Pathway to Japanese Literature

This morning, I suddenly decided to close our mountain cabin in Karuizawa and come to Lake Nojiri. The truth was—yesterday, when I went down to town for the first time in ages intending to buy some sweets, nearly all the shops had already closed up. Only the American Bakery on the outskirts was still open, so I rushed in, but there was almost nothing left of what I wanted—just the base of a Baumkuchen, and even that was half broken off. No matter how much I liked it, I couldn’t quite bring myself to take it. Into that place came a familiar old foreign man. Appearing to be a regular patron of this shop, he addressed the shop clerk in relatively fluent Japanese—“My, my, there’s nothing left in the sweets department…”—while pointing at the Baumkuchen I had hesitated to take. “Did mice nibble on this?” he even quipped in his usual banter. “That might be the case… Still, if you don’t mind, Sir, I’ll give this to you as a gift from me.” The freckled young girl was also laughing as she gave such a response. “You’ve actually been stuck with this, haven’t you?” came the old foreign man’s masterful retort.—After that warm exchange of theirs, I had just the biscuits wrapped and hurried out of the shop. And as I walked back through town, I suddenly pictured my wife—by now she must be lighting the bath fire in our little cabin in the woods. I felt inexplicably lonely. Thinking that if I went on a short trip somewhere for two or three days and then returned, this mood of mine would settle down again, I happened to pass by a sporting goods store where the owner was alone making final preparations to return to Yokohama. Catching sight of something like a canvas handbag in passing, I brusquely stepped inside and resolved on impulse to travel by purchasing it. It was a bag meant for holding rackets. It didn’t matter what it was—I had intended to take it along on our trip as a replacement for the lost Boston bag…

It was on such a sudden impulse that I set out on this journey with my wife, just the two of us. At first I thought to visit as many places as possible—Shiga Highlands, Mount Togakushi, Lake Nojiri and such—but having already grown weary of Karuizawa too, I resolved to start searching now for somewhere to spend next summer. But being one who tires easily, I settled on coming first to Lake Nojiri as the simplest course.—Though it feels rather awkward, this trailing after foreigners’ trails, there’s an ineffable appeal to what they unearth. They seem to seek out these curiously un-Japanese landscapes from mountain depths few others know—perhaps born of that irrepressible nostalgia nurtured through their long exile from home. Enduring what must prove quite trying at first when summering in such remote places, they mold them to their own ways. It seems this very quality is what captivates me……

That racket bag we’d packed with just our basic necessities for two had grown quite heavy during our journey. Thinking it improper to make a woman carry such a thing, I’d started off walking briskly with it myself, but soon became utterly worn out. So I sometimes had my wife carry it, and when we entered crowded areas, I would hurriedly take it back. And as I walked on doggedly forcing myself to keep up appearances, my wife watched me with concern from beside me. Given that kind of journey for the two of us, no matter how ambitious an itinerary we had drawn up, it was clear just how far we could go.…

＊ On the shared transport heading toward Lake Nojiri, amidst fields of pure white buckwheat flowers in bloom, we passed a horse-drawn cart loaded with luggage from foreigners who were already returning. Since summer had already passed, I thought the place was likely quite deserted, but if only Lakeside Hotel—a small establishment catering to foreigners that we’d heard about from others—might still be open… With that in mind, we disembarked at the lakeside, walked to the boat landing, and stopped a man who seemed to be a boatman to ask—

“Well, how about Lakeside?” he said reluctantly, standing up and gazing toward the southern lakeshore where what appeared to be a foreign settlement’s red and green roofs were visible.

“That roof you see at the very edge is the hotel. Since the flag’s still flying, let’s give it a try.” “Would you like to go then?” We exchanged glances, looking somewhat uneasy. But since we’d come all this way, we decided to at least go as far as the hotel and see for ourselves. We boarded an old-fashioned motorboat that could seat about six people, perched inside with just the two of us.

The lake was calm. Not a single yacht of the sort often seen on postcards was out on the water. Only the motorboat carrying us remained on the lake, leaving a trail of gasoline smell across the water's surface as its engine persistently rattled.—At last the foreign settlement came into view, and there at its farthest edge stood a red-roofed building over which a red flag now snapped noisily. After climbing up from the motorboat and scaling the slope, we understood immediately. Given its name of Lakeside Hotel, I had expected something more refined—but it proved nothing more than a crude log bungalow. We exchanged glances once more. Well—since there was no alternative, I steeled myself to endure even one night's stay. Nearly snatching the racket bag from my wife's hands, I took my stand at the entrance.

Beside the entrance was a small dirt-floored area with two or three wooden chairs that served as the bar. Bottles of what appeared to be imported whiskey and wine stood lined up, while on the wall hung a poster titled "Summer in Germany." It held a peculiar atmosphere. When I pressed the bell a second time, a young man wearing a white work coat finally appeared. After we inquired about a room, he explained they could only accommodate us until a previous guest—who was supposed to stay another two or three days—had departed. At any rate, we decided to see the room—shoes—ah yes, we had to remove our shoes.

The guest rooms numbered only five or six on the second floor—all those on the west side facing the lake were Japanese-style, while just two small Western-style rooms faced the back mountain on the east. The west-facing side was flooded with the afternoon sun, and since that would have been unbearable, we chose one of the Western-style rooms with the poor view. Beneath the window were stacks of firewood and patches of planted corn, beyond which a few red pines stood visible, and a single path—unclear where it led—sloped away into the back mountain. However, the room seemed more settled than I had expected.

My wife had gone to look and said that the overhang on the second floor was rather nice, so I too went out to see it, dragging my slippers along as I was. Immediately below, framed perfectly by tree branches, I saw for the first time a portion of the lake surrounded by mountains on all sides. Comparing it with the map, I could only identify Madarao Mountain on the right and Myoko Mountain with Kurohime Mountain far to the left. Beyond these, though invisible from our current vantage point, Mount Togakushi and Mount Iizuna must still lie in wait.

＊ Since we weren’t particularly tired yet, we decided to take a look around the nearby foreign settlement before dinner.

The villas had been built so densely on the steep hillside that there was almost no space between them, making it impossible to discern where the pathways began or how they connected. Moreover, from those paths, stepped walkways led directly to each villa without any partitions or dividers—the whole arrangement was utterly bewildering. If we weren’t careful, we would immediately wander into the foreigners’ villas, but fortunately, now that almost all of them were closed, we could pass nonchalantly beneath their verandas and alongside their kitchens. In about two or three of those villas, foreign families seemed to still be staying behind, and from what we had thought were vacant houses would come quiet sounds of life.

Wandering aimlessly through this deserted foreign settlement—even without having seen it in midsummer’s peak—I could vividly sense their summer lives reviving from all around. ――Whether occupied or not, the place always had this derelict garden-like air—grass growing lushly, veranda planks split so much one might step through them any moment—yet from within it all came people’s laughter resounding, a baby laid in a hammock, a dog running about, marguerites blooming profusely, and laundry in blues and reds and whites hanging prettily. ...When evening came, gramophone records could be heard from the villas above while yachts zigzagged across the lake’s surface. And at this wellside where deutzia flowers bloomed, a girl would surely come to draw water and chatter cheerfully. ……Such seemingly delightful fantasies kept welling up one after another. As I walked along—childishly excited and making my wife explain every little thing—I repeatedly mistook and entered people’s houses.

Finally descending the steep slope to the lakeshore, we next walked along the sandy beach. Still two or three boats remained moored to the shore, their sterns being lapped at by the waves. There too, all traces of people had vanished, leaving only a single white wire-haired dog running back and forth alone along the water’s edge.

＊

In the evening, as we sat in the small dining room—which held only five or six tables—gazing at glimpses of the lake’s surface flickering through the trees while facing plates of vegetables garnished with celery, two foreign young women who seemed to have just returned from outside entered the dining room together. The first to enter wore knee-length shorts and a white polo shirt, her hair cropped boyishly short and her features sharply defined and beautiful; following her came a slightly plump girl in a rose-colored kimono who looked quiet-natured. The two glided smoothly past our table and took seats at the one by the window across the way. I ended up facing the girl in the white polo shirt, while my wife ended up back-to-back with the rose-colored girl.

“I wonder if they’re siblings?” she whispered to me, but noticing that she seemed to have mistaken the girl in the polo shirt for a boy, I involuntarily smiled while shaking my head repeatedly. Waiting until the maid who had brought our after-dinner sweets left, I said, “You seem to be mistaking her for a boy… That’s a woman.”

“Really?…” “I see,” she said, though unable to turn around to look, scooping her pudding with a precarious spoon. “She’s undoubtedly a woman… but that might be her husband.” While making such snide remarks, I unexpectedly locked eyes with the girl. She averted her gaze before I could.

As I began puffing on a cigarette and we slowly drank our coffee, a gramophone record began playing from behind the front desk. “Ave Maria!…” At the table across the way, the rose-colored girl cooed in an affectionate voice. The polo-shirted girl silently nodded while putting celery into her mouth. Even after the piece quietly ended, the record kept spinning idly. Noticing this, someone who appeared to be washing dishes in the kitchen briefly emerged at the back of the front desk and changed it for another. It was then I first realized this hotel likely had one person handling everything from managing to cooking and dishwashing. The new piece sounded like a waltz or something of that sort.

That night, vaguely bothered by the lingering taste of celery in my mouth, we read for a while in our room; but whether from the room’s small size or not, it felt stiflingly hot, so we left the window open and both went out onto the veranda. The light in the neighboring room facing the lake seemed to have been abruptly turned off. That must have been the girls’ room from earlier. When we went out to the veranda and smoked in silence, low whispers began to emerge from the pitch-dark room next door. Listening half-consciously, I realized one kept whispering something in a coquettish voice while the other responded with indifferent hm-hms. And then, every so often, she would let out a dismissive laugh, like some cheeky young man who couldn’t care less…

“Won’t you come in now?” “It’s gotten a bit chilly......” My wife said.

"......"

I remained silent, looking up at the night clouds drifting over the mountains. “By the way, what are you planning to do tomorrow?” “Hmm, well, staying here one more day might be fine.” “Since it’s quiet, I should at least be able to get some reading done.” As if suddenly remembering, I opened the small book I was holding. I tried to start reading it by the faint light from across the way. “You shouldn’t read something like that in such a dark place.” “Anyway, since you’re tired tonight, why don’t you get some rest? Let’s deal with tomorrow when it comes…”

“Hmm, that might be for the best.” “We’ll handle tomorrow’s matters when tomorrow comes…”

I looked up again at the night sky, now completely clouded over. I thought it looked like the weather was going to take a turn starting around tomorrow morning. But, well, fine—truly, tomorrow’s troubles are for tomorrow.……

＊

When I awoke at dawn, a little bird with a familiar call was chirping incessantly in the mountains behind us. It had been good learning various birdsongs that summer, but having been taught too many at once, I’d gotten completely mixed up over which was which. Even now, half-asleep with that birdsong in my ears, “Hey—what was that one again? “……Hey, listen—if I remember it, you’re getting up too, got it? If I can’t remember, I’ll let you sleep longer.”

My wife still appeared sleepy and seemed to care little about such birds.

I pretended not to notice her indifference and kept trying to recall the bird by earnestly mimicking its call. “That’s a reed bunting…” When I finally managed to recall it, I sprang up and went over to the window. On one of the red pine branches visible from there, two small olive-colored birds were flitting about. They must have been reed buntings.

“Hey, get up.…” However, having said that, I didn’t wake my wife and promptly began changing clothes. And so, without any particular reason, I convinced myself today would turn out splendidly, went downstairs to wash my face, then took that familiar little book out to the veranda. But now that I found myself in this anticipatory mood, nothing particularly good seemed likely to emerge from anywhere.

To begin with, this morning lacked even the pretense of morning mist clinging low—instead, an oddly thin overcast stretched across the sky, rendering both heavens and lake water uniformly leaden-gray. Neither Mount Myoko nor Mount Kurohime bore any clouds, their outlines alone faintly blurred at the edges. Somehow it seemed this oppressive overcast might linger all day—that desolate sort of cloudiness. If it stayed overcast, so be it—since going elsewhere would serve no purpose anyway, staying put here until it cleared up and quietly reading books to pass the time might be just fine. That was the most me thing ever. Well, one might as well think I'd come all the way to this lakeside just to read this book.

Once I resolved myself thus, I decided to let my wife continue sleeping undisturbed and, leaning back in the veranda's wicker chair under the overcast sky, opened that familiar small Western-language book. It was a story titled *The Jew's Beech* written by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, a German woman writer. Set against the deep valleys of Southern Germany, it told with a pen uncharacteristically robust for a woman about the deteriorating fate of a widow and her son after her drunken husband met his violent end in the forest one blizzard-stricken night. I was halfway through reading the story that depicted Friedrich—the son gradually becoming a village rogue under the corrupting influence of his adoptive uncle Simon—following this fateful trajectory. One day, a forest warden he had quarreled with over some trivial matter in the woods was killed by someone shortly thereafter. First, suspicion fell on Friedrich. However, once his alibi was confirmed, the case threatened to become a labyrinthine mystery. On the following Sunday at dawn, Friedrich—searching for his prayer book in the moonlight-drenched kitchen as he prepared to leave for church—was called out to by his uncle Simon, who stood in the doorway still clad in nightclothes. After a brief exchange of arguments, Friedrich came to realize that the true culprit behind the murder was none other than his uncle. And in that state, he ended up not going to church either.…

At that moment my wife finally awoke and sat down sleepily in silence on the wicker chair beside me. I knew she had come yet kept my eyes fixed on my book until I had finished reading through that page. Only then did I finally lift my face toward her with an air of relief. "May I speak?" My wife turned her gaze toward me. "Will you apply yourself to your studies today or go out somewhere? The weather seems rather unsettled though..."

“If I go out and get caught in the rain halfway there, that’d be such a bore. I think I’d rather stay right here like this and read my book…”

“That would be fine too.”

My wife too seemed to have come around to that idea at some point. By now she had likely grown accustomed to such capriciousness from me and resigned herself to leaving me be rather than trying to intervene—though… Once that was settled, my wife calmly retreated to her room to fix her hair, but after a while she too came out with a book. And she sat down beside me and began reading. Occasionally little birds would flit past just above our heads, making faint wingbeats as they flew by unsteadily.

The usual girls’ room remained hushed with its window coverings still drawn, not a single sound to be heard. Eventually, they seemed to have finally awoken and began murmuring something between themselves. Taking that as our cue, we went down to the morning dining room. ＊ Before those girls had even shown themselves, we emerged from the morning dining room and, instead of returning to our room, casually set out on a stroll. At any rate, before the rain started, thinking we should at least see as much of the area as possible, we took the path toward the foreigners’ settlement we hadn’t gone to yesterday. When we went down to the lakeshore and looked, the Madarao side of the opposite shore was faintly bright in an indistinct way, and even glimpses of a celadon-colored sky could be seen here and there. If we kept going like this, the weather might occasionally clear up enough to let some pale sunlight filter through.

We walked all the way along the lakeside road to the edge of that settlement, then from there turned back toward the settlement via a steep slope buried in fallen leaves. Again, just like yesterday, we would end up stepping into people’s houses with amusing ease. Veranda, armored door, wooden steps—all were nearly identical to those we’d seen the day before. It felt as though we were walking the same paths as yesterday when we unexpectedly strayed into the grounds of a large villa. As we turned to retreat, I suddenly caught sight through the back gate of something beneath white birch trees—only part of a sign with crudely rendered Western letters reading “Green...” visible in their shade. Somehow it looked like a rather stylish shop, and wondering what it was, I approached the back gate. The half hidden by white birch trees read “... Grocery”—Oh, so it was just a greengrocer after all. But thinking it strange that only a single greengrocer should be perched at the back of such a house, I resolutely pushed open that back gate and found there a cluster of makeshift shacks bearing signs—starting with that greengrocer, then a general store, a barber shop, an ice seller, and others. And there, the road branched into three: the path that had ascended from the east split at that point, with one arm disappearing into the foreigners’ settlement via the back of the villa we had just passed, while the other—seemingly an age-old village path—sloped downward westward and vanished into the forest a couple of hundred meters ahead. Above the forest, Mount Kurohime loomed large. To the left, appearing somewhat distant, was likely Mount Togakushi. Here truly had the feel of Shinano Road. At the three-way fork, besides the makeshift shacks mentioned earlier, several old-fashioned farmhouses stood in a row, forming a small hamlet. Those dingy farmhouses, seemingly having no connection whatsoever to the foreigners’ settlement, all stubbornly turned their backs to it, facing instead—as they had since time immemorial—toward Kurohime and Togakushi. It had exactly the kind of rustic appearance that could have given birth to a haiku poet like Issa. Such a rustic village and that stylish foreign settlement stood back-to-back across a single wooden gate, seemingly indifferent to each other. There was something inexpressibly fascinating to me about that very aspect.

It seemed the weather would hold like this for now, with the pale sunlight continuing to flicker in and out. We lingered aimlessly at that three-way fork for a while, but since there was no point in staying there forever, we decided to walk along the road heading east. Somehow, from the feel of that bamboo-grass-bordered path, it seemed likely to merge somewhere with the road passing behind the hotel. When we walked along that path, Mount Iizuna soon revealed its serene figure through the trees to the south.

＊

After lunch, I continued reading *The Jew’s Beech* in a most ill-mannered fashion—sometimes shutting myself in my room, sometimes stretching my legs out on the veranda’s wicker chair. The story finally reached what seemed to be its climactic scene at a village wedding. There at that gathering, Friedrich’s fate as the son spiraled completely out of control. First came Johann—an orphan who was Friedrich’s closest friend and his spitting image—who attempted to steal butter from the kitchen but failed and was driven out by everyone. Even that alone would have made Friedrich feel inferior enough, but then he was publicly humiliated by a Jewish moneylender over the silver watch he had flaunted before everyone. That very night, the Jewish man was found murdered beneath a large beech tree deep in the forest. Both Friedrich and Johann disappeared without a trace. Only the aged mother remained behind in lonely solitude...

I finally closed the book, leaving only the conclusion unread. Leaning back in the wicker chair like that, I rested my tired eyes on the lake’s surface for a time. The sky remained hazy, the mountains faintly blurred, the lake dully gleaming—and yet, those elements seemed to have settled into a composure of their own.

The foreign girls sharing our lodging also appeared to spend the whole afternoon lying idly about their room without venturing out anywhere. Before long, the two seemed to have taken up reading some book or other. Whatever volume it might be, the girl in the rose-colored dress was reciting it aloud in a low voice. The polo-shirted girl listened while occasionally emitting carefree bursts of laughter.

“Hey,” I said, glancing back at my wife who had just stepped out onto the veranda. “I’d like to cross over to the other shore for a bit. If we ask the boat rental shop down there, maybe they could arrange something for us.” “Shall we go and see?”

My wife preferred this over being made to sit through my reading. We left the hotel.

As we began descending the steep slope ahead, halfway down we passed a frail elderly man carrying an empty basket on his back, his chest fully exposed as he struggled for breath—and found ourselves addressed with a question. At least that’s how it seemed—when we both turned around together, the old man was gasping out something in our direction, though we couldn’t quite make out his words. We finally gathered that he wanted to know how far ahead his daughter-in-law—whom he believed we must have encountered on the road leading a horse—had gone. Having just rushed out from the hotel above without noticing anything of the sort, when we said we didn’t know, he gave us a dubious look and kept staring at us persistently. With nothing more to be done, we resumed our descent down the slope. Glancing back once more, I saw the old man crouched there, fumbling busily with something—he had picked up what appeared to be someone’s discarded straw sandals and was swapping them for his own tattered pair. He didn’t seem to be a vagrant, but his manner struck us as odd for someone returning from work in the vicinity.

“What do you suppose he is?” “He does seem rather pitiful.”

“But I can’t stand that sort of thing.” “Can’t things be a bit better somehow?” Even as I dismissed it aloud, I suddenly recalled Margarete from Droste-Hülshoff’s tale—the mother who, under fate’s relentless pressure, gradually transformed from a woman who had triumphed through reason into a foolish old woman.

We stopped briefly at a lakeside boat rental shop and called out, but receiving no response, we were about to leave thinking it was hopeless anyway when we were called back by a woman carrying a baby on her back who had finally emerged. When we asked if she could prepare the motorboat for us, she stared at us for a while with that same puzzled look—or perhaps that was simply how villagers here appeared when troubled? I wondered. Eventually she told us there had been a wedding last night in the village on the opposite shore; the owner had been invited to it and had gone out on the motorboat, but still hadn’t returned. Then the woman added: “We have a promise to ferry someone departing for military service early tomorrow morning to the opposite shore, but if he doesn’t return in time for that, we’ll be in real trouble.” She even began confiding her predicament to us, so we hastily withdrew from there.

*

“There’s nothing else to do—let’s just walk along this shore as far as we can manage.” “Do you think we might reach the YWCA?” “But are you certain you should be walking so much?”

As we exchanged these words, we began walking along the lakeshore—this time in the opposite direction from the foreign settlement, toward where the YWCA dormitory stood. The path following the lake rose and fell, sometimes abruptly running parallel to the water’s edge before plunging back into the woods. Through gaps between tree trunks, the lake’s surface glinted dully. Eventually, Mount Madarao vanished from sight, while Mount Myoko and Mount Kurohime appeared directly ahead, standing side by side.

“You’re walking remarkably well.” “Yeah, walking’s better on a cloudy day like this.” Gradually, the stretches of woodland grew longer. In those woods lay traces of disturbance here and there—signs that someone had camped this summer. Tree branches had been snapped off mercilessly and left where they fell. Whenever we passed such spots, we found ourselves unconsciously quickening our pace. Suddenly the path before us brightened, revealing a small shuttered cottage nestled against the mountainside. This had to be the YWCA dormitory. From there toward the lake stretched a sandy plot enclosed by a fence, with another crude hut standing within. We pushed through the fence and made straight for it.

There, the lake cut in far more deeply than anywhere else. Perhaps because of this, the lake as well felt most deeply recessed in this area. In essence, it was said that due to the ancient eruptions of Madarao and Kurohime, the valley between them had been almost entirely filled, leaving Lake Nojiri as the sole remnant preserving its original form. When standing in this inlet, Mount Kurohime—looking as though steeped in legend—appeared somehow distant among the thickly growing trees. Mount Madarao must be looming right behind us now.

As we strolled along the sandy shore there, gazing at the mountains and lake, remnants of what looked like bonfires lay scattered everywhere. "This must be where they had a bonfire..." My wife said to me in a voice tinged with emotion—she seemed to be vividly recalling her schoolgirl days. "What's a bonfire?" I asked her in a tone meant to draw out her memories. "My goodness—you hadn't known what a bonfire was?" "How could you not know!" She grew animated. "In the evenings we'd build one together. First we'd pray and sing hymns around it for our service—then when that ended, we'd grill sausages on skewers and tuck them into bread to eat while dancing and playing around the flames." "It was wonderful..."

I listened with a somewhat sheepish air and finally said, “Huh—so you grill sausages on skewers over that bonfire and eat them? That does sound nice.”

But in my heart, against such mountains encircling the lakeshore and with that bonfire as a backdrop, I had vividly conjured—nearly seared into my mind’s eye—the scene of a great many young girls frolicking playfully, overflowing with the joy of life.

My wife picked up a piece of half-burnt firewood lying there and threw it toward the lake. It fell onto the sand without reaching the water—for it was ebb tide, and the water had receded far into the distance. I tried to mimic her action. I thought I could easily make mine reach the lake, but halfway through I suddenly remembered my condition and dropped the firewood. If doing such a thing made my chest start hurting again, this body of mine would never recover. When my wife noticed me like that, she looked down with a lonely expression.

*

Taking advantage of the lake water having receded far into the distance, we made our way back to the inn along the shore. Apart from reeds growing in clusters here and there, there was nothing to hinder us. In one spot where the shore had collapsed, a young water oak that had grown there lay uprooted and toppled into the lake, yet still clustered with green leaves. To avoid that tree, we had to walk right along the water’s edge. Yet even then, the lake water at our feet did not stir a single wave nor emit any scent. And yet it felt somehow uncanny—the entire lake seemed to breathe from some profound depth.

“Zweisamkeit! ……” That German word had truly burst from my lips for the first time in how many years.—A loneliness not of solitude, yet nearly akin to it—something one might call face-to-face loneliness. Do such things not exist in this life? “That’s right… isn’t it… you…” I tried to murmur such things under my breath. “What’s that?”—I wondered if my wife might catch up and ask me in return. But there was no way my wife could have heard that; she simply 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 the same manner, always sit facing the table in the same manner, and throughout the meal always converse sparingly in the same manner. They might have been thinking about us in exactly the same way. When I thought celery wouldn’t appear on our plates tonight, it had gone and buried itself in the soup. Throughout the meal, that smell lingered stubbornly in my mouth.

We went to our room on the second floor; those foreign girls went out just as they were.

I was determined to finish reading *The Jew’s Beech* by tonight no matter what. I had my wife go to bed first and read it alone late into the night.—Nearly thirty years had passed since Friedrich and Johann vanished from the village. (In the meantime, Friedrich’s mother had died and the villagers had completely changed, but only the beech tree under which the Jew had been killed remained as it had been in the past. Local Jews had purchased it, and a curse had been inscribed upon its trunk.) On a snowy Christmas night, a vagabond arrived in that village. It appeared to be Johann’s wretched end. For a time, he lived being looked after by the villagers, but one day vanished without a trace again. It was not long after that when he was discovered as a hanged corpse in that beech tree in the forest. Rumors began to spread that he was actually Friedrich.—The following words, inscribed upon that beech tree by the Jews, bring the tale to its close: “When thou drawest near this place, thou shalt do unto thyself as thou once didst unto me.”

Finally finishing reading it around eleven o'clock, I went downstairs to wash my hands—and just then those girls were returning from outside. I wondered where they could have been wandering until this hour and caught a glimpse of them beginning to take off their shoes. The two seemed to have noticed me, but the one in the polo shirt kept her face impassive as she removed her shoes. But the other one in rose-colored clothes looked up at me with a somewhat fierce gaze.

*

The next morning had finally begun with misty rain. The mountains were nowhere to be seen, and the lake lay entirely shrouded in white mist. Thinking it was just the right time to leave, I asked the man at the front desk to arrange for a car for our return. Apparently, since those girls were also scheduled to depart that night—one for Kobe and the other for Yokohama—the hotel would finally close starting tomorrow until winter.

Since there was no telephone at this hotel, the man said he would go arrange for a car and set off by bicycle into the misty rain. After that, we went back upstairs again, and once we had packed our belongings into that racket bag, I found myself with nothing left to do, so I sat vacantly at the desk with my chin propped in my hands. My wife began writing her first correspondence since coming here—a picture postcard to her mother.

I was gazing out the window at the back hill where misty rain fell, though not truly looking at anything in particular. A horse laden with damp grass on its back plodded up the road, led by a man in a straw raincoat who held its reins. Beside it trailed an adorable colt. Every so often, the colt would rub against its mother’s flank or playfully nudge her with its legs. Neither the handler nor the mother horse paid any heed to these antics as they steadily climbed upward. Finally, the colt plucked a few strands of grass from its mother’s load and idly held them sideways in its mouth. Among them, what appeared to be wildflowers mingled…