Pathway to Japanese Literature

I A lonely wind blew in, and the tip of an exceptionally tall cypress—resembling a crown—swayed feebly in the wind. The early January dusk sky hung clouded in a turbid hue tinged pale yellow, through pen-drawn bare branches revealing the ceramic-blue roof of a five-storied pagoda.

Minoru stood at the second-floor window gazing at the sky, hands tucked in her sleeves, while thinking about her husband who had left early that morning to search for work without any particular destination in mind. A pale rectangular sunset like a stain had cast its faint glow on the side wall, but before one knew it that too had vanished, and outside the power of dimness erased objects from edge to edge. Minoru, though determined not to forget to buy tofu for dinner, found it too wearisome to go downstairs; she had noticed the tofu seller’s whistle passing in front of a few houses, yet still she did not go down. And so she gazed out at the dusk sky.

If it had been a clear day, a purple haze would have lingered over Ueno Forest around this time. The sky that had spent the day intimate with the forest's treetops must have been playing one last prank as they parted—blowing purple breath across those spaces—so Minoru thought as she gazed out. This evening's trees and roofs each coalesced into parched hues before slipping away into the dim shadows that quietly crept over them. Immersed in that desolate scenery, Minoru lowered her gaze to find the girl who had just emerged from the latticed door of the koto master's house behind them looking up at her face, smiling and bowing her head. Every time Minoru saw this girl's face, she would recall the shame of that evening last summer—after a sudden shower had passed—when this girl had witnessed her leaning against her husband's shoulder as they both gazed toward the forest. Even now, as that memory flashed through her chest alongside the shadow of the girl's smile, Minoru returned the bow with a girlish manner that seemed to emerge from nowhere. Then at once she clattered the storm shutters closed and came downstairs.

The tofu seller’s whistle could be heard somewhere down the street, but he no longer came this far. After completely closing the storm shutters in the lower sitting room and turning on the electric light in the tea room, Minoru went out to check the gate. Before her eyes, two or three new grave markers had been added to the communal cemetery. With the cemetery flanking one side, the ghostly pale path stretched to the corner’s ginkgo tree like a strip of silver foil pasted over the scene—utterly devoid of human figures. The emaciated pet dog, its ribs visible, displayed a plaster-like hue in the dusk’s hazy shadows as it raced about playfully gnawing on a twig. And when it approached beneath Minoru’s feet—she who stood staring fixedly in the direction her husband would return—the dog sat facing the same way as her, slightly wagging the tip of its tail against the ground while keeping watch toward the distant ginkgo tree.

“Mei.”

Minoru looked down at the dog’s head beneath her sleeve and called in a low voice. The dog, when called, remained rigid while lifting only its face to stare at Minoru, but soon tilted its head and twitched its small ears as if trying to catch some mysterious sound from the surroundings—now utterly still, all noises of living things having vanished. From the direction of the cemetery that housed countless deaths, a cold wind blew—the kind that seemed to pluck each strand of human hair from its root. Minoru, having gazed to the right and glanced back to the left of the path lying before her, entered inside leaving in her heart only the desolate lamplight—as if the eaves light of a lodging house two or three buildings ahead had shrunk the world’s sole gleam into this pallid realm.

When Yoshio returned, a scattered light rain had begun to fall. Yoshio turned his smaller-than-average head and the disproportionately broad shoulders of his Western-tailored suit toward Minoru as he removed his wet shoes. Smoothing back his disheveled hair while entering the bright tea room, Yoshio proceeded straight through to the inner tatami room where he collapsed onto the floor as if discarding both his body and the cloth-wrapped bundle he’d been carrying.

“No good. No good. No matter where I went, I couldn’t sell my manuscripts.”

“It’s fine.” “It can’t be helped.”

Minoru thought it must have been unsuccessful when Yoshio returned carrying a cloth-wrapped bundle. The fact that he had wandered around endlessly struck her as pitiful, like a little sparrow lost in the rain. “Are you hungry?”

“I didn’t eat anything. How many bookstores must I have walked to?”

Yoshio lay prone with his face pressed against the tatami, so his voice sounded muffled to Minoru as though wrapped in cloth. While Yoshio was absent, Minoru couldn’t bring herself to take up her chopsticks alone, so today, just like Yoshio who had gone out, she had eaten nothing. When she heard Yoshio’s words, suddenly Minoru found her entire being filled with the joy of a meal and went out to the kitchen to begin working. Until the meal was prepared, Yoshio remained as he was and did not move.

II

“I’m ultimately a worthless human being, aren’t I.” “I simply don’t have the strength left to keep supporting you.”

Yoshio, having silently finished his meal, set down his chopsticks and, saying that, lay down again. Minoru, who did not respond to that, after clearing away the meal tray, went to the chest of drawers and pulled out various things from the drawers one after another, piling them there.

“Hey.” “Are you going out?”

“Yes.” “But there’s nothing to be done about it.” After preparing the bundle, Minoru put on a coat over her everyday clothes and tied the knee ties at Yoshio’s bedside.

“Well then, I’m off.” “You’ll be all right alone, won’t you?” “You won’t feel lonely, will you?” Minoru knelt and stroked Yoshio’s forehead. Yoshio’s narrow forehead was cold.

“I’ll go with you.” “Then you must change into a kimono.” “Because Western clothes would look odd.”

While Yoshio was removing his Western clothes, Minoru went to the mirror, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and stood holding a large bundle. Though she thought that had she been alone she could have simply taken a car there and back—but with this person she would have to walk through the rain—she did not voice any of it.

Minoru, still holding the heavy bundle in one hand, went about locking the doors and taking down an umbrella from the shelf. When the bundle got in her way, she would leave it in the center of the tatami room and come back, then forget where she had left it and start searching here and there.

The two each took an umbrella and made their way from the garden gate to the front.

“You’re staying to look after the house, understand?” “I’ll bring back a souvenir for you.”

In the dark corner of the garden where soaking rain fell in sheets, when Minoru spotted the white figure of the dog, she called out to it. The dog was accustomed to being shut inside whenever they went out together. The clever little creature, sensing their departure through telltale sounds, tried burrowing beneath the veranda on its own before confinement. Even after shutting the gate and stepping outside, Minoru found herself haunted by thoughts of the dog's subdued demeanor. After walking some distance, Yoshio appeared to notice and reached for the bundle in her hand.

“I’ll carry it for you.”

The rainy station was crowded with people waiting for the delayed train. Though the rain had only just begun falling, the soil, the trees, people’s kimonos—all were equally steeped in a damply sodden scent that quietly resonated through the cold air’s depths. Minoru kept Yoshio—who held the bundle beneath his coat—at a distance and did not approach his side. Even after boarding the train, they continued gazing at their own selves—as though destitute—within their hearts, all while avoiding deliberately bringing their married faces together under strangers’ eyes in the brightly lit carriage. Minoru occasionally saw the cloth-wrapped bundle’s edge protruding from beneath Yoshio’s coat. The hem of his narrow coat gaped uncomfortably at the knees. Minoru turned her face away and, picturing Yoshio’s pitiful figure in her mind, stared at rain-drenched lights beyond the train windows.

With eyelashes fluttering as though pitying herself, flickering intermittently in the trembling shadows of raindrops falling from her umbrella, Minoru emerged from a side street in Nakacho. When she came to Yoshio’s side—where he had stood waiting beneath a corner store’s light, his Western umbrella held perfectly upright—her face wore a smile that resembled a whispered secret.

“Did it go well?” “It’s all right.” The removal of that cumbersome bundle from between them and the light paper bills left in the woman’s coat pocket restored in them a semblance of ordinary people in this transient world. As they let the absurdly large tram pass by—dripping raindrops while crawling sluggishly across their immediate view—Minoru stared at the man’s face with an expression that seemed determined to reclaim, within this interval, the obligatory intimacy between them that had until now been shunted aside somewhere, and deliberately smiled.

“Anything’s fine.” Yoshio laughed, rubbing his chin with one hand as he spoke. Yet in Yoshio’s eyes, Minoru’s smile carried a sharp edge that hinted at hidden depths, leaving him with an uneasy feeling. “I’m cold.” “I must drink something—I can’t bear it.”

Minoru walked ahead of Yoshio. When she looked across the street, every shopfront was blurred by rain, lights dripping wet. Oil-paper umbrellas cut across the street’s lamplit shadows—in the muddy road, traces of people’s geta and cartwheel ruts sent up sporadic glistening splashes. The two entered the small Western-style restaurant before the ward office.

The room held no customers. Minoru, having gone to mirror her reflection at the glass, was summoned by Yoshio to press shoulders before the fireplace while warming her hands. She knew how Yoshio would grow sullen at such times, making a habit of contemplating his poverty as bottomless ruin with desolate stares. Minoru deliberately thrust her shoulder against Yoshio’s body—his eyelids hollow and creased, cheeks forming languid curves as he vacantly stared at the fire—as if trying to bodily overturn him. While viewing Yoshio’s profile sidelong,

“You shouldn’t make such an unsightly face.” She laughed. Yoshio felt resentment toward the woman’s attitude that seemed to ridicule his wretchedness and kept silent. Even in such situations, he found detestable her mentality—making a heavily powdered effort as if to avoid appearing shabby herself while trying to tint her emotions like crimson rouge. Yoshio suddenly recalled the woman from the entertainment trade with whom he had briefly lived before settling down with Minoru. That woman would pour his drinks nightly, yet during their lean times had mourned their shared poverty with equal sorrow, possessing a tenderness that nearly wiped Yoshio’s work-weariness away with her own tears. Though she had been a woman of loose profession, unlike Minoru—

“It’ll work out somehow.” She had never uttered such desperate phrases.

“What’s wrong?” “Be quiet.” Minoru swayed her body back and forth, laughing as the movement jostled Yoshio’s shoulder. “I had something disagreeable happen today.”

Yoshio bent his back before the fireplace and spoke thus. "What is it?" Yoshio's words were tinged with a depressed tone, in stark contrast to Minoru's reply, which floated with a rouge-tinged allure throughout. "In ××, you know. A review of my work had come out." "What was that?" "They're saying it's trite and they can't fathom why anyone would dredge up something like this now."

Minoru laughed out loud. “It can’t be helped, can it?” “Can’t be helped?”

Yoshio raised his voice heedless of their surroundings and glared at Minoru’s face. Minoru silently turned to look behind her, but in the empty room, her obliquely sweeping eyes found only the white dining cloth fluttering. Then the lamplight reflected in the glassware steadfastly positioned on the table appeared to Minoru like the shadow of a smile that was stealthily directing its attention to the depths of her mind—the mind now contemplating something. Minoru turned her face fully forward and laughed alone once more.

“You think that way too, don’t you?” “That’s right.” Yoshio’s eyes—their swollen lids narrowed further—and Minoru’s eyes—their thin lids tautly stretched—stared at each other for a long time. When Minoru had read that work in manuscript form,

“It’s interesting.” “Splendid.” With that, she returned it to Yoshio’s hand. Yoshio had assumed that just as he alone found value in his own work, Minoru must have been similarly invested in hers. That she had suddenly adopted this cold tone—displaying an aloof attitude that seemed to harmonize with society’s scorn and the echoes within her heart—was something Yoshio had never anticipated. The contempt of that frivolous woman toward him regarding their economic hardship had burst forth even here—this was something Yoshio could not comprehend.

“You’re quite unsympathetic, aren’t you?” After a moment, Yoshio’s eyes—the ones that had uttered those words—were now crimson. Minoru turned around to receive the plate brought by the waiter and said nothing.

III “You think I’m such a worthless person, do you?” After leaving the station, they walked up a pitch-black slope while exchanging words. The streetlamp’s light—its glass streaked with raindrops—appeared exactly like the shadows of two people weeping prostrate in some gloomy human crevice. That they could find no occupation to sustain their livelihood, and that his own meager authority as a man of letters had gradually dissolved through years of societal compromises—no matter how Yoshio considered it, this struck him as unbearably pathetic. And alongside hating the world that turned its back on his decades of work, he grew furious that one among those who had turned away was Minoru. If one person were to hurl a stone at another, and the woman struck were to let her heart grovel toward the thrower—this thought made Yoshio feel that even exhausting every possible word to revile the woman before him would still prove insufficient. Yoshio could not free himself from how Minoru’s earlier sneer had clamped between sharp teeth at the very center of his chest.

“You can stand being with such a worthless person, can you?” “You can call a man of no worth your own husband.” “You can keep a smiling face before a man who mocks you.” “You’re a more frivolous woman than any harlot.” Having said this, Yoshio strode off heavily. Minoru silently followed from behind. The hem of Minoru’s kimono had become completely soaked, clinging tightly to the back of her tabi socks and geta soles, making her struggle to walk all the more arduous. She couldn’t possibly keep up with Yoshio’s rapid strides.

By the time Minoru finally entered the house, Yoshio was already lying before the small oblong charcoal brazier. Minoru took out the small bread she had bought from its bag and, while twisting off pieces to throw at Mei—who had trailed her into the earthen-floored entryway—kept her face deliberately averted from Yoshio, who lay bathed in the brazier’s light. “Hey.”

Yoshio called out to Minoru in a sharp voice. “What?” After saying this, Minoru petted the puppy, “Were you lonely all alone?” and while talking to it like that, she did not come in from there. Yoshio suddenly stood up, raised his foot, and kicked the flank of the dog that had been lifting its head onto Minoru’s lap. “Take it outside.” Yoshio—as if channeling the full force of his command into his facial muscles—thrust his jaw forward in a manner that conveyed “Take it out,” then remained rigidly planted where he stood. The puppy immediately crawled back beneath Yoshio’s kicked foot and, pressing its teeth against the tip of his tabi sock, tried to nip at it.

“Go over there.” Minoru grabbed the puppy’s collar, pulled it once toward her own hand, then dragged it out as if to fling it beyond the latticed window where rain was falling. After closing the door and coming inside, she sat before Yoshio—who lay sprawled by the brazier as before—and with an expression that seemed to clamp down on both tears and rising breath through tightly pressed lips, tilted her face upward. “Why don’t we just split up?”

Yoshio uttered this while lying back. The thought that this woman’s heavy body—filled with wanton blood—would entwine itself around the feeble reach of his arms for decades to come was more than Yoshio could bear. He thought that in the nearly year-long precarious life since their marriage, there had not been a single instance graced by the woman’s gentle words born of sincerity. Looking back, at the heart of their impoverished life, only the vivid image of the woman’s slackened smile—marked by licentious blood—remained etched in stark clarity. And so the woman’s body—with its soft flesh—was always there before his eyes, carrying its scent as it lumbered about.

“Even if you stay attached to someone like me, there’s nothing you could ever do.” “I lack the means to keep supporting a wife.” “Since I can’t even support myself.” “I know.”

Minoru said this clearly. When she opened her lips, tears overflowed from her eyes.

“Then let’s just split up.” “It’s better for both of us to part ways now while we still can.” “I’ll work on my own.” “In time.” The two of them fell silent for a time. A nervous terror—as if whispers of resentment cursing human existence that began emanating from the communal cemetery before their house each night were transmitting themselves through the rain—suddenly passed between the two who had fallen silent.

“What exactly do you mean by ‘work’?” “You’re already done for, aren’t you?” “You’re the one with even less vitality than I do.” Yoshio said this, then listed other women who had begun similar literary work around the same time as Minoru, praising those women who still adorned the world of art with splendor. “You can’t do it.” “If I’m stale, then you’re just as stale.” Minoru silently cried. When she thought of themselves—a man and woman born unluckily into the world of art without talent, abandoned even by that world, their weary hearts leaning back to back in the depths of their destitute lives—she couldn’t help but cry.

“What are you crying about?” “But doesn’t it make me sad? I will take revenge. For your sake, I will take revenge on the world. Because I’m certain of it.”

Minoru said this while crying.

“That’s not something you can count on! If you mean to work, start working now. Frittering about with a worthless husband will only degrade your value first. If you’re so certain of your abilities, work for yourself.”

“I can’t work now—the time hasn’t come.” “Isn’t that unreasonable?” Minoru raised her tear-glittering eyes and looked at Yoshio’s face. When Yoshio perceived in the depths of her eyes a momentum that suggested a time might come when she would plunge alone into unfathomable depths he couldn’t gauge, antipathy arose anew in his chest. “Talking clever won’t help.” “No matter what you say, none of it actually materializes, does it?” “In that case, it’s better if we just split up.”

Yoshio said this as if cutting off the conversation, then stood up to go prepare his own bed in the inner room.

Minoru silently watched the man’s movements from where she was. With one hand, Yoshio pulled down the night quilt from the closet, spread it out haphazardly, and crawled into it still wearing the clothes he had on.

Minoru had been gazing at the chilled-looking hem of the night quilt when she suddenly realized they had argued for so long without any fire’s warmth, and though she abruptly felt cold, she remained leaning against the sliding door—arms still folded—wrapping her chilled toes in her kimono’s hem. Then, when she thought of how she must cling like this while the man kept trying to shake her off from his grasp, unable to bear life’s hardships through his own strength alone, fresh tears welled in Minoru’s eyes.

Minoru knew that Yoshio's strength—were the strength of men she had imagined until now layered—wouldn't amount to even one stratum. She didn't want to cling eternally to this unreliable man's power. The resolute thought that she too must act something pressed upon her constantly. Yet Minoru could perform no work. As Yoshio had just told her, before him she lacked the capacity to demonstrate anything at all. Though frustration enough to make her want to gnaw through her own entrails filled her, Minoru could accomplish nothing. She still had to be sustained by this powerless man's hand.

Minoru stood up with a sigh and trudged toward Yoshio’s bed. Thrusting out her right hand, she flung aside the night quilt. “I’m going to sleep too.” “Give me the night quilt.”

Between them existed not even a single set of night things. Upon hearing that voice, Yoshio immediately rose and searched for glasses by his pillowside, but as he left the bed,

“Go to sleep.”

Having said that, he went back out to the tearoom. Minoru, who had been watching the man’s retreating figure for a while, carefully straightened the futon that had curled up like a ball, then fetched her own pillow and slipped inside. After slipping into bed, Minoru looked back on days where the straightforward man’s heart—lacking tenacity—and the elaborate yet persistent woman’s heart always clashed, days where they jabbed at each other daily in ceaseless quarrels. There, she could not find the familiar man’s heart that would intertwine with her emotions—as disordered as her smeared lipstick—in intricate patterns.

Four

Yoshio finally secured employment when cherry blossoms bloomed. To sustain their livelihood, he hauled his gaunt frame daily to Tokyo's center—Minoru walking Mei to the station each dawn. Sometimes her pale fingers would blow kisses toward his streetcar window like a lover's farewell, momentarily eclipsing shafts of tepid sunlight. She customarily returned through graves while murmuring to the dog. Throwing open their second-floor shutters, she'd bare her brow to sunlight whose feverish warmth recalled children's nails clawing flesh—reading all day through this glare. Words flowing from pages into her mind became private feasts she savored alone. When art-scented scenes from book after book guided her heart—wrinkled silk shriveled by vague longing—into phantom realms, agitation flushed her cheeks blood-vulnerable crimson as she roamed tombstones. Even briar tips snagging sleeves pierced her nostalgic heart till tears spilled. Unchecked emotions raged—she once pressed her forehead against an unknown grave's stone. Around Tennoji she paced tearfully beneath soaring pines and riotous cherry blooms staining twilight's shadows indigo.

One evening, the two of them wandered aimlessly through Ueno Hill. The night sky, white with cherry blossoms, hung clear in a pale yellow hue. The forest lights mingled resplendent glows among hazy flowers like intoxicated eyes of a beautiful woman blurred by drink. “What a lovely evening.” Minoru said this and skipped along with theatrical gestures as if demonstrating her every movement. When she imagined how thousands of lovers’ whispers once wholly hidden in these mountain woods now began transmitting tender echoes through each cherry petal from every corner of the quiet hills with spring’s bloom, her chest quivered faintly. She deliberately stood beneath a cherry tree whose branches stretched low like a canopy, spreading both sleeves wide. As she lingered there—the coat’s aged perfume mingling with floral scents like breaths from something nostalgic—step by step she chased the fragrance threatening to vanish without trace.

Yoshio walked separately from Minoru in scattered steps, arms crossed stiffly and face devoid of expression. The notion of poverty haunting Yoshio’s mind failed to stir any interest, even as he wandered beneath night-blooming flowers. After long financial strain left her unable to manage proper outwear, Minoru walked with only a coat thrown over her everyday clothes. To Yoshio’s eyes gazing at her impoverished figure from behind, Minoru’s manner of frolicking across this stage-like scene—utterly oblivious—became an absurdity framed against ugliness.

“Shouldn’t we head back now?” Yoshio said this and stopped in his tracks.

The two of them stood for a short while atop the hill, gazing at the lights across the pond that wound around like a ring. The distant sound of a shamisen—as if those lights were murmuring—grazed against their chests. Minoru suddenly recalled and yearned for the weight of a soft kimono’s hem she hadn’t felt in so long. The hem that Minoru had managed with the tips of her Eastern-style clogs fluttered coldly. “They’re holding a social gathering in Yoshiwara, I hear.”

Yoshio said this and started walking. Leaving behind Hirokoji Avenue where the lights tinged the sky pale red, the two turned their steps toward Yanaka’s depths. The clamorous sound of a band playing in some distant town blended with the mountain’s chilled air, lapping softly at their ears like Kansui water before flowing into the cherry blossoms. Spring’s cheer overflowed in Minoru’s heart. She imagined beyond these hills lay a world of commotion—lively crowds reveling through spring nights. When she saw her own feet unable to step into that realm, an indescribable loneliness washed over her.

“I wish I could spend just one day feeling truly human, roaming about carefree.” When Minoru was about to say this and turned toward Yoshio, a car passed by their side with the quietness of a heavenly carriage that had raced through Miho’s pine grove. As if peering at a brocade print pasted on a dim wall, beautiful patterns of deep crimson Yuzen dye from the carriage hood’s side blocked their view. And the hood containing spring’s haughtiness simply swayed gently, never disappearing from before their eyes.

Minoru said nothing more after that. As she wondered what dream the silent man was now dissolving his entire heart into, Minoru kept walking in silence without end.

Five

The news that the wife of the Master—who had been deeply kind to both Yoshio and Minoru—had finally passed away reached the two of them one morning at the end of April.

After Yoshio left in his one good suit, Minoru—who had budgeted just enough to retrieve their clothes from Nakacho—determined she couldn’t manage financially. Realizing her only recourse was to visit a friend in Koishikawa, she left while devising a plausible pretext.

Along the fence of her friend’s house, several cherry trees in full bloom stood in a row, their branches drooping toward the street as if to flaunt the household’s wealth.

In the reception room of that household’s master, Minoru met her friend face-to-face after a long time. For Minoru, the fact that she herself was the one borrowing was something she could not bring herself to say. If I were single, I could say I’m the one borrowing, but even considering a husband’s dignity as head of household, such a pitiful request couldn’t be made—this thought kept circling through Minoru’s mind. The clever friend formed a demure smile that seemed to say malicious speculation wasn’t a woman’s proper concern, appearing to take at face value Minoru’s claim about borrowing for another acquaintance as she produced a single crested kimono.

“Funerals require black, but unfortunately I don’t have any.” The crested kimono the friend had produced was a pale reddish-brown. At the hem were embroidered small butterflies.

That day, it was raining. Minoru boarded the boat from Azuma Bridge’s ferry landing, carrying white magnolia flowers. As the boat left shore—carrying with it that gradual slippage of heart—the shadow of reminiscence from six or seven years before pierced through Minoru’s chest. From within the boat, Minoru gazed at the memory-laden embankment. Like an indispensable part of the rainy season’s backdrop, the tea house’s reed screen lay exposed in its sodden, bedraggled loneliness. Then trails of rain—thin as combed threads—swept swiftly from the embankment across the river’s flat surface. Minoru again fixed her eyes straight down upon the river water where the boat raced along its winding course. There reflected a sorrow as though her youth had been silently dissolved into those ripples—eroded away without her ever knowing when. The cherry blossoms on the embankment that had scattered droplets on young Minoru’s face as she wandered lost in deep thought still bloomed just as they had then. To Minoru, this too seemed like the cruel shadow of a smile seeking to deceive some youthful affection—and there too lay resentment.

When she ascended from Kototoi, cherry blossom raindrops scattered onto Minoru’s umbrella with a sound like lingering traces of past tears. As she encountered a few old acquaintances on the embankment midway who seemed bound for the same destination, she passed through the Master’s gate later than the time she had agreed upon with Yoshio. Upon entering, the crowd’s commotion echoed with muffled clamor beneath rain-drenched eaves. Every shoji screen visible from outside stood wide open, black and striped kimonos clustering together with hems trailing beyond the veranda. Behind the latticed door at the rear, mud-caked clogs lay scattered in disarray.

Minoru handed the magnolia to an elderly maidservant—an old acquaintance she found in the kitchen—then slipped into the corner of the raised tatami room and sat down. There, small children left by their mother were being held by many women, cherished with sorrowful words. The eldest daughter too joined them there and watched people going in and out beyond the shoji screens. The eldest daughter, whom Minoru had once played with by catching beanbags and bouncing balls, formed a smile on her pale face with red-swollen eyes when she saw Minoru—someone she hadn’t met intimately in years—and greeted her. Minoru’s eyes never left the girl’s figure.

“This child is quite good at imitating you.”

When the Master laughed and said this to Minoru, the child was still about four years old. As if emulating Minoru’s ways, holding a furoshiki bundle and putting on an affected bow— “This is Minoru’s thing.” —she said, making everyone laugh. From early childhood, she had been a girl who laughed in such a manner that several creases would form at the edges of her prominent nose. In the shadow cast by this girl’s growth to such stature, Minoru retraced the brief span of time that had transformed her own self and found herself unable to suppress futile thoughts.

“Hey.” When Minoru was called like this and turned around, Yoshio stood on the veranda beckoning her with his chin. When she approached— “I’ll go borrow condolence money from the company now.” Yoshio said quietly. “How much?” “Five yen.” They parted immediately after exchanging these words with laughter. Minoru left the room and wandered searching for the Master until encountering him in a dim inner corridor halfway along. Through darkness where faces blurred indistinctly, she heard the Master’s voice swollen with tears.

“Have you been keeping well lately?”

The Master asked this as Minoru was about to take her leave. Minoru thought she saw a vestige of the Master’s fragile aspect from years past, and her response was choked with tears.

Six

That night, Minoru could not sleep. The brocade of memories continued writhing in her chest, its hues clashing and tangling. And through it all clung the scent of Western violets sent by the Master one spring day—sweetness resonating with the throbbing pulse of nostalgia in her veins.

Minoru tried counting how many years had passed since leaving that beloved Master. It had been five years since she left the Master's guidance. Now eight years had flowed by since those days when she had basked in his benevolence, single-mindedly adoring and clamoring for him. At that time, her very life had been completely enveloped within those small eyes of his—eyes containing a sharp light honed by worldly experience. Were she to leave the Master's hand, her heart had convinced itself there would be nowhere to turn. And so Minoru, who commuted daily by boat to Mukojima, would stand on the ferry landing both coming and going, letting fall drop after drop of her heart's blood upon the smooth river water.

The time had come when Minoru too had to turn her back on the heart of the Master she had so revered. It was when her eyes had gradually opened to the true life she was meant to actually live. For the day arrived when she could no longer idly indulge herself in good spirits while daily entering the Master’s study and breathing the old camphor scent of his books. Then came even a moment bearing a wretched curse—the realization that the Master’s benevolence had momentarily paralyzed the vitality of her heart that truly sought to live. Convinced she could forge no new path without leaving this Master’s guidance, Minoru had long remained apart from that deeply benevolent man—yet not a single new work bearing the mark of awakening had ever been completed by her hands. She often recalled those days enveloped in the Master’s kindness, her chest dampened with futile tears. And there was scarcely a day when her heart—now perpetually battered by what people called the world—did not ache to remember those innocent childhood days, tethered to an unyielding faith in one person while disregarding all outside gazes.

Tonight, those thoughts weighed particularly heavy on her mind. Minoru kept thinking about the Master’s figure from earlier that day—how he had been listening to the sutra reading before his wife’s coffin, weeping as if collapsing while covering his face with his right hand.

Yoshio went to the night vigil that evening and did not return home.

“What happened to that crested kimono?” Yoshio, who had returned from the funeral a step ahead, had been waiting for Minoru to come home and immediately asked her this. Minoru thought about how Yoshio’s striped Western suit had been the only one that stood out at today’s funeral venue and laughed silently. “I borrowed it.” Both Minoru, who had nodded, and Yoshio, who had been nodded to, made equally awkward faces. The fact that they didn’t have a single set of formal attire between them felt particularly acute now, after being surrounded by so many well-dressed people.

“Your outfit was quite the problem, wasn’t it.” “Oh, it’s fine, as long as you’re properly dressed.” After saying this, Yoshio once again gazed at Minoru’s borrowed appearance. Yoshio asked where she had borrowed it from, but Minoru did not say it was from Koishikawa. Because she thought that if she had said she’d gotten such an unsightly outfit from an old school friend, Yoshio would feel even more disgusted. Minoru gave the name of a merchant household who visited her like relatives and said she had arranged it through them. And then, recalling how the wife of Yoshio’s friend—who was rumored to always be struggling—had been properly put together, Minoru told Yoshio with an impressed expression.

“It seems none of our friends are struggling like we are.” “I suppose.” Yoshio said that and took off the Western suit he had been wearing. And then, after briefly turning up the hem of his trousers to inspect them, “This has gotten so bad too.” As he said this, he showed Minoru the frayed part. Yoshio had to wear the Western suit meant for autumn or spring even during hot weather and snowy times. Whenever Yoshio had to don that broad-shouldered Western suit for some occasion—and as she thought of this—Minoru found herself unable to dismiss their poverty with her customary sardonic dismissal as she always had. From a heart so thoroughly accustomed to sorrowful scenes, tears that made them truly taste their own poverty pitifully welled up in Minoru’s eyes.

“You poor thing.”

Minoru turned away and said this while changing into a kimono. When forced to expose their poverty to society like this, Minoru thought, the two of them would inevitably end up showing each other a kind of intimacy—hands clasped tightly together without even realizing when it began. “I must find a way to at least keep your things on hand.”

Yoshio went out to bathe while saying this.

When left alone, scenes from today’s funeral procession floated up before Minoru’s eyes. Along the flower-covered embankment where the procession stretched endlessly, they repeatedly encountered groups of flower-viewers who—wearing headbands—danced their way through muddy paths. One drunkard seeing off the procession stood right beside Minoru’s carriage, “My, what a lively gathering we have here.” She recalled how he had muttered those words under his breath. Minoru resolved to tell Yoshio about this when he returned. Though she too had been made to weep repeatedly at the sight of motherless children clustered around the coffin, that grief had already dissolved into nothingness.

Seven

The days came when Minoru’s beloved white lilies were constantly being arranged in places like the alcove of the sitting room and atop the bookcase. On Yoshio’s days off, the two would sometimes take Mei on outings to Oji, gazing at blue fields along the way. They threw the dog into the stream behind Kōyō-ji Temple and washed his body while getting covered in soap suds. In the stream, sunlight mingled with mountain young maples’ verdant hue to create a color like translucent agar. After chaining the wet puppy to a pillar at the hillside tea house up the mountain, they spent half days gazing at young maples covering the ground below so thickly one could have walked on them. When standing before what seemed someone’s villa along their path there, Yoshio would always look up at a pale gray-painted Western-style mansion’s second floor—visible sideways through surrounding hinoki trees—and say: “I don’t need anything else. At least let me build my ideal house.”

It was around that time that Minoru began frequently fussing with her hair. Minoru developed a habit of going to the hairdresser at Ikenohata every other day to have her hair done. In the small drawer of Minoru’s vanity dresser, several scarlet-dyed cloth strips stained with oil had accumulated. Even during such days, the single-minded man’s unyielding temperament and the woman’s intricate, tenacious temperament always clashed, their mutual jabs never ceasing. Days when the man’s posturing—refusing to yield only before the woman—and the woman’s defiance—refusing to yield only before the man—would tangle at even the slightest brush of sleeves, escalating until they exchanged blows after hurling insults, were hardly uncommon between them. When insights Minoru gleaned from her books lent an unexpected nuance to their dynamic, they would shout loud enough to reach the main street, arguing relentlessly whether it was two or three in the morning. And then, when Minoru—having finally fallen silent—fixed her gaze on Yoshio’s narrow forehead with eyes brimming with pitiful mockery, Yoshio immediately flushed his eyes crimson,

“Don’t get cocky. What could someone like you possibly do?” Having said this, he made a face like a construction worker insulting someone—the kind of expression that looked ready to spit in their face. Such words would at times inevitably inflame Minoru’s emotions. When she wondered whether anyone could prove this man was intellectually inferior to her, Minoru found herself pitifully alone, without a single ally. And then,

“Say that again.” Having said that, Minoru immediately reached out and pushed Yoshio’s shoulder. “I’ll say it as many times as you want.” “I’m saying someone like you is no good.” “What could someone like you possibly understand?”

“Why.” “Why?”

When things reached this point, Minoru would not be silenced until she had been beaten by the man to the point where her body could no longer move. “Since you’re the one who’s wrong, why won’t you apologize?” “Why won’t you apologize?” Minoru raised her hand to Yoshio’s head and tried to force it down violently, but was met with harsh treatment from the man’s hands. “You’ll end up a cripple in the end.” The next day, Yoshio looked at the remaining wounds scattered across Minoru’s body and said this. The cruelty of those moments when he grabbed and twisted the woman’s soft flesh as if to tear it off would later repeat in Yoshio’s mind like a dream.

It was a day when light rain had fallen during the afternoon. Early that morning, Minoru—having washed a mountain of laundry—felt her body exhausted as if a wooden plank had been pressed against her flesh. Near the eaves, gentle white clouds like wisps of smoke passed by repeatedly, each time seeming to peer into Minoru's heart. Sunlight filtering through moisture-laden early summer air filled her vision with beauty like cascading shards of stained glass as she stood on the veranda. The morning felt oppressively muggy. The serge fabric Minoru wore prickled against her sweat-dampened skin.

By afternoon, it had turned to rain. After taking in the laundry from the veranda, Minoru stood there again and gazed at the small garden where rain was falling. In this garden of about three tsubo, only the hydrangea that Yoshio had planted last summer occupied the central position. On two or three boxwood trees, tiny white flowers resembling hail were blooming profusely, presenting a meager yet splendid display in the corner—but the shade of the hydrangea that had grown and spread over the year loomed largest upon the garden’s soil. There was nothing else besides that. The sound of the light rain occasionally made noise against the hydrangea leaves. When Minoru noticed that sound, she suddenly felt nostalgic and continued staring at the rain falling there.

By the time Yoshio returned at his usual hour, the rain had already stopped. Minoru, having observed Yoshio’s demeanor since his return, had noticed there was something with hidden depths in the recesses of his heart.

“Hey, what are you going to do?”

When Minoru tried to clear away the evening meal with nonchalance, Yoshio called out like this. “Why haven’t you started that work yet?” “Are you planning to quit?” When she heard that, Minoru immediately realized. About a week prior, when Yoshio had returned from work, he had shown Minoru a newspaper clipping while saying, “You could work on this.” It was a regional newspaper that had a contest advertisement. Yoshio, who knew Minoru had works she had gradually written up until then, suggested she add only the portion required by these guidelines and send them in.

“If it wins, we could catch our breath.” Yoshio said this. But Minoru had only given noncommittal replies and hadn’t touched it to this day. Moreover, by the time Yoshio had discovered that opportunity, the submission deadline was already fast approaching. Because he had concluded that even with such limited time, Minoru could not possibly write anything resembling what she envisioned. “Why aren’t you writing?” Yoshio nervously pursed his lips and pressed Minoru with these words. “Because I refuse to engage in such gamble-like endeavors—that’s why I’m not writing it.”

Yoshio saw the familiar haughty look that had flashed across Minoru’s cheek.

Minoru felt displeased at Yoshio’s consideration of using that one-in-a-million chance to escape her own financial hardship. This man didn’t know how to let a woman engage with art for pleasure, she thought—but when she realized he only knew how to reduce her art to a gamble and force her to work at it, fury rose within her. “I don’t possess any worn-out brush meant for such purposes.”

Minoru said again. “Don’t get cocky.”

Thus Yoshio bellowed. Yoshio’s contempt toward the woman’s arrogance always took the form of this “Don’t get cocky.” Minoru hated this phrase. Minoru’s face, which had been fixed on Yoshio, turned deathly pale. “What did you say?” “Didn’t you say you’d work?” “Didn’t you say you’d work for me?” “What happened to that?” “I’m not saying I won’t work.” “But the brush I’ve nurtured until now wasn’t something I intended to use in such a place.” “If you’re going to insist I work no matter what, then I’ll go work at the telephone exchange or something.” “But I refuse to use my brush for such gambling-like matters.”

Yoshio suddenly threw the tobacco tray that was beside his hand at Minoru. “You don’t know the slightest thing about loving our life.” “If you don’t like it, then quit.” “What kind of tone is that?” “What do you think you’re doing, speaking to your husband in that tone?”

Yoshio stood up while saying that. “Then go ahead and destroy everything about such a life!” After kicking away the meal tray that had touched his foot, Yoshio approached Minoru. Minoru had never before so fearfully anticipated the man’s violence. “What are you doing?” Minoru’s metallic-toned voice—thin and transparent—drew near as if piercing into Yoshio’s violently throbbing chest. In that moment, she mustered all her strength into both arms and shoved his chest away. And then, with the feeling of escaping this man’s terror for the first time, Minoru dashed out from the kitchen door to the front.

Outside, the twilight had not yet completely faded, streaming a silver-white color. As deliberate darkness prepared to envelop the entire cemetery, Minoru stood lingering in that demon-haunted hour's shadow without end. In the midst of a profound loneliness gathering around her ears from nowhere in particular, fierce reverberations—as though someone were kicking through shoji screens and fusuma panels—transmitted themselves through her nerves. And she also felt as though a woman’s scream—thin and sharp like a silken needle—were mingling within that cacophony. That seemed like her own voice. Minoru's blood throughout her body still swayed restlessly where it had been stirred. In some part of her blood vessels, that blood still surged in fierce waves from time to time. However, with a clarity as though taking her own heart's pulse one by one, Minoru bowed beneath the dark force looming over her head and thought for a while. And then, within that clear mind—as if immersed in clear water—

“You don’t know how to love our life.” Yoshio’s words contained various meanings and continued to resonate endlessly. Minoru was a woman who did not love a man’s life at all.

On the other hand, Yoshio knew nothing at all about loving a woman’s art. Minoru still endured the unpleasantness of their impoverished life together with the man, even ducking under the eaves of pawnshops, but Yoshio knew nothing of providing even a single new book for the art that women favored. Yoshio, to prevent his own petty arrogance from being wounded by the woman, even went so far as to deliberately inflict humiliation upon her efforts as she strove to acquire new knowledge beside him. Yoshio—who knew nothing of imparting that extra dripping allure upon the heart of a woman yearning for new art—was a man content merely to have his own inadequate strength supplemented materially through her hands; this truth repeated itself obsessively in Minoru’s mind.

“If you say I don’t love your life, then you must not say you love my art.” When she thought of how she should have said this to Yoshio earlier, Minoru felt as if blood were seeping into her eyes. A woman who did not know how to love a man’s life and a man who did not know how to love a woman’s art—they were ultimately incompatible. If it were Yoshio’s situation, a woman who didn’t love his life might leave him lacking any incentive. In the purse that Yoshio carried out daily, there had never been more than two or three small silver coins. Minoru, who could look at that before her eyes with an absent-minded face, might have been unimaginable to Yoshio as the woman with whom he could spend his life hand in hand.

They must part after all. Minoru started walking with that thought. For the first time, tears that seemed to melt and flow from the depths of her frozen pupils came seeping into her cheeks. Around Minoru as she walked, an impenetrable darkness had already closed in from all sides. Around her face swarmed a cloud of mosquitoes, their feeble hum encircling her. When she looked back, within that darkness, the heads of stone monuments thrusting up here and there wavered with an ethereal illusion, as if undulating and creeping closer toward her. Feeling as though she alone had been left behind in this dark loneliness, Minoru quickened her pace and emerged outside the thorn hedge encircling the cemetery.

Mei, who had been wandering about that area, spotted Minoru appearing there and came dashing over to stand before her, tilting up her face while wagging her entire body along with her tail. When Minoru suddenly saw this puppy’s form, she felt she had grasped the one thing in this world that cared for her, and could not help but embrace the dog’s body. “Thank you.” After saying this to the puppy, tears swelled up and fell from Minoru’s eyes once more. Minoru walked toward home wiping her face with her right sleeve, tasting what seemed like walking outdoors while crying for the first time in her life.

VIII Minoru stood outside and observed the state inside the house for a while before entering. When she turned on the light in the tearoom and looked around, there was only the repulsive disarray—ashes spilled from the tobacco tray Yoshio had hurled earlier and scattered contents from the kicked-over meal tray—with Yoshio nowhere to be seen. Some time later, as Minoru was cleaning the dirt in the parlor, she heard a creaking thud from upstairs like someone turning over in their sleep, making her think Yoshio was sleeping on the second floor. At this moment, an image floated in Minoru’s chest—Yoshio’s face with sunken cheekbones and a neck as slender as a child’s, his head buried in folded arms above him as he lay curled on straight tatami mats.

And now, Minoru’s heart had already crumbled before Yoshio. The act of her taking up the brush had come to mean the “work” Yoshio desired, and if that could become one thing to please him, then her heart had reverted to a kind of feminine complacency—the notion that this was a task requiring no particular effort. Minoru’s heart, which had struggled beneath the world for so long yet grasped nothing to this day, had grown timid without notice, and now the shadow of fatigue already cast itself upon that heart. No matter how much resolve Minoru began to muster, it would immediately vanish like the morning star. And so, in the end, it came down to this: Minoru herself, with a mental posture as though observing from afar her own futile sorrow—the sorrow of one who could only survive by clinging to Yoshio’s solitary affection—cast her body before the man.

Minoru began facing her desk every day starting the next morning, commencing work on the continuation of a certain story she had half-drafted. All too often growing disgusted, she had lost count of how many times she tried to quit. She had not felt any enthusiasm for it at all. The work she had been writing up until today and stored in her desk was not something Minoru liked. It was that unfinished work—written while she keenly felt her art carried an inescapable odor from a realm it had once entered—from which she had finally thrown down her brush. Therefore, before attempting to immediately continue the latter half, she had to revise the first half more thoroughly. Minoru’s honest heart toward her own art did not easily succumb to the patronizing notion of taking the work she herself had discarded and presenting it unchanged in a bright place. She tinkered endlessly with that first half.

“How long are you going to keep doing this?” Upon noticing this, Yoshio immediately approached Minoru’s side while saying this. “It’s utterly hopeless, so I’ll stop.” “It doesn’t matter if it’s bad—just get it done.”

“I’m still no good after all.”

Minoru said that and violently disordered the manuscript before her. “You see, this kind of thing...” “It doesn’t matter whether the work’s good or bad.” “It’s just your luck.” “Even if it’s bad work, as long as you’ve got luck on your side, it’ll succeed—so just finish it already.” “If you keep dawdling, you’ll never make the deadline.” Yoshio snatched away the first half that Minoru had been revising from her hands. Seeing this, Minoru— “So as long as I just write, that’s enough?” With such meaning lingering in her eyes, she gazed at Yoshio’s face. In her heart’s depths, a self-destructive mood had somehow surfaced. It was a self-destructive mood—the sense that all she needed to do was write whatever Yoshio forced upon her and then simply hurl it before him.

“If I absolutely don’t write, what will you do?”

“There’s no reason you can’t write, so just write.” “I can’t write it.” “I don’t like it.” “That’s not the case—just write through it smoothly.” “I don’t want to because I don’t like it.” “That’s a bad habit.” “While you’re saying such things, couldn’t you write two or three pages instead?”

Yoshio counted the days. Despite still having over two hundred pages left to meet the required number, fewer than twenty days remained. Yoshio grew vexed and irritated with this woman—all talk yet incapable of tackling anything decisively—as if boiled beans were snapping sharply against his face, grating on his nerves beyond endurance.

“Truly, you’re a hopeless woman.” “Go ahead then.” “Go ahead then.” Having said that, Yoshio brought out the manuscript he had previously taken from the bookcase and scattered it before Minoru. A cold shadow unlike any before now fell across his downcast eyes. “If I stop, what will you do?”

Minoru leaned against the desk, pressing her head with her right hand while slanting her gaze at the man. Yoshio’s face—the blinking of his eyes, the twitching of his pale facial muscles, the trembling of his lips—all coalesced and flashed like lightning. “We’ll just have to part ways, then.” Yoshio uttered this as if thrusting the woman away bodily. When Minoru concluded she could do nothing, Yoshio simultaneously found himself unable to avoid feeling an unmistakable burden. For Yoshio, what bound them together was not affection. It was strength. If the woman couldn’t possess a power he himself lacked, he didn’t want to remain together. If he kept dragging this burden—particularly that of a willful woman like Minoru—he felt his body would only sink deeper into the mire of human existence. Yoshio now had to sever himself from this woman. He was a man who could show Minoru his characteristically tenacious resistance in such moments. He was a man who could clearly manifest the resolve to have someone leave this house immediately, right then and there. Within him existed not even a particle of the love one might imagine he specifically held for Minoru alone.

“I’ll write.” “It can’t be helped.” Tears welled up in Minoru’s eyes. And then she began gathering the scattered manuscripts around there.

IX Minoru wrote on with single-minded intensity. The man’s eyes that lashed her like a whip gleamed before her desk for hours on end. She kept writing aimlessly while fearing those eyes. There were times she would bring a lamp and desk into the mosquito net, lie flat like a corpse for a while, then suddenly sit up and resume writing. From morning till evening she would dodge the summer sunlight piercing through the house, scurrying about until reaching a corner wall where she’d repeatedly bang her head against it before starting to write again.

And thus it was completed on the afternoon of the deadline’s final day. Yoshio added Minoru’s name to it and wrapped it as a parcel before taking it himself to the post office. Minoru wiped her face with the sweat-dampened sleeve of her pale blue yukata while reflecting on herself over those ten-odd days. In her brush tip driven by the man’s presence lingered none of beautiful art’s shadow she had envisioned. There was only dark clouds’ force dreading his condemnation. With nothing but that reckless unartistic power—what could her own hands create? Thinking this, Minoru could not help sinking into disappointment.

It was after mid-August had passed. One morning, there was an article in that day’s newspaper that suddenly caught Minoru’s attention. After Yoshio left for work, Minoru hammered a nail into the entranceway and went out herself. Upon reaching Hirokoji, she boarded the Edo River-bound streetcar from there. Clad in a faded Akashi summer kimono and holding an equally faded deep purple parasol, Minoru’s figure soon wandered through a narrow street in Ushigome—the entire area bleached pallid under the blazing sky. Each tiny pebble of the spread-out gravel lodged itself in the cleft of her wooden sandals, making it excruciatingly difficult for her to walk. With every step, her heart pounded violently as sweat trickled down her armpits. The heat rising from the ground into her hem and the scorching sunlight beating down from above relentlessly pricked at Minoru’s thin skin. Minoru’s face turned burning crimson.

Minoru asked at the police box on the corner of the bridge about a rental hall called “Seigetsu,” then turned toward the bank of the Edo River and went along it. Seigetsu was on the right side of that street. It was an old house with a structure reminiscent of what might have once been a hatamoto’s residence. Minoru stood at the genkan and inquired of the maid who had come to attend her about someone named Koyama.

Minoru was immediately shown to the inner room. In the vast, hollow tatami room, Minoru waited with the garden at her back for her anticipated interlocutor to appear. Though every sliding panel stood open, not a wisp of breeze passed through. The midday heat—a breathless stillness as if the very air were paralyzed—seeped into every shadowed corner of the sun-bleached mats. Minoru pressed a narrow cloth to her face while working her folding fan with mechanical urgency.

A small-statured man emerged from the rear carrying a tobacco tray and sat before Minoru. Eyes with jet-black pupils and long lashes sat dully swollen as if from a midday nap. He had an Osaka native's habit of pooling saliva at his mouth corners when speaking. When he laughed, a feminine charm flooded his petite face. Koyama didn't know Minoru's name but recognized Yoshio's. Fiddling with Minoru's name card clutched in his hand, Koyama conversed with her.

Koyama began speaking about the theater troupe they were putting together. He then elaborated at length about how their previous production—organized by a certain promoter—had unfortunately received unfavorable misunderstandings from society, but that this second production was being arranged in an exceedingly artistic manner with assistance from people like Sakai and Yukita. He added that they intended to select only actresses of upright character and respectable background. His smooth Osaka dialect, now thickened in the sweltering air, undulated with a drowsy cadence.

As Koyama spoke, he wore an expression that regarded Minoru as a woman who grasped things to some extent, occasionally riding the rhythm of her words to advance his own agenda.

“If you’re that enthusiastic, I’ll first consult thoroughly with both Mr. Sakai and Mr. Yukita, then give you our formal response.” “While I believe it will likely be acceptable, since matters can’t be decided by my considerations alone, we’ll send you a postcard with our formal response afterward.”

With that, Minoru bid Koyama farewell and went outside. Watching the solitary festival lantern sway at the edge of sweltering shade beneath the eaves of the empty home, Minoru finally entered her house as half the garden already lay shadowed. Minoru sat in the center of the opened tatami room without removing her sweat-dampened kimono, lost in thought. When night fell, Minoru went out with Yoshio to visit the shrine where a festival was being held. The backstreet flanked by the communal cemetery had red lantern lights scattered here and there, their color—as if fragments torn from the main street’s bustle—hazily blurred into the surroundings. There were gates where figures of women in white yukatas stood in the shadows of those lights, sleeves fluttering alluringly. When they emerged onto the main street, the desolate outskirts they always knew were now animated by a new world—born from night stalls’ lights and the dizzying tangle of hems in the crowd.

The two were pushed back by the crowd as they made their way into the shrine. Moving sideways past a stall serving shiruko in red bowls heaped like mountains, they emerged before a sideshow tent where a dark-skinned woman in her forties, sleeves rolled up, was calling out loudly to passersby. Standing before the curtain that kept lowering and rising to peer inside, they caught sight of two young women in ceremonial shoulder garments whose upper bodies suggested they were reciting something like jōruri. Those individual women were strikingly beautiful. From within the dimly lit hut, eyes occasionally cast toward the crowd held expressions as fluid as swirling pupils. The matte white makeup, applied as starkly as gofun powder without any luster, harmonized with the gaudy hues at the collar of her Yuzen-patterned kimono, making this woman appear all the more beautiful. Her nose was straight and high, her mouth neatly small.

“My, what beautiful women, aren’t they?” Minoru pulled Yoshio’s sleeve. “That must be the rokurokubi.”

Yoshio peered in while laughing. On the signboard above was painted an image of a woman’s head in Shimada style—emerging sinuously from her shoulder-garbed body—looking down upon the crowd of people. Yoshio liked the white makeup of such low-class female performers. While captivated by the woman’s eyes, Yoshio started walking again.

The two came around to the front of the cliffside teahouse overlooking Mikawashima. Rows of paper lanterns hung beneath eaves wrapped in reed screens, their light reflecting off soda bottle glass and mounds of shaved ice. There Yoshio bought roasted chestnuts and stood at the cliff's edge eating them, gazing toward Mikawashima spread out dark as the sea. People entering the festival grounds streamed ceaselessly past where the two stood, flowing upward from below.

“I have something to discuss with you.”

Minoru said this while turning away from the crowded shrine grounds and attempting to descend the cliff.

“What?” “I want to return to acting.”

“You want to?” “Is that so.”

The two descended the cliff and crossed the railroad crossing, then set out walking toward Nippori. Minoru talked about her intention to join the new theater troupe that Sakai and Yukita were planning to form, all while walking. Yukita was someone Yoshio knew. He was a new playwright who had just returned from abroad. It had been decided to stage a one-act play scripted by him, but as Koyama had said during the day that they were troubled by the lack of an actress to portray the challenging female lead, Minoru clung to hope through those words. However, without mentioning that part, she asked Yoshio whether it would be good or bad for her to appear on stage. Yoshio walked in silence while eating roasted chestnuts.

Yoshio knew Minoru had clamored about becoming an actress before their marriage. Yet he remained unaware of what talents this woman might possess. Judging by how no rumors had circulated when she’d joined some troupe and performed years ago, her stagecraft seemed sorely lacking. Moreover, Yoshio believed Minoru’s plain features offered no hope of standing out onstage. Having grown accustomed to foreign actresses’ beauty, he couldn’t help viewing Minoru—whose face fell short even of ordinary flat-faced women—venturing onto the boards as sheer terrifying folly.

“Why did you think of such a thing now?” Yoshio asked thus while chewing roasted chestnuts.

“I’ve been considering it for some time.” “I’d simply been enduring until a proper opportunity arose.”

Yoshio, doubting Minoru’s capabilities on stage, would not readily grant his consent. “Why can’t I?” Minoru’s tone had already turned confrontational.

Yoshio, having stripped naked, lay sprawled on the veranda smoking a cigarette. Minoru sat down brusquely before him and gazed at Yoshio’s half-formed figure.

“This isn’t some leisurely life, you know.” Yoshio said this and kept thinking. If Minoru truly possessed theatrical talent and could secure a job providing substantial income through it, that would be acceptable—but contemplating her venturing again into this uncertain realm that was neither sea nor mountain, with no telling what direction she might ultimately turn or where she’d end up, Yoshio found it rather a burden. Moreover, for Yoshio, having his wife—unattractive and moreover unskilled in her craft—be seen on stage by those ill-natured colleagues from the small social group he joined every day was nothing short of humiliation. While Minoru was occupied thinking about such things, Yoshio would have been satisfied had she found a steady-income occupation and provided assistance to him.

The woman’s mindset—toying with art like this without a thought for their livelihood—had become detested once more, just like before. “You should keep writing quietly, shouldn’t you?” “What would I write?” “Find some writing work.” “No matter how much I commit to literary arts, society won’t acknowledge me, will it? This time’s perfect—I’ll make my move through acting again. I have real confidence now. And Mr. Sakai and Mr. Yukita would make excellent stage managers.”

Minoru said this with eyes gleaming. She had in truth grown weary of the pen herself. This she had come to understand through her recent work. Minoru—who had secretly prided herself on nurturing new life through her writing—found herself growing disgusted when reflecting on how none of that vitality had manifested in those efforts. Yet she did not say this to Yoshio. For she had once retorted to him that she wouldn’t squander her precious pen on such gambles. Even regarding those very words, she couldn’t bring herself to make such an admission before him now.

Since I’d given up on writing myself, I wanted to try facing hardships on stage once more. The newspaper article about auditions for a new theater troupe had been a godsend for Minoru in her current situation. “I believe you can write.” “Why not help our livelihood through that?” “First of all, even if you tried acting, isn’t your age already too advanced?” “Does art have an age?” “That’s what artists say.” “You’re starting now, aren’t you?”

“Very well then.” “I will do it on my own, then.” “It’s neither art for your sake nor work for your sake.” “It’s my art.” “Because it’s the work I do.” “In that case, where do you get the right to support me?” “Even if you say it’s no good, I will just do it.”

Having declared this, a long-dormant flame of desire blazed recklessly in Minoru’s chest. She thought she must use her stagecraft to make this man who looked down upon her submit completely. “Where do you plan to get the money for such preparations?” “I will take on the debt myself.”

10 After a postcard from Koyama arrived indicating Minoru's inclusion, notification of the script reading day soon arrived. As Yoshio watched these new work preparations progressing day by day before Minoru, he could not remain composed. There were days when Yoshio found it unbearable to watch from the side—Minoru's demeanor, her face calm and eyes wide open, staring fixedly at the shadow of hope caught in some distant place.

“If your stage performance proves clumsy and disgraceful, I’ll never show my face at the company again. Since everything could be lost through your methods alone, you’d best steel yourself for that possibility.” Hearing this laid bare Yoshio’s petty social vanity so starkly left Minoru feeling queasy. Why must this man lack all sincerity? she wondered. That he showed not the slightest willingness to share her artistic fervor filled her with rage. She began deliberately studying that shallow little man’s face with icy detachment.

“Then wouldn’t it be better if we separated?” “Then you wouldn’t have to suffer disgrace for my sake anymore.”

Such words had come from the woman this time, but Yoshio in his current state lacked that sharpness of edge. To the woman venturing onto that gaudy stage—he found himself clinging to a certain shallow curiosity about her. "If you have that much confidence," Yoshio said and fell silent.

At Seigetsu, Minoru met both Sakai and Yukita. Both were people Minoru had already known. Sakai was, on one hand, a man working under a certain Dr. who was training many students with substantive content in preparation for creating ideal theater. Minoru had once seen this Sakai’s Hamlet and been intoxicated by its new artistry.

Around his eyes and nose lingered traces of Western features, yet he was a man of short stature. Yukita stood exceptionally tall. His face perpetually bore the look of one hoarding thoughts behind his eyes—even when laughing, it seemed the mirth remained buried deep within his skull, leaving him with an unflappable composure. Sakai, sharp and impeccably groomed, and Yukita, hunched with weighty posture, always sat side by side in a corner of the rehearsal room, their knees precisely aligned like paired bookends. Moving through their midst was Koyama—those long-lashed eyes brimming with charm darting from corner to corner—as his compact frame bobbed about like a cork on water.

Outside Minoru there were two or three actresses. They were all young and beautiful. Hayako’s face was thin, but when she closed her eyes, a strong impression of dark shadow would drift over it. And she had a small, bean-shaped mouth. There was a woman named Tsuyako. The contours of her face possessed a noble beauty reminiscent of Sadayakko’s. Among them, Minoru had indeed been assigned to play the heroine in the play written by Yukita. The heroine was the aging daughter of a musician. After unexpectedly falling in love, she tried to break free from the cold artistic realm that had enveloped her until then and build a warm home with that lover. At that moment, upon hearing a half-jealous domestic philosophy from the woman who had been her lover’s wife, she resolved to return alone to dwell once more in the desolate world of art. Such was the story.

All the other actors were laughing at that script. The other actors—so to speak—were a group gathered from about third-rate tiers of sōshi actors, selecting those with some skill. From among them, about two men had been assigned to portray the characters appearing in this script. They were at a loss and laughed because difficult words that defied their understanding kept emerging one after another. By the time Minoru began diligently attending rehearsals, it had already become early autumn with cold rains continuing to fall. There were days when actors clad in flimsy single-layer robes stood on Seigetsu’s rain-drenched veranda, seemingly lamenting the autumn chill. Sometimes when Minoru practiced her lines alone at Seigetsu in the early morning, Sakai would enter wearing a damp overcoat, a wintry breeze clinging to his collar. Mornings when their exchanged greetings seemed to crystallize in the cold air had grown frequent.

Yukita and Sakai always arrived by the appointed time early in the morning. And until the lazy actors lazily trickled in, the two would waste their time idly each day, staring at the sky. Between these two, tense with artistic fervor, and the disheveled actors—unruly as traveling performers, lacking unity—there always flowed a twisted discord. Sakai in particular would flare up angrily and reprimand those actors who persisted in their showbiz mentality right to their faces. All of Sakai’s translated Pinero comedies were to be performed by these discordant actors. Saying that the rehearsals weren’t engaging at all, Sakai declared, “It’s not becoming a work of art in the slightest.” “If they’re this scattered and disjointed, there’s no helping it,” he said, shuffling restlessly by himself.

However, these theater professionals who made their living through acting harbored clear resentment toward having even their lines nitpicked by people like Sakai. The actors often displayed their silent rebellion in the folds of their tucked sleeves and wore awkward expressions before Sakai’s reprimands.

“Since this was our initial agreement, even if there are things you find somewhat disagreeable, we must all unite and carry this out.” “How about it, everyone?” “Since we’re short on time, could you all please make a concerted effort to memorize your lines?” There were also times when Koyama, who had sat beside Sakai, having said such things while pursing his lips, would gaze at the actors gathered across from him. Among them, the actresses in particular—every last one of them—were well-regarded. Everyone listened well to what the stage director said and diligently rehearsed.

“Since this marks the first instance of actresses undertaking such weighty roles, I’d ask you to demonstrate a truly resplendent artistry—one born of wholehearted commitment.” “I want you to perform with full conviction, believing that the fate of this new theater troupe rests upon the artistry of its actresses.” “Through this production, I’d like you to show society that actresses are not to be underestimated.” Sakai skillfully flattered the actresses with these words. Amidst them, that detestable habit of Minoru’s had already begun. The fact that her own mood did not blend with this troupe of actors completely detached Minoru from her obsession with theater. Minoru grew tired of acting. And so, through her efforts to lightly lower herself into mingling with these actors’ lowbrow tastes, she grew increasingly weary. When I reflected on myself during my time at Seigetsu, there I was—transformed into a frivolous, uneducated woman.

There was another unpleasant thing. Among the actresses playing the supporting role to Minoru’s character was one named Rokuko. She was older than Minoru and had emerged from the ranks of veteran actresses. She was a large-eyed woman with a high nose and the beautiful countenance of an actress. Throughout her time with Rokuko, Minoru suffered persistent anguish of emotional defeat—a peculiar sensation of her very self being crushed beneath this woman’s thoroughly worldly disposition. Rokuko—a strong-willed, stubborn woman who had navigated society as both actress and geisha—displayed an attitude of asserting her feelings against all comers, forcefully thrusting others away. Minoru shrank from this and feared Rokuko. Even when Rokuko, in her supporting role, relentlessly demanded adjustments to Minoru’s performance, Minoru—though conscious of her own artistic authority—found herself unable to offer rebuttals against this Rokuko.

From the time Minoru began attending elementary school as a child, no matter what grade she was in, there were always one or two students in her class who bullied her. Minoru would bring something every morning to give to those students while flattering them. And so there had been a time when she found going to school utterly unbearable. Precisely the way she felt toward Rokuko now closely resembled that.

Rokuko had been assigned to play the role of the heroine’s lover’s wife. Yukita and Sakai both said, “That won’t do,” and though they had grown accustomed to those old plays while struggling with the dim-witted Rokuko, Rokuko herself remained unfazed by such matters. Yet when it came to performing, she was utterly devoted. Minoru had finally lost to this Rokuko. And then she told Yukita that she had decided to abandon the role. Minoru was crying at that time.

“You mustn’t become so sentimental.” “If you abandon it now, we’ll be in trouble.”

The reticent Yukita brought Sakai while repeating the same plea over and over. Sakai crouched by the pillar, “If you say such things now, the play can’t go on—I earnestly ask you to persevere and see this through.” “Since we’ve always admired your artistry, please—for our sake—give this your utmost effort.” “At my school, there’s a female student currently performing Hedda who’s been speaking about your work in this production.” “I implore you to reconsider and carry through with it.”

Sakai tactfully calmed Minoru.

But Minoru grew utterly tired of it. At the same time as she could no longer acknowledge this theater troupe's authority, Minoru found it utterly intolerable to have her highest artistic mood trampled into chaos under such circumstances—an arrogance that swelled without restraint until she had no intention of heeding anyone's words. With the resolve that she would not attend rehearsals starting tomorrow, Minoru returned home. But before Minoru’s eyes, Yoshio—that stumbling block—immediately appeared. Minoru thought that if she told Yoshio this story, he would undoubtedly direct even harsher criticism at her—calling her a spineless woman all talk and no substance—and scorn her all the more. However, in the end, she had no choice but to tell Yoshio about this matter.

“It’d be better to quit.”

Yoshio simply said this. And just as Minoru had imagined, Yoshio was thinking of her in that very way. “I’ve ended up with nowhere left to go.” Minoru said this while lying on her back, her face looking forlorn.

Eleven

What Minoru had done was, from others’ perspective, nothing more than a cheap nuisance. In the end, she still had no choice but to go through with it after all.

At first, Yoshio said this to Minoru.

“You applied to join of your own accord, and now you’re quitting on a whim—that’s ungrateful.” “If you absolutely refuse, I’ll take responsibility by saying I forbade your attendance.” Yoshio submitted the refusal to the theater troupe’s office. The theater troupe’s director and Yukita both pressed Yoshio over this, imploring him to make Minoru attend.

For the theater troupe, finding an actress to replace Minoru might have been an effortless task, but they lacked enough time to have someone else rehearse such a difficult role from scratch. The opening day was already approaching. When considering the operational losses, Koyama had no choice but to insist Minoru return to work. Yukita also sent Yoshio a long letter.

“It’s disgraceful—you should quit this nonsense and show up properly.” “It’s tedious for me too.” Yoshio said this, revolted by Minoru’s clammy sentiment—the sort that always half-mangled living things before abandoning them mid-torment. At that moment too, the resolve to sever himself from this woman glinted once more behind his eyes. Several days later, Minoru resumed her visits to Seigetsu. Minoru’s theatrical reputation wasn’t poor. All praised this novel artistry of hers. Yet simultaneously, it rendered unmistakably clear to every observer that her visage lacked even the fundamental credentials required of a stage performer.

Art-focused theater reviews praised Minoru’s artistry, some even going so far as to acclaim it as the first to pioneer an actress’s essence. However, theater reviews that took their standards solely from conventional drama spoke ill of Minoru. Some even slandered her demeanor as vulgar and akin to that of brothel women. Minoru’s appearance was truly ugly. If one were to force a redeeming feature, it was only her eyes. In other respects, her appearance was such that she couldn’t even be seen as an ordinary woman.

Minoru knew well the ugliness of her own appearance. Despite that, her desire to take the stage was driven by nothing but her passion for art. From there, the force burning like fire did nothing but boldly lead Minoru onward. Yet an actress—a woman who stands on stage—had to possess a certain degree of beauty. Even if a woman possessed diamond-like artistic power there, without a flower-like countenance, the balance of charm could not be maintained. Minoru’s stage performance was met with scornful jeers akin to having mud hurled at her from one perspective.

Minoru clearly saw that there too lay an abyss of disappointment. One day after the theater performance concluded, Minoru walked back along the edge of the pond where the rain had stopped, holding an umbrella. Tonight as well, Yoshio, who had been watching Minoru’s performance from the box seats, was there with her. Minoru had never felt as deeply sorry for Yoshio as she did at this moment. Yoshio had been coming to the theater every night since this production began. And within those small eyes of his, he was always trembling fearfully, determined not to miss a single word of other people’s critiques. A great number of Yoshio’s friends had also come to watch. For this man, having to maintain a composed expression while watching an unattractive woman on stage in front of all these people was an extraordinary torment. To possess a woman who, even if her skills were poor, had such beauty on stage as to astonish people—this was the man’s ideal. Because of this, Yoshio encountered bitter stimuli—the kind that forced him to wear a constant bitter smile even at the gathering place he went to every day.

Yoshio was also tired. Their nerves, while facing a certain sorrow, were charged with an excitement akin to trying to thrust that sorrow into a sky of mockery toward each other. “I wonder how tonight went… Maybe it went a little better?” “Tonight was exceptionally good.” The two of them walked on, exchanging just these few words. The exhaustion from her nightly dedication to an art that seemed to squeeze out a drop of life’s blood on stage now pulled Minoru, walking like this, into a distant, sorrowful realm as if caught in a swirling vortex. Through the torment of her beautiful yearning, the voices of scornful laughter pierced Minoru’s burning emotions like a drill. As Minoru walked along the pond’s edge gazing at the lights, her eyes unknowingly filled with tears.

“You truly do have capability in theater.” “I was genuinely impressed this time.” “But having an ugly face is a significant detriment.” “You suffer a tremendous loss because of your appearance.”

Yoshio said this earnestly. Yoshio disliked having encountered an opportunity to criticize his wife’s face while she stood before him. At the same time, he was dissatisfied that Minoru had created an opportunity to expose all of that to the public. “You should have stopped.” Yoshio could not help repeating these words.

Twelve

The play concluded in a mere few days.

The final evening when Minoru loaded her mirror stand onto a cart and returned home, it was raining. On that final night when the troupe’s actors were to part ways once more, each and every one of them bore a faint sadness in their hearts. The male actors backstage were wrapping the various props they had used in cloths and stuffing them into bags, holding these bundles in one hand while tipping their hats with the other hand, exchanging farewells. If this troupe were to disband, the sorrow of wandering—not knowing where they’d go next to earn their keep—drifted across their pale cheeks. This new theater troupe, lacking any solid foundation, was already doomed to perish entirely here and now. The actors, who had gathered here intending to seize some auspicious opportunity, now found themselves released from this endeavor—and once again, each had to contemplate how to secure their livelihood from tomorrow onward. Minoru watched from atop the cart as the actors who had thus parted ways walked away.

During the play, the actress Minoru grew closest to was Hayako. Hayako’s husband—a charming man working as a low-ranking female-role actor in the Shinpa theater—often visited the shared room where Minoru and Hayako stayed. Hayako suffered from illness. On days following nights when she had reportedly vomited blood, her body appeared to be wasting away to nothingness before one’s eyes, leaving her with an enervated, listless demeanor. Though she claimed they fought daily, whenever her husband visited, she would adjust his wig and scrutinize his stage makeup. This same Hayako frequently clashed with Koyama over unpaid wages. Minoru found herself unable to forget this Hayako. Hayako, who had promised to visit soon when they parted ways, never came to Minoru’s home no matter how many days passed.

Once again they returned to days where they sat facing each other before the long brazier, gazing at one another's forms from the depths of their beings. Before they knew it autumn had deepened, and the sunlight filtering through the veranda took on a watery pallor. Yet as if autumn's loneliness were confined solely to winds tousling people's forelocks, Yanaka's forest remained still like a hermit maintaining its quiet form. From that forest's surface blue hues gradually faded imperceptibly as if peeling away from some unseen origin.

The couple's livelihood grew increasingly arduous. There was no means whatsoever to secure funds for winter clothing. In their household's early days, their love had imbued even the meager furnishings with such vivid hues that loneliness seemed distant, but now—with their hearts anchored in separate realms while keeping vigilant watch over themselves—this hollow parlor at winter's onset only served to intensify the harshness between them. To escape this atmosphere, Minoru sold her own books and other belongings, then purchased costly Western flowers that she arranged haphazardly throughout the rooms. Such financial imprudence from Minoru had become something Yoshio could no longer endure in silence these days.

Yoshio kept thinking they must resolutely end this life that felt like cohabiting while playing at being lovers. When he thought of his father back home—still serving as town mayor past seventy while drawing a stipend—tears would well up in Yoshio’s eyes. He had never once sent even a single sum for sweets to his father. Though Yoshio had undoubtedly worked to the limits of his capacity, that he must always endure such gnawing desperation was nothing but the result of Minoru’s profligacy.

Yoshio found himself reliving the days when he had cohabited with that former merchant woman. Back then, even without as much income as now, they had somehow managed a decent life—Yoshio cursed Minoru’s extravagance over and over. If only he could leave this woman, he felt he might even regain his place in the literary world that he had once lost. When Yoshio thought that Minoru clinging to his arm was causing him harm by preventing him from boldly trampling over society, he resolved that even if it meant driving her out, they had to separate.

“Couldn’t you find some work to help me out?” Yoshio repeated this every day. Minoru was aware that the time had finally come when she would be cast aside by the man’s hand.

For over a decade, Minoru had nearly exhausted herself yearning for just one thing. Unbeknownst to her, between her eyes and the distant sky existed a single glimmer; this light always tried to beckon her heart closer, yet only let hope's hue linger faintly. Yet that light never once fell upon her as fiery brilliance. Through the shadow cast by Yoshio's heart, Minoru gazed deeply at this life that spitefully targeted none but herself.

“Just give up everything.” “You’re simply unlucky.” “And you’re far too spineless.” “You were born to resign yourself to an ordinary life.” Minoru recalled Yoshio’s words. Yet she still longed to chase that faint glimmer endlessly. Even if it was fated never to fall into her grasp, she wanted to spend her lifetime pursuing that slender light. And through that relentless pursuit, she still wished to try instilling meaning into her existence.

One evening after returning from the Tori-no-Ichi market, the two seriously discussed separating.

“First of all, it’s unfair to you.” “My efforts fall below those of an ordinary man.” “I truly lack the means to support even you alone, so please let us part ways for now.” “Once I can afford to let you live in luxury, we may reunite.” These were Yoshio’s words when their separation had been decided. “If I part from Yoshio, what will become of me?” “What should I do?”

Minoru immediately thought this. And the sudden loss of her companion’s shadow from her side left her feeling unbearably desolate. A helplessness akin to slipping from the pillar she had long leaned against—a pillar that still held the warmth of her own skin—left her heart unable to settle. “We’ll have to part with Mei too, won’t we.” She said this while watching the puppy playing in the garden. This puppy had bound their long months together through some profound, scenic connection. What had often comforted them was this puppy. Before she knew it, tears spilled from her eyes.

“Parting with Mei would be sadder than parting with you.” “How strange.” Minoru adopted a jesting tone before weeping without end.

Thirteen

Minoru was to return temporarily to her mother’s place. Yoshio had settled on selling off all their belongings and temporarily living in a boarding house. Just when they had been dragged this far, the hand of fate—as though mocking them—abruptly let an unexpected happiness drop straight onto their heads. It was that the manuscript Yoshio had forced Minoru to write at the start of summer had been selected.

It was mid-November. Outside was clear. When Minoru was doing the morning kitchen chores, the person who brought this news of happiness came.

The visitor spoke to Minoru upstairs. After the visitor had left, the two sat facing each other for a while in the inner room. “Did it really get selected?” Yoshio said this in a weak tone.

It was within five days that ten 100-yen bills were placed into Minoru’s hands. For the first time, the economic hardship that had plagued them like a cancerous growth was relieved through this. “This isn’t for anyone else’s sake—it’s all my doing.” “Do you remember how enraged I was back then?” “If you hadn’t obeyed what I kept telling you, this happiness would never have come.”

Yoshio told her as though he himself had bestowed happiness upon Minoru. “It’s not thanks to anyone.” Minoru completely agreed. When Yoshio had once grown angry, saying she didn’t know how to love life, she herself had wept over this for art’s sake. If she was going to wear out her brush on such things, she might as well consider making money through other writing work—she had even thought this. But when she considered how the work she’d completed under Yoshio’s relentless drive had produced such favorable results, Minoru couldn’t help feeling grateful to him.

“It’s entirely thanks to you.”

Minoru said that. When she thought this outcome might mark the beginning of opening a new path for herself, she felt a joy as if reborn. “With this, we won’t have to separate after all.” “Far from it,” he said. “From now on we’ll both work ourselves to the bone.” Among the selection committee had been the Master from Mukojima. His low scoring had nearly caused Minoru’s work to collapse entirely. Yoshio cursed the man with every foul word imaginable, then paradoxically declared this rejection a blessing for Minoru’s sake. There were two other judges. These men had awarded high marks to her manuscript. Yoshio urged Minoru to visit them. One was a renowned master of modern fiction. He wasn’t home due to illness. The other—a Waseda University lecturer and authoritative critic in contemporary literary circles—Minoru went to see him. As she left, Yoshio ordered her to bring along that short story she’d once written and carefully stored away. He insisted she request its publication in the influential literary magazine this critic currently oversaw.

Minoru followed Yoshio’s instructions and went out carrying that short story. The Minoru of before would never have done something like suddenly thrusting her own work upon someone she had just met—in such situations, however slight, she would have felt a sense of authority over herself. But Minoru’s heart had suddenly gone numb. When Minoru visited, that person was at home. And then he granted Minoru an audience. “That has indeed become a work of art.” “It’s a fine piece.”

The man said this with his gaunt face lowered and arms crossed. He accepted the short story manuscript Minoru presented, saying he would “give it a proper look.” “Women’s writing has too many extraneous branches,” he declared. “They never dig down to the roots.” This flaw in feminine works, he concluded, made them inherently deficient. Minoru walked home repeating these words. Long after their meeting ended, she kept mentally gnawing on every academic phrase that had fallen from his lips.

Fourteen "That work has no authority at all."

Minoru immediately began to feel such things. The ten or so hundred-yen bills—as if they would leave no trace if gripped in one hand—vanished almost immediately. However, it shouldn’t have been just a matter of such a small sum of money. The result of the work Yoshio had forced upon her poured unexpected happiness into their household, but Minoru’s work itself held not a shred of authority. It had no social authority. When it came to authority in her work, Minoru thought that the theater—which had been ridiculed from one angle—still left an impression as if hot blood coursed through it.

Minoru’s heart gradually retreated again. Yoshio’s display of joy—as though they were being tossed in celebration by fortune’s hands—fell short. What had suddenly descended upon them was not good fortune, but merely the mischief of fate’s god seeking to bind their frayed connection once more. Their life had been destined to soon repeat as it always had.

Minoru clearly thought, “I must do something.” She thought she had to start over again. She thought she had to strengthen her own power that pierced the void. Though Minoru’s work—lacking authority—had struck no chord anywhere, it was true that this fragment of hers, having begun to take shape in society through the whims of the wind, had for the first time violently shaken her heart in a worldly manner as its consequential effect.

After that, Minoru began studying intensely. Those eyes that until now had often seemed about to fall asleep now opened clearly. At the same time, Yoshio grew completely distant from her own heart. The times when she no longer engaged with Yoshio increased. No matter what Yoshio said, she increasingly turned away on her own. Yoshio was no longer the one controlling Minoru. What now controlled Minoru came through her own power for the first time. The very arrogance of Minoru that Yoshio had detested was concealed where Yoshio could no longer see it by this time. And in that hidden place, Minoru’s arrogance was now working even more powerfully.

“You could say it’s thanks to me.” “If I hadn’t pushed you even when it was unreasonable.” By now, Minoru had come to receive Yoshio’s words with a spiteful smile. The work of the woman driven by Yoshio was rewarded with the money he desired. There should have been no obligation owed to the man from that. As for Minoru’s new effort—this notion that she must carve out her own path anew—the man no longer had anything left to give.

Gradually, the woman’s attitude seeped into Yoshio’s heart. Yoshio would sometimes gaze at the retreating figure of the woman who, having severed herself from him in her heart, was now assiduously striving to ascend some new stage alone. That weak woman was steadily growing stronger like this—he couldn’t bring himself to believe that one wrenchingly strong motivation had come from the results of that published work. And he thought that what had given her the strength of self-awareness was indeed himself.

But Yoshio said nothing. The work done for Minoru was undeniably Minoru's own work. Minoru's art was unmistakably Minoru's art. Minoru had discovered her own strength and begun to move forward. Yoshio could not intervene. When Yoshio thought this, he tasted the anxious sensation of being left behind step by step by this woman.

One day, a man came to visit this couple. This was a man from Yoshio’s hometown and a literature student at Imperial University. From this man’s mouth, Minoru learned of the actual other person who had selected her work on that day. That was Minomura, a new writer. It became clear through this man that one of the selectors announced in the newspaper had fallen ill, and thus Minomura, a literary scholar who had become a disciple of sorts to that person, had acted as substitute selector. This university student was a man who privately looked up to Literary Scholar Minomura.

Soon after that, Minoru was led by this university student to visit Literary Scholar Minomura. That person’s house stood at the top of Kagurazaka. When she entered the house, Minoru saw a man standing facing a chest in the dimly lit tatami room at the entrance. There was an air about him as if he had been waiting there concealed until first-time visitors were ushered into the inner rooms. Since the shoji screen stood open, he became fully visible from Minoru’s vantage. After being shown into the inner quarters by a woman of dignified bearing who must have been quite beautiful in her youth, the man who had earlier stood facing them entered. This was Literary Scholar Minomura. Both his manner of speech and physical presence gave an impression of ponderous weight.

This literary scholar spoke of the hardships he faced when selecting the works. When the manuscript had been in his possession during a summer storm and flood that nearly soaked it through entirely, his wife—concerned about it—had apparently rescued it. At that time, their house having been destroyed by a cliff collapse, they had moved to this current residence. "When I first read it, I didn't think much of it," he said, "but from the middle onward, I began finding it interesting." "Yet even then—just when I thought I couldn't possibly award full marks—along comes this man Arino to my house." "If I'd consulted him about it, my own carefully considered judgment would've been overruled—he'd have likely told me to slap a hundred-twenty points on it instead." "Arino spouts such nonsense precisely because he bears no responsibility himself—but I couldn't possibly comply with that." "So I resolutely set your score twenty or thirty points apart from the others'." "When I saw how lavishly the other judges were inflating their candidates' scores—you were truly in a precarious position there."

Literary Scholar Minomura gazed at Minoru with a belatedly significant look that declared this woman’s fate had rested entirely in his own hands. And then he picked out the parts he thought were good from that work and praised them. Minoru listened, intoxicated by the Literary Scholar’s words that were rich with artistic sensibility. And she thought that here too was a person whose face bore the look of someone who had bestowed fortune upon her.

The literary scholar Arino, whom they had just been discussing, happened to arrive. The man sat small with his thin knees drawn together, rubbing his face with one hand as he kept speaking. “But you see,” he had a verbal tic of saying, “But you see.” The resonance of that “ne” and the expression that seemed to gradually seep a smile up from the depths of his face held a charm that drew people in. Minoru, being amidst this, felt as though her emotions were dancing brilliantly for the first time in ages. Minomura and Arino would superficially discuss what each was pondering in their heads at cross purposes, then each would try to drag the other into their own self-centered topics. Minoru found it amusing to listen to the two men talking at cross purposes, each convinced of their own understanding.

Before long, Mrs.Minomura returned. She was a beautiful woman with the dignified poise of a classical female-role performer. Moreover, a young Russian would come there and receive dance lessons from this Mrs.Minomura. Minoru’s face flushed with agitation as she was kept until late into the night. And then, led once more by the university student, she left this house. When returning, Minoru exchanged farewells with Literary Scholar Arino, who had come out to the same place, and parted ways with him at a dark roadside.

When she returned home, Yoshio was on the second floor. Yoshio, seeing Minoru sitting there, noticed in the lingering redness at the corners of her eyes that this woman suggested disordered emotions. While feeling a jealousy toward her that he hadn’t experienced lately, Yoshio remained silent no matter what Minoru said.

“When I went in, Mr. Minomura was standing facing the corner by the entranceway of the tatami room.” “I saw everything perfectly clearly from where I was.” Minoru kept repeating just this and laughed alone.

That night, Minoru had a strange dream. It was a dream of mummies.

A male mummy and a female mummy lay stacked like Obon spirit horses fashioned from eggplants, their gray forms overlapping one atop the other. The puppet-like face of a woman gazed upward, only her eyes distinct beneath shriveled eyelids. Her lips burned crimson against the ashen complexion. Minoru stood watching this scene encased within a large glass box—a dream where she somehow knew these were mummies though no one told her.

When she woke in the morning, Minoru thought it had been an interesting dream. I thought that if I were a painter, I would try to fully capture those colors. And yet she found it strange how clearly the awareness that those were mummies remained with her.

“I had such a dream.” Minoru went to Yoshio’s side and spoke. Then, while saying “This must be some kind of omen,” she moved to the desk intending to sketch just its form. “I detest dream talk.” Having said this, Yoshio combed the emaciated dog’s body in the cold sunlight.