Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

As per requests from each of their fathers, it had been decided to send their two daughters his way; they wanted him to add each of them as members of the office. After hearing the details directly from them, he was to do his utmost to satisfy these two young students who wished to tour the mountain――.

Taki, by the fireplace, read the letter from his father typed in Roman letters and felt mild annoyance.

At that time, it was a certain remote mountain work site managed as the main operation by his family household; but for Taki—drunk on solemn ambitions through his "resolve to seclude himself," his "determination to confront solitude"—this marked the period when he had been growing accustomed to the tent-like mountain existence he had newly encountered.

……It wasn’t that he felt troubled because they were girls; nor did the desolate solitude he’d meant to battle ever arrive; he felt no sense of lack whatsoever. He found a refreshing joy in his solitary self in an almost amusing way; those dull emotions he had once lamented as "foolishness" had thickened and solidified, instead making him feel a quiet "gratitude"—embracing this nameless heroic dream of "intending to perform ascetic practices." When he thought back to how he’d muttered such words while climbing the mountain, it struck him as absurd; for him, there had been no ascetic trials, no desires he needed to suppress. This dreadful dullness had settled here freely—and so, he felt a faint shudder at the mere appearance of others, regardless of their kind.

His father—accustomed not out of mere hobby but to an American-style student-like disposition—had always permitted him free socializing with friends' sons; had this been him back home, becoming a courteous young master would have required no effort. But the present him was too much a cold solitary thinker. It was when he had pleasantly turned "philosophical," maintaining a bright yet troubled countenance toward all without reserve. It was when he endlessly studied the two volumes of Schopenhauer's writings he'd brought along. He had committed dozens of passages from the books to memory. And he immersed himself in formulating original viewpoints. Humming indistinctly, he leapt across stones while ascending the stream.

He was healthy.
Beside the hut flowed a clear brook.
Like a child stepping on discarded garden stones, he leapt over rocks, trod on shadows, and ascended the stream.
There was a giant rock like a bed.
There was a strangely shaped rock like a chair.
There was a rock like a monument.

There were wildflowers and a view of a sunlit slope covered with grass.
Ascending the sled path revealed a deep forest.
There, lumberjacks were strikingly felling large fir trees.
They swung their large hatchets and, with movements like those of wrestlers, swiftly chopped off the branches of the great trees.
With large saws fitted with opposing handles, each of the lumberjacks swiftly cut through the trunks as if butchering whales.
The sled pullers loaded the large logs they had cut into sections onto their sleds, formed a line, and glided down the sled path with their bells jingling.

From the charcoal-kiln hut, carefree smoke rose ceaselessly day and night.
Taki had grown close to none of them, but their dialect proved so fluid and polished that it never unsettled his mind.
In his head that roamed cheerfully through a chaotic world, their incomprehensible words would at times resonate with an inexplicable weight of meaning, filling him with a sublime excitement as though he had now truly reached the pristine wilderness where his destiny lay.

The boiled mountain burdock was delicious.
The hot rice ball stuffed with salted salmon was delicious.

At night, he would fall asleep without protest soon after the lamp was lit, and in the morning, he awoke to the bells of the lead horse team—the group that transported sawn timber up to the mountainside where the trolley line ran.

He had gained confidence in this life of his, and once he regained his health, he intended next to enter a temple located twenty-some miles from his hometown—where his grandfather’s acquaintance resided—that upheld many strict precepts as doctrine, and there devote himself to study.
And given how things were progressing, he felt reassured that such a life was actually more naturally suited to his character without any need for forced effort, and it was just when he had begun preparing to relocate there soon.

“This!”

When N handed him his father’s letter and he finished reading it, Taki involuntarily faltered in speech but steeled himself to regain composure.
(It wouldn’t do to show even a trace of irritation—they’d come all this way so eagerly, into these mountains——.
There’s no need for me to entertain them.
Even if I did humor them a little, what of it? They’re just guileless schoolgirls.
I’m someone with resolve; I must discard this petty cowardice that’s nothing but selfishness...)

“We came all prepared to walk, yet ended up not walking at all.”
When N said this, Tsuruko—

“This!” she laughed, showing the soles of her spiked boots.
Tsuruko and N were delightedly carrying their luggage—unloaded from the horse—into the hut.

N theatrically inspected the inside of the cabin while,

“Did you say my Papa designed this?
“It really does look like an expedition’s temporary cabin—what with guns hanging on the walls and an oven by the hearth…”

“That’s just the cook saving effort at lunchtime.
“The kitchen’s over there.”
Taki couldn’t help but point out the kitchen entrance where sake barrels and such could be seen and explain.
“N once said camping would be more convenient for her than staying at my family home, but this place—though crude—is a proper dwelling where you needn’t remove shoes. For you, this should be far more comfortable than visiting my family residence.”

“Please stop being so mean.”
“Hmm… That might actually be true.”
“So, where is the bedroom?”

“That spot should do.”

He opened the door to the adjoining room—the one with wooden flooring—and showed it.

“Is the bed a hammock?”
“Do you have extras?”

“There is,” Taki said. “Though that cupboard over there functions as a bed—a two-tiered one.”

“Hmm...”

N stared with deliberately wide, playful eyes, then hunched her shoulders without saying a word.
Wives and children from the surrounding huts gathered around N, gawking at her as a Westerner.

Tsuruko spotted flowers blooming by the riverbank and ran off.
N also gave chase.

Having received word that the bath was ready, Taki draped a towel like a mantle and made his way down to the riverbank.
The river was quite wide, but the water reached no deeper than one’s knees, flowing only as a narrow stream between mostly dry rocks; thus, the bath bucket had been placed on the waterless riverbed.
From inside the bath, the procession of sled pullers descending could be seen.

“Is that the bath?”

From the suspension bridge, Tsuruko—who had been leaning on the railing next to N and looking down below—called out.

Taki nodded without smiling.
And, like a signalman, he raised his arm and pointed toward the hut.

N turned her face away as if indignant, Tsuruko flushed red, and the two of them hurried back hand in hand.—Taki stripped off his shirt and trousers onto a rock and sank into the bath, gazing leisurely up at the blue sky.
The feeling of solitude remained undisturbed.
He found it pleasant to become even more clearly aware that his heart remained seemingly healthy, burning solely with fierce hope.
And he rejoiced in being a refreshingly mature adult.

Tomorrow he would once again ascend this stream to his usual spot upstream; if they wanted to come along, he wouldn't mind guiding them. He could explain the many massive boulders and curious rocks he'd discovered, even share the reasoning behind the names he'd given them—such were his thoughts.

To the distant upper reaches of the shallow, sunlit river where he'd managed to climb many times before, a naturally easy path had extended until now.
From stones too wide to leap across to boulders, he'd laid plank bridges.
There were places where footholds had been neatly formed with stones light enough to carry.
Where swift currents flowed through gaps lacking stepping stones, he'd built ingenious log bridges—two trunks bound with rope—entirely by his own hand.—Now all the way to the grassy meadow upstream where mountain children played, the river path through its center stretched open: far shorter than mountain trails, traversed with ease.
These mountains held none of the reptiles he despised; thus wherever he went, he could settle down to think or lose himself in such "work."
A small tent had been left standing in the upper field.

II

“This can’t even be called a river…”

“But truly, it’s beautiful—with almost no shade—it somehow feels like a riverbed near the sea.”

“Anyone could build a bridge like this.”

Tsuruko and N, while exchanging such remarks, hopped lightly from stone to stone like wagtails along the river path where traces of frequent human passage were clearly visible from every angle.

“I hear this river overflows its banks in floods once or twice a year.”

“This is—”
N turned to stare wide-eyed at Taki in disbelief.

“I hate it when you say things like that—it’s scary.”
Tsuruko pretended to shiver and smiled faintly without conviction.

“No one has walked here before me—this is the river’s passageway,” Taki muttered with oddly solemn emphasis.
Whenever he spoke to others, his tone had developed an unconscious habit of forcing awkward weight into each phrase, interspersed with contemplative silences.

“People must have walked here before.”

“After repairing stones and building bridges—in any case—I set a defined path.”
“With even such bridges in place, anyone would cross them.”

“I can go just fine without crossing—hopping from stone to stone—”
N, having said that, deliberately hopped from stone to stone.

“That’s just petty defiance,” Taki said.
“Though there’s not a single dangerous spot—even if you slip, it’s just enough to get your toes wet.”

“Even without a guide, this is just fine—a true single path.”
Up ahead, Tsuruko called out.
“But all the paths around here are just like this one, though they’re hard to walk—though if it weren’t for fun, no one would deliberately walk in the river. The mountain path would be much easier without all these rolling stones.”

“This way’s shorter! It’s not some game!”
Taki shouted discontentedly.

Occasionally, the sound of gunfire echoed from upstream.

N and Tsuruko took turns as photographers and captured the other two in the camera.
Taki did not know how to take photographs.

“Let’s have one taken on this log bridge too.”
Taki, saying this, positioned himself at the center of a log about six feet long.
Taki, who had heard that a single flood could completely alter the river’s form, harbored such lingering attachment that he would have gladly captured its current shape on motion picture film if possible.

“I prefer being alone! I prefer being alone!”
N said this and moved away from Taki’s side.
“I’ll be your requested photographer and take careful shots for you—we’ll manage this side with just us two——”

“Please—” Taki nodded delightedly. He was absurdly pleased by N’s minor act of consideration. Leaning against a rock shaped like an armchair, he rested his wrist on his hip and tilted his gaze upward at the sky. Lying on “Bedrock,” he quietly watched the flowing water below. Crossing his arms, he leaned against “Monument.” Though normally oddly self-conscious about being photographed and scarcely ever posing alone facing forward, he now adopted countless unguarded stances—with the single-minded resolve of a martyr and a trailblazer’s pride—as if compelled by some invisible fervor. He even asked them to photograph his retreating figure as he walked upstream alone—had them preserve such scenes.

“Once in a while, how about striking a slightly softer pose?”

“Wouldn’t a slight smile look more natural?”

“This is making me uncomfortable! I’ve never had someone so stiff as a model before—it’s dreadful! If I botch it, I’ll feel awful.”

“Can you develop film in the mountains?” Taki asked uneasily.

“As if that’s possible!”

“……”
Taki felt his mind and spirit grow even more taut with earnestness.
“I don’t want you to feel contempt—I’d rather rely on the confident one among you two.”

“Yes, that’s fine.”
Both nodded simultaneously.

“It must look awkward—but that’s my own self-indulgence…”

“You’re completely ignoring us!”
“That’s fine—so—”

“For me…at each place, after long deliberation in turn—my thoughts have naturally shifted.”
“For me…it’s a sacred memento……”

“I thought he used to have more of a poet’s quality about him before…” — “Somehow he resembles a teacher now.”
N and Tsuruko whispered to each other.

When they arrived at the upstream field, five or six mountain children were gathered and sledding down a grassy hill.
N and Tsuruko joined their group and ran up to the summit.
By now, no children regarded N as a novelty anymore.
Up close one wouldn’t particularly notice, but when Taki observed Tsuruko and N from a slight distance—both wearing persimmon-colored fitted jackets over sweaters—their small statures made them indistinguishable from the boys rolling about on the grass.

He thought about the photographs and envisioned how mountain life would continue with their presence added to it, yet as he blessed his own healthy, contemplative existence—untouched by any affliction of the heart—he gazed dreamily at the faintly chilly late spring sky.

“Grandpa, let me ride the horse!”
Tsuruko noticed the mountain guard—now quite familiar—leading an unburdened horse and came running down the hill with N.
“Since Ms. N will let me ride, it’s fine—I could handle one more person too, but—”

“I’m hungry—let’s head back soon,” said N.
The morning dew evidently hadn’t yet dried completely, leaving both N and Tsuruko with dirt smeared across their cheeks.
Wiping their soiled hands on grass blades and brushing off their jacket fronts, the two borrowed a horse and set off back.

“Then I won’t be returning, so bring me something to eat when you come again—”

“You’ll come again?”

“But if you don’t come to return the horse—”

Since he too was returning for noon and there was no issue, the good-natured mountain guard showed kindness.
The mountain people had no young person who didn’t drink sake—why did he hardly drink at all despite his youth?
Since tomorrow was another festival day for the mountain god—the mountain guard entreated everyone to drink together that evening and wished to hear city songs—Taki followed them down while receiving these requests. ……When you grasped an overturned teacup in both hands and thump-thumped the floor matting in time with hoofbeats to lead the song, everyone joined in unison—some clapping palms, others leisurely mimicking horse-chasing gestures—Taki even said he wanted to learn that too.

III

From the cabin to Vista Pass—over half a ri away—they were escorted by two sled drivers and N’s cook.
The elderly mountain guard said he would escort them to U Village.

When viewed from “Vista Pass,” the great mountain range along the border lay folded like purple clouds.
The plain still lay hazy like a sea, but during a brief rest, a brilliant morning sun suddenly flooded forth, causing the forms of trees to float like seaweed and the smoke rising from village houses to become distinctly discernible.

“This’ll make for fine weather today.”

“When we reach town, summer might’ve already come.”

Someone said such a thing.

“Well, here we—”

“I’ll take my leave now—”
“This farewell scene looks like something straight out of a story...”
Looking back at the sled drivers and cook watching from beside the pine tree at the pass, Tsuruko and N waved handkerchiefs and called out cheerfully.
They had to hurry on their way.
They had to worry about failing to reach S City by dusk.

“If we had been a bit earlier, we might have been able to witness the sunrise here—” said the mountain guard, who was leading the way and urging the horse forward.

“Next time, we’ll leave the cabin much earlier and see the sunrise there—”
Tsuruko said.

“If you come to the pass and check the sky’s mood, you’ll generally know whether it’ll be clear or rainy that day. Even normally, when needed, I ride my horse here at this morning hour to watch the clouds—and I’m rarely wrong—” the mountain guard added.
Taki occasionally interpreted his dialect for N and Tsuruko too.

Until a few days prior, Taki had remained oblivious—despite over two weeks having passed since N and Tsuruko came to the mountain, they still hadn’t bathed even once.
He only became aware of it when N hinted at the matter indirectly.

“It’s not exactly what I’d call a hardship—” said N.
“Since we’ve decided to stay here longer, we’d like to do a bit of shopping while going to the hotel in S City.”

In the mountains, there was nothing but the bath by the river’s edge—without even an enclosure—where Taki bathed every evening.
Each day he engaged in laborious work—getting covered in mud, showered in sawdust, slipping on rocky paths—and rested his body in this bath.
Though not to his extent, they too kept their shoes on except when sleeping; returning from gathering herbs, they would finish boisterous meals by the hearth, shed only their mud-caked jackets, and often sleep wrapped in blankets on hammocks as they were.
The wild greens they picked were served on the dining table in place of vegetables.
He had grown accustomed to such things, but when it came to bathing at night while holding up a lantern, N and the others simply couldn’t bring themselves to do it.
They had grown accustomed to often not washing their faces in the morning.
They had grown accustomed to not combing their hair; the river water did not dissolve soap well.

N declared that unless they went to the hotel she knew on the coast of S City and took a proper bath, they could not be satisfied.
When told this, Taki now noticed their darkened skin—it was a time when work had suddenly grown busy, and there was no one else but him available to accompany them down the mountain.
Even kitchen hands had become insufficient, and N’s cook had long since been put in charge of all cooking while managing food supplies.
N and Tsuruko sometimes prepared camp meals themselves, but usually everyone ended up gathering together and were actually more satisfied that way.

Kurataya in U Village (a sundry goods dealer handling daily necessities transported to the mountains) was where people would leave items when traveling to and from the mountains, and where they would change clothes when heading to town—such was the practice. Taki and the others left their unnecessary mountain luggage at Kurataya and at Nishida, the small inn that was the carriage terminus in K Town. If there was shopping to do, they had to come all the way to K Town. K Town was a small city? (Taki had once taken Tsuruko and the others sightseeing in K Town, where they bought pictorials and magazines, got haircuts, and ate sushi.) —We must reach Kurataya by nine o'clock— Taki thought.

“On that recent Mountain God’s Eve, the mountain folks descended on U Village near midnight and ended up drinking till morning at Kurataya—which sells sake. If we go there today, we’ll have to apologize to the old man,” the mountain guard laughed.

“In this mountain wilderness?”
Taki looked up at the sky—or rather gazed up at the treetops of a towering giant tree.
They walked in single file along the mountain path.
N and Tsuruko, amused by the echoes, let out frantic shrieks.

The stretch from U Village to the carriage road was flat terrain, but they had to skirt halfway around a small, nearly unknown lake to reach the opposite side.
They had the carriage stopped at a bush-shaded corner that wasn’t a designated stop.
They decided to leave the horses they had ridden at Kurataya and have them accompanied back by the second group of horses heading to the mountains.
The mountain guard, who had been supposed to return there, said he would secure Taki and the others’ light climbing bags to the horse and escort them to the opposite side of the lake.
Tsuruko and N removed the cold-weather gear they had worn up to that point—woolen scarves around their necks, headcloths covering down to their ears, and jackets serving as coats—which they had layered on extra due to the early morning chill, and changed into lighter clothing.
Tsuruko changed into riding breeches—thick white-and-black plaid trousers as heavy as blankets—while N put on similarly textured, subdued russet trousers fastened with a wide leather belt over them, and tied a burgundy necktie.
Each carrying a walking stick, they set out.

Perhaps because it ran along the lake’s edge, the narrow path—overgrown with reeds and curved like a bow—was one they proceeded along in single file as before.

“I’m sweating just from walking this much!”

“True—we’re moving rather fast—”

“The weather’s unseasonably warm.”

“Goodness! My hands have turned this dark!”
“My face—isn’t it completely black?”
Tsuruko showed her palm to N.
“Not that it matters—it’s not like we’ll meet anyone anyway...”

“When we came, someone had gone to meet us at the carriage, hadn’t they?”

“Yes—”
“Even though there was someone holding the reins in front back then, I was so frightened...”
“Ms. N was so accustomed to it all, she even laughed at me... right, Ms. N?...”

“There’s not a breath of wind,” N muttered, gazing out over the lake.
Taki wondered—should this be called a lake, or rather a marsh?
Such thoughts he would ponder every time he passed through that spot, as he always did.

“How about taking turns riding one by one?”
The mountain guard leading the horse suggested this to Tsuruko and N, but they said they preferred to walk.
They sat down on the grass in the shade of thickets and waited for the carriage.
Upon reaching this area, they saw blue vegetable fields for the first time.

Taki attached the heavier bag to his back,

“Since there seems to be time, shall we go as far as H Village? There’s a proper carriage station there where it stops for about twenty minutes.”

It was only five or six chō to H Village.
And they, having further agreed with the mountain guard on the approximate time of their return day, parted ways.

N and Tsuruko threaded their bags onto sticks and went off carrying the load with the front and back swaying.

“Since we’re following the railway tracks, we’ll be fine,” said Tsuruko.

“The carriages here stop anywhere for people,” Taki replied.

From H Village’s station to G Pass lay a large basin at the mountaintop, but being an upward slope, the carriage changed horses at this station.

They washed their faces at the spring water before the station.
As they took too long with their ablutions, Taki too set down his bag, rinsing his mouth and wiping sweat.
They were meticulous—he, who had never seen them perform such toilette before, found their mannerisms peculiarly novel.
They mentioned having been inconvenienced by lacking makeup tools unless going all the way to K Town.
To Taki, their sudden reference to cosmetics rang jarringly abrupt.

He began to feel with increasing clarity that things had become troublesome.
They had said they were fond of mountain life and wanted to spend the entire summer there, but when he thought this laborious trek to the bath would likely be repeated several times during that period, he found himself envisioning a dispassionate nuisance.
……Yet no sooner had this thought formed than he suddenly became aware of an oddly faintly sweet languor—something he had never noticed before—intertwined with a torment akin to being brushed at the chest by gaudy wings, and he felt a slight ecstasy.

This!
He shook his head in secret dismay.
Flustered, he averted his eyes to the lake spread out below.
The lake shone white across its entire surface, dazzling.

The carriage had only seats that barely allowed three people to sit.
He was standing with both hands supporting the carriage ceiling, but when N urged him to sit, he squeezed in next to her though he had to keep his body angled.

“I hope we reach K Town soon...”

“I’m still hot like this.”

“The kimonos have surely been delivered to K Town, right?”

“Of course—I can’t help feeling awkward walking through town in this excursion gear!”

“……I’m worried it’s going to get hot,” N laughed.
N and Tsuruko stuck their faces out the window and whispered such things to each other in hushed voices.
Even their manner of speech felt somehow different from that of the women he’d grown familiar with in the mountains.
Perhaps because they were in the carriage... Taki found himself ensnared in such delusions.
Evidently finding it quite cramped, N squirmed from time to time, forcing a faint smile as she glanced back at Taki, who was resting his cheek on his cane with his head bowed.
He felt N’s unnervingly white face right before his nose.
He felt a suffocating tightness in his chest, as if choking on the scent of dry grass.
He tried labeling his state of mind in such terms—the gnawing regret, shallow revulsion, timidity, guilt, and unhealthy throb of a pulse reminiscent of mornings after two or three drinking bouts when one suffers a hangover.
And he felt a gap that seemed to deepen moment by moment between himself and them—yet his solitary self appeared foolishly forlorn.

The driver cracked the whip.
The sound of the horse’s hooves clattered chaotically, like the noise of beating a barrel as they gasped madly.
He felt it directly in his head and flinched.

“Let’s get off. Walking might be faster.”
Taki managed to toss out those words with forced casualness before hastily leaping down from the carriage box.

It proved no quicker, but made little difference—he walked beside the carriage, cane dragging through dirt.
The air felt bracingly fresh.
Must’ve been motion sickness—he told himself.
The lake had vanished from view.
Before them stretched a desolate plain devoid of trees.
Along the path wedged between wave-like undulating hills, the carriage creaked forward with weary persistence.
Passengers reached from windows to pluck wildflowers from sunbaked embankments.

N and Tsuruko also got down from the carriage and formed a line with him as they walked.
He spoke about the horse ahead in an extremely preachy tone.
"But even with three of us getting off, the carriage isn't any faster," said Tsuruko, at which he twisted his lips into a bitter expression,

“At least mentally, this way feels somewhat better...” he muttered.

N spread out a map produced by the General Staff Office, consulting with Taki and Tsuruko while making marks with a red pencil.

When they arrived at G Pass, the carriage took a long rest.
In front of the resting teahouse, a red flag fluttered atop a long pole.

In the far distance below, what appeared to be the edge of K Town could just barely be glimpsed when eyes were strained to look.
From here to K Town stretched a red earth-colored slope—over two ri of the great mountain's smoothly steep incline.
The spiraling carriage road wound in a single clear line along the mountainside.

From this spot to K Town, ascending required being jostled in the horse-drawn carriage for nearly four hours (it was said that walking took just over two hours), while descending truly took on an unstoppable momentum—one could reach it in thirty minutes flat.
The carriage slid swiftly down like a water chute, propelled solely by its own weight.
To prevent excessive sliding, the horse was rehitched behind the carriage body to serve as a brake.

The driver threw the whip under the seat and kept blaring the horn.
Taki, even here, found it unbearable to think of the horse behind them—dragged by the tied rope against its will and forced to gallop like a racehorse merely to keep pace—but this time, he couldn't get off.
Even if one were only halfway down the carriage road, if they were to dismount and try to sprint downhill without falling behind this carriage, how fast would that person have to keep running?—He thought of such things.

They were entranced by the carriage’s artlessly tremendous speed and clutched their chests. They clenched their sweaty hands, huddling like baby birds, and laughed. They noisily clattered the tips of their shoes, causing trouble for their fellow passengers. The carriage was akin to a marble from a toy marble run tumbling down a spiral wire path.

In the blink of an eye, the horizon beyond the window vanished like a curtain from their view; they reached a small forest, glimpsed a shrine, and wheat fields and farmhouses suddenly appeared before their eyes—the carriage’s pace steadied, they were nearing K Town now. Once the horse was rehitched to the front, the carriage now strode along the completely flat road like a warrior who had passed the decisive point, advancing with leisurely grandeur. It crossed the bridge and advanced along the embankment.

When they got off the carriage at the terminal on K Town’s outskirts, they boarded a shared bus and were taken to Nishida before the station.
When Taki looked at his watch, it was past four o’clock.

“We made it right on schedule.”
“This way we’ll catch the four-thirty train.”

After being led to the second-floor tatami room, when Taki said this, N and Tsuruko only exchanged looks without replying.

“Would forty minutes make us late?”

“No,” Tsuruko denied with widened eyes.
When he calmly pressed further, they explained that neither forty minutes nor an hour would suffice for their preparations—since they could have the inn call ahead to the hotel, arriving late at night wouldn’t pose any problem—or so they claimed.

And they got up and went to another room to change their clothes.
Taki also had the trunk he had left in storage brought over and changed his clothes there alone.
When he asked the inn staff, they said it would probably be fine to wear either a seru or awase kimono now.
No such kimono had arrived for him.
There was nothing but the winter indigo-patterned kimono he used for changing when occasionally coming to this town.
He was slightly troubled, but as there was nothing to be done, he had the maid buy a thin shirt, removed his undergarments and undershirt, and put it on.

He was eagerly waiting, so using a zabuton cushion as a pillow, he lay down—and drowsiness crept over him.

IV

When Taki was shaken awake and abruptly opened his eyes, he nearly let out an involuntary, shrill cry.
The figures of Tsuruko and N before his eyes shone with a brilliance as if in a true dream.

“…………”

Had Tsuruko’s height suddenly increased?
He wondered.
Hair styled with a curling iron, a face meticulously made up, a kimono with gaudy patterns—and he had never seen Tsuruko wearing such a rigidly structured obi before.
N leaned against the veranda’s rattan chair, wearing a distinctly ladylike smile.
Taki saw a pure white necklace lying cold against her exposed chest.
N’s brushed eyelashes appeared to glisten with a moist sheen.

“There’s still time, isn’t there?”
Tsuruko, standing beside N, checked the watch nestled in her obi with a gloved hand.

Even after the dreamlike atmosphere had faded, Taki could no longer reconcile these figures with those he’d grown close to in the mountains—or even with the women he’d known before retreating there.
It felt surreal that until just yesterday, they’d nonchalantly taken his hand or tugged his hair.

“I thought it odd for a school break—come to think of it, you’d already graduated last year, hadn’t you?”
Having finally regained his composure, he remarked as if realizing it anew.

“What are you talking about, out of the blue! I’m not some dropout like you.”
Tsuruko made a gesture as if pressing the back of her hand against her lips and laughed with a “Hohohohoho.”

“Because my father’s letter said ‘Student,’ I—”

“We are indeed Students,” Tsuruko exclaimed crisply in an oddly flippant tone.
And as if sensing Taki’s intense stare,

“I don’t know, right, Ms. N?” With that dismissive remark, Tsuruko leaned against the back of N’s chair—N herself was absorbed in gazing into her hand mirror, oblivious to her surroundings—and peered into it as well.

“When we arrive at S, we’ll be walking all the way to that seaside hotel on the outskirts of town, won’t we.”
“That town’s utterly contrived, isn’t it.”
“If that’s your style, then walking through that town should suit you just fine.”
Taki said with a touch of sarcasm.
Then N started walking!
Upon hearing this, she turned around as if startled,

“There should be a rickshaw or automobile, shouldn’t there?” she said.
She had meant to assert that there was one, but in her haste, she misspoke.
And, opening the lid of the cardboard box at her feet, she showed her new green-lacquered shoes.

When they stepped out to the entranceway, Tsuruko too held a parasol sent from a Tokyo department store and wore new felt sandals.

Even after boarding the train, Taki alone remained mostly silent.
He could not feel anywhere in his heart the rejuvenating energy he had possessed while in the mountains.
His grand declarations about “resolve to seclude himself” or “determination to confront solitude”—those heroic aspirations he had nurtured as if becoming some philosopher—when examined at their core, amounted to nothing more than the shallow, utterly commonplace reaction of a foolish youth who had accidentally stumbled into playing the pseudo-intellectual or embracing pessimistic philosophies: a variety of “Girl-shy” affectation. When he considered how such meager explanations could dismiss that version of himself in a single phrase—no matter how others might cheer from the sidelines with “Surely not—” or “I don’t think I’m that foolish”—he found himself drenched in unbearable cold sweat. Yet even so, he had nowhere left to anchor his mind.

That was it! To settle on that conclusion merely made my own appearance feel awkward—unaccompanied by any profound sorrow—but the immediate emptiness closing in on my heart was terrifying. He could not even imagine his own future life in the mountains intertwined with theirs. Solitude had become something he was already sick of contemplating. On the day they left the mountain—I too will have to abandon this place—that was what he resolved. He grieved at his own muddled self who could never answer if asked whether he preferred N or Tsuruko. In the end，he found himself vividly conjuring such an outlandish fantasy—that were any sort of woman to show me even a shred of special favor，I would undoubtedly fall passionately in love with her.

“Will it be all right even at night?”

“Oh, even at midnight—I know!”

The words they were whispering about the bath struck Taki’s heart with disturbing clarity.

Upon arriving in S City, when they were about to get into a rickshaw (since Taki had said he disliked automobiles—), N
"Oh!" she exclaimed, tapping his back.
"I'm sorry.
I've forgotten the philosopher's helm from the mountain."

“Oh, I didn’t notice either.”

“The nerve!” Taki retorted.
The moment he heard it, he was about to kiss—but then, at being called “philosopher” by N, he was overcome with inexplicable shame and resentment, his face flushing red.
“Cheat!”
“No—you don’t have to pretend to be surprised. I can’t stand the sight of that thing anyway.”

“Why?”

“…”

“Oh, what about your hat?”

Tsuruko pointed at his head.
He realized with a start that he had left it on the train, but feeling anxious that if he carelessly said something he might blurt out some absurd words, he tried to remain composed,
“After all, one can’t possibly walk around wearing such a winter hat here—I came intending to buy a straw hat and deliberately left it behind.
Wait here just a moment—I’ll go buy one right now.” No sooner had he hastily finished speaking than he strode across the square.
(February 1927)