Pathway to Japanese Literature

I. Beach Rose Flowers

Sado had endured three straight days of rain by today.
The road to Ogi Port ran south along the shore with Mano Inlet visible to the right.
Exiting and entering sparse pine groves while passing through several fishing villages, I continued on steadily soaking.
Mano Inlet lay hazily clouded like a glass pane breathed upon.
In that flat inlet’s offshore area—where what seemed to be a reef existed—pure white waves rose like an embankment.
Being so distant, they only appeared as unmoving white patches.
The cape of Taganohana embracing this inlet protruded far southward, faint as mist.
As those white offshore waves receded and I passed more villages, the opposing shore’s long Taganohana Cape gradually shrank behind us until the open sea blurred into view.
When I climbed Darazaka Slope, a small fishing village lay immediately at my feet.
Bamboo encircled houses along the shore like a grove.
Though left untrimmed with all branches intact, every stalk stood withered without a single leaf.
Since this place faced the open sea, such dense plantings likely served as windbreaks against salt air.
While all of Sado felt desolate, this fishing village stood exceptional.
Though autumn still permitted single-layer clothing, this shore lay so barren it seemed winter had come.
Descending into the village revealed only squalid houses—among them one where a couple twisted what resembled net twine.
When I asked the local name there, the innkeeper rasped that it was called Nishimikawa.
Glancing up at the eaves revealed a wooden sign reading “Goshiki Gundan Open for Business.”
Since this military storyteller spun thread as side work, I reasoned his odd voice stemmed from that vocation.
Still unclear about Goshiki Gundan’s meaning upon asking again, he explained military tales without shamisen were ordinary ones while those with shamisen earned that special title.
I further surmised inwardly that this woman must play the shamisen.

Attached to this fishing village was a small river shallow enough to wade across immediately, with a makeshift bridge spanning it. When I crossed the bridge, jagged rocks jutted abruptly from the sea. The scene contrasted starkly with this gentle stretch of interconnected inlets. To the left, hills pressed directly against the ocean before dropping sharply. The low shoreline formed a path for the highway. Along the roadside, breast-high shrubs clustered patchily, their deep green leaves interspersed with crimson blossoms. These were wild roses, indistinguishable from garden roses in every aspect—branches, leaves, and flowers alike. Having grown naturally by the coast, their gnarled limbs bore an austere elegance. As thorns studded the branches, I gingerly snapped off a blossom with my fingertip, watching it tumble soundlessly into the grass. When I bent to retrieve it, the world seemed to hush abruptly. Straightening in puzzlement, ordinary clamor resumed—the rain's constant patter against my hat while walking had masked all else until my tilted headgear redirected its flow. Tilting my hat fully upright to gaze skyward confirmed this acoustic shift. I gathered armfuls of beach roses, blotted their rain-damp petals dry between notebook pages, and tucked them into my shirt's inner pocket.

It was near dusk when I arrived at Ogi Port.
Having stayed at what could only be called a boardinghouse in Aikawa Town—an experience I’d grown thoroughly weary of—I now settled into the most presentable-looking inn here.
The woman guided me to the front second-floor room.
She soon lit a lamp and brought it.
The room suddenly brightened.

This inn appeared newly built, for everything from its wooden pillars to tatami mats remained immaculately clean and pleasant. The polished lamp chimney particularly caught my eye. The woman brought more tea. When I looked at her properly now, she proved astonishingly beautiful. She could not yet have passed twenty years of age, I thought. That I should cross over to an unexpectedly desolate island like Sado and encounter such beauty was beyond all anticipation. There existed no way to describe her except as a peerless beauty. Having endured a full day’s rain—my single-layer garment and underpants thoroughly soaked—my travel attire had grown all the shabbier, leaving me with an oddly unsettled feeling toward her. When I slid open the shoji screen to watch her leave, I noticed about five bu of white fabric peeking from beneath her indigo-dyed hem. After she departed, I immediately tightened my obi again. Yet the portion of my garment that had been tucked up all day refused to stretch back properly no matter how I tried. Then I noticed—with my notebook tucked underarm—that below the railing lay an overlook of the counter area, structured like viewing a theater’s earthen floor from its box seats. Beyond the counter lay the kitchen’s domain. There by the stove stood that same woman grilling what appeared to be skewered fish fillets; pressing them down with chopsticks onto a plate, she removed each skewer before taking off her work sash, folding it fourfold into her obi’s fold. Bowl in left hand and tray in right, she rose up straight again. Quietly closing the shoji screen behind me now—I sat upon my futon once more. That night saw me as sole guest; no special preparations having been made beforehand meant cold fare—yet with an implicit urging to endure it—my bowl stood heaped high with red bean rice instead. Observing her again revealed she wore layered garments: light indigo-dyed cloth over white underrobes—the latter’s length accounting for that earlier glimpse of white at her hemline no doubt—while repeated washings had left even this indigo layer slightly faded.

While in this rustic attire, the woman sat primly.
Indeed, she was a beauty.
When I picked up my chopsticks, the woman noticed the wild rose flowers and, taking them in hand, asked where I had picked them. When I told her I had gathered them along the coast of Nishimikawa during my journey, she said, “How beautiful they are. When one looks at flowers like these, it makes one feel as though nothing else is needed,” separating the petals with her fingertips and bringing them to her nose. “Could such flowers truly bloom alone by the seaside?” she marveled.
The woman’s fingertips were white all the way to their very tips.
“The leaves are not common ones either,” she said, appearing deeply moved.
The leaves, shaped as though cradling the flowers, were densely layered in multiple folds, their verdure rendered even more vivid by the lamplight.
I found it rather unexpected that this woman intended to praise the beauty of their leaves.
I began to eat the red bean rice.
The chopsticks were thick, round cedar ones, utterly plain without any markings.
I was nearly confounded by the heaped red bean rice.
A lump of red bean rice unintentionally plopped onto my knee.
When I checked to see if I was being watched, the beautiful woman, still holding the wild rose flowers, seemed not to notice the fallen red bean rice.

II. The Beautiful Woman

The next morning, when I saw the woman bringing tea, she wore a sharply creased indigo-dyed single-layer garment with her obi tightly fastened, and no white undergarment peeked out from the hem.
After exchanging a few words, the woman guided me up to the third floor.
The third floor remained with its storm shutters tightly closed, dark.
Only the shoji screens were faintly white.
The sunlight thinly streaming through the gaps in the storm shutters was reflected red onto the shoji screens.
The woman removed the latch at the southern shutter compartment and opened one of the shutters.
From the rain's dampness, the shutter had become unexpectedly stiff.
When she finally managed to open it about two feet by putting strength into both hands, her palms had turned red.
When I looked outside, the bright sky stood clear blue without a trace of clouds.
Sado had finally cleared.
From below the third floor stretched tiled roofs, and beyond them lay a small inlet.
Near the shore stood five or six masts of anchored ships.
The inlet mentioned yesterday was this very cove.
To the right of the inlet, a hill resembling cultivated fields extended like a cape, beyond which lay a small island thick with trees.
The woman pointed at the hill and said, “That is cultivated land, but beyond where it juts out far into the shade lies a rocky shore. Though that island is called Yajima and Tsukishima, one remains hidden from this vantage point. Right where it faces that island, cold water springs forth. Come summer, people from Ogi go to that shore to cool somen noodles.”
“The idea that they always take somen noodles along when going there has such a nice charm to it.”
I thought how I would like to see this woman dressed in a white yukata, with a white hand towel draped over her head, cooling somen noodles.
Viewed from the third floor, Ogi Port consisted entirely of newly built houses, and directly below lay a small vacant lot where charred wooden stakes stood.
Beside it stood a collapsed rough wall charred red—what remained of a small storehouse that had partially survived.
According to the woman, Ogi Port had suffered a major fire not long ago.

The fire had started near these charred wooden stakes, so this inn was the first to burn, and the family had been unable to save a single thing.
“With single-layer garments like these, we can manage somehow,” said the woman, “but winter items we could not properly make.”
The woman’s clothes too had been entirely reduced to ashes.

The woman inquired about my destination for today. I planned to go as far as Akadomari Beach, but since there should be a place called Ōsaki along the way, I intended to visit Hirauchi’s house there.
When I explained that I had become acquainted with that horse trader aboard the steamship to Sado—even mentioning how we had shared lodging at Ebisu Port—she responded, “Since Akadomari is already quite near, taking your time will pose no issue at all,” then added, “Mr. Hirauchi is a small-statured man with a booming voice, is he not?”
“Yes,” I said, noting his buckteeth. “That very Mr. Hirauchi once told me how he encountered rain mid-journey and came wearing a straw raincoat pulled clear over his head.”
“In Sado,” she continued, “we have what’s called a traveling raincoat—even when draped over large luggage, it keeps everything dry beneath.”
“But when Mr. Hirauchi wore it head to toe,” she recalled, laughter bubbling through her words, “it dragged through the mud so comically that everyone joked the raincoat itself seemed to walk.” Her mirth became irrepressible.
When I involuntarily looked at her, our gazes met simultaneously.
Her face still held traces of that laughter.

We were looking outside through the roughly two-foot gap between the storm shutters, our bodies pressed together all the while. When we faced each other and looked, the proximity felt suddenly awkward, so I averted my gaze to her mouth. Her lips were vividly painted with crimson. I had no experience in such situations, so I simply listened blankly to what the woman was saying. She maintained an innocent, utterly unabashed demeanor. Only this made me feel all the more irritated by her composure. To put it figuratively, she was a Chinese trumpet vine. The vine entwined itself around even the most gnarled pine trunk without hesitation. Though the trunk stood aloof, it steadily climbed upward, languidly draping its vines from the branches to unfurl beautiful blossoms there. Just as this woman would tell one story only to begin another, those blossoms fell only to bloom again—ceaselessly falling and blooming—until they themselves grew weary, yet those large crimson flowers continued without end. I felt myself become like a pine trunk ensnared by such a vine. While thinking her resemblance uncanny, I looked again to find her now gripping the railing with both hands—four fingers pointing forward—as she stared intently down at the charred stakes below. I studied her pale profile intently. And there before that gentle, quiet inlet of yesterday, I wished to stand forevermore. Just then, a faint voice called from the front desk. The ever-graceful Beautiful Woman had left the third floor. I too returned downstairs and sipped the now-cold tea.

When I descended the ladder stairs carrying two bundles of luggage in hand, the woman had already brought out the laundered and thoroughly dried leggings. The tabi socks with worn-out soles lay there together. The tabi still retained warmth—they must have been dried over the fire until now. The woman then went down to the earthen floor, threaded new straw sandal cords, and tapped them ton-ton with a small wooden mallet for me. Then she moved behind me and tried to drape the ※ over the two bundles from above. Yet this alone I did not allow her to do. For some reason, I couldn't accept having it silently placed upon me. Even later, I couldn't comprehend my own feelings at that moment. Only the ※—with its 'person' radical replaced by 'mouth' in '蓙'—remained stiff from yesterday's rain-soaking. When I asked what I owed for the sandals, she replied these were offered as a gift and required no payment.

The woman said she would show me the way to Akadomari’s main road and thus followed along with me for two or three blocks.
"When you turn left at the telegraph pole," she said with a bow, "from here it becomes a single path—there's nowhere to go except Akadomari—so please take your time coming along."
At this moment, while profoundly recognizing her as a true beauty in my heart, I gazed at the woman’s form.

The road reached the shore.
In the thin mist, Echigo’s Mount Yahiko stood directly ahead in full view, and farther south, somewhat distant, Mount Yoneyama could be seen.
They towered like great islands.
The sea was an extremely calm expanse.
Around the offshore rocks, the faintly moving waves caught the sunlight and glittered as though set with golden rings.
In the buckwheat fields near the shore, the buckwheat flowers were blooming in pure white.
It was a field so close to the shore that one might think the lightly lapping waves were about to pierce the bases of those red stems.

III Pumpkin

The road entered between small hills.
Following the Hamogi River, there was a small paddy field where a little waterfall plunged in.
Beside the waterfall towered a great cedar tree from whose branches hung a profusion of wisteria pods like streams of flowing wax.
Just then, an old man arrived and stood fervently pressing his hands together in prayer toward the waterfall.
When I asked him if Ōsaki was still far, he replied, "Hmm—this here's the Goraigō Waterfall."
The old man was hard of hearing.
When I shouted, "Is Hirauchi's house in Ōsaki still far?" he grinned and answered, "Ōsaki's just a bit further ahead."
"Come to buy cattle or somethin'? You ain't even twenty yet," he muttered before adding, "Well done comin' all this way!" and walking off.
The road continued along the Hamogi River before narrowing into a steep gorge.
By the roadside sat a barrel maker fitting hoops onto a large barrel; when I inquired, he said Hirauchi's house was visible high on the slope if I backtracked.
Following his directions, I retraced my steps to find a slope beside a large abandoned thatched house.
Upon reaching the slope's crest stood two pear trees stretching skyward from either side, each bearing a ladder.
Their green leaves lay scattered about.
There sat Hirauchi on the sunlit engawa, legs splayed out as he chewed a pear.
Spotting me, he bared his buckteeth in that familiar gaping grin and boomed, "Well, you made it!"

It was four days ago that I parted with him at the inn in Ebisu Port.
When we parted, he said that if I happened to pass through his land, I should stop by.
I resolutely swore.
He had been going out daily since then; having instructed that if someone like me were to come later they should guide them to the waterfall and send them back, he now sat content by himself.
Sitting on the engawa and looking into the garden, I saw a single mat lined with lustrous yam leaves upon which about two bundles of red-dyed thread were drying.
At the edge of the mat sprawled hyacinth bean plants with hand-like branches in disarray - their lower leaves yellowed and withered, their pods not yet formed.
Hirauchi appeared to have lacquered even the rice-straw storage shelf in his wooden-floored room.
On that shelf stood bamboo skewers bearing skinned and dried pit viper skins.
These serpentine skewers alone shone white in that dim space.
"S'fresh-picked pears," said Hirauchi as he pushed a basket toward me.
Wiping my half-chewed pear with a hand already sticky from juice and grit between thumbnails grown long enough for peeling skin in ragged patches - rivet-head grains falling one by one onto floorboards - I kept gnawing at its stony flesh.
Hirauchi watched this patient excavation until finally fishing out a grimy kitchen knife from somewhere,
wiping its blade across his palm before offering it handle-first.
The girl who must have been his daughter entered through a back door hugging a pumpkin,
prompting Hirauchi's exclamation:
"Ah perfect timing! Shame Gran's out,"
as he rose to stoke hearth embers sunk one step below where I sat cross-legged.
Silently she began hacking at vegetable armor,
small hands insufficient against rind that only split when she braced blade-back with cloth.

When she pressed down on the knife’s spine with a cloth, it finally split in two.
The daughter lowered the adjustable hook by about a foot and hung the pot.
Yellow-cut pumpkin pieces were heaped up to fill the pot, with the lid placed atop them still wet.
Flames spread out from the pot’s base in all directions, blazing upward to its handle’s height.
Faint steam—as though emerging from earth’s distant depths—began rising from within the yellow pumpkin.
As the pot bubbled to a boil, its thrust-up lid settled back level with the rim.
The daughter broke apart firewood ends with long tongs; pushing them forward made flames flare vigorously.
Her small frame clad in narrow straight sleeves sat with knees drawn up.
From her red collar emerged a white, lovely face.
She seemed too delicate a child to be this horse trader’s daughter.
Looking at her tongs-gripping hand revealed fingertips dyed red.
The pot bubbled fiercer still, broth splattering everywhere.
When I remarked how tasty the pumpkin looked, she asked dubiously: “Do people actually like such things?”
“If bad food’s your fancy,” Hirauchi guffawed through his gaping maw, “you’d best wed into Sado and stay ten days!”
As firewood smoke billowed, she squinted laughing eyes while leaning far back—hand still on tongs—angled away from the haze.

IV Cattle's Pack Saddle

I followed Hirauchi and traversed the hill.
Hirauchi, wearing straw sandals on bare feet, had developed a red boil on his heel with a small dot of white pus.
While watching the boil, I followed along.
Hirauchi was wearing a headband tied at the back again that day.
Even on the deck of the steamship crossing to Ebisu Port, he never once removed this headband.
From where Hirauchi had stopped, a deep valley opened up below.
Through the dense grove of trees in the distance, a waterfall could be seen—like a single bundle of white thread split into several strands and hung there.
The waterfall appeared to be of considerable length, but both its upper and lower sections were obscured by branches.
This was Hirauchi’s pride—the Shiraiwao Falls.
Hirauchi asked if I had the resolve to go all the way to the waterfall basin, so when I said that I very much wanted to go see it, he immediately began parting through the buckwheat flowers and descending.
The buckwheat field was on such a steep and winding slope that there was no secure footing unless one followed its twists.
I descended into the valley and waded through the water.
The current was exceedingly narrow.
If there were stones, I hopped from stone to stone.
In deeper parts of the water, I dug my straw sandals into the reed roots along the bank and pressed forward.
The reed roots made the straw sandals slip.
Hirauchi had slipped; I slipped all the more.
When I slipped, I had to grab whatever was at hand—thistles or reeds—to steady myself.
Hirauchi muttered to himself as we walked, “They call this place Sado tanuki territory because there used to be countless tanuki dens around here, but hunters have wiped them all out—now not a single one remains.”
We finally arrived at the base of the waterfall.

When I looked up, here only the lower section—obscured earlier by tree branches—was visible; the rest I couldn’t make out at all.
“It’s a shame there’s not enough water now,” Hirauchi explained. “If you come during snowmelt season from where we stood earlier—plenty of water then! No leaves either! Now that’s a proper sight.”
They retraced their steps through the thicket of thorns.
When I bent over, my luggage swung down against my chest and my straw mat tipped forward.
Cold spray from water striking rocks splashed chillingly against their hiked-up buttocks.
Hirauchi took a different direction and climbed up through reeds.
He pushed aside reeds with his hands and advanced by stomping two or three steps at a time.
I pressed close behind him before reeds could close again.
If I wasn’t careful, his straw mat would scrape against my eyes.
By the time we emerged onto narrow path edges, blood had begun seeping from my fingertips.
We came out where small rice paddies lay.
Since this was hilltop terrain barely worthy of being called paddies—just five or six straw mats’ worth of unhulled rice drying.
Leaving our luggage at paddy ridges and clinging to trees under Hirauchi’s guidance brought us to waterfall’s mouth.
The falls were but a two-foot-wide stream running alongside these paddies.
A large linden tree stretched diagonally from above falls down into valley.
Compact Hirauchi climbed nimbly up linden treetop like monkey.
I too clambered up after him.
Treetop swayed gently under our combined weight.
Soles of our feet hung directly over deep valley—a sensation like floating midair.
Across valley facing falls lay mountainside where we’d descended earlier now thick with blooming buckwheat flowers.

The mountains throughout the area were planted with buckwheat; where not, beans.
Otherwise, they were vast expanses of reeds.
According to Hirauchi, “They clear the mountains, let [the vegetation] dry out, set fire to it, then scatter buckwheat or beans over the burnt ground.”

Considering this, charred trees stood here and there among the buckwheat flowers. When viewed from midair, the waterfall revealed only a small part of its upper section. In any case, this waterfall had to be called a troublesome one. As we left the waterfall behind, a small pond soon came into view. In the pond, cattails grew thickly, and beneath them lay a small island shaped like an overturned basin. This island was one with a history, Hirauchi said—from this small island, clear water mysteriously welled up that would never dry up no matter how severe the drought. Hirauchi continued his tale. At the edge of this pond, a mountain ascetic had once chanted incantations. At that very moment, children who had come to cut grass while leading cattle heard those chants; after the ascetic left, they unloaded a pack saddle and began striking it while imitating his incantations and shouting boisterously—whereupon the saddle leapt from the grass and transformed into an island in the water. This saddle-born island was the one before us.

A single black-crowned night heron descended and sat motionless beneath the cattails.
At that very moment, a sudden rain swept in from one side, disturbing the water's surface with a rush.
The heron swiftly flew out and alighted on a small branch drooping from the bank.
As the rain passed over, the water’s surface grew calm once more from one side.
At the water’s edge, drips from the leaves drew large circles in the water while water striders drew small ones.

Five: The Fishing Village’s Noh

Sunlight glittered upon the grass after the sudden rain.
Filling the narrow path from both sides, tilted reed plumes were brushed past with a straw mat as we went.
The reed plumes Hirauchi had flicked back occasionally struck my cheek with a chill.
As we gradually made our way to the hill’s summit, the ocean revealed itself above the reed plumes, soon coming fully into view.
The ocean, likely due to the angle of sunlight, was simply a deep blue.
Mt. Yahiko appeared so close that every wrinkle could be counted across its surface, while behind it stretched Echigo’s mountains—equally distinct today.
At our small hill’s foot where we walked, a single ship with triangular white sails glided slowly across that deep blue water.
The white sail shone with nearly blinding brilliance under angled sunlight; Hirauchi remarked tomorrow would bring fine weather too.
We descended through parted reed plumes.
When step by step the sea narrowed and vanished beyond groves entirely, we emerged where sparse rice paddies lay.

Hirauchi suddenly exclaimed, “Ah, there’s a Noh performance!” and dashed off.
I didn’t fully grasp his meaning but ran alongside him.
As I was about to enter a deep grove bordering the rice paddies, a faint flute sound reached my ears.
When we entered the grove, there stood a large temple.
The main hall’s corridor appeared packed with people.
To either side of the shoe removal area, old women had set up small stalls displaying akeiba and sweets.
One of them spotted Hirauchi and called out, “Mr. Hirauchi! You’ve come at last—but the second act’s already finished.”
“Ah! So that’s how it stands!” he boomed in his usual loud voice while declaring, “I guided this guest to Akadomari,” and removed straw sandals from bare feet.
I too stepped into the jumble of scattered geta and undid my sandal cords.
When I tried climbing the steps with two bundles in hand, I noticed paper stuck to a blocking spectator’s head.
It read “Program,” with “Miidera” listed third.
Hirauchi said, “Best leave your things here,” took my luggage, bound our sandals together with his own, and handed them to an old woman.
Behind the dense crowd, we finally found standing space.
Looking around, this main hall appeared newly built without final wall plastering.
Only the central wooden floor remained clear—both sides sat packed tight.
The corridor’s front section too had everyone seated.
Women and children mingled among them, even lap-held infants staying quiet.
At front stretched a white curtain where a frail old man over seventy—topknot intact—and a youth sat rigid in hemp formal attire.
A drum lay at their feet.
By the curtain sat four or five others.

In this corner of the wooden floor stood a structure formed by bending green bamboo into the shape of a turret, from which a small bell-shaped object hung down. From the bell-shaped object hung a long rope that drooped to the wooden floor. This was the extent of the main hall’s interior. Soon, the old man placed the drum on his knee while the young man placed one on his left shoulder. A red cord dangled limply from the old man’s knee. The old man forced out a strained cry like crushed bamboo leaves, then slowly raised his right hand fully and brought it down—the drum emitted a sharp crack. The young man called out in a thick voice and struck upward at an angle; this produced a booming sound. As they beat the drums together, the curtain to the left suddenly flipped up, revealing a single figure wearing a woven bamboo hat and shouldering a green bamboo branch in their right hand. This must be the Madwoman of Miidera, I thought to myself. The madwoman walked with mechanical precision in her posture, each step measured. After advancing about two ken, she emerged onto the wooden floor. When she reached the floor, she turned toward us and continued approaching at her original pace. The madwoman’s costume shone brilliantly yet carried an antique elegance. Her left hand pressed firmly against the sleeve opening with four fingers aligned tautly. The white tabi toes scuffing against the wooden floor drew attention with each deliberate step. Where she had discarded the blue bamboo branch and hat lay a mask bearing a gentle expression beneath. The white-painted mask too held an aged patina. The cord tied around its headband hung loosely down its back. From just below the mask’s edge protruded a chin from which sweat dripped steadily.

A man standing by the rear curtain occasionally wiped the sweat from behind using white paper.
The madwoman stepped forward with the tips of her white tabi, dancing around the wooden floor to a ceremonial chant that resembled frog croaks.
It was an extremely sluggish movement, but while dancing as if straining her bones, her hands constantly trembled.
“Does Miidera not use child actors?” came a voice near my ear. When I turned around, a man standing beside me had begun speaking to his companion.
“If that’s how it is,” said the companion, immediately pointing right before his eyes.
The child actor in white was sitting just across a single threshold, lined up with the audience.
The companion further pointed at the madwoman and said, “That’s Ogi’s barrel maker, isn’t it?”
Hearing this, I recalled the barrel maker who had been driving hoops into a large barrel when I visited Hirauchi earlier, and I couldn’t suppress a wistful feeling at the thought that such things existed among those artisan companions.
When the madwoman strode two or three steps forward, thrust out her right hand gripping the arrow’s midpoint and her right foot, pulled her hips forcefully backward, and the mask tilted sharply upward to gaze at the green bamboo turret—at that moment, an intense voice resounded near my ear again: “Ah! Splendid!”
When I looked, Hirauchi—his headband tied askew—had craned his neck, his bucktoothed mouth agape as he stared in fascination.
When the Miidera play concluded, the audience that had filled the main hall all burst into an uproar at once.
When Hachi no Ki concluded, straw ropes were stretched across the four corners of the wooden floor, and lamps were hung.
The audience finally began to move, and the space before us thinned out.
I noticed Hirauchi had advanced to the threshold and was now talking to a man with salt-and-pepper hair—though before I knew it, upon seeing me, he introduced me to the man, explaining that since this man would be loading cattle to return to Echigo tomorrow, it had been decided I should ride along with him.
The two men were haggling over the cattle price when Mr. Hirauchi reached into the other’s sleeve and they shook hands—but then Hirauchi, true to form, bellowed, “That’s way too cheap!” before clamping his mouth shut and tilting his headband-adorned head to the side.
Again the drum resounded, and Funabenkei began.
Benkei on the wooden floor and Shizuka, who emerged from the flipped-up curtain, exchanged leisurely responses.
Benkei was a large-built man with a mustache shaped like the character “eight,” and he occasionally fluttered his eyelids.
Shizuka crouched at the center of the wooden floor, and the man by the rear curtain placed a golden eboshi on her.
When I thought that man’s face looked familiar, this was none other than the innkeeper of Ogi.

His appearance in hakama had transformed so completely that he couldn’t be recognized at first glance. When I spoke to this horse trader—ah, he was indeed the one who had performed the lead role in Hachi no Ki—he remarked, “You danced splendidly.” Shizuka, wearing an eboshi cap, moved across the floor with measured steps, the white tips of her tabi peeking out delicately as she danced. Lamplight hanging in the four corners glinted off the eboshi and shimmered across costumes to striking effect. “That’s Ogi’s stone mason—he can handle any waki role,” Hirauchi explained. Shizuka withdrew, and Tomomori’s ghost emerged whirling a naginata. The blade occasionally struck the lamps, its silver-papered edge flashing brightly with each impact though creased from makeshift repairs. Beneath disheveled hair covering downcast eyes, Tomomori’s chin thrashed wildly within its red cloth binding. Benkei kept frantically kneading his rosary beads when Hirauchi suddenly bellowed, “This Benkei doesn’t know how to swing the rosary’s tassel!” I feared Benkei might overhear. A child seated near the stage dropped their pear in fright at the naginata’s sudden movement, sending it rolling across the wooden floor until it settled at center stage.

Outside, it was still dusk.
The old women’s shop had begun tidying up.
I had noticed earlier that there were rice-flour dumplings placed on camellia leaves in the old woman’s box, so I bought a bundle of them for her.
The old woman said, “This is called Tsubaki Dango.”

Carrying both straw sandals and tabi socks in hand, I was guided by Hirauchi to the inn. Descending stone steps from the main hall's garden, I heard along the way that there had been two schools of Noh masters on Sado. This Mr. Hirauchi the horse trader had followed one such teacher in his youth. Later, his teacher's faction declined, leaving only Hirauchi's group standing strong today. Yet that teacher had secretly kept a masterpiece Okina mask said to be worth a hundred ryō at a glance—until five or six years ago when floods swept away both house and storehouse, taking the mask with them. Fishermen later found it washed up on rocks, but by then its nose was gone with no trace left of its original form—so they said. Never before in my life had I seen real Noh performed. That such a ritual could exist in this remote island village surpassed all imagining. What struck me most was how even children among the audience—mostly farmers and fishermen—kept utterly silent throughout.

The fact that these actors—barrel makers, stone masons, and the innkeeper—maintained such fitting dignity in their roles, and seeing how Mr. Hirauchi the horse trader, who had never even worn a proper headband, possessed such knowledge of Noh—all this made one realize there was a gentle quality in the hearts of this island’s people.
That Hirauchi had shown kindness from our very first meeting, that the inn never failed to provide straw sandals when departing, that the beautiful woman at Ogi’s inn had laundered my clothes—all these surely arose from that same gentle heart.
Though Sado had long been imagined as a gathering place for exiles and criminals, its pristine air seemed utterly untainted by their influence.

Hirauchi ended up staying with me again that night.

This place was the fishing village of Akadomari, opposite Teradomari in Echigo.

VI Straw Sandals

At dawn, as I lay drowsing, scattered raindrops began pattering against the eaves.
As I drowsily raised my head from the pillow, Hirauchi was already up, smoking tobacco atop his futon.
When I asked, “Is it still raining?” he slid open the shoji screens with a flourish. “Clear weather!”
The rain earlier had been a passing shower.
The guests all gathered around the hearth.
A man with salt-and-pepper hair, who was said to be a horse trader from Echigo, had apparently stayed at this inn and was now at the hearth.
All the guests’ meal trays were brought near the hearth.
The innkeeper also ate his meal together with everyone.
The innkeeper was a man of about fifty with a fearsome appearance and a voracious love for stories, already chattering away from the very first bite.
Once everyone else had left, he would seize me and chatter away.
“Sado is a place where the climate is favorable and mulberry trees grow naturally, but regrettably, there’s no one enthusiastic about sericulture.”
“Well, since the climate’s good, even if you raise ’em clueless-like, you’ll manage two or three years—but once bad habits set in, folks just give up. Pitiful, really.”
“If there’s someone who truly came here to raise silkworms—say they’ve got five or ten sheets of egg cards—folks’d lend a hand, at least pick mulberry leaves for ’em.”
“After all, folks here’re good-natured—nobody’d kick up a fuss callin’ it theft even if you plucked a few mulberry leaves from someone else’s tree,” he rambled on.
Oblivious to the guest’s meal tray being cleared away and the serving woman shoving the pot into a corner before leaving, he chattered on.
The innkeeper, all by himself, pulled the pot close, scooped and ate, scooped and ate, devouring five or six bowls.
I went out to the back of the inn with Mr. Hirauchi, the horse trader.
At the back, right by the shore, a boat was moored.
Oxen were being dragged along with a clomping sound.
All were small oxen, their height barely reaching a person’s abdomen.

The oxen produced on an isolated island appeared capable of developing only physiques suited to its confines—indeed, all those seen here lately were so small they might be mistaken for puppies.
The innkeeper began chattering away here too.
Sado’s oxen walked freely up and down mountain slopes without needing straw boots.
Because this was considered convenient, they were sold in great numbers to Hida Province.
Those who took oxen to Hida Province were sometimes ferried across valleys in baskets; when the ropes gradually slackened mid-crossing, they all turned deathly pale, becoming like corpses by the time the basket reached the far side.
“Folks here aren’t fazed by the sea since they go everywhere by boat,” said the innkeeper, “but they end up trembling during Hida’s basket crossings.”

Laying a plank from shore to ship, about three sailors pulled the oxen into the vessel.
Even when crossing the plank, the oxen absolutely refused to enter the ship.
Then one sailor hoisted the ox’s hindquarters from behind with a heave and shoved it in.
He lifted the dung-covered hindquarters without hesitation.
When all the oxen had been loaded, I bid farewell to Hirauchi-san and boarded the ship.
At this time, Hirauchi-san was not wearing a headband.
One of the sailors splashed my straw sandals clean in the shore water and tied them to the gunwale for me.

When the eleven white sails were hoisted up the mast, the ship swayed gently away from the shore. When the tiller operator and boatman at the bow shouted loudly, the tiller creaked, and the bow turned slightly south toward Mount Yoneyama. The ship swayed gently, and with each sway, the mountain range rose inch by foot above Akadomari’s fishing village. The ship was covered on both sides by structures resembling roofed oarlocks. From the center of those oarlocks rose the mast. I boarded the oarlock structure and lay down directly beneath it. The sky was clear as water. The sea was as calm as the sky. The air was cold. Through this cold air, sunlight steadily pierced. The white sails blocked this sunlight like a sunshade for me. A gentle breeze, like the stroke of a swan’s wing, occasionally rustled past. The white sail would billow suddenly, the rigging creaking sharply by my ear before slackening with a flap. The boatman, with a hand on the tiller near me, leisurely smoked tobacco. When I asked whether we would reach Teradomari while there was still daylight, they replied, “No—these oxen had been loaded for Kashiwazaki.” “With things as they are,” they said, “we likely won’t reach Kashiwazaki till midnight.” I had thought it strange when we set our bow toward Mount Yoneyama upon departing Akadomari, but this turned out to be a grave miscalculation. I had thought to cross over to Teradomari and climb Mount Yahiko, which had long caught my eye, but from Kashiwazaki, I would have to backtrack eleven ri. Even if I regretted it now, it was too late—there was nothing to do but resign myself. I used my luggage as a pillow and grew drowsy.

The sea was extremely calm, but after heading offshore, waves called nota grew large, causing the ship to sway heavily back and forth.
As I was rocked into drowsiness, the rigging creaked sharply without cease while the white sail flapped limply.
“Water’s poison for a hangover,” sang the helmsman in an Oiwake melody that reverberated in my ears.

Suddenly, a sailor shouted, “Have we already crossed the border?”
I sat up abruptly to find Sado had grown astonishingly distant, its mountains stretching like an embankment.
Mount Yahiko now loomed near enough that even its crumbled foothills were clearly visible, while Mount Yoneyama remained hazy and remote to the south.
Beneath the oarlocks, the oxen began clattering in commotion.
Three sailors peered down simultaneously and barked sharp commands.
The oxen fell utterly silent.
Peering from the oarlock structure, I saw them packed tightly on both sides—horns lashed to a crossbeam at the gunwale.
The sesame-salt-headed horse trader Hirauchi, who’d been sharing my pillow until now, sat up abruptly. “How’s it look?” he demanded. The helmsman answered, “A Sado squall we could handle—but this southern wind’s no good.”
“Even if we aim for Izumozaki,” Hirauchi retorted, “we’ll just get blown off course—Kashiwazaki’s out today.”
Brushing dandruff from his scalp, he added, “If we can reach Izumozaki at all, Teradomari’s better—even if it throws fares off by fifteen yen. What can ya do?”
“Seems we’ll make Teradomari after all.”

When I thought my initial purpose might be achieved, I couldn't help feeling a secret delight well up within me.
It was only natural I'd felt Mount Yahiko was growing alarmingly near.
We reached Teradomari around five o'clock.
As we made shore, the ship swung sharply about until its stern rose toward the water's edge.
I cast aside my hat and mat, then leapt onto the beach as the wave retreated still clutching my straw sandals and luggage.
Throughout that day's voyage, not once had the oxen uttered a sound.

When I looked at Sado, it lay stretched out long and majestically, shrouding the sea.
If one fills a large horse-washing trough to the brim and floats a pot lid upon it, viewing that lid's handle from the side becomes Sado Island.
An evening sky like flames licking up from a pot's bottom enveloped Sado, setting the entire placid sea aglitter.
For me, Sado remained an ineffably delightful realm I could never forget.
Three days had been rain with only the last clearing, but during one such rainy day when I visited Aikawa's gold mine, this occurred.
At first I recoiled at the factory's bleakness, but tracing the bank of Nigorikawa—a small stream muddied as if earth itself had dissolved—there stood tall pillars supporting great box flumes that ran along the path.
These box flumes twisted and turned following the stream's course.
Here and there ivy leaves faintly tinged red caught on the pillars, bowing the flumes downward.
Sparse stands of susuki grass leaned as though straining to touch the flumes.
Pale rain soaked the ivy leaves and lashed against the susuki plumes.
Standing in autumn's desolate rain, I wondered what flowed through these channels.
They carried ore pulverized to mud-sludge mixed with water.
One might call it liquid gold and silver.
When I realized this metallic stream flowed ceaselessly above my head, the mine suddenly seemed transfigured into beauty.
It felt as though Sado had been thus adorned everywhere solely for my sake.
Few places appear as desolate as Sado at first glance.
Yet upon deeper contemplation, I've never encountered another place containing such elements of beauty.
Sado might suffice with just its horse traders, yet without more it would resemble nothing but a scrap of mouse-gray wasteland.
On Sado Island I met a beautiful woman at Ogi Port.
That woman was a peony embroidered with gold and silver threads upon drab cloth.

And Hirauchi’s daughter must be a bud embroidered with dyed threads dried upon glossy shaga leaves.
The beautiful woman was glimpsed at night and parted with by morning, so I never learned her name.
I couldn’t determine whether she was the innkeeper’s daughter or a maid.
I do not even understand why I had left that inn in such haste.
It must have been because day after day fleeing unpleasant inns had become a habit over dozens of days of travel.
Be that as it may while looking down at yesterday’s bay I talked with the beautiful woman.
That conversation was not tiresome.
A thought both precious and fleeting lay hidden in the depths of my heart.
When I turned over the peony flower to look the gold and silver threads lay in disarray.
When I recalled the beautiful woman a certain disturbance arose in my heart.
That disturbance of the heart was a disturbance that should only be beautiful like gold and silver embroidery threads in disarray.
While absorbed in such thoughts I stood blankly holding my luggage and straw sandals until the boat was rowed to the shore.
The straw sandals that the sailor had washed were completely dry.
As mementos of Sado all that remained in my hands were the wild rose flowers from between the notebook pages that the beautiful woman of Ogi Port’s inn had admired under the lamplight and these straw sandals.
The straw sandals too were those that the beautiful woman of Ogi had hammered with a mallet for me.
The figure of the beautiful woman her white undergarment peeking out from beneath the indigo-splashed hem immediately floated into view.
However that is now a memory of the past.
The only thing that remains now is these straw sandals.
I want to wear these straw sandals all the way until their soles wear through and the bottoms of my feet grow unbearably sore.
If the soles of the straw sandals wear through the straw protrudes on both sides like disheveled hair.

Even so, the tightly bound laces would never come off unless untied by hand, remaining fastened to my feet forever otherwise. These straw sandals’ laces absolutely had to be bound tightly. While thinking this, I discarded my hat, mat, and luggage onto the sandy beach of Teradomari’s shore in the quietly deepening dusk, then deliberately tied my straw sandal laces.

(Published in *Hototogisu*, Volume 11, Issue 2, November 1, Meiji 40 [1907])