Pathway to Japanese Literature

It is said that Mr. Matsumura Shinya had barely avoided falling flat on his back—though given how earnestly he had introduced himself with such formality, it might strike him as rather awkward now, considering the nature of this tale.
Mr. Shinya was a reporter for the Tō— Newspaper’s Arts Section.

To put it plainly… His chest tightened so severely that he nearly lost all sense of direction. Only later would he realize: the Kankai Building—a five-story monolith of streaked white plaster—had a corridor on its third floor that seemed to claw upward like some colossal boulder sheared smooth and thrust skyward, its stairs sodden with dampness yet straining still to ascend. Needless to say, this corridor lay precisely at the midpoint of the staircase that pierced through the building from its very foundations.

It is said that strange phenomena occur—that demons ensnare—when one cuts straight through the central axis of gates like Asakusa Temple Kannon’s Nio Gate or Shiba’s Sanmon. Though by chance—I repeat—in Mr. Shinya’s case, he had collided with the very center of the Building.

Otherwise, he would not have crouched like some wayfarer against this wall.
……When the surging palpitations nearly made him slump forward—though this was no Two Rivers White Path—the stone steps floated white in illusion, like a horse bearing the manji crest about to tumble headlong with one stirrup unfastened.

No—it does seem rather exaggerated.
When I directly heard what Mr. Shinya told the author, I hadn't thought so much of it at the time.
But written here, it somehow sounds unseemly—like overstatement.
Still, let it be known that toward you esteemed readers, the author maintains scrupulous sincerity.

Now, the truth was that Mr. Shinya was drunk all along.

From early evening at a counter-seat restaurant in Ginza’s backstreets—modest yet skilled in pouring fresh saké, serving affordable small-plate dishes—a gathering of twelve or thirteen familiar acquaintances had formed. Crowded around narrow tables, cups bounced from end to end like karuta cards while the shopkeeper, competitive in his headband-tightening zeal, drove their Kikumasamune-fueled intoxication to greater intensity.

“Matsumura-san—urgent matter at the entrance—”

The arts reporter—having made some clumsy excuse about annual duties—snatched up his hat, but with everyone packed tightly together drinking, each had to shift seats and rise to clear an exit path.
“Let’s go—you’re late, so late!”
Had things gone poorly, he might have drunk himself senseless before his companions could urge him to leave; as it was, he slipped out unnoticed.
“He’s really out of sorts—like he’s possessed. Might hurt himself,” murmured those kind souls who stood watching from behind as he departed.

But steeling himself—tonight at the Kankai Building there was to be a musical rehearsal by those geisha circles from abouts here; having been asked out of obligation, he had to go make his brief appearance.

Had it been some disheveled old man leaning on a plump young courtesan or a flashy youth tightening his pale indigo collar while clattering geta sandals—anyone but him—such excuses might have sufficed. But facing these groups—artists who’d each established their own schools, masters of singular arts though their fees were modest—he couldn’t voice them outright. No parent would drag out such pretenses now. He might as well claim his wife had gone into labor, but this arts-section man lacked the wit for such improvisation. Struggling to justify his early departure, he scorched his tongue on hot saké while forcing gulps down his throat—until all at once, flushed crimson, he burst from that alley into Ginza’s entrance ablaze with seven-colored electric lights like a volcanic eruption.

The instant he was swept into the throng’s surge, he found himself at a one-yen taxi that seemed to ram against Ōhashi Bridge’s piers—

“Kankai Building.”

“Already here? Ah—thank you for your trouble.”

Well, well—the venue was close.
He thought it must be near Dobashi Bridge—but turning from Ginza’s glittering facade to its backstreets felt like having a black curtain abruptly dropped, leaving stark desolation. [...] Amid large buildings towering on all sides, this pale structure stood carved square from the dark night—no light visible in any window, gloom thickening through misty haze.
There must be no mistake about the location—the standing signboard propped against the gatepost, stark white save for its lettering announcing “Grand Rehearsal: Nihonbashi Group,” shone clean and cool under a white electric light, yet carried an air of desolation.
Despite being late April, the damp night wind rustled aimlessly through the crossroads, scattering deutzia blossoms as it swept across the signboard’s surface.

When he pushed the door, it slammed shut with a thud, leaving utter silence in its wake. Before him stood the elevator’s iron framework—now that he considered it properly—resembling the pitch-black sinews of gray demon legs planted like gaping caverns in two places, cold and ominous as they jutted menacingly upward.

*Surely such a thing couldn’t be happening—it was only ten o’clock.*

But to one unaccustomed to such affairs—to the Arts Section’s perspective—the venue ahead should have greeted him with red lanterns and festive drapes, seasonal wisteria and azaleas. Lilies and pinks among artificial blooms would have shimmered under sapphire-purple electric lights—Welcome—he had mistakenly assumed a reception desk would be stationed there.

Apparently, from what he could see, it seemed the event was already over.

Surely not—it was still five minutes to ten—

Even as he stood there, the elevator appeared sunken in water and showed no sign of moving, so he began climbing the stone stairs to the left.
Though by nature a hasty, flustered sort, his chronically weak heart made it impossible for him to dash even a single block.
Once, there had been a performer in his uncle’s circle who—at sixty-seven years old—ventured to Shikoku with younger companions and, refusing to be outdone, pushed himself up Tetsunokakemine Peak only to collapse into exhausted slumber.

Merely hearing about it filled him with dread—yet here too was a Tetsunokakemine Peak.
To make matters worse, there was not a blade of green—far from the refreshing pines of Shikinami or white-sanded shores.
……Not a blade of grass, not a tree, not a shadow remained.
Still, even so—as he climbed past the first floor, then the second, huffing with shoulders heaving—the stairwell bent like a theater’s warped backstage stood vertical. From what one might expect of a geisha rehearsal—guests mingling or dressing rooms bustling—only skirt-patterned grasses and two or three leaves pinned with combs scattered faintly into the corridor.
Relying on sheer willpower had backfired—the place stood so devoid of human presence that not even an insect crawled.

His heart roared; his pulse throbbed. The alcohol’s intoxication—steamed through by the en-taku taxi—and his clammy sweat after alighting from the car had been met once by the night breeze. Without catching his breath, climbing while enveloped in the stifling heat from grass and gasping thick air from walls on all sides, he felt himself wandering hollowed out within some demonic torso—his already laboring heart now struck by nausea from foul intoxication. If he thrashed about he would vomit, making retreat downstairs impossible.

He lurched forward—barely avoiding toppling backward—

And so, hunched over with both knees drawn to his chest, suppressing his pounding heart as he crouched by the Building’s wall like a crushed spider—the scene resembled nothing so much as an illustration from a detective novel, leaving even him feeling wretched and pitiable.

“Namu, Minobu-san—three hundred sixty-three steps.”
“Namu, Minobu-san—three hundred sixty-four steps. Namu, Minobu-san—three hundred sixty-five steps…”

Just one more breath to reach the summit’s precincts—there, a fifty-year-old man on a thousand-temple pilgrimage had climbed, his fan-shaped drum hanging limply, making no sound as he counted the stone steps aloud, his face ashen and heaving for air—he had seen him at the very moment of his descent.

He recalled—that stone staircase resembling cloud-strung planks, fifty-step intervals folded seven times into its ascent… At the inn nestled at the mountain’s foot, they’d served him a bowl of egg-drop soup with minced kelp simmered in soy—fine enough—but then, foolhardily, he’d downed morning saké with abandon. Ignoring fatigue from the overnight train, in August’s sweltering peak, he’d charged upward with a battle cry……

When his breath gave out and his vision blurred, he fell backward onto a stone at the joint of what he thought was the third step—a surface barely large enough to hold his body.
His chest heaved high on the upper steps—about a hundred of them—while his legs trembled heavily on the lower steps, another hundred or so.
On the verge of splitting apart at the torso—far from any jest—he pressed his hands together tightly against his chest, turned deathly pale, and stretched out like an earthworm in the blazing sun.
This was not Uncle’s Tetsunokakemine Peak.
In the middle of Mount Minobu’s stone steps, he had tried to close his eyes.

He could move neither up nor down.

Not a drop of dew; no water remained.

If only I hadn’t drunk that sake—this wouldn’t have happened.
Both hometown and home spun round like marbles, and the rosary of life seemed about to snap.
After about thirty minutes of stillness, he barely managed to rise—though at that time, there had been a companion who gave him strength and cared for him.
Though the companion took his hand to help him, he could only cling and crawl his way up, barely managing to reach the summit.

At the standing place, the waters of Munetsu Pond became white lotuses, overflowing into the basin.

Ah—I want a sip of water—

In truth, Mr. Shinya claims he felt the same as when he had collapsed on Mount Minobu’s stone steps.

What unsettled him most was having no companion. No shadows of trees or grass remained. The street wind, thick with a dampness one could bite into, refused to stir even a whisper. ……The cold yet pleasant entrance’s standing signboard—its white clarity desolate—and the cluster of deutzia flowers wet with dew, which now seemed like a bookmark in water, felt as distant and deep as a valley floor. There, at the sheer dead end where walls interlocked sharply, gazing up at the staircase two flights above—as his thoughts gradually turned toward the upper floors—they loomed as distantly high as a mountain peak.

Because he hadn’t lost his mind, he didn’t call out—though his eyes alone widened with longing for help, for people, for water—but soon even that gaze grew dim.

In his eyes, a shadow flickered into view.
Directly ahead, from above, something black fell toward the looming wall surface and the staircase adjoining it, appearing like a bird’s shadow.
Yet there was no flutter of wings—the shadow faintly dyed itself with color, becoming the hem of a woman’s robe, from which emerged white bat-sized tabi, the thong of her trodden sandal blue.

On the wings were indigo-gray stripes.
This large, mysterious bird had a black chignon.

Her features—loosely defined, with a somewhat broad forehead and a prominent nose—cast their eerie shadow across both walls like multiple wings, perhaps due to the two electric lights from the stairway above and the corridor. She drifted closer, her form blurred and hazy, but as she approached, a mingled scent—whether his own breath or her skin’s fragrance—wafted pungently with the reek of alcohol.

“You’re drunk, hohoho.”

She laughed airily—from the woman’s direction.
——This seemed to be her greeting.
But whether I was the one drunk—or you were the one drunk—I couldn’t tell.

“Oh.”

Even the proverb about a boat appearing when needed felt embarrassingly apt.
Like a dried loofah straining toward a watering can, he rose up—

“...Is this your group, Master...?”

he said.

Her lightweight obi tied in the modest drum-style had slackened, the rare black satin tie-dyed sash now loose. Her single-layered kimono slipped down, exposing her chest fastened tightly with a purple knot. Adopting the posture of Priest Saigyō—no, rather, Ōya Mitsukuni’s porter stance—she held a slender whitewood stick, likely oak, worn smooth from practice.
Her disheveled appearance—whether from wielding a naginata, tachi, or katana—appeared as though she had performed stage combat and withdrawn.

Yet, gathering the wrinkles around her eyes and carving into her cheeks, she wore a strangely dazzled expression,

“Oh, you’ve come with the Master, have you? No playing dumb now.”

And right from the start,

“Well now, sir—the lay of this stone-paved path isn’t the riverbank, fifty ken long.”
“That drunkard sir—it’s not about giving money, is it… What was it… ‘I’ll take cash,’ wasn’t it? From that mouth of yours, Master—oh, how embarrassing that is.”

[She] pressed one sleeve deliberately to [her] face and looked down—the collar white, though mottled with powder……

“…Look at your state—hmph!
“Give a whistle, and you’re a regular blind minstrel.”

She lay back, squeezed her eyes shut, contorted her mouth into a puckered grimace, then used the practice stick as a cane to clatter rhythmically against the floor, arching her chest backward in an exaggerated bend.

“Three hundred mon for an anma’s kamishimo—that’s way too cheap.”
“Heehee.”

Ah—he stood there dumbfounded—

Awakened by the sound of the iron bar,

she clattered it and opened her eyes wide.
But when she looked intently at our Mr. Shinya,

"Oh, if it isn't Master! My, Master—"

“…………”

“That… And you must be Matsumura-san.”

He had no recollection whatsoever.

“I’m Matsumura. Matsumura was certain—though he’s a vague sort of man—done for. Done for entirely, I tell you.”
“No, it’s nothing.”

Because there was an upper ridge, she leaned over as if peering at the man squatting below,

“Oh my, what’s happened to you?”

“It’s nothing.”

“At Tetsukai-ga-mine, they wouldn’t understand…”

“At Minobu Mountain’s stone steps—it seems I collapsed there.
I can’t even speak properly—where is this place? Where exactly? How many floors remain? The location—the rehearsal venue—where is it?”

“Rehearsal… There’s no rehearsal here.”

“Right.”

He appeared to have been hurled from the Kankai Building’s third floor.

“But Master—”

“Now now, stop that right there.”
“No master here… nor any trace of one, ho ho ho.”
“This—this hairstyle… and that mouth!”

Tapping the lips with the back of her hand while—

“If you were Run from the outskirts… that’d be fine now, but a freeloader who’s grown legs.”
“Master—even you—how absurd! When you came here in a huff during your peddling round, down at the crossroads… saw the entrance signboard—the gate one, was it? You know that one…”

she said.
But he could no longer make sense of it.

“A blind man might not tell ‘chicken egg’ from ‘hen’s egg’ when written—but even he’d recognize a rehearsal signboard by its shape! So I staggered in here assuming I wouldn’t be scolded.”
“Rehearsals or grand performances—even something like Sanbasō—they’re not putting on any of that here, I tell you.”

“Hah.”

As if that were all.

“Well now, if you came here for the rehearsal too, then perhaps I wasn’t mistaken after all. Depending on how things went, haven’t they already been beheaded?”

“Well now…”

“I see. Well, if it’s not that group, this complicates things.”
“My apologies—I completely failed to recognize you.”

“Yes, yes, quite right—I had the honor of meeting you long before the earthquake disaster, you see.”
“As for me—my business being rather ambitious—though it was only two or three times, I do remember, you see.”
“It’s only natural you wouldn’t recognize me…”

In a casual half-crouch, she faced diagonally into the corridor.

“After Yoshiwara’s Kohamaya—a hikite-jaya teahouse—burned down, they passed through Nakanochō and started serving poultry dishes in Hamachō.”
“You see, back then, chicken eggs and hen’s eggs were treated as the same breed.”
“You attended with Ms. Kyōchiyo and Master Ōtori in their troupe...”

“Ah, right…”

It came back to him like a dream.
It seems she had been a companion… Ms. Kyōchiyo—the one called O-Kyō—originally had three apprentice geisha at that Kohamaya establishment, she being the youngest among them.
By that time, she was already Ōtori’s wife.
Mr. Ōtori—let us refrain from his art name; his real name is Junnosuke.

(—I was just drinking with them in Ginza a moment ago—)

What made him suddenly restrain himself from carelessly letting slip his thoughts was that, judging by this woman’s appearance as he saw it there, she might well propose barging into Ginza...

At that bench there, in fact, they sat side by side. Though known as an authority at art exhibitions—a strict judge—he carried no heaviness, his slender frame poised gracefully beside a small bowl of mozuku seaweed where a silvery bonito-skin preparation seemed to leap from the sea itself, all while he quietly tilted his sake cup.

“Oh, leaving already?”
When Mr. Shinya hastily left his seat, it was that painter who stood up chewing blue-green tade herbs.

“Ah, I finally remember… Ms. Otsuma.”

“The market’s sashimi…”

Ōtori Gabo smiled faintly.

“I don’t mind about the rehearsal—but well—for now, could you arrange some water? Even a sip would do.”

“Water. You look hot—all flushed red.”

With that, pulling out a folding fan and fanning him while—

“I’m hot too. You’re red too, aren’t you?”

“Shin’s turning pale… I’m out of breath and about to collapse.”

“There’s water.”

“There is?”

“Up about two floors higher, there was this thing called the Snow Vista on Ebiya’s roof rainwater barrel.”

“Even if I wanted to leap up at the news, Ms. Otsuma—my heart’s pounding so hard I’d vomit if I moved.”
“I can’t even go back down.”
“I owe you one—just get me a drink somehow.”

“You don’t say.”
“I’ll make arrangements right away.”
“Goodness, it’s unbearably muggy here.”
“Yet you’re completely parched.”

She abruptly stood up,
“Perhaps we’ll let our spirits be dampened by May rain…
Drenching the pond’s reed screens—who can tell iris from rabbit-ear iris?—to that water god not far from Yoshiwara…”

Tapping the steps ahead with her fan, she fluttered birdlike toward the ceiling’s nest.
The brief sound of rain—or so it seemed—faded into her abandoned demeanor, her undisputed skill showing through as he exhaled through parched lips……

“The May rain… Perhaps we should let our moods be dampened as well.”
“Sprinkling water on the pond’s straw mats—which iris stands where?—to the water deity not far from Yoshiwara…”

Using her fan, she tap-tapped up the opposite staircase and fluttered like a bird toward the nest in the ceiling.

A sudden shower—swiftly heard—discarding both form and manner, within that abandoned state emerged irrefutable skill, and here, he exhaled through pursed lips…

Her dancing was superb, her voice excellent—the shamisen her public art, background music too; she could even play the flute.
Yet she possessed not a shred of a performer’s self-awareness.
Her features drew notice, yet in that unalluring quality lingered no trace of coquetry.
At that time, there existed a cosmetics wholesaler magnate known as Ginza-san, who newly produced a white powder called Senbotan that became a sensation; they held its celebratory unveiling at Yataomatsu in Makurabashi.

The patron of Hanshirō Tea House—a hikite establishment—bore uncanny resemblance to the elegant wife who dwelled at the accounts desk with her trailing hemline. Yet since the Kohamaya geisha sisters were his foremost favorites, they took charge of managing that banquet.
...On the day itself, every attending geisha devised performances themed around Senbotan—the newly launched powder’s name.
The hōkan companions likened patron-guests to lions under the “Black Peony” theme, transforming into golden-horned costume cows parading into the grand hall—for if foxes rode horses, then badgers mounted cows. At the comedic peak, shedding their costumes, they offered blood-dripping beefsteaks to the lions’ maws—a mortal-risk service sacrificing their very bodies.

(Not that they were in the same neighborhood—but Mr. Shinya lived nearby and was on particularly close terms with Master Ōtori—so he would often listen to Ōtori’s wife Kyōchiyo’s tearoom tales over tobacco.)

The geisha sisters of Kohamaya—at that celebratory banquet in Yataomatsu—included Kyōchiyo; their middle sister O-Tami (who dominated Nakanochō with her popularity); and a petite and fair-skinned one; together they coordinated the musical accompaniment, straining every muscle in their Renjishi performance—so what of this eldest sister Otsuma?

“At the height of the revelry—would you believe it?—I took country grandmothers’ shoulder cloths, tucked up my sleeves in soba-gray, scooped bean-paste rice cakes from a grass-cutting basket onto a wooden tray, and marched down the row of honored guests in perfect seating order, bellowing like a field-hand: ‘Let’s dig in!’ What do you suppose they thought?”

(—heard in one of Ōtori’s wife Kyōchiyo-san’s tearoom tales—)

Mashed bean-paste rice cakes.
For this act, she incurred no small measure of displeasure—as one might expect.
At a celebration for a new product’s successful launch, serving mashed [bean-paste] was unacceptable.
Not only that—servering bean-paste rice cakes midway through a banquet was absurd.
Yet this stemmed neither from petulance nor satire—merely a whim emerging naturally from that woman’s character.

...There ascended the Kankai Building—Otsuma of Mashed Bean-Paste—climbing toward the roof’s snow-filled rainwater barrel to fetch reviving water for Mr. Shinya. Later coated in kinako or sesame, she ultimately eloped to Nikko.
Consider now the life-and-death circumstances of that sister who fed bean-paste rice cakes to Lion Taishin.
A sumo wrestler? An actor? An itinerant gambler? Among such dashing company, the gizzard shad sushi had vanished.
In some contrived twist—a karinto seller?—all guesses missed their mark.
This person bore striking resemblance to Fujisawa Asajirō—Shinpa theater’s leading onnagata and handsome male lead, who had staked his life on roles like armored lobster and been ushered into the troupe via handcart bearing golden wisteria crests.

Secret trysts demand extraordinary efforts.
Alas, such is the way of the world.
They had resolved to elope and die together when the time came—but theirs was no leap into Kegon Falls nor dangling from a row of cedars.
Though bearing the likeness of an onnagata and a leading man, he was a policeman descended from a Shōgitai survivor father, his hatamoto blood coursing torrentially.
Before his ancestors’ spirits—prepared and resolute, how splendid—he stabbed through Otsuma’s chest—a Western sword?—ah, but let us not dwell on such details—with a counterblade pressed against the towering rock at her back, he slashed a crosswise strike across his own abdomen. Behold the icy brilliance of Ōsō Yoshitoshi’s brush: like a scene from his nishiki-e prints, their blood sought to stain the foothills of Kurokami Mountain.
Yet with the hototogisu’s cry proving unreliable and no one coming to their aid, they survived. Cast into the underbelly of the floating world, he became a clerk at the Koga Copper Mine, where for about two years they even had a child—but pitifully, the papa of the mountain hut and worksite fell ill and died.

Otsuma stood blackened with coal dust like a soot-covered ubume—a child-stealing specter—in the pitch-dark night of the ohaguro ditch, dejectedly clutching an infant as she returned to Kohamaya.
...Yet in that ill-suited place, sharp-tongued locals—failing to see her as a bodhisattva apparition descended from Nikko’s ornate shrines at art’s sacred source—deemed her instead a denizen of thunder’s realm, dubbing her henceforth Gorogoro-san and Goro-san.
When the infant reached two or three and began forming broken words—pitiful to see, who knows where learned—they called her “Mama” as “Goyogoyo-chan” and “Goyo-chama.”

○ Sun-Moon-Stars Day-Night Woven Apart——Amidst their long-standing marital quarrels, when the Child of Thunder would cry “Goyogoyo goyo goyo” to stop them—“Why hit Mama, Papa? Enough now!”—Otsuma would furrow her brows and cheeks, declaring that particular jōruri piece a lifelong taboo. Yet when coaxed, she’d sing not just narrative ballads but any ditty, apron-clad, now brightly, now solemnly, for all to hear.

Apron-clad—yes, her hair resembling an ibojiri bun, assisting in the kitchen in navy straight-sleeved attire—yes, that is to say, during the aforementioned Hamachō bird cuisine period, she was invited by Master Ōtori to go out four or five times.
It was there that Otsuma came to know our Mr. Shinya.
However, as previously described—though she remained as reserved as a nursemaid—Master Ōtori, for his part (she being his wife’s elder sister), invited her to the parlor to exchange cups of saké; and once they had drunk quite a bit, growing pleasantly tipsy, he would coax her into singing, and if pressed, she would rise to dance.
She never bothered with tedious affectations—the iemoto system this, school traditions that, the precise timing of musical accompaniment—this and that.
With vocal shamisen mimicry sufficing, if she moved as she was, her straight sleeves became long-sleeved robes; the chopsticks she carried turned not into willow branches but blossomed as flowers, and the shadow of her gesturing hands soon merged with the clouds over Sumida, where a hototogisu cried.

Now, one might assume that when Yoshiwara burned down, they all receded together to Hamachō like an ebbing tide—but such was not so.
Mama Goyogoyo drifted in and out—straying here, drinking there—adrift through life’s eight directions until sinking so deep into despondency that her whereabouts grew unknown for a time.
Not long thereafter—...she was reportedly seen haggling with country matrons at Okusawa’s flea market near Kufunbutsu Temple where pleasure-quarter devotees made pilgrimage—clad in frayed yukata with white tenugui tied Yoshiwara-style—her sun-darkened skin and straight nose sharp against Shurayu cigarette smoke curling from one dimpled cheek as she bargained over cast-off wares... This came just before...the Hamachō fowl cuisine era.

As Otsuma had… said, she sang casually and even danced, yet one night, from the neighborhood came the plucking of a borrowed shamisen…

At the Hour of the Ox—when even temple bells keep silent—monsters convene in ancient shrines...

Oh, this sounds unfamiliar, he thought—the song’s thread unraveling mid-phrase.

Features and complexion—the Snow Woman...

A heavy thud shook the wall.
Even snow-viewing urbanites would startle to learn how dreadful that sound proves—eaves groaning under sliding snow... Yet this being spring rain, a midnight downpour’s stealthy hooves made him mistake the noise for accumulated snow’s collapse—until Kohamaya’s mistress slammed a fusuma door next door with such force that the aged house’s very bones groaned, vibrations shuddering through floorboards and walls alike.

Otsuma fell silent, like a severed thread.
And then she looked down.

“Demons bewitch, they say—”

It must have been the first rooster... Hearing the cock’s crow, he shuddered.
—Were it not for the bird shop started by Hikite-jaya, the rooster’s crow heard in the dead of night would not be a pleasant one—though one might wonder what the reader’s deduction would be.

At that moment, he wondered—what manner of apparition might emerge from that song?
Master Ōtori later asked Kyōchiyo-san—his wife—about it.
To this she replied that she had forgotten and told him nothing.

“I was still just a child back then—”

The bird shop in Hamachō went out of business almost immediately.

The Kohamaya family withdrew deep into Setagaya, where there were no songs—indeed, no visitors at all.

(Into this tale as well—into the corridors of the Kantō Building—Otsuma would soon descend, having prepared water.)

There were still a few more stone steps remaining.

Otsuma, O-Tami, and Kyōchiyo—all adopted daughters—existed beneath Kohamaya’s three geishas’ “elder sister”: namely, the housewife called Orai (the one who had knocked on the fusuma that night). This woman had a brother named Isaku.
Though born into the pleasure quarters, she maintained discernment and refrained from imitating low-ranking actors or banquet jesters.
She cultivated calligraphy and painting, twisted antiques to her taste, befriended haikai poetry, and lived secluded in Chitose Lodge’s inner quarters… Though all pocket expenses were managed by the main household, her circumstances didn’t permit sending even small gold coins as remittance.
…Her parents remained healthy—there were a grandfather and grandmother—and that grandmother would cross Hanebashi Bridge, slip through back alleys, and carry food in the customary way. Finding the front gate too troublesome, she’d call from behind the fence: “Isaku, Isaku”—for there were nights when shop affairs ran late…“Isaku, Isaku”—he was, after all, a haikai poet of the pleasure quarter’s lodges.
What carried sound through deutzia flowers’ fleeting intervals here—one might assume disciples of Edo-za or Setsuchū-an, perhaps Master Hōitsu’s third-generation successor, or at least a last scion of Kuramae’s Seibi—proved otherwise.
……It was when fox-fire lit up rice fields.
Taro Inari’s familiars seemed to play mischief nightly—from behind dark fences came “Isaku, Isaku” and “Hey, Grandma”—
Vanishing with a sneeze.
“Damn them—gone again!”
Likely not what troubled him.
He began night-roving, turned delinquent—spending here, begging there.
Though not formally disowned, having been driven out, he eventually went underground near Okachi Town—drawing from memories of composing women’s letters that read “You are now…”—working briefly as a scribe.
But it couldn’t sustain him.
When destitute—in bowler hat, hakama, or Western clothes (never as grand as theater curtains)—he’d emerge suddenly from upstairs toward Kohamaya’s shop.

(This was heard in Kyōchiyo-san’s parlor talk.)

What troubled Ōtori’s wife was that after the old man grew thoroughly drunk on several bottles of oshikise, she was forced to tread on the soles of his feet stretched facedown across the tatami—weary, so weary. ……As his pattering steps grew exhausted from the climb, he took out a practice stick—one left unused during rehearsals due to his habitual slacking—to lean on as a cane. ……Had this made him recall a return palanquin or inspired use of a “virtuous oar,” it might have been commendable. But instead came pain—pain—“Kyō, what are you doing?”—leaping up his spine……
It is said he had been obsessed with ball balancing in Asakusa.
Admittedly, that slippery round bald head—with its rubbery, rubbery texture—was said to have induced no small temptation.
Ugh…
A great yawn—this proved unbearable—how revolting! The stench—Grandpa’s intolerable odor—came from handmade salted fish. This old man, Hikohei-san, having once entered service as the cooks’ live-in son-in-law, worked his way up through sheer drudgery.

“I ain’t leavin’ Tomo-san’s guts behind.”
It wasn’t the old woman’s doing, nor was it Adashigahara’s storehouse—no need to split open the belly wrap.
Dried bonito. Sea bream.
Squid would do too.
Namamugi horse mackerel—a prime specimen.

Uotomo was a spirited boss—a man for whom Ms. Orai held some affection—yet he had to grip fish bellies like a kite would seize prey.
He stored those entrails in a two-shō bottle, chopped fresh scallions to knead into them, mixed and mixed in seven-spice chili blend, stirred it all with one arm bared—a fearsome, sludgy salve potent enough to lure even the leviathans of the Eastern Sea—then lapped up its strange flavor, like the spit of a yellow pouch pooled between ohaguro-blackened teeth, taking tiny sips all the while.
With his salty mouth—like a ripe persimmon split open—he bowed daily before the household altar in the parlor, chanting “Homage to our honorable ancestooorrs.”
Ms. Orai, passing by, casually turned the memorial tablet backward as she went…… Unaware of this, he muttered “Homage to our honorable ancestooorrs” in a drunken slur, then slumped heavily asleep—Kyōchiyo and the soles of feet.
At that very moment—a turmeric-dyed cotton package, slightly soiled and wilted, arrived at Ochi after enduring a frost—someone joyfully opened what resembled hyacinth beans, laying out one by one the treasured trifles they’d collected over years of hobbyist zeal: root-attached beads, orbs, cord fasteners, all arranged as tradition dictated. But just then, spotting Mr. Isaku—the scribe and legal advisor—appearing at the veranda’s edge in a bowler hat and hakama from below, they hastily hid the turmeric cotton beneath their navel… For no reason remained—most calligraphies and antiques had been swept away by this eldest son like autumn storm winds, leaving only these withered bean pods here as testament.
Yatō was the surname of Kohamaya.
From this observation, it seemed that in the pleasure quarters when people wished to keep others at bay, they called their own children not by given names but by surnames…

Yatō Rōjin—ah, the aged Isaku-ō—was a man of worldly accomplishments, hardened by life’s trials and thorough in all matters, even before and after the Kohamaya’s decline. In Japanese chess, he wielded an amateur’s second-dan skill; in Go, he held an actual first-dan rank.
Relying on those skills, he lived managing a certain club near Marunouchi as a retired caretaker, but due to the earthquake disaster, he lost the shelter of that tree. Later, he and his old wife lived desolately as the janitor and caretaker of a barrack-style apartment behind Kyōbashi Sanjūkenbori.
The cold and loneliness of his surroundings! …On a windy night at the end of the Frost Month… He buried his toothless chin in the kotatsu beneath tattered quilts, his eyes clouded in their sunken depths. ——From those hollowed features—a prominent nose and sunken eyes—he who once still clung to worldly vigor had written “Eyes Here” on shop curtains and signboards, baking and selling rice crackers too.
“Eyes Here Rice Crackers”
When gambling became taboo, it flourished for a time.
——Squinting his bleary eyes, resting his long face on the kotatsu, he desperately recalled his parents.
On pitch-dark nights at Chitose Lodge, on hazy nights, on nights of drizzling rain that pattered softly—when even the foxes’ cries felt poignantly dear—a woman’s voice would call at the door: “Isaku, Isaku.”

“Granny, someone’s here.”
“Oh, Grandpa.”
The old woman—who had been wrapping toothpicks with paper fortunes as her side work—opened the door with fearful caution, her face pale as she muttered, “This must be that demonic thing I’ve heard tales of.” And there she was—transformed!
Suddenly cackling was a large-framed woman—a middle-aged figure with a messy round chignon, her tail and lower belly wrapped in some hidden fabric, the striped-pattern threads of her robe translucent against her skin, the red lining bleeding through at the knees as if she wore nothing beneath. Like a heat haze over burning horse dung on a steaming night, she blew a white breath across a plate of mock-goose and konjac stew, clutching a four-gō bottle in one hand: “Ah, the threshold’s too high, too high! (And here I am, who’d leap even torii gates!) These stairs have left me winded.”
“Young Master, it’s been an age.”
“I came here with a hood to hide my blushes and some all-night oden to fend off the cold, but damn, it’s freezing!” she said, passing the bowl through a hole as if delivering an offering. Setting it down, she collapsed into the kotatsu with knees bared beneath her scarlet underrobe—none other than Otsuma-san, unseen for ages……

“Young Masterrr—you’re too kind—”
Whether from gratitude or the stall’s warmth, the Young Master’s five speech tones scattered—his words now thick and slurred beyond recovery.
Yet this man who’d never tolerated a drop of liquor since youth now grew giddy on strong oden tea.
The bleary-eyed Young Master.

Now, Otsuma—having drifted from place to place and fallen into destitution—found herself in a back-alley tenement in Ōshū Aomori, working as an instructor of the five arts. There, she became involved with a charcoal seller’s—or perhaps charcoal burner’s—son, twenty years her junior. Together, they fluttered back to Tokyo and idled away their days in a tenement at the edge of Honjo until, at this age, the two of them—utterly foolish—collapsed into bed and fell fast asleep.
She informed the parents in Aomori and provided medical treatment; once the son regained his footing, the connection was severed.
The parents who came from across—like Uto birds—returned home drowsily, crying as they carried their child in their beak.
A naked beach cat that had collapsed on the roadside with one wing torn off was picked up by a fishmonger from Bote; now, as the madam of the Bazara-ya in Mikawashima, she recounted her congealed, meltingly pitiful life story over tea—while the frail Young Master, true to his Edo roots, remained utterly undaunted.
“The Five Arts instructor is pitiful.”
“You have artistic talent.”
“A full course in the eighteen martial arts,” retorted the fishmonger’s madam, arching her back like a swordfish.
“Gidayū—”
“Well, well! It’s been ages since you last showed yourself,” she said—but when she looked, all that hung on the wall were an umbrella and a broom.
Otsuma clapped her hands and provided vocal shamisen accompaniment.

The Young Master had a fine voice.

"Is it the dream that is the floating world, or the floating world that is the dream? Dwelling in Dream Chōri yet inhabiting a world that grows familiar the longer you dwell—along Yamato Road of shifting fortunes, by Tsubosaka’s edge in Tosa Town—there lived a blind minstrel named Sawaichi…

"Sato, the wife, was in sound health; her husband’s wage-earning assistance work…"

They say that as he began his performance—singing of climbing the mountain in his ballad—they went out to the oden shop for more sake, but both tumbled into the valley of the kotatsu and slept until morning.
—The relevance of this anecdote lies in Otsuma’s attitude the next morning upon leaving.
With her dignified eyebrows, she put on a blank face,

“Just a little, Young Master.”
“…Well—it’s all rather shabby—I wanted to ask but couldn’t, wanted to ask so badly I couldn’t stand it—so I borrowed the rental fees… even down to the clothes on my back.”
“…Well… I’m a bit embarrassed about this, but the train fare…”

(From Kyōchiyo-san—who said it was as recent as last year’s end—he had heard rumors about Otsuma that had long since ceased.)

Otsuma descended the steps and came into the corridor.
And her current attire too seemed to be rented or borrowed.

“Well, thank you for waiting.”

“Much obliged.”

“Ashtray—or rather, an ash receptacle, it seems. …In the corridor, there’s no proper stand to speak of, and there’s no such thing as a geisha’s workroom—so managing teacups is quite impossible.”
“Well, you see—in a pinch, though my borrowed clothes don’t quite fit, I had a cut-up hand towel from the flower-and-willow district. I thought wrapping it Hiraemon-style would be a temporary fix, but it ended up working out perfectly.”
“Don’t worry—I gave it a good scrubbing, and I’ve already done three rounds of taste-testing myself.”
“Oh, if you hunch up like that, isn’t your collar cold? Let me give you a hand towel.”

“I won’t spill a single drop—ah, what a relief. No—if you want more after this, I can walk on my own this time. What a relief.”
“I am in your debt.”

“Not at all—but, well, I’m glad.”

“I’ve quite revived.”

“With that vigor of yours, will you head up to the rehearsal?”
“I can accompany you that far.”

“So, are they performing?”
“Can you hear the shamisen?”

“No.”

“On your way here, didn’t you see anyone who might be part of that group?”

“There wasn’t a single soul... Not so much deserted as deathly still—eerily so.”

“Hmm—I can’t be mistaken... And yet you remain utterly unentangled in that affair.”

“Ah yes—I’m but a leaf tossed by capricious winds—exactly as you say.”

She planted both elbows on her half-raised knees and propped her cheek in her hand.

“Even if not directly—since she’s the elder sister figure to Ms. Kyōchiyo, whom your esteemed Master Ōtori holds in such regard—I believe you’re aware… Well, now in Shiba, Akebunechō, she’s taken on apprentices with her daughter—the Master, you see… Ms. O-Tami’s… Ah, but if refined gentlemen like yourselves were to hear this, you might find it absurd… There was this matter—a life-or-death situation where I had to fix my gaze and act. Over that, I nearly ended up slashing and thrusting in a most undignified manner. But anyway—I took this practice staff here (leaning against the wall) as a spear, an iron rod, and marched over to confront them… The expenses were covered by the Master, so I rode a yen taxi all the way to the west alley of Ginza.”

“No sooner had I steeled myself than my targets—coffee shops and cafés—appeared right before my eyes, leaving no need to wander or search. But you see, given their trade, they went all out with glittering and sparkling—decking out their display shops in glass and Dragon Palace-style splendor—but the whole building ended up as pitch-dark as when Rokugō-sama’s back gate collided with it long ago. Anticlimactic, utterly absurd… You see, when you ask around the neighborhood—they say… Well, even if we call it an *establishment*, there ought to be some propriety—but they went and suspended operations over something like… being naked with gold coins—no, wait, silver coins—clutched in some… manner or other…”

Since the enthusiasm at departure had been genuine enthusiasm, returning in that state wasn’t so troublesome.
“There was time to spare—whether it was a soba shop or a sushi place, I’d take a bite wherever caught my fancy—having spare change on me was such a rare thing these days—so I was strolling along when… right here in front, you see—”

While raising her eyes to the low ceiling,

“Angled like a lobster’s claw from the days when the clock tower still stood… Though I shouldn’t say such things about your esteemed modern buildings. But as I gazed intently toward the zenith… ah… on what must’ve been the fifth floor—near the roof’s ridge—a woman’s figure appeared in the window.”
“In loungewear with what looked like a date-maki sash—a proper oiran she was.”
"It's no trick."
“How could there be such a mistake in this day and age?”
“Or perhaps, since the rehearsal signboard is visible, dancers in costume might be cooling off—I thought I’d go in and see.”

“Ah, so…”

“Well now…”
“Climbing up and up… I grew quite weary of it myself.”
“Not being accustomed enough to strongholds to clatter down the back stairs properly, I came down hesitantly—and there you were, all alone for the first time.”

“Someone… a person.”

“Well now—there she stood, so starkly white it unsettled the eyes, her back turned snow-like as if she’d flayed bare that oiran from before… hovering dimly in the corridor at a distance… Oh!”
“Taking a bath after rehearsal… why, that hardly ever happens.”
“And even if this is Takao’s birthplace—though ’tis no hot spring of Noshū Shiobara—might there be a bathhouse down in the terraced valley’s depths?”
“While I watched half-dazed, she vanished into what might’ve been a door or room.”

“Where exactly?”

“Here.”

“Yes.”

“Or perhaps it was the adjacent room?”
“After all, I was in such a daze when I saw it too. So your figure was down there—right where that woman had left her clothes.”

Mr. Shinya involuntarily brushed his sleeve against the inner edge.

“Though when I saw it, my mind went all hazy.”
“Now that I think about it—head over heels—this has been burned into my eyes, so I’m carrying… the Snow Woman…”

(Ah, in Hamacho’s late-night rain—

……Snow Woman……

Having let the song be sung—she suddenly vanished. …)

“?…The Snow Woman.”
“I’m carrying her right here.”
“And indeed, it is a splendid painting.”

The purple bundle slanted across her shoulder—its ends tucked neatly at her chest, flowing along the elbow she cradled with one hand—her collar and hems arranged with precision.

“A painting? …Whose painting is it?”

“Oh, don’t you know? …It’s Master Ōtori’s work.”

“Yes—when did Ōtori paint that?”

(Even now he’s probably still drinking in Ginza’s back alleys—that composed face of his while briskly lining up sake bottles.)

“They say it was painted quite recently.”
“There’s a reason for that too—you see, I did mention barging into that bar tonight with a spear and iron rod.”
“Well now, it was over that incident he painted it, you see.”
“I’ll show you… Wait a moment.”
“This corridor’s midway up—go down to the exit and there’s the street… Ah, perhaps we should slip into this room.”

“There’s no nameplate, but I suppose it’s fine.”

“An empty shop, you see—like a reed screen in rice fields.”

she said.

“Even if there’s an owner, on a night journey, one is bound to rest.”
“But if there’s something inside—well, then that’s another matter.”

“We’d even enter halls and shrines where the principal image resides.”
“…Between people, there’s no need for formalities.”
“No, far beyond that—I camped out once, you see. Strange, odd, utterly indescribable—hohoho—and ended up collapsing where men’s… things were displayed.”
“A shrine in the wilds, you see.”
“…From there—Oh! It won’t open. Is this door locked?”

“Of course it is.”

“Please press on it. Won’t it open?”
“Ah, right—given your station, if you were to do it… Wait now, there’s a proper binding curse here.”

Skillfully tearing the kaishi paper, she twisted the ends and pinched the head.
“Little sunshine doll, hohoho.”

A crumpled paper octopus danced its fingers in the door’s keyhole.

“Not good—one little monk isn’t enough, hmm?”
“There—another one’s come out.”
“Another. And another.”
“This looks like a tenement’s well-digging gang.”
“Won’t it budge?”
“That can’t be right—if I can turn rain to sunshine, a locked door should mean nothing.”
“Press harder.”

With a tap, she struck each rolled paper head in turn—whether hands or legs, they went flailing—until their frayed edges resembled mouths, sharp and creased with laughing eyes, all clamoring together.

“No, you see, there’s a reason you can manage it… Back when I collapsed during that night outdoors—the man from Sendai I’d pinned my hopes on had moved to Aomori, they said—so I drifted again from the island I’d just reached, spending what little train fare remained.”
“In a place called Morioka, when I suddenly realized—my wallet was gone, my ticket missing.”
“Surely no one would pick pockets just from seeing my disheveled state.”
“When I realized I’d foolishly lost it, I had no excuse for the railway.”
“After all, I’d face consequences regardless—even if I noticed after reaching Aomori, the outcome would be the same—but making amends while the distance was shorter seemed better… The sheer stupidity was unbearable.”
“You—in a fluster—got off at the next station.”
“In my panic, I staggered out through what must’ve been the ticket gate—only to find the station and train gone—the town now sunk in deep twilight.”
“A fugitive on a night road—how fortunate to slip through the net—yet pursuers felt close, terrifying… Even if caught, it’d be nothing—yet it felt like violating some grand divine law.”
“Yes—with that brazen courage where I’d mimic gate-side shamisen without even a tattered plectrum when hungry—I hurried through towns nor villages, only desolate places… To Oshu’s remote reaches—a foreign land where east from west blurred—anxious on those raised paths.”
“A crimson moon hung at the field’s edge—but the furrowed path, vague as water spilled from clouds—I trudged until unbearable… Parting roadside pampas grass to reach the shrine—not a dew-drop wet my hand.”
In the lingering summer heat—a stifling swelter.

Well now, inside the hall I’d stumbled into, a sedge-hat-sized shadow formed hazily under the moon—a great owl—and they were hooting over there in the forest, over here in the grove—that owl, resembling a headband—that’s it.
...the mysterious enshrined—the Principal Image—.

It’s precisely because it’s me that I steeled my courage—not just lacking a red loincloth, but leaning forward as if bearing an Okame mask—when (“Sister, come with me.—”) saying so, [they] seemed to emerge from the thicket beside the hall, following a rural side path for the most part.
“A hooded figure in a light blue striped yukata—or maybe a hitoe—with a heko obi loosely tied, you see. Not wearing the sedge hat but slung over their back, a small cloth bundle likely beneath it… Their pale shins visible—bare feet in straw sandals—lightly gripping a bamboo staff, emerged smoothly, you see.”

Otsuma placed her hand on the dance rod, but—

“To tell the truth, I missed out on supper myself—absolutely starving.”
“I thought there might be offerings like red rice in the hall and peeked inside—when he spotted me. ‘Not fit for a woman to eat,’ he laughed—‘too pitiful to watch you try.’ A young man not yet thirty—no, twenty-six or twenty-seven at most.”
“‘Endure a little longer,’ he said as we walked four blocks past an earthen bridge—where enoki and willow trees thickened into darkness—to a house.”
“The young man tried forcing what looked like the front door—creak creak—but it wouldn’t yield.”
“Then you rummaged about and found a straw rope.”

Otsuma pinched one kaishi-paper monk (following her words) between her fingers and proceeded.
The rest of the group shrank furtively in her palm.

“So then, you see—there, you loop the top of that character—the one shaped like an ear, that variant kana ‘ni’—neatly into a circle, give it a flick, and say, ‘Open up, open up.’ You see?”

Mr. Shinya gazed at that face and listened in silence—so it was said.

“—It opened without difficulty.”
“You see—inside was an earthen floor, with stools and a counter… A one-dish eatery whose sign resembled the character for ‘waist-high screen,’ its blackened form filtering through the willows’ gaps, blue and sunken, while moonlight shimmered as if strained through water.”

“My eyes gleamed like a night bird’s—immediately you gathered bowls and small dishes along with a rice tub—arranged them under the eaves as if dropped from a shelf—swatting mosquitoes (‘Ah! The rice has dried out.’ ‘Even just pickles would—’) I too settled there only to find shredded kelp mock-goose herring grilled tofu… all reeking pungently musty.”
“(Enough enough—I’m starving through and through.)”
“(In this swelter it’s life-or-death work.) You… I can’t bear it any longer—what about sake? Hey you—”

(Alcohol's no good.
"When starving, even a grain of rice escapes Heaven's notice—just like how my sister wasn't found at the ticket gate—but with liquor, it's too much to ask..." She briskly cleared things away. "Now, another round."

"This time—a wealthy farmer's... an old farmhouse without an entrance... we slipped into its spacious earthen-floored area—but since the young man had pressed right up against the doorway, we could tell it wasn't locked.
Even in this sweltering heat, they'd properly secured everything—the veranda, doorway, and storm shutters all tightly closed—but being an old farmhouse, it was riddled with knotholes. So when we peered through them, we could see inside perfectly well.
In the earthen-floored area beyond, around the large hearth, three women and six men lay sprawled out asleep.)

The young man said, “A handkerchief,” and took mine—there were plenty to pick up around there, it being a farmhouse. “With a straw core—nine dolls like before—you tore that kaishi paper and wrapped parts until they whitened—didn’t they eerily come to resemble three women?”

By the threshold—arranged just like around a hearth—they were laid down one after another, and when someone stroked them facedown from above three times or so, it was done with ease.

The young man stomped in, paying no heed to the sleepers’ hems or pillows.
Roughly rummaging through, he took rice, incense, even the teapot… dried sardines still on their skewers.
“After the old Bon Festival—since there were still plenty of flax stalks—he went and crushed them, then burned the lot right at the threshold with the door left wide open. I was appalled.”
“(Gate fire, gate fire)—he said nonchalantly—(If this were sake, you’d warm it—but this here’s corpse-burning.)”
“(If it’s not this shiro fish, then lucky us—shall I serve?) …As I wolfed down the food, a young woman by the hearth suddenly sat up, her chest and hem gaping open.”
“You, at that moment—didn’t the little white doll jerk upright in the night wind lured by the fire?”
When the young man flicked the doll over, she flopped back down face-first again.

“I was shocked.
“Even straw-twisted dolls can perform such feats… Living things—when pressed—might do anything unimaginable. How terrifying, hmm?… —They’ve already gone off, stealing rice from sleepers to grill sardines over corpse-burning flames—or so it goes.” She laughed hoarsely. “Hohoho… Well, yes…”

“No, you see—about that matter—though it’s before your time—your friend’s wife Kyōchiyo-san was quite the mischievous one when she was a half-apprentice geisha. Her younger sister—the one called O-Tami—would fuss over dolls, setting up screens and tucking them into Tomoshiba-patterned nightgowns with two pillows lined up. But Kyōchiyo? She became obsessed with ball-riding! So she’d bend Elder Sister and Master this way and that with red threads and white lead, perching them atop large and small rubber balls for a jazz-like ruckus—as you’d put it nowadays.”

“There was a time she’d gotten an earful from the housewives—but Yayoi’s village doll play… was that Tokiwazu or something? When we displayed the Hina dolls… she stuck the Five Musicians to a ball—plop plop plop, roll, twirl twirl—just like that.”

“But then—it was midnight.
‘No—the two had gone to the banquet room… but we, being more inclined to tea, slept in our usual room for three despite the festival night. Then—such commotion at our pillows! When I tilted my head like a ship’s hull to look—there it was: a white-clad figure with long black hair, riding a ball… twirling around, arching backward, sliding forward—ah! Countless large butterflies danced with paper-lantern flames in their mouths, crimson hakama flickering—and just as I gasped, the musicians on the doll platform stirred—eyes blinking, drum hands tapping, flute lips pursing—until ah! From a distant high place, a sky banquet hall, came a piercing “Iyaa!”—the cry of a taiko drum—and that’s when I heard it… Kyōchiyo Chii-nee.’”

“……Things that take form live in a terrifying way, don’t they?”

“—Before long, under a large tree near the entrance from the raised path—whether cowshed or stable—there came a clattering racket.
The young man rose fluidly and went toward it.
By his return, everything had fallen silent.
He aligned the smoldering flax stalks and straw dolls—burning them despite their ill-omened bond—and when they vanished with a whoosh and hiss, the night storm howled through, blackening the moon into utter stillness.
‘Let’s go, let’s go.’ I shuddered violently, seized the young man’s sleeve, and dragged him down the path cutting through endless rice fields.”
…Relieved,

(Please tell me—what manner of person are they?)

(Me?)

(You.)

(The forest shrine’s Kinsei Myojin.)

(…………)

(The men’s force.)

“Kyaa!”

The furisode apprentice geisha I’d heard about in stories—who claimed it was some kitchen haunt—had ventured into the brothel corridor too late at night. She let out a scream like one caught by a tanuki and dashed madly for a hundred meters, but even when she turned back or stood waiting, neither shadow nor form remained visible. The dawn mist was already whitening.

“But you see—you—these little dolls have just accomplished it.”

Cradling the paper dolls in her palm, she focused intently,

“Perhaps we’re short on people… though if it’s Mr. Kurebō we’re dealing with, he’ll handle both love charms and curses.”

And with her mouth assisting her hands, she manipulated the kaishi paper—pulling them out like silkworms until nine heads aligned—their limbs twitching and writhing toward the black door’s keyhole.
…Mr. Shinya hunched his shoulders and shuddered.
“But…”

Mr. Shinya was disappointed,

“Hm… just… wait a moment.”

Before Mr. Shinya could utter a word,

“With me, the magic doesn’t work,”
“It’s times like these.”

What was she doing?

She untied the furoshiki.
When he looked, it was a painting tube.
Otsuma removed the lid while

“Ms. Snow Woman.”

“…………”

“You’re perfect—being a specter, you can pass through freely.”

Smoothly unfurling the silk—then suddenly, like pear blossoms enveloping a crystal pagoda under moonglow—the painting’s form cast a pale half-reflection upon the door.

“That won’t do, Otsuma-san.”

It was not that he had criticized the handling of Ōtori’s work—he sought to console Otsuma’s confusion and guide her to realization.

“No—they say even the horse in Asakusa’s votive painting ate grass, don’t they? It’s not that I’m biased because he’s Kyōchiyo’s husband, but a painting by someone as renowned as him ought to manage at least this much.”

As the visage blurred faintly upon the painted silk, the door they had pushed—with a snick—of its own accord drew Otsuma’s form into itself through its momentum.

“Ah! What a shock—but it worked.”

From inside the room,

“There, look here. Come on, you too.”

It seemed that since the opener had violated their promise, the lock had never been fastened from the beginning.
That Mr. Shinya did not try his hand at it was not because he shifted responsibility elsewhere.
Because he had known it appeared to be an empty room.
Yet this hesitation to act deliberately—though one might call it cowardly—was a passive morality, or rather, etiquette.

In the end, Mr. Shinya too was invited.

To act or speak—even fleetingly—through the tissue paper’s Kurebō-san proved futile against the beautiful specter—the Snow Woman, Snow Jorō—whose hands and sleeves remained unseen… a room opened through skin itself.

A room—the second... third apparition since entering there was……………………

Shōwa 8 (1933), July