Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

“How could such a thing exist?”

“No—it’s precisely because it’s real that’s strange. Absurd! What—the moment you dismiss it as nonsense, a voice comes afterward!”

“I hear a voice.”

“I can definitely hear it.”

said the red-faced woman.

We two stayed that night in a ten-mat room that appeared to be detached guest quarters deep within Nagano's grand inn, separated from the main building by a long wooden corridor far across.

When we first arrived from the station in two rickshaws, a young clerk from the front desk—

“Welcome, please come this way.”

After making us put on guest slippers, he guided us to the second floor—a spacious entrance hall with slick wooden floors—but from there, we had to climb another set of creaking stairs. The man with the leather bag, stepping onto the first step, hastily said:

“Third floor?”

“Yes sir, it’s the fourth floor,” he said, stepping aside while rubbing his hands deferentially.

“This won’t do—is there no lower room? What about you?”

Midway up the slope we had climbed, the glass-enclosed veranda crackled brittlely under moon-forged frost.
The red shopfront electric light cast an eerie meteor-like glare.
The fourth floor—looming high enough to peer through mountain peaks—felt unnerving.

“I’d prefer lower too.”

“In that case... though I must mention—”
“It’s rather antiquated.”
“As for other rooms, none are presently available. No indeed.”

“I don’t mind if it’s old.”

In any case, since there was a tatami guest room available, I finally said with relief.

Not to speak of others, but the man with the bag—from his physique and demeanor to his speech patterns, emaciated shoulders, and sallow complexion—above all manifested neurasthenia through that ancient leather satchel he himself claimed was swollen with all his worldly possessions: its elephantine bulk like a bisected pachyderm, yet blurred in outline—this ensemble left no doubt of his condition.

How... And then he started making a commotion about a voice in this leather bag in the middle of the night, didn't he?

I could not help but lift my pillow.

By then, the man himself had already slid out from his futon—angular and rigid in sleepwear consisting of a striped yukata layered over underclothes—shivering from the cold yet squatting low, shoulders hunched defiantly, arms folded tightly into a square shape.

And there he was—staring at the two-mat alcove—this one devoid of any hanging scrolls—in the tokonoma.
There lay the great leather bag in question.

Its form—a bleached surface topped with dull blackness, that swollen bulge supposedly containing all his worldly possessions—had never originally appeared particularly noteworthy.

This morning, after departing Ueno and passing through Tabata, Akabane—around when we passed Warabi—that man's leather bag, which had settled on the opposite side, suddenly began catching my eye.

I found myself recalling something peculiar.

Eventually, some eighteen or nineteen years must have passed.
It was when I was a boy with hair just beginning to grow long—that transitional phase between childhood and adolescence.
...The autumn Shōkonsai festival, and in broad daylight at that.
Amidst the sideshow stalls lining both sides, I saw one particularly striking signboard.

Blood-smeared, powder-smeared—limbs everywhere, faces everywhere.
Among the multitude of signboards vying with intensely stimulating colors, I don't think any caught the eye quite like that one.

Continuing upward and downward across some thirty or forty sheets of garishly painted signboards—clouds rendered in silver powder, sliding doors in gold leaf, handles adorned with crimson-dyed tassels down to the last crafted detail... a theatrical rendition of the Fifty-three Stations.

The cruelty of the image pierced the eyes—Okazaki’s monster cat, its white-fanged teeth dripping blood, holding aloft in its jaws a woman whose face was bluer than a torn reed screen.

II

“Come now! There’s Kiso too—places not on the signboards! There’s even the Kiso Highway!”

They prodded…

But beyond that, they said nothing.
The row of stalls beneath each eave raised their voices, flailed their limbs, and leapt about while calling to the crowd with a cacophony of instruments—like colored fireworks scattered by cannon blasts.

Before this signboard alone stood three ticket takers maintaining perfect composure: one in Western clothes, one in haori and hakama, and between them an emaciated woman with eaves-cut hair wearing a white-collared kimono patterned with sky-blue family crests—all waiting in silence.

Only, occasionally...

“Come now! There’s Kiso too—places not on the signboards! There’s even the Kiso Highway!”

With only that—glaring upward at the crowd through narrowed eyes—they maintained perfect composure.

Their demeanor suggested profound secrets, evoking a crane’s decisive cry.
Without clamor or shouts, their exceptional discernment revealed itself naturally, letting one imagine hidden intrigue within.

Enter carelessly to peer inside, and even the shock of “What’s this?” lacked tension.
Judging by the lavish exterior decor, one might expect space rivaling the neighboring “Arabian-style horse racing” venue—yet stepping inside felt like entering a dim alleyway beneath straw-mat enclosures, cramped and shadowed.

The stage—a layout that perversely positioned spectators facing backward—consisted of just two or three freshly woven straw mats. Before it stood a fence of fresh-cut green bamboo encircling the area, atop which lay nothing but a single large antique leather bag... Stare as one might, there was nothing to see beyond rain-dampened earth and scattered straw in that humid aftermath.

As for that mouse-gray leather bag on the mat—dully swollen with whatever filled it, its oppressive weight spilling over while bearing a sinister luster like counterfeit light—from that day forth, I found myself tormented by nightmares of sea cucumbers sprouting hands to clamber onto my chest.

Whether due to the rainy season, its surface had then been dampened by a persistent drizzle, but now—after years had passed—the leather was cracked and dried until one might think it preserved like dried fish; there I noticed a solitary traveler who kept this large satchel unchanged in hue and form from those days, never setting it down, still attached to the sleeve of his faded mouse-gray half-coat.

I gazed intently—this chance journey where I planned to stay in Nagano tonight before heading to Kiso tomorrow—and felt as though I’d been granted some mysterious omen, experiencing an odd, prickling sensation for reasons I couldn’t fathom.

Moreover, I couldn't shake the feeling that something suspicious, eerie, terrifying, shameful—and utterly enigmatic—seemed poised to be drawn forth from within and displayed. At the very least—with that theater signboard folded into my memory—I could envision how, as the train plunged into a tunnel's pitch-dark smoke, the monster cat might suddenly sink fangs into the woman and cast forth the crimson blaze of her blood-drenched scarlet hakama. And how far this would coalesce—...some extraordinary peculiarity seemed ready to unfold—amidst the precariousness, I found myself nursing no small anticipation within.

However, as for that man—whether someone might mistake his age and appearance for one of those three ticket-takers, or a show proprietor, or a magician, or a prayer-chanting yamabushi monk... or in some confused panic take him for a sorcerer, diviner, even a robber or murderer who had packed a woman’s dismembered body wrapped in oilpaper into the leather bag—it was absolutely unthinkable that anyone would consider him a detective.

Anyone could see at a glance that he was an official of some ministry.
—Eventually, it became known through acquaintance that due to circumstances, he had been transferred to a post office deep in the mountains of Hida and was en route to assume this position.—There was not the slightest doubt about this.

But he was not its owner.
It was the leather bag.

III

The damned thing—bathed in the stark Indian summer sunlight streaming through the windowpane—glistened ominously, its surface rippling with unnatural sheen. Poised like some crouching beast, it seemed to harbor dark schemes, appearing ready to unleash some shocking incident the moment its designs fell into place.

The bag's owner remained silent, head bowed, never once glancing at the brocade-like foliage coloring the street trees. At intervals he would knock his forehead, then press both hands firmly against the hollow of his neck. Eventually he removed his bowler hat and roughly scratched his overgrown hair. Lighting a rolled cigarette, he smoked a third before closing his eyes to meditate through half the remainder. As if struck by sudden realization, he angled the glowing tip before his eyes—holding it aloft while staring until it charred completely to ash—then frantically blew it out. Letting the remnant fall with a soft plop as though discarding all pretense of finishing it... he immediately knocked his forehead again. Next came the renewed pressure against his neck hollow.

Since this cycle alone comprised his actions, whatever scheming occurred concerned only his personal affairs. He showed not the slightest ambition to affect broader society—and yet—

The accompanying leather bag—clinging to him like a personal lackey—proved alarmingly ominous.

Lo and behold.

On a pleasantly balmy Indian summer day around 11:30 in the morning, when the train arrived at Takasaki, he stood up from the opposite seat and bought a boxed meal. And holding the boxed meal in one hand, he rested his cheek against the glass window for a while,

“Sake! Sake!”

He called out with vigor; at that moment, adopting a resolute demeanor befitting a scholar on this sweltering day, his pallid face flushing crimson as though intoxicated. In this sunlit spot, he purchased what appeared to be a warmed peipa bottle—its paper label dried, surface warm to the touch—containing two gō measures. Tucking it under his suit’s arm as he returned to his seat, he then hastily reached for the leather bag’s clasp.

I started, my heart leaping in a peculiar flutter—just as when I had entered what was called Kudan Daiichi, no, the greatest show tent in the empire, some days prior. Yet from the large leather bag—opened merely a sliver at its mouth—he drew out only a single red-bound travel guide. That he had some connection to the Fifty-three Stations and Kiso Highway went without saying. He stared at it fixedly, not even touching his sake.

I also bought a boxed meal and sake.

Was this some colossal toad’s doing? That the first act disgorged by the leather bag should be merely a travel guide hardly warranted box-seat theatrics—though such presumption surely overstepped.

“First, I’ll drink.”

Having thus resolved himself, he readjusted his seat—but before uncorking the sake, its aroma struck his nostrils with nostalgic familiarity: a Ryuunanki.

At Takasaki Station now came considerable passenger turnover.

Seats that had lain sparsely visible through their gaps grew packed—this being second-class, where luggage naturally proved more burdensome than children would be, some pieces occupying adult-sized spaces wedged throughout.
Of course—though it feels discourteous to note now that we’d become acquainted—the large leather bag numbered among these obstructions; indeed there stood even a man in hakama and tall mountain hat rigid against the partitioned wooden door.

Across from me, adjacent to that man, a resplendent woman took her seat.

Wait—to simply call her resplendent felt somewhat commonplace, yet she carried a faintly alluring air.

Positioned toward the inner edge with grace—one might even say high-class.

Her front and middle hairpins, along with the tortoiseshell combs whose lustrous beauty accentuated her delicate form—even those seemingly weighty hair ornaments could not be dismissed as merely carefree elegance.

IV

At first glance, one could discern a dark purple formal kimono with family crests, white collar, and scarlet underrobe.
Her glossy shimada-style chignon—so sleek it seemed water might bead upon its surface, yet radiating chaste freshness—bore tortoiseshell combs inserted with exacting precision; her entire bearing evoked a palanquin gliding along a peach-blossom path.
She was a bride en route to her wedding……

Her slender pale fingers—adorned with two rings, one crimson and one emerald—rested below in a three-pointed pose against pine-needle hem patterns arranged like jeweled paper cranes. Even as she sat with her kimono's trailing hem impeccably aligned, the scarlet underrobe threatened to spill past its confines beneath snow-white tabi socks that appeared to tread through drifts.
The faintly quivering toes in lacquered komageta sandals betrayed her tension.

The bride-to-be’s joy and bashfulness, her concern and terror, her tears and smiles—all lay deeply bowed forward, eyebrows and eyes concealed beneath thick cascading bangs, nearly subsumed by the shimada-style sidelocks framing her face like a mask, only the trembling tips of hairpin tassels betraying their presence.
Ah, such graceful elegance—this phrase alone suffices to celebrate a bride.

Indeed, it was graceful elegance itself.

What appeared most modestly charming, affectionately endearing amidst it all was the faint quivering of her hair tie—swaying like jeweled cords stirred by the train's motion.

The purity of her ears, the exquisite beauty of her jade-stretched neck.
The translucent crimson and its coquettish allure.

The scent of her sleeve wafted before my eyes—so near that her demeanor, hands and feet tensed as if tormented beneath an air of veiled shame, seemed to perform this anguish solely for my sake. I found myself pausing mid-motion, the sake bottle's cork half-pulled yet left undrawn.

The fields trailing behind the train, the paddies, the pampas grass in the paddies, the crimson leaves mingling with the grass, the purple-tinged mists at the fields' edges, the mountains brushed with mist—all became the bride's backdrop.
The Myougi maple leaves—appearing as if welcoming, as if seeing off, as if aflame in the windows—along with the scattered white clouds across the azure sky, seemed to enhance her rouge and powder makeup as though conspiring to adorn her.
When we arrived at the next station—no one disembarked—five or six rustic-looking men and women who appeared to be locals pressed their faces against the entrance-side window where I sat, peering into the compartment.

The crowd overflowed, their bodies bobbing like rolling melons, as two or three more heads came one after another, pressing their foreheads to peer inside.
A head came to my window as well.

When I looked, the man in haori and hakama who had been leaning against the wooden door—

“Hey!”

Following the sound near his ear, as he flipped up his bowler hat in greeting and bowed, four or five people rose in unison.
Among them was an elderly man in tea-colored silk who had stuffed what appeared to be a bundle resembling hakama trousers into the front of his kimono—they all nodded in acknowledgment toward those gathered outside the train, likely members of the bride’s send-off party.

“Hey, you! Come greet them properly!”

Until that moment, the hem-patterned indigo—more accurately described as such—had drawn her body taut to a pitiable degree, as if fearing shoulder pain.
Earlier I had described it as deep purple—but the one who now placed a hand on her shoulder was a stocky fifty-year-old woman wearing a voluminous half-coat of recent fashion.
This woman's tabi socks—bulging and soiled over sturdy-boned feet—[were...]. With one eye squinted shut, her thin-haired marumage bun tinged gray tilted diagonally as she turned the blind eye upward, chin pulled inward like a turtle retracting its head. From beneath the bride's bowed shimada-style chignon emerged for the first time eyes wide with exposed whites, darting about the compartment like flies—peering restlessly this way and that—until she rose on plump knees and called out.

V

She swayed slightly.

On her finger gleamed a thick, flat gold ring of crude craftsmanship.

She bore no resemblance to the bride—no wet nurse this—though I had thought her a stepmother; she must indeed have been the mother.

Her chin dipped so deeply into the white collar it seemed to disappear as she gave a faint nod; hands resting on knees, shoulders curved inward, she rose with fluid grace, her damask obi sitting high at her chest—precisely as one might imagine—exuding refined elegance tinged with melancholy beauty, eyelids flushing transiently like wild pinks blooming through flaxen mist.

She made as if to greet them, accompanied by the red-faced woman—but as she stepped forward, her sleeve was abruptly yanked back. In the sharp intake of breath over her hem's disarray flashed a glimpse of scarlet underrobe.
Her white toes—adorned with crimson thread—jerked as if scraped across stone, leaving the lacquered sandals frozen mid-motion.

Merciful Buddha!
I will confess my shame.
My soul was stolen by that shimada-styled black hair before me—glossy as dew-drenched crow feathers, resplendent with tortoiseshell combs like a crow clutching the moon's laurel—and in that moment, I... I forgot about that passenger.
I forgot the travel guidebook.
No—I had forgotten that crucial large leather bag.

To my astonishment, wasn’t the bride’s sleeve caught in the mouth of that leather bag?

It had occurred; precisely therefore I began.

I will dare say it—the old monster's teeth had clamped down.……

Caught in her movement as she began to rise, it slid out with a dragging sound—but when she halted, instead of falling to the floor, the bag clattered into place.

The weight must have naturally transferred; glancing back at her trailing sleeve with a sidelong look, the woman returned to her original seat with apparent effortlessness,

“I beg your pardon.”

As she spoke beneath her breath, the white of her collar abruptly veiled the purple like fluttering silk, her face paling as she bowed her head.

The red-faced woman would not let this pass.

"What's wrong with you?"

When one looked at the man—whether it was precisely his turn or not—he raked both hands through his tousled hair, his fedora tumbled to the floor as he tugged frantically.

“It got caught in the leather bag.”

“Why did this happen?”

Two or three people rose.

A young man clambered up to the window—“Hup! Heave-ho!”—grunting with exertion.

The station attendant’s long arm swept him aside.

The whistle pierced mountains and fields like a nuthatch cracking walnuts.

The train lurched forward without pause.

One man mustered his resolve and lunged forward, only to slip on the snowy slope—but even this mishap saw the red-faced woman join hands with three or four others as they grappled with the large leather bag.
“Is this yours?”
And without waiting for his reply, she tried to pry open its mouth.

How could that wily old badger of a warrior possibly yield to such a thing?

"It's jammed shut! Won't budge!"

“Sturdy hardware on this one.”

There was no need to state the obvious.

"This won't open—the lock's fastened tight!"

The first to pull back his hands was the elderly man in tea-colored silk.

With an air of comprehension—"Ah, I see"—they all withdrew in disillusionment, holding back.
Others, newly resolved, stepped forward.

The compartment was in turmoil.
The infant cried.
The train roared.
The street trees streamed past.

“Whose carelessness is this?”

The red-faced woman grew even redder in the face and, with those trademark white-rimmed eyes, glared one by one at the bride and the man.

He lay on his back and closed his eyes.
With eyelids shut and crimson spilling—the two-gō bottle lay toppled beside his hat—he folded his arms resolutely.
The woman—chin deeply tucked, gentle eyebrows visible through her bangs—simply kept her head bowed.

Six

“We’ll be getting off at the next stop.”

For some reason delivering this as if scolding her oblivious daughter, she turned her single eye to fix the man with a piercing glare.

“What absolute nonsense!”

she declared pointedly.

Yet when neither had responded—exchanging glances with her companion—the red-faced stepmother once more bent her diminutive waist (though in truth anything but small) in an exaggerated bow before the man.

This sudden shift from near-combative fury to exaggerated courtesy arose from that peculiar notion that one must don Western attire when confronting their sort.

The red-faced woman spoke in an unpleasantly brusque tone,

“Sir, I don’t know whose carelessness caused this, but this is your doing.”
“This is outrageous.”
“This daughter is being sent off to be married—her personage is of utmost importance.”
“Now then, kindly produce the key—it’s the key we require, sir.”

As if the voice had pierced his brow, the passenger frowned in distress,
“There is no key.”
“None, you say?…”

“I threw away the key.”

With a violent shudder that racked his entire frame, he tore apart his folded arms—spreading them wide like unfurled wings—before letting them fall to his sides with a resounding thud.
Those same hands then gripped his kneecaps with crushing force as he coughed in rapid, breathless succession, yet ultimately rose with unwavering resolve to his feet.

“I wish to make a brief address—...though it may be presumptuous, I must ask that my fellow ladies and gentlemen in this compartment kindly grant me your attention.”
“I speak of this elegant young woman seated here beside me.”

He called her an elegant young woman.

“This young lady’s sleeve—the hem of her sleeve.”
“I am the owner of the travel leather bag into whose mouth [the sleeve] became clamped.”
“It was I who clamped it, ladies and gentlemen.”

His darting eyes rolled upward toward the ceiling,

“...I must beg your pardon, but it was I.”
“I did not plan this from the very beginning.”
“The sleeve found its way into the leather bag entirely by chance.”

As I distractedly flipped through a travel guide—then stuffed it back inside and snapped the leather bag's mouth shut with a click—there came through the creaking strain what felt like the taut resistance of something soft, smooth, plush and beautiful being caught and pulled tight.

It was indeed true that I thought I had caught either a plume of pure white silver grass or a single brocade leaf that had scattered into the window—one caught at the very moment of its fall, still coursing with blood and breath.

It was the edge of a lavishly adorned sleeve—purple accented with scarlet...that is to say, a single feather from a celestial robe within the human realm.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I humbly guaranteed this young lady’s virtuous conduct and purity.”
“…The young lady has never once shown even her silhouette to someone of my station—nay, has never even been glimpsed by such as myself.”

“Whether in Tokyo, Ueno, or any point along our journey—throughout this land of Japan—the sole occasion I beheld this young lady was precisely that instant when I first became conscious of her sleeve caught in the leather bag’s maw.”

“From what I discern, she appears poised to grace her nuptial rites.”

“No—had it been merely a matter of appearance, I would never have committed such an insolent, thoughtless, and discourteous act.

She is indeed adorned in bridal splendor.
...To the honorable relatives of both families, I hereby reaffirm the bride’s purity.
I earnestly hope that the ladies and gentlemen of this compartment will also rise to vouch for this young lady’s sake.

Given the abruptness of this outrage, should you come to suspect there exists some prior incident—perhaps even a grudge I bear regarding this marriage arrangement—then truly I would find myself with nowhere left to stand in this world—”

Seven

“I truly bear not the slightest grudge.
But there was lingering attachment—obsession—petty grumbling—despicableness—perverse taste—grudge—or to put it more directly—madness.”

“Madness.”

With lips grazing breath…

"Having glanced at her sitting adjacent in the train compartment—she would already become another’s wife in but a moment—at the next station or the one after—or at least by the station following that."
"The platform too would be thronged with a human bridge of wedding greeters—she would immediately be traversing the corridors of her groom’s household—and I—unaware even of myself—clicked the lock shut."
"I imagine this bride must have been as startled as if a five-inch nail had been driven into her breast."
"An elegant, gentle, and delicate-hearted woman such as herself—ashamed before others even in the face of such an outrage—would refrain from raising her voice in such circumstances—or so I believed."

“However, when I beheld her appearance as she now rose from her seat, I understood she had been unaware until that very moment—that there had not been even five minutes for concern, let alone any single red mark upon her body—(indeed, I thought blood must have sprung from every hair root when I first closed that lock)—and I give thanks to the hands of this auspicious day that guards their vows.”

“However, that too lasted but a brief moment, and now I can only surmise what her current thoughts might be.”

“The confessed sinner stands here.”
“As I neither flee nor hide—if I may be so bold—I must ask that you, the elderly madam whom I take to be the bride’s mother, remove yourself from before me and attend to her.”
“I must request that you support this heartbroken, frail young lady by embracing her back.”

The entire compartment fixed their gaze upon her, yet the young lady remained unshaken—even the delicate disarray of her hem’s colorful crosshatched patterns resembled nothing so much as exquisite carvings in jade.

Only the man remained rigidly upright, tilting his cheek, unable to even meet the woman’s gaze.

The red-faced woman did not move her legs either.

“Moreover, what I committed was not something that could even be called violence or outrage—it was lingering attachment, obsession, petty grumbling, despicableness, perverse taste, grudge, and atop all that, madness verging on lunacy itself.”

“It was nothing other than this: discarding the key to that leather bag.”

“I—through this very window—cast it toward that distant mountain’s peak where snow embroidered the southeastern sky like silver threads… I closed my eyes—I beg you to comprehend that I had nearly gone mad.”

"My deeds are those of a madman—and that madman, as you can see, is none other than this shamelessly insignificant wretch—myself."

"But the universe has taken the key—this will never be found."
"It will never be discovered—it will never return—it will never come back."

"Those who possess a knife—please rend this leather bag."
"Those with strength—please seize its mouth and rend it."
"However you wish to proceed with that is entirely at your discretion."

“I discarded the key—I had resolved to do so. Even should you ladies and gentlemen employ any means whatsoever to pressure me, I myself will not open this leather bag. I will not release the young lady’s sleeve.”

“However, within this leather bag lie all that is vital to my existence—important documents, tools, belongings; however meager they may be, every possession I own; my entire worldly means; the ancestral tablets of my forebears and parents. In truth, it contains everything equivalent to life itself—without exception.”

“However, since I will not open it, I solemnly vow that not even a single travel guidebook shall be retrieved from within.”

"Aside from small disbursements, travel expenses too are within this... I am prepared to sleep outdoors."

“I—”

And there he declared his name.

Eight

"I am thirty-seven years old.
"I was a minor official employed at the Ministry of Communications.
"This marks the first morning of my assignment as a telegraph technician at a small, remote mountain post office in Hida Province."

He bowed his head and fumbled, then looked at the iron-rimmed pocket watch.

“It is 12:43.
“This train will arrive in eight minutes…”

“I understand the young lady’s party will alight at the next station.

“Whether you speak to the station staff or deliver me to the police—that remains entirely at your discretion.

“I must also address those sharing this compartment.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I humbly request you impose suitable sanctions through social morality’s dictates to your satisfaction.”
“I will submit to them unresistingly.

“In any event, I must surrender my life.”

“That I do not mind.”

“But here—amidst all crimes and every sanction—what pains me most excruciatingly is being taken, alongside this leather bag, this sleeve, and this young lady, to crawl on my knees before today’s bridegroom.”

“Rather than hanging or decapitation, it would be proper for you to choose that extreme penalty.”

“Even were I to commit suicide upon some country path along the way, I must nevertheless obey.”

“Or perhaps you might cut open the leather bag… or rend it asunder.……”

“You need show no consideration whatsoever.”

“You might consider showing even the slightest leniency out of petty charity—but I have no parents or relatives whatsoever.”

"My wife passed away—that was the year before last. She was my beloved wife."

He stammered, blinking rapidly.

“A child of mine also passed away—that was this summer.”
“He was a dear child.”

As he spoke these words, his heaving chest became unbearable, and tears dampened his lashes.

“It was my wife’s memento.”
“The white bones of both are within the leather bag.”
“I will take even the grave along with me.”

“Perceiving certain reasons, I was transferred at my own request to become the telegraph technician for the remote and isolated Okuyama family.”
“This duty imparts ciphers to human existence.”
“I am a kind of lighthouse keeper on a solitary island.”

“In that place, for all eternity... if I were to put it trivially, I am the flint by the hearthside. If I were to speak sacredly—I am the electric light upon the sacred mountain. I seek to govern the telegraphic characters—akin to a sage’s black talisman—that illuminate human destiny in an instant.”

“But I sealed my official appointment documents in the leather bag as well. To open the door of the assigned room as well, a key would be necessary.”

“I have discarded the key.”

“I have enshrined my soul into the depths of the young lady’s sleeve.”

“I swear I will not open the leather bag.”

“Dear relatives, along with other ladies and gentlemen present, I request that you apply whatever appropriate sanctions and measures you deem fit.”

“I have troubled your ears.”
“I have nothing further to declare.”

He calmly returned to his seat.
However, he wiped the sweat from his forehead many times.
The sweat must be as cold as ice, I thought, shuddering involuntarily.

The room fell still.
His speech was clear—stammering yet fluent and composed.
Against this soliloquy, the roar of the train was like that of some grand orchestra.

When they arrived at the station—the surging press of bodies.

Haori jackets，hakama trousers，white collars，crested garments—the welcoming party stood lined in rows，resembling a gathered force clad in formal attire.

At that moment, the stepmother’s chosen course of action was utterly ordinary—yet supremely sensible.

“Sir, you will take just this leather bag with you now.”

“No, you.”

In a clear yet gentle undertone, the woman who had firmly stayed her mother placed her hand upon the octagonal clasp—then, with murmured resolve, cleanly severed the threads binding her sleeve. Her black hair quivered with pent-up emotion, the shimada coiffure atop it resembling a golden high-relief carving—a gleaming axe-head.

The purple layered sleeve—its crests immaculate—fell upon the leather bag like rent flesh, while across the woman’s flank streamed the scarlet-checkered silk of her underrobe.

On the platform, engulfed within a darkly seething throng, she stood erect—the crimson plum blossoms of her eyelids tinting the mountains. Against Mount Myōgi’s foliage ablaze like molten gold flared the scarlet of a single sleeve. It billowed up to her upper arm as she raised her snow-pale hand to shade her eyes, watching distantly as the train disappeared beneath its black smoke.

At the window where I looked back—where even Yuruwaka’s arrow might have left its mark, exclaiming “Behold the mirror!”—my chest suddenly tightened and I found myself shedding tears without knowing why.

Briskly striding forward, I took the startled telegraph technician’s hand and shook it.

There we became acquainted.

February 1914 (Taishō 3)