Pathway to Japanese Literature

This morning we suddenly decided to close our Karuizawa mountain cabin and come to Lake Nojiri. Actually—yesterday when I finally went down to town to buy some sweets, nearly all the shops had already closed up. Only an American Bakery on the outskirts was still open, so I rushed in, but there was hardly anything left worth having. Just a half-eaten baumkuchen remained near the base of its wooden display—even as much as I like them, I couldn’t quite bring myself to take that one. At that moment, a familiar elderly foreigner entered. Apparently a regular customer, he addressed the clerk in fluent Japanese: “My, my, there’s nothing left here at all…” While saying this, he pointed at the baumkuchen I had hesitated over and quipped, “Did mice nibble on this?” “That may be… But if you’d like it, sir, I’ll give it to you as a gift.” The freckled young shop clerk replied with a laugh. “Truthfully, you’ve been stuck with it all along?” came the elderly foreigner’s sharp retort. Leaving behind that amiable exchange of banter, I had my biscuits wrapped and hurried out of the shop. While retracing my steps through town, I suddenly pictured my wife—by now she must be lighting the bath fire in our forest cabin. I felt abruptly lonely. Thinking that going on a short trip might settle this mood upon our return, I passed a sporting goods store where the owner was packing up to leave for Yokohama. Spotting something like a duffel bag in passing, I marched in and impulsively bought it for travel. It was a bag meant for rackets. Anything would do—I planned to take it as a replacement for the lost Boston bag.…

It was with such a sudden impulse that my wife and I set out on this journey. At first we thought to visit as many places as we could—Shiga Highlands, Mount Togakushi, Lake Nojiri—but having grown weary of Karuizawa too, we decided to start looking now for where to spend next summer. But given how easily I tired, I resolved first on the easiest course and came to Lake Nojiri—though I felt self-conscious trailing after foreigners' footsteps like this, there remained an indefinable charm to what they unearthed. They seemed to draw forth these landscapes from obscure mountain depths—strangely un-Japanese vistas—perhaps compelled by some irrepressible nostalgia born of their long exile from home. To endure summers in such remote wilds must prove trying at first, yet through perseverance they remake each place in their own fashion. It was precisely this quality that appeared to hold me captive...

The racket bag we’d packed with just our basic necessities for two had grown quite heavy along the way. Thinking it improper to have her carry such a thing, I initially walked briskly while holding it myself but soon wore out. So I occasionally had my wife carry it, and when we entered crowded areas, I would hurriedly take it back. And as I walked along, forcing myself to keep up appearances, my wife watched me with concern from beside me. Given that this was our journey as a couple, no matter how greedily we had planned our itinerary, it was clear just how far we could go.…

＊ While heading to Lake Nojiri by shared carriage, we passed a horse-drawn cart loaded with departing foreigners’ luggage amid fields of pure white buckwheat flowers. Since summer had already passed, I thought it must be completely deserted by now, but if only that Lakeside Hotel—a small hotel catering to foreigners that someone had mentioned—would at least still be open… With this in mind, we got off the shared carriage at the lakeside, walked to the boat landing, and when I stopped someone who looked like a boatman to ask,

“Well, what about Lakeside Hotel?” he said reluctantly, standing up to gaze south toward the lakeshore where what appeared to be a foreigners’ settlement—roofs of red and green—was visible. “That roof you see at the very edge is the hotel. Since their flag’s still flying, shall we try going there? Would you care to go?” We exchanged somewhat apprehensive looks. But having come this far, we decided to at least go as far as possible and boarded an old motorboat that could hold about six people—perching there alone, just the two of us.

The lake was quiet. Not a single postcard-perfect yacht sailed. Only the motorboat carrying us remained on the water, its engine roaring peculiarly as it let gasoline fumes drift across the surface—until at last the foreigners' settlement came into view, and there at its farthest edge stood a red-roofed building where a red flag could now be seen flapping.

As soon as we disembarked from the motorboat and climbed the slope, we immediately understood it. Given that it was called Lakeside Hotel, we had imagined something more stylish, but it turned out to be nothing of the sort—a crudely constructed log bungalow. We exchanged glances again. “Well then—no helping it now,” I steeled myself to endure staying just one night, then wrenched the racket bag from my wife’s hands and took position at the entrance.

Beside the entrance stood a small earthen-floored area with two or three wooden chairs that served as a bar. Bottles of what appeared to be imported whiskey and wine were lined up, and on the wall hung a poster that read "Summer in Germany." There was a particular atmosphere. When I pressed the doorbell a second time, a young man in a white work coat finally emerged. After inquiring about a room, he informed us they could accommodate us until some previous guests—who were expected to stay two or three more days—departed. In any case, we decided to have them show us the room, and our shoes—yes, our shoes had to be removed.

There were only five or six guest rooms on the second floor—all those facing west toward the lake being Japanese-style, while just two small Western-style rooms faced east toward the back mountain. The west-facing side was flooded with the afternoon sun, making it unbearable, so we chose one of the Western-style rooms with a poor view. Beneath the window lay stacked firewood and planted rows of corn, beyond which a few red pines could be seen, followed by a single road that sloped away into the back mountain without revealing its destination. However, the room turned out to be more livable than we had imagined.

Since my wife had gone to look and said there was a nice overhang on the second floor, I too dragged on my slippers and went out to see. Immediately below, framed perfectly by tree branches, I saw for the first time a portion of the lake and the mountains surrounding it on all sides. While comparing it with a map, I could only determine that the one on the right was Madarao Mountain, and those far to the left were Myoko Mountain and Kurohime Mountain. And though they couldn’t be seen from here now, Mount Togakushi and Mount Iizuna must still lie beyond.

＊ Since we weren’t particularly tired yet, we decided to take a stroll around the nearby foreigners’ settlement before dinner. The villas were crammed so densely onto the steep slope of the hill that one couldn’t discern where the paths began, and from those paths, steps led directly to each villa without any partitions, creating a bewilderingly complex layout. If we weren’t careful, we would immediately wander into the foreigners’ villas, but fortunately almost all were closed now, so we could nonchalantly pass beneath their verandas and alongside their kitchen areas. In about two or three of those villas, foreign families seemed to remain, and from houses we had assumed were vacant would come quiet signs of life.

Wandering through this deserted foreigners' settlement without any particular aim, even without having seen its summer heyday, something about their summer lives began vividly reviving from all around. Whether people lived there or not, the grass always grew this wildly overgrown, veranda planks split and rotted to the point of seeming on the verge of collapse—it had the air of a derelict garden. Yet from within that scene came people’s laughter, babies laid in hammocks, dogs darting about, marguerites blooming riotously, laundry—blues and reds and whites—hung beautifully. When evening came, records could be heard from the villas above, and yachts were darting about on the lake’s surface. And by this wellside where deutzia flowers bloomed, girls would surely come to draw water, chattering cheerfully. ……Such cheerful fantasies welled up one after another. As I walked along, childishly excited and bombarding my wife with questions about each detail, I repeatedly wandered into other people’s houses by mistake.

Finally descending the steep slope to the lakeshore, they now walked along the sandy bank. Waves lapped at the sterns of two or three boats still moored to the shore. There was no sign of people there either—only a single white wire-haired dog darting back and forth along the water’s edge by itself.

＊

That evening, as we sat in the small dining room with its five or six tables gazing at glimpses of lake surface flickering through trees while facing our plate of celery-topped vegetables, two foreign young girls who seemed to have just returned from outside entered together. The first wore shorts and a white polo shirt with boyishly cropped hair framing sharply defined features—a beautiful girl who entered briskly. Following came a plumpish quiet-looking girl clad in rose-colored dress. They glided past our table to settle at one by the far window. By chance I found myself facing polo-shirted girl while my wife ended up back-to-back with rose-dress one.

“Are they siblings, I wonder?” My wife whispered to me. Noticing she seemed to have mistaken the polo-shirted girl for a boy, I involuntarily smiled while shaking my head repeatedly. After waiting for the maid—who had brought our after-dinner sweets—to leave, I said, “You seem to be mistaking that one for a boy… That’s a woman.”

“Really?...” “Is that so?” my wife said, unable to turn and look, speaking while gingerly scooping pudding with her spoon. She’s undoubtedly a woman... but that might be her husband... While making such underhanded remarks, I suddenly locked eyes with the girl. She averted her gaze before I could. As I began smoking and we leisurely drank our coffee, a record’s sound drifted from behind the front desk. “Ave Maria!...” At the far table, the girl in the rose-colored dress cooed in a saccharine voice. The polo-shirted girl nodded silently while chewing celery. Even after the piece quietly ended, the record kept spinning emptily. Noticing this, a dishwashing figure briefly appeared from the kitchen’s depths and changed it. That’s when I first realized—apparently this hotel had everything from manager to cook handled by one person. The next song turned out to be a waltz or such.

That night, still vaguely conscious of the celery smell lingering in our mouths, we read a bit in our room. Perhaps because the room was small, it felt stifling, so we left the window open and both went out to the veranda. The light in the adjacent room facing the lake seemed to have been suddenly turned off. That appeared to be the girls’ room from earlier. When we stepped out onto the veranda and smoked in silence, low whispers finally began drifting from the adjacent pitch-dark room. Listening half-consciously, I heard one persistently whispering something in a coaxing voice while the other merely hummed noncommittal responses, feigning disinterest. Now and then she would let out a curt laugh, like some cheeky young man dismissing things...

“Aren’t you coming in? It’s getting a bit chilly...” my wife said. “……” I remained silent, looking up at night clouds drifting over mountain ridges.

“By the way, what are your plans for tomorrow?” “Hmm… Well… We could stay here another day.” “It’s quiet enough—might actually get some reading done.”

As if suddenly remembering, I opened the small book I was holding. I began reading it by the faint light from a distance. "You should stop reading that in such a dark place," she said. "Anyway, you must be tired tonight—why don't you rest? Let tomorrow's matters wait for tomorrow…" "Yeah, that's probably for the best," I replied. "I'll leave tomorrow's matters for tomorrow…" I looked up again at the night sky filled with clouds. It looks like the weather's going to take a turn for the worse come morning, I thought. But well—truly, tomorrow's matters are for tomorrow.…

＊

When I awoke early at dawn, a small bird with a familiar song was chirping incessantly in the mountain behind. This summer, it was good that I’d been taught various birdsongs, but having learned too many at once had left me unable to tell which was which. Even now, in a half-asleep daze while listening to that small bird’s song,

"Hey, what was that again? ...Hey, hey, listen—if I can remember that, you're getting up too. If I can't remember, I'll let you sleep even longer."

My wife still looked sleepy and seemed not to care about such small birds.

I pretended not to notice her indifference and kept earnestly mimicking its call, trying to recall that small bird. "That’s a grasshopper warbler…" When I finally managed to recall it, I sprang up and went to the window. On a branch of a red pine visible from there, two small olive-colored birds were flitting about. That was undoubtedly a grasshopper warbler.

“Hey, wake up...” However, I merely said that and promptly began changing clothes without rousing my wife. Having thus arbitrarily resolved that today would prove splendid on my own terms, I went downstairs to wash my face before returning to take up that familiar small book and step out onto the veranda. But now that I found myself in this anticipatory state, nothing particularly auspicious seemed likely to materialize from any quarter. To begin with—this morning lacked even the consolation of settled mist—instead hanging oddly overcast, both sky and lake sheathed in unbroken dull gray. Neither Mount Myoko nor Mount Kurohime bore clouds upon their slopes; only their contours showed faintly blurred through the haze. Somehow this seemed precisely the sort of insipid overcast that would linger all day long—that peculiarly disheartening gloom which saps resolve.

If it's cloudy, then let it be cloudy—since going elsewhere would serve no purpose anyway. Staying put here until it clears up, persisting quietly while reading a book through the day might be just as well. That's just like me. Well, one might say I came to this lakeside specifically to read this book. Having made up my mind, I decided to let my wife keep sleeping undisturbed and, leaning back in the veranda's wicker chair under the overcast sky, opened that familiar small Western-style book. It was a story titled *The Jew's Beech* by a distinguished German woman writer named Droste-Hülshoff. Set against the deep valleys of southern Germany, it chronicled with a pen surprisingly robust for a woman how a widow and her son gradually descended into ruin after her drunken husband met an untimely death in the woods during a blizzard night. I was halfway through the middle section depicting Friedrich—the son—embarking on his inexorable path toward becoming a village ne'er-do-well under the corrupting influence of his adoptive uncle Simon.—One day, a forest warden with whom he'd quarreled in the woods over some trifle was soon afterward killed by someone. First suspicion fell on Friedrich. But when his alibi held firm, the case seemed destined for obscurity. At dawn the following Sunday, Friedrich—searching for his prayer book in the moonlit kitchen as he prepared for church—was stopped by his uncle Simon standing in the doorway still in nightclothes. After some insistent back-and-forth questioning, Friedrich discovered the murderer was none other than his uncle. With that, he abandoned his plans for church altogether...

At that moment, my wife finally awoke and—still looking sleepy—sat down without a word in the wicker chair beside me. I was aware of this yet kept my eyes fixed on the book, remaining motionless until I had finished reading that page. Only then did I finally lift my face toward her with a relieved expression.

“May I speak?” My wife looked toward me. “Will you be studying today, or going out somewhere? Though the weather seems rather unsettled...” “If I go out and get caught in rain along the way, that would be tiresome... I’d rather stay here like this and read.” “That sounds fine.”

My wife too seemed to have come to feel that way herself by then. She had likely grown so accustomed to my whims by now that she’d resigned herself to leaving me be rather than trying to intervene… Once that was settled, my wife calmly retreated to our room to fix her hair, but after a short while, she too came out carrying a book. And then she sat down beside me and began reading her book. Occasionally, small birds would flit unsteadily past, skimming just above our heads with faint fluttering sounds.

The girls' room remained quiet with curtains still drawn, making no sound whatsoever. Eventually they seemed to have woken at last and begun murmuring to each other about something. Seizing this chance, we went down to the morning dining room.

＊

Before the girls had shown themselves, we emerged from the morning dining room and, without returning to our room, wandered out for a stroll. Thinking we should at least see as much of the area as possible before rain began falling, we took the path toward the part of the foreigners’ settlement we hadn’t visited yesterday. When we went down to the lakeshore and looked across, the Madarao side of the opposite bank appeared faintly bright, with patches of celadon sky peeking through here and there. If we kept going like this, perhaps the weather might occasionally grant us glimpses of pale sunlight breaking through.

We walked all the way along the lakeside road to the edge of that settlement, then from there turned back and made our way up a steep slope buried in fallen leaves toward the settlement. Again, just like yesterday, we immediately found ourselves stepping into people’s houses as if it were the most natural thing. Verandas, armored doors, wooden steps—none were much different from those we’d seen yesterday. It felt as though we were walking the same paths as yesterday, but after abruptly wandering into the grounds of a certain large villa and trying to turn back, we suddenly glanced toward its rear—there, beneath the shade of a white birch tree above the back gate, only part of a clumsily lettered Western-style sign reading “Green…” was visible. It looked somewhat like a stylish shop, and wondering what it could be, we approached the back gate to find that half of the sign concealed by the birch tree read "... Grocery"—oh, so it was just a greengrocer. But thinking it strange for there to be just a single greengrocer perched behind such a house, we resolutely pushed open that back gate to find a cluster of shacks bearing signs for the greengrocer along with a general store, barbershop, icehouse, and more. There the road became a three-way fork—the path that had ascended from the east now split here, one branch disappearing into the foreigners' settlement through the back of the villa, while the other, seemingly an old village road, descended westward at a slight incline and entered the forest about two blocks ahead. Above the forest, Mount Kurohime loomed large. To its left, appearing somewhat distant, was likely Mount Togakushi. Here truly had the feel of Shinano Road. At that three-way fork, besides the shacks we’d seen earlier, several old-fashioned farmhouses stood in a row, forming a small hamlet. Those shabby farmhouses, seeming to have no connection whatsoever with the foreigners’ settlement, all stubbornly turned their backs to it, continuing to face toward Kurohime and Togakushi just as they had in days of old. It had the rustic appearance of a countryside that could have produced a haiku poet like Issa. The quintessentially rustic hamlet and that stylish foreigners’ settlement stood back to back across a single gate, seemingly indifferent to each other’s existence. There was something inexpressibly fascinating to me about that arrangement.

It seemed the weather would hold like this for a while, with pale sunlight continuing to flicker on and off. We lingered for a while at that three-way fork, but since there was no point in staying there forever, we decided to walk along the eastern path. From the look of that bamboo-edged path, it seemed likely to merge somewhere with the road running behind the hotel. As we walked along that path, Mt. Iizuna soon revealed its gentle form through the trees to the south.

＊

After lunch, I continued reading *The Jew’s Beech* in a very ill-mannered fashion—sometimes shutting myself in my room, sometimes stretching my legs on the veranda’s wicker chair. The story had now reached what seemed to be its climax—a wedding scene in the village. There at the gathering, Friedrich’s fate finally raged out of control. First came Johann—an orphan who was his closest friend and looked exactly like him—trying to steal butter from the kitchen but failing and being driven out by everyone. Even that alone had made Friedrich feel ashamed, but then because of the silver watch he’d shown off to everyone, he was publicly humiliated by the Jewish moneylender. That same night, the Jew was found killed beneath a large beech tree in the forest. Both Friedrich and Johann vanished without a trace. Only the aged mother remained behind, lonely…

I finally closed the book, leaving only the conclusion of the story. And then, leaning back in the wicker chair, I fixed my tired eyes on the lake’s surface for some time. The still-hazy sky, faintly blurred mountains, and dully gleaming lake—yet these elements now appeared to have settled into their own peculiar composure.

The foreign girls staying at the same lodge also seemed to spend the entire afternoon lying listlessly in the room, going nowhere. Before long, the two of them seemed to start reading a book together. Whatever book it was, the girl in the rose-colored dress was reading it aloud in a low voice. The girl in the polo shirt occasionally let out carefree laughs while listening. “Hey,” I said, looking back at my wife who had just stepped out onto the veranda. “I’d like to cross over to the opposite shore. If we ask the boat rental place below, maybe they can help us out.”

“Shall we go and see?” My wife preferred this over having to keep me company while reading. We left the hotel. As we began descending the steep slope ahead, halfway down we passed a frail old man carrying an empty basket on his back—his chest fully exposed as he labored for breath—who asked us something. At least that’s how it seemed—when we both turned around together, the old man was gasping out words in our direction, but we couldn’t quite make them out. We finally grasped that he wanted to know how far ahead his bride—whom he believed we must have encountered leading a horse along the road—had gone. Having just rushed out from the hotel above, we told him we hadn’t seen anyone like that. He wore a puzzled expression and kept staring at us. With nothing more to be done, we resumed our descent. Glancing back once more, we saw him crouched there fumbling busily with something. There, he had picked up what appeared to be discarded straw sandals and was changing into them, replacing his own tattered pair. He didn’t seem a vagrant, yet his appearance struck us as odd for someone returning from work in a nearby village.

“What could he be?”

“He seems pitiable.” “But I can’t stand that sort of thing. I wish there were more we could do…” Even as I spoke these words, I suddenly recalled Margarete from Droste-Hülshoff’s tale—the mother who, under fate’s relentless pressure, had gradually transformed from a woman governed by reason into a foolish old woman. We stopped briefly at the lakeside boat rental and called out, but receiving no response, we assumed it was hopeless and turned to leave. Then we were called back by a woman who appeared to be the proprietress, finally emerging with a baby strapped to her back. When we asked if they might provide us with a motorboat, she stared at us for some time with that same puzzled look—perhaps this was the expression villagers here adopted when troubled? Eventually she explained there’d been a wedding last night in the village across the shore—the master had gone by motorboat as a guest and still hadn’t returned. Then the proprietress added: They’d promised to ferry someone departing early tomorrow morning to the opposite shore, but if the master didn’t return in time, it would cause real difficulties—and with this account of her predicament, she began treating us as reluctant confidants until we hastily withdrew.

＊

“Since there’s nothing else to do, let’s walk along this shore as far as we can go and see. “Do you think we can make it as far as the YWCA?” “Even if you walk that far, will you be all right?” While exchanging such words, we now set out walking along the lakeshore in the opposite direction from the foreigners' settlement, toward where the YWCA dormitory stood. The path along the lake rose and fell, sometimes abruptly running parallel to the water before veering back into the woods. From between the tree trunks, the lake’s surface glimmered dully. Before long, Madarao disappeared from our view, and Myoko and Kurohime came into sight side by side directly ahead.

“You’re walking quite well.”

“Yeah, walking’s better on a cloudy day like today.”

The stretches of forest grew longer. In those woods, it appeared someone had camped that summer, with signs of disturbance scattered here and there. Tree branches had been cruelly snapped and left broken. When passing such spots, we unconsciously quickened our pace. Suddenly the space before us brightened, revealing a small shuttered cabin nestled against the mountainside. That must have been the YWCA dormitory. From there toward the lake lay a sanded area enclosed by a fence, where another crude hut stood. We pushed through the fence and headed straight in that direction.

There, the lake water cut inward much deeper than anywhere else. Perhaps because of that, this part of the lake felt like the most secluded area. It was said that due to the ancient eruptions of Madarao and Kurohime, the valley between them had been almost completely filled, leaving Lake Nojiri as the sole remnant preserving its primordial form. Standing in this inlet, Kurohime Mountain—steeped in legend—appeared somehow distant amidst the thickly clustered trees. Madarao Mountain must now be looming just behind us.

As we wandered along the sandy shore there gazing at the mountains and lake, traces of what might have been bonfire remnants lay scattered everywhere. "This looks like bonfire remains..." My wife said in a voice slightly higher than usual, seemingly immersed in frequent recollections of her schoolgirl days. "What's a bonfire?" I asked, attempting to draw out her memories. "Oh my, you didn't know about bonfires?" "How unexpected." She grew mildly animated. "In the evenings, we'd build a bonfire together. First we'd pray around it, sing hymns, hold a service... Then when that ended, we'd grill sausages on skewers, eat them in bread sandwiches, and dance around the fire playing games." "It was truly wonderful..."

I listened with some sheepishness and finally said. “Huh, so you’d grill sausages over that bonfire and eat them?” “That sounds nice.” But within my mind, against such a bonfire by this mountain-ringed lakeside, I conjured—with near-photographic clarity—a scene of countless young girls playing in rapturous celebration of life. My wife picked up a half-burned piece of firewood that had fallen there and threw it toward the lake. It fell onto the sand without reaching the water, for it was low tide and the water had receded far out.

I too tried to mimic her action. Confident I could send it all the way to the lake, I checked myself mid-motion and let the firewood drop. If that made my chest ache, this body would be beyond saving. My wife noticed me at once and lowered her face forlornly.

＊ Taking advantage of the lake water having receded far out, we headed back toward the hotel along the shore.

Apart from clusters of reeds growing here and there, there was nothing to hinder us. In one spot where the bank had collapsed, a young water oak that had been growing there lay uprooted and toppled into the lake, still bearing clusters of green leaves. To avoid the tree, we had to walk nearly skimming the water's edge. Yet even then, the lake water at our feet stirred not a single wave nor gave off any scent. Still, we felt something uncanny in how the entire lake seemed to breathe from some profound depth within.

“Zweisamkeit! —” That German word had truly burst from my lips for the first time in years.—Not the loneliness of solitude, yet nearly akin to it—a face-to-face loneliness, if you will. Surely such a thing must exist in this life? That's right, isn't it... you... I muttered such things under my breath as if trying them out.

"What was that?" I wondered if my wife might not catch up and ask me in return. However, there was no way my wife could have heard that; she just followed silently a little behind me.

＊

In the evening, we found ourselves together with those foreign girls again in the dining hall. They would always enter in exactly the same manner, take their seats at exactly the same table in exactly the same way, and during meals converse just as sparingly as ever. They might have been thinking about us in exactly the same way. When I noticed the celery wasn’t on the plate tonight, it had ended up in the soup. During the meal, its smell lingered in my mouth.

We went up to the second-floor room; those foreign girls went straight outside.

I was determined to finish reading *The Jew’s Beech* by tonight. After letting my wife go to bed first, I read it alone late into the night.—Nearly thirty years had passed since Friedrich and Johann vanished from the village. During that time, Friedrich’s mother died and the villagers completely changed, but only the beech tree under which the Jew had been killed remained as it was from former times. (Local Jews had purchased it, and a curse had been inscribed upon its trunk.) On a snowy Christmas night, a vagabond came to that village. That seemed to be Johann’s wretched end. He was cared for by the villagers and lived among them for a time, but one day vanished again without a trace. It was not long after that when he was discovered as a hanged corpse on that very beech tree in the forest. Rumors began to circulate that he was actually Friedrich.—The following words inscribed on that beech tree by the Jews bring the tale to its close: “When you approach this place, what you once did to me you shall do unto yourself.”

When I finally finished reading it around nearly eleven and went downstairs to wash my hands, those girls were just returning from outside. Wondering where they had been wandering until this hour, I glanced suspiciously at them as they were about to remove their shoes. They seemed to have noticed me, but the one in the polo shirt kept an indifferent face as she took off her shoes. But the other in rose-colored dress looked up at me with something like a frightened gaze.

＊

The next morning finally began with misty rain. The mountains were nowhere to be seen, and the lake lay entirely shrouded in white mist. Thinking it just the right time to leave, I asked the man at the front desk to arrange a car for our return. Apparently those girls too were scheduled to depart that night—one bound for Kobe and the other for Yokohama by overnight train—so indeed from tomorrow onward this hotel would close for winter. Since there was no telephone at this hotel, the man said he would go arrange a car and set out into the misty rain on his bicycle.

We then went back upstairs and stowed our personal belongings into that racket bag, and when that was done, I had nothing left to do but sit blankly at the desk with my cheek propped on my hand. My wife was starting to write her first correspondence since arriving here—a picture postcard—to her mother. I found myself gazing out the window at the back hill where misty rain fell. Guided by a man in a straw raincoat holding the reins, a horse laden with damp grass on its back plodded up the path. Beside it, an adorable foal followed along. Occasionally, it would rub its body against the parent horse or playfully nip at its legs. Both the horse handler and parent horse paid no heed to these antics as they briskly climbed upward. Finally, the foal snatched some grass from its parent's back and held it idly sideways in its mouth. Within this mouthful, something resembling a grass flower could be seen intermingled……