Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Okamoto Kanoko

I escaped and left the capital. I passed under the railway overpass and crossed the bridge. I had still been feeling the two heavy male arms that had been grabbing the hem of my sleeve—which I had kept trying to shake off—but from the moment I emerged from beneath the overpass and faced the damp darkness reeking of mud, my sleeve gradually grew lighter. In its place came a strange lassitude from having to bear my own weight. Was this what they meant by growing disenchanted with things or becoming clear-eyed?

The road ran straight west through the darkness. On both sides—likely rice fields—there was a smell mingling the stench of mud with a pungent green scent. Frogs were croaking incessantly. While listening to the sound of my felt sandals striking the earth, I let my feet carry me onward. As my eyes gradually grew accustomed to the darkness, I began dimly discerning things—the utility poles standing at meticulous intervals along both sides of the road, patches of green rice fields dotted with lotus ponds here and there. As my eyes grew even more accustomed, I began discerning faint glimmers of water between the stalks of seedlings in the green rice fields—and indeed, even the surface of the road ahead and the utility poles became faintly visible through reflections from distant city lights in the sky behind me. Ah, the capital’s lights—

I can’t say how many times I resisted looking back. Was someone at the nearby train crossing behind me dislodging a pole? That magnesium-bright light flickered temptingly in the darkness ahead. Though vexing—let me take one final lingering look at Tokyo—I thought with sorrowful resolve. I aligned my sandals on the roadside grass, spread my handkerchief over them, and stretched out my white-tabied legs across the road’s surface. With elbows planted on knees and cheeks cradled between palms, as I turned my face toward Tokyo’s northeastern night sky—yes—I must have worn an expression like that of the Mona Lisa in her maiden years.

In the three months I spent caring for Mother, whether the month had entered late May or early June blurred past in a daze.

But in any case, it was the dark night sky of early summer. Lustrous indigo dissolved into ink-black darkness. On its surface floated a glimmer laden with moisture. The stars loomed large like the mottled patterns on pufferfish skin, each one tingeing the surrounding sky with a toxic yellow. The lower part wasn’t visible because it was blocked by the horizontal railway embankment. Using that as the near edge of a blast furnace, beyond it the capital’s sky burned so intensely it resembled the fire within the furnace. A white-hot brightness that made the heart itch. Ah, once more the act of looking there transmitted through my body, making the edge of my sleeve feel heavy. The weight of two male arms from which I had parted. The faint dizziness when I shook them off. I was sick of it, yet again.—And neon lights flickered faintly within the fan-shaped blaze spreading across the sky. The advertising tower’s lights coiled and uncoiled like roundworms whose tails never reached their heads. Ah, right—the city was still in its evening hours. What unreliable feelings I had—that my heart, which had taken the darkness before me for midnight, should suddenly brighten again.

Upon parting, Ikeno treated me to kaiseki cuisine at a teahouse in Kasumigaseki at noon. In the evening, Katsuraoka treated me to thick-cut cutlets at a standing eatery in Shitaya. Both were fitting to their stations. And Mother, on the morning before yesterday, left her mortal frame still imbued with life's distasteful theatrics. The truth is she died two days prior—yet I cannot convince myself she's truly gone. This persistent sense remains that she lingers somewhere in this world, ready to stick out her tongue in mockery. "My Mother" was precisely that sort of woman.

When I think back to the house from when I first became aware of things around six or seven years old, it was a modest rented house situated on the bank of a narrow river. The interior was neatly organized, with items like the long brazier polished to a gleaming finish. There was a maid named Shima and a reddish-brown cat named Koro. Mother’s eyes were slightly sunken, but with her oval melon-seed face and pleasing fullness of flesh, she was a beauty. When she tied her hair in the then-fashionable Kagetsumaki style and wore even a komon-patterned crepe lined kimono with a black collar, she possessed both elegance and a bewitching charm that made everyone turn their heads.

Father would come and stay over from time to time. If anything, I didn’t particularly like Mother. No matter how much one peeled away at her layers, her true heart remained unknowable—yet there was a shallow foolishness in how she would align herself with whatever proved advantageous in the moment. In contrast, Father was a man who—when something weighed on his mind—would fix his large black eyes in a steady gaze; one of unwavering resolve who would never tolerate wrongdoing yet protect without limit those he chose to shield. His hair and beard grew thick and curly, his high forehead pale. From time to time Mother would be struck and then feign tears.

“The Professor’s gone mad from tuberculosis—what a mess.” Mother said this and exchanged cold smiles with Shima through their eyes and expressions. According to Shima, Father was a great scholar who also served as a university professor. Mother was taken a liking to by Father when she was an apprentice geisha in Shitaya and had been kept by him ever since. Father loved Mother’s beauty, but he disliked her deceitful nature and thus struck her. But even if he were to strike her again and again, since deceit was Mother’s very nature, would there ever come a time when she could be struck into rectitude?

When I turned thirteen, Father abruptly stopped coming. Father died of tuberculosis.

Long before that, from when I was very young, Mother would say strange things whenever something about me displeased her. “Hmph—for a weed child!”

At this, Shima’s expression darkened, “Madam, no matter what, you must refrain from saying such things.” Mother said, “What does it matter?” but showed a hint of regret. However, as if fearing someone might call this vulgar, from that very mouth she hurled abuse once more. “A reed’s child remains a reed.”

The reason for this gradually became clear through Shima’s words. Even this middle-aged woman did not possess an unyielding nature governed by principle—one that would consistently consider the child’s welfare or tirelessly nurture young hearts. That she reflexively admonished Mother upon hearing those indiscriminate words of hatred—even ones Mother spewed at her own child with such reckless abandon—might indeed stem from momentary displays of loyalty or deeds born of chivalry. Yet beneath this lay another desire: to momentarily feel superior to this mother who had oppressed her day and night, to play the boss. Thus, when saying this, Shima would adjust her right sleeve cuff with an affected gesture, tilt her head pretentiously, and let a controlled half-smile hover at one corner of her lips.

“Miss Chō is the child who brought such pain to your own womb, is she not? What malice drives you to utter such cruel words?”

This woman Shima had been employed at Father’s main residence, the Toyoshima household, since childhood. When the wife learned that Father had taken my mother as his mistress, she remarked, “An inexperienced maid would be ill-suited to manage a young mistress.” This woman had been transferred from the wife’s service to my mother’s household with the words, “Let’s send Shima over,” and while she had likely initially served as a spy for the wife, over the long years that sense of duty dulled, leading her to side with my mother at times and revert to the wife’s faction at others. Even after coming to our home, she freely came and went from the Toyoshima residence. For this reason, we came to know every detail about the Toyoshima household as intimately as if holding them in our hands.

From those same lips that formed her composed smile, she would cheerfully recount my father’s secrets as though telling a story.

Around the time of the Meiji Constitution’s promulgation, there was a beggar with a child who lived in Nippori’s slums in east-west tenement houses and begged for alms daily in the city’s upland districts. Half-opening a fan, they stood at gates singing something called *Hatsume-bushi*.

It was only known that he had originally been the son of a Confucian scholar from Ise Domain, and at the time, it was rumored he had gone mad from his obsession with inventions. Taciturn yet possessing strikingly handsome features, his face—with its flawlessly noble countenance—ironically seemed to presage tragic misfortune. The child was an acutely frail boy who appeared predisposed to nervous fits.

At that time, in Akasaka’s Ryūdo-chō district, there lived an entrepreneur from Kōshū known as Toyoshima of Tenka. To be sure, in those days there was a custom of affixing the title "of Tenka" to men of stout heart and mountain spirit—exemplified by Ittohira of Tenka—so this Toyoshima might not have been such an extraordinary merchant after all. Nevertheless, he cut a heroic figure: installing a grand brazier at the center of his entrance hall with its three-sided bay windows, arranging a folding chair before it, and from early morning receiving all comers for vigorous debates while tapping his red-copper tobacco pipe against the brazier’s rim.

The parent-child beggars of Hatsume-bushi made their rounds to this area about once a week and stood at the window of Toyoshima’s parlor. Then Toyoshima, while giving small coins from his tobacco pouch, asked in a low voice about such matters as how his fellow beggars received alms, the manner in which households disposed of their scraps, and the volume of preparations at food stalls in entertainment districts— The Hatsume-bushi beggar moved his heavily bearded face as if with great reluctance while giving an exceedingly brief reply. However, even something as slight as this might well have allowed this merchant to grasp the subtleties of the economic climate. When addressing others, Toyoshima would declare: “Unless you’ve spent three years as a beggar, three as a party entertainer, and three as an unlicensed lawyer, you’ll never become a true workman.” It is said he was a man who possessed this sort of worldly philosophy—one he would constantly proclaim.

One morning, when the parent-child beggars came and Toyoshima approached the window, the child held out a scrap of paper. It was a table created and recorded with the usual food of the vagrants living in the same tenement. Things like zuke pickles, Kawagoe chabu broth, and crucian carp chabu stew—these were marked down by the child using only the katakana and numbers barely taught to him by fellow tenement dwellers, entries that required considerable verbal explanation; yet this crude chart represented his juvenile attempt to systematically organize what Toyoshima most persistently sought from his parent: discerning paupers’ economic conditions through their dietary patterns. Toyoshima happily inquired.

“Did you come up with this and write it all by yourself?” “Ahh, yeah, Mister.”

Toyoshima groaned, “Hmm.” “This kid’s got potential,” he said. “Old man, you take this kid and leave him at my house.”

The inventive beggar father stared blankly as if in a trance, but soon took his child’s pouch from his sack, placed it on the windowsill, then gave a single weary bow before walking away. The whereabouts of this beggar parent were never known thereafter. Inside the pouch lay a family register extract and the child’s umbilical cord. The child Chōzō grew up clever. From Toyoshima household gatekeeper to scholarship student, university prodigy, son-in-law meeting Toyoshima of Tenka’s discerning eye, and finally professor—was this not a meteoric rise? Toyoshima’s magnanimity lay in taking even a beggar’s child as his son-in-law. Those who praised him and those who disparaged him were equal in number, but their influence didn’t spread far, and soon beyond a handful of people, no memory remained of Chōzō’s origins.

The Toyoshima family originally had an elder sister and a younger brother, with the younger brother being the heir. And so the daughter was married off and established a household at the Meguro villa. This elder sister’s son-in-law—that is, Chōzō—was my father.

Was Father satisfied with this marriage? According to Shima, he had been satisfied. After all, she was said to have been a modest woman of steadfast character and benevolent nature. Then why did Father keep someone like my mother on the side? According to Shima, Father had been a heavy drinker and pleasure-seeker since his university days—and being one who prized appearances above all, he ultimately fell for my beautiful mother.

Of course, that too must have been part of it. Yet that alone could never have sustained him in keeping a woman like Mother for so long. If I may say—though this observation comes from long after I had grown—I believe Father sought something uncanny in Mother. She was shallow, yet her shallowness lay layered like an onion’s skins—a woman who, had one endured the labor of peeling through them, might even have seemed to harbor something at her core. Father fell for this illusion. A man of keen intellect whose obstinacy curdled into prying obsession, tormented by excessive rationality—such men appear prone to entanglement with these shallot-like women. Particularly when their outermost layer happened to be beautiful. The true substance of women like Toyoshima’s daughter—those praised as wise wives—would have been instantly laid bare to a man like Father. Rather, he likely ensnared himself by imposing mystery upon shallow things. The whirlpool pattern of Father’s tragedy would yet surge across my own path in days to come, but I must not let these threads tangle beyond comprehension. Let me state only this much by way of prologue. As for Father’s view of his lowly origins—it might even be said he took pride in proclaiming them openly. “My pedigree traces to street beggars, you know,” To which the wise wife laughed breezily: “Ah well, should we ever fall to ruin again, we’ll don straw coats and stand at the gate together any time.” This carefree marital banter, sounding like a recitation of the husband’s inspirational success story, proved more than sufficient to garner admiration from those within earshot.

However, my mother alone detested it when Father brought up that story to her face directly. Even hearing just the opening thread of that story would make Mother turn deathly pale and tremble with rage. “Stop it—enough of your poverty-stricken stories.” And so even Father, for all his usual defiance, fell silent. Despite hating it when Father spoke of such things, Mother would periodically turn to me and let those very words spill venomously from her own lips. From Mother’s scathing words that leaked out, and from Shima’s explanations, I came to feel profoundly saddened that my blood carried beggar lineage. Yet at the same time, I also felt somehow calmed and liberated. In both elementary school and girls’ school, I excelled in anything related to science and mathematics. But when it came to subjects requiring artistic sensibility—calligraphy, handicrafts, drawing—I was utterly hopeless. At that moment, one side of my feelings glided smoothly closer, skillfully dredging away my anguish. “Ah, I’m just a beggar’s child anyway.”

But before long, having endured unbearable hardships no matter what, I could no longer keep from deeply lamenting my own misfortunes. It was like this.

On an autumn Sunday morning came a summons from the Madam of Father’s house in Meguro for me to visit for the autumn festival. This was the first such occurrence since my birth. Though according to Shima—perhaps because she herself bore no children—Madam had repeatedly entreated Father to summon me to her residence, he had adamantly opposed it until now, she said, and thus nothing had ever come of it.

"Well! How unusual. "I wonder if..."

Taking into account that Father hadn’t shown his face at my mother’s house for about a month and a half now—she clicked her tongue sharply—she said such things.

After making me put on full makeup and finishing tying my obi, Mother said this and gave my back a single pat. “Really, you understand? Don’t be dawdling around. You’ll disgrace your own mother.” She gave another pat on my back. Each time, my neck would droop heavily as I responded with an “Uh-huh.” Seen off by Shima, who said, “I’ll come help later too,” I settled into the car’s spacious seat alongside the gift box of Eitaro monaka and set off primly for Meguro.

Though called a villa, it was built like a main residence. After climbing four or five stone steps, there was a plaza paved with rounded stones, with sago palm plantings positioned before it, and there stood a Western-style building featuring a porch entrance. Welcomed by the student, I carefully walked across the slippery parquet floor with legs spread apart, and when I looked up at the ceiling, there hung a large chandelier resembling a crystal hairpin at the center of a round hollow—like the inner curve of a summer citrus peel—dangling countless fluttering strands.

From the drawing room—carpeted and lit by electric lights even in daytime—came the sound of children playing. At the entrance to that room, I encountered a lady accompanied by a maid. “You must be Chō-chan.” “My, my—how well you’ve turned out,” she said. I immediately realized this was the Madam and bowed deeply once. Then the lady placed her hand on my shoulder: “Your makeup is beautifully done—and your kimono suits you perfectly.”

With those words, the Madam pinched the base of my sleeve’s eight-layered opening between her fingertips and, with deft movements of her fingers, examined the linings of my undergarments and the material of my under-kimono. “What an exquisite kimono.”

Madam, having apparently found no faults, released her grip on the sleeve indifferently as she said this. When it came to the gift package that the student had received from the driver and presented, she said, "There was no need to do such a thing," and finally motioned with her chin for him to hand the package indifferently to the maid.

The person I was meeting today was the main family’s legal wife, and my own mother was a concubine. Even as a child, I naturally harbored this hostility between us—a stifling, awkward emotion clogging my throat—leaving me unable to warm up to Madam. Yet Madam seemed not to notice anything and, cradling me as if I were precious, guided me into the room,

“Come now, everyone—Auntie’s dear relative’s child has arrived.” “Her name is Chō-chan.” “Everyone, please play nicely with her.” She had me join right in the center of their play area. She would stay close to me as much as possible—helping teach me games I didn’t understand, even personally taking me to the lavatory to tuck up my kimono hem—showing me every kindness.

The children, absorbed in their play, paid little attention to me—the newcomer—and soon treated me as one of their own with remarks like "It’s your turn" or "You can’t do it like that." There were four or five girls around my age mixed in with the boys, who appeared to be children from wealthy families in the neighborhood—so lively and socially adept that they bordered on being overly familiar. The playthings were abundant: alongside novelties like bagatelle and roulette—which I was encountering for the first time—there were also familiar items such as Iroha karuta cards and playing cards.

Melted by the fun, melted by the kindness, the rigid hostility toward Madam that had stiffened within me was forgotten before I knew it, and I came to feel something beside me—a firm, smooth pillar of marble. I continued to win every game. Joyous feelings surged to the very tips of my limbs, and I could no longer keep my body still. I flung myself at the nearby marble pillar. That was the Madam’s chest.

I played tag and was being chased by someone. A pleasurable unease made me forget myself until I found myself clinging to the marble pillar and blending into its shadow. That was the Madam’s shoulder and neck. It was during such moments that what I had perceived as a smooth marble pillar would suddenly reveal hidden intent—clutching my hand while murmuring “Oh, oh”—then bring her polished ivory-like face close to press against my cheek. I felt honor rising within me even as a cloying ambiguity laced with scheming assailed me, threatening to draw an involuntary shudder from my body.

Through the faint perfume, those crescent-moon eyes brimming with mirth were observing my expression with a cold severity and piercing sharpness unlike anything in this world—or were they not? Feeling a childish terror, I thought revealing my discomfort through frank gestures or expressions would only harm me. I labored to summon all my strength and return a smile of apparent delight. What manner of smile had it been? It must have been an ugly, knowing little smirk. Even now when I remember it, I sink into such self-loathing that I could scream “Ah” aloud. Then Madam would release her firm grip on my wrist and the hand pressed against my back.

Yet children are such helpless creatures—they would immediately forget that they must once again perform this loathsome duty, one that made their very flesh shudder, and cling to Madam all over again. Again came the assault of her ivory mask’s cheek press— After this had happened four or five times, it was time for lunch. In another room called the dining room—there too, electric lights were on during the day. With mirror panels and china cabinets among its furnishings, it was a room that felt just like a Western restaurant. Madam sat at the end of the table while I took the adjacent corner seat, with the other children lining up on either side. No sooner had chicken sandwiches appeared than there came rolled omelets and fish cakes and sweet chestnut paste—truly a spread of child-friendly delicacies brought forth. Until midway through the meal Madam tended to my dining needs by dabbing a handkerchief to my neck, but then she glanced at the clock,

“Now then, Auntie must go tend to the patient’s meal. Please eat by yourself, Chō-chan.” “I’ll be right back.”

With that, she stood up and left. Later, Meguro’s famous chestnut rice was served. I loved this kind of seasoned rice. To begin with, I was slow in eating, and moreover, whenever I started eating something, I would invariably begin to think—a peculiar habit of mine. The more my favorite food appeared before me, the more absentmindedly I would lose myself in thought. Even then, at that very moment, I thought of my riverside home that felt nostalgic when viewed from afar, recalled the Suitengu Shrine festival with its shops selling red Tanba lantern plants, pondered the captured Prince from the shadow play—and inevitably, my chopsticks slowed. The other children, as if even swallowing were too tedious, busily wolfed down their food and dashed off toward the parlor where they had left their play halfway through. When I noticed this, I panicked and hurriedly ate faster. There was a spoon with the melon. Just then Madam returned, but when she saw that around my solitary seat two serving maids stood with dreary expressions, she said “Oh?” before calling them over with a “Come here now.” A hushed voice could be heard.

“Is she still eating?” “That child…” “Yes.” “She’s wolfing down her food.” “It’s disgraceful in front of the other children too.” “But…” “She’s showing her vulgar origins, after all.”

Madam’s voice assumed a definitively caustic edge. The maids could only respond with uncomfortable, strained smiles. When I heard this—though not fully comprehending its meaning—something like scalding humiliation surged from my chest up to the nape of my neck. To endure it, I clenched my lips shut, but with irresistible force they tore apart vertically. The instant I threw down my chopsticks and rice bowl, I burst into wailing tears. And tearing at my own chest, clawing frantically as I ripped,

“I want to go—go home—”

I wailed. The two maids flustered and rushed over to soothe and coax me, but my entire body and hands trembled violently with extreme terror, and I desperately writhed to break free from their arms—determined to escape this thorn-covered mansion at all costs. Madam, who had been staring fixedly at this, uttered a single dismissive word and glided away while arching her back. “Do as you please.”

Instead, our Shima abruptly appeared. Shima had apparently come by train after me and was helping in the kitchen. Since Shima knew well how to calm me down, I found myself comforted, held close, and taken out to the rice fields behind the house to lift my spirits.

A stream flowed. Along one side ran a large, lidless square flume, and clear water rushed through like a rapid. The flume appeared rusted and decayed, and from both the joints between planks and the holes along its length, water gushed into the stream below. The leakage of that extent had no effect whatsoever—the water overflowed the moss along the flume's edges and flowed on. Bush clover, dayflowers, foxtails—weeds such as these covered and lay scattered over the flume’s water from the roadside where I stood.

“There’s a grasshopper.” “Try catching it, Young Mistress Chō.” When I tried to catch it, those acorn-colored eyes on the prow-like part of the insect shaped like a small boat suddenly grew prominent and seemed to glare at me. Cautiously bringing my hand closer, the grasshoppers gradually shifted to the undersides of the leaves; when I resolutely closed my eyes and grabbed a leaf, the cold dew clutched in my palm sent a grasshopper tumbling diagonally into the flume’s water, where it was swept forcefully downstream. At once, two connected grasshoppers—one clinging to another’s back—that had seemingly leapt from the opposite edge of the flume into the stream plunged into the water. As I watched, both insects began swimming away through their respective currents, legs kicking like oars. But before reaching the edge, the grasshopper in the flume vanished first, while its counterpart disappeared into the shadowed darkness beneath the bamboo grove overhanging the stream. The gentle sound of a waterwheel reached my ears.

I exhaled in relief, stood up, and gazed across the rice fields with the sound of water at my back. Shima kept gathering wildflowers while repeating, “Flowers for Buddha, flowers for Buddha.” The red earthen path along the stream where I stood—squelching under the midday sun—made me feel as though I were treading on crimson clouds. But when I surveyed the golden rice fields before me, bowed heavy with ripe grain, every last trace of my constricted feelings was swept away to some unknown place.

I let out another “haah,” this time exhaling even more deeply. Where in the world was this place? And why had I come to such a place?

The scent of white sake forced down from lacquered cups at the March Doll Festival—blended with the aroma of barley-roasted sweets into an intoxicating fragrance that stirred vague longings for children—filled heaven and earth. Moreover, now and then the wind hurled thick clots of that fragrance against my cheeks. It felt almost suffocating, yet afterward—as if wiped with a starkly cold gauze towel—my mind somehow became utterly clear.

At the edge of the countryside stretched what appeared to be a flower field, its green-framed borders coming into view. Beyond the uncut red and yellow flowers lay a pine forest encircling the area as strains of Kagura music began to resound. Just when it seemed audible from the right, it sounded from the left. I exhaled deeply for the third time. Then—from where had it lingered and pooled?—the sadness took on a faintly bittersweet flavor. As it squeezed my chest like a cluster of citrus segments, that very sorrow swelled until—hitch after convulsive hitch—two or three sobs burst forth in rapid succession. A sob that threatened to emerge but wouldn’t lodged itself in my throat. To bring this forth, I felt that making a crying face might coax it out more smoothly—so when I contorted my features into a strained expression and waited, the sob came convulsively upward as though drawn by some force. The feeling I had at that moment was inexpressibly nostalgic.

At that moment, Shima returned with an armful of autumn wildflowers in her hands and said, “Now, come inside—we’re all going to the shrine festival together.” Then she deftly caught one of the grasshoppers that had been there herself and pressed it into my grasp. I clenched it tightly with tremulous hands, no longer wishing to return to that thorn-choked mansion. “I want to go home,” I insisted.

Then Shima paused to think for a moment—

“That may well be the case. After all, Madam and the master were never truly husband and wife,” she said. Then, suddenly lowering her voice,

“Well then, if we’re going home, before that, I’ll secretly let you meet Father for a moment,” she said. Led by Shima’s hand into the narrow path between the storage shed and weather-beaten Nankin paneling, we found a plank bridge laid from the main house to the entrance of a small detached cottage. Shima showed a momentary inclination to check on the main house, but when I caught her eye, she swiftly lifted me up, placed me inside the room, and then stationed herself behind me while keeping watch outside.

It was a dimly lit room with a low ceiling and an oddly damp feel, but with a window about two ken wide open—light streamed through it, casting stark contrasts of light and shadow that made the figure standing before it clearly visible. He was a thin, sharp-shouldered middle-aged man. While remaining inside the room, he extended a long fishing rod toward a small pond and knelt upright casting his line. Both his hands and the rod trembled violently. When we entered, he made a frightened face and stared sharply at us. His nose stood out prominently only at the bridge, the area beneath his cheekbones had sunken sharply, and his thick mustache rose up on his upper lip as though affixed to the rim of a bowl. His eyes were dull yet glaringly exposed. Shima stepped forward slightly and said, “Master, it’s Young Mistress Chō.”

Father replied, "Hmm," but with all fear stripped from his face, only an eerie expression remained—stretched taut and refusing to slacken—as he kept staring our way. Shima called out again.

After a brief pause, the rod slipped from Father’s hand, his awkward raised knee was properly straightened, and he settled into his usual sitting posture with his left hand tucked into his inner pocket. “Lately, it’s been unbearable not drinking sake at home. If I don’t drink—” “If I don’t drink sake—”

With that, he shook his head two or three times.

Before Shima could say anything, Father grinned slyly and— “You, in secret—” As if declaring “This is it—this is it,” he attempted a gesture of tilting a cup with his left hand. “This is troubling,” said Shima, yet she went out somewhere and returned carrying a pedestal glass filled about eighty percent with red wine. Father took it and, with trembling hands that seemed determined not to spill a drop, carefully brought it to his mouth while steadying it with his right hand. But when the rim touched his lips—accompanied by the clink against his teeth—he gulped down nearly ninety percent of it in one go, as though it were sugar water I might drink. He paused to catch his breath, his black eyes fixed on the remaining liquid for a moment—but then drained it entirely in one gulp this time. After stealing a furtive glance toward the doorway, he mercilessly hurled the glass into the palm bamboo grove across the pond.

Throughout all this, Father’s gestures had been directed solely at his own emotions, showing no awareness of our presence before him—but once finished, he stretched his neck toward me while massaging the elbow of the arm propped on his knee with his right hand. “Chō, you came.” And, like someone farsighted, he squinted his eyes and stared intently at my face.

“You’ve grown so much.” While tilting his face alternately left and right with an air of nostalgic tenderness, he peered into my face as though I were a daughter he was seeing for the first time.

I was fond of Father, but whenever he came home, he was always crackling with electric tension coursing through his entire body. Being near him brought a certain exhilaration—as though I were being ceaselessly struck by his sharp masculine energy—yet it was also unnerving and terrifying, leaving no room for complacency. He was mostly silent toward me yet often bought me toys and such; however, I could hardly tell whether he was conscious of my existence as his own child or not. Moreover, I too thought it better that way, and felt that if that force were to be properly directed and reciprocated, how heartrending it would be.

Yet now, Father’s words before my eyes—his demeanor—were utterly unexpected. Though there was a gentle warmth melting into my body, I could only perceive the fibers of his character: boiled-down dregs of himself now, like teased-apart cotton stripped of volatility or explosive force.

Father had changed. Father was gone. There was a changed Father.

Perhaps having noticed my bewildered expression, Father re-crossed his arms while keeping his gaze fixed on me and began speaking earnestly. According to what I later often heard from Shima over the years: “Chō, you’re only seven now, so you probably won’t understand what I’m saying. But when you grow up, listen to Shima. You see, once a person passes forty, they return to their original roots. Even if one were to start life over completely, they must first return to their roots. If they don’t do so, their hearts would be too desolate to bear—especially someone like me, who’s forced himself to grow beyond his means.”

And so Father spoke, it was said. At that moment, Shima—standing behind me—seemed to grasp some measure of Father’s words through the intuition born of her years’ experience, and she nodded repeatedly—

“That is certainly true.” “What Master said is something I too have felt in my own life.” “You see, Young Mistress Chō?” “When you’ve grown up, I shall tell you the words Father spoke just now.”

It seemed she had answered on my behalf.

Father raised one side of his signature French-style mustache in a smile, then continued: “But I fell ill. I’ve exhausted my very soul. I have neither the will nor strength left to return to my roots. Impatience and drink did this. Here I am—detached yet longing for my roots. Utterly pointless.” “But still—” Shima began soothingly, but Father shook his head. “No, I know. With just that much wine, I’m sobering already—my body’s so weak it’s making my head foggy. Ahh, pointless. I’m getting sleepy.”

Father’s face returned once more to its hollowed-out tension—that rigidly contorted visage he’d had before quitting drink. “Ahh, I’m getting sleepy.” “Well then, maybe I’ll try dreaming of lying on that damp, moss-scented earth where I once slept with the old man.” Father started to lie down, using his arm as a pillow. Though my chest was filled with something pressing and overwhelming, unsure how to put it into words here, I simply bowed politely,

“Father, goodbye,” I said. Then Father sat up slightly and looked at my face, shedding two or three tears,

“Mm, goodbye.”

Having said that, he promptly lay down.

Shima laid the tanzen robe that was there over Father’s sleeping form. Through the palm grove’s bamboo thicket, glittering green feathers shone as a sharp cry pierced through. In a small voice, Shima said it was the garden’s peacock calling. When I suddenly noticed in the car being driven back, I was still clutching tight the grasshopper Shima had made me hold earlier in the rice field. The grasshopper had died, warmed by my hand’s heat. Resin-colored insect vomit stained my palm.

When I returned home, Mother said to Shima, “How was it? The ‘inspection’?” Shima gave a brief account of the whole matter and then said, “That’s completely impossible.”

“That would be quite impossible.” Shima said. Then Mother looked at my face and laughed,

“Chō-chan—was it you who did the dumping, or did they dump you? But even if they try to smoothly snatch away a child someone’s raised for seven whole years—well, that’s them being far too soft-hearted,” she said.

Mother was in high spirits for some reason. Having finally concluded she could bear no children herself，the legal wife—affecting the air of those worldly-wise society madams one often encounters—had long been saying she might take me，the concubine’s child，into the main residence under suitable circumstances and raise me as her own. Shima explained how they had observed my manners under pretext of inviting me to autumn festival rites，though ultimately abandoned their plans. Even now，while I can grasp at why Father consistently opposed Madam’s schemes，the full truth eludes me. Had he foreseen what trials awaited me after being taken into that household? If his insight ran so deep，one might expect him to have at least offered Mother some caution or hope regarding my future—left as I was to grow up in my concubine mother’s home—yet Mother insists she never heard any such words.

And yet, when we last met, having only those strange words—clinging to my very life—left lodged in my chest, even a Father I had so loved now struck me as unbearably self-indulgent; still, this sense of him as a pitiable man took root, and I could not help but feel burdened to carry it onward.

Though Mother ordinarily possessed not a shred of genuine maternal affection, the moment a child nearly taken from her returned to her grasp, she became all doting and cheerful—I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Father increasingly took to his bed after that and passed away the following summer, less than a year later. I went with Mother to the main residence, where we were shown Father’s corpse lying behind a pillar screen; but while Mother clung to it, wailing “Professor! Professor!” until she collapsed in tears, I looked upon his remains—now grown so terribly gaunt and shrunken—and knew this was no longer Father. All I felt was the eerie sensation of having witnessed something uncannily unsettling.

Since Father’s death, my household and the main residence became completely estranged. Mother began living with a carefree expression. She had put on a little weight, her face now bearing a faint reddish tinge—a beauty approaching middle age, with ample flesh that drifted across her chest and abdomen in her every movement. I disliked Mother’s nature, but I could not help but cherish her appearance and physique. For some obligatory theater outing, she would don layers of Yonezawa-spun silk or suchlike, settle her fully adorned body before the long brazier with an expression suggesting even attending the play held no particular interest, and blow smoke from her woman’s pipe—scenes I could have gazed at endlessly. Then again, she would bring back some filthy old tool from who-knows-where, declaring, “It’s a real find!” “A real treasure!” she’d declare, wearing an old summer kimono as a smock, her hair swept into a sister-style updo and skirts hitched up as she scrubbed vigorously with a straw brush by the riverbank. Even in this guise, there lingered traces of Fujima-trained poise—Mother remained a figure one never tired of observing.

However, though rumors were spread multiple times, not a single instance of infidelity ever occurred with Mother. "Why on earth does everyone make such a fuss over something as bothersome as romance?" Mother always used to say this. Mother herself seemed to have saved a modest sum of money, but the monthly expenses were covered by an allowance that came from Ikeno, a trading company in Shitamachi where Father had served as an advisor during his lifetime; the allowance was delivered to Mother, and it seemed this was how she managed. That trading company was originally a remodeled old-established shop from a landowning family; though their trade was no more than a sideline, the proprietor was quite enthusiastic—half as a hobby. And perhaps because Father had been involved in foreign trade dealings, the monthly allowance—wrapped in a furoshiki cloth after being placed in an envelope—would be delivered either by an old-fashioned errand boy wearing light blue traditional hakama trousers slung over his shoulders, or by a young clerk in a suit who would snap his folding fan open and shut during summer deliveries. At times, Kiyotaro—Ikeno’s son—would deliver it, saying it was a pretense for a walk. Being a dutiful old establishment, even after Father’s death, they continued providing [the allowance] indefinitely—always appending some polite remark about how abruptly cutting it off would leave us inconvenienced, so they’d maintain it "for the time being." Thus, as long as Mother stopped pestering Father for those occasional expenses, she didn’t seem to feel any real hardship. So even when I said I wanted to finish elementary school and enter girls’ school, she graciously allowed it, saying, "Learning might serve some purpose after all." I chose for myself and enrolled in F Academy—a private girls’ school renowned for its progressive approach to education.

Shima had been notified by Mother of a salary reduction, but far from leaving—declaring it was rather more carefree to remain in this household—she even summoned a joiner to install a Buddhist altar in her room and line up ancestral tablets.

I preferred being at school to being at home. When entangled in the inscrutable life of that household, I would be seized by an anxious feeling—a frustration akin to endlessly calculating odd numbers that refused to divide cleanly. Although Mother never engaged in affairs, after Father’s death she developed a fondness for gathering people, and our house turned into something like a club. I mentioned briefly before that Mother had a fondness for tools, but she would scavenge through antique shops nearly every day to buy assorted items and would somehow decorate them with an air of importance. Mother’s room was a six-tatami space adjoining a twelve-tatami room downstairs. On the wall, she had ostentatiously displayed a photograph of Father in formal Western attire standing beside herself, framed within a relief-carved border of peonies and Chinese lions. Below this hung an ebony tea shelf with inlay work, seemingly of Chinese origin. A long brazier with a wheel-eye design hung an iron kettle with a split handle. Now, up to this point things were orderly enough—but beyond that lay gaudy gold-lacquered clothes racks, worm-eaten armrests, and such kept as regular furnishings in the room; while large crawling baby dolls, medicinal charm decorations, two-stringed kotos, and the like were brought out from the cupboard to be displayed depending on the time and her mood.

While sitting within this atmosphere, Mother would frequently place some tool or another on her lap, using a toothpick to remove debris caught in crevices or polishing them with a cloth, and when people came, she would lecture them. “When you’re surrounded by fine tools, you naturally gain refinement—and while you keep them, the tools gain value too.” At first, it was likely tool enthusiasts who began frequenting the place, but friends invited friends—shogi matches would start, haiku gatherings would form, and before long, it all turned into drinking parties. Mother refused to allow gambling games involving monetary bets, declaring them vulgar.

Mother’s attitude toward these people was lax; she did not meddle excessively. Yet when it came to matters of profit, she intervened. “No, no—don’t go using up our things like that. I want you to consider just how much this is worth in money. If you need that much, pay for it yourselves and have Shima buy it for you to use.” Then they would scratch their heads in a show of compliance, saying “Right, right,” and do exactly as Mother instructed.

To clarify what this meant: for instance, if someone wanted just two or three sheets of hanshi paper—or maybe four or five at most—Mother would silently allow it. But if they tried to gather enough for a full bundle, say for making account books, she would absolutely not permit it. In this manner, she would serve them tea and little else; any other refreshments beyond that, she wouldn’t provide unless there happened to be some excessive surplus. Not only did she have the group cover the costs themselves, but at times even imposed such burdens on them.

“What a dreary day—it’s so stifling, don’t you think?” “How about we all go eat something delicious?” “I kind of want to eat something, don’t you?” With these words, she invited two or three of those with lined pockets. In her feigned senility and innocence lay an oddly mellowed cloying sweetness—

“There she goes again—Auntie’s mooching marathon has begun.” Yet even as they forced bitter smiles, someone would foot the bill. Thus again, they would troop out to go eat something. Shima and I were seldom taken along, but they always brought back some souvenir for us. As such things continued on, strangely enough, the composition of the visiting crowd became fixed—those people turned out to be six or seven sons from families considered wealthy or well-to-do even in Shitamachi. Kiyotaro Ikeno was among them.

How did Mother manage this sorting process? While it seemed perfectly natural to me, according to Shima—

“Why, when it comes to the Mistress’s formidable skills, even in how she delivers the same ‘Welcome’ greeting, there’s a clear hierarchy—special class, first class, and regular tiers, I tell you.” “After all, they say that even during her days as an apprentice geisha in Shitaya, she made the senior geisha cry.”

Then, Shima also said something like this.

“Miss Chō, do keep your eyes open.” “Mistress Shinsō will gradually begin selecting your husband from among that lot.” I disliked this atmosphere at home, so I made efforts to stay behind at school as much as possible—entering the library, playing tennis, being invited to teachers’ residences—killing time until I could return home as close to dinner as possible. The principal of F Academy was a cultured man from provincial gentry who, having many children of his own, had conceived the idea of implementing his educational ideals—this marked the school’s inception. It later evolved into an institution that accepted society’s sons and daughters too, attracting renowned artists as visiting lecturers and adopting coeducation, making it an unconventional school for its time. The principal’s residence stood midway up the hill’s slope, encircled by the dedicated teachers’ quarters stretching around it. The students called the principal’s house at the center “the château.” In contrast, they called the surrounding teachers’ residences “villas.” The wisteria roses tangling around every residence’s wooden panels—perhaps it was this that truly made the area appear so—gave me a faint sense of a Western toy village. Yet even that alone sufficed to make a downtown girl like me forget everything about home and dream of new things.

Due to the household circumstances I had mentioned before, men were no rare sight to me. However, those I had encountered until then were mainly downtown types—a jumbled mix of slovenly and refined sorts that left an indistinct impression. One moment they seemed youths; the next, retirees. In the end, they all came to feel oppressive. Yet while the men I mingled with here still hadn’t shed their childish airs—well, I too had turned sixteen by then and acquired a woman’s basic instincts. I’d come to understand much by then. They all carried the scent of young rams and fragrant pasture grass. When our carapace-like individualities dissolved and we moved en masse together—like five-colored searchlights shifting across plaster statues from green to pale crimson—we began as genderless beings who merely assumed male or female roles as needed, our words nearly blending into gibberish. Yet once even that flowed past, we could only sense ourselves as gentle herds steeped in pasture grass. Was this because most academy students were city-bred uptown children? Or did letting youths roam freely in nature inevitably yield such results?

The hill where this academy stood consisted of white soil abundant in sandy patches, with many lightweight shrubs that grew quickly among its trees.

A boy named Kira, Yoshimitsu-chan, and a small girl called Yaeko had, before I knew it, formed my little party. The boy named Kira was a youth whose shoulders and chest concentrated the strength characteristic of boys, while his torso downward and limbs resembled sticks. When we played basketball, this child would retrieve the ball. Then he broke away from the opposing group while still firmly clutching it. There, his awkwardness in repositioning himself—spreading those stick-like legs and turning toward us while clomping noisily in oversized shoes—became quite a commotion. Everyone laughed. I laughed too, but somehow, in that appearance of his, I could see something like earnest devotion and felt affection. Yoshimitsu-chan’s father was a diplomat who had been assigned an English nurse during their time abroad—so his English was beautifully fluent, but his Japanese still had moments where his tongue would occasionally falter. There was an anecdote that clung to this child: once, upon seeing a female student’s kimono patterned with thousand paper cranes, he had proudly declared, “These cwans—a thousand of ’em!” His classmates never let him forget it, teasing him with cries of “Chiwawa! Chiwawa!” Yaeko-san was a child attending the attached elementary school—a girl around ten years old who already carried herself like a full-fledged middle-class housewife. Her long face—with eyes drawn close as if pinched at the bridge of her nose—gave her a precocious air. The fact that her features bore a slight resemblance to those of the mistress of the Meguro villa—the one who had tormented me—stirred in me a certain ironic interest.

The three of them and I also belonged to a group under Azaka-sensei, who lived in the teachers' quarters. The teachers at each residence naturally selected three or four—or five or six—students they got along with and allowed them free access. Entering Azaka-sensei’s study, I leaned against the teacher’s swivel chair. The fact that my deceased father had been a scholar came fleetingly to mind. The other children would gather around the hearth and conduct their discussions in an adult-like, pretentious manner. Before long, Azaka-sensei returned from the faculty meeting held at the principal’s château and served tea for everyone.

How I longed for those winter days!

Azaka-sensei was a physical education teacher. She had stayed in Finland for some time and would tell us stories about reindeer-pulled sleds. She had a tall, well-proportioned frame and wore a russet jumper. It might have been an interest arising from her duties, but she tried every sport imaginable.

Azaka-sensei was an unmarried woman of thirty-five or thirty-six whose presence felt like soft magnolia wood sheathed in flannel. Her replies came brisk and clear, lending her an androgynous quality, yet when she laughed—covering her mouth with a hand while bending her tall frame into contortions—there surfaced in her a truly tender demeanor. For unmarried female teachers past thirty, rumors of romantic misfortune inevitably gathered; through students’ whispers, such tales now clung to Azaka-sensei too. The speculated partners ranged from the principal in his youth to one of those model husbands gracing women’s magazine covers—a sports-loving political leader—as rumors seeking to cast her as a romantic figure proliferated. And presently she was said to love Katsuraoka, the gardener. It was simply that her pride prevented marriage to him—or so went one particularly pointed rumor. In truth, Azaka-sensei often ventured into the woods with Katsuraoka on hunts. This was likely because during hunting season she would take up shooting; having Katsuraoka—who knew intimately that year’s patterns of small birds—guide her through the hunting grounds must have been the purpose.

The students spread all manner of rumors to the limits of their imagination.

I too had come to like Katsuraoka, the gardener. Because of this, they said Azaka-sensei was secretly tormented within herself.

Of course, even I—at my age—had steadily approached that season of longing for companionship. With this aching, restless emotion nestled in my heart, there were times between classes when I would wander the flower gardens wearing a sorrowful expression or thread through the orchards with shoulders slumped helplessly. And that figure of mine—prematurely matured compared to the Yamanote young ladies common among this school’s students—must have unconsciously contained the coquettishness of a downtown girl. Thus, even within the academy, they sensed something lurking about me—dew about to spill, honeyed scent of temptation—and with constant antipathy and curiosity, they spread all manner of rumors. Not one or two of these were linked to male teachers or students. But could this loneliness I feel—this yearning for human connection—truly be something so simple? If that were truly the case, things would be so simple—though.

Within this yearning of mine for human connection, I sensed something akin to primordial parents—the father who had once been wanting as a father, the mother who now remained wanting as a mother—toward whom I could not help but feel this inexorable longing. And when that craving grew unbearably acute, it was no mere matter of an aching loneliness; rather, I found myself constricted by something cold enough to stifle my very breath. I couldn't shake this orphan's sensation. The people frolicking about in innocent play struck me as enviable yet infuriating, driving me to retreat to flower fields and orchards where plants mirroring my own sentiments might offer solace.

As this happened repeatedly, I would sometimes encounter Katsuraoka as well. Katsuraoka would be staking supports in the flower beds or spraying insecticide on the fruit trees with a sprayer. Even when noticing me, he kept his face turned aside while tossing bagworm insects five or six feet ahead of my feet or flicking moth larvae off branches. Though taking care not to hit me directly, the unexpected nature of what he threw always made me laugh despite myself. Laughing, I—

“Stop it. You’re startling me.” When I said this, Katsuraoka bit his lower lip with his front teeth as if stifling a laugh, then suddenly pretended to be busy and maintained an air of ignorance. Incidents like these, even if witnessed multiple times by others, were hardly enough to become fodder for rumors. For a time, I—distracted by Katsuraoka’s antics yet finding no comfort even among the plants—walked to the edge of the hill to be buffeted by the wind.

Before my eyes lay a section of the teachers' residences on the hillside slope, while further down one tier on a plateau at the cliff's edge, the school buildings could be solemnly surveyed in their entirety. However, as poplar trees stood planted thickly around the campus grounds, their slate roofs remained barely visible through the gaps between the trees. Beyond the poplar treetops stretched the rice fields and farmlands of Tanagawa's irrigation district; to the left lay the train tracks running between Tokyo and Sagami, while on both banks of the bridge, houses clustered like incipient towns. The river still retained the character of a mountain stream, its waters branching and converging across the wide riverbed as they flowed white.

On clear days, Mount Fuji could sometimes be glimpsed peering over the Hakone mountains from behind Daisen. To the right floated the distant Chichibu range.

On a faintly overcast late autumn day, I sat down on lizard’s-tail grass and gazed out, cheek resting on my hand. Kira and Yoshimitsu-chan were imitating wrestling, alternating between being on top and bottom. At times they would start quarreling over alleged fouls, chasing and being chased in reckless dashes. Yaeko had been counting the bulbils gathered in her palm, but “That’s dangerous~!” she warned, her brow furrowed as she dodged away. Yet as if bound by invisible confines, the three would venture a certain distance only to return again near me.

And so, without fearing loneliness, I listened to their clamor as if it were fitting accompaniment for sinking into thought, half-consciously letting my mind drift to the wind—transparent yet brimming as if nonexistent in stillness, yet once unleashed, making even the hill’s trees and open fields surge alive, their souls summoned into frenzy. Then it would blow away, leaving no trace of where it had gone. What a refreshingly masculine presence it was. I stretched the hand resting on my cheek into the air, testing for the wind’s presence as though groping for a person. In that instant, I started at a grape cluster sliding from my shoulder onto my lap and whirled around. There I saw Katsuraoka the gardener passing by, glimpsed pruning shears glinting in his right hand, and from the heft of grapes now weighing on my knees, felt something flicker against my chest for the first time—but then the wind began whispering through, setting both my hair and every blade of grass trembling without distinction.

The wind grew steadily stronger. The great poplar tree in the schoolyard turned golden and began shaking its crown like inverted fox tails, but as the wind roaring against my ears from behind intensified into a ferocious howl, the poplar bent like a whip. In the instant it lashed back, every leaf on one side was stripped away, leaving branches that resembled the half-flensed bones of a gizzard shad. The whirlwind of yellow leaves—still holding their dewdrop shapes—had been carried high into the distance across the sky when *ah, ah, ah*—another swarm came billowing in. It was a flock of migratory birds crossing over the Chichibu mountains.

The large cluster of grapes left on my lap was devoured in an instant by Kira, Yoshimitsu-chan, Yaeko, and the others—their nose tips and cheeks reddened by the wind—but something lingering remained in my chest like a stem. After graduating from horticultural school, Katsuraoka had been employed at this academy, assisting students with their gardening practice and overseeing the grounds—but he mentioned that he was originally the son of a small nursery owner in Yamanote and had even helped out at night stalls during temple festivals. He was a large-built youth without any particular quirks, his sturdy jaw bearing a striking blue hue from his shave. Normally, he lived in the storage shed of the principal’s château and commuted from there to the garden tool shed in the schoolyard every morning.

Two or three days after school had let out, I somehow found myself going to check out that garden tool shed. It was a warm, clear day, and the shadows of cosmos flowers’ spindly stems cast vivid patterns on the shed’s wooden siding. In front of the shed, having spread out a straw mat, Katsuraoka was testing the drop lid at the entrance of a long rectangular box—a trap for catching weasels—making it clatter repeatedly as he adjusted its mechanism. Katsuraoka continued clattering the trap, feigning unawareness of my presence as he bit his lower lip with his upper teeth in that familiar way to suppress a smile, still saying nothing. I felt a flicker of indignation as if slighted, but thinking What insolence, deliberately said with exaggerated politeness: "Thank you for the grapes the other day."

Then, at last, Katsuraoka looked up at me as if noticing my presence for the first time, blinking as though dazzled, “It’s Alexandria grapes grown in the greenhouse. Was it good?” he said in a tone one might use with a child.

“Kira and Yoshimitsu-chan and the others ate them all up.” Katsuraoka said, “What? I see,” in a bored tone but added, “Well, I’ll do it again.” “Sometime,” he said, and with that resumed tending to the trap’s lid as though I no longer concerned him. This exchange feeling somehow inadequate, the urge to nettle this youth arose within me—perhaps because I was a girl nearing that particular age.

“Instead of me, how about giving them to Azaka-sensei?”

And after saying it, I felt intensely remorseful for having somehow ended up using Azaka-sensei. Katsuraoka, upon hearing these words, stared at my face with such intensity that it nearly dazzled me, but—

“You still don’t understand anything. “Ah, fine.”

With that, he sniffed using the back of his hand. Feeling at a loss, I left as I was.

One day, when I returned home at twilight, not only the usual crowd but two or three strangers had come to the house. The tatami room was filled with all manner of tools and objects laid out, and before a central platform stood one of the regulars—the son of a liquor wholesaler from Shinkawabori—wearing a headband tied at his forehead and baring one shoulder, pounding on the platform while shouting. “Come on, how much? One more bid! Quickly now, be brave! Come on, one more bid!”

Then, the seated crowd erupted in laughter, but one among them affected a pretentious voice.

“Thirty-three sen.”

The son said “Eh?” and pretended not to hear, cupping one hand to his ear while thrusting his head forward—but immediately feigned comprehension, “What? Thirty-three sen. “Eeeh—thirty and three sen.” “That’s dirt cheap!” “This Ninsei masterpiece—are you blind?” “You’re all blind fools!” “But well, can’t be helped.” “I’d prefer the bidder to take it back, but consider this my leap from Kiyomizu’s stage—” Here he clapped his hands sharply: pan-pan-pan, “I’ll let it go. “Here, take it!” Laughter erupted again. From within the crowd, one person leaned forward and was handed an old teacup by the son. A person beside them, putting on airs with their voice,

“Well, congratulations.” “May it long remain a family heirloom,” someone said. The crowd erupted in laughter once more. The son lifted up what looked like rotten wood and swung it beneath the electric light— “Now this next piece is truly remarkable! This prized aloeswood comes straight from Mount Dandaka in India!” “Our sacred land—steeped in Buddhist connections—where it drifted ashore at Ago Bay in Ise Province, radiating divine light night after night!” “Here’s where the venerable Priest Gyōki himself passed through during his eastern missionary journey—or so the legend goes!”

“Your auctioneering seems rather strained—you’re cramming too many ‘or so it comes’ between your fancy phrases!” Someone threw in a quip. Again, laughter erupted.

When I looked to see what Mother was doing, she sat before her usual long brazier wearing a bored expression as if humoring a child. However, each time an item was flicked into the liquor wholesaler’s son’s hand as he energetically called out bids—“Now starting at seven sen to ten sen, jumping to ten and five sen—” her eyes instinctively flashed with attention toward the item. Near Mother, leaning against the room’s wall, Ikeno’s son had his arm hooked around the back of his head while lazily stretching his legs out before him.

I stood for a while in the dirt-floored entrance, disgusted that yet another noisy, unpleasant spectacle had begun, and remained there without even removing my shoes.

Separated by a shoji screen was the maid’s room where Shima stayed. She had planted herself near the threshold between the twelve-mat room hosting the auction and her own quarters, leaning forward on her knees. Though maintaining a deferential posture, she gaped like someone entranced as she watched the young masters’ antics. At intervals, she would mutter delirious phrases like “How amusing” or “Truly making fools of people,” then suddenly burst into raucous laughter. Shima had always harbored nothing but goodwill toward the young masters—there wasn’t a single thing they did that failed to charm her. Truth be told, these young gentlemen who frequented the place each had their quirks to some degree, yet overall carried themselves as cheerful souls of good breeding. Shima too occasionally partook of their financial largesse—they were generous sorts when it came to monetary matters. Yet among them all, Shima cared little for Ikeno alone. She tended to keep her distance, deeming him a youth whose emotional depths defied comprehension—a quality ill-suited to his age.

When Shima noticed me still standing in the dirt-floored entrance, “Oh my, Young Mistress Chō, do come up quickly. The auction’s broken out from the flea market, you see.”

“Oh my, Young Mistress Chō,” Shima said.

I took off my shoes there, slipped past the auction, and greeted Mother with "I'm home." Then Mother: “Chō-chan, since Mr. Ikeno’s bored, I’ll have him take you out to dinner.” Mother said. Ikeno looked at Mother with a startled expression and said, “I never said any such thing,” but upon seeing her put on an air of feigned ignorance, he seemed to realize something— “That’s fine by me. “Chō-chan, shall we go?”

He adjusted his posture. I wasn’t entirely unaware that Mother was up to some scheme, but as a daughter, this being my first time being taken out alone by a young man to dine somewhere felt novel—and moreover, Ikeno was among the more tolerable of the young masters to me. “Yes,” I answered. Mother’s complexion did not change in the slightest as she— “If you’re going, leave the house separately—you mustn’t let everyone notice.”

Ikeno left the house first.

I went up to my room on the second floor to change into a kimono. This had originally been Father’s room, but after his death, it was assigned to me. Though most furnishings had been cleared out, traces of his presence lingered—two or three legal-looking tomes on the staggered shelves of the alcove, a Belgian-made whiskey decanter and glass set—still evoking his memory. Father would sprawl out on the tatami here, taking small sips of whiskey while reviewing estimates and reports for work requested by Ikeno. Father had been employed as a doorman and errand boy since his youth and had never sat properly at a desk to study. Shima said that was likely how he had developed such haphazard study habits. When cold, he would repeatedly pull at the edge of the navy wool rug spread beneath him, wrapping it around his body until he dozed off curled like tobacco beetles in their nest. It made for a rather forlorn figure to behold.

The evening glow reflected on the waters of the Horikawa River outside the window, its reflection casting back onto the second-floor ceiling where bright wave patterns swayed ceaselessly. I gazed absently at them while lost in memories of my late father, somehow managing to change into my outdoor kimono. I touched up my makeup and went downstairs. The young masters playing at auction teased me slightly when they saw me but remained engrossed in their game without suspicion. Afterwards, they would likely start another drinking party.

When I came to the foot of C Bridge, Ikeno was waiting with his head bowed. Meeting this young master outside in such formal circumstances made him seem like an entirely different person. He had slightly sloping shoulders and wore a stylish suit on his large frame—a bearing that felt somewhat clumsy, neither that of an intellectual youth from Yamanote nor a merchant’s son from Shitamachi, as though his indecisive and skeptical nature manifested physically. Yet at heart, he remained a kind and intelligent young man.

After exchanging those peculiar formal bows—impersonal yet tinged with mutual disdain that paradoxically suggested goodwill—Ikeno thrust both hands into his trouser pockets. Swaying his upper body like a man keeping rhythm at the oars, he began walking along the Horikawa riverbank with methodical steps. His gait bore no resemblance to that of someone escorting a young girl. I found myself at a loss for how to match this rigid posture, but since my companion took such long strides, I frequently had to break into a jog.

The Horikawa River, its stone walls already parched with early winter's hues, cast a chilly evening mist over black waters that mirrored the fading light. Among bustling riverside shops stood two quaint fishing inns, their weathered timbers blending with the commercial clamor. Four or five boats freshly returned from offshore lay moored at shore, their crews unloading gear and catches beneath willow roots where shadows pooled thickest. From within an inn came bursts of raucous laughter—angling guests clustered around braziers, likely embellishing their day's exploits. Out front, today's haul lay arrayed on broad wooden trays facing the street, a splendid display that drew swarms of children pressing close. The fish being mullet announced itself before sight—that vigorous stench peculiar to the species stinging nostrils long before eyes confirmed silver-flanked forms.

While pressing my sleeve to my nose, I peered at the mullet. I disliked the fishy smell of this fish, but I liked its appearance. This fish, with its simple form like an ancient stone rod—devoid of any curves and colored only in leaden gray and silver—seemed to me a creature of stubborn simplicity, all bluster and no substance. The tale of their boisterous vigor giving way to swift demise also stirred pity within me. When Father came to our house and stayed a bit too long, Mother would grow uncomfortable and suggest he go fishing or something. Father, seeming to have an inherent fondness for it as well, would set out from this boat inn. Every year around this time, he would still catch these mullet and return home. Then, regardless of her usual demeanor, Mother would become a cook, and with Shima’s help, she would prepare the fish as sashimi or salt-grilled; when a large number were caught, she would gut them to make big dried fish and hang them up to dry all the way from the second-floor window of Father’s room.

When I smelled that smoke-like odor, I felt dizzy, so I would stay outside for a while before returning. Of course, I absolutely did not eat the flesh of this fish. However, within the belly of this fish lay what was commonly called the "mullet’s navel"—a muscular organ shaped like abacus beads. I didn’t know what organ it was, but when skewered, salted, and grilled, it had almost no fishy odor, and its pleasantly rubbery texture—squeaky like rubber—was something I quite liked. Since Shima knew this, she always prepared it for me.

“O-Chō-sama, here’s the mullet’s navel.”

I found the name amusing and ate while stifling a chuckle. When I noticed this later, Father too didn't eat mullet but favored this organ of theirs; he would have Shima prepare it, lay it out on his dining tray, and sip his evening sake to this accompaniment. When Shima mentioned me—Father who normally showed no interest—he stared intently at my face but only said: "Chō likes strange things." I remember how in Father's faint bitter smile then, a conflicted sentiment—nostalgia for our shared peculiarity mingled with revulsion—cast its shadow and grazed my lips.

I too felt something pressing against my heart, “But Father, you—” I retorted. The time Father and I exchanged raw words that touched our souls—if one excludes our meeting at the Meguro villa shortly before his death—seems to have occurred just this once in his entire life. As I stood there lost in such thoughts before the fishing boat inn, Ikeno—who had gone on ahead—came back and,

“Did you find something interesting? You like fish, Chō-chan,” he said. Unable to articulate my current complex feelings in brief words, I simply said, “Yes.” Then Ikeno: “That’s good. I’m more fond of fish than meat myself. Why don’t we go fishing together next time?” he said, but then again showed signs of wanting to hurry onward: “I’m getting hungry. Let’s just hurry.”

he urged me.

The riverside town had sunk into deep dusk, and the night fog enveloping indigo-ink rows of houses and the indigo-ink river surface grew thick with wisteria purple—so dense it chilled the throat upon being inhaled. Like seeping out and gushing forth, firefly-hued and crystal-colored lights became strikingly apparent upon the water, across the road surface, throughout the sky. The willows along the riverbank—lingering vestiges of autumn—scattered sparse leaves upon my shoulders. When we reached where Horikawa River formed a crossroads and several small bridges became visible in all directions, we too crossed one.

“This bridge is called Otokobashi, you know.” “And the bridge you see over there is Onnabashi—” Ikeno, appearing to have loosened up considerably, chatted to me about such things as we entered the sandbar area called Nakasu on the opposite shore. This was land reclaimed from what had once been a delta at the mouth of the Ōkawa River. In Mother’s youth, they say it thrived as a bustling entertainment district with theaters and archery ranges, but now it has become an entirely ordinary residential town—though perhaps due to its convenience for docking boats, warehouses seem abundant. Shipping agencies and trading company offices related to that are intermingled among the townhouses.

Only along the Ōkawa-facing riverbank did a few refined and tasteful restaurants remain, designed to evoke memories of when this area was once called Mitsumata—a place of elegant summer cooling and autumn moon-viewing. Ikeno entered one of them called Kikunoya. “We happen to have a riverside room available, though it might be rather chilly for you.”

Ikeno answered, “That’s fine.” In the spacious tatami room—just the two of them alone—they set the dining table near the alcove close to the riverside and occasionally gazed at the night river view through glass-paned shoji screens while quietly moving their chopsticks. Ikeno appeared to be a seasoned drinker, pouring himself from the sake decanter and bringing cups to his lips. The maid—perhaps considering herself discreet—offered brief pleasantries when delivering dishes before vanishing like a shadow.

“It’s as if we’ve come to listen to plovers on a cold night,” and

“Back in the Genroku era, it seems there was Bashō’s hut in Fukagawa on the opposite bank diagonally across from here.” Ikeno, seemingly at a loss for how to continue the conversation, began chattering disjointedly about matters of no interest whatsoever to a daughter like me. Even after growing older, I still displayed that peculiar habit of mine while eating—absorbed in all manner of thoughts as I gave absentminded replies like “Right” or “Is that so.”

Suddenly, the image of Katsuraoka—the school gardener—basking in autumn sunlight while crafting a weasel trap floated to mind. After that, had the weasel ever been caught? Back then, when I’d casually brought up Azaka-sensei on a whim to gauge his feelings, what could he have meant by those words—uttered with such conviction—“You still don’t understand anything”? After that, I would occasionally catch sight of Katsuraoka at the horticultural field, but he would turn into side paths to avoid me or about-face and retreat back the way he’d come. Azaka-sensei would again abruptly show only to me these feminine gestures—sighing deeply, pressing her cheek against my forehead, combing through the hair at my nape while letting hot tears drip into my sideburns—a series of acts that left me shuddering with such revulsion they utterly bewildered me. Why had such things been increasing so much? At any rate, even Katsuraoka—had he learned of me now dining face-to-face with another young man like this—I fully understood he wouldn’t feel pleased about it.

If only I could interact with Katsuraoka without making him feel that way and still associate with Ikeno as I am now—how happy I would be. Does such a thing as friendship between men and women truly not exist in this world?

Even things like love and romance in a girl’s heart—lately, there were times when I wanted them so badly it ached. But these were mere forms disguising substances of differing natures, and should one mistakenly become ensnared by them, unless driven to distraction by mounting frustration as one pursued them to their depths, they would gradually grow uglier in hue until one withered into disappointment—a pattern I had witnessed in my father’s obsession with my mother, which compelled me, even as I found such unfertilized eggs of one-sided love and affection—arising unbidden within me—utterly pitiable, to nevertheless laboriously direct my own heart to fear and despise them. Thus, if I could obtain not things like love or romance but simply a dependable male friend, how delighted I would be. In that case, even if one were to become two or three, they would not conflict with each other.

Perhaps I should try telling this clever and kind young man about my life's design. The sounds of tugboat boilers and steam whistles reverberated repeatedly along the river's surface. The lights of cars crossing the diagonally visible Kiyosu Bridge had grown sparse. The shadow of that elegant bridge floated in the lamplight lining its railings, taking on a faintly ominous quality as it loomed darkly high in the sky. Waves left by the steamship lapped against the stone foundation beneath our banquet room, sounding almost like the seashore. I picked up the vermilion sake bottle. Though I could have imitated Mother's practiced way of pouring by observation alone, actually doing so felt somehow shameful—I simply grabbed the bottle's neck and turned its spout toward Ikeno.

“Go on, let me pour for you.” Ikeno held out his cup with a puzzled expression, but after bringing the rim of the cup I had poured to his lips and setting it down, “You really shouldn’t pour drinks for men so often,” he said gently. I, thinking him impertinent despite having gone out of my way to pour, replied with a touch of anger, “I know,” I said, whereupon Ikeno—perhaps finding my attitude unexpectedly sharp—forced a placating smile and,

“If you’d only do it for me, well, that’s another matter entirely.”

he said jokingly. I too found myself drawn into his banter, "So, you're the jealous type?"

I said this too as a joke.

At this, Ikeno remained silent and looked down for a while. Then his face tightened, “To tell the truth, that’s actually how it is,” he said. I grew disenchanted, thinking it would be useless to consult him about Katsuraoka now, and simply began talking nonchalantly about my daily school life—how there were orchards basking on sunny hillsides and flower fields where we gardened between classes. We also gathered bulbils. As I chattered on about such ordinary things, Ikeno’s expression gradually grew more serious.

When I noticed this, I was slightly startled and asked the reason. Then Ikeno said that even hearing such innocent, pastoral stories about others somehow grated on him, and he reluctantly explained the reason. In the Ikeno household—originally landowners with ample assets—the hemp wholesaler shop in Setomono-cho harbored no ambition for expansion, preserving only their ancestral trade. The household head—Kiyotaro's father Rihyōe—was an indulgent yet good-natured patriarch. Restless by nature, he constantly sought new ventures. He had embarked on several enterprises only to be swindled by others, each ending in complete failure. Overseas trade numbered among these ventures. Kakuroku, their clerk, proved thoroughly reliable, while Rihyōe's wife's uncle from the Notoya family on her maternal side ranked among what traditional downtown merchants considered an accomplished man. As cracks began forming in their assets, these three commenced supervising Rihyōe through mutual consultation. They discarded all businesses save overseas trade. This arrangement stemmed from my father having been requested as an advisor on overseas trade methodologies. Unless permitted to continue this single pursuit as his hobby, Rihyōe likely wouldn't have remained tractable. Given these supervisors' nature, particular restraints were imposed even in raising heir-apparent Kiyotaro. Regarding personal indulgences—womanizing chief among them—however much money might be spent, it constituted measurable liability for Ikeno's estate. Only business-related hobbies posed true terror. Rihyōe himself stood as prime exemplar. Hence when Kiyotaro displayed literary leanings during his top-student days at First Middle School, these guardians seized upon it to cultivate a controlled pastime. Kiyotaro enthusiastically embraced drama during his First Higher School years. Thereupon the three supervisors exerted every effort to connect him with actors and theatrical circles.

When Kiyotaro moved on to university, his interests shifted toward haiku and its history. The three supervisors again focused their efforts on fostering this interest. Masters of the old school and poets of the new tendency were invited to the dormitory in Hama-cho. The three supervisors had one more plan. Just as with Rihyōe’s wife, if they provided Kiyotaro too with a downtown-style so-called “accomplished bride,” the household would remain secure forever—

“Chō-chan.” “You’re still a girl who’s never known hardship, so you probably can’t grasp it deeply—but do you think a person can just walk straight in the direction they want when everyone around them treats them this way?”

Kiyotaro had already emptied four or five sake bottles. He seemed prone to bad hangovers; his face—with the faint eyebrows typical of a modern youth—was deathly pale as if painted with the sap of young leaves, while only his lips remained unnervingly vivid. “When someone earnestly seeks something pure with their heart, these philistines swarm around like festival dancers—beating drums and gongs from the sidelines, fanning the flames and lavishing praise.” “With this, you’d think it’d be obvious whether something like art can take root or not.”

Whether from drunken disarray or not, Ikeno fixed his gaze—to no one in particular—and began to mutter.

“When things like ‘faintly,’ ‘secretly,’ ‘barely-there,’ or ‘single-mindedly,’ ‘wholeheartedly,’ ‘purely’ get trampled underfoot—how can there be such a thing as art?” “Hey, you.” Perhaps because he had never possessed any inherent literary ambition to begin with, Ikeno said he had grown disgusted with these circumstances and dropped out midway from the university’s Japanese literature department. “As for womanizing—that’s even more so.” “It’s not like I’ve been egged on by others and gone falling head over heels or anything, is it?” “Hey, Chō-chan.” “Even so, I’m the only virgin among all the young masters downtown, you know.”

He said this was partly his own inclination, but his stubborn resistance against the philistines had also compelled him to protect it from womanizing all this time. During this interval, the maid came two or three times asking if she should at least serve dinner for the Young Mistress, but Ikeno dismissed her each time. "There's one more thing I need you to hear, Chō-chan." "Understand?"

And then, propping both elbows on the table and thrusting his head forward,

“Your mother is scheming to foist you onto me.” “When she sees I’m being wishy-washy, she threatens to make you a concubine or sell you off as a geisha.” “This is really something.” “But I intend to play along with her scheme—fully aware of everything.” “The reason being—I want to pull off one action here, entirely of my own spontaneous motive, completely uninstigated by those philistines in my household.” “I’ll show them up good.” “In contrast, your mother’s shallow scheming makes this a stroke of luck.”

And then, Ikeno let out a maddened laugh. I felt that something in my circumstances—that as a woman, I had already drawn the attention of adults—was taking root within me. It was terrifying, but I also felt a certain thrill. "I don’t know why, but you can’t just leave me out of things like that."

I asked, feigning a bit of naivety. Then Ikeno swung his right hand wildly, “No good, you see.” “For any action to exist, its motive must possess enough allure to justify initiating it. Put that way, it might sound too abstract for you to grasp—but in any case, the other party simply must be Chō-chan.”

In his earnest manner of speaking, I felt the shallow joy of a young girl's heart. I put on a slightly affected air and said, “Oh my, what a predicament.”

It was only then that Ikeno, declaring “Ah, I’m drunk,” called the maid and had her serve me a meal. As I ate the ochazuke—this shop’s specialty, with chrysanthemum flowers pickled in miso atop the rice—the frequent cheeping calls from along the riverbank could be heard. The maid explained that seagulls were gathering around the food scraps being discarded in the kitchen. Staggering unsteadily, Ikeno still managed to carry the souvenirs and escort me to the house entrance.

Only Mother remained awake, still seated before the long brazier in her padded winter kimono. When I greeted her with "I’m home" and began climbing up to my room on the second floor, Mother gently replied "Welcome back"—yet all the while, for some reason, she fixed her gaze on me intently, her eyes focused with an inspecting look as if scrutinizing every detail of my appearance.

A little over a year had passed. Katsuraoka’s manner of deliberately avoiding me; Azaka-sensei, who during the dignified physical education sessions now displayed a feminine side entirely unlike her usual self. Even that ceased to bother me once I grew accustomed to it, and I continued to play innocently in the gardens with Kira, Yoshimitsu-chan, and Yaeko as always.

It was the end of the year. The Academy’s classes concluded at noon on the 23rd of the month. After a day’s interval on the 24th, on the 25th, the regular students who frequented Azaka-sensei’s home were scheduled to gather there for Christmas. From then until the 7th of the new year was the New Year’s holidays. On the morning of the 24th, as I organized textbooks and notebooks no longer needed from this semester alone in my second-floor room—thinking how next year I would turn eighteen, that prime age for a young woman, and at last graduate from the higher girls’ school level come April to enter the research department—Mother called for me and ordered me to deliver year-end gifts to acquaintances. Mother was a woman peculiarly rigid about such formal courtesies.

The first place I was to go was Azaka-sensei's home—the teacher to whom I owed particular gratitude at the Academy. In truth, while not consciously dwelling on it, I had grown slightly weary of Azaka-sensei, who since last late autumn had become sentimental for reasons unclear to me, and so reduced my visits from five times to three, then twice to once. Lately these had dwindled to mere handfuls each month. And so today too my reluctance surged forward first, but with this being the annual year-end formality, there was no avoiding it. Summoning my resolve, I set out carrying the wrapped bundle Mother had prepared.

The roads and sky were thickly shrouded in mist, with the morning sun evenly reflecting off it—a day that felt like walking through colored jelly. Azaka-sensei’s villa-style house appeared square and solid, like a rosebud with one or two petals curling outward at the edges. Even after I pulled the doorbell cord, there was no response at all. As I stood there dazedly at a loss, toward the oak grove on the upstream hill came the familiar sound of a dog barking, followed by an echoing gunshot. I remembered that whenever year-end approached, Azaka-sensei would shoot ducks and wild birds to present to the principal’s household for their New Year celebrations.

The sounds of dogs and gunshots coming from a comfortable distance rekindled my nostalgia for Azaka-sensei. Even in the coarse explosions of gunpowder—after each shot fired, during that interval before the follow-up round meant to compensate for a miss—there was something pitifully endearing in how it suggested a woman who'd botched some affair, now vacillating between conflicting thoughts as she sought redemption. In feminine tasks she showed nothing feminine whatsoever, yet when consciously attempting femininity, she exuded an indescribable unpleasantness that repelled others—even that faint down at her lip corners which one might almost mistake for a sparse mustache on her androgynous middle-aged face. Yet when handling something as brutish as a rifle, it paradoxically acquired a tender grace that delicately appealed to the heart. Contemplating this inherent contradiction in Azaka-sensei's nature, I kept waiting outside the entrance. The gunshots showed no sign of drawing nearer. Growing impatient, I left the wrapped bundle on the entrance stone and went searching toward the oak grove.

The oak grove continued standing along the banks of the Tana River, surrounding orchards and flower beds behind it on the hilltop while embracing three-tiered strata—the terrace housing school staff residences, another holding academy buildings, and below these, flat irrigated farmland stretching along the riverside.

I wandered along the narrow path barely threading through the forest, guided by the gunshots and barking dogs. I would think the sound was right there and go to check, only to hear the dog’s bark coming from an entirely different direction. I strayed so far that it became ludicrous even to myself. Thus straying and wandering, yet this solitary walk through the forest on a warm early winter day evoked an indescribable blend of lonely sorrow and enraptured nostalgia. The leaves had completely fallen, piled thickly upon the ground, and the frost that had settled upon them had melted just enough to add moisture—so with each step I took, my shoes sank softly into the earth up to my ankles. Beneath the sound of stiffened hemp cloth rubbing together, I could faintly hear another like raw silk being kneaded. To trample them down so carelessly, again and again as I walked—this felt terribly extravagant and wasteful. Moreover, each time my foot sank through, from the depressions formed in the fallen leaves arose a slightly fermented scent of decaying leaves close to soil—accompanied by a sensation as simple, refined, and lonesomely elegant as wiping one’s face with unbleached Japanese paper. I found myself walking the narrow paths in all directions, as if this very act were the purpose of my wandering.

The mist within the forest grew denser still, enveloping everything beyond twenty ken in all directions in boundless haze. As I walked endlessly through groves with neither path behind nor destination ahead determined, I began to feel myself like a traveler who walks on single-mindedly seeking some treasure for the heart. Does such a thing exist? Must I seek it regardless? In that moment, no such questions arose. Simply—I was a traveler who would continue seeking. And as I walked on, watching through the treetops how the mist within the forest gradually brightened each grove into crimson relief, I couldn't help feeling this oak grove—even as it kept me walking within it—was being lifted along with the entire earth by some enormous hand, steadily drawing me nearer to that treasure. Hearing Azaka-sensei's intermittent gunshots and hunting dogs' barks as if in a trance, I chose the brighter forest paths and pressed onward. Golden light filtered through the mist appeared before me, forming a thick wall-like brightness on one side. As if discovering my final purpose, I charged into that luminous wall of mist. There, at the edge of the oak grove where sunlight glittered on green leaves, lay a radish field.

I felt as though I had been reunited with the world I once inhabited, and found myself looking around with unusual curiosity. Before I knew it, I had passed through the oak grove and emerged on the crest of a hill that jutted out toward the river's upstream side. When I looked around, the mist had cleared considerably. From the riverbank hill to where the oak grove stood ahead stretched a flat expanse of farmland, its nutrient-rich black soil dotted with countless vegetables arrayed like green specks. Four or five farmhouses were visible. Across the river, three connected telegraph poles at the base point were visible. At the Tana River, where the Ishikawa Plain spread wide and low enough to reveal its bed, multiple rivulets branched off and flowed downstream, only to converge once more into a single stream that disappeared beneath the hill along the bank. Across the river, starting from Ishikawa Plain, withered winter trees grew thickly, and where their brown undulations mingled with pine forests, the geological strata gradually rose in elevation. As these pines formed continuous mountains, the forests extended all the way to the large ridged hills that ran parallel to the river downstream. In the distance, I could see the Chichibu Mountain Range, its purple hues streaked with folds of snow.

It was an utterly ordinary landscape without any peculiarity, yet when compared to the lively vista of the Tana River from the academy's nestled location, I felt like seeing two sides of the same thing. But the sun was warm, the mist had cleared completely, and I felt wonderfully at ease. Partly intending to examine this area—close to the Academy yet rarely visited—I proceeded along the path between the oak grove and the adjacent radish fields. Due to the thawing frost, the soil had become quite muddy. I descended leisurely to the riverbank along the slippery slope of a hill that curved downward toward the river, digging my heels in. Perhaps I might find some remaining sasanqua camellias in the thickets along the riverbank.

As I drew closer to the river, the farmland ended, giving way to an area where mixed trees and weeds sprawled into wild thickets. Below this weed-choked terrain lay land where a great flood two or three years prior had carried away much of the cliff soil, leaving the white earth of the cliff face exposed ever since. The water had stagnated here, forming what appeared to be a small pool. Azaka-sensei had often mentioned how small ducks would occasionally gather in this pool. The gunshots and barking dogs had ceased—perhaps she had gone down there after all.

Maintaining my entranced state as I made my way through the weed-choked area, I paid no mind to the shabby hut protruding from the thicket onto the somewhat widened white earth path where smoke rose from something, nor to the disheveled old man eating by the smoke there, and tried to pass by indifferently. Moreover, from the old man, "Young lady from the Academy—" Even when addressed, I—aware that my uniform marked me as a young lady from the Academy—merely assumed the old man was attempting some casual greeting and did no more than pause in my tracks. At the Academy, whenever there was an event or bazaar, they would always summon the local beggar leader and distribute money, goods, or food to him. Therefore, whether out of gratitude or because they recognized Academy students as their benefactors, the entire community of beggars neither clung to sleeves nor engaged in any malicious behavior—

However, next from the old man, “Young Lady, won’t you have some roasted sweet potato? It’s delicious.” When he said this, I felt a dual terror so intense that I barely managed to suppress the scream rising in my throat. One was the fear that this old man had seen through my roots being of beggar lineage, and the other was the thought that what had dwelled deep within my deceased father’s heart might now be beckoning through this old man’s mouth—these two thoughts had been drawn out in me all at once in that instant.

In my attempts to fathom Father’s heart, I came to understand this: that past middle age, having reached the extremity of life’s weariness, he had begun to harbor a longing so fierce it seared his soul—a yearning for the reed mats and soil that had nurtured him in childhood. Yet precisely because such deeply rooted inclinations pass easily through flesh and blood, he had gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid emotional entanglement with me, his child, fearing his influence might take hold. These truths revealed themselves to me layer by layer, like peeling thin skins from an onion, each time I encountered some incident or occasion that called Father to mind. Now there remains no room for doubt. Father had wanted to call out to me with a voice of pure instinct, forgetting everything. The result might be that both parent and child would end up sleeping on reed mats or tumbling to the ground—he had wanted to cry out to me with a voice of pure instinct, as a parent desires. But throughout his life, Father was hindered by something and thus could not do that.

That I was a girl of beggar lineage—even while daily immersing myself in exploring Father’s feelings—I had forgotten this truth about myself. Though possessing a disposition where even the wind’s sound stirs loneliness, I—with Father’s strong-willed nature and Mother’s cunning mixed within me—appear to others as a rather showy yet memorable young woman. A girl perceived thus cannot help but occasionally feel it herself; indeed, whether viewing flowers or moon, in those moments I likely possess a nature finding more delight than ordinary girls would. Moreover, now that I’d reached marriageable age and needed floral adornment as merchandise, Mother ceased even hinting at me as a beggar’s child. Why would I myself force open some lineage concealed through inheritance? I had believed such concerns vanished forever.

But now, as if rousing me from an intoxicated dream, I heard a wretched voice. "Won't you have some roasted sweet potato? It's delicious, Young Lady."

I froze. What was I to do? But when I calmed myself and listened carefully, I discovered the voice held utter naturalness, seemingly devoid of hidden intent. There was a deeply warm resonance to it—like the unadorned call of a parent bird—a kindness so instinctive one might think he spoke from an elder’s sense of duty toward the young. “It’s not dirty at all. “Young Lady.” “I used chopsticks to handle it over the fire—my hands never touched it at all.”

Nevertheless, I drew myself up and began to approach the old man. Though his clothes were disheveled, they weren’t particularly dirty. His hands and face were small—an old man with a mushroom-like complexion, fine-grained and fragile-looking. He seemed a figure who could scarcely contain human vitality beyond the barest sliver of honesty or goodwill. I felt somewhat relieved, “What kind of sweet potato is it?” I asked first in return. The old man retrieved a black lump from the embers with a fire skewer and,

“Chinese potatoes—you know, the ones skewered on bamboo and sold at the Tori-no-Ichi festival.” After swinging the black lump through the air to cool it, he handed me the skewer’s blunt end. The old man blinked his squirrel-like eyes rapidly, watching me with an expression both anxious and curious about how I’d handle it. “It should’ve cooled by now. Peel it yourself. The white flesh inside will come out.” As I still hesitated, the old man continued in that same measured tone:

“Earlier, Azaka-sensei and Mr. Katsuraoka passed by and ate some too. They said it was delicious.” My heart leapt in a single bound from anxieties about my lineage to speculations concerning Katsuraoka. For over a year now, Katsuraoka had maintained such reserve toward me—and now I suddenly recalled with displeasure how he accompanied Azaka-sensei in places unknown to me. Gathering all these thoughts, I asked:

"You know Azaka-sensei and Mr. Katsuraoka?" Then the old man puffed up with pride,

“If it’s the Academy’s teachers—starting with the principal—everyone knows them. “After all, I’ve been around these parts longer than the Academy itself.” The old man explained that he had been on familiar speaking terms with Azaka-sensei and Katsuraoka since long ago, in relation to hunting rifles and plant collecting. “If I come across any rare plants or trees, I let Mr. Katsuraoka know. “If I come across places where birds have settled on the land, I let Azaka-sensei know. “It’s not like I get any thanks for it, but whenever I find things like that, I just can’t help wanting to tell someone—that’s just my nature. “Though I may be a beggar like this—”

I gradually came to feel at ease with this old man. As I considered how Father—who in his final years had become like a potted plant stripped of vitality, simply waiting to wither—might have transformed into such a light and pleasant old man had he been replanted in the earth and revived by its essence, though perhaps it was also due to my hunger, I found myself picking at the Chinese potato bit by bit without realizing it.

“Oh, it’s delicious!”

Then the old man said, “There, you see?” and brought fresh straw from somewhere to lay down for me. “The Academy must be on break now. Well, go ahead and rest here for a while. The winter riverbed scenery is worth seeing too, you know.” “Then I’ll roast some gingko nuts for you too. Gingko nuts are delicious too,” he said. As I sat on the clean fresh straw and continued eating the Chinese potato, it proved to be unexpectedly delicious, making me forget most everything. Then, as if rising from below, that old habit surfaced, and I found myself sinking into all manner of contemplations. The old man, treating me like some rare guest he rarely got to host, chuckled ho-ho as he roasted gingko nuts—slit open to prevent popping—over a freshly tended bonfire, all while proudly explaining how being close to the earth let one discover wondrous natural phenomena.

“Earthworms may not have eyes or ears, but they’re sharp creatures, Young Lady.” “When they’re just about to poke their heads out of the soil, if they hear a thrush’s call, they’ll go ‘chut’ and pull their necks right back in like this.” The old man stopped tending the bonfire with his wooden chopsticks and comically pulled in his own neck to mimic it. That amused me, and I could fully discern his desire to keep me in this seat even a little longer. However, as I became increasingly absorbed in my thoughts and remained merely smiling politely, the old man—perhaps thinking this approach unsuitable for holding my interest—changed his manner of speaking. The old man made a grave expression as if weighing some serious matter,

“Apparently, Azaka-sensei will be leaving the Academy starting next year.” “Young Lady, do you know about this?” he said. This came as a complete shock to me. My consciousness instantly surfaced toward the immediate matter.

“I don’t know—is that really true?” The suspicion even arose in me that perhaps some new problem had developed between Katsuraoka and myself. “So they haven’t made that matter public yet,” said the old man, then continued as follows. From what he had observed, the two had once been truly admirable friends and comrades. However, starting around spring that year, a strange entanglement had begun to emerge between them. Azaka-sensei grew jealous; Katsuraoka made excuses. Azaka-sensei wept; Katsuraoka became bewildered. At times there were moments resembling marital quarrels. As this situation gradually intensified and became unmanageable, Azaka-sensei threw a tantrum about being unable to endure another moment at the Academy where Katsuraoka worked—until her petulance ended up being reshaped into an actual matter, and it was finally decided that Sensei would settle her affairs at the Academy by the start of next term and transfer somewhere far away. “They even let it slip to me the other day that they’d be gone next year. Today both wore expressions of old friends—simple and clear as in days past—but between bites of potato they both let out quiet sighs now and then. What a mess.”

As I listened to the old man’s story while turning over countless thoughts in my mind, my heart began to swell with shock. Without my knowing, something I had done seemed to be influencing these people—now suddenly manifesting itself before my very eyes. My chest burned with urgency, my lips trembled uncontrollably, and I felt I couldn’t bear to stay or leave. I stood up abruptly, turned to the old man,

“Goodbye.”

With those words, I dashed off toward the Academy. The old man appeared not to understand what was happening, “Gingko nuts! Gingko nuts!” he called out. Running along the shortcut I had long known, out of breath and utterly exhausted, I rushed to the entrance of Azaka-sensei’s villa. The year-end wrapped bundle remained on the stepping stone as before, while on the villa’s door, written in thick fountain pen strokes on Academy stationery— Sensei will be departing for skiing a bit earlier this year. Tomorrow’s Christmas is canceled.

December 24th, noon Everyone

It was written there. I desperately tugged at the bell rope. There was no answer. In a disheveled panic, I went to search for Katsuraoka at the garden shed in the schoolyard. The door was shut, and a straw New Year’s decoration hung upon it. I took the wrapped bundle home once, but I had no peace of mind at all. With a sense of having wounded someone innocent—the Old Beggar’s story about Azaka-sensei’s resignation loomed so overwhelmingly that there remained no room to question its circumstances or veracity—some faint recognition within me now rose from my very core as irrefutable evidence, making its truth impossible to deny. This was something I too had to resolve quickly for her sake, however inadequate my efforts might prove. I did not sleep a wink all night—my every movement grew so erratic that Mother remarked, “This child’s gone mad”—and early the next morning on the 25th, I called Kira, Yoshimitsu-chan, and Yaeko via automatic telephone.

“It’s terrible.” “Azaka-sensei is leaving the Academy!”

And I designated a cafeteria on the upper floor of a Yamanote department store that would be convenient for everyone to gather and discuss. It was also conveniently close to the interurban train line leading to the Academy. When I arrived by bus, the three of them had already assembled. They had taken seats at a table in the shadow of a folding screen near the south-facing windows, their morning faces dazzled by the slanting sunlight. Kira sat with eyes still puffy from sleep, eating hotcakes in lieu of the breakfast he'd missed. In the spacious cafeteria beyond our table, only two or three other groups of customers could be seen.

I sat down on the chair and, with my left hand firmly gripping Kira and Yoshimitsu-chan's hands and my right hand gripping Yaeko's, scanned their faces. Tears spilled uncontrollably.

Kira was the same age as me and would turn eighteen next year. As ever, his masculine strength gathered in his square shoulders, while below them his body stood stiff as a flower stem—yet through this natural growth, he was beginning to resemble a young man capable of enduring hardship. His hair was parted in an adult manner, and he wore a greenish suit. Yoshimitsu-chan—one year younger than me—had not only fully corrected his broken Japanese but acquired a rich vocabulary. His manner of speech now harmonized with this intellectually inclined boy's countenance, revealing glimpses of a wise mediator who skillfully settled matters while talking around them. Over the mouse-gray collar of his underkimono lay an Oshima kasuri-patterned kimono.

Yaeko had transferred from the affiliated elementary school to the Academy this spring, but her face—now shaped into that of a middle-class lady—had become so composed and settled that it no longer suited her uniformed appearance. As I gripped everyone’s hands and looked around at their faces, I marveled at how these boys and girls had spent three or four years utterly transcending gender and individuality to become one heart and body—how they had frolicked through the Academy’s garden like butterflies or birds, playing among flowers and threading through branches. Gratitude and unworthiness pierced my heart, yet I sensed this camaraderie could not endure much longer. Might this discussion not mark the final act of our beautiful fellowship? As this thought came, tears began flowing uncontrollably.

The reason I thought this was that Azaka-sensei—who had once been at the heart of our close-knit bond—had gradually become preoccupied with her own emotions, started neglecting our group, and even I now found myself having to keep secrets from these friends. As I lamented, my friends—who had kept pressing me with feigned concern, asking "What’s wrong?" and "Just tell us!"—finally seemed ready to give up when Yaeko,

“Our elder sister has gone all sentimental like this—she’s completely impossible to handle!”

When she said this, Kira flew into a rage, “Go ahead and cry all you want.” “I’m going home now!”

and threw a paper napkin onto the table to threaten me. The entire inexplicable melodramatic scene had unfolded behind the folding screen, and it was fortunate that no one else had seen it.

I finally regained my composure and spoke only of how we had heard rumors about Azaka-sensei’s resignation and how profoundly lonely and sad it would be for us if it were to come to pass—omitting the core details of the incident, though even if I had shared them, they would have amounted to nothing more than vague speculations—restricting myself to the aspects that affected our sentiments.

“If you think I’m lying, go see for yourself. “Because Sensei has canceled the Christmas we’ve never missed a single year—there’s a notice posted on the entrance door—” Indeed, everyone groaned, “Hmm...” But in an instant, Yoshimitsu-chan cleared a path. “Let’s go meet the principal and ask him directly.” “And if it’s true, why don’t we ask the principal to have her stay?” “If Azaka-sensei isn’t here now, then isn’t this the most certain method?”

Yoshimitsu-chan thoughtfully added that even if, by some chance, Azaka-sensei still refused to listen to their request, it wouldn’t be too late to launch a petition from the entire student body for her retention early in the new year while thoroughly verifying the reasons behind her resignation. Everyone agreed. I felt relieved, “Then right now, you two boys should go to the principal’s office. Yaeko and I will wait somewhere.”

I said. "What’s this? No sooner have you finally stopped crying than you’re already ordering people about—still the same spoiled girl as ever." Yoshimitsu-chan smiled wryly but nevertheless stood up and turned to Kira. With a look resembling a captain signaling players before a match, he said plainly, "Let’s go."

Kira gave a simple “Yeah” in reply and thudded after him. Boys are such a comforting presence, aren’t they? As we saw them off, Yaeko murmured in a subdued voice, “Fine play!” I said, “I’m sorry.” Since there was no Christmas at Azaka-sensei’s place anyway, let’s just spend the whole day having fun on our own today. Since the boys had left instructions telling us to wait in Ginza, I took Yaeko and headed there.

The year-end night stalls were set up for overnight stays. Uniformly adorned with red-and-white striped curtains, they had erected shop enclosures at the bases of willow trees—battledore shops and kite shops of course, but also stores selling shrine altar implements, rice cake grills, straw rice container holders, toso sake bottles and chopstick bags—these New Year-oriented stalls mingling vibrantly among ordinary ones while even regular stalls decorated themselves no less splendidly until the scene grew so lively it seemed spring had come visiting early. At plant shops stood prominently displayed potted plum trees, Adonis flowers with their golden blooms, ornamental cabbages whose leaves resembled peonies, and clusters of daffodils.

Even in the morning, the crowd was quite large. Over the water-slicked paving stones, people from downtown in sleeved overcoats shepherding children, people from the hillside residences in Inverness capes carrying walking sticks, and among them Western-dressed girls with moth-like eyebrows drawn thin swam through as if gliding. Compared to yesterday, though less intense, it was still a hazy, warm day, and looking out, the vibrant buildings of Ginza 1-2-chōme and the high-rises stretching toward Kyōbashi glistened with a pearl-like luster. Having grown up in town, whenever I entered such bustling crowds, I felt more settled than in my own home—relaxed yet so restless I could hardly contain myself. I pointed at a mannequin dressed like a Shōwindō matron and told Yaeko, "That's you," then gestured toward a toy doll as fat as a beer barrel beating a drum and added, "And that's your husband," making her alternate between laughter and irritation. Since there was still ample time before meeting up with the boys, we thoroughly explored both the east and west sides of Ginza. Suddenly, I remembered how this spring, to raise funds for charity, the Academy’s alumni association had rented a plot of land alongside these huts for an event where we sold potted plants at low prices. I too had been drafted as a representative from fifth grade to stand guard at the sales area, but at that time, Katsuraoka—who had come to assist with transporting the flowers—boldly approached me where I stood, despite having completely avoided me both before and after that incident,

“Don’t stand here making a spectacle of yourself. Just say you’re sick or something and go home.”

No sooner had he said this than he abruptly left—I remembered that now. If he could show such kindness to others, then he ought to have shown a little more consideration for Azaka-sensei too—ought to have avoided driving her to the point of resignation. Yet to stand idly by and let her perish right before his eyes... Even if Katsuraoka's feelings toward me and Azaka-sensei differ in nature, could he be some wild man with an inherently cruel or insensitive streak at his core? Be that as it may, the man who had caused Azaka-sensei's resignation—this incident that had made me fret so—was a man deserving of hatred. To vent this resentment, I needed to exact some form of revenge—ignoring Yaeko’s puzzled looks as I fumed—and since our appointed time was nearly upon us, I took Yaeko and entered the M—— Shop designated by the boys, climbing to the second-floor dining room adorned with a beautifully decorated fir tree for Christmas where we waited.

Before long, past noon, Kira and Yoshimitsu-chan returned with faces drained of vigor. According to the boys’ account, the principal said that while Azaka-sensei had indeed come yesterday and briefly mentioned such matters, it was entirely out of nowhere; moreover, Azaka-sensei had been one of the academy’s staff members since its founding, and without sufficient grounds, they could not readily sever ties with her. Moreover, since her reasons for resigning were unclear and this was seen as a passing mood swing common among women nearing middle age, once they placated her properly, Azaka-sensei had—rather unexpectedly—complied and withdrawn her resignation. The principal had further added that it was by no means something for everyone to worry about, the two boys relayed. Since both Kira’s father and Yoshimitsu-chan’s father are trustees of the academy, it seems the principal was relatively forthcoming in explaining matters up to this point.

“What? That’s all it was?” Yaeko turned back to look at me with a somewhat reproachful expression.

“Well, at least we went and asked about that much—it was good we did,” I said, lightly stroking my chest in relief. “Come now—let’s eat turkey and pudding, then go see a movie!” Kira declared brightly, his face having shed its burdens completely.

“Still, where could Azaka-sensei have gone skiing? Maybe her usual Akakura?” Yoshimitsu-chan speculated wildly. Since these children too were scheduled to go on year-end trips somewhere with their parents or siblings, the conversation bustled with such topics for a while.

The morning of the fourth day arrived, with the New Year's third day now past.

For me, even when it came to New Year’s, there was nothing particularly enjoyable—only the tedium of having to apply heavy makeup and change into formal kimono filled me with resentment, so I secluded myself in my room, occupying my hands with needlework and such. I looked forward to graduating from the Academy’s regular course in April and entering graduate studies.

As I was thinking about such things, Mother would intermittently call up from downstairs— “The neighbors are all out playing battledore, so you should come out too.”

So, reluctantly, I went out to the front with Mother, holding a battledore. Merchant families and tenement dwellers who ordinarily had little interaction now poured into the streets, adopting a once-a-year air of familiarity as they exchanged battledore hits. When someone lost, they would use a brush to paint white powder on their face. They resisted; others gave chase. Before long, pleasantly tipsy men joined in too, and the commotion grew into a raucous uproar. The sky was polished clear, and the wind rustled through the bamboo leaves of the towering kadomatsu. Now the lion dance could be seen crossing the small bridge over Horikawa, the sound of the great drum echoing off the riverside buildings and enlivening the entire area as if in festival. Next came the fanfare of the year’s first shipment passing by. After all, once I stepped outside, it wasn’t entirely an unpleasant feeling.

Mother’s performance when inserting herself into such company was vivid indeed. The neighborhood women and girls—who at first had maintained some decorum and pretentiousness—gradually found themselves coming to call her “Chō-chan’s mom” or “Chō-chan’s auntie” under Mother’s flawlessly attentive care and amiable flattery, becoming entirely compliant to her whims and clinging to her side without ever leaving. Since the women were already like this, it was only natural that the men would quickly have their strength sapped. Only the small boys possessed some aspect that remained impervious to Mother’s wiles, and from time to time even retaliated. “What the—you stingy old hag—”

Even Mother seemed at a loss here, resorting to polite avoidance with an "Oh yes, I understand perfectly." While waiting for my turn at battledore, I stood on the drainage plank and glanced toward my house—where the figure of a man entering through the lattice door, dressed in Western clothes and an overcoat, struck me as resembling Katsuraoka, the academy’s gardener. As I thought “Oh?” and fixed my gaze, the man—who had been guided by Shima and promptly exited through the lattice door once more—came toward the group of battledore players where we stood. It was unmistakably Katsuraoka. I was so startled that my body seemed to freeze.

Katsuraoka turned to face me directly with an uncharacteristically amiable expression, then went over to Mother and greeted her courteously. He was informing her of something. In response to this, Mother returned a greeting even more courteous than Katsuraoka's, but eventually smiled warmly and beckoned to me. "Come now—Azaka-sensei has come to pick you up. Apparently there’s some sudden spring event planned. Come along right away."

And to Katsuraoka, she expressed her gratitude with phrases like “Thank you for coming all this way” and “We’re truly honored you went so far as to call us together,” then saw him off. Mother held institutions like government offices, schools, and teachers in supreme authority and had a disposition to receive them with a sort of flattering obedience. I put on the coat that Shima had brought and helped me into, then followed Katsuraoka in silence for a while. No matter how much Azaka-sensei might have returned to the Villa and suddenly called us all together, sending someone like Katsuraoka—who had never once come to my house before—was going too far. I thought this was strange. Katsuraoka exited onto the tram street, turned a corner, and once we were no longer visible to Mother’s battledore-playing crowd, he suddenly slackened his pace,

“Chōko-san, were you surprised?” he asked. Feeling thoroughly fox-tricked, I stared holes into Katsuraoka’s face and said, “I was surprised.” Then Katsuraoka— “I’ll explain everything properly later, but first—is there somewhere we can be alone?”

“Chōko-san, were you surprised?” he said. For some reason, Katsuraoka was irritating me, so

“I don’t know any such place,” I said. Katsuraoka’s face flashed with anger, “This is no time for such willful behavior. Two people are in dire straits here—” he said, his voice trailing off weakly. It was here, for the first time, that I finally grasped the gravity of the situation,

“Then I’ll think about it,” I said, and after turning it over in my mind—straining my meager wisdom—I went out to Yoshichō and entered an eel restaurant there. Mother had always told the young masters who frequented our house that eel restaurants were best for rendezvous. I now recalled how she’d said they were ideal because preparing your order took time—advice I’d considered distasteful wisdom back then—and though I still found it distasteful, I had put it into practice.

A maid with her hair styled in a New Year chignon—a Shimada or similar updo—guided us to a tatami room, took our order, and withdrew, leaving an awkward silence between us. In the alcove hung a scroll painting of sunrise over waves, before which lay silk-floss offering rice cakes adorned with an intricately crafted shrimp. The Kakehourai plant trailed its green vines down from the alcove post to the tatami mats. Katsuraoka was studying the silver folding screen painted with winter peonies and ardisia berries when he remarked: “This is my first time coming to such a splendid restaurant.”

“he said. Then, with a worried look,”

“I’ve only got about twelve or thirteen yen on me—will that be enough?”

he asked. I said, “I have about five yen, so it should likely be okay.” For a while longer, we remained silent, both wishing to delay even slightly the moment when we would have to broach the impending issue, but before long—as if both Katsuraoka and I had long foreseen this fate of needing to meet somewhere, someday, to discuss matters pressing upon us—it began to feel that our sitting here face-to-face now was far more natural than any encounter in the Academy’s flowerbeds, that this was in fact our true facing each other. Therefore, even Katsuraoka’s manner of speaking, now that he had finally broached the subject, took on the nature of a private conversation—stripped of superfluities, immediately weighing the substance against the listener. Katsuraoka said.

“Azaka-sensei has left the Academy. She won’t return.” I heaved a long, heavy sigh, “So—it was as I’d thought—” I said.

“As long as you and I remain at the academy, Azaka-sensei will never return.” I suppressed a faint sense of awkwardness and asked: “Mr. Katsuraoka. I can more or less imagine what led to this situation, but for formality’s sake, would you explain it in your own words? Otherwise, it might distort our future discussions.”

And these words were so mature that even I myself thought I had truly become an adult.

Katsuraoka, as if emboldened by this, proceeded to narrate all the facts as follows. Azaka-sensei, who grew up at the foot of Mount Akagi in Jōshū, became acquainted with the academy's future principal at a ski resort while working as a physical education teacher at a girls' school in Tochigi Prefecture. Having been recognized for her character and capabilities through this connection, she received funding from the principal to study in Finland—that nation renowned for sports. When the academy was established, she returned to Japan and joined its staff. Her innovative knowledge of athletics and idealistic nature came to be highly regarded not only among the academy's faculty but also by women physical educators nationwide.

Azaka-sensei had long advocated Puritan relations between men and women as her personal doctrine. She believed in the existence of friendship between men and women as kindred spirits. Because Azaka-sensei loved flowers, she would scour nurseries whenever night markets appeared in nearby towns. During that time, she became acquainted with young Katsuraoka, who always maintained a stall at these local night markets. When Ōkubo had been famous for its azaleas, Katsuraoka's family ran a modest nursery there. After Ōkubo urbanized and his father grew bedridden with severe rheumatism before dying, Katsuraoka found himself supporting his frail grandmother and elderly mother while commuting to horticulture school. He rented a small house with vacant land near Komaba, growing flowers there which he potted and sold at night markets to fund his living expenses and tuition.

Even a boy blessed with an exceptionally robust constitution found his vitality eroded by overwork, leaving him perpetually dazed. When he stared at the red light of the lantern illuminating the stall, he immediately felt as though he had stepped into a bath. He would fall into a deep sleep, and his wares were often stolen. Azaka-sensei took pity on the boy. She supplemented his insufficient tuition little by little to have him graduate from horticulture school, and upon graduation, recommended him as a gardener at her academy. While working at the academy, though the salary was meager, he received gratuities for tending to the gardens of faculty residences and private homes; moreover, day students from affluent families familiar with him would invite the academy’s gardener to their homes and commission work. Katsuraoka, freed from life’s hardships, began to thrive steadily.

Though she harbored desires for ideals, Azaka-sensei—who had never before seen them realized—would invariably detain Katsuraoka whenever he came to the villa to deliver potted plants, as she had done since his days as a boy working night markets, pouring into him with utmost intensity her thoughts and the bitter frustrations of their unrealization. Brought to the pliant heart of youth, Katsuraoka’s mind—wearied and muddled by exhaustion—readily accepted it all. Katsuraoka said: “I thought there could not be two women in this world as pure and beautiful as Azaka-sensei.” “As a child, I thought I could devote my entire life to this woman.”

The friendship between Goethe and Frau von Stein, between George Sand and Flaubert—Azaka-sensei had researched and come to know many such examples of renowned friendships between men and women in this world, and she spoke of them beautifully. As Katsuraoka grew into a young man, he came to view the substance of those friendships as something intimate—standing upon the bridge of mutual attraction being built between himself and Azaka-sensei. All carnal desires and awareness of the flesh had been severed, leaving them as transparent, pure gases—differing only in their charged electron-like properties as opposite sexes—that illuminated each other.

Then, an unearthly warmth—something beyond human realm—passed between them there. As this essence congealed within their glass-orb hearts, it pooled in soft droplets that suffused the air with an ethereal fragrance both profound and elusive. Severe self-restraint, like spring thunder’s roar, pleasantly numbed desire’s furthest tendrils. Calm suppression scattered instinct’s murk as joyously as autumn water’s crystalline light. Neither man nor woman now, yet between them dwelled a clarity of mutual essence— Lofty nostalgia in their stride, care like clasping hands above clouds—could this be called tragic grandeur? Yet no tears accompanied it. Might we name this profundity? Yet no weight burdened its wake. Borne by wind, they walked onward.

As if rhyme, rhythm, and linked arms walked in unison—the fields lay ethereal, and the mountains too were ethereal. As they went on their way, passing through the oak grove and emerging onto the edge of the upstream hill’s bank—where they looked down at the Tana River and gazed out over the Chichibu mountains from the opposite hills—the two imagined themselves as a mysterious man and woman imbued with transcendent sentiment within a transcendent world.

“We’ll always stay friends like this, won’t we?” “Yes, always.” They possessed exceptionally robust physiques. Bodily electricity had accumulated to excess. During their walks, one would suddenly break into a run. This would become a footrace where they desperately overtook and were overtaken. They tried to overpower each other, resenting their rival when near defeat. These emotions—even if performative—with their vigorous sweat, churned their beings from the core. When running strength expired and they halted, somewhere in their exhausted bodies they sensed again a clear soul.

The two found fallen chestnuts on the path. One tried to take it; the other tried to prevent them. Their bodies collided. When one was nearly about to have it taken, the other swiftly hurled it forward. One would give chase, trying to retrieve it. The other tried to prevent them from retrieving it. Once more, their bodies tussled. Each time the fierce impacts repeated, the two felt their pent-up mundane energies scatter like sparks. There, too, existed such a thing as a shotgun. There was such a thing as a dog. The sound of machinery shattering the air and the primal roar confronting nature itself—hearing these things lightened their bodies and minds. Platonic love. Katsuraoka had also come to learn such terms.

However, Katsuraoka began to notice things that increasingly struck him as suspicious.

Azaka-sensei and Katsuraoka interacted intimately only within the wild thicket upstream beyond the oak grove. It was a place where neither the Academy’s teachers nor students ever came unless compelled, with no houses nearby. The notion that pure friendships between the opposite sexes achieve their most favorable development in nature—while this theory of sensei’s sounded reasonable enough—Azaka-sensei’s attitude toward Katsuraoka on this side of the oak grove, within the academy grounds, remained excessively formal and distant. There, she seemed to demarcate between the qualifications of certified teachers and mere employees, erecting a divide between an intellectual woman and a man laboring in the soil.

When Katsuraoka inadvertently let his habitual informality surface and addressed her in a somewhat familiar tone, Azaka-sensei would straighten her posture with particular care, reply with ceremonious "Yes, yes" responses, and deliver cold answers like "That would be acceptable," positioning herself upon an elevated stance. This too seemed to carry a sarcastic implication for Katsuraoka—that he ought to refrain from public interactions.

Katsuraoka was indignant. Wasn't this already a pure friendship between a man and a woman? Appearing in public—why should that be shameful? Azaka-sensei's words about having no shame before heaven and earth were but a veneer of lies.

Katsuraoka confronted Azaka-sensei about this matter one day on the upstream hill. Then Sensei placed her hand on Katsuraoka’s shoulder, "You must endure such trifling matters. For there is nothing more terrifying than the misunderstandings of the world’s vulgar eyes." And, "Our love of the highest nature must act with utmost wisdom." she added. To Katsuraoka, while his suspicion grew that Azaka-sensei might be maintaining appearances in public while treating him like a male concubine to toy with in private, there was not the slightest trace of the lewdness that dubious older women might demand from a young swallow of a man. Thus Sensei remained sacred after all, and her words seemed ever more truthful to him. He who had harbored such suspicions was perhaps the one with ulterior motives—might he not be the one sullying Sensei? So he chastised himself.

“However—” Katsuraoka paused as if reconsidering his thoughts, then said. “The one who split that heart in two was you, Chōko-san.”

With that, Katsuraoka rephrased his words and declared.

I think people’s likes and dislikes are somehow determined from birth. Ever since you were still a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl—disheveling your hanging hair and stomping down on your shoes’ outer edges as you raced across the schoolyard—you seeped into your own heart. A showy, spirited bud of a large flower that should bloom in profusion—yet struggles to take in water. You are that kind of woman. That blight is nowhere to be seen. The stem is sturdy, and the leaves are glossy. And yet, the bud struggles to take in water.

That only made it all the more poignant. Surely, there could be no other who would perceive this nuance. It was clear to me. As someone whose profession was flower cultivation, it was clear to me. To me—who had sensed something within myself that similarly struggled to take in water ever since the hardships of life in my youth—it had been clear at a glance. The blighted bud woman tugged beautifully at the heart—like sun through clouds, like water swayed by wind. When a man was blighted, he simply dried up. When a woman was blighted, she turned into an acidic solution. I had been permeated by you. I had grown heavy through you. But I did not have the freedom to feel these things as they truly were and express them as such. There, the very existence of Azaka-sensei bound me like chains. Years upon years of anguish, years upon years of resignation. In time, you had grown little by little into a young woman. You had become a young woman like the fresh verdure of Lindera leaves. I could not keep still, whether standing or sitting, so strongly was my heart pulled. In the end, there had been no way Sensei could remain unaware of it. Sensei too, after all, had been a woman at her core.

“Troublesome things,” Katsuraoka said. “Sensei too, Chōko-san—she loves you.”

According to Sensei, Chōko-san, you were said to be the one daughter Azaka-sensei—who could never become her true self—would have wished to become if she ever could. Sensei said: "When I look at you, Chōko-san, my idealism and Puritanism begin to feel like strained, insubstantial shadows. Do will and intellect ultimately prove no match for a woman’s instincts? When I look at you, I cannot help but feel the natural beauty of duckweed flowers—yielding softly to the current, drifting to bloom along any shore. I cannot help but sense the strength that resides in fragility."

Not only could Sensei not bring herself to resent you—she who even harbored longing for you—the fear and loneliness of having me stolen away by you must have been tormentingly bitter indeed.

In front of others and students, she remained as dignified and lively as ever, yet when passing through the oak grove to be alone with me, Sensei's true self became something utterly pitiful and shameful to behold in this world. Because Sensei couldn't vent her frustrations directly on you, she turned them toward me. What that must have been like—as a young woman of marriageable age, Choko-san must have had some inkling of it.

In Sensei's moral judgment of love, I was a transgressor and sinner. I had been made to believe this so deeply by Sensei. Thus I resignedly accepted that condemnation. What path existed beyond resigned acceptance? Even Sensei, who assailed me in near-frenzy, was truly at her wit's end. Sensei too deserved pity. Perceiving this, I resignedly accepted it for her sake. Yet even so—to sever you completely as Sensei demanded—no effort could make this possible. For you had seeped into and dampened even the very force striving to cut you off. It resembled a small bird alighting on a gun barrel. To pull the trigger required proximity too intimate. I had always been a man who could endure, but never one who could lie. To this self of mine, Sensei pressed me to declare severance. I fell silent. Sensei grew frantic; I became confounded. At last casting aside final restraint, Sensei commanded my decision: “Marry me, or cut off Chōko.”

If Sensei were to marry me, it would invite public censure, and she would likely have to resign from her teaching position. At the very least, she would have to flee this city. Understanding Sensei’s resolve to make such sacrifices, I came to think that someone like me no longer mattered in the present moment, and even resolved to throw myself into her care. However, when it comes to that point, the one who ends up standing in the way is you, Choko-san. You obstruct me like a stake jutting from the riverbed. And you bring my self—attempting to cast itself into the abyss of marriage—to a halt at that stake’s tip. The current neither surges forward nor returns to its original bank, leaving me suspended in midair to drink bitter water.

"I am still young," I pleaded with Sensei, begging her to wait until the following year before making that decision. Sensei refused, declaring, "I will grow old." Seeing my indecisiveness, she began making unreasonable demands—even threatening to resign since she could no longer remain at the Academy where Choko and I were present. I tried to placate her. Sensei insisted.

In the end, matters dragged on unresolved until year's end, and amidst the ambiguity, Sensei—declaring that staying in Tokyo held no appeal—left to go skiing before the year was out. But when New Year arrived, according to a letter from Sensei that came yesterday, she had returned to her family home at the foot of Mount Akagi. There, she declared she would never return to the Academy until this matter was somehow resolved. Sensei wrote that both Tokyo and the Academy had now become places of distress for her—

At the conclusion of Katsuraoka’s lengthy account, I first felt a momentary relief, only to be astonished by how deeply entangled—far beyond what I had superficially perceived—the relationship between Katsuraoka and Sensei truly was, and how intricately my own connection to both of them had become knotted within that web. Standing between what I had heard from the beggar upstream in the oak grove—the nearly conclusive matter of Azaka-sensei leaving the Academy—and the principal’s assurances that Kira and Yoshimitsu-chan had brought back, stating Sensei had spoken of departing on a momentary whim but immediately retracted it, I had been utterly unable to grasp the truth. Now that this decisive pessimistic view had come to light, I felt an abnormal shock. “Things have gotten quite out of hand, haven’t they?” I said with a sigh. While continuing to sigh, I asked Katsuraoka a few questions about Sensei’s hometown and such when the maid brought in the ordered items.

Raft-style grilled eel, eel liver soup, and eel-wrapped egg rolls.

The two of them began their meal despite everything. The wind had strengthened considerably, carrying the rustle of bamboo leaves from New Year pine decorations and the drone of kites. Amber-hued sunlight filtered through the shoji screens as intermittent thuds echoed—winter flies colliding against the paper panels. Katsuraoka spoke between bites, “Downtown fare tastes splendid.” Though his manner suggested unfamiliarity with eel-house etiquette, I guided him through the dishes—pointing out the auspicious hook nestled in his liver soup bowl, instructing him to extract it and fasten it to his lapel.

“Whoever gets this hook is sure to reel in good luck for the year,” I said with a bitter smile. As I did so, Katsuraoka pinned the hook to his suit lapel exactly as I had instructed.

“If I don’t get some stroke of luck visiting me, worrying about a runaway since New Year’s is hardly something to be grateful for,” he muttered.

What was strange was my own heart. While Sensei’s whereabouts remained unclear, I could still claim to feel at ease—yet deep down there lingered a leaden apprehension. But once matters came to light in this way, my mind instead grew strangely clear, leaving only a superficial busyness of thought—that obligatory notion I must do *something*, somehow. The reason lay in how, even if one called it beautiful friendship, Sensei’s long ensnarement and manipulation of this simple young man—all conducted in secrecy—proved above all else both envy-inducing and loathsome; my former conviction that Katsuraoka had driven Azaka-sensei to anguish last year-end—a conviction that had led me to contemplate revenge on her behalf—now reversed itself entirely, until I came to believe whatever befell Sensei was nothing less than rightful retribution for Katsuraoka’s sake. I nearly wanted to tell Sensei that vulgar saying—"Once smitten, that’s your end," no? And so Katsuraoka,

“What should we do? How about we both send letters—from me and from you—and ask Sensei to come back?”

As he said this, I retorted, "But Sensei still thinks I don’t know anything, doesn’t she? And sending such a letter would be absurd." As I refused to consent, Katsuraoka pressed on, “No—you were shocked when Katsuraoka laid bare his devotion to you. But I harbor no feelings toward Katsuraoka whatsoever. As for Sensei, I remain simply her student who holds nostalgic regard. Nothing more exists between us. So if you’d tell her to return to Tokyo—Chō-chan—since you’re the girl she cherishes most in this world—her heart would surely find peace. To that end, I’ll include a separate letter of apology from myself.”

he said. "Why on earth would Katsuraoka apologize now, and why should even I—who'd done nothing—bow my head and plead with Sensei?" "I had no particular desire for Sensei to come back anymore." "Then if you want to do that, do it alone." "The idea of including me in this isn't manly at all," I said. My feelings had already shifted so drastically from what they'd been just moments earlier that I must have received some kind of shock. Katsuraoka engaged in two or three rounds of verbal sparring with me, but upon realizing its futility, he finally—

“Women—even little girls—become formidable once they dig in their heels.” “Then there’s no help for it. Let’s do it that way.” he said.

The two left the eel restaurant. When we parted, I made sure to tell Katsuraoka— “In your apology letter, write that you’re giving up on me.” When I asked, Katsuraoka—

“Who said anything about that? ‘Gratitude is gratitude, love is love,’ he declared resolutely.” “And so I too—” “If you’ll just take that to heart—”

And then, letting my words trail off into vagueness, there was something I resolved deep within my heart.

Even the koto has its alternate parts. Even a girl’s heart need not always play a single melody. From the moment I realized that Azaka-sensei acted through compulsion, harbored impurities, and bent others to her will, not only had my goodwill toward her withdrawn completely, but there even arose within me a desire to confront her in battle—yet while remaining this same self, where within me had such things existed? Was it because I inherited Father’s competitive streak from that passionate man who refused defeat, or because Mother’s cunning tenacity coursed through me? In any case, though merely a girl, I found myself resolved to take Katsuraoka upon my shoulders and fight against all the world. Once resolved, I became a girl so resolute that even I stood astonished. If one were to consider the cause behind this transformation as being that a woman’s sincere love from another could so drastically alter her, then here I stood as living proof. Yet this state of mind had become too deeply immersed within my being; I could no longer step back to measure its influence or discern how much I’d changed. Therefore, that I felt my heart stirred by a chivalrous impulse to separate this simple young man from the old maid’s unreasonable demands—did this too mean women were ultimately sweet yet self-serving creatures?

I left the eel restaurant in Yoshichō and began making my way home. The sun was still high; it had not yet reached two o'clock. Though I could have returned home by inventing some pretext, a realization suddenly formed within me. "This incident would not be resolved so easily." With only Katsuraoka—one of those involved—and a young woman like myself handling matters, our efforts might soon prove insufficient. "We must secure someone who could lend strength when that time comes."

Now that the incident had taken on this nature, it was clear neither Kira nor Yoshimitsu-chan would do. I—concluding there was truly no one else to consult but Ikeue—recalled how when meeting him at year’s end he had said, “I’ll be alone at the Hamachō dormitory over New Year’s—you must come visit,” and so I went there.

The place called Hamachō, though now so densely packed with houses that not a trace of its former self remains, was once a rustic area associated with cultured individuals—a locale said to have rivaled Hatchōbori Kayabachō in Shitamachi. Long ago, the haiku poet Ranestsu lived here, and the waka poet Kamo no Mabuchi resided here as well. Regarding Mabuchi, Ikeue had once mentioned that he bestowed upon his house the name Kakei, inspired by the rustic charm of its surroundings. Ikeue’s dormitory seemed to retain some vestige of its former days, standing inconspicuously amidst these densely packed houses. But upon passing through the gate, one found at its center a pond—the remains of what had once been a water gate through which small ducks would occasionally bob in from the Sumida River among seagulls—with an island of stones at its center, connected by a slightly sloped brushwood bridge. The surroundings were artfully contoured into undulating terrain—small in scale yet meticulously designed. As for the artificial hill alone—perhaps out of consideration for its surroundings—it had been constructed in form only.

The elderly wife of the dormitory manager—perhaps having been instructed by Ikeue about me—upon hearing my name immediately said, “An acquaintance came earlier and took him out for a meal.” “But he should return soon, so please come up and wait,” she added, guiding me inside. It was a single-story building adjoining a tea room, its glass-papered doors tightly shut. Inside, I waited. The elderly dormitory manager’s wife came periodically during that interval—adjusting the charcoal in the brazier and preparing tea—while...

“What could have happened to Young Master? He said he’d return right away when he left, but how late he is,” she fretted on my behalf. “No, it’s quite all right—since I have time to spare, I’m enjoying being shown around the garden at my leisure. He’ll surely be back before long.” After dismissing the dormitory manager’s wife with an air of handling matters myself, I occupied my time pretending to fix my makeup, gazing at the winter sun warming the garden lawn, and looking around the room—all while deep in my heart, I pondered various strategies for Katsuraoka’s situation: Should I do this? Should I do that?

Since meeting Ikeue at Kikunoya in Nakasu at the end of last autumn, I had been taken out to meals by him two or three more times. Each time, Mother secretly gauged how deeply Ikeue was becoming infatuated with me and smirked to herself. Ikeue, knowing full well that he was playing into Mother’s smirking expectations, grew closer to me.

Mother must have grown considerably more at ease, for Ikeue was saying with a wry smile that she had lately stopped making those transparent threats about turning me into a geisha or selling me off as a mistress. And what of my heart? I am already eighteen, so I cannot say I haven’t thought about how to settle myself. However, I find myself questioning this matter of marriage. By conventional reasoning—having never known true physical intimacy from parental figures since childhood, and bearing this lonely disposition that perpetually yearns for vague ideals like an eternal father or mother—even I cannot deny the thought that I ought to obtain a husband who might tend to me, comfort me, gently chide and guide me in their stead, thereby quenching this thirst in my heart. But does such a man truly exist in this world? Wise men are too busy with the affairs of the world, and foolish men become preoccupied with their own amusements and diversions. A husband who would remain by his wife's side throughout the long span of a lifetime, unfailingly protecting her without ever changing—such a man I have heard exists in rumor, but unless I can see with my own eyes that their inner selves truly match this ideal, I cannot bring myself to believe it. At least within the scope of my knowledge, from my own father to all the young masters who visit our house—they are all unqualified individuals.

Another concern is my own character. There seems to be something within me that cannot humble itself before men. Men possess both strength and wisdom—this I acknowledge as greatness—but such greatness does not inherently hold the quality to make women humble themselves. Rather, the greatness of a man that would make women humble lies not in these admirable traits, but instead—though this is undoubtedly a self-serving notion from a woman’s perspective—in possessing an unconditional capacity to embrace women, in his manner of wholehearted devotion, in those aspects where he might be called indulgent toward women by masculine standards—or so I find myself inclined to think.

Thus, even if they weren’t men of such caliber, a woman like myself had managed to get along simply by not having to humble herself, only ever being able to associate with men who possessed a certain sweetness in their nature as men. However, though men of this disposition might suit me well enough, they ultimately became burdens on me—not ones from whom I received protection, but ones whom I had to protect—a truth that seemed clear when considering my recent interactions with Katsuraoka, who had just revealed his true nature. Was the marriage I longed for even possible under such circumstances?

Ikeno’s ulterior motive was to use me as a pawn to outwit the philistines who had been oppressing him from all sides—in other words, to position me as an advocate of free marriage against arranged unions and thereby strike preemptively. Of course, since Ikeno had declared that this would require an ally sufficiently charming to carry it out, there could be no doubt whatsoever that he did love me. But if you loved me, wasn’t loving me alone enough? Did you need to drag me into your own twisted fate and try to make use of even my meager feminine power? I wanted no part of such schemes. If it was about keeping company with twisted fates, I’d already had more than enough with Father and Katsuraoka. In the end, it seemed I had no path but to remain unmarried and become a working woman. All I asked was that those who loved me become my friends and help me through this desolate life.

Crossing the brushwood bridge over the pond, Ikeue’s figure—clad in an Inverness coat—came into view. Following behind him came a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl dressed in respectable outing attire. “Oh,” I thought. So that was the “guest” the dormitory manager’s wife had mentioned—being a woman herself, she must have deliberately avoided telling me it was a female out of consideration. As if there were a rotten hole in the middle of the bridge, Ikeue crossed it easily, but the girl hesitated. Then Ikeue extended his hand, had her grasp it, and considerately helped her cross over. Indeed, for just an instant, a seething something bit into my chest—but it vanished at once, and a chilly wind harshly blew across that slight burn scar.

"Men—they’re all like this." "What am I even saying?" Just as I would have gradually tidied away—had an old man left tobacco pouches and spectacle cases scattered about his person before even beginning conversation—so too did I now methodically tidy the mental clutter I’d let accumulate, resolving that after greeting Ikeue, I would simply take my leave without delay.

The elderly wife of the dormitory manager ran out and appeared to be informing Ikeue of my visit. Then Ikeue’s face broke into a grin, and he came up into the house.

“Oh, sorry about that, Chōko-san. Did you wait long?”

Then, this was Okimi—the youngest daughter of Kauroku the head clerk. Due to her parents’ wish for her to serve in a maid-like capacity, it had been arranged that after the third day of the New Year, she would begin commuting to this dormitory. Since today was her first day, he said he had treated her to Chinese cuisine at Hama House as a celebratory gesture. After the girl dutifully greeted me, she immediately set about folding Ikeue’s Inverness coat, replacing the tea and serving it to me—a display of utterly faithful maid-like work. Even as I tried to decline, she meticulously folded even my coat,

“Oh, there’s some mud on your coat.” “It must have been kicked up by a New Year’s delivery cart.” “I’ll just go and remove it for you—” With that, she stepped out to the engawa outside the glass door. She was indeed a young girl, younger than I. Her looks were nothing remarkable beyond her fair complexion, but her diligence and freshness resembled a budding narcissus, and I found myself feeling somehow undermined from below. I had suddenly matured—I couldn’t help but feel I was being perceived as that kind of woman. A petty, coquettish mood welled up within me,

"The clerk forcing his daughter to marry the young master—it’s just like the start of a samurai family feud, isn’t it?"

When I said this, Ikeue stared fixedly at my face, but—

“What nonsense you’re spouting. You probably can’t fathom this, Chō-chan, but my family still makes an almighty fuss about class hierarchy—a clerk would never dare harbor ambitions of marrying beyond his station.” He explained that the girl would spend three or four years learning manners and etiquette in her master’s household that way before settling into a largely predetermined marriage. Though hearing this made me think it must indeed be true, I was already riding the tiger—there could be no turning back.

“But one must account for contingencies.” And even when that girl Okimi came in through the glass door, I remained unperturbed—if anything, making a show of it—I, “Anyway, do be careful.” At the very moment I said this—and again, driven by impulsive momentum—I grabbed Ikeue’s left wrist (the one not holding his cigarette) as we both warmed our hands over the same brazier, gripping it so hard he might have cried “No!”, leaving even myself astonished at my own actions.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk—that’s cruel of you, Chō-chan.” Ikeue, perhaps already slightly inebriated, showed no suspicion toward my outrageous behavior. Wearing a somewhat exasperated look yet appearing languid, he compared the marks left by my grip to my face. “It’s the very start of the New Year,” he said with a cheerful laugh. “I’d appreciate a bit more gentleness, Chō-chan.” Okimi suddenly bowed her head deeply, but from his nape to his earlobes, he flushed crimson like the rising sun.

I felt a vaguely cruel victory rise within me and laughed as seductively as I could to match Ikeue’s mirth. It was but a single technique—on one side, men can wield it. On the other side, they can unsettle the opposing woman. For a woman who has learned this taste, is it akin to drinking what they call blowfish sake? That drink summons numbness, and numbness summons yet more drink. Seizing my chance, I deployed one after another the coquetry and techniques inherent in womanhood,

"You all have eaten something delicious, haven’t you? I want some too. Take me somewhere nice for dinner too." And so on—putting on an innocent face and playfully clinging to Ikeue, "So you’re called Miss Okimi. How beautiful you are! You’d make women swoon!" Saying such things—teasing Okimi here, scattering cutting remarks far beyond what a girl not yet in her years should be capable of with such nonchalance—was this too proof that I was indeed my mother’s child?

Under these circumstances, even Ikeue—who normally remained indecisive despite supposedly having a serious side—now showed an expression that honestly suggested he could feel liberated for the first time in his life, “Chō-chan, you’ve really got quite the flashy side to you, don’t you?”

Grinning, he had Okimi bring a whiskey set and prepared for me a drink diluted with hot water containing a sugar cube, “Why don’t we do something spring-like?” He ordered Okimi to put on a record and devoted himself entirely to feeding the flames of excitement with fresh kindling.

Among plum trees, the red plum was the first to bloom. The reason for this was that this tree stood just outside the glass door of the dormitory’s sitting room, and the glass door—together with the tea room’s paneling that turned at the corner—gathered the southern sunlight within its embrace, perhaps acting as a single-box frame for this very tree. The trunk, devoid of suppleness or flourish, stood sullenly dark; from its midsection emerged a middle branch as if aware that this alone wouldn’t suffice, then ascending toward the treetop, it sprouted an excess of overly delicate small branches that tangled like wire in their haste to bend their tips, creating a tangled complexity.

While it was still cold, against these branches and trunk like those of an eccentric, innocent, bald-like flower buds clung here and there to unexpected positions on the branches with no apparent prior arrangement—where they came from, or when they arrived, even the flowers themselves lacked the capacity to consider—and with a simple-minded beauty, they began to bloom in scattered profusion. Somehow, the mouth that had begun to form a faint smile relaxed slightly, and the flower’s beauty started to bloom with a quality reminiscent of a young girl whose lips glistened faintly with moistened saliva.

As the flower developed, those long, twisted stamens asserted their presence with dignity. With the flamboyant haughtiness and befuddled elegance of a young court lady asserting her senior mistress’s authority, or a comic actor performing a bow to society—these stamens rose up with grandeur. Having their position usurped by these stamens, the crimson petals became mere gaudy cushions. Each one became a gaudy little cushion in layered crimson. But when more time passed, both stamens and petals alike grew senile under the days’ passage, became addled and rotted beneath the blazing sun, scattered disorderly across the March sky as though oblivious to peach blossoms’ glory, and sank into a hazy, dreamlike state.

Following the red plum, the next to bloom was the Bungo plum located beside the hand-washing stone at the southern end of the tea room. The trunk had become nothing but scaly bark, barely managing to channel moisture to its branches, where it bore double-petaled flowers—white tinged ever so faintly with reddish-purple. Neither plum nor apricot, it was a plum whose flowers, though intricate, carried a lonely air. The young wild plum that bloomed slightly later than this stood planted alongside the Bungo plum. This was an ordinary white plum, unadorned yet highly fragrant. The variation in blooming times among these plum trees appeared here to stem not from their varieties, but simply from differences in sunlight exposure.

At first glance, the Bungo plum and the wild plum appeared to be planted side by side, but in reality, they existed in a primary-secondary relationship. The primary Bungo plum had aged and decayed, now bearing fewer blossoms, and as the view of the early spring sky from the tea room had grown too sparse through its branches, they said a young, vigorous wild plum had been brought in and planted alongside it as a secondary tree. It was said that in this complementary planting method, they had brought the wild plum into a hollow of the Bungo plum’s trunk and positioned it such that, when viewed from the distant guest rooms, it would appear as blossoms on a single tree.

As I gazed at it, "What a contrived way of planting—it’s practically forced grafting." When I said this, Ikeue, the dormitory master, "I didn’t have them plant it. It was arranged by a man called Kanroku, the shop manager," he said. Okimi, the maid—wearing a sash and her hair tied in an older-sister style headscarf as she sifted ashes from the morning brazier—flushed slightly red when her father was mentioned.

During New Year’s, I visited Ikeue at this Hamachō dormitory and returned home that same day, but with ulterior motives in mind—within three days I began visiting the dormitory on my own initiative, soon maneuvering Ikeue into making the suggestion himself until finally I became a resident here. “If you stay in a flophouse of a home like your mom’s, Chō-chan, it’ll warp your character. “Even if it’s just for a while—come stay here, and attend school or whatever from this place.”

Ikeue’s reasoning went like this. Since I couldn’t possibly tell mother the whole truth, I simply relayed Ikeue’s proposal to her. Mother responded with a thoughtful “Hmm...” and nodded with a grave expression, but then jerked her chin up sharply and— “Well, well—has that man actually gone and said such a thing in earnest?” “Sure, come along.” “Just come along obediently and quietly.” “But—”

She said this while first casting a probing gaze around her, then placed a hand on my shoulder and drew my ear close to her mouth: "You're already eighteen. Until you become a proper bride, you should know better than to let anyone deceive you." Something comical welled up inside me, so I deliberately tilted my head at an angle to gaze at the ceiling and answered with feigned innocence: "Oh my, I haven't the slightest idea about such things." As I spoke thus, Mother—who had been scrutinizing my expression with suspicion—momentarily seemed about to offer a gentle smile, but instead sharply pursed her lips before speaking again.

“Alright, if you’ve gotten this good at feigning airheadedness, then living with a man shouldn’t be a problem. Mom can also let you go with peace of mind. But you know, Chō-chan, you mustn’t let your guard down.”

With those words uttered in an exceedingly gentle tone, she removed her hand from my shoulder.

To me, she had been an unlikable mother from the very start. And as for my present conduct—it stemmed from my judgment that evading her shallow, spiteful remarks was less troublesome and more convenient in every way than angrily refuting them. This was not some answer to a test of feminine wiles that Mother had arbitrarily interpreted it as being. Mother, extrapolating from her own character, had interpreted it that way—and given that she had long resigned herself to being a mother fated from the start to lack any true connection with me—I harbored no significant resentment toward her for this, yet I could not help feeling a pang of pity. For all that she was a mother I disliked, never once had I shown her actions or words that did not come from my heart for the sake of my secrets. If something displeased me, I would either silently clam up or get angry and sulk—that was all. In that honesty—inherited from Father—Mother both trusted me and feared me somewhat. In that sense, one might say there had still been something connecting me to Mother in those days before.

However, ever since meeting Katsuraoka at the eel restaurant, I had abruptly transformed as a person. A secret castle had formed within me, where I stood isolated in my solitude. From within this fortress, my inner self now restrained and manipulated my outer self—and even when facing what my very being could scarcely endure, if it meant protecting this secret castle or executing plans conceived within its walls, I found myself nurturing a merciless resolve to bend that outer self to my will, twisting it through every contortion until bones might warp and tendons tear, wielding it relentlessly to the last. And when one such attempt inadvertently surfaced in my manner of responding to Mother—only to see her misinterpret its true nature—this very misapprehension left me feeling as though I were reveling in dark mirth even as I myself severed that final tenuous thread of understanding still connecting us.

She was a cunning mother, but within that very cunning lay a certain simplicity. For a certain purpose, I shouldered this doubled self of mine and exploited my mother’s very simplicity within her cunning in reverse; from then on, I would likely continue camouflaging myself as well. And whenever I witnessed unexpected effectiveness, I would also allow myself a secret smile. And now there remained no bond between mother and daughter here—only scheming hands lay between us.

Mother, Mother—your daughter has come of age. I have learned secrecy. I have learned to seclude myself in loneliness within that secret castle. For the sake of a man—due to strange circumstances— My going to Ikeno’s dormitory is not for the purpose of settling down as you desire of me. It is simply to use him. I do not wish to settle down as you desire. This is my current thought—even if I wanted to settle, I cannot settle. I simply flow onward. Entrusting myself to the passion that surges like rapids in each moment—

Mother, please forgive me. Your daughter has too much weakness and strength ill-matched within her to live an ordinary life. I cannot stand and walk upright. Sideways and vertical, I float my body in water and barely manage to flow onward. Therefore, your daughter will suffer at least a little from now on—

If Mother had been an ordinary mother and I had remained my former self, I would of course have made this confession—even if she couldn’t understand it—and with my own words marked our parting before her, now that Father was gone and we were left alone as parent and child. But with this mother— When I realized anew that within the increasingly plump chest of my Mother—who had begun aging while maintaining her coarse beauty, her face stretched taut with cunning cleverness that had swallowed worldly distinctions—there existed no thoughts beyond desire, gain, and schemes, a sensation like crashing against a cliff surged upward within me. Suddenly feeling desolate in that particular way, on the verge of tears born from that understanding, my body sprang forward as if to disguise yet another version of myself—lest Mother notice. I lightly bowed with a “Well then, I’ll be off,” then stood before Mother and said, “Take a look at this.” Then, stepping back slightly, I spread my right palm before Mother’s eyes and hooked my left elbow around the man’s elbow in an embracing posture.

Singing “What a jolly pair we are!” with my lips, I grandly flipped upward through space the palm I had spread forward—twisting at the shoulders and hips with measured breath—and as I brought it near the right temple of my hairline, I finished the verse with “Ain’t we a merry pair?” Then, executing a well-practiced foot stomp in the Nishikawa school style my mother had taught me—infused with a touch of Kansai flair—that struck the tatami with precision, I simultaneously raised my right hand and froze it firmly in midair. “How about that?” This was a greeting between shells—my newly donned shell responding to the congenital shell of character Mother had always worn. Somehow, sadness welled up in my chest.

“Well now! When I wondered what this child was up to, it turns out you were just dancing about to amuse yourself? What’s this about being ‘such a jolly pair’? Ho, ho—it seems that fellow isn’t such a bad match for you after all, Chō-chan.” Mother’s words took on a theatrical cadence as she chuckled in high spirits. Taking these gestures as my pretext, when I moved to Ikeno’s dormitory, he—overjoyed—insisted on vacating his frequently used guest room in the dormitory house for me. But even I, as a woman, had to decline such excessive hospitality, whereupon he assigned me instead to a small tea-ceremony-style room with a veranda bent at a right angle. In that tea room of his usual downtown-style quirk and informal taste, if one simply covered the hearth in the tatami area, the four-and-a-half-mat space could serve as living quarters as it was. There was a cupboard built into the wall, and a lavatory had been installed on the veranda. Beyond the sliding doors was a small anteroom for changing clothes, and there I had my bedding and dressing table delivered, establishing in this world a dwelling whose nature I could not discern—whether it was a temporary refuge from which I had resolved to flee my family home for life, or a permanent dwelling whose future remained unclear.

I could no longer bring myself to attend the academy. Ikeno also disapproved of my leaving the dormitory. Even for me, Katsuraoka—who loved me desperately—was being coerced into marriage by an older female teacher through some separate, entangled fate. Were I to separate him from this and take the man into my care, I would ultimately have to look after his daily needs. Naturally, as a mere girl, I lacked such power; nor was I the type to bow my head and plead with anyone. The only path before me was Ikeno’s obsession with me—jutting out like the tip of a pole. This pole tip—were it reeled fully into his hands—would become one forcing me into marriage with him. Yet before that happened, through my own cunning, I meant to divert at least some portion of his love toward Katsuraoka instead—make Ikeno tend to Katsuraoka’s affairs—and if possible, have us three—man and woman and man—become pure friends without messy romantic entanglements, supporting each other through this desolate world. Such was the ideal I harbored within. Yet could I—a mere girl, no deity—truly accomplish this difficult retying of tangled bonds? Even if not fully, I resolved to try. Bearing such already complicated human affairs folded within me and—though inadequately—applying what feminine wiles I possessed, I was surely no longer some sailor-suited schoolgirl. Nor one to quarrel over how much jam graced her lunchbox bread.

I had settled into this cramped dwelling with a resolve bordering on audacity, biding my time while awaiting word from Katsuraoka about Azaka-sensei. Though the phrase "lying in wait like a tiger" might seem unseemly for a woman, I harbored something akin to it in my breast. From this tea room, I kept watch over Ikeno—who had made the guest quarters bent at a right angle his living space—careful not to rouse his suspicion as I awaited an opening to pounce upon this young master.

As for that Ikeno, initially—

“Chō-chan, it’s fine to be idle,” he said, “but unless you graduate from girls’ school, there’s going to be a bit of trouble.” Probably because I lacked the qualifications as a bride candidate for the Iemoto. Even as he said this, whenever I showed any sign of actually preparing to go to the academy, he would invent some pretext to stop me. I would respond with “Yes, I’ll go now,” yet continue dawdling as usual, whereupon Ikeno would ultimately take pleasure in this and practically take up residence in my tea room morning and night. With what was likely a haiku anthology—a worm-eaten Japanese-bound book—in hand, using his arm as bodily support as he inserted slightly rugged fingers between its pages, he plopped down sideways onto the veranda facing the garden,

“Chō-chan, there’s this poem by Buson—” “Loving the early and late blooms on two plum trees—ah,” “There’s one that goes... Do you understand?” He tilted his head back and said this while squinting over his brow at me seated beyond the threshold, the early spring sunlight streaming onto my face. “I can understand that much.”

When I said this, he nodded happily but,

“It’s an interesting poem, but there’s a point it hasn’t quite reached,” he said. “What does it matter to us now whether those old poets’ verses meet some standard or not?” I deflected. “No, you misunderstand.” “This isn’t just about haiku—it’s tied to whether one’s ability to appreciate things truly penetrates to their core,” he insisted.

I found it troublesome that this young master seemed intent on continuing to voice his opinions, but as this was a minor matter before something important, "I'll listen. So why don't you dwell on that issue to your satisfaction?" I prompted him to continue in this manner. Then came the opinion Ikeno next expressed— He argued that attempting to express the intriguing interplay of swiftness and slowness in all things through two separate plum trees resulted in a love born of appreciation that became diffuse and overly logical. This must be upon a single plum tree.

“If I were Buson, I’d compose it like this—” Loving the swift and slow upon a single plum tree—ah, “This should do.”

As I listened, I suddenly burst out with a pfft of laughter, "That's just your self-satisfied version of a haiku, isn't it?"

When I said this, Ikeno— “Don’t you get this?” “Perhaps.” “Then how about I try explaining it with this kind of analogy,” he said, putting strength into his elbow as he straightened his upper body and sat up.

Ikeno said. "For instance, take my appreciation of you, Chō-chan. "I recognize not merely two relative relationships on you as a single woman—such as swiftness and slowness—but also various qualities there: girlishness, maiden-like innocence, and even maternal aspects. "When you grow tired from walking and stand there with your chest thrust out—through that posture where you inadvertently arch your lower back ever so slightly—I have already savored the beauty of the elderly woman you will become after entering old age and withering away. "—Of course, by that time I too will certainly have entered old age alongside you—" "Isn't it precisely through this that my appreciative love for you becomes fully concentrated, Chō-chan?"

“Suppose—like Buson’s appreciation and love—I were to place you, Chō-chan, as one object of comparison, and on the other side position that Okimi, then judge who’s younger or more beautiful or quicker or slower—how would you feel about that?” “From my perspective too, I can’t claim to have a sincere attitude for loving and understanding women—not just you.” “Even if we were to focus solely on one relative aspect of swiftness and slowness in that subject, the plum tree must absolutely be a single one—” he said.

I felt astonished by Ikeno's obsessive devotion toward me, yet the moment I heard him invoke Okimi's name—whether through some trivial vow-inspired whim or even when meticulously prefaced with "hypothetically"—a sensation like a sharp metal plate surged up beneath my skin, stiffening me from chest to face in a flash, though I fully grasped his intended meaning about me. It was fortunate Okimi wasn't present then. Had she actually been sitting beside me in that parallel position Ikeno described—as if we were two blossoms on separate branches—I might have instinctively snapped like an upper-rank courtesan rebuking an underling in kabuki theater: "Your seat encroaches—withdraw!" Or worse, I might have risen abruptly myself, abandoning this dormitory forever and ruining all my carefully laid plans. Was this what they meant by a woman's jealousy? Or perhaps a woman's wounded pride?

I, to gradually lower that painfully thrust-up metal plate beneath my skin, deliberately thrust a beaming smile toward Ikeno and— "Oh, if you lined me up beside that young Miss Okimi and compared us, I simply couldn't compete," I said.

In these words, my honest emotions had been twisted once, twice, three times into an achingly contorted knot—but Ikeno, incapable of perceiving it, "That trite self-deprecation women do—it's what I hate most in this world. For pity's sake, Chō-chan—don't you start doing that too," he said.

From then on, whenever I saw Ikeno’s face as he came along the veranda to my room, instead of a greeting, “Loving swiftness and slowness on a single plum tree—wouldn’t that be it?” I adopted the method of saying it to him. Then, for some reason, Ikeno’s face flushed slightly, “That’s right.”

He said, but his mood was good.

We spent our dormitory days absorbed in such trivialities, and as I lived through those mornings and evenings—since my room faced directly onto them on both sides—I overlooked the red plum's life story and discerned the artifice where wild plum cores had been grafted beneath Bungo plum bark to feign a single tree. Here in this garden’s once-somber wooded garden spring now showed glimpses of vibrant chartreuse hues, while even within the capital’s brittle winter sky that seemed ready to ring like struck metal, I encountered a soft viscous layer beginning to emerge within.

Around the quince branches, young buds in abundance fluffily enveloped them like a child’s woolen sweater, warm and thick, while within those knitted gaps hid numerous beautiful, delicate buds resembling tiny styes on an infant’s eyelids—so tenderly imperfect. Ah, this troublesome spring— Influenced by my dormitory dwelling cut off from the world, I murmured these words involuntarily under my breath—one hand lightly closed into a fist to suppress a yawn, the other bent at a right angle behind my side and splayed out to ease my chest—as I welcomed the arrival of that vexing spring before the garden into my mood with both nostalgia and anguish.

HAIKU

über dem japanischen Gedichte von der

kürzesten Gedicht-form in der Welt. Ikeno, lying sprawled on the veranda while flipping through a pamphlet with a striped cover that introduced Westerners’ studies of Japanese haiku, remained facing downward, “Fascinating. The Westerners’ observations on haiku—here it says something like this: ‘This poetic form is brief, just as birds’ calls are brief.’” “Because their songs are brief, birds can nod in mutual understanding.” “Thus, the Japanese people—who innately possess a poetic instinct—require no lengthy form for mutual understanding—so it says.” “The foreign author’s stroke of genius lies in employing the metaphor of birdsong to illustrate the relationship between brevity and instinct.”

I had no interest in what Ikeno was saying and was merely becoming his verbal opponent,

"But even among birdsongs, canaries have quite long ones, don't they? They sing all day long while the sun's out," I said. Ikeno responded as if to retort, "Huh? What did you say?" he said, looking up—and just as he did so, his eyes caught sight of the slightly frayed seam at the base of my left elbow, which I had lifted in a second yawn, revealing a sliver of skin not normally exposed. He fixed his gaze and stared intently. I, flustered,

“Oh, how vulgar to gawk at someone’s flaws!” I said, pressing down to hide it with a tone sharp enough to knock someone over— “Idiot! My own skin isn’t something to show people!”

No sooner had I said this than I darted a glance toward the bridge approach through the garden’s brushwood. There, a young gardener was removing the straw coverings for frost protection. After that, Ikeno—as if forcibly suppressing a force that wanted to keep shouting—suddenly twisted his face into what looked like the contorted expression of someone fighting back tears and stared downward, then stood unsteadily, kicked the veranda, and went off to the opposite room. I was not particularly surprised by this behavior of Ikeno’s. Ikeno was jealousy-prone. And this was something he himself had disclosed last autumn, during that first meal at the Nakasu ryōtei where he had taken me.

However, until I came to this dormitory, there had been neither opportunity nor incident that brought it so much to the surface; perhaps because Ikeno himself had restrained himself out of fear that punishing me would drive me away, everything had passed without incident—so much so that I had nearly forgotten about it entirely. But once I entered this dormitory, just as a trapper might begin tormenting a mouse the instant it enters the cage—as if snapping the trap shut—Ikeno immediately became consumed by jealousy.

Ikeno absolutely would not let me out of the dormitory. If I said I had shopping to do, he would send Okimi to do it instead; if I said I wanted to meet friends, he would insist on having them come here instead; and if I declared I needed to return home for a private discussion with Mother, he would propose summoning her instead. And when my summoned Mother would come rushing over with a face glowing as if blessed by fortune, then sit across from me with that self-satisfied look—presuming Ikeno had at long last broached the topic of marriage—I found myself thoroughly disgusted.

“It’s really nothing at all.” When I said this sullenly, Mother treated me as gingerly as if handling a boil. Perhaps thinking that winning over my mood might become a means for me to placate Ikeno’s in turn, she lavished such excessive praise—claiming my feminine appeal had remarkably improved since coming to the dormitory, or that my social standing had risen—that it nearly provoked my anger. Then, when meeting Ikeno too, she would extol my worth like reciting an auction catalog’s itemized merits. Of course, in the course of those words, she never failed to praise and flatter Ikeno as well.

After Mother left, Ikeno remarked, “Chō-chan’s mother has aged, hasn’t she. That composed composure she once had—confident in her skill to manipulate anyone she took on—has been lost, hasn’t it.” “The reason being,” he continued, “this year marks the tenth anniversary of your father the Professor’s passing. Our store had proposed discontinuing the survivor benefits we’ve been sending monthly, which she must have heard about from someone—I imagine that’s why she might be getting somewhat flustered.”

Despite being a young man who possessed keen observational skills and common sense regarding not only Mother but all worldly matters, Ikeno acted like a complete madman toward me alone since my arrival at the dormitory. In my continued efforts to find an excuse to go out, I kept insisting I wanted to go see a movie. Then, declaring “This will do,” he brought a Pathé Baby projector and proceeded to show me the latest film himself, no matter the trouble he went to.

If I said I wanted to see a play, he summoned voice impersonators and had them convey famous stage actors solely through the semblance of their voices. I mustered my final ounce of ingenuity,

"If I don't go out and buy this myself, it'll bring shame as a woman. I can't entrust this to anyone," I said. Ikeno Kiyotarō crossed his arms with a troubled expression, murmuring "Hmm..." before going to consult with Okimi in hushed tones. About thirty minutes later, the sliding door between my room and the adjoining parlor opened a finger's width with a soft swish. A young woman's slender hand slid out through the gap, then retreated. There on the tatami lay wrapped packages containing clove-patterned sashes in various new designs.

“Oh!”

At that moment, the woman’s slender wrist—which had emerged and withdrawn—seemed to flush crimson before my eyes, as though her skin were blushing in tandem with her face. “It’s exactly like a haunted house! Or some magician’s cursed box!” No sooner had I spat these words than I snatched up the wrapped clove-patterned sashes and hurled them onto the veranda with violent force. A faint rustle whispered from the L-shaped corner where they struck, like silk brushing against wood. Then silence reclaimed the sun-washed pond garden, broken only by tepid breezes stirring through dwarf pines. Without understanding why, I shuddered in the dormitory’s false chill.

What had become of Katsuraoka? How had his negotiations with Azaka-sensei unfolded? My heart burned with impatience as I desperately awaited word of their circumstances. When moving into this dormitory, I had written to Katsuraoka detailing my plan to take up residence here—stipulating that any coordinating letters from him must outline only essential matters and be sent under a female pseudonym until I granted permission—so thoroughly had I accounted for Ikeno’s scheming tendencies.

Yet all that reached me during those first twenty days were two letters: one reporting that no reply had come from Azaka-sensei—who had returned to Akagi’s foothills—and another informing me that while classes had begun with assistant teachers covering physical education, murmurs of suspicion were arising at the academy over Azaka-sensei’s unprecedented absence—she who had never missed a day before. Around that same time, a letter arrived at my home—later forwarded to the dormitory—from Kira, Yoshimitsu-chan, and Yaeko, jointly written with inquiries about my absence from school and noting that Azaka-sensei still hadn’t returned. They added that they were now secretly consulting with the principal and wished to know my opinion.

But after that, of course we too sent quite a number of letters solely to Katsuraoka to press him—but since these too had no choice but to be given to Okimi to take to the postbox, what became of them along the way I can only liken to casting stones at pear trees, and ultimately it proved futile. At some point, a lock had been installed on the telephone room, and when I ordered Okimi—who kept the key—to open it, she would say, “Yes, I shall make the call for you. What number, and the name of the party you wish to reach?” she would say, never once permitting me to make calls directly.

Ikeno was a pathological jealous type. Okimi served as his accomplice in this regard. And perhaps through that jealous sensitivity, he might have already become aware of Katsuraoka too. Having quickly reached this understanding, I repeatedly considered abandoning my schemes without unraveling their threads and fleeing the dormitory altogether—or else resolving to confront Ikeno recklessly in a do-or-die manner. Yet whenever such opportunities arose to observe him properly, some strange feeling emanating from Ikeno made me incapable of broaching either option. This man who appeared an intellectual autocrat and egoist harbored such a fragile shadow within that whenever I steeled myself to confront him—whether abandoning or pursuing my plans—that shadow would quiver like autumn water under sunlight, seeming to plead: "Keep all facts about Chō-chan's life beyond our relationship blurred and undefined. Don't clarify them—I lack the fortitude to endure such truths." To me, he seemed to be saying exactly this. Thus even my fiercest resolutions would grow idle and wither away—made worse by tender affections and pity seeping from my heart's depths until I loathed myself for it. Then even that thick shell of resolve I'd forged for Katsuraoka's sake, even those artfully twisted feminine wiles of mine—all became saturated through every crevice by this sentimental weakness until I could only collapse into resignation: "Let come what may."

I had long harbored a similar sort of compassionate pity toward Katsuraoka as well. Yet was this because I maintained Azaka-sensei—a same-sex rival—in relation to Katsuraoka? That pity had warped into something fiercely ardent. In contrast, the compassionate pity I now found myself nurturing toward Ikeno—like stepping into a bottomless swamp—left me utterly powerless, with no purchase for my struggling limbs. "It doesn't matter either way."

While bound by the shackles of Ikeno's jealousy, I ultimately refrained from decisive retaliation and let February then March slip by in trifling forms until I found myself approaching April's vexing spring—this was roughly how it came to pass. I recklessly cast this inexplicable ennui upon the breakfast tray, "I've grown utterly sick of Sanshū miso soup every morning." At this, Ikeno replied, "Then I'll have our regular Western restaurant deliver English-style breakfasts for now. That should refresh your spirits," he said.

The garden of this dormitory was said to be modeled after that of Reito-in, one of the subtemples at Kennin-ji in Kyoto. Though naturally far smaller in scale and likely retaining little trace of its original form after generations of piecemeal alterations across various sections, I found myself drawn to its spacious, flamboyant atmosphere regardless. Ikeno explained that despite repeated renovations, it was through successive generations of meticulous care by garden designers from the Kobori Enshū school that this ambiance predating the mid-Edo period had been preserved.

At the upper part of the pond ran a brushwood bridge with a decayed hole at its center. What I had previously mistaken for a rocky mid-island at its far end revealed itself upon closer approach to be a promontory where the base of the artificial hill on the opposite shore met the water. From this large stone outcrop, crossing a stream narrow enough to step over even with a woman's stride, the path followed garden stones along the water's edge, passing a stone lantern before reaching the small ridge of the thickly vegetated artificial hill. Here the path forked into the main route circling the pond's lower end and a diverging path climbing between the upper artificial hills. I had come to relish ascending this gently sloping side path from the base of the hill's ridge during my walks. Though this mild incline spanned merely fifteen or sixteen steps, flanked by sparse vegetation on either side, it exerted a peculiar influence—making those who climbed it utterly lose their geographical bearings, as though wandering some unknown corner of the world. Upon reaching the slope's crest, one found that behind the hill—severed during urban reconstruction after the Great Earthquake—lay a sudden cliff face. Winter bamboo roots and shrub roots twisted through reddish soil strata intermingled with broken tiles and stones when viewed from above. A peeling black fence clung precariously to this abrupt precipice, beyond which spread one of the capital's bustling intersections where deliverymen transported stacked lunchboxes by bicycle. Housewives hurried past too, cloth bundles of handicrafts strapped to their backs as they rushed to wholesalers. Yet that feeling when ascending this gentle slope—stopping short before reaching the fence after fifteen or sixteen steps between sparse trees and bamboo—existed in a realm both desolate yet infinitely poignant, where something seeped into my chest from unfathomable depths. The sky visible beyond the slope's edge seemed continuous with the incline itself, where white and leaden clouds—overwhelmed by the heavens' sorrow—appeared like anguished beads of sweat glistening on celestial skin before dissolving back into nothingness. Might not the soul of this garden—the soul of its creator—reside rather in this slope path? I grew to favor this section more than the expansive, ostentatious garden center.

Therefore, when I asked Ikeno where in the garden to set the breakfast table,

“Over there—” I pointed to that part of the garden. “Let’s not choose such an edge of the garden.” Ikeno said this and then persistently persuaded me, ultimately making me agree to set the location at the Nakajima mid-island in the lower pond that overlooked the entire garden. This formal Nakajima mid-island features a pond’s edge embedded with moss-covered stepping stones that wind snaking from the front of the dormitory building, from whose tip—jutting out like an octopus’s beak—a single stone slab bridge spans to this mid-island. The Nakajima also has Sangai pines. Moreover, as the Nakajima mid-island and the beach on the opposite shore are barely separated by water, with the shadows of the Sangai pines covering the island, when viewed from the dormitory’s veranda, I initially did not recognize this as an island at all—so much so that I even imagined the pond was likely divided by an underground walkway into two separate pools of differing sizes.

"It's still a bit chilly, isn't it?" “Ah, ah—it’s still a bit chilly.” I smoothed down the front of my two-piece dress while Ikeno vigorously rubbed the torso of his morning coat. At the base of the Sangai pines stood a rattan table draped with Irish linen, upon which lay a place plate bearing a napkin folded to match the tablecloth’s fabric.

Ikeno pulled closer the rattan chairs that matched the table, seated me, and picked up the menu. "This morning the cook has prepared smoked herring and boiled cod, hasn’t he?" "You’ll have the cod, I suppose." he said.

"Yes, the cod." “I’ll have the herring.” Okimi, dressed in white and having taken out the soft-boiled eggs and toast from the warmer to place them in their designated positions on the table, respectfully received our order and withdrew. As we began our meal, we gazed in rapture at the delicate hues rising through the air—sunlight spilling from the treetops of the artificial hill onto the pond’s surface, where a faint spring morning mist hovered. Though momentarily swallowed by the haze, the remaining light scattered across the water before ascending skyward.

“It feels as if the whole world’s soaking in a scented morning bath.” “Your eyes are terribly puffy. You really shouldn’t drink so much every night.” As I spoke, some feminine instinct made me edge my chair closer to Ikeno’s side despite our facing positions at the table. He raised his fork-holding hand to stop me—“Quiet.” Ikeno loathed others criticizing his habits, yet whenever their words struck true, he’d clamp down hard on himself and grow maudlin—an odd contradiction. He lowered those swollen eyes, gaze falling to either side of his prominent nose. His modern eyebrows—thinly arched like an island’s shadow—twitched faintly, while passionate lips glistening red were bitten savagely by his front teeth.

“Is it the ephemeral life or the transient age?” After uttering this, Ikeno remained frozen in position like an anchored doll, his hands ceasing all movement over the meal. Perhaps because the morning sun had pierced through the mist to cast its light directly upon the garden, the scent of budding trees now hung thick and pungent in the air. On this Nakajima mid-island, beyond the stately Sangai pines, Genpei camellias with their red-and-white blooms, ever-blooming roses, yellow daffodils, bluish-yellow spring orchids, crimson berries of the Aoki tree, and purple clouds of daphne flowers clustered around our breakfast table. Arranged through combinations of rock placements and lawns, they accentuated their inherent hues in mottled patches wherever they grew. Yet disregarding these nearby colors as mere trifles—from the patterned grasses along the pond’s edge to the jagged branches of the artificial hill—how stingingly, enviably beautiful were the hues of sprouting buds throughout the garden! Lush yet alluring, their profusion seemed to draw people in with almost cruel intensity.

For though each plant here might have its own proper name when examined in detail, let us simply call them dozens of linked sashes of enchantment or cascades of affection—this nature that had been pressed down all winter as withered mountains and barren trees by frost and wind now, suddenly granted sunlight and time, burned with urgency: How might it nestle closer to people? How might it grow familiar with them? Yet whether knowing or not that overtness alone could repel human sentiment, nature cast sidelong glances, weaving a passionate net of spider-silk threads crisscrossing toward people—was this not those bands of sprouting plants and waterfall-like torrents? Was this not the garden filled with budding colors?

On the northern shore opposite Nakajima, the equinox cherry blossoms already glistened white. In the shadow of those flowers appeared something resembling a human figure. I peered—then halted and smiled. Before I knew it, a little folk song—like that of a town girl—had slipped from my lips. “Don’t play dumb now—the budding willow sways in the wind, softly, softly… Oh, well, isn’t that just how it goes?” Whenever Ikeno began speaking, it was usually some logic or sentimentality that would lodge midway in my chest, only to spin meaninglessly there—nothing more than that. On the contrary, when Ikeno said nothing and remained unguarded, there existed something within me that transacted directly and pitifully with him in the depths of my heart. Having accumulated such experiences over time, I dismissed what Ikeno had just brought up as yet another instance of his usual sentimentality. Deeming this a battle I couldn’t win, I hurriedly let my mind wander toward the hues of spring buds that caught my fancy—inadvertently letting slip a little ditty that seemed to throw Ikeno off track. But Ikeno, entirely disconnected from this, maintained his usual fixed-doll posture,

“Is it called the ephemeral life, or the transient age?”

he repeated the same words. Then, after heaving a deep, heavy sigh, he slowly raised his face and fixed his dark, intense eyes intently upon mine. “You’re so lucky, Chō-chan, not having to think about things—” I found those words disagreeable, so “Even so, what a shallow person you are!” As I began to say this, Ikeno cut me off— “No, you’d think about that. “But Chō-chan’s thoughts, no matter what, remain within the realm of human consideration.” “But mine—if I’m not careful—threaten to break free from the realm of human thought.” “And the suffering in those moments is of a different kind—something that neither the likes of Chō-chan’s thoughts nor considerations could ever reach.”

The boiled Akita shigidara cod was quite fatty by season's end; even between the flakes of flesh parted by a fork, there developed a certain glutinous stickiness. But when lemon drops were squeezed over it and drizzled down, the fat separated, transforming into a fragrant, delicate morsel of flavor that dissolved on the tongue upon being scooped into one's mouth. If the salty-sour taste grew too strong and overly stimulated the tongue, one promptly inserted a corner of toast bread into one's mouth. As for my morning lips alone—to match the morning air and serve the unadorned first meal of the day—I kept them natural even before men. Yet when inserting that toast bread into my mouth, I still ended up shielding my unpainted lips and affectedly spreading the corners—a habit I couldn't comprehend even in myself. The way women would stealthily gauge men's reactions with upturned glances while trying to hide their ravenous eating—this I disliked even more. And when I came to notice it—this childhood habit of mine since tender years, of drowsily dreaming unrelated dreams while eating—had gradually diminished, such that I now found myself soothing my mood or exercising judgment according to immediate circumstances: Was this because I had matured, or because life's hardships had emerged and the wellspring of feminine dreams was slowly drying up?

On that toast bread—eschewing butter—there was thickly spread marmalade made from those ripe orange-hued oranges whose very act of being plucked from their branches beneath the southern sun could already intoxicate a person. In its aroma and flavor, bright air and light were kneaded in like candy to such an extent that there wasn’t even a small shadow where human worries could cling. When I placed it in my mouth along with the fragrant wheat aroma of toast bread, the overly stimulating salty-sour taste on my tongue was instantly mellowed, dissolved, and enveloped—the delicious sensation made me want to close my eyes and lose myself completely.

I was letting my nerves relax throughout my body in the faintly cheerful aura of Lipton’s tea when— “What nonsense are you about to spout now?” In a tone that mildly reproved a child, I kept my eyes fixed on Ikeno’s gaze as I retorted. Then Ikeno removed his napkin and, resting his chin on both hands placed upon the table,

“No, now that I think of it, there’s something I’ve come to realize.” “It’s what my deceased friend used to say constantly.” “At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but lately, as I’ve come to feel it in my own experience, I’ve realized just how profound those words truly were.” That friend, Ikeno explained, was his close companion from their high school days when they shared a dormitory. Though both had aimed for the humanities, this friend had intended to specialize in the history of Indian Buddhist art from the field of aesthetics.

“That friend said: ‘You all think of human beings simply as human beings.’” “But that is a superficial observation.” “‘Within human beings,’” he continued, “‘there are some—human beings who are no longer human—mixed in to some extent.’” “‘Those human beings are already being expelled from humanity.’” “‘They are hatching from humanity.’” “‘Humans who are softly, softly beginning to slip free from humanity—’” “‘In Indian classical thought, this type of being is named yokuten—’”

And so, Ikeno began recounting to me the words of his long-deceased friend with renewed intensity.

“Yokuten has six types,” he said. “Generally speaking, all living beings follow concrete paths to satisfy their desires—but with yokuten, these paths approach extreme abstraction. Take the fourth type, Tusita Heaven—its fulfillment comes merely from holding hands. The fifth type, Gōhengeten, finds satisfaction through mutual laughter. As for the sixth type, Taika Jizaiten, simply gazing at one another suffices. Even this most tangible form of desire among creatures exists in such a state. You can well imagine how the other types manifest.”

“Chō-chan, you mustn’t think of this as mere fiction.” “Because it truly exists among human beings living on this very soil.”

This time, it was Ikeno’s own theory.

The sensuality that continued to pursue beauty even after being sated with real life heaved with vigor. When a wealthy retiree passed away and became engrossed in tea ceremony—caressing tea utensils and entering the laughing jar (warigama)—who could claim this tactile sensation had nothing to do with sexuality? In Western parks under spring sunlight, men and women clasped hands and sat in dozens of pairs for half a day. Could this be explained without viewing it as a gathering of yokuten? If one considered broadly across eras—the men and women of poetic refinement from the late Fujiwara period, the Chinese officials of the late Song dynasty, the French Symbolist poets of the nineteenth century—their sensuality all belonged to yokuten.

Red plum blossoms—unseen love crafted a jeweled curtain. A woman sent her affections to a man through the manner in which she allowed the hem of her layered silk robes to protrude from beneath her bamboo blind. Men surmised a woman’s temperament and sentiments through the patterns and colors of her robe’s hem. There could be nothing as yokuten-like as the love of the dynastic era. In modern times, whether we spoke of Surrealists or Abstractists in European avant-garde art—no matter how they argued their claims—from my perspective, they had already transcended humanity and sublimated into the world of yokuten. Whether these were deeds wrought by the era or deeds compelled by life itself—there had been no need to argue which then. When an era rose, humans possessed bestial vitality; as it waned, they drifted yokuten-like. And this phenomenon existed not only in the segmented periods within a single era but also in the families dwelling within those segmented eras.

“This might be tedious, but I need you to hear me out just a little more, Chō-chan.” “Because this right here is the very core of the problem that continues to torment me with such terrifying intensity—”

The Ikeno family's hemp wholesaler in Setomono-chō was an old establishment that had kept its shop curtain since the Edo shogunate era, but Master Tahē—Kiyotarō's great-great-grandfather—proved extraordinary. This coincided with the Bakumatsu Restoration, when Tahē used his own hemp-transporting vessels to serve both imperial and shogunate forces alike, amassing enormous profits. When this dual dealing came to light and he was hauled before an imperial general for interrogation, Tahē retorted nonchalantly: "Aren't they both Japanese? How petty can you get with that narrow asshole of yours." "To think you're so stingy—what a tight-assed bastard!" The general praised this audacity and subsequently bestowed his deep patronage. Through such boldness, Tahē not only revived the declining Ikeno household but laid the foundation for their present-day prosperity.

Tahē answered. The general praised this audacity and thereafter reportedly deepened his patronage. Tahē not only restored the Ikeno household from impending ruin in this manner but also established its modern foundations. He kept many mistresses—to whom he would distribute hemp scraps from the shop, have them craft festival sashes adorned with dangling toy trinkets for children, and let them save the proceeds as pension funds—such was the man's caliber. The subsequent grandfather proved mediocre, while Kiyotarō's father Rihee who followed exhibited an uneven temperament.

“There was something strange about my old man, you know.” “When starting a business venture, his perspective was innovative and his energy boundless.” “You might call it atavism—it’s not that he didn’t inherit some of Grandfather Tahē’s traits. But whenever a business branched out into new endeavors, he’d grow enamored with the novelty and throw himself into it immediately.” “Then when fresh leaves sprouted, he’d latch onto those instead.” “In the end, nothing ever came to a proper conclusion.”

And the strange thing was that while the nature of the initial business ventures was generally practical, as they shifted to branch and leaf work, they gradually took on an abstract commercial character. For example, "Take that trade venture where they brought in your father midway as a consultant to oversee things—at first they properly loaded cargo onto ships and shipped it out, but in the end they chartered out the shop's own vessels. Instead, they started ordering various goods from overseas, and when bills of lading arrived as proof that the cargo had indeed been shipped out, they'd immediately use those documents to resell everything elsewhere." There were other small brokers of that sort as well, but when engaging in practices akin to their parent companies, they would end up never laying eyes on the actual cargo, sinking instead into speculative trades conducted solely on paper—such was how things stood. “Your father was asked by those around us to manage the abstraction of my old man’s business ventures and went to great lengths in doing so.”

These were the manifestations of the Ikeno family’s characteristic drifting detachment from reality that had already appeared in Kiyotarō’s father. “As for me, I had already been completely stripped of all connection to reality.” “To me, there is nothing as insipid and desolate as what we call facts.” “It is like a stone lying on the roadside before one’s eyes—merely that and nothing more.” “Even if that stone were replaced with gold or silver, as long as it lies on the roadside of reality, it holds no more value to me than an ordinary stone.” “However, if—say—the moon were to shine upon that stone, if something like the dim, hazy moonlight of a spring night were to cast its glow—” “Then that stone becomes something of entirely different value to me.”

“Whether in the moonlight’s illuminated surface or its shadowed depths,” Ikeno said, “a world reveals itself there.” His voice carried that peculiar intensity he reserved for philosophical musings. “Does it lead to eternity? Or guide us into yūgen’s mystery? Countless phantoms—in light and shadow both—rise like heat haze only to vanish, and the thoughts they draw from me become countless poems.” In those moments, he confessed, he forgot his own humanity. The moonlight would fade in an instant, leaving him staring at an ordinary roadside stone that had briefly masqueraded as cosmic revelation. This realization only deepened his desolation—a desolation made keener by having glimpsed that undulating world beyond reality’s veil. Unable to endure it, he sought more fiercely that bewitching moonlight. And what was this moonlight?

“There are times when it’s alcohol, and times when it’s women.” “Sometimes it’s the poetry of ancient people.” I felt a flicker of skepticism,

"But you said before that while womanizing is something others force upon you to engage in, you’re stubbornly keeping your virginity in defiance, didn’t you?"

I pressed him.

Then Ikeno, “Women for womanizing and women as moonlight are entirely different matters,” he said.

Having come this far, I felt I roughly understood where Ikeno's story was leading, so

“So as one of these ‘moonlight’ things you speak of, I’ve now become your human sacrifice—is that it?”

But Ikeno shook his head.

“No. It’s the opposite.”

Ikeno, still seemingly in the midst of his monologue, after answering my question with only this much, continued talking about his own affairs without another thought. "As I drank that sake, grew intimate with women, and engaged with ancient poetry, I came to realize the danger of gradually succumbing to abstraction." "Let me take sake as an example and try to explain." "Chō-chan, you call me a heavy drinker, but even after all that drinking, I’ve truly felt intoxicated only a fraction of the time." "That fragrant aroma...the seeping flavor...the rapturous intoxication." "While desiring these things in sake, I’ve rarely been granted them." "And lately, even the act of drinking itself has grown tiresome." "Sake."

“Is there no sake in this world that strips away the sheer volume of liquid—endlessly poured to bloat one’s stomach—and the tedium of drinking itself, yet still delivers the essence and nuance of what sake truly holds?” “When it comes to women too.” “The same goes for poetry.” "I feel threatened and wearied by the procedures and external forms required to bring those things to the marrow of their flavor’s essence." “Precisely because of that, I’ve come to desire women and poetry stripped down to nothing but their essence and nuance.” “But,

“A dead friend once said: ‘That person is already being driven out of their humanity. They are beginning to hatch from humanity. They are beginning to slip gently out of humanity.’ ‘Again, that friend said: “This person may stand at the pinnacle of cultured society, yet in reality, they are one who perishes.” ‘And that very friend himself—without any reason—while on his way to university, as if being swept away into it, committed love suicide with an older beautiful woman and a brilliant young scholar.’”

Ikeno, having finished saying all this, abruptly took my hand, the trembling from his elbow traveling down to my wrist as he spoke. “Listen, Chō-chan—I don’t want to perish. Lately, feeling myself becoming abstraction incarnate so keenly, this terror grips me all the more. I don’t want to perish—no matter what. I must sink my teeth into humanity itself and remain in this earthly realm. Understand this—forgive my unreasonableness, forgive my violent excesses—please save me.”

Ikeno looked ready to burst into tears. I felt sickened. Even during my late father's lifetime - for all his timidity - he'd ultimately saddled me with life's weight: Katsuraoka's burdensome circumstances. And here again - though my intent had been to use him - I sensed that Ikeno, from whom I'd hoped to eventually share this load, had already begun slipping away somehow.

“I’m getting sick of this. So if you get jealous, are you saying that’ll let you be saved through me?”

Then Ikeno, while sliding his grip from my wrist to my arm, “In the end, it manifests as jealousy.” “But the inner workings of the mind are far more serious.” “I’m sealing every window through which your life disperses itself—drawing into my chest all that accumulated essence of your womanhood trapped within.” “Call it what you will—for me now, it’s like a dying man gulping oxygen.” “That’s what these three months of shared living with you have been about—this labor of ours.”

Having been told this, I too could not help but tentatively try to escape in the following manner.

“I am not that sort of woman,” “The academy’s gardener said I was a woman like a blighted bud—a girl resembling the fresh green of new wakura leaves.”

But Ikeno paid no heed at all,

“You must be joking. “How could you possibly be such an unhealthy woman, Chō-chan? “You appear delicate, yet you’re a robust woman—like a primitive one lying directly on the earth, soaking up the vigorous essence of the soil into every fiber of your being. “I can sense that keenly. “The modern girl in you is nothing more than a mask.” I was startled. As Ikeno kept shaking my hand—as if trying to forcibly instill some confidence—he spoke of how among city dwellers there were those scattered like chaff winnowed by wind, and those who twisted yet stubbornly took root; he insisted I was undeniably the latter type. Half-listening, I felt his words strike my soul—phrases about himself that resonated within me.

I lay prostrate on the soil—

Absorbing the vital essence of the soil—

Ahh, I was made to recall—for the first time in ages—the lineage of a beggar’s child that held no gratitude whatsoever for me.

When I came to think this, I stripped away every last remaining support of this recent weariness of mine that had been muttering, "Whatever, it doesn’t matter." I couldn’t tell whether it lasted several minutes or ten-some—only that a dull, thoughtless time passed over me.

Now, when I peered inside my own utterly collapsed and hollowed-out self, I saw nothingness—like ant children rebuilding their anthill grain by grain after a downpour—frantically piling specks of void toward more void.

In the hollow darkness devoid of any light, "nothingness" strained toward "nothingness"— When I became aware of this, even without knowing what those specks were, I found myself frantically tearing up. Even having reached these straits, was there still a force within me that sought to pile up? The poignancy of that force.

Feeling spurred on by something within me, I pressed forward without bothering to arrange my thoughts. "By the way—what became of the marriage discussion?"

After I said it, I realized it was something that had never truly existed within me. But it didn't matter. Again, I took another step forward.

"There’s something I need to discuss." "You’re wealthy, aren’t you?" "Won’t you take responsibility for a man’s circumstances?" This was something I harbored within myself. For reasons unknown even to me, when Ikeno saw me suddenly tear up, he looked startled—but as I immediately blurted out two rapid-fire statements that struck like paired bullets, he blinked in astonishment. Whether he parsed each phrase separately or sought connections between them, he then prepared a questioning expression. Yet my words had been delivered with such bowstring-snap directness that he faltered, unable to respond smoothly. For a moment, he rubbed his hands together in hesitation before—

“Hmm?” With that, he opened his cigarette case and placed one between his lips. Seeing this, Okimi, who had been waiting at a distant chair, rushed over and transferred the match’s flame. After their lengthy conversation spanning considerable time, the sun steadily climbed into the sky, the early spring garden now drawn taut under established rays, maintaining its slightly rigid atmosphere as it began taking its first steps into full daylight. Surrounding urban noises—beginning with streetcar rumblings—snapped and scattered as they were thrown into this dormitory, hollowed like an empty box.

“Oh, Father...” Okimi, as was typical, flushed slightly and let out a small voice. When I looked in the direction of her gaze, there stood a broad-shouldered man nearing middle age, dressed in a Western suit of fine fabric, garden clogs slipped onto his tabi-clad feet at the edge of the tea room I used as a living area. He was looking up at branches where Bungo plums and wild plums had begun forming fruit. Ikeno suddenly averted his attention from this, “Chief, since they’re trees he himself managed, every year he just ends up checking on those plums.” “He’s an opportunistic fellow.”

he said and laughed merrily.

Ikeno welcomed Karo, the chief clerk, into the reception room, and the moment he took his seat,

"This man claims he actually prefers living as a widower—isn’t that peculiar?" he said to me, whom he had brought into the reception room along with himself. Ikeno, sensing that the matter the other party was about to bring up was likely of little interest to him, appeared determined henceforth to take preemptive action—allowing idle chatter if need be, but rarely letting them broach the main issue. Karo remained utterly unconcerned with Ikeno’s demeanor, vigorously wiping his disproportionately narrow forehead with a handkerchief as he said with a bitter smile, “It’s not that I particularly like it either,” but—

"To be honest, you're better off without that peculiar sniffle—far more refreshing." With that, he burst into booming laughter. His voice and laughter both carried the grounded depth of a jōruri narrator's delivery.

His short but broad-shouldered frame bore a large ruddy face that seemed almost affixed to it, somewhat reminiscent of Nara’s single-knife carvings. Despite appearing aged, he didn’t seem to have lived many years, his thick eyebrows and the hair on his head being unnervingly jet-black. No matter how much he laughed, his small narrow eyes—still clouded with undispelled gloom—darted about as he glanced at me while speaking. All the while, he kept wiping his forehead and the wrists inside his cuffs with a handkerchief. For a man to be seeping greasy sweat already in early April—unless he was exceptionally vigorous, could there be something wrong with his internal organs?

Okimi, who had promptly been ordered by Ikeno to bring a whiskey set, first poured for Ikeno, then turned to her father and began filling his glass when—"Wait, hold on," he said, covering the rim of the glass with his palm before facing Ikeno and rubbing his hands together in supplication. “Well, if I’m to have some anyway, might I request you make it a Japanese one?” he said, then laughed with a deferential, businesslike chuckle. Okimi, wearing an uncharacteristically sullen expression, muttered, “In broad daylight—” and ignored him,

“I won’t go getting drunk or causing any trouble—just bring it here quick.”

he said, as though ordering his own daughter to prepare drinks at home, but she curtly turned away with a brusque “No.” I found myself contemplating how this girl—who would blush crimson at even trivial emotional matters—could adopt such severity toward her own biological father in their master’s presence. Had the shop-first mentality of Tokyo’s downtown shop employees become so thoroughly ingrained that it overrode familial bonds even in their children? Or did this father require nothing less than such blunt treatment to be managed at all? As these thoughts circled through my mind during two or three more exchanges between parent and child, Ikeno settled the matter with a single authoritative word.

“Okimi, enough. Go bring it.” Thereupon, Okimi bowed to her master and departed to fetch the sake. As her retreating figure grew distant, Karo persisted— “Don’t need no damn snacks with my drink.” “Just gimme some good pickles if you got ’em—nothin’ else’ll do.”

Karo called out. I had noticed a faint accent in the clerk’s speech earlier, but through this "pickles," I detected that it was the Akita dialect. There was a culinary expert from Akita who served as the academy’s cooking instructor. During lectures on pickling, students had to hear this dialect word "pickles" uttered countless times from that teacher’s mouth until even they began saying "pickles" themselves. Recalling this made me find it oddly amusing that I’d identified him as being from Akita, and as I bowed my head to suppress a laugh, Karo misinterpreted my reaction,

“Miss Chō, that’s the honest truth. When others go through the trouble of laying out heaps of dishes nobody even touches for drinking snacks, it’s more an unwelcome kindness than anything.” “For me, just one thing—pickled greens, tofu, or pickles—would be more than enough. The fewer snacks you have with sake, the deeper its flavor gets, I tell you.” “By that logic,” he cut in, “this man’s even pared down his own family—now that’s commitment to the principle.”

With that, Ikeno promptly interjected with a sardonic remark.

Already, the master and servant’s tatami drinking party began. Karo, holding a cup in one hand and pressing his forehead with the other, chuckled softly, “Even when eliminating things, I may have gone a bit too far.” “After all, I’ve gone and reduced my wife to zero, you see.” he said. Ikeno said, “I just finished breakfast a moment ago,” yet he kept accepting and downing the cups Karo offered him in considerable number. The talk of the town’s economic situation in early spring was conveyed lively by Karo. “For you, this might suffice as drinking snacks,” Ikeno said to Okimi, “but I could never make do with just this.” Then he ordered her to have something like a platter of grilled bonito brought over from a nearby Kansai restaurant and, taking the opportunity, had mitsumochi delivered from the shiruko shop for us women.

After eating that, when I grew bored and started to rise for another stroll in the garden, Karo glanced at his wristwatch and said, “No, I’ve business needing attention. Can’t impose like this any longer.” Then pressing further: “But before taking my leave, there’s something I must discuss with Miss Chōko. Do stay awhile longer.” Yet no sooner had he spoken than he resumed idle chatter as if forgetting entirely, hastening his cup exchanges with Ikeno.

Ikeno returned once more to the topic of his wife. “So tell me truly—you’re not inconvenienced by this widower’s life?” he asked. “Well, I’ve no inconveniences. I’ve never particularly liked women from the start,” he said, then proceeded to explain his reasons as follows. From the tender age of twelve—when he still yearned for his parents—he had left his family home in Akita to live in a grand temple-like shop in Tokyo where both peers and training clerks were men. A malicious senior apprentice would grip his abacus and declare, “The character for ‘endurance’ is ‘heart beneath a blade’—let’s test that,” then grind the tool’s underside against his buzzcut scalp until hairs caught in the zelkova board’s grain tore free with eye-watering pain. Though humiliation burned through him, he molded his face into gentleness even as tears fell—knowing any flicker of anger would bring jeers about his lack of endurance. Amidst this harsh existence, his sole comfort came during inner quarters duty when receiving rare kindnesses from the previous master’s wife. “Sadakichi,” she would say—using his apprentice name—“the seam of your sleeve is fraying. Come here—I’ll mend it.” While she stitched, he’d breathe in through his skin the faint feminine warmth that brushed from her earlobe to cheek—a sensation he stored in his chest like a month’s ration of maternal and sisterly affection. On inner quarters days, he began deliberately loosening his sleeve threads beforehand.

As he gained worldly awareness under the tutelage of meddlesome clerks, night after night he would slip out after closing the shop's great doors, timidly beginning to habituate himself to drinking at stew shops and stand-up bars while glancing about furtively. This roused within him a yearning for women—developing infatuations with bathhouse ticket girls, nursing crushes on tatami artisans' daughters—yet these affections never properly reached their objects, leaving only an unbearably poignant emotion to well up within him. With no means to discharge this tenderness, he grew frantic with frustration, drinking himself to sleep each night until the habit took root and his alcohol tolerance strengthened progressively.

When he became a clerk, then a haori-clad senior clerk permitted to wear formal attire, and could drink at teahouses with money from cutting deals—funds meant for socializing or procurement costs—and began frequenting pleasure quarters, women became no longer scarce for him. Yet to himself, they always felt like half-measures. Money matters were always nagging at his mind, preventing him from becoming fully engrossed. That being said, he couldn’t definitively conclude that something like a pure, single-minded love didn’t exist in this world. When he had become a skilled head clerk, there was just one time he entered mutual infatuation with a geisha from the outskirts—straining his finances to redeem her contract and keep her—yet that sum paid for her freedom always lingered in his mind. Whenever their face-to-face conversations began turning earnest, he would think: "Aren't these just the empty sighs of a woman bought for however much?" And with that, his interest would vanish like smoke, the dream shattering. Whenever he considered taking an amateur girl as his wife, he’d immediately notice that brazenness of theirs—like women scavenging for fabric remnants at department stores—and could never bring himself to go through with it.

In the end, drinking sake and chanting jōruri were what made him feel most poignantly affected, his heart coming unmoored. He began learning jōruri. "After all, women in jōruri generally lack monetary desires. Even when utterly engrossed in conversing with one through the melodic phrases, there's not a shred of worry she might accidentally peek into your purse." "This brings such contentment." Though harboring some aversion to late marriage, through the matchmaking of the previous master and his wife, he ended up wedding the daughter of a fellow clerk from the same trade. "It being the master's arrangement, refusal was impossible." "The woman I married turned out young and unexpectedly resembled those jōruri heroines." "She persistently sought wifely devotion and tenderness from her husband." "At first I was elated—thought I'd drawn a winning lot." "But—"

“Such women may be fine in jōruri,” he said, “but when they actually enter a household, they turn out to be quite bothersome. Moreover, I’ve got my work duties to mind, and I can’t spend every damn day of the year tending to such clingy sniveling either. My wife kept grumbling hysterically about it, and after bearing three daughters, she caused that incident you’re aware of, Young Master. After making quite a spectacle of shame, I found it too bothersome and cleanly divorced her.”

At that time, the eldest daughter had turned fifteen. “Even daughters in the downtown district become quite useful once they turn fifteen.” If that eldest daughter, acting as housewife, had an apprentice sent over from the shop to assist with heavy labor and errands, she capably managed the household and looked after her younger sisters. “For my part, sake became my wife and jōruri my lover.” “I feel no thirst in my heart—no, it’s a carefree life.” “Particularly, my fondness for solitary drinking—this preference for lonely sake—might stem from my youth, having been raised in that monastery-like shop of men where I was trained to drink in secret.” “With that sort of drinking, they don’t have to trouble themselves over me.” “As for my daughters, when the eldest went into service and was married off, the next sister would step into the role of housewife, donning the airs of an elder sister and even keeping the household accounts.” “When that one went into service and was married off, the youngest daughter would take her place.” “Since this January when all my daughters left, I rented a single room in an apartment just for sleeping and commute from there to the shop.” “This time, it’s truly a genuine bachelor’s residence.”

“So you see, even Okimi here puts on airs of refinement since coming to this household, but she’s actually quite the shrewd one.” “Since she’s been managing a small household, her sharp tongue when sending back underweight goods to suppliers—well, that’s truly scathing.” Perhaps because the alcohol had taken effect, Karo went on to recount two or three instances of Okimi’s sharp tongue from when she was in her family home.

It was often the case in this world that those accustomed to serving others would, under some show of amiability, flaunt their own affairs as if they were achievements while fawning over their superiors. Was Karo doing that now? Or did this girl harbor some inherent vulnerability where her father routinely found pressure points in her nature, making him unconsciously resort to this manner of speaking to vent his pent-up frustrations?

In response to this, Okimi merely kept her head bowed and remained silent. When I looked closer to see if she was angry, she was licking her upper lip with the tip of her tongue while smiling faintly. It was a smile that seemed to take strange satisfaction in being tormented by her father. However much forms and moods might be shattered by surrounding circumstances, I came to realize there indeed existed a tacit mutual consent among those long accustomed to subordination—particularly within blood relations—unknowingly bound through shared hardship; yet I was astonished to see it manifest through such unexpected means.

As I vividly felt this with envy, Karo too noticed his daughter's expression and pointed at Okimi: "Look at that, Young Master. Even after being told all this, this girl keeps smiling—what a shameless disposition she has!" As Karo spoke with growing resentment, Okimi instead leaned her body toward her father as if bending his way, adjusted her posture, and for the first time looked at his face with nostalgia before smiling faintly.

"But you’re being too…" Okimi’s words now carried an uncharacteristically bright tone, even laced with coquetry. While Ikeno, as usual, turned pale and quickened his pace of drinking, in contrast, Karo merely deepened the ruddiness of his already ruddy face, his cups steadily slipping through the gaps between rounds of toasts. And saying, "I’ve had quite enough. I must ask you to allow me to stop here," he flipped his final cup upside down. From then on, no matter how much Ikeno pressed him, he stubbornly refused, occupied only with dabbing his forehead and wrists with a handkerchief.

Ikeno watched admiringly, “You can really just stop at that? As I was telling Chō-chan earlier in the garden—the more I drink, the less drunk I get.” Then Karo made a puzzled face, “That’s rather peculiar, isn’t it? Could there be something wrong with your health? First of all, since sake is the essence of rice, drinking so much of its potency could lead to poisoning.”

Ikeno, displeased by the other’s overly moderate words for a sake lover, sulked slightly, “Then what’s your reason for drinking sake?” he pressed.

Karo made a face as if questioning the oddness of the inquiry, then laughed heartily and, "You already know, don’t you? I drink to get drunk, of course—though sometimes it serves as a stimulant, sometimes as nourishment—so I don’t pick when or where to drink. But once I’ve drunk enough and think any more would be wasteful, I promptly stop. Not to contradict you, but I’ll spare you the rest here. That comes from years of practice."

And with that, he laughed merrily once more. “You’re still part of that undying breed of drinkers,” Ikeno said admiringly, though his voice carried a note of frustration. Karo, without grasping his meaning, simply replied, “That may well be the case,” and did not press further. Unintentionally, time had passed, and the clock now showed just past two. As if rebelling against early spring’s warmth, the sky abruptly clouded over. Across its leaden expanse swirled milky-white clouds—like tea froth stirred by a whisk’s tip—scattering in vortices. Gazing up, one might imagine rain dragons emerging from those depths; dropping a boiled quail egg into that sky would conjure visions of bird’s nest soup. Yet across the garden’s surface lay a heavy yellow light, through which pond, Nakano Island, and artificial hill glowed with an unearthly pine-resin hue—as if viewed through sunlit beer glass.

Karo looked up at the sky and said, “Ah, early spring rain?” then flicked ash from his fine Western-style coat and the cigarette on his knee with his fingers as he began preparing to leave—yet he did not forget the business he had with me. He took out a letter from his inner pocket, briefly checked the sender’s name, and put it back in.

“Do you know a man named Katsuraoka, the gardener at F Academy?” he asked. Ikeno’s face clouded with displeasure at what he perceived as the clerk finally broaching crucial negotiations. Earlier in the garden, some dark, unknowable force had thrust me upward from the depths of my resignation—where I’d thought *to hell with it all*—making me fire off both the marriage matter and Katsuraoka’s need for rescue to Ikeno like twin bullets from a gun barrel. Thus I’d already braced myself for whatever grave repercussions these confessions might bring down upon me. Yet precisely because of this resolve, I’d let my mind wander freely afterward, entrusting everything to fate—never imagining those repercussions would come thrusting forth so immediately, like a bamboo spear hurled from an unexpected quarter. For a long moment I stood dumbstruck, my gaze flitting between the clerk’s face and the pocket holding his letter until Karo—whether impatient with his daughter’s futile hesitation or not—launched briskly into explanations from his side.

“Oh, it’s nothing. This man Katsuraoka has been coming repeatedly to the Setomono-cho shop, but when he calls or visits the Hamacho dormitory where Miss Choko is supposed to be, they turn him away, saying she isn’t there—and he insists they absolutely won’t let him see her. He claims it’s urgent business. Since he heard this is the main residence, he’s been pleading for arrangements to meet with Miss Choko from here. That’s what this Katsuraoka fellow keeps insisting.”

The shop owner couple, also concerned, had left their response to the man unresolved while commissioning a regular private detective agency to investigate his background. They discovered that he was indeed employed at F Academy and seemed an upright man. Though they couldn’t determine the nature of his "urgent matter," there appeared to be no signs of extortionate intent. As they were deliberating what to do, a letter arrived from him stating—according to its contents—that there was a certain female PE teacher at F Academy who was about to resign. For this reinstatement campaign, they wanted cooperation from Choko-san as well—a pupil whom the PE teacher had doted on. The meeting was merely for that purpose—the circumstances were written as being extremely simple. Then he should have said so plainly from the start. However, if these circumstances alone were all there was to it, it would cause no particular trouble for either Choko-san or the Young Master. Moreover, given that rumors had recently begun circulating here and there in this neighborhood—that Choko-san was being kept in this dormitory as the mistress of Ikeno’s son—they had not only graciously arranged her meeting with that man but also, since discussions about the Young Master’s marriage to you had already reached an agreed-upon stage among Ikeno’s prominent family members, such matters should present no issues whatsoever. Still, before any irreversible mistakes could occur prior to the marriage, they wished to return Choko-san temporarily to her parents and proceed with concrete arrangements as swiftly as possible. Karo reported that the opinions of the prominent members of the household had generally reached this conclusion. Thereupon Karo assumed a serious expression,

"How about you, Young Master? And you, Miss Choko?" he said.

Ikeno said “Hmm” and made a slightly sour face. As for me—even setting aside Katsuraoka’s matter—I was dumbfounded, never having imagined that the marriage discussions, which until now had shown not a single hint of such intent from the main house in Setomono-cho, could have progressed this far among prominent figures. “What? Even though the main house doesn’t know me at all, they’ve already started making such decisions?”

When I said this, Karo—as if deeming it needlessly roundabout—cast his sorrowful eyes upon me, "Oh no, your parents and Master Tambaya have already visited this dormitory discreetly several times and are fully apprised of your circumstances." "They’ve all grown rather fond of you as a young lady who’s somehow both steadfast and demure."

Upon hearing this, it was not only I who exclaimed “My!” in astonishment. Ikeno raised his body, which had started to recline.

"I had no idea about any of that!" he said. Then Okimi, careful not to be noticed, silently rose and slipped away from her seat. Ikeno glared at her retreating figure.

“She’s the one who secretly guided the main house people behind my back.” As Ikeno said this, Karo waved his plump, short hand in a cat-like gesture to dismiss it. “Nonsense. “Even you, Young Master, aren’t you the son of a merchant? “With samples this readily at hand, surely you can’t crudely parade a physical inspection in public now, can you? “No matter how much you stockpile, you can’t just go displaying them for inspection.”

Then, placing his hands on his knees with an air of authority, "But look here, Young Master. 'The character for "parent" combines "standing tree" and "see," you know.' 'Your parents may seem aloof, but make no mistake—they watch over you from their lofty perch like great trees.' 'Regarding Miss Choko's situation—while her father is an upstanding gentleman beyond reproach—her mother, though it pains me to say in her presence, holds a status regarded as... shall we say, socially delicate. This has given both families much to consider.' 'Now then—with various matters yet to unfold, I'd advise you not to trouble your parents unduly.'"

No sooner had he said this than he glanced at his wristwatch, “This won’t do. Well then, I’ll take my leave.” After saying this, he bowed respectfully, looked up repeatedly at the darkening sky, and called out, “Okimi, lend me an umbrella,” before heading toward the entrance. I, taking advantage of Okimi’s absence from her seat, furrowed my brows and said, “He’s changed quite a bit, hasn’t he?”

I said to Ikeno. Then Ikeno, weighed down by drunken fatigue, seemed to have sunk into deep thought with his head bowed forward—but at my words, he uttered "Huh?" and straightened his posture, "Oh, that? "That’s just how it goes." he answered.

I pressed on, "How terribly old-fashioned he is!"

When I said this, Ikeno shook his head and, “No, you can’t quite say that.” “No matter how old the seed may be,” he said, “the way its simple honesty immediately translates into action might not be old-fashioned after all.” Karo took the Chinese character teachings he learned during his apprentice days as his lifelong golden rule, establishing all his policies based on them. For instance, until about twenty years ago, at Ikeno’s shop, they refrained from anything deemed taboo by the store’s guardian deity in preparing meals for the manager, forbidding the use of any animal meat whatsoever. At that time, Karo, who was then the head clerk, strenuously advised them, arguing that even the character for ‘health preservation’ (養生), created by the sages, is written as ‘eating sheep’ (羊). He argued that mixing animal meat into the employees’ meals not only did not violate any taboos but would also improve their physical health and work efficiency. They implemented it, and it turned out exactly as he had said. Karo would also occasionally boldly change staff assignments or hire new graduates from schools. This came from the Chinese character teaching that the “ben” in “benefit” (便益) is written as “renewing people” (人を更にすると). Thanks to this, Ikeno explained to me that his family’s old shop could somehow maintain its standing while adapting to modern times.

"In this era increasingly demanding thoughts that can be immediately translated into action—such simple, clear ideas—whether Karo’s mindset is old or new remains unclear, but it fits perfectly with navigating the present," Ikeno said with profound emotion. About half a month later, Karo came again and, representing the opinions of the Ikeno family’s prominent members, formally began new consultations with Ikeno and me. After setting a date one week later, it was agreed that I would temporarily return to Mother’s house and, as a bride candidate officially recognized by the Ikeno family, finally move to concrete negotiations for marriage with Kiyotarō.

However, Ikeno’s manner of handling these consultations—both the previous occasion and today—grew increasingly devoid of passion in a most peculiar way. Having noticed this, after the consultation concluded and Karo had departed, I posed this question to Ikeno with these words.

“Initially, you plotted to make me your partner in a free marriage to rebel against the conventional life being forced upon you by those around us, intending to thumb your nose at common customs and traditions. Though you yourself added that even as a partner in this, she must be a woman capable of inspiring the impulsive love necessary to execute such a scheme.” “But this time, the opposition has united to endorse your freewheeling marriage plan instead. So their approach displeases you now, doesn’t it? Rather than resisting, they’re accepting it as something imposed upon them—which irks you all the more. That’s why you’re sulking, isn’t it? Given your contrary nature, I’m certain that’s exactly the case.”

Then Ikeno agreed,

“That’s part of it.” “There certainly is.” “However, there exists a greater reason for this loss of passion.” “This is something that can’t be helped.”

And then Ikeno, with a thoroughly bewildered expression, began to speak.

“Chō-chan—it was only after living day and night under the same roof with you that I came to understand this—that formidable strength rooted deep within you, one that seems to pierce through soil and drive roots down to the very foundations of the earth. This force—as a manifestation of human spirit—appears capable of resonating deepest within people’s hearts and shaking them to their marrow. Yet strangely, in your case, it never surfaces through your outward character. Not through your competitive spirit, your flamboyance, your cleverness—when those traits are at play, it remains hidden. Nor does it emerge through your innocence, your modesty, your gentleness—even when those aspects govern your behavior. It slips out through words you inadvertently let fall in unguarded moments—those fragmented murmurs—and for someone of my disposition, this instead sends electric shocks prickling through flesh and bone. This is what I’ve come to grasp.”

“You caught a cold the other day and spent about a week lying in your room, right? At that time, there was a catkin willow in the corner of the room—its flowers still wrapped in calyxes—arranged in a vase. Since you’d lost your appetite from the fever, you’d skipped meals two or three times. Thinking this couldn’t be good for your health, Okimi prepared porridge and brought it with a spoon. You let her wake you and, still hazy from sleep, accepted the bowl and spoon she offered.” At that moment—whether forcing nonexistent hunger or feigning courtesy toward Okimi’s kindness—you kept murmuring like a chant with each spoonful lifted to your lips.

One spoonful eaten for Father, Two spoonfuls eaten for Mother "And you laughed faintly." Ikeno, his expression having turned serious without notice, continued—"At that time, though there was no wind, the catkin willow flower calyxes fell softly onto the tatami." "You, with eyes lacking focus in your drowsy state, gazed at those falling calyxes while scooping porridge with a spoon, murmuring like a song—slowly, ever so slowly." One spoonful eaten for Father,

Two spoonfuls eaten for Mother

And again she laughed faintly. The catkin willow flower calyxes had all fallen, exposing the silver filaments. The small bowl of porridge had been nearly all scooped up and eaten, revealing its pear-skin finish bottom. Then you said, “This will do,” handed the porridge utensils back to Okimi, murmured “Thank you for the meal,” and lay down on the floor like a puppy abandoned by the roadside. Immediately she began breathing peacefully in sleep. “As for both those actions and that song from that brief time—you probably don’t remember them now, nor can you recall them. But I was somewhat worried about your meals during your illness, so I peeked through a narrow gap in the shoji screen and felt it keenly. That murmuring song-like voice—impossible to tell where it first resonated from—could sound as hoarse as an old woman’s yet as unformed as an infant’s. But hearing it brought me pain as if my very root of life had been seized and wrung dry. For life’s sake this was deemed futile; for life’s sake that was deemed vanity—until not only the stubborn endurance that had sustained me until then, but everything I’d ever taken pride in felt like a loathsome burden making my flesh creep. All those things—I wanted to cast them off like a winter coat in early spring and be filled with nothing but the desire to prostrate myself before what seemed that primal voice, crying ‘Forgive me.’ The way I wanted to prostrate myself—if on tatami I’d pierce through the mats; if on earth I’d pierce through the soil—was with such piety you wouldn’t know how deep into the abyss my forehead should press.”

“How can Chō-chan’s clumsy singing voice render a grown man so utterly powerless? Is it because this endless sorrowful sound of life—incurable by any means for us all—seeps through the gaps in my slackened mental armor? That voice possesses too terrifying a corrosive power to be neatly categorized as mere mindlessness or selflessness. Whether it was the devil’s voice or a benevolent deity’s—it was a resonance whose nature remained unknowable.” However, when I heard that voice, I was compelled to lament—Ah, in this world, there is not a single person with whom I can live in harmony except the dead.

But when I heard that voice again, after the roots of ordinary life had been pitifully wrung out and torn away, I felt another life sprouting from those roots—one that surged up with both resentment and tender compassion. But to whom should I direct that? To whom should I appeal?

One spoonful eaten for Father, Two spoonfuls eaten for Mother. That voice—like wind making torn shoji paper tremble dully. "And yet, it was a young girl’s voice." "What is the source of that voice—ah, what could it be?" "With a heart that would prostrate itself, I plead—yet no one will tell me, no one will dare to." In the end, this intensity of grief churned my guts until I simply lost myself and wanted to thrash about. If you think this is merely my melancholic sentiment, you’re mistaken. Go ask Okimi. Even Okimi—that girl as numb as an icefish—while waiting for the porridge utensils to be readied, heard that song and bowed her head, tears trickling down.

“Chō-chan, you yourself don’t yet know.” “However, such weak fruits end up becoming strong ones instead.” “Chō-chan, you yourself cannot know it, but there is a mysterious power lurking within you.” And since hearing that voice, I came to feel a certain aversion toward the everyday Chō-chan before me—the one with color and scent. This Chō-chan was nothing more than a girl ten times more voluptuous than any ordinary woman. However, this Chō-chan who sang that murmuring song—devoid of color or scent—was perceived as possessing a character that was grounded yet unfathomable in its reach. To that Chō-chan, I now found myself being irresistibly drawn.

If it's this Chō-chan before my eyes, then someday, should we part ways after mutual discomfort, the time will surely come when we are forgotten. But if it were that Chō-chan who sang the murmuring song—no matter how fiercely we might loathe each other—our hearts would surely pull together through a single thread; even were that thread as fragile and invisible as a lotus filament, one need only tug it to restore everything as before. And if it were that Chō-chan of the voice—even were we separated across the realms of light and darkness—whenever we desired to meet, we would always encounter one another; lonely though it may be, I feel our souls could exist forever in this cosmos as just the two of us—intimate souls bound to the very limits of closeness. When I think about it, neither any real circumstances nor any complex obstacles possess the power to sever that rhythmic pulse.

Since coming to this realization, things like stubbornness, rebellion, asserting my ego, adhering strictly to my preferences—all such efforts have come to seem like futile struggles in this brief human life. Consequently, even the enthusiasm for our marriage that had been developing from that has diminished. Yet, what I have unceasingly longed for is the unceasing rhythmic pulse lurking at the core of that man and woman. Chō-chan—even if you’re unaware of it—you undoubtedly possess that. But I—when I come to think this far, I begin to feel an indescribable terror. If I were to—say—die suddenly from alcoholism, and if this lotus thread were gone, I can still see myself now: eternally losing even this Chō-chan whom I love so dearly, stumbling about in death's dark void, frantically searching for her in desperation. Therefore, I have come to desperately wish that I must live long no matter what, stay with Chō-chan, have her extract that lotus thread, and have her firmly tie it to hers.

In that case, by societal custom, it was inevitably destined to take the form of marriage. If there existed a relationship more intimate than that, of course I believed there could be nothing better.

"But since there is none, even if the enthusiasm has been lost, I have no choice but to submit to that constraint," said Ikeno.

Upon hearing Ikeno's story, though I couldn't make sense of any of it, I felt something intensely pressing. Reflecting on it, it was indeed true that until four or five days prior, I had been down with a cold and lying in bed for about a week. And during that time, just as Ikeno had said, with no appetite to speak of, I had been made by Okimi to eat bowlfuls of porridge several times through reluctant coaxing. But I had no recollection whatsoever of what Ikeno had just described. Yet the catkin willow I had dimly gazed at still stood properly arranged in the flower vase at the sitting room's corner—its flower clusters having shed every last calyx, the silver filaments now blooming so excessively they had begun to yellow. If that were so, then those events too must have certainly occurred. But even now, when I tried to recall them, no trace of memory remained. Even to myself—how utterly strange were that voice, that song, those mannerisms?

I tilted my head slightly and quietly tried reciting under my breath. One spoonful eaten for Father, Two spoonfuls eaten for Mother. Now, where and when I had learned those song lyrics—I myself did not know. Father and mother—toward whom were those words directed? Even to myself, my own motives remained unclear. When I began repeating it aloud once more, Ikeno let out a startled cry and—

“Please stop, that song. “That song. “Hearing that now in Chō-chan’s lucid voice—I don’t know why—it’s utterly terrifying. “Please—I beg you—stop it.” With that, Ikeno covered his ears and let out a scream.

In a strangely deflated state—like someone who had nearly reeled in a fish glimpsed flashing silver only to lose it at water's edge—yet still carrying an ever-intensifying sense of lingering attachment, Ikeno spent that week in the dormitory restlessly hovering around me with almost comical agitation until my return to Mother's house to await concrete marriage negotiations.

When I probed into Ikeno's feelings regarding Katsuraoka, "Such matters are no longer an issue. As long as Chō-chan doesn't let that man scatter your feelings toward me, you may handle it however you please."

he said impatiently. I seized this opening without hesitation, “Then, if by some chance I were to have to take responsibility for that man’s circumstances—”

When I pressed him with this question, Ikeno—as expected—startled and stared intently at my face, but then weakly, “Indeed, a girl like Chō-chan must have one or two satellites. “Then there’s no helping it.” “To keep hold of the moon, I suppose I must accept its satellites as well.” he answered. I thought, for now, it was a success. Evidently, Mother too had been informed by Karo,

“Oh my, oh my—what a splendid arrangement this has become—”

Brandishing those words at the forefront, Mother barged into the dormitory. When we sat facing each other in my room, she immediately began lavishing praise—declaring how this outcome surely stemmed from my feminine wiles—then proceeded to meticulously explain, with practiced efficiency befitting a prominent family’s bride-to-be, the proper bearing I must adopt and methods for managing numerous subordinates. True to her nature, she did not neglect to add the following:

“But hey now, Chō-chan. No matter how thoroughly you become part of the master’s household, you mustn’t forget that I’m your birth mother—that in this whole wide world, we’re each other’s only parent and child.”

Then, lowering her voice, “For a worthless parent like me—born to lowly origins—to produce a proper bride for a prominent household like you... Truly... I could die content now.” “You’ve truly been such a paragon of filial piety.” “Mom’ll thank you properly.” Having said that—whether feigned or genuine—she pressed the sleeve cuff of her underrobe to eyes that had slightly welled up with tears. Hearing this, even as I warily wondered whether it was all pretense or genuine, tears nonetheless welled up properly in my eyes—but if Mother were to notice them and forever treasure this proof of filial affection wrung from her child, amusing herself by constantly recalling it, I knew I could never endure it. To dispel the sentimentality threatening to take hold, I hastily cleared my throat two or three times with forced “ahems.” To what extent were we truly mother and child when our very guts refused to align?

Mother had tucked the sleeve cuff of her underrobe into her sleeve and assumed the posture of someone who had just let out a relieved sigh—but upon noticing something, she suddenly glared around with terrifying eyes, hunched her back, and lowered her voice further, “But, Chō-chan, once things have reached this point, that’s when they truly become crucial. Even if you think things will proceed smoothly from here on out, that’s a dangerous assumption. In this world, there are those who envy from the sidelines, and those who act with malice. If you let your guard down, you’ll blunder.”

“In case such precautions become necessary—now that things have progressed this far—you’d better have made sure that even if you fall, you won’t get up empty-handed, that you’ve already got a firm grip on their collar. When the time comes, it’d be no fun if you just get tossed out with a casual ‘see ya’ and have salt thrown at you. Oh yes, of course—you’ve surely already secured something solid from them to prevent this from becoming a disgraceful retreat, haven’t you?”

I thought Mother’s usual routine had begun. So, as always, I responded with a slightly mocking tone, “What’s this ‘opponent’s collar’ you’re talking about—the one that means I won’t get up empty-handed even if I fall?” When I feigned ignorance and asked this, Mother grabbed the cuffs of both sleeves with her fingertips, pulled them left and right as if her back itched, and violently jerked her upper body. “This isn’t a joke. “The matter is serious.” “Hmph, no matter how much you play dumb, Mom here sees right through you.” “Just look—when I met Young Master over there earlier, his demeanor—goodness—was all fidgeting restlessness, utterly devoid of composure.” “With that demeanor, can you really claim he’s a man who hasn’t been caught by you in some way?”

After declaring this with a self-satisfied air, she picked up her half-smoked cigarette again and quietly blew smoke rings. Whenever I was met with such misapprehensions—not just from Mother but from others—these days I found myself growing more mischievous rather than sad, even feeling a certain pleasure instead. Was it truly because a shell had thickened around me, or because I had resolved to stand utterly alone in this world when the time came?

So, upon hearing Mother’s misunderstanding, I found it so amusing that I couldn’t help but— “Blow, river wind—lift the bamboo blind—let’s see the face of the guest inside—” I simply couldn’t stop myself from mixing in a hummed tune in response. Even Mother seemed offended by this, “You’ve become so high-strung there’s no managing you anymore, haven’t you? “Well then, Mom’s going home now.” And with that, she bundled up my personal belongings—those that fit in her hands—into a furoshiki and carried them home.

Karo must have informed Mother of Ikeno's order of liberation regarding me, for she left behind the letters and postcards addressed to me at home when departing. The two letters were old ones from Katsuraoka, serving as evidence of how he had been confounded and thrown into disarray by the difficulty of meeting with me. The single picture postcard showed three people from F Academy's play party—Kira, Yoshimitsu-chan, and Yaeko—lined up together against cherry blossoms at Tanagawa Amusement Park. Somehow, in the nearly four months since I last saw them, the three appeared to have abruptly grown and taken on adult airs. There was a joint message from them all.

I safely graduated from the regular course and entered the research course. If only you were here with us... Kira Azaka-sensei never returned, you never came either, and now everyone's become resigned. It's no fun. Yoshimitsu

"Sister, rumors of your impending marriage are everywhere. Well, congratulations then. Yaeko" I gazed at this postcard photo, squinting and widening my eyes like an old person. Yet however much I tried, the nostalgia of these images failed to align perfectly with the focal point of my heart’s longing, slipping off course or growing blurred at every turn. Tears trickled steadily from my eyes, yet the emotional impact remained completely blurred. Had these nearly four months so thoroughly dragged me away from a girl’s world into a woman’s? The more I stared, the more a naive veil—untouched by hardship—seemed to crown the photograph’s surface, making me hesitate now to cross back into that realm. Growing impatient, I suddenly called out to the postcard image: "Kira!"

Then, deep in my ears, I heard a response—"Huh?"—in that same nasally congested voice. Next, I called out, "Yoshimitsu-chan!" "Ye-es," came Yoshimitsu-chan's ever-clever voice affecting a Cockney London accent in his usual reply. Yaeko, for her part, answered in a tone already verging on affectionate pleading: "What is it, Sister?"

I closed my eyes for a while. Then, quietly, I was brought back to myself on that windy day, seated atop dragon’s beard grass, watching the poplars in the schoolyard sway like whips. Kira and Yoshimitsu-chan were wrestling beside me, alternating between being on top and bottom. Yaeko was counting the bulbils she had gathered. And then Kira and Yoshimitsu-chan would stand up—whether over some foul or not—and begin chasing each other around while Yaeko darted about crying “Careful now, careful!” Though they would drift away from me several times, once they reached the perimeter of an expanding circle, it was as if a rope had been strung there; they would shorten their chasing distance again and return right to my side.

Even after reopening my eyes, I felt that invisible thread of connection—now vividly twisted as if freshly spun from my heart—become bound and intricately woven into my very physical senses. Then, as though alcohol had been rubbed into my muscles by the three children’s varying-sized palms, my body began burning fiercely, and I reflexively clasped myself tight,

"Ahh, I miss you all so much," I found myself saying aloud. No sooner had those words left my mouth than the happiness of childhood days—which I myself had so callously cast into the past—pressed down crushingly upon my heart with regret. And now faced with these strange circumstances of the present that had become inescapably entangled, I wondered: Could this truly be what they called fate? Or was it merely a trap I had whimsically laid for myself? Once such doubts took root, my heart grew timid while even my body stiffened with fear, yet there remained no means of support to steady myself.

As I vacillated in thought, I suddenly recalled one of those charming phrases that the Chinese performer—who had recently gained fame at variety halls with his acrobatics—would chant to his accompanists when about to perform, using the scant Japanese he had managed to learn. It was simply him saying, “Well then, let’s do-o it.” I resolutely tore up the postcard, deliberately stood up, and imitated an unsteady tone of voice, “Well then, let’s do-o it,” I said.

If I started thinking about it, there would be no end. To cut through it all, wasn't there nothing for it but to confront what lay before me and say these words? And so I resolutely bared my shoulders and settled my languid body before the vanity mirror. Even though Ikeno had issued this liberation order over me, he still wouldn't permit lengthy outings or distant excursions. Though not refusing outright, by making painfully clear how such actions would wound him, he ultimately kept me restrained through this naked emotional display.

Well, it wasn't as if I had to endure this for many more days. Resigned to that fact, I stayed as meekly as possible in the dormitory, performing nothing more than the role of a guardian who simply humored him in his troubles over those inscrutable desires he had begun directing toward me. For one thing, no matter how much I was liberated, the thought of returning to that incomprehensible club-like house of Mother's simply held no appeal. It was there, perhaps, that this oppressive leniency emerged—making me settle meekly into dormitory life without forcing any fierce struggle. Moreover, beyond that lay the fact of a marriage I scarcely felt in my heart. Had this too become a means of anchoring me within the present oppressive leniency?

Finally, on the evening of the day when I was to leave the dormitory and return to Mother’s house with just one day remaining, Katsuraoka came to visit the dormitory. Probably, they had even notified Menkyoku from the main branch in Setomono-cho about the lifting of the visitation ban. When Okimi relayed it to me, Ikeno—who happened to be there—made a resigned face, then did his best to appear as though he had no intention of leaving.

“For you to talk to that young male guest in this house must feel constraining.” “Well, the Nihonbashi Club would be good—it’s close from here.” “Why don’t you have your talk over tea in that cafeteria at the Nihonbashi Club?”

and specified even the location and manner of hospitality. To surmise: the smoldering remnants of Ikeno’s jealousy found it grating for me to converse with a young man beneath the same roof where he himself resided; yet conversely, the prospect of us holding a rendezvous in some unknown distant place unsettled him even more. Thus, it seemed his plan was to orchestrate a meeting between Katsuraoka and me within the bounds of his imagination’s reach, under conditions of his own design.

I stood up with my makeup already applied and nothing but the previously mentioned mindset of “Well then, let’s do-o it,” going out front together with Katsuraoka who had been waiting at the entrance. What a gaunt Katsuraoka he had become. When I saw him at the entrance, I exclaimed “Oh!” and burst out laughing—so emaciated had he become. Even as we walked shoulder to shoulder, I kept scrutinizing his appearance intently. And then,

“What’s wrong with you?” “This is strange.” “You’ve gotten completely worse, haven’t you?”

I said. Then Katsuraoka looked back at me with a look of profound resentment in his eyes, his gaze fleeting, but— “What do you mean, ‘strange’?” “You’re mocking me.” he barely managed to say. And though he was probably angry, he seemed too drained to sustain his rage; only the muscles of his face spasmed as he swallowed his anger along with his spit as if it could sustain his empty stomach. “But I didn’t do anything.”

On the left side stood meeting houses, small eateries, and modest teahouses; on the right ran a narrow path along Hamachō Park's edge—down this path we walked. These businesses, having crammed buildings so densely that almost no open space remained, had thickly planted flowers and shrubs along their entrance fences both to lend their gateways an elegant air and to substitute for proper gardens with greenery. Amidst late spring's vivid new buds and the glossy sheen of revived old leaves, they let glimpses of flower colors—innocently charming yet coquettish like crabapple blossoms—peep through here and there, evoking a pleasant languor in passersby while trying to impart a light sense of respite. Through the chain-link fence beside the park, a baseball could be seen glowing white as it flew back and forth—a lingering vestige of spring's season. On the park office door hung a notice announcing the upcoming nighttime openings for early summer.

Ahead, beneath the clear evening sky of Fukagawa Ward where the Ōkawa River flowed swelling with abundant waters, we walked along the Nihonbashi Club’s backstage area. What appeared to be preparations for a performance were underway, and the sound of an accompanying shamisen could be heard. Since we soon emerged at Hamachō Riverbank, I stood at its edge and gazed out at the scenery for a moment. Ahead were the warehouses of Atagochō Riverbank; to the right, Shin-Ōhashi Bridge stood majestically, while to the left, beyond Ryōgoku Bridge, the curve of Kuramae Bridge’s framework could be seen. The large domed roof of the Kokugikan rising above the mouth of the Onagigawa River. The one-sen steamer at the river’s center overtook the tugboat, sending trailing waves against the stone embankment as it went. The scenery familiar from childhood hadn’t changed a single bit. It hadn’t changed a single bit.

“How lovely,” I murmured involuntarily. Katsuraoka turned with a questioning “Hm?” as if addressed, then swallowed his words upon realizing my remark wasn’t meant for him. “Enough idle wandering—let’s reach our talking place swiftly,” he said. When I indicated the bright Western-style building with my left hand—“Here”—he squinted at its illuminated windows and muttered “This spot?” But his legs faltered mid-step. “No use—my vision spins,” he gasped, gripping my shoulder. “Let me rest at once.”

At this point, I too began to genuinely worry and hurriedly led Katsuraoka into the club. In the office area were myself in office attire and the daughter of an elementary school friend, while in front of the cafeteria's counter stood a girl from the Hamachō Ondo dancer troupe that performs in the park during summer. Bringing Katsuraoka—now utterly emaciated and disheveled—into their midst was rather embarrassing, but driven by concern for him, we pushed through without hesitation and settled at a riverside table in the cafeteria.

I had no sooner sat down at the table than I couldn't help but say, "Why have you let yourself get so weak?" After sipping his tea and regaining some vigor, Katsuraoka—as if trying to remove a spider's thread clinging to his cheek—groaned "Ah, mmph" and stretched his stubbled face a few times before replying: "No matter what I did or how I did it, I've completely drained all my energy. And as of last month, I was let go from the academy." He then proceeded to report the subsequent developments regarding the incident involving Azaka-sensei.

Last year, Azaka-sensei had demanded that Katsuraoka marry her, and when he refused to accept this, she had returned to her family home at the foot of Mount Akagi in late December; even after the New Year began and the semester started, she remained there unchanged. No matter how urgently Katsuraoka pressed—insisting any compromise would do if only she would return to the academy once—she sent but a single letter in reply: unless he accepted the demand she had imposed, she would absolutely not return. Yet when it came to this particular demand alone, he swore he could never comply with Azaka-sensei's terms.

The month had reached the end of February. During that time, I must have tried countless times to get in touch with you, Chōko-san, but they absolutely refused to allow any communication at the dormitory. I couldn’t possibly involve the police. Azaka-sensei, who was usually robust and had perfect attendance, was noticed to be taking what appeared to be a suspicious-looking absence, and even among the academy staff, they suddenly began an investigation. If the secret circumstances between us were to become known to the academy and handled with ordinary common sense, not only would Azaka-sensei be forced to resign from the academy, but she would likely never be able to stand in the educational world again. I too was bound to be caught up in this and dismissed. “Chōko-san, you too would likely be persuaded to withdraw voluntarily—though I imagine that wouldn’t cause you much hardship.” “After all, you’re not someone receiving a salary from the academy but rather paying tuition to it.”

Ah, life—how it makes people fret beyond necessity and turns them timid. Azaka-sensei too, despite appearances, had been allocating part of her salary to send home each month for her siblings’ tuition, their household in her hometown supplementing their income through sericulture during this era of depressed cocoon prices. I had my mother and grandmother to support at home. Ever since I had lost my father in my boyhood—the sole breadwinner for our household—my mother and grandmother had no one to lean on as their staff and pillar but me, their only son. Even when working as a night-market gardener, or attending horticulture school while still gardening, my mother and grandmother would face me every time I came or left home and say, “You’ve really done so much for us." "But you’ve done so well for us," they’d say, clasping their hands as if in prayer. After I came to live at F Academy as a gardener through Azaka-sensei’s introduction, the two family members rejoiced as if their son had secured a prestigious government post. At each month’s end, they would murmur, "Hmm, so this is what a salary envelope containing a month’s earnings looks like. "It feels like if we dropped it on the way, we’d lose everything at once—such a frightening envelope," they’d say, enshrining it before the household altar and my father’s memorial tablet for weeks afterward.

Over these six or seven years of working continuously as a gardener—though nothing extraordinary—Mother and Grandmother lived without significant hardship. While their son remained lodged almost entirely in the headmaster’s storage shed and seldom returned home, the two women spent his absences doing nothing but discussing potential brides for him. In their quest for a suitable match, they would identify candidates among girls they knew and make inquiries through acquaintances. Though I surmised both parties would inevitably face disillusionment if an actual bride were to enter our meager household and assume the central role among its female members, I merely laughed and left their cherished fantasy undisturbed, resolved not to shatter the sole joy these elderly women had nurtured. “The old yukata was unstitched into swaddling clothes.” Grandmother grew so absorbed that she began sketching her grandchild’s future in thin air.

That meant dismissal. And that pay envelope that had filled the old women with awe would never come again. What would become of us now? "Chōko-san—just try to imagine it, if you would." From your perspective, our family's life until now must have seemed utterly mundane. But when you imagine what lies ahead—when we can't even manage that anymore—you'll see something extraordinary taking shape. Despair, curses, abandonment—if anyone wanted material for tragedy, they could pluck it from our household like ripe fruit.

“So then—am I supposed to find another gardening position somewhere? A post as comfortable and well-paid as that F Academy gardener’s job can’t be found anywhere else.” “Are they saying I could at least survive by returning to street vending?” That was the talk of those who’d never experienced it. After six or seven years of wearing Western clothes, basking in warm sunlight while growing dull tending to young masters’ and misses’ flowers—how could this body return to that wind-battered world of frozen earth to be gnawed by pain? To endure that again—my heart had grown too heavy, the vertebrae in my neck too rigid. Street vendors must casually brush off irritations and deftly cater to customers’ whims. To do that requires a constitution forged in the very flesh—.

The view of the Ōkawa River visible from the window had grown completely dark, and on the black warehouses of Atakegashi on the opposite bank, the characters for Kirin Beer written sideways and Politamin vertically near the mouth of the Onagi River emerged clearly from the advertisement lights. When the lights blazed, they pressed down the surrounding night darkness to make it black as midnight; when they vanished, even within the uniform darkness, they faintly revealed three tiers—river, bank, sky—returning to evening’s dimness. The relationship between light and dark seemed strangely intent on pursuing opposing effects, each deceiving the other. In contrast to that riverside scenery, the dome lights of the Kokugikan to the left and slightly off-center coolly lined up like fluorescent lights, hinted at the approaching summer nightscape.

When I observed the people who had entered noisily as a crowd, arranging tables in a long row against the wall before seating themselves properly on chairs flanking both sides—some imposing in stature yet pallid in complexion, others hunched over in new Western suits with constrained postures, still others sporting mustaches beneath their noses while wearing work aprons—these individuals were immediately recognized as downtown middle-class merchants who had come as a group to attend a theatrical performance as patrons and were now holding a dinner gathering en route. While eating set meals together, they reached their long, simian arms high over the table from both sides, clutching Masamune bottles, and everywhere—here and there—came cries of “Oh!” they urged each other with “Here, have some!” The interior construction maintained a plain, modern Western style infused with a certain Japanese sensibility, and from the atmosphere created by this room and its occupants, one perceived how Tokyo’s downtown possessed both sophistication and local character in equal measure.

Looking around further, there was a table where a group accompanied solely by girls in both Japanese and Western attire had entered, promised "Let’s definitely have ice cream later," and then begun their main course. There was also a table where a geisha in a haori, her eyes tinged with bluish shadows, bowed each time she conversed while being treated by a respectable madam. I noticed myself unconsciously fiddling with the knives and forks laid out on the table in response to Katsuraoka’s fidgeting fingers as he spoke, and thinking that merely sipping tea through a prolonged conversation would be inconsiderate to the waiter, I ordered a meal.

Katsuraoka, having finally found an outlet to vent the pent-up frustrations he couldn’t share with anyone, seemed to regain his vigor and continued talking while eating the first dish that arrived with evident relish. "Chōko-san, do you know the story about extracting toad oil? "The story goes that to do this, you put the toad into a box lined with mirrors on all four sides. "In that story, the toad, terrified and enraged by the dozens, hundreds of its own reflections crisscrossing in the four-sided mirrors, desperately struggles against them until it exhausts all the fat in its body and dies."

Katsuraoka said that at this juncture, he had in fact given up. When I came to my senses, I found I had become like a toad crammed into a box with three mirrors. One mirror was Azaka-sensei. The reflection there showed myself entangled in Azaka-sensei's affection. I desperately confronted that reflection of myself, challenging it for liberation. One mirror revealed the me enthralled by your charm—the me who cannot resist being drawn to you. I gladly acknowledged this even as I impulsively resisted through some instinct for crisis. Another mirror displayed me being savagely clamped by the lives of two old women. I was now thrashing about wildly trying to escape even that.

The three reflections of myself in the three mirrors were not simply divided into three separate entities. The self in Azaka-sensei’s mirror—entangled in affection—reflected back into Chōko-san’s mirror of enthrallment and the two old women’s mirror of life’s savage grip. The existing images and those cast from other mirrors spurned each other, mocked each other, threatened each other. Each of the two mirrored surfaces that had been reflected back—as if retaliating once more—would retaliatorily reflect toward both the mirror that had cast them back and the mirror reflected alongside them, projecting a figure tormented by collateral suffering accompanied by dozens upon hundreds of split images. Doppelgangers upon doppelgangers in the mirrors—from spurning contempt emerged sighs; from mockery arose indignant grief; from threats came endless sobs of melancholy. And yet all these hundreds and thousands of doppelgangers, while being my enemies, were also myself. Unable to endure staring at them, when I averted my gaze, they too averted theirs, and there in the new focus of my vision emerged fresh doppelgangers with anguished forms, staring back at me more sharply than I could bear. It was unbearable. Truly unbearable. Yet there was no escaping it. The most plausible solution would have been to smash one of these mirrors and attempt an escape, yet I felt that even if I destroyed any one of the three mirrors, the self formed there would cease to exist. Wasn’t this just my karmic disposition? Azaka-sensei, Choko, two old women—or rather, affection, love, livelihood—through these three mirrors, the self of this youth called Katsuraoka was being externally illuminated into tangible existence. Through the anguish reflected by the three mirrors, only recently had I come to strengthen my self-awareness that I was indeed alive. Looking back now, though my former self may have been filled with ordinary happiness, it felt like happiness that was merely an empty shell without substance. People regarded the toad—attacked by those mirrors, oozing its vital fat until it perished—as something unfortunate and in excruciating pain. But for me, that was not the case. I thought there were few insects as fortunate as that toad—one that fully tasted life through extreme fear, extreme fury, and extreme sorrow before entering chaos amidst supreme tension unknown even in the dreams of ordinary frogs. Even if every last ounce of fat from my body were squeezed out to be rendered into ointment for others.

"I have now come to wholeheartedly rejoice in being that toad from the toad oil allegory," he thought. So he simply remained still. He would no longer ask anything of Azaka-sensei either. He would make no efforts to return to F Academy either. And he let his heart be drawn to Choko-san as well. But he would not move any further. Moving would mean destroying the environmental mirrors, and for someone like him—allowed to exist solely by those environmental circumstances—that would signify the annihilation of his very self. Merely enduring everything, wrung by that anguish, he did nothing but watch with desperate intensity as energy drained moment by moment from his mind and body. Chō-chan despised his emaciation. "But never have I felt myself so viscerally alive as in these days since birth—" Katsuraoka declared, looking up at the ceiling with defiance.

I too was eating the food on my plate with fork and knife while interacting with Katsuraoka. Suddenly noticing, I was astonished to see that Katsuraoka—who had begun eating so voraciously—after sipping his hors d'oeuvre and potage, abruptly slowed his pace and barely touched the meat on his plate, instead languidly picking at the side garnishes. And so, compared to my own not particularly swift way of eating, he tended to fall behind, leaving the waiter at a loss. I couldn’t help but think that Katsuraoka had deteriorated after all.

Another thing I found peculiar was how Katsuraoka's manner of thinking and speaking had developed a strikingly modern, intellectual quality—as if he'd become an entirely different person—though merely four months had passed since our last meeting. When considering his former self, there had always been a rustic simplicity about him akin to a wild tree growing straight and true, no matter what emotions he displayed. His words could never have conveyed such complex content requiring theoretical frameworks or abstractions. He had been someone who could only express his heart briefly through facts or symbols that spoke directly to one's intuition.

“You’ve changed quite a bit, haven’t you.”

I inadvertently said that, then exercised a woman's suspiciousness—

“You said earlier you only communicated with Azaka-sensei through exchanging letters—is that really true? You didn’t even go yourself to visit Azaka-sensei’s place or anything.” Then Katsuraoka, with his timid eyes darting about as if knocking against some unseen surface, made an expression that seemed to confess “This is a lie!” before— “I didn’t go visiting or anything. Just letters,” he said hesitantly. From this attitude and manner of speech, I felt less the jealous anger of betrayal than a certain innate boyishness inherent to men—in truth, I nearly wanted to murmur “Oh...oh, very well” and forgive him—but realizing this would stall matters, I gently pressed him further.

“It’s all right to tell the truth.” “Go on and tell me, won’t you?” “After all, even I might be doing something shocking without your knowledge.” In this situation, my marriage negotiations with Ikeno and the support for Katsuraoka’s family livelihood through this marriage—these two matters, acting as twin dark horses that would startle Katsuraoka—were being eagerly fed fodder within the stable of my heart.

At those words, Katsuraoka too relaxed slightly and smiled a lonely smile as he—

“Well, I’ll tell you then.” “At the beginning of last month, when I heard the academy had finally dispatched someone to investigate Azaka-sensei’s condition and state of mind, I thought it would be disadvantageous to delay any longer. So despite knowing this, I went intending to have one final face-to-face discussion with her.” “Azaka-sensei was studying in the old zashiki room of her family’s farmhouse near Yagihara Station on the Jōetsu Line.” “Indeed, Mount Akagi was clearly visible.”

“Sensei—how is she doing?” “I was stunned. Sensei has decided to leave everything regarding this incident to take its natural course. It was a completely different reply from her previous letter. ‘And you may do as you like.’ ‘But as for me—I simply have no intention of returning to the academy.’ That’s how matters stood.” “There’s no need for such shock. Even Sensei ultimately had no alternative but to act thus—don’t you agree?”

“No, there are still things that shock.” “After Sensei said that, when I asked, ‘Well, even if I do that, what will you do from now on, Sensei?’ she replied, ‘Please leave my matters to me.’” “‘Since coming here, I’ve resumed my research on “Concerning Death” that I began in my maiden days but had to abandon midway.’” “‘Lately I’ve been wondering if this might be the mission I was born into this world to fulfill,’ she said.”

"Oh, please don’t frighten me like that. Sensei isn’t… making preparations to end herself, is she?" "When I heard that, I too felt a chill and asked Sensei directly—bluntly put it that way." "Then Sensei laughed from the heart—a genuinely amused laugh—and said that even when speaking of death research, it wasn’t research aiming for death itself." "It’s research into death meant to deepen life." "Just as darkening an object’s shadow makes its existence stand out more clearly, one can’t measure life’s highest joys without plumbing death’s depths." "That’s what she told me."

“That put my mind at ease. Sensei will be alright, won’t she?” "But I’ve never seen Sensei laugh so genuinely from the depths of her heart as she did then. It somehow resounded like a voice laughing from a higher plane than this world where we stumble about. So I thought once more how remarkable Sensei was and honestly laid bare all my various troubles to ask her. Then Sensei too, regarding the nature of those matters, took my hand and gently taught me."

Having come this far, I realized that Katsuraoka's manner of change was not his own original creation but something that had taken a hint from some idea of that pitiful Sensei. Yet even if the hint had come from Sensei, understanding that Katsuraoka had managed to solidify his thoughts this earnestly on his own was ultimately due to the harsh experiences forced upon him by surrounding circumstances— "Sensei might be like that, but you've grown splendidly yourself," I offered these words of comfort to Katsuraoka.

When I looked around, the diners had long since returned to the entertainment hall, and beneath the chandelier glaring down unabashedly, only the flowers in the vase atop the white tablecloth stood out starkly. During our conversation, Okimi from the dormitory came peeking into the dining hall entrance twice already—likely ordered by Ikeno—and each time had a waiter relay the message “Our bath is ready, so once you’ve finished talking, please come home right away,” laden with surveillance implications and urgency for my return, before departing again.

I felt increasingly uncomfortable remaining in this room, and since carelessness might result in Okimi coming again, I hurried to settle the bill and stood up,

“Let’s go out and take a short walk around here.” “And let’s talk again later,” I urged Katsuraoka, and we stepped out front from the club. It was a late spring night with dewy stars.

I found myself longing for the town’s night lights and turned my steps away from Ōkawa toward the tram-lined street opposite, guiding Katsuraoka along the bustling townside in the direction of Hisamatsubashi. What I’m pondering in my heart is whether I should take this opportunity to reveal to Katsuraoka my marriage negotiations and how his livelihood would be secured in connection with them, or whether I should remain silent for now and wait to see in what manner Katsuraoka might approach me going forward—I find myself unable to decide between these two options.

The marriage between Ikeno and myself—though a marriage in form—was in content something strangely detached from humanity; in truth, our relationship would likely become akin to that between a mystic yearning patient and an attending nurse. Therefore, even if I were to inform Katsuraoka of this, as long as I properly explained the true nature of the matter, I was confident I could somehow manage to convince him. Moreover, since that arrangement would also guarantee the livelihood of the family Katsuraoka had so deeply worried about internally, broaching the subject with him became all the easier. The sole problem lay in Katsuraoka's love for me. This had to be somewhat transformed and altered in nature.

In the end, all three of us would become friends and comrades, thus fitting into my long-held ideal of creating a small party where lonely people might comfort one another in this desolate world. If this were love within such bounds and meaning—whether directed toward Katsuraoka or Ikeno—what reason could I possibly have to object?

Over these four months, my feelings had undergone several changes along the way, and until just moments ago, I had been moving like a lifeless jumping jack puppet. Yet upon seeing Katsuraoka’s face, I found myself utterly powerless to prevent my old ideals from surging back. And so, while maintaining the surface appearance to society of Ikeno and I being husband and wife like any ordinary couple, in reality we would form a pure trio of friends by including Katsuraoka. If the three of us were to act with some shrewdness and care, it seemed to me this was by no means an impossible arrangement.

Then I should tell Katsuraoka about it right away. As I walked, I thought the same. However, for some reason, I now felt as though a lid had clamped shut over my mouth, preventing me from broaching the subject.

When I came to the approach of Hisamatsu Bridge, out of habit I automatically turned left along the riverbank. Because my house was there. I came to the front of the house. Katsuraoka—

“Chōko-san’s house, huh?” “I came here twice to visit you too, but was politely turned away by that maid.” he said. Ever since turning at the bridge approach, I had heard the resonant tones of jōruri’s sawari section being played, but upon arriving, found it emanating from my mother’s room in our house. The shamisen sound filtering through the thousand-lattice window seemed to employ nagauta techniques—the characteristically robust, realistic jōruri rhythms had been delicately softened into mere lyrical beauty for the ear.

There was the voice of a man nearing middle age, finely adjusting his tone to match it. It was Karo, the clerk, who said during the interval between musical phrases, “How about it? Should I project my voice more?” Mother must have responded with a gesture, for her voice was not heard. Given that Karo—the chief clerk who arranges my marriage prospects and controls the continuation of my widow’s pension—now frequents our house repeatedly due to this recent incident of mine, how could Mother possibly refrain from exerting herself to ensnare him? Without finding this jōruri rehearsal at all strange, I passed in front of the house, crossed the small bridge spanning Horikawa, and emerged onto the bright Ningyocho Street.

It was neither Ginza nor Shinjuku, neither Kanda's Jinbōchō Street nor Ueno's Hirokōji, Ushigome's Kagurazaka, nor Azabu's Jūban—the bustle of this downtown Tokyo entertainment district had a distinctly different character. Indeed, there were no particularly wide storefronts nor any overwhelmingly large shops; each establishment radiated an even brightness and prosperity across its facade, with merchandise quite well-stocked in every store. They needed to be affordable yet modern and stylish. While clearly cutting corners on materials to meet downtown customers' demands, their appearance maintained a somewhat muted luster that instinctively made one want to reach out and bring them close.

During my stay at the dormitory, Ikeno had remnants of imported goods sent from the main house’s warehouse and assigned them to me to alleviate my boredom. Among them were two fabrics from Vienna—trial imports procured through a German trading company. “What a subdued color and pattern!” I picked it up and narrowed my eyes. Ikeno said, “The aesthetic there blends Germany and France. The traditional culture of Europe’s old capital smolders and laments within its very soil.” “According to people who’ve been there, even the cuisine has more subtle refinement than Paris.”

The reason I suddenly recalled those Viennese fabrics and Ikeno's words while gazing at Ningyocho's goods was perhaps because there was something here that resembled those Viennese products. While the uniformly convenient aspects undoubtedly reflected modern Japan's influence—even regarding the colors of goods displayed in shopfronts—red wasn't merely red anymore. The stimulating essence had been extracted, replaced by a bleaching agent of passion stealthily blended to seep through. Not gray, its upper section feigned austerity while discerning inattention, preparing a foundational scheme steeped in cunning flattery that sought to infiltrate human affections through indirect approaches. In the display windows shaded by paper lanterns—some shaped like Chinese lantern plants and others cylindrical—mannequins dressed in lined kimono that popular silver-screen actors might wear while strolling about were boldly illuminated by sharp candlelight, accented with artificial May irises. And this ensemble, complete from obi to tabi socks, bore a price tag indicating a total cost not even reaching thirty yen. Next, in the neighboring show window, parasols dyed for young women—their harshness toned down through a method that slightly parodied Japanese aesthetics—layered their edges like the strata of mottled sunset clouds. The narrowed ones had lengths as short as scroll spindles, and the sight of them arranged in a mountain shape was as solemn and gorgeous as colored candles aligned on a candlestick. From behind those, the seagull pattern of swimsuits already peeked through.

As I gazed at these shops while making my way through the town's pedestrians—whose bustling gait resembled both a festival crowd and ordinary evening strollers—brushing shoulders and weaving through them, I gradually came to find my companion Katsuraoka unbearably boorish and oppressive.

As a child of the metropolis, I am also a child of sensuality. Through sensations received by my senses from the surroundings, my mood shifts so drastically that I wonder if I've become an entirely different person myself. Since I cannot recognize any philosophy deeply rooted within me, this very mood might be my philosophy. If so, I may be a chameleon dwelling in life's flow—my thoughts ever-changing under surrounding influences.

Moreover, after being confined behind jealousy's thick door in the dormitory for nearly four months—my buds of sensuality starved and parched to their limits—the familiar townscapes along the great river since leaving earlier, the interactions with townspeople at Nihonbashi Club's dining hall, all these gradually began exerting an effect like priming water through a spout onto my dully vacant mood, which had become akin to a suction pump whose water connection had long dried up from the senses' excessive thirst. Then, this first aimless stroll through a star-drenched late spring night in ages made me truly feel the thick current of water's connection. Furthermore, this sensory deluge of the entertainment district. I absorbed the nightscape’s poetic essence until my body swelled near bursting with its allure. The stagnant mood began flowing, sending up spray.

This mood—which for me likely constituted what might be called philosophy—when it flowed, would make me feel alive and impart a sense of reality, while dominating my entire being. When I mentioned this to Ikeno once, he said, "That’s like the electrons in an atom of Chō-chan." “If they don’t move, they can’t sustain Chō-chan.” However, Ikeno also said this: "But those electrons are what orbit around." "There must be something that counterbalances with the same force, making the mood revolve around it." "That must be Chō-chan's core."

I could not help but acknowledge that while I viewed this talk as yet another of Ikeno's habits—born from his meddling nature—of making unnecessary fuss over me and thus refused to engage with it, at the very least, unless my mood moved like electrons, the atomic version of me couldn't exist; that I would not merely grow listless and decay, but indeed become exactly like those spring-loaded dolls from my dormitory days—passive playthings resigned to "whatever happens."

I now began to be escorted by a buoyant anxiety—light in both body and mind as my mood flowed freely—like clouds drifting across the sky or a ship riding the waves. Even when contemplating what had passed, it melted into an ethereal infinity; the path ahead blurred ever deeper into an impenetrable obscurity where nothing could be resolved. I had endured painful experiences in the past, and thorny matters seemed to await in the future. But those things were fundamentally without substance—clouds are but gathered mist, tied water mere foam—why should such phantoms torment the heart and afflict the body? However rigidly they might assume their forms, were they clamped within spacetime's expansive device—limitless as an azure sky and vast ocean—they would flatten like festival banana crackers on a griddle, made brittle yet lightly puffed, carrying a faint sweetness that even children's mouths would likely find delicious were they split open to eat.

The town before my eyes, the lights, the people—all now shone restlessly like a flower field before a storm. As I advanced, illuminating everything within roughly a block in every direction through the searchlight I carried upon me, the town and its lights and people were transformed into a flower field before the storm. And the area surrounding this sphere was imbued with the same beautiful haze as when I had mentally speculated about the past and future in my heart. As the searchlight I carried upon me advanced and illuminated, it rent through as it pleased, and once it finished shining, everything would close back into that beautiful haze without showing a single stitch of seam, remaining as ever the distant view of the late spring's dark night town. How remarkable that the flow of my mood could make me perceive the surrounding scenery as something so utterly ecstatic!

On Christmas Eve last December, I took a year-end gift to Azaka-sensei’s villa, found her absent, and heard the sound of a hunting gun being fired in the distant grove. Then I entered the grove of mixed trees in search of Azaka-sensei, borne aloft by mist where faint sunlight filtered through the forest canopy, intoxicated by the scent of trampled decaying leaves, and found myself unexpectedly enveloped in a scene of ecstasy much like the present moment. Yet looking back now, that was still a monotonous and childish ecstasy.

Amidst this flow of tonight's mood—though dismissing past regrets and future hardships as insubstantial—could it be that even I, having grown more adult-like, cannot escape thoughts of sins accumulating in my heart's deepest depths and transgressions being crafted? Or perhaps because circumstances assault me with premonitions of impending crisis? Here in this supreme ecstasy, I find no way to dispel this feeling of being urgently hastened and cornered by some anxiety. However, for my current self—body and soul as they are now—this anxiety is nothing but a drop of vinegar hidden within clear broth, a single stroke of ink accentuating dark circles. It is nothing but a secret antidote that deeply permeates and powerfully enhances ecstasy. That is precisely why even in this town, its lights, and people—perceived as a flower field—there appears an apprehension before the storm, and the buoyant joy cowers as if facing a drawn blade. That apprehension, that terror—how they increasingly enliven the movements of my mood!

“Why are you dawdling like this?”

I pulled at the elbow of Katsuraoka’s jacket. Katsuraoka, perhaps having vented all his pent-up frustrations in the club’s dining hall, had become dazed. He remained nearly silent the entire way here, and upon entering this bustling night district teeming with pedestrians, he began gawking about—marveling at trivial puzzle rings being demonstrated at night stalls, staring transfixed at female barkers promoting lotions—utterly like a country bumpkin. “It’s been so long since I’ve been somewhere like this—it feels novel.”

Katsuraoka excused himself in a gruff tone.

With my mood growing increasingly impatient, I pulled Katsuraoka along as we turned the corner at Ningyochō and headed down Yonchō Street toward the Nihonbashi River. If only a torrential downpour would come, trampling these unnatural flower fields into disarray beneath the violent rain, and I were once again riding in a high-speed car charging through this scene. Only when the water swelling through the streets like a deluge, the spray kicked back as if gushing from hose nozzles, and every trampled petal of the disordered flower fields reflected and glittered—only when heaven and earth became a scene or action of dazzling chaos amidst absurd darkness, raining celestial blossoms—would it truly match my present mood. And if that moment arrived when this flamboyant anxiety reached its limit, even should the car overturn and body and soul vanish, my mood—now fulfilled in this lifetime—would become a white-winged bird whose beloved, lingering cries would never cease in the eternal sky.

Even as I thought there would remain not a single regret in that case, having beside me this Katsuraoka—sullen yet paradoxically emptied of substance like threshed grain—I burned with impatience. I crossed Oyaji Bridge while tugging Katsuraoka along and prodding him, then after proceeding a short distance, cut into the town on the right. Katsuraoka, who until just four or five months ago still had the scent of wild grasses and a supple vitality akin to the moist stickiness found immediately after stripping fresh tree bark permeating his entire being—how had he become such a person? My feminine heart, even amidst this emotional exaltation, seemed to have unwittingly begun opening eyes of compassion. Could it be that what once flowed and moved within this young man had come to a halt because someone drove a single gimlet into the keenest point of his heart? And like an eel on a chopping block—unable to stretch or shrink—he must have come to harbor this stubborn pride of defeat: that only through suffusing his entire body with slimy torment while rolling the whites of his eyes in conceptual agony could he savor the taste of existence itself. It was not jealousy or envy from which this matter had come to be perceived. As I walked, growing increasingly aware of this truth, I realized that no matter how aloof an attitude Azaka-sensei might adopt in releasing him, she still fundamentally existed as the force that had reduced Katsuraoka to this state. Even if her active efforts to retain him had been abandoned and withdrawn, her passive measures continued operating—there appeared to be traces suggesting she had invited this outcome. That had precisely acted like a single gimlet upon Katsuraoka. Azaka-sensei herself had likely not acted with any conscious intent behind it. But given that things had turned out this way from the result, one could consider that there must have been remaining threads of desperate hopes within Azaka-sensei herself—hopes she herself did not notice—that were attempting to entangle Katsuraoka.

"There's a limit to how much wisdom I can cram into you—a young man who knows nothing." "This is practically mummifying a living person through forced enlightenment, isn't it?" Though I harbored some combative feelings toward the unpleasantness of watching someone devoted to me being gradually reclaimed by another woman, when viewed objectively, it was predominantly a woman's instinct—this pity for a man being eroded—that surged forth through my heightened mood and gained strength.

Generally speaking, the backstreets here were filled with wholesale shops of varying sizes and ages that had largely renovated their facades in a modern office style; after closing hours, they lowered their fire shutters, leaving the streets shrouded in darkness. Yet among them were also wholesalers whose storefronts had not fully modernized—some with naked light bulbs hung under their eaves, where clerks busily carried evening deliveries into the storage shed across the way, while others spread some sort of powder across straw mats and misted them with moisture. Inside the glass-paned door, beneath a brilliantly shining chandelier, there sat a desk with coldly gleaming varnish; not a soul was present, and the only thing adorning the walls was a framed photograph of the manufacturing factory affiliated with this establishment. When I peered into the frame, despite it being a rather large factory with five or six chimneys, I found it strangely incongruous compared to the shop’s compact facade. Even if one peered at the bulk of goods, hardly any shop gave any indication of what commodity they wholesale.

What struck me as curious was how among these shadowy wholesalers mingled an immaculately restored dyeing shop, its display window showcasing both trendy children's sleeveless dresses and formal kamishimo robes for Gidayū performances. A closed-down establishment hosted firemen practicing their chants, striking wooden stands with broad fans to keep rhythm. Narrow hemp curtains draped over an okonomiyaki joint where young couples' laughter drifted from upstairs; what seemed a chic soba restaurant at first glance revealed Western-style windows and a porch—a sign identified it as a modern tea café. The gaunt shadow of a lovelorn springtime cat flickered past leftover puddles from street sprinklers, its paws shaking fastidiously as it crossed beneath the lights of a school supplies store on the corner.

We wound through these backstreets, glancing each time we turned a corner toward the neon-lit main thoroughfare that inevitably flashed at the town's distant edge, asking directions here and there until somehow we emerged before the Ikeno family's main residence in Setomono-cho. We shouldn't have found it without repeatedly asking. Though everyone still customarily called it the main residence in Setomono-cho, that district had long been incorporated into Honcho—today's official neighborhood name. Despite having associated so closely with Ikeno until now, I did not know the location of this main residence nor his business premises.

A construction fence extended for about half a block with a signboard reading “Ikeno Shokai Company New Construction Site.” Where the fence had been removed stood an office-like facade with nothing remarkable about it, but beyond this structure rose tiled roofs clustered over storehouse-style houses. Their slopes split off downward in multiple directions on all sides, making them look like a grand old family residence. There was also a faint scent of unprocessed hemp from the merchandise. Why had I come to see this now? I had neither curiosity nor desire. I merely wanted to show this to Katsuraoka and confront him with that single phrase I wished to utter—to stir up some fierce emotional storm within him. If I did that, perhaps the heart of this young man—now stuck and nailed in place—might lurch into motion. It might begin to flow out.

I said in an instigating tone. “I hear I’ll be coming here as a bride before long.” Katsuraoka silently looked at the house I indicated, but answered in a trembling voice: “I suppose I had a feeling something like that might happen.” “And you’re just fine with that?” “—It can’t be helped.” “You fool! You spineless coward!” The moment I shouted these unladylike words, I seized Katsuraoka’s shoulders and shook him violently, as though trying to rouse a sleeping person.

“Doesn’t it make you seethe with frustration? Having your beloved woman taken by someone else—”

Whether to pity myself for being forced to utter such brazen words, or whether it was simply my raging emotions seeping into physical form—tears spilled from my eyes. Diagonally across from Ikeno's shop stood a small pharmacy, its light pouring out onto the street. After speaking, with one hand still resting on Katsuraoka's shoulder and my eyelids fluttering incessantly against the teardrops clinging to my lashes, I stared intently at his face illuminated by the shop's light, determined not to miss even the slightest shift in his complexion.

“……” Katsuraoka’s face—emaciated and slightly sullied, resembling Rouault’s depiction of Christ in its excessive solemnity that paradoxically verged on faint mischief—twisted as if to contort, yet something held it taut. From the abruptly carved furrows between his brows and the deepened nasolabial folds that served as seismic fault lines at their epicenter, muscular tremors rippled outward in all directions. Even these subtleties betrayed a feral fox-like intelligence that sought to resign itself to pain as pleasure amid the unnatural discord between emotion and will—striking me as something brazenly indecent.

The flaring and contracting of his excited nostrils, which had been gasping like the gills of a fish out of water, gradually subsided. There remained once more Katsuraoka’s pallid, unapproachable face. Katsuraoka let out a breath—like one revived—and,

“Let’s make that frustration our daily sustenance from now on,” he said. I found myself overcome with the feeling of having lost what might have been one reliable young man, and without thinking, clenched my hand into a fist to strike Katsuraoka’s shoulders repeatedly, “And you think that’s enough? Aren’t you a man?” “Aren’t you a man? Aren’t you a man?” I sobbed, my voice trembling and breaking as I shouted.

“——”

From the small pharmacy, a man who appeared to be a clerk leaned out with his hands on the lintel and began observing us. A delivery person had also stopped their approaching bicycle and begun watching, legs dangling limply on both sides of the vehicle. I let out a sigh—"Ah, ah"—my chest churning with a bitter aftertaste, and without regard for appearance, in my dejected state, I hurriedly started walking. Seeing this, Katsuraoka immediately clung to follow behind me, yet there was a loneliness in how he did not place a single hand upon my body. We came to the street of the old fish market. Through the gaps between the riverside houses, the railings of Nihonbashi Bridge came into view. There, on the bridge pillars adorned with statues of lions and qilins, evening-glory-colored lights were lit. These things I normally consider mundane—even to a city girl like myself—seemed in this moment to offer some semblance of courage. There was something that made me resolve, "This is how it must be now."

“I’m going to meet Azaka-sensei now and have it out with her. ‘Why did you make Katsuraoka into this kind of person?’ So you’re coming with me, okay?”

I thought that whatever might happen afterward didn't concern me in the slightest now. Then Katsuraoka looked back at my face,

“So now we’re going all the way to the foot of Akagi?” he asked in return, but immediately— “Very well—Choko-san should meet Sensei once too. “Since this may be our final farewell.” I opened my handbag to check. Fortunately, in the hidden compartment, Ikeno had kindly filled it with plenty of banknotes. We had the car hastened to Ueno Station. When we arrived at Ueno Station and checked,

From this time onward, it became clear that the only train on the Joetsu Line stopping at Yagihara Station would be the 11:30 PM departure nearing midnight. Nevertheless, I stubbornly waited for it and boarded the train car with Katsuraoka, arriving at Yagihara Station past midnight at 2:30 AM. It was a post town shrouded in darkness. The occasional eaves lights visible through the night fog remained blurred, and no matter how many times I blinked my eyes, I felt as though I were in a daze. A sound—indistinct as to whether it was the flow of water or the murmuring rustle of leaves—drifted from nowhere in particular. If I carelessly stopped walking, that stillness would seep deep into my body until my limbs grew leaden and sodden, tilting me earthward as though I might collapse at any moment. Therefore, if I hurriedly started walking, it felt as though a muddy rice paddy or manure pit would suddenly yawn open before my eyes at any moment, and once I tumbled into it, I’d sink and drown all the way to the bottom of the abyss.

Having never ventured into the countryside except on school excursions and finding myself all the more ill at ease with rural nights, even that buoyant resolve I had mustered in Tokyo to confront Azaka-sensei now felt like sumo techniques I’d only heard described—evasive shoulder dodges and forceful slams received in practice—leaving me utterly drained of strength, deflated beyond recovery. If there had been a train bound for Tokyo departing then, I might well have fled straight back home.

A night bird’s cry—like someone choking and spitting up phlegm—cut across the darkness. Perhaps intending to amuse and comfort me through some associative thought, Katsuraoka gazed through the darkness at the faintly discernible black mountain silhouette. “The tengu that appear on Akagi Mountain are called Uchiwa Tengu,” he said. “They fear hunters’ iron bullets but aren’t afraid of lead ones at all. That’s what the locals told me when I came here before.” I put on a defiant front,

“No matter how much you tell such stories，they’re not the least bit scary．Stop it already．”

Even as I scolded him, I had no choice but to walk pressed close behind the increasingly disagreeable Katsuraoka. We arrived at the overnight inn we had been directed to at the station. The night watchman guided us to a secluded second-floor room. The room had pseudo-Western styling with narrowed windows, and even the way the tatami mats were laid out felt somehow dubious. Had the male staff thought to be considerate of the young couple’s sudden lodging? Before long, Katsuraoka wrote down in the guest register brought by the male staff with a practiced hand.

“I registered us as a married couple.” “In places like this, it’s actually less troublesome that way.” “Who taught you that?” Katsuraoka hesitated for a moment, but

“I learned it through repeated experiences from going bird hunting and skiing with Azaka-sensei.” He said this while deliberately making his voice solemn. After the young maid—her eyes still bleary with sleep—brought in the brazier fire and tea utensils, laid out two futons side by side, and left, Katsuraoka forcefully pushed his own futon to one side, creating an empty space on the tatami between his bedding and mine. Then, in the very center of that empty space, he undid the belt he had been wearing and placed it in a perfectly straight vertical line. The white belt’s fastidious placement somehow gave it an air of childish earnestness. Before I could utter a word while gazing at this arrangement, Katsuraoka settled himself formally on his futon,

“It’s the protocol when sharing a bedroom with the Lady, so don’t you go thinking ill of it.”

he said sheepishly. “Is that also from your experience traveling with Azaka-sensei?” When I pressed him persistently, “No, not experience. It was a protocol instructed by Sensei from the very beginning.”

he said as if pushing back. I sat at the head of my futon and continued gazing at this laid-out white belt and Katsuraoka’s face for a while longer. Precisely because it seemed such a laughable act, this too struck me as yet another childish method through which Sensei had bound Katsuraoka’s heart, so— “What on earth is the meaning of this? I demand you explain the reasoning,” I calmly inquired. Then Katsuraoka grew somewhat smug, “Sensei is a scholar of global Puritanism. She is extremely well-versed in the lifestyles of ascetics. This method of separating men and women was also conceived by Sensei, inspired by rituals established long ago during the Kamakura period by wandering ascetics called yugyō-shū who slept mixed together in single rooms.”

he said. Katsuraoka, seeing that I still appeared eager to hear more details, warmed to his explanation and continued: “In the Kamakura period, there was a holy monk called Ippen Shōnin who propagated a unique form of nenbutsu. The sect’s practice was to travel through provinces leading their male and female followers in mendicant proselytization without maintaining temples. People called this group Yugyō-shū. Many peasants—men and women battered by their era’s storms—took refuge in the sect. World-weariness and asceticism became its very appeal. In its early days when still obscure, conduct between men and women remained proper without formal rules. But when the sect grew popular—perhaps because discipline slackened—mistakes began occurring occasionally.”

“So it was that Ippen Shōnin, their leader, devised the Two Rivers White Path barrier.” “In Pure Land Buddhist doctrine, human passions are likened to a river of fire and a river of water. To save beings scorched by flames and drowning in delusion, they teach that a narrow path of other-power runs through this very place. The term ‘Two Rivers White Path’ derives from this.” “When the sect lodged overnight in cramped quarters,” he continued, “and men and women had to sleep together in one room, the holy man divided their bedding to left and right. Between them he placed twelve baskets modeled after the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination. White cloth strips fastened to the basket lids formed what appeared to be a single white path when aligned.” “Even if those on either side began to feel desire,” Katsuraoka concluded, “seeing this Two Rivers White Path allegory by their pillows would chill their hearts to clarity, letting them attain tranquil sleep detached from this world.”

“Azaka-sensei had an aversion to religion.” “Yet she found this ritual remarkably fascinating.” “Moreover, when traveling together with Sensei, she would fasten a white belt herself and have me do the same.” “When we lay in a single room at inns, we’d connect our two belts to serve as a barrier between our bedding.” “Sensei said—‘Compared to contrivances like Western monasteries’ thick walls or peepholes no larger than an eye, this method’s separating power sinks in deeper psychologically, becoming more enduring.’” “The symbolism of Eastern people can never be dismissed as foolish.”

And then she said, “When men and women travel together and must sleep in a single room, isn’t this the simplest and most fundamental form of etiquette toward the Lady—” When Katsuraoka channeled Azaka-sensei’s words, his speech became infused with her pedantic, almost neutered feminine tone—so thoroughly that even the faint shadow of downy facial hair along his lip struck me as grotesque. Yet what unsettled me more was this: as I kept staring at the white belt lying thick and inert between our futons upon tatami mats stained the hue of Nara pickles, though Azaka-sensei might tout it as a simple solemn ritual, from this cord I instead sensed something lascivious that filled me with revulsion.

If left to flow naturally, it would hardly stand out—merely an ordinary river of instinct. Yet they try damming it up, and not content with that, even ostentatiously insert these supposedly justified forms of suppression in between. This practice—born from methods that conceal what might be secret pleasures between separated men and women—even if ultimately effective at restraint, might it not instead torment them by creating contrary effects during its very enactment? Given that Azaka-sensei—renowned for her expertise in psychoanalysis—couldn’t possibly be ignorant of such psychological intricacies, her casual imposition of this upon Katsuraoka made me suspect she harbored ulterior motives. As this thought took root, everything about Sensei’s conduct seemed permeated with theatricality—a performance during which I began detecting traces that she might be secretly relishing these very acts even as she performed them. "Could Azaka-sensei actually be life’s most extravagant hedonist?"

If left to flow normally, it would be merely a river of instinct. Sensei erected a dam of suppression upon it, causing the current of instinct to surge. Feeling that intense resistance throughout her entire body, she may have smacked her lips in sensual relish. And yet ultimately suppressing it all, she might have greedily slurped up the grievous brew—transformed now into something more agonizing than ordinary emotion—from those forcibly created futile frustrations and the impotence of dissatisfaction, much like a vinegar connoisseur. Then again, this time, in a manner that twisted and crushed Katsuraoka’s heart—which had been directed toward me—she forced him to marry her. This could also be seen as her testing and savoring the attempt to manipulate a man through a patron’s authority. Though Azaka-sensei had her marriage proposal rejected by Katsuraoka, knowing full well he could never escape the threads of her affection, she may well have spent these four months since returning to her family home savoring an extravagant emotional process—one tinged with cruel indulgence—much like an angler who deliberately uses a weak rod to exhaust a large fish, reeling it in gradually until finally securing it in their grasp. But upon realizing she could never land the fish, Azaka-sensei even went so far as to feign indifference in the end, casting traps of sorrow. If this were true, then Katsuraoka—being used as a tool for her extravagant life—was one matter, but even I, who had believed myself driven by righteous indignation for his humanity, could not possibly be playing such foolish roles.

“Don’t be so petty.” “Your intentions are transparent.” I grabbed the white belt and flung it to the corner of the room. Katsuraoka retrieved it, fastened it back as before, and— “It’s merely a habit formed from traveling together.” “What…”

...and then continued muttering under his breath. I kept thinking—could even Azaka-sensei's so-called "On Death" research, supposedly reviving her maidenhood studies to deepen living consciousness, be one of her signature ironic indulgences in life's extravagances? If so, then perhaps this Joshu countryside that bred such a luxurious human wasn't entirely devoid of refinement after all. As this thought took hold, I looked around the room wanting to quickly glimpse outside. I'd grown less afraid of the mice scuttling in the ceiling, and my body had even started relaxing somewhat. What ran through my mind was: "Hmm, hmm, hmm. Sensei's truly wicked. You can't underestimate her," "You can't be underestimated,"

“You must be tired. Even just for a little while, you should lie down.” As Katsuraoka began to speak, I said, “I know already,” undid only my obi, and got into bed facing the wall. Under the dim electric light, the sound of Katsuraoka sipping tea alone continued for some time. When the sound finally ceased, I pretended to turn over in bed and peeked to find him looking this way, licking his pencil as he wrote something in his pocket notebook. “Are you writing about that Toad Philosophy of yours again—the one about toad oil?” I jibed.

“Look – it’s a sketch of you lying there,” he said timidly showing it, “I thought about this even on the train—this time, I truly feel our fate has come: Sensei, you, and I will all be scattered to the winds.” "And so, as a memento of my life, I want to keep with me this sketch of you that I drew with my own hand." he said forlornly. I too had been somewhat drawn into the sentiment, but now, feeling exasperated—what was this foolish man up to now—

“What a clumsy sketch.” “Look, it doesn’t look a thing like me.” When I criticized while lying there, Katsuraoka too looked back at it himself and— “Indeed, it’s clumsy.” “I can sketch plant specimens because I learned that in horticulture school, but drawing a living person is difficult since it’s my first time,” he said. Then Katsuraoka, seemingly intent on lulling me into peaceful sleep, began slowly, slowly spinning out tales—innocently and amusingly embellished like fairy tales—about methods he had practiced during his horticulture school days: using dyes to alter the colors of irises, carnations, and morning glories; digging holes at the roots of withering pines to pour in liquor as treatment.

With the sound of wind against the glass-paned window as accompaniment came the man’s natural voice, speaking deliberately low and soft. I suppose the fatigue from the day had finally caught up with me, for I began drifting drowsily into sleep. When I suddenly remembered that my disappearance must have them staying up all night in commotion at both Ikeno’s dormitory and Mother’s house, my eyes snapped wide open. Then, as if to immediately soothe and lay that to rest, the man’s natural voice swelled with force. The richly warm resonance of his voice—like a mother hen addressing her chicks—reminded me of the old beggar I had encountered last Christmas Eve by the Tanagawa riverside on the academy’s hill. Through this intermediary, I also recalled the words spoken by my father—a man from a line of beggars who had so yearned for earth and straw mats before his death: “Humans, once past forty, return to their original roots. Even if one were to start life anew, they must once return to their roots. If they do not do so, their heart grows desolate and unbearable.”

I opened my eyes again with a snap. Then, the man’s natural voice swelled with force beside me, pressing me back down. Between dream and waking, how many times did I repeat this very act? It was strange how I had come to imagine myself as a beggar too—satisfied, lying on the ground with a carefree heart. Beside me, a young male beggar with whom I could be at ease stayed close, protecting me. Now I desired nothing else beyond this. I just needed to let the cold, damp earth draw out this fatigue-induced fever that had built up over the past month or so of April—if only I could sleep soundly.

The varnished wainscoting of the Western-style room where I lay came to feel like an endless expanse of earth glimpsed through my lashes. Marveling at this boundless flatness stretching beyond sight, I tried to force my eyelids wide enough to see its farthest edge, but my strength failed me. As my weakened effort recoiled through my body, an ecstatic sweetness seeped into every joint and crevice of my bones. Dimly repeating to myself—merry beggar-woman, beggar-woman, beggar-woman—I slipped at last into fathomless sleep.

Could a man said to have completely resigned himself—even if it ended in futility—still possess such power to calm a woman? "If I pause even briefly while speaking, you startle awake—it’s truly vexing."

Thus Katsuraoka did not sleep a wink all night and kept uttering various sounds from his throat. “Because if you wake up,” he said, “you come charging in again and make a fuss.”

“I really was a bother, wasn’t I?” I said with genuine gratitude, then sat up and briskly headed to the washroom.

It was a clear morning. Against the windowpane, the zelkova's young leaves clung thickly with morning dew, as if pressed by the flank of a wave. Through those gaps, the quiet rows of houses in the country town could be glimpsed.

Homemade bread with ham and eggs and coffee was served. Just when I thought we had finished breakfast with this, a Japanese-style meal set was brought out anew. This, they said, was the proper breakfast. After finishing breakfast at this rural inn—whether their service was excessively attentive or deliberately ostentatious, I couldn't tell—we departed in the automobile we had arranged to have waiting. When I asked Katsuraoka, he said Azaka-sensei's family home village lay a little less than half a ri from this station town—closer than two kilometers.

The low blue stretches were wheat fields; the slightly higher blue stretches were mulberry fields. And in between these, vegetable fields and rice fields still in their winter-stubbled state crisscrossed in endless stripes. In the striped sections, canola fields and vetch fields past their prime spread out in bloom, their colors mellowed. On a mound not quite deserving to be called a hill, children were gathering wild plants. To the right, the smoke of Maebashi and Isesaki could also be seen.

A mixed grove sprouted buds as if stardust had been scattered from the sky. A flowering village. A flowerless village. The Karakkaze wind was renowned throughout the land, and though the very soil itself bore a fearsome, parched roughness, even the Joshu Plain—in this transitional season between late spring and early summer—was dotted here and there with vibrant vignettes. The car drove through this. While bearing countless such vignettes upon its surface, this plain also inherited the slope from the mountain’s base, tilting gently and broadly from north to south. Therefore, constrained by the curves of country roads, our car winding and undulating along—we on board found both the directions that met our eyes and the elevations we felt through our bodies shifting at every turn and place—until we came to feel as though the plain’s great palm had lifted our entire vehicle to rock us playfully while showing us its surroundings.

From the clumps of grass burst a flock of larks—suddenly flung upward, trilling as they rose and fell through midair. Having visited before, Katsuraoka recalled the mountain names. Indicating the hazy wall of peaks that lined up like fangs biting at the sky behind our car, he said those were the Haruna, Myōgi, and Asama ranges. Even as we began ascending its foothills now, I had known since leaving the inn that morning—without needing to be told—that this mountain standing immovable before us was Mount Akagi.

Yet even having drawn this near, what seemed understood yet remained unclear was the boundary of this mountain. This was because the mountain lay too flat across the earth, claiming such vast breadth. When I experimentally traced with my eyes the gently sloping lines of foothills extending left and right, eventually their edges stretched so far into the distance—detached from the mountain's periphery—that I could no longer discern whether they were foothills or horizon. I asked Katsuraoka.

“So all of this has been Mount Akagi the entire time?”

Then, Katsuraoka too showed an exasperated expression, "Well, that’s a bit tricky to answer—if you get close enough, wouldn’t the boundary between foothills and plains become unclear for any mountain?" Katsuraoka began retrieving a notebook from his inner pocket, "Still, this mountain is famous for the grandeur of its slopes." As my gaze climbed the gently sloping mountainside ahead—brightened to a yellowish rose hue by the morning sun—I could discern through the veil of mountain mist that here too, up to a considerable height, there were groves of trees, cultivated fields, and villages. At the very summit alone, bare peaks and rocky crags with fissures appeared like the split-open tip of a ripe fig.

Katsuraoka, flipping through the pages of his notebook, compared them with those features, "In the center, both of these facing peaks are called Jizōdake." "Then on the right outer side are Arayama and Nabewareyama." "On the left outer side, that hill-like shape is called Suzugatake." Katsuraoka explained. When I leaned in to peek at the notebook, Katsuraoka started to pull it back, but perhaps thinking resistance would be futile, “Well, you see, when I came here before, Azaka-sensei wrote in the names for the sketches I made from her room.”

and showed it to me. While saying various things, I found myself irritated that Azaka-sensei and Katsuraoka had even done such intimate-seeming things together,

“Is this also meant to be another lifelong memento?” When I said sarcastically, Katsuraoka hurriedly put away his notebook and,

“It might become a keepsake, I suppose,” he said sorrowfully.

The car entered the village, passed through, and came to a stop before a narrow stream at the village outskirts where a plank bridge was laid.

“Here we are,” said Katsuraoka, his face tense. I somehow felt as though I had come to visit someone far more formidable than the Azaka-sensei I was accustomed to meeting at the academy, and was suddenly overcome with reluctance. But deep within my heart, a defiant temperament began gnashing its teeth. When I peered down from the plank bridge, the stream at the mountain’s base flowed clear and swift, creating rapids that revealed through their churning waters the manifold shapes of pebbles on its bed. In the water, two or three rice bales were soaked. When I looked at Katsuraoka’s face, Katsuraoka answered, “Those are seed bales of rice for seedlings.”

The opposite bank of the stream had been fashioned into a living fence across its entire stretch through an arrangement of dwarf bamboo and horizontal poles. The plank bridge spanning toward its very center appeared dedicated exclusively as Azaka-sensei's house entrance. Upon entering we found a spacious front garden with a field on one side where onion scapes and daikon flowers lay in disheveled bloom. On the opposite side stood three or four gnarled persimmon trees—their branches twisted and straining upward with bothersome persistence—all simultaneously putting forth young buds. Walking across an outdoor workspace's hard earthen surface that gleamed like talc, we came upon a thatched house bearing a sericulture skylight. Katsuraoka removed his hat and entered through what seemed the kitchen's earthen-floored entrance. I waited with pounding heart expecting Azaka-sensei's face—that blend of nostalgic familiarity and unfathomable depth—to emerge imminently wearing some peculiar expression, yet even Katsuraoka failed to reappear.

As I gazed absently at the house's condition, even to my country-untrained eyes there was something unnerving about it. From my vantage point, I could see two rooms - one with a maple tree kept near the veranda edge and another that appeared to be a hearth room - both with their shoji screens tightly closed to hide their interiors. Yet I simply couldn't accept this configuration alone as constituting what should be called a main house. For whether looking at the vertical pillars or foundation stones, they used splendidly thick timbers that seemed disproportionately large for the building itself - timbers whose weathered state suggested they belonged to a far more venerable household. Though there might be more rooms further inside, if one took this frontage as its public face, it didn't appear particularly grand. Yet these mismatched materials made me suspect that perhaps only a single corner remained from what had once been a great mansion here - all other parts demolished - repurposed as a new main house. There was another reason I thought this. To accommodate the land's gentle slope, they'd built an enclosure with stones piled higher at the rear; within this leveled earthen plot where the house stood at one end still lay a vast vacant lot stretching deep into the distance - unmistakably the remnants of an estate.

When I shifted my standing position slightly to peer into the vacant lot, beyond fences that appeared to be remnants of livestock pens and equipment like horizontal bars for gymnastics, there stood a crumbling earthen storehouse and a long, narrow storage shed resembling Kyoto’s Sanjūsangen-dō Hall—structures that, though aged, bore an imposingly formal appearance utterly unlike the main house at the front.

The house was burned by lightning—gourd flowers.

During the peach season this year when the first thunder of spring rumbled at the Nihonbashi dormitory, I—who harbored a dread of thunderstorms—found myself darting frantically about the tatami room. To soothe me during that episode, Ikeno had lit incense in the brazier while murmuring several classical haiku about thunder, heedlessly mixing seasonal references from different times of year. It seemed I had retained one of those verses in memory, for what came back to me now was precisely that poem. To even my untrained haiku sensibilities, the estate's ruined state evoked a melancholy akin to the poem's sentiment, coupled with an oddly whimsical impression—as if something had suddenly popped into view. "Could Azaka-sensei truly have been born in such a house—?" I wondered, overwhelmed by waves of emotion.

Katsuraoka returned with a deflated expression. "Since no one was here, I searched all the way to the back. Azaka-sensei's younger brother was there," he said. "More importantly, where is Sensei?"

"Since it's silkworm season and the house has gotten too noisy, she's apparently gone up Mount Akagi to study." I couldn’t exactly say I felt no relief, but— "I had a feeling it might turn out this way. You’re not exactly lucky yourself, and I’m in the same boat. So what do you want to do?" Katsuraoka told us her brother was waiting inside, insisting we come up and rest, though he himself didn’t seem too keen. Then it was his turn to ask, "So what should we do?"

I still wanted to observe more of the teacher’s family home and her siblings’ circumstances, so I decided we would indeed rest here for a while. The space consisted mostly of polished wooden flooring for the kitchen area; avoiding that section, there was an eight-tatami mat room with a hearth where an iron kettle hung from an adjustable hook. Azaka-sensei’s younger brother, who had ushered us to the hearthside, pointed to a bundle of mulberry shoots in the earthen-floored area, "Well, since we've entered silkworm season, all proper rooms have been allocated for that purpose." "We must ask your indulgence here."

he said.

The brother was a young man of somewhat strange fascination, having taken Azaka-sensei’s androgynously beautiful face and rendered it insolent with an added neurotic bitterness. Repeatedly draping the hem of his indigo kasuri-patterned kimono—secured with a heko obi—over one leg stretched out sideways, he excused himself: “It’s because of my rheumatism.” Moreover, while being attentive, this man would at times stiffen his shoulders and elbows or tug down the front of his obi. Was this the mannerism of someone with a disability striving not to show weakness, or perhaps stemming from an obstinate nature? After offering us tea, the brother dragged his impaired lower body diagonally across the room, retrieved a Seto bowl from the fly-proof cupboard, and placed it before us.

“These are pickled udo from Mount Akagi. “Please help yourself. “When freshly taken from the barrel, their aroma would be quite potent, but regrettably, with no one here in the kitchen—”

Then, curling a meaningful sneer on his lips, “When my sister’s away—well, you know how it goes—‘when the cat’s away, the mice will play.’ Everyone stretches their legs and goes out—” This time, he shot us a sharp glance. This room might have been a family parlor in a city home, but beyond the fly-proof cupboard and kitchen shelves—as my eyes adjusted to the interior dimness—there emerged: a station with an account book propped against a ledger desk beside a long hibachi; another with an ounce scale and electric massager atop a cheap blue serge-covered writing desk; a third where the mouth of a persimmon-tanned tatami paper bundle gaped open, scattering fabric scraps; and yet another where what appeared to be a child’s study desk had been discovered. The items lay in disarray, yet collectively gave the impression of seats hastily gathered from throughout the house into this single room. Well—even if silkworm season necessitated this—the clutter seemed less like organization than objects fleeing some overpowering force to huddle here in forlorn abandonment. From both the brother’s manner and this room’s state, I surmised that since Azaka-sensei’s return, her family had grown weary under their authoritative eldest daughter’s sway—yet remained powerless to resist. Tentatively turning to Katsuraoka...

“Where’s that room Sensei showed you last time?” I asked. Katsuraoka casually pointed diagonally at the sliding door— “Back there in the inner parlor—well, Mount Akagi stares you right in the face from there.”

Katsuraoka answered. To me, it indeed seemed that my imagining of Sensei occupying the central position in this household and behaving like a dictator had hit the mark.

The brother, as if wanting to join in on my private conversation with Katsuraoka, “My sister too—how long does she intend to keep dawdling like this? What on earth does she plan to do?” he said pointedly. Katsuraoka, who by nature was utterly silent around unfamiliar people, remained quiet. As I alone made an effort to cautiously probe this brother while gradually building our conversation, I gradually came to realize that he fully understood the circumstances surrounding Sensei’s relationship with Katsuraoka and myself.

And yet, even though this brother considered that both Katsuraoka and I were malefactors who had unsettled Sensei—and consequently that we remained a nuisance to the family members who relied on her—given how deeply entangled matters had become, he likely judged it unwise to simply hate us outright. Moreover, I gradually realized this brother even harbored resentment toward Sensei—who rarely permitted ordinary family discussions—while paradoxically regarding us troublesome malefactors with a cautious yet oddly familiar attitude, as if wanting our private counsel on managing the situation’s developments.

“The people in this household do nothing but worry in secret, leaving everything in complete disarray.” “You can surely imagine.” Now that things had come to this, it had become much easier for me to talk. I thought learning as much as possible about this household’s circumstances—the environment that had shaped Sensei into who she was—would prove useful in various ways, both to acquire that preliminary knowledge and because altering Azaka-sensei’s fundamental ideas might even become necessary for Katsuraoka’s liberation. So amiably,

“How unfortunate for you.” “But even I truly don’t know what to do about it, you see.”

Then, to drive home my point, I turned to Katsuraoka and pressed for agreement: "Well, you're just the same, aren't you?" Katsuraoka looked somewhat abashed but nodded with a gruff "Un." I kept manipulating this brother like an easy mark—echoing his words here, setting verbal snares there, even needling him slightly—all to make him divulge details about Sensei's household. The brother—who after finishing Takasaki Middle School had contracted rheumatism while taking medical college entrance exams nationwide, then wasted crucial late-adolescent years convalescing at home until becoming neither proper middle-school graduate nor country squire, a youth as ambiguous as the mythical nue beast—had lately begun preparing for acupuncturist certification exams as some semblance of livelihood.

"I have no desire to become an acupuncturist at this late stage, but—" The brother, lured by my tactics, first gave voice to his own regrets, then mixed in tones of resentment and lamentation regarding both Sensei—who had subjected one of their family members to such circumstances—and the contradictions of this household itself, and began to speak of his family’s affairs as follows.

Mount Akagi—this massive earthen mass thrusting up such extraordinary upheaval across the plain—could not have failed to exert psychological influence upon those dwelling there. Legends were one such manifestation; the tradition among foothill villages forbidding sixteen-year-old girls from climbing the mountain likewise originated from tales entwined with Mount Akagi's summit lakes. At Mount Akagi's summit lay two crater lakes: Ōnuma the large and Konuma the small. Though the era remains uncertain, there once lived a beautiful only daughter of sixteen in a wealthy household at the mountain's base. One day she developed an ardent desire to climb Mount Akagi. The wealthy man accordingly placed his daughter in a palanquin and sent her up the mountain with numerous attendants. As they ascended, the daughter appeared delighted by the mountain's rare panoramic vistas. The path from Hatchō Pass first brought them within view of Konuma. Upon reaching Konuma, the palanquined daughter requested to alight and drink water. The attendants obligingly helped her down. Standing at water's edge, she gazed intently into the marsh before stepping onto the ripples as though following an opened path into its depths. Though the attendants clamored in alarm, helpless to intervene, the daughter's form vanished beneath the waters.

The grief-stricken wealthy man and his wife spared no expense or manpower and had them undertake draining the swamp in hopes of recovering their daughter's remains. The heavy rains kept falling; though they drained and drained, the swamp waters would not recede. It was the fourth day. Near what seemed the lake's center, black clouds swirled and billowed upward as a voice that was the daughter's declared: "I have become mistress of this swamp. Draining it serves no purpose for me now. Though their grief is understandable, this effort has already proven futile. Tell my parents to abandon their struggle"—and as these words were heard, the black clouds settled back into place while rain once more poured down in torrents.

From then on, in the daughter’s village, they made the day of her drowning into her death anniversary, steamed red rice, carried it to the mountain, and threw it into Konuma. Throughout the villages at the mountain’s foothills, a custom arose whereby girls who reached sixteen years of age were forbidden from climbing the mountain. While narrating up to this point, the brother—even as he recounted these superstitious matters—persisted in speaking while demonstrating through his habitual mannerisms of stiffening his shoulders and tugging at his obi that he remained an uninvolved intellectual merely at the storytelling stage.

“Legends and customs like these are probably commonplace in any village near a mountain with lakes and marshes. So while I don’t find them particularly troublesome myself, once they start directly affecting our lives, I can’t remain indifferent anymore.”

The wealthy household from this legend was called Akabori Village’s Dōgen in one telling and Kosuga Matahachirō in another, differing by locale and teller. Yet these age-old rumors, precisely because of their mobility, had long been arbitrarily directed toward whichever households in the vicinity matched the prevailing mood or atmosphere. In the village, houses that seemed antiquated and drew their neighbors' resentment were often rumored to belong to the lineage of Konuma’s dragon maiden. Even in households targeted by such rumors where adults remained unaffected, among daughters and timid women there were those who eventually succumbed to self-hypnosis from these tales—writhing their bodies like serpents while crying “I must return to Konuma!”—incidents persisting even into the Taisho era in which they were carried up the mountain by villagers to be shown the lake.

“My family also had such rumors spread about us. Though to be fair—our family had indeed given the village good reason through our own unreasonable actions...” Our father belonged to an old family in this village and served as its headman, wielding his modern intellectualism like a weapon. He’d devoured Nakamura Keiu’s *Saikoku Risshi Hen*—the Japanese rendition of Samuel Smiles’ *Self-Help* then popular among urban elites—and made a mantra of its famous maxim: “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” From early on he’d pushed villagers to improve farming methods, develop side industries, and collaborate on communal projects. His greatest zeal burned for reforming local morals—the vices of gambling and illicit affairs that had festered among the youth for generations became his sworn enemies. Yet this same man drowned himself in foreign liquors shipped from Yokohama, holding court in our grand hall each morning with cup in hand as villagers came begging loans. In this poor mountain settlement, such petitioners were legion. To each he’d deliver interminable lectures drawn from his pet theories before parting with any coin. Some borrowers—desperate enough—even feigned being moved by his tirades. “The Headman’s scoldings are his drinking snacks,” villagers muttered. “Making us grovel for money we’ll repay with interest anyway—how petty!” Such whispers slithered through the community.

Among them were those who actively curried favor with the father by exposing others' misdeeds - that a certain household's son was gambling, or that a certain household's daughter was carrying on illicit affairs. Upon hearing such reports, the father would contort his face fearsomely, and if that household had any outstanding loans, he would immediately summon its head and order immediate repayment on grounds of poor oversight toward its youths. He brooked neither refusal nor argument regarding these orders. If compliance proved impossible, he would seize even their household possessions and confiscate them.

When summer nights came, the father would don his yukata, carry an Indian-made rattan cane with a thick grip, and prod out young men and women lurking between the podded pea trellises and beneath the blue pampas grass like fish caught in a river hunt. To the hooded man crouching beneath the eaves of a farmhouse daughter’s bedroom, he would set his fierce dogs on him.

Up to this point, things had still been manageable. The father’s sanctions, compounded by his drunken rages, had grown progressively harsher. To men who persistently disobeyed despite repeated warnings, he would order his burly henchmen to mete out private punishments. For village girls he deemed wayward, he spitefully blocked their marriages by wielding his ancestral prestige and authority as village head. "That household belongs to Konuma’s dragon maiden bloodline." "That’s precisely why they’re devoid of human compassion," came the rumors now circulating about Azaka-sensei’s family.

"Now I can speak of it so plainly, but in truth, those in a household targeted by rumors don't feel good about it at all." "No matter where we went, the villagers treated us with discourtesy and started giving us these strangely curious looks." The brother, recalling his feelings from that time, clenched his back teeth tightly and made a gloomy face.

"Moreover, we were still children. When we went to elementary school, if we ever quarreled with our peers, the very next words from those children's mouths would be about Konuma's dragon maiden bloodline—" We were hopelessly outnumbered. At times we wondered—could we truly be descended from such inhuman beings? Back then, when he still shared a connection with his eldest sister Azaka-sensei, the brother would even hold hands and weep with her over their misfortunes on deserted paths after school.

The mutually detested family harbored a tubercular predisposition, and the children were sickly and neurotic. At that time, beginning with the eldest sister Azaka-sensei, the second sister, this younger brother, and even the next boy were all frail. The second sister, who was often confined to her sickbed, had her nerves frayed by these rumors, weakened, and died.

The father, enraged by baseless rumors circulating around them, increasingly tightened his disciplinary measures. An extraordinary tension brewed between the family and the village youths. What ignited this was the occasion of Mount Akagi's Kagematsuri (Shadow Festival).

“The Akagi Shrine situated atop Mount Akagi observes its main festival on May 8th and its Shadow Festival (Kagematsuri) on April 8th, as tradition dictates.” “Though such things likely don’t occur now, in those days a gambling den would open on the mountain plateau during the Shadow Festival.” “With this as their aim, there were times when young men from the foothill villages would gather lanterns while darkness still lingered and make their ascent up the mountain in full force.”

The father prohibited the village youths from climbing the mountain on this festival day. The young men protested that there was nothing wrong with making their annual pilgrimage to the shrine. The father suppressed them, asserting that he was stopping them because he knew they were gambling. The father persistently investigated the considerable number of youths who had climbed [the mountain] despite [the prohibition], and to the households that had produced these youths, he commanded those with outstanding loans not merely to collect on existing debts but to vacate their rented houses immediately, while ordering tenant-farming households to return their fields.

The entire village began holding secret consultations here and there. Amidst the eerie atmosphere, a secretive murmur of "Something’s going to happen, something’s going to happen" could also be heard.

As two or three days passed, there came a night of a particularly great thunderstorm even for this lightning-prone plain. By the dawn following that night, Azaka-sensei’s mansion had caught fire and was almost completely burned down. All that remained was a single portion of the mansion that now serves as their current main house. “The fire was blamed on a lightning strike—but with everyone against us, any story would stick—and some sarcastic villagers twisted our father’s favorite motto, sneering, ‘Heaven helps those who help themselves.’”

The brother, having reached this point in his story, laughed with his mouth wide open. What struck me as strange was that this brother’s laughter contained no hidden meaning or resentment whatsoever—it was merely a simple amusement that had mechanically forced his mouth open, producing only a somewhat hollow, lonely sound from his vocal cords. After laughing, the brother said this.

“By then, all of us in the family except our father were standing on the scorched ruins, simply blank-faced, feeling only that what was meant to come had finally arrived.” “As a child who knew nothing of household finances, I even felt something akin to that cool, hollow sensation and novelty one experiences after a back tooth is extracted.” “The pent-up resentment that had coiled between this old mansion and the villagers had given us oppressively long-standing anguish.”

The brother now laughed a laugh savoring those memories within present reality. It was a strangely pleasant laugh, like yellow flowers blooming through sorrow.

Even I, who rarely had premonitions come true, upon hearing this story and seeing the mansion ruins earlier, had suddenly recalled the haiku "A house struck by lightning burns—melon flowers." Though its meaning differed from this family’s circumstances, in form their house had been declared burned by lightning, and noticing how even their post-fire family sentiments had become so abruptly lighthearted—mirroring the haiku’s essence exactly—I found myself impressed by my own intuition regarding this unusually accurate premonition, and before I knew it, I too was joining in his laughter with that strangely pleasant laugh like a yellow flower blooming in sorrow. In truth, laughter stripped of such bitterness seemed to possess a pervasive quality that made one want to claim anyone’s share of it as their own.

The bottom of the long hibachi clattered.

“Oh, that’s right.”

Having said this, the brother dragged his stiff leg as he shuffled closer to the long hibachi and carefully cracked open the drawer just a sliver to peer inside. "The chicks from the eggs have hatched." Having informed us of this, he bustled about and abruptly said, “Please excuse me for a moment,” then spread out a cloth and prepared a cage to transfer the chicks from the drawer. Katsuraoka, finding it amusing, assisted him, and together they managed to place the chicks into a cage in the earthen-floored kitchen. When chopped greens and water were provided, the small lemon-colored forms could be seen moving vigorously through the cage mesh, and the silent stillness of the country house morning suddenly began to bustle with a refined, charming liveliness—as if pricked by a silver flea.

Seizing the moment as he rose, the brother brewed fresh tea and served mountain udo he had newly taken from a tub onto a plate, showing unyielding persistence to keep us from escaping the continuation of his tale. The aroma pierced from nose to brain marrow, its bracing freshness strong enough to make one's eyes fly open—it was pickled mountain udo. The snow at the base of the deep mountain’s cliff quietly melted away, and in the sight of those droplets falling to form a mountain stream, one felt as though the coldness and purity seeped into one’s very being.

Katsuraoka, now sitting completely cross-legged, twisted the pickles as if appraising handmade crops in the academy’s workshop, remarking with admiration, “Natural things truly differ from cultivated ones,” but the fatigue from yesterday through last night seemed to catch up with him, and he finally began dozing off.

The brother continued his story. "It was the late Meiji era, when rural villages were beginning to feel exhaustion creep in." "It was a time when discerning folk turned their eyes toward overseas migration." "The immigrant rice farming in Texas was being hotly debated throughout society." Our father had failed in his rural reforms—whether earnest or misguided—and by then had nearly exhausted the family's ancestral assets. Even without this crisis, he would have eventually been forced to liquidate the estate hereabouts. Faced with these circumstances, though hardly considering it fortunate, Father seized what he saw as an opportunity. Declaring the locals hopeless, he proclaimed he'd chart a new path for Japanese farmers overseas through Texan emigration, pooling his last remaining funds. He gathered four or five misfits from neighboring villages and set out to break ground for this Texan venture. Left behind were Grandmother, Mother, and us three siblings. As male head of household, Mother's younger brother moved in from her family home in Numata. A widower at forty, he was an ordinary man—perhaps even slightly simple. By converting the fire-damaged wing into our main house and leasing what fields remained to tenant farmers, we managed to sustain ourselves. Only our education expenses proved somewhat lacking. At home, we reluctantly took up unfamiliar sericulture.

If they endured for three years, Father was supposed to send gradual remittances from Texas. "My sister may look composed now," said the brother, "but from childhood until she neared womanhood, she was a timid and high-strung girl." "She would sob bitterly whenever speaking of our younger sister’s death." “Yet she excelled in her studies.” Grandmother had doted particularly on this elder sister—Azaka-sensei—attentively nurturing her into adulthood. As Azaka-sensei remained frail though not bedridden, Grandmother took her from early childhood to Isobe’s hot springs in bitter winters and self-catering lodges by Mount Akagi’s summit lakes during sweltering summers for recuperation. This regimen left her somewhat sturdier, so that by her girls’ school days she commuted by bicycle in maroon hakama along the four-ri round trip to Maebashi. This bicycle had been sent from Los Angeles by Father upon first landing in America during his Texas-bound journey. Father had already quarreled with his entourage during the voyage; upon reaching America, they scattered completely. Thereafter he wandered West Coast cities with their Japanese enclaves as funds allowed, ensnared in hollow schemes by American hustlers or caught in honey traps set by fallen women of mixed blood—never advancing inland. Yet after leaving Japan, Father seemed drawn with particular tenderness toward his clever eldest daughter Azaka-sensei, sending various novel American trinkets meant for young girls. He occasionally dispatched letters brimming with grandiose declarations in stilted translated phrases she couldn’t comprehend. Through these missives, his smoldering zeal for reform—once directed at provincial customs—now channeled itself into unrelated causes as he poured both affection and lamentations upon Azaka-sensei. Though understanding little of their meaning, she felt her heart swell solely with Father’s fervor through his prose’s cadence. The arriving novelties from America made her dream of some fresh, extraordinary world beyond.

In the promised third year, no remittance came, and Father himself returned as bleached bones. Though stripped of all funds through deception and theft until left destitute, Father's innate resilience served him well—he had begun establishing himself as a respected mediator within the Japanese community along the West Coast. There, he perished from a stomach ulcer. Alongside the bone-filled casket arrived a modest sum of condolence money, collected by Japanese expatriates and remitted via dollar exchange. At that time, female students riding bicycles remained uncommon even in metropolitan areas. In these rural parts, the sight appeared downright eccentric. Young Azaka-sensei often endured children hurling stones during her school commute. Youths scattered nails across her path. Still she persisted in riding. Her crimson step-through bicycle bore a broad ribbon tied in butterfly fashion about its handlebars. It whipped and shuddered beneath the Akagi gale.

Why did this timid, nervous girl have courage in this one particular way? Azaka-sensei explained it to all those who doubted her with these words: "If you consider yourself dead, there's nothing you can't do."

Everyone recognized this phrase as something people say when steeling their resolve. Yet no one in the family noticed it truly signaled Azaka-sensei’s nature beginning to change. Just before Azaka-sensei graduated from girls’ school, a young man came proposing marriage after being taken by her bicycle-riding figure. “I knew him too—he seemed an unassuming, guileless youth,” he said. “Their family was an old Murata household upstream along the Karasugawa River. Through their connections, he’d been placed with a Takasaki medicinal herb wholesaler that gathered mountain plants.” “Their precious only son had begun preparing for high school entrance exams under a private tutor right after middle school.”

The young man was eighteen, and Azaka-sensei was seventeen. It was a proposal from Murata’s family home suggesting they remain engaged until his university enrollment, marrying at the institution’s location once admitted. Azaka-sensei herself appeared thoroughly taken with the young man, and particularly since her grandmother—herself originally from Murata—knew his family circumstances intimately, declaring there could be no possible issue with that household, the marriage negotiations advanced at breakneck speed.

“However，here again，groundless rumors about my sister began to circulate.” “‘She’s a Dragon Maiden，’” they said.” “‘A woman who can’t consort with men.’”

This rumor reached even the family home of the suitor. The deeper into the mountains one went, the thicker the superstitions grew—piling up like snow. Even the middle-aged members of the Murata family home, who would normally be unaffected by such matters, began to suspect that if such rumors existed, their daughter might have some hidden physiological defect. It was decided that prudence dictated withdrawal, and thus this marriage proposal was annulled. The gentle-natured young man appeared to resign himself to his family’s decree; using entrance exams as pretext, he departed for Tokyo and never returned. Azaka-sensei sank into wordless despondency. Grandmother—who seemed to feel deeper regret than Azaka-sensei herself—in her senility grew slightly unhinged, accosting everyone she met with “It was you who spread those rumors!” The rumor had blossomed without identifiable source; through mob psychology, the jealousy and resentment harbored by countless girls toward one who seemed superior in this rural backwater resurrected a half-forgotten legend from these plains, wielded it as weapon, and achieved unexpectedly potent results.

“During Obon season, our family maintained the tradition of hanging large white kiriko lanterns beneath the eaves outside the guest room.” “It had always been Grandmother’s duty.”

Grandmother had been meticulously replacing the lanterns, saying this year marked the seventh memorial service since her son’s passing. “It was the day of the Obon festival,” “When a household member who had risen in the dim early morning slid open the zashiki’s door, something white was hanging there.” “Oh—Grandmother had already hung the kiriko lanterns? But looking closer, it wasn’t a lantern at all—Grandmother herself had hanged herself there.” “Her brand-new white yukata looked just like the kiriko lantern’s hanging paper.”

After graduating from girls' school, Azaka-sensei began frequently secluding herself alone at Mount Akagi's summit to study. When she came down to stay in the village, she would tell village girls things like, "I'm going to see the scales glowing at Konuma Pond's bottom. That's beautiful," intimidating them with these words. In these utterances lingered both retaliation against girls who'd once spread misfortune-bringing rumors about her, and a defensive barrier against mediocrity's approach. Yet for Azaka-sensei—who breathed the summit's air while plumbing solitude's depths—these words also seemed to articulate her discovery of a spiritual refuge forged through youthful passion: a separate realm to retreat into when pressed. In any case, her nature as mystic and idealist now steadily revealed its unalloyed essence.

“After that, my sister seemed to have made some resolution. She declared she’d grown utterly disgusted with everything inherited from her parents and everything she herself possessed—that from now on she’d remake both her personality and body in entirely opposite ways. Then she left for Tokyo.”

That Azaka-sensei became a female physical educator was undoubtedly partly due to the scholarship system offering financial convenience for her tuition, but it also stemmed from these internal demands within Azaka-sensei herself.

Three or four years later when Azaka-sensei returned home, she stood before her family as a woman transformed into such robust health they scarcely recognized her. The family stared in astonishment. Yet now this eldest daughter had become like a foreigner whose heart remained closed to every family member. Whenever Azaka-sensei saw her flesh-and-blood kin, she seemed chilled as if wrapped in some discarded husk of herself, refusing all intimacy. Resentment festered within the family. "Ever since my sister began working at the academy," he continued, "she's sent money for our tuition—but regarding household matters or family policies, everything becomes orders without consultation." "And those commands were utterly divorced from reality—things worthless as three coppers to us struggling to survive." "At first we thought her educated words must hold truth—only to be made utter fools." "The family feigns obedience on the surface while secretly studying toward professions of actual substance."

From the back entrance of the earthen-floored area, at one corner of the storage row house, two or three poplar trees grazed past its edge. Beyond lay mulberry fields, from which about sixty percent of Mount Akagi's left flank could be glimpsed above. The mountain rose as ever—broad and flat—with only its summit gathering rocks cleft by peaks and fissures. As the sun blazed blindingly bright, even the mountainside's wide slope shed its yellowish rose-tinted veil and loomed vividly yellow-green before our eyes. The mountain's outline stood stark against a sky growing clearer and bluer with approaching noon. Yet despite such radiant mountains and heavens, gazing from here brought no true cheer to lift our hearts; even when we opened our eyes wide to take in the view, our brows soon furrowed with melancholy. It conjured a desolate restlessness—like beholding raw flayed skin with sparse hair baking in sunlight. Was this gloom born from hearing Azaka-sensei's family tale, or from the land itself—where three peaks' downdrafts whipped through soil and vegetation in ceaseless scourging?

The light from outside the window pressed this hearth room where we sat into blackness, and the lacquer-dark gloom seemed like it would cling stubbornly with a clammy stickiness if touched. Only the iron pot in the earthen-floored hearth reflected the sunlight, sporting one or two glinting eyes. The scent of mountain udo and the peeping voices from the incubator's chicks, once grown familiar, became mere repetitive beats maintaining the silence, until something resembling primordial mundanity and weariness lulled our critical minds into indolence. We ourselves had come to feel like people who, while being half-obliterated in this state, had nonetheless grown accustomed to living amidst these local customs and legends that still lingered on with their last breath, coiled as if to engulf others. Azaka-sensei had transformed into an unnaturally robust figure poised to spring forth. Poor Azaka-sensei—

The younger brother slightly changed his tone,

"So now, apart from having Sister send us money, our family can no longer hold any expectations of her." "But having that left dangling in our current state makes us feel truly uneasy." "If possible, I was wondering if you might use your influence to make arrangements for Sister to turn her attention back to employment—so I thought..." As if he had probably thought this was how it would end, the younger brother brought his story to a close. And so the brother bowed deeply to us in earnest entreaty, prompting even Katsuraoka to bow back stiffly in response—but no sooner had he done so than the brother’s face twisted into what seemed like a resentful, begrudging expression,

“Ah well—if sericulture could just bring in a bit more money, we wouldn’t need to rely on Sister or anyone else. But this silkworm business itself—” Cocoons are cheap, and even if their prices suddenly rose, with only fixed mulberry fields available here to feed the worms, you can’t just magically increase production overnight. “So you see,” he pressed on earnestly, “there’s no real hope for significant gains—that’s the harsh truth of farming here.” I decided this was our cue to leave,

“In due time, we will give it proper consideration…”

With a perfunctory farewell, we rose from our seats together with Katsuraoka. When we exited the front entrance of the earthen-floored area, a young country-style mistress with a child—who had apparently been hiding shyly in the latticework shadows to observe these first-time visitors—slipped quietly into the earthen-floored space from the back entrance. And seeing that child call out “Daddy” to the brother who had seen us off, we wondered: Could this brother, despite already having a wife and children, have been depending on his sister to fund his preparations for the acupuncturist exams?

As we headed toward the plank bridge at the exit, I asked, “What did you think of that story?” and Katsuraoka replied, “Sensei too is someone branded with childhood scars.” In any case, through this visit to the house, my feelings toward Azaka-sensei had shifted dramatically once more—though irritated by how she seemed to deftly deflect others’ thoughts, my sympathy that “the teacher too is a pitiful woman” grew overwhelmingly strong. And as the desire to meet Azaka-sensei immediately and speak with her woman-to-woman surged from my core, when I declared, “I’m going to Mount Akagi now,” Katsuraoka too—

"I also think that might be for the best—for your sake as well," he responded.

We had the car waiting at Itabashi's entrance and made it hurry to Mount Akagi's trailhead. "What an inhuman landscape." When we had nearly completed climbing Mount Akagi's path and stood at a place called Shinzaka-daira—where one could now look down upon the summit's crater plain spread out like a flat tray heaped with snow—I found myself unable to suppress this cry within my chest. As I gazed awhile, even the uniformly white snow of the level tray had taken on a circular pale green tint toward its slightly farther side. This hazy yet lucid color could also be seen as if some colossal beast from antiquity lay buried within this mountain, its azure eyes still gazing skyward through the summit's ice. They say Lake Ōnuma, spanning roughly four kilometers around, lies hidden beneath this ice.

Surrounding the crater plateau stood mountains called Kurobe, Komagatake, and Yakushidake, their snow half-melted in places or eroded into bat-like shapes. Though each peak and face shifted in appearance, they resembled nothing so much as the kneecaps and molars of some ancient giant beast, seemingly arranged with deliberate intent. Eternal death's visage! That too could be interpreted. Yet when I stared intently, why did this eternal death's visage itself—in its very form—now come to feel as though it were reviving with faint breath and beginning to open dull eyes? Unsettling.

Moreover, as my eyes grew fully accustomed to the view, the silver radiance of the crater lake’s snow began exhaling a hazy white mist as it shot toward the sky, tinging the peaks of folding-screen-shaped encircling mountains with pale purple. The remaining light still thrust through the narrow basin’s mouth into the blue sky—even the sternly cold summit air seemed rapturously accepting this softness through its initial veil. What an ethereally noble hue! And yet, that it presses in so relentlessly is nothing short of mysterious. This hue seems to possess a quality that permeates not so much the flesh as the very marrow of one’s bones. Was it perhaps that the flower-like warmth of late spring kindled in the foothills had spread through the mountain, bringing forth at the summit a mildness akin to early spring? Even so, the serenely elegant hue of nature—

Katsuraoka and the old man from the teahouse whom we had asked to guide us brushed the snow off a roadside birch stump and sat down, sharing a rolled cigarette as they sent up peaceful plumes of smoke. On the right side of the pale jade-colored surface of Lake Ōnuma, there was a shape resembling a single chocolate confection placed as if someone had lightly set it down. The guiding old man explained that it was called Kotori Island.

“The birds come first to that Kotori Island and the trees of Akagi Shrine’s sanctuary. Then comes spring in the mountains.” Since our destination now lay visible below us, we rewarded our elderly guide and sent him back from here to Minowa Station, where we had begun our journey on foot. “Those snowshoes I lent you—when you take ’em off, just leave ’em at the inn as-is,” he said. “We’ll be headin’ up to Ōhora ourselves come Lord Akagi’s festival on May eighth anyhow.”

We trudged listlessly down to the snow-covered crater plateau and finally reached the vicinity of the lake surface. We went around the two large inns flanking east and west near the crater lake and the public lodge to inquire after Azaka-sensei, but she was not present at any of them. At the soot-stained inn by the lakeside where the ice-cutters lodged, we finally found Azaka-sensei. Part of it may have been due to our exhaustion, but without the dramatic confrontation I had anticipated, the teacher and I ended up meeting with disarming ease. When we stood in the earthen-floored entrance of the inn, Azaka-sensei was sitting alone by the hearth in the middle of the spacious room with an open view, writing some manuscript. But when she saw me, she smiled brightly,

“Oh, you’ve come.”

With those words, she stood up and approached. I too said, “Oh yes, I’ve come,” tilting my face diagonally downward to affect a schoolgirl-like shyness before immediately beginning to remove my snowshoes. Azaka-sensei gave only a brief glance toward Katsuraoka, placed a hand on my shoulder, and—

“Do come in quickly. You must have been cold.”

Azaka-sensei said this. Then she led me to the hearthside as if embracing me while I stepped up onto the doorframe, seating me by the fire while instructing the flustered innkeeper’s wife who had rushed out—telling her to bring the cleanest padded robe and prepare cocoa using her own stored supplies. “Take off your obi and make yourself comfortable—you must be hungry—you can lie down and rest if you like.”

All I had to do was nod vertically or horizontally like a child for it to count as a reply—her way of caring was impeccably considerate. Once again, I naturally felt this way, and I couldn't help but think that Sensei was nothing special after all once we had met. The tangled course of events between Katsuraoka, myself, and Sensei over the past year or so now seemed as worthless as fragments of some obsolete film.

Sensei, wearing a Nordic-style man's gown—its color muted but stripes coarse—sat beside me at the hearthside, her sturdy legs propped up at the knees as she clasped her kneecaps with both hands and gazed into the flames of white birch logs blazing in the firepit. When I suddenly noticed, Sensei—though a woman—had clenched a small sailor pipe between her teeth. Somehow this suited Sensei all the more— For a while, Sensei too seemed deep in thought. Perhaps she too, like myself, was pointlessly reviewing past events in her heart as if they were fragments of some obsolete film.

With this hearth at its center, the room was laid with old tatami mats spanning approximately twenty tatami. From the earthen-floored entrance to the hearthside ran a straight path where the tatami mats had been removed, exposing the floorboards. At a right angle to this ran another straight line where tatami had been stripped away to reveal floorboards, vertically bisecting the rectangular tatami-matted room through its center and forming a T-shaped groove intersecting at the hearth. Was this convenience meant for travelers to reach the fireside in their outdoor shoes, or for group guests to come up as they were and take lunch? Muddy footprints were scattered across the floorboards.

The room resembled a crude hut, its rough plaster walls and exposed ceiling beams immediately visible to the eye. Yet whether built to endure wind and snow, sturdy pillars and planks had been used—all now glistening black from decades of hearth smoke. On both walls flanking the entrance, small light-catching windows had been opened, and the white snow around the lake reflected a saffron hue. The back wall facing the entrance had been entirely made into a heavy sliding-door closet, from whose gaps peeked out the old-fashioned striped bedding. Though called an inn, it seemed to have only this single guest room. In the corner where the sliding doors partitioned this room, an old folding screen had been arranged, and seeing Sensei’s familiar fur-lined coat and scarf hanging on that screen, it appeared that her living quarters had been established here. In the opposite corner, someone had placed a pilgrim’s pack cloth by the pillow and lay covered by a futon.

“This is quite a shabby inn, isn’t it? I was surprised.” Azaka-sensei, perhaps noticing my suspicious glance around the room, tapped her pipe ashes against the hearth with a tap-tap and said this. “Even now, during my girlhood this was the finest inn at the mountaintop. I’ve been coming to this inn for twenty years now.” As for Katsuraoka, having seen how Azaka-sensei had been completely preoccupied with me ever since we entered this inn, he ended up changing into a padded robe on his own as if finding that arrangement more comfortable, nibbling on the cheap biscuits and pickled mountain udo brought out by the innkeeper’s wife, drinking cocoa, and tending to himself in solitude. Every time Azaka-sensei glanced at him, he would adjust his posture as if jolted by electricity and show a tense expression—undoubtedly, this too stemmed from being profoundly influenced by her. This alone made even me, in my current mood, feel a slight unpleasantness and irritation.

Azaka-sensei, seeing we had settled somewhat, affected nonchalance as she asked Katsuraoka across the hearth: "So which of you proposed seeking me here—you or Choko-san?" Katsuraoka tightened his cross-legged posture uncomfortably and looked at my face. He seemed to want me to answer instead, but when I maintained an air of feigned ignorance, the mounting silence compelled him to become the hesitant respondent.

“Choko-san was the one who first—”

“How did you know I was in the mountains? Did you stop by my house to ask?” “Yes—when I went to your house and inquired—they told me you were at Akagi—so—” Azaka-sensei picked up the iron fire tongs and stirred the flames with their tip two or three times before asking— “Who did you meet at my house? Everyone?” “No, everyone was away—I met someone called your brother.” Sensei started involuntarily— “Brother?!” She retorted but then suddenly lowered her eyes, showing us an uncharacteristically bashful feminine mannerism. After enduring her own shame like someone surfacing from deep water, she finally looked up at me.

"So, Choko-san, you've already heard everything about me and my family, haven't you." "After all, that brother of mine is such a chatterbox." Unable to evade, I answered honestly, "Yes."

Sensei threw down the fire tongs and remained with her forehead resting on her knees for some time. I grew so concerned—thinking she might be weeping rather than lost in thought, given how her slumped posture seemed utterly defeated—that I tentatively glanced at her simply tied hair. Seeing she wasn't trembling at all, I felt relieved—but then right before my eyes, Sensei slowly lifted her face, startling me despite myself. Her countenance now bore an ethereal beauty that seemed no longer of this mortal world. Though I couldn't immediately recall anything comparable, if pressed I'd have to liken it to something like the divine maiden of Mount Myōkoya that our Chinese classics teacher had described during my school days. Yet this vision vanished instantly as Sensei retrieved the fire tongs again and resumed poking the flames, her voice shifting to an all-too-human grumbling tone.

"I had wanted to show you only the neat and tidy parts of myself, Choko-san—"

Then her speech turned completely into soliloquy,

“It can’t be helped.—Perhaps it’s better if you know everything after all—my shameful things and every last thing of mine—” Her voice carried a pure, nostalgic sweetness, like droplets echoing from some unfathomable depth in a valley of utter resignation. I felt an impulse to drink that voice through my lips rather than merely hear it with my ears.

“At any rate, I’m glad you came, Choko-san—this makes everything right. Yes—this makes everything right.”

I was struck by a strange yet tormenting sensation and couldn't help asking, "Sensei...is that truly so?" Then Sensei replied in a clear voice: "Why yes—it's true indeed." After saying this, she fell silent for a time before adding, "Everything—all of it is true," and began laughing softly from deep within her throat. "Hoh...hoh...hoh...hoh...hoh." "Hoh...hoh...hoh...hoh...hoh."

Was it Sensei who had laughed, or was it the mountain echo? It was an ethereally noble laugh—so much so that I found myself turning not toward Sensei but toward some distant bearing, driven by a desire to ascertain its true nature. I recalled what Katsuraoka had said before we had departed Tokyo—"Sensei’s laughter resonates from a plane higher than this fumbling world of ours"—and realized it wasn’t a lie. Had something happened to Sensei; had she become what people ordinarily called mad? Then, as if nothing had occurred, Sensei looked around and,

“It’s nearly evening, isn’t it.—”

Since the meals at this inn were terrible anyway, Sensei said she would make something for Choko-san and, with quiet footsteps, slid open the partition's fusuma door and went into what seemed to be the kitchen.

In her place came a man around fifty who seemed to be the innkeeper, coming to hang the lamp. He was a middle-aged man of decent bearing with a mustache under his nose. Squatting on the tatami, he explained that the seven or eight ice porters who had been staying here had returned in mid-March, that skiing and skating had ended in early April, that the azalea season was about half a month early—in short, that this was precisely the mountain's quietest time. The lamplight suddenly filled the room with an evening atmosphere. The ascetic-looking man who had been sleeping in the corner stirred heavily and rose up. He brought a small pot of porridge to the hearth's edge, poured in hot water, and said, "I'll leave this to heat awhile," before hanging it on the adjustable hook. Returning to his corner, he now faced his traveling robe and began earnestly reciting something like an incantation while clicking his prayer beads between his hands.

With nothing better to do, I started talking to Katsuraoka. “You’re right—Sensei has changed quite a lot, just as you said.” “See? I told you so. I can’t bring myself to say anything more now. But truth be told, compared to when I met Sensei at her family home before, she’s changed again.” “Oh? Is that so? So how has she changed?” “I can’t really say.”

“Why?”

“Because if I tell you, you’ll either get jealous or angry.”

“Don’t be absurd—why would I come all this way to a snowy mountain now?” “Then shall I try saying it?” “Ah.” “When I met Sensei before, she’d grown noble in bearing—but still felt like a mother or aunt, so to speak. Yet meeting her here now—it’s an odd way to put it—she’s become strangely alluring. Not something I can say aloud—”

In fact, Katsuraoka lowered his voice and said. I gathered my strength with such force that I wanted to slap my knee, “That’s exactly it.” I could not help but agree with Katsuraoka’s words.

She had changed completely. Could someone like the Sensei we saw now—united with the mountain's nature—be freely swayed by early spring's temptations? The inn's prepared dishes of simmered crucian carp and potato miso soup, accompanied by Sensei's camp-style hamburg steak made from canned goods and salted meat along with a fruit salad, brought unexpected vitality to our evening meal. After eating, we let Sensei lead us out to the lakeside under cover of night.

The moon was shining brilliantly. And yet the stars too cast long glimmers of platinum thorns like those of a starry night—the wonder of the mountain’s night sky. The mountains known as Koma, Kuro, and Yakushi seen in daylight had completely altered their guise, as though manifesting here the form mountains dream of becoming. The lake—its surface pallid with ice yet somehow suggesting greenish moisture beneath—seemed to desperately tighten its veil lest moonlight detect spring’s squirming signs. Drifted along by one’s own shadow cast upon the water’s surface, Kotori Island appeared to float mid-air. As if marking hamlets along the lake’s far edge, lights from the clubhouse and trout hatchery dotted about like fireflies. And looking this way, Ōhora’s residential area showed comparatively abundant lights.

“Come and see—over here.”

Sensei drew me closer to the lakeside. She had me kneel on a rock there and peer through moonlight at the frozen surface. "You see those large fissure marks already forming in the ice? We call them emi here," she said. "Once the warm southern winds arrive—" "There—those faint bluish-black patches mottling the ice? Where it's thinned enough to show springwater welling beneath."

After showing us the mountain's night view and as we were about to head back, Sensei turned to me and said:

“Two or three days—yes, three days—please do stay here. In that time, the southern wind will surely blow and the lake’s ice will begin to melt—”

The ice broke into individual shapes, drifting this way and that—what a spectacle. Sensei said we simply mustn’t leave without seeing this—not after coming all this way. And then, turning to Katsuraoka, “For three days, you mustn’t take Choko-san back. “I’m making this perfectly clear.”

That night, we laid out our pillows with Sensei in the middle and slept close to the hearth. The trio, whose bonds of love and affection had grown ambiguous, slept with quiet breaths. The trickling water sound resonating through our pillows was said to be the snowmelt flowing down the Miya River. Following Sensei's instructions—"Thoroughly tour the mountains during daylight; our talks can happen at night"—we brought along the innkeeper as our guide and walked about visiting various places with our boxed lunches. As someone raised in the city, I had come to realize that I could not match even the imagination or contemplation of mountain scenery. However, the purpose for which Sensei had detained us seemed to lie in these nightly talks by the hearth, and I found myself listening to them with a sense of unanticipated thoughts.

For convenience in recounting this, I shall attempt to divide the three days and nights into individual day-and-night segments as I narrate them.

First Day, First Night.

On this day, we visited Akagi Shrine, called on Kotori Island, and then climbed Kurobe from the lakeshore's edge. We passed through places where dead trees crowded into dense forests; slopes of unbroken white stretching as far as the eye could see; and mountain connections shaped like horses' saddles. Where snow lay deep, it had softened enough that I kept plunging waist-deep. Each time, the innkeeper would declare, "The Young Lady has skewered herself in snow!" Not actual thorns. Since I wore Sensei's borrowed ski clothes, no amount of piercing bothered me. But their bagginess must have made me resemble a theater mouse tumbling into a flour barrel. When the innkeeper and Katsuraoka tried hauling me out with vigorous pulls, all three became stuck. Human laughter echoed across uninhabited snowfields. Through gradual questioning, I learned this mountain-dwelling elder had been a Myōjō-school poet in his Meiji-era youth, visiting Tokyo often. Nostalgically, he asked about changes in Kudan-Ichigaya where Shinchisha—the New Poetry Society—once stood. The innkeeper, who'd known Sensei since her girlhood, remarked: "Poetically speaking, such women become yamahime when accustomed to deep mountains." "A yamahime," he explained, "is like some crossbreed of deity and mountain beast."

There were also places where the snow had melted in sunlit areas. The innkeeper dug a little into the soil at the base of a rock there and showed me bracken sprouts beginning to emerge. By May, these would grow large enough that ones as tall as a lady’s cane could be harvested, or so they said. The scenery in all directions viewed from the mountaintop. That day was cloudy. The sky lay mottled with light and dark clouds like a sandy beach still etched with wave patterns, utterly motionless. A dull light shone from nowhere in particular. Clouds covered every mountain stretching to the horizon—rolled up tight in the south but spread flat in the west. As a whole, they crept steadily northward. From certain angles, the mountain peaks emerging from that sea of clouds might have seemed to march southward in unison. What a melancholy landscape this was. Could it be that even these mountains—unable to shake their lingering sorrow—stirred their roots trying to sway away? Feeling cold, I thrust my hand into my pocket and found Sensei’s small pipe brushing against my fingers. I put it between my lips for show. Then, gazing at this view once more, tears began spilling down my cheeks without reason.

We also went to Gorin Pass and circled Lake Ōnuma before returning home.

That night, Sensei and the two of us sat facing each other by the hearth. Sensei opened by declaring this night "Confession Night," then began speaking thus: "That I was a sickly, timid girl in my youth—one who turned her passions ever inward—is something you must have heard from my brother back home, Choko-san." "And during my time as a physical education teacher at the academy—when I saw you there as a student—I came to think that if I could become anyone at all, it would be you. You must have heard this from Mr. Katsuraoka already." "What drove me to say that was likely lingering regret—this sense that had my younger self grown up unhindered by circumstance, developing naturally, I might have become someone like you." "Yet even had I grown that way—you a water-natured daughter born to the city, I a mountain-natured daughter of the countryside—though I've lately come to see how fundamentally we differ, still I envy how you drift pliantly with the current to any shore, blooming with duckweed's natural beauty... with womanly instinct's beauty." "I cannot help but sense in you the strength peculiar to the vulnerable."

“Yet why have I created a situation where I—who loves you—and you have become like adversaries? Of course, as the cause for this, I did interpose Mr. Katsuraoka here between us—but I must say, pitiful as it may be, this was akin to driving a wedge into a saw kerf in a log. It is the prism that analyzes and extracts the spectrum. To tell the truth, Choko-san, I attempted—staking my own ruin—to escape the influence of your character. To rephrase—an attempt to escape from womanly instinct, from life itself, from the strength found in weakness—it may sound like grasping at clouds or solving an enigma, but please do hear me out, Choko-san. Because it was an attempt—a method rarely seen in this world. So even if you don’t understand, it’s perfectly fine to leave it as such—please just bear with me and listen slowly and carefully, Choko-san.”

“In my girlhood, I was quite the delicate child who so resembled you—how then did I become this strong-willed woman they call mannish? I am one whose growth was obstructed from maidenhood through womanhood. The village children would brand me an outcast—‘that descendant of Konuma’s dragon maiden’—and when I nearly married my beloved, peers’ daughters destroyed the engagement by calling me a scaly creature unfit for men. Though these persecutions drew on decaying, foolish legends and customs, being outnumbered left me no choice but to endure their torments. You’ve likely heard all this from my chatterbox brother already.”

“I can’t say how many times I thought it would be better to die. And once I began feeling like one already dead, it was inevitable this resolve to strike back and emerge would settle in my gut.”

“People fear death.” “Even I was like that at first.” “But when driven to anguish where living itself becomes unbearable—when thrust into death’s realm as if by the scruff of one’s neck—though breath chokes you, you must ultimately find something to love in this dark world.” “This is how humans are made.” “And I too am fundamentally a woman.” “When retreat becomes impossible, I will embrace even thorns and brambles with my whole being.”

A world steeped in hues of shadow; a desolate world where hearts freeze; a world with nothing to rely on but despair; a powerless world where not even a lip may stir. “Grief and sorrow are but intermediate states—still spoken of because they retain emotion’s savor.” “Those standing upon this world’s precipice face only two fates: being struck down or driven to distraction.” “They are denied even madness’s reprieve.” “And the mind’s eye must watch unblinking over this world.” “In my girlhood, I was struck down relentlessly, persisting in distraction as I confronted death’s realm.” “Amidst this, I suddenly realized: this world is illusion.” “It holds no fundamental existence.” “To speak metaphorically—a magician’s curtain of darkness.” “Within it surely lies some hidden mechanism.” “There must be.” “Thus I came to believe.” “Very well—I shall retrieve it.” “I became that magician myself—though I must have already loved death’s world before conceiving this plan.” “Precisely why courage surged within me—to step resolutely inside and grope for tangible proof—and why familiarity welled up unbidden.”

"What was it that I loved and retrieved from the world of death? The ice-cold dagger of reason and the whistling arrow of selfhood with its feathers of originality cutting through the wind—these two things they were. When a child picks up something their friend dropped and shows it off with a hint of mockery, they say: 'Look what I found! Look!' But I cannot speak of these treasures I retrieved from the dark abyss of distraction using such straightforward words. Therefore, I boasted to people that I had seen the glint of scales in the depths of Konuma at Mount Akagi, which I had frequented. One reason was that there certainly existed, perhaps, a hint of counterattack against the women who had branded me the Scaled Maiden. My younger brother has not yet spoken of this matter, I suppose." "What did he talk about?" "My goodness—what an absurdly talkative brother he’s turned out to be."

“Normally, discoveries of such nature are ones where power is mostly wielded outward. But sadly, I am one who cannot wield it externally. As ever, I turn it inward—ever inward—just as I did in my girlhood. In the end, I have remade only myself according to my will, shaping myself into a woman who needs neither men nor love. I am everything. I alone am the world.” “Even without detailing this matter now—knowing my past character and conduct as you do, Choko-san—you must grasp its essence. To put it plainly: I have excised from my very character—root and branch—all traits that invite bullying, defeat, or humiliation. As a woman, I erased even those endearing qualities that would make others cling to me at life’s expense, reforging myself into the woman of my ideals—strong, exceptional, self-aware in her vitality. This was an agony beyond measure: like stripping flesh from bone, altering the marrow itself, then rebuilding the body anew. Yet I endured it. With reason’s dagger—with selfhood’s whistling arrow—with death-world’s cold rigor coursing through these veins.”

“Here, shall I speak briefly of the vigor and tautness inherent in those who dwell within death’s world? Well now—the more intensely life’s consciousness grows within one, the more theatrically one feels death’s anxiety. Conversely, there exists no moment when life feels more achingly dear and longed-for than when one dwells deeply in death’s consciousness. It strikes the chest bittersweetly and ceaselessly, like yearning for a lover. This very moment—this is when one most exquisitely senses within their heart life’s delightful anxiety.”

“Isn’t this ironic? ‘In human existence—when life is accentuated, one cannot perceive life; yet when death is accentuated, one inversely comes to sense life.’ ‘Mark this well, Choko-san—commit this paradox to memory.’ ‘The clandestine mechanism through which I championed idealism only to savor reality, espoused Puritanism only to satiate its antithetical desire—all were lessons drawn from life’s ironic stratagems, which I then inverted and applied to my existence.’ ‘Thus have I traversed life—seizing its reverse grip again and again.’ Even weeping—even laughter—”

“Choko-san, since we’re women cast from the same mold—haven’t you sensed this secret technique of mine, even unconsciously?” “Choko-san, but a bow kept fully drawn will inevitably slacken.” “A temari ball bounced without cease will finally lose its spring.” “I deepened my consciousness of death—savoring life’s intensity through that inverted grip—until I’d drawn it too taut for too long, warping death’s bow-bamboo beyond repair.” “Then how could life’s opposing string rebound?” “Now all vanished—the sorrows that drove me to self-mastery, the ideals that demanded striving.” “What remains is an Eastern chaos of neither being nor non-being.” “In this world, life manifests as that scattered tree—unknowable in age yet towering enough to blot the sun—its worth lying solely in useless use, symbolizing existence devoid of sting or sweetness.” “Death? A carefree thing reincarnating endlessly—ants, mole crickets, gnats.” “The landscape where death’s bow and life’s string lie slackened into near-oneness—this recognition defies capture like formless mist.” “Eastern philosophers liken it to a butterfly’s dream-flutter, but truthfully it’s time-space flowing unrestrained—bereft of ecstasy or ugliness alike.”

How could our minds—nurtured since the Meiji era by Western culture with its geometric dissections and rigid perceptions that claimed to pin down all existence—ever find peace in such a state as this? Ever since resolving to reform myself—without a moment's respite, pressing the dagger of reason and scissor-tip of selfhood against my own breast again and again to drive and urge myself onward—I now came to feel like a monkey fallen from its tree. For the first time since my reformation, I thought I had become a pitiable version of myself. There was never a time when that loathsome reflection—the one that even brought night sweats, wondering if perhaps the course I had taken was mistaken—didn't surface in my heart. The most terrifying thing was that, taking advantage of this relaxation of mine, the woman embedded in my very bones that I had kept hidden within began to throb. With that, to my chagrin—Choko-san—your figure began catching my eye. Your personality began tenaciously entangling itself in my heart.

When operating on caries, the surgeon thoroughly disinfects the lesion, exercises their skill to the fullest, and stitches up the flesh convinced that not a single fragment of decayed bone remains within. How could one possibly foresee? Within, powdered fragments of decayed bone remained, and the bacteria—seizing upon the flesh's weariness—began swiftly corroding the surroundings. External bacteria responded in turn. I—who had performed upon myself that surgery of complete metamorphosis directed at the feminine within me, who believed I had obtained my ideal form: a robust mind and body neither weak nor humiliated, who prided myself as a surgeon of personality transformation—even I had overlooked something. There had been areas left unoperated.

"Oh my, it's grown quite late. Let's end our talk here tonight and retire."

Second Day, Second Night.

Today again, with packed lunches, we were guided by the innkeeper and went to see Konuma. The guiding innkeeper grumbled to us: “Why didn’t you come earlier during skiing or skating season? Or else come later for azaleas—there’s nothing worth showing as courtesy now when I guide you.” Therefore his pointing fingertips lacked vigor, and his tone often took on a reminiscent quality—“If this were spring you could pick lilies of the valley here,” or “In summer there’d be rare insect-catching violets”—he tended to lapse into such poetic phrases.

They crossed one mountain to the south. After walking across the flat plain encircled by a gorge—where the innkeeper said grazing cattle would fill the fields in summer and autumn, enough to frighten a young lady—we reached Konuma. A lake roughly one-third the size of Ōnuma, surrounded by mountains that rose abruptly from its shores, their aged white birch trunks standing pale against the leaden water's surface like serpent bones. A light mist hung in the air under faint sunlight. The entire leaden marsh and white mountains emitted a faint bellflower-colored phosphorescence, creating scenery that seemed wrought by spirits. Azaka-sensei had endured lifelong torment from others because of the legend birthed in this lake. Then with desperate resolve, she wielded that very legend against her tormentors. Though Azaka-sensei's story from last night remained unfinished—its twists still unclear—the undeniable truth remained that its ripples now reached even us standing here. What tragically fated people. Yet despite being this resentful snow-cloaked lake, I found myself gazing endlessly into its depths. On the shore, the decayed husk of a lacquer box caught my eye.

To mourn the dragon maiden who threw herself into the swamp, every year on the anniversary of her death, the villagers at the foot of the mountain steamed red rice and cast it into this swamp—but the red rice vanished, leaving only the empty containers to drift ashore; this was the guide's explanation as he indicated them. Despite being a coward at heart, I—a city girl who loved frightening things—continued staring fixedly at the terrifying ice lake for what felt like eternity. Even if it were a lie, as I thought of those silver scales said to be visible at the lake’s bottom and chilled the blood within me to my heart’s content, Katsuraoka urged me with "Nothing here but a dull view," and I finally tore myself away from the reluctant lakeside.

The path first doubled back, then wound around Chōshichirō Mountain and Kojizōga Peak, until we wandered about as far as a place called Rihei Tea House along the road leading to Mizunuma Entrance of the Ashio Line. It is said that Hakone salamanders inhabit the streams around here. We saw a mountain dweller leading a horse laden with udo stalks bundled like firewood and topped with azalea flowers, heading down to the village to sell.

Night came. Azaka-sensei proposed naming this night the "Night of Prayer," then sat facing us by the hearth once more. Mixing perfume into her pipe tobacco and seemingly savoring the smoke, she began speaking as follows.

“As my consciousness of death slackened and my consciousness of life loosened in tandem, last night I explained how I had become like an amateur’s botched paper screen—my intellect and ego together sagging limply in equilibrium.” “Then I told how the feminine instinct I’d failed to erase from within myself—targeting those opened hair roots of my heart’s skin—began responding to your external influence, Choko-san, throwing me into panic like a self before its castle’s collapse.” “Now tonight we shall continue from there.”

At that time, I was truly panicked. I panicked as if I had found termites infesting the main pillar of my house. Above all else, the breached embankment must be promptly repaired. Adhesions of inferior flesh must be mercilessly severed, even through drastic treatment.

I brought Mr. Katsuraoka here as a sumo ring to repair the breach in my embankment. I used Mr. Katsuraoka as a sharp scalpel to prevent the adhesion of flesh between myself and you, Choko-san. With just these explanations alone, you likely wouldn't understand. Let me attempt to clarify through a chronological account of events. Why did I force marriage upon Mr. Katsuraoka? A person like myself possesses neither love for men nor desire for matrimony. While Mr. Katsuraoka served sufficiently as a partner for sexual sport alone, why then did I compel him toward marriage? Ah, Choko-san. You are both nostalgically dear and bitterly resented. From this pig-iron body I forged by wringing out every drop of fresh blood, you alone effortlessly extract maternal qualities identical to my own. In twilight moments at my combing window, you transform into the daughter I never had, while I paradoxically become your innocent child craving suckling at your breast—though it shames me to confess, Choko-san, how could you possibly grant me this? Yet were I to pour out these instinctual longings and consummate them with you, I would face defeat before my very self. I was never meant to be such a weak creature—one susceptible to gathering even a mote of emotional dust from others. Mr. Katsuraoka fortunately loves you. Though you may not fully return his affection, you remain incapable of rejecting men who devote themselves to you. This vulnerability became my instrument.

To put it bluntly, I presented Katsuraoka with unreasonable demands, caused him distress, and through witnessing that distress, sought to make you—Choko-san, who would become righteously indignant—hate me. And I attempted to sever the inescapable instinctual bond of affinity between you and me. If we were to quarrel over some trivial matter, I could never fully rid myself of your influence. To destroy the profound cause rooted in our congenital homology of instinct, one must wield an axe forged from a conflict of instinct of equally profound intensity to strike and sever it. I resolved to do it. To protect the ideal self I had painstakingly built by expending my entire life until now, I had always been someone who could not bring myself to act inwardly in any way. This time, I directed my strength outward.

“I had prepared another ruthless measure in case this strategy failed to make us enemies who would hate each other.” “Choko-san, you must not be shocked.” “I have investigated even your background and prepared accordingly.” “Just by saying this—there, Choko-san—you’ve turned pale and begun trembling.” “But it doesn’t matter.” “All of this is part of the confession before prayer.” “I will say it clearly.” “I had even prepared that should you ever become deeply involved with Katsuraoka or seize the opportunity to marry into that downtown prominent family—Mr.Ikeno or whoever—I would disclose your origins as a beggar’s child, incur your lifelong resentment, and thereby cleanly free myself from this instinctual attachment toward you.”

“You’re wondering how I discovered such a secret?” “Be careful.” “The nursemaid Shima at your house is a foul-mouthed crone.” “Give her a little snuff money and she’ll babble everything.” “Since last Obon when that old maid delivered midyear gifts in your stead, I’ve bribed her—your affairs have been laid bare to me ever since.” “Choko-san, will you weep? Weep your fill.” “I too wept thus from girlhood through maiden years.” “Let me make this plain—no woman exists who can coldly brutalize herself and others merely for resolving to leave another woman.”

“Upon hearing my outrageous conduct toward Mr.Katsuraoka, you became thoroughly enraged and seemed to have grown confrontational toward me.” “You came to hate me completely—even resolving to protect Mr.Katsuraoka’s very livelihood if necessary—all of which I discerned while at my family home through reports from Shima the maid and the tone of Mr.Katsuraoka’s letters.” “I too found myself recalling you—‘What an impudent little girl!’—with bitter amusement.” “I thought my painstaking efforts had borne splendid fruit.” “I believed I had at last soundly disinfected my woman’s decaying bones with potent medicine, reabsorbed them into my body, and magnificently freed myself from your influence as well, Choko-san.” At that moment, I felt a sharp pop burst inside myself—strange though it was—but turning back from this task, I prepared to behold once more the world of death: that spring of rising power in my ancestral home. I tried to retrieve death’s fallen, slackened bow stave. But it was nowhere to be found there now. And naturally, the living string once stretched across it had vanished too.

When I looked around, both the Western-style intellect and self, and the Eastern-style undivided chaos, had all vanished. All that remained was my own spirit, scattered in fragments. Have years of unnatural postures, years of stubborn defiance, years of contrary maneuvers—have these finally brought me to such utter ruin? But wait a moment. To consider this mere personal ruin seemed a hasty conclusion. For though these scattered fragments of skull, spine, ribs, pelvis, and limb bones that I now consciously recognized as my body and mind lay broken apart, each shone transparent as crystal—nothing like ordinary decomposed remains left exposed in the wild. Was this the result of having my life thoroughly subjected to a single woman's capricious power? And the curious thing was—this shattered form reflected the snowy peaks exactly as they were, and when a dear person came near, mirrored them just as they appeared. How strange.

“Well, it’s grown quite late again tonight.” “Let’s rest.” “It turned into such a strange story—I must apologize for that.”

Third day, third night.

The teacher’s story carried an air of ancient philosophers’ maxims; while listening, we felt fulfilled in that fleeting moment, yet once it ended, nothing lingered. Though concerning our own fates, it felt like hearing an old legend—thus when dawn broke after a night’s sleep, scarcely anything remained in our hearts. That day too, heeding the teacher’s suggestion, we followed the innkeeper toward Chōshi Temple’s direction. “We shan’t reach it today,” he prefaced, “but since Young Lady’s legs have grown mountain-hardy—shall we attempt it?” And so we departed. True enough, I failed to reach our goal. After crossing Gairinzan’s outer rim summit—clutching pasture fences during our sluggish descent—surveying Chōshichirōyama’s sunlit vista through oak and birch groves along the ridgeline—the instant my foot touched Tomoshirazu Slope’s incline, I demanded retreat. The innkeeper didn’t press further. Spreading his cloak over roadside snow for our early lunch, he recounted tales of local landmarks between mouthfuls. This pilgrims’ path held many sites where historic wonders doubled as treacherous points—Benten Cave’s echoing depths, Roaring Dragon Falls’ misted plunge, Tengu’s Garden of wind-carved stones. Yakushi Rock’s medicinal contours and Womb Passage’s uterine darkness—names alone betrayed humanity’s inexorable urge to wed nature with divinity. “Our resident ascetic,” he continued while we ate, “fasted seven days at Takifudō Falls—now regains strength through careful dieting.” His voice took Meiji-era poetic cadence: “Were men content as men—no strife would fester. Yet this Creator who inflames greater hungers and subjects us to curious trials seems allergic to boredom—doesn’t He?”

With that, the innkeeper spoke coldly, adopting the tone of a Meiji-era poet.

We then took an easy path around, visited the Blood Pond, and returned.

That night, the teacher sat by the hearth wearing a profoundly despondent expression. After proposing they name this evening the "Night of Ascension," she sang in a low yet crystalline voice before commencing her tale. The song's lyrics were in a foreign tongue and entirely incomprehensible. Yet within that melody lay modulations of humanity's ultimate mournful tone—a resonance that would persist as an unbroken thread through people's hearts with inexorable clarity, even should every musical phrase born of human artifice be scattered by this transient world's tempestuous storms. As I listened, there emerged from this utter hopelessness a tragic cadence that paradoxically summoned forth an extraordinary surge of power within me.

After singing, Azaka-sensei said, “This is one of the folk ballads from the Kalevala—a Finnish national epic sung by peasants, you know.” Finland was the Nordic country where the teacher had studied physical education for a time during her youth. She had previously told us that the Finns—originally of Eastern descent but adapted to Nordic nature—possessed grayish-blue eyes and chestnut hair while retaining an Eastern-style simplicity and single-minded passion.

The Salpausselkä—rounded hills undulating like waves across the land; the countless marshes and lakes large and small cradled within them; snowfields and vast forests and valleys and waterfalls. There, the teacher discovered Akagi as an alien landscape.

The teacher continued speaking.

“The Kalevala I just sang contains many myths and stories, but among them, there is one particular myth that has soaked into my heart and refuses to leave. “Let me tell it briefly.” That is the story of a mother who lost her child. The mother lost sight of her only child—the heroic youth Lemminkäinen. She searched everywhere but could not find him, and collapsed in tears before the sun. The sun, directing its penetrating gaze in all directions, illuminated Lemminkäinen lying as white bones on the black riverbed flowing through the underworld. “The mother grieved, but she never gave up.” She immediately went to a master blacksmith and had him forge a large iron rake. With that rake, the mother gathered her child’s bones one by one from the riverbed of the underworld and patiently pieced them together on the pebbles of the riverbank. The bones were joined into a form resembling her child’s figure. However, that form would not call out ‘Mother’ to her. “The mother still did not give up.” Cradling and rocking her child—still in skeletal form—as she had when he was an infant, she lamented to a bee that happened by and began to sing.

“O bee, O bee, Transcend both moon and sun, Traverse the innermost reaches of the heavens, Bear upon thy back the divine breath, The oil of life, O bee, O bee,

Beloved, to my child. The bee, moved by this, brought the oil of life. The mother painstakingly anointed her son’s skeletal body with the oil of life. "The heroic youth Lemminkäinen, more beautiful and brave than before, was reborn and came forth." After telling this story, the teacher said: "It was a mistake to have thought this story merely a beautiful delusional tale born beneath northern snowy skies." "When I reflect upon it now, this tale had been crafted for me during this period." "I, a solitary woman who has never borne a child, am both mother and child to myself." The motherly me, upon seeing the crystalline bones of the child me scattered in fragments, felt my heart crushed by sorrowful anguish—yet I would never abandon hope. If I could cling to the sun itself—if I could implore a master blacksmith—I would rush to them and resolve to restore those bones to their original form. Fortunately, since this was an event within my own spiritual womb, it proved far easier to gather and assemble than when the mother retrieved Lemminkäinen’s bones from the underworld’s riverbed. Yet though these bones had become beautiful crystal, shining brilliantly—colder than ice and harder than iron—the mother within me now desperately pondered what this oil restoring life’s breath might be and where it could exist. “O bee, O bee, oh I beg you to tell me—”

However, what I have now realized is that I am fundamentally of mountain nature. Beyond the overlapping mountain peaks, deep within the rugged mountain paths—I feel as though it might be found there. And yet, Choko-san—you are of water nature. Henceforth, you will likely never witness extraordinary dramatic joys or sorrows. Like an ashide-e painting, you will stagnate and flow limply, cohere and unravel, all without conscious design—depicting and manifesting life and death alike, channeling even people’s unfulfilled dreams into your current. Swelling ever fuller as you go, you yourself—the very flow—will slip unwaking into the eternal sea. "I believe this too is a splendid form of life, but it is not what someone of my differing nature desires."

"There is just one thing I must say now to you, Choko-san, whom I once loved so dearly. 'Those of water nature must not leave the earth. Those of water nature are themselves formless. Character is defined by the earth. You seem to still fear your beggar origins, but what is there to fear? You must first lie down intimately with the earth and learn something from it. You must come to have your character defined. That you are of beggar origins and are fated to return to that experience once—I somehow sense this through my intuition, which pierces through like crystal. That will suffice. Do try flowing into the earth at least once. For something fresh will surely come to be discovered by you.'"

“Well though it’s still somewhat early tonight—since you’ll all be departing tomorrow—let us retire to rest.”

That night I lay down to sleep, but the strangely layered murmurs of thawing snowmelt from Miyanokawa River clung to my ears, making it impossible to rest. When I raised my head and strained to listen, it resolved into an ordinary single-layered murmur. Yet when I pressed my cheek to the pillow again, the sounds tangled themselves anew. Then I understood. Sensei had been weeping all this while, muffling herself so I wouldn't notice. Though I couldn't fathom why, I resolved to let her tears flow. Perhaps they might moisten those ice-like bones she'd described—scattered shards lying cold within her—

Listening to the water sounds tangled in two layers, I spent the midnight hours neither asleep nor awake when I suddenly noticed again—fog had stolen into the room, and the lamp was emitting a circular light like that of a sliced summer citrus.

Beyond the sliding door separating us from the innkeeper's family parlor, I heard someone murmur, "The south wind's coming in—the ice'll break." I still remember Sensei getting up twice to go peer outside through the wall's small window, but after that point, the day's exhaustion truly manifested itself, and I too fell into sleep.

Awakened by Sensei, we hurried out to the lakeside. The night was breaking into the gray light of dawn. The wind that came blowing over the southern outer rim mountains and through the valleys became an invisible fist with each gust, hurling masses of mist toward the lake surface. Mists colliding with mists swirled in great spirals; mists engulfed by other mists; mists stretching and collapsing the fog between them—yet the entire milky-white expanse held a pearlescent glow, making us feel as though we were inside a giant abalone shell. Through gaps in the thinning mist, twenty to thirty ken ahead, the lake water where the ice had melted now revealed itself with vivid rawness, its surface ceaselessly surging with waves. At a casual glance one would not discern it, but upon closer inspection, the shore’s frozen ice crumbled and broke two or three inches at a time under the flapping waves surging back from the lake’s center against the wind, scattering toward the heart of the waters.

The wind grew even stronger. Each ice fragment breaking off and floating along the lakeshore steadily gathered together, forming into large masses. Now the ice, still covered with soft snow and spanning about two to three tsubo in area, began drifting toward the lake’s center. Since it was right after waking up, not particularly unusual, and the wind was fierce, both Katsuraoka and I could only utter exclamations like "Oh!" or "Hmm..." Sensei did not say a single word. She was gazing intently at each ice block as they broke and crumbled away. Another mass began to sway unsteadily. Then Azaka-sensei lightly hopped onto the skates with their blades detached. I involuntarily clapped my hands, thinking Azaka-sensei was doing something so brave. As I watched, thinking that once the ice mass drifted out to a distance where one could leap back with a stride’s width Sensei would surely return to shore—but when even that point passed, I felt a chill. Then Sensei waved her hand there,

“Goodbye, Choko-san.”

When I saw that face and realized she was serious, I was so shocked that blood rushed from my chest to my head, and I cried out in a tearful voice.

“Sensei! Sensei!” “Mr. Katsuraoka, stay well too.” Katsuraoka stood dumbfounded. I crushed the shore ice and stamped my feet, “Sensei, come back—” I shouted.

By now, Sensei's face had faded into the mist until only the vague positions of her eyes and nose remained visible at that distance. In that haze, Sensei swiftly removed the winter coat lined with fur she had been wearing. Through the mica-colored fog, a pale rose-hued woman's nude form—perfectly proportioned—quietly dissolved into a faint shadow as it receded into the distance.

With a feeling that could not be described as either holding my breath or grasping at empty air, I kept watching when Sensei’s voice came through the mist. “Well? Don’t I look like Venus born from a pearl shell?!” Once more: “Born from death’s extremity—a beautiful play. I’ll show you just once, Choko-san, with my very life on the line. So goodbye—forever and ever—goodbye.”

“No! No!” I cried out before I could stop myself. Then I crumbled onto the snowy shore, wracked with sobs.

We immediately explained the situation to the innkeeper and searched around the lakeside, but Sensei was nowhere to be found. It appeared the plan had already been set in motion since around yesterday, for upon checking, Sensei’s belongings among the old folding screens had mostly been packed away. The unfinished manuscript of the "Death Document" had been torn up and discarded. For about two days, Katsuraoka and I waited for Sensei at the inn in torment, but there was no news of her whereabouts. Before long, we realized that Sensei had beforehand packed her clothes and necessary personal items into a rucksack and hidden them in the ice hut by the lakeside, and when the drifting ice floes had reached the shore at an opportune moment, she had prepared herself in that ice hut and gone off somewhere. The innkeeper said helplessly.

"So Sensei has truly gone to become a mountain nymph." While descending Mount Akagi, Katsuraoka murmured dejectedly. “To part like that… No matter how I try, I just can’t accept it.” I stroked his back as if soothing a child while saying, “Listen—there’s no such mountain so enthralling that people can’t return once they enter… We’ll meet Sensei again—we surely will—”

The mountain foothills had progressed from spring to the crisp early summer freshness. When Katsuraoka asked what we would do now, I replied. "After seeing such an earnest performance, my body's turned to complete mush." "I don't have the courage to go back to Tokyo just to get scolded right away." "While we still have money, let's wander through some peaceful countryside before returning." They say that when people descend from mountains into fields and look back, their hearts sway between reluctant farewells and relieved parting—like the intricate rhythms of a small drum’s melody threading through patterned silks.

Moreover, this was the mountain where Azaka-sensei—proclaiming "death’s extremity" and "beauty’s play" as her final performance—had shown us a pale crimson nude tableau vivant while passing through the mist over the lake before vanishing from our sight. However genuine it may have been, that eccentric behavior crossed into madness itself. We came to hate even the mountain that took Sensei from us as if it were an accomplice, turning our backs on it once. Yet beneath that hatred came the realization—Wait—it couldn’t have been entirely so—for had we at least not formed such bonds of spiritual connection, Sensei might never have found the chance in her lifetime to voice the solitude of her noble aspirations to another soul. As we came to think this way, there was a pathos in those evening clouds drifting toward Azaka-sensei that made us turn to look at the mountain once more.

While lingering by the foothills' edge, we visited the famous O-Kakurazakura tree near Ōmama Station. The month had entered May, and this magnificent weeping cherry tree had fully transformed into one cloaked in leaves. The iron-like roots at its base were thick enough to conceal even an ox, while its towering trunk was gazed upon as something fiercely majestic against the sky. However, the cascading young leaves from the treetop branches—delicately entwined with the wind into a curtain-like rain—left even the colossal Mount Akagi buried under a pale yellow-green downpour.

“Foxes, tanuki, beasts—” Even as I bathed in this fresh green curtain rain and gazed upon Heira’s mountain shadow, I still could not help but mutter these words persistently. That mountain—that Sensei—they still continued to transform us. Even after draping over our hearts the lingering tail of farewell steeped in utmost poignancy for days on end, the memory of the mountain—the memory of Sensei—would continue to lure us into this strange melancholy.

In some bygone era—the old farmer from a nearby farmhouse said that judging by its age, it had likely been over six hundred years—there was a girl named O-Kaku who had planted this cherry sapling with her own hands. It was said that sapling, having weathered unforeseen seasons, had grown into such a giant tree. The old man’s account of the cherry tree’s origins amounted to just this much, yet in my heart, I found myself connecting thoughts from Sensei to imagining some profound personal history for this girl who had been the cherry tree’s planter. Was not this O-Kaku—the girl child of antiquity—too one of those unfortunate women who, finding their lives obstructed in this fleeting world, had pinned hopes on future eras and redirected their life force at least toward unfeeling plants and trees? When seeing the ancient cherry tree—its single-minded resolve to alluringly drape over people’s shoulders even after six hundred long years—one could not help but be reminded once more of the girl who had planted it, no, of all women’s eternally unfulfilled dreams of life that would never bear fruit.

Across the plains of Jōshū and Nōshū, trains and trams spread their conveniences like a spider’s web. We wandered along these spiderweb tracks, manifesting our hearts’ entanglement—the desire to leave the mountain versus its magnetic pull. Though inching closer to Tokyo with each step, we moved with listless apathy. Even had we rushed back, Tokyo offered nothing but ruin awaiting us.

I leaned against the inn's rain-soaked veranda railing. A caterer brought a simple lunch in tiered boxes along the road. At Yabutsuka Hot Springs we spent two days where even waiting for this meager meal became one of our idle occupations. We crossed a mountain in the distance. From our third-floor room we could see pine-covered hills, wind rippling through young rice shoots in Koyamada, and bluish-glowing wheat fields beyond the ridges. Here too being that sort of place with nothing to occupy us, we retired early to bed. At Nishinagaoka Hot Springs we spent one night listening to the wooden clapper beneath our pillows signaling the hot spring's flow.

We paid a visit to the renowned Nonryū-sama in Ōta. In the temple town, teahouses and inns lined the streets, and the voices of maids soliciting customers carried a rustic charm. The spacious temple grounds now bustled with people, most of whom seemed drawn toward the bell tower. Everyone kept saying it was a bell memorial service. On the scaffold built around the great bell in the bell tower, children painted white began their procession. Parading forth with ceremonial grandeur yet complete ignorance of its meaning, these young acolytes moved through the crowd. There had been days in my own past when I too thought of nothing beyond blooming upon a festival float. The droning sutra chants swelled louder. A bishop wearing a brocade hat shaped like taro leaves emerged from the procession, scattering paper lotus flowers left and right from the scaffold. For one fleeting moment, paper lotuses glittering silver and crimson in the midday sun were swept into people's hands; for one fleeting moment, a human child—a woman's life—shimmering with earthly desires and enlightenment on love's twin faces, vanished into nothingness.

The young children, led by an old woman wary of the crowd, were being given biscuits meant for the small monkeys at the little zoo’s wire netting. The Goryū Pine, said to sprawl fifty ken in all directions from a single short trunk. Ōta’s Kanayama, celebrated in song, was lushly covered with young pine trees. From this mountaintop, they say one could view the landscape of Kantō Hasshū. For the first time in a while, I felt a somewhat carefree mood and swung both hands back and forth from the base of my shoulders. Where my outstretched fingertips pointed—to the right lay the Tone River, to the left the Watarase River—both winding and twisting as they flowed without sorrow or hardship. As I gazed upon this, for the first time in ages, I felt revived by the sensation of my blood’s pulse beginning to flow. What suddenly came to mind was Azaka-sensei’s words from the mountaintop. “Miss Chōko, you are water without inherent character—your nature is defined solely by the soil.” Water defined solely by soil—wasn’t that essentially a river? Azaka-sensei’s human words on the mountain—perhaps governed by that environment’s grand natural scale—had resembled listening to Shinobu Mie jōruri narrative chanting. Though I had retained them in my heart only as a beautiful melody, these eyes seeing the river here now made those mountain words come alive, thrusting them into my bodily senses. Sensei had said again, “There’s truly no need to fear being the descendant of beggars. Try letting yourself be carried into the soil once. A fresh soul will surely be discovered from there, I assure you.” Ah, ah—how this plain and river’s nostalgia seared piercingly into my very being! Sensei’s words had not been empty. I wonder if I should just fall into ruin as I am and become a beggar woman by the riverside. In my father’s will, he had said to rest in the earth when nearing middle age, but given how things were going, it seemed I wouldn’t need to wait until that year.

The several eccentric lives surrounding me seemed to have allowed an unnoticed erosion to gnaw into my body and mind, leaving me unexpectedly fatigued. I wanted to lie down right then on a straw mat upon the earth, to be swept into the embrace of the soil's compassion and consoled by the flowing water's mercy. Not a single thought remained in me that considered this too early for a daughter of such young age. Even while thinking myself aged, I had come to regard with a certain fondness that beggar woman by the riverside.

As for Katsuraoka, he became like a straw doll with its spirit nearly gone, weeping intermittently in small bursts like passing showers. I— “What happened to your much-vaunted toad philosophy?”

Even when I provoked him, “The mirror in the box of my life—one surface has shattered. “And the existence of my anguished self that I had discerned through its reflection is no more.” Even when he uttered such difficult words, the intelligence that merely devised ways to push back against stimuli seemed to lack resilience. “There’s no need for you to get so worked up over Sensei that you’d cry. Didn’t she say you were nothing more than a sports partner to her?”

Even if I showed contempt,

"Even if that's how she saw it, I can't operate that way," he said. "There's still something pitiful and unbearable clinging to Sensei—even now tugging at me through those thread ends, transmitting this sorrow." Then, voice rising: "She claimed I was just a wedge—an axe she drove between herself and Chōko-san to sever being too enthralled by your nature—but tell me, does such a mechanism truly exist in this world—?" Katsuraoka stared at me, eyes widened—those vigor-drained eyes—their whites showing fully round. His whole bearing burned with desperate hope that if some other reason existed—something more nostalgic and substantial—I might disclose it to him now.

“What could Sensei have been seeking in the deep mountains through her self-conceited understanding?” That explanation might well exist. Yet one could not definitively claim it did. Even were one to extract a single strand from the twisted skein of the human heart—truth and lies, performance and raw fabric—and declare this its core essence, it would never explain the skein’s true nature. The cunning Sensei had taken this to Finland’s *Kalevala* poem; regarding life’s totality within living flesh, she merely chanted “O bees—bring forth life’s balm” before dismissing it all. If life were indeed some stratagem, then perhaps only creatures like those bees darting freely through fields knew where its schemer lurked. Ask that bee, and it would pass the secret to another flitting about washbasins—“Here you go”—perpetuating the cycle. My mother had once described those “thoughts that cannot be expressed unless attempted, yet prove inexhaustible when pursued” with an old saying: “Like writing beneath a lamp held overhead,” she would remark. Try writing directly under the lamp, and your hand casts shadows on the page. Remove that hand to banish shadows, and you cannot write at all. Thus people came to call such vexations “writing beneath an overhead lamp.” When humans strain consciously to grasp it, they find nothing; release that grasping mind, and suddenly its whereabouts appear. Life’s whereabouts must be much like that—mustn’t they?

That is why I— “Sensei just said ‘O bees—bring forth life’s balm,’ but—I don’t know why—whether mountains or rivers, in the end didn’t she go seeking what lies in those frustratingly elusive places?”

When I forced a bitter smile, Katsuraoka reflexively muttered back with distaste, "Sensei went to retrieve that thing from its maddeningly elusive place—or did she?" He said this, then continued: “It’s maddening for me too, but more than that—I’ve grown so lonely I can’t endure it.” Lifting his sorrowful face, he gazed toward the shadowed slopes of Mount Akagi, now quite distant from us. The two still couldn’t fully break from the mountain’s pull all at once. Finding a bus on Ōta’s outskirts, they rode sideways across Shimotsuke Plain along the distant volcanic rim to Tsumagoi’s Shōten Shrine by the Tone River. At middling distance loomed the familiar outer peaks—Jizō, Nabewari, Suzugatake—their forms blurred in haze. The locations of Ōnuma and Konuma lakes traced our path’s edge. From there inward floated before my eyes—through mist like a nude figure’s phantom—the pitiable solitude of that unmarried middle-aged woman who’d hidden herself away with such willful resolve that it stirred our resentment. As I kept gazing at the mountains with clinging attachment, I came to understand why Sensei had loved Mount Akagi. Since these peaks were Earth’s passion erupting desperately through restraining crusts, wasn’t it natural Sensei—drawn by kindred forces—would bind herself to this mountain?

Turning back from Tsumagoi’s Shōten, they crossed the opposite Watarase River this time and stayed in Ashikaga Town. The weavers’ market day bustled, striped patterns that caught women’s eyes being haphazardly tossed and piled onto carts.

Next, they went to Sano Town where fresh green winds from Mount Aso blew against house eaves. The number of waterwheels along streams twisting cotton threads. They lit candles at Izuru Mountain's Kannon Hall cave shrine. Along roads where new leaves budded on village houses, May carp streamers flapped vigorously - when they reached Tatebayashi town rumors said azaleas had begun blooming. When boarding a flat-bottomed boat with red blankets among worldly passengers bound for makomo-lined shores and azalea hillsides both Katsuraoka and I recovered some buoyancy in our hearts.

“It can’t be helped.” “There's simply no use.”

Reed buntings sang. As the view of townhouses and factories receded, the marsh grew wider. Near the bow, grebes dove as if paying polite visits from the unhindered watery world, then lifted their small black heads above the surface. “Well now, taking a beauty like you around sightseeing until the thread prices are set—that’s the way to do it.” “Ha, ha, ha—this way’s better than making bad market bets. Ends up with fewer losses, see?” “Ain’t that the truth.” It was the worldly tales of local passengers accompanied by a geisha.

In the second-floor room of a ryotei overlooking azalea-covered hills across the marsh, as we faced the midday meal featuring crucian carp, eel, and water shield—all said to be caught in this marsh—the sound of a rustic shamisen drifted in from somewhere. Clusters of azalea shrubs completely covered the hill's rounded form in russet, over which the budding flowers and tender sprouts appeared like a pale kudzu veil cast upon them. The early summer sun broke through, making the red-and-white striped tents of the rest area glint conspicuously.

Small fish darted sharply through the bright water surface among the algae, leaving wakes as though fleeing something. Whorls of water—casting small waves onto the surrounding algae and reflecting the sky’s color into an oil-like hue—were expanding their circles here and there. All around, marsh gas bubbles burst plop plop like raindrops across the water’s surface.

When my body and mind settled, something like an inexhaustible regret would begin stirring restlessly within me. Of course I had never consciously or intentionally done anything of the sort - yet whenever I interacted with Ikeno in Tokyo it transformed that young man into something like a patient of peculiar mystical yearning sickness, and leaving him in that state while prolonging our travels was certain to worsen his condition further - yet still I departed all the same. Should I grow close to Azaka-sensei, I end up making her vanish like morning mist. Though Sensei clearly felt drawn to becoming intimate kin with me - even shyly asking me face-to-face to let her drink my breastmilk - she fell instead into opposite behaviors. While this likely stems from seeds within her own nature, might there not dwell within me from birth some Magatsuhi-no-kami that draws forth such aberrations from people? Coming to think this way filled me with utter self-loathing.

This young man Katsuraoka before me, listlessly eating his tasteless rice, upon reflection also appeared to have been made into such a half-baked human being through my Magatsuhi-no-kami collaborating with Azaka-sensei's contrariness. The motive behind my departure from Tokyo with this young man must have been my intention to confront Azaka-sensei to correct this man's thinking, which I believed was being reproached by her. I seemed to have stirred up maternal instincts toward the young man and a woman's humanism. And what do you know? When up on the mountain, Azaka-sensei told me in a single phrase—that this man held no attachment for her, but rather she herself had been tormented by an attachment whose object was me—I instantly felt relieved through and through.

Ever since then, I had stopped worrying much about what might become of this man. As long as he didn't run away from me, I perceived that his very lack of inner substance paradoxically made him an un-stubborn male companion who was easy to keep company with. In the young man's seemingly utterly weakened state, I couldn't help but feel a humor-tinged affection. What utterly self-serving maternity and presumptuous humanism this was! Here I found within myself that wicked Magatsuhi-no-kami again. However, even Katsuraoka had begun to change since coming here. He had started showing a strangely excited mood. Perhaps because he'd calmed down somewhat, the physical strength that had been depleted until now began being replenished in a warped manner. He would restlessly tear off the heads of sweet-simmered crucian carp and fling them unnervingly into the marsh halfway through meals, or unbutton his shirt despite no heat and rub his chest hair frantically with his palm, or click his tongue and hurl his chopsticks violently onto the tray when finished—and had I any spiteful bias to misconstrue things, I might have interpreted this youth's behavior as blaming me for Sensei's recent incident through veiled insinuations. I merely thought "Oh my, oh my" to myself, but as my nerves—still seemingly fatigued—were only unpleasantly struck by that rough behavior,

“Can you keep it down a bit?”

When I said this, Katsuraoka somehow became even more determined to act out. And, “You’re so noisy. What are you even doing? It’s not manly at all.” When I pressed him sharply, Katsuraoka—as if finally finding a target for the pent-up fury he’d been struggling to contain—reared up like a snake seizing its moment, “What do you mean by ‘not manly’?” he demanded. “Because it’s not manly, I said it’s not manly. Sulking without even giving a reason—”

“Who’s sulking?” "Oh, who could possibly say you're not sulking? No matter how skilled a choreographer might be, they could never honestly replicate such death throes gestures as you’ve just performed.” “What do you mean by 'death throes gestures'? Making fools of people!” "If you don’t like it, you can just say you’re like a hired hand lashing out at the serving bowls because your wages aren’t being raised. In any case, how crass." I found myself unwittingly mimicking the mocking tones of the Shitamachi people who used to gather around Mother and engage in lively banter—knowing full well the medicine was too strong, yet still unable to stop.

Katsuraoka swelled up like a Shōsai pufferfish, his face turning yellowish, “Worn-out cynic—I never thought you were such a worn-out cynic.” “I can’t keep this up anymore.” “Then what do you intend to do if you can’t keep this up?”

Katsuraoka glared at me with such intensity it seemed his eyelids might split, "What else can I do?" "I'll just go off somewhere alone!" he shouted. While a brutal affection welled up within me at the man's considerable physical resistance, I nevertheless kept my eyes carefully fixed on Katsuraoka's every movement. "Oh, if you're so desperate to go then run off already! Seems it's trendy these days for people like Azaka-sensei to wander off alone whenever they please."

“Fine, I’ll go.”

Katsuraoka, holding his jacket, began to stand up. At this stage, the women of Tokyo’s Shitamachi district had their customary stock phrases for effortlessly blocking their opponents. “By all means, go ahead. After all, you must still have lingering feelings for Azaka-sensei.” “My, how charming—chasing after a woman ten years your senior deep into the mountains to play her dutiful assistant carrying a cooking pot. What a flirtatious gardener you are!” As expected, Katsuraoka turned around with “What—feelings for Azaka-sensei?” taking my deliberate misunderstanding head-on, then seemed nearly drained of strength by the vexation of being so thoroughly misread. After hesitating, he exhaled a drawn-out “Haa...”

"This is why..." I laughed with a bitter smile caught between feverish heat and wintry chill before looking down, the forced mirth nearly bringing tears. Deeming the moment ripe, I delivered the final blow. "Really now, just sit down and calm yourself! For someone with such a hulking frame, you're being absurdly childish—you great oaf!" Raising one eyebrow in mock tenderness, I let out a soft chuckle. "At least wipe that sweat off with the hand towel from the inn, won't you?"

Then Katsuraoka sat down heavily, rubbing his eyes with his arm, and after a moment, "Well... To tell the truth, I started worrying about what I'd left behind in Tokyo, so I just—" he managed to articulate properly.

Of course, what Katsuraoka meant by what he had left behind in Tokyo and was worried about was his family. Katsuraoka had sent just a brief postcard home from his travels, but he said his elderly grandmother and mother must have been worrying themselves sick over their son who hadn’t returned for over half a month. “With the severance pay from the academy, they could probably scrape by through February and March—but after that, what will they do? The two of them must be worrying themselves sick over it.” “Especially since lately I’d become someone my family couldn’t make sense of at all.”

As I listened to this—though I myself could not discern where things might lead—still, “When we return to Tokyo, I’ll handle it.” I couldn’t help but offer him this consolation. He looked at me with a gaze of half-belief—yet this man who had lost all confidence in his current life bowed his head slightly and asked me to lend him some support, however little I could manage. Through repeated nights of travel lodging until reaching this point, Katsuraoka had already ceased wearing the partitioning band from Azaka-sensei’s Two Rivers White Path teachings, and furthermore stopped registering them as a married couple in the inn ledgers. All of it was the work of that languid weariness piercing through us. Unconcerned with this or that, we two had somehow fallen into a strangely similar relationship. People do not necessarily fall into this only during times of intense love or passion. When young bodies have their very nature corrupted, and a blue lassitude permeates both mind and flesh, men and women find themselves in perilous territory. Ah, how perilous it is—this desperate youth within me that unwittingly seeks to survive even by borrowing the demon god of guilt’s power from that blue lassitude.

Moreover, I had always found Ikeno's obstinately boastful repetition of "virgin, virgin" utterly distasteful, and even Azaka-sensei's emphasis on sexual instinct through inversion struck me as excessively contrived. It was precisely this resentment that had led me to merely attempt skirting past this barrier. As we accumulated nights at traveler's lodgings, even our peculiarly aligned relationship eventually dried up like the Minashigawa River's flow. Had this bond between us—like that river's waters—never truly welled up from its source to begin with? To put it in my terms, I believe the profound suffering of impermanence that had awakened so deeply within us both could hardly be forgotten through such trivial human matters—no more than one might scrape away earwax with an earpick.

Passing through the ridges of green wheat and broad bean fields, we visited the Bunbuku Chagama at Morinji Temple. The guiding monk brought out an old kettle onto the green bamboo railing. The monk Shusaku—once rumored to be the incarnation of a tanuki—chanted with melodic cadence the origin story of how he had employed a wondrous technique that never ran dry no matter how much was drawn during a thousand-person tea gathering. As if providing musical interludes to his words, he struck the belly of what they called a purple-gold copper kettle to demonstrate. The lonely, resonant timbre of the kettle’s sound. As if this were the final remnant, I recalled Azaka-sensei’s unconscious, pitiable theatricality that continued to transform us. I recalled the woman’s lonely, clear true voice resonating through its theatricality.

The famed wisteria of Kasukabe that in its prime cascaded down to the earth now bore flower clusters no longer than what one could pinch between fingertips and let dangle like a shoulder sash. Yet neighboring farmhouses had set up folding stools in readiness for visitors. Since childhood I had adored salt rice crackers, making the name "Oshiosen of Kasukabe" resonate with a nostalgia that seeped into my very bones. On those rare occasions when neighbors gifted me some, I would listen enraptured to the crisp snap of cracker shattering beneath my teeth—anticipation akin to brushing against the cadence of eternity itself. Eyes solemnly closed, I would partake as though performing sacred rites. Now, even as I absently chewed and swallowed while lost in thought, I couldn't help but scorn both myself and these crackers—the treats grown coarse with time, myself grown coarse in equal measure.

Yet as we rode the Tobu Electric Railway through Koshiya, Sōka, Takezuka, and Nishiarai, gradually approaching the great city, my blood swirled upward despite restraint, while deep within my body—which I had thought hollow—there came a subterranean reverberation, the vibration of some dynamo driving life's rotations. I lost all composure to the point of finding myself ugly, exclaiming "Well, finally—Tokyo!" as I leaned out as far as I could from the train window and gazed. Then, oddly enough, Katsuraoka also smiled and turned toward the window to gaze as if trying not to fall behind me.

The rows of houses and their sooty smoke approached, and the train plunged into their midst. At Kita-Senju Station, we got off. Passing through the aroma of grilled crucian carp and sparrow skewers, glancing back at the green willows by the bridge approach, we hastened toward Senju Ohashi—the great bridge spanning the Sumida River, its waters lush with yellowish haze under the early summer rainy season moon. That water continues on to the canal behind the house in Nihonbashi where I was born. Happy, happy. Katsuraoka too contained his joy—threatening to burst forth—within a smile as he restlessly scanned his surroundings. At this point, the two hardly exchanged a word as they hailed a flat-rate taxi and hurried toward Ginza.

“First and foremost, don’t you think we should eat some strawberry sherbet in Ginza?” Though it had been merely half a month, returning to Tokyo—to Ginza—from what felt to me like a grand journey through the countryside was like coming back to a hometown I hadn’t seen in years, yet everything struck me as wondrously new. Particularly, bathing in the capital’s early summer light and breeze made me realize how my skin had unwittingly grown coarse and ashen from enduring the harsh mountain and river winds.

I hurried to wash it away by plunging into the crowd—gaudy colors, chic stripes, nimble-footed passersby—rubbing shoulders as I wove through them. With each step came either the return of that pleasant intoxication or the vivid sobering from a long stupor—in this exhilaration of unknowable origin, I became a perfect fool, looking around as laughter spilled uncontrollably from my lips: “Ha, ha, ha, ah, ha, ha!” Katsuraoka himself, who prodded me with his elbow while saying, “Stop that—people are watching,” walked beside me with a spring in his step as if treading upon the notes of a march. Even feeling somewhat self-conscious, I told myself—we were, after all, just children. Children riding the merry-go-round of impermanence. Forgive me. Please—just let me indulge in this frivolity while my spirits hold. I’ll fall from this ride soon enough—settle accounts with me then.

At a table in the shade beneath a vertically narrow, monastery-style window hung with a coarse waterfall-patterned awning, upon finishing my strawberry sherbet, my appetite suddenly surged, and I ordered crisp veal cutlets crackling with fresh breadcrumbs. Then, suddenly craving sea bream head grilled with sansho buds in rich soy sauce, I switched venues to a Japanese restaurant where a small tatami room with green bamboo railings had been arranged within a Western-style space. Then craving sweetness again on a whim, we entered a narrow alleyway and ate mitsumame at a shiruko shop where you could keep your shoes on while climbing to its mezzanine floor, sitting back-to-back with Takarazuka Revue girls visiting Tokyo.

Katsuraoka, usually so frugal, not only said nothing today but had even handed over to me every last bit of his remaining funds. Had he too come to feel life as a merry-go-round of impermanence, perhaps now awakening in his heart to the pitiable state of humans when they indulge in pleasures? The familiar rows of shop buildings on both sides—ones that made me want to spread my arms and stroke them as I walked—had their second and third floors jutting out aggressively over the road, yet were softened by seasonal decorations, appearing as refreshingly light as leaf peonies made of colored paper. The kimono shop’s storefront display where one could examine both the trendy wisteria-purple fabric and its patterns with just the tips of two or three fingers. A grocery store with a casting net hung over an aquarium from above, making the first ayu of the season leap about inside. A street stall under a willow tree selling supple, delicate, cool-looking pots of silk-thread grass.

By the time we had regained considerable refreshment and courage, the western sun cast its rays on the scaffolding crowning the eastern-side coffee shop under reconstruction; the street grew dusky as neon lights flickered on here and there. At the subway entrance, I parted from Katsuraoka—returning to Nakano—after promising him a signal for what lay ahead. At that moment, I scattered the few remaining silver and copper coins from my handbag into Katsuraoka's palm—pale, soft, and swollen like something long waterlogged since his unemployment. "Here—this is everything."

Katsuraoka stared intently at the contents of his palm, but with his other hand, he took my hand and gave it a shake. “How romantic.”

With those words, he waved his hat and descended the stairs.

“Dun-nay-dun-trillen-dun-chin-dun-nay-chinchinchen——”

From a riverside house beneath the crescent evening moon came the deep, resonant voice of a man performing jōruri narrative chanting with vocal shamisen accompaniment. Gently opening the upper lattice of the thousand-slat door, I—true to form—skillfully slipped one foot into the earthen entranceway from the edge of the threshold. Even so, when I resolutely called out "I'm home," the one who slid open the shoji and showed his face in response was Karo—Ikeno's clerk. My "Where's Mother?" collided with Karo's "Well if it isn't Chōko-san—what a surprise."

When I went up into the house, it seemed no one was there; beside the guest cushion in front of the long hibachi in Mother’s sitting room, jōruri librettos lay scattered atop the evening newspaper. Attached to the iron kettle on the hibachi was a sake flask. When I noticed that Karo was wearing Mother's tanzen coat, I muttered "I see," and thus came to roughly grasp the changes that had occurred in our household during my half-month absence.

“Now then, do take your seat there.”

Karo had himself sit on the guest cushion and had me sit on Mother’s cushion across the long hibachi; once settled, he immediately—

“Where on earth have you been all this time?” “We searched everywhere for you.” When I pressed further about Mother, he said that ever since my unauthorized departure, she had gone mad—throwing herself daily into devotions and divinations—and that today too, after visiting my former school friend Kira’s house in Akasaka to seek some connection, she had gone to undertake a hundred-visit pilgrimage at Toyokawa Inari on her way back. When I asked about Shima, the old maid, he told me she had accidentally slipped into the river and drowned two or three days after I ran away.

“Why?” I pressed, and Karo— “I’ll get to that, but first, you tell me your side of things.”

he did not speak.

While feeling an eon-spanning wonder at how not only I myself had become utterly transformed but my Tokyo home too was increasingly altered, I spun a plausible tale about my unauthorized disappearance—one that common sense would accept—and regarding the retreat to her hometown of that female teacher Azaka, whose general circumstances Karo already knew: how in truth she had suffered severe nervous breakdowns, how this condition had worsened until she fled her family home with suicidal intent, and how Katsuraoka and I—being her former beneficiaries—had gone to restrain her.

“The other party was fleeing like a madman through the countryside from place to place. If we hadn’t rushed, we’d never have caught up. You should’ve known there wasn’t a shred of room left in your head to even think about informing the house or sending word along the way!” Then Karo laughed—Ha! Ha! Ha!—and said, “Suppose we’ll accept that rough explanation for now, shall we?”

With that, he checked the warmth of the sake flask in the iron kettle, “After all, if we were to inform the Setomono-chō shop even while continuing the search, your engagement would be annulled.” “Since even hiring searchers had to be kept secret from the shop, we were quite restricted.” Karo reached out and took two sake cups from the long hibachi’s drawer. “Here, have one.” Since it wasn’t something I particularly fancied, I made a sour face and said “Well...”— “To recover from your travel fatigue, another sip or two would do you good.”

he pressed. As I shared two or three cups with him, Karo said that while Mother’s worries were one thing, the extent of Ikeno’s agitation was unbearable to witness. "He drinks himself into a stupor, but even that seems to leave him restless and unsettled—constantly changing where he drinks within the dormitory rooms." "On top of that—Okimi!" “Claiming your surveillance was inadequate, he proceeds to beat Okimi.” “Even if he is the master, that’s going too far no matter how you look at it—”

Karo fell silent.

"So it seems I've caused quite some trouble for your daughter then." “To put it bluntly, well—that’s how things stand.” As for Ikeno, I could only think it was natural. Yet regarding Okimi, a peculiar impression surfaced. That maid Okimi had long struck me as harboring genuine feelings toward young master Ikeno; if so, then even when beaten on my account, the physical immediacy of Ikeno’s fists making contact might have satisfied her more than his previous distant kindness. The reason being this: Okimi—daughter of shopkeepers unwittingly schooled in nurturing emotions through submission and victimization—possessed an unignorable knack for extracting sweet drops of happiness from bitter experiences, a mental alchemy I’d discerned. Reflecting thus, Okimi seemed a sly creature indeed—yet Ikeno, oblivious and venting frustrations through his young master’s whims, appeared shallower still.

From the moment I crossed my home’s threshold until now, I had resolved to keep any collapse within narrow bounds if possible—to let life flow onward while sparing both myself and others from becoming casualties—yet it seemed the vast winds of mountain and river that had buffeted me for over half a month had blown open the shutters of my heart. As I inferred from the clerk’s account the nature of those men and women’s emotional entanglements within the dormitory, it now struck me as both petty and fussy over trivialities, making me increasingly reluctant to rejoin their company. I said, as if throwing out the words.

“They’re still carrying on as usual in the dormitory, I see. “Speaking of which, I’ve been thinking that perhaps these engagement talks with Mr. Ikeno aren’t such a good idea after all. “I’ve lost all confidence in being able to cater to that man’s moods anymore.”

Karo initially looked at me with a puzzled expression, but this gradually transformed into a smile. “Well, if you put it that way—to be honest, my estimation also lies roughly in that area.” “Pardon my bluntness, but you bear a resemblance to my wife who ran away, and you do not seem suited to keep a single husband under ordinary circumstances.” “Oh, come now, such prophecies...” “But anyway, I think I might as well just call it off—”

“If you wish to call it off, then what better opportunity than this recent incident could there be? If we seize this chance, I could mediate to dissolve it peacefully and with relative ease—” He abruptly rose from his seat, went to the kitchen, and brought back what he called 'osunko' to accompany the sake from the iron kettle's flask. When he resumed his seat, he poured sake into my cup from the hibachi's flask, drank a fresh cup himself, then spread the spilled droplets across his palms by rubbing them flat with both hands. Then he said, “Excuse me for a moment,” and began meticulously massaging with both palms—starting from his narrow forehead where thick eyebrows pressed down with troubled furrows at their roots, moving across to his plump, slackened cheeks.

"If I don't do this once a day, my skin gets rough." Drawn in, I watched him and remarked, "A sake beauty treatment, hmm? More thorough than a woman's makeup base." "Rice oil suits my skin better than nightingale droppings," he replied. When finished, he began repeatedly pulling both earlobes upward with his fingers. I stared curiously at the reddish lobes stretching and shrinking like rubber. "You do such odd things. What is this? Radio calisthenics for your ears?" "Oh come now!" "That's radio calisthenics for your ears."

Then he laughed—tsk, tsk, tsk—and “No doubt. “Ear radio calisthenics.” In other words, he said with a serious face, by shaping his earlobes to be as plump and prosperous as Daikoku-sama’s in this manner, he aimed to develop an ear physiognomy that would bring wealth in the future. I burst out laughing, but upon suddenly considering this clerk’s actions—how he could pause midway through consultations that would affect at least two or three lives, including my own, to leisurely perform this act with such composure—I found myself unable not to feel suspicious.

Is this clerk simply insensitive, or was he being willfully negligent? Now that I thought about it, the same composure that had once directed efforts toward arranging my engagement with Ikeno was now shifting focus toward dismantling it. Observing him thus, I came to perceive in this middle-aged clerk a strangely tenacious form of chaos where crisis ceased to be crisis and safety ceased to be safety—where all things swelled between extremes yet somehow found equilibrium. For the first time, I began taking an active interest in this clerk and, tentatively,

“Even if you make your ears all plump and lucky, that tear-stain mole at your eye corner ruins everything, doesn’t it?” I prodded. He responded, “Breaking your back for others’ fortune leaves none remaining for yourself.”

With a wry smile, he finally ceased his ear radio calisthenics. He brought out the rice tub from the kitchen and, while eating his tea-soaked rice, spoke about old maid Shima’s sudden death without changing his tone in the slightest.

This sixty-seven-year-old woman had apparently worried about my unauthorized departure and gone to nearby shrines and temples to request prayers. Gradually her mind began to falter, and she started speaking incessantly about a caramel-colored kitten she had kept when first coming to this house—one that had disappeared after two or three years. “Aka seems to have returned.” “I can hear Aka’s bell.” They said she would mutter such things and call out while making gestures of pursuit, as if glimpsing the kitten’s form. Both Mother and Karo took care to keep her confined to her room as much as possible and maintain quiet.

Though no one witnessed her fall into the water at the time, it was surmised that she might have heard the sound of Aka's bell coming from the direction of the riverside stone pavement where the kitchen's garbage chute stood open. “She must have chased after that phantom and stepped into the river water,” he said. “Then—the old woman’s drowned corpse flowed out into the Ōkawa River and, carried by the tide’s currents, drifted into the Tatekawa Canal on the Fukagawa side where it was discovered.” “On that Tatekawa riverbank now lives an old metalworker who had a tumultuous relationship with that old woman when she was young before they parted ways—according to your mother’s account.” “Since that was the connection dredged up there, we all who gathered on the wake night had a good laugh, saying that even that old woman—though she always put on such a neat and tidy front—must have secretly harbored some lingering allure and attachment toward men in her heart.”

This Shima was a woman who had initially been sent by the main house's wife to infiltrate our mistress's household as a maid and spy. As time passed, she gradually lost her loyalty to the main house while never fully becoming a member of our household either. I could not help dwelling on this old woman's circumstances now. When I was a child, she would walk me to and from elementary school, grill the belly of the mullet I loved, and shield me when Mother denounced me as a beggar's descendant—when I recall these acts, there were many things that seemed kind. Above all, her secretly arranging for me to meet Father at the Meguro main house before his death—remembering his words from that time and rehearsing them for me like a sacred testament until I came of age—felt like more than mere kindness.

Yet on the other hand, according to what Azaka-sensei had said up in the mountains, she had been bribed by the teacher for a paltry sum and committed such acts as selling even my shameful secrets.

Yet strangely enough, when turning my thoughts to memories of her, even those acts that might be considered kindness did not feel particularly worthy of gratitude, nor did I feel much hatred toward her deed of selling my secrets. She seemed like an innocent insect moved by natural impulses. What lingers in my mind now is this: that in her senility she chased after the phantom of a kitten lost twelve or thirteen years prior, and that her corpse—whether by chance or not—drifted to the riverbank where her former lover once lived. This alone, by scratching away all her insect-like qualities, made me feel as though her pitifulness stood fully exposed.

What a futile, fragile, and cheaply discarded life of an old woman it was, that even this should have become material for jokes at her own wake.

“There’s a mortuary tablet in Shima’s room—let’s go offer some incense.”

When I began to rise, Karo stopped me, “Your mother’s been in a foul mood—what with all these wretched runaways and sudden deaths piling up lately. She said Shima’s mortuary tablet could stay in the house just until the first seventh-day memorial, but after that we’re to bundle up all our unlucky burdens and clear out posthaste. The belongings were sent to that metalworker on the Tatekawa riverbank, and the tablet was deposited at the temple with a sutra fee.” “You can go look if you want, but the old woman’s room has been cleaned up—now there’s just a single Shōki-sama doll for warding off evil, clutching a red demon and glaring in all directions.”

Even though it was past eight at night, Mother still had not returned. With the fatigue of travel and, on top of that, the mild intoxication from sake setting in, I grew sleepy. Therefore, since this clerk—who would kindly devote himself to assisting anyone in any ordinary matter—seemed easy to ask, I requested that he now prepare a bath for me. Karo laughed again—tsk, tsk, tsk—and

“I’ve received your request posthaste. “No, you resemble her perfectly—my wife who ran off was just as quick to order people about.” While the bathwater heated, I went to take a brief nap in my second-floor room before rising. Then Karo called out to stop me, making me turn back, “I neglected to mention earlier—what with your disappearance being investigated and the house growing too quiet after the old woman’s death, I’ve decided to move here temporarily at your mother’s suggestion.” “Your kind consideration would be appreciated.”

he said.

“I’ve borrowed your room to store my luggage and such, but please don’t feel obliged to hold back—there’s nothing of importance in any of it—” Leaving behind Karo’s “Goodnight,” I went up to the second floor that had been my room. Sure enough, there under the electric light lay one old trunk and two suitcases—one large, one small—with the inn’s paper labels pasted here and there. They lay atop the glossy blue edge of the floor covering—that very edge which Father, in days past, would grasp when drowsy and wind around his body like a tobacco moth larva before sleeping.

The two or three volumes of legal books—my father’s mementos—that were placed on the staggered shelves of the alcove had been pushed to a corner, and there lay scattered jōruri librettos and entertainment magazines. The Belgian-made whiskey set had been moved down to an unexpected corner of the tatami room, and the nostalgic amber liquid from Father’s unfinished drink—which had remained nearly half-full while evaporating little by little over the more than ten years since I first became aware of it—was now completely empty. A Western-style coat with a downtown-patterned design hung on the nageshi rail by its clothes hook, alongside a merchant-style haori. "It has been desecrated." My drowsiness vanished entirely under a surge of anger. This dwelling—which I had thought became my room simply through the natural course of the house’s layout replacing Father’s—now revealed itself as something I had protected with filial devotion all along, never altering a single item’s placement. My own pitiful heart. Feeling more defiled than even Father had been, I kicked the suitcase’s flank with the toe tips of my white tabi. Then I laid hands on the suitcases, determined to at least move these defiling things to some proper corner. I managed to shift the smaller one, but the larger remained immovable despite my efforts. A frustrating pain seeped uselessly from the base of my shoulder joint. Then—as if that weight and vexing ache connected to Father’s lifetime burden of futility—tears spilled from my eyes.

"Father, Father—Chōko understands," I cried out through clenched teeth. The sound of my crying grew louder—I couldn’t let it be noticed downstairs. I threw myself down there and bit into my upper arm through my sleeve. From that pain, Father was deeply drawn forth once more, and for a time I writhed in anguish as if to crush heaven and earth between them.

Father, where are you now? On the earth by some distant, distant riverbank? How can I ever meet you? A voice suddenly rang in my ears. One spoonful for Father,

One spoonful for Mother, Oh—those lyrics—weren't they the very ones I'd murmured in feverish delirium during my illness, the ones that made Ikeno contract that mystical yearning sickness? If I sing them now, could I meet you? No—I couldn't meet you—but I could make the catkin willow's flower calyxes scatter away like this, couldn't I? Father, how unbearably trite. No—not trite—your true parents dwell there, right where those calyxes fall soft as whispers—

Splash—gurgle, creak—groan, splash—gurgle, creak—groan— The sound of lapping waves and creaking rudders reached my ears, and I awoke. I had dozed off with my arm still clamped between my teeth. It seemed to be high tide—cargo boats were busily passing through the canal behind the house.

It seemed Mother had returned, for voices could be heard downstairs. I went to the stairway entrance and listened stealthily.

“If she’s refused, then no matter how much you try to settle things, it’s pointless now that she’s lost all interest.” Karo’s voice “But if I were to ask her one more time myself—properly—” came Mother’s voice “Then by all means try—but I knew from the first moment I saw that girl she’s got the obstinacy of an ox and the edge of a blade.” “She may seem sluggish, but once she resolves herself, she becomes a formidable woman.”

"What do you mean by that?" "The character for 'female' can be written either with the futoritori radical here," he tapped the air demonstratively, "or with the cow radical combined with the dagger's hi." His finger slashed downward. "Women of the futoritori type can be managed through others' efforts. But those with cow and blade radicals?" He shook his head slowly. "Beyond anyone's control. Not even you could handle her." Mother snorted. "Must we endure another of your Chinese character sermons?" Yet her next words emerged subdued, stripped of their usual theatricality: "But Mr.Karo... The shop stops my allowance this June. If that willful girl casts me aside after that..." Her voice sharpened like broken porcelain. "I'll starve. This isn't some jest!"

“So I’m telling you I’ll cover the living expenses.” “That may be a splendid proposal, but I must decline it here and now.” “I want no part of kept woman arrangements or husband-and-wife bonds or any such fate-bound relationships.” “However, from now on, I ask that you make our relationship a clean and simple one where we simply rely on each other.” “I can play as much Jōruri shamisen as you’d like, though.”

Then Karo laughed, "There’s no need to press the point, is there? We’ve both struggled through life to reach this age—what good could come of some sentimental relationship now?" "As proof of our simplicity—yes indeed—why not let one more person join this tea-drinking club?" he answered.

Once again, I found myself shown the eternal enigma of this world through its workings. Young people like myself—who had desperately struggled to create those uncomplicated groups of male and female friends we'd idealized, free from troublesome entanglements—ended up producing casualties and invalids. Yet these older men and women effortlessly manifested this rainbow through their own words alone. The sheer banality of it all made me come to despise those very people we call worldly strugglers.

From downstairs, Mother’s voice announced that the bath was ready. I descended the ladder-like stairs, placed the package of Hanayama udon I had bought in Tatebayashi before me, and composedly greeted Mother. “Here, this is a souvenir for you.” Then, when I began to say something in apology, Mother stopped me.

“I know, I know! And starting tomorrow, this uncle here will handle all the arrangements, so just leave it to him. I’ll just say this one thing—you listen well and remember it.”

Mother declared that being poor now meant she could no longer support me, and that I must find my own way to feed myself. "If you can be that self-willed," she continued, "then surely you're not someone incapable of such resourcefulness?" While I bathed, neighborhood youths who'd apparently been posted at various stations to intercept me began trickling back one by one. Karo treated them to refreshments, handed out congratulatory envelopes, and sent them on their way.

As Clerk Karo commuted between my house and the Setomono-chō shop like a clock’s pendulum—neither hurrying nor slacking, occasionally stopping by the Hamachō dormitory—the marriage discussion between Ikeno and myself dissolved like hot water poured onto ice. Karo reported the outcome and, “I was saved because the Young Master, whom I thought would be the most stubborn, unexpectedly acted quite simply.” The sole condition that Ikeno presented to Karo was reportedly the hope that, regardless of whether this incident had occurred or not, he would be allowed to continue associating with Chō-chan henceforth. Here, Karo laughed that characteristic “chichi” laugh of his,

"Since both parties are such willful comrades, trying to draw an ink line from the sidelines any further would prove futile. Let them associate freely as equals from now on. And as for future interactions—if I may use the modern term—it shall be what we now call an 'ami' relationship. Come to think of it, mightn't the mother here and I also qualify as 'ami'?" He chuckled again in that peculiar way of his—this uncharacteristic animation in Karo likely stemmed from seeing his personal philosophy validated: that even while traversing paths of ruin, humans somehow follow courses that suit their innate dispositions.

Mother glared at me and continued her veiled criticism: "There's nothing more terrifying in this world than people who can't grasp profit and loss."

and she glared at me while continuing to make sarcastic remarks. The day after Karo’s report, an official notice of marriage dissolution arrived from the Ikeno household, whereupon the second clerk, rubbing his hands together, said something resembling condolences—“This time, well, how unexpected”—and left behind a gift consisting of a bolt of silk and a monetary offering before departing. I remained at Mother’s house—the undercurrent of my heart drawn to the beggar’s peaceful repose upon riverside reeds and soil—yet when stirred by the relentless energy of surrounding city life, my stubbornness and pride rose up rebelliously, determined to dam that current like a wickerwork weir, attempting to eke out my livelihood splendidly with nothing but a woman’s strength. Then again, I found myself wanting to manipulate Ikeno a bit more, make Katsuraoka—who had become my burden—secure his own livelihood, and indulge myself in carefree luxury—such reckless desires welling up within me. Every day I wavered and grew distracted—it was utterly aimless. But even when I wavered or grew distracted, there was no moping about. Moping about such matters would have only occurred while there still remained a persistent self that wished to hold itself together. Having endured aimless hardships in this young woman’s body until my very bones scattered in a different manner than what befell Azaka-sensei—now having casually discarded even my virginity to the weariness of journeying—when I wavered, I wavered endlessly; when distracted, I remained utterly scattered. In this state, I simply gazed upon myself as one might watch a discarded tissue paper buffeted by the wind—lightly, with my own eyes. Regarding this matter, Azaka-sensei used to say things like seeking the reins of life—she would enter deep mountains while showing me riverbanks—but I had no desire to forcibly seek such things. She would say that even in the world's sayings—the fifth-day wind, the tenth-day rain—when they cycle through their appointed days, it's only natural for changes' resolutions to come facing you; if they don't come around, you should consider that the Sun Goddess was temporarily slacking off at her post. In the end, while keeping my expectations low like one awaiting great fortune, neither becoming an affected nihilist nor an easygoing Epicurean, I simply remained poised—shaken by some unknown force within me like sticks in a sacred lottery tube, waiting to accept whatever divination slip emerged from the chance-opened mouth as inevitable necessity before making my next move.

At home, we hadn't employed any maids since the elderly maidservant Shima passed away. And so I put on an apron in Mother's stead and did the cooking as well as the laundry. In the mornings, I rose before anyone else, let the intimate aroma of freshly cooked rice waft from the reed screen covering the rice tub, and served Mother and Karo using a round tray. "Buying morning glory pots from the vendor and placing them where they can be seen from the breakfast table—you've become quite the household manager, haven't you, Chōko-san?"

When Karo said this, Mother, for her part, “There’s something wrong with this child. “You’ve changed so much it’s unsettling.” As Mother expressed bewilderment, I, “But since I still can’t work outside and earn my keep, I have to do this—otherwise staying at home would be awkward, wouldn’t it?” “Or perhaps Mother will kindly find me a good position as a café waitress or geisha?” “If that’s the case, I’ll promptly go anywhere you say—”

I counterattacked with a laugh—one I myself recognized as frayed—letting out an "Ahahahaha!" that somehow resembled the voice of old Shima, our deceased maidservant, leaving me with an unexpectedly desolate feeling. I still hadn't met Ikeno or Katsuraoka either. Now that I was engrossed in domestic matters, whether it concerned Ikeno or Katsuraoka, I found myself strangely reluctant to make that initial greeting when we would meet again—the first layer of conversation to peel away. Lately, in this mood like diluted ink flowing through me, whenever I met men, I still had to apply some spring to my step or add a gloss of ingenuity to my heart.

That was rather troublesome for a woman. Yet there were times when a longing for human connection welled up within me. At such moments—having no proper recipient for my letters—I would write playful notes addressed to either Ikeno or Katsuraoka. Then from their side too came joke-like replies that never carved themselves into their core feelings. No matter the circumstances, for a woman, a man she'd grown familiar with—through that very familiarity alone—become someone from whom she found it quite difficult to detach her feelings.

Though it was a different kind of familiarity than with those people, I would from time to time nostalgically write and send picture postcards bought during my travels even to my old school friends from the academy—Kira, Yoshimitsu, and Yaeko. To these people, I added that since they had some need in their circumstances to find employment, if through their respective fathers there might be any job that would suit me, I asked them to please let me know. The three kindly replied, promising they would certainly find and inform me of what I sought. When I saw this, I felt somewhat pained in heart, as though I had become a cunning adult who tricks children still remaining within the fence of innocence into gathering nuts while I stay outside that boundary to receive them.

Summer had reached its peak, bringing the time for Ryōgoku's river-opening ceremony to be held. Since childhood, every summer without fail, someone from one acquaintance's house or another along the riverbank would invite me, and I never missed viewing the fireworks of this ceremony I had attended every year. Though as I grew older, that sense of being overwhelmed by its boisterous charm had gradually faded, it remained one of those annual city events where missing even a single year left me feeling oddly excluded from some complete whole. So when I received an invitation from Ikeno suggesting that for that evening's specially arranged boat, I should bring one or two female friends, I gladly accepted while counter-proposing that rather than friends, I would bring Katsuraoka as a means of establishing closer ties.

When we went to the boat house at Yanagibashi riverbank, we were promptly guided across the gangplank and ushered onto the boat. As I was protecting my hair beneath the eaves of the roofed boat and trying to slip inside, a voice came from between the hull— “Welcome, miss—do mind your step.”

The one who took my hand was Okimi in marumage hairstyle. Okimi wore subdued kimono coordination with red peeking only from the tegara hairband of her marumage and obi sash. In that instant—though I had noticed with an inward "Aha!"—I greeted her: "The marumage becomes you well."

Ikeno, who had been waiting in the boat, was in high spirits,

"Is today's boat one of Wu and Yue crossing together, or are we lotus-bound souls sharing fate?" Having said that, he turned toward Katsuraoka—whom I had introduced for this first meeting—and, “Thank you for coming. “Please make yourself at ease—” he showed a nonchalant air. The boat undid its moorings. The female innkeeper placed her hand on the boat’s bow in a gesture of pushing it off while saying “Have a safe trip”—even if it provided no real assistance—a lingering custom from the late Edo period when pleasure-seekers had traveled by choki boats from this area to Yanaka Hori and Fukagawa.

The sightseeing boats were already racing down the Kanda River toward the Sumida. Our boat joined the fray. We passed beneath the iron Yanagibashi Bridge that showed traces of the early Meiji period. Ikeno recited a poem by an old Edo-born poet who had composed about this place, Bamboo branches cast shadows between water pavilions; Willow threads weave nightingale-feather hues; He recited such verses aloud for us to hear. The upstairs and downstairs of the corner Ryūkōtei displayed a splendor tiered like a doll platform beneath the eaves lanterns. Listening to the sound of fireworks launched at intervals, gazing up at the canopy of light spreading across the sky, we emerged onto the Sumida River. Ikeno then declared it was another verse by Kikaku,

he recited aloud. Katsuraoka listened reverently, whether he understood or not. Indeed, even the usually wide river surface was now filled with moving boats and anchored ones. It seemed as if a city had formed within the river—complete with townscapes and thoroughfares—that one could hardly perceive as water's surface. Moreover, lights flickered on one after another, their twinkling glitter making the entire river appear to squirm together with both banks. Water Police patrol boats stood at the intersection, directing incoming vessels with megaphones and lanterns. Across the river's breadth groaned a collective drone of voices; over it rolled a woman's shrill laughter; through the evening wind tore shouts clawing their way; from nowhere in particular floated the buoyant strains of festive music.

The shadow of Ryōgoku Bridge loomed thick and heavy across the twilight sky; urged onward by traffic-control lanterns, dragging countless scraping footsteps, the crowd's dark figures seemed to surge endlessly from the railings like a swarm of rats crossing the river. At the bridge's base glowed the fully illuminated neon of Kokugikan. Our boat reached Hamachō Riverbank and was assigned a berth in the section beneath Fukuiro. Boats that rose and fell like city streets overlapped through gaps in hedges of vessel lanterns and thickets of tall paper lamps, through which the midstream fireworks-launching ships woven into this scene could at last be glimpsed.

Okimi, who had been taking out food from the provision box and arranging it on trays in the boat's central hull area, as well as soaking sake bottles in the copper kettle of the box brazier, left the remaining tasks to the boatman and carried the trays to the front room. She formally greeted me and Katsuraoka once more, then picked up the sake-serving flask. Despite his own ineptitude at conversation, Katsuraoka made an effort to engage Ikeno. To me as well, Ikeno would occasionally pass the sake cup. Okimi’s manner as she prepared the seating was now completely composed, bearing no trace of her former maid-like demeanor. While I watched with admiration, Ikeno said openheartedly:

“Chō-chan, I’ve ended up having to take care of this girl after all,” he said and laughed brusquely. Okimi’s face flushed slightly, but she clasped her hands and said, “I’m in your care.” I responded, “Yes, splendid—what a perfect couple you make,” lavishing praise that drew a bitter smile from Ikeno,

“What? She’s not my wife. “She’s Her Ladyship the Concubine. “I might just attach a dowry and marry her off somewhere down the line.” he said. I felt righteous indignation at his manner of speaking—the way he so arbitrarily disposes of women—but since there are indeed girls who consent to serving as concubines hoping for such arrangements, I refrained from protesting. Okimi pretended not to hear Mr. Ikeno’s words and adjusted her traditional chignon slightly,

"Young Master insisted I style my hair in a chignon today—but somehow..." she deflected. "I meant to surprise Chō-chan," said Ikeno.

The surroundings deepened into full night, and precisely because the riverbank scene was compressed by ink-black darkness from all sides, it rose up glittering all the more brilliantly. The blossom canopies bursting in the sky were now launched at ever-shorter intervals, sometimes showing two or three clustered blooms layered together. “Spheres! — Keys! —”

The voices of children cheering fireworks from boats and the riverbank. Perhaps an advertising boat, mingling among the sightseeing vessels, was burning magnesium in a fan-shaped white light. I felt a joy seeping and welling up in my chest—as though any happiness might visit me from here on out—and though I scorned it as nothing more than a momentary habit from childhood, unrelated to past or future, I had no intention of extinguishing this delight. Ikeno seemed to find nothing particularly interesting about the lively scene around us, and yet—perhaps because the alcohol had begun to take effect—his voice took on a somewhat sentimental tone.

“To be honest, Chō-chan—I’d been stamping the ground worrying whether you’d been seduced during your travels, what with your companion Mr. Katsuraoka not seeming like such an upright gentleman. —My frustration had nowhere to vent, so I took it out on Okimi nearby. Making her Her Ladyship the Concubine and creating an obligation to look after her was just another twisted form of lashing out—and there was this strange stubbornness too, thinking how infuriating it was to sit here alone with hands politely folded on my lap while you went about acting so willfully—”

Then, as if resetting himself, he poured sake from the cup washer into the cup and offered it to Katsuraoka, “Now Mr. Katsuraoka—though I say this—for a youth as bland as a plant like you without a hint of unpleasantness, I wouldn’t begrudge entrusting even Chō-chan’s body to your care.” Here, he laughed again with feigned openness. I let out a mocking snort, “I’m not lingering in such a place anymore.”

Having discarded Ikeno’s machinations yet recognizing this as the perfect opportunity, “But you… Do you remember how I entrusted you with that man’s welfare before leaving the dormitory? Or has recent turmoil nullified that arrangement?” Then Ikeno remained silent awhile before replying: “Only the marriage was dissolved. As for other matters—so long as my will persists—I shall fulfill every contract made with you.”

He was deliberately using difficult words to distract from his embarrassment before others. I didn’t expose him, “Then I’ll ask this of you. Wouldn’t you have Mr. Katsuraoka employed as the dormitory gardener at the same salary he received while working at the academy? Since this person is currently unemployed and truly in need, if you would be so kind as to do that, I can’t tell you how much of a burden would be lifted from my shoulders.” Ikeno, unexpectedly amicably, “What, that sort of demand? It’s not money I broke my back to earn—if it can be of use, command me as much as you like. Not that this is any sort of payment, but I’d want Chō-chan not to forget that single lifelong wish I once sought from you.”

As I listened to Ikeno’s voice—that of a pampered young master yet oddly tenacious and stubborn when it suited him—I recalled a day in the dormitory when he had worn a pained expression and confessed he still hadn’t found the true thread of life. Chō-chan has that. I want Chō-chan to draw out that lotus thread for me. Remembering how he’d said he wanted to be firmly tied to Chō-chan’s thread and kept alive forever—I was aghast that this spoiled heir still clung so obstinately to that pursuit—

“Anyway, since what you crave was never mine to begin with, giving it away wouldn’t make it any less.” “We-ell, if that’s what you want, I’ll give you as much as you like.” When I teased him like this, Ikeno glared at me with a face ready to erupt. Beside us, Okimi trembled, “I don’t understand any of this, but whenever this matter comes up, Young Master becomes like a different person—his temper turns violent.” “I haven’t the slightest notion how to keep your favor.” “If it were possible—if you would be so kind as to grant his wish through Young Mistress—I can’t imagine how relieved even I might be.” “Please, I beg of you.”

This desperate plea from Okimi at our side starkly revealed the paradoxical strength of ignorance toward such a complicated matter—her simplistic way of handling it had naturally, unconsciously become one deft approach to the problem. Thus both Ikeno and I wore bewildered expressions as we stared in wonderment at her traditional chignon bound with red cords, bobbing up and down with each kowtow she performed in the faint glow of our boat lanterns. The boat to our left had erected a tall lantern bearing a transport company’s insignia and was decorated with red-and-white curtains—a ferry boarded by company employees and their families. A man in a shirt was making a child clad in simple gauze clothing urinate over the side when his wife cautioned from behind, “You’re drunk—don’t you dare drop the boy!” The husband stared fixedly as he said, “Special valuables handling advisory—ha ha! Nah, it’s fine, perfectly fine.” The boy, still gripped by both thighs and held out over the water’s surface, was leisurely eating a slice of pear. No pee seemed forthcoming at all.

To our right, a motorboat filled with student-like men rowdily appraised the women on nearby boats while drinking beer. Could they be members of the Mukōjima rowing team? All possessed impressive physiques. Beyond them lay a houseboat separated by one vessel. From there, they had a young boatman apprentice navigate between boats to deliver a box of Osaka-style pressed sushi. "They're geisha and their male attendants from Yoshichō," Okimi observed. When she ventured, "Shall we have them bring over a congratulatory gift from our side too?" Ikeno scowled. "Don't you dare! If we do, they'll come over with some formal greeting and make themselves a nuisance."

Having grown accustomed to both the fireworks and the lively boats, we watched them idly for a time as our boat split into separate men's and women's conversations. Katsuraoka had become fully engrossed in his role as Ikeno's retained gardener. Addressing him deferentially as "sir"—even in how he referred to him—he began explaining matters of summer tree maintenance or some such in step-by-step detail. I began to feel that Okimi—with her traditional chignon that seemed both affected and loyal—had come to resemble an unmarried female attendant within an intimate family circle where one could let down their guard. Thus, I found myself confiding in her about various personal experiences.

“Lately, I’ve been doing the cooking at home. Look at these hands.”

When I held them out to show her, Okimi stroked my fingers,

“Oh my, that’s such a pity.” “You could have the maids do that for you.” “I’ve come to realize I’m not in a position to indulge in such extravagance.” “Lately I even serve meals to your father.” “My goodness, I’m truly overwhelmed.” Ikeno, who had been neurotically eavesdropping on our conversation while ostensibly talking with the other men, turned toward me at that moment and abruptly spoke.

“You do such eccentric things. “If you’d just dedicate what should be dedicated to me, you wouldn’t have to suffer such an ordeal.” “In the first place, Chō-chan’s cooking isn’t suited for such work at all, is it?”

And then,

"But there's no helping it. There’s a wriggling worm inside even me that I can’t control, dragging me down its own willful path—"

As he grew drunk, his head dropped heavily forward.

As the night deepened, fireworks began to be launched in rapid succession from boats upstream and downstream, each vying to outdo the other. As they scattered disordered petals between them, they floated into the sky, transforming unexpectedly into enchanting, ever-changing celestial blossoms of five and seven colors. As if taking "beautiful things are short-lived" as their motto, the extravagance and brilliance reached their peak only to immediately fade, dissolving into the cool hues of otherworldly stars as they vanished. Then, as if protesting that beautiful things need not be short-lived, the phantoms fading away strove to reclaim their corporeal forms—dense, multi-layered hues and lights of early bloom burst forth once more toward the vanishing pale shadows. Within each blossom lay hidden several avatars, and when the floral form seemed imperiled, the petal tips burst forth new flowers from which yet more fountains of bloom erupted. Far and near, avatars upon avatars—when they vanished, they were repainted; when lost, they were reborn. Like stitching thread, meteors crossed paths and flew. A cascade of stars poured down—like fiery couriers bridging earthly flames to the heavens, like a hose channeling conflagrations through its pipe—several ascending dragons surged vigorously skyward, splitting the lingering traces of floral shadows to spew mouthfuls of fiery sparks, then waned and descended, only to climb once more.

In the void's darkness, in the hollow sky, the fires concentrated their power for a time, striving to press humanity's fleeting dreams into pressed flowers. But eventually, their strength exhausted, only a single true star remained in the teary sky.

For a time, the flames' fervent efforts made me forget myself, dissolving both body and soul into beauty. Fireworks of the sky—after straining to their utmost limit in glorious display—would dissolve without regret into longing. Yet it was precisely in their dissolution that we noticed, through cracks between thrill and self-abandonment, something being planted within us: seeds of a world filled with light and joy. A seed in the heart. Fireworks never fade.

We gathered both sleeves against the slightly chill night wind, “Ah, it was truly fascinating,” I said.

Ikeno said, “I was lonely.”

The vulgar display fireworks began, and Niagara Falls became a cliff of fire dozens of ken high, streaming all their fiery sparks into the river at once. On the small boat ahead, the dark silhouettes of fireworks technicians leaping about could be seen. Ikeno was completely drunk. "Why must we create such aberrant pairings of men and women in this world?" he raged. “Shouldn’t there be simpler pairings of men and women that follow life’s natural course?!” he raged so violently that people on nearby boats turned to look.

“Now, Master, please calm yourself.” With this, Katsuraoka used his natural physical strength to steadily restrain and support him, fully embracing his role as the master’s gardener, and delivered Ikeno back to the dormitory without incident. From Kira, Yoshimitsu, and Yaeko—each had their fathers inquire about suitable jobs for me as a woman and sent letters informing me of the results. They even offered to have their fathers provide formal introductions if I wished. My former classmates remained as pure-hearted and kind as ever. Yaeko must have whined and pleaded with her father on my behalf.

I chose from among these and took up manual work over intellectual labor. Kira’s father had a confectionery company among his affiliated businesses, where the packaging department’s special room was distinguished for having imaginative girls freely design product boxes to create luxury gift editions. I politely declined offers from two other former classmates and, through an introduction arranged by Kira’s father, was employed in this special room.

Including graduates from Joshi Bijutsu, Sachiko, Matsue, Wakako, Itsuko, and myself had been added to make five girls; we worked from 7:30 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon, needing only to pack about a hundred to a hundred and thirty boxes between us. Boxes, boxes. Sea-blue boxes, drifting boxes, boxes with seaweed patterns that seemed to exude the briny scent of the tide. I took one of them. Instead, I tapped it on the workbench to test the contents by shaking them out. The white ribbon’s knot bounced like a seagull. As if to press down and conceal the seat of the box whose glittering silvery glint seeped into one’s eyes, I grabbed wax-coated white cut paper from a separate box nearby and laid it out. On top of that, I gently placed brown corrugated cardboard. A carpet of dreamlike lightness—countless sand dunes narrowed and gathered to create a pleasant bounce—a carpet from the confectionery realm. In the center of the flower, I stacked Prima Biscuits. Then, I stacked Comet Biscuits. Ten each. Already floating in the imagination were thick-petaled and thin-petaled floral forms—a staggered, disordered bloom within the paper. Tangled pistils, oh! Butter Finger. Oh, stretching pistils! Lady’s Finger.

Pressed down here. Divider board. This side too—divider board. The sound of waves—when longed for, became audible; once heard, that sound infiltrated the shapes of confectionery flowers. Triangular-prism biscuits became flower petals. Twisted once at the joint, oh—it swayed unsteadily. Corin and Corin Cream. Don't sway. Twisted at the joints and intoxicated by the sound of tides, into a dreamlike form, triangular-petaled biscuits stacked eight and eight pieces high. Oh—this wouldn't stand as it was—pressed down here too, divider board.

The offshore island mountain became russet Helen and Helen Cream biscuits. Let me install a medieval-style iron grating in the cave—this biscuit Louis IX, named for the king who launched the Sixth Crusade, was captured during his Egyptian campaign and ransomed himself, returned home to launch the Seventh Crusade, and received sainthood from Rome. The peninsula's rocky reefs transformed into Metropole; its white sand into Cracker Cream. There on the pearlescent grains lay a young lady's ruby-encrusted brooch—Carol Biscuit. From blanched shores climbing toward mountains, orchards steeped in twilight hues—Dried Grape Luncheon.

"Please place the Bouquet Jam Sandwich into a cup—Cape Lighthouse."

Please throw in five or six pieces of chocolate wrapped in shining aluminum foil. Let’s turn them into scattered，glittering stars.

There—I finished packing a box. Then I took another sheet of corrugated cardboard as a quilt, crowned it with snow-soft cut paper, and closed the lid. Dear Biscuits, please rest quietly.

First of all, I would give this first box I packed to Kira, Yoshimitsu, and Yaeko—have them eat it. Let them bless my work. For a time I worked in a confectionery company’s packaging room, packing biscuits into decorative boxes and forgetting everything. I wore a white blouse and cap. There were five of us girls—the oldest twenty-seven or twenty-eight, myself the youngest at nineteen—and a bookshelf holding European women’s fashion histories, pressed flower albums, and design collections. Surrounded by display shelves of French dolls, Greek Tanagra figurines, artificial flowers, and medieval ladies’ accessories in that detached packaging room atmosphere, all I needed was to surrender myself to creating beauty.

I was exceptionally skilled at scientific and mathematical subjects in both elementary school and girls' school. Yet when it came to art-related coursework—calligraphy, handicrafts, drawing—my talent stood at absolute zero. How then did I come to choose such a profession?

For me, the world of logic had become all too clear. No matter where one fell, if one resigned oneself to where one would settle, life could never be such a formulaic thing. In contrast, the world of beauty—though of course shadowed by suffering—emerged unexpectedly each moment, was born anew, and defied any attempt to pin down where it might settle. That ceaselessly shifting, detestable abstract lover—I had unwittingly begun to be tossed about by this irresolute lover’s wiles and found myself delighting in being toyed with to my heart’s content. The still-clumsy hands with which I created this lover instead evoked a sense of pitiable charm.

The materials that created beauty were neither brush nor paper, neither paint nor canvas, nor even metal or wooden instruments—but something that crumbled away at the touch of teeth and flowed down the throat during chewing. Sugar, flour, and my designs became blood and flesh, melting into people. What heart-leaping work this was! Please—I didn't want them eaten by grandpas and grandmas. I wanted them consumed by a youth whose muscles were so taut they showed shadows of melancholy like harsh rope marks—a youth with pale, robust shoulders, chest and arms resembling those of Michelangelo's young David. Then I would have become like a vitamin within that youth's body and lived on through their entire life. No matter how flesh-and-blood a young man might be, continuing to coexist with Ikeno and Katsuraoka had become such a burden that I'd had more than enough.

When I told the girls among my colleagues about this desire of mine, they all wholeheartedly agreed. At three o'clock tea, the girls knew well the delicious chocolate numbers. As they selected and ate them while gazing out the window at the rural scenery of Tokyo’s outskirts, cicadas filled the hills with their shaking cries. When I told Mr.S, the packaging department supervisor who had come on his rounds, about wanting to have young David as a customer, he had been considering it in his bureaucratic manner, but suddenly a youthful flush spread across his face,

“Yes, for this luxury box alone, we’d want some young man or beautiful young lady to open and eat it.” “That would be splendid.” “Let’s tell the advertising department that and have them write it into the promotional copy.” “Since this company’s making money anyway, there’s no harm in doing a bit of romantic business like this on the side.” The girls found it hilarious that their youth had tempted away the supervisor’s professional demeanor and clapped their hands together, giggling shrilly.

These girls would not be considered particularly remarkable in terms of the duration or gravity of their experiences, yet precisely because of this they possessed a delicate yet sharp intuition that had perceived a certain unreliability pervading all of life through even their limited circumstances—and moreover, they were people who held such trust and attachment toward their own youth that they could dote upon it. Therefore, having no interest in past or future, it was inevitable they would strive to fill each fleeting moment of the present—cherished like dew—with some form of value.

“Marriage—” When asked, they replied, “Well…” “Singlehood—” When asked, they replied, “Well…” “Lovers—” When asked, they answered with sparkling eyes, “That’s nice, but...” “But—” When pressed, they responded, “But…” and laughed forlornly.

It’s true that lovers are eternally good things, but does that also mean they eternally end with a "but..."? All four of them were beautiful girls with a scent reminiscent of young grass.

A single room in the dormitory was allotted for us five girls. When we finished work at four o'clock, we would bathe, apply light makeup, and head out to Tokyo under the pretext of dining. We split into groups of two or three—listening to Bunraku jōruri puppet theater chants, watching foreign films, peeking at new dance recitals—until after two or three nights of this routine, some would form a faction that retreated indoors declaring: “Going out so much has coarsened our senses’ texture!” These girls then played accordions inside, plucked verses from pages of Matsu no Ha poetry collections, read Mallarmé’s poems—

Through summer and autumn into year-end, past New Year's until plum blossoms bloomed, I continued living alongside these young women who sustained their lives through female pistils without pollen—how joyously I recalled those days! Linking arms with all five, we even swore to Diana's crescent moon to protect our unwed state for as long as it might last. Yet when word came of Mother's illness, I was summoned home. After experiencing brief good fortune, it was bound to end thus anyway. None of my female colleagues uttered hackneyed phrases like "Come back soon." With expressions suggesting the misfortune destined for all had simply arrived too early for me, they merely said "It can't be helped," smiled sadly, clasped my hands, and parted.

When Mother was thirty-five and had given birth to me, she apparently developed postpartum pyelonephritis. However, since this was considered a common ailment among women who had just delivered, she recovered completely and even forgot about this medical history, showing no lingering concern. Yet as age advanced, whenever I occasionally visited home after moving out, I would find Mother managing household chores while fretting about her puffy face and swollen legs. However, Mother had a neurotic disposition regarding illness—even if she caught a rare cold and developed a fever, she would panic as though facing imminent death, displaying such exaggerated reactions. Despite this aversion to doctors, she would describe her symptoms to a famously inexpensive pharmacy in Hatchōbori and have them send over patent medicines—a method entirely characteristic of this old-fashioned downtown woman’s ways.

So this time too, those around her did not worry as much as she claimed, and even had they worried, they would not have called a doctor—so there was simply nothing to be done. In time, things would have healed on their own as usual. But this time, with Mother’s condition taking an alarming turn, Karo and I admonished her into letting us summon his regular physician. When he examined her, he explained that remnants of the pyelonephritis she had contracted years before had never fully healed, had suddenly worsened, and that she now showed signs of developing uremia.

“I will provide medicine, but dietary care must come first.”

The doctor said this and departed. “I’m sorry, but Chōko-san, could you come stay at home for a while and look after your mother?” “Even if we were to suddenly bring in help now, given that your mother dislikes nurses and such, an unfamiliar person would only make her suffer all the more. ‘It’s still best for you to look after her,’ said Karo.”

When I answered, “Of course,” Mother heard this and turned her slightly puffy eyes—flared in anger and bloodshot—toward us, “Call a nurse—please.”

she said, murmuring. “Chō-chan, tending to my swaddling clothes is too good for you.”

Having said that, through her suffering, she forced a strained social smile toward me.

Karo's face showed this contradicted his expectations, yet steeling himself, he called for a nurse from the nurses' association. Though unable to fully comprehend Mother's heart, I couldn't help sinking into bleak despair. Whether from reserve or stubborn pride—I couldn't tell—Mother, though freshly ill and warned against moving, tried crafting makeshift swaddling clothes to tend herself. When I touched the futon's edge to assist, her clouded consciousness somehow perceived it and she struck the bedding with a numb hand,

“Shoo! Shoo!” and she would chase me away like one shoos a cat. When I—citing her illness—coaxed her not to be stubborn and tried to handle matters for her, Mother would raise a hoarse “Ah—ah,” then slump down limply in despair and resign herself to my ministrations. Given this continuation of events, I concluded that Mother’s preference for a professional nurse over my care stemmed either from feminine modesty between women—even within family—or from visceral resentment at being tended by me, who had been so foul-mouthed in berating her until recently. Yet even acknowledging these possibilities, I could not help but find distasteful this mother who, though reduced to such a powerless state, still maintained her fastidious aversion toward her own child. Even if now she were to call her own child “too good for this,” even if she forced a social smile—no matter how pitifully lonely that might seem—still, I could not help but find it repugnant.

The nurse they had sent over was an inoffensive, mechanical woman who diligently worked for us, and in her spare time continued silently reading novels from women’s magazines. All I had to do was attend a little to this nurse’s meals and, during the day while letting that woman rest, stay by Mother’s side to replace her ice pack as needed. The progression had improved considerably; her consciousness cleared, and her fever came down. Then Mother looked around at her belongings in the house—the chests, tea cabinets, clothes racks, and those usual old tools she had collected—and showed a relieved expression,

“This time, I really thought I was going to die.” Then she took out the ring of keys that had been stuffed under the floorboards, handed each key to me one by one, and had me retrieve various things.

Inside, she turned to me and, "My body must smell bad. Why don’t you go away for a while?" Implicitly urging me to keep my distance, during which she would take things in and out of her Shingen bag to handle tasks or lose herself in emotional reverie. I wondered if perhaps, in her weakened state from illness, she was nostalgically examining mementos of my deceased father, "It’s been twelve years since Father passed away, hasn’t it?"

When I said this,

“The late Father never gave us a single thought with genuine care—he died doing nothing but talk about sake. So I never once gave Father a single thought either.” “Even if I die from this, I’ve no intention of going to Father’s side,” Mother said brusquely. Karo would leave early for work each morning. Not wanting to burden Choko-san with supper preparations, he’d eat elsewhere before returning—never staying out late unless attending banquets. Upon coming home, he’d visit Mother’s bedside to share town gossip and business matters simplified for laypeople’s understanding. Tales of old and new eateries particularly made Mother prick up her ears.

"When speaking of Western cuisine at Fūgetsudō's second floor in Minami-nabechō," said Karo, "the shop apprentices used to bring plates wearing aprons back in the day. Huh, really now? When did they switch to those 'boy' uniforms? Those aprons suited an old-established shop so well though." Stories of times past seemed to provide some solace for men and women approaching their twilight years. As her condition gradually improved, Mother sprinkled deodorant perfume around her pillow and waited for Karo's return. Karo's storytelling grew more animated.

When Karo had become a full-fledged head clerk, there was a time he stubbornly forced himself into the wealthy merchants’ circle of revelry. “Back then, even first-rate Yanagibashi geisha like Tokitarō, Baeryū, and Botan joined in—we established something called the Gaki Taishō Association and paraded all over Tokyo.” Once a month, they would set a fixed day, gather together, and under the leadership of that month’s Gaki Taishō, roam about the city without any predetermined route. Instead of the Gaki Taishō covering the expenses, the agreement stipulated that the president would obey all his commands regarding their movements. It was the month when Baeryū served as captain. After lining up about ten rickshaws and having a light drink at two or three stylish restaurants, Gaki Taishō’s Baeryū led the entire group to Yoshiwara. After ascending to Kadoebirō—a renowned brothel—Gaki Taishō assigned companions to each of the president’s members one by one. After making a commotion in the large hall while sitting in a circle, just as they were about to retire to their respective companions' rooms, Gaki Taishō commanded, “Departure!”

“There’s no more ironic way to play a game than that. Everyone grumbled their complaints as they set out.” “You must’ve had some allure back in those days yourself—that must’ve been rough.” “That’s right.” Here, Karo laughed his characteristic short, dry chuckle. Mother, reminiscing about her youth, spoke of how treasure hunts had been popular during her days as an apprentice geisha, when a certain lavish patron gathered about ten renowned apprentice geishas from Shitaya and had them do it in the Iyo-mon garden. The patron buried a diamond-studded ring in an enigmatic location.

“In their efforts to unearth it, those ten apprentice geishas frantically dug with their chopstick tips, turning that splendid garden into a field of ammonite faces for a time—or so the story goes.”

The two of them joined in boisterous laughter as if Mother’s illness were entirely forgotten. At that moment, when Mother glanced my way, her eyes held the reproachful look she habitually directed at those aspects of my nature that—from her perspective—remained stubbornly unmanageable. Karo then seemed to remember something, pulling an envelope from his suit pocket and handing it over with a “Here’s your dividend.” “Thank you,” Mother replied as she accepted it, opened the envelope, and questioned two or three suspicious details in the accounts. Listening to this exchange, I understood how major transactions at Setomono-cho shops concealed minor dealings beneath them—side ventures where head clerks arranged modest funds for personal profit, tacitly permitted by their employers. Through Karo’s favor, Mother too had been brought into this circle of financial associates.

“No mistakes in the calculations. So then—”

Saying this, Mother divided a portion from the money and, explaining that this was for something she had fronted and ought to pay herself, offered it to Karo. When Karo refused with “Ah, no need,” yet Mother insisted “But this won’t square things,” Karo relented: “Well then, I’ll take it. Since you’re feelin’ better now, Ma, let’s get somethin’ you can eat too—I’ll have a cup myself.” He ordered white-fleshed sashimi and heated nightcap sake. Then, lying down, Mother ate the ordered food that had arrived and looked up at Karo,

“You’re still as generous as ever, aren’t you?” she lavished praise upon him. In an intimacy where they might poke at small dishes with both tips of their chopsticks, their finances remained independent as finances should. In the end, was it not that Mother had wanted such companions to survive? I felt sorry for Father—who, having failed to fulfill this role and sought what lay within women—ultimately died in vain without receiving any affection from her. They say people settle where they’re destined to settle. After Mother left Father and became single, I saw her grow vulgar yet retain her innate vivaciousness—a liveliness true to her natural disposition. Now that she had sunk even deeper into baseness, I witnessed Mother revert entirely to her raw, unadorned essence.

“I want to eat something tasty.” Whenever Mother’s condition improved even slightly, she would start saying this—making the nurse frown.

Karo was a man who exercised sound judgment in all other matters, but whether due to never having experienced illness himself, he became reckless when it came to health issues. When Mother said that, “Gotta eat somethin’, else ya won’t get yer strength back.” He’d order various things or bring back treats to make her eat. The nurse, unable to restrain him on her own, told the doctor, and though Karo would put on an obedient face when the doctor lectured him— “Bah! Even if ya listen honest-like to everythin’ doctors say, their fancy theories can’t handle a livin’ body.” “I’ve got experience—”

So saying, he became an enabler of Mother’s unhealthy habits. Thus Mother’s illness would improve slightly only to relapse again. With each relapse she grew increasingly childlike and unreasonable—terrified of death yet unable to curb her appetite. When her health stabilized she treated me like a wood shaving or bamboo scrap, yet whenever her condition worsened she would inexplicably panic and begin valuing me,

“How carelessly I’ve treated what God entrusted to me—how wasteful, how wasteful!”

Saying this, she would sometimes clasp her trembling hands together and mimic bowing in worship to me. "You’re being so kind to me—how wonderful." Having said this, she would then look at my face, narrow her eyes into an ingratiating smile, and force her feeble voice into a strained, artificial laugh on such occasions. I alternated between disbelief and choking back bitter tears—could this truly be the Mother who once commanded and reprimanded crowds of young men at will, that Mother with that imposing, beautifully taut vigor? I felt something so nauseating it made me shudder, but I could not treat her carelessly. I averted my face,

“Don’t overexert yourself,” I said, hiding my tears as I wiped them away. At last came a violent attack of uremia. Though injections temporarily eased it, the doctor declared proper treatment impossible in our home and urged hospitalization. By dawn when the ambulance arrived, she had already breathed her last. In her death throes—just before expiring—Mother cried out “Chō-chan!” in a youthful, coquettish voice like her apprentice geisha days. Mother had a brother who served as advisor to a geisha house in Yotsuya’s Tsunomori district, though they’d long been estranged. Bedridden with rheumatism as he was, his wife and daughter came instead. They wore garments suited to denizens of the demimonde. Having been virtually cut off from these women who were my aunt and cousin by blood, I felt only the forced cordiality of first meetings—and they too observed the wake with perfunctory formality.

Even so, Karo appeared in crested formal haori and hakama to assist me in all matters. To oversee the kitchen duties, he summoned his daughter Okimi from Ikeno's dormitory. Okimi arrived with a maid and, having fully settled into her position as concubine without any trace of shame, expressed sincere condolences to me woman-to-woman before adding with an earnest bow: "The Young Master also wished me to convey his concern over your many pressing affairs." There do exist women who maintain wifely fidelity toward their husbands even as concubines.

Katsuraoka came and offered to help with various things, but I replied that it wasn't necessary. Katsuraoka said at that time—though this wasn't the sort of thing one mentions on such occasions—that since it was better to be quick about it anyway, his own mother and grandmother had grown quite elderly, and with someone absolutely needed to manage household affairs, he had reluctantly taken as his wife a rather plain woman who was recommended to him. "We're the kind of people who'll end up ordinary anyway." "But Chōko-san," he continued haltingly, "I still feel that unless I have your support for life, I simply won't be able to manage." I answered, "Do as you please."

Karo was greeting the neighborhood condolence callers with practiced ease. "Our mistress here—if we're speaking of desires, there'd be no end to it—but we let her eat most of what she wanted. Well, she had a proper passing."

Karo continued in his practiced tone, “Relatives might interfere. Just to be safe, you should check your mother’s belongings once,” he said, pointing to the key ring.

When I gathered them, I found Mother had possessed enough for a woman to sustain herself in old age. I currently had no interest in that matter. Inside the cupboard of the clothes chest I had opened lay a shingen cloth bundle labeled "To Chōko-san." I carried it upstairs and opened it in what had once been my room—now fully converted into Karo’s living quarters. It was a faded shingen cloth bundle patterned with a scene from *The Tongue-Cut Sparrow* folktale—an old man bearing a light wicker trunk on his back, escorted by sparrows as he emerged from a bamboo grove. When I opened it, there lay bundled together: the emancipation contract from when Father had redeemed Mother from her geisha apprenticeship in Shitaya; the receipt for the celebratory banquet at Miyakodori restaurant where she had hosted fellow apprentice geishas; invoices for gifts distributed within the demimonde; and photographs from her days as a trainee geisha. Why had she left these for me? Another bundle contained a paper-wrapped package holding my umbilical cord with my birthdate inscribed, further enveloped by a sheet of paper where a morning glory had been drawn in childish strokes, its margin graded "First Class." Along the edge of this illustrated paper sat my unmistakable childhood handwriting, its header reading "Third-Year Student in Class B of Ordinary Elementary School."

The other bundle—which I had heard stories about being passed down from my beggar grandfather to my father but was now seeing for the first time—was a crimson woolen pouch bearing the crest of hawk feathers within a circle, arranged in a staggered pattern, containing a copy of the family register.

Late into the night of the wake, the town and the waters of Horikawa were stilled, and only the distant barking of dogs could be heard. Downstairs, Karo was probably exchanging jokes with the wife and daughter of Mother’s younger brother. From time to time, that familiar tittering laughter could be heard.

As I gazed upon these mementos of Mother beneath the late-night electric light that shone with piercing clarity yet vacant intensity, I perceived how even in her life—lived half in play—there flowed certain feminine instincts that ran unbroken through its entirety.

The instinct to transmit one’s own life to a child; the instinct to fully assimilate into a household so as to transmit that household to a child. Yet I found myself perplexed—why had Mother taken my childhood school records and left them on the paper wrapping my umbilical cord? When I lifted it again, a small slip of paper emerged.

Chōko-san, what made me happiest was when you were born, had good school marks, and showed promise of becoming a proper wife from a good household. The life of a mistress brought hardships unknown to others—I may have wept in secret more times than I can count. By any means, I wanted just once in my life to become a refined and respectable wife. Do try to understand these feelings of mine. After all, with one parent and one child, the only one I could rely on was you.

From Mother To Chōko-san If this sentiment were genuine, then half of Mother’s attitude toward me would have been a lie. If Mother’s attitude toward me was genuine, then this sentiment would be half a lie. Probably both lies and truth were mixed together, and she herself didn’t realize it. Even if taking different meaning and form from Azaka-sensei who retreated into deep mountains, in the end, wasn’t this too an act of woman’s true self? Yet through it all, I couldn’t help sensing the pitiable nature of a woman’s parental essence—one that sought until the very end to seep her own sentiments into me, persist through me, and continue living within me. For the first time since gaining self-awareness, I cried out to Mother from my heart and sobbed convulsively.

"Mother, Mother, I understood. "You too were one of those pitiful women, weren’t you?"

At such times, I felt yet another heavy burden settle upon my heart with a dull thud. Ah—how many lives' burdens must I shoulder before being released from this suffocation? From Mother—whom I'd believed cut from entirely different cloth—I never dreamed such weight would come. The mental fortitude I'd painstakingly cultivated to withstand any shock now crumbled completely, leaving me utterly drained of vigor and resolve. Father—now I finally enter that curtained intermission of life's drama you bequeathed me. The water's edge, rotting reed mats, scent of earth. Father—I, though merely a woman and precisely because I'm your daughter—shall inherit and fulfill that artistic yearning your mortal self could never achieve. My only concern: can I attain that nameless state of mind and expression—some blend of folly and chaos—befitting life's intermission? Can this youthful frame truly transform into a beggar's guise?

As there was no other burial place for Mother’s remains, I interred them in the Somei family cemetery where her younger brother now maintained the household. Mother’s younger brother reluctantly agreed to this. Father had been buried in the Toyoshima family cemetery twelve years prior. In that case, which family’s child was I even? I felt as though I dwelled nowhere within the three realms. Entrusting both the house and inheritance to Karo, and disregarding Ikeno and Katsuraoka’s desperate attempts to dissuade me from my resolve, I set out on a wandering journey.

I slipped away from the capital. I passed under the railway overpass and crossed the bridge. I had still been feeling the two heavy male arms that had been grabbing the edge of my sleeve—which I had been shaking off all this time—but from around when I emerged past the overpass into a watery darkness reeking of mud, that sleeve gradually grew lighter. Instead, I began to feel a strange lassitude from having to support my own weight. Speaking of familiarity, it seems I had indeed unconsciously clung to men as a woman in some aspects. Now I understand. Is this what they call becoming disillusioned with things or attaining calm composure?

The road ran westward as a single path through the darkness. On both sides, what appeared to be rice fields gave off a grassy smell mingled with the odor of mud. Frogs were croaking incessantly. While listening to the sound of my felt sandals striking the soil beneath me, I walked on, letting my feet lead the way. As my eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, I began to faintly discern utility poles standing at meticulous intervals along both sides of the road, and lotus ponds scattered here and there among the green rice fields. As my eyes grew still more accustomed, I could faintly discern water glimmering between the stalks of rice seedlings in the green fields—and indeed, the surface of the road ahead as well as the utility poles were now dimly visible due to the reflection of distant city lights from the sky behind me. Oh, lights of the capital—

I don't know how many times I resisted turning back. Was someone removing poles at the nearby train crossing behind me? That magnesium-like light flickered and reflected in the dark foreground as if to tempt me. Very well—though resentful toward Tokyo, I would take one proper farewell look. Drawing out my resolute yet sorrowful determination, I arranged my sandals on the roadside grass, spread a handkerchief over them, and stretched out my white-tabied feet onto the road surface. Propping my elbows on my knees and resting my cheeks between my palms as I turned toward the northeast to face Tokyo's night sky—yes, there must have floated upon my face an expression reminiscent of the Mona Lisa from her maiden days.

In the three months of nursing Mother, whether the month had slipped into late May or early June, I passed through it all in a daze. But be that as it may, it was the dark night sky of early summer. A lustrous navy blue had dissolved into the ink-black void. A damp glimmer floated upon its surface. The stars bulged large like mottled patterns on pufferfish skin, each one tingeing its patch of sky with toxic yellow. The lower expanse was blocked by the railway embankment running straight across. Using that as the near edge of some blast furnace, beyond it the capital’s sky burned as if containing actual furnace flames. It was a white-hot glare that made my heart squirm. Ah—once more those gazing eyes transmitted through my body, making me feel the weight of two male arms that had grasped my sleeve in farewell. The faint dizziness when I shook them off. I couldn't bear it—not again. And within that fan-shaped spread of fiery sky, neon lights flickered faintly. The advertising tower lamps coiled like roundworms endlessly twisting without heads reaching tails. Yes—the capital still lingered in night’s throes. What unreliable sentiment—to mistake foreground darkness for midnight, then have my mood brighten so abruptly.

For our farewell, Mr. Ikeno treated me to a kaiseki meal at Kasumigaseki Saryō during the day. Katsuraoka treated me to thick-cut cutlets at a wayside teahouse in Shitaya that evening. Both were perfectly befitting their status. And Mother, the morning before yesterday, left behind her corpse along with that unpleasant performance she called life. The truth is, Mother had died two days prior, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to believe she was gone. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was still lurking somewhere in this world, ready to stick out her tongue at me again.

I reluctantly stood up. As if shedding the force pulling me backward, I shook my head sharply with my shoulders and resolutely turned my back to the capital’s night sky. Once more, I trudged forward into unknowable depths of darkness and the scent of mud from green rice fields—ah—ah—was this truly what it felt like to be a woman all alone? But I must attempt it. Whether in discretion or human emotions, those superficial things that could be understood had to be cast aside for now. There indeed lay the respite of humans who had truly reached the depths—and if there existed in this world a life force deeply drawn upward—it should be found precisely within that respite.

How far had I walked, I wondered? A gleam broke through the horizontal clouds in the eastern night sky, and a large, glistening moon emerged. I suddenly recalled the opening lines of Bashō’s *Nozarashi Kikō* that Ikeno would often recite with longing—though his own sentiments never truly matched them—lines that had lingered in my ears, and found myself murmuring them aloud. *Embark on a thousand-mile journey without hoarding provisions.* *Entering nothingness under the third-watch moon.*

After murmuring it two or three times and letting it steep within me, I wondered why this could be a state people yearn for so deeply. Is this not precisely my current self-reliant state of mind? People enter this realm through longing. I enter it driven by compulsion. Though our motives differ, entering remains one. And there lies another distinction—withered austerity versus youth. Yes. I—a woman yet a young maiden—now enter nothingness beneath the third-watch moon. What cosmic jest is this? The author remarks: "Using error to approach error."

This was the beggar couple who would invariably plead, "Could you spare a sen?" whenever they appeared before people.

The beggar couple, their hands reddened by the cold to the color of sweet potatoes and clasped together, passed through the falling sleet—crossing the ditch bridge from the town’s main street to enter the red-light district. Both of them carelessly dragged the hems of their kimono along the thinly muddy road surface as they trudged onward. As they walked, they displayed the way their hips would spring up mid-stride and the manner of their slender calves stepping forth with a swagger. The physically impaired pair, whose unnatural movements paradoxically evoked the grand performances of renowned actors, walked hand-in-hand in unison. Against the inherently theatrical scenery of the red-light district, their presence floated with a striking vividness—as if a cutout from a grand kabuki procession had been pasted onto the backdrop. Thus, when passing by such courtesans of the quarter,

“Well, well. You two.”

Though a mocking voice called out to them, the two figures continued onward through the sleet, repeating the same rhythm over and over without the slightest disturbance. Their composure felt so settled—sweeping aside their surroundings with bearing so confident in its assurance that one could hardly discern its true measure. As one watched them depart, their human gestures seemed genuine while those who mocked them found themselves drawn into a feeling of falsehood; the courtesan of the quarter stood with her mouth hanging open in gloom, as though her own existence had grown desolate and hollow, watching them go in self-forgetting absorption. In this beggar couple there was a filth born from boldly soiling what should have been gaudy finery—a squalor so intense it verged on becoming a perverse allure, reaching extremes of pungent degradation.

According to what people say, the beggars were a man and woman around forty who appeared younger than their years—the man being a congenital idiot, and the woman a former courtesan who had once served in this pleasure quarter until venereal disease destroyed her mind, leaving her in this wretched state. It seemed that forcing these two complete strangers to hold hands had begun as someone’s cruel joke, but when they tried begging hand-in-hand, people found them endearing and gave alms readily. Dubbed “the beggar couple” and treated with slightly more kindness by society, they grew unable to part their clasped hands. In time, though mere wooden clappers, the two pieces must have developed a bond of mutual dependence.

The two made their residence beneath Aizome Bridge on the outskirts of town, and from there claimed this quarter as their territory, going about each day collecting one sen apiece from regular patrons and selected passersby. Though no one had taught them to limit their begged coins to one sen, through experience alone they learned this—that being called “desireless” paradoxically yielded greater gains. The idiot had doggedly absorbed this truth, upholding it as his inviolable creed through the years. The two advanced through the sleet with hands still clasped. Whenever they sensed a passerby halting to observe them with what seemed like stirred emotions, they would—through some beggar’s instinct—discern this and approach without pause, extending their palms to say, “A sen, if you please.” To male patrons came the male beggar; to female patrons, the female—here too there seemed an instinctive division of labor at work. While one received alms from a benefactor, the other would retreat and wait with unnatural composure. Yet their joined hands never parted under any circumstance. As though that unyielding grip were both the emblem of their livelihood and the vital knot binding their two halves into one complete life.

Since fleeing the capital, when I counted on my fingers, it must already have been over five months. The frost settling on the ground was white, and by the time I could feel the blade-sharp cold in the wind, I too had at last fully become a proper woman beggar. Through daily habituation, I no longer found contrived the techniques of scattering mugwort into my own black hair, tucking wild brambles into my hairpin, or mixing embers from campfires with river mud to paint shadows on my face. The mirror, my partner in makeup, instantly washed away both shame and sorrow, becoming a freshly clear water surface with an innocent face. If this mirror was my partner, all I needed to do was bark "kon" and unleash the wild fox nature within my womanly being—deceiving even myself became no difficult task at all. As for transforming others through makeup—that was as simple as breakfast for me.

In a drifting state of mind where I couldn’t tell whether it was someone else’s body or my own unless I pinched my skin, I somehow managed to wrap myself in a long underrobe—layered with patches upon patches—letting its hem trail long. The date-maki sash creaked inward, and I worried that the plumpness of flesh bursting out above and below my torso might still betray my youth, no matter how filthily I made myself up. People seemed to notice this too—in their glancing looks that likened me to the dregs of a putrid bud were I a flower or the frost-withered underside of decaying vines were I leaves—and there was nothing amusing about their pitying squints that seemed to declare I’d hardly be a woman one might encounter come springtime. Among them were men who approached with smiles as if they’d found some wild vine fruit at its tip—grinning at the thought that cracking this shell might reveal surprisingly delicious flesh still hidden within this woman.

If my youth were noticed, it would be perilous—I, at such times, “Ah— ah—” “Uh-uh” I pretended to be mute. Fortunately, my mute gestures were perceived as resembling those of a madwoman, and the men would recoil in shock with utterly astonished faces. People call me Ochō the mute lunatic. For the current me, what a delightful name this is!

The first sound a person makes upon opening their mouth: "Ah— ah—"; the last groan a person utters upon closing their mouth: "Uh-uh." It was a voice that could be interpreted as a symbol of life or death. For the current me, there existed no life stretching before or after. With each utterance, I savored life and savored death. If piled up, these would make tens, hundreds of lives and deaths—but setting that aside, it seemed almost absurd how these two vocalizations alone became perfectly sufficient words of expression for my circumstances. All that I desired was "Ah— ah—"; all that I rejected was "Uh-uh." When given food, it was "Ah— ah—"; when threatened with a stick, it was "Uh-uh."

To conceal my youth from others—though contrary to my true nature—the mute affectations I had impulsively devised became an unforeseen boon even for myself, and I grew profoundly convinced that I was indeed both mute and mad.

For me—who had made mystery my heart’s dwelling and sought within this abode a repose akin to primordial lake stillness—severing all sensory connection with the outside world required care as meticulous as removing front door hinges and bolting every window on four sides. This was what unforeseen circumstances now compelled me to do. I became gladly mute. People treated this muted self not merely as non-human; through muteness’s numbness I could observe my surroundings like unrelated phenomena. Even that night storm of impermanence which once clawed so fiercely at my being now passed through me—heard only as pine sounds in distant skies while I listened half-absent.

Having wandered southwest from the capital—spending one month at this village outskirts and two beneath that bridge—I drifted southward along the blurred boundary between old Tokyo's urban wards and the nominally expanded Tokyo's rural districts, keeping the distant flow of the Tanagawa River as my lodestar. In old Tokyo's bustling wards, established beggar territories and specialized begging codes already raised such clamor that most lived in rural districts with fields and groves, slipping into towns when opportunity allowed. T—a small town structured around a red-light district in the wilds—met these conditions through its periphery, so I lingered in this area awhile. A canal drawn from the Tanagawa River toward Tokyo along the town's eastern side flows nearly perpendicular to the river itself, running south to north. Where the eastern village meets the town spans this branch river: Aizome Bridge. The town center and pleasure quarters already had their territories claimed. I established temporary residence in the Jizō hall at the village center beyond their reach. From time to time I slipped past the town's beggar boss' notice to wander its streets.

When I lay upon the earth, breathing in the soil’s scent and gazing unabashed at the solitary moon in that boundless sky—even within this self rendered both enigma and mute—something stirred in the depths of my heart. It was a feeling of compassion toward my deceased father, whom I revived into his true life as a father; my deceased mother, whom I resurrected into her true life as a mother; and all those other relatives—men and women in my former existence who had clung to me through compliance or defiance while imploring me to sustain their suppressed lives. But now I had taken the first step toward rest. Knowing that even designating this moment as true rest would disturb tranquility, I strove to cast aside those compassionate feelings. And if those discarded feelings were fated to return later, then let them come; if not, so be it—with tears welling in my eyes, I resolutely cast them beyond virtue’s bounds.

In my heart, which had come to guard against external influences as if they were flaws, there was no longer anything that could be called "myself"—only the objective world of my surroundings now rose starkly before my eyes, fleshy and vigorous in their definition. Yet knowing that becoming ensnared by this too would breed weariness, I greeted and bid farewell to the passing scenery with detached interest. Thus did the beggar couple become to me a vista tinged with faintness and a vaguely bittersweet flavor. To forcibly dim this perception would itself become another seed of exhaustion. Therefore I resolved to simply watch on, entrusting it all to fate.

The sleet was turning to snow, and the thickening clouds—darkly vying to lead—coiled downward from the northern sky toward the earth. Like pillars supporting the steep sky, several towers clustered densely jutted out from the brothel’s pavilions here. In their forms, there were those resembling city hall clock towers, others like Catholic churches that had lost their bells, some akin to Kaku-ji Temple’s multi-storied pagodas, and others similar to meteorological observatory towers. And upon those towers, despite it being broad daylight, rapeseed-yellow electric lamps glowed faintly, while in every window, stained glass of such garishly thick colors shone as if licked wet by lips. The grimy merino-patterned night bedding lay forgotten on the vermilion-lacquered railings of covered corridors spanning tower to tower. The corpse of a paper doll lay fallen on a tile roof. While there were Western-style architectures akin to towers spanning from third to second floors, there also existed houses retaining establishments that now called to mind pleasure houses one might have glimpsed long ago in the stable quarters—like seeing an old grafted tree stump. The establishment had a roof of tiles layered like overlapping waves. Copper-plated front walls with rusted crests where verdigris bloomed; a latticework constructed in narrow gaps that revealed up to the forearm of an oiran holding a long kiseru pipe, yet concealed her face. Inside the latticework, black crepe curtains now hung drawn shut, while in the soil before the lattice—where pine, bamboo, and plum had likely been planted to celebrate good fortune—only the bamboo seemed to have failed to take root, a dried stalk standing yellowish in resignation among the other two trees within the hitching area. Amid these brothels mingled a sober-fronted clinic, a tobacco shop with an impossibly large red lantern dangling from its eaves, the district’s sole hikicha teahouse, and a kamaboko shop where the sound of pounding fish paste boards never ceased—though I had grown quite accustomed to it by now, this world still felt strange to me. The dark clouds of the sky had now completely coiled down around this world, seemingly having finished swallowing up the heavens and earth of the quarter. The surroundings were uniformly stained in a chaotic, earthy hue, as though the weather had achieved its purpose and reached a point of harmony. Even amidst this turbid earth-toned chaos, a faint, diffuse light began reflecting upward from the road surface in great swathes. The powdered snow, like scraped greasy lard, began piling white on every uneven surface across the area where the weather now felt tautly resolved into being fully snowy.

There was a crossroads.

The beggar couple, who had been moving steadily and composedly up to this point, slowed their pace like fishermen arriving at their designated fishing grounds, and began scavenging bit by bit to the right and left.

A middle-aged man in Western clothes emerged wearing geta, humming a tune as he passed through the brothel’s curtain. Latticework, sunshades, Nakadon—all present within. “Are you leaving already?” “It’s hard to say goodbye.” “When’ll I come ‘round… uh, uh—evenin’, I’ll come.”

“You’ll get wet,” called a geisha from the quarter as she caught up to hold an umbrella over the customer. As their footsteps aligned with the direction in which the beggar couple shuffled along, the beggar couple looked up at them. First the male beggar, addressing the customer in a childishly high-pitched voice, extended his palm and called out, “A penny, please.” The female beggar extended her hand toward the geisha. Startled by the suddenness of the beggars’ actions, the customer—

“What the—what’s this?”

widened his eyes and looked at the two. The geisha, fully aware,

“You see, they’re a beggar couple. They’re quite famous around here.”

Then, taking out a purse from her obi, she placed a one-sen coin into the female beggar’s palm. The customer saw this, “Hey, give one to this man here too.” he directed the geisha with a jerk of his chin, but the geisha laughed and—

“If you receive it from a woman, it wouldn’t be proper toward your wife—I would never take it from someone like me.” “Master, please give it from your own hand.”

With that, she handed a one-sen copper coin to the master. Master, upon receiving this, said "There!" as if tossing bread to mock a dog, and threw it skyward. The coin traced a parabola and fell onto the road surface several yards ahead.

The male beggar hurriedly tried to pick this up, stepping out while keeping one hand connected to the female beggar. The female beggar, preoccupied with carefully storing the one-sen coin she had received from the geisha into the bag hung around her neck, was abruptly pulled down by the sudden force. The female beggar, while attempting to clamber up from her sideways collapse in the mud, did not release her right hand—which would have been useful for standing—as it remained tightly gripped with the male beggar’s. The male beggar, while showing a surprised expression at the female beggar’s mishap, made no move to help her up, merely grunting “Oh, oh” as he kept hold of the hand that would have been easier to release. Twisted and tilted, the two awkwardly struggled entangled for a time, but eventually managed to stand aligned once more in their usual traveling posture. Resentfully, the two of them walked off in the same parallel direction as the customer while wiping the mud from their bodies.

“Please stop with such cruel jokes. However lowly they may be, aren’t they still pitiable?”

The geisha reproached.

The customer, “That was quite a show—the way they looked just now—” laughed with his mouth wide open. Yet he still seemed somehow unsatisfied, “Hey, why don’t you toss them a fifty-sen silver coin as consolation for their little disaster, you two lovebirds?”

he ordered the geisha. The geisha explained to the customer that these beggars operated under a strict rule of accepting only one sen per day from any single benefactor. “That’s oddly commendable.” The customer seemed slightly moved. “Then how am I supposed to placate those two?”

he asked the geisha. The geisha too seemed somewhat perplexed by this, but— “Well, why don’t you at least say something to them?” —offered her counsel. Thereupon, the customer turned toward the retreating figures of the beggar couple, “Hey! Take proper care of your wife!”

he shouted. The Male Beggar, whether he had heard or not, nodded repeatedly in agreement.

“Telling someone to take care of their wife when you can’t even manage it yourself.”

The geisha prodded the customer and laughed. “Can’t argue with that,” the customer also said wryly, his expression returning to normal as if the matter had been resolved. “The song we learned... what was it again—” she continued singing as she tried to recall. “Your hair’s all disheveled—let me smooth it down for you—oh, your haori’s slipping off one shoulder—e-eh, eh, eh eh eh—eh—eh eh—how did you get to be so adorable?”

The voice singing that song felt somehow affected and lifeless. And his gaze would occasionally drift toward the departing figures of the beggar couple.

The geisha seemed to have keenly noticed this and lightly tapped the master’s shoulder, “You’re so spineless—letting your mood sour over that hand-holding display. If I went around like you, getting worked up over every little thing, I couldn’t run my business day to day.” “Just think of it as a dragonfly’s fleeting link—that’ll settle your mind.” Then the customer said, “Even so, that sort of thing goes against my grain,” and boomed out a song like he was forcing cheer.

“You’ve gotten so thin! Still sticking to your usual porridge? Why not treat yourself to some beef once in a while—eh?” They were casually ushered into Hikite Teahouse.

A girl returning from her flower arrangement lesson. The girl, her face flushing crimson from cheeks to neckline in shyness at the sight of the monkey-clad couple bobbing hand in hand, had her palm presented by the Female Beggar—whose voice rasped—with a “Please give me a sen.” “No—ugh, come on, hurry up already!” Pulling out a coin purse from her obi sash, she found a one-sen copper coin and hurriedly dropped it into her palm. Without pausing to adjust her running posture between umbrella and flowers, she fled the spot in disarray. Yet once some eighteen meters away, the girl’s expression as she glanced back now rippled with a slyness like someone stealing glimpses of forbidden allure. However soiled they might be, there must exist in that tightly bound man-and-woman form something that pierces to the core of youthful fleshly passions.

Regarding the beggar couple's strict adherence to their one-sen rule—each to their one-sen—various anecdotes existed. It was said that someone once experimentally placed two one-sen coins into the Male Beggar's palm, like a biologist studying animal behavior. The Male Beggar appeared torn between desire and refusal, muttering incoherently as he held the coins before the Female Beggar's eyes. The two gazed at them together before he reluctantly pushed them back to the experimenter. Thereupon, when that person split them into two portions and dropped one into each beggar's palm, the two reportedly grinned slyly for the first time—as if finally satisfied.

When it came to food, the two got along amicably. When one bought something with their collected coins, they would always divide half for their better half. However, in their haste to devour the food greedily, they sometimes forgot to share. Then, the one who had been waiting with wide-eyed anticipation—fully expecting to be given their share—would finally lose patience. Just as the other had eaten their way through to exactly halfway, from that point onward considering it now their portion, they would snatch the food from the hand and eat it. The one who had their food taken would finally realize what had happened and, with a resigned expression, let it pass.

Now, the beggar couple collected one-sen coins from shopfronts and passersby in the snow when, as evening drew near—perhaps finally unable to endure the cold any longer—they entered the eaves of a sweet potato shop familiar to them, whose owner usually looked out for them, and received embers from the fire to warm themselves as was their custom. Next to the clay-pot roasted sweet potato shop was an oden shop. Parting the rope noren curtain, a lone drunkard stumbled out and began jeering at the woman of the beggar couple who had caught his eye. “If a chaste woman like you becomes a wife, then I’ll turn beggar too, eh? Hey, you filthy beauty—how’s that sound?”

The Male Beggar’s panic at this moment was beyond description. He immediately grabbed the Female Beggar and fled headlong. And when they had put enough distance that the drunkard could no longer catch up, there the Male Beggar retaliated in a voice seething with frustration. “If you can take her, then try taking her!” “She’s my wife!” “Idiot! Drunkard!” “Hey! Serves you right!”

Even after reaching a distance where his words could no longer be heard, even after his target had vanished from sight, the Male Beggar kept shouting. So passersby turned around with puzzled expressions, wondering if they were the ones being shouted at. As the Male Beggar stood bristling like this beside her, one might wonder what the Female Beggar was doing—she simply maintained an expressionless face, showing the composed demeanor of a hen who, taking for granted the rooster’s protection, pecks at food with single-minded focus even beside a skirmish.

I too, driven by the cold, left the quarter one step ahead of the beggar couple, crossed Aizome Bridge, and returned to my dwelling in the Jizo Hall. They were not the sort of people one would feel compelled to gaze upon, yet theirs was a presence too conspicuous to disregard. Whenever I noticed the two coming or going from town, I would unconsciously cast a gentle look their way and, maintaining some distance, walk in the same direction.

At first, the Female Beggar had regarded me as a migratory bird-like newcomer and maintained only a contemptuous attitude, but as days passed, she gradually revealed an increasingly hostile aspect. The Female Beggar first showed her contempt by forcefully raising and lowering her emaciated shoulders, pulling her lip to one cheek in an expression of petty mockery directed at me. From then on, whenever she caught sight of me, she would fix her eyes from under her brow to stare fixedly at me, baring her canine teeth like fangs from the corners of her mouth. Finally unable to contain herself, she voiced her resentment through these words.

“Go away!” “Mute lunatic!” “I won’t stand for you eyeing my man!”

She would raise her fist in menacing gestures and eventually even pick up stones to throw. She was jealous. At that moment, from the rigid body of the Female Beggar—who had seemed like discarded stone—I sensed a gentle warmth faintly emanating. I felt a relaxation as though I had soaked in scented bathwater for the first time in ages, inhaling through my nose and exhaling slowly through my mouth with a soft “fuu.” Having spent so long crawling in dirt and separated from humanity, perhaps this body—starved for human affection—had grown sensitive enough to absorb even the ambiguous warmth of carnal desire from such crude outbursts of irrational emotion. I then felt compelled to stroke the Female Beggar’s back and offer some explanation. But not only had I reconsidered that entanglement would plant seeds of exhausting karma—the swarming crowds were too noisy, and the stones posed unavoidable danger. In the end, I resolved to avoid encountering the beggar couple.

The beggar couple lived under Aizome Bridge; they slept until around eleven o'clock in the morning after daybreak and then lazily rose to go begging in the quarter. Since I knew this, deeming it unproblematic while they were asleep, I would cross Aizome Bridge in the mornings, treading on the frost covering its planks with my wooden sandals. On the bridge, cars and people crossed both before and after me. Yet before long, the Female Beggar came to discern my footsteps amidst the noise, springing out onto the bridge approach embankment to hurl stones in a frenzy. Though I believed I had completely adopted a beggar’s gait, traces of an amateur’s rhythm must have lingered somewhere in my footsteps—the uncanny clatter of wooden sandals, neither fully beggar-like nor properly civilian in tone, which even through their shallow sleep, the idiot with his sharp intuition—and all the more so the Female Beggar with her keener senses—could discern one out of every three times with ease. Having grown annoyed, I began detouring to an earthen bridge located further north to pass through town.

Near the earthen bridge, where a raft of logs soaked in the river’s flow, there stood a small lumber shop with timber and bamboo poles propped against its eaves. As I crossed the earthen bridge and was about to pass by the front of that shop, the Innkeeper’s Wife—who had been leaning out from the side entrance of the diagonally positioned lumber shop at the bridgehead to gaze at the river—beckoned with a “Psst, psst” and called out to me. I, “Ah... ah...” went over when called. In her hands—after having once withdrawn inside and come back out—the Innkeeper's Wife held packed banquet leftovers still tied with string. The sea bream’s tail stuck straight out from under the lid.

“For my husband to bring home such things every now and then, passing them off as little treats for me—really, he’s being far too obvious about it, don’t you think—”

The Innkeeper’s Wife sighed. “Though I say that, you probably can’t hear or understand—but here, I’ll give this to you.” “Take this and eat it now.” When I received the box and felt in my palm the weight suggesting it was densely packed with chestnut paste, something hot unwittingly—unconsciously—welled up and seeped through my chest. I unwittingly recalled how my late father, though wearing an unsociable expression upon returning from banquets, never failed to bring me a box of chestnut paste.

To distract myself, I once again uttered my mute words. “Ah... ah...” The Innkeeper’s Wife not only sighed deeply once more—whether for her own sake or mine, it was impossible to tell—but even pressed the corners of her eyes with her sleeve cuffs, “When I look at you up close like this, you still seem like a young girl. Your features aren’t even irregularly arranged—so why were you born such an unfortunate cripple? Not that you can hear me even if I say this—”

“Ah... ah...” “This may sound cruel, but ever since I started seeing you around, it’s become a bit easier for me to resign myself to how the world works.” “In this world, there exists a girl so unfortunate in her fate.” “When I think that way, I realize I might still… still be harboring extravagant desires myself.” “It’s so exasperating—don’t you understand anything at all?” “Ah… ah…” Seemingly having given up on conversation, the Innkeeper’s Wife brought an additional offering of tissue paper. “A woman can’t afford to turn down paper,” she said, tucking it into my withered sleeve. Then this time, through gestural conversation, her tilting her head, resting it on her hands as a pillow, and assuming a sleeping posture signified that tonight had come. The act of snapping her tightly closed eyes wide open and miming washing her face was meant to signify that tomorrow morning had arrived after the passing of a night. And then she pointed to the earthen ground at the kitchen entrance where I currently stood,

"You'll come here again, won't you? Okay? Do you understand?" To show I understood, I formed a smile and said, "Ah... ah..." I returned to the Jizō hall and opened the boxed meal, finding what I'd thought were chestnuts turned out to be kidney bean paste - a slight letdown - but resigning myself to country restaurant fare, I ate while reflecting. When I'd paraded my former self - that girl with all five senses intact - before the world, I'd unwittingly warped people's perceptions. Yet now, mimicking this disabled mute, paradoxically brought comfort to others like the Lumber Shop Mistress. Pondering this oddity through the night, I stood again at the shop's back entrance the next day at the same hour.

Then, as if she had been waiting, the Innkeeper’s Wife slid open the kitchen door, “Ohh, you remembered well, didn’t you?” she said, having me sit on the threshold. While I waited, she shaped rice balls in the kitchen and wrapped them in bamboo leaves along with simmered vegetables for me. The Innkeeper’s Wife seemed intent on sending me home pleased with nothing more than this act of charity today without uttering a word, but as I attempted to express my gratitude through my usual mute words—

“Ah… ah…” When I uttered these sounds and prostrated myself, she appeared unable to endure it any longer. “You needn’t thank me so profusely. If anything, it’s I who’ve learned resignation from you—” she said, her voice trembling with barely contained compassion.

But even speaking of resignation—when all’s said and done—resignation itself still carries something forced within it. The Innkeeper’s Wife sighed deeply with emotion, then kindly promised to meet with me again tomorrow.

When I went the next day—in addition to food—she said: “Winter has truly come. With that outfit of yours...” With that, she brought out a Kurume indigo-dyed kasuri cloth and gave it to me. “It belonged to my sister, you see. It’s somehow better for you to wear this than for me—” she said. I returned to the Jizō hall and spread out the indigo kasuri kimono to examine it while drifting into thought without conscious intent. What manner of misfortune was this—where that woman tried to resign herself by taking me as a model of ill fate yet remained unable to fully resign herself? It must have been considerable misfortune. I too had grown weary of the impermanence of all things and yet—strangely enough—after dwelling half a year in this enigma of avoidance—found myself beginning to feel a certain longing for that very impermanence. They say even those who suffered excess stomach acid come to favor sourness as they age and their gastric secretions wane. I did not think myself old—and though I knew sorrow still poisoned—a yearning for that sourness arose within me.

That night, the wintry wind swept across the fields as the cold moon hung high in the sky, shining with frozen light. I mustn't have too much. A drop or two of the impermanence of all things might serve as a moistening balm to maintain this enigmatic state of mind, which had grown somewhat parched of late.

I headed toward the earth bridge, hoping to ascertain at least some of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the Innkeeper’s Wife’s personal affairs. It was a branch river where only two cargo boats could barely pass each other. The river, dried up in winter, showed here and there shadows of mudflats where reed beds had rotted—resembling rust on a sword blade—while the remaining water reflected the moonlight’s true color, cutting through the fields in a single thread from south to north. Originally, this branch river had been used not only for sunning dyed goods but also as a waterway for towboats traveling from Tokyo in the north to the Tana River in the south. Because of this, both banks’ embankments had been worn flat from constant use and ran alongside the river at a height just sufficient to prevent overflow during high tide. Therefore, the small bridge spanning the river—built high from its foundation with additional elevation to keep floodwaters from reaching even that height—stood so tall that it alone caught the eye in the plain’s landscape, as if the back of a sea turtle were coiled there. There was one Aizome Bridge upstream where water was drawn from the Tana River, inhabited by the beggar couple. Downstream from that stood another earth bridge before the lumber shop. The only other things noticeable were the plank bridges temporarily erected and removed as needed.

The December moonlight rejected all ambiguous haziness with the fastidiousness of a germaphobe, leaving heaven and earth purified to near-vacuum clarity. Yet the hazel groves—a local feature of these fields—stood lined along the grid-like paths and diamond-shaped ridges, their branches hung with clusters of dried fruit that rustled ceaselessly in the howling night wind. From this sound alone, one might imagine motes of jade dust rising into the sky, and perhaps because of this, the moonlit world seemed tinged with a faint hue akin to sandalwood’s smoky scent.

When I looked around, there was not a soul amidst the wintry winds; encircling the horizon from Tana River’s distant embankments through seas of hazel tree shadows lay villages slightly darkened yet intermingled across my panoramic view. Only in the northern sky could I glimpse an aurora of city lights. Within this nightscape stretched two entrances to single-sided towns from Aizome Bridge and Earth Bridge’s approaches—as they delved deeper into town’s heart, house shadows thickened by degrees while in the western corner rose a red-light district towering distinct from merchant home clusters like some monster-haunted castle studded with blazing lights.

I wandered about awhile, captivated by the scenery, until I found myself drawing near the earth bridge. The moment the lights from the lumber shop’s kitchen entrance and windows came into clear view, I pressed myself into the shadow of the bridge’s slope—for I had spied a lone woman’s figure on the embankment at its far end. The moon now at its zenith bathed the embankment path in light that glinted back smooth as a whetstone’s surface. The slender young woman paced soundlessly across this plane. In one arm she cradled what seemed women’s garments—now holding them up to moonlight for inspection, now crumpling and refolding them against her chest before resuming her bowed-head promenade. Whether from her gait or tricks of light, each sway of her body cast shadows that shifted between single and double layers: solitary as a single-petaled bloom when unified; alluringly disordered as multi-petaled flowers with staggered petals when doubled.

Was it because of the river mist beginning to rise that things appeared so? The wind started dying down, and the temperature suddenly became warmer. From the moment I concealed myself in the shadow of the bridge’s slope to avoid being noticed, I recognized the woman as the Innkeeper’s Wife, yet as she retained some sorrowfully beautiful form, I wished to gaze upon her a while longer as a woman of lament beneath the moon rather than as the Innkeeper’s Wife, and so I did not immediately reveal myself, instead peering at her figure within the stealthy night air. When I thought about it, even beauty itself had long been estranged from me since the time I worked in the biscuit packaging room of a confectionery company.

Tossed by moonlight and swayed by river mist, the slender young woman's figure paced back and forth along the embankment that lay as if spread with white silk gauze. Her shadow shifted between single clarity and blurring into dual layers. The graceful undulations of her form were akin to a white flame separated from its firewood and cast upon the water's surface. From within the flickering light came the sound of stifled weeping. The woman would occasionally stop to spread out the garments and examine them. Under the moonlight, the large patterns gleamed.

I thought the time was right and stood up, uttering "Ah... Ah..." The Innkeeper’s Wife appeared startled but recognized me at once. She glanced back at the light from her home’s shoji screen before walking toward me with what seemed like nostalgic affection. The wind had died completely now, fog enveloping the area until the red-light district’s lamps glimmered like dragon lanterns on some mountain beyond an imagined sea. We descended to the embankment path beneath the bridge—hidden from the lumber shop’s view—and sat shoulder-to-shoulder on discarded stones there. The Innkeeper’s Wife began by—

“You’re not cold, are you?” With that, she stroked my kimono, adjusted the collar, and checked that I had properly layered beneath it the indigo kasuri kimono she had given me earlier that day. “What a clever girl you are.” She smiled faintly. I asked why she had paced back and forth on the embankment with restless hands, spreading out garments to examine them and stifling sobs. “Ah... Ah...” At this, the Innkeeper’s Wife gave a bitter smile and waved her limp hand, but driven by my increasingly insistent questioning,

“Can you hear at all?” “Even if you can’t hear—we’re both women—surely some part of this heartfelt talk must reach you.” “At any rate, I’ll speak my piece.” With that, she began addressing me—still feigning muteness—as follows: About a year ago, the previous wife of this lumber shop passed away. The deceased wife was this Innkeeper’s Wife’s elder sister. The master and the elder sister had shared a long courtship before marrying. The elder sister had lived less than three years after wedding the master here before succumbing to consumption about a year past. At her deathbed, she willed her younger sister to immediately take her place as the master’s wife—to fulfill in her stead the marital bond she herself had left incomplete. “Better that,” she’d reasoned, “than letting our precious husband wed some stranger.”

The Innkeeper’s Wife married the master in accordance with her elder sister’s will. "The younger sister does not dislike the master." The younger sister understood that when her mind was calm, she did not force herself to act coldly toward herself. However, should she learn through some chance that the master had not freed himself from memories of her sister, her heart would be utterly torn apart by jealousy and disappointment. "My husband pleaded, ‘I’ll discard my memories of your sister too, so you must cast aside your own self and completely take on her feelings for me.’"

The Innkeeper’s Wife said that while discarding memories of the deceased must be arduous labor, casting aside oneself to take on her sister’s feelings was an even more grueling effort. She began praying to her sister’s spirit: “Please make me exactly like my sister.” Moreover, the younger sister endeavored to imitate everything from her elder sister’s temperament down to her gestures and manner of speech. Thanks to these efforts, the master said he now occasionally glimpsed her elder sister’s visage within her. At this, I would feel a momentary joy. “But what credit is that to me as a woman? It would merely become a gauge for my own heart. My husband’s love remains for my sister—is it not for me, the younger sister?” “Even so,” she continued, “the younger sister has no prospect of freshly redirecting her husband’s love toward herself through her own efforts alone.”

While the younger sister’s heart was in turmoil, she hid that turmoil from her husband. My husband said he had lately grown able to feel toward me much as he had toward my elder sister, and began retrieving items he had carefully stored away as mementos of her, handing them over to me one by one. “The younger sister—superficially compliant though she may be—how could she possibly wear her elder sister’s kimono against her skin when her heart remained in such turmoil?” “The indigo kasuri kimono I gave you was given with that same meaning,” said the Innkeeper’s Wife.

Tonight, having been praised by her husband for growing ever more like her sister, the younger Innkeeper’s Wife received this ceremonial kimono—her sister’s memento. “However, I’ll give you this ceremonial kimono too.” “As my husband becomes more like that, this bitter frustration of feeling myself being pushed into some corner—I just don’t know what to do about it anymore.” I thought of this line to say to the troubled woman. “If you dislike becoming your sister, then how about making her be reborn as you instead?”

But in the end, I maintained my muteness. At present, even if such impertinent words come to mind, they do not pass my lips. When I simply kept looking down, the Innkeeper’s Wife took my hand and said: “Oh, you’re crying. They say even madness has its reasons in the lines of Noh chants—so then, have my words struck some chord in your heart?” If I were to respond here with “Ah... Ah...,” matters would settle into a proper exchange and satisfy the Innkeeper’s Wife, but it would not align with the impermanence of all things that I seek. I hardened my heart and said “No.”

Hearing this, the Innkeeper’s Wife murmured “Ah well—there’s no helping it” and slumped in resignation—a beautiful sight indeed. How deeply that must have soaked into my parched, enigmatic heart. I feigned insensibility and casually walked away—to leave this beautiful resentment of unfulfilled desires lingering eternally between the two women. Human compassion does not go to waste. Lately, neuralgia had begun plaguing my legs and hips from this unaccustomed life upon bare earth, making me dread the intensifying cold of the harsh winter to come—yet beneath my beggar’s rags, the layered indigo kasuri ceremonial kimono given by the Innkeeper’s Wife shielded me from damp chill with doubly warm secrecy, and even when pain did flare up through some confluence of circumstances, it confined itself to localized heat that never exceeded bearable limits. Finding it unbearable to repay this kindness solely through muteness, I searched the wilds around the Jizō hall, gathered a bundle of winter dogwood branches—lonely yet bearing white funnel-shaped flowers even in winter—and quietly left them at the lumber shop’s kitchen entrance. The flowers will convey my thanks in my stead. I then made my way toward town. Thinking to visit the red-light district for the first time in ages, I turned from the town’s main street toward Ditch Bridge. There, who should I encounter but the married beggars. As soon as she saw me, the female beggar immediately stuck out her tongue and went “Eeeh!” like a child.

“Preen all you like—there’s no takers for you. What’s this? Strut around in that fancy kimono you got handed, trying to steal my man—you’re a sex-crazed lunatic, you are!” Even through her garbled stream of curses, I understood she’d sniffed out the fine garment hidden beneath my filthy rags—how this discovery stoked the flares of her jealousy higher still. When I tried slipping past the beggar couple toward the red-light district, the Female Beggar did something unprecedented—she wrenched free from her man’s grip and came at me.

“Hand over that fine garment!”

She put her hands to my sash and began slyly pulling it apart through brute strength. I too, driven by her relentless persistence— “Stop it!” —ended up shouting, though I immediately knew this misstep was irreversible. As I resigned myself with “Fine then,” from beneath that very thought rose a beggar’s trifling ditty chanting itself: “Tattered and reckless Sandogasa, worn sideways.” I twisted the female beggar’s arm back, pinned her to the bridge planks, then fled headlong into the licensed quarter. Through the chaos, I could only discern fragments—the female beggar’s wailing lamentations, the male beggar gaping in stunned dismay at my broken silence as he watched me retreat.

The following day, setting aside the fear that my feigned muteness would be exposed, the fact that I had physically confronted the female beggar clung tenaciously to my mind—oppressively so—leaving me disinclined to go out for alms. Under the eaves of the Jizō hall, I did nothing but contrive to dissolve my feelings into an enigma.

Then along the ridge path of the winter fields came the female beggar alone. Her normally unsteady gait now lifted erratically into the air at times, and seeing how her face had flushed crimson, she seemed drunk. I thought, "Oh?" Having spotted me on the Jizō hall's veranda, the female beggar lunged forward until she stood about six feet away—but then, perhaps having been chastened by my display of skill the day before, halted and began performing bizarre antics.

After stamping her feet violently as if assaulted, she spat and planted her feet wide in a defiant stance, arching her torso backward into a pose. Stretching her facial skin taut with pursed lips, she twisted her features into a skeletal mask that mocked all observers. No sooner had she done this than she suddenly shrieked and collapsed onto the frost-rimed earth, rolling about like a caterpillar beset by ants. Rising again, she emitted an incoherent cry and began pounding her own skull with both fists while tearing out clumps of hair—her movements growing increasingly frenetic as she ripped open her bodice and clawed at her shriveled breasts with ragged nails as though dispelling some nuisance. This time she hitched up her hem, alternately kicking both legs skyward before spinning full circle and shaking her hips repeatedly—finally attempting to bare even her most private parts directly to me.

I, thinking this was nothing more than retaliation for yesterday’s events, was devising ways to remain indifferent when she finally— “Hmph. Guess I ain’t no match for you after all.”

Through that single phrase spoken through tears, I realized that even this simpleton was a woman.

The female beggar—simpleton though she was—had likely never once resented being bested by other women in matters of feminine wiles. Even if she had harbored such feelings, she would have forgotten them instantly. Yet yesterday I had shattered that record. And worse—I had forced this realization upon her through physical confrontation. When a woman finds that which she should most rely on as a woman destroyed and loses all confidence—what becomes of her? The only path left for self-preservation lies in transferring every ounce of self-mockery and reproach onto one’s own being—in anchoring oneself solely to the power of self-inflicted torment. When a woman utters from her heart, “I’m just…”, no external force can withstand it. For it marks the moment she comes to stake her survival upon her own unspeakably cruel resilience against herself.

As Azaka-sensei had noted, I appeared to possess a water-natured disposition—indeed, I could recall never having properly contended with another woman. Rather than confront them directly, I had always wound about my opponents like patterns in reed paintings, achieving my ends through circumvention. Some cunning vitality must dwell within me. Yet should I ever truly fight and find myself ultimately defeated, I knew I could only preserve and console myself through precisely this manner exhibited by the female beggar now before my eyes. The grotesque frenzy of this female beggar could no longer be regarded as another's concern.

I— “I beg you—stop that act. I’ll give you this instead.”

Taking off the two kimonos given by the lumber shop wife, I threw them to the female beggar. However, the female beggar— “Don’t want it!” With those hateful words, she fell silent for a time before departing, weeping softly as she went. Truly sensing that even this simpleton retained a womanly nature unwilling to be bested by her own sex until the very end, I was overcome by a strange chill that crept over my flesh. My enigmatic heart, which had been striving to interlock with the ring of heaven and earth’s mysteries, now teetered perilously close to coming unmoored.

The female beggar seemed to be diligently spreading word through town and into the licensed quarter that I was feigning muteness, and I began to notice a trapped glint in the eyes of those who looked back at me. Yet whenever we met, she now completely transformed her demeanor, performing acts that seemed to fawn over me, to flatter me, even to ingratiate herself— “Young Mistress! My, what a lovely one you are.” With feigned yet clumsy intimacy, she attempted to take my hand. That sickening feeling. If defeated, did she now mean to lean fully into this pretense and trip me up from within by the ankles? That transparent serpentine and vulpine nature of hers no longer struck one as that of a simpleton or madwoman—she had become quite the full-fledged woman. All this was merely performed with childish superficiality, I supposed.

To me—who had been dwelling in enigma for some time now, living almost as an absentee from my own self—the female beggar's essential nature crept insidiously into my being like a thief entering an abandoned house. Though I recognized that these mannerisms were performed by her and endured by myself, that serpentine and fox-like nature within me seemed to grow accustomed to hers. Even as her acts remained childish in their childishness, superficial in their superficiality, whenever they momentarily aligned with the essence of womanhood, I would abruptly merge with the beggar into one entity. Only the sensation of artfully executing—no, being compelled to execute—these rankly feminine acts lingered suspended in the air. An extreme pity, revulsion, and fascination toward womanhood tangled and pounded within my skull like rice in a mortar, until I was seized by a peculiar sensation—neither painful itch nor wistful sorrow, but something utterly ineffable.

My father, a heavy drinker, would often order Saga’s famous crab paste—ganzuke—to accompany his sake. A type of salted fermented dish made by crushing small crabs alive—those that crawl through the mud of the Ariake Sea—in a mortar, then adding strong salt and plenty of chili peppers to let the flavors meld. I heard how it was made from Shima, the elderly maid, and thought—what a cruel cooking method. Having been made to taste another bite of it, I once blurted out, “What a painfully unpleasant taste this is!” But Shima said that its true flavor was delicious. Now, suddenly recalling this, my brain—pounded into ganzuke by the mortar of these conflicting emotions—I couldn’t help but feel as if my own heart was savoring it against my will.

Pointing at the jar of ganzuke, Shima said: "Once you know this taste, you'll end up like Father—unable to let it leave your lips." Now, because I seemed on the verge of discovering the taste of ganzuke within my breast, I felt perilously close to becoming unable to detach from the emotions in my heart should this turn into an addiction. To restrain that, the only way was to unscrupulously shake free from the female beggar’s grasp and flee.

The female beggar drinking herself into a stupor out of despair and staggering through town shouting became a frequent sight. In such instances when she spotted me, she would repeat those same desperate, reckless gestures she had once performed before my eyes when she came attacking at the Jizō Hall. While turning my face away, I could not bring myself to despise her utterly.

Winter reached the extremity of lingering cold and turned toward spring when plum blossoms bloom. The deep, resonant drums of the First Horse Day festival. In the distance, smoke from burning vegetation along Tana River’s embankment. A bush warbler in the wilds. In the fields, a person with cheeks wrapped, treading barley. The romance between a stray cat crossing Aizome Bridge and a town cat.

The water grew lukewarm, and figures of anglers could be seen moving about with raised poles, fishing for crucian carp entering the branch streams. Equinoctial cherry blossoms; pious pilgrims of the Six Amida circuit with duck-shaped bells around their necks. Each time a swallow clapped its flight feathers against its tail, its white belly flashed.

Cherry blossoms; bush clover forming angular clusters in the wilds; reeds' sharp angles in muddy shoals. Violets; wild garlic picking. In the vegetable fields, flower stalks stood towering profusely; wisteria and peonies heralded early summer. When my feigned muteness became known, for a time the eyes of townspeople and red-light district residents took on a cornered sharpness toward me, yet my beggar companions remained surprisingly unperturbed. They wore expressions that seemed to say, "Well, if that trick brings in more alms, might as well give it a try." However, claiming that the boss of the town's beggars was expanding his territory into rural areas, the man referred to as his underling began coming around daily on an old bicycle to patrol.

The man, “Hey, show me your haul,” would say casually, scattering the coins from the bag I presented into his palm. He’d pick out a portion and deposit it into the already clinking bowl of his apron. “Keep hustling.” With that, he’d climb back onto his old bicycle and pedal hurriedly away. There was something absurd about how businesslike he looked astride that contraption. Sunken-eyed and hawk-nosed, he bustled about without true menace—a young man perpetually glistening with sweat at his temples, devoted wholeheartedly to his duties as an underling collecting tribute.

As this man grew accustomed to me, he began to slow down somewhat, and during his talks about other beggars, he mentioned the unexpected fact that beggars were savers— “The wife from the beggar couple died yesterday. “She’d saved nearly two hundred yen in her hidden stash. “Even so, they say she’d turned into quite the drinker lately and squandered a good chunk of that saved money.” he said.

So that female beggar had died after all. I felt somehow anticlimactic,

“How pitiful. And how is her husband doing?”

“He’s a complete idiot,” “Just keeps sayin’ to his old lady’s corpse, ‘Ain’t ya gonna wake up? Ain’t ya gonna wake up?’”

That evening, crimson sunset clouds blazed in the western sky—the towers of the red-light district glittered with golden lettering while Edagawa's waters flowed in vermilion hues mirroring the heavens. From the foot of Aizome Bridge, a white-wrapped coffin was carried onto the embankment and proceeded southward along the riverbank. The ones carrying it were the gang member who came to collect tribute and another sturdy beggar. Following behind them were a man who appeared to be the boss and one policeman. While being scolded by the boss for lagging behind, the husband beggar followed along, repeating his usual walking style—now bouncing up with a spring in his step, now strutting forward with a swagger—over and over again.

In the flower fields cultivated for sale to Tokyo, peonies and golden-rayed lilies and poppies and cornflowers now bloomed in profusion, and with the glow of the setting sun shining upon them, they resembled five-colored clouds. The female beggar’s funeral procession passing through them seemed both forlorn and splendid. The female beggar was now being joyfully sent off, I supposed. Cradling in my palm a grain weevil with a reddish-brown back that I had found while sorting through alms rice, I began to think that it might be time for me to move somewhere else as well.

To take my final look at the red-light district, I went inside. The male beggar went around collecting alms alone, carrying the girl doll on his back. Perhaps yet another person—one of those fond of the author—had told him to carry that doll as a replacement wife. They even taught this idiot to respond, "She's my new wife," if anyone asked. But I had no desire to witness a life so contrived. Let me simply observe this whimsical manifestation of impermanence that chanced to catch my eye and then flow onward. My heart had come to perceive even this—treating mysteries as mysteries, putting on airs of profundity or mystique—as nothing but futile struggles. The riddles of the Sphinx, the enigma of Mona Lisa—both still reeked of having been endlessly mulled over. It was merely uttered in a child’s singsong.

“Riddle me this: What’s a parasol on a sunny day?” From the cadence of this riddle’s phrasing arose a mystery—neither wholly innocent nor merely simple—that now struck me as pitifully endearing, as tenderly dear as any child I might someday bear. Within myself, I grew ever more hollow, and precisely because of that, the scenery of my surroundings seemed to rise before my eyes solely through their inherent natural qualities. The seasons and the flow of water carried me downstream to summer like a bamboo-leaf boat, and now I became a female beggar in Sagicho along the Tana River.

A person was standing in the river. Wearing a straw hat, they had left their kimono’s hem trailing in the water. The water reflected the summer evening sky, spreading out in a scorched green hue. When the wind blew, the sleeves of the figure standing midstream fluttered. Then that careless form seemed to walk across the water’s surface alongside a smoky shadow. Three or four children peered down from the bridge’s railing. “Bunko…! Idiot…!” “If you go out that far, you’ll leave the sandbar and fall into the deep part!”

The person in the river turned toward the railing, amiably bobbing his straw-hatted head up and down, then faced forward again and advanced about six feet, swaying as he spread his hem through the water. His right hand swiftly struck the water. He tucked the glinting thing into his bosom. He had caught a fish. He stood motionless in the water once more.

Aiming for today’s spring tide, the fishermen from the outskirts set up stake nets around this Ōsu Sandbar. By around three in the afternoon, the water on the sandbar had grown shallow, reaching about ankle depth. The fishermen gathered about one and a half four-to barrels’ worth of fish using hand nets and bare hands, then removed their nets and departed. Yet even after that, fish that had escaped the fishermen’s notice by hiding in algae and mud would still be lured by the rising tide to float up their half-dead bodies. Bunki, the beggar beneath the bridge, knew this well. In his bosom were already six or seven crucian carp and dace gasping for breath. When he felt the fish thrashing in his bosom against his flesh, he sucked in his stomach and smiled faintly with sleepy eyes.

Bunki, targeting fish, ventured out to the river’s center—to an area where one might doubt whether a sandbar even existed out there. There, already near the opposite bank, where sparse reeds dug into the shore’s base, within the embankment’s shadow, the river’s main current revealed the swift surge of the rising tide.

The number of people at the bridge’s railing increased, with adults’ shadows now mingling among them. The children had shouted themselves hoarse. “What do you think? Does Bunki even know how to swim?” “What? He’s just a sake bottle.” “If he slips over there even once, he’ll turn into a floater.” “Though he did almost become a floater once before. He’s been tested before.”

Adults and children alike mingled together and burst into uproarious laughter.

“He’s no floater. Wouldn’t bungle a lovers’ suicide like that.” “Wasn’t no suicide pact! Tried saving someone and went blub-blub himself!” The elderly man in the mesh shirt and white trousers tapped cigarette ash against the railing as he spoke. “Quit making light of it. Either way, I’m the one stuck with the paperwork.” This was Mr.Kin, the town clerk. Again, raucous laughter erupted.

The bridge was now growing somewhat busier with people and vehicles returning from Tokyo to villages near Sagicho.

The river had grown fully dark, its entire surface now holding a verdigris-hued shimmer. Within that, Bunki’s figure—still aiming for fish as his form blurred into the surroundings—had come to look no different than an old sunken stake. A youth holding a block of ice, still astride his bicycle as he leaned against the railing and watched, said: “Hey kids, one of you go to O-Hide at the boat rental and tell her that Bunko’s gone into the river.” “Yeah, I’ll go tell her that.” Two or three children ran off. The ice seller youth, still holding the ice block, started riding his bicycle toward the opposite bank while whistling a popular tune.

With this as the trigger, the majority of the crowd departed. The small number of adults and children who remained were all from Sagicho—they knew O-Hide of the boat rental was the woman who constantly cared for Bunki the beggar, and they knew too how furious she would grow upon witnessing his reckless acts. So they lingered against the railing, waiting with mounting interest.

Children’s voices echoed along the riverbank as a boat carrying children slid out from beneath the bridge, rowed by a girl. As the boat approached Bunki—submerged up to his waist in the dim water—the children helped to forcibly haul him aboard. Simultaneous with a sharp woman’s voice, the figure of the beggar being struck came dimly into view.

Laughter from children in the boat could be heard. As if harmonizing, the children at the bridge railing also laughed. Above the clustered roofs of Sagicho huddled at the left bank’s bridge approach, the main hall roof of Seikōji Temple—a renowned temple in these parts—towered high. Then, leaning slightly away from the river, a broom-like tree jutted sharply into the sky. A single tree appeared like a forest. When the earth-rumbling evening temple drum sounded, countless bird shadows scattered from the broom-like tree in midair, mingling their forms while emitting thin, short cries like scraps of sewing machine thread—but as soon as the drum ceased, they were sucked back into that aerial broom as before.

By this time, the children had already vanished from the bridge, leaving only the dim lanterns of handcarts, bicycle lights the size of ceramic game marbles, and the occasional fan-shaped beams from truck headlights passing through the darkness. Before long, upstream of the bridge suddenly lit up, and a portion of the river’s surface came to be illuminated as smoothly as a reverse-painted glass tableau.

These are observations from about two months after I descended south along the Tana River and became a female beggar by Sagicho's riverside. O-Hide lit an acetylene lamp on the pier and kindled a small charcoal fire in a tobacco brazier used for rental boats nearby, drying the hem of Bunki's kimono while he still wore it. The beggar who had resembled a hunchbacked old man in the river now stood here as a youth retaining his boyish face. Though frayed, it remained unmistakably a hemp kimono. As O-Hide wiped sweat from her brow with the apron edge tied over her work clothes and held the beggar's kimono hem toward the fire, the garment gradually stiffened while drying. The beggar pressed down on the fish in his lap with one hand and gripped his waist with the other. When O-Hide began rolling up the hem to expose more fabric to the flames, he uttered "Ah," flattening it with his palm to smooth it back down. O-Hide clicked her tongue in annoyance,

“What are you so embarrassed about? Even after becoming a beggar, you’re still putting on airs about your pride and reputation?” O-Hide let out a frayed laugh and yanked up the hem. Bunki hurriedly smoothed it down with his palm. The instant she rolled it up, the indigo-and-white Scotch plaid of his brand-new underpants flashed briefly in O-Hide’s eyes.

Bunki had strange quirks for a beggar—while his outer garments might be one thing, he refused to wear anything directly against his skin unless freshly laundered. As for food, aside from sweets, he would not eat anything unless he had cooked it himself. The town doctor would say, “That’s mysophobia—a type of psychiatric patient,” yet he exhibited no truly pathological spasms or that prickly-edged quality. Within his mental deficiency, this habit lay like a deep-rooted foundation. At times it could even appear extravagant, and there were townsfolk who, when offering leftovers he refused to accept, would say, “What an insolent beggar.” There were even those who splashed water on him while shouting, “Here, eat this!” Since she had begun looking after this beggar, O-Hide often found herself inconvenienced and at times felt hatred toward him, but toward this particular habit alone, she felt a touch of pathos. Even if one brings other grasses to an insect that eats nothing but mulberry leaves, it will pay them no heed and waste away. Instinctual obstinacy—it was a similar sort of habit.

O-Hide adjusted the knot of Bunki’s obi a bit, “There, it’s completely dry now. Go on back to your mansion. The mosquitoes are terrible—stop by your place and get some mosquito-repellent incense from your mother.”

She gave Bunki’s obi knot a light tap. At this moment, a fleeting feminine sentiment welled up within O-Hide. The fact that she had reached twenty-eight as a single woman without husband or children rose in her mind. O-Hide felt intense resentment that such emotions had been stirred by a beggar. Bunki, pressing the fish in his lap with both hands while eyeing her with indolent suspicion as he circled past, made her think—though no one would steal a beggar’s fish—*When will he ever grasp others’ feelings? That’s where his idiocy lies*. Amused despite herself, she feigned indifference until she assumed he must have gone—then abruptly felt her work skirt flipped up from behind. O-Hide let out an “Eek!” and dropped onto the pier. Instantly came the pattering sound of Bunki fleeing up the embankment. As she listened while blinking rapidly, beneath her fading fear grew a concern: that Bunki—until now childishly guileless toward women—might be developing some tint of awareness. Yet this concern held an oddly vivacious quality. O-Hide stood and turned back, raising her hand in threat.

“How could you do such a thing! Alright, tomorrow I’ll tell the police and have you driven out of this area—” From atop the embankment, Bunki stretched his neck out, shaking his face side to side as he spoke. “That was payback for earlier.” O-Hide, realizing her own sensitivity had again led her to a mistaken assumption in response to Bunki’s voice—which held nothing but mischief—turned back toward the river with a hollow feeling.

In front of the shop behind the embankment, Bunki was shouting in a thick voice.

“Old hag! Old hag!”

O-Hide’s mother said, “Calling me an old hag again? What a nuisance you are. You don’t call people’s mothers ‘old hags’. You should say ‘Mother’ respectfully. Now say it.” O-Hide, thinking that yet another mutually incomprehensible exchange between the two had begun, rested her hand and gazed at the river surface illuminated by the acetylene lamp. On the bank where the waters of the Tana River—flowing from the northwest, colliding with the eastern bank on the opposite shore, then bending sharply southwestward—formed a stretch of deep pool, lay O-Hide’s boat rental. The Tana River Bridge spanned above the boundary between this deep pool and the sandbar where Bunki had been gathering fish earlier.

O-Hide’s boat rental had been at its peak seven or eight years earlier when her father was still alive, during the time when amateur fishing first became popular; aside from fifteen or sixteen rice paddy boats and three cargo boats, they had also acquired a secondhand motorboat during that period. They had kept about two hired boatmen. However, as amateur anglers gradually grew more skilled, the proper grounds for crucian carp fishing shifted from these overfished urban riverbanks nearby to the distant Kodone tributary and areas around Narita. O-Hide’s family had gradually sold off their owned vessels to others, fitting oarlocks on the remaining few tidy boats to convert them into pleasure craft that even women and children could row. On summer nights, these boats—with Chinese lantern plant-shaped paper lanterns erected at their prows—would enliven the river’s surface.

No customers came to rent the motorboat with its peeling paint. Therefore, they didn’t normally keep gasoline on hand and only rented the motorboat to customers who brought their own gasoline. Having already realized that this sort of business no longer suited the times in this area, O-Hide had resolved to make a decisive choice by the end of this summer—whether to boldly relocate or adapt the business to meet contemporary demands.

Even so, anglers from Tokyo’s downtown who still could not quite forget the rod-fishing experience they had grown accustomed to on this river, and workers from nearby factories who lacked the time for distant excursions, continued to come each day—three or four at a time—to rent boats. Today too, about three boats had gone out, and those boats returned around sunset. Yet the motorboat that had finally been rented out after so long still had not returned. Since the early July flood, O-Hide had been waiting with the acetylene lamp lit that hadn’t been used since then.

That customer was a peculiar one. He was a gentleman accompanied by a woman who appeared to be his daughter. Upon seeing the motorboat moored at the riverbank, he seemed to have suddenly made up his mind; even going so far as to have his driver buy gasoline from a town stand, he rented the boat and departed. The girl who appeared to be his daughter took charge of the engine, but her handling of it was practiced. The man who appeared to be her father seemed slightly drunk, but after purchasing shark fishing gear and bait from O-Hide’s shop—when the boat was leaving shore and the driver asked if he should return to pick them up—he replied it was unnecessary, then said:

“Go buy sesame oil and prepare the tempura.” “I’ll catch plenty of sharks and bring them back as souvenirs.”

Then the driver, with a thoroughly disgusted look, “I must ask you to refrain from making such transparent jokes.” “Because I’m already putting up with growing increasingly irritated here.”

He drove off with a huff, turning from the embankment toward the bridge. From the start, there had been something disquieting in the driver’s attitude toward this gentleman who seemed to be the father. The gentleman’s manner of handling him—flaunting intimidation one moment, fawning from below the next, all while affecting an air of magnanimity—could be glimpsed in fragments. The daughter kept up her pretense of indifference. The acetylene flame dwindled to candlelight strength. O-Hide pressed up on the tank’s base and gave its shoulder two sharp taps. The flame roared back violently, momentarily restoring brilliance to the riverside scene that had begun to darken. Across the water, a bush warbler chattered endlessly in the fields. But soon the flame shrank again to a feeble glow; when O-Hide pressed her ear to the tank, even the dripping sound had stopped. She’d crossed between embankment, house and pier three times already waiting for their return, yet still the motorboat customers failed to appear. Given their demeanor earlier—that gentleman and his daughter—they likely hadn’t stolen it outright. A joint suicide seemed equally improbable. The tide sat swollen at its peak, bubbles lazing along the pool’s edge where water met bank. Three rice-field boats—today’s earners—lay scrubbed clean by O-Hide’s mother, resting cool against the dock. The remaining four clung parched to their stakes, hulls cracked from relentless heat. Town radios murmured nine-thirty news bulletins through the night air. At last abandoning hope, O-Hide hefted the empty acetylene tank and—remembering perhaps the rental ledger customers signed—cast one final glance toward the bridge before retreating indoors.

I returned to the area near Tana River Bridge and quietly peered in to see how Bunki was doing. Bunki had lit a bean-sized lamp beneath the bridge’s darkness and was still sipping shōchū from a cup while grilling fish meat. Though he disliked alcohol, he would buy small measures of it cheaply from the town liquor store, wanting to imitate adult behavior. With his right hand’s fingers, he flipped and ate the fish meat on the grill while holding the red-rimmed glass cup in his left hand with a look of distaste. Then he muttered as he tilted his head back and forth.

"Anyway," "So," "And then..." "That will do." "Well then, that will do." "In short," These words spilled out sporadically yet ceaselessly from Bunki’s mouth. Bunki envied adults. The words adults spoke—words that sounded so thoroughly adult—were enviable. Now, bringing them to his lips and savoring their texture was a delight that seeped into his very being. By uttering these words to hear them with his own ears, he felt as though he had fully become an adult. His shoulders drawn in, his happy-looking expression was faintly illuminated by the bean-sized lamp. He took another pained sip from his cup, and this time,

“×××××,” he said. Then he laughed wildly—ha ha ha ha—his voice echoing across the river. He had learned from observing adults that whenever someone uttered incomprehensible trendy phrases, someone else would inevitably burst into uproarious laughter right afterward. He stopped drinking and turned to his meal. The rice cooked in the earthen pot had cooled to just the right temperature. Meticulously transferring it into a small boatman’s lunchbox, he scooped some into a bowl and held up a piece of fish meat to examine it in the bean-sized lamp’s glow. Plenty of crucian carp flesh remained, marinated in soy sauce with chopped sansho leaves. He peered upstream through a gap in the tightly packed makomo reed screens blocking the north side, then lowered his head to gaze downstream through the open southern darkness. With an air of reluctance to waste even a morsel, he spread the fish meat across the wire grill and began eating. Though the summer crucian carp had lost its fat, the fresh flesh released sweet, savory steam along with the aromatic scent of smoldering sansho and soy sauce. Using it as a side dish, he ate bowl after bowl of rice with apparent relish, all while periodically glancing downstream with sharp eyes.

Around Tana River Bridge there were six resident beggars—including myself, the newcomer—apart from Bunkō, but Bunki remained fixated on Tagame, an extortion specialist, and O-San, a mother-and-child pair who wandered collecting leftovers. From Tana River Bridge where Bunki lived, the headlands on the opposite bank could be seen to both sides due to the river’s meandering course. The downstream area was called Nagato, where Bishamon Hall stood and Tagame resided. He was said to be a former sailor—if his demands went unmet, he would suddenly grab his victim, leap into the water with them, and torment them by forcing them to gulp down water until they relented, making him feared among their ranks. Though Bunki himself had never suffered this treatment, he often heard Tagame growl, “Whine or complain, and I’ll make you eat watery gruel.” Tagame mainly extorted beggars in Yotamachi across the river but occasionally swam upstream to visit Bunki. “What’s the fun in shaking down a greenhorn like you?” he’d say. “But if you’ve got something worth taking, hand it over.” At this provocation, Bunki would bristle with wounded pride and theatrically surrender whatever coins or rice he had. Then Tagame would drawl, “Hmm, you’re quite the obliging one,” before snapping his grip around Bunki’s wrist and twisting it viciously with his sword-bean-like thumb and forefinger. Bunki would feel a ticklish surge shoot up his nose as pain drained all strength from his body’s vital points, leaving him only to gasp “Ah— Ah—” and writhe helplessly in midair. Sometimes the suffocating agony grew so intense that he wet himself. Then Tagame would release his grip,

"Well, looks like that stupid mug of yours finally tensed up a bit. Heh heh heh heh," he mocked before belly-flopping into the river and swimming away. Bunki simply sat dazed as if caught in a whirlwind's wake, but Tagame—like some monster who knew all of humanity's hidden pressure points—was someone others avoided whenever possible. Upstream at Desaki headland lay Magarikute, where a small brick factory stood.

O-San was a thirty-seven- or thirty-eight-year-old beggar who constantly carried a child and collected leftovers from restaurants and cafés in Yotamachi. Between the embankment and the river was a sandy area, beyond which a kirippu extended into the water, and here bricks and tiles awaiting shipment were always piled up. O-San had skillfully built a dwelling with those bricks, its roof covered with old corrugated iron sheets where she had settled. She was a lame beggar with one leg—an ugly woman of sturdy farmhand build—existing in a dazed state of total resignation. Taking pity on her as a mother with child, the elderly widow of the Momose family—an old household in Sagi Town—had her cross the bridge to Sagi Town, even designating her own home as one of O-San’s regular alms sources. However, when beggars from another town were reported to have encroached across the boundary between Tokyo City and Kanagawa Prefecture, Sagi Town’s two alms-specialist beggars flew into a rage. After a major clash between them and Meganekko Hanada—a beggar who tried mediating—it was decided that only leftovers from the Momose household would receive special allocation in Sagi Town and be given to O-San.

O-San，despite her sturdy build，produced almost no milk．She bought or received leftover milk from dairies to feed the child，but he often cried．Since he knew nothing would come even when offered the breast，when made to suckle，he would push it out with his tongue in apparent distress．At such times，O-San would take out a small paper packet of red sugar from her sleeve and apply it to her breast with her finger．The child would suckle for a while，but once the red sugar’s sweetness faded，he would snuffle through his nose；when still nothing came，he would let the breast slip from his mouth and look up at the mother beggar’s face．The mother beggar’s eyes grew heavy with sleep．The child’s face contorted，and his small pink mouth opened as he was about to burst into tears．

Bunki liked to peer in and watch this. He found it unbearably adorable. He liked watching as she let her breast hang limply forward, the child’s face contorting and pink mouth beginning to open. But when the child began to cry, he would grow flustered. He would bustle about, walking this way and that as if searching for something. He kept scratching both his sides. Because he couldn’t bear the prickling unease that crept up through his entire body whenever he heard that voice.

When Bunki ate, it seemed two emotions would invariably arise. One was a feeling of vigilance, and the other was a vague sense of longing for people. Conversely, one could say that without these, the taste of eating would not linger in the heart. When he got to eat something delicious, it could be said that these feelings grew even deeper.

Even now, Bunki finished his meal while peering through the tightly sealed makomo reed barrier as if wary of Tagame downstream and glancing toward the mother-and-child beggars upstream. He washed his eating utensils in the river water as the tide began to recede, deftly tidied them away, then spread out a patched-up tatami mosquito net for children’s naps—who knows where he had gotten it—and plopped down onto the thin-edged tatami mat. He had forgotten to extinguish the bean-sized lamp and started crawling out of the mosquito net, but then stopped and got back inside. He wanted to keep the small lamplight visible to the mother-and-child beggars at Magarikute for as long as possible. From the chimney of the brick factory beyond the opposite bank, smoke reflecting firelight could be seen. He let out a grown-up "Heave-ho!" and lay down on his back. I too lay down without a light in the handmade saburi hut a few ken upstream. The embankment suddenly appeared towering.

Rising early in the cool of the morning, I entered Sagichō and ate the temple’s leftover offerings in an unnoticed corner of Seikōji Temple’s grounds. Bang bang—gunshots echoed through the morning mist.

The sun had not yet risen.

The herons nesting in great numbers within the famous tree on this town's temple grounds had ravaged the rice paddies beyond control. The dispute over whether to cull them had apparently erupted between the temple's head priest and local authorities, but ultimately the priest relented. With approval from the proper channels, they settled on conducting hunts for roughly an hour at daybreak when few would be disturbed. This duty fell to Keiji from Momose's branch family, who fired his double-barreled shotgun relentlessly at the forest-like treetops while dressed in geta and knee-length trousers without a necktie.

The trunk at the base of the great tree measured six arm spans around, its bark marred by rough fissures yet bearing knobbed protrusions like camel’s knees. Some called it a monstrous chestnut tree for its leaf shape, while others claimed it was an ancient hazel that had weathered centuries. When struck, it gave a hollow sound—lacking the sanctity that would merit a sacred shimenawa rope—and from a height surpassing the temple’s main hall roof, its branches suddenly burst into a dense thicket, tilting slightly southward like the bristles of a frayed old broom.

Keiji pulled one of the triggers on his double-barreled shotgun, making the muzzle bark with a sharp *Bang!* Then thirty or forty herons burst forth from the forest-like treetops into the morning mist. As they wheeled about the treetop sky in panicked cries before they could return to their original branches, he pulled the second trigger and fired another bang. Usually one or two would fall. “Strange. Even though so many fly out, you’d think just firing randomly would hit some, but you still have to aim properly after all.”

Meganekko Hanada, the beggar, was sitting on one of the giant tree stumps, smoking tobacco as he watched, when he said this.

“It’s truly strange,” said Meganekko Hanada. “When they’re flying clustered together like that, you’d think just aiming roughly at the mass would work, but nothing hits. Instead, if you carefully target one bird, you might actually hit others besides your mark.” Keiji responded while reloading shells into his shotgun: “I suspect that while the birds’ flight paths look random, there’s a fixed probability between each bird’s position. If you scatter pellets carelessly like that, they’ll just slip through the gaps. But if you aim at one, others might be at the same distance—so you end up hitting them too. That’s the principle, right?”

“To do that, you’d have to study not just how the birds fly, but also how the pellets spread.” “Anyway, if you get greedy trying to take down many at once, you’ll rarely hit any. But if you steadily aim for one by one, you might get unexpected catches.” “This could almost be a life lesson, huh?” Keiji laughed, resting the shotgun’s butt on the toe of his right shoe. “No doubt about it.” Meganekko Hanada also laughed. “That’s a crow! A crow—”

Hanada stood up and pointed at the sky. The morning’s cloudy sky, glimpsed by dawn, began to bloom faintly lemon-colored. From the opposite side of the temple’s main hall roof ridge, a crow suddenly clambered over, then leaped back up onto the ridge and began walking in this bird’s peculiar manner—as if measuring the ridge’s span with its steps. “Hey! That cheeky bastard. Did that cheeky bastard come back thinking shooting hours were over? Keiji, I’m begging you, shoot it down. That bastard… That bastard…”

“I can shoot it for you, but are you sure?” “Is that crow even edible?”

“It’s safe—definitely a mountain crow.” “Its beak is delicate, and its feathers have a purple sheen.” Keiji coordinated with Hanada, making him throw a branch onto the roof as he prepared to shoot the crow when it took flight. Having learned from when Hanada previously asked him to shoot a roof crow—which damaged tiles with bullets and earned them a harsh reprimand from the temple—Keiji now shared his insight. Just as Hanada raised the branch to throw it, another crow glided in from somewhere with a “Caw!” The roof crow spotted it and sprang up in pursuit. A gunshot rang out. The fallen crow didn’t seem mortally wounded, mustering fierce leg strength to flee across the temple grounds. Hanada threw down the branch and gave desperate chase. Circling the Kokuzō Hall, tripping over a pine tree, leaping into a leaf-strewn pit, he finally pinned it down by throwing his coat over it.

“Damn thing, making me go through all this trouble!” The absurdity of his appearance—I couldn’t help but laugh. “Who’s laughing?”

Hanada glanced my way but muttered “Clueless O-Cho” before turning his attention back to his own business. Having apparently wrung its neck while pinning it down, by the time he brought the crow to Keiji, its eyes were shut and head hung low. Keiji, who had been doubled over laughing while watching Hanada chase the crow, wiped tears from the corners of his eyes with his thumb and said: “That was some serious chasing. You moved faster than I’ve ever seen you go before.”

“Don’t mock me.” “I was just desperate to eat it.” “When a beggar’s fixated on food, anyone’d become something fierce.”

While Keiji placed his hand on the purplish wing that Hanada was smoothing down, "Is this really that tasty?" "You're still exhibiting your eccentric habits, I see." "You're the sort who can't even develop an appetite unless it's tied to something worthless, aren't you?" he said. Hanada,

“No, this is different. I lived in Ueda, Shinshū for many years. There was this shop over there that served crow denaku as their specialty dish, you know? Since it was cheap, I ended up going there to eat so often that I acquired a taste for it. This faintly ashy smell here—it’s rather indescribable,” he explained.

“There you go—liking that ashy smell just proves you’ve got trashy taste.” At the temple, the six o’clock drum began to sound. After Keiji, with Hanada’s help, carried the heron they had shot down to the temple kitchen to have it buried, the two exited through the Seikō Temple gate. I, too, having no particular business, followed them out afterward.

To the left was a bathhouse where the attendant was sweeping the front. The fact that Shin Momose’s son was friends with Hanada the beggar was known to everyone in town, so the bathhouse attendant, without any particular suspicion, offered a morning greeting to Keiji.

Across the highway stood the town hall with a slight setback in front, its latticed glass windows lined up in a row.

“Last night was so stifling hot I couldn’t sleep a wink, you know.”

Mr. Kin, the town hall janitor, sat on the stone doorsteps before the morning glory pots he had watered. To the left, about a block and a half ahead, the modern bridge piers of Tanagawa Bridge glistened in the morning sun. The receding figures of vegetable carts bound from village to Tokyo could be seen moving in clustered formation. This highway—once a side path of the old Kamakura Highway—had undoubtedly been built up with earth many times over. Yet in its gradation from the off-white central roadway, raised high at the center, to the ashen-gray sloping grounds of houses lining either side, there lingered an ineffable scent of ingrained history, as Keiji often remarked to others. Keiji, who had repeatedly dashed his head attempting leaps in the city, must have ultimately returned home to have his restless heart calmed by this very scent.

South of the town hall, about a block and a half away, shops mixed with farmhouses lined the street. Among them was also a seamstress shop with a sign that read, "We make work clothes for farm labor." Then came into view the imposing gate structure of the Momose residence, situated at the town's center. Sago palms and trimmed pine trees marked the carriage turnaround, while across from them stood the storefront-style Shin Momose shop where an apprentice now hung a noren curtain.

On their way there, the two saw a beggar who had suddenly emerged from a side alley, passed by Keiji and Hanada, and was swiftly picking up objects from the road with large bamboo tweezers to toss them into the basket on his back. He had covered his cheeks with a hand towel, worn a straw hat over it, and donned an old crested happi coat, while from the waist down he had wrapped himself like a soiled Indian’s loincloth—the excess fabric pulled through from his crotch to the front and tucked into his belly. He shambled past as if ignoring their presence. Hanada called out to stop him.

“Tanba, don’t start scavenging this early.” The man tilted his head slightly and looked, then leaned his shoulders forward as he approached them like a kite whose tail had torn off partway and was tilting toward a tree. He was a man with a large white face, his forehead meticulously etched with several deep worry lines like ruled graph paper. He appeared to have properly heard what Hanada had said, and amiably, “Ah~, I’ll scavenge. I have to scavenge,” he said. Then, with a feminine grace, he struck Hanada’s shoulder and walked away.

When Keiji noticed, yet another man had emerged onto the highway—a hunchbacked-looking figure also dressed in scavenging attire—picking his way along the right side of the road.

“Hey, Seto Kan.”

Even when Hanada called out, Seto Kan pretended not to hear and briskly walked away. The reason they occasionally stole glances toward Tanba’s side, appearing determined not to fall behind in their progress, was that the two had divided their work areas between the left and right sides of the road as they scavenged. If they didn’t keep watch, it was easy to encroach on each other’s territories. Hanada explained to Keiji that that was why they proceeded side by side.

When Keiji handed the gun to the shop boy and stood chatting for a while with Hanada there, he noticed Bunki approaching from the direction of the bridge. When Keiji said, "Another one of your comrades has arrived," Hanada grimaced bitterly,

“He’s another one of those early-rising beggars. He’s been coming to the elementary school lately to do group calisthenics,” Hanada said.

Hanada disliked Bunki. He usually said he was somehow a person who weakened people’s will. “When I walk with you, beggars always catch my eye,” Keiji said with a laugh. Hanada finally smiled in return, “You’ve also had your horizons broadened to the lumpen underclass of humanity—all thanks to me.” With that, he walked off toward the small bridge on the outskirts of town where he lived.

It was probably around the time Keiji was eating breakfast. From the direction of the elementary school came the sound of a piano mingled with calisthenics calls. Since early summer, through discussions between the town’s education committee and elementary school teachers, it had been decided that morning health exercises would be held in the schoolyard. They made attendance compulsory for students and urged adult townspeople to participate as well.

The Tana River, which flows out from the mountains of Chichibu and into Tokyo Bay, diverges early in its upper reaches from the mountainous region and meanders southeastward through the Musashi-Sagami Plain, causing the area around Sagi Town to exhibit diverse variations in both topography and geology.

Upstream from the town for about four kilometers, the river still retained the character of a mountain stream, its flow rushing over rapids with a clamor, while gravel spread across the entire riverbed. At dusk, evening primroses bloomed faintly, and there one could catch sweetfish.

Downstream from Sagi Town, the river had fully assumed the form of a flatland waterway—its waters stagnated, its banks clung with mud and sand, and among the sparse reeds katydids sang. It was now the season when sweetfish could no longer be caught, leaving crucian carp and dace in their stead. Over the next six kilometers or so, reed beds gradually spread out and grew thickly until on windy days the brown water churned with soap-like foam, giving the river the semblance of one nearing the sea.

The mountainous region upstream, which had once receded from the river, ran parallel to it as though still keeping watch even while distancing itself, before gradually spreading its foothills and turning its course toward central Sagami as it lowered in elevation. The ridge of this vast mountainous region was said to be composed geologically of a stratum called the Kobotoke Formation. And between that ridge and the alluvial layers of the river basin, the diluvial deposits formed an expanse of undulating hills. This geological formation apparently extended across the Tana River to form an elevated plateau. These hills were mixed-wood mountains abundant with pine trees, their intricate undulations called Kujukudani—Ninety-Nine Valleys—by the locals.

The ridges of the Kobotoke Formation mountains extended their rugged skeletal frames into clusters of hills here and there as if yearning toward the river, though it amounted to little of note. However, near Sagi Town, this became somewhat pronounced, stretching the rock layer like a single tentacle of an oceanic plate that pierced through the hill belt downstream to reach the riverbed. What proved unusual was that portions of Mesozoic-layer rock properties could be observed on surfaces washed by those waters. Within that fault lay shale in which Hanada—known as the scholar-beggar—maintained particular interest.

Born in Echigo—famed for tsutsugamushi disease—and having received his middle school education in Niigata, the precocious Hanada learned to indulge in the pleasure quarters. Even after graduating, he remained in this cultured city for seven or eight years, sampling every indulgence in quick succession. By his late twenties, he had already immersed himself in the geriatric pleasures of tea ceremony, Noh chanting, calligraphy, painting, and antique collecting. Among these, suiseki—the art of stone appreciation—proved his final obsession: in XX Town, he built a hermitage-style house, displayed thousand-ryō stones in the garden, and even hung a sign reading "Viewing Permitted" at the gate as he settled in. In his hometown village remained an older brother—a hedonist who surpassed even him, taking whatever the household possessed and spending it extravagantly. His own decadence, coupled with a rebellious determination not to let his brother alone deplete the family’s resources, had coexisted within him—but by the time weariness with his indulgent lifestyle set in, when he resolved to become somewhat earnest and left Niigata to enroll at Matsumoto Agricultural School for study, both his hermitage-style house and belongings had nearly all passed into others’ hands.

The older brother, with his extravagant nature, even after similarly squandering the family fortune, found contentment working menial jobs at the racetrack to secure his livelihood; in contrast, his younger brother Hanada withdrew into himself, seeking ever more austere and subdued pursuits. Even during his agricultural school days, he had maintained an interest in soil and rocks. After barely managing to graduate, he traveled up and down the Shinano River basin, ventured into the mountains of Kōbushin, and spent about a decade in idle years. By the time he wandered aimlessly from the depths of Chichibu along the Tana River basin to reach Sagi Town, he reportedly discovered himself living as a full-fledged beggar and gave a bitter smile. He did not often speak of his life in the mountains. He often said things like this.

“No, I tell you—nothing requires such back-breaking effort as crossing that line from vagrant class to proper beggar.” With that bitter smile still lingering, he walked away. He had built and lived in what fellow beggars called a saburi hut beside a small bridge on the southwestern outskirts of town—directly opposite the Tana River embankment where my own shack stood. The location where a field stream met the river proved convenient for cooking. Another saburi hut stood adjacent to Hanada’s dwelling. There resided the Tomi family—beggars who specialized in scavenging kitchen refuse from town households. Though Hanada had reportedly quarreled fiercely with Tomi and another man named Tora from Tatsumi Nagaya over O-San of Magarikute, he and Tomi generally maintained amicable relations. As a third-generation beggar, Tomi carried an authenticity rooted deep in panhandling traditions—a quality Hanada seemed to respect. Tomi had taken multiple wives over time and currently supported one child from a previous marriage. When Hanada peered inside their hut, he found the current wife sleeping naked against the wall save for her undercloth. Asking their thirteen-year-old daughter about Tomi’s whereabouts elicited the reply: “He went gathering alms at a wake.”

I had finished eating breakfast and had nothing to do until receiving lunch alms. Retracing my steps through town, I came to the grassy embankment along the Tana River and began wandering aimlessly. It was a clear morning, incongruous for a year that had seen so much rain. The blue of the clear, cloudless sky seemed to be stripped away layer by layer, revealing burning-hot metal laid bare beneath. While mirroring the sky’s shifting hues, the river swiftly swelled its waters. In every grove, cicadas were crying out vigorously, and it even seemed as though crepe-like wrinkles were forming in the air. From the dazzlingly lit reed bed, katydids emitted piercing cries as they briskly darted in and out of the reeds. The clouds, as if all swept in that direction, spread thickly from the Ōyama mountain range to the peaks of Chichibu. Even so, the mountain range towering above them was a blue so intense it stung the eyes.

O-Hide of the fishing boat rental shop, owing to her trade, had opened early, tidied up the storefront, purchased a small amount of shark-fishing bait like sea worms and crucian carp-fishing bait like earthworms from the regular bait seller who came around at the appointed time, and was now reading the morning paper at the shop entrance. When I said, “Good morning,” O-Hide replied, “Look who’s talking, daydreamer. Still early as ever, aren’t you?” Just then, a regular crucian carp fishing customer appeared, so she handed over the stored rod, placed the bait and tea-and-tobacco tray into the boat, and sent them off.

O-Hide seemed suddenly to recall the motorboat that had failed to return the previous night and began examining the passenger logbook from the evening before. I peered over as well. Since I was considered neither harmful nor helpful in these parts—merely a vague beggar—O-Hide paid me no mind, muttering "Can you even read?" before letting me look freely. The male passenger was registered under the surname Nagamatsu, with the girl presumed to be his daughter listed as Sachiko of the same household. His occupation was recorded as company employee. Had they intended to skip payment, they wouldn't have bothered using real names—O-Hide likely only skimmed the entries as a formality. Even this morning, she refused to entertain the notion of lovers' suicide. Having resolved to report the matter to police if no word came within another hour or two, she closed the ledger with an expression betraying neither concern for the missing boat nor anxiety over the passengers' fate. What lingered instead, I perceived, was a nebulous dread about supporting her mother henceforth and navigating life's uncertainties.

Back when her father was alive and their finances were abundant, she attended girls’ high school as the daughter of a mere fishing boat rental shop owner—yet today, this very education became an obstacle to marriage. The sons of the town’s middle class graduated from middle school and became family heirs who desired brides with at least girls’ high school education, yet they hesitated to marry a daughter from a fishing boat rental shop engaged in customer-service trade. O-Hide would occasionally resolve herself—whether to a laborer or farmer—to marry quickly and escape the hardship and tedium of managing an entire household on her own through her own efforts. Yet men of such classes found her girls’ high school graduation qualification oddly constraining, refusing from the start to entertain discussion. Moreover, her mother’s presence turned out to be an unexpectedly troublesome matter. Mother said, “As long as we have the boat—if you’d marry into a nearby household—what’s left of my life would be seven or eight years at most… maybe ten.” “Since we live among fishermen,” she added for emphasis, “you needn’t hold back—go marry someone.” Still, being an old woman now required constant care. Even when promising marriage proposals including this condition began taking shape—while prospective grooms readily consented—objections inevitably arose from experienced elders in their households who insisted it would cause trouble later. As for taking in a live-in son-in-law—Mother was absolutely opposed. In Mother’s family home, her older sister had taken in such a son-in-law—and Mother herself had been driven out as the sole remaining daughter.

“I’d find far better peace in resigning myself if I just cleanly gave you away to someone else than waiting to be driven out by you and your husband.” Mother was always saying things like this. Those who came insisting on taking O-Hide as a wife despite fully understanding the attached conditions were the head priest of Seikō Temple and the town office’s deputy mayor. Both were undoubtedly members of the town’s intellectual class—middle-aged men who had children from deceased former wives. Every time such talk arose,

“I suppose there’s something about me that smacks of being a second wife.”

O-Hide showed her mother a face caught between tears and laughter as she spoke. Mother responded with a contemplative “Hmm” before falling silent. While sinking into bittersweet melancholy, O-Hide also felt a surge of youthful vitality rising within her—a sense that something delightful might await ahead. Letting herself dwell in that mood made each passing moment feel less burdensome. Though outwardly known as the cheerful daughter of the boat rental shop among townsfolk and regulars, she had long understood that none would ever become true confidants. Accustomed to guarding her solitude, she had mastered the art of soothing loneliness alone. At times while scraping algae from moored boats, she would suddenly take up a customer’s fishing rod, row beneath Bishamon Hall in Nagato, and try catching crucian carp. Occasionally she even brought me aboard her boat, calling me “the clean beggar.” Her greatest joy lay in summoning Bunki the beggar to explain photo spreads from the newspaper’s children’s section. O-Hide claimed Bunki’s presence lifted her spirits.

Around eight o’clock, another fisherman came to rent a boat. O-Hide went out to the pier and was preparing the boat when the sound of an engine echoed from downstream. When she looked up in surprise, yesterday’s motorboat had returned. However, the person at the helm was different. He was a young, robust man. The man skillfully docked the boat at the pier, came ashore, and then said this: “Mr. Nagamatsu went up to Isoko last evening and lodged at that inn there. Since returning was too much trouble, he asked me to return the boat in his stead.” “He must have caused you considerable inconvenience by delaying the return.” “He said to tell you he’s sorry.”

The man handed O-Hide the overtime fee tucked into his woolen belly band. O-Hide served him bitter tea and such, entertaining him for a while. The man said he supervised the inn’s rental boats. As O-Hide questioned him, “Well now—those pleasure inns over there aren’t faring poorly this summer at all. Plenty of customers coming through,” he said. This made O-Hide realize how unexpectedly vast the world was. Then regarding yesterday’s passengers,

“They’re not parent and child. “That girl—despite appearances—is Mr. Nagamatsu’s second wife.” “She may look like that, but she’s twenty-eight.” When O-Hide heard that the girl was a mistress and that this mistress was exactly her own age of twenty-eight, for some reason a sudden pang struck her chest. Even after the man had left, saying he would return by land vehicle, her heart still seemed to be in turmoil. For a girl in my circumstances seeking livelihood, perhaps the path of becoming a mistress was one option available. It was likely because she felt as though her latent thoughts—ones she had avoided bringing to mind because they were unpleasant—had been exposed. Precisely because the other party had spoken those words without ulterior motives, it must have felt like being confronted with an ill-omened divination hex, leaving her subsequent state of mind thoroughly unpleasant. So she seemed to have decided to go play with Bunki or someone. “O-Cho, you coming too?” she invited, then sauntered off along the embankment toward the bridge. At that moment, I suddenly recalled having seen Bunki heading to the elementary school earlier, and imagining that by now he was probably doing morning exercises with the students and townspeople in the schoolyard, I mentioned this to O-Hide,

“Bun-chan’s exercises—that’s amusing. Let’s go watch.”

I invited O-Hide. But O-Hide, “Hmm… Well, I’d rather keep sauntering along the embankment. If you want to go see, you can go on your own.”

Since she said this, I parted from O-Hide, went to the elementary school, and peered in from outside the fence. Bunki was indeed performing calisthenics in the schoolyard. On a platform, a young gymnastics teacher demonstrated the movements in sync with the amplified radio calisthenics commands echoing from the staff room window of the school building. The rows began with small children and gradually transitioned to older students, followed by male and female youth group members lined up in formation. The final row consisted entirely of adults, among whom participated the school board member—the very organizer of this event.

Bunki stood all by himself a few meters away from the group, moving his arms and legs in time with the rhythm. His gestures were no different from everyone else’s, but when he moved his limbs, the resulting motion made his neck and waist flop limply. It was as supple as an infant’s. The teacher who had first noticed Bunki mimicking the exercises outside the schoolyard fence, impressed by this, proposed letting him join inside. The adults did not agree, but the youths supported the teacher’s proposal. There were various arguments between the two factions—some even vehemently insisting that beggars were also citizens—and in the end, the adults reportedly gave their consent. On the first day, Bunki was made to stand at the end of the first graders’ row. This was likely due to the judgment that his intellectual capacity ranked below first graders. However, when he began the exercises, his body flopped limply like that of an infant, making everyone laugh. Since this posed a problem, the next day they had him stand at the rear end of the group’s line. But when a complaint arose from the youth beside him—“This is too much”—they ultimately made him stand several steps back, outside the formation.

When Bunki was made to stand at the very front of the line—even among the children—he looked triumphant. Because of this, his neck flopped all the more limply. When demoted to the adults' row, his face suddenly turned sullen, and on that first day standing isolated from the group, he wore a twisted, tearful expression. He must have found it frustrating to be excluded from their solidarity. Yet before long he seemed to grow accustomed, and Bunki began taking his place each morning with eager haste. This morning when exercises ended, there was an announcement from the town doctor about epidemic prevention before dismissal.

Bunki stood each morning at the gates of various houses around town, as was his daily custom. Those were all familiar houses where they prepared rice and coins ready to give Bunki without hesitation. When Bunki caught sight of me, “Hey there, Clueless O-Cho.” Bunki called out. I once again feigned belated awareness and raised my dull gaze to look at Bunki. Bunki briskly came up before me, looked me up and down, shrunk his neck as though barely containing his amusement, and snickered, “Chihihi.” Then, slowly and deliberately, he extended a single index finger as if targeting a flea. When the tip of his finger reached my forehead,

"You're such a dimwit, putting on airs like an adult." He said this while giving a firm push to the center of my forehead. He must have simply transferred onto me, unchanged, the treatment he himself routinely received from others. I exaggerated my stagger from the forehead push and cast a coquettish sidelong glance at this idiot beggar—now blossoming from adolescence into young adulthood—murmuring, "How cruel." It carried an electric allure of considerable potency.

Then Bunki, as if amusingly affected by this electricity, broke into a faint shudder, his expression relaxing into a broad grin as he mechanically snickered. The electric allure I exuded—had it been directed at a man of ordinary disposition—would seep into his breast, there to be weighed on the scales of affection and aversion, clinging back or scornfully rejected, leaving at least some psychological feedback; in certain cases, sparks of mutual desire might even leap into his very gestures, granting me some tangible response. But with Bunki, it simply dissipated. Might it be that electricity, beyond its mechanical effects, simply passed through the body and scattered into the earth? In physiology experiments at girls’ schools, when electricity was applied to the nerves of a dead frog, its limbs twitched and jerked momentarily as though alive. But just as removing the current would return the frog to its original silent state, the coquettish electricity of my lingering glances—while being showered upon him mechanically affected his nerves and muscles—would, upon ceasing those glances, simply return him to his original idiotic self: Bunki, as though nothing had occurred. Was he a man devoid of a mind, or had he left his heart behind on that vast earth when he was born?

After he finished guffawing, he would revert to his usual boyish self with a lonely, blank expression, merely moving according to his idiotic fixation on surpassing someone. “Just stick close to me and quit your dawdlin’.” “Quit your dilly-dallyin’!” he would issue commands to me.

About two months ago, I moved from the vicinity of T—— Town upstream, where there was a red-light district, to this downstream town of Sagi-cho. This corresponded precisely to the account I had once heard from the old beggar. Was it the winter of the year before last? In those days, I was still a schoolgirl at the academy—a vestige of my former life. I went to deliver year-end gifts to Azaka-sensei and entered the oak forest on the academy’s upstream hill—where the sound resembling the teacher’s hunting rifle could be heard—to search for her when she proved absent from the villa. Having passed through it, I was called out to by an old beggar in the riverside wilderness. The small-statured, kindly old beggar would roast sweet potatoes over a bonfire and give them to me out of simple, nostalgic affection. He not only informed me in detail about Azaka-sensei and Katsuraoka the gardener’s whereabouts but also told me of curious natural phenomena and the very life of beggars themselves. Among these were accounts of how riverside beggars instinctively sensed impending floods like wild animals and evacuated swiftly, and how when relocating their dwellings along the riverbanks, they would let themselves be lured downstream by the supple current—tumbling downstream like falling sweetfish. At that time, preoccupied with concerns about Azaka-sensei and Katsuraoka as I was, these tales scarcely registered in my ears—yet now, upon recalling them, it seems they had quietly seeped into my beggar nature and been tenaciously retained there. And so my own movements came to follow precisely that course. No matter how I consider it, I have no intention of ever returning upstream again. It wears on human emotions like stroking fur against the grain.

It was about two months ago in the evening when I first encountered Bunki, as I was trudging across Tana River Bridge upon arriving in this area. He saw me, a novice beggar, looked down on me as a woman, and immediately raised his fist, threatening, "I'll smash you!" Having grown accustomed to such opponents and situations by now, I unhesitatingly continued to cry out "Forgive me, forgive me!" while putting on a tearful act.

Then he panicked, circling around me like a harried mouse—as though some irreparable mistake had been made—but when I finally quieted my protests, his relieved expression gave way to a derisive laugh. “You’re such an idiot,” he said, peering into my face as he drew closer. He placed his hands on his hips with exaggerated importance and interrogated me in detail—where I had come from, what my name was, and so forth. To the foolish reply I feigned through mimicry, he seemed to develop a peculiar fondness—as if deeming me worthy of his guidance—and saying, “Behave yourself and come here,” he took me beneath his dwelling bridge where he first fed me. Since then, he had fully assumed the role of an elder brother, looking after me with constant calls of “Ocho, Ocho,” even choosing the location for my makeshift hut on the embankment downstream, no more than eighteen meters from his own dwelling beneath the bridge. He also brought various building materials and helped me construct the hut. For alms collection, he would take me along with him, share his regular patrons with me, and even among our fellow beggars—despite his idiocy—he took pains to introduce me around.

However, there were times when he would slip into complete catatonia. It appeared as though he had withdrawn entirely into himself, severing all connection with the outside world; while he himself grew hollow, it seemed as though the vast heart he had left behind on that desolate earth now rose up to dominate him. He looked like an exhausted human yet also resembled a transcendent child of divinity. His outward form remained faintly, hazily desolate—yet when considered later from a distance, it imparted an unfathomable sense of fulfillment. At such moments, even if I stood directly before his eyes, he would either collide with me like a wooden post or sidestep my body as though I were a stranger and pass on by.

As for myself, for the sake of respite I had endeavored to feign as much dullness as possible and blur the tangible presence of reality even to myself; thus, despite such a relationship between Bunki and me, our interactions remained relatively inconspicuous.

And so—what was my own condition?

Ah, my extraordinary respite in life—physically, it had me lying upon the earth along the riverbank; mentally, I had passed through layer upon layer of enigmatic strata until now, becoming one who wanders idly through dawn and dusk upon a foundation of childlike purity—like the riddle "Riddle me this: A parasol on a sunny day."

There is nothing quite like explanations and commentaries to strip away all scent and fragrance from living matter, desiccating things into pressed flowers reeking of chemicals. However, records of mental experiences that lack any handle or foothold would also be meaningless. Therefore, perhaps I should set down here just one brief thing that might serve as an anchor for future recollections.

Probing the impermanence of all things, the contradictions of human existence, the weariness of life—stepping back to observe them, plunging headlong into their midst, sometimes casting them aside entirely—I may have intended to dwell with my heart in mystery, yet this unseen tooth of seeking worked ceaselessly day and night regardless of my efforts to still it, gnawing through these factual realities until this process inevitably gnawed back into the very heart of mystery that contemplated the tooth’s own tip. And so, unbeknownst to me, I had arrived at the foundation of a heart’s field.

Ah—the lives my deceased father had imposed upon me, the lives my deceased mother had imposed; even the ill-fated existences of Azaka-sensei, Ikeno, and Katsuraoka—those transient forms veiled in haze, bearing their burdens—when they entered this heart's field, there existed neither adversity nor ease, self nor other. I knew it as that grand, unrestrained river flowing ceaselessly with heaven and earth—twisted yet straight in its twisting, leaving poignant sorrows as sorrows, becoming perhaps even a pleasure so intense it stole one's breath. How wondrous this underwater river—when I probed its course astride a transcendent raft, plying an oar of shared life and death: drawing near, the currents from my deceased father and others converged into my solitary stream; releasing them, my lone current dissolved into their manifold flows.

“Riddle me this: A parasol on a sunny day.” This brief phrase that children toyed with on their lips—I had carelessly plucked it from the mouths of roadside children in T—— Town as merely an innocuous turn of phrase, then worried it in my heart day and night like chewing gum. Yet the more I gnawed upon it, the deeper its nourishing essence plowed into the soil of my heart’s field, dissolving and submerging me into a repose as rich as slumber—all while remaining awake.

A universe of mystery and a life of mystery—questioning itself since time immemorial, questioning itself away into the eternal future. Resolution and completion exist solely in human proclivities; they do not lie beyond us. Resolution and completion are perhaps but the stretching of a carpenter’s ink line within the partial limitations of humankind. Human history—which knows no ultimate end—appears to teach us the indistinctness of this cyclical chain: that incompletion marks the beginning of completion, and completion becomes the starting point of fresh incompletion.

Humans and nature repeat again and again contradictions akin to raising an umbrella on a sunny day. Moreover, they repeat this alternating chase—a sunny day emerges, then an umbrella appears; next, a sunny day emerges again, followed by another umbrella. If one perceives the impermanence of all things through the narrow lens called fate, then it is precisely within that impermanence that the impetus lies for charging boldly toward the next destiny laid out by fate. If not for the impermanence of all things, how could there arise the bounce to propel us onward? The impermanence of all things itself is nothing less than life’s adornment of flowers and birds, wind and moon.

If one were to grasp this as contradiction through ideals' narrow measure, then such contradiction becomes a double-edged sword that severs decaying conventions and strips away encrusted rust. Why should one set forth toward resolution and completion while fearing the unresolved and incomplete? Life—stir it to kindle flame after flame—this lantern of life's passing showers borne by any soul. The rush wick was neither too slender nor too short by nature. The oil poured would never exhaust itself through all eternity. Grow accustomed to sunny days' empty parasol riddle, and rainy days' bare parasol becomes an alluring yet disquieting mystery; dwell awhile beneath rainy days' parasol, and one yearns anew to leap into sunny days' fresh enigma.

Though I chattered away with such affected cleverness, the true locus of my chattering life lay pitifully in a three-foot underground hole of concealment—even were I to brandish this sword of liberation there, it would have remained but a Benkei lurking behind a shield, its blade tip never reaching reality's battlefield. From a seat of repose so quiet one could not even hear breathing toward vibrant reality, such annotations still bore an immaturity in their essence, leaving regret that their power remained undigested. To attempt to apply what had been apprehended within subjectivity's realm to objective phenomena came across as presumptuous. For this reason, I resolved still to withhold subjectivity's reins from my surroundings' impressions. I would keep my realizations forever hidden within my own land of mystery and await harmony with the outer world through nature's ripening.

Yet youth—youth itself—a young woman—even while lying hidden in this land of mystery, finds that very concealment adorning her innermost being with a pale plum-blossom hue, while the beguiling electricity it brews strains irresistibly toward the opposite sex. But I couldn't possibly shock some unwary soul with this electricity. The backlash would surely strip away this beggar's mask of convenience, rendering my hard-won respite meaningless. Only Bunki, vast as the earth itself, received my electrical emissions without pain or resistance—like a needle sinking into tatami. Thus I dared cast sidelong glances solely at him. I discharged this inner electricity. I would at least squander my youth.

Having emerged from the influence of my sidelong glances and returned to his original self as Bunki, he “You stick with me!” he boasted and strutted off proudly. I too abruptly reverted to being the female beggar I once was. To my eyes, the houses and roads of Sagicho now appeared fried to a sizzle in the oily light of the midsummer morning sun. Bunki led me through rows of gates and entered the main Momose household’s gate. At the shrubbery I caught a glimpse of O-San—the beggar with a child—slipping through the main entrance with its carriage turnaround. The kitchen lay beyond a small gate on the right, but we did not go there; instead we came to the lattice gate in the fence on the left side where only Bunki opened the door and entered the garden. When guests were present things differed, but when none came I often saw the half-paralyzed old master lying on a chaise lounge with half-closed eyes. To Bunki this old man always seemed unfathomably strange—mumbling incoherently yet carrying himself with authority while his wife treated him like a child, pacifying and coaxing him despite his white-haired beard that belied any childishness.

When the old master caught sight of Bunki, his nervous eyes glinted fiercely as he glared, but immediately his expression crumbled into a smile, “Bunchika, well done for coming.” Then, with his functional left hand, he rang the bell to summon his elderly wife and stubbornly meddled by ordering her to feed Bunki this and that.

The elderly wife was a large-framed and healthy old woman. She would let most matters wash over her without letting them get under her skin, but knowing that Bunki refused to eat any rice dishes unless they were home-cooked, she eventually brought out a heaping pile of sweets cradled in both hands. Bunki would share a few sweets with me waiting outside the lattice door, but he would gobble down nearly all of them right then and there. The old man, who was watching this with apparent delight, would order Bunki to show his arms or bare his shoulders once he finished eating.

When that was done, this time he told him to imitate levee construction—clay-pounding. I thought the old master had begun teasing Bunki again and peered through the lattice door’s opening. "I’m getting sick of this," Bunki said, yet somehow he seemed to feel it would be pitiful not to oblige, and so he rose lightly to his feet, pounded the earth firm, assumed a stance supporting the stick with one hand, swaying his body in rhythm as he sang the clay-pounding song.

"Oh monk, The mountain path, Oh, the work kimono chafes, Ho! His voice held a slight roughness, trembling here and there like the edge of a Hosta leaf—warm yet lonely. The old man listened through narrowed eyes, large tears rolling down his wrinkled cheeks. Through this childhood-familiar song, memories seemed to surface of the dedication he had poured into this town’s growth across his lifetime.

Then Bunki would shout “Heave-ho!” and pretend to strike the embankment with a stick, and the old man would chime in with “Hoi! Hoi!” From aged eyes, tears now steadily trickled down. No matter how long they repeated it, the old man never told them to stop. Bunki, drenched in sweat, said, “I’ve had enough.” All the while, the elderly wife—wearing glasses, misting the garments and folding them—would now and then stretch her lips forward to peer at the pair through her spectacles. However, no particular thoughts seemed to arise within her. Only occasionally would she open her mouth wide, laugh in an unburdened manner, and say something like, “What fools you’re making of yourselves.”

When Bunki was about to leave, the old man raised his functional hand and wagged his index finger, “Bunchi, are you going to the new branch family’s place? “Then tell that old badger I’m hale and hearty.” “Got that?” Without needing the old master’s words, Bunki—having just left the main household—hurried me along to the new branch family’s Momose store.

Here in the inner reception room as well, an old man lay ill. To Bunki, this somehow seemed to mirror the main household, and he found it novel.

By synthesizing people’s accounts and adding some of my own observations, the relationship between the main household and the new branch family can be roughly summarized as follows. After the upheaval of the Meiji Restoration, several people who had been stripped of their stipends or professions in Edo migrated into this town, among whom was a blind man. He had brought along a child named Chuichi. Though called blind, he could faintly make out human figures, so the previous head of the Momose main family took care to have him work as a toll collector at Tana River Bridge. Being a blind man skilled in financial matters, he would collect bridge tolls from morning until evening, and during the seven or eight hours between gathering and remitting them to the municipal office, he lent money to those in urgent need and collected interest. Through other similarly nimble conduct, he accumulated small sums of money.

The previous head of the Momose main family found himself inexplicably fixated on this blind man—not merely shielding his disrepute but even marrying him to a wet nurse who had stayed in the household after weaning her charge, then establishing them in a small sundries shop across from the main residence. He further granted them the Momose surname to formalize kinship. This stemmed from the blind man's unyielding pride that refused concession. The former patriarch would frequently engage him in games of Go and Shogi. Whenever defeated, the blind man would twist his face into an expression of bitter chagrin before forcibly contorting it into a rictus grin,

“Since I owe the Master so many favors, I can’t bring myself to oppose him openly. If only I weren’t holding back out of deference—well, never mind.”

Having said that, he would challenge to battle once more. He lost again. He would say the same thing again. He never admitted defeat. The previous head of the main family found the blind man’s distorted face—eyes rolled back in those moments—suddenly taking on a greasiness unbearable to behold, while simultaneously being struck by a rawness he had never before witnessed in this world. And thus he became filled with the desire to somehow crush this blind man’s recalcitrance and make him prostrate himself in heartfelt obeisance.

This was not limited merely to games like Go and Shogi; toward any act of goodwill whatsoever, no sincere gratitude could be seen from this blind man. Moreover, his persistent attempts to witness this—piling favor upon favor by marrying him to a wet nurse, establishing a shop for him, even incorporating him into the family—were ultimately nothing more than manifestations of his mounting anxiety to humble the man’s obstinate pride. The blind man showed a noncommittal attitude while saying, “If that’s what you say, Master—well, I suppose it’s fine…”, yet ultimately entrusted himself to the Master’s care. After opening the shop, the blind man’s household rapidly increased their assets.

Chuichi, the blind man’s stepchild, and Yataro, the main family’s only son, were foster brothers in all but blood. Both attended a terakoya-style elementary school and followed nearly identical educational paths. Upon graduating, Yataro—still in his youth—assumed responsibilities akin to those of a town postmaster. Chuichi assisted clerks at the municipal office. Using these public service roles as their foundation, the two devoted themselves to the town’s affairs. When Yataro became village head, Chuichi served as deputy mayor, collaborating to elevate Sagicho—nominally a town yet still governed as a village—to full municipal status.

In these campaigns, Yataro found himself spending money in all manner of ways. He also began involving himself with local political factions. As the Momose main family's assets consisted primarily of landholdings, their properties were successively mortgaged. Initially deeming it unseemly, he had relied on loans from the O— family—an old-money household in upstream F— Town. Yet however well-disposed the O— family might be, they could not manage taking over such quantities of distant land. Finally Yataro blatantly began devising plans to convert land into cash through every available connection.

It was an era of scarce cultivators and newly imposed taxes—a time when even Tokyo’s surrounding paddies saw cases of land being given away free with just a shō of sake attached. Thus Yataro’s schemes proved arduous. Meanwhile, Chuichi had expanded his moneylending sideline into a financial office, even founding a small regional bank. Chuichi was an upright man who neither drank nor smoked, laboring single-mindedly. At times he would mutter, “A man without hobbies like me gets the short end.” He revered Yataro. He gazed admiringly at Yataro’s dashing nature—undaunted by setbacks, perpetually conjuring fresh hopes. Even in leisure pursuits he showed flair, heaping praise on Yataro’s effortlessly sociable banquet manners.

Yataro finally turned to Chuichi and began requesting that he take over the fields and provide funds. Even then,

“I’ll handle the money matters, but there’s no need to go sending over fields in such a formal manner—” Chuichi refused, but Yataro, wanting to demonstrate his generosity, insisted on writing many fields exceeding their collateral value into the deed. After this occurred two or three times, the Momose family was ultimately compelled to liquidate its assets. The final fatal blow was the Tana River Bridge reconstruction project. The liquidation took over two years, but thanks to the adage “the old river never runs dry,” the main residence and just enough to live on remained, along with one rocky mountain on the downstream ridge. This was all well and good, but even the ever-vigorous Yataro had clearly struggled, and combined with the toll of years of heavy drinking, he suffered an attack of apoplexy.

Meanwhile, an unexpected life-altering change had also occurred for Chuichi. Suddenly, there appeared a middle-aged woman who had drifted into this town. Relying on a slight connection, she took up lodging in a watermill cottage by the mountain stream flowing at the base of the rocky ridge. There were those who claimed her former self had been a barmaid in Kofu, and rumors that she had also worked as a prostitute. She was a woman of elusive character. She would always appear in the rice fields wearing a hand towel wrapped like a working woman’s headscarf and an obi hitched up and tied, breaking off bush clover and catching locusts. At times, she would help out at banquet gatherings for town assemblies and tell crude jokes.

Before anyone knew it, Chuichi had become entangled in this affair. From Chuichi’s perspective—a man who drank no alcohol, smoked no tobacco, and did nothing but work, who had complained that such an uninteresting existence left him wholly disadvantaged—he might have intended to reclaim all his life’s losses here at once. Chuichi had three sons. The eldest, Shigeshi, following Chuichi’s ways, began by assisting municipal clerks after graduating from elementary school and gradually advanced through practical training in public service until, before long, he came to serve as deputy mayor. Despite his youth, he had become involved with political parties and assumed the role of a local political boss. Lawsuits were constantly occurring. Shigeshi was short but broad-shouldered, a sensitive man with a stout belly. The social influence of the main family’s Old Man Yataro was beginning to shift to the new branch family’s eldest son.

The second son, Keiji, was an intellectual-type youth who mainly resided in Tokyo and had entered upon an academic path. The third son, Jōji, while possessing something extraordinary within his ordinariness, remained an innocent child who delighted in playing among the village farmers' children. In truth, everything had entered Shigeshi's era. The money elderly Chuichi spent on women had no impact on the Shin-Momose family's fortunes, and those around him—while scorning such behavior from that scrupulously upright Chuichi—seemed to hold a strange affection for him, as if they had discovered some shred of humanity in his frailty.

Chuichi tried opening a small restaurant in a bustling area on Tokyo's outskirts following the woman's instructions and negotiated to take over a vacant house in F— Town's brothel district. Before long, he fell ill. Though the nature of his illness remained unknown, his legs and hips became impaired. Rumors in town said he had contracted a bad disease from the woman. Chuichi went from doctor to doctor and visited hot springs, but his legs and hips remained immobile, while the woman sold off the small restaurant as a going concern and eloped with the chef.

Chuichi ended up laying his disabled body down in the inner reception room of the Shin-Momose residence. From around the time Chuichi began his womanizing, Old Man Yataro had come to harbor a vague resentment toward him. He now thought that Chuichi—whom he had respected since his youth—was nothing but a tanuki cloaked in pelt, finally revealing its true form. He felt he had been stripped of even that sense of superiority he'd maintained by constantly ridiculing Chuichi's dutifulness and unsophistication as objects of contempt. Chuichi had become that sort of man. Yataro thought that Chuichi's disposition—which once foolishly earnest had worshiped him alone as a hero—must have vanished by now.

The other reason was ultimately jealousy over the shift in power. Even mountains, forests, and fields that had been liquidated and fallen into others' hands had—due to local circumstances—no choice but to end up with the Shin-Momose household, a family possessing both economic power and various convenient social connections. If viewed through resentful eyes, this too could only be perceived as the Shin-Momose family having secretly maneuvered societal connections to spitefully absorb everything into their own household. Bunki entered through the side gate of the Shin-Momose store where many carts were parked. It was a small square surrounded by three or four storehouses, where clerks and load handlers were unpacking bundles of sundry goods. Even when called out to, Bunki pretended not to notice and proceeded to the back. At the base of the paulownia tree by the wellside, he had me crouch down before crawling his way along the edge of the inner reception room. In this inner reception room facing the garden lay old retiree Chuichi. His stout, stocky body tinged a reddish-brown hue lay with his head turned toward the hemp futon.

Bunki said, “Oh, you’re lying here too,” and voiced a simpleton’s observation about the strangeness of two immobile old men lying paralyzed in the inner reception rooms of both households across from each other. As he turned toward me and tried to rise in a flustered manner, the old man groaned, “Oh, owwww,” and lowered his body back down. His bloodshot protruding eyes rolled anxiously, “Bunki, what brings you here?” he said. Bunki said innocently, “I came to see you lying down here.”

“You idiot, you don’t come to see someone lying down like this.” Chuichi scolded him, but more than that, it was likely his expectant feelings of hoping to hear news of the main family through Bunki alone that prevailed. He called Bunki over to the edge of the veranda and, in a whisper inaudible to the household, “How’s the main family’s old man doing?” he asked. Bunki haltingly recounted things like how he’d been made to imitate clay pounding. Through Bunki’s account, Chuichi had been probing to discern the main family patriarch’s state of mind while pressing for more with repeated “And then? And then?”—until finally Bunki,

“The main family’s old man says, ‘Since I’m healthy here, I won’t be dying anytime soon.’ “He told me to say that to Tanuki Ojii.” When he heard this, Chuichi let out a breath as if all strength had left him. “After all, does Mr. Yata hate me so unbearably? Is that why he’s trying not to show weakness? I don’t recall doing anything wrong to the main family, but…” he muttered. “I don’t know why, but he called you ‘Tanuki Ojii.’”

“Sly Old Man,” Bunki said with amusement. The veins in Chuichi’s face swelled up. “If he’s going to act that way，then I will too.” Having said that，he let out another sigh.

This was the rebellious utterance of the Shin-Momose household—all except Keiji—against what appeared to be the main family’s baseless hatred. “Next time you go to the main family,” he said through gritted teeth while veins bulged at his temples, “tell that old man: ‘The tanuki old man of Shin-Momose still breathes strong.’ And add this—‘You think I’ll croak before your moldy bones give out?’”

Bunki, having apparently grown tired of watching the old retiree, simply said "Goodbye" and drifted away. This time, he seemed to have forgotten he'd brought me along, and I was left behind.

I returned alone to the riverside and once entered my shack. I spent a while inhaling the scent of summer grass that, now bathed in sunlight, had begun to emit a pungent, awakening fragrance.

O-Hide came looking for Bunki under the bridge. But Bunki was not there, and the bright morning sun streamed into this beggar's characteristically compact and neatly kept dwelling. O-Hide said, “Oh, right…” Though she knew perfectly well this was when Bunki would be out collecting alms in town, rather than chiding herself for coming anyway, she seemed to conclude she must be in some different state of mind—and made an odd expression.

Then O-Hide stood vacantly in a manner that suggested she was pondering whether this phenomenon—of having no particular interest in Bunki’s existence when not thinking of him, yet always finding him present whenever she felt inclined to seek him out—stemmed from her own capriciousness or was simply Bunki’s inherent nature. All around us, the heat haze from the grass rose ever higher, and the leaves that had clung together with dew now sprang apart with a snap. The sound of insects burrowed at the base of the thicket reached my ears. The new straw matting, under the midday sun, somehow cast a familiar heat haze. O-Hide sat sideways on the straw matting and squinted as she surveyed the upstream surface of the river. Due to the high tide, the large sandbar was hidden from view. The water, stretched out and petroleum-colored, was quietly moving downstream at a slightly reduced rate, maintaining its vast expanse. The magnificent expanse appeared almost like some great river. Yet I found it amusing that if one were to go just a kilometer upstream from here, the river became rock-strewn rapids that might make you feel you'd entered some mountain country—a contrast I observed separately from O-Hide, watching from within my shack. On the opposite bank, a blue embankment lay stretched over reeds, while the jumbled backs of Yota Town’s houses clustered at the bridgehead peeked out in a mass atop the embankment. Then, as you went upstream, the houses became sparse, and suddenly a brick kiln with a tall chimney came into view at an angle. Near that embankment, bricks and tiles were piled high, and from its shore a jetty extended into the river, shining white. Carp anglers were lowering thick rods. What an ordinary, tranquil scene this was. Yet how deeply that very ordinariness had seeped into my being—now an inescapable scene.

I recalled that even in this Sagicho—with its modestly held unassuming scenery I had gathered through hearing from people—there had been passed down tales of historical significance and romance.

Long ago, descendants of the Hatakeyama who had descended from the mountains of Chichibu settled in Musashino and proclaimed themselves the Edo clan. Among them, the most renowned was Edo Tarō Shigenaga, who rushed to join Yoritomo when he was defeated at the Battle of Ishibashiyama and entered Kazusa from Awa to raise an army. For this meritorious service, he was granted by post-war Yoritomo the right to administer the central region of Musashi. Of that clan, those who settled in this area and became local landowners included three or four households along the Tana River banks. The O— family of F— Town upstream was foremost among them, as was the M— family of M— Town downstream, situated along the old Tōkaidō highway's post station route.

The Momose of Sagicho were also one of these. Edo passed through the eras of Ōta Dōkan, the Uesugi, and the Hōjō, but these local landowners clung to the earth like moss. Tokugawa Ieyasu’s policy of protecting established families permitted these households to bear surnames and swords as local authorities, while their residential lands were exempted from tribute taxes.

In E District, closer to Tokyo beyond this river and another, there were seven burial mounds known as the Woman Mounds. When Nitta Yoshioki, having been defeated, entered Musashi from Echigo and was planning a comeback, the Ashikaga clan in Kamakura attempted to have a certain Sakyo approach and assassinate him. Sakyo assigned a woman from the capital named Shōshō to act as a spy. However, Shōshō—bound by Lord Yoshioki's compassion—came to devote her heart to him. When Shōshō warned against their plot to assassinate him under the guise of a moon-viewing banquet and prevented them from approaching the danger, Sakyo grew enraged and killed her. He slaughtered her seven maidservants too. The villagers, taking pity on them, buried their remains together with Shōshō's—this became known as the Woman Mounds.

But if they included Shōshō, there should have been eight mounds—yet only seven existed. Regarding this discrepancy, another legend had arisen. Among the maidservants was a beautiful woman with whom the young lord of the Momose house had fallen in love. Therefore—so went the tale—he had secretly helped her escape and made her his inn’s wife. It was said that O-Hide’s family too had once been retainers of the Momose clan, having holed up at Daishigahara during the Tenbun era to fight alongside their Momose lord when Ujiyasu Hōjō swept through Kantō—he who had sided with the Uesugi faction. Perhaps through this connection, O-Hide’s household too had borne the Momose name.

During Old Man Momose Yatarō’s vigorous years, owing to his notorious fondness for organizing events, he once created an association called the Momose-kai that gathered only those bearing the Momose name in this vicinity. They numbered twelve or thirteen households in total, scattered from this town to nearby villages. The oddities among them included a traveling opera-comique actress and one beggar. When the secretary wondered what to do and consulted Chairman Yatarō, he said, "Never mind—bring them along," so they were brought on one occasion. The actress was named Rui-ko and was said to be the troupe’s star performer. The beggar went by Hyōgojima and was an exceptionally squalid specimen.

As I gazed at the river and O-Hide’s figure while absentmindedly pondering trivial matters, a woman’s voice called down from the bridge. “Bun! My brat’s got a tooth coming in!” That was characteristic of O-San, the female beggar. As O-Hide remained silent beneath the bridge, O-San’s figure appeared from the bridge approach—carrying a child on her hip, a kerosene can dangling, dragging her lame leg up the embankment. “Oh! You’re the young lady from the boat rental shop, aren’t you?” “I thought Bun might be here again.”

O-San peered in with her disheveled tied-up hair and said, "Just show me where the baby's tooth came through." O-Hide pressed a palm against her breast as if suppressing an itchy sensation squirming deep within her body. "Would you like to see it?" Though O-San seemed pleased and began descending the embankment with her lame leg, her movements looked unsteady, so O-Hide went up to meet her instead.

“Let me see,”

O-San wiped the child’s face with the torn sleeve of her kimono as if using a tool, then thrust it forward. “I’m afraid it’s rather filthy.” The flat face with roughly placed features and only the chin protruding looked exactly like her mother’s, but on a child’s face, it held a certain charm. Plump and well-fed, and though dressed in a hand-me-down kimono meant for a child of seven or eight, there was an uncanny charm about it. O-Hide said, “My, how adorable.” O-San used her thick, farm-bred index finger to lift the baby’s lip. A glimpse of white appeared between the gums.

“I don’t produce much milk, but when I let him suckle because he cries so much, he bites with this tooth here. Hah.” “I hear the gums get itchy where the tooth’s coming through.” The child, annoyed by its mother’s finger, clenched his teeth stubbornly. Then O-San pinched the child’s nose as though handling some tool. The child gasped for breath and opened their mouth. “My my, how big it is! What a surprise.”

In O-Hide, something like a sense of adventure must have stirred. “I’d like to try letting him nurse.” O-San said, “I’m afraid it’s rather filthy,” but without making any effort to stop her. She wiped the soot from the baby’s face two or three times with her palm before adding: “What luck for this brat—getting to suckle your teat, young lady.” O-Hide looked around. Unaware that I was lying in the shack, she saw no one around outside. O-Hide opened her kimono and pressed the child to her engorged breast.

With greedy sucking noises, the child latched onto the breast. O-Hide made a face as though her entire body were encircled by giant leeches—an expression of faint disgust—but as she endured it, her features soon transformed into an expression of fresh, tender love that welled up with a desire to melt together with the child. Yet even while steeped in that ecstasy, the fearful anxiety of awaiting danger—the moment when her breast might be bitten—seemed to fill O-Hide with raw tension, and her softened face tightened once more.

O-Hide must have felt a sensation as though heaven and earth had split apart. As she instinctively cried “Ouch!” and twisted her face in that instant, O-San pinched the baby’s nose with her usual practiced hand. And saying “Haa,” she scooped up the child who had opened its mouth. “Ha ha ha ha. Just as I said—he went and bit you, didn’t he?” O-San said, peering at the nipple together with O-Hide. Only a slightly reddish streak formed, but it did not become a wound.

While an excitement of uncertain nature—whether it should be hatred or pity—seemed to pass through O-Hide, she suddenly seemed to conceive a new hope that took form like a plan within her breast, staring at her nipple while lost in thought.

What kind of thought could this be? Shall I, for once, indulge my imagination and boldly present a conjecture? Might she be considering avoiding the troublesome business of marriage altogether and simply obtaining a child to raise on her own? Yet judging by how O-Hide now gazed inward with such absorption, she didn’t seem to have yet distinguished whether this child would be one she bore herself or one received from another.

Hanada the Bespectacled finished plucking the crow's feathers and began pounding the meat on the cutting board. A small stream flowed nearby. From the northwestern hills, water had been channeled down to create a reservoir called Koame Dam. This was the same stream that irrigated the fields before gathering to flow into the Tana River. Black feathers lay scattered from the gentle current's edge across the water's surface. Judging from his usual remarks, he likely thought about Toro's shale deposits—where Oneyama's rocky surfaces lay exposed along the Tana River—as he pounded the meat with his cleaver. The shale's suitability for natural cement had been immediately apparent, but he often said he couldn't shake the feeling that crushing it thoroughly might yield something more intriguing. Perhaps bentonite or similar minerals might emerge, he mused. Across the stream, beneath the shade of fig tree leaves, I spread out a mat and rested on my elbow, idly watching while cool air from flowing water brushed against me.

Behind Hanada stood the young girl from the neighboring shack watching. The young girl would try to strike up a conversation now and then,but Hanada would stop her by saying,“Quiet now!” Undeterred,the young girl immediately started talking again. Rather than having his thoughts disturbed it was child’s way impulsively blurting things out acting on every whim inexplicably grated on Hanada’s nerves. “Children are such egoists.It’s utterly unbearable.” “Beyond endurance.”

With his earthen-colored, emaciated face—where only the jaw jutted angularly—showing the movement of his masseter muscles, he pounded intently. He had a disposition to perceive something shallow and animalistic in all living, moving things. And so he had gradually drawn closer to waste and inanimate objects—though his approach was not motivated by that reason alone. To discover and utilize the life hidden within such extinction through something like human will. He found an uncanny allure in this. Things that lived and moved from their inception had already had nature’s hand take the initiative. Nature had thrown in the towel, and he wanted to lure life toward things that even they themselves had settled into eternal rest. It was through such ambition that he—this peculiar man whose very awareness of being alive could only be drawn forth—first came into his own.

At the base of his hawk-like nose, eyes that resembled round beads pressed close together—stubborn-looking eyes—usually emitted a fearsome light, yet there was also something weak about them when faced with real-world force.

He had finished pounding the meat, so he went into his shack to fetch the sansho grains to mix into it. The bag had fallen from the shelf and was torn. He shouted.

“Huh! Do mice eat something as spicy as sansho?” Then the girl who had been peering from behind spoke. “Lately they’ve had field mice crossing over from across the river.” “Field mice’ll even eat chili peppers, they say.” “It can’t be helped. I’ll go pick sansho leaves.” Hanada ordered the girl to keep watch over the pounded crow meat and went out to pick sansho leaves. Since I had no pressing business elsewhere, I found a touch of charm in the scholar-beggar’s sansho berries being devoured by field mice—just as he’d intended them for himself—and wondering whether this incident might lead to further developments, I trailed after him at a slight distance.

Hanada, who loved spices, knew exactly where to find such plants. The nearest location with sansho trees was at Sagicho Theater, situated a short distance from the town outskirts toward the center where the main street bends at the corner. It was beside the large garbage bin at the backstage entrance there. Originally, the site where the theater now stands had been the garden of the Wakimomose family—whose head served as the town’s assistant mayor—and contained a tea room called Shisōan. During the economic boom of the European War era, Shingorō, master of the Wakimomose household, noticed this district lacked entertainment venues and conceived a rental hall that would also host variety shows. He consulted Shinmomose no Shigeshi—a man who needed others’ assistance in all such matters. The portly Shigeshi advised they instead establish it as a stock company organization to create a theater capable of hosting both plays and revues.

A corner of the expansive front garden had been cleared, and Shisōan was relocated to another side of the grounds. At the mizuya-guchi there stood a sansho tree, but being so ancient, it produced only the barest scattering of leaves. Owing to a local superstition that transplanting sansho trees—or allowing them to perish in the process—invited misfortune, they built the theater without disturbing it, leaving the tree untouched. The sansho remained pressed against the outer paneling of the backstage area. All memory of this arrangement had faded, and they eventually installed a massive garbage dump right beside it.

Hanada went to check on the sansho tree and exclaimed "Oh!" in surprise. The new buds had already been neatly plucked. Hanada—who would fly into mad rages when food matters didn't go his way—kicked the garbage bin's side relentlessly with his rubber boots. I involuntarily chuckled under my breath, and Hanada turned around to glare sharply at me. At that moment, Hyōgo-shima appeared with his bearded face.

“Hey, Glasses Hanada!” “All those sansho buds I was counting on—someone’s gone and picked every last one.”

Hanada pointed. “Sansho, eh?” Hyōgo-shima peered over. “Last night, Bunki-san from under the bridge took them away.” “He said he was going to grill crucian carp shells.” Hanada made a stunned face and said “Huh?” but then muttered, “Does he even know about that?” Then, listening to Hanada continue grumbling to Hyōgo-shima—while sansho trees were scarce in this town, they could still be found both near the company housing at the paper mill in the backstreets and at Seikō Temple’s charnel ground. And all of them were close to Tanagawa Bridge, where Bunki resided. However, those sansho trees were young, so their astringency was harsh and their pungency unrefined. In contrast, the new buds of this old tree by the theater were fragile, their pungency rich and mellow. That Bunki came all the way to this distant theater to gather sansho leaves—neither going to Seikō Temple’s charnel ground near the bridge nor the paper mill’s company housing—could only be thought to stem from his knowledge of the old sansho tree’s leaves’ superior flavor. However, it was impossible to believe that such an idiot could know something so nuanced.

“That Bunki—why on earth does he come all the way out here to pick sansho leaves? There are still some near the bridge, you know.” Glasses Hanada involuntarily let out a sigh. Then Hyōgo-shima: “Bunki-san came here for the first time last night, but he said he’d found these sansho leaves the other day—the softest and most delicious ones.” “He’s such a strange one—” Hyōgo-shima spoke of how Bunki possessed an uncanny sensitivity toward nature. Maple trees are quite vain—they hate leaving their trunks bare under the sun. So they lower their dense foliage layer by layer. Red pines like being bare and push their branches upward toward the treetop layer by layer. Cows dislike headwinds and prefer tailwinds—Hyōgo-shima related that Bunki had made such observations.

“Bunki-san’s really spot-on about things like tree lifespans.” At the theater, the sound of window shutters opening suggested the backstage attendant had woken. “Can’t be helped. Let’s head to the paper mill’s company housing.” “We’d better go too. If that attendant spots us, we’ll catch hell again.” “I’m starving half to death,” “Hungry? Right—wait a tick.”

Hyōgo-shima, using his long-nailed hands like a rake to sift through scraps in the garbage bin, “The theater’s been doing poorly—they never throw out anything worthwhile,” he said as he retrieved five or six pieces of sushi clustered together in paper wrapping. Hanada muttered “Much obliged,” peeling away the paper and eating as they made their way toward the main street.

I, sensing this sansho incident still held potential for development, continued trailing after them. Hanada turned around again, making a bitter face as he said, “A beggar clinging to another beggar—that’s not how it works. You won’t make a single penny that way,” but I paid him no mind.

Due to abundant water and land suitable for growing kozo, there had long been artisanal washi paper workshops in this district. The conversion of these into modern Western-style paper factories stood as one of Old Man Yatarō's achievements from the Momose main family. Though a small factory employing seventy to eighty workers, even after mechanization the paper industry still demanded skilled craftsmanship—a proficiency innately possessed by local youths raised through generations of paper-making traditions. They produced goods of considerable quality.

Though there had been several merger offers from large companies, Old Man Yatarō stubbornly refused to comply. Since even the large companies faced opposition and were not such formidable adversaries, it was left as a subcontracting plant that supplied raw materials and took in finished products. Due to fluctuations in exchange rates and the depreciation of the national currency, the paper-making paste imported from America became very expensive. This paste was absolutely essential for laminating the highest-grade papers. And since these processing agents were the factory’s responsibility, the import market prices became so exorbitant that they could no longer be fully utilized. Although the parent company’s research laboratory was currently investigating substitutes for it, such an invention would not materialize immediately; consequently, the factory temporarily halted production of its highest-grade paper and focused its efforts on manufacturing moisture-proof paper instead.

For buyers needing perfectly moisture-proof paper was a critical business matter, and even their existing waxed paper and kraft paper reportedly fell short of perfection. Imada, the factory's chief engineer, apparently focused on this challenge and strove desperately to solve it. Imada—a man blessed with many children, his eldest being eighteen among seven or eight—could be seen gathered around the low dining table in the company housing's family room eating breakfast. He appeared to enjoy developing ideas amid clattering rice bowls and the boisterous din of children's laughter and tears.

In front of the family room lay a garden, and beyond the fence to the left stood the factory. To the right stretched rows of the president's company housing. Between them from the northwest flowed the downstream current of Koizume reservoir into the factory grounds. This water served miscellaneous purposes, while from the upper left came purified water drawn from mountain streams along Ridge Mountain. Imada always prided himself on this extravagant water system - remarkable for any factory near the city.

Suddenly noticing from the family room, Imada peered out and saw scholar-beggar Hanada picking sansho leaves while talking to a bearded beggar beyond the second bamboo fence of the company housing. Imada, having noticed my presence too, furrowed his brows as if condemning why this town had so many beggars—yet seemed to feel a desire to discuss his ongoing research about moisture-proof paper invention with Hanada, his usual conversational partner on the subject. However, knowing Hanada disliked places with many children and that inviting him would inevitably bring along that notorious filthy-bearded beggar to cause trouble, he hesitated—just as Bunki suddenly appeared around the corner of the company housing, carrying his alms sack. Upon seeing this, Hanada grabbed his arm and said a few words—then began hitting and striking. The bearded beggar tried to intervene but was struck along with him. Imada stood up and scolded the children trying to go outside to look, stopping them. Bunki fled, wailing and cursing. The bearded beggar had also vanished somewhere.

Feeling disenchanted, Imada changed his clothes and began preparing to leave for work. Hanada was plucking the remaining sansho leaves. Then, suddenly, Bunki appeared from behind the company housing. After that, O-Hide from the boat rental appeared.

Strangely enough, when Hanada saw O-Hide, he stopped plucking the sansho leaves and stood frozen in place as though cast in iron. Hanada struggled with young women—O-Hide especially. Faced with O-Hide's reprimands, he fidgeted by scratching his head and rubbing his ears—behavior utterly unbefitting his usually haughty demeanor. When O-Hide seized Hanada's shoulder and shook him vigorously, he bowed deeply to Bunki. Then Bunki too bowed deeply.

Imada saw this and, feeling something amusing, burst out laughing. Even the children watching from the veranda edge burst into laughter in unison. O-Hide started walking, taking Bunki and me with her. When I looked back, Hanada had slunk off in the opposite direction, as though he no longer had the courage to pick another sansho leaf. Keiji of Shin-Momose had a habit of taking a nap after eating breakfast, the fatigue from his early morning heron hunts setting in. When I entered the courtyard to receive alms, he—appearing to have just woken up—was smoking his waking cigarette with a puffy face. Tsuneji, the younger brother, had returned from the funeral and was changing into khaki-colored clothes beside this middle brother, preparing to go out. When asked by his middle brother, he answered that he was going around the houses in Koizume to gather the women’s youth group for the afternoon levee repairs.

The middle brother Keiji was fond of this younger sibling. He remained taciturn yet cheerful, occasionally letting slip airy remarks. His physique—pale peach tinged with blueish undertones—boasted chest muscles chiseled like a Grecian statue. From childhood he'd preferred playing among village children. In Keiji's oft-repeated tale from his own higher elementary school days, he'd spot mud-caked boys dredging irrigation ditches and think 'That one looks familiar'—only to inevitably discover it was Tsuneji.

Both the eldest brother Shigeshi and the middle brother Keiji now carried themselves in a way that suggested they never broached any intrusive topics with their youngest brother Tsuneji. When the brothers attempted to raise such matters, Tsuneji possessed an innate tendency to rebuff them with a manner of speaking so inherently evasive and circuitous that it ended up flustering the very brothers trying to initiate conversation. The middle brother loved him simply by calling out “Tsuneji, Tsuneji” over and over. He had graduated from middle school, entered the preparatory course of a private university, and become an athlete in sumo, swimming, and the like—only to abruptly quit everything, return to the village to speak in the local dialect, blend into the community, and begin living day to day. In town, various incidents occurred that kept their influential eldest brother Shigeshi occupied. Since Shigeshi was primarily based in Tokyo, he had entrusted most matters to this youngest brother as his proxy.

“Tsuneji, I’m counting on you.” When the eldest brother said this, Tsuneji replied, “No, no,” but still took care of things. When I happened to pass by the restaurant window and glimpsed him sitting in the seat of honor at a banquet as his brother’s proxy, dressed in haori and hakama, he was a handsome man with thick eyebrows and robust features—a youth who always seemed eager to rise and immerse himself in some active lifestyle. Though quiet on the surface, his heart always seemed to be racing from one action to the next.

To the local girls, his personality and actions were too clear-cut in their transparency, so he never seemed to become an object of romantic sentiment. His kindness appeared universal and difficult to claim as one's own. He seemed the sort who increasingly came to be seen as an official-type young man with each passing year. Even when visiting the town café, not a single woman appeared to grow jealous. The women likely sensed that these café visits too were merely another obligation of his duty-bound, active lifestyle in service of some role. He also managed affairs for the women's youth group. They collectively gravitated toward Tsuneji, looking to him as a maternal figure. When everyone gathered facing Tsuneji, a certain purposeful energy emerged. In this way, Tsuneji remained well-liked among them.

As I was walking along the road leaving town toward Koizume to receive alms, Keiji came riding up from behind alongside Tsuneji on their bicycles down the village road on a summer morning. Watching his twenty-two-year-old brother pedal along—his sturdy jaw clean-shaven and blue-tinged, his black eyes darting about—Keiji stared intently, trying anew to determine whether this guy was a fool or clever. Up to the edge of town lay sandy soil, with many peach groves and mulberry fields. Beyond that lay rich soil where rice fields spread out into view. Near the hills, the earth turned black with vegetable fields. Frames could also be seen. Across this gently undulating plain lay several small hamlets. The hamlets clustered here and there in dense patches, each surrounded by standing trees.

The water of Koizume reservoir glinted in the distance.

The hill visible at the end of the path revealed patches of white limestone skin in places but was mostly cloaked in mixed trees. Behind it, a forest of red pines filling the subsequent Ninety-Nine Valleys surged forward in waves, their crests manifesting as rows of soft green along the hill's back. The villagers called it Matsugaoka (Pine Hill). To the left stretched Oneyama's elephant trunk-like protrusion extending in a T-shape from Matsugaoka toward the Tana River. The base of Oneyama, like Matsugaoka itself, was covered with mixed trees and red pines, but as one approached its tip, the hill increasingly revealed its rocky surface. The willows and acacias standing in a straight line indicated the presence of a mountain stream there. A waterweed hut stood visible.

The rice fields were now at their peak growth, emitting a pungent green, refreshing scent under the late morning sun. The third round of men and women weeding the fields were crawling through them.

When the field weeders saw Tsuneji, they called out something or other. Tsuneji also called out. Whenever Tsuneji spotted young women, “Come out for clay pounding this afternoon!” he shouted. The girl— “Yeah, I’ll come out. Yeah.” “Yeah.”

Tsuneji stretched up on his bicycle, “Don’t just keep answering me—” “Ahahahahaha! Don’t worry—we will!”

A cheerful burst of laughter hid among the verdant rice leaves. As they neared Koizume, the road forked—straight toward the hamlet of cultivated fields and left toward Oneyama—where Keiji parted ways with Tsuneji. As they were about to separate, Tsuneji called out to stop Keiji, “Brother Shigeshi seems to be getting all worked up lately too.” “The company’s completely out of sync, gravel ain’t selling ’cause there’s less concrete construction with the recession, and buses ain’t getting passengers since they say fares are too damn high—”

“So it’s come to that?”

Keiji looked at his younger brother in surprise. "I don’t really know the details, but that’s the gist of it, y’know."

At that point, he pedaled away down the path toward the cultivated fields. Keiji turned his handlebars toward the mountain path when he suddenly spotted me. “Oh, Clueless O-Cho,” he said. “Why don’t you come along to Zōgahana for some fun?” He made the offer casually, without pressing the invitation, then turned his gaze across the fields toward his younger brother’s retreating figure. In his younger brother’s figure, there appeared to be no signs of concern whatsoever. Keiji appeared unable to stop himself from considering once more whether this youngest brother of his was a fool or clever.

I, having been invited by this youth once again, abandoned my alms-seeking in the Koizume direction and walked silently alongside his bicycle. Keiji left his bicycle at the waterwheel hut and ascended Oneyama’s elephant trunk. I too ascended.

The elephant’s trunk of Oneyama was covered in miscanthus grass, slightly elevated and rounded; indeed, when viewed with that in mind, it did not seem entirely unlike the shape of an elephant’s head leading into its trunk. The area from the base of Oneyama to the elephant’s head was owned by the main branch of the Momose family. The Momose family had a legend that Oneyama’s elephant trunk was a mountain that would become their salvation in times of crisis. It was said that it must never be relinquished. In fact, there were legends that it had saved not only the Momose family but this entire vicinity on two separate occasions. Once during the Tenpō famine, wild yams had proliferated across this entire ridge, and it was said the villagers had been able to dig them up to stave off starvation. It was also said that soil which could be eaten when mixed with mochi had been extracted from between rock layers. Another time, during a certain year of heavy rains in the early Meiji period, the Tana River had breached its embankments and submerged the houses of this neighborhood. Had this mountain not existed as a refuge at that time, it was said that the villagers of these plains would likely have been completely wiped out. Even Old Man Yatarō, a mid-Meiji period champion of civilization and enlightenment, had refrained from dismissing this particular legend as mere superstition. When liquidating his estate, he had struggled mightily until the very end to retain possession of this mountain alone.

On the elephant’s head, what had once been a small viewing pavilion now stood weathered by wind and rain, leaving behind only a few remnants of its roof and pillars. They say this was a vestige from Old Man Yatarō’s heyday, when he would bring geisha here to spread reed mats overlooking the peach grove. Keiji lay down on floorboards bleached and weathered like ship planks, tossing two books from his pocket near his head. I settled a short distance away at the edge of the decaying floorboards.

After gazing at the scenery for a while, Keiji slowly turned toward me.

“Ms. Chōko,” he called. The words carried both familiarity and an honorific, making me start in surprise. Too flustered to reply properly, I warily met Keiji’s gaze. His face wore a faintly triumphant smile. “Ms. Chōko, don’t you think it’s time to remove that mask?”

The sun was nearing eleven in the morning, and the river, the town's tiled roofs, the vegetable fields and rice paddies all seemed to have their surfaces gradually stripped away by the white-hot light, transformed into particles of mica that rose shimmering upward. Even if the light beneath the eaves where I sat consisted merely of reflected glare, having this sunlight illuminate my beggar's soot-blackened, ugly face and expose it to the young man's eyes—now that he seemed to have discerned my true identity through some means—filled me with unbearable shame. I abruptly covered my face with my sleeve,

“Oh, how shameful! How did you figure it out?” I said. Keiji, sensing my hesitation, blew tobacco smoke in a direction away from me while, “As for why—that scholar-beggar Hanada is a man with an uncanny knack for investigating the essential nature of us beggars.” “That you’re a fake beggar—he sniffed that out within ten days of your arrival here.” The scholar-beggar Hanada was fascinated by extracting some value from decaying natural objects and would not rest until he had monomaniacally investigated their origins. The same applied to beggars—these human remnants of decay—for it was in his nature to tenaciously pursue his investigations once he fixed his sights on a particular one.

“Since you’ve fallen under that bloodhound’s scrutiny, Hanada thoroughly investigated everything—that you’re the mistress’s child of a university professor descended from beggar lineage, that out of existential confusion you’ve defiantly womanly accumulated beggar experience inherited from your parents—and reported it all to me.” “Only the two of us in this town knew your true nature.”

I thought there was nothing more to be done. “I hate this. You knew, didn’t you? Well then, it must have been quite absurd, wasn’t it?” “That was absurd.” Keiji said, “Anyway, if you want us to talk face-to-face, go wash your face—even if it’s just with water.”

The Sasa River at the foot of a hill where the silk tree immersed its green shadows.

As I washed my face and limbs, what now lay exposed beneath the beggar's guise, beneath the woven reed mat—the woman's true nature. Facing the quiet current, when I smiled, the reflection smiled back—the countenance of an untouched maiden whose raw innocence stood revealed. This water-mirror that splits one existence into two between riverbed and earthly world—it now neither belonged to nor escaped the world's grasp. I faced my own image, "Well now—how nostalgic you look." I greeted it. Then,

"But you might be meeting this young lady for the very first time, you know." I added. I plucked blades of grass from the shore as if commemorating something in my heart, set a single leaf boat adrift in the current, then climbed back up the small hill. Keiji had still been waiting there for me. The experiences I recounted of beggar life, the discrepancies Keiji described from his scholarly existence—regardless of type, when a man believes a woman has stripped away her disguises, he would then proceed without reservation, discarding his own self to connect through the heart while resolving not to let her escape. There are probably few men who would be hated after being treated in such a manner. Our conversation progressed with considerable gravity yet gained momentum.

“The cause of all my failures until now has been failing to connect rationality to human life.” “Isn’t that very reasoning itself proof you’ve failed to connect rationality to life?” “No doubt.” “Then what the hell am I supposed to do?” “It would be good if you could lose yourself in something while sober.”

“Hmm.” “Hanada said you’re a woman with the nature of an Ur-Mutter—a Primordial Mother—but to think he could grasp such things through experience and instinct...” As noon approached, the sun began blazing relentlessly. The water bent sharply in a 「く」 shape and collided with the deep pool before O-Hide’s boat rental, its recoil forming a sandbar at Bishamondo Temple on the opposite bank where Tagame dwelled, then struck this shore again to become the still waters of Elephant’s Trunk. For a rural suburb, the splendid Tanagawa Bridge spanned slightly upstream from O-Hide’s boat rental pool, its structure glinting. From this bridge, Sagicho stretched out with buildings of varying heights lining both sides of the thoroughfare—most notably Seikōji Temple’s hall roof and a giant tree nicknamed “Scattered Tree” that drew the eye.

When Keiji glanced down, he noticed a rock layer exposed from midway down Elephant’s Trunk to near the still waters’ shore—precisely where the scholar-beggar Hanada had been fervently gathering shale for his research. A driver-like man was smashing rocks with a prospecting hammer at the site and hauling them into a car parked atop the embankment. Keiji went down and asked, “What are you doing?” Then, the driver-like man said irritably, “It’s for testing at the boss’s factory.” When Keiji asked again, “What kind of factory?” he answered, “You wouldn’t understand even if I told you.” Motivated by impudence, Keiji deliberately pressed his questions with feigned earnestness.

“Hmm. What do you call this factory?” Then the man raised his angry face and glared at Keiji, but after choking back his rage, answered in a lifeless voice.

“It’s called Nagamatsu.” Keiji turned slightly toward me following behind and told me he recalled having a brilliant friend named Nagamatsu during his high school days whose family were industrialists, suggesting it might be theirs. “Nagamatsu, hmm. Are you Nagamatsu’s driver?” The driver, already annoyed, turned back to his work without giving any reply. I also told Keiji that this driver had driven the boss and his second wife to O-Hide’s boat rental yesterday, that the boss and woman had then crossed the sea to Isogo in Yokohama without permission using O-Hide’s motorboat to stay overnight, and that a man from an inn in Isogo had come to return the boat.

Watching the driver smash several rock masses from the shale at the hill’s base, load them into the car, and drive away, Keiji said with a bitter smile: “Entrepreneurs sure are quick to seize opportunities. Especially during this depression when everyone’s struggling. They’ll indiscriminately target others’ land and even resort to outright thievery.”

And then he said that in this situation, the people of this town couldn’t afford to remain complacent any longer. When the town staff heard from Keiji reports that Tokyo entrepreneurs had taken an interest in the shale at Elephant’s Trunk—the still waters of Ridge Mountain—their long-indecisive proposal to mobilize all human and financial resources toward expanding and strengthening the paper mill as a core enterprise, while actively managing various other ventures, finally gained momentum. Of course, both Momose families and their clan were at the core.

From shale they could extract natural cement; whether through a bit more research they might obtain bentonite; from that bentonite they could produce moisture-proof paper—amidst these various discussions and studies, the town began to thrive. Being a layperson, I don't fully grasp these technical matters. These were theories put forth by Hanada the beggar—now Chief Engineer of Sagicho Products Company—and Deputy Chief Engineer Keiji. It was said that from the rich resources of Ridge Mountain’s rocky surface, if there were societal demand, even food substitutes could be extracted by crushing and processing the rock through the power of new science.

Thus four years had passed in the course of this enterprise's progress. Having its starting point alongside the Tana River at the Chichibu peaks, the mountainous region that once moved away from the river upstream continued to run parallel while keeping watch over the watercourse even as it distanced itself, eventually spreading its skirts and turning direction toward central Sagami as it gradually lowered. The ridge of this massive mountain range was geologically composed of a stratum called the Kobotoke Formation, and the diluvial layer between that ridge and the river basin’s alluvial deposits formed a landscape of uniformly wrinkled hills. This geological formation extended beyond the Tana River into Tokyo itself, where it had formed the elevated Yamanote highlands of the capital. These hills were mixed forest hills abundant with pines, their intricate undulations referred to by locals as something like Ninety-Nine Valleys. The ridgeline of the Kobotuke Formation’s mountains extended its rugged bones into clusters of hills here and there as if yearning toward the river, though nothing particularly remarkable came of it. However, near Sagicho, this became particularly pronounced, with the rock layer thrusting through the hilly region like a single tentacle of an oceanic plate, extending all the way to the riverbed downstream of the town. What made this remarkable was that in areas washed by these waters, portions of rock composition from the Mesozoic layer were reportedly observable. It was precisely this fault held by the Momose main family that became Sagicho’s inexhaustible treasure house as a new source of wealth.

Thus, four years prior, Sagicho—which had been left behind by the times, nestled lonesomely among farmlands against this ridgeline—now stood amidst a forest of chimneys and the sounds of revelry. In no remote region where factories and entertainment guilds had arisen did life retain its simplicity. As for Sagicho’s bustling state, I left its description to the soot filling the skies and the mingled cheers and coquettish voices beyond the shoji screens, and proceeded to relate only those matters pertaining to my own circumstances.

Urged by Hanada and Keiji, I became the female manager of Sagicho City’s municipal club-style hall—now under municipal governance. Initially Keiji proposed marriage to me, but following Hanada’s reasoning, I passed him on to O-Hide. According to Hanada’s theory, I am apparently a woman of the Ur-Mutter. No single man could monopolize this maternal universal love. Even were I to consent, they say I would either be swiftly abandoned or take to wandering, spreading that love among many men—such being my nature. Having examined myself, I sadly came to accept this disposition. The role of a club girl who daily welcomes and bids farewell to townsmen, tending to each with heartfelt kindness to soothe their spirits—this suited me best. Just as Hanada plucked me from among discarded beggars to make a club girl, so too were this town’s beggars—O-San with her child, Tagame, Tanba, Seto Kan, Hige no Hyōgoshima—each gathered up and given roles under Hanada and Keiji’s direction. This stemmed less from charity than the city’s desperate labor shortage. Only Bunki remained merely indulged and left to roam the city.

Both the main and new branch Momose families became close through a relationship forged by their combined financial resources. I hereby pay homage to the grand happy endings of popular novels. In truth, it is not that resolutions of events do not exist in this world. If some motive greater than human power were to emerge, gathering people together like autumn leaves would be an easy matter indeed. However, regrettably, while the events of Sagicho had coalesced up to this point, in this narrative—not being a popular novel—the incidents now began to spill forth anew from their resolution.