Pathway to Japanese Literature

One

It was late at night in early winter.

At Katayamazu (Kaga), in the hot spring inn Hangetsukan Yunoya's second floor—though its broad staircase curved midway in a large S-shaped ascent, making it nearly as tall as a third story—a lone traveler in his thirties emerged faintly through the ill-fitting door, clad in sleeping garments.

This half-Westernized structure contained two Japanese-style rooms. Though separated by glass doors and a double layer from the square veranda—purposely built as an observation deck overlooking Shibayama Lagoon, the mightiest of the Three Lakes and this area's renowned landmark—the coldness of the frost-laden moon permeated naturally from the vast water's surface……

When he now happened to lift his head from the pillow upon waking—the electric light was dim; through the glass door, only the water’s reflection seemed to cast upon the shoji screen—

“Oh, it’s cold.”

The cold creeping from his neck roused him awake, and he got up and went out.
But in his haste to reach the toilet before the lingering warmth of sleep faded, he pushed the door without looking.

When he pushed it open and stepped out, he was suddenly thrown back by a tremendous noise.
With a boom, the door slammed shut, its echo resounding unexpectedly from the vast, hollow ceiling of the spacious inn down to the very bowels of the earth.

After one tremendous noise, the staircase before his eyes appeared like a deep pit, and the white light lay desolate across the floor as if frost had been spread. The scattered black spots on the knots in the wood grain seemed like mouse footprints.

Truly, this grand inn stood hollow.—When he had asked the assigned maid earlier that evening, she’d said that for over twenty consecutive days, group tours had booked it solid, with nearly a hundred guests cramming in daily.
With only about four maids there, had one come even yesterday, one could only imagine how pitiable it must have been.
After having completely receded like the tide—today was again strangely quiet with few guests; in this room there was you, along with an elderly couple staying in the detached tea room—“a good place at a good time,” she had said… yet… The guest slightly withdrew his sake cup from the tray and remarked that you all must surely be exhausted—“A rest after the major cleanup.”
“Don’t mind this place—you should go bathe or such,” he offered the hot-spring visitor an oddly mismatched courtesy. Complying with “Then I’ll do so—much obliged,” she retreated promptly without lingering.
The tatami mats suddenly darkened, and the guest, after shuddering violently through his torso, was left utterly dumbfounded.

……Come to think of it, that too was of no use.……

Now, as for the descending staircase—having once opened up brightly and wide where it turned a corner—peering downward only made it feel all the more desolate.
Though the walls and pillars were still new, with not a gap to be found, a thin mist-like substance would slip in and stealthily lick at claw tips, making the slippers oddly prone to slipping and his footing precarious.

He grabbed the wall.

When his palm touched the wall’s surface, the sound of hot water droplets echoed from afar.

When he listened intently, there was also a sense of the lagoon’s water lapping audibly through the reeds along the shore.
……Though the wind had died, what boomed now near, now far—echoing like a train—was the sea’s roar.

Knowing full well the journey that had brought him so far, he descended the staircase as though sinking.

Traversing the corridor’s chill-seeping wooden floor—having realized there were no guest rooms anywhere, and even if there were, no lodgers—he wandered dazedly like a drifting shadow…

“Ah, so this was the sound.”

What he had thought were waves lapping at the shore’s reeds—he realized that the sound, heard so nearby, came from a washbasin.

The faucet remained loose, and water seemed to be dripping.

From the corner of that partitioned wall, when he absentmindedly peered inside,

He let out an involuntary "Ah!" and stumbled backward.

A snow-like woman stood there, her pallid face reflected in the full-length mirror.

It was midnight at the hot spring inn.

Two

The guest, having heard that aside from himself only an elderly couple occupied the detached room, started violently in the corridor as if he had brushed against a woman whose face held the pallor of a white heron.

But what appeared snow-like was her white neck... She must have been turned away, facing the full-length mirror.
Since the unlit washroom enclosure remained dark—likely obscuring her shoulders and waist—he dismissed the ghostly suspicion yet still shuddered and froze.

When the shadow of a sleeve faintly brushed against the washroom wall's pillar and the vertical stripes' seams caught the light, she peered out with one pale cheek—

“Would you like some water…”

she said, as though holding something back.
A gentle, soft voice—whether imagined or not—seemed to flutter down like falling snow, and he once again drew a shuddering breath.……

“Please, this way.”

By the time she had said this—no longer an eerie presence—white nail tips visible beneath sandals with crimson straps as she guided him down the corridor.A hand gathering hem,the black satin collar hung loose.The chest was slightly exposed,the hitched-up hem remaining disheveled;spilled pale blue-green fabric tangled at length around plump,flesh—even without an obi—alluringly graceful."No,I know."With this reassurance,Yukijiro stepped back diagonally away;now seeing her form so vivid he thought he'd glimpsed her soul,the faint scent of light makeup wafting through air.Bathwater's lingering warmth grew endearing,a human heat entwining with night chill.

The thin mist that had crept over the stairs—he couldn’t help but regret having trodden upon it, thinking it might have been ethereal steam from the bath, partaking of this woman’s very spirit.

"What could it be—though I suppose she's a maid here—she's a splendid middle-aged woman."

After washing his hands, as he dragged his garden clogs across the earthen floor with a *clatter* and *thud*, the sliding door he had closed behind him slid open from the corridor, leaving the guest startled once more.

With a small rustle, the middle-aged woman stood there.

"This is too forward…"

“No.”

With that, she crisply tucked up her striped kimono sleeves and tied her day-and-night obi in a draped knot—though somewhere along the red sash, like lacquer leaves, crimson glimmered faintly.
A woman of quiet bearing and gentle nature, with a rounded face and single eyelids that lent her an air of cool composure—her cheeks flushed from the bath’s warmth, her brows soft and features pleasing—her complexion put even snow to shame.

“But I was surprised—truly, utterly surprised.”

As he thrust his hand into his pocket and wiped it with a handkerchief—she watched—

“Oh, you… I thought to offer you a hand towel, but I’ve just come from the bath—it’s my own, you see. And besides, it’s damp…”

“That… I absolutely must borrow it.
“Please lend it to me.”

“But you.”

“No, really—I must insist.”

With that, he yanked the damp hand towel from the woman who had been holding it as if absentmindedly, pulling it toward himself with force.

“Oh!”

“Please think of this as something a monster would do.”
“It’s Ushimitsu—the dead of night—and the hour demands it.”

Having roughly discerned her character, he wiped not just his hands but his face unreservedly, in a half-teasing manner.
The warmth of the bath still lingered in the cotton cloth, familiar with her skin, soft and smooth.

“Oh my, but that must be unpleasant for you.”

As if reeled in, pressing one sleeve to his cheek, the guest stepped back from the hand she extended to retrieve it and clutched the hand towel like a hostage,

“What was eerie was just now—at this late hour, and from here of all places, it must seem abrupt.”

He stepped into the washroom just like that,

“It was completely unexpected—and besides, you’re far too beautiful.”

His voice seemed to pierce through the ceiling and echo down the corridor, so he abruptly hushed his tone to a whisper.

“I was truly terrified. Even now, it makes me shudder… A beauty like you appearing so suddenly…”

“All flattery.”

She leaned slightly closer but averted her gaze.

“This isn’t some jest… (The hand-washing…) At that moment, I thought frost might pour over my head and drag me into the lagoon’s depths.”

It sounded exaggerated, but…

“I have no excuse whatsoever.
"—Well, I did things like fixing my hair at such an untimely hour, you see.
“Um, actually, a telegram just arrived from a guest in a distant location—they’ll be arriving here by the train reaching Mukōbashi at 3:10—and since all the younger maids are exhausted and asleep… I’ll take care of everything myself.
“Well, you see, it’s been a while since I washed my hair in the evening, so I was just tying it up.”

Now her coiled hairstyle was glossy and her normally lush hair fell straight, yet her face appeared so haggard that it seemed to contradict their vitality.

“If I had stayed in the maids’ quarters, that would have been proper, but since every bit of bedding and pillows was fully occupied by those sleeping, I ended up borrowing the space reserved for esteemed guests after taking a bath—and this despite it being the middle of the night.”
“...It’s quite a change—truly.”

She kept her hand to her temple and looked down again.

“Well, meeting a ghost in a lonely corridor of a hot spring inn at midnight is only natural—but I was shocked! Ridiculously shocked.”

Needless to say, realizing she was a maid, his manner of speaking became unreserved,

“Even now, my heart’s still pounding.”

With that—whether by some whim or calculation—he collapsed limply into an available rattan chair and propped his elbow.

“Are you not feeling cold?”

“This time I’m burning up all over—my legs have given out; I can’t stand.”

“Oh…”

Three

“Osumi-san… I coerced you splendidly—no, more than coercion—it’s coercion through and through.”
“No—at this hour, it’s outright robbery.”
“But I’m grateful.”

And there, before the bed with only its pillow cast aside, he received a pour from the maid—Osumi—on a tray, feeling not improper but deeply gratified.

The guest insisted with feigned seriousness that without her pulling his hand, his legs had given out and he couldn’t climb to the second floor—she smiled faintly yet with genuine sympathy, offering no refusal, and as they ascended the staircase side by side—her face turned pale again under the desolate white light at the bend, the hem of her kimono blue.
The guest—such opportunities as this do not come many times in a person’s lifetime of travel.
“Let’s have a drink like we’re exchanging three-times-three ceremonial cups in a wayside shrine,” he said.—The sake—the third flask from the evening meal tray—had been left untouched since the server fled, and since drinking alone felt hollow, he’d intended to sip it before bed but instead fell soundly asleep; now he recalled having stashed it atop the cabinet……and so he added that too.
When Osumi asked the time just to be sure, the pocket watch showed it was a little before half-past two.

“Well then—just a moment… Since one sharp-eyed old cleaning attendant has woken up, I must go inform him and have him prepare.” She slipped away lightly and retreated from the doorway.……Bare feet unshod in zōri when attending guests vanished like water midway down the stairs.
...the man who had bitterly experienced losing a goby in the evening now let a sea bass escape at the water’s edge.
As if chasing that shadow, he opened the shoji and peered at the lake through the glass door.

The pale ink-wash shadows of the mountain range seemed to fade at their edges, blurred within the mist that encircled them—the lake lay as a vast silver platter. There were no waves—only the textured grain of polished silver. Beneath his eyes, the dried reeds along the shore lay crisscrossed with frost, resembling blue coral beads blossoming under the zenith moon. From within this scene stretched the annex’s long corridor—like an agate bridge—spanning far across the water’s surface. The structure, its roof encircled by moonlit railings and its platform-like form meant to catch dewy light, stood mirrored in both the sky and the water. The layers of fastened shutters were transparent, and the faint yellow tinge must have been light leaking from an unmanned lamp.

Not even the sound of bells could be heard.

The lagoon—where the lake stretched widest and mountain silhouettes stood most distant—held a single black dot floating upon its surface. Was it a boat? A wild goose? A grebe? All at once, it resembled Osumi’s mole beneath her eyebrow, adrift in the moonlight.

Cold, so cold… The man abandoned by the woman grew instantly rigid with chill.
Alone with that single flask—like provisions ants store for winter.
—Who had taught him this trick or when he’d learned it—he covered the small bird design on the dish with paper, placed cedar chopsticks as weights to keep it from scattering when fanned, then retrieved it and gulped recklessly from a bowl—when that footfall—Osumi arrived.
“There’s nothing proper to offer, but—” No—contrary to her words, Nara pickled gourd.
“It’s quite countrified here,” she added, presenting candied walnuts.
She brought fire in an ash shovel to this hibachi and another.
...Beside the staircase entrance lay a three-tatami space resembling a tea preparation room, where a bottle rack and tea utensils were kept.
She divided the coals between the hibachi there and another.
They said she would then carry it to the neighboring guest room—the space beyond the alcove’s wall being that adjacent chamber.
“Though it’s before the master’s quarters, these two rooms are reserved as our finest,” she explained, adding that the telegram guest would later be escorted there.
——

“Oh, another cup… Since the sake will cool down, let’s reheat it here.”
“This is presumptuous of me, but since the journey here is long, I’ve brought an extra serving for refills,” she said, placing two sake flasks. With meticulous care in her compact movements, she poured a surprisingly ample measure into the small cup.
When it freezes like the tolling bell of northern seas heard from afar… The Ataka Barrier lies three ri offshore from here—what did Benkei do then?
In Katayamazu, Nomi District, Ishikawa Prefecture—wondering if this was what the Naosamurai entailed—the guest stroked the collar of his wide sleeves and settled into a cross-legged position.

“But… when I think you’ll be gone to the neighboring room in another fifteen or twenty minutes, Osumi-san, it makes me feel so wretched.”

“No.—Well, please have another. I’ll return shortly.”

“What, would they let you go over there?—With just a single telegram, like magic from afar, he makes them clatter open the inn’s great doors, has you draw a midnight bath, style your hair, and wait in light makeup—such an important guest he must be.”

“Well… but you see, I can’t exactly greet them with my hair hastily tied back, can I? —Besides, I’ve only just received word through proper channels.”
“It’s not as though he has any business with me.”
“At present—since it’s precisely the season—he comes to this lagoon to shoot waterfowl.”

“Ah, for gun hunting—snipe? Ducks?”

“Well, there are snipe and ducks, but he mainly shoots water rails.”
“The last time they came—the two of them bagged a hundred twenty or thirty water rails. They filled their hunting bags and returned carrying seven each.”
“The sun hasn’t risen yet—they say dawn’s first frost-light gives the best haul—so he arrives around this time.”

“So where’s he coming from, this ‘distant place’?”

“From Nagoya.”
“Along with his companion and three dogs—it’s likely much the same tonight as well.”
“While making preparations there, once the accustomed boatman arrives, they set out in two small boats.”

“That… the opponent is a great gentleman,” the guest sighed fearfully.

“Yes, well… he’s the master of the brothel.”

“A brothel—so he’s the owner of a whorehouse.”
“The companion must be a banquet entertainer, I suppose.”

“Ah, you guessed it, sir,” she said, lightly patting her hands on her knees. “Truly, the omens are favorable—the hunting guest must be delighted.”

“Delight, you say?”
“Hmm, I see—ah, what impressive vigor.”
“Oh, when they disturb this silent frost-covered lake with their boats and the boom echoes to Mount Hakusan, a water rail—rousing its sleep-heavy eyes, attempting to inlay the beautiful crimson sun’s reflection onto its black-crystal wings—flutters down from among the reeds.”
“Blood would drip-drip flow.”
“Clamped in the dog’s jaws with a thud, collapsing into the boat amidst the spray—then ends up in the grinning brothel owner’s bag.”

Osumi fiddled with her white fingers as she listened absently and looked up at his face.
“Osumi-san, I have an earnest request for you, older sister.”

The guest planted his knees and settled resolutely.

Four

He was Inada Yukijiro—having rewritten his name on the guest register, he stated it.
He was a painter.
While wandering the boundary between life and death many times, this year for the first time… the Tokyo Ueno Exhibition—“Do you know of it, older sister?”
“Yes, it’s quite renowned even around here.” —He was selected for that Ueno Art Exhibition.

The composition was of frost-covered water rails at the lakeside.—

“Water rails are my lifelong benefactors.
“They are benefactors I regard as the very parents of my life.
“To think that these water rails—creatures to whom I owe such immense gratitude—their husbands, wives, daughters, sons—all fall to the guns of that brothel owner and his entertainer, packed a hundred twenty or thirty at a time into seven bags—it’s unconscionable! —Even forcing you to serve me sake this late was already wrong of me, but now I’m making this absurd, lawless, senseless… it’s not even a request, but I beg you—for pity’s sake—Osumi-san, with your power as my older sister… while I’m here… just this morning—couldn’t you make them stop the hunt?”
“If it were a matter of male valor—even if one tried to stop that Kiso River—a river’s flow cannot be halted.”
“But it’s a woman’s power.”
“It’s your compassion.”
“It’s not impossible for this lagoon’s waters to freeze over momentarily—or even turn to fire.”
“That is where a lady’s power lies.”
“Of course, I understand it’s impossible to make them stop entirely—I must resign myself to that—but if we could at least throw off their preparations, sabotage their plans, delay them long enough for the water rails to fully awaken from their dreams and organize proper defenses as waterfowl should… then even one fewer bird taken, even one more saved—that’s what I beg for. —Truth is, long ago on the Sakawa River flowing here from Komatsu… a friend shot a white heron from a boat amid the snow. One moment it stood slender and playful, and with the gunshot’s echo, its form vanished sideways—they say blood gushed forth… When I heard that tale, even though it was someone else’s heron, I trembled as though a woman like you, Osumi-san, had been killed.”
“Yet water rails are my benefactors.—Older sister, this isn’t some drunken plea for another pour.”
“An upright person makes such a request seriously—before their teacher, before their parents, before the gods—and I speak with the same sincerity. Though I’m an orphan, once I achieve my ambitions, I’ll bring you to Tokyo.”
While saying this, my parents passed away.
The mortuary tablets of those parents… during the ongoing Ueno Exhibition, he had moved them from the mortuary hall of his hometown temple and placed them inside that large leather suitcase.
“Before them, I speak with reverence.—Honored mortuary tablets, I beseech you—lend your strength to this older sister as well.”

He said.
Osumi’s face, pale as white wax, listened with downcast eyes—and as her long eyelashes fluttered—the large leather suitcase on the floor swayed like a bear stirring.
“Oh! I…”

The ever-composed Osumi had barely flung her words and risen when a thudding clamor—stomping up the staircase, heedless of the late hour—swelled through the stillness.

“The Madam is waiting in bed.”
“So that’s your grand plan—no welcome party, eh?”

The aforementioned banquet entertainer who had followed the master hurled the words upward over his shoulder and received a nod. His white breath puffed visibly as if to clutch it in hand, his voice cold yet uttering tepid words.

“Ah, Osumi—so this is the room, eh?”

At the moment the door opened—the old man nearby and entourage close behind—the vulgar gentleman let out a pleased nasal snort at Osumi’s appearance: her hair styled and makeup done for his benefit.
But those eyes thrusting impatiently from his neck froze—what’s this? On the bedroom pillow lay tools arranged like aphrodisiacs, while Yukijiro—pale in striped wide sleeves, slightly drunk—leaned against the bedding.

Her true self had worn away there; here stood Osumi like an empty cicada shell—her breath turned black—swallowed by thick smoke from the stiff-collared coat of a gentleman as corpulent as a sumo wrestler.

“It is the usual upper room, sir.”

True to his trade in hospitality, he flattered without missing a beat and guided them to the adjacent door—whereupon the gentleman’s violent handling made the doors BANG-THUDDING in rapid succession.

Five

“Master—ah-ha, with the Madam no less… So first a bath—that’s your master plan.”
“There you have it.”
“No need to tell me—even a fool would grasp that much.”
“But mind your tongue unless you want us handling firearms next.”
“No use worrying—the Madam’s too far off to hear a thing.”
“Hahaha! After you then—”
“…And take it nice and slow up there.”

Stepped on the staircase,
“Water rails! Water rails! Next batch o’ rails! Evening rails! Moonlit rails! Midnight rails! Thunk… rat-a-tat-tat—whoops, that’s a water hen! Water hen! Rat-tat-tat-tat!” he chanted while descending.

After that, for a while, the neighboring room fell into such desolation that one might have thought there was no brazier present.
But Osumi's quiet voice somehow resonated in Yukijiro's chest.

“Shut up!”

His gravelly voice pierced upward through the beams to the ceiling.

“Got it!
“Yeah.
“Three nights straight—you dreamed ’bout me gettin’ hurt huntin’ rails?
“Right. Got it.
“Dreams mean shit—nothin’ but kindlin’. But you slatherin’ my face with ditch mud—that ain’t no dream!
“Look at these fuckin’ eyes—wide open! How dare you smear me with that filth!
“Hear me? You hearin’ this?
“That bastard next door might not catch it, but I’m yellin’ plenty loud.
“Must’ve blown out my eardrums.
“Bet it punched straight through your guts.”

“It did echo—so what?” Yukijiro parroted back, leaning against the bedding and shrugging both shoulders. And he braced himself.

But he stopped abruptly just like that, with nothing happening.
Then—listen—the crack, crack, thud of flesh being lashed resounded.
A tinkling sound—like the faint boiling of an iron kettle—mingled with the other noises.
But if not for that, even the steam’s presence seemed to spurt blood, terrifying.

Yukijiro startled to his feet and circled the room four or five times.
Rushing out to the terrace—in this corner stood a wooden door with two panes of glass set into it, from which a blue curtain hung.
In his evening recollection, just beyond lay a terrace larger than this one, where two or three shoji screens had been visible—or so he thought... Stealthily approaching, he quietly yanked aside the curtain to find the adjacent room’s shoji fitted with glass panes, rendering everything on the other side starkly visible.
Ah, though her face was not visible, Osumi’s complexion must have been the same as when reflected in that mirror.
Her hands—wrenched backward until her arms twisted stark white up to their roots—exposed half her body’s lustrous silk-like flesh, split from heel to tatami mat as if stretched into two swollen lines. The vulgar gentleman, still wearing his overcoat, crushed the slipped knot of her obi underfoot, jammed a knee into her abdomen, and with his gloomily heavy leather belt glinting, lashed down the iron fire tongs—crack! thud!—in measured strikes.
Even as her taut skin writhed purple with blue veins snaking across it under this torture akin to driving eight-inch nails sideways, Osumi neither cried out nor even breathed.

“Hell! You’re one stubborn demon!”

He reversed his grip on the iron fire tongs as if to stab.

At that moment, had footsteps not echoed from below the staircase, Yukijiro would have shattered the glass and leaped in bloodied.

She had endured such agony—later, the tatami’s weave pressed into one of Osumi’s cheeks like a file’s teeth.
She pressed her face sideways and clenched her teeth.
The embedded tatami weave now held strands of her temple hair clinging to oily sweat, as though carved into its grooves.
When Yukijiro pulled out that single strand of hair, she barely managed a pained “Ah!”—so slight was her reaction.……

She endured such pain without showing any sign of recognition.—Once the banquet entertainer had returned, he gave no indication whatsoever about the earlier torture.

At the gun hunter’s order, Osumi began preparing a tray of tea-soaked rice.

When Yukijiro peered stealthily through the door, he saw her on the middle landing—elbows stiffened, one hand pressing below her obi at the waist, the other hanging limp against the wall as she stood hunched forward precariously.
But perhaps sensing his gaze, she suddenly turned pale-faced, offered a lonely smile, and descended swiftly.

In the adjacent room, vulgar, sordid talk of the prostitution business continued for some time.

“What’re you doin’? —Too damn slow.”

After the old man had come out twice and been urged, Osumi apparently carried in the tray.

“There is nothing at all.
“The cook took a short break, you see.”

“Nara-zuke’s good. …And this here’s where we’ve got your bento ready, master.”

The banquet entertainer’s slurping of tea-soaked rice—slurp slurp slurp.
Hissing through clenched teeth,

“The weather’s perfect—here’s to a grand hunt, master.”

“Right as we’re about to set out, there’s some damn nuisance.”
“Who knows?”
“Let it all out—I think I must’ve drunk my fill in Shinchi.”

Six

“You… there’s something I must speak with you about.”

The bento was said to be ready at the front desk, but the boatman’s arrival was late again.

“Master, in good spirits!” three people called as they entered the room... “You’re late!” snapped that supposedly good mood into foul temper.
“We did go to the kitchen earlier, but Osumi-san says the masters are still eating their meal, so it would be rude.” —“I’ll shoot.”
“Get out.”
“Should I let off a shot from here?” As the gun hunter rose in anger, streaks of cloud already drifted across the sky, and the lake’s surface had taken on a faint blue tinge.

The moon sank its orb into the waterline, and a pale purple mist hung over snow-cleared Mount Hakusan.

How quickly time had passed—on the lake, two small black dots trailed mist as they moved.
It was a boat.

He had shaken off sleep.

Flutter your wings—let there be light upon the morning frost, let there be strength, let there be blessing—O water rails!

Yukijiro stood on the terrace facing the lake, his face pale and shoulders hunched.

Osumi entered—but her face couldn’t be seen immediately.
The bones at the nape of the neck stiffened.

“You… there’s something I need to discuss.”

When Osumi quietly said this, she pulled the cord with a dry rattle and drew the blue curtain deeply over the terrace’s glass door.

The bedroom’s shōji remained dark.

“There’s nothing I can say.”

The snow had compacted into a prop, bracing his hand.

“I confess—it’s all lies.
“As a painter—yes, I did submit to the Ueno Art Exhibition, but truthfully, I failed completely.
“In desperate recklessness I ran away—even if disowned by my parents, I’m no man who can face the family mortuary tablets with dignity.—That large leather suitcase is borrowed too.
“The friend who lent it laughed and called it ‘Fan Kuai’s Shield,’ but since it couldn’t be torn or ripped apart, the fact remains I painted water rails hammered into it.
“The brothel owner made someone in Katayamazu open their doors at midnight via telegram from Nagoya, then forced a woman like you to style her hair, apply makeup, serve meals, row a boat with his entourage, and cruise around the lake shooting water rails.
“Three dogs—not ‘three animals,’ as you seem to echo their words—those three dogs grated on my nerves.
“After all, it was bitterly frustrating—as though my paintings had been trampled underfoot.
“It’s jealousy, envy, despair.—I’ve become a water rail.
“Think that the water rails have come begging for their lives and endure it—please forgive me.
“Now there’s only the bill—no worries about this one, but nothing else remains.
“Of course, were I to achieve my ambition…”

“You.”

“You,” Osumi said resolutely.

“Rather than being cut apart, though it shames me to say this before you, I have long relied on that master’s patronage to support my parents and siblings.”
“I cast even that aside—abandoned my very self—endured what felt like dying to uphold your words.”
“Once you leave here… from that moment… I shall be no more than a mountain bird, a field thistle.”
“Roadside dust.”
“You’ll give nothing in return.”
“No… no… I knew this full well… I acted with resolve.”
“I’ve done what a woman deems her life’s single act.”
“You—grant me a reward.”

“That… that… that thing… Actually,”

“No, I don’t need anything else.”
“Just one thing.”
“Just one thing.”
“Please cut off your pinky.”

“……”

“Give me your little finger, please.”

A young man who seemed to carry no small measure of delinquency about him trembled violently.

"I have parents. I do have parents."

“I have them too.”

Osumi said resolutely.

He clenched his fist; she stared unwaveringly.

“Osumi-san，do you have a razor?”

“Yes.”

“No—bite it off with those pearly teeth.”
“...I’ll surrender it to you properly.”

When it was finally enveloped by her lips, he felt something akin to an infant suckling at the breast—but the subsequent pain was razor-sharp.

He pulled the large futon over his head.

“I will nurse you.”

Osumi’s chest was white; blood soaked through her undergarments.
……The satin obi rustled softly.

Taishō 12 (1923), January