Pathway to Japanese Literature

Graveside House

This is a story from when I was in third or fourth grade of elementary school.

Along the route from my house to that elementary school stood Jōsen-ji Temple (Note 1), a rather large old temple.
It was deeply recessed, with stone pavement stretching approximately three or four chō from its main gate to the inner gate.
Flanking both sides of this stone path lay wide empty lots—narrow strips running alongside it, separated from the road by a thorny hedge.
These vacant spaces made an excellent playground for us children.
We could play there undisturbed, but if we pushed past the inner gate into the temple grounds and got caught by a caretaker while roughhousing around the meticulously swept pine trees, inside the bell tower, or among the graves, we'd be chased out immediately.
One particularly ill-tempered old man would even hurl his bamboo broom at us.
Yet this only made trespassing through the temple grounds and graveyard more thrilling—though we feared being caught by the caretakers, we never stopped our invasions.
There were two old men tending the temple.
One sold incense sticks and shikimi branches by the main gate, while the other constantly swept the grounds and graveyard with a bamboo broom.
We called them "Red Demon" and "Blue Demon" based on their ruddy and sallow complexions.

I think it was certainly the first day of the autumn semester. On our way home from school, walking in a group of five or six while sharing summer memories, one among us proudly announced having discovered a secret passage behind Jōsen-ji Temple—a path nobody else had known about until a few days prior. So we immediately decided, without a single objection, to try taking that secret route.

Around that time, behind Jōsen-ji Temple stood a small nunnery.
It was called something like Entsū-an.
Right across from that nunnery was an alley that looked nearly impassable, but as our little guide boldly strode into it with such pride, we too entered the grimy alleyway as if embarking on some grand adventure.
At first, we kept twisting right and left past grimy little kitchens in cramped, filthy houses, but then the one at the front gingerly pushed open a single half-broken wicker gate and slipped inside.
Then, those who had been chattering away suddenly fell silent.
They must have abruptly found themselves in an unexpected place.
When it was finally my turn and I stepped inside, before us—separated by a small ditch on the verge of collapse—lay a bizarre garden beyond a coarse-woven bamboo fence, unlike anything we had ever seen.
Ominously shaped boulders stood close by, there was an old pond of verdigris hue, and along its edge clustered several pine trees that seemed to creep like smoke.
And when we realized this was Jōsen-ji Temple’s inner sanctuary garden, we couldn’t help but be even more astonished.
…Then we suddenly fell silent and began walking single file along that crumbling ditch, though I can’t clearly recall now what lay on the other side of that path.
By then, no matter which way we turned, there were almost no signs of houses like before—perhaps because weeds taller than us had grown thickly all around.
Come to think of it, the entire area might have been covered with pampas grass.

We gradually grew uneasy, feeling we had wandered into some unthinkable place without realizing it, continuing our walk through that area in mutual silence—with bated breath—when what startled us anew was the sight of a solitary little house beginning to emerge there in the temple’s rear, a place likely surrounded on all sides by graves.
The weeds from earlier had been neatly cleared away only around that small house, and in their place, unfamiliar yellow and white blossoms bloomed in such profusion across the entire area that they nearly buried the little dwelling.
As we tried to sneak past that unfamiliar small house—though we couldn’t see inside at all—I suddenly sensed someone’s presence beyond the tightly closed shoji screens. In that instant, I couldn’t help but imagine it was a beautiful woman who looked just like my mother, only slightly younger.
(But now that I think about it, perhaps all of that—those unfamiliar yellow and white flowers that had nearly buried the small house—was nothing more than their subtle influence…)

From around that small house, the path—flanked by bamboo fences on both sides—appeared to lead straight toward the temple's kitchen quarters. One side of the bamboo fence still formed a continuation of the garden they had glimpsed earlier, while the other had somehow transformed into a graveyard lined with tombs of various sizes. We tried to make our way out toward the graveyard, taking great pains to climb over the bamboo fence.

The reason we only used that secret passage behind the temple—so thick with secrecy—just once was because before we could all climb over the bamboo fence, we were discovered by the temple caretakers and met with a terrible ordeal. Never before had the old men been as furious with us as they were at that moment. The old men teamed up and chased us relentlessly—at that moment, we too were somehow exhilarated, scurrying between graves like squirrels while shouting in unison.

“Hey... Red Demon... Blue Demon...”

Morning Glory

At the end of that small alley stood just four or so compact houses.
The location lay directly behind Mito-sama's lower residence, an exceedingly quiet area.

On the right side upon entering that alley lived the family of a metal engraver.
Across from them stood a two-unit row house, one side of which was occupied by an elderly man living alone, around seventy years of age.
Five or six years after losing his elderly wife, he had continued living entirely alone in this lonely widower’s existence.
In the neighboring unit lived the metal engraver's wife's younger sister and her husband.
The husband worked at the foundry across the river, so his wife was usually left alone at home every day.
The house at the alley’s dead end was the only two-story structure there, and its master also worked at the beer company across the river.
Afterwards, only the elderly mother and still-young wife remained quietly keeping house.

In that alley of such desolation, only the metal engraver’s household always seemed to breathe life into its surroundings.
From the separate workshop deep within, the sound of several craftsmen steadily chiseling metalwork was constantly heard.……

From around spring of that year, a sign reading "Ancient-Style Flower Arrangement Instruction" came to be hung on the metal engraver’s vine-covered side gate—previously used only by household members—which had been entwined with ivy and such.
For several months prior, a distinguished white-bearded old man had been frequently entering and exiting the house with large bouquets in hand; by flattering this household’s couple—who had a certain fondness for such things—he finally established it as his branch studio.
Then, before long, every Thursday, five or six town girls began coming to learn it.
And when afternoon came, in that alley, the lively laughter of young girls—unheard before—began to arise…

On those days alone, when Hiroshi returned from middle school, the inner room he used for studying would be occupied by the girls, and he would invariably get banished to his aunt’s house across the way.
His aunt’s house was small, but upon opening the latticed door and entering, there was an immediate three-tatami living area to the side where his aunt always sat before the long charcoal brazier doing handicrafts. So Hiroshi would take over the inner eight-tatami room by himself, using a tea tray in place of a desk, atop which he became engrossed in scribbling circles and lines in his notebook……

⁂

That day marked when Ushijima Shrine's festival was about to begin within two or three days. September was nearing its midpoint.

Hiroshi had been diligently studying in his aunt’s eight-tatami room for some time now. He was still dragging circles and lines across his notebook as usual. That day, his aunt had gone out to her sister—who worked as a maid at a Nakasu teahouse—to deliver requested sewing work, leaving him alone on watch duty. From his house came the metallic clinking of craftsmen chiseling metalwork, mingled with occasional bursts of young girls’ laughter. For the upcoming festival—a project spearheaded by Hiroshi’s father—the neighborhood had built a float where the girls’ flower arrangements would be displayed. Under the Bearded Master’s supervision and Hiroshi’s mother serving as substitute instructor, the girls had been bustling about arranging flowers since earlier. Hiroshi would occasionally stretch out his legs and lie supine, straining to catch the girls’ laughter through the walls. He tried isolating one particular laugh from the five or six voices. Sometimes he managed faintly to distinguish it. Then that laughter alone would suddenly spike for an instant, making the other voices seem to rapidly recede. This laughter conjured up before the boy’s eyes the image of a lovely girl’s face radiant with mirth. But the laughter would again become submerged by others’, and with it that charming image gradually blurred away. Finding even this fleeting vision satisfaction enough, he would sit back up and return to his tea-tray desk……

Just then, small, quick footsteps sounded in the alley and the lattice door clattered open. Thinking his aunt had returned already, Hiroshi turned to look—but it wasn’t her. With her hand on the half-open lattice door, a young girl—her hair done up in an elaborate ginkgo-leaf chignon—stood staring at him with wide eyes.

“Oh, Teru.”
“I thought it was Aunt...”
Hiroshi glanced briefly in that direction before hurriedly averting his eyes and muttering those words.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She’s gone to Aunt’s place in Nakasu.”

The girl named Teru kept her hand on the lattice door for a moment, standing frozen as if unsure what to do, but finally stepped inside.

“Just come up... You’re not disturbing my studies?”

“Yeah...”
She merely gave a reply that was unclear whether it conveyed acceptance or refusal.

Teru looked helplessly at her cousin before climbing up to the living area, where she seemed unsure where to sit until finally settling softly into the three-tatami space by the long charcoal brazier—her aunt’s usual spot.
Hiroshi, having become aware of Teru behind him, faced the tea tray desk but stopped drawing circles and lines in his notebook, simply resting his cheek absentmindedly.
He neither looked toward Teru nor attempted to speak to her.
Hiroshi had known that Teru—who had recently begun working as a geisha in Mukojima—now occasionally visited this aunt’s house again (though she was Teru’s biological aunt; after being orphaned she had temporarily become this household’s foster daughter before eventually leaving due to strained relations; even now she still called this aunt “Mom”), and they had met a few times before. Yet sitting face-to-face alone like this, with Teru carrying herself so thoroughly like a proper geisha, Hiroshi found himself oddly reluctant to speak to her as he used to.
However, Hiroshi's curiosity toward this version of Teru burned fiercely.

For a while, the two continued a slightly awkward silence.

“What time did Mom go out?”

Though hesitant, Teru finally broke the silence with her characteristically husky voice.

“Around noon.”
Hiroshi replied bluntly, still keeping his back turned.

“It’s already past three—she should be coming back soon, shouldn’t she?” Teru murmured, half to herself.
And once again, the two fell into momentary silence.

"Aaaah..." Hiroshi could no longer bear it, stretching out his legs with an exaggerated yawn. He rolled over onto his side. At that instant, he realized he hadn't heard any commotion from the girls since earlier. There was an eerie quiet. What were they doing? Hiroshi wondered, momentarily forgetting Teru as his attention drifted in that direction...

“Shall I make some tea?”
Teru, who had begun reading a book on her lap, suddenly looked up from it and said to Hiroshi.

“Won’t you come over here?”

“Yeah.”

Hiroshi finally reluctantly got up and went over to the long charcoal brazier. And sitting down heavily on the side opposite Teru, while leaning his back against the shoji screen behind him and remaining in a half-seated position, he stared at her face as if dazzled.

“You shouldn’t look at people’s faces like that.”
"But your face looks so weird."

The boy seemed convinced he had delivered the most cutting sarcasm he could muster.
Having said that, he laughed as if mocking her.
In truth, he thought it looked absurd—this girl with her sun-tanned face applying pure white powder only on her neck.

"Well now, what a greeting... I can't match you."

The girl kept her eyes downcast as she placed the Western-bound book that had been on her lap onto the floor.
And she stared blankly at its cover.

“What are you reading? A novel?” The boy peered at it as if trying to get a closer look.

“Oh, Hiroshi, do you read novels too?”

“I’ve read novels too... What kind of novel is that?”

“It’s Maupassant… But Hiroshi, you shouldn’t read something like this…”

“I don’t know about that stuff... I prefer detective novels.”

Even the boy had secretly heard about what kind of foreign writer Maupassant was. However, he had deliberately given that kind of reply to the girl. Therefore, the boy believed he had delivered quite the sarcastic remark. And then, suddenly, he felt something akin to that childishly cruel impulse from years past—back when he was around ten and this girl, then thirteen or fourteen, had been a foster child in their household—resurfacing within his present self. Back then, tormenting this older girl had been nothing more than amusement to him. He would get angry over trivial matters and hit or kick this older girl, yet the girl never once tried to fight back against him. She simply let the boy do as he pleased. Even when others were present there, they made no particular effort to intervene. In the end, the boy had come to torment the girl merely for amusement. But then, once—what came over her?—the girl turned deathly pale and suddenly lunged at the boy. The boy was startled, and from then on he stopped laying hands on the girl....It was not long after that that the girl first ran away from her aunt’s house....

Just as the two had finally begun opening up to each other and talking, the lattice door clattered open.
When they turned to look, it was Hiroshi's mother.

“Oh, Teru, you were here too?”

When the boy saw his mother, he edged slightly away from the long charcoal brazier, pressing his body as tightly as possible against the shoji screen. Having been found by his mother while talking face-to-face with Teru in this manner, he seemed thoroughly ill at ease.

“Hello… I was coming back from the hairdresser over there and thought I’d stop by… My roots have grown out a bit too much…” Teru answered nonchalantly while reaching up to touch her freshly styled ginkgo-leaf hairdo as if self-conscious about it.

Hiroshi’s mother glanced that way,

“It’s beautifully styled,” she said amiably, then turning to Hiroshi added, “Hiroshi, could you go to the offering hall and fetch your father? The flower arrangement teacher needs to see him for a moment… Once he goes over there, he never comes back anytime soon… It’s really quite a bother.”

When he heard this, Hiroshi hurriedly stood up and, as if fleeing, rushed outside still thrusting his feet into his geta.

After exchanging a few words with Teru while standing there, Hiroshi’s mother hurriedly returned to her own house again.
Left alone by the long charcoal brazier, Teru absently gazed for a while at the tea study desk where Hiroshi had been working moments before.
The notebook lying open on the desk remained covered with incomprehensible figures and symbols scrawled across its pages.
Within Teru’s heart, the figure of deceased Kiyo—who used to practice rakugo alone in that very spot—would sometimes resurface from behind.
Though Kiyo must have been quite unfortunate too—Teru found herself idly contemplating the tragic circumstances of that rakugo performer called Katsu Wakashi, who had been like an uncle to both her and Hiroshi.
...Having become a disciple of rakugo master Enzō-san in his youth, he strayed from the path and even descended into being an itinerant naniwa-bushi performer, but was later taken in again by rakugo artist Ko-Katsu-san. From then on he reformed himself and devotedly performed on stage, becoming so favored by Ko-Katsu that he was promised inheritance of the master's name upon reaching headliner status. Yet due to the lingering effects of his youthful dissipation, a terrible illness finally reached his brain, leading him to die at the Negishi home of O-Tama-san—a shamisen accompanist from the lower seats with whom he'd been living—just a couple of years prior. Somehow it already felt like ancient history to her.
In the meantime, it might be because I too had endured far too much hardship.
When I say that, Kiyo and I might share the same kind of nature.
...As she recalled such things—how Kiyo over there would face the wall absorbed in solo practice, how even the comedic rakugo stories hadn’t seemed funny at all when heard while watching his retreating figure—Teru found herself inadvertently drawn into a lonely smile....

Hiroshi had still not returned since then.
Having inherited his family’s fondness for festivals, he might have joined his father in assisting with the portable shrine’s preparations.
And so it was that his aunt—who had gone out to Nakasu—ended up returning before Hiroshi did.

“Oh, it’s you, Teru?
“…And Hiroshi…””

“Just now, the aunt from across the way came by and had him run an errand.”

The aunt moved to the spot beyond the long charcoal brazier where Hiroshi had been sitting until just moments before.

“Ah, I’m exhausted,” she said as she plopped down.

“I came here to get my hair done... When I stopped by, I ended up being asked to look after the place.”
"But I can’t keep doing this anymore."
“I’ll come again.”

“Why don’t you have a cup of tea before you go?”

“I’ve really had enough tea.
...It’s just...today’s hairstyle...the roots feel too tight...”
Teru repeated similar remarks while anxiously touching her hair, when suddenly explosive giggles erupted from the house across the way—“How dreadful they are over there...”

“Sis has been utterly consumed by flower arrangements lately... Still, she’s somehow gathered five or six students after all.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“But it’s strange, you know… That Master keeps telling me all about his students. ‘This girl has good looks but acts a bit tomboyish,’ or ‘Her disposition seems nice enough, but she’s not very pretty,’ and so on… Honestly, it’s like he’s scouting bridal candidates for Hiroshi!”

“Heh, heh… If they’re already worrying about such things now, Hiroshi will never hear the end of it.”

“Sis is really always worrying about such things… It’s beyond ridiculous… She says since he’s such a quiet boy, some woman might trick him and he’ll end up like Kiyo…”

“No way.”

Teru laughed while inadvertently letting her face flush briefly.

“But you know, when I see Hiroshi over there studying like that from behind, I just can’t stop thinking about Kiyo... There must be some resemblance in their features.”
“...But if I mentioned that to Sis, she’d only fret about it—so I keep quiet.”

“Oh, I felt exactly the same earlier.”
“...It truly does come down to bloodline...”

As she began to say this, Teru suddenly seemed to realize something. “Oh, I can’t stay like this… I’ll come again… Well then,” she said, hastily standing up. Thrusting her feet into her geta somewhat carelessly, she clattered the lattice door open and left.—

“Oh, she left something behind… My, what a scatterbrain…” Muttering this under her breath, the aunt picked up the yellow-covered book that had been left by the long charcoal brazier. For the aunt, who couldn’t read well, the katakana spelling "Maupassant" was all she could recognize, but she had no idea what kind of book it was—its title or what it was about—at all.…

Autumn

After the earthquake disaster, for a time I lived alone with my father in Y Village, about one ri away from Tokyo.
The small, dirty, humid village lay along the A River.
Across that river, right up to its banks, the clamorous factory district from the outskirts had stretched.
Since my father's relatives had a house in that village, I would sometimes be brought here as a child by my father—camera slung over shoulder—to play about these parts.
Yet until that earthquake came, I had scarcely revisited this village.—Even such an unstable, wretched place became packed with refugees immediately after the disaster, its every quiet corner seemingly overturned. But as two weeks passed, then three, those people too—some returning to scorched ruins, others retreating to rural villages where they had ties—departed until this village, just as cosmos flowers began blooming, was gradually reclaiming its originally tranquil nature.

I had decided to rent a small house with my father in that village and settle there for a while, but as for me during that time, I was tormented by an indescribable, peculiar contradiction.
I had just lost my mother in that earthquake.
Despite that, I simply could not believe I had been so greatly affected by it.
It was surprising even to myself.
And this reached such a point that whenever old acquaintances I encountered in the village would look at me with expressions that seemed to say "Oh, how pitiful..." while offering me some kind words, each time I felt almost unbearably awkward—yet the blow it dealt was by no means as light as I had believed at the time.
The true outcome was merely taking shape beneath the threshold of my consciousness.
And then, after the entire village had regained peace and my mental state had finally settled into what seemed almost its normal state, that pain suddenly took on a clear form.

By the time this little tale began, the village had, as I had just mentioned, finally begun to breathe quietly.

That said, it still couldn’t be said to have completely returned to its former state.
It seemed as though something that hadn’t been there before had been added to the village.
Just as puddles remain here and there long after floodwaters recede, a tragic atmosphere still pervaded every corner of this village...

For example, rumors like these had begun circulating among the villagers.
Around this time, a woman who had gone mad because of the earthquake drifted into this village.
The woman, having become separated from her only daughter during the earthquake and unable to find her since, had come to believe she was dead—just then, she unexpectedly encountered her daughter amid the burned ruins. Overwhelmed by indescribable joy, she had beaten her daughter to death with a roof tile that lay there, or so the story went.
That rumor sent a jolt through me.
"Is that what mothers are like..." I began to think, with my chest full of it.—One day, I noticed a cluster of village children who seemed to be returning from school gathered at the base of one of the old wooden bridges spanning the canal that bisected the small village down its center.
When I casually approached them, the children who had formed a ring quickly opened a path.
When I looked, the one surrounded by those children was a woman around fifty years old, clad in tattered clothes.
Her hair was disheveled, and she carried something like a basket made of bamboo hung from her arm.
The basket was filled with nothing but what appeared to be wood shavings, yet she cradled it so preciously—as if those shavings might look like beautiful flowers to her—that it pained me to watch.
Not only that, but the basket seemed to have a hole somewhere, and along the path she had walked, small wood shavings lay scattered here and there in twos and threes.
The woman, however, walked swaying unsteadily with vacant eyes that seemed to recognize neither those scattered things nor even the village children surrounding her, gazing fixedly only at what lay before her while appearing utterly cheerful.—When I thus saw with my own eyes this madwoman I had only heard about through village rumors, and when—perhaps because she was nearly the same age as my deceased mother—I began to feel she somehow resembled her, my chest suddenly started pounding violently until I could no longer bear it.
I stood frozen in place for some time.
And so, at this time when I had grown accustomed to thinking the wounds my mother’s death had inflicted upon me were nearly healed, I was stunned to realize that this pain which had abruptly revived within me now had a far clearer outline than before, and that its intensity had multiplied severalfold.

In that village, I never saw that madwoman again.
The prospect of encountering that woman who had inflicted such pain upon me again filled me with dread, yet at the same time, since nothing else had so vividly revived my mother's image within me as that very pain had done, I found myself strangely wanting to see that madwoman once more……

The country house we had rented for some time was backed by a small, reddish-brown marsh.
My father owned a small rubber factory in Honjo.
Since it had now completely burned down, to make arrangements for dealing with the aftermath, my father was going out nearly every day, so I was always left alone keeping watch.
I lived with only a few books for company.
It was also during this time that I came to love A Hunter’s Diary.
From the window of my room, through a crumbling hedge that seemed on the verge of collapse, I could see the backside of a rundown tenement and an old well attached to it.
However, between the wellside and my window grew several pomegranate trees and cosmos flowers that had been left to bloom wildly in season, so while I managed to avoid seeing the unkempt figures of women coming to draw water from the well, their husky voices chattering away reached me constantly.
Once I became aware of those voices, they grew unbearably noisy, yet when I tried to hear what they were saying, no matter how I strained my ears, they remained just distant enough to stay indistinct.
It seemed to me as if they were being spoken in some unfamiliar rural dialect that I found difficult to comprehend.

One day, my father proposed a plan to me: since there was no point staying like this indefinitely, why didn't we take a trip through the countryside before my school started.
As Father explained, since there were outstanding loans with clients in a few regions, we would travel around collecting them while seeing rural areas.
The travel plan made me utterly ecstatic.
Those unknown regions, those unfamiliar landscapes, the various adventures I might encounter at each destination—all these things seized my heart.
I was still at an age when I believed true life existed only in those distant, unknown lands.

However, the travel plan was abruptly canceled when it was suddenly decided to build barracks on the burned-out ruins, and Father had to supervise their construction.
My childlike dreams were uprooted.
Not only that, but it even resulted in further intensifying the wretchedness of my country life compared to before.

My father usually returned from the burned-out ruins around dusk.
Even though dusk was already deepening, seeing me sprawled listlessly there—lights off, my half-read book lying facedown—my father would look down at me with eyes full of concern, yet scold me in a dry voice that strained to conceal that tenderness.

October arrived.
The village grew increasingly quiet.
And the more the tragic atmosphere that had still lingered here and there until then gradually thinned, the more my sorrowful presence within that village seemed to stand out.
And for me too, as days passed, my surroundings increasingly felt like an unfamiliar place—to an unbearable degree.

One day, I went to visit my uncle’s house in the same village and found an old air rifle covered in dust in his storage shed. I took it with me and wandered into a nearby mixed woods. I tried to imitate the author of A Hunter’s Diary. In the woods, I fired at random whenever I spotted a bird, without even knowing what species they were. I didn’t hit a single one, but that didn’t matter to me in the slightest. And so, pleasantly tired for the first time in ages, at dusk I returned along the canal shouldering the air rifle, down the bumpy village road lined with small, shabby farmhouses. Along the way, as I passed by one of those houses, I suddenly noticed through a green-painted window—the sole feature distinguishing this house from the others—a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl with her hair tied up small, gazing absently outward. With the window frame serving as a perfect picture frame, her pale face emerging sharply defined from the mouse-gray background looked so exquisitely beautiful that I involuntarily lowered my eyes.

"So there was a girl like this in this village too…"

I had been planning this trip with Father these past days while dreaming so intensely of "life"—that life I had thought existed only in distant, unknown places—and now to unexpectedly discover it leaning against the window just a few steps away left me strangely flustered.
And I walked past that spot, all the while feeling that girl's curiously intent gaze lingering on my back.
That day, I wore a hand-me-down high school uniform a friend had sent me two or three days prior—slightly too small and ill-fitting—perched awkwardly on my frame, with the added absurdity of shouldering an air rifle. My retreating figure must have looked utterly ridiculous to that girl.

Even after returning home, I did nothing but vacantly listen to the chickens clucking and the women chattering as they came to draw water at the wellside just beyond my window.
Even those country words I usually found hard to listen to now struck me as nostalgic, as if I had come to some distant unknown land and were hearing them there……

When Father returned home, I—unusually energetic—went to the kitchen with him and washed dishes and plates as if engaged in some delightful task.

From that day on, I would shoulder the air rifle and wander through the nearby woods almost daily, then pass timidly before that window at dusk.
It was the only doctor’s house in the village.
While I didn’t want that girl to see me childishly shouldering the air rifle, it even became my sole excuse for taking those walks.
But after that, I never once saw the "window girl" again.

Before long, the autumn semester—which had been delayed due to the earthquake while summer vacation continued—was finally about to begin.
I had to return to the dormitory.
And so, thinking this might be my final walk through the village, I put on my usual ill-fitting clothes, shouldered the air rifle, and wandered all around that place where cosmos flowers bloomed wherever I went.

As I did so, though autumn had come, it was a fine day warm enough to bring sweat to one’s brow.… Having grown somewhat tired, I entered a small grove and sat down on the roots of a pine tree to rest my legs.
I remained there for a while, occasionally gazing up at the water-like sky visible through the gaps between the trees overhead while vaguely puffing on a cigarette.

At that moment, I noticed a girl pushing her way through the grass from the opposite direction, walking at a slightly hurried pace as she approached me.
I recognized her as the doctor’s daughter.
She seemed to be heading straight for the grove where I was.
But worrying that she might take my sudden presence here as if I had been lying in wait for her, I abruptly stood up.
Then, shouldering the air rifle even though there was nothing to aim at, I peered at a treetop as if I had spotted a small bird and pulled the trigger.
The dry gunshot shattered the damp silence around us.

All the while, I kept stealing sideways glances at the girl while wrestling with my own timidity.
The gunshot finally made her aware of my presence there, and she made a slight movement as if to retreat, but in that instant I spun around in a fluster and bowed.
With an awkward smile, she started coming toward me.

"Ah, I let it get away."
I muttered under my breath in a slightly strained voice as I raised my head once more.

Then the girl too looked up at the treetop I was gazing upon while,
“What were you shooting at?” she responded to me.

From the tree branch we were looking up at, two or three leaves came fluttering down quietly.
However, there was no sign of any bird having taken flight there.
My ruse was about to be exposed.
At that moment, I quickly spotted a single leaf clinging to her shoulder,

“Hey, there’s a leaf stuck to your shoulder!” I blurted out in a shrill voice.

My exaggerated way of speaking—as if I’d discovered some unpleasant insect clinging to her shoulder—was enough to draw her gaze away from the treetop. However, the moment she turned around, the leaf fell from her shoulder to the ground. I made a face as if I were troubled.

This encounter alone in the woods with such a girl was something I had dreamed of so intensely, yet now that I found myself truly alone with her like this, I could think of nothing but escaping from her presence.
What!
Using that as a pretext, I abruptly began convincing myself this girl wasn’t really my type after all.
And so we remained there together, settling into an awkward silence.
After a moment, the girl briefly winced.
She had noticed someone approaching through the grass beyond the thicket of shrubs behind me—rustling their way closer—before I did.……

A few minutes later, having become alone again as before, I leaned absently against the pine tree once more while half-hearing a voice that sounded like a young man with this village's distinctive dialect saying such things from beyond the thicket of shrubs behind me.

"I've been looking all over for you, you know."

“Oh…”
The girl’s reply appeared utterly disinterested.

After that, they fell silent and moved gradually away from me, making only the sound of rustling through the grass.

In the evening, when I returned home, I flung open the window completely and lay curled near it like a wounded small animal.
And so I let them remain—the voices of women at the wellside, children’s shouts, the scent of earth, and mingling among them what seemed like the fragrance of cosmos, all seeping painfully into my wounds as they flooded in through that open window.

Father’s return revived me from that paralyzed-like state.

“Hey, keep that up and you’ll catch a cold.”

Father scolded me in his usual dry voice—the one that strained to conceal his tender emotions.
Yet I shrank smaller still and lay curled up.
My father seemed convinced I wore that sorrowful look because I was remembering Mother again.
That shame burned through me……

I had been thinking that someday I wanted to write down my elegy of Y Village like this.

Several years later, on a certain crisp autumn day.
I conceived the notion to bicycle around the village.
Following the very route I had taken fleeing barefoot during the earthquake, I passed through the grimy fringe-town districts.
Factories alternated endlessly along the way, emitting identical mechanical drones that trailed me into the distance.
At last I found myself upon a lengthy wooden bridge arching over the river.
Y Village finally revealed itself on the far bank.

As I approached the bridge, I noticed a group of people standing near its center. The bridge railing was broken only there, and in its place, a single rope had been stretched. I too got off my bicycle and peered into the river that the people were looking down at. Several days earlier, a freight truck had apparently crashed from there. However, beneath that bridge, reeds grew thickly across the entire surface—only a portion of them had been broken down, and nothing else remained visible there. And yet, people kept staring at the traces of the disaster as if something might still be visible there.

While pressing down on the pedals again, I finally crossed that long bridge and entered Y Village proper. When viewing it from afar, this place too seemed to have completely transformed over these past few years. So many large factories I didn't recognize had sprung up everywhere. Yet no sooner had I begun moving along the jet-black canal bisecting the village—particularly when I found cosmos flowers blooming riotously between its many small wooden bridges, and an unattended square fishing net hanging nearby despite there being no one around—than all manner of memories from this village came flooding back at once, making me feel as though my heart were being squeezed tight. Then I nearly toppled over along with my bicycle. I felt utterly incapable of proceeding any further... At that moment, from one of the thatched huts along the roadside, a small child in tattered clothes came running out and began laboriously lifting that square fishing net all by himself. In the net, two or three tiny fish glittered as they leapt about—their presence unmistakable even from afar...

While finally making up my mind, I turned my bicycle around and resolutely retreated from the village.

Note 1: “I lived in Mukōjima Kōme Village when I was young. The first house has now become Suzaki-chō, and the latter house has now become Kome-chō. To go from the latter house to the embankment, I would always exit from behind Jōsen-ji Temple to the northern edge of the Mito Residence. Jōsen-ji Temple is a familiar temple.

I went to Jōsen-ji Temple. It is now within Shin-Kōme-chō. If one crosses Makurabashi Bridge to the north and proceeds along the southern side of the Tokugawa family residence, on the same side stands the large gate of Jōsen-ji Temple. I examined each and every grave surrounding the main hall, as well as those in the gardens of the branch temples within the precincts. Being of the Nichiren sect, there are many graves of Edo townspeople.……”

This is a passage from Ōgai’s *The Life of Shibue Chūsai*, chronicling his search for the grave of Ikeda Kyōsui, who was to become Chūsai’s teacher.
This was apparently from late Taisho 4, around the time I turned twelve or thirteen.
Since I had been playing by that Jōsen-ji Temple almost daily around that time, I felt indescribably nostalgic when I read this passage.