Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

“Now I depart Hanamaki eastward.
They say we won’t reach Tōno until late tonight.” —I had heard the snow had begun melting these past days, making the roads terribly rough.
While imagining today’s difficult journey, I wrote these words on a postcard.
I had come from Tokyo to meet a friend who had returned to Tōno.

Just then, the inn woman entered and told me to prepare—the carriage would soon arrive.
I hurriedly added “9:10 a.m.” to the postcard.
I addressed it to my Tokyo home, then wrote another with identical text for the Sendai household that had hosted me en route.

I deftly put on my Western clothes.
Since I had already settled the inn’s bill earlier, once ready, I went out to the entrance.
Being seen off by the inn staff, I put on my shoes and looked up at the sky—a cold, gray expanse like smoke hanging heavily.

“So this is the northern skies…” I thought, tightening my lips as the cold and loneliness seemed to seep into my body.

When I left the inn and came to the town’s main street, two small box-shaped carriages with white cloth curtains lowered stood lined up right where I had exited.

When I arrived at sunset yesterday, the snow had melted, and muddy water flowed through the town.
By this morning, it had completely frozen over.
Hopping over it to approach the carriages, I tried to board the one led by the sturdy-looking horse.

Then, the ruddy-faced, burly carriage driver standing there made a pushing-away gesture and told me to get in the back one.
Compared to that carriage, even the back one's horse was emaciated and small.
With a traveler's timidity in this unfamiliar land, I silently retraced two or three steps and tried to board the carriage pulled by the emaciated, rib-protruding horse.
At that moment, the curtain of the front carriage was raised, and a girl with her hair beautifully arranged—facing backward—stuck her head out.

In the carriage I boarded were a long-faced old man with a white beard wearing a double-layered belly band, and a merchant-like man of about thirty in a black woolen coat with straight sleeves. When I entered, a young man with a woolen scarf followed me in and closed the entrance door.

Once the carriage drivers had each taken their seats on the driver’s boxes, the two carriages set off one after the other.
The low-eaved, gloomy townscape stretched on endlessly.
The dimly lit town of Hanamaki, like a hole boarded up with planks.

My carriage had its curtain rolled up despite the cold.
When we raced through the town, an expanse of snowy fields opened before my eyes.
Within them flowed the lead-gray Kitakami River, distant and unending.

When I came out to the river embankment, a long pontoon bridge came into view upstream.
As we drew near, the old man sitting at the back turned his body around and said, "Well, we'll have to get off..." then swept his gaze through the carriage.

Because the carriage had stopped at the foot of the bridge, I was the first to get off and looked down at the river’s flow from atop the embankment. A large, sluggish flow of water lay spread out across the vast plain. A cold, stinging wind swept softly across the water’s surface and blew against my face.

I looked around my surroundings and found it utterly unexpected that I now stood here—on the bank of this cold land’s great river, gazing out at the vast snowy fields—just like this… I had been raised for a long time in a country where even in winter, snow never accumulated.

Amid the others clattering down from the carriage, I crossed the bridge alone just like that.

When I had come halfway and looked back, the old man from our carriage was trailing about six feet behind.
I stopped walking and waited for him to catch up.
Once we fell into step together, we walked in silence for a time.

Then,

“Where are you heading?” the old man asked in a manner befitting his years, initiating the conversation.

“To Tōno.”
I answered as though I had been waiting.
The old man looked back at me again while walking.
I thought to say something more, but my heart grew heavy and the next words wouldn’t come.

When I reached the opposite bank and waited for the carriages to arrive, those who had been riding in the two vehicles gradually gathered around.
The front carriage carried two girls.
Their skin held a dusky reddish-black hue—sturdy builds and short statures—with one bearing a burn scar on her cheek.
Behind them walked a man of about forty-five or fifty-six wearing a faded mouse-gray hat that lent him an elderly air, his face and kimono blurred as if seen through mist.

Those people stood scattered along the riverbank, waiting for the carriages to arrive. Before long, the carriages came clattering across the bridge planks as they drew near.

Then, from the front carriage that had come, a man leaned out. He raised the carriage curtain, propped his elbow on the window frame, looked down at the people waiting there, and smirked smugly. When his eyes and mine suddenly met, I felt a strange discomfort. He had the face of someone mocking a fortune-teller-like person… while simultaneously trying to ingratiate himself. A square, ruddy face flushed as if drunk; a large, vulgar mouth sprouting sparse red whiskers.

When I met the man’s eyes, I immediately looked away.
Then I shrugged my shoulders and abruptly walked over to my own carriage.

I took a seat in the front carriage again. Looking out the window, the wide sky was coldly overcast all the way to where the Kitakami River faded into the distance. I took out the General Staff Headquarters map from my bag and traced with my finger the path leading to the small mountain town labeled Tōno. The road wound almost entirely through the mountains. While looking at it, I imagined a desolate mountain path through trees standing silent, as if hushed for thousands of years. I felt my heart steadily growing lonelier. And then, a woman from Tokyo with a beautiful complexion appeared nostalgically before my eyes. Even lively laughter felt like something I hadn’t heard in ages.

And so, my curiosity—which had made me long for so long to go to Tōno, to see that town surrounded by mountains, that town in the snow—seemed to have completely vanished.

The carriage driver swung his whip.
With apparent reluctance, the horse began to move sluggishly.
No sooner had I registered this than came the sharp crack of striking leather, and suddenly it broke into a gallop.
We were jolted upward as if gasping for breath.

I felt lonely—a bit lightheaded—and as I was jostled about, I gazed at the scenery shifting before my eyes.

The road entered the mountains.
By that time, our carriage had already fallen quite far behind.
The front carriage was passing through a pine grove about two hundred meters ahead when—no sooner had I registered this—the road curved and it vanished from view.

No sooner had we crested a gentle slope than the carriage surged forward with renewed vigor.
When we reached a stretch of road flanked by two or three houses, we found the front carriage halted there.
The gaunt horse pulling our vehicle reared up as if startled before bolting toward it.

“Taking a break?” called out the man in the black wool coat from inside the carriage.

“Yeah,” replied the carriage driver from his perch.

The carriage stopped.
I stepped outside with map still in hand.
I had been riding for about an hour, but body already ached.
I stretched legs to heart’s content and, stepping on frozen snow, emerged behind house.

A silent winter-barren mountain forest lay ahead across a small paddy field. The ground lay completely covered in snow, from which thick young trees stretched straight upward, their pale hue matching deadwood. I gazed deeper into the forest. Only snow, trees, and trunks met my eyes. When I looked skyward, there was no wind—just a smoke-gray overcast expanse. A hollow... unbearably desolate aspect of nature.

The sole of my rubber boot crunched into the snow with a sharp sound.
Standing there, I tightly gripped the map and pencil in my hand and for a while peered through the woods as if this desolation were something terrifying.

A horse neighed in front of the house.
I noticed and came out to the front.
Then, in front of the house on the right displaying sundries, stood that man—the one who hadn’t alighted from the carriage even on the bridge.

When the man saw me, he smirked slyly.
I feigned ignorance and walked straight into the opposite side.
The man wore a crested silk kimono in *hōshō-tsumugi* weave and a black top hat, his bearing resembling that of a village notable.

In the house I entered, there was a hearth in the dirt-floored entryway where the carriage driver hunched over to warm himself by the fire.
The old man from our carriage, the thirtyish man in a black serge coat, and the scarf-wearing man were all present.
I stood beside them and checked my watch—it was already eleven o'clock.

"What do they call this place?" I asked the old man sitting at the far end while spreading out my map.

"Well,... this must be within ×× Village," he said, peering at the map. "Doesn't ×× Village appear here?"

"There it is," I said, pointing to the spot. "The next place is Tsuchisawa, correct? How far is it from here?"

"One and a half ri?" he asked, turning to the carriage driver.

“That’s right.”
“A bit farther than five and a half *ri*,” said the burly one.
From his build and speech, he seemed like a man who had served in the military.

I stood silently, still holding the map.
The surface of this "Iwai" and "Morioka" map was covered with mountain symbols.
Within these overlapping mountains, what kind of desolate mysteries lay hidden?

When I suddenly looked up, the people around the hearth were watching me with probing, curious eyes.
When my eyes turned toward everyone, the burly carriage driver yawned widely and, with great lethargy,

“Shall we get going?” he said, turning to look at the driver of my carriage.

“Right,” the man nodded obediently.
And,

“Are we leaving?”
The old man said and stood up.

I silently stepped out through the doorway ahead of those people. Next, the driver of the front carriage came out and stretched his plump hands with a leisurely motion.

“Get moving!” he barked.

The people who had been in the houses on both sides all came out.
I stood by the roadside waiting for the old men to board when the man in the mouse-gray hat emerged from the house across the street and climbed into the carriage, his face wearing a dazed expression.
Next, the red-faced man in the crested kimono came out grinning slyly and, from beneath the carriage window, held out a paper-wrapped item he had been carrying in both hands.

“Here, ladies, have a piece of cheap candy,” he said.
From inside came an “Oh, thank you,” as the two girls let out excited voices.
The man,

“Now, now,” he insisted, pushing the package inside. Then he turned back to me with a self-satisfied grin.
I turned away again.

When everyone had boarded, the carriage slowly began to move.
The road had become a slight uphill slope.

I puffed on my cigarette, joined the two maps together, and scrutinized the road ahead in detail.
After passing through Tsuchisawa next, the road runs along a river.

Mountain stream?… I imagined the varied scenery and smiled inwardly.
And I took a deep drag of my cigarette.
Then, the smoke touched my tongue, bitter and stinging.
It was merely tobacco to distract from idleness, but due to smoking over the past few days, I had completely roughened my tongue.

And then, lively laughter erupted from the front carriage where the girls were.
Amidst it, a man’s voice could also be heard.
I strained to listen listlessly.

A man’s voice that seemed to be speaking through laughter—slightly hoarse yet high-pitched, with a murky tone—

“Now show me.
“Your left hand! The left one!”
“Let me read your fortune,” he insisted doggedly.
At that voice—Ah, *that* man—I immediately visualized the crested kimono wearer’s face.

“Quit it! I ain’t!”
One girl protested with a wriggling laugh.
Undeterred, the man pressed:

“No no—I mean to tell your fortunes properly...”
Adopting mock solemnity, he launched into divinations about their fates and temperaments.
The girls kept up their shrill “Kyaa! Kyaa!” antics endlessly.

Then,

“It’s lively up front,” muttered the merchant-like man sitting beside me.
The old man threw back his head and laughed—a booming *Ha ha ha ha!*
I found myself smiling despite myself.

Just then, the road dipped steeply, and the horse broke into a sudden gallop.
The carriage lurched downward, sending everyone sprawling backward.
“He’s really laying into it,” said the merchant-like man, glancing out at the driver before turning back with a dry chuckle.
With that jolt, the front carriage surged four or five *ken* ahead until their laughter faded into the distance.

The carriage shook as if it might break apart at any moment.
Their bodies simply continued to sway, and no one in the carriage spoke a word.
Then, after a while, the merchant-like man suddenly spoke to the old man.

That was about the theater.
It seemed to concern negotiations to bring a certain troupe—which had been performing in Morioka until a few days prior—to Tōno.

While listening to their conversation, I watched the scenery gradually recede behind us.
The road would seem to enter the mountains only to leave them and pass through fields.
But everywhere lay pale snow piled frozen while fields and mountains alike slept deeply.
Before long we arrived at Tsuchisawa.
It was a town like one I had once seen in a dream.
Houses with steeply sloped roofs resembling timber-framed structures continued in jumbled disarray of varying heights.
The color of the town was black.

The carriage had only just come to a brief stop in the middle of the town when it hurriedly set off again.
In the front carriage, one of the girls had called the driver and had him buy some sweets.

II

Before long, we came to a road running alongside a mountain stream.
The road gradually became an uphill slope.
As the mountains pressed in, the area behind appeared like a broad plain.
I learned through the map that this river was the Sarugaishi River.
As the road curved, the scenery changed.
Looking ahead, I saw a single road running along the midsection of a large mountain.
That must be the road we were taking.

I was already exhausted.
My body wouldn’t obey me, and I grew tired of the natural world visible to my eyes.
I wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t sleep.
I simply kept my body still and let my mind wander through various thoughts.
I was recalling the face of a cousin I had met after four years.
She was a woman I had practically grown up with during childhood, but during the four years we hadn’t met, she had married and given birth to a child.
During my stay at my cousin’s house, I often thought that she had become a woman I could no longer comprehend.
……That cousin’s face suddenly rose in my mind.

When we first met face to face upon my arrival, we couldn't help talking—but then our words suddenly ran dry, and we fell silent, gazing at each other. In that moment, I saw an oddly stagnant expression settled deep within the woman's face. Moreover, it was a resolute expression. Witnessing this countenance—one I'd never seen in the girl before—my heart grew turbulent. I couldn't help finding it strange that she wouldn't open her innermost heart and speak her mind.

The face of the woman who kept silent, her eyes unmoving, surfaced within me.

In my eyes was reflected a winter-withered grove of faint whitish color. In my ears was heard the sound of water rising from the valley floor as it grew deeper.

"Sphinx!"

There were times when everything beyond this body of mine seemed to exist with an unbearable strangeness.

Suddenly, a horse thrust its face into view before me. Startled, the thoughts I had been holding vanished.

From somewhere, a single horse laden with baggage had begun following this carriage.

The sky gradually darkened.
As if dusk were approaching, the surroundings were utterly still.
The carriage was now traveling along the cliff.

Before long, snow began to fall in flurries.

“Snow?!” someone exclaimed in the carriage where, until now, no one had uttered a word, perhaps from exhaustion.

The snow gradually began falling heavily.
The narrow carriage interior where we had hurriedly lowered the curtains suddenly felt as though the air had grown stifling.

“In this weather, even the actors from Morioka might not make it tomorrow,” said the merchant-like man, looking at the old man’s face.

From time to time, I lifted the carriage curtain to look.
Snow fell steadily onto the face of the packhorse following behind, leaving it looking cold and sodden.

Inside the carriage, rumors about the upcoming kabuki play began circulating between the old man and the merchant-like man. They were eagerly discussing its popularity in Morioka and the actors’ skills when finally the old man said, “The people of Tōno are all theater lovers at heart…” This remark struck me as oddly significant. A theater-loving town….

The snow had stopped again.
I hurriedly raised the carriage curtain.
A cold wind swept in.
When I peered ahead, the road curved around the mountain, and the carriage ahead was no longer visible.

Our carriage, having climbed up that road, started running.
Despite having just moistened my lips, I undeterred took out a cigarette and lit it.
And when I looked at the roadside, kerria and raspberry bushes grew thickly along the path.
The dried stems of evening primroses, their seed pods burst open, stretched endlessly among them.

No sooner had the road left the mountain stream than we passed through several small villages.
We encountered villagers here and there.
Both men and women wore hoods and something like loose, padded trousers.

They went along, looking curiously at their faces.
I thought every face among them had some resemblance to the friend I was now going to visit.
A round-contoured, vaguely blurred face with small eyes and nose—dark and sallow.
Upon seeing that, I thought these people too must speak in restrained voices like my friend’s.

When we were about to reach Miyamori, the village where we would change carriages, the snow began falling even harder than before.

Miyamori too had a townscape resembling Tsuchizawa.
When the carriage arrived, several villagers stood waiting in the falling snow to greet us.
Here we were to disembark from our current carriage and transfer to one that had come from Tōno.
The time of our arrival was already past three-thirty.

The carriage stopped at the entrance of a certain house.
The people who had been sitting rigidly in the carriage, enduring the cold that seeped into their bones, hurriedly climbed down and entered the house.
There was a fire at the entrance, which they immediately surrounded.

The people from the previous carriage had gone upstairs; they were already settled into the kotatsu in the next room.
When we entered, the familiar red-faced man in the crested kimono smirked at us.

We were shown to the second floor. Perhaps because we had come in the same carriage, the four of us ate together in one room.

Since I was thoroughly exhausted, I ordered only eggs for my meal. At this, the other three looked at me with puzzled expressions. This place was already some seven ri from Hanamaki. Having ridden in the same carriage for over half a day, I had not properly spoken to anyone. I had only asked the old man a few brief questions. Every face regarded me with the look one gives a stranger.

III

We departed Miyamori amidst the snow falling heavily.
From here to Tōno, it was five and a half ri.

Having shared a meal, perhaps their hearts had thawed somewhat, for when it came time to depart, they began cheerfully urging one another on. Outside had already grown completely dusky. As I boarded the carriage and took my seat, beyond the cold, a desolation akin to having wandered lost through open fields pressed relentlessly upon my heart. From this point onward, a young man in a school uniform—said to be a student from Tōno Middle School—boarded our carriage.

This time, our carriage took the lead.
The snow fell steadily.

Shortly after leaving Miyamori, I quietly raised the carriage curtain to look outside. As far as the eye could see, everything had turned a hazy white, as if a heavy curtain had been lowered over the world.
I took a deep breath. Tōno!
I wondered—was Tōno also a gloomy town with rows of dingy wooden-shingled roofs...?
While in Tokyo, I hadn't imagined this cold country would feel so unwelcoming.

After setting out through the snow and plodding along slowly to the edge of town, my carriage driver had been droning on about something, but now he began whipping the horse with a vengeance—crack, crack.
When I saw this,

“Yujii, what’s wrong?” called the old man from inside.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong! Five people in my carriage? No way! There’s twice as much luggage as that other one!” he roared—seizing on this opening—and suddenly stopped the carriage to begin shouting.

The old man kept trying to placate him, but Yujii raged on, refusing to listen to anyone.
The driver from the rear carriage also urged him to press on to the next inn despite the snow, but—

“Hmph—to the next inn… Masuzawa, eh?” he said, keeping the carriage rooted without budging an inch.
And so once again, the man who had boarded last—the one with the woolen scarf—got off and transferred to the rear carriage.

The carriage rounded the slope of a small hill.
The road had turned into another gentle ascent.
Two carriages wound their way up through the mountain gorge.
I leaned my elbow against the rear window again and watched mountains vanish into snow beneath the lowered curtain.
Snow kept layering itself over existing drifts.

The white horse of the rear carriage, its entire body soaked, walked forward while blowing white breath from its nostrils. Horses are large yet somehow endearing creatures, I thought—when suddenly Yujii thrust himself between our carriage and the white horse.

He wore a soldier’s coat over his broad shoulders, fastened at the waist with a leather belt. His head and chin were wrapped in a hood that revealed glimpses of cheeks covered in thick, coarse black stubble. In one hand he carried a long branch broken off to serve as a whip; on his feet were straw boots (tsumago) that crunched heavily through the snow as he approached. A bear-like man, yet his glaring eyes held an odd charm. Slung over his shoulder was a conch-shaped tin trumpet of the sort tofu vendors carried in Tokyo, its cord swaying as he walked. Time and again as he strode,

“Hō!” he boomed from his gut, waving off the white horse’s face as it tried to peer over his shoulder.

Fatigue and cold and… the encroaching hues of dusk—within these, no one in the carriage spoke.
While everything blurred white under the snow, I watched in astonishment as the vast mountains and deep ravines alike steadily sank into darkness before my eyes.
I heard nature’s loose, deep sigh.
It seemed as though deep within this lay a mysterious world that had been quietly resting since a thousand years ago.
……Then, in the rear carriage, the curtain was raised.
In the faint whiteness, what came into view were the red-faced man and, facing him, the girl’s flushed countenance.
At the same time, two or three people from within burst into laughter in unison.
Both men and women had faces that seemed to be at the peak of their excitement.
The man was grinning to himself as usual, with no one to engage him.

The cold seeped into my bones.
I lowered the curtain, propped myself up with my elbow, and put a cigarette between my lips, but when I closed my eyes, I felt as though I were sinking into some unfathomable dark abyss.

The road still seemed to climb upward.
I shifted my body repeatedly and peered out at the scenery outside as though glimpsing something terrifying.
And as my mind began to focus intently, intermittent bursts of laughter would reach me from the rear carriage.
The woman laughed with a shrill, slightly feverish voice, as if afflicted by a mild illness.
I smirked wryly.
And then, the carriage suddenly lurched forward.
It raced madly onward through the growing dimness, amidst the storm and snow.
Yujii sat down on the driver’s seat and blew his trumpet.
He blew with long breaths, endlessly.
……The sound echoed through these uninhabited mountains.
Thus, both horses and people were charged with vigor.

Everything had thickened into darkness.
Inside the carriage, I found it lonely that we could no longer see each other’s faces.
And so, we gradually began to talk.

“Just what brings you to Tōno?” the old man asked me for the first time, voicing a question he’d harbored since morning.

“Pardon?
“Well, I have a friend there.
“I came to visit.”
I said lightly with a laugh.

“For… pleasure?”
The old man muttered in a disbelieving tone.

“I’d heard this was a land full of fascinating tales,” I said.

“Hah, Tōno?”
Seeing his puzzled look, I reasoned that merely saying I’d come for leisure wouldn’t convince him, so I added that I’d heard there were ancient sites here.
Evidently such visitors came occasionally, for he seemed to take me for a local history researcher and introduced three or four townspeople.
Then, as conversation found its thread, the merchant-like man began sharing stories in the darkness.
I struck match after match to check the time.
We wouldn’t reach Tōno before ten at the earliest.
Dread coiled in me at the thought of midnight’s cold.

Yujii’s trumpet resounded with growing intensity.
Then lights appeared outside as the carriage passed between fifteen or sixteen houses lined in a row.

"Kamimasuzawa," said the merchant-like man.

After another stretch of running onward, the carriage soon came to a stop.

When the old man inside asked, “Are we stopping?” Yujii replied in a voice that seemed pelted by snow—“We’ll rest shortly”—and stepped down from the driver’s seat.
I also stepped outside.

When the carriage’s clamor ceased, the surroundings fell utterly silent.
Somewhere in the distance, the sound of flowing water could be heard.
When we stood in the snow and looked around, we found ourselves in a vast field.
The mountains that had been pressing in receded, and a black, massive shadow towered like a folding screen in the snow.
Fires could be seen here and there across its foothills.
In the snow, fires flared red, tinged with shadow.

I took a deep breath from the depths of my chest.

“Ah, a land where myths still breathe in the present”—I recalled these words someone had spoken while listening to tales of Tōno.

No one got off from the rear carriage.
Amidst the falling snow, there was no laughter.
We boarded the carriage again.
Tōno was now just one and a half *ri* ahead (approximately 5.9 km).
The road seemed to run through a flat, wide expanse of darkened fields.

Through gaps in the carriage curtain billowing in the wind—illuminated only by the small lamp attached to the rear driver’s seat—I could see nothing but snow swirling down wildly. Just as I thought we had raced along that road for about an hour, the carriage stopped.

From behind us came a sudden—

“Goodbye! …Take care!” a girl shouted.
It seemed someone was getting off.

The girls’ voices seemed to release all at once the sounds they had been holding back.
And then there was excited laughter again—as if tickled by something—that could be heard.
It was laughter like that of women who sell their charms.

Then, beneath our carriage, a black shape suddenly emerged, accompanied by the voice of a man wearing a scarf,

“Well then, everyone,” he said.

“Well then, you all get some rest now,” they said in unison from inside.
And with that, the man vanished into the darkness.

The cold made the tips of my toes begin to ache. Suddenly, in the darkness, I heard the sound of rushing water near my ear. I glimpsed the bridge railing. Before long, as pine trunks that seemed to form an avenue appeared and vanished intermittently, we entered the town. The carriage raced onward with renewed urgency. At times, lamplight from houses faintly illuminated the carriage interior. Yujii blew his trumpet for as long as his breath held out.

The carriage stopped in front of the inn.
I exchanged greetings inside the carriage and got off with the handbag.
As I was about to enter the house, both the man and girls got off from the rear carriage as well.

At the entrance, I exchanged glances with the man in crested kimono again.
The man smiled as usual.
When the innkeeper saw my face,

“Excuse me, but are you Mr. Matsui?” he asked.
When I confirmed that I was, he said, “Mr. Noguchi came by last night and left a letter for you,” and produced an envelope.
As I stood there accepting it, the man in the crested kimono laughed and ascended to the second floor.
I too was shown upstairs.

I had finally arrived in Tōno.

In Noguchi’s letter, he had written that some business had come up requiring him to spend a night away in one of the villages.
I had to spend the entire next day alone, idly, on the second floor of this inn.

IV

When I woke up in the morning, I went out to see the town.
The wide street had long eaves extending from houses that made them appear dark.
I walked aimlessly down that road.
Then from the houses, while tidying their shops, townspeople watched me with curious faces.
I felt like a drop of oil suspended in water under their gaze.

As I was returning, the man who had worn the crested haori yesterday now had on a navy suit and was walking through town with a vague-faced man in his forties.

Around a little past noon, I was sitting alone in my room with a dumbstruck expression.
Due to the sheer boredom, my mind had turned to sludge.

Just then, people came clattering into the neighboring room.
In a weary tone,

“Whew, whew,” one of them exclaimed loudly and plopped down with a thud.
Following that, when the maid entered,
“Miss, above all else, please serve me some food right away.
We’ve got to head right back out again,” he said in a loud voice.
He somehow seemed to have a sweaty face.
“Well then…” he began in a subdued tone, only for his hurried voice to resume again.
“You see, since we’ve already reviewed the Patriotic Women’s Association roster, this afternoon we’ll visit one of the influential households.”
“Well, going to the town office and telling the Mayor we wished to have the honor of meeting him—wasn’t that a good move?”

“Hmm, I was greatly impressed,” he said.
“So where should we go this afternoon?” came a vague voice.

“Let’s go to one of the Patriotic Women’s Association executives’ homes.”
“And then—with your utmost efforts—we’ll carry out that… plan, right?”

The two seemed to be talking while eating.
I wondered what these people had come here to do.

When the maid entered and I inquired, she said they were from the Morioka orphanage and would be holding a charity concert in Tōno.

A charity concert…?
Recalling the snow-buried mountains and fields I had seen from last night’s carriage, when I heard there was to be a charity concert, I felt as though I were hearing the sound of waves deep in the mountains.
So when I asked when they had arrived, she said they were the people who had come with me last night.
So, that man in the crested kimono?

Before long, the two men left again. As I listened to their footsteps, I imagined the man in the crested kimono's garrulousness before the women of this town.

At dusk, Noguchi came.
When we exchanged glances, he complained about the discrepancy in my arrival time.
I said it felt more rural than I’d imagined when coming here.

Before long, they seemed to have returned next door.
Their conversation had already begun.
At intervals,

“It’s already secured,” I heard them say—things like, “Once the Patriotic Women’s Association executives gather tomorrow, we can push things forward however we like,” or, “The county magistrate’s wife—she’s sharper than she looks,” or, “You go to the town office tomorrow and copy their membership roster again.”

The loud-voiced man’s speech patterns perfectly matched those of an acquaintance who’d once come from Ise.

That night, Noguchi told me his friends were planning to gather and talk with me.

V

The next morning, Noguchi arrived while I was still asleep.
The two of us walked through the town, eagerly discussing what had transpired since we last parted ways.

As I spoke—relaying news of our friends and recounting past meetings and conversations—Noguchi listened intently, yet began to exhibit a strangely restless demeanor.
Soon,

“Hey... hey there,” Noguchi began, his voice tight. “When I’m stuck in a place like this, I feel so lonely... I can’t stand how irritated I get. Is H really studying that hard?” he pressed urgently.

“He’s studying,” I replied. “He says he’ll definitely write that paper by this autumn.”

“That ‘Maritime History’ from before?”
When he said this, I turned to face him and laughed heartily.

“What’s wrong with you? Hey.”

At this, Noguchi seemed to snap out of his thoughts, laughing aloud like someone waking from a dream. I—

“What’s this? Your laugh sounds like someone sick with a fever, doesn’t it?” I said.

“Oh, I just got swept up,” he said. “I want to go to Tokyo. Hey!” He hit my shoulder.

“Let’s go,” I said brightly.
Noguchi fell quiet for a while,

“Tokyo’s bright even at night,” he said. “And I want to hear those glamorous women’s voices again.” He laughed, as if joking.

As we talked this way, we found ourselves before the avenue of pine trees at the town’s edge.

In the evening, as I was eating alone, listlessly, the people next door returned.

“Ah, this is such trouble! Today of all days!” one man said in a tone suggesting he’d entered the room and immediately shed some heavy burden.
It was that man in the crested kimono.

“Well, I must say I truly admire your skill.”
“You’re quite the diplomat,” one of them exclaimed.

“Ah, that’s just how it has to be done. When dealing with gatherings of women—you stir them up on one hand, see? Whether they agree or not, you’ve got to push the discussion ahead relentlessly, or nothing gets settled... But you see, it worked out. The county magistrate’s wife truly understands things well. That’s why you’ve got to follow what experienced people say—she truly gets it, you see.”

The other man seemed to simply nod in agreement.

"Well done."
"This too is entirely thanks to the county magistrate’s wife’s efforts."
"So then, tomorrow you’ll take the roster we copied yesterday and visit the members’ homes."
"You see, most houses will refuse by saying the master isn’t home."
"When you go and someone comes out—right then—you immediately say you’ve come from the county magistrate’s wife and push through with it."
"If you do that, anyone will meet with you right away since it’s the county magistrate’s wife."
"That’s when you present the request."
"If you do that, they surely won’t be able to refuse one or two tickets, right?"

“I see!” one of them said in a low voice, as if deeply impressed.

“Women, you know, you have such a strong sense of honor, don’t you? Just look at today’s example. That young wife said she’d add her name too if the elementary school teacher was listed as a sponsor, didn’t she? That’s why even this time, things came together so quickly.”

“So,” he abruptly shifted tone, “tomorrow we’ll need to print tickets—white, blue, red… You see,” (lowering his voice) “it appears they’ve never held music concerts here before. When we proposed fifty sen and twenty sen for admission tickets, didn’t everyone object? Fifteen sen, ten sen, five sen…”

At that moment, it seemed a meal tray had been brought in, and the conversation ceased. I recalled the ruddy face of that man in the crested kimono.

At night, I was in my room waiting for Noguchi and his friend to arrive.

When the meal ended, the conversation next door began again.
In relaxed tones, they started talking about their birthplaces and younger days—both saying they were about forty-three or forty-five.
One man said he had been born in Shinshu and raised in Tokyo.

"I too spent many years in Tokyo," the man from Ise declared with evident pride.

Before long, three guests came to my room.
They were all around the same age as Noguchi and me.
And suddenly, it became lively.

Six

The next morning too, when I awoke, those next door had already gone out.

When she brought my midday meal, the maid kept talking about how the orphanage’s charity music concert was causing a great stir in town. The performers were townspeople, and they said they would each show a hidden talent.

In the afternoon, as I waited for Noguchi to come invite me and stayed still, the sound of the play’s gathering drum passed through the town.
The play was also set to begin that night.

Night came, and the snow began to fall.
Through the falling snow, we went in a group of four or five to see the play.
When we returned late at night, the snow had piled up completely in no time.
Quietly—ah, this town was completely asleep.
In the stillness, it was as though something with large feet was walking over the town.
While walking, I said to Noguchi,

“It’s a snow country,” I said.

“There’s still no wind today,” Noguchi replied.

Returning to the inn, as I tried to sleep and felt a lonely desolation, it seemed to me that the music concert being planned by the people in the neighboring room was about to stir some new ripple in this town lying as quietly asleep as tonight.

And, recalling the faces of the people in the neighboring room in my mind, I thought profoundly like this:
The edge of civilization’s corrupting tides was indeed about to come surging in.
Even the women in a place like this are being flattered into mimicking work…

Seven

The next night, three young men gathered in my room again.
One of them told such a story.

“Around noon today, there was a huge commotion in the backstreets—the town with the pleasure quarters,” he said. “Last night’s actors were all wildly carousing.”

And so I—
“Ah, I see—since you can’t go at night, you go during the day,” I said. Yet I found myself wanting to see the faces of that promiscuous man wandering from journey to journey and that woman stripped of chastity—how calmly they both carried themselves when parting from an embrace, as though they’d neither discarded nor reclaimed anything.
When I said that, a vigorous discussion about love then erupted.

Before long, the night grew late.
As the four of them wore expressions of weariness from talking, suddenly the house began to shake.

“Earthquake!” one man exclaimed, springing to his feet.

“Now, now—be quiet,” I said, remaining seated as I restrained him, but the shaking grew gradually stronger.
Then the man called M stood up and steadied the hanging lamp.
Noguchi opened the paper sliding door at the entrance.

As the four of them stared intently at each other’s faces, from within the soundly sleeping neighboring room—
“Hey, hey,” someone said in a groggy voice and began rousing another person.

“Earthquake! Earthquake!” they cried in rapid succession, both springing up at once and setting off a clatter.
As I looked on, they shuffled past my room hunched against the cold, arms laden with luggage, moving with dejected slowness.

By then, the earthquake had already subsided. The four of us, without a word, clapped our hands and laughed at the sight.

(42nd Year, April Written)