Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Miyamoto Yuriko

When I suddenly opened my eyes, I found that rain had begun to fall without my noticing.
In the dead of night, the sensation of being jostled with my eyes open in the train hurtling through darkness at full speed felt both resolute and gloomy.
To this was added the sound of rain softly pattering against the roof of the sleeping car.
As I listened intently, I found myself in a sober, pleasant state of mind.
As the rain continued, the temperature dropped, and the surrounding air seemed to grow considerably more refreshing and light—so much so that I felt it a shame to be listening to this rain alone, and even thought of waking Y, who was sleeping below, to share it with her.

Generally speaking, we were fortunate with the weather during the ten-odd days since setting out on our journey.
During our time in Kyoto, and again after coming to Kyushu when we stayed in places like Beppu and Usuki, we encountered rainfall no heavier than water sprinkled to settle dust, and never faced circumstances that forced us to alter our plans.
On the day we went around Aoshima in Hyuga, and the following day after staying overnight in Kagoshima, the weather was especially clear, and we were able to appreciate the remarkably bright landscapes of Hyuga and Satsuma.
Deceived by the date May 9th, we were both dressed in lined clothing.
In Kagoshima City, it was a summer scene where an old man in a white-patterned summer kimono passed beneath the young leaves of camphor trees.
Warding off the intense reflected sunlight with a single Western umbrella, we viewed the Shimazu family garden, toured the Shuseikan museum, and climbed Shiroyama.
To reach Shiroyama, we had clambered up from a narrow back path beside the inn, eagerly pushing aside grass and trees all the way—so while Y in Western clothes remained composed, I was drenched in sweat.
Before our very eyes floated Sakurajima; the bay beneath a thin haze thickened by lingering heat glistening softly without a single ripple; and the castle town’s streets stretching broad and straight.
The people too were refreshingly pleasant, and we felt deep goodwill toward them, yet when I recall it now, a faintly parched sensation like molten metal accompanies the memory.
Perhaps it was because of the unexpected sound of rain we heard when departing there at midnight that everything felt exceptionally refreshing and serene.

At Tosu, when we transferred to the Nagasaki Line at 6:00 AM, the misty rain splashed against our profiles as we walked through the covered walkway. The train car stood nearly empty. Indeed, even in Kyushu, the railway lines running continuously south along the eastern coast and the trains ascending north from Kagoshima to Nagasaki proved remarkably sparse. In the compartment with raindrops clinging to its windows rode only ourselves, one university student, and two men resembling government officials seated far apart. Along the coast, the train dove in and out of mountainsides—each emergence revealing a somewhat turbulent sea to the right. We concluded the rain had actually been fortuitous that day. As we passed Minamikazezaki, Ōmura, and Isahaya, the jet-black rain-drenched coastal rocks, waves roaring in grayish-indigo folds, and countless masts of moored boats swaying in drizzle like a forest coalesced into an unforgettable scene reminiscent of antique woodblock prints. This landscape’s chromatic harmony of dark indigo, black, and gray surely would have remained unseen in clear weather.

Nagasaki Station, too, had its asphalt soiled with mud from the overnight rain.
Following the few passengers, we exited the ticket gate filled with vague expectations and curiosity.
Red caps and several raincoat-clad rickshaw pullers surrounded us.

“Where are you staying?”

“Would you care to take a rickshaw?”

“Hmm... You haven’t settled on lodgings yet? Is Nagasaki Hotel still operating?”

“That place has been closed down.”

Then, from behind the rickshaw pullers emerged a burly guide in a blue cap and high-collared uniform who had been intently observing Y.

“Are you coming to Shanghai?”

he asked.
We smiled wryly.
When one speaks of Nagasaki, we had imagined an old-fashioned port town and thought it would have a gateway to a city that, though aged, was lively and well-ordered.
When we got off and looked around, not a single one of those inevitable unpleasant touts that haunt ticket gates was to be seen.
This was pleasant, but with no taxis available and having raced at intense speed toward Nagasaki since last night, our tense nerves felt a sluggishness as if suddenly plunged into a windless zone.
After a leisurely exchange of questions and answers, we boarded two rickshaws.
It was decided that we would first go to the Japan Hotel, Nagasaki’s only hotel.
We had looked up the names of two or three Japanese-style inns.
However, since we had just left Kyoto, we had already been feeling the lack of good black tea and butter.
In Nagasaki, staying at a hotel was one of the things we looked forward to.

When we exited the square before the station onto the main street, tram tracks became visible beneath the rickshaw canopy. A sign reading “Hong Kong-Shanghai Shipping Route Services” came into view. We crossed a bridge. During this time, a single tram passed by opposite us. Along the sparsely trafficked street—to the right, a low stone wall where harbor waters slapped rhythmically; to the left, beyond iron railings and hedges, the shuttered windows of Western buildings weathered by years of storms gazed through sparse rain streaks at the rusted color of a motionless steamship—the rickshaw puller observed these quiet, languid scenes to either side while unhurriedly bending his knees and veering around shallow puddles. Yet even so, I wondered inside the canopy: Why was this main thoroughfare so utterly deserted? Wooden Western-style buildings stood facing front gardens, ships floated in the harbor, but not a single human voice sounded in the surroundings. Not even the distant murmur suggesting fervent activity reached this area in the near-noon lull after rainfall. Could it be that Nagasaki’s trading house managers and cargo handlers all took midday naps at this hour? As we turned a corner, a gilded signboard brushed past the canopy. Against a black background in gold letters: “Exchange. Chin Chu Riyao.” Yet here too, behind glass-paneled doors, no human figures could be seen.

In the May issue of *Bungei Shunju*, Mr. Tanizaki Jun'ichirō had written an account of his Shanghai observations.
Within it came his remarks on hotels—how the Majestic Hotel boasted of being the Orient's finest yet lacked proper port wine, while declaring that "even Nagasaki's Japan Hotel keeps Burgundy from 1911."
He went on in that vein.
When I read it, I couldn't help but smile.
A private, endearing absurdity arose unbidden from those four words: "even at the Japan Hotel."

Just as I had said earlier, having turned from the eerily silent harbor town, the rickshaw was now running through an alley where Chinese tailor shops caught the eye. With bright hope, I focused intently on the town's dead end and the thicket of trees atop a small hill. This was no other place—our Japan Hotel did indeed seem to be there. From lush green treetops rose a wooden building painted in pale cream, its structure spread out like wings. Even from a distance, one could imagine its veranda cheerfully commanding an unobstructed view of the sea. Though it seemed to stand quite up Oitazaka slope, I wondered whether the rickshaw puller would take us all the way to that entrance. As I gazed at the conspicuously stylish distant building—thinking that if these were Nagasaki's famous stone-step roads, the rickshaw likely wouldn't climb them—I noticed something peculiar about our progress. The rickshaw puller stopped running. Plodding along, he gradually edged toward the right side of the narrow town. Thinking a corner must be near, I craned my neck—and for an instant couldn't believe my eyes. Could the Japan Hotel possibly be that cheerful cream-colored building on the distant hill? Right before us hung a Western-lettered signboard. And that paint coating the building—wasn't it as blue as a caterpillar? Paying no heed to my astonishment, the rickshaw puller lowered the shafts. On the porch stood palm planters in rows. Beside them loomed a gaunt man in a suit clutching an unfolded newspaper, his severely flattened crown neatly combed. He calmly watched the two carriages stopped at his entrance; only when the luggage was unloaded and I stepped down did he finally offer a leisurely greeting.

“Welcome.”

While entering the hall—though the exterior had been caterpillar-blue and the entire interior stretched brown as far as the eye could see—and sensing another kind of heat, I said:

“I’d just like to have lunch…”

she stated.
――This had been our prearranged plan.
If our first impression proved unfavorable, I had simply implemented the strategy we’d agreed upon at the station: to take lunch here and nothing more.

“Please wait here awhile.”

The clerk opened the door adjacent to the hall.

In Southern European fashion stood a two-story structure with deep colonnades encircling an inner courtyard.
The green-painted shutters of its large rooms remained closed, while from the courtyard came faint flickers of intense crimson—azaleas blooming riotously beyond.
Having inspected all necessary areas, I returned.
Y waited in a room resembling the parlor of some long-forgotten Meiji-era missionary—her expression betraying profound unease.

“—How Chinese.”
“I suppose you can’t manage without at least this scale in a place like Nagasaki…”

“—It’s no good, wouldn’t you say?”

“What was it like?”

Y—true to her spirited and fastidious nature—asked with an uneasy look; I burst out laughing and felt a slight urge to tease her.

“It’s not like that.”
“If you think we’ve come to China, that’s taking it too far.”
“But… I suppose there are.”

“What?”

“Bedbugs.”

“No way! No way!”
“The filth of the bath alone is unbearable.”

—I just don’t feel like we’re in a hotel.
Then, before long, a resounding gong erupted from one corner of the building—a reverberation that refused to let the listless silence pervading its hollow spaces lie undisturbed.
It was the summons to meals.

On the walls of the sturdy, low-ceilinged brownish dining room hung a profusion of framed flower-and-bird paintings and scrolls.
On the shelves stood red-glazed Chinese vases.
As if fearing insufficient color still, each table bore jumbled clusters of azaleas, cornflowers, and nasturtiums.
A wizened old waiter appeared—small-framed and deeply wrinkled.
We were hungry enough, and the food itself wasn't bad.
Yet how to describe it—this awareness that we alone ate in this cacophony of hues? To parse this feeling further: in a room where some Poe-esque fantasy might lurk amidst desolation and chromatic riot, our jaws working mechanically at mastication grew peculiarly sorrowful.
The food's savor strained to cheer us through taste alone.
But the atmosphere weighed like sleeping sickness.—

As we were both feeling ill at ease, just as the meal was nearing its end, a young American finally entered.
With an instinctive fondness for human company, we watched as he grabbed the back of a chair to sit down and shifted his long legs alternately under the table.
From behind the room divider, the waiter emerged holding a plate of appetizers.
He bowed.
He set out plates of sausages and ham.
The young American glanced at it but made no move to take up his fork; suddenly, with his entire body, he performed an enormous, enormous stretch—so vast it seemed to squeeze out tears.

“Ah, I’m so sleepy…”

As if thoroughly accustomed to sleepiness itself being part of the routine, the waiter recommended appetizers anew with practiced composure.

“Ahh... so sleepy...”

After about an hour’s time, we gathered our luggage and departed from the Japan Hotel.

After taking a bath and resting for about thirty minutes, Y said,
“Ah, finally refreshed.”

While saying this, she woke up energetically.
At that voice, I too opened my eyes.
Though by the clock it had been barely three hours since we experienced it, the moment I opened my eyes on the tatami of Fukushimaya overlooking Nagasaki Harbor, our visit to the Japan Hotel felt like something from a distant past.
Y, too, seemed to feel something similar.

“You can see the Mitsubishi Shipyard there.”

She stood by the handrail—

“Where could that hotel be situated...
from here...”

She called a maid and had a map brought.

“Well, time to start the research.”

Y, by nature fond of maps, seemed to feel a unique pleasure when, upon arriving in a new town, she first spread out its map.
In fact, their coming to Nagasaki this time had been, so to speak, largely due to Y’s passion for these maps.

Initially, we were at our home in Koishikawa Matsukuracho and had never even dreamed we would depart from Tokyo Station for Kyushu on April 27th.
In early March, Y developed intestinal catarrh.
If she remained at home, strict dietary management proved impossible.
"You should enter the hospital," I said.
"True... but I'd rather visit a hot spring."

Who could have anticipated that this single remark would become the chance that carried us all the way to Kyushu?

“So... where exactly are these hot springs?”
“What’s Beppu like?”
“No way! A place like that would be no good!”
“It’s just so vulgar!”

When mid-April passed, then the twentieth passed, and Y’s certain work showed prospects of being completed, we finally lost our self-control. There was no helping it—while fretting over where the travel funds would come from, we bought tickets to Kobe with hearts full of delight. We went to Beppu on the Benimaru. We did not particularly like it there as expected and detoured to Usuki in Bungo. From Usuki onward, whether we would visit Jishō-ji Temple in Nakatsu or perhaps call on a friend in Fukuoka, in any case, we harbored only modest hopes commensurate with our meager funds. It was when we were strolling back from Usuki’s beautiful park overlooking Hyūga-nada to Mr. K’s villa. “What should we do? Should we still detour to Nakatsu?” “Hmm…” Both of us felt reluctant to proceed. The severity of Y’s smallpox was one reason; the second was how Mr. Kosugi Misei’s *Daigado* had somewhat altered our view of Jishō-ji Temple’s collection. “When I looked at the map earlier, taking the southern route to Nagasaki doesn’t seem much different from going via Kokura—since we’ve come all this way, what do you say?” “Why don’t we take a little detour?” “That sounds splendid!”

Y, like a master pie baker, had skillfully used maps and timetables as her rolling pin to stretch the meager dough of their travel funds all the way to Nagasaki.

We left the inn and walked along the road paved with rectangular stones matching the sidewalk widths on both sides, passed through Honkōzenchō, and turned right at a corner. The townhouses displayed Osaka-style facades with intricate lattices. A river flowed beneath a Chinese-style stone bridge that spanned the waterway with steps descending to its edge, shaded by willow leaves. Standing atop the bridge in light softened by wispy evening haze, we found the foreign-looking scenery of green banks and successive stone bridges stretching into the distance rather beautiful.

Sōfuku-ji, though a historic Ōbaku Sect temple, had fallen into disrepair—visitors now passed through gaps between collapsed white plaster walls at its entrance. After walking through the dragon palace-inspired gate and climbing stone steps, we encountered a weathered stone railing bearing distinctive character from years of erosion. Further within stood a vermilion-lacquered Chinese gate, with the Daiohoden main hall positioned at a right angle beyond it. A columned corridor atop aged paving stones connected the Hōhōdō Hall to other structures. While everything was vermilion-lacquered, some sections showed repairs made with inferior-quality paint. Despite its historical significance as a Special Protected Structure, the temple failed to move us deeply. The mountains crowding behind lent it a damp gloominess, and the Ming-era Chinese architecture unexpectedly employed slender timbers that created cramped, intricate spaces devoid of expansiveness. I believe the stone-paved columned corridors linking buildings play an essential role in aesthetic composition. Yet at Sōfuku-ji—perhaps due to its confined layout—this crucial corridor lacked the grandly sweeping presence needed to evoke lingering resonance in its vistas. It struck us as a shallow temple meant solely for worship, architecturally deficient in the profound spatial generosity required for spiritual contemplation. The uniform vermilion lacquering of all wood surfaces seemed partly responsible for this impression.

As we walked around the paving stones strewn with fallen leaves in front of the main hall where the head priest had noisily closed the doors, we fondly recalled the grounds of Manpuku-ji Temple on Mount Ōbaku in Kyoto.
Last year was the first time I saw it, but that place was wonderful.
It was truly wonderful.
It was late spring—a few days later than now—when we gazed at the pine blossoms in the front garden from the arched gate bearing paired plaques on both sides of the temple gate.
It was probably from the left wing of the Tenpōden.
The serene impression lingered of the stone-paved corridor left to decay, winding under bamboo groves along a gentle slope.
Throughout the temple grounds, there was something filled with a simple vigor and, at once, a refined brightness.
The comfortable stability of straight lines connecting buildings and the impression from thick, untreated timber that seemed steeped in pine needle fragrance over time combined to create their powerful effect.

Which of these Ōbaku buildings was more authentic?
Or was it simply that differences in the builders' temperaments alone could create such divergence?
Still holding our unanswered questions, we exited through the temple gate once more.
On the peeling red wainscoting of the Karamon, a Gothic-style cross was scrawled in ink.
The temple seemed to house Mokuan's calligraphy and Endōshō's statues of the Eighteen Arhats, but as night fell, we did not view them.

On one side stood shops selling Buddhist implements; to the right rose temples' high stone walls, those walls entirely blanketed by a dense growth of fine ivy.
We wound through narrow backstreets distinctive to this quarter toward Kōfuku-ji.
Evening had deepened, and every temple gate stood locked.
Here and there between white plaster walls of temple grounds pressing close on both sides, one glimpsed broken stone stairways—barely wide enough for a single person—disappearing into steep ascents up Kazagashira-yama, veiled by twilight dripping from young camphor leaves.

Perhaps because it was a day after the rain, we felt that even as it weathered, Nagasaki’s streets held a different charm from those of Nara or Kyoto.
The aging of buildings in places like Nara came from being baked by that dry sunlight and heat, gradually turning into light, powdery dust—that manner of weathering.
Nagasaki’s decay was damp.
First came blackening, then a sense it would dissolve into mud.
Heavy.
And somber.

The guest from the neighboring room, who had been playing Go until late last night, could already be heard eating breakfast.
Y, with a forlorn expression, kept her head pressed against the pillow,

"You go alone."

she said.
From within the pushed-aside futon, she watched me dress and eat like a child nursing a cold.

"If forcing people into this causes pain or unpleasantness—then no one would do it at all, would they?"

"Just bear with it now—be a good girl."
"It probably saved you from ending up with large pockmarks, didn't it?"

This was our vaccination exchange.
While in Beppu, we had already received warnings from an acquaintance about preventing the smallpox epidemic.
When we went to Usuki, they said all townspeople there had been forcibly vaccinated.
Moreover, spurred by Mr. K’s words that there could be no greater danger than going to Nagasaki, we inadvertently diverted a portion of Usuki’s town funds and received Dr. S’s smallpox vaccination.
Mine only itched for a day and that was it.
Y’s had been absorbed unusually well, which seemed suspicious, but given it was her first smallpox vaccination in fourteen or fifteen years, it was no wonder—the odd symptoms had begun gradually when we were walking through Kagoshima’s streets.
Y, tapping over her bandage, kept saying “It’s fine, really—see? See?” seeking reassurance, but yesterday she had felt unwell, and upon waking had developed a fever.
Through an introduction from Mr. K, we had planned to visit Mr. Nagayama Tokihide, director of the Nagasaki Library.
I went out alone by rickshaw.

The library was located within Suwa Park.
It was a compact building renovated from the Kōshinkan Hall constructed during General Grant’s visit to Japan.
In the director’s office hung oil paintings by the late Watanabe Yohei and bamboo scrolls of ink paintings by the same artist.
Mr. Nagayama was known as a Nagasaki history researcher.
As Mr. Nagayama had mentioned on that occasion, Nagasaki—despite being a special city of great significance in Japanese civilizational history—still lacked a museum.
The various research materials—those related to Christianity, overseas trade, and others—were all scattered.
Imported artworks and other splendid items were said to be stored in private collections.
Therefore, dedicated scholars who stayed for extended periods and painstakingly traced connections to conduct prolonged research were one matter; but for those like myself—equipped with meager prior knowledge and only brief time, yet wishing to catch a glimpse of evidence for Nagasaki’s past cultural-historical activities—visiting Mr. Nagayama seemed to be the way.
It appeared to be a fact that their number, when totaled over a year, was by no means insignificant.
The library also served as a small museum.
While each individual possessed abundant materials, the mindset of the Nagasaki people—who showed no inclination to establish a systematic museum—this too I found intriguing.
Though I had only glanced briefly, comparing that mindset with the temperament of the Satsuma people as represented by Shūseikan proved deeply interesting.
The people of Satsuma, from the time of Xavier’s arrival, had maintained a consistent awareness of their own way of life and what might be called a critical evaluation of values, rationally opposing foreign culture to their ancient traditions in certain aspects.
With their inherently progressive spirit, their lords kept diaries in Roman script, crafted glasswork, built Dutch-style blast furnaces, and established Japan’s first knitwear factory—yet underlying these acts lay a clear intent to import foreign civilization and enlighten our Japan.
The manner in which the people of Nagasaki came into contact with Southern Barbarian and Ming cultures was entirely different.
What the people of Satsuma viewed from a certain distance, the residents of Nagasaki Port bathed their entire bodies in.
They drank it along with water into their bellies.
Might it not be that what existed merely as knowledge for the people of Satsuma had here become something flowing mixed with blood in daily life, fused to the point of forming part of each individual’s emotions and temperament?
We know our own backs exist with clarity, yet find them difficult to perceive as objects in the way we do others’ faces; might it not be that the gentle citizens of Nagasaki, too, struggled to objectively assess the historical value that outsiders would naturally presume they possess?

Before long, I was guided to the stacks. By the window, under a glass cover, lay items from the Tenshō 15 (1587) prohibition edict: a picture scroll of Dejima’s Dutch settlement, credentials used in trade with China, nautical charts, documents concerning Christian apostasies, the famous logbook of the Phaeton, Mission Press materials, and more. In the glass case to the left, a formal robe with gold trim worn by Siebold was displayed. There were small ceramic Maria Kannon statues, fumie, rosaries, and similar items. The Mission Press materials and other Christian-related documents were not only historically fascinating but also possessed ample literary interest, being written in a distinctive vocabulary and style of the sort that Mr. Akutagawa had skillfully employed in several of his stories to heighten their artistic effect. “Aruji zesu kirishito” “Biruzenmariya,” “Anjiyo,” “Haraiso.” “Inferno” In those phrases—earnestly written in antiquated hiragana—there was even something that stirred a faint poetic sentiment. However, for me to stay until I was satisfied would have required too much of Mr. Nagayama, who had served as our guide. He was scheduled to depart for Java within a few days. I obtained introductions to Fukusai-ji Temple, Ōura, and Urakami Cathedral, then returned to the inn.

Y, who had been left waiting alone and thoroughly bored, upon seeing my face suddenly said:

“How was it?
“Petit pédant.”

From around two o’clock, a fine drizzle began to fall.
We changed our plans to visit Shuntoku-ji—the ruins of what was called the Tōdōsanta Temple, built shortly after Christian missionary work began in Nagasaki—and Honren-ji with its Christian well associated with ghost stories, deciding instead to stay home leisurely.
From the inn’s high railing, we could look out and see the view of the bay shrouded in rain.
Below lay what appeared to be the back door of a house.
Behind the rough earthen wall was a small single plot of farmland where vegetables grew.
A woman with a hand towel over her head crouched by the ridges, working despite the rain.
It remained visible far below—small and distant—for what seemed an eternity.

In the rain, we viewed Fukusai-ji Temple.
It too belonged to the Ōbaku Sect—a temple that Egawa Tōzaemon, son of Ming-dynasty immigrant Chen Chong, had labored to bring to prosperity.
After getting down from the rickshaw at the gate, climbing the steep stone steps, and walking a few paces left along the paved path, we could see Seirendo Hall through Daikanmon Gate, its corridors stretching left and right.
The black paving stones and vermilion buildings glistened in the fine drizzle, radiating a singular beauty.
We stood on the dim earthen floor of the Daikuri and asked for guidance.
When we called out several times, clattering footsteps echoed—a child descending wooden stairs.
Smiling at this homely atmosphere, we saw appear before us a girl of about ten in Western dress, straining under the weight of an infant she carried.
The baby was wrapped in a long white gown like those worn by foreign infants in the settlement.
The girl turned back immediately upon seeing us.

“Papa, guests—!”

A cheerful voice rang out.—I presented Mr. Nagayama’s calling card to Mr. Miura Sanemichi.

Like Sofuku-ji, this Fukusai-ji Temple was vermilion-lacquered Ming-style architecture adorned with shachi roof ornaments and hōju sacred jewels along its main ridge, yet surpassed Sofuku-ji in scale and conveyed a more solemn impression. Under Seirendo Hall’s eaves hung rows of large antique lanterns with rosewood frames and gyaman glasswork—all rich in local character. At Seirendo Hall they showed us Tōzaemon’s statue, the famous sculpted Hotei in Gohōdō Hall, and Shen Nanpin’s peony painting in the Ōhōjō. Yet what moved us most was standing before Daikanmon Gate, gazing through its low balustrade at Nagasaki’s hazy expanse. To the left rose the Jikai Lighthouse—a tall stone structure stacked turret-like—framing a distant church spire glimpsed through rainy skies. Beyond undulating rooftops stretched the harbor’s dull gleam—Fukusai-ji Temple occupied a hill northeast of Nagasaki Port’s innermost reach. From the unreclaimed shoreline of old, this spot must have lain close. The Jikai Lighthouse, carved with “Safe Sea Passage,” would cast its solitary beam toward dark waters—whether for Tang ships’ arrivals or each night’s vigil. That flicker watched from ships, sensing human warmth in fleeting light—and Ming exiles leaning on this rail autumn nights, yearning for homeland sights beyond hope of return—...a vague antique nostalgia seemed reborn in daytime rain.

The overall impression one received from Fukusai-ji Temple was that rather than having existed as a monastery, it seemed to have served a club-like role among Ming people and Nagasaki's pioneering figures. Sitting in the vast abbot's quarters listening to the sound of dripping water, I came to feel as if several Chinese men had come trampling across the tatami mats, chatting and laughing about how they thought they would go see one of Mr. Shen's paintings that day.

It rained every day—so much.
Soaking Nagasaki’s fresh foliage where even the renowned kite flying had ended with spring, the rain fell every day.
Y, poor thing—her arm aching and heart heavy—had no inclination to brave the rain and wander about; consequently, I too remained in our room reading a Nagasaki chronicle borrowed from the inn.
Fukushima-ya’s charmingly young wife,

“Would you care to see the Crane Pillow? They say Yang Guifei herself used it—when you lay your head upon it，the crane will cry out，or so they claim.”

It was said that when Rai San'yō tested this Crane Pillow，the poem he composed upon hearing its cry became that household’s treasure.

Yet Nagasaki remained such a mysterious place.
When we first arrived from Kagoshima，those hours at the Japan Hotel had made us feel an unbearable lethargy permeating every corner of town—a drowsy，listless stagnation.Yet with each accumulating day of our stay，this very atmosphere transformed into something comfortingly settled.
Even when rain confined us to our third-floor room through entire afternoons，we felt none of that urgent desolation peculiar to transient lodgings.
To me，this proved how profoundly Nagasaki’s air embraced visitors through its expansive traditions.

Finally, the day came—the day we had to depart.
The clouds parted, but a strong wind arose.
It wasn’t as though the sky had completely cleared.
As if suddenly remembering, large raindrops lashed sideways with the wind.

Y,

“That’s why I hate budget travel.”

I couldn’t help but smile wryly.
We went to Ōura Cathedral by automobile.
We alighted from the car on a narrow street in Yamate beyond Matsugaegawa River and began climbing the gentle slope before the cathedral.
There was a guardhouse to the right.
There were an old man and a khaki-clad soldier who appeared to have come for sightseeing.
We presented Mr. Nagayama’s calling card.

“Are you Japanese visitors or Western visitors? Which section should I direct you to?”

“Either is fine—as long as we can view it…”

Then, the old man said while handing the calling card back to me unchanged.

“If you want to view it, I’ll do—there’s no one here now on account of a funeral.”
“Try entering from the right side there.”
“As long as you don’t go inside the fence, you can look around anywhere you like.”

“Even if we view it ourselves, will we understand anything?”

“Well now, I’m just an old man and unwell—you can go in, but I can’t explain anything, what with this trouble here.”

He pressed a hand to his chest.

“Just looking...”

We felt some disappointment at having come all this way, but the old man’s expression and words were so utterly guileless that there remained no room for further remark.

We climbed the stone steps with a flowerbed to our left and pushed at the right-hand door of the main entrance—where stood the Mary statue commemorating Japan’s discovered Christians—just as instructed.
It did not open.
Circling around to the rear revealed another entrance; this one yielded easily to reveal what seemed a priest’s anteroom, its wardrobe hung with white liturgical vestments.
Walking across this immaculate wooden floor in our clogs felt improper; troubled, I cast my gaze about.
In camphor tree shade worked a lone craftsman stripping paint from an annex.
I inquired of him and climbed another half-chō up stone steps threading through shrubbery.
At the summit spread open land encircling a flowerbed at whose center stood a crucifix.
Early summer sunlight pierced cloudbreaks to set geraniums and crimson rambling roses ablaze against Christ’s white marble skin—a contrast sharp enough to sting.
No human presence.
The gloomy teacher’s residence with its deep eaves stood under repair—rotten floorboards pried up releasing damp earth smells.
In what might have been a tennis court’s vacancy pulled at green grass clumps.
Finally grasping footwear’s prohibition indoors, I descended again along an overgrown Southern European path.
The cathedral interior proved narrow yet brimming with—how to phrase it—melancholy and raw religious ardor.
Ahead rose the altar; beneath its right corbel stood Mary’s statue while above her stretched a canopy painted tender sky-blue tinged yellow through Gothic corbel curves.
Golden stars studded this vault.
Stars vast as those first beheld by infant eyes.
“Blessed Mother ever chaste” wore modest crown.
Sheltered beneath this artless canopy’s naive beauty, Mary tilted her oval face—soot-darkened by votive candle flames—in tranquil poise.
No dark crimson-purple light from altar-stained glass reached here.
Before dimmed sacred image glowed jarringly vivid—California poppies in glass vase offering tender pathos.

In the corner stood a confessional draped with crimson and gold fabric curtains. While we were inside the cathedral, two women came to worship. They sat in the shadow of a pillar near the altar and took out white cloths from a bundle to use as veils. Their veiled forms remained exactly as depicted in paintings of the Twenty-Six Martyrs and similar works.

On that same day, we also visited Urakami Cathedral. Ōura Cathedral is Japan’s oldest Christian structure; Urakami’s is the largest. The various ordeals endured by Urakami’s Christian followers are well known to the world. This building too had spanned decades from groundbreaking to recent completion; among the believers, I heard stories of those who trained their sons as carpenters and plasterers, dedicating their labor to see it finished. The cathedral’s size was indeed several times that of Ōura Cathedral. There appeared to be a choir platform as well. Yet the building felt too cavernous, too bright—the sight of a large palm decoration, seemingly made of cardboard, standing in an enormous vase before the white plaster wall of the main altar evoked the African desert. Here there were no pews like those in Ōura. The entire floor consisted of smooth wooden planks, and it seemed the believers all sat directly upon them. When I saw the soiled cotton zabuton cushions neatly folded at the base of the grand pillars, I felt an uncanny sense of primitiveness.

The power of these primitive, unenlightened minds—single-mindedly devoted to their zealotry and enduring hardships in perfect unity like God’s sheep—was truly astonishing. When reading histories written from impartial standpoints, we learn that early missionary fathers like Xavier and Valignano—those missionaries—were not only courageous in proclaiming God’s gospel but also remarkably equipped with practical administrative skills. The Japanese gentlemen who associated with those missionary fathers at the time must certainly have been awakened by both knowledge and faith—but was it truly through pure spiritual yearning alone? How beautifully and tragically shaped the history of Christian propagation in Japan must have been by both the innocent devotion of sensitive upper-class youths—young noblemen and women who harbored profound doubts about life amid that turbulent age—and the dedication of people like these Urakami villagers, whose souls retained a childlike simplicity.

Among the many missionaries who came, how could one claim there was not a single one who witnessed firsthand the nearly mystical power of these people’s unshakable faith and found their own faith deepened? Even so, which gospel of Christianity had so powerfully seized these villagers that it became such an enduring tradition? And now in 1926—in what manner did life and faith relate, harmonize, and endure?

This doubt arose even more clearly in my heart when, upon leaving the cathedral and starting back, I encountered two or three young girls climbing the slope to the cathedral together. When I recalled those cushions—slightly soiled and carelessly piled at the base of the great pillars on Urakami Cathedral’s wooden floor, whose expanse made one think *this must resemble Hongan-ji Temple’s great hall*—a story by Anatole France naturally surfaced in my mind. Its title was *The Holy Mother’s Acrobat*.

Urakami was now a suburb just thirty minutes by train from Nagasaki City.
The area between it and the urban center lay mired in the chaotic sprawl typical of city peripheries.
While we had been at Ōura Cathedral, the weather appeared to stabilize; seized by sudden resolve, we boarded a train from Ōura Station.

From the terminus, we proceeded along a narrow river as the conductor had instructed, but soon came upon a fork in the road.
One path crossed over a bridge spanning the stream and wound around the base of a low hill; the other cut straight through the fields.
The wind was blowing fiercely indeed.
Neither of us wanted to press forward against the wind buffeting us head-on for even a moment longer than necessary.
From the distance, a girl who appeared to be in her first or second year of girls' school approached, walking alongside a boy who seemed to be her younger brother.

I immediately asked,
“Which path is closer to the cathedral?”
The girl looked at me with a troubled expression, then turned her gaze to her brother’s face.
“Well… I’m afraid I don’t know…”
But with quick wit,
“It’s the cathedral.”

she added by way of clarification—appearing every bit the well-bred girl she was, her demeanor free of reservation—

“Ah, the cathedral!”

she exclaimed.
“If it’s the cathedral, crossing the bridge is closer.”

Passing through the red clay mire, we approached the brief row of village houses.
Here and there along the path, large mud puddles had formed after the rain.
The two of us, while chatting idly as we gazed at the large new castle-like structure of the cathedral atop the hill ahead, came upon a barber shop.
In front of the barber shop, five or six boys—ranging from seven or eight to thirteen or fourteen years old—had gathered on the benches.
We had just taken a step or two to avoid the mud puddles on either side when suddenly there was a commotion behind us.
Y reflexively turned around.
I did too.
The moment when the largest boy, who was carrying a child on his back, hurriedly returned to the bench.
From Y’s socks to her clothes and the shoulders of her cape, mud splatters clung thickly.
Y stomped over to the benches.

“What did you do?”

“—”

“How could anyone pull such a prank?!”

The rascal was soundly rebuked.
The cause lay in both his country-boy-like resentment toward Y’s Western attire and his desire to show off before his underlings—a combination that had coincidentally made this boy “the one who’d get beaten.”
On our way back, at the foot of the cathedral slope, the boy was with his companions; upon recognizing Y, he seemed deeply troubled by the unconcealable marker tied to his back.
While wearing an ambiguous faint smile, he stealthily slipped back into a hollow in the cliff.
He laughed; we too laughed as we walked on.

We walked through the Dejima ruins, bought some small souvenirs for ourselves, and departed Nagasaki at eleven o'clock that night.
Our stay lasted only four days in total, and though Y suffered from persistent swelling in her arm throughout that time, it was enjoyable.
Overall, the entire Kyushu trip was enjoyable.
Kyushu offers diversity to the traveler.
It was like a lavish appetizer plate.
The provinces, each bounded by mountains along their land borders—whether Ōita or Miyazaki—clearly possess distinct characteristics.
That Kagoshima and Nagasaki could differ so profoundly from what one might expect without seeing them—merely by riding a train overnight—is difficult to imagine.
My wish is that someday I might wander once more through these provinces, venturing a bit more freely beyond the train lines into their deeper reaches.
May the editors generously increase my manuscript fees by then, and may the seeds of pedantry multiply.
And may my beloved Y demonstrate even greater refinement in her skill of managing time and money as though by magic.

[August 1926]