Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

The sound of temple bells did not resound; though it was a night of hushed winds, the hour had reached precisely what they call the heart of the Hour of the Ox.
...From this moon—where cassia leaves scattered like falling droplets and stone-cutting axes seemed to chisel deeper, waning further, waning still—it would soon become the 26th-night moon... Peering through a crack in the front second-floor rain shutters—left one panel slightly ajar against the heat at this twenty-day-old moon—one saw only clouds racing across the vast sky: pale, soundless waves rolling inward. Beyond the street, over the plank fence of the opposite estate, the cherry tree’s crown—its flipped undersides of leaves already hinting at autumn—would be abruptly illuminated, a faint glow draping over it, only to be swiftly shrouded by ink-dark clouds that swirled in chaotic patches across the lunar face...

The thin smoke of that pale green mosquito-repellent incense—smoldering in its earthen pot, priced at three sen per bundle as always—throbbed steadily, bending in the opposite direction of the clouds traversing the sky.

Leaning his cheek vacantly on the small desk—with no one to wait for and nothing to do—he exhaled a puff of tobacco,

“I’m so carefree,” he said, as the smoke formed a ring.

“I’m busy.”

The mosquito-repellent incense quivered in tiny pulses, forming ridges as it smoldered diligently.

Yet in the dark space near his back—where an old andon lamp stood along the back alley, untouched by the light of the ten-candlepower electric bulb hung on the front veranda’s shoji—a mosquito buzzed... Its sinister, heavy aspect bore murderous intent that did not dissipate like smoke; instead settling with calm clarity as it sharpened its beak to stab him.

Paying no heed to the incense’s vigor—rising up and swirling chaotically—he thought of a red-legged ant walking alone across volcanic scorched stones with perfect composure. Ah, this sweltering night made sleep impossible.

With not a wisp of wind to be had, Yuikichi—master of the second-floor residence—turned toward the fully opened casement window behind him. Swatting at the buzzing mosquito with his sleeve, he peered through his own shadow spread across nearly half of the six-tatami room. Beneath clouds scurrying urgently across the sky, both trees and roofs fell utterly silent—the town’s late hour now wore the visage of a mountain village.
The rows of houses stretched toward both directions like the trailing ridges of distant mountains; gardens, back gates, and vacant lots here and there might be likened to scattered valleys—yet the coolness lacked any vigor.

“Hot.”

In desperation, he stood up abruptly, flung his torso down with a thud, dragged open all four panels to both sides, and leaned sulkily against the casement window,

“Hah!” he barked once with rough abandon, straddling the threshold and exhaling a deep sigh...

This breeze-admitting window faced due west; though the evening sun’s lingering heat remained intense, when touched—whether imagined as waves or ice—the roof beneath the eaves stayed chilled by night dew.

What made Yuikichi shiver then was—

At the eaves’ edge, just beyond the bamboo fence of a small garden—less than two tsubo—that lit the eight-tatami veranda below, stood a two-story house attached at the rear. Its second-floor casement window faced south, oriented opposite this one, positioned within arm’s reach… There sat a figure without lamplight, visible through darkness: someone cooling themselves by gazing across at this second-floor room through the windowpane.――

“Hah!”

Indeed, that house should be vacant.

II

Already an unexpected silhouette in itself, yet that shadow—tinged with clouds from the starless exterior heavy with dampness—drifted hazily over the rooftops and seemed to envelop this side.

But it lacked any fierce, strong, or piercing intensity.

It appeared like a flower blooming in darkness—its countenance faintly pale and poignantly gentle, yet its leaf forms lonely, gloomy, and black—casting a hazy, unfixed shadow upon a stagnant moon hidden by clouds so dense they might as well not exist.

Though unlike the citrus tree in its rainy-night guise, it was a frail, dwindling thing—perhaps a flower, perhaps smoke from the sky—some ethereal presence drifting tenuously over the roof; somehow, that person appeared to be a woman.

That it was a woman made it all the stranger.

From his collar down to his limbs and entire body, Yuikichi felt as though willow leaves brushed against him—a harmless yet ticklish irritation that made him shudder and twitch his shoulders.

“This is hot.”

Taking the opportunity afforded by his muttering, he withdrew his straddling leg from the threshold and settled back against the window, leaning his elbow sideways and letting his chest drape over it.

At that very moment,

“Eh, eh,” came a small cough from that second floor across the way—yet somehow it resounded brightly and loudly by his ear.

As though arranged like words—a prearranged code—this made Yuikichi involuntarily lift his face and glimpse the figure.

Her slender shoulders and one sleeve gently resting against her chest—a figure with her back turned to the breezy south, faintly visible down to the waist as she half-leaned against the threshold, where only her obi and hair gleamed a lustrous black. Her yukata was white with a medium-sized pattern resembling scudding clouds in a pale moonlit sky—though the light had grown slightly brighter—that seemed to mingle with ivy tendrils elegantly tangled around the nearby door pocket, as if dyed directly onto the fabric. [...] Then, over her shoulder, she glanced toward this side—a delicate profile with a slender, straight nose visible through the thin fabric. ...At the very moment Yuikichi caught sight of her, the pale hue of her neck—lowered in a demure gesture—shone white through her hair! Her beauty was not limited to that alone; the fan she fumbled with in one sleeve glowed faintly as though summoning the moon, its light spilling through to reveal the skin beneath her arm.

Even the disarray of her hem suggested refinement; though her figure seemed petite in build, her seated posture was slender and tall.

Her hair—thickly gathered and likely tied into a chignon… Otherwise, in such a place as this casement window, a high topknot would have caught on the lintel; yet that same blackness now extended several inches into the lamp-less gloom, standing out sharply at intervals while the willow grew darker still, drenched in dew.

Thus, Yuikichi’s seeing and thinking were but the blink of an eye,

“How dreadfully hot it is…”

came the voice of that person.

He was startled into silence and stared.

“Are even you finding some respite from the heat?”

she continued immediately in a calm, gentle voice.

No matter what suspicions he entertained, her manner of speaking did not give the impression that there was another person present conversing with the woman.

“Mhm.”

Yuikichi let out what seemed like a deliberate cough,

“How about... this heat we’re having,” he ventured in reply.

“How dreadful the heat is…”

Her tone had grown quite informal.

“It’s beyond words.
“With the equinox approaching and the lingering heat reaching its peak... well, what can one even say?”

As their conversation passed between windows over the roof, Yuikichi was only half-listening,

"Hmm... What could this mean? Who is she…"

III

“But you must be feeling cooler now… This might be the last vestige.”

She said it from the window in a quiet voice, as if to comfort him, but from that single phrase—seeming to turn cold—it pierced him strangely, and Yuikichi listened in loneliness.

The insects' cries could also be heard incessantly.

Listening gloomily to those crickets and the woman’s voice, it seemed eerie,

“If that’s how it is, then all is well… Otherwise, I cannot endure it.”
“I do wish to ask a favor of you.”

As she spoke, he suddenly became aware of her mention of “vestige,” and thinking that this—just as in her earlier words—meant something was indeed turning into a vestige, he fell silent.

In the garden of the back house—uninhabited for some time—the insects’ cries rose again with a sudden rustle through clouds where the moon lodged, as if to shake loose the dew from small grasses.

“Goodness!…”

As the sleeves and obi fluttered against the threshold, the fan waved lightly, accompanied by a somewhat ornate yet clear voice,

"I haven't even offered proper greetings... What should I do... How terribly rude of me—you must forgive me."

"No, I'm the one who should apologize."

As if anticipating it, he answered without hesitation...

“The heat hasn’t let up—we’re both in the same boat,” said Yuikichi, his words sounding reasonable enough, though there was no real basis for claiming they were “both in the same boat.”

“Is everyone in your household resting?”

“What do you think? They probably can’t sleep.”
"But they put up the mosquito net early."
"...And your household?"

Having said that, Yuikichi peered over the roof once more as if trying to see through it.

“…………”

The woman hesitated briefly,

“Well… The truth is, since I happened to see you, I wished to make that request… And so, even though we’ve not yet been properly introduced, I must apologize for addressing you from the second-floor window.”

“Oh, come now—we’re both men here. Sometimes neighbors even exchange their first greetings naked at the public bathhouse in town…”

“Oh ho.”

With the fan pressed to her lips, she leaned thereupon with supple grace.

Yuikichi laughed as if being pulled into the conversation,

“It’s no jest—it’s true. …So being fellow second-floor residents is perfectly fine.”
“And then… you said to me… you… what is it… There’s no need for formality.”

“Well…”

“What is it?”

“Then… you’ll accept my request?”

“I shall.”

he said, but his elbow lifted from where it had been propped on the window frame, and Yuikichi’s voice turned slightly rushed.

“If you say I’m detestable, I’ll resent you.”

“I see.”

As he drew in a breath, the clouds sank low, and the crickets’ voices thickened into phantom-like intensity.

“...The detestable insects are chirping...”

the woman said like a soliloquy—and as if foreknowing some omen.

“Are the detestable insects chirping?...” Yuikichi, drawn into the conversation, found himself chattering on.

But here and there, near and far—where there was grass, where there were stones—amidst the insect voices chirping in the dew, he had never once thought them detestable.

“You—do you dislike crickets?”

As he pressed further with questions and thought she was saying something strange, his carelessness—now making him shudder once more…

IV

As the clouds tore open, the moonlight—swiftly piercing through haze like thin paper—illuminated with clarity: the soot-stained shutter box across the window for one ken’s span; the spider’s web there that stitched a beautiful woman’s sleeve, pierced by dew. Yet in the moment it became visible, clouds shrouded it again into darkness—and through this ebb, the sound of something passing rang clearer than insect voices.

“No, I’m not saying that.
“As for crickets—I am quite fond of them.
“My, how they sing… Such lovely, gentle, plaintive voices—surely even you, a man… wouldn’t find them detestable.
“Even someone like me couldn’t possibly claim to dislike them—not in good conscience.”

“But you just mentioned that a detestable insect is chirping.”

“Ah, please listen… Just a moment… There are still insects chirping outside, are there not?”

“Hmm,”

Yuikichi pressed his ear sideways against the hand he’d placed on the threshold—as if compelled—but what was this “detestable” sound? He almost wished he hadn’t heard it.

“Is there an owl hooting in the distance?”

“You—it’s an insect.”

“Of course—insects and owls sound quite different.”
“This endless heat must have addled my senses.”
“Forgive me—this detestable thing you mention—what exactly is chirping?”

“Amidst the *kiri-kiri* trills and rustling from sleeves and shoulders… down where dew carves white pearls in the grass… like a poppy-seed-sized water rail trembling silver bells on a lattice door… can’t you hear it? That *chin-chin*… faint yet piercing…”

“Ah… I’ve heard it often lately… It’s a katydid—yes, a katydid.”
“Oh—so you dislike that sound?”

“No,”

The voice, suppressed, sank lower,

“It’s not that I dislike the sound.”
“It’s not mere dislike—but when I think of its name, I shudder…”

she said.

Perhaps sensing this, Yuikichi’s entire body bristled all at once.

"But... but that..."

her voice swelling with force,

“The pitiable, wretched—that delicate, lovely insect—it knows nothing of course, yet merely thinking it’s a katydid makes me want to freeze it dead, makes me feel as though each strand of this hair were being plucked out one by one… piercing through flesh and bone… Though I know it’s no fault of the insect… Truly, this is karmic retribution.”

she said fervently.

Yuikichi leaned out over the threshold,

“Though I don’t quite understand why, it seems you find this unbearably detestable… Well then, I’ve mostly grasped it. When you ask this of me—you mean… catching the insects and discarding them so we won’t hear that *chin-chin* sound anymore, or… finding some way to deal with them? That’s what you want, yes? Though I must say—those critters are a bit of a challenge.”
“In your garden… the edges of the gently flowing stream have grown quite overgrown lately—the blue dayflowers, the bright red smartweed blossoms—they bloom beautifully... It seems they’re chirping within that area, you see....”

“Even crickets—those insects are as small as a single spilled evening glory seed, barely visible… How could anyone catch them? Even if you lit a lantern to search as you suggest—firstly, their very form wouldn’t catch your eye at all.”

Yuikichi, now seeming more at ease, said so.

Now, there was no longer any room to doubt her appearance... She was the beauty who had lived since mid-spring of last year in the tea-ceremony-style back house at the side street’s entrance.

That summer had entered the Dog Days, and soon after... due to certain circumstances... she should have left that house—or so he believed.

V

The garden had only a single fence; the second floor could be said to share a continuous roof with neighboring buildings; and though there was a single management office, since it was situated between the main street and the side alley and not involved in the moving-in soba exchanges, the interior’s state remained somewhat unclear.

Especially that house—its ventilation was good, its room layout was good, and even its fixtures and fittings differed in character from the rental houses lining the street here... Yet despite hearing its rent was reasonable... it was strange how those who moved in never stayed.

No sooner do they move in than they move out; no sooner does it seem occupied than it lies vacant.
Half a month, one month, three months—scarcely any would grow accustomed to living there even half a year... And without paying it much mind, the successive masters of that house—seen from Yuikichi’s second floor—became so jumbled together that one could hardly tell who was from when, their beards and aprons impossible to clearly distinguish.

Among them, the one he still hadn’t forgotten was this beauty now speaking tonight....

According to Yuikichi’s hired old servant—Granny—the woman was likely someone’s mistress or secret wife…… When she first moved in, as befitting a mistress, there stood a single willow tree planted in a corner of her garden. When its leaves scattered, one could see the Sumida River beyond the roof and laundry poles like a galaxy to traverse clad in straw raincoats—yet come summer’s foliage, even sails as thin as swallow wings would vanish behind it, hidden from Yuikichi’s second floor…… Had it been a crape myrtle, he might have raged enough to set it ablaze, but against a willow he could voice no complaint—though its loss irked him all the same. Even so, there was something wistful about how, in that garden—unusually spacious for the area—near where a stone lantern stood, she had fashioned a stone-lined stream resembling a flowing tomoe pattern, letting water trickle gently…… All owing to the mistress’s aesthetic refinement……

Along both banks, what had been planted as weeds became mosquito net grass, dayflowers, and red smartweed. From summer’s onset—morning dew, evening dew… Even when hidden by night, they retained the moon’s lingering hues, and even the insects’ voices wove themselves into brocade patterns of pale green and ibis-pink amidst those flowering grasses…

“The person who moved into the back two-story house this time—it’s Tamagawa-san, I suppose.”

Granny, at that moment…

“Oh, are you acquainted with them?”

“How should I know? But I suppose that’s the case.”
“Just a guess, though.”

“Let us take a peek at the nameplate this time, sir.”

“No… It’s better not to look—lest it turn out to be different—and the name is Okyo-san…”

“Miss Okyo...”

“What do you think? That settles it, doesn’t it?”

“What an amusing thing to say… It just might be correct.”
“You—if that’s the case—there might be some sort of fateful connection at play here.”

“First off—no woman trouble to worry about, I tell you.”

From such matters, Granny too had apparently taken notice of the comings and goings at that house last year—though at the time, they tentatively called her Tamagawa… A man who visited—whether master or husband remained unclear—seemed a reserved and gentle soul, yet even when summer laid all bare, they say he was never once seen.

Above all, Gifu lanterns and iron lanterns, reed screens and the cool hues of rush blinds—each added their own charm to both the second-floor windows and the downstairs veranda.
At times, the stone water basin beneath the willow’s shadow appeared blue, with only a pure white hanging towel faintly visible; even if there was movement along the corridor, to others’ eyes there were merely irises beneath the eaves.

VI

“The beauty of the back house, Master... belongs to the monk...”

Indeed—given how they concealed their comings and goings without revealing themselves—he remembered Granny having declared one evening with an air of self-importance, as though delivering vital intelligence...

In the kitchen’s narrow annex, Granny had taken her basin bath herself after sunset.
On that sweltering night, clutching a starch-stiffened yukata while cooling himself, Yuikichi saw a shadow cast through the willow leaves—under a five-day-old moon with no electric lights burning—where on the veranda overlooking his second floor sat a single iron lantern’s glow, detached from the mundane world like a mountain temple glimpsed afar. There, rarely seen, the mistress kept away from the edges, sitting alone in the room’s center.

Her manner suggested she had returned home from somewhere else and, overcome by the heat, seemed to have retreated to the second floor to cool off...

“She’d removed her gauze robe and untied her obi—now wearing only an underrobe thin as water—and sat listlessly, not moving the round fan in her hand as she leaned back in a C-shape with one arm propped behind her… Her pallor was remarkable… Though the fan hid her breasts, beneath her slender upper arms—visible through the sheer fabric—the knot of her undergarment briefly showed… Not some sash end… No doubt it was her obi. The moon had risen high enough by then… No wonder she kept out of sight.”

“With this, I understood why that lady never once ventured into the garden—it’s a matter of her condition.”

At that moment, Granny—with her clothing disheveled and pressing a hand to her lower abdomen—said.

“How on earth did you figure out it was the monk’s possession?”

“But Master—there’s Miss Okyo, cooling herself in the parlor with limbs pale as moonlight… and around her, round and round… from the alcove to the next room’s latticed door, from the back to the front second floor—a monk in billowy robes, thick-set and broad-shouldered, wearing what might be a hemp robe or suchlike—he keeps circling her like a vulture.” In the faint light of the iron lantern, that shadow figure turned pitch-black and appeared to press down upon Miss Okyo’s disheveled form. “Who in their right mind would bring others to such a place?” “The fat monk who was circling around was undoubtedly either the master or the husband.”

“Hmm… Why on earth would he be circling around so strangely, as if hanging a spider’s web?”

“That is because you see, they take pleasure in viewing from various angles—sideways, frontally—in all manner of ways.”
“A mistress like me is precisely such a thing, I tell you.”
“No—I’m terrified.”

And thus it ended.

Days passed, the moon changed phases, but the heat persisted.
A night heavy with impending rain where the wind had died, teeming with winged insects.
He drew a line of incense and set it by the window, using a duster to sweep away the clinging swarm—but no sooner had he set it back than the lamp’s glass shade turned black with their teeming numbers, scattering down, swarming up, squirming in restless masses.

The annoyance became too much—he snapped it off and extinguished the lamp.

Under a starless cloudy sky, at the pitch-black lattice window on the back of the second floor—here, just as he was now—there had been a time when Yuikichi slumped with a sigh, staring intently at the solitary willow by the back gate of the rear house...its unmoving leaves obscuring the Ōkawa River’s flow.

There emerged into the garden—a convalescent figure whose medium-weight yukata of pristine white melded with the night’s foliage… the form draped in a delicate Hakata-style ornamental sash, an act never before committed.
At that moment, the beautiful woman held a paper lantern.

VII

In a disheveled round chignon—a golden flat hairpin glittering, inserted to the left—she revealed the slender length of her neck and nape in profile as she walked along the garden stream’s edge where wavering lantern light flickered through sparse susuki grass embroidered with pale hues in artful patterns. The hem of her bare feet fluttered faintly beneath the underrobe’s trailing edge. Pale and lightly dewed... like willow catkins scattering.

The bellflowers planted long ago had grown tall; now in full bloom, they parted around her yukata sleeves to either side—two or three blossoms appearing slenderly, their hues vivid yet shadowed—as the paper lantern swayed. Yielding to the quiet rhythm of garden clogs, even her aimless stroll of fewer than ten steps seemed to trace a mountain path stretching endlessly into the distance…

It did not last long.

A rustle sounded as the willow’s trailing leaves near the ground swirled upward from their hems into vortices of deepening shadow. Just as they swayed, a lukewarm wind—thick with steam-bath warmth—flowed forth, damply gusting to roar through grasses and trees until it disheveled hems and sleeves. The pale blue crepe hem of her underrobe, fastened only by the navy sash from the storage room, snagged on the grass blades’ sharp tips that perilously caught at her exposed shins as she stepped forward… Bending nearly double under the gale’s force, she arched her chest backward and pressed her sleeve tightly over the paper lantern’s flame—but with a soft *fut*, it extinguished. Staggering as though crumbling, she recoiled toward the veranda—only for the blinds, whipped by the wild wind, to slap down with a *bata*ri*, engulfing her form as if erasing it from sight.

At the moment the paper lantern extinguished, what caught Yuikichi’s eye was a golden hairpin that had slipped from her temple into the grass… In the damp dew, it left only a faint firefly-like shadow trailing behind—but under the wildly scattering detestable wind, within the illusory swelter of the garden that yawned like a desolate plain, even after vanishing, the hairpin’s pale blue light lingered in his vision. Detached from that soft chest and gone to parts unknown… it appeared like that woman’s wandering soul. …Later that night at bedtime,

“In the back house… it seems there will be a birth tonight…”

Having said that, Granny retreated backward into the mosquito net.

The wind calmed without bringing rain... Unable to sleep in the fierce heat, Yuikichi remained awake until dawn grew near—yet despite only a single hedge separating them, he heard not a single birth cry.

“How pitiful… It seems that person was taken to the hospital on a stretcher last night.”

“Oh.”
“Was the birth difficult?”

“It is said the baby was stillborn, but what can one say—it’s truly pitiful, isn’t it.”

Two months passed, and Granny—left alone to mind the house—had moved away; thus, he went on without hearing any further news of the circumstances.

Whether she was alive or dead remained unknown… but now, across the rooftop, window facing window—it was that very woman with whom Yuikichi conversed.…

“Oh,”

The beautiful woman returned the round fan to the threshold—as if abruptly dismissing it—and spoke thus at that moment:

“No matter how shameless I might be, could I possibly ask you to catch insects and discard them?”

“Um…”

While her voice carried flamboyance, her form alone retained modesty,

“That’s not it. What I humbly wish to ask is—”

VIII

Now he could no longer avoid hearing her request—…‘I’ll listen,’ Yuikichi’s resolve thundered in his chest.

“Please—you mustn’t tell anyone that I was here tonight.”
“……That is all.”

she said softly.

The more Yuikichi listened to this seemingly trivial matter—growing all the more concerned despite finding it tiresome—the more he became invested… According to age-old tales passed down through generations, those who implore others never to speak of them… were often precisely the ones whose true forms must not be seen.

“Ah… To anyone, you say?”

Yuikichi counter-questioned the thought of what he himself had seen.

“No—it’s not quite that… Even as I say ‘to anyone,’ I beg you—keep it especially confidential from the landlord.”

“Certainly… but why?”

Even as he pressed with questions, this intensified sensation of wandering some strange dream-path arose because the landlord’s properties here formed a tripod—three houses divided only by that same willow tree and a single thin hedge. And so… with someone’s bald pate lying northward within a mosquito net—and since this was a single-story dwelling—the two of them ended up positioned as if standing upon a dream pillow, exchanging words amidst the clouds from their lofty height…

“As you know,”

Perhaps because of the landlord’s roof beam above them, the woman had lowered her voice—in this late hour when not even streetcars’ rumble reached them. No wind passed through the willows; stillness reigned, making every sound clear… Only clouds raced restlessly before the moon, yet from the very first word, each crystalline utterance rang distinctly in their ears.

“This place stands vacant now… Though I resided here last year, all ties are severed—yet I’ve come creeping in midnight hours without leave.”
“Should this be known, I’d have no defense…”

“You see—I happened to notice a rental sign while passing by, and when I thought no one was here… it felt inexplicably nostalgic, and…”

Turning her direction and holding a round fan, she stood up gracefully.
The beautiful woman peered into the garden... Her profile remained sharply defined, her sidelocks gleaming with renewed luster, though regrettably the grass stayed dark.

"You're quite right... You devoted such care to it... But after you moved away, they shut off the water supply, so the garden stream dried up."
"But the grass remains as it was... Though people moved in four or five times until recently, none stayed long—so no one tended to it, leaving everything just as you preferred... Last autumn, gentians bloomed. The dayflowers are now at their peak... Bellflowers have multiplied abundantly..."

“On moonlit nights, it’s beautiful—as if colors soak into the dew itself…… Taking shelter under these eaves for respite—that’s our doing.”

“As a token of gratitude, I could light a lantern to guide you... Or walk through town to meet you at the gate... Won’t you step out into the garden?”

“Though I must say—we don’t possess any snow lanterns with such charming features.”

Carelessly, she chattered.

“My, how well you remember.”

“I won’t forget.”

“I beg of you—”

She approached diagonally toward the door and its casing with an upright posture,

“Please forget what happened that time... For even in recollection, it makes one shudder so...”

“Do you think I carelessly allowed myself to be seen spying from here?”

“No—an ill wind blew that night… And then… that dreadful monk with his unsettling air… he struck his detestable bell…”

Yuikichi involuntarily recoiled, his chest tightening.

IX

The woman’s hand appeared white at the edge of the door casing… She peered closer toward this side.

“Well... the truth is, I was aware that you were engaged in painting... how utterly embarrassing...”

she said, hesitating slightly.

Yuikichi was an ukiyo-e painter.

“At that time, I was with child… Thus, being seen in such a wretched state filled me with shame—so I remained secluded—but somehow that night, though I believed I could not bear to venture out for so long... I walked through clinging dew, brushing against flowers.”

A tepid wind hit me—my head spun... and I collapsed in the birthing room.
"The baby was stillborn."

Even in my agony—so overwhelming I was half-delirious—what I still remember is how it felt then: as if a drill were being driven into every joint of your body, quivering through your limbs, chest, and abdomen… That was the clang clang! of that bell being struck.

I later heard it was just before the afterbirth—my husband had intervened—ah, that detestable noise… At such an ill-timed moment… Without even letting me, the woman in labor, properly hear it, he slid open the frame’s shoji screen to make them leave quickly…

“The one who struck the bell—you—were apparently standing at our gate,”

“That alleyway…”

“Ah…”

“What is… the one who strikes the bell?”

“It was apparently a fat monk,”

“Huh?”

Then... this woman’s husband... seemed different from those shadow figures that loitered around some alluring person within the fireless second-floor room.

“Isn’t it detestable? When my husband looked outside, there was a dim lantern marked with a black 卍… Though they say something was written in vermilion on the other side, only the 卍 showed… And there stood a monk—his yellowish-black grimy robe unusually wide and plain, a rat-gray loincloth clinging to his stocky frame, sagging skin quivering over a swollen bluish face that seemed bloated with moisture… Then when my husband stepped onto the threshold, the monk stopped striking his bell and stood there in the hazy shadow of that 卍.”

(What?…)

Her husband too, being a patient in poor condition and with his nerves frayed, apparently spoke brusquely.

(What a racket—!)
(There’s an emergency patient here—leave at once.)

At this, the monk—his sallow-yellowed mouse-gray frame quivering—shook himself and spoke in a voice glutinous as congealed spit:

(There’s a patient here makin’ all this commotion…)

Clang—he struck the bell once—

(I’m a medicine-seller—won’t ya buy? Came to just the right place, I did.)

...then grinned wide—brown teeth bared—so they say...

(What do you mean by “suitable place”? How rude—even though there’s an emergency patient here!)

And when he pressed the point…

“Your face’s gone crimson—ah, so that’s the patient’s ailment… Blood’s rushin’ to the head, isn’t it…”

“...nodding and going ‘Ah, right, right!’ repeatedly, they say—”

Yuikichi found even listening here nearly unbearable.

"He’s an unscrupulous wretch… What manner of creature…"

"Oh, do listen…"

“My husband’s temper kept flaring up in fits—more than anything, he wanted to drive him away quickly—”

(What... What are you?)

The monk rushed forward and stood before him.

(Kōbō Daishi…)

Clang—he struck the bell again,

“’Tis medicine from a divine dream… Cures any sickness swift-like, so won’t ya buy?… ’Specially since meetin’ here’s by your own blessed guidance… Best not take me for no enemy now.”

(No—I don’t need it.)

(It’s no use,)

With spider-like wrinkles creasing his forehead, he glared upward sharply—they say—
“If ya don’t buy this medicine brought here by divine guidance, that patient’s gonna be in a bad way. If ya don’t take it, you’re gonna regret it.”
(I don’t care if I die—just get out of here.)
(Even if I collapse... Is that acceptable?... Hah...)
He opened his mouth wide in apparent exasperation—seemingly stuffed with a 卍—so that his entire upper palate appeared pitch black, they say.
(It can’t be helped.)
Clang-clang—striking his bell all the while, as if cradling the lantern’s light in his mouth, he made his rat-gray loincloth flutter softly aglow in the dimness. Stretching his philtrum, rising on tiptoe, twisting around to look back—just like that, he disappeared around the street corner, they say.

(It can’t be helped…)

“What a detestable omen that was.”

She bowed her head, and her words briefly trailed off…
“Then, after that, I was placed on a stretcher and taken out through the gate.”

“On the way to the hospital near Ōhashi Bridge… I couldn’t bear to be seen…”

She gazed at the clouds with a pensive air—swiftly billowing as if the moon itself were spewing them forth, their forms mottled white and black.

“Not a single star remained visible—the night had drawn a wrapping cloth over itself and was turning utterly dark.”

(In front of Seishōkō-sama… The corner by the roasted bean shop… Where the Chinese goods store stands… The side street of Suiten-gū-sama…)

And here and there—as my husband walking beside the stretcher called out these landmarks—I thought, Ah, even the road to Yomi must pass through neighborhoods one knew in life.

“I felt like I was dying.

And while my husband kept telling me our route, whenever his voice paused, the insects would chirp without cease.
‘When I spoke earlier of my bodily crisis—having been forced to hear that bell—it stayed in my ears… Even among the insects, I could think only of katydids mimicking its clang, and my blood would leap as if temple bells were tolling in my chest…’

‘And then… Later when I asked my husband… he said that when they brought out the stretcher, that lantern with the 卍 symbol had already been lit four or five feet ahead—swiftly cutting in front—so they say.’”

“Th-that monk—”

“Yes… He hadn’t gone far—lying in wait to exact vengeance for our refusal to buy his medicine—must’ve been lying in wait… They say his lantern reappeared halfway down Second Block… But my husband—however detestable he found it—had no grounds to forbid a mere medicine peddler from walking through town.”

“What’s more… Since they were carrying a gravely ill person on a stretcher in public, they couldn’t very well pick a fight—so they just glared and kept on walking, they say.”

“Only when—ah—my husband would tell me, ‘This place is… there…’ did that lantern vanish abruptly, they say. In front of Seishōkō-sama, at the corner by the roasted bean shop, near the Chinese goods store, along Suiten-gū-sama’s back street—in this direction here—it seems the lantern gradually disappeared…”

XI

“Immediately, the 卍 appeared and swiftly passed ahead.”
“When he saw that, frustration bound his chest and clogged his throat—they say my husband couldn’t even speak.”

While my husband remained silent, I was trembling at the katydids’ cries… Though in truth, the monk merely stood swaying listlessly ahead in his rat-gray priestly robe—they say he didn’t ring the bell even once…

Clang-clang—it suddenly struck her eyes and mouth as if physically hurled.

“I completely lost consciousness.

Something cold entered my mouth, and I realized I was on a bed… They say the monk suddenly rang his bell just as the stretcher passed through the hospital gate.

That gate, you see… it wasn’t the main entrance or a side entrance—they circled once along the earthen wall where there’s a large chinquapin tree—it’s what they call the back gate’s entrance.

However, since we arrived past two o’clock, both the main gate and side entrances were closed, so we circled around to the back—but later I heard… That gate—the hospital uses it to secretly dispose of corpses under cover of darkness, which is why they deliberately leave it unlocked at night—the Impure Gate!…”

“That’s rather dreadful, isn’t it.”
“Hoh hoh…”

A lonely smile pressed itself against the shutter box and, faintly pale, peeked toward him before tilting away.

Yuikichi shuddered again.

“What happened to the monk?”

“I’ve come to understand… you…”

And the voice drew inexplicably nearer—

“He pressed down from the wall—stood beneath that large chinquapin tree—and held aloft over his lantern something long and narrow, about the size of quartered hanshi paper—plaster-like, perhaps—haa haa…”

Having said this, the woman seemed short of breath:

“Exhaling this black breath, they say… Just as the stretcher scraped through [the gate], he pressed against the gate pillar—then stroked its top with a single swollen, bluish-yellow palm…”

When they slipped silently into that place—against the corrugated iron, clang-clang.

The stretcher was passing by a large old well with its lid firmly shut.

"It was too much—just as my husband was about to turn back... The medicine-peddling monk raised his handleless lantern high, tilting his head back as if peering at a large roof through the chinquapin tree’s branches,

(‘Well, I’ve marked them...’)

When he called out—somewhere—

(‘Well done.’)

...they say he uttered a single phrase in a woman’s voice..."

“To my surprise, the gray door opened… Since it was the back entrance, oilpaper scraps littered the corridor’s end where a nurse stood—exactly where they were to receive the stretcher, they say.”

“My husband was distracted by this direction—but after that, the medicine peddler had vanished without a trace—that…”

She took a breath.
And then,

“However, this is not something I saw with my own eyes.”
“After that, on my part, there was… well, you see… something.”

A strange thing.

“At that moment, my husband told me… The bell’s sound clung to my ears—clung so that whenever I tried to push it away even slightly, they’d strike the clapper against my pillow—clang-clang!… In the old utsubuse torture, they’d beat drums and gongs together, but with just this bell… it resonated deeper through my veins. That agony—compared to having needles thrust into me three times daily—that pain meant nothing!”

XII

“You… Even were I so tormented—could I merely shift positions? By the physician’s orders, movement itself became impossible.”
“My legs lay rigid toward the hem, hands fixed beneath my arms—so thoroughly restrained that all I could manage was to watch for visitors through doorways, staring fixedly toward each entrance.”

“My mother—back home—kept vigil with wide eyes.”

“Yet in such suffering, they say clarity comes… Windows and glass turned diaphanous, sieving again that lofty azure sky of keen autumn days—how to describe it to you? As though plunged beneath frigid moonlight into some seabed’s depth, my very flesh whitening to ice.”
“Crystalline—might you call it? My hands, arms, chest—even these breasts—sheared through their flimsy bindings, translucent and gleaming. Silk-floss wrapped my bones like Yoshino paper pressed over blood.”

“Refreshing? Hardly—the room hadn’t a speck of dust; what little there might’ve been had turned transparent through and through.”
“The walls looked as though hung with one great mirror set with jewels—though white in color.”
“Then—whether days had passed or hours, day or night I couldn’t tell—suddenly there sat... an unfamiliar figure by my bed.”
“What? What did you say?”

Yuikichi inadvertently let out a voice and pulled his neck back from the window.

“I strained my eyes without drawing any bystander’s notice, but it was someone I didn’t recognize…” She must have been around forty-seven, forty-eight, maybe even fifty—a woman with no eyebrows, an oval face of ghostly pallor, and slightly prominent cheekbones. “Her thin hair was neatly arranged in a chignon, smoothed into place, her collar adjusted just so… Ah—that pale yellow collar, and the grayish-blue tinged with indigo of her glossy, luminous robes… She wore a plain white round-void crest, fastened a narrow black satin obi somewhat low, sat upright with her chin slightly lowered, that haughtily upturned nose of authority angled over her brow—and there she sat, right by my left flank, not so much as blinking, neither speaking nor stirring, staring down at my face from above—don’t you see?”

“That you… The strange thing was—in the hospital room—she was lying there on my bed just like that, face up—don’t you see? She sat near my left flank—that woman’s knees hovered just shy of the bed’s edge, floating lightly in midair.”

Yuikichi fell silent.

“...Like this—without those bony hands thinning at all—she primly folded them over her knees. Then she smoothly tucked the indigo-tinged hem of her robe around her kneecaps—the ends aligned—and it fell long and translucent through that floating space beneath, down to the floor below.”

“Morning would come—then noon, night, midnight, dawn—but ever since that apparition first appeared, throughout all the time I can recall, she never once shifted her knees up or down—just kept staring fixedly at my face like that.”

“Detestable. Detestable. Detestable. There was no way to liken it to anything—but whenever I tried to speak of that woman, no one could utter a word…”

The body must have been as though nailed in place.

“Yet even amidst that torment, the first comfort I found lay in the long black hair we women bear… When it cascaded over the white pillow like flowing water, I felt an icy chill—as though laying out a sheet of ice across my own form. If even a single strand tangled in the wind and I drew it to my tongue’s tip… My parched mouth would cool, and my lips grow moist.”

XIII

“More than ice bags or injections, it was merely my hair’s coldness that revived me—again and again—and each time I revived, she remained in the same spot, hands neatly folded on her knees as she watched.”

“I don’t know why—though countless beings dwelled there—ordinarily invisible, blending into this very air—but when my very being grew so transparent I could see through dust motes, I thought perhaps they had become visible to me.”

“Though she was present then, neither the nurses nor anyone’s gaze obstructed her…… At times, the nurses’ white figures would pass right through that woman’s robes with perfect composure—unmistakably traversing her garments as they walked.”

It was the fifth day… This I learned later.

That morning.

It was when the coldness of my black hair felt deeply comforting.

"You."

That woman spoke without breaking her fixed gaze.

“What? That… something?”

“I still haven’t forgotten even the voice.”

(You’re too obstinate… I’ll have you leave this place first.)

She glared a piercing look and vanished in a swift gust.
"...I don’t know where she went."

In the morning, the doctor who came for rounds was astonished.
Strangely enough, from that moment on, my pulse began to steady...

That night and the next morning—it was like gradually peeling away thin paper.

“Well, with how things stand now, I should survive.”
“In truth—the doctor tells me—I had already given up.”
“For five days straight, they kept saying ‘tonight, tonight’ about that room throughout the wards—the attending family members heard it all, so they say.”

“So then… It was midnight on my second day of recovery… There was a lady in the neighboring room who shared my illness.”
“Unlike me—she’d been in good condition from the start—but suddenly took a turn and passed away.”
“At dawn, they carried the body out through the back gate.”

“Truly a sinful, regrettable thing—but when patients lie side by side with their pillows aligned, they say one must prevail while the other must fall.”
“Even through a single wall—they share the same pillows.”
“Since the lady next door stood as my substitute, once I recover, I’ll visit her grave—I’ll go pay respects, and you must join me in daily pilgrimages too.”

“Sister told me so.”

By then, while lying abed, I clasped my hands and performed memorial rites.

“As days passed... just when I was declared out of danger, my husband spoke of matters like the katydid and entering through the back gate—my mind grew steady, improved enough to let nothing trouble me.”

“I had my hair arranged like this…”

With that, she gently touched her hair bundled in a comb and spoke cheerfully, yet her childlike, fragile form appeared pitiful.

“In the morning, I drank milk, felt cool and relaxed, and found myself smiling alone for no particular reason.”

(Wail, wail,)

A voice rasped…

“Ah, there had been a childbirth at dawn.

The room where she had lain was followed by a vacant one, and in the room beyond that—a young lady of eighteen... a woman in her first childbirth. What could be heard there—I had inadvertently listened.”

Clattering down the hallway and swinging open the door, our nurse—

(Oh, how dreadful! Oh, how dreadful!)

Exclaiming such things, she stomped in,

(You—the neighbor in that house is saying strange things.)
“What on earth happened just now? They’ve suddenly taken an unexpected turn for the worse—it’s dreadful.
‘Even when everyone holds them down, they thrash violently—from atop the bed, staring at the ceiling—Th-there’s a strange thing there! It’s glaring! Take it away—please, take it away!’
‘There’s a strange thing stuck above the hanging electric light—they’re convulsing like mad.’
How utterly revolting!”

I shuddered as if doused with cold water and found myself unable to speak.
Crouching stealthily, pressing the door half-open, peering down the hallway through the gap—listening intently—

(Oh... they’ve passed away.)

With a slam, she shut the door and rushed out to investigate... The sound of those footsteps grew distant—

(Waaah, waaah.)

And what faded into the darkness was—having separated [the infant] from the mother—seems to have retreated with the child……

"Three or four walls away—there I lay frozen on the bed, staring fixedly in that direction—when she appeared from where the high wall met the ceiling—that woman."

“Ah,”

“She remained seated where she had looked up, let the folded hem fall limply onto her lap, and the blue garment glistened as it slipped out—”

(You… You’ve come again…)

“Clasping her hands on her knees there, she swayed unsteadily down to the bedside. From behind her—what was it?—two enormous black hands emerged and firmly gripped both sides under her armpits. When she sat down right beside the bed…” Suddenly faltering mid-sentence, falling silent, the beautiful woman turned to look behind her.

Yuikichi also looked toward the back of his own room.

“A little more…”

From the second floor across, he heard someone speak in the pitch darkness.

Yuikichi firmly grasped the threshold.

The woman turned squarely and clearly,

“Ah... That large black hand suddenly stretched out from under the blue sleeve and—my throat—”

With a start—triggered by a dreadful sound—the dropped fan clattered, slid across the eaves’ roof tiles, and fell into the grass.

“Ah—”

At that mournful voice, he looked up in alarm—and there, like a shadow, black hands swarmed from behind to seize and wrench both her arms. Here, the beautiful woman’s pure white fingers—her body writhing and contorted—pressed against her chest and quivered violently.

Yuikichi could not endure a moment longer and plunged face-down.……

The night was steeped in the sound of insects.