Pathway to Japanese Literature

Market Stalls

I

When cold deepened, secondhand clothing shops multiplied along Yamate Avenue's street stalls. Short winter coats, workmen's leggings, aprons—items that might have been dredged from gutters—lay contorted in limp twists beneath oil lamps whose three-paned blackened glass cast sooty shadows. There sat a frail elderly woman wrapped from head to knees in burlap-like rags forming a beggar's hood, neither dead nor alive, silently frozen at the gutter's edge in pitiable destitution; while across from her, established stalls displayed men's lined haori coats—crimson formal kimonos of figured silk and mouse-gray striped patterns—arranged with shopkeeperly pride on three-sided racks.

Here lay Kai silk linings with price tags arrayed in rows, while shelves flanking the stall's front stood crammed from crimson-threaded sleeve linings to those with pale blue fastening cords. The square-faced, broad-shouldered woman—her small round chignon crowned by a black velvet collar, matching gloves sheathing arms up to her wrists—clutched a slender silver pipe while affecting shopkeeperly solemnity. Holding aloft a storytelling pamphlet at chest height, she periodically glared over her water buffalo horn-rimmed glasses at passersby with such purposeful scrutiny that to these market denizens she appeared their undisputed matriarch—

Having settled for soba on his way back from the bathhouse—"No earnings this season either"—the sake shop errand runner from the side alley used his own body as a pledge, rushing through the crowd like a sumo apprentice who had turned deserter mid-bout. Crouching at waist height, he timidly tugged at the Red Kimono Shopkeeper's collar while—

“Mother.”

—showing respect in such a manner.

Commerce bore fruit, livelihoods sustained themselves, trade thrived—all from a single shop spread with turmeric-dyed cloth barely spanning five bolts' width, yet displaying rows of undergarments. In Akasaka they would have hawked undershirts; in Yotsuya peddled garments fit for theatrical poses—gaudy torsos and flashy sleeves. For men’s wear—if one’s arms could slip through, they could be donned on the spot—price tags ranging from two bu to three ryō lay scattered about the proprietor’s knees according to quality, while he himself sat crisply attired in vertically striped trousers with knife-edge creases. A dokko-patterned Hakata obi wound with silver chain anchored his properly arranged shop apron. Some vendors clattered bean-sized abacus beads—each about five sun long—against their knees, keeping close their wives whose not entirely uncomely features sat beneath large round chignons and red hand towels that glistened like dripping water.

Seasonal offerings included discounted undershirts, haphazard clearance sales, flannel remnants marked for quick sale, export-quality habutae handkerchiefs from the port—even items labeled “final reductions”—alongside coats, mantles, and used Western suits, each category displayed in its own dedicated stall numbering eight or nine in total.
Next in abundance came antique shops—commonplace wares.
Lately, selling old shoes—the long boots jut up like chimneys, rigid and abrupt, while the half-boots cowered as if chastised, their jumbled forms evoking fish darting through the world’s turbulent currents.

On both sides stretched the established merchants' eaves... Being the main avenue, needless to say an electric tram ran down its center...

The night stalls lined up in a single row on one side.
...In summer they alternated nightly between west and east, but from mid-autumn switched to every other month—competing with the dimmed light of heavenly stars and crimson lamp shadows while thinning gradually like silted river currents, yet continuing unbroken until the town's very end...

Having arrived slightly late for the evening market, they crammed folding tables with locked legs and box carts directly between existing stalls—though no space remained—bowing deferentially to both sides,

“Might this arrangement suffice? I do apologize for the terrible intrusion.”

“Oh, come now—we’re all in the same predicament here.”

“Then if you’d be so kind as to overlook this once,”

“Why certainly—that’s perfectly acceptable.
“But here’s the thing—
“You’ll need to properly secure both sides at a measured pace—the authorities will raise a dreadful fuss these days.
“As per the official decree mandating eight shaku between each stall—which I’m sure you’re well aware of.”

“Hence my heightened obligation to comply,”

“There might be some official leniency there—do speak plainly.”

“I am most grateful.”

Such exchanges were commonplace.

II

Under these circumstances, the spaces between street stalls measured nowhere near eight shaku—not even five.
Konjac, fish cakes, yatsugashira taro—all jostled together in oden pots within the food stalls' congestion. Vendors proclaimed their familiar wares: rock-hard candies, imagawayaki pancakes, freshly grilled Edo-style fish—then branded their taiyaki with grandiose labels like "Eight Sun Beneath the Eye."
There was no need for imitation—those scaled fish cakes proved unsettling enough on their own.

Next came soldier buns and nutritious egg bread.
...The karumera-yaki granny sat forlornly at her tiny stall—a single pot and seven or five items arranged in meager array, no more plentiful than the grandchildren she might have had.

Sweet red bean rice, à la carte dishes—the highest among them being the red lantern suspended mid-air as a sukiyaki sign—were sold in batches for three sen or two sen.
The fruit vendors of mandarin oranges and apples, not to be outdone, erected tall banners—a calculated maneuver to catch the eye.

The cobbler’s hands wore no shoes, but the coat-selling woman’s woolen cuffs glittered with buttons.
The young sundries shop girl wore woolen gloves that seemed less about combating the cold and more like some charming advertisement.

Putting on airs was a single shop—its antique dealer proprietor in a bowler hat.
Reclining with his cheek propped on hand against an armchair that looked fit for sale.
Upon a junk-strewn dais stood two folding screens flanking a squat bronze vase where withered cosmos flowers had been tossed—someone’s attempt at showcasing modern domesticity. Meanwhile, the neighboring antique shop’s proprietor perched atop his kotatsu frame, legs folded compactly, propping a wicker trunk against the wind until his entire rear—visible through the skylight—achieved full enshrinement. Positioning Daruma dolls like secret Buddhas, he settled into meditative stillness.

“Well now, this here’s got some flair!”

The passersby murmured approval as they moved on.

Upon black felt cloths lay Akashi textiles, coral fragments, and dragonfly-blue beads in muted patinas that whispered of ancient tales; while across blue blankets blazed rings, chains, and collars of synthetic gold—their radiance proclaiming the new era.
...Others peddled so-called synthetic silver—invented in Osaka—displayed alongside silver tobacco products.

“Everyone! I said two yen and fifty sen—does this satisfy you? Mr. Rake Seller.”
“For street stall wares, this may strike you as rather dear—but as Western wisdom teaches, you’ll comprehend.”
“Two yen and fifty sen—does this satisfy you, everyone?”

In the midst of the jostling crowd, at the gutter’s edge beneath their feet, someone had positioned a horse-riding lantern that seemed poised to gallop away. Though lacking any shop or wares, he tilted his head back and spoke with mouth agape... This student-like figure bearing five family crests was no merchant.

He belonged to that breed who must assert their presence hereabouts—this character they called the Salvation Army.

“Now then everyone—is this agreeable? The Navy sailor who’d asked about the rake’s price declared: ‘Very well, Mr. Rake Seller—two yen fifty sen it is. Yet,’ he went on, ‘all I’ve about me is fifty sen.’”
“‘Tis this fifty sen I leave here.”
“‘I’ll fetch the remaining two yen directly—pray keep it for me.’”
“‘The rake I’ll leave as pledge—see none sells it to another,’ so he proclaimed, everyone.”

“‘Because he’s accepting the deposit and keeping hold of the item as collateral—’”

He looked down and spat,

“Therefore, everyone—no one should have any objections.”
“Perfectly acceptable.”
“So he told him ‘Proceed then’ and accepted the deposit—is that acceptable, everyone?”
“Now then—had he brought the remaining two yen as promised and come straightaway to retrieve that rake, there would have been no complications whatsoever.”

“Exactly! He never came—never arrived, everyone! An hour passed, two hours passed, midnight came and went, half-past slipped by. What do you suppose happened, everyone? By around one o’clock he still hadn’t shown his face!”

The other street stalls had all closed.
By then, the permitted hours for street stalls had already elapsed; reduced to hazy wisps of desolation in the fog-cloaked avenue, they lingered—their nose tips growing cold—sustained only by the patrolling officers' merciful pretense of blindness.

“At that moment—clink-clank—”

[he] swung both arms vigorously while raising and lowering the legs beneath his trousers.

“Someone’s coming from over there—who could it be, everyone? Could it be the sailor Mr. Rake Seller has been waiting for?”
“If it were that sailor, there would be no issue at all, everyone.”
“However, in this world’s workings lies the twist—what arrived was not our sailor but a fine gentleman, likely returning from some soirée, somewhat in his cups.”

III

“Everyone—as I needn’t remind you—what matters most in your homes remains fire prevention. And among fire hazards, oil lamps prove most treacherous.”
“Why dangerous?”
“No need for lengthy explanations—when mishandled, it’s this brass pot’s flame that refuses death—”

At eye level, fingers tapping rhythmically against the lamp’s brass pot—palm flush against metal—showed palms blackened by oil soot.

He wore his hair long and precisely parted, strands swaying loose across his brow—a man not without romantic complications, though given his profession’s demands, such entanglements proved unavoidable.

“It occurs because kerosene cannot endure even a moment’s delay before igniting and spreading.”
“Behold—the Great Osaka Fire, the Great Aomori Fire—you must be aware of them. The cause of these conflagrations all stems from oil lamps falling and rolling—an odd couplet of disasters.”
“As for the danger—whether glass reservoirs or brass reservoirs—there exists absolutely no distinction between them.”
“As I mentioned earlier, this is precisely because the flame does not extinguish.”
“Now then, the product I deal in is called Ragine—a nozzle safety device manufactured using furnace pots from gold mines where they melt gold, registered with the Home Ministry as an official patented product. I shall presently demonstrate its method of use—this safety nozzle, alternatively named ‘fireproof,’”

“What’s this, what’s this?”

Then, unceremoniously thrusting his thick-lipped crimson face over the crowd’s shoulder, he glared sharply before fixing them with a glassy-eyed stare.

“Hmm—‘fireproof,’ eh? What rubbish—” he growled in a combative tone, pushing closer with effort.

“If it catches fire, just douse it with water, I tell ya!”

No sooner had he belched than he shrugged his shoulders in his patterned happi coat and lumbered off.
The young women scattered in disarray from his path.

He fixed a sharp gaze for a moment,

“That sort of master’s precisely what starts fires,” he said with a bitter smile.

From time immemorial, drunkards had clung to street stalls—artisan masters of that ilk being commonplace—but here stood a splendid figure in long overcoat and russet bowler hat, his mustache impeccably groomed.

At the crossroads, a black throng had massed; from the frigid depths where north winds carved their passage, he rose on his cane's support as though parting stubborn thickets.

“Who’s dancing there? What’s going on?”

“No sir, I’m certainly not dancing here for amusement. At present, I’ve cut out a skeleton from tissue paper and am making it dance, sir.”

“What’s this? A skeleton dancing about?”

Stomping noisily, he leaned against the spectators’ backs,

“Magic tricks, eh? Hmm, peddling your magic tricks now, are you?”

“I’ve but eight humble methods to my name, sir.”

“Hmm, eight methods—this method, eh? Ha ha,” he said without originality, pushing the joke too far.

“How about I throw in a five-rin performance?”

“Ah, coins—I do not accept such offerings. I sell proof-of-materials books—please purchase one.”

“Hmm... Refusing alms—that’s principled. How much for the book?”

“Five sen.”

“What?!”

“Dear patrons, I’ve been announcing to all present.”
“Now then—ah, I must apologize for this unusually hoarse voice being rather hard on your ears... Now then—though the set price stands at five sen, as a special favor I’ll offer it discounted—three sen it is, good patrons.”

“Too expensive!” he barked. “Magician, back down.”

"Magician, back down!"

"There's not a whit of markup, I assure you. Do purchase it now—three sen for you good patrons."

"Make it one sen! One sen!"

"Ahhh, speculation upon speculation..." His voice rasped from beneath the human ring as if dancing underground.

"Next—the method for true market forecasts needs no explaining... Can't keep laboring like grubs all year—a golden chance, simpler than breakfast tea... Next comes—"

With a flourish, he spun the paper lantern inscribed in delicate characters.
A rope forbidden by notice; a youth in Yoshiwara headwrap stood poised in offering.

A figure clad in kasuri-patterned haori trudged along separately, clutching a woodblock-printed book.

“The method to be liked by all and the method to avoid being disliked fall under the same category—the entry titled ‘Charm Amulet’.”
“The method to buy rice without money; the method to stay warm without fire; the method to get drunk without drinking; the method to travel without walking; the method to ascend to heaven; the method to whiten one’s complexion; the method to make women fall in love.”

IV

"Ouch, ouch!"

When he grabbed the tail and pulled it up sinuously, the bluish-black dorsal ridge rippled, and with the abrupt jerk of the sickle-shaped head lifting upward, the figure clad in what might pass for a surgical gown waved his hand and sprang into motion.

"Oh my! The snake bites—but wait, everyone, this isn't what it seems... Through my practiced skill, this wooden serpent shall perform wondrous motions of every sort."
"Those not in haste should stand and watch—I assure you these are marvels worth your astonishment."

“But everyone—but listen here—I am no magician. I’m no snake charmer, but in a place like this, nobody understands a thing about hygiene. Since you’re all people who can’t grasp life’s importance, I’m saying you should just watch this wooden snake’s movements here. Even if I lecture about teeth, you wouldn’t understand anyway—pointless! Utterly pointless! So I never even mention selling. Since I’m not selling, no need to buy. Just watch. Come see the show. Now it starts moving—in one minute, it’ll go wild.”

“But everyone—but listen here, everyone—tooth powders come in all varieties.”
“Kao Tooth Powder, Lion Elephant Brand, Club Plum Fragrance Powder…roughly tallied up, they amount to over fifty varieties.”
“But everyone—it’s useless to say! You won’t buy anyway, and I’ve no mind to sell. In a place like this, no one understands a thing—so I won’t sell! Since I won’t sell, just watch the wooden serpent’s antics.”

With a blue cap slouched over his head, eyes gleaming fiercely, he peddled tooth powder in a grating manner.

Two or three stalls away, a man of distinguished bearing and splendor—one who seemed born to wear a black crepe haori—raised a mournful voice, his entreaties verging on desperate supplication.

“Please give it a try—oh, I do implore you to test it just once! Those with fevered mouths—you whose teeth feel loose, whose gums have slackened—among this gathering, perhaps there exists such a one. If there be any among you afflicted by foul breath—those whose tongues lie thick and clammy—I present here this Fragrant Oral Solution; let such a one rinse but once.”

He took a hearty swig, then arched backward with theatrical melancholy to gaze at the stars; gave his hair a careless shake; spat languidly to the ground; straightened to puff out his chest; produced an immaculate handkerchief from his white coat’s breast pocket; wiped around his mouth; and lapsed into rapturous stillness.

“A marvel of crisp purity,”

With supple fingers, he flicked the yellow chintz table cover,

“There’s simply no comparison.”
“Just hold it in your mouth for one minute—rinse two or three times—and you’ll feel far more refreshed than after thirty minutes scrubbing with a toothpick.”
“Its effects aren’t limited to the mouth.”
“As your spirit grows clear and refreshed—headaches vanish on the spot.”
“Please give it a try—the mouth being calamity’s gateway—do they not say all ills enter through the lips? Cherish your teeth—keep your mouths clean—won’t you? I implore you—everyone, please.”

“If you had one of these whetstones here—you wouldn’t need to fuss with tubs or hot water like before! Even right in the middle of your parlor—on top of a desk or table—just press it firmly and swish-swish away! For vegetable knives—sashimi knives—turn them edge-over-edge eleven-twelve times—twelve-thirteen times—flip to the reverse side—take this slim black whetstone—gently now—swish once-twice—two-three times—just stroke-stroke-stroke—and this here vegetable knife’ll slice through like magic—slice clean through! Press hard—press hard—if it slices crosswise paper clean like this—then for now—in any fine household—you’ll have no cutting troubles! This slim one here—normally five sen—but special discount—comes with the coarse one—two together—plus a Nagura stone—all for three sen—three sen I offer! For scissors—razors—even if I sharpen ’em once—two-three sen flow right through your fingers...”

Scattering diced paper scraps pell-mell across his knees and matting in the night wind, he held his striped cylindrical sleeves stiffly erect while applying an emery-coated whetstone—size of a flower tile—to the vegetable knife, never tilting his head back enough to meet anyone's gaze: this slender-cheeked youth with his bulky woolen scarf stood as heir to generations of established stallkeepers.

Shoulder-to-shoulder with others, a stout and rotund figure stood rigid on weather-worn clogs—his collar frayed with blind-stripe patterns, sleeves gleaming where they’d been rubbed sideways, the same navy billowing apron dangling from his neck; withered-grass-hued half-leggings with twisted knees yanked haphazardly up his legs. A mean-spirited lad barked about his “three-purpose radish peeler.”

V

Thrusting both elbows from his tight collar, jamming his fingertips into the eight-bladed peeler, and squirming his neck against the collar as he—

“Auntie, won’t you buy? Not a single old-timer’s buying.”
“The Senroppon, the Onamasu, and the peeler—all three together for the price of one!”
“It’s cheap ’cause we’re the manufacturers, see?”
“We’ve got large and small!”
“The large one’s five sen, the small one’s three sen.”
“Even if you buy one peeler alone, it’ll cost three sen! You won’t buy it—ah, ah, ah—”

Twisting his square mouth gaping open to the forehead, constricting his boar-like neck down to its base—then suddenly he threw back his head in a cavernous yawn. So wildly exaggerated that even he himself started in surprise,

"Hah!" With this sharp exclamation, he yanked out the hand gripping the eight-bladed peeler, slammed a clenched fist against the corner of his mouth with a smack to seal it shut, then expelled a great cloud of pure white breath...

Indeed, every stall—lined up in rows, some standing tall, others crouched low, each uneven and irregular—exhaled the same white breath. In the oppressively heavy, smoke-clogged December sky—yet paradoxically clear—pale gloomy lanterns flickered before which cold souls darted restlessly. They emerged faintly from the wrinkles of senile headscarves, the upturned collars of old garments, the creases of soiled mufflers, mingling with the swaying firelight—when suddenly, buzzing through the scene came the main street tram. Raising a gust, it snatched them away in a flash, crackling with violet light before vanishing.

Every face stood out in the firelight—pallid, shadow-thin, marked by soiled aprons—while soot-blackened arhat-like figures, dull and lonesome in their murky forms, remained scattered along the gutter’s edge.

At such times, the flow of passersby would abruptly cease, and in those moments—within the blazing electric lamps of the shops opposite—the forms of apprentices, shopkeepers’ wives warming themselves by braziers, and others would emerge vividly: against storybook covers, within glass panes, but most strikingly as sharp silhouettes cast by crimson-dyed cloths hung beneath the eaves.

The street stalls sank bleakly into the fog.

Instantly, black shadows came swaying unsteadily out into the thoroughfare.
When their forms—the red of felt blankets, the blue of woolen covers, the yellow of wrapping cloths, even the desolate Old Woman’s ashen gray—suddenly bloomed with faint hues beneath the stark stars in that lacquer-black night, the merchants burst into noisy motion: the sukiyaki’s crimson swayed anew, the oden stall’s lanterns flared up in competition, sending thick white plumes skyward like smoke signals.
Along the roasted bean vendor’s load—which darted low like a large bat with blunt wings, never settling—thread-like sparks raced,

“Beans! Roasted beans! Fresh-roasted beans! Tender beans!”

The cry rang out piercingly clear, carried as far as the distant crossroads no one would have thought possible.

Once again, clamorous sales pitches began here and there.

Yet as the ebb tide quickened—like seaweed finally caught on a fence—the Old Woman fidgeted her bent waist, trying not to let the laborer’s hands drag off her ancient leggings as she slid her knees over the gutter to no effect... The shopkeeper who had chased after gawkers while clutching a Hakata obi clicked his tongue and retreated without fixing a price... The fireworks vendor—having prepared to hook a dabo-shark tobacco pouch with a feather-tipped baton only to dislodge it with a thud—peered into his wallet while inspecting the bait box... On the tooth powder vendor’s stand, trial-use powder scattered white, laying thin frost on the seller’s wispy whiskers... Past early nightfall, each interval when fog smothered the stall lights drew nearer, every resurgence of bustle growing more sluggish and burdensome.

The entire crowd slumped dejectedly as they looked around in rows.

Of course，those before electric lights and those behind gas lamps alike found their pre-sleep comings and goings hectic.

Particularly conspicuous：on snow-white oilpaper lay the visually chilling Senroppon scattered like agar jelly，while soaking dew dripped intermittently—pattering against feet—as the radish-peeling boy frozen at the gutter’s edge now seemed unable to bear it，pressing his trembling frozen hands to his lips while shaking violently in impoverished agitation，

“A-ah—”

Then, letting out another cavernous yawn and exhaling swirling white breath, he boomed in a voice that pierced through the air:

“I wanna eat rice cakes!”

VI

"Says he wants rice cakes, ha, ha, ha,"

Having just set up her stall beside him under a two-wick lamp that left her hands working in shadows as she carved toothpicks—this pitiable hermitess whose gentle demeanor alone lent her delicacy—turned her black-hooded face toward the neighboring stall and spoke with a rasping laugh.

The adjacent street stall—operated by a woman around thirty who had neatly arranged tabi socks bearing the "Kyō-dyed True Indigo Certified" mark with their white soles flipped up—stood only slightly separated from the others, rendering Santokuyo's earlier proclamations indistinct along the thoroughfare... Yet being of such astonishing volume, people found themselves straining to catch the words.

It seemed that even without true comprehension taking hold, things simply turned absurd.

“Rice cakes… ho ho ho,” she laughed with a rasping voice.

And next to her stood a used bookstore where a sickly, gloomy man—with an unkempt beard and gaunt chin resting atop a hibachi—crouched low, as if lured there—

“Hmm-hmm-hmm,”

He laughed hollowly.

Next came the water confectionery vendor with his usual vigorous display—tall banners hoisted high—who now thrust forward the knotted headband he claimed had flown down from the mountains before throwing his head back in roaring laughter.
Then continuing on—within the single-item dish tents, those present among the customers shook with raucous laughter.
The Nine Star Seller of Year-End Treasures collapsed forward toward the auspicious direction, giggling uncontrollably as if he might burst, whereupon the tooth powder vendor called Bitterbug snorted through his nose.
The voices merged into unison—a resonance like a mole catcher ascending through water pipes—and along one side of the street, the night itself roared.
Out of season, leaves scattered white between will-o'-the-wisp lights in the foggy void.

Just as the bean vendor roared with laughter in one final burst, a dog barked savagely in the distance.

A specter must have brushed past the eaves.
It resounded northwards too before bursting through toward the town's edge.
At times even her lopsided smile - that alluring presence whose lips never quite curved into proper mirth - kept solitary watch over her street stall.

Descending from the vertical avenue to the cross-street through the tram intersection toward the town's end, people and shops and lamp-shadows all grew sparse like gaps in missing teeth—yet through these intervals a cold wind swept—while each single-layered shop became enveloped in swirling eddies of mist.
The same sooty oil lamps—people’s facial features and eyebrows, mats in blue, red, and mouse-gray hues though mere floor coverings—formed a chaotic swirl akin to a chicken egg’s interior, softly reflected in streetlamps’ pale shadows.
But the withered willow’s slender branches—rather than bearing a trunk-lit lantern—stood out crisply here and there within this scene: blue against stars, white in wind.

At the willow's base sat the aforementioned woman upon a stall laid with a single straw mat.

Her age: mid-twenties... nearing thirty.
Her figure and face both worn to exhaustion, she likely appeared somewhat older than her years.
She wore what seemed a padded meisen-striped haori draped slenderly over delicate shoulders, the same striped fabric at her knees worn thin—the stripes so fine they nearly appeared solid. Only this section suggested fine silk; she had tied a tattered apron and hitched her day-night obi high at her chest in a light-blue dotted underlayer that swelled below her breasts—likely where she'd stuffed both tissues and purse together.

The shoulder wrap—which must have possessed a certain charm a decade prior—lay folded into quarters.
One might think to drape it over her knees—the deeper the hem, the colder those fabric weights would seem—but upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a patchwork of fragments too tattered to bring up.
With neither brazier nor foot warmer, her frost-bare skin could not endure.

The black satin collar grew pale and translucent.

The parched night wind lashed about, capable of flaying skin, yet her glossy marumage—that traditional rounded chignon of thin strands—hung limply beneath a caramel-colored scarf of diaphanous silk. A tassel had come undone from what appeared to be a man’s garment wrapped tightly about her frame. Beneath the sleeve where she’d dejectedly tucked the left cuff above her breast lay a Rikyū-style tobacco pouch—only its scarlet shioze lining showed any color, and even that had faded.

The shadow from her clouded hairline cast upon her eyelids, her oval face not appearing particularly emaciated. She swept smooth strands from her straight nose bridge sideways, carelessly draping back-hair without bothering to brush it away... With downcast eyes framed by long, thick lashes, she lightly held a blowgun tube between lips that appeared flushed and parched—one hand supporting a snow-pale arm wrapped in Chinese crepe sleeves whose pieced-together scarlet-dotted allure gripped the cylindrical hems.

VII

She wrote "(1 set)" in kana on three wooden price tags and noted "(2 sen)" similarly, arranging them before meticulously aligned Daruma dolls that resembled ripe persimmons—crimson mushrooms attaining enlightenment before tumbling over like papier-mâché votives from old tales where snails turned nuns.

She arranged the garish crimson Daruma dolls—their eyes stark black voids—atop a three-inch stand with a wooden owl base, lining them up from largest child’s fist-sized down to acorn-small. With downcast eyes, she took aim through the blowgun and pfft—

With a clatter, it tumbled back without resistance and rolled lightly.
The next one—pfft—clattered over.
Another pfft—clattered down.
With pfft pfft blows—breath so light it could stir a hair—came clatter-clatter-clatter, and five or seven dolls at once tumbled head over heels, spun around, and fell with practiced ease, vanishing like soap bubbles popping mid-air.

When they fell, she lined them up again one by one from one end, blew a pfft from the first in line to make them clatter... She repeated this same motion without pause to sell her playthings, yet offered no sales pitch or showmanship—just maintaining her aloof silence.

Even when rainbows of laughter arced vividly through the fog, she alone never smiled, never acknowledged the surrounding stares, and blew with the same pfft.

They clattered and rolled.

“Rice cakes! Rice cakes! Want some rice cakes?”

With a slightly drawling, accented screech that seemed to crack the frozen air, a high-pitched voice darted through the fog as if to fracture it—suddenly materializing behind the toy vendor woman stood a compact figure clad in an orange suit, peering from beneath a mouse-gray fedora pulled low over his brow.

“Warm rice cakes!”

Beneath another shrill cry, he momentarily crouched—then with swift precision aligned his straight-cut suit’s knees, sidled up sideways, and no sooner had he brushed against the woman’s apron than thrust both hands into his coat pockets. Squaring his shoulders, he gave one sharp headshake—mustache bristling beneath his upturned nose—and through the sheer dust cover cast a quick spin of those petite, doll-like eyes with their round charm, his face twisting into an absurd grimace.

As for this contraption—well,

For when they—those knees that had rashly assumed the warmth meant sneaking beneath the foot-warmer’s box brazier quilt—slumped limply away, leaving two dolls perched primly together, illuminated by lamplight.

This gentleman in the orange suit was no mere passerby in high spirits or anything of the sort.
A casual vendor who—as meticulous as counting chilled herring roe grains—peddled cigarette holders with nickel-crafted spiral mechanisms to trap tobacco tar, linked to those long cigarettes said to cascade like latticework.

He called himself an Engineer.

Yet when demonstrating usage methods before an assembled crowd, his demeanor bore none of this frivolity.

With downcast eyes, his glasses gleaming brilliantly, glaring with his forehead beneath a hat pulled low—like a dignitary moving incognito—he maintained icy composure without so much as clearing his throat. Expounding nicotine’s perils, he brandished a test tube filled with dreadfully turbid liquid clouded by copious precipitates from a single cigarette’s puff, holding it aloft in acetylene’s azure glow. In these moments, he commanded the gravitas of some professor ascending a physics lecture podium, his presence scattering all triviality from the air.

There, though the crowd merely blew tobacco smoke into glass tubes with trembling motions that only clouded the water, the Engineer’s authoritative demeanor and briskly delivered speech made them grasp nicotine’s dreadful toxicity—and shuddering at this revelation, they purchased half-price discounts vigorously.

Why, it was no comparison at all to how tooth powder employed test reagents to make bacteria dance instantly from the oral residue wiped off bystanders' yellowed teeth.

Because they sold well, he grew increasingly self-satisfied and delivered ever more composed explanations.

Yet as night deepened slightly and the crowd thinned to wisps, this was precisely when the Engineer thrived.
As if stifling a sneeze until now, he gave a fidgety shudder, then twisted his body away from the stiffened stall with a sudden jerk—launching himself forward as if taking flight—before ducking into the neighboring oden stall to snatch a skewer of simmered stew.
No sooner had he slid his hand over the antique shop’s skylight while blowing pfft pfft on it than he darted onward, vigorously shaking that nirvana-still windbreak basket.

VIII

At that moment came a shrill cackle—shoes clattering away from their owner’s side—and without aiming for any particular stall, he squatted briefly behind the old woman who sat hunched over.

“It’s cold, isn’t it.”

He called out and gave her shoulder a tap-tap.

Cackling “hee-hee!” once more, he glided sideways—smoothly, smoothly—positioned himself, and whacked the old woman’s back with a thud.
Suddenly thrust both knees into the middle-aged woman’s foot warmer and settled in with nonchalant composure, his expression that of a sightseer observing the mundane world.

The charmer of the street stalls—Mr. Yanagihyō of the bamboo lattice enclosure. Thus following that logic—having acted recklessly under the delusion of rice-cake warmth—the toy vendor woman found her knees exposed to the thoroughfare, abruptly arrayed upon frost-dusted matting for want of any heat about her waist. The orange-clad Yanagihyōshi hunched his deflated shoulders—with a clack, glared sharply through his glasses at a large Daruma. The woman composes herself and blows—pfft... Clatter— Before she could even gasp and pull back her chin—clatter-clatter-clatter—they all tumbled down. Immediately, with the delicate snow-white fabric of her red cylindrical sleeve’s hem, she picked them up one by one and realigned them.

“Unbearable, isn’t it? So cold.”

He twisted his beard.
Yet he appeared greatly embarrassed.

Observing this askance while grinning to reveal gold front teeth was a red-faced man of official-like demeanor—his large head crowned with disheveled hair beneath a firmly set high-crowned black hat, forehead creased with ridges, cheekbones prominent, features broad.
With thick eyebrows thrust forward beneath large glasses, sporting a salt-and-pepper beard over a pointed chin, his stocky yet tall frame wore a long kasuri-patterned padded haori over thickly layered frost-patterned underrobes—rock-solid arms retracted into sleeves for customer dealings. Taking a bamboo whip in hand, he flapped it batabatabata against his palm while indicating cut tobaccos from Mikawa Province’s Okazaki, Bingo Province’s Onomichi, Higo Province’s Kumamoto…

“The Ministry of Home Affairs’ Tobacco Monopoly Bureau—all officially stamped.”
“The flavor is excellent—try it first before you buy.”
“Osaka’s Yasui Bank—collateral from their third vault.”
“Following this recent disposal related to said bank’s vault cleaning, our firm has obtained exclusive sales rights—these are foreclosed tobaccos sold cheaply. Try them and savor the fragrance—aromas permeate your mouth yet leave not a trace of residue.”
“I’m prone to phlegm, but—”

He gave three small dry coughs and withdrew the bamboo whip into his sleeve,

“Since using this tobacco, I’ve completely forgotten my troubles.”
“But mark this—those who crave sheer strength, be it harshness or residue, this tobacco will never suit them!”
“Fragrant without residue—how about these foreclosed cuts?”

he declared in a booming voice, rolling his slightly bloodshot large eyes.
His demeanor—the sort that made one think he’d borrowed from loan sharks—threatened to invite a bucket of water dumped through the skylight, yet contrary to expectations, he proved a mild-mannered gentleman of gentle temper.

When business slowed, he would grab children nearby,

“Ah, well then,” he intoned in bureaucratic cadence, squinting beneath his spectacles to gather a full crop of wrinkles across his brow while rhythmically smoothing down his beard—spun comical tales to delight them. This same uncle followed with:

“Now then, youngsters.”

With an expression declaring “Well then,” he took the bamboo whip like a ceremonial baton—gripping its tapered end and twisting it about—his shadowed forehead beneath the hat, white beard framing a grin where gold teeth glinted with cunning prominence.

The Engineer turned back without lingering attachment—yet even knowing this, still flushed with embarrassment.

“Just you wait and see!”

While distant lamps blinked like eyes, he shook his neatly aligned knees restlessly—
“How bitterly cold it is! Oh, it’s so cold!”

With a shrill cry, he slumped against his left shoulder—his full weight carelessly thrown like a wrestler through a shop curtain suddenly slipped free. When his knees buckled with a thud, his trembling form shuddered violently; no wonder he’d stiffened—one could tell just by touching him through his padded coat.

Her hands remained gauntly tucked away, never once emerging; her left sleeve hung smoothly down, supporting nothing—the woman lacked a hand.

IX

By this hour, stalls here and there were beginning to pack up gradually.
Though it was barely past nine o'clock, the chill December night drove people home sooner than summer's midnight ever could.

Here and there, stall extensions were removed and umbrellas folded shut, while above them cold stars cast their light—the oil lamps extinguished with puff-puff sounds.
The supporting unpainted wooden pillars tapered in the night wind, and the stacked shelves clattered down.
Into this scene emerged a figure—a kotatsu transformed into a walking entity—heftily shouldering a large cloth-wrapped bundle.
Before the lingering lamps, frost-seared legs glowed crimson.

Some had bullock carts come to collect their wares, while others pulled out bicycles.
At each stall, one or two additional figures appeared—grandchildren assisting the elderly, husbands helping their wives—along with helpers sent from homes to expedite the packing. Yet this alone did not account for the growing crowd.
Those who had found kindred spirits chatted in their own ways as they departed, their conversations mainly consisting of parting small talk and business updates,

“Business as bad as ever, if I may say so without offense.”

“No, contrary to expectations, there’s been a slight increase since last night.”

“When we set up together like this, there’s nothing worth discussing.”

“I’m no exception to that.”

“I ought to pack it in for the night, but even so—once you get used to coming out here—not seeing your faces for a single evening leaves me too lonesome to sleep.”
“...Coming out knowing full well it’s pointless—ah, just wasting lamp oil.”

As they huddled together, the stalls became mere swatches of matting—like swaddling cloths drying on winter-barren fields—the Plough dim overhead while frost crusted skeletal branches.

At a stall still standing where no customers lingered—its desolate lamplight ahead—someone took a long cigarette sideways, hung a slender tattered rag upon it, then slowly pulled it back and forth until black ridges formed in the oil-slicked threads' entanglement; in that moment, it seemed more eerie than the tooth powder vendor's wooden snake movements.

At that moment, the coolly alluring doll vendor—

“It’s cold,” said the Engineer as he leaned closer—apparently startled by the missing hand—and in that instant she set down the blowgun, tucked away the right hand that had been operating it into her inner kimono fold, causing the satin obi to tighten sharply.
Without pause, she took a small purple hand warmer—faded yet still violet, shaped like a crushed eggplant—and wordlessly thrust it against the Engineer’s chest.

If you’re cold, I’ll lend you this—must have been her meaning.……

The abruptness of her movement compounded his shock when he glimpsed—and suddenly recalled—the narrow hem of her scarlet-speckled straight sleeve pressed against the stump of her missing arm, its fabric blotched thick with blood.

Somehow, the stump of her missing hand appeared cinched shut like a tea bag's opening tied with thread.

"That's quite unnecessary—no really, Miss," he blurted out with forced nonchalance, adopting the grave demeanor he used when lecturing about nicotine's dangers. Thrusting his hands into his kimono sleeves, he hunched his shoulders restlessly and awkwardly billowed the knees of his straight-cut coat as he lumbered upright—only to suddenly emit a shrill cry.

"Marry! Marry!"

Beneath the fresh shadows of elongated paper lanterns, twenty-four or twenty-five figures moved silently along the railway embankment—their brand-new tabi socks illuminated in fleeting glimpses, their backs aligned as if approaching a pine grove. Each wore matching crested short coats of navy ground dyed crimson with sunrise motifs, the designs on their shoulders kept in perfect alignment.

The procession mingled a dignified old man in black crested kimono with a spiteful-looking crone sporting yellow collars—fourteen or fifteen men and women in total, all riding rickshaws beneath stars that shone clear as they hoisted their hoods. Among them, one vehicle bearing its hood aloft likely carried that night's bride-to-be.

Her black kimono’s shoulders rounded softly, both sleeves clutched tightly at her chest beneath an elongated snow-white collar as she leaned forward precariously—crowned by a now-rare sight: a crested ibis-hued tsunokakushi bridal hood adorned with floral hairpins, her head appearing heavy even from the combs alone. A flash of crimson showed through where the white collar met its edge, and there glittered a single strand of golden watch chain.

As the bride sat rigidly—her considerable weight—the rickshaw puller found himself in an unmanageable state. Steering the handle to an unnatural angle, he pulled and anchored his weight—the sudden shift producing grinding creaks that sent ripples cascading across bone-polished ground.

X

The eyes of the street stalls converged upon the procession—furtively tracing dreamlike paths as though journeying beneath peach-blossom boughs—as if by prearranged signal.

The woman glanced back and saw the stone-still figure crowned with Penglai imagery—(all peddlers kept electric trams at their backs)—then pivoted toward the brazier. Her hand brushed the hand warmer she’d produced; with practiced ease she flicked it open one-handed, bent low, and blew across its ashes while...

“Futile.”

A voice crystalline yet cold.

“This here’s the Revered Kōbō Daishi’s dream-inspired moxibustion, oh, it works wonders now, oh.”

As soon as he finished mumbling drowsily, the phantom-like monk—who had been gazing enraptured at the bridal procession as if stationed before it—suddenly pressed a bundle of incense sticks against the hem of a maiden who appeared freshly returned from bathing: her Shimada updo disheveled, a damp hand towel dangling from her waist. Huddled alone like a shadow puppet, he wore an overlong black silk cloak that hung lanky on his frame, his white-haired monk’s head topped by a drooping silk-floss hat. Flat, thin yet oversized ears dangling a rosary; a long nose; a sunken chin; nostrils and eyes hollowed beneath splayed figure-eight eyebrows. With his large mouth’s lower lip curled back, he slackened his collar with a careless tug. Having languidly stretched out his hands while clutching his frost-numbed knees, the moment this recollection struck him—without pausing to discern whether the nearby figure was man or woman—he pressed the faintly smoking incense sticks against her form, his practiced hand extending limply as if guided by habit alone.

Whenever this monk spotted someone, he pressed soot-stained tissues against their shins or heels, shoulders or backs, then layered incense sticks atop them while—

"Odada, odada, dadadabudabu," he chanted through his toothless mouth, the syllables mushily colliding.

"This here works, see—applying it right here's the proper treatment."
"No moxa insertion needed."
"Won't even get too hot, see."
"This'll work, see."
"Once it works—once it's worked—you brush it out like this and I'll use it again, see."
"This'll work, see," he continued his spiel while scrutinizing their feet with intense stares as he conducted his trade.
The renowned moxibustion of Kōya-san's esoteric traditions.

Suddenly having that long hand thrust toward her, the maiden recoiled with a gasp—her clogs and shoes, cold rice and all becoming indistinguishable blurs in her unfocused vision—as he yanked hard on the hem of her retreating kimono.

"This here's the Revered Vision Moxibustion, see—proper treatment it is."

Squirming forward like a catfish beneath his black cloak, he pressed the moxibustion treatment inch by inch—how could she endure it?

“Wh-what?!”

With that cry, she darted back—her shins flashing pale—and vanished into the side alley’s shadows.

The monk—eyebrows and cotton hood both tilted skyward as one—lifted his elongated face in blank bewilderment.

“Oh-ho! Quite the moxa application we had there! Kya-ha-ha!”

Laughing, the Engineer seized this moment to deliver a curt admonishment—taking his lesson from recent history—before clomping his unsteady shoes toward the scattered gloom of disordered stalls.…

And now there—a man hawking seal genitalia!

A stiff black straight-sleeved coat—hard as board—hung from his gaunt frame, fastened down to his fingernails, its collar raised near his ears. He wore no hat, his hair wildly disheveled; though his cheeks were gaunt, his features remained noble—a robust specimen of a man.

In his burly hands the color of astringent clumsily gripped a large deba knife rusted crimson—its edge suggesting some butchering of a naked woman’s torso left smoked—three whole seal genitalia specimens with heads and tails still attached lay brined in a round vessel: shredded red flesh and blackened skin veined with tangled blood vessels, thin bones visible beneath what would require full armfuls to carry. Vertically, horizontally, face-up—he arranged them on the oilpaper.

He tapped rhythmically around the frontal ribs with the back of his knife,

“Out in the world, they say there’s mettosei but no real seal genitalia—but mark my words, genuine articles are scarce in both mettosei and seal genitalia.”

In a gruff voice,

“Even those aboard ships... When you haul up a seal’s organ nowadays, there’s no telling whether it’s true seal genitalia or mettosei.”

“Since folks call ’em mettosei, that’d be females—but ’course there’s both females and males.”

“Not even Black people can tell which are female or male—it’s all about these front teeth,”

As he spoke these words of praise, he yanked up a jet-black specimen resembling a dog’s face from the heap he’d been extolling. The stench of shade-cured flesh wafted pungently as he wrenched open its maw, exposing long teeth curled inward like frost pillars—gritted and distorted.

“These front teeth here—clamped shut without a gap’s width between ’em—they call that male style up north, or so they say. But since the difference’s barely a fraction of an inch, you can’t tell male from female whether they’re gaping or clenched tight, you see.”

"I may lack eloquence, but these seal genitalia are genuine. Seal genitalia aren't something you find scattered everywhere. I don't know if there's even a few dozen sellers across Tokyo Prefecture peddling these—they're not some common trinkets you'll stumble upon anywhere."

As if voicing some pent-up grievance—speaking with defensive indignation—he used the tip of his large deba knife to scoop fibers and peel away flesh, thin yet viscous like a geometric fragment, all twitching beneath the shadow of a fresh-varnished yellow lantern marked "Deep-Sea Fishing Company."

The purplish-black specimen—pursing his youthful mouth, he chewed vigorously.

"I've already sold two specimens, but there's still one left—complete with brains."
"The brains work against brain diseases, but seal genitalia's efficacy—well, everyone knows that already."

"Buy without doubt—if you want solid proof, check these hind leg claws here—"

Focusing intently, he reversed his deba knife while muttering about this nuisance and resolved to finish it in one motion—slickly lifting the hind leg to reveal claws grasping empty air within the flailing flipper's form.

The frost wind rattled the candle flame; from the lantern marked "Deep Sea," a hazy oceanic aura smothered the void.

Perhaps touched by homesickness, the two lonely customers who had been standing there began edging backward... then scattered in haste like falling leaves.

When he dropped the deba knife, his face flushing crimson, he gripped the brass hatchet-shaped tobacco pipe at its midpoint and clamped it between his incisors like a biting animal—

"Ugh,"

he groaned for some reason.

Just then, an orange hue billowed into view.
It was that engineer from Abura-dome.

"How about it, Mr. Seal Genitalia Vendor?"

“Nah,”

He had merely uttered it curtly.

The Engineer amiably sidled closer,

"Last night was quite something, wasn’t it…"

"That’s not worth discussing."

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“What’re you on about? Him? This makes no sense—whoever mistook what for what, they came sudden-like to inspect my seal genitalia, saying there was some pure white woman’s severed arm inside.”…

Meiji 44 (1911), February