Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

In Ota Shokusanjin’s *Jinshu Travelogue*, he describes the scene of Narai Post Town along the Kiso Highway thus: “When one gazes out from Narai Station, plum blossoms, cherry blossoms, equinox cherry blossoms, and Japanese plum flowers intermingle their branches, evoking the very heart of spring.” Many peddlers of small wares crowded the station pavilion. “Trays, bowls, lunchboxes, cups, bentwood vessels—all were crafted in this area. The station building was also bustling.” ...and so on. Even without further tedious explanation from me, the image of the Kiso Road during the Edo period can likely be imagined.

Shokusanjin had passed through there on the first day of the fourth month in Kyōwa 2, but I would ask you to bear in mind that this story begins on the twenty-seventh day of the third month in the following year.
That year, the snows of Shinshu had thawed earlier than usual, and by the close of the third lunar month, the Kiso Road stood fully steeped in spring's essence.

Buffeted by the spring breeze, three travelers bound for Edo had now descended Toriitoge Pass and were resting at Sangenya Teahouse.
They were Shichibē Omiya, a pawnbroker from Shitaya Shinobichō in Edo; his nephew Umekichirō; and their clerk Gisuke.

“You must be from Edo,” said the old woman at Sangenya Teahouse while serving tea.

“Yes. From Edo,” answered Shichibē.
“Ever since I was young, I had wanted to make a pilgrimage to Ise Grand Shrine at least once, and this spring at long last, I was able to fulfill that wish.”

“That was a good deed you’ve done,” said the old woman with a nod.
“Did you happen to visit anywhere else while on your pilgrimage?”

“As you’ve surmised, on our return trip we visited Nara, Kyoto, and Osaka.”
“Since such a long journey rarely comes one’s way, we decided to take the Tōkaidō on our return and then loop through the Nakasendō, thus safely making it back here.”

“Well then, you must have gathered many tales to bring back to your inn.”

“Neither catching colds nor suffering from waterborne illnesses—visiting famous sites and eating local delicacies—that we’ve returned like this is entirely thanks to Ise Grand Shrine’s grace.”

Having fulfilled his years-long wish and continuing on his pleasant journey, Shichibē gazed at the spring scenery with a radiantly carefree expression as he sipped warm tea—when a man emerged from behind the great mountain cherry tree before the shop, having apparently waited for the conversation between the old woman and guests to lapse.
He appeared around sixty years old—a hulking man clearly raised in mountain country—clutching two or three pelts beneath his arm.

“Excuse me, gentlemen of Edo. Would you care to buy a bear pelt?” he said in a gentle voice that belied his appearance.

Selling bear pelts and bear gallbladders was a common practice along the Kiso Road in those days, and since this group had been frequently pestered by this pelt seller even on their way here, Gisuke, the clerk, brusquely refused with a look that said, "Not again."

“Nah—we don’t need bear pelts or any of that! Back in Edo, we’re using tiger pelts for our loincloths.”

“Haha, it’s not like you’re an ogre…” the man laughed. “Please don’t joke like that—buy one as a keepsake. As it warms up, pelts won’t sell anymore. I’ll sell them cheap while I can.”

“Whether it’s cheap or expensive, we refuse,” interjected Umekichirō.
“We’re townspeople.”
“We couldn’t even sit on a bear pelt mat.”
“You should save those for when you meet samurai.”

Though uniformly rebuffed with brusque refusals, the man—apparently accustomed to such rejections—continued smirking nonetheless.

“Well then,”
“if you’ve no use for bear pelts, please buy bear gallbladders.”
“They’re medicine—useful to anyone.”
“Won’t burden your travels.”
“Do purchase them.”

“If you carelessly buy bear gallbladders during your travels, you’ll end up with counterfeits.”
“And such things—I’ll pass,” Gisuke refused again.

“I’m not the sort to sell counterfeits.”
“The old woman here can vouch for that.”
“Here, take a look.”

The man looked back, and from the shadow of the cherry blossoms emerged another person.
She was a fair-skinned girl of about seventeen or eighteen, holding something like a small box in her hands.
Her attire was undeniably crude, but whether in her features or her figure, she seemed so incongruous as a companion to this old pelt seller that the three men’s eyes all turned toward her at once.

“When it comes to handling Edo’s esteemed customers, you seem better suited than I,” the man laughed.

“Go ahead and make your request properly.”

The girl stepped forward, laughing shyly.

“As we have just stated, we are not the sort to sell counterfeits or such things.”
“If we were to do such a thing, we would be arrested at the Fukushima Magistrate’s Office.”
“Please rest assured and make your purchase.”

Both Umekichirō and Gisuke were young men.
Faced with the fair-skinned young woman who had suddenly appeared before them, they could no longer maintain their previous brusque manner.

"Since you say so, Miss, it’s probably not fake—but we were already made to buy bear gallbladders at the previous inn," said Gisuke.

This was the same clichéd lie heard from every customer.
Given that they conducted business along this route, it went without saying that such a feeble excuse wouldn’t make them retreat meekly.
The girl pushed back and pressed them to buy.
Umekichirō and Gisuke made noncommittal remarks that neither accepted nor refused, teasing the girl all the while.

Umekichirō, twenty-one this year, was by nature a quiet and earnest man, but during their long journey he had grown familiar with inn maids and teahouse women, until recently he had begun teasing young women with a joke or two.
Gisuke was two years his senior at twenty-three.

Shichibē had been silently listening until now, but his complexion gradually tensed, and his lips—though still holding a faint smile—tightened firmly.
He stared fixedly at the pale face of the girl peddling bear gallbladders, oblivious to the dying ember in his pipe, until suddenly he called out to her.

“Excuse me, old man. Is that child your daughter, or your granddaughter?”

“No…” The pelt seller answered evasively.

“Isn’t she your relative?” Shichibē asked again.

“Yes.”

Shichibē silently beckoned the girl, and she hesitantly approached the camp stool where he was seated.
He remained silent, his gaze fixed on the single mole beneath her right ear, and asked again in a probing tone.

“You don’t have a small blue birthmark on your left upper arm, do you?”

The girl looked up at his face as though taken aback by the unexpected question.

“Do you have it?” Shichibē pressed slightly.

“Yes,” she answered softly.

“We can’t talk here in front of the shop,” said Shichibē as he stood up. “Come to the back for a moment. Old man, you come along too.”

The situation appeared unusual, so the man and the girl hesitated once more, but urged on by Shichibē, they followed uneasily. The girl staggered and collided with a shop pillar.

“What could have happened to Master?” Gisuke murmured uneasily as he watched the figures of the three retreating.

“Who knows…”

Umekichirō had also been pondering with a look of bewilderment, but when he suddenly seemed to recall something and whispered, Gisuke likewise widened his eyes in surprise. The two remained silent for a while, exchanging glances; then Gisuke asked the teahouse old woman in a low voice.

“What’s that pelt-selling old man’s name?”

“He is a man living on the outskirts of Narai Post Town, named Ihei.”

“And the girl’s name?”

“Her name is Oito.”

Upon further inquiry, it became clear that Oito was neither Ihei’s daughter nor granddaughter. One chilly evening last autumn when the cold was setting in, a young girl had stood at Ihei’s gate, showered by falling leaves, and begged him to let her stay the night.
He found it troublesome to shelter a woman traveling alone, but her helpless appearance also stirred his pity. After reporting to the local lodging officials, Ihei allowed the girl to stay for one night—only to be struck by a sudden fever that very night.

Ihei was a bachelor whose illness—a cold that had taken a turn for the worse—was fortunately tended to by the girl who happened to be staying with him.
Unable to abandon a sick man living alone, the girl remained the next day to nurse him, though Ihei proved slow to regain his health.
Three days passed, then five days went by, and by the time Ihei had fully recovered his strength, a little over half a month had slipped away.
During that period, the girl worked so diligently she might have been family, leaving Ihei deeply grateful.
She earned praise from the neighbors as well.

The girl was born in Edo but moved to Kyoto at age seven, after which she wandered through various provinces. Having been abused by her stepmother and endured unspeakable hardships, she now lived half like a beggar and was traveling to seek relatives in Edo. However, having long lost contact with them, she said she did not know where those relatives now resided.

“Given such circumstances, rather than going to Edo without purpose, why not settle here instead?” said Ihei.
The neighbors also encouraged her.
The girl replied that she would be happy if they allowed her to do so.
Since then, the girl called Oito had entered Ihei’s house neither as an adopted daughter nor as a servant—without any particular designation for the time being—and by now had even come to assist with the business.
Oito was fair-skinned and not unattractive in appearance.
Precisely because she had endured hardships since childhood, her social interactions were not lacking.
All these things considered, the neighborhood spoke well of her, and it was rumored that Mr. Ihei had found himself a good girl.

While they were being told this story by the old woman, Shichibē and the other two emerged from the back.
Shichibē’s face shone with irrepressible joy.

II

It was only natural for Shichibē Omiya to rejoice.
He discovered by chance in this Narai Post Town along the Kiso Highway a jewel he had once lost from his grasp.

Shichibē Omiya operated a pawnshop in Yotsuya Shinobi-chō that had been passed down for five generations. His household consisted of eleven members: his wife Okore; head clerk Shōemon; three clerks; two apprentices; two maids; and one assistant worker. They conducted steady business primarily serving nearby hatamoto and gokenin samurai.
He owned land and houses besides, was counted among the well-to-do of his neighborhood, and lacked for nothing in life—save for one deficiency, or rather, one great sorrow: the unresolved matter of his daughter Ogen’s disappearance.

Eleven years prior, in the late spring of the fourth year of Kansei, his seven-year-old only daughter Ogen had suddenly vanished without a trace.
At first, they assumed she had gone out to play and paid it no mind, but when she failed to return by dinnertime and was nowhere to be found even in the neighborhood, the household erupted into panic.
Shichibē and his wife, acting like madmen, had people search in every direction, but Ogen’s whereabouts were never discovered.

In this era, people believed in spirit abductions.
Kidnappings too were frequently committed.
As Ogen had been a fair-complexioned girl, many speculated she might have been snatched away by evildoers.
In any case, the grief of Shichibē and his wife over losing their only daughter needs no elaboration here.
Okore had taken to her bed with a lingering illness for some three months afterward.
Shichibē too spared no expense, deploying every means at his disposal to trace his daughter's whereabouts, but the fledgling that had flown never returned to its cage.

As time went on—one year passing, then two—the Omiya couple had no choice but to resign themselves, however reluctantly, to their loss.
Nevertheless, clinging to the vain hope that she might return someday from somewhere, the Omiya household refrained from adopting an heir even after that.
If Ogen were safe, she would be welcoming her eighteenth spring this year.
Counting the years of her missing child, Okore shed tears from the very start of the New Year.

Shichibē’s current pilgrimage to Ise was for his forty-second-year misfortune purification, but as he took the opportunity to sightsee from Ise to Nara, Kyoto, and Osaka, it was not impossible that he might encounter his child during his travels.
Buoyed by that faint hope, he had pressed on through the long journey, yet at every stop along the way, he heard no news that might lead to her. The thread of his hope gradually frayed until mere days remained before his scheduled return to Edo.
On that very Kiso Highway, he had unexpectedly encountered a girl selling bear gallbladders.
They had been separated when she was seven, but traces of her childish face remained.
Her age also matched perfectly.
When he looked carefully, there was a telltale mole under her right ear.
Upon further investigation just to be certain, there was said to be a blue birthmark on her left upper arm.
There was no longer any need for doubt—this girl was his child, Shichibē thought.
He shed tears of joy.

The honest Ihei was astonished by the unexpected parent-child reunion and handed her over without objection to her real father; thus, Shichibē gave him a substantial reward and parted ways.
It remained unclear who had given her the name Oito, but the girl reverted to her former identity as Ogen and left Narai Post Town with the father she had reunited with eleven years after their separation.
Both nephew Umekichirō and clerk Gisuke followed along with joyful eagerness, astonished by the miraculous reunion.

When the Omiya household saw that this group—which had departed Edo as three men—now returned with a young woman added to their number, there was an uproar as though the house had been turned upside down.
Both the wife and the head clerk wept tears of joy.
From the Omiya household came a report to the town officials, and Ogen once again became this house’s daughter.

If this story could have ended here, the author would have happily laid down his pen; but the facts would not permit it, dragging him instead into darker territory.

When word spread of Ogen’s safe return, all her relatives joyfully rushed over.
The townspeople also came to celebrate.
Caught up in that joy and busyness—spending days as if in a dream—April passed and May soon reached its midpoint.
By now, the household had settled down enough for them to notice each day’s unceasing monsoon rains.
At dusk on that late May day—seizing her chance while Ogen visited the neighborhood bathhouse with Okuni—Okore whispered to her husband.

“Have you noticed anything about Ogen?”

“Noticed something… What kind of thing?” Shichibē asked, slightly knitting his brows. His wife’s tone had sounded as though there were something more to it.

“Actually, Okuni has started saying something strange…” Okore whispered again.
“She says there’s a mouse attached to Ogen.”

“Why would she say such a thing?”

“According to Okuni, there’s a small mouse near Ogen.”
“It isn’t always visible, but you can sometimes catch sight of it.”
“When Ogen walks along the veranda or such places, it scurries after her from behind…”

“Really?” Shichibē smiled as though he didn’t believe it.

“It seems to be entirely true…”
“I don’t think Okuni would fabricate such nonsense…”

“That may be true, but…”
“Young women do come out with the most preposterous things.”
“If there really were such a mouse attached to her, then besides Okuni, surely someone else would have seen it by now…”

Even setting aside themselves as husband and wife, there were head clerks, clerks, apprentices, and maids.
The fact that Okuni alone knew a secret unknown to any of them was suspicious.
Shichibē told her to discreetly investigate the servants.
However, because she had been wandering other provinces for many years, people were apt to spread trivial rumors.
They must not do anything careless that would blemish the precious daughter.
“You too must investigate discreetly with that intention,” he instructed his wife.

Three or four days after that, his nephew Umekichirō came to visit.
Umekichirō was the second son of Shichibē’s elder sister and had opened a pawnshop called Echizen-ya in Yotsuya Sakamachi as well.
In the event that Ogen’s whereabouts remained forever unknown, Shichibē and his wife had privately discussed the possibility of adopting Umekichirō.
When Ogen was discovered this time, that discussion was finally realized, and it was decided to take Umekichirō as Ogen’s husband.
Of course, this was merely a private discussion between Shichibē and his wife; they had not yet disclosed it to anyone. But since Okore harbored this underlying intention, she warmly welcomed her nephew who had come to visit that day.

Umekichirō was shown to the inner room and, while gazing at the young leaves in the garden, spoke.

“It really is pouring.”
“Uncle is…”

“Uncle went on business to the Shinjuku estate…”

“Ogen…”

“She took Okuni to Akasaka—” Okore began, then lowered her voice.
“Hey, Ume.”
“There’s something I want to ask you…”
“On your way back from the Kiso Highway with Ogen—did anything unusual happen?”

“No.”

At that, the conversation paused briefly, but soon Umekichirō probingly asked in return.

“Aunt, did you see something?”

Okore was startled.
Still, he answered with feigned innocence.

“No.”

The conversation lapsed into silence.
The sound of rain pelting the young leaves in the garden ceased abruptly.
At that moment, Umekichirō saw something and called out to Okore in an urgent whisper.

“Aunt.”
“Oh—that…”

On the veranda he pointed to, a small gray mouse was darting about as if lost, but suddenly leapt into the garden and vanished from sight.
The aunt and nephew watched, holding their breath.

What the aunt had been trying to say, what the nephew had been trying to say—it all seemed explained by this single mouse.
After a while, both let out a deep sigh.
Okore’s face was pale.

“Who told you about such a thing…?” he asked, edging closer.

“Actually… Miss Okuni…” Umekichirō stammered in reply.

Despite having strictly enjoined silence, it seemed Okuni had leaked the mouse incident to Umekichirō as well. Okore was less angered by the gossip than shocked that the report held truth. Depending on how one considered it, a mouse climbing onto the veranda wasn’t particularly unusual. It would emerge from beneath the veranda, leap up onto the boards, then retreat back underneath. That might be ordinary behavior for a mouse. To connect it to Ogen might be a mistake. Yet in this instance, both Okore and Umekichirō couldn’t help sensing some significance in that mouse.

“So there was truly nothing unusual at all on your way back to Edo?” Okore pressed again.

“There was absolutely nothing unusual.” “Just…,” said Umekichirō hesitantly. “It seems she was quite close with that Gisuke…”

“Oh my.”

Okore let out another sigh in dismay.
As if mocking them, somewhere the dry, rasping croak of a tree frog could be heard.

Three

Needless to say, today’s mouse incident was reported by Okore to her husband.
Moreover, Shichibē remained half-convinced and half-skeptical.
Shichibē—the household head in his prime of discretion—could not bring himself to wholeheartedly believe such a ghost story based solely on that single incident.

Since then, Okore had naturally kept close watch on Ogen’s movements and even secretly instructed Okuni to maintain constant surveillance, but no particularly suspicious rumors seemed to have spread among the shop’s clerks and maids.

“There’s no sign she’s been getting friendly with Gisuke either,” said Okuni.

For Shichibē, this posed a greater dilemma.
Just as he had been considering taking Umekichirō as his son-in-law, should his daughter form any kind of relationship with a shop employee, the complications would be painfully obvious.
Yet without definitive proof, he couldn’t simply dismiss a servant who had served without incident for years—especially Gisuke, who had recently accompanied him on that lengthy journey. He could only keep watching them in wordless vigilance.

Having retrieved his lost daughter, the Omiya household—which had briefly brightened—now found a dark shadow once again falling over it, and the master and his wife increasingly held whispered conversations in private.
The rainy season that year dragged on without end, and even as June began, the relentless daily dampness further darkened the hearts of the Omiya couple.

It was a certain night in early June.

When Okore, who had been sleeping in the eight-mat room at the back, suddenly awoke, she felt something moving near the collar of her futon.
Since the night lamp by her pillow had gone out, she couldn’t see the creature’s form, but Okore realized instantly.

“Ah, a mouse…”

When she held her breath and watched, it was indeed a small mouse, scurrying around from the collar to the hem of Okore’s futon.
Okore, startled, sat up slightly and grabbed the sleeve of Shichibē’s futon in the neighboring bed, then woke him in a low voice.

“Husband…”
“Please wake up.”

Sharp-eyed Shichibē immediately awoke.

“What? What is it?”

“That… the mouse….”

As she spoke, the mouse jumped down from Okore’s futon and darted swiftly beyond the mosquito net.
Though it was dark, Shichibē discerned from the sound of footsteps across the tatami that it was likely a mouse.

“Husband.
“It’s definitely a mouse,” Okore whispered uneasily.

“Hmm.
“It does seem so.”

With that, the couple returned to their pillows, but before long Okore was shaking her husband awake again—this time because the mouse was darting across her face and over her head.
That this was no dream became clear when Shichibē himself heard the mouse’s skittering footsteps this time as well.
Since he could no longer ignore it, Shichibē sat up on the bedding and struck the flint by his pillow.
Within the mosquito net illuminated by the light of the ariake andon, no mouse-like figure could be found.
Just to be thorough, he shook out the futon cover and bedding, but the mischief-maker was nowhere to be found.

“Please leave the andon lamp lit.”

Okore, assailed by unspeakable terror, could not sleep a wink until daybreak.
Shichibē, too, due to this disturbance, could not sleep peacefully.

As the nights were short around this time, no sooner had the desolate shutters’ cracks begun to pale with dawn than someone crept on stealthy feet toward the veranda’s outer shoji.
Okore started and strained her ears when a voice called out softly from beyond.

“Mistress.
Are you awake?”

Since it was Okuni’s voice, Okore answered as if relieved. “Yes. I’m awake. Do you need something?”

“May I come in?”
“Come in.”

Having received permission, Okuni once again quietly slid open the shoji.
She crawled toward the mosquito net, still in her nightclothes.

“Mistress.”
“Would you please come here for a moment?”

“Where are you going?”

“To Miss Ogen’s room…”

Okore was startled again but, driven by curiosity nonetheless, slipped out of the mosquito net still in her nightclothes.
Ogen’s room was a four-and-a-half-mat space before the storehouse, with a north-facing one-ken-wide elbow-rest window.
Guided by morning light seeping through the window shutters, Okore peered through a narrow slit in the corridor’s shoji and saw Ogen lying asleep with her head to the east within a mosquito net that filled the room.
A single gray mouse crouched by her pillow as though guarding her dreams.

“Did you see it?” Okuni whispered in a low voice.

Okore could no longer respond.
Half in a daze, she grabbed Okuni’s hand and steadied her trembling legs as she returned to her eight-mat room—where Shichibē called out impatiently.

“Hey—what’s wrong?”

Upon hearing about the mouse, Shichibē sat up.
He too crept soundlessly to peer into Ogen’s bedding but found no mouse-like form by her pillow.
Though Okuni insisted she had seen it and Okore confirmed this with equal certainty, Shichibē remained unconvinced without witnessing it himself. He warned the women against raising undue alarm and sent Okuni back to her quarters.

The couple rose from bed at their usual hour and approached the breakfast tray with feigned nonchalance, but Okore’s face was pale.
Ogen also said she felt unwell that morning and barely touched her breakfast.
That her complexion was as pale as her mother’s caught Shichibē’s attention.

That day too was a dim one, with rain falling ceaselessly.
In the afternoon, Ogen dejectedly entered the tearoom and knelt with both hands pressed before her parents.

“I truly have no excuse.
I beg your forgiveness.”

Being abruptly apologized to, the couple found themselves at a loss, as if engulfed in smoke.
Even so, Shichibē asked quietly.

“There’s no excuse…”
“Did you do something wrong?”

“I am ashamed.”

“What do you mean by ‘I am ashamed’?”

“I… am not your family’s daughter,” Ogen said in a subdued voice.

The couple exchanged glances.

Above all, Shichibē was so shocked he doubted his own ears.

“You’re not the family’s daughter…”
“Why would you say such a thing?”

“I was born in Honjo, Edo, and from a young age traveled around local festivals and temple fairs with my parents.”
“Oito is indeed my real name.”
“In our troupe, there was also a snake handler.”
“There was also someone called Hen Girl who dealt with matters of karma.”
“I worked with mice.”
“In the play *Princess Yukihime of Kinkaku-ji*—we would imitate that drama—I would be dressed as the princess, tied to a cherry tree. When I scratched at the ground with my toes, swarms of mice would come streaming out and gnaw through my ropes.”
“If it were merely a play, that would be one thing—but since using mice was the highlight of our show, I made it my act to thrill the audience by having them climb onto my head, crawl into my collar, or leap into my bosom.”

The connection between Ogen and the mice had now been explained.
She continued speaking.

“While we were doing that, my parents grew tired of staying only in Edo, so they took us on a touring journey.”
“First we departed from Hachiōji to Kōfu, then traveled through Suwa, Matsumoto, Zenkōji, and Ueda. After that, we ventured into the northern provinces—circling from Echigo Road through Kanazawa and Toyama—before finally making our way to Gifu.”
“To put it briefly, that’s how it was—but during that time, nearly three years passed, and I endured various hardships on the road.”
“And then, when we arrived in Gifu at the beginning of last autumn, a terrible epidemic was raging there, and about half of our troupe perished one after another.”
“My parents also died on the same day.”
“With nothing left to be done, the remaining troupe members scattered in all directions. Among them was a wicked shamisen player named Osumi who seemed intent on deceiving me and selling me off somewhere. Realizing I’d be in grave danger if I stayed idle, I quietly fled with nothing but the clothes on my back.”
“Fearing pursuit if I took the Tōkaidō, I chose the Nakasendō instead. By the time I neared Kiso Road, my meager savings had vanished, leaving me with no choice but to beg—when luckily, Ihei-san’s household took me in. And so I ended up spending over half a year there without incident.”

Ogen was not a suspicious woman, but an unfortunate one.
Having been made to listen to that sorrowful tale of her circumstances, the timid Okore was brought to tears.

Four

What followed was Ogen’s confession.

“I have truly done something inexcusable.”
“On March 27th when I went to Sangenya Teahouse to help Ihei-san sell bear pelts and gallbladders,I encountered you.”
“At that time Master seemed intent as he stared at my face.Finding it strange,I was thinking this when he soon called me aside and asked,‘Do you have a blue birthmark on your left upper arm?’”
“The moment I realized you must be searching for a daughter or sister—some woman—a wicked idea suddenly arose.”
“Even if I continued living in these Kiso mountains,there would be no use.”
Here,I had to find some way...
“Thinking this was my error.”
“When being taken inside,I quietly struck my arm against a pillar...”
“What an audacious woman I must be.”
“Drawing on your prompting Master,I spun lies—claiming strangers took me while playing outside—crafting fabrications until infiltrating this household.”
“When reflecting,I was at fault from start.”
“I beg forgiveness,”she wept pressing bangs against tatami.

Even Shichibē Omiya—a man in his prime of discretion at forty-two, known throughout these parts—found himself seething with anger and a sense of absurdity when he grasped how thoroughly he, blinded by longing for his child, had been outwitted by a girl of seventeen or eighteen. For a time, his gaping mouth simply refused to close.
Yet there remained matters that failed to align, so he regained his composure and inquired.

“So, what happened to the mouse?”
“Did you bring it?”

“That’s what’s strange,” Ogen answered, her teary eyes glistening. “When I slipped away from the inn in Gifu, I left behind all my performance tools and even the mice—but partway through my journey, I realized a single small mouse had slipped into my sleeve. How it had slipped in, or whether it had grown attached to me—in any case, thinking it pitiful to abandon, I hid it in my bosom or tucked it into my sleeve and brought it with me all the way to Kiso Road. But once I settled at Ihei-san’s house, I released it—karma and all. The mouse never showed itself again after that, so I assumed it had nested under some veranda or other—but then, while returning to Edo with Master, when we stayed at Sakamoto Inn after descending Usui Pass, that very night I discovered the mouse had somehow found its way into my sleeve again, leaving me utterly astonished. When I thought how deeply it had grown attached to me, following me all the way here like this, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon it, so I quietly tucked it into my sleeve and brought it along. When Mr. Umekichirō and Mr. Gisuke found it, I faced considerable difficulties… Well, I resolved to keep it hidden from you, Master, and we returned safely to Edo—but lately it has begun emerging from somewhere again, occasionally showing itself in my room too. Moreover, last night in my dream, that mouse sneaked up to my pillow and seemed to try to drag me somewhere by gripping my sleeve. Even if I try not to go, it insists on dragging me along by force. Having had the same kind of dream over and over, I too became disheartened. Perhaps because of that, this morning my head felt heavy, and as I was sitting there listlessly with no appetite to eat anything, I heard the voices of the servant and maid…”

Feeling extremely unwell, Ogen went to the kitchen to drink water, and in the maids’ room, the servant Okuni was whispering something to the maid Ofuku.
The word "mouse" caught her ear, and when Ogen quietly eavesdropped, she found Okuni whispering wonderingly about how that mouse had crept into the mistress’s mosquito net last night and had sat by Ogen’s pillow.

Ogen resigned herself to the inevitable.
Posing as a daughter to inherit the Omoya household headship—the fulfillment of that grand ambition now seemed increasingly uncertain.
If I remained idle, my disguise would be stripped away, and I might be charged with fraud.
Resolutely, she resolved that there was nothing left but to confess everything now, apologize to Shichibē and his wife for her crimes, and swiftly depart from here.

“You must find me a thoroughly detestable creature—your anger must indeed be burning—but I humbly beg your forgiveness and ask to be granted leave today,” Ogen wept again.

While listening to that story, Shichibē considered various matters.
Though she was detestable, being deceived stemmed from his own carelessness.
While expelling her immediately as she wished would resolve things simply, the problem lay in how to explain this to relatives, society, and the servants.
To speak truthfully would make him utterly laughable.
That Shichibē Omiya—a consummate fool—must expose his shame both internally and externally.
Should that disgrace spread from one quarter to another, a stain would mar Omiya’s reputation.
Contemplating all this, Shichibē found himself at an impasse.

Okore, his wife, had thought the same as her husband. Being a woman herself, Okore couldn’t help but feel pity when she saw Ogen weeping and apologizing before her. Even if she was an imposter, Okore found herself too soft-hearted to drive out Ogen—whom she had thought of as her own child until that morning—right then and there.

“Now, wait a moment,” Okore said soothingly to Ogen.
“Now that things have come to light, we can think of something.”
“In any case, leaving immediately would not be wise.”
“Just keep pretending not to notice for a little while longer.”

“That’s a good plan,” Shichibē said.
“I’ll handle this somehow eventually, so stay calm a little longer.”
“For my part, since this concerns my own reputation, I will never expose this publicly and charge you with fraud.”
“Just wait calmly and rest assured.”

Persuaded in various ways by the couple, Ogen obediently acquiesced.

“In that case, I humbly ask for your kind consideration.”

Watching Ogen’s retreating figure head to her room, deep sighs escaped from the couple’s lips.
However much Okore’s resolve had weakened, now that the imposter’s true identity had been revealed, they could no longer keep raising her as their own child.
Yet, they could not announce that fact to the world as it was.
In the end, it seemed safest to give Ogen an appropriate severance payment, have her leave the house unnoticed, and publicly announce her departure as a runaway.
Of course, this too would impact their reputation, but it was better than having unknowingly brought in an imposter.
If they were to claim that after finally rescuing their kidnapped daughter and bringing her home, those villains had followed them here and kidnapped her again—though their own negligence would remain undeniable—it might not be impossible for society to view them with pity.
At any rate, it seemed they could avoid exposing a great disgrace.
The couple’s discussion first agreed on that.

“Even so, Umekichi and Gisuke have gone too far,” Okore said indignantly.
“If someone had noticed the mouse in Ogen’s sleeve on the way back to Edo, they could have quietly informed us, don’t you think?”
“If Okuni hadn’t told us, we would have remained unaware forever.”
“The other day when I asked Umekichi, he claimed nothing unusual happened on the way—playing dumb about it all!”

“Well, it can’t be helped.”
“Do not resent Umekichirō or Gisuke.”
“More than anyone—more than them—I’m the one most at fault.”
“I was the fool,” Shichibē said resignedly.
“That I was deceived by such a person was a grave oversight on my part, and there’s no sense in blaming others now.”
“It’s all my fault.”

True to his role as master of the household, Shichibē shouldered all blame himself and made no attempt to accuse others.

Then late into the night two days later, after preparing herself, Ogen crept into Shichibē and his wife’s bedroom—where Shichibē, who had been waiting for her, handed over ten ryō for her journey.
He said in a low voice:

“It will be troublesome if you stay in Edo.
Go somewhere far away.”

“Understood.
I have caused you much worry as well, Mistress,” Ogen said, placing her hands outside the mosquito net.

“Do take care on your way.”

Okore’s voice was clouded.
While hearing that behind her, Ogen slipped out into the garden through the light rain that had begun to fall.
Opening the side gate from within, her figure vanished into the darkness.

The next morning, the Omiya household was thrown into an uproar over Ogen’s disappearance.
The master and his wife also put on surprised expressions and joined the others in making a commotion.

Beyond their planned script, what truly shocked the couple was the news that two young men lay fallen amidst the summer grass of Gondawara in Aoyama, not far from Yotsuya. One of the men was Omiya’s clerk Gisuke, and the other was Echizenya’s Umekichirō. Gisuke had been strangled. Umekichirō had been stabbed in the flank with a dagger. That dagger was one Gisuke had taken from the pawned goods stored in Omiya’s storehouse. The dead tell no tales, so of course nothing could be confirmed for certain, but according to the examining officials’ assessment, they had likely begun grappling in this grassland—Umekichirō pinning his opponent and strangling his throat while Gisuke drew his dagger and stabbed his enemy’s flank—both desperately choking and stabbing until they finally killed each other.

It remained unclear whether there was any connection between Ogen’s disappearance and the two violent deaths. If there was a connection, had Ogen and Gisuke schemed to run away together, only for Umekichirō to catch up later and engage them in a struggle? Or conversely, had Gisuke pursued Ogen and Umekichirō after they ran away together? Why had they fought, and what had become of Ogen? The secrets behind it all remained unknown to anyone.

On Ogen’s way back to Edo—when Umekichirō and Gisuke had discovered the mouse concealed in her sleeve—it was said she had faced considerable distress over this; perhaps under a pact to keep this secret, the two young men may have demanded some form of recompense from her.
Shichibē and his wife privately surmised that the tangled threads of their illicit liaison might have led to Ogen’s disappearance and given rise to this tragedy, though naturally it was not a matter they could divulge to others.

The first to discover the two corpses was a patrolman from the Aoyama Hyakunin-gumi who happened to pass by; it was said that a single gray mouse was darting around the bodies, but this was likely a field mouse drawn by the scent of blood—a different kind from Ogen’s mouse.

Ogen's whereabouts were unknown.

November 1932 (Showa 7), created for 『Sunday Mainichi』