Pathway to Japanese Literature

I once lived for a year at a villa deep in the mountains.
It was a splendid villa, half-built in Western style.
There were only a married couple around fifty years old who served as caretakers and their nephew, a boy named Masao.
I quickly became close with Masao, and we talked about all sorts of things and played all sorts of games together.
I have many memories.
Let me tell you some of them.

One: Cherry Blossoms

Behind the villa, where the mountain slope continued, there were many cherry trees.
When spring came, the flowers bloomed abundantly, and the entire house seemed enveloped in blossoms.

The cherry blossoms deep in the mountains were truly beautiful—unlike those in city parks, they bore no coating of dust, and unlike blossoms on the plains, their colors showed no fading.
The petals stood dewy and crisp in their whiteness, with a faint reddish glow hovering upon them.
They burst forth in countless profusion, and from between them, darling little leaves began smiling forth in green.

When the morning sun shone, they looked like white cotton, and when the evening sun shone, they resembled pale red cotton.
When the moonlight shone through, they looked like clouds from a dream.

One evening, I opened the window and gazed at the cherry blossoms bathed in the bright moonlight.
Then I went outside and walked beneath the flowers.

The shadows of the trunk and my own were sharply outlined on the ground, but through the moonlight, the blossoms appeared faintly aglow, exactly like white clouds.

Beneath that white cloud, Masao stood absently in the distance.

I smiled and drew near.

“Cherry blossoms show their truest beauty under moonlight.”

Masao kept gazing at my face, saying nothing all the while.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“But I’m worried.”

“About what?”

“It’s this tree.”

When I looked where Masao was pointing, it was an exceptionally large cherry tree, spreading its branches in a circular shape and blooming so abundantly that they bent under the weight. It looked as though white clouds and moonlight lay piled upon a parasol, truly splendid. As I kept looking at the tree, I too came to clearly understand Masao’s worry.

It was during the day when an important person, having heard about the cherry blossoms here from afar, came to see them.
And while admiring the flowers with great enthusiasm, he brought up that there was just one regrettable thing.
That was that the cherry blossoms had no fragrance.

“Since they’re blooming so beautifully, if only they had a lovely fragrance like plum blossoms—how splendid that would be.”

Those words were picked up on by Masao’s uncle.
And he consulted him about whether there might be some way to add fragrance.
That man was an esteemed scholar who supposedly knew everything there was to know about plants, and he agreed to try to give the cherry blossoms a fragrance like that of plum blossoms.
Apparently, they were going to inject some kind of chemical into the trunk of the cherry tree.
However, since the chemical was extremely precious and they didn’t have much of it, they selected the most splendid large cherry tree.

“One is plenty!” cried Uncle.
“It’ll become Japan’s… no, the world’s… greatest cherry tree!”

The injection was scheduled to be administered that night.
By the next morning when the morning sun rose, the cherry blossoms were said to emit a sweet fragrance like plum blossoms.

Masao gazed at my face with a worried look.

“Do you think it’ll be okay? The injection must hurt it, right?”

“Hmm, I suppose so…”

When I thought about it, I too began to feel worried.

But there was nothing to be done.
From over there, that person came guided by Uncle.
He wore a silk hat and gleaming shoes, carried a small briefcase, sported a long mustache that stood stiffly, donned pince-nez glasses with a thin gold chain dangling from their rim—fastened to his collar.
He certainly looked every bit the distinguished scholar, but those eyes gleaming behind his pince-nez struck me as somewhat eerie.

“Ah, so this is the tree.”

The Scholar stood there and looked up at the flowers in full bloom. Then, crouching at its base, he opened the briefcase. After clattering around for a while, he took out a syringe. It had a large needle like those used for sewing tatami mats. He stroked the trunk for a moment but suddenly plunged the needle in with a thrust.

I shuddered. Masao, who had been gripping my hand, also flinched. The cherry tree trembled even more violently than we had, and its petals fluttered down.

The Scholar moved around to the opposite side and plunged the syringe’s needle in again.
The petals fluttered down once more.
He took out a small whitish object from his briefcase and affixed it to the injection site.
Upon closer inspection, it was a tinplate sheet.

“This should suffice.”

With those words, the Scholar departed alongside Uncle.

Masao and I stayed there, hands clasped.
An unbearable anxiety gripped me.

Before we knew it, the moonlight faded, and the eastern sky began to lighten. Somewhere, small birds sang. A crimson glow streamed across the heavens as a cold wind whispered through the air. Then the cherry blossoms started cascading down in flurries, their fall accompanied by an overwhelming sweetness that permeated everything around us.

I wondered if the injection had taken effect.
It certainly had.
As the flowers fell, an indescribably sweet fragrance spread all around us, so thick it made breathing difficult.
Yet somehow, the petals kept falling without end.
Alongside the sweet scent, white petals fluttered down ceaselessly—dancing through the air until they piled on the ground like snow.
Their beauty and loveliness defied all comparison.

And by the time the morning sun began to shine, all the flowers of that cherry tree had fallen completely, its small green leaves had fallen too, and the sweet fragrance had vanished somewhere—leaving behind nothing but a naked dead tree.

I blankly gazed up at that dead tree.

Masao suddenly burst into tears.

“Go and let Uncle know,” I said.

Masao ran off.

I touched the dead tree, but there was nothing more to be done.
All the other trees were in full bloom with small leaves, yet that single one stood there naked and forlorn.
I walked around near it endlessly.

Hearing the clamor of voices, I turned to look and saw Uncle leading four or five villagers approaching.

They carried ropes, saws, and axes.

I was so startled that I couldn’t speak.
The villagers had already tied a rope around the dead tree and were now sawing at its base with a saw and chopping with axes, trying to bring it down.
Thud... thud... The sound of the axe pierced through my heart...

When I opened my eyes with a start, I found myself lying in the room.
From the window, the sound of an axe echoed....

I leapt to my feet.
When I opened the window, the morning sunlight suddenly streamed in, and there in the cherry grove across the way, a single large dead tree was on the verge of being felled.

I hurriedly put on my clothes and went there to see.
The dead cherry tree had already been cut at its base and was swaying unsteadily.
Two or three villagers pulled on it with a rope.
The dead tree swayed heavily, then swiftly toppled sideways.
The flowers of the other trees fluttered down.

Masao watched it with teary eyes.

Where the dead tree had fallen, a startlingly deep blue sky became visible. I pointed at that bright sky and showed it to Masao.

2. Catfish

Even deep in the mountains, being in the south meant summers grew intensely hot, stirring a longing for the water’s edge.

About two or three hundred meters from the house flowed a clear river. Its bed of rocks and pebbles formed deep pools here and there where willows and cedars grew thick along the banks, while shallows of fine sand became home to water plants like dropwort and algae, with small fish swimming about. A short distance upstream, where a steep flow—neither quite waterfall nor rapid—came to an abrupt end, there had formed beneath it a wide pool about chest-deep for an adult.

Masao and I often went to play at that river.

While it wasn’t a large enough river to swim in, the water was so clear and cold it looked safe to drink. Wading into the shallows to collect pretty pebbles, catching little fish among the waterweeds, or lying on the bank fishing—we never tired of it.

Upstream where the current quickened—what the villagers called a waterfall—the pool below was considered sacred, with a small stone shrine standing off to the side. There we’d sometimes go first thing in the morning to wash our faces.

One morning, as I was washing my face there, Masao shouted “Ah!” and—his face still dripping wet—snapped his eyes wide open into perfect circles, staring into the depths of the pool.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A catfish… an enormous catfish… with golden whiskers…”

I peered in but couldn’t see it.
“It already hid behind the rock,” Masao said.
But he insisted it had truly been there.
It was apparently a catfish so large it must have measured a full meter—startlingly enormous—with glittering golden whiskers that trailed behind it as it swam leisurely about.

It must have been some shadow, I told myself dismissively, intending not to dwell on it—yet still, it seems I couldn’t quite forget… One day, I too saw that catfish clearly.

Catfish are such strange fish, aren’t they? Its head is ridiculously large, with a massive mouth filling that oversized head—clenching fine, beautiful teeth in tension—sporting two long whiskers on its upper lip and two short ones on its lower lip, yet its tiny, adorable eyes always seem to be smiling, while its body tapers sleekly from head to tail. That catfish was indeed about a meter in size, and to our astonishment, it swam off with an air of arrogance, swaying its glittering golden whiskers and gleaming its small eyes…

Both Masao and I saw it—the two of us.

“It was there, wasn’t it?”
“Hmm, it really was there.”
But a catfish with golden whiskers… I’d never even heard of such a thing.

In that deep pool, the village children sometimes came to fish.
I asked those children if anyone had seen a large catfish in this deep pool.

Since fishing hooks were often stolen there, one of them said there might be a large catfish or something like that. Someone else said that since it was deep, there must be one. There was someone who claimed to have seen a large catfish. There, I told them the story of the catfish with golden whiskers. The children were astonished.

“Though we’re not entirely certain yet, if that rare catfish truly exists, let’s all work together to catch it alive. We’ll build a pond here, channel river water into it, and keep it together. If we leave things as they are, it might escape somewhere.”

The children immediately agreed.
And after making various preparations and finalizing their plans, they lay in wait for the catfish with golden whiskers.

And every day, from morning until evening, they kept watch and peered quietly into the depths of the pool.
However, one day passed, two days passed, and even after three days, no one had seen the catfish.

On the evening of the fourth day, we gathered by the deep pool and were disappointed.
The catfish might have already escaped…

“Ah, there it is… there!”

Someone’s voice rang out, and when everyone looked, it was indeed there.
The large catfish, with its golden whiskers, swam leisurely along the bottom of the deep pool.
Nearly everyone had seen it.

Immediately, they set up a fish weir in the shallows downstream of the deep pool.
With this, it couldn’t escape downstream.
Upstream was a waterfall, so it couldn’t escape that way either.
They had already trapped it within the depths of the pool.

We gathered eagerly at the deep pool early the next morning.
We brought nets and large baskets.
And we stripped naked and jumped into the deep pool.

Inside the deep pool, there were rocks here and there, caves beneath the rocks, and pebbles strewn about, but there was no debris—it was clean.
The depth was about chest-high for an adult, and waterfall water was noisily splashing down from one side.
In the midst of this, some were setting nets, some were shoveling, some were diving into the water—it was a great commotion.

However, the large catfish with golden whiskers was nowhere to be found.
Not even anyone who had touched it with their hands or feet.
Not only was there no sign of the large catfish, but there were not even any other notable fish to be found, leaving the depths of the pool utterly deserted.

Nevertheless, we continued searching all day.
When our bodies grew cold, we put on our clothes, lay down on the grassy field, and basked in the blazing sunlight.
As evening approached, we lit a bonfire.
Gradually growing more and more disappointed, we stopped talking.
It seemed hopeless now.

At that moment, voices came from both sides at once.

“It’s here! It’s here!”

We were facing both the depths of the pool and the western sky.
The sun sinking westward was beginning to hide behind clouds, and one of those fragmented clouds had taken the shape of a catfish with golden whiskers—its form mirrored perfectly in the water of the deep pool.
While we were comparing both, the cloud’s shape had already crumbled away, and the one in the depths of the pool vanished as well.

We were dumbfounded and could not speak.

But from then on, how the shapes of catfish in the morning and evening clouds increased!
And how the catfish multiplied in the depths of the pool as well!
All were large, rare catfish with golden whiskers.

III Persimmons

There was a large persimmon tree in front of the house.
When autumn arrived, the abundant persimmons on that tree turned red.

Masao and I ate a lot of them.
We also shared them with the village children who came to play.
Biting into those chilled by the morning dew’s coldness was most delicious.

And soon the persimmons were all gone, leaving only one remaining on a high treetop.
It jutted straight up into the sky—a single persimmon clinging to the tip of a branch so high that we couldn’t climb to reach it nor touch it with a pole. But more than that, I simply wanted to leave that highest one be, for no particular reason.

That single persimmon was like the tree’s banner.
Perfectly round and large, it glowed crimson in the morning sun and blazed scarlet at dusk.

Autumn chilled early in the mountain depths.
Before long, the persimmon leaves turned gold. The small fruits on lower branches and split ones ripened fully only to be devoured by birds, while yellow leaves drifted down one by one.
Yet the lone persimmon atop the highest bough remained—soft with ripeness but clinging still.

I had grown concerned about it.
Even though it was already so ripe, how long did it intend to stay like that?
Would it fall down?
Or would it be eaten by birds?
If it were to be eaten, by what kind of bird would it be?

Masao had been thinking the same thing.

And so we decided to keep watching that persimmon as closely as we could.
Would it fall down? What kind of bird would devour it? Or perhaps….

From the garden of the house, that persimmon stood directly visible ahead.
In a wind-sheltered, sunlit warm corner, I brought out a stool and read aloud to Masao while we both occasionally looked up to gaze at the persimmon crowning the treetop.
Against the high, clear blue sky, the persimmon glowed a vivid red...

The pilgrim's baby wore a red garment matching that persimmon's hue.
The pilgrim woman—around thirty years old—was dressed simply yet neatly in a sedge hat, arm guards, gaiters, and pilgrim's robe, with an infant clasped against her chest.
She entered the garden timidly and spoke in a hushed, low voice.

“Tonight, anywhere would be perfectly fine... but I humbly wish to ask for lodging, if you would be so kind...”

She was a strange pilgrim carrying a baby, but since the baby’s clothes matched the persimmons’ color, I somehow felt compelled to let her stay.

Masao must have felt the same way.
He ran into the house to find Uncle and soon returned.

“He said you can stay…”

The pilgrim woman bowed happily.

“Well then, I shall return in the evening…”

And then she left.

Masao and I exchanged glances.
There was something truly strange about that pilgrim.

"I'll go take a look."
"That's strange…"

Since Masao had gone to follow the pilgrim, I was left alone and drifted into idle reverie.

It felt as though a long time had passed... Masao returned. He was holding the pilgrim’s baby. He was smiling cheerfully.

“She’s a strange woman.”
“She laid the baby down on some straw, went into the rice field, and started gathering fallen ears of rice.”
“She kept going further and further away.”
“I felt sorry for the baby, so I picked them up and brought them here.”

“Here, let me see.”

I took the baby into my arms.
The baby was still sleeping peacefully.
Fluffy and light as cotton; when I poked its cheeks, they were smooth and soft, with a faint milky scent.
But because it was too light and lacked substance, I soon grew worried.
I went with Masao to search for the pilgrim woman.

The autumn sun was shining everywhere.
As far as the eye could see, the fields and mountains were yellow, the harvested rice paddies had turned dark, and the sky was clear without a single cloud.

*Peeee-hyoro-hyoro*, *peeee-hyoro-hyoro*…

The cry of a black kite could be heard.
A single black kite was soaring leisurely high in the sky.

In the rice field beyond, five or six villagers surrounded the pilgrim woman and shouted loudly about something.
Then everyone looked up at the sky, making a commotion as they watched the black kite.
I also looked up.
Upon closer inspection, it was a sturdy black kite grasping something red in its feet as it flew in a large circle.
With a shrill, echoing cry, it danced leisurely and joyfully through the air.
I went toward the villagers.

When I got close, the pilgrim woman saw me, suddenly came running out, clung to me, and then clung to the baby.

“Oh, thank goodness. You were here… safe… thank goodness… I thought the kite had taken you… If it had… what would I have done… Oh, thank goodness…”

In a frenzy, she hugged the baby tightly and wept quietly.
I was at a loss and stood there blankly.

The villagers gathered around.

“It’s a good thing the baby wasn’t taken after all.”
“But what is that?”

The black kite was clutching something red in both feet, tucking them tight against its belly, spreading its wings wide without a single flap, floating weightlessly in the air as it cried joyfully and glided through the sky.
In the center of the blue sky filled with sunlight, its figure glowed lustrously.

The villagers were watching worriedly, mentioning the names of houses where the baby might be.

“Ah, that’s right!”

The persimmon suddenly came to mind, and I tried to dash out.
Someone grabbed my shoulder and shook it…….

It was Masao shaking me.

“Since you wouldn’t read to me, I started dozing off.
Then the persimmon was gone.”

I opened my eyes wide as well, and when I looked, the persimmon on the treetop had vanished without us noticing.

We rushed to the base of the persimmon tree. However, no matter how much we searched, that bright red persimmon was nowhere to be found around there. In that brief span, there was no way small birds could have eaten it.

The black kite... was still soaring high in the sky, but held nothing in its feet.
With a shrill cry, it danced leisurely through the air, looking thoroughly delighted.

IV. Mountain Goblin

In the mountains, when winter came, there were many days of bad weather, and once the snow started falling, it didn’t let up easily and quickly piled up to 14 or 15 centimeters.

At such times, I would move to the Western-style room and vigorously stoke the hearth with firewood. Masao would also come to my place, and there were times when we would get absorbed in talking late into the night.

Masao liked listening to stories about the stars. I told him all I knew. I talked about the solar system—particularly Venus—then Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; the Big Dipper within Ursa Major; Polaris within Ursa Minor; next, the Andromeda and Perseus constellations; Altair and Vega; the Milky Way; comets; and various other things. What surprised me was that Masao knew the patterns of the stars in the sky well, even if he didn’t know their names.

“I once read somewhere that when you’re lonely, it’s good to look at the stars.”
“That’s why I often look at the stars.”

Masao said this, but smiled with a lonely look.
Both his father and mother had passed away when he was young, so Masao, being left alone, had been taken in by Uncle and his wife.

“Looking at the stars is truly wonderful.”
“I feel like someone kind and close is watching over me.”

Then Masao smiled sadly again.

“When winter comes, there are fewer chances to see the stars, so it gets dull.”
“And on snowy nights like this, I suddenly feel lonely sometimes.”
“It feels like someone’s about to show up.”
“Someone I know well—but can’t quite place—is coming, I think. Someone strange like that.”

I added firewood to the hearth and stoked it vigorously.
When it became too hot, I slightly opened the small transom window.
Outside, snow was falling thick and fast.

“But instead of some strange person, really interesting things do come along at times.”

“What kind of things…?” I asked.

“All sorts of things.
“Birds, beasts, and then….”
“If you leave that small window open, they’ll come to warm themselves by the fire, right? Foxes and raccoon dogs sometimes jump in.”

I looked up at the transom window.
Masao continued talking.

“But what’s truly fascinating are the birds,” he said. “Once, the room became completely filled with them—sparrows came flying in through the window. A bullfinch followed. Then a thrush appeared. A mountain dove joined them too. Even a crow swooped in. All sorts of other birds kept pouring through one after another until the room was packed.” He paused, his voice lowering slightly. “The strange part was how silent they all were—just their eyes blinking rapidly without making a single sound.” A faint smile crossed his lips as he continued, “And then there was the heron—it tried squeezing through that small window like the others but wouldn’t bend its legs. Those long legs kept getting stuck, so it couldn’t get inside at all.” His hands mimicked the motion as he finished, “It kept jumping at the window over and over only to fall back every time.”

I looked up at the transom window again.

“And then, the most cunning one is the Mountain Goblin, right?”
“What could it be, that thing….”
“It’s like a thumb-sized doll, and its entire body is pure white…”
“I can’t tell whether it’s wearing a hat or if its hair has grown long.”
“I can’t tell whether it’s wearing a mantle or has hair growing all over its body.”
“I can’t tell whether it’s wearing shoes or is barefoot.”
“But its entire body is pure white… Oh, hasn’t it come here now?”

I looked up at the transom window.

“There’s no creature as shameless as that one. ‘So cold, so cold…’ it comes jumping through the transom window with a face like it’s humming a tune—but without making a single sound.”

I looked up at the transom window. Outside, snow was falling thick and fast.

“It jumps in without even a greeting or bow, nimbly perching on some nearby chair.”
“Then it stays completely silent—not cracking a single smile—just sitting perfectly still.”
“When that thing gets in, the whole room turns bone-chillingly cold.”

I felt a chill and looked around the room.

“If you keep watching it intently here, it’ll slip away to hide in a corner of the room or burrow into the bedding just like that.”
“Then everything grows quiet, and when you listen closely, it seems there are still many companions outside—several, ten, a hundred, a thousand of them.”
“Only one comes in, but there’s a whole crowd waiting outside.”

I listened intently.
The sound of snow falling could be heard.

“If you let your guard down, the one that got in will gradually draw near—pressing right up against your back or sometimes leaping into your chest through the collar.”
“It sends a chill through you…”

I shuddered and suddenly stood up.
And then I closed the transom window.

The hearth fire had already grown faint.
I added new firewood to the hearth.
And when I looked to the side, Masao was dozing on the armchair.

In the hushed silence, only the faint sound of falling snow could be heard…

Well now—who in the world had been speaking to me all this time? Judging by his sleeping state, it wasn’t Masao, nor could it have been me—and there was no one else there.

It was the dead of night, with snow falling soundlessly.

I stood up and gently drew Masao close.
Masao opened his eyes dazedly and, upon noticing me, clung tightly.
I gently hugged him back.

The hearth fire flared up brightly.