear pelts and other goods acquired at great risk to their lives, possessed at times even greater value than land or livestock. And even now, just as with other prestigious Ainu families, he too held great reverence for such things and feared losing or defiling them.

Truly, if only Irenkatom could have lived certain until the day Yutaka returned—until the very day those treasures would pass into his hands—that would have been enough. But when even the Koropokkuru began extorting treasures, how terribly must Irenkatom's heart have been thrown into disarray. The Koropokkuru demanded the red tray and the carved scabbard. And if he refused to comply and they berated him, they would hurl all manner of vile insults and humiliate him.

They would say people were mocking him as a miser, or claim, “Look—don’t you realize the entire village hates you for hoarding all these treasures alone?”

Until Yutaka came.

Please, just until I could hand them over to Yutaka! To keep the treasures from being stolen, to keep from being deceived by others, he had refused to be defeated by those tenacious Koropokkuru. Please, please—just until that day when Yutaka would return! That was all there was to it. For that reason alone, Irenkatom went to Mr. Yamamoto in tears, begging him to teach him a good method to drive away the Koropokkuru.

Mr. Yamamoto was troubled. He didn’t know what to do. All the more so because he himself, who held goodwill toward him, was being entreated as the sole reliable person—it only deepened his distress. That being said, of course, he couldn’t bear to leave him be. Mr. Yamamoto could not help but think. That Irenkatom was a man like a fragment of legend passed down through generations was something even Mr. Yamamoto knew. He was not the type to let convoluted reasoning govern his mind. After consulting various people and pondering at length, Mr. Yamamoto finally recalled a method that a certain monk had reportedly tested with success.

Thereupon, having summoned Irenkatom, Mr. Yamamoto assumed a stern demeanor and placed a packet of beans before him. Then he began to speak as follows.

“Inside this paper bundle are beans.” “Listen carefully—there are beans inside.”

“Now when you return home today and the Koropokkuru come, first show them this and ask in a loud voice, ‘Do you know what this is?’” “Then those Koropokkuru bastards will surely say ‘Beans!’” “Listen carefully.” “Then this time you ask ‘Then how many are inside?’” “Don’t forget.” “Ask again in a loud voice—‘How many are inside?’” “Look—since it’s properly wrapped in paper like this, those Koropokkuru won’t have a clue how many are inside.”

“So they’ll surely stay silent, I tell you. So then, this time too, put all your strength into it,

“If they can’t say the number，make ’em scram!” “Then yell it right at ’em!” “You listening?”

“If you do that, the Koropokkuru bastards are sure to surrender.” “Don’t you dare forget to ask how many there are!” “And you yourself must never count the beans or look inside them either.” “Listen carefully.”

“It’s an important ritual, you know.” “Put all your strength into your belly and do it!” “They’ll surely surrender, the Koropokkuru! You hear?”

Upon hearing this, how heartened Irenkatom must have felt.

He had never before been taught a warding ritual that seemed so assured. Nor had he ever heard of such a thing. Now I can finally overcome the Koropokkuru! That alone made him feel as though he had already triumphed.

If I could just defeat the Koropokkuru—then whatever else might come after, how could anything deceive me now? Irenkatom uttered words of deep gratitude, raised both hands, and performed a solemn Ainu-style bow.

However.

As his hand, having stroked down his long beard, hovered at its tip—not yet withdrawn—another kind of fear welled up in his heart. No matter where—the swift Koropokkuru already knew about the ritual beans, and he felt as if they were lurking in some corner nearby, ready to pounce at any moment.

In the blink of an eye, he felt he might be snatched away at any moment, and he couldn't bear it.

Irenkatom hurriedly thrust the packet of beans into his breast pocket, pressed down firmly on top of it with both hands, urged Kuro onward, and set out for home. To shake off the Koropokkuru, Irenkatom deliberately crashed through a pathless thicket of shrubs, while Kuro, bowing his head as if rubbing his nose against Irenkatom’s heels, plodded along behind.