Pathway to Japanese Literature

Needless to say, people each have their own peculiar habits—leg shaking, nail biting, palm rubbing, speaking only to their chests while avoiding eye contact, chain-smoking tobacco—truly too numerous to list.
However, I had been born without a single habit noticeable to others of any kind, yet suddenly of late, this truly conspicuous and absurdly peculiar habit had taken root.
I had always been as silent as a mute in my daily life.
That silence had recently intensified to an extreme, and I had unwittingly become a Daruma doll stripped of all emotion.
I could no longer imagine what face I had made, in what circumstances I had lamented or laughed—my own emotions and expressions had become impossible to conjure.
I was a wood owl, perpetually rigid and unchanging.
If forced to describe it, one might call it a scowling visage akin to wrath, but to my eyes, I was rather a simple candle.
And so I would sit in silence for endless stretches, spine ramrod straight like a daimyo, until—still maintaining that posture—I would periodically let out a grandiose, hollow cough—“Ahem!”—then leisurely stroke my chin with my right fingertips, after which I would extend my left arm sideways as though embracing an invisible companion, all while wearing a vacant-eyed stare. Such was the absurdly pompous habit that had taken root in me.
When the other person would startle and gaze at my face with an eerie look, I would jolt back to awareness and attempt a deep breath while straightening my posture—but just as someone with a leg-shaking habit unknowingly begins trembling at the knees, before I knew it I would be puffing out my chest like a frog, stroking my chin, and raising my left arm. Such was the lumbering, preposterous habit that had taken root in me.

When I became a guest disciple at Tengu Cave through the introduction of Mayor R of M City (—the abbreviation was used due to the mayor’s concerns—), my peculiar habit had grown so severe that I could no longer bear remaining in the capital; gazing at the snow lingering on distant mountain peaks through the train window, I would cough grandly; crossing iron bridges alone, I would solemnly stroke my chin; and as if surveying the glimmering marsh waters alongside an intimate friend, I would extend my arm into empty space—thus did I set out on my aimless journey. Yet whether standing or sitting, this habit would arise with relentless frequency, making everyone I met tilt their heads in bewilderment without cease.
It was just this past spring.

Still lingering plum blossom petals were swept up in a whirlwind, swirling chaotically.

Mayor R was the cousin of my brother-in-law, who at the time had been dispatched as a journalist to the branch office in that city.
And it was said that the mayor’s late father had been a senior disciple of Tengu Cave.
When I arrived in the city, my brother-in-law—who had long been troubled by my heavy drinking—gathered from among his friends those renowned for handling large cups and threw a welcoming banquet for this rare guest.
I was seated in the seat of honor—had I perhaps made some social blunder?
As I sat rigidly upright as usual, that pitiful habit’s grandiose display only repeated itself more conspicuously.
My brother-in-law, who naturally couldn’t know this was an unconscious quirk born—as I might say—of an awkward yearning toward the cosmos, had grown accustomed to seeing me repeatedly fail through my frivolous demeanor whenever I grew careless. At that moment, he seems to have concluded I must have steeled myself through complete spiritual reform to maintain dignity.

“My brother-in-law can’t utter a word unless he’s drunk.”

My brother-in-law was taking the trouble to offer such explanations.

“Ah, I see—those abrupt arm extensions earlier must be his way of urging for another cup.”

There was someone who whispered such things.

And so, each time I unwittingly extended my arm, a regimental flag-patterned cup brimming with sake would be placed at my fingertips before I knew it. Yet even to myself—who had never before experienced such frailty—after downing several cups, I found that before uttering a single word, I had pitched forward like a slender oak tree and collapsed, leaving only thunderous snores in my wake.

“That brother of yours is a terribly pompous fellow.”

Criticized thus, the good-natured brother-in-law was apparently greatly disgraced.
Not only that, but having such a mysterious, arrogant figure staying there day and night—eyes rolling wildly—gave rise to anxieties that it would bring calamity upon his social dealings.

“He is my cousin’s brother-in-law.”
“As he stutters nearly to the point of muteness, I shall convey all matters on his behalf.”
“His hearing is also somewhat impaired.”

Mayor R introduced me thus and prostrated himself before the master of Tengu Cave.
When leaving the house, Mayor R had consulted me, thinking it would be more convenient to state things that way, so I nodded while stroking my chin in agreement.
Having been given this conceptual explanation—that while the master was a man of peerlessly difficult temperament, he conversely possessed an unyielding character who would never retreat once he judged something worthwhile—I, who had no particular purpose to begin with and cared little where I lived, faintly held this sentiment: I merely wished to regain healthy emotions sufficient to shed tears when I ought to lament and raise my voice in laughter when I ought to smile; to be saved from these grotesque habits that made me unable to show my face before others—not that I believed lamentation must always be poignant or laughter always joyous. Thus, I would have far rather remained a guest in my brother-in-law’s easygoing household; notions like “judging something worthwhile” or “unyielding character” were utterly incompatible with me from the start.
Rather than displease the Master, I wanted to return to my brother-in-law’s house.
For I had thought it would be disastrous if this brother of mine appearing here were to hinder the promising future of my dear brother-in-law and his wife—so without hearing any detailed explanation, simply because there existed this Tengu Cave, the home of a certain senior disciple, where becoming a guest might prove feasible—and since even they entreated me, I reluctantly followed after Mayor R, that was all.

Thus, while Mayor R earnestly petitioned the master on my behalf with utmost deference, I became a true deaf person hearing nothing—merely sitting rigidly upright behind him without so much as a proper bow, my gaze fixed on the lintel where long spears and naginatas hung, periodically emitting toneless coughs, stroking my chin, and likely raising and lowering my arm with unwitting languor all the while.

“I must decline.”

I had heard that Tengu Cave’s master—an obstinate old codger—would typically grumble thus before vanishing into the inner chambers, using the wooden sword perpetually at his side as a cane. Anticipating this growl’s imminent arrival, I remained utterly motionless—spine rigid as an iron rod, not a single eyelid fluttering—my demeanor diametrically opposed to Mayor R’s obsequiousness.
First and foremost, I detested the very concept of obstinate old codgers.
If anyone should be declining, it was me.—Yet what manner of face might this peerlessly stubborn fossil possess?
Having thus reflected—though thirty minutes had already elapsed in that room—it was only upon this thought that I first peered over Mayor R’s shoulder to behold the master.

He was an emaciated old man with a hooked nose, glinting eyes that shone from their depths, and a wispy beard clinging to his chin like withered susuki grass—yet he stroked it with the reverence one might lavish upon Guan Yu’s luxuriant beard. And there he sat listening to Mayor R’s explanation, his left arm extended just as mine had been, propping up a wooden sword. Had I possessed a beard and wooden sword, one could scarcely have distinguished which of us was the master—so closely did his behavior and mine resemble each other.

I discovered he was staring fixedly into my eyes. A faint hint of surprise lingered in his gaze that could be perceived. This bastard’s copying me—the insolent wretch! He must surely be thinking that—hurry up and get angry! So I willed it, glaring back into his eyes without yielding. And I let out a loud cough. Then he too raised a cough even more shrill than mine. I had no intention of engaging in a staring contest, so I averted my gaze back toward the lintel.

Before long, I
“Let them grasp the wooden sword—let them grasp it.”

When I heard a thin metallic shriek and looked toward it, I found it was the master’s voice summoning the maid.
This marked my first time hearing his voice—a reedy tremolo utterly mismatched with his martial bearing, shrill and quivering as if suppressing a pained smirk.
It later became clear he considered this voice a personal disgrace and consequently spoke only sparingly.

“Have you granted my request? Thank you most kindly.”

Mayor R bowed politely and, seemingly heaving a sigh, puffed out his back.
Before long, the maid respectfully brought forth a single wooden sword and presented it before me, but I remained utterly perplexed and was growing indignant when the master gestured to the maid and instructed her.
Then the maid had me grasp the wooden sword at the tip of my outstretched arm and stepped back.

It meant that those permitted as guests of Tengu Cave must always carry that wooden sword with them.

“I accept. You may rest assured.”

Having said that, the master retreated into the inner quarters.

“Am I to become a disciple of Tengu Cave?”

I, still made to hold the wooden sword, stroked my chin with apparent annoyance and questioned Mayor R, but for some reason, he made no attempt to answer my inquiry.

“Bravo, bravo!”

He hurried back home while laughing heartily like that.
I grew uneasy and chased after Mayor R to the entrance, but when I arrived, the pretty maid was standing beside the door; no sooner had he exited than she closed it, slid the bolt, and lowered the heavy lock,
“Until Master grants permission, disciples are absolutely forbidden to go outside.”

Teruyo interrupted.

“That maid’s name is Ms. Teruyo, you see, but the master is terribly hypersensitive about her.”
“If a guest were to carelessly send even a lingering glance toward Ms. Teruyo, the master would instantly raise his wooden sword to strike their face—for during all interactions, he keeps vigilant watch over every corner, you see—”
“Even if someone were to so much as glance toward Ms. Teruyo in greeting, the master would instantly say ‘I must decline’—so most applicants fail as a rule. After all, that Ms. Teruyo is such a beauty—like something out of a dream or a story—that anyone would end up gazing at her carelessly.”
“However, on this point, we’ve all agreed there’s no need for concern regarding you.”

It was as we were making our way toward the crowned gate of Tengu Cave, glimpsed through the depths of the plum grove, that Mayor R had said this to me.
“Even for someone like me, when visiting that Master, what’s most unbearable—of course—is resisting the urge to pay attention to Ms. Teruyo. It takes the ultimate test of willpower… Hahaha!”

The mansion was encircled by white-plastered walls.
The walls, having weathered countless seasons, were clad in green moss, crumbling and leaning.
Countless bullet marks pockmarked the gateposts and doors.
On the roof of the crowned gate adorned with Oni-gawara tiles, patches of green grass shot straight upward toward the sky, conjuring heat haze.
The characters on the nameplate affixed to the gateposts had long been eroded by years of rain and wind, rendering them illegible to passersby. Yet when examined closely—as though by a nearsighted person pressing their face near—the characters alone emerged in rounded ink strokes that seemed to float: “Fujiryūken Tengu-ryū Military Arts Instruction Hall.”
However, this nameplate no longer demanded attention from wayfarers.
The nameplate was merely preserved under the local Historic Preservation Society’s care, while the master—the Eleventh Fujiryūken—lived retired at seventy years old, having abandoned public martial arts instruction forty years prior.
Yet he had always sought disciples among his connections; however, most applicants faced rejection during their initial audience—for this mental test required him to conspicuously clap his hands and summon the maid repeatedly while scrutinizing their gazes upon her with meticulous care.
It was said that successful candidates did occasionally emerge; however, among these, those who managed to endure guest disciple life for ten days or more without scaling the earthen walls under cover of night were utterly nonexistent.
Many would be caught flashing even a single smile at Ms. Teruyo and face expulsion; or else grow so weary of accumulating bizarre trials and training regimens that they could not help but flee—so it was told.
That is why the earthen walls stood crumbling and tilting here and there.

I had passed the first trial without any effort on my part—entirely against my will.
Yet if I were to sweetly lower my eyelids or tug at Ms. Teruyo’s sleeve under such circumstances, I would immediately obtain the desired expulsion—but for me, this would prove a far more difficult feat than others’ strained efforts to gaze at her without lowering their eyes.

“You cannot leave, you know.
Come along, I shall now show you to your room.”

She urged me—leaning against the gate with my wooden sword—to move.
At this moment, I looked upon her appearance for the first time.
She wore a purple long-sleeved kimono patterned with white flying arrow feathers, her damask obi tied in the shape of a standing arrow, ink-black wooden clogs with bells fastened to them.
Given how everyone supposedly stared at her features despite themselves, it would be safer for someone as inept as I—particularly in observing or describing beautiful women—not to attempt half-baked explanations. Yet at that instant, I suddenly wondered: What sort of face could make every last person gaze so transfixed?
It was true that I focused my eyes a bit more intently.

Her eyes were slightly elongated with a sharp intensity. It was an elegant nose. And perhaps because her eyes always seemed to gaze absently at something far beyond, those eyes set on either side of her sharply defined white nasal ridge evoked the breadth of a lake veiled in spring haze. Her frame stretched slenderly like a lily. It had a supple grace, as though perpetually dreaming of dance. If one were to speak of her charm, it lay chiefly in a faintness akin to a florid fragrance of serene light drifting dreamily—nowhere was there a suffocating allure that clawed at one’s chest. I wondered why everyone gazed so transfixed at her, yet in the very fact that they all did so, I perceived—deeply, faintly, coolly—something profoundly unconventional: a beauty whose essence only I could comprehend, while others remained blind to it—or so I thought. Her lips evoked crabapple blossom petals—a sensation akin to a cold seashell.

She looked just like Pipias!

I muttered in the depths of my heart.
But my expression did not stir even a breeze’s worth.
Had I stirred even slightly, the Master—who had already materialized unnoticed beneath the aged crape myrtle tree across the way, fixedly observing my conduct—would surely have lunged forth in an instant, greatsword raised high. He stood there, eyes gleaming like a hawk’s, stroking his beard and planting his greatsword as he straightened his posture.
I too had just started plodding heavily after Ms. Teruyo, planting my greatsword, staring wide-eyed, and stroking my chin.

“Can you hear the sound of the bells?”

As I attempted to pass before the Master, he posed a question coupled with a cough.
I truly had not heard any such sound, so I shook my head sideways like a pendulum with clear motion.

“Well, good then.”
“That sound of bells is something I alone must hear.”
“You have passed the second disciple qualification!”

Having said this, the Master began ascending the slope of the path where dragon’s beard grass grew thick and dense, all while listening intently to the bells on the wooden clogs of the girl walking ahead.
What? I can hear those wooden clogs’ bells perfectly well myself.
I had honestly shaken my head thinking perhaps a practice signal bell was ringing somewhere beyond my hearing—
The dragon’s beard grass path wound its serpentine way beneath the crape myrtle grove, gradually ascending toward the artificial hill.
In the tranquil sky, a single kite traced great circles while uttering harmonious cries.
I was looking up at the kite, yet bells rang distinctly in my ears.
The procession—girl leading, Master following, myself at rear—swayed like dancers guided by artfully controlled bell rhythms, “like a great serpent”
ascending the spiraling slope path.

I had not yet felt any inclination to regard Fujiryūken as my master, but having been decisively deemed a disciple, I steeled myself to address him as such and gazed up at the sky. Now that I had claimed not to hear it, I was striving with all my will to divert my attention from the sound of the bells. Passing through the gate, emerging from beneath the thick crape myrtle grove, ascending the sunlit artificial hill, and then descending—we clomped across the bridge over the dim pond beneath a wisteria trellis that blotted out the sky, finally reaching the “main hall.” The pond was entirely overgrown with water shields and water lilies, appearing like a meadow. Although a bridge was indeed suspended there—perhaps as an aesthetic flourish in landscaping or some such—I even wondered if what lay below was simply a meadow. Had I seen that the grasses were water shields and water lilies, with hitsuji grass and rappa grass blooming, it would have been unmistakably a pond—yet I was utterly careless. When the procession that had descended the artificial hill reached the bridge, I suddenly resolved to demonstrate a grand attitude to the Master by keeping my gaze fixed on the sky and paying no heed whatsoever to the sound of bells—and so attempted to leap ahead across the meadow.

Ah, I realized there was water, but for some reason I felt no surprise at all—a fact that struck even me as strange.
In the deep mud swamp where I fell, not a single spray rose as I sank thickly—like Niki Danzō disappearing through a kabuki trapdoor into hell, or arrowroot jelly descending leisurely—and when the muddy water nearly reached my mouth, I involuntarily clicked my lips.
That sound finally alerted the two to the incident, and they seized my arms from both sides.

Ah, how pitiful—I had memorized the dreams of bygone eras within an antiquated leather-bound book.
The primitive tribes of Celts and Germanic peoples made piracy their occupation, adhered to a reincarnation religion, and proclaimed the immortality of the soul.
It was a most peculiar historical text titled "The Faith of Pirate Clans."

“Young Narcissuso'er the fountain stood, And viewed his image in thecrystal flood, ――”

“I had once been born here by chance as a human, but my previous life was a parrot kept by a noble of Mongolia.”
“I had been born as a vulture and soared through Hindas’s graveyard skies; I had been born as a crocodile and enjoyed a hundred years in the Nile’s upper reaches.”
“For decades I had been the flame of an altar lamp burning upon a monastery ceiling.”
“At one time I had been born as a book’s volume; at another time as merely a single character within that volume.”
“Once I had been born as a bridge in some town, trodden underfoot by multitudes for eighty years; another time as a single key within a burglar’s ring.”
“I had been born as a parasitic tree extending its modest staff from a fir’s crown, and as a lumberjack’s saw that felled countless great trees.”
“I had been born as a poor fisherman’s tobacco smoke to savor momentary life, and as an anchovy caught by a fisherman’s child.”

They believed that all existing things between heaven and earth had once been born and would soon be born again as all manner of beings.
In one illustration, a pirate called Pandus—wearing an Algerian Mantle over his shoulders—embraced a beauty, stroking his long beard as he prayed to the stars of Scorpio.

“Beloved Pipias, do not recall your homeland, O captive queen.”

“I am but a poor fisherman’s daughter from Normandy. Ah, I want to return.”

“In a past life, your mother was a princess in a deep royal castle.”
“I was born at that time as a single goose egg and was thus placed upon the princess’s supper tray.”
“That night, the princess conceived.”
“And she gave birth to you.”
“You’re a fatherless child.”
“You were abandoned in Normandy’s countryside.”
“You and I share a profound karmic bond.”
“You should bear my child.”
“It’s the oracle of the Scorpio stars.”

“Before becoming the goose, what had you been born as when you first came into this world?”

“My Pipias,
“I was a horse that distinguished itself in battle.
“On another day, I was a single sword filled with much honor, grasped in the arm of a military commander.
“And at another time, I was a bubble in the water of a certain swamp.”

“Wretched Pandus, may you become a bubble in the water once more. When you turn to a bubble, I shall float a beautiful smile for your sake and gaze into the water’s mirror.
“We heaven-dreaming Puritans have been taught that if surrendering to heathens, one should rather choose death willingly.”

And I found myself captivated by the resplendent image of Pipias gazing intently at the azure expanse of the sky.
The painting brimmed with an esoteric eeriness akin to Beckerlin-style Pre-Raphaelite works, its nude figure rendered in the most robustly realistic brushstrokes.
Am I a pervert? Whether in paintings or reality, I had never been swayed by the charms of any beauty brimming with coy allure or sweetly clinging tenderness. Nor had I ever lost myself over sword-clumsy female warriors, women who bit their lips in disdain for men, or those who maintained an aloof affectation—untouched by flattery or entreaty—yet I was constitutionally incapable of feeling any significant attraction.
When I was ten years old, I would often accompany my grandmother to kabuki plays. Villainous samurai spurned by women or lords would growl things like “Hmph! No matter how much I plead, you remain obstinate—now my fondness turns to hatred a hundredfold!” while rolling their eyes, but their emotions and expressions never resonated with me.
As I looked at that illustration and read its text, I wished—if only to justify having been born a man—that I might at least lay an arm upon the shoulder of such a beauty, even were I a lowly pirate or a burglar’s apprentice; I would have no regrets.
Whenever I saw even a somewhat beautiful, affected woman, I would exclaim “Oh, she resembles Pipias!”
—had become a habitual murmur.

Yet I was now a dreamer born into this world—an utterly emaciated, feeble being with arms as thin as sticks. For instance, even when conveying a single character, I would break into greasy sweat as though stealing a massive boulder, let out heaving cries, and barely cling to life as an utterly powerless attic-dwelling writer on the verge of fainting. I would mutter "Pipias, oh Pipias" while stretching my wings toward pleasure quarters and bar districts and shadowy brothels, but compared to the money I carried, this empty bravado proved too preposterous—What’s with that exaggerated coughing? That affected chin-stroking like some dandy? What a pretentious act! Truly he must be a "three-pin"—and so I was merely rebuffed and mocked, my arms spread wide in grand invitation failing to draw even a single maid who might alight with sullen-faced wings. I was more pitiable than Pandus. Long before such habits had even arisen in me, my wife had already lost all patience and been sent to the family home for rest.

“You’re like a soap bubble!” she scorned.

And she scorned.
Even a wife would suffice—please berate me within these arms!
Had she perhaps come to her younger sister’s home in M City to air grievances about her husband?
Having formed this conjecture—as I initially described—my yearnings had imperceptibly stretched beyond measure until I transformed into an eccentric lamenting my cosmic awkwardness and longing, then wandered forth aimlessly.
Now my soul felt utterly reborn—nothing but a bubble drifting through water.

If my arm were to consider air as something apart, then the first thing it managed to grasp since developing such habits was none other than Tengu Cave’s wooden sword.

Though my person alone had been effortlessly extracted through the efforts of Master and Ms.Teruyo, when I stood upon the bridge and looked at the arm I believed to be firmly grasping something, it remained empty-handed as before.
We gazed for some time at the water’s surface among the water plants—where a hole had formed from my fall—but my wooden sword appeared to have lodged itself quite firmly into the swamp’s depths, for it never resurfaced.
"We cannot provide a replacement," Master muttered while clearing his throat. "Mark that hole’s location and wait for what will eventually float up." Then he left alone.
Teruyo cut away a circular section of water plants to prevent them from refilling the gap and pointed upward—there indeed was a small skylight-sized opening in the wisteria trellis through which a rod of light fell precisely into the hole among the aquatic vegetation.
When I peered in, my face appeared on the water’s surface.
I saw Teruyo’s eyes glinting sharply in the watery mirror beside my shoulder, but soon after clapping echoed from beyond the main hall, she dashed off with her geta bells jingling.
On the water’s surface, bubbles of swamp gas rose one after another from the depths only to vanish.

The hermitage crouched at the pond’s edge with a flat, thatched roof resembling an overturned shell.
Due to the low wisteria trellises, the area around the pond remained perpetually dim as on a cloudy day, but upon ducking beneath the eaves, the hermitage’s interior plunged into ever-deepening twilight shadows—so profound that even at noon, one would need to light a paper lantern when passing through its central corridor.
Until my eyes adjusted to the darkness like someone stumbling into a matinee screening, I remained disoriented; but as I grew accustomed, I gradually perceived that a faint brightness lingered, allowing me to make out carp swimming in the pond beneath the corridor’s floorboards.
Viewed from the artificial hill, this structure appeared as small as a crumbling burial mound, yet inside it sprawled unexpectedly vast—though I had stayed nearly a month by then, beyond the corridor leading to my room, I still couldn’t grasp how its passages connected or what chambers they contained.

Passing through the tunnel-like corridor suspended over water that had been drawn in, before I knew it, the path curved along the pond’s edge in an arc, maintaining a slight slope as it extended like a claw to reach the mezzanine with its round window.
This four-and-a-half tatami mat room was my living quarters, while my bedroom lay downstairs in a low-ceilinged six-tatami-mat room where I could hear carp quietly exhaling water.
I spent my days doing nothing but sitting in meditation, leaning against the sutra desk beneath the round window.
I had initially feared being made to practice swordsmanship would prove unbearable, yet since that first day, there had been no chance to meet the master nor any summons to dread—leaving me to do nothing but stroke my chin with an expressionless face wherever I went.

Before long, the wisteria clusters grew so vigorously that they nearly covered the window.
Through the gaps, I could glimpse Ms. Teruyo crossing the bridge with thudding steps; but now that she had changed into a wisteria-purple kimono, she appeared to my eyes as if a cluster of blooming wisteria had extended all the way beneath the window and was swaying there.
That, like an eerily resplendent phantom rippling through water, I gradually came to sense something clangorously resounding within my desolate dreams.
Perhaps due to the strange intoxication from sake that left my eyes and head hazy all day, I found myself captivated by the scene of her coming and going through the garden in full wisteria bloom—a fabricated splendor as if gazing upon the stage set of an old-fashioned dance drama.

She brought my three daily meals here, but as I refrained from observing her form up close, she appeared like something from a magic lantern when viewed beneath the wisteria trellis that veiled the sky.

With each of the three daily meals, a single Kasama-ware tokkuri would invariably be placed on the dining tray, and regardless of preference, the guest was compelled to drain its contents in one gulp from a large wooden cup.
In my ordinary city life, I had been such a wretched drinker that even to desire a single *go* of sake would require me to tilt my head like a tokkuri while pondering my finances—yet here, where one might expect me to revel in abundance, I remained perpetually dispassionate.
And in inverse proportion to the wisteria flowers’ growth, this ritual gradually transformed into suffocating torture.
(But it was likely true that I had regained at least that degree of emotion.) Ms. Teruyo would tilt a dark brown, stout tokkuri with its morning glory-shaped spout, supporting it reverently with her fingertips as she poured—yet I was compelled to sit rigidly like a silent monk, forbidden even to speak or raise my face.
During meals, near the opposite shore of the pond, the master would observe the guest’s condition while appearing and disappearing among the wisteria flowers.
On rainy days, through the narrowly opened shoji of the tea room directly across from the round window, the guard’s eyes gleamed, poised to thrust a wooden sword mask onto one’s face at a moment’s notice.
In other words—for instances when guests might offer a charming smile to the serving woman, emit inebriated-sounding noises, or even leave any of the ritual sake undrunk—

I found my own self—so vulnerable to such harsh sake—growing daily into a heavier burden. I could not thoughtlessly stretch my limbs simply because I was drunk, nor was I permitted to gulp water wantonly simply because I desired it—now I had become one who knew the torment of choking down an indescribably gloomy intoxication while maintaining a karasutengu’s countenance. Just when I thought the morning’s sake had somewhat worn off, the mokutaku would sound, and soon the midday meal would be brought. Though consumed in equal measure, the midday sake’s intoxication ran deeper than the morning’s, while the evening’s brew held twice as potent an effect—and this cycle repeated with clockwork precision day after day, dawn after dusk. Thus, though my innards felt like konjac jelly, I had no choice but to don an unyielding armor of stern composure on my surface. Had I only cast off that rigid carapace as I’d initially wished—had I thrust the master’s wooden sword into my face then and there—I might have been instantly liberated from this torment. Yet when I imagined Ms. Teruyo witnessing such spinelessness, a perverse fortitude had begun to take root: enduring this torture still seemed more worthwhile than that alternative.

I had carried dozens of volumes from the library in an attempt to examine the extensive documents concerning the history of Tengu Cave Fujiryūken, but with a head so oppressively clouded by intoxication all day long, even when I did manage to open them, I could scarcely read a single character.
I sat formally at the desk beneath the round window, yet my head swayed ceaselessly like a wind-chime, as though aboard a boat.
And so I would absentmindedly peer over the pond through gaps in the wisteria blossoms, my consciousness fixed only upon the maid’s figure.
One day, without ever noticing my innocuous intentions, the master sent words of praise through the maid.

“I deem you a splendid practitioner.”
“In that seated meditation, the manner of your head swaying is unmistakably the visage of one seeking truth.”
“When the moon changes phase, I must add two flasks each to your morning and evening sake.”
“Moreover, if that seated meditation can be maintained for twenty-one days, I must finally open the dojo’s gate for him.”

“Thank you kindly, but I…”

I inadvertently retreated from the zabuton cushion, spread both arms on the tatami, and hung my head to utter words of refusal.

Then, conveying those words, Teruyo—who had been holding the sake flask on the opposite side of the meal tray—

“……As long as you maintain your posture like that, no matter what I say, that old man won’t hear a thing—so you needn’t worry.”

…she whispered under her breath.

"Is he still watching us from the edge of the pond?"

I asked in a hoarse voice while remaining prostrated.

“He’s watching—but as long as you don’t change your expression or mouth movements, you can badmouth that old man all you like. He’s terribly hard of hearing—he wouldn’t catch a word even if you said it right to his face.”

“But mind you—he’s grown quite accustomed to inferring what’s being said from facial expressions and mouth movements. So if you can manage those properly, that old man might as well be a wooden statue.”

“More than that—I’m glad to realize you aren’t actually a stutterer or deaf like Mr. R claimed.”

“In a house like this—conversing with others becomes my greatest pleasure.”

While I was bowing, Teruyo muttered something and cleared away the meal tray.

After that, we began to casually discuss various matters during each meal, but speaking words without moving our facial expressions or lips at all was a strange thing; “words” felt entirely unrelated to their speaker, each one adrift and distinctly perceived as separate entities existing in space.
I thought that all the words exchanged between myself and the maid, though invisible to the eye, drifted with their own lives—just like every visible object in this world—as those reincarnation religionists believed.
If one considered this—then not only in our case of conversing with such expressions but all sounds throughout the cosmos could be believed to each possess their own separate lives—and yet.

“At that time, I lived as a single word breathed forth from your mouth.”

I dreamed myself speaking such honeyed words to court a woman.
—Yet this proved utterly impossible to reconcile with her appearance, forever fixed in that forbidding expression—so consummate was her mastery of this manner of speech.

To eyes ceaselessly imprisoned by leaden intoxication, these flickering glimpses of reality through gaps in resplendent blossoms rendered this void-like scene—bereft of coarseness yet delicately alluring—as Teruyo appeared: wisteria-slender and ever-slightly downcast, her two fluttering sleeves lightly pressed to her breast while crossing the earthen bridge, truly resembling some ethereal fragment from a desolate illustrated scroll.
—By now we’d both grown fully accustomed to these words, remaining seated while locking gazes,

“If Ms. Teruyo weren’t here, I couldn’t last a single day in this place—how utterly ridiculous!”

“You must thrust out your chest more. Keep your arm properly raised, then compose yourself and stroke your chin as before—if you bungle that, there’ll be no remedy…”

We exchanged such whispers, yet no matter how I tried, those words refused to feel like utterances from that coolly beautiful girl passing beneath the wisteria trellis across the way.
Her form could only be glimpsed as a phantom of something so distant that words like mine would never resolutely reach.
My well-practiced words had grown intimate only with the phrases spilling from her lips, wandering through some indeterminate sky—I couldn’t fathom them as anything ever dispatched toward that figure.

“When I came to have such conversations with you, I suddenly found those habits of mine utterly absurd—and now when I think I must affect such airs despite my reluctance, cold sweat trickles down my back. I seem to have become some ill-fated actor.”
“If only I had even a wooden sword—anything at all.”

I began suffering restlessly from idle hands, and from time to time would squat at the pond’s edge to peer into that hole among the water plants I’d noticed before.
The wooden sword, having sunk, showed no sign of surfacing.
On the water’s surface, wisteria flowers were clearly reflected upside down, and when I looked at my own face peering out from within them, it bore the sallow complexion of a bloated gourd.
If there was even a hint of alcohol in me, my natural tendency was to grow lively and flush ruddy—yet having striven so thoroughly to suppress intoxication, I muttered that this strange pallor must be the result.
Even I had come to wonder why they conducted such interminable alcohol trials—it was to test whether one could drink that quantity with composure while remaining utterly unmoved by that maid in any circumstance. Should even the rims of one’s eyes redden slightly from the sake’s aroma, their qualification would already be forfeit.
Yet it must be said that my courage proved rather too deficient, manifesting only the opposite effect.
Be that as it may, this sallow gourd-hue had sufficed to reassure the master—for only when he became fully convinced that here stood one who stirred not the slightest inclination toward women would he deign to open the dojo’s gate for his disciple.

The master would open the dojo’s gate twice daily—each morning and evening—with only Teruyo accompanying him, and it was said he imparted to her the martial tactics of Tengu-ryū.
I had yet to observe those practice sessions myself, but it was said that Teruyo—her hair arranged in a high takashimada chignon—would don a scarlet chirimen tasuki sash and wield a naginata.
And so it was said that before the Master seated formally in the place of honor, she would perform various forms of “shadow fencing”—but Teruyo’s skills, honed through years of service to the Master, had advanced to the point of nearing Tengu-ryū’s deepest mysteries, excelling above all in the art of leaping.

“Leaping over ropes strung six feet high, dropping down from lintels before Master, then suddenly jumping from ladders to land astride an enemy’s shoulders and strangle them mid-fall…”

As Teruyo began explaining such matters in her usual lip-still manner, I found myself imagining this refined maid performing such unseemly acrobatics—and before I knew it, had lurched forward unsteadily.
Yet through accumulated training—even while maintaining that posture with arms spread in prostration—I barely upheld those florid fantasies; though within my breast raged a turmoil violent as baboons.

“I am hardly qualified to enter the dojo.”

“Yes, that’s precisely why Master’s trials are so troublesome.”
“Most people end up failing, so I’ve had no choice but to practice the forms alone—but disciples must still be two in number—one male, and he must never regard his counterpart as a woman…”

To be sure, were one’s opponent not as beautiful as Teruyo, one might easily avoid perceiving her as a woman—but when tasked with performing such combat against an Amazon brimming with such uncanny allure, any man would naturally tremble in terror. As for myself—merely hearing of this had already left my entire body shuddering icily like a cluster of frozen pillars, teetering on the brink of collapse.

“You will certainly pass.”
“That man’s fortitude is truly extraordinary.”
“If it were that man, even were you to lie side by side with him, he’d harbor no thought of you as a woman—that’s what Master said.”
“I do believe that old man must be the most jealous creature in all the world…”

When I heard this from Teruyo, I involuntarily sucked in a chestful of air in my astonishment, gripped my chin as though clutching a long beard, and slowly raised my left arm aloft like an iron bar weighing a hundred kan.
And all my bones turned to iron, my expression transforming into that of a Nio guardian—or so I felt.
I simply lacked too much courage.
Lying side by side—just hearing those words made me shudder with such overflowing force that I could only stand bewildered by Teruyo’s exquisite beauty.

“Master watches us with such reassuring eyes. For me—always practicing alone before him—the excitement lies in imagining I might train with someone like you: refreshingly sincere, truly without affectation. To think we could become real friends from now on, beyond distinctions of woman or man—it makes me so happy I can scarcely sleep at night.”

From around that time, the morning and evening sake bottles became two, but I did not get drunk.
I didn’t know where the dojo was located, but wove through the hushed wisteria trellis—Hup!
Yah!
I discovered a woman’s voice that clearly said “Hup!” and “Yah!” along with the accompanying sound of footsteps resounding across the floor.
Ah, those were indeed the footsteps of leaping over a rope!
Ah, that was the sound of someone leaping down from the lintel!
……I did nothing but strain my ears to catch every footstep’s sound—whether two or three bottles, sake might as well have been water.

Even after I lay down,

“When I think such thoughts, I cannot sleep at all.”

Now mimicking Teruyo’s very words in ecstasy, now clenching my fist to strike my own head—Is she not sleeping!
I muttered and curled my limbs like a turtle’s.

Without distinction between man and woman... Ah, this is despair!

And again I groaned.
Even tears spilled.

Apparently, I had soundly regained only the emotion of grief.
Only laughter, as though sunken into an abyss of eternal snow, failed to revive within my breast.

When Teruyo brought the morning meal tray, I felt such heartfelt shame over the night during which I had let those brazen fantasies run wild about her that I could not even raise my face. Even while eating or drinking, my manner of forcefully averting my gaze from her figure remained as severe as it had been at first, yet the murky shadows within my heart were beyond comparison—driven solely by those torments, I strained to affect haughty composure, stroked my chin as though self-conscious before the cosmos, raised my arm as if yearning for eternity, and produced a martial cough like an enlightened warrior ascetic. But all of this amounted to nothing more than a grand performance straining to conceal the cowardice and lecherous impulses festering within.

“The composure has grown increasingly authentic day by day—it’s high time we opened the dojo’s gate for him with true conviction—so Master declared.”

“Where is the dojo located?”

“From beyond the artificial mound, cross the Path of the Serpent’s Shed Skin and enter the crape myrtle grove…”

“Yet I could always hear your footsteps from the dojo quite clearly—I hadn’t thought them so distant.”

“No, if your heart is resolute, it can be heard—a distance beyond the reach of ears—.”
“Master is the same way—sitting at the pond’s edge, he can clearly discern my footsteps from the dojo.”
“You have mastered Master Fujiryūken’s martial tactics before you knew it.”

……

When pressed so insistently, had I in fact heard nothing at all?
I realized.
Had I linked this swamp-like pooling of drunkenness—this hollow droning in my ears—to delusion?
When I strained to listen, what did I find? Inside my skull, a drunken fool’s clamor—resembling Teruyo’s leaping footsteps—still clattered away like festival music.

The path stretching from the crape myrtle grove to the artificial mound—thickly overgrown like a dragon’s beard—has since ancient times been called the “Path of the Serpent’s Shed Skin.” Long ago, when the seventh Fujiryūken found a great serpent’s shed skin on this path—so I read in the records—it acquired this name. To preserve Tengu-ryū’s secret techniques, it had been established as a duty for successive heads to make rustic folk—utterly ignorant of martial arts—wield swords and allow them to engage in the most unrestrained combat, then discover truly novel forms from their sword techniques and conduct to add to the scrolls of esoteric principles. Yet the reality of making mere rustics wield swords and perform earnest duels proved truly an arduous task; though successive masters had braved all manner of hardships in their travels across the provinces, they could not easily obtain hints sufficient to establish novel forms. Eventually, Tengu-ryū’s martial tactics faded into obscurity, and just as they teetered on the brink of decline, the seventh Fujiryūken happened upon a shed skin; soon after, jars of old coins were unearthed one after another from the depths of Doyōboshi Pond. He scattered those old coins liberally to summon the people of the fields. The mock warriors—until then mere flaccid actors who had risen reluctantly, trembling with nothing but complaints—now invigorated by the golden light, staged a ferocious battle. The seventh Fujiryūken succeeded in discovering many esoteric principles from those unarmed combat styles and incorporating them into his own school.

The eleventh Fujiryūken too must have harbored some similar expectation—a secret in his breast beyond my knowing—but when permission was finally granted for me to cross blades with Teruyo’s naginata and spear, my visage transformed like those mock warriors of yore who had raced forth at the sound of gold.

“Now then—the sword remains sunk in the pond—but since you cannot wield one regardless—for now you shall catch Teruyo barehanded. If you think of it as a game of tag, there’s little difference. You’ll chase her before my eyes—though ’tis more trying than catching butterflies—”

“Now then—starting here—you shall chase her into the dojo!”

And Master issued the command in a reed-thin voice.

I had donned a stitched white headband and secured the crotch grip of my undyed hakama, poised to receive the wooden sword as a matter of course—when to my surprise, this declaration left my arms throbbing with vigor yet devoid of purpose, so I raised a cough as was my habit and indignantly stroked my chin.
On the other hand, Teruyo—in stark contrast to my own imposing practice attire—wore no special preparation at all, remaining in her usual lavender furisode with geta sandals bearing bells worn on bare feet.
And with Master’s signal, she ran across the pond through a fragrance as though thick smoke rose from wisteria in full bloom—her sleeves fluttering like wisteria blossoms, scattering the chirr-chirr of bells.
As I faltered much like during that procession some time ago, Master soon began using the wooden sword in his left arm as a cane and lumbered after the sound of bells.

I stood blankly by the stone lantern at the water’s edge like another stone lantern myself, but when the two figures had finished crossing the pond and reached the foot of the artificial mound, I finally came abruptly to my senses,

“Now, now—isn’t this the battle?”
“I must give chase!”

I muttered and braced myself—but at that very moment, astonishingly, though my resolve should have been so firm, my entire body suddenly began to quiver like a jellyfish, limp and boneless; in my panic, I tried to cling to the stone lantern’s shoulder, but to no avail—my hips gave way, and I collapsed facedown onto the garden stone.
When I had drunk too much whiskey, such an outcome might occasionally occur—but here, it seemed as though days upon days of forced drinking had suddenly burst forth and erupted all at once.

“Now that it’s finally come to this—how regrettable this state of affairs.”

I bit my lip and tried to rise, but only my upper body would rear up like a wounded mantis before collapsing back down, leaving me unable to move even an inch.
Yet my head and ears remained sharp—the faintly chiming bells from geta sandals beyond the artificial mound sounded as though I could pluck them from the air.

Still, I summoned every shred of courage and pushed forward onto the bridge. Peering into a hollow choked with waterweed, I caught my reflection and wetted my parched throat.

"If only the wooden sword would surface now—that would be divine salvation—but—"

I discovered that the complexion of my face reflected in the water had completely changed from blue gourd to red demon.
At that moment, a droplet fell onto the water like a skimming water strider.
It was tears.—Tears—tears like hail—churned the watery mirror until no face remained reflected.

“Well, well—it seems I’ve somehow regained the capacity for sorrow… but what exactly could be causing such grief now?”

I suddenly tilted my head.
All the while, hail continued to fall incessantly upon the water, making it impossible to see my face.

“Could it be that my illness is beginning to heal?”

Faintly, the sound of bells resonated.
The bells’ tones slid down the slope of the artificial mound, threaded beneath the wisteria trellis—and perhaps because they echoed off the pond’s surface—their delicate reverberations seemed to grow more vivid the farther they receded.
Moreover, without fading over the water, they—drawn into the hall’s summoned currents—rushed into the depths of a shell-like hermitage, transforming the entire structure into a resonance chamber that emitted a hollow ringing like pressing a seashell to one’s ear.
Leaning over the bridge and craning my neck above the water, I listened entranced to this novel bell-song.
Simultaneously, I discovered something akin to laughter—a faint emotion resembling those bells—stirring in my chest’s depths.
I was truly astonished.
But more pressing—what expression had my smile borne, that which I should have forgotten eternally?
Compelled by curiosity, I carefully preserved my unbroken mask and hastily peered again into the watery mirror.
Yet my smiling visage had become a crow mask from a totem pole—indiscernible as either mirth or lament.
Disheartened without cause, I emerged from beneath the wisteria trellis and—clinging fiercely to the dragon’s beard—scaled the artificial mound’s slope in pursuit of the bells.
I barely reached the summit, but my drunkenness—like a mole dragged into sunlight—worsened relentlessly until my breath verged on ceasing.

The sound of bells, pursued by Master’s cane, had now finished descending the “Path of the Serpent’s Shed Skin” and was about to enter the bright crape myrtle grove.

When viewed from the summit, the Path of the Serpent’s Shed Skin—bathed in dazzling morning sunlight—shone white and undulated, indistinguishable from a true great serpent’s shed skin.

The scene of them treading onward—Teruyo’s furisode-clad figure as though dreaming of dance, and Master’s retreating form in yellow hachijō sleeveless robe swinging his cane—radiated an unearthly brightness, a ceaselessly radiant and grotesquely comical beauty that overflowed into my eyes.

With a strange cry like “Hiyuu… rurururu…,” I stood up, raised my arms, stroked my chin (and beard), and glared fixedly at their figures—only to suddenly pitch forward like a pillar and nearly lose consciousness.
But if I were seen in such a state now, all my endurance until now would be for naught!
As I muttered this, I began to descend the winding slope of Dragon’s Whisker, transformed into a death-maddened looper caterpillar.

In the flawlessly clear ultramarine sky, a black kite let out a harmonious cry as it traced a vast, leisurely circle.
Just now, what I had taken for my own exclamation of admiration was apparently a mishearing of the kite’s voice as it wheeled through the sky.