Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Mr. S narrates.

Meiji 15 (1882)—I believe it was around May—when this curious report appeared in the Yukiyo Newspaper then in circulation.

In Tosabori at Tsukiji, Kyōbashi, where small mullets were said to abound, a carpenter casting night nets found an exceptionally large specimen tangled in his mesh.
The cook from Sumiya, a neighboring restaurant, bought the fish for seventy-five sen. When he slit it open the following dawn, a sodden letter pouch emerged from its belly.
Though waterlogged, characters in feminine handwriting remained legible—just enough to read: "To Mr. ○nosuke, From Fude."

The Yukiyo Newspaper likely dismissed it as merely a scandalous affair and did not pursue further investigations, reporting only the bare facts.
The appearance of letters from a carp’s belly is recorded in ancient Chinese texts.
Even if a letter pouch emerged from a mullet’s belly, perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all.
Especially given that it was such a large mullet—one worth seventy-five sen at the time—there was no telling what it might have swallowed.
The reporters likely dismissed it as such and wrote it off, and the readers likely overlooked it as such—but through a chance encounter, I came to know the secret of that letter pouch.

To clarify—Meiji 15 (1882)—this was around the time I had just begun attending elementary school, so I didn’t understand it immediately then. I must first clarify that this was something I had accidentally discovered later. Among my uncle’s acquaintances was a doctor named Mizoguchi Kigen. When the doctor saw this newspaper, he immediately presented himself at the Kyōbashi Police Station and secretly requested an investigation into a certain incident.

At that time, Dr. Mizoguchi was practicing medicine in Banchō, Kōjimachi.
Even now, some parts of Banchō are not very bustling, but in the early Meiji years, the Banchō area had been even more desolate.
Originally a district dominated almost entirely by samurai residences, the revolutionary changes of the Meiji Restoration had eradicated the warrior class altogether, leaving behind countless crumbling vacant estates.
Even when ownership changed hands, the buildings generally remained as they were from former times; therefore, they continued to be shrouded in the same gloomy atmosphere that had lingered since Edo days.
Most had since been cleared away, but within the earthen walls of those old estates stood buildings dating back to Musashino days—their massive trees, which today would likely warrant preservation plaques for ancient trees—spreading branches and leaves over the streets below. Even without them, the narrow town had been dark enough; their presence plunged it deeper into shadow.
Even during daylight hours, there were few people on the streets.
Once night fell, even locals seemingly did not venture out unless compelled by urgent business.
Indeed, I myself once experienced passing through Sanbanchō to Nakarokubanchō toward Kōjimachi's main thoroughfare around eight o'clock on a February evening without encountering a single soul—a terribly lonely and frightening memory.
Yet in such an era and such a place, Dr. Mizoguchi maintained a considerable patient base and kept respectable professional standing.

As for the gatefront, Dr. Mizoguchi’s house was a small former hatamoto estate he had purchased and modestly renovated. On one side of the gate stood what appeared to be a guard’s quarters, while the other side had two small tenement houses attached. The guardhouse was used to lodge his employed rickshaw puller, while the two tenements—after having their layouts repaired and lattice doors installed for street access—were rented out at approximately one yen fifty sen per unit.
It was said to consist of three rooms—three-tatami, four-and-a-half-tatami, and six-tatami—and though one yen fifty sen with fixtures now seems implausible, even so, it was reputed not to be particularly cheap.
Perhaps because of this, the unit closer to the gate remained shuttered, but the neighboring one stood open.

The tenant of the shuttered unit was a public officer in the Ministry of Finance named Yada Tomonosuke. In those days, they weren’t called civil officials but rather public officers. Yada was twenty-four or twenty-five this year and lived alone with his mother O-Gin. Though holding only the lowest rank among public officers, he never defaulted on the monthly rent of one yen fifty sen, having passed over a year without incident thanks to that official title.

“Tomo’s late tonight.”

While muttering to herself, his mother O-Gin opened the lattice and peered outside. It was the dimly overcast evening at the end of September in Meiji 13 when, after hearing the pillar clock strike eight, she left her place by the long hearth and went out to the entrance.

As her son Tomonosuke was a young, unmarried man, he would use pretexts like night shifts or overnight duties to sometimes return late at night or stay over entirely.
O-Gin did not seriously reprimand him for this, but in a household of just a parent and child, nights when her son did not return felt somehow lonely.
Wondering whether he would be late again tonight or perhaps not return at all, O-Gin—buffeted by a night breeze too cool for her unlined kimono—was gazing desolately at the dark street when she suddenly noticed what appeared to be a woman standing beneath the bay window of the neighboring vacant house.
Beneath the window ran a narrow ditch where crickets chirped among the stones.
Standing at the edge of the ditch, the woman seemed to peer inside, making O-Gin feel somewhat suspicious.

"Excuse me, who might you be? The house next door is vacant..." O-Gin called out tentatively.

"Ah..."

The woman answered in a low voice and vanished into the darkness. After watching her disappear, O-Gin went back inside, but her son still hadn't returned. Only the lonely sound of leaves falling from the great ginkgo tree towering over the estate across the way could be heard at intervals, while the night-moistened street remained silent of footsteps.

Tonight, O-Gin was terribly lonely.
Around the time she had spent half an hour in needless anxiety—wondering if something dreadful had befallen her son while he was out—the sound of a rickshaw gradually drew nearer.
Wondering whether Dr. Mizoguchi had returned from a patient’s home or if her son had come back by rickshaw, O-Gin stood up again and moved to peer out the bay window—just as voices speaking rapidly reached her ears from outside.
Those were the voices of Dr. Mizoguchi and his employed rickshaw puller Motokichi.

“In any case, take her to the house.”

At the sound of Mizoguchi’s commanding voice, the rickshaw was soon set down before the gate. O-Gin stretched up from the window to peer out and saw Motokichi the rickshaw puller lower the shafts. He first entered through the small gate, then from inside swung open the main gate’s double doors, pulling the rickshaw all the way to the entrance. Illuminated by the lantern light, the figure on the rickshaw was a young woman. Following behind, Mizoguchi entered as well.

O-Gin went around to the kitchen and slightly opened the water outlet door to observe inside. Mizoguchi and Motokichi seemed to be tending to the woman and taking her further into the house.
Motokichi was a married man with a young wife named Oshin.
That Oshin too had rushed out from her own home to help made it easy to imagine this was likely an emergency case or injured person.
O-Gin thought it couldn’t possibly be cholera.

When Motokichi and Oshin emerged from the inner rooms, O-Gin came out from the water outlet and quietly asked about the situation, to which Motokichi answered while scratching his head.

“Well, I’ve made a terrible blunder. When I was bringing the master back, right at that corner there—a young woman suddenly came out from the darkness. Before I could even react by turning the shafts aside—‘Ah!’—I ended up colliding with her.”

“Did she suffer some terrible injury?” O-Gin asked with a grimace.

“Well, I half-ran her over but managed to stop just in time, so it doesn’t seem like a major injury.”
“Even so, from the force of the fall, she scraped her hands and legs.”
“To put it simply, it was a chance encounter—not like either of us is to blame. But since we did injure her, we couldn’t just leave her as she was.”
“The master also felt terribly sorry and seems to be providing all sorts of treatments.”

In this era with no trains or automobiles, and bicycles being exceedingly rare, traffic accidents were invariably a matter of horse-drawn carriages and rickshaws.
Although horse-drawn carriages were not particularly numerous, accidents such as rickshaws colliding or running over others occurred almost daily without cease.

Tonight’s incident was also one of them.
As O-Gin listened with a persistent frown, Oshin interjected from beside her.

“I don’t know where she’s from, and though her clothes aren’t anything special, her features are rather lovely.”
“She must be the daughter of a samurai-class family.”

The term "samurai-class folks" was frequently used during this era.
O-Gin’s family too had been samurai-class retainers from a domain in the Chūgoku region.

After hearing all this, O-Gin withdrew into her house, and her son Tomonosuke returned home.
Even after being told by his mother about that night’s incident, he didn’t seem to pay it any mind.
As had been mentioned before, colliding with or being run over by rickshaws was hardly uncommon.

II

The girl who had been hit by Dr. Mizoguchi's vehicle was fortunately not seriously injured. When she was knocked down and fell, she had only scraped her left arm and left leg; given the considerable bleeding relative to the shallow wounds, Mizoguchi felt somewhat relieved.

They made her stay in bed all the following day, but from the next day onward, the girl got up while dragging her lame leg. However, she made no attempt to leave there and ended up remaining in that house. This was because she had no home to return to.

Dr. Mizoguchi's house was the estate of a hatamoto named Hisamasa Yatarō, and that daughter—the child of Minobe Gohee, who had served as its steward—stated herself that her name was Ofude.
After the shogunate's collapse, Hisamasa had petitioned to relocate without a stipend and followed his former lord to Suruga (Shizuoka), so Minobe—as a vassal's vassal—had likewise moved to Suruga with his master. However, being without stipend income, all had been compelled to seek some form of employment.
The Minobe family had been barely sustaining themselves through handicrafts when Ofude's mother first passed from this world, followed by her father Gohee's death, leaving seventeen-year-old Ofude utterly adrift.

In her father’s will, it stated there were distant relatives in Tokyo’s Yotsuya Mitsuke district and near Denzū-in Temple in Koishikawa.
Following this instruction to seek help in settling her situation, Ofude converted what little household belongings she had into travel funds and came to Tokyo alone with trepidation. When she first went to inquire in Koishikawa, that person had long since relocated from there, and their whereabouts could not be determined.
When she further inquired in Yotsuya, this too proved fruitless as their whereabouts were unknown, so Ofude was truly disheartened.
Moreover, as she dwelled on what sort of place her father’s former Banchō estate might be, she found herself wanting to see it just once—and so under cover of darkness, she came to steal a glance.

Ofude had been raised there until age six, but these being childhood memories, she retained no clear recollections. Using the great ginkgo tree in the estate across the street as her landmark, she had been peering through the row house window—thinking this must be roughly the place—when a neighbor grew suspicious, compelling her to hastily depart. Now at a loss over how to manage her situation hereafter, and with her immediate concern being where to find shelter that night, Ofude wandered aimlessly in anxious deliberation—for when fortune turns ill, it turns thoroughly ill—until she unwittingly collided with Dr. Mizoguchi's rickshaw.

When they came to understand these circumstances, even the Mizoguchi household could no longer bring themselves to cast her out.
Mizoguchi had a wife named O-Michi and a daughter named O-Chō.
Particularly since O-Chō was sixteen—just one year younger than Ofude—the Mizoguchi couple, having a daughter of similar age, felt profound compassion.
O-Chō too felt deep sympathy for Ofude's circumstances.
There, without knowing what the future held, it was decided that settling into this house would be best for the time being, and so Ofude came to stay with the Mizoguchi family—not as a relative, nor as a servant, but as a kind of dependent.

After all, being a samurai-class daughter, her manners were refined, and she was skilled in reading, writing, and needlework.
On top of that, her appearance was also attractive.
Given her circumstances, she likely made efforts to be reserved, but her nature was honest and gentle.
Given this, there was no reason for anyone to dislike or resent her, so Ofude came to be cherished by all members of the Mizoguchi household.
O-Chō in particular had grown as close to her as sisters.

Even the sharp-tongued wife of the household rickshaw driver praised Ofude.
O-Gin came to feel there was some fateful connection in having been the first to discover and address her, and while privately considering making that girl her son’s bride in due time, she also—out of a woman’s sympathy for this unfortunate daughter—would occasionally send detachable collars and underkimono sleeves.
Ofude welcomed this kindness, began frequenting O-Gin’s house with familiarity, and assisted with various tasks there.

Thus about half a year had passed uneventfully, but when March of the fourteenth year arrived, the Mizoguchi household gained yet another dependent.
That was Uebayashi Yoshinosuke, a young man from the same hometown as Dr. Mizoguchi.
Yoshinosuke was twenty-one that year, and though his family were farmers, they lived in comfortable circumstances.
He was the second son who had come to Tokyo for medical studies, but as his parents deemed it unwise to carelessly have him board at a lodging house, they requested the Mizoguchi family to oversee all his arrangements—a responsibility Mizoguchi willingly accepted.
Yoshinosuke shared a six-tatami room beside the entrance with a young pharmacy apprentice named Ono, attending a school in the Hongō area while assisting at the pharmacy on the side.

The preliminary explanation had become somewhat lengthy, but I must ask for your patience, as failing to lay out these details now risked leaving the subsequent story incomprehensible. At any rate, into the Mizoguchi household where there was already a daughter named O-Chō came yet another daughter named Ofude. Into the front tenement where there was a young man named Yada Tomonosuke, yet another young man named Uebayashi Yoshinosuke had now entered the Mizoguchi household. With two young girls and two young men in such close proximity, anyone could foresee that matters were unlikely to conclude peacefully.

Yet outwardly, everything remained perfectly peaceful and harmonious.
Yoshinosuke studied quietly and did nothing to damage the Mizoguchi family’s trust.
Ofude got along well with O-Chō and worked like a maid.
Tomonosuke was commuting to his government office without incident.

In October of that year, there occurred a major government reshuffle, and Ōkuma Shigenobu abruptly withdrew from political office.
Subsequently, Itagaki Taisuke and others established the Liberal Party.
These events passed without imparting any influence upon the Mizoguchi and Yada households, and both families continued living peacefully as before.
Moreover, the season when that peace would be shattered drew steadily nearer.

Tomonosuke’s mother O-Gin had privately nurtured the desire since earlier times to take Ofude as her son’s bride.
Ofude being eighteen this year—with her nineteenth year approaching, an unlucky age—O-Gin thought it preferable to conclude the wedding within the year.
Of course this required obtaining the Mizoguchi couple’s consent, but first needing to confirm both parties’ intentions, O-Gin initially consulted her son Tomonosuke, who acquiesced without demur.

“If you think it’s acceptable, Mother, I have no objection.”

After Tomonosuke left for the government office, O-Gin quietly summoned Ofude and broached the proposal. Ofude hesitated in her response, explaining that as someone dependent on another household, she had no intention of marrying for the time being.
O-Gin was elderly and short-tempered.
Having once resolved herself, O-Gin became determined to conclude this matter and tried various methods of persuasion. But as Ofude continued giving ambiguous responses, O-Gin—her elderly complaints and resentments mingling—gradually began making sarcastic remarks: how someone like her son surely wouldn’t appeal to Ofude’s tastes, or how a low-ranking official without proper salary couldn’t possibly marry a samurai-class young lady. Ofude appeared deeply troubled by this, until finally she spoke these words.

“When you speak to me that way, I find myself truly at a loss,”
“The truth is… well…”
“This Mr. Tomonosuke… with our Miss Chō…”

“Eh?”
“Tomonosuke and Miss Chō…”
“Is this true?” O-Gin asked again in astonishment.

“Please, I beg you to keep this confidential.”

“Goodness, I hadn’t the faintest idea.”
“When ever did it begin?”

“I’m not entirely certain myself…” Ofude deliberated.
“It would seem to have started around August or September of this year.”

“I see,” O-Gin sighed.

After Ofude stressed that what she had heard from my own mouth must be kept strictly confidential and left, O-Gin sighed once more.
O-Chō was not unattractive in appearance but was certainly inferior when compared to Ofude.
Of course, this was no time for debating such comparisons.
Even if what had transpired could not be undone, the primary difficulty lay in O-Chō being an only daughter.
As Tomonosuke was also heir to the Yada family—unable to become an adopted son-in-law yet equally unable to take a bride—O-Gin found herself agonizing over how to resolve this predicament.

That evening, unable to wait any longer for Tomonosuke’s return, O-Gin promptly conducted her inquiry, and Tomonosuke confessed to having a relationship with O-Chō.
When she pressed him—“Then why did you agree to the marriage proposal with Ofude?”—Tomonosuke’s reply remained maddeningly vague.
Pressed relentlessly by his mother, he finally confessed even to this.

“In truth, I had thought from the beginning that Ms. Ofude was preferable.”
“So around this August, I privately approached Ms. Ofude, but she said that while she deeply appreciated the kind offer, she could not give her consent.”
“You probably aren’t aware, but our Miss Chō has had feelings for you all along.”
“Knowing that, it’s impossible for me to become your wife.”
“If you doubt this, she said she would bring Miss Chō here within two or three days to meet you.”
“Then on the evening of the second day, Ms. Ofude came quietly and said, ‘Tonight Miss Chō and I are going to cool off at Shōkonsha’s riding ground—please come along afterward.’ So I found myself swept up in the idea and went all the way to Shōkonsha.”

Upon learning that the relationship between O-Chō and Tomonosuke was Ofude’s orchestration, O-Gin was shocked once more.
Despite her demure appearance, that Ofude woman was quite the audacious one—a realization that made the old-fashioned O-Gin grow furious.
At the same time, she couldn’t help resenting her son’s selfishness—how he maintained his relationship with O-Chō while scheming to trade up and marry Ofude if possible.

“These young people today are truly impossible.”

Having said this, O-Gin could do nothing but sigh once more.
Tomonosuke also made a somewhat sullen face and retreated to his six-mat room that served as both living quarters and parlor.
He trimmed the wick of the oil lamp and appeared to be writing something lengthy, perhaps a letter, on his desk.

III

O-Gin could not sleep peacefully that night.
The following morning, she once again summoned her son before her and pressed him on how he intended to resolve this matter, but Tomonosuke merely appeared contrite and offered no proper response.
However, being of old-fashioned disposition, O-Gin could not simply let the matter rest after having damaged another’s daughter.
Now that she herself had come to know of it, she could not possibly let matters rest. Single-mindedly resolved that there remained no alternative but to meet with Mrs. Mizoguchi, lay bare all circumstances, apologize for her son's misconduct, and consult anew about future measures, O-Gin waited until she saw her son off to his government office before immediately visiting the household head's wife.

Regarding that matter, Dr. Mizoguchi is said to have spoken to my uncle as follows.

“That incident was entirely our thoughtlessness,” Dr. Mizoguchi recounted to my uncle. “When Yada’s mother came to visit, I had been summoned to attend an emergency patient and was absent, but my wife—hearing this account from her—was apparently thunderstruck, as if water had been poured into sleeping ears.”

“After all, O-Chō was still seventeen—we truly regarded her as but a child.”

“Naturally, this couldn’t be decided by my wife alone.”

“As Yada’s mother was an upright woman of old-fashioned temperament, it seems she departed tearfully after offering apologies.”

When his wife promptly summoned their daughter for questioning, the girl did nothing but weep without uttering a word.

Yet seeing she offered no denial, it became evident she retained clear recollection of the matter.

“To speak truthfully,” he continued, “Uebayashi Yoshinosuke—who has resided in our household since spring—being a man of decent character and commendable academic standing, particularly as he’s a second son, we had privately discussed observing his progress awhile longer before considering him as O-Chō’s potential husband. But matters having reached this juncture...”

“Though sending our only daughter in marriage pains us,” he concluded, “there’s no gainsaying it now. After consulting my wife, we resolved decisively to send O-Chō to the Yada household.”

“For should we rend green wood forcibly—thereby inviting further mishaps that might become grist for newspaper gossip until some hawker comes bellowing it through the neighborhood—we’d incur extraordinary disgrace. Thus considering even the karmic consequences for my wife, we ultimately settled upon this course.”

While Yada was not a bad man, his monthly salary of fifteen or sixteen yen marked him as a low-ranking official, which seemed to displease my wife; but as we had reiterated, there being no alternative now that matters had come to this, we resigned ourselves and had my wife formally convey our intentions to Yada’s mother. To this, she replied—without any anger toward our misconduct—“For you to deign to send your only daughter as a bride to our household is truly beyond what we deserve,” whereupon Yada’s mother once again shed tears of joy, or so it is said.
Therefore, since there were few days remaining in the year, they resolved that come spring they would finally have O-Chō enter the bridal palanquin, thus bringing this matter to a provisional close.

"However, there's always another layer beneath the surface of things."
"It was only later that we first came to realize our grave error—that by neglecting proper inquiry and simply adopting a conventional solution, we had complacently assumed matters would resolve themselves without incident."

Having made this decision—and it being nothing to hide in the first place—the Mizoguchi household began wedding preparations from that year's end.
Mrs. Mizoguchi took her daughter and made several trips to Daimaru and Echigoya.
Amidst such bustle, the year came to a close, and the spring of Meiji 15—a year that should have been particularly auspicious—arrived.
It was on the night of January 29th—after wedding arrangements had progressed through consultations held on Foundation Day in February—that preparations were largely complete in both the Mizoguchi and Yada households.
Before long, O-Chō, who was to become the bride, drank poison from the clinic and suddenly committed suicide.
Of course, being a doctor by trade, Mizoguchi exhausted every means to treat her, but as the discovery came too late, O-Chō simply could not survive.

The shock to both the groom’s and bride’s families went without saying.
No one could comprehend why O-Chō had died on the very threshold of her wedding, nor could anyone discern the circumstances behind it.
Everyone stood dumbfounded—for a time, no tears even came—but with nothing more to be done, the Mizoguchi family reported the matter to the police, completed the formal procedures, and buried O-Chō’s remains at Yotsuya Temple.
At the Mizoguchi family’s request, the police settled the incident discreetly; thus O-Chō’s death was fortunately never reported in the newspapers.

O-Chō had left a suicide note, leaving no doubt it was self-inflicted death, but the note—brief and addressed to her mother—merely stated: "I die due to unavoidable circumstances; please forgive my unfilialness, and convey my deepest apologies to Father."
Therefore, the circumstances necessitating her death ultimately remained unclear.
Be that as it may, it was only natural that her death cast a shadow over those around her.
O-Gin slumped in disappointment, as if the life had drained from her.
Tomonosuke too seemed to have given up all hope and taken to drinking his way around various places, returning home drunk every night.
Mrs. Mizoguchi too sat listless like a half-sick woman.

As matters reached this state, it was Ofude’s lot that no one held favorable feelings toward her—for it seemed imaginable that this tragedy had been brought about by her having orchestrated the union between O-Chō and Tomonosuke.
Given that O-Chō’s cause of death remained unclear, Ofude could not be outright blamed; yet the mere fact that she had orchestrated such arrangements meant she had already forfeited any eligibility to be welcomed into respectable households.
Having been separated from her beloved daughter and grown somewhat hysterical, Mrs. Mizoguchi demanded that her husband expel Ofude.

“It’s because we let that woman into the house that O-Chō met her death.”
“Please drive her out without delay.”

It appeared this had reached Ofude’s ears, for she herself offered to withdraw.
However, she pleaded to be allowed to remain in their house until she could find employment elsewhere.
As this was not unreasonable and it would be too cruel to drive her out now, Mizoguchi agreed to let her stay. Ofude then went to Tomonosuke’s mother to consult about finding suitable employment, but O-Gin, who harbored a grudge against her, refused to engage.
Ofude next went to ask at nearby employment agencies, but seemingly unable to find any promising positions from one place to another, she remained at the Mizoguchi household until February’s end.

“Miss Ofude is utterly shameless.”
“How can she still act so composed?”

As Mrs. Mizoguchi’s demands for her expulsion grew increasingly insistent toward her husband, Ofude—apparently unable to bear remaining any longer—completed her visit to O-Chō’s thirty-fifth-day memorial service in early March and finally made up her mind to leave the Mizoguchi household, though she did not clearly reveal her destination.

"As my new situation is but a temporary arrangement, I shall properly notify you once I have become settled," said Ofude.

Though not entirely free from unease, Dr. Mizoguchi let her depart as she wished.
By the customs of that time, lodging houses would permit stays in their second-floor rooms if one paid for meals and incidentals.
Dr. Mizoguchi supposed Ofude might be temporarily resorting to such means while seeking employment.

O-Chō died; Ofude departed.
In the Mizoguchi household, there was suddenly felt a loneliness of having lost two flowers.
As for the two men on the other side, they were unharmed; Tomonosuke continued working at his government office while drowning his despair in drink.
Yoshinosuke was attending school without disruption.
May of that year brought oppressive gloom, day after day of unrelenting drizzle that made one wonder if the new calendar had been mistaken for the old—as though the rains of early summer had arrived months too soon.

It was the night of Tuesday the 23rd.
Since Tomonosuke had returned home unusually early that day, O-Gin visited relatives living near Hirakawa Tenjin after finishing her evening meal.
The long-overdue conversation stretched on until she departed around nine in the evening, when a fine rain began falling once more from the darkened sky.
As previously noted, the Banchō area remained particularly dark; tilting her umbrella and guided by lantern light brought from home, O-Gin navigated through the estate district's gloom until the large ginkgo tree of the facing mansion emerged faintly through the darkness.

O-Gin’s neighboring house remained vacant.
At the end of the year before last, a tenant had been secured once, but that person left in June of last year, saying something about the place being too gloomy.
After that, two or three more prospective tenants came to look at it, but in every case, the negotiations fell through.

“Though no one says it out loud, the rent is rather high.” The rickshaw driver’s wife once whispered to O-Gin.

Whether it was too gloomy or the rent too high—in any case, the neighboring rental house remained unrented thereafter as well.
However, in this era when vacant houses were abundant everywhere, even if one remained unrented for about a year, no one spread malicious rumors of it being a haunted house.
O-Gin later learned that Tomonosuke too had been meeting O-Chō in this vacant house.

As the vacant house drew near before her eyes, O-Gin perceived a black shadow emerging soundlessly from the front lattice door. Feeling slightly curious, she raised her lantern—only to see the shadow tilt its umbrella and vanish instantly in the opposite direction. O-Gin thought the retreating figure bore a striking resemblance to Ofude.

When she entered her own house, Tomonosuke’s figure—who should have been home—was nowhere to be seen. She called two or three times, but no answering voice could be heard from anywhere. With a dreadful premonition, O-Gin went outside and inspected the neighboring vacant house—only to find its supposedly latched lattice door smoothly opened. An unsettling chill creeping over her, she turned back inside to fetch a dimmed lantern and cautiously shone its light from the genkan entrance—revealing a man collapsed in the six-mat zashiki room. Thoroughly alarmed now, she rushed out front and dashed to the rickshaw driver’s house by the gate where Motokichi happened to be present; together they immediately returned to investigate.

In the center of the main room lay Uebayashi Yoshinosuke. Not only that, but Yada Tomonosuke lay collapsed in the kitchen. Tomonosuke had apparently crawled out to the kitchen in an attempt to drink water and breathed his last right there. Motokichi’s wife, who had fearfully come peering after her husband, stood in stark contrast to her usual talkativeness—so shocked and stunned that she couldn’t utter a word. O-Gin stood frozen in a dreamlike state.

Upon hearing Motokichi’s report, everyone from the Mizoguchi household came running out. According to Dr. Mizoguchi's examination, they had ingested the same poison as O-Chō, and there remained no means to save them. The entire household was thoroughly searched, but as no particularly suspicious evidence was found, there remained not the slightest clue as to why the two of them had died.

“It’s her! It’s her!”
“She definitely killed them!” O-Gin screamed through tears.
“When I returned just now, it was certainly Ofude who slipped out from this house.”

At the mention of Ofude’s name, everyone was startled anew.

IV

If O-Gin had indeed witnessed Ofude leaving the scene, then Ofude was unquestionably involved in this incident—yet whether she had truly dared commit such a horrific deed as poisoning two men remained doubtful. This could scarcely be a lovers' suicide between men either. With no farewell note and no tangible evidence left behind, even the police found themselves confounded in their pursuit of the truth.

"Why must that Ofude woman plague us so?" Mrs. Mizoguchi lashed out bitterly.
"To think we've been marked by some accursed demon—my daughter slain, Mr. Yoshinosuke slain, Mr. Tomonosuke slain—and now perhaps even we shall be murdered in turn."

A demon—perhaps that was indeed what she was.
Dr. Mizoguchi too thought that Ofude, resenting that her former home had been taken over, might have transformed into a demon and infiltrated.
While on one hand dismissing such foolishness as impossible in this age of civilization and enlightenment, it nevertheless seemed nothing short of a strange kind of mystery—Ofude still lurking about these parts, her shadowy presence now seemingly connected even to the deaths of Tomonosuke and Yoshinosuke.

In situations like this, everyone turns into an amateur detective. Dr. Mizoguchi too questioned his wife and various people connected to the household, endeavoring to uncover some secret related to this incident, but he failed to obtain any favorable results. Amidst all this, he managed to extract one new fact from Ono, the pharmacy apprentice.

Ono was nineteen this year and had been in Tokyo for nearly four years, but being inherently of a vague and absentminded disposition, he remained a country student fresh from the mountains no matter how much time passed. Moreover, he was by nature a man of few words and had never spoken of anything until now, but when subjected to rigorous questioning by the doctor, he stammered out these words.

“That Miss Ofude seemed quite attached to Mr. Yoshinosuke.”
“Miss Chō also appeared to have been fond of Mr. Yoshinosuke.”
“From around last year’s end, Miss Ofude and Mr. Yoshinosuke grew increasingly close. When Mr. Yoshinosuke went out for walks at night, there were times Miss Ofude would quietly slip out after him.”

If only he had told us sooner, we might have found some solution—but reproaching him now was futile.
Even knowing that much alone still fell short of unraveling the incident’s mystery.
Yet with this hint provided, Dr. Mizoguchi could finally piece together circumstances and form some deduction.

As Ono had said, it was likely true that Ofude and O-Chō had both been attached to Uebayashi Yoshinosuke. Taking advantage of Ono’s vague absentmindedness, the young women may have entered the pharmacy and behaved quite boldly. Under these circumstances, it was inevitable that rivalry would arise between the two women. What’s more, O-Chō had her parents as allies—and it seemed the keen-eyed Ofude had already discerned their intention to eventually consider Yoshinosuke as a son-in-law. To prevent this, it was necessary to somehow distance O-Chō. Ofude was contemplating this method when Yada Tomonosuke happened to whisper his affections to her; she skillfully exploited this to redirect his romantic feelings from herself to O-Chō.

What Ofude had said to Tomonosuke had been explained by the man himself before his mother, but what she fabricated to O-Chō remained unclear.
She had likely deceived O-Chō using the same manner of speech with which she beguiled Tomonosuke.
O-Chō, having been thus deceived, had undoubtedly been naive.
Out of maidenly curiosity, O-Chō was carelessly lured out by Ofude and met Tomonosuke—who was said to be enamored with her—at Yasukuni Shrine.
Needless to say, Ofude stood between them and skillfully pulled the strings.
Thus was a loveless bond strangely forged, with the vacant house beside Tomonosuke's becoming their secret meeting place.
Though they continued moving as Ofude manipulated them like puppets, these two dolls nevertheless possessed souls.
While their physical forms remained bound together, Tomonosuke's spirit still yearned for Ofude.
O-Chō's soul still clung to Yoshinosuke.

It seemed the root of this tragedy lay coiled where form and soul had become separated—though Ofude likely never considered matters of the soul. Having forced O-Chō upon Tomonosuke and secretly congratulating herself on having thus eliminated her rival, she was then approached by Tomonosuke’s mother with a marriage proposal directed at her. Because she thought this was rather an opportune moment, Ofude put on an air of reluctance and exposed O-Chō and Tomonosuke’s secret. It startled O-Gin and shocked the Mizoguchi couple, ultimately hastening O-Chō and Tomonosuke’s marriage. On the night their secret was exposed, when Tomonosuke wrote a lengthy letter, it was likely addressed to Ofude—whether to resent her for revealing their secret or to profess that his soul would forever remain in Ofude’s embrace. As for what response Ofude gave him, or whether she gave any response at all, these circumstances remained unclear.

In any case, the marriage arrangements proceeded smoothly as if gliding along, and the auspicious wedding day drew near.
According to Ono’s account, as O-Chō’s marriage arrangements were finally settled, Ofude—appearing no longer restrained by social niceties—seemed to draw ever closer to Yoshinosuke.
Confronted with this sight, the fire in O-Chō’s chest blazed up.
Yet burdened by the vulnerability of having given herself to Tomonosuke, she found herself powerless to act.
She may have realized she’d fallen into Ofude’s trap and lost her true lover, but now could only choke down resentment while hearing those triumphant cries.
As the wedding day loomed before her eyes—overwhelmed by jealousy and remorse—O-Chō appears to have resolved to sever her own young life.
When her father the doctor examined her posthumously, she was already three months pregnant.

O-Chō’s suicide note was brief and made no mention of Ofude or Yoshinosuke’s involvement, yet her mournful end became a means of revenge against Ofude.
Had O-Chō married Tomonosuke without complication—as would have been most advantageous for Ofude, who had believed this outcome inevitable—the wholly unforeseen incident of O-Chō’s suicide erupted instead, leaving Ofude in a predicament where she could no longer remain in the Mizoguchi household.
However, within a little over a month after O-Chō’s death, she had decisively claimed Yoshinosuke as her own and resolutely departed from there.
Afterward, where Ofude had been or what she had done remained entirely unknown; in any case, it seemed she had occasionally summoned Yoshinosuke and maintained their connection somewhere.
Perhaps she had still been using O-Gin’s neighboring vacant house.

In this way, they had at least spent the three months of March, April, and May without incident—but now, the time of final ruin had at last arrived.

Having explained up to this point, Dr. Mizoguchi said to my uncle.

“I believe my conjectures up to this point are likely accurate—but now we arrive at the final and most critical matter. As Tomonosuke’s mother happened to be absent, the exact circumstances remain unclear—but it is a fact that Tomonosuke discovered Ofude and Yoshinosuke secretly meeting in the neighboring vacant house and barged in.”
“Now, from there on it becomes rather difficult.”
“Did Ofude and Yoshinosuke bring the poison intending to commit a lovers’ suicide? If so, it’s odd that only Yoshinosuke drank it.”
“Or perhaps Yoshinosuke had just drunk it when Tomonosuke suddenly burst in—but even so, how did Tomonosuke come to drink it? Was he forced?”
“Perhaps they never intended a lovers’ suicide from the start—maybe Ofude tried to make Tomonosuke, who had become an obstacle, drink the poison Yoshinosuke carried, but Yoshinosuke accidentally drank it too. Or perhaps Ofude made both Yoshinosuke and Tomonosuke drink it with the intent to eliminate both men at once due to some circumstance. These secrets can only be revealed if Ofude confesses.”
“Therefore, it may remain an eternal secret.”

“So Ofude’s whereabouts have remained unknown since then?” my uncle asked.

“Then two or three days later, that article appeared in the Yukiyo Newspaper—a torn letter pouch was discovered inside a mullet caught in a night net at Tsukiji Riverbank.”

“It is said that on the letter pouch was written ‘Mr. ○nosuke, from Fude.’”

“The ‘○nosuke’ alone made it unclear whether it referred to Yoshinosuke or Tomonosuke, but seeing the sender’s name as ‘Fude,’ it seemed likely to have been written by Ofude herself. As a precaution, we inquired at the Kyōbashi police station—but unfortunately, the crucial letter pouch had been discarded by Sumiya’s cook, making it impossible to verify the handwriting.”

“Could it be that Ofude threw herself into the water?”

“Well, upon seeing the two men dead, Ofude slipped away from there and threw herself into the water somewhere between Tsukiji and Shibaura.”
“And then, the letter pouch that had been tucked into her obi or sleeve flowed out and entered that mullet’s mouth—it’s not impossible to imagine.”
“Or perhaps someone simply tore up an unneeded letter pouch and threw it into the river, which the mullet carelessly swallowed—it’s not impossible to imagine.”
The police conducted searches all the way from Tsukiji Riverbank to Shibaura and offshore Shinagawa, but they found neither a body matching her description nor any items that might have served as clues.
Whether Ofude had died or was still alive—that too ultimately remained unknown.
The police had also made inquiries to Shizuoka, but there still lived a samurai-class man named Hisazumi Yatarō in that region; his retainer Minabe Gohee had died of illness some years prior, and Gohee’s daughter Ofude had left for Tokyo to visit relatives and had not been heard from since.
Hisazumi’s residence was located in a certain part of Banchō, and since every detail matched perfectly, Ofude’s background appeared to be truthful.
“Thus, the woman called Ofude returned to her hometown and—moreover—within the very house where she was born, instigated various incidents before vanishing without a trace. Truly a mysterious woman.”

Mr. S’s account ended here.

A letter pouch had emerged from the mullet’s stomach—I felt a peculiar interest in this and visited a certain gentleman in the neighborhood the following day.
This was because I had known beforehand that a great many old newspapers from the early Meiji years were stored on the second floor of a certain gentleman’s storehouse.
When I asked if they had the Yukiyo Newspaper, I was told that they certainly should have it.
Upon gradually investigating, sure enough, in the May 18th, Meiji 15 (Sunday) issue No. 1310 of the Yukiyo Newspaper, that article was published.
Since miscellaneous news items from that era lacked headlines, it launched straight into the text as follows.

◎While tales of finding treasures or letters inside sea bream or carp belong to the realm of historical anecdotes, here in Tsukiji’s Tosabori River—where small mullet abound—a large mullet caught last night after the rain by Kitasayamachi carpenter Kisaburou near Tsukiji Bridge was promptly purchased for seventy-five sen by Sumiya’s cook. Upon preparing it yesterday morning, a letter pouch inscribed “To Mr. ○nosuke, from Fude” emerged from its belly—a story that might have blossomed into a sensational serial had but one more character been legible.

This proved that Mr. S’s account was not a lie.
At the same time, I found myself wanting to know what became of that woman called Ofude—but given that this all happened over forty years ago, even professionals in that line of work would not know, and we amateurs could hardly hope to find any means of investigation.