Pathway to Japanese Literature

After the war ended, Shibata Minosuke left public office and spent his days increasingly secluded at home.
During lulls, he would begin compiling wartime records centered on the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, but finding even this tedious, his pen often hesitated.
Meanwhile, when he calmly observed the currents of the times, he could sense only immense upheavals and found no clarity about future prospects.
And as he passed those desolate days, he fell ill.

What was first thought to be a minor cold soon gave way to persistent irregular fevers; by the time these somewhat subsided, his heart had lost its regular rhythm and his longstanding diabetes had worsened.
The doctor tilted his head.

From the innermost room of the L-shaped house, across the corridor, the study constructed with a raised floor served as the sickroom.

On days when he felt well and the weather was fine, Shibata Minosuke would have the shoji opened wide and gaze outside through the glass doors of the veranda.
At times, he would even have his futon moved near the veranda.

From one side of the veranda that wrapped around two sides of the room, the large Japanese chinquapin tree standing in a corner of the spacious garden was visible.

With a girth of roughly four arm spans at eye level, this massive tree—its age unknowable, perhaps several centuries—had likely towered majestically since ancient times when this entire area was nothing but wild thickets.
The spread of its horizontal branches measured no more than ten meters, but its height reached nearly three times that, with a massive trunk stretching straight upward—decaying near the treetop where it had broken off, forming several hollows.
Back when designating natural monuments within the city was in vogue, there had been a time when someone from the Ministry of Education praised it as worthy of such designation.
Shibata Minosuke did not comply with that proposal; rather than accepting it as a public tree, he took pride in maintaining it as his private possession.

Regardless of the many vicissitudes of the times, this giant tree had always stood serenely towering into the sky.
Even as burned-out ruins began appearing everywhere due to air raid disasters in the war’s final stages, this tree’s vicinity remained unscathed.
In the hollows near the treetop of its trunk, starlings and sparrows had nested as they always had, flying about noisily and chirping at dawn and dusk.
One time, tin foil strips used for radio wave interference that were scattered from airplanes failed to disperse properly for some reason and fell in long, continuous clumps that caught in this tree.
The tree, soaring into the sky with its foliage fluttering in the wind to reveal the undersides of its leaves, had many strands of silver foil hanging from its crown down to near the ground, glittering in the sunlight while starlings and sparrows chirped among them—it looked like a tree adorned for a celebration.
And in the sky above, both the smoke from bursting anti-aircraft shells and the contrails, as well as the forms of the B-29s, all assumed a leisurely beauty.

Such celebrations, however, soon gave way to a complete reversal of circumstances.
One late night, the chinquapin tree was enveloped in flames.

The Japanese chinquapin tree stood at the edge of a modest cliff.
The area below the cliff was struck by a concentration of incendiary bombs.
Following a pale flash, red flames streamed along the eaves of houses before erupting in roaring surges from every direction.
When the wind joined in, it became a sea of flames.

The flames surged upward along the cliff.
Surging upward again and again, their highest tongues rolled backward instead.
It was as though two contrary winds—one from below and one from above—had converged at this cliff.
From a large building repurposed as a dormitory surged up the greatest flames.
The Japanese chinquapin tree confronted them head-on.

The Japanese chinquapin tree stood imposingly.
Along its foliage, flames surged upward as if competing in height.
The wall of fresh leaves and wall of flames confronted each other, grazing against one another.
After a while, the two walls pressed tightly together, then began biting into each other.
For a moment, it seemed the wall of fresh leaves might engulf and suppress the wall of flames.
At that instant, a profound shudder ran through the air.
And...the Japanese chinquapin tree—which until then had resisted imperturbably—suddenly burst aflame from leaves to branches to trunk.
But it was not that it had burned away entirely—rather it had been enveloped by flames—and soon those flames subsided, along with those surging up from the cliff.

After the blazing brightness of the great fire lingered a pre-dawn darkness, then came a day blinded by smoke and ash that veiled the sky.
That lasted only a single day, but for the Japanese chinquapin tree, each and every day that followed must have been exactly like that.
The trunk and branches were half-charred, the leaves had all fallen away, and only a few young leaves remained strangely on the tips of the lower branches.
The starlings and sparrows too had fled somewhere.

Later, when the gardener came, his opinion was that it was entirely uncertain whether this Japanese chinquapin tree would live or die. He said it might put out untimely young buds after summer, but beyond that, they had no idea whatsoever.

The summer sun scorched, and the autumn sun scorched.
The young leaves at the tips of the lower branches had all fallen too.
No out-of-season buds ever appeared.
The blackened, wrinkled trunk and charred branches still towered skyward, frozen in silence.

Shibata Minosuke would gaze at this apparition time and again, for hours on end without tiring.
When looking through the glass doors from his sickbed, his vision held almost nothing else.
Occasionally, when he sat up or stepped onto the veranda, his eyes might drift across garden features—the wisteria arbor, plum tree, camellias, crape myrtles, fatsia plants—but even these observations carried a detached air before his gaze inevitably rose again to the chinquapin tree.

He was hardly aware of his fever anymore.
Simply amidst the pressure arising from all these things collectively—the heaviness of head and feet-tips, involuntary hand tremors, sudden palpitations, some kind of respiratory distress—time spent sitting motionless with eyes closed grew more frequent.
And when he opened his eyes, he saw the withering Japanese chinquapin tree.

One time, he said to those around him.

“That chinquapin tree… it’s done for.”

But he no longer registered what those around him were saying about it.
It was a dazed gaze that made it hard to distinguish whether “done for” referred to the chinquapin tree or to himself.

If that tree were cut down...

That passing thought gradually took root in his heart.

During Minosuke's childhood, the shade beneath this giant chinquapin tree seemed a strange and mysterious world to him.
Large mountain ants would dart about and pause.
After rains, sizable snails crawled around.
At times there appeared glossy black beetles.
In the evenings, toads' eyes would sometimes gleam.

When autumn came，chinquapin nuts fell.
The grandmother，whose teeth were still strong at the time，liked chinquapin nuts and would roast them in the oven to eat.
After the grandmother passed away，the children no longer gathered chinquapin nuts and played less often around there.
There were pleasant places under the wisteria trellis near the house and under the cherry tree.

Around the time Minosuke became a senior in middle school, Hisae from the Imai family—who were close with his father—began visiting frequently.
Hisae attended a girls' school and always had Minosuke help her with homework.
She wore a floral-patterned meisen kimono with a maroon hakama tied high at her chest, her hair in a braid.

When Minosuke encountered a difficult problem and was scratching his head, Hisae remarked as if it were someone else’s affair.

“You’re a man, and you can’t even understand that?”

Thus, it turned into a quarrel.

If the problem was too easy, Minosuke would say scornfully, dissatisfied.

“This is just an elementary school problem—it’s trivial.”

Thus, it turned into a quarrel again.

After such quarrels, one time, Hisae wore a truly angry expression and abruptly went out into the garden.
And when she still didn’t return, Minosuke also went to the garden to see.

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom on every branch.
Hisae was striking the large trunk of the cherry tree with her small clenched fist.
No matter how much she struck it, the cherry tree trunk would not budge, yet still the petals fluttered down.
As if urging them to scatter more and more, Hisae kept striking the trunk.

Even when Minosuke came near her，Hisae did not turn around.

“You’re angry,” Minosuke said.

Hisae remained silent.
In her eyes, a single glistening tear had welled up.

Minosuke whispered.

“Let’s stop fighting.”
“We know it—we’re… we’re betrothed.”

Hisae raised her face.
And even the tears pooling there in her eyes turned bright red.
Then suddenly, she fled toward the large chinquapin tree.
As she ran off, cherry blossom petals fluttered down behind her.

Minosuke also followed after her.

Hisae leaned against the far side of the chinquapin tree and gazed into the distance.
Minosuke also stood beside her and gazed into the distance.
Time passed in silence.

From the chinquapin foliage above their heads came a loud rustling sound, followed by a series of rustles and swishes like wind whipping through.
When they looked up, a black kite flew off from the chinquapin tree.

When the kite had vanished from sight and silence fell, Minosuke and Hisae leaned shoulder to shoulder and clasped hands.
Then they embraced and pressed their lips together.

Afterward, following a long period of affection and familiarity, the two were married.
Thirty-some years of married life—now both were over sixty.

Did Hisae remember that time?

Shibata Minosuke tried thinking that way.
It seemed like some embarrassingly intimate dream, and he furrowed his brows.

He called Hisae to his bedside.

“About that chinquapin tree—it’s not going to revive anymore, so I think we should have it cut down. What do you think?”

Since Minosuke—who ordinarily decided nearly everything unilaterally without consulting Madame Hisae—had now brought up such a matter, Madame Hisae blinked her eyes.
The condition that seemed unlike an ordinary illness, the doctor’s terse and grave demeanor, the oppressive air of the sickroom—all struck her heart.
She forced a smile.

“Wouldn’t it be perfectly acceptable to leave such matters as they are? At least until after you’ve recovered from your illness...”

“It needn’t be done immediately—but keeping that wretched form on display over there seems cruel somehow.”

Hisae looked at his face, then turned her eyes toward the chinquapin tree.

“We really did something regrettable.”
“That tree was a landmark for the house, you see.”
“During the air raids, those who came to visit would see that tree still lush green from afar and think all was well here—or so I’ve heard.”

Minosuke did not reply and made a pained expression.
Then, after a period of silence, he said abruptly:

“I’ll cut it down and use it for firewood or something.”

“Though we are truly in need of firewood and it would be a great help, even so, splitting that into firewood can’t be an easy task.”

“Nah, it’s no trouble at all.”

After that, Minosuke closed his eyes.
He kept his eyes closed and remained perfectly still.

Hisae remained by his side, but as Minosuke seemed to have fallen asleep, she quietly left her seat.

As Hisae exited the room, Minosuke suddenly opened his eyes wide. However, without looking at anything in particular, he merely fixed his gaze into empty space.

To Hisae, that chinquapin tree meant nothing anymore.

Such thoughts passed through Minosuke’s mind, and then he muttered.

“After all, it’s burned and withered.”

That this chinquapin tree had survived until now could also be said to be due to having been blessed with good fortune. Over hundreds of years, it could have been struck by lightning, and it could have suffered extraordinary disasters. As far as Shibata Minosuke could recall, even during the Great Kantō Earthquake over twenty years prior, had circumstances differed, it might have burned.

At that moment, two minutes before noon on September 1st, the great chinquapin tree shook and bent so violently under the earth’s roar and tremors that one might have thought cracks would form in its trunk. However, that too lasted only a moment, and it resisted the ensuing aftershocks resolutely.

A fire broke out nearby. If that had spread further, the chinquapin tree would have been in danger, but it stopped at about ten houses.

The fire devoured the distant districts. By dawn on the second day, the fire front had advanced to within about one kilometer. It was a sea of fire and smoke roaring like tidal waves. It was impossible to predict how far it would advance. Half of the chinquapin tree was brighter than daylight, each overlapping leaf and every crease in its bark so clearly visible they could be counted. However, that was all that came of it.

By this chinquapin tree, people took refuge.
After the initial great tremor, the people of the Shibata household gathered near the chinquapin tree.
Aftershocks occurred frequently, and being indoors was dangerous.
When night fell, they spread straw mats, rush mats, and futons at the base of the chinquapin tree and stayed outdoors overnight.
The people from both neighboring houses also came there to stay outdoors overnight.
The following night as well, they continued staying outdoors in the same manner.

During this outdoor stay, seven-year-old Mikio hardly seemed to sleep.
Though his two older sisters slept soundly, Mikio alone always lay wide awake with his eyes open.
No matter how much Hisae tried to settle him to sleep, Mikio would open his eyes wide again….

The next night, this restlessness had spread to his older sister Chiyoko as well.
Both of them, as if by some unspoken pact, would open their eyes wide and stare up at the chinquapin tree’s upper branches.
When Hisae warned them, they obediently closed their eyes—only to open them again moments later.
As Hisae drifted in and out of sleep, she caught fragments of their whispered exchange.

“Can you see it?”

“I can.”

“Where?”

“Up there—on that big branch near the tip.”

“I can’t see it.”

The words ceased for a while.

“Is it still there?”

“It’s there.”

“Liar!”

“It’s true.”
“That big branch…”

Again, the words ceased.

Hisae raised half her body.

“What are you all talking about?”
“What is there?”
“Why aren’t you sleeping? What are you looking at?”

Chiyoko answered.

“Over there—Mikio says there’s an owl in the chinquapin tree.”
“Hey, Mother, can you see it too?”

Hisae found herself drawn in.

“Where is it?”

Mikio answered energetically.

“High up... on the topmost big branch, it’s there.”

Hisae looked up.
In the dense thicket, she could not discern the owl’s form.
However, when it came to owls, there had been times in the dead of night when their voices could be heard, and on several occasions, everyone from the tearoom had strained their ears.

“I can’t see it,” said Chiyoko.
“And I can’t hear its cry either?”

“It’s too noisy, so it won’t cry.”

As Mikio had said, a distant roar was indeed carrying through the strangely sultry air.

The roar gradually swelled, the fire advanced to within about a kilometer, and it became as bright as daytime.
When it became bright, however, the owl’s form could no longer be discerned even by Mikio.

Minosuke, having returned from patrolling the estate, heard this story and said to the children.

“Because the fire’s light made everything bright, the owl must have gotten startled and hidden in its nest. You all should go to sleep now.”

However, this time, the children turned their attention to the fire.

Even after that, Mikio kept insisting that from time to time, an owl would perch on the chinquapin tree.
Chiyoko insisted she couldn’t see it.
However, Chiyoko too sided with the owls and detested the bats.
They concluded that the owls weren’t settling in the chinquapin tree because the bats were interfering.
And they endeavored to rid themselves of the bats.
In the evening, as dusk began to fall, when they kept watch, there were indeed bats fluttering about in the shade of the chinquapin tree.
Chiyoko threw up a small stone.
The bats chased after the falling stone.
Mikio aimed at them.
He tried to catch the bats by swinging with all his might a bamboo tip resembling a fishing rod, coated with birdlime.
But the bats nimbly evaded.

One time, while swinging that bamboo pole, Mikio fell, hit his forehead on a rock, and bled.

Chiyoko and even Hisae made a great commotion.
They made Mikio lie down and called a doctor.

Minosuke, having been consulted by Hisae, searched for an owl specimen.
Amidst the earthquake disaster—where much of the city had become scorched earth, a vast number of casualties had occurred, an air of anxious panic prevailed, and daily life had fallen into disarray—Minosuke worked for political institutions engaged in relief and reconstruction while simultaneously searching around for an owl specimen.
Eventually, fortunately, it was found.
It was firmly attached to an artfully crafted branch of Jindai cedar, its perfectly round eyes within the facial disk—from which feathers radiated—shining as though alive.
They were artificial eyes the creator took pride in.

When he received it, Mikio ran joyfully throughout the house.

In time, the owl in the chinquapin tree was forgotten, and the stuffed owl became Mikio’s dearest friend.

That same Mikio was now about to turn thirty.

——What does he think about the chinquapin tree?

Shibata Minosuke thought this and fleetingly felt the decline of his own vitality rise within him.

And as if pushing through that, he summoned Mikio to his bedside.

“That chinquapin tree—it won’t come back to life now.”

“Yes, it’s probably beyond saving,” Mikio replied composedly.

“In that case, shall we cut it down?”

“Yes, I’ve been thinking the same thing. It did shield us considerably from the flames, so one might say it served the house well, but if it’s bound to wither regardless, we’ve no choice but to cut it down.”

“Once it’s felled, that spot will grow lonely, won’t it?”

“Oh, it’ll leave quite a void. But in exchange, both ventilation and sunlight will improve markedly. With such a sprawling great tree removed, you’ll see an astonishingly vast blue sky open up. What if we planted some vigorous young sapling there afterward?”

Minosuke closed his eyes in silence.
After a while, he opened them again and muttered.

"You seemed dissatisfied with that tree."

"I wasn’t dissatisfied. Rather, I took pride in it as a grand tree.
But it was also somewhat gloomy."

"Gloomy, you say…"

"There was too much shade, and the ground was often damp.
Even for the tree itself, being in that spot must have been cramped.
A giant tree of that size should be in a wide field or mountain, don’t you think?
When I think about such things, building the house here was actually a mistake. If we had kept the area around it as a wide vacant lot instead, it would have been better for both the tree and for people."

“Hmm, that’s an interesting opinion.”

After that, Minosuke seemed to sink into some sort of meditation.
Mikio waited in silence, but as the silence dragged on, he remarked offhandedly.

“Will you be cutting down that tree?”

After a pause, Minosuke muttered as if to himself.

“I’ve decided to cut it down.”

It was a warm Indian summer day.
The weather was calm, and Shibata Minosuke’s condition remained stable.
When he heard Kurono Rōjin had arrived, Shibata Minosuke personally met with him.
As was his custom when receiving visitors, he sat upright on his futon and leaned against the armrest.

Kurono Rōjin was less a foreman of scaffolders than a master craftsman who had been coming to the Shibata household since the previous generation’s time. Having been formally received by Minosuke, he hunched over on the tatami-matted veranda with an air of deep deference and began offering condolences for the illness.

As if to smother these words, Minosuke said:

“There’s a particularly troublesome job here—something beyond the skills of either gardeners or master builders. I want you, as foreman, to take it on. What do you say?”

When it came to work matters, Kurono Rōjin promptly raised his head.

"It must be about the chinquapin tree."
"I've heard about it from the Young Master."

Minosuke stared fixedly at the other person's face.

"Will you do it for me?"

"Leave it to me."
"Not only will we fell it, but whether as firewood or wood scraps, we'll handle everything exactly as you wish."
"That chinquapin tree—it's a pitiful thing—isn't fit to serve as lumber."
"But it's a shame that one burned down."
"Since we were babies, it's remained this size—how many years must it have endured?"
"It was a landmark of this neighborhood and your residence's central pillar."
"That it burned—well, one might say it stood as your home's substitute. But truly, what a waste."
"I told the Young Master that leaving it be—trimming upper branches, letting moss grow—would make an elegant sight. But for garden work, it's simply too large and conspicuous."
"It might rather become an eyesore."

“I want you to fell it without damaging the other trees.”

“I am already fully aware of that.”
“As a rough estimate, I think we’ll fell it in three stages.”

“And then, I want you to leave the stump two or three shaku high.”

“Indeed, that’s an interesting idea of yours. Rest assured—we’ll make it perfectly flat and polish it smooth.”
“We’ll set up a dining table there, lay out cushions, and enjoy an evening drink or two… How splendid that would be. Being on the cliff edge as it is, there’s always a cool breeze.”
“If only there were no hollow inside—it would be flawless—but since it was such a robust tree, there shouldn’t be much cause for concern.”
“Leave the stump two or three shaku.”
“Ah yes—I hadn’t considered that aspect myself.”

“That’s all.”
“I’m counting on you.”

“Understood.”

Kurono Rōjin gauged Minosuke’s complexion.
He had a pained expression.
Noticing this, Kurono Rōjin took his leave.

Minosuke remained seated for a while longer.
A slight tremor came to the flesh of his cheeks, and his forehead grew damp with sweat.
He had let Kurono Rōjin’s chatter flow past him unheard, but now his own words requesting the chinquapin tree’s felling resonated keenly in his chest, and he sank deeper into contemplation of them.

Urged by the nurse, Minosuke regained his senses and lay down on the bed.
At his feet where they had placed the hot-water bottle lingered a coldness, while around his chest smoldered a stifling heat.
As if to banish these sensations from his mind, he fixed his gaze on the chinquapin tree.
Bare branches and a blackened colossal trunk—jutting into the empty sky within that stillness—held within them the desolate loneliness and wintry cold of arboreal death.

――Am I clinging to that chinquapin tree, or am I resisting it?
It must be both.
The part of me anticipating death clings to it; the part striving to overcome that premonition resists it. Where could I find the tranquil state where these two merge?
Would I truly discover it in the space left after cutting that down?
That space feels impossible to predict.
A space seeming to harbor some profound wonder.

"That chinquapin tree lacked space," Mikio had said.
Perhaps that was so.
Rather than being consumed by fire, one might say it had suffocated from a lack of space.
It wasn’t just the chinquapin tree.
My life too had lacked space.
The bureaucratic world had lacked space; the political world had lacked space.
Above all, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association where I worked most intensely had lacked space; even now when I look back, it feels suffocating.
Actually, even my house lacked space.
Chiyoko’s family members were living here together, and the Nakamura family members were living here together.
All day long, they were practically bumping noses with each other.
There was not enough space in all of Japan.
However, this type of space was nothing more than what could be called mere air.
The space I am now envisioning is something mysterious, profound and lofty—a thing directly connected to life itself.
That, through that chinquapin tree, was there—was present in that place...

Shibata Minosuke peered into that place and felt a dazed sensation.
And then, drowsily, he sank into a state where dream and reality were indistinguishable.

Thinking that he was sleeping peacefully, the nurse rose from her seat and went toward the main house for a moment.

Almost as if replacing her, Chiyoko’s daughter Michiko slipped in quietly from the veranda.

With bob-cut hair and large eyes, this child was quite familiar with Grandfather.
Even after Grandfather had fallen ill and taken to bed, she still often came to the sickroom.
In the sickroom, there was usually something delicious.

Now, Grandfather was all alone.
He was sleeping quietly.
That bald head alone was shining glossily on the pillow.
Michiko gazed fixedly at it with a look of wonder.

Before long, Michiko approached.
She extended a small hand and gently touched the bald head.
It had a slippery, smooth feel.
Startled, she pulled her hand back, but the head remained still.
Michiko extended her hand again and, this time with an open palm, touched the bald head.
She felt a slippery, cold sensation.

At that moment, the head rolled unsteadily, and Grandfather’s face abruptly emerged from the bedding collar.
Instantly, Michiko—uncertain whether startled or frightened—froze her breath.
Then she sprang up and fled.

Minosuke blankly watched Michiko’s retreating figure.
The face on the verge of tears and then the soiled soles of the small tabi remained faintly in Minosuke’s eyes.
As he followed them with his mind, Minosuke strangely recalled having his head stroked by Michiko.
And he also raised his hand and smoothly stroked his bald head.

Everything up to that point seemed to Minosuke like a dream.
As he gazed at it in his heart, it became as if time had stopped.

“Michiko… Michiko—”

Two Nakamura family children called out to Michiko in the garden.
It seemed Michiko had gone in that direction.
And it seemed the three of them had gathered at the chinquapin tree.

There, Minosuke knew one of the games they were playing.
Where the bark of the chinquapin tree had peeled off, exposing the wood beneath, they scribbled with chalk.
Then next, they took out knives and began carving their respective names there in katakana.

When Minosuke had asked Old Man Kurono to leave a stump two or three shaku high, it wasn’t with the intention of making it a place for evening drinks or such—it was meant to become a play space for the children.

Even now, the children were playing there.
Minosuke closed his eyes and tried to listen for the children’s voices, but nothing reached his ears.

Minosuke stroked his bald head with his palm, as if remembering something.
He felt a cold sweat.

Eventually, the nurse who had returned to the room noticed the tears that had pooled on Minosuke’s eyelids.
She pretended not to notice them, turned her face away, and furrowed her brows.

The felling of the chinquapin tree was carried out simply.
Had it been a living tree thick with branches and leaves, there might have been various spectacular sights, but being now a bare trunk mostly withered, there was nothing unusual about it.

First the upper branches were cut down, then all the lower branches were completely removed.
Only a single massive trunk remained.
This was cut down in three stages sequentially from the top.
Given that it was a massive tree with a girth requiring four arm spans to encircle, the main task involved erecting scaffolding and sawing through it.
The severed trunk was hoisted with a windlass and easily rolled onto the ground.

Shibata Minosuke lay in his sickbed, doing nothing but gaze at the chinquapin tree.
By the time the chinquapin tree had become a single giant pole, reduced to about one-third of its original height, Minosuke too seemed to have grown weary of watching.
Was it because everything had unfolded all too simply?
He did nothing but listen to the faint sounds of the saw and human voices, and even to those he soon grew indifferent.
As if compelled by the mere fact of having eyes that needed to be used somehow, he vacantly gazed into space or closed his eyelids.
He had begun frequently slipping into a light, dozing sleep.

The decline in physical strength suddenly became noticeable.
Along with this, the oppressive anguish also seemed to subside.
A faint look of softness appeared on his forehead.
And beyond all of these, there appeared a sign akin to the submersion of thought into a single point within his mind.
The doctor prohibited meetings with visitors and ordered complete rest.

On the day the trunk of the chinquapin tree was completely felled, Mikio went to his father’s side and sat in silence.
Minosuke formed a feeble smile.

“Is it completely finished?”

“It’s done.”

After remaining silent for a while, Minosuke said.

“It was rather odd how you made such an issue out of that chinquapin tree.”

“It’s not as if it particularly became an issue.”

Minosuke did not answer that.
However, he soon expressed a desire to sit up on the futon for a while and look outside.
Mikio and the nurse exchanged glances and came to an understanding that it would be better to do as he said.

Helped up by the nurse, Minosuke sat on the futon.
Mikio opened the veranda's glass doors.
Outside was a calm and peaceful day.

The setting sun streamed down.
At the edge of the garden, atop the cliff, sunlight poured across every surface.
There was no longer an ancient chinquapin tree there—only a luminous emptiness remained.
Minosuke narrowed his eyes toward that void before anchoring his gaze.
Twice he nodded deeply.

“Hmm, truly excellent… absolutely….”
He nodded once again.
He continued staring fixedly, but suddenly, as if struck by dizziness, lowered his face and raised a trembling hand to press against his forehead.
Mikio and the nurse hurriedly laid him back down on the bed.

Two days later, Shibata Minosuke breathed his last due to a cardiac irregularity.
There was almost no agony, and his death face was serene.