Pathway to Japanese Literature

For about two days now, an unusually fierce north wind had been raging, and even today showed no sign of abating. It had been over a decade since I came to live in Tokyo, but this was the first time I had experienced such a violent north wind. The creaking moan distinctive to northern winds reminded me of an incident I had encountered over twenty years earlier on Seal Island, shrouded in ice and sea fog. The children had long since gone to bed, leaving me alone in the study that felt excessively spacious. The elegiac north wind filling that void stirred unwelcome memories and compelled me to attempt documenting those events exactly as they had occurred.

Seal Island (Russian names: Cherni Island, Roppen Island) was a remote solitary island floating in the Okhotsk Sea off Sakhalin's eastern coast—eighty nautical miles from Shikuka by sea, two hundred fifty ken in length and thirty ken in width. A table-shaped small rocky mountain composed entirely of Tertiary-period rock strata stood at its center, surrounded by desolate sandy beaches. Alongside the American-owned Pribilof Islands and Russian-held Commander Islands, this desolate sandy beach formed one of only three fur seal breeding grounds in the world. Annually from mid-May through late September, it became both a birthing ground for these creatures and a realm of vigorous mating where their robust desires played out. Crawling, challenging, clashing, fleeing in confusion, and pursuing—the roars and shrieks of tens of thousands of grotesque dun-colored sea beasts intersected with the piercing cries of countless shearwaters, creating a tumultuous uproar that ceaselessly shook the island day and night.

When remnants of drift ice still came and went upon the waters of the northern sea, forty to fifty monstrously large beasts called adult males would typically arrive first, occupy easily accessible landing areas, and await the adult females that followed. By early June, massive groups of female seals with round heads and gentle eyes came darkening the offshore waters. And in their competition, the beach became a hellscape too horrific to behold. Due to the fierce competition, countless females ended up being torn apart mercilessly.

When the fighting subsided, these libidinous athletes would each monopolize about a hundred females to establish spacious harems, endlessly repeating vigorous copulation. For this reason, many unfortunate young males who could not even obtain a single mate naturally came into existence. Those spineless weaklings—wretches with sorrowful eyes—would gather in a remote corner of the beach, peering furtively into others' bedchambers while leading forlorn, widower-like existences. They would find slight solace in driving unmanageable young females to drown or recklessly devouring fish. Then, by late September, on dimly lit dawns or moonlit nights, these good-for-nothings would all end up being clubbed to death by the cullers without exception. The fur seal pelts adorning the coats of ladies and young misses strolling through Ginza were solely the mementos of these unfortunate bachelors.

In 1905, when this peculiar island came under Japanese control, hunting was prohibited and watchmen were dispatched annually from the Karafuto Agency to protect the fur seals. However, with prospects of concluding a tripartite treaty between Japan, America, and Russia (the 1911 Fur Seal Protection Treaty), it was resolved to commence hunting simultaneously with the treaty’s ratification. That same summer, carpenters and laborers were sent to begin rushed construction of facilities—census towers, observation posts, flaying yards, salted pelt storage, and drying rooms—yet even by late November when sea routes closed, completion remained unrealized. To meet the May opening ceremony deadline of the following year (1912, Taisho 1), two carpenters and two laborers each were reluctantly left behind to overwinter and continue the work along with one flaying worker, while a fisheries technician named Shimizu was appointed as supervisor.

At that time, I was a technician in the Fisheries Division of the Agriculture and Forestry Department at the Karafuto Agency, holding the position of chief for the fur seal hunting enterprise. Prior to the May 8th opening ceremony, in order to witness the completion of various facilities, accompanied by one subordinate technician, I boarded the year’s first mail ship in early March, braving the dangers of drift ice to journey to Seal Island. Since American and Russian technicians would also be attending the opening ceremony, it had been necessary to complete all manner of preparations to ensure nothing appeared unsightly.

Record of Stay on Seal Island

First Day

1. The Dai-ni Otaru Maru, which had departed Odomari Port on March 8th, arrived approximately four nautical miles off Seal Island's western coast around 10:00 AM two days later on the 10th. The wind shifted and sea fog began drifting; from within a gray murk indistinguishable from cloud or smoke, the dim outline of a snow-capped, lifelessly gloomy island gradually emerged. Yet this vision proved fleeting. A miasma-like eerie fog once more began swirling hazily about the island, rapidly shrouding it as though recoiling from human observation, then sank back into the boundless milky-white void with the same abruptness it had first manifested.

The moment I laid eyes on the island, I was seized by a profound, inexplicable melancholy. My heart grew heavy and sank, the sense of loneliness tightening its grip on my chest. What had triggered this abrupt melancholy? I could only conclude that the gloomy island scenery had wounded my heart. Or perhaps it might have been something akin to a premonition. It was an elusive sentiment suffused with sorrow, anxiety, and despair.

I leaned against the ship's rail, gazing at where the island had vanished like a phantom, but the stagnation of my spirit only deepened further, leaving me listless and unable to act. That year's cold proved exceptionally severe compared to previous winters, causing remarkable growth of sea ice; between the ice field's edge and shore stretched over four nautical miles, permitting access to the island solely by sled or on foot. This troublesome circumstance intensified my gloom. Though inspecting the island constituted crucial work, after prolonged hesitation I resolved to delegate duties to a subordinate technician, dispatching him near noon with a sled laden with rice, vegetables and other provisions.

Upon receiving my subordinate’s report, I had intended to immediately depart the island, proceed first to Shikuka, and return to the agency overland from there. Sitting beside the captain’s cabin stove, I soon learned through the returned subordinate’s account that a calamity had occurred on this island, making my planned course of action impossible.

This calamity involved a fire breaking out from the drying room on the night of January 4th of this year, reducing all buildings to ashes save part of the salt storage and laborers' hut, with only one survivor—a flaying worker named Sayama Ryoukichi—while Technician Shimizu and five others perished in the flames. Consequently, my official responsibilities necessitated conducting a detailed investigation of the incident and reporting the findings to my superiors and police authorities. However, the Dai-ni Otaru Maru—a postal vessel operating under Ministry of Communications routes that had carried us—was laden with mail destined for towns including Tosaashi, Tonaai, and Shikuka, making it impossible to keep the ship waiting offshore until completing the investigation. Having no alternative, I ordered my subordinate to telegraph a summary report of the incident from Shikuka to headquarters while resolving to remain on the island under condition that the ship would call here during its return voyage. The vessel was scheduled to call at the island no later than evening two days hence, so I anticipated no significant inconvenience and believed the investigation could be concluded without delay by that time.

When I descended the gangway and set foot on the ice field, the steamship sounded a long, choking steam whistle as it submerged its hull into the hazy sea fog, leaving me alone on a vast ice field shrouded in oppressive mist. The gray infinite space held not a single sound, filled with profound silence; the ice field presented a chilling aspect like the surface of a lifeless moon, its frozen undulations so transparent one might see ten fathoms deep, colored an eerie ghastly green.

I began walking toward the island as if adrift, struggling against the encroaching loneliness. The cold proved merciless—my boots froze rock-hard within moments, and when my toes struck razor-edged needle ice, the pain sent me leaping upward. Conventional walking became utterly impossible. My only recourse was to bound from one frozen ridge to another. The extreme tension required in my toes soon made my calves throb with pain, forcing me to halt before long.

As I advanced, falling several times, the fog shifted again and the island's full panorama abruptly materialized before my eyes.

A cloud-shrouded black rocky mountain formed a cliff that hung gloomily over the coast, around which snow mist and gray fog crept darkly. A hellish island where rock, ice and snow had jumbled together and frozen solid. In that eternal silence, shearwaters traced loose circles at the edge of the cliff.

1. Cutting footholds into the ice slope facing the coast and ascending step by step, I found the laborers' hut clinging stubbornly like an oyster shell beneath a rock overhang halfway up. It was a Kamchatka-style elongated wooden hut with a snow enclosure at its entrance, revealing only the chimney and part of the entrance above the snow—a pitiful sight like a shipwreck on the verge of sinking. The entrance's dirt floor spanned about ten tatami mats, with laborers' raincoats, various wooden boxes and barrels, paint-peeled oars, and dinghy clutches all cluttered in a dim corner. I knocked and called out, but met with utter silence and no response; giving the door a token push, I entered the room.

There lay a crude, bare room with exposed vertical log beams bearing deep grooves, its windows more than half buried in snow leaving it dimly lit, where the shapes of objects wavered indistinctly. Built against both plank walls were eight two-tiered wooden bunk beds in a silkworm-shelf style, and at the far end of the back, a rear door was visible. Since the right side appeared to be the kitchen area, I went to peer inside, but found only cooking utensils and empty cans of provisions haphazardly strewn about, with no sign of anyone there.

I returned to the large cast-iron stove installed at the room's center and sat down on a stool there, but the stove had gone completely cold, serving only to accentuate the cold and desolation. Firewood lay stacked right beside me, but I felt too resentful to even kindle a fire. With my teeth chattering uncontrollably, I waited for Sayama Ryoukichi's return—yet he never showed himself. My irritability from the cold, fatigue, and hunger found me sitting with arms crossed and a grimace fixed upon my face when—after perhaps an hour—heavy footsteps dragging like a lame leg sounded from the rear entrance, followed by someone slowly opening the door and entering. Peering through the dimness revealed a hulking man standing fully blocking the inner doorway. Having reached the limits of my patience, I abruptly—

“You there—Sayama?” I called out, but he merely stood there dazedly staring at me without responding. “Don’t just hulk there—come here!” I barked. Sayama approached like a swaying hillock and came to an abrupt halt across the table.

Before my eyes was a strange face. The forehead had completely vanished, continuing into a flat scalp devoid of even a single hair, beneath which lay large dog-like eyes glistening wetly under sparse eyebrows. Small round ears resembling dried scallops clung tightly to his temples, while thin sagging lips curled upward beneath them. His jaw bore dreadful folds of flesh indented in three places before abruptly merging with a thick chest. Though his limbs weren't fins, he bore perfect resemblance to a fur seal. Tormented by the absurd delusion that I faced a fur seal freshly emerged from the sea, and growing weary of confronting this aberration in the gloom, I ordered Sayama to bring a lamp.

Sayama dragged his leg toward the kitchen, lit a seven-wick lamp and hung it on a nail on the vertical log beam, then with excruciatingly slow motions that frayed my nerves stoked the stove, before heavily lowering himself onto the stool facing me.

The lamplight revealed Sayama's face in all its wretchedness. He had contracted scurvy - gums swollen purple, skin mottled with hemorrhagic blotches. Every strand of hair had fallen out, the remaining few eyebrow roots oozing pus and blood. From these signs I surmised swelling had begun in his knee joints too - his sluggish movements confirmed this diagnosis. I'd initially thought him lazy, infuriated by his seemingly indifferent negligence. But recognizing my misunderstanding, I adjusted my tone.

“You—where have you been all this time?” I asked. Sayama slowly raised his face with a gloomy expression, drew down the corners of his mouth and tensed his brow, his cheeks twitching convulsively as he kept his eyes fixed on mine, stubbornly remaining silent. It was that face commonly seen in depression patients—what is termed epileptic irritability. I made an effort to soften my tone and posed various questions, but no matter what I asked, there was no response.

Perhaps due to living alone for so long on this desolate and lonely island sealed in ice and fog, this man had forgotten how to speak. It appears in Willem Barents’ report that prolonged solitary living in polar regions gradually causes one to lose the ability to articulate speech. I thought that the island’s dreadful desolation had caused depression or some similar mental disorder.

I was completely at a loss and gazing blankly at Sayama’s face when suddenly he opened his mouth. In a voice that resonated strangely like tides rushing into a sea cave, he asked what my intentions were regarding how long I planned to stay on the island. I answered that I would remain on the island until the day after tomorrow when the ship came to retrieve me, and with an attempt at sociability,

“Even that’s no sure thing. If the ship wrecks along the way, we’ll have no choice but to stay here until the snow melts,” I said. Sayama fixed me with an unblinking stare. The fact that someone of my standing had remained alone on this island without any companions was a situation that remained utterly unconvincing no matter how I considered it.

I. The island's calamity occurred in this manner.

Since New Year's Eve, the entire island group had been holed up in the drying room. That day too, the drinking began in the evening and soon they were all dead drunk, but since it had started on New Year's Eve and continued for three days straight, they had all lost their senses - none noticed the overheating drying room boiler gradually approaching its bursting point.

In a cataclysm like a volcanic eruption, both the men and the drying room were blown away in an instant. The men were hurled into the air like volcanic bombs, only to come crashing down into the raging flames moments later. They were scalded by boiling water before being methodically burned once more. They likely had no time to regain consciousness—it was, in every sense, an ultimate end. The raging fire, fanned by the north wind, instantly spread to the adjacent storage shed and completely consumed foodstuffs, vegetables, hunting tools, and the laborers' assorted personal belongings. It then leaped to the skinning area and watchmen's hut, devouring them whole, before finally subsiding after partially burning the fur salt storage. It was then that the wind changed.

Sayama was in the depths of the drying room, collapsed from drunkenness. At the moment of explosion, Sayama too was blown away. Yet he was not cast into the flames but instead slammed onto the ice. A trivial difference that proved momentous. He injured only his back; his life remained intact. Sayama himself held no awareness of this. Much later, he slowly opened his eyes. For some time, he could not comprehend what had occurred. He blankly stared at the raging inferno.

I. The Fur Salt Storage building had survived the flames with a kind of unassuming simplicity amidst the snow beneath the cliff. Five or six burnt posts stood sparsely arrayed, ice and snow clinging to them as they glittered like frost-covered trees, lending a modicum of poetic charm to the barren landscape devoid of a single standing tree.

The five corpses had been placed against the plank wall beneath what little remained of the roof—a roof that was little more than a formality—and then tossed like railroad ties onto ground hardened to stone by salt and snow mingled half-and-half.

There was nothing that evoked pity. All the corpses had frozen solid in utterly absurd poses. Some sat with a knee raised, others lifted a leg as if mid-dance step, and still others had arms crossed as if deep in contemplation. All had been smoked like cured meat, gleaming with a dull bronze-black luster. Presumably where they first contacted the snow upon falling to the ground, each corpse retained one unburned area - those spots alone exhibiting an eerie waxen pallor. Each one bore a face twisted as if crushed, white bones peeking through wounds gouged by seabirds’ beaks.

I grew angry at Sayama’s negligent handling,

“Why aren’t you digging graves? This way they’ll just become bird feed!” I pressed. Sayama indicated the Ainu knife at his waist as he answered that all pickaxes had burned up, and with just this single blade, there was nothing he could have done.

Upon returning to the hut, Sayama boiled sea crow eggs speckled with black spots in celadon ware for me to eat, while he himself voraciously devoured daikon radishes and onions delivered by ship, consuming them raw. All fishing gear and hunting rifles had burned without exception, he explained—for these past two months he had sustained himself solely on sea ducks and their eggs.

I. When eight o'clock approached, snow began falling through the fog as a wind howled in from offshore, transforming into a violent blizzard. A blizzard so fierce it threatened to compress the entire island into a solid mass of snow; the wind roared, groaned, and raged insanely while booming waves harmonized with this chaos. The hut creaked and groaned incessantly, seeming ready to be torn away at any moment. As midnight drew near, the wind intensified further, yet amidst heaven and earth's great howling, I heard an indescribable moaning sound. Threading through the storm's fury came a frail voice—like subterranean spirits wailing in sorrow—that faltered yet persisted, breaking off only to resume again, sobbing endlessly like thread being spun from a distaff. This unidentifiable voice lodged itself in my ears, and I remained wide awake until dawn.

II. The Second Day

I. The blizzard had ceased, but the wind’s ferocity showed no sign of abating. It continued blowing madly across the ice, sweeping rock fragments and ice shards together in chaotic disarray. This was a tremendous tempest like the end of the world. After breakfast, I set up a desk beside the crimson-glowing hearth and began drafting my report, but my preoccupation with the ship made progress impossible. With this storm raging, there was no hope of leaving the island on the scheduled day. On this desolate island where nothing could be seen but ice and rock, the thought of having to pass several aimless days here filled me with a castaway’s despondency, sapping all will to continue working.

I had dozed off without realizing it, and when I opened my eyes, night had fallen. Moving toward the kitchen water tank for a drink, I abruptly discovered a tea-brown dog-like creature crouching beneath Sayama's bed. Crouching lower to observe, I saw it was a female fur seal about two years old—her supple back turned toward me as she slept quietly, cradling her head with front flippers. This had been the source of last night's groans. When I demanded why a fur seal would be here, Sayama explained he'd captured it last autumn after finding the creature separated from its group and crawling up toward the herding grounds opposite the sea; it had grown as attached as a child, he claimed. Reaching under the bed to tap the seal's back, I watched it awaken with a languid stretch before wobbling out from beneath the frame.

As she supplely bent her body, a swift, beautiful sheen raced across her velvet-like fur with each undulation. Her chest traced voluptuous curves reminiscent of a pubescent girl’s alluring form, while the webbing of her limbs shone translucent pale pink like spring haze. Her eyes were gently opened with softness, appearing more tender than those of any other animal. Sayama gazed adoringly with eyes that seemed to lick her over, as if utterly enchanted by her cuteness, but then in a saccharine voice—unexpected from such a hulking, grotesque man—

“Hanako, why don’t you greet the master?” he said. The fur seal stared vacantly at Sayama’s face but, seeming to grasp his meaning, repeatedly dipped its head in a bowing motion. Sayama shook his head and chuckled quietly, but as if compelled to display his bond with the fur seal, he issued various commands. With eyes that seemed to gaze beyond distant horizons, the creature leaned against Sayama’s shoulder and crawled onto his lap. Though it was an empty, almost endearing gesture, something about it pierced my heart. It became an inexplicably haunting tableau.

III. The Third Day

I. The wind continued blowing unabated, and night fell without the awaited ship’s arrival. From around noon, the fur seal hung her head listlessly like a wilted flower, showing no vitality whatsoever—but as dusk approached, she collapsed prone across the floorboards and began moaning piteously. Sayama’s grief and panic erupted with dreadful force. He swaddled the creature in every blanket and rag he could scavenge, cooing humanizing endearments while compulsively rubbing its back in frenzied strokes—yet despite his ministrations, the fur seal’s weakening body soon ceased even groaning, its spine undulating violently with each labored breath as flippered limbs beat the planks in mute distress.

Sayama wept with tears streaming down his purplish-red cheeks, beating his chest with both hands like a fur seal as he sobbed convulsively, but with legs that refused to bend properly thrust behind him, he crawled frantically around the creature using his hands. For a while, he staggered about restlessly, but upon embracing the fur seal in his arms, he suddenly let out a high-pitched laugh. His eyes took on a savage hue and shone unnaturally, while his neck thrashed violently in manic excitement—swinging forward and back, side to side. In the sole hut on a desolate island blanketed by ice and rock, I found myself alone with a giant of a man teetering on the brink of manic violence. My circumstances grew exceedingly perilous.

Outside the hut raged a tremendous north wind like the end of the world, its bitter cold of twenty degrees below zero freezing the earth solid. But remaining outside for even ten minutes was impossible. In the end, to avoid his manic outbursts’ peril, I had no choice but to barricade myself in the entrance’s dirt-floored room. Taking care not to provoke Sayama, I slowly moved bedding and provisions into the room and locked the door—but finding this insufficient reassurance, stacked wooden crates and barrels before the threshold to create a barricade and prepared a weapon as last resort. The so-called weapon was an iron rack from a small boat—few arms could prove so unreliable. How much strength could this single oarlock gripped in my feeble hands possibly lend to protect me? The thought filled me with utter despondency.

After building a fire in the dirt-floored room's hearth, I resolved to sleep leaning against the barricade against any sudden intrusion. If Sayama tried forcing the door open, one of the barrels or crates would fall on my head—waking me and letting me flee outdoors swiftly. Yet even if I escaped the hut to the island's edge, what then? On the ice field waited a cruel cold, while at its margin raged the Sea of Okhotsk's thundering waves. I clutched the iron rack and shut my eyes against the barricade, but terror and anguish sealed my heart—in the end, I never slept a wink. Sayama's mad laughter and beastly roars persisted until dawn.

IV. The Fourth Day

I. From around dawn, the wind subsided as sea fog crept in around the island, bringing a dim morning like the depths of a body of water. Around that time, Sayama’s roars ceased to be heard, replaced by sounds of something being clattered about roughly. Wanting to know what changes had occurred in the next room, I pressed my ear against the door until Sayama’s heavy footsteps approached and his voice came through from behind it: “What are you doing there?” He sounded unexpectedly composed—no trace of sickness in his voice, his words perfectly coherent.

When I responded, “You were weeping and roaring so loudly I couldn’t sleep—that’s why I moved here,” Sayama apologized in a cowering manner before repeating how he’d been distraught thinking it might die, but things had calmed around dawn and it had recovered. He then said the meal preparations were ready and told me to come over here.

Had Sayama truly regained his sanity? Was he in some transitional state? Or was this a ruse to lure me out for harm? There was nothing unnatural in his speech suggesting scheming, but if he remained in that intermediate condition, resistance might invite graver consequences. I resolved to muster courage for breakfast while preserving my refuge against an unpredictable future—gripping the handle, I shook the door,

“I lost the key and can’t get out of here, so I’ll go around outside and come to you,” I cunningly fabricated.

When I went around the side of the hut and entered through the back door, breakfast lay prepared on the table, and the fur seal—only her face protruding from beneath a blanket near the hearth—gazed vacantly up at the ceiling as though nothing had occurred. Sayama, comporting himself with a calmness unimaginable in one who had suffered such violent derangement, heaped himself bowl after bowl of rice and ate with deliberate slowness.

When breakfast ended, I decided to retreat to the shelter and told Sayama,

"I’ll be writing my report in the other room—don’t make a racket," I snapped, then rushed out through the back door. Behind the hut, I discovered a roofed woodshed. Not knowing how long this evasion would last, I deemed it necessary to stock sufficient firewood. Entering inside and gathering an armload while glancing toward the corner, I found six pairs of straw boots arranged in rows. They matched Sayama’s—three pairs on a shelf and three on the floor.

I returned to the dim shelter and sat listlessly by the hearth with nothing to do when a suspicion arose in me—that aside from Sayama and the five burned victims, there might have been another person on this island. I had absentmindedly counted them, but there were indeed six pairs of boots. Straw boots are durable items—a single pair suffices for even the longest winter—so with five burned victims, there should only be five pairs.

Without any particular meaning, I kept this vague doubt in the corner of my mind until sleep took me.

V. The Fifth Day

I. As noon approached, dim pale sunlight began filtering through the shelter's window, gradually illuminating a corner of the dirt-floored room that had lain dark like stagnant water. Drawn by sunlight I hadn't seen in ages, I turned my gaze toward the sunlit patch—where a red so vivid it verged on coquettishness struck my eyes. When I went closer to look, there lay a brand-new crimson rose hairpin—so fresh it seemed poised to release its fragrance.

A crimson rose hairpin on this desolate rocky island seemed an incongruous presence. However, until two mornings prior, it had lain behind a jumble of wooden crates and barrels. When building the barricade, I had relocated those items before the door—thus through this chance rearrangement, something that should have remained hidden came into view. As sleep claimed me, those vague misgivings dissolved into nothingness, completely forgotten—but the moment I saw that hairpin, they came flooding back. Amidst old nails and wood fragments in the dirt-floored room lay a single small paper ball. Smoothing out its creases revealed ten strands of long female hair—combed out and rolled within a page torn from the pillar calendar. The calendar page bore the date December 27th of the previous year.

The suspicion that there had been another person on the island besides Sayama and the five burned victims had now become an undeniable fact.

Besides the six men ordered to remain, there was another person on the island. The seventh person was a young woman who had lived on this island until at least December 27th.

December 27th—

Transportation between the main island and this island had ceased last year with the scheduled ship Taisei Maru, which departed Shikuka on November 14, and resumed this year on March 8 with the Daini Otaru Maru that I had boarded. During that period, no steamships had called at the island. Due to dangerous drift ice and thick fog, it had been impossible to approach these coastal waters. Given there was absolutely no means of departure, this logically necessitated that the hairpin's owner must still reside on the island—but our cabin stood built directly upon Tertiary-period bedrock with no crawlspace beneath its floors, its ceiling exposing naked rafters through which one could peer up into the attic from below. The walls on all sides were bare plank partitions without a single closet. The hide salt storage retained only roof fragments atop charred posts, while the woodshed remained a roofless plank enclosure under a makeshift overhead covering.

I attached snowshoes to my boots and followed the snow-covered path along the side of the hut, climbing upward.

The island became steep cliffs along its western coast, while the eastern side sloped more gently, cascading toward the sandy beach that served as a fur seal habitat in summer. From that shore, a vast ice field stretched beyond the fog, where the waters of the Sea of Okhotsk churned. Fog risen from the sea clung dimly to the crags like a burial shroud, and scoters lay scattered across the twilight-colored snowfield like mourning badges. It was a sorrow-laden scene.

A bone-piercing cold wind blew through my ribs. With faltering steps, when I reached a slightly elevated area at the summit, Aert’s grave lay half-buried in ice beneath a rocky overhang, desolate in appearance. The epitaph was inscribed in Russian as follows.

(Tomb of zoologist Nikolai Aert. Died on this island during an academic survey. March X, 1916) The cause of Nikolai Aert’s death remains unknown to this day. Aert had died leaning against the creviced wall of the western coast, his eyes still open. In his left hand he held a pipe, his right hand remaining thrust into his coat pocket. It was a death that could only be thought to have occurred when some mysterious force had suddenly assailed him and abruptly terminated his research on the island.

Having thought of this, I began walking in that direction. A fissure resembling a chimney split vertically had cut deeply into the rock face, and since its depths had formed a somewhat spacious cave, I thought that a small hut could be concealed there without being exposed to outside view.

When I descended by gripping the rocky ledge and looked below, even those gentle crevices where modest subarctic plants—Japanese anemones, rock asters, and pale red snow poppies—would shyly bloom come summer were now entirely sealed by ice and snow, with several long icicles hanging like stalactites to block the cave entrance. With my heart racing, I slipped through a gap between the icicles into the depths beyond, but the cave ended abruptly after just four or five ken, revealing nothing but ferns and reindeer moss clinging to the rock walls—not a single trace of human habitation to be found.

The cave was dimly lit, and from a darkness so profound it seemed to swallow sound, I felt certain Aert’s specter would stagger forth in a daze at any moment. I stood near the center of the cave, peering about as if searching meticulously, when it suddenly struck me—hadn’t Aert died on this very day five years ago? Seized by terror, I dashed toward the entrance and clawed my way up the cliff face like a madman, gripping the rock fissures.

I sat down on the edge of the cliff, wiping the cold sweat trickling from my forehead while catching my breath. When I looked down, the charred posts of the salt storage stood ominously on the desolate icy shore, tinged by the feeble winter sun. At the foot of the hill lay five charred corpses... In the dim light of the cave, unfortunate souls who had met violent deaths... I took out a cigarette, lit it, and with all possible leisure blew out smoke while striving to dispel these inexplicable delusions—yet my loathing for this island only deepened further.

I went to check the end of the cape that stretched north and south, but there too was nothing but ice cliffs. I crawled down the eastern slope of a hill near the cape, circled the island along the coast, and even entered the underground tunnel used for herding fur seals that ran from the western to eastern shore—but found only a wind as sharp as a blade’s slash raging through, with no side caves where a person could hide.

When I arrived at the hut and entered through the back door, Sayama sat with his back turned to me beneath a dim lamp filled with stiflingly stagnant air, his expression vacant. His excited state appeared to have subsided; insensate in manner, he sullenly crossed his arms and made no move to rise even as I entered.

“Quit dawdling and prepare the meal,” I said, whereupon Sayama grumbled under his breath, arranged the dishes on the table in a perfunctory manner, and retreated to the dimly lit back area where his bed lay.

Hungry as I was, I continued eating without looking away, but sensing a gaze from behind, I turned around to find Sayama propped on one elbow from his bed, leaning forward as if over a silkworm shelf, glaring at me with a ferocious gaze mingling wrath and hatred. The savagely cruel glare was such that I nearly leapt from my stool. When I turned around, Sayama abruptly lowered his eyes and announced with exaggerated politeness, “The kettle is beside the stove,” then swung around to face away completely. A sound of teeth grinding was heard.

My domineering attitude toward Sayama was ultimately nothing but bluster, but having provoked his emotions had been a mistake. Thinking to somehow mitigate his anger, I retrieved a freshly opened square whiskey bottle from my knapsack,

“Quit hiding back there and come out here to take a drink,” I said, whereupon Sayama reluctantly rose from his bed and came to sit on the stool facing mine. Sayama gulped whiskey with throaty swallows, but gradually grew morbidly cheerful and began cackling while recounting the fire’s circumstances and events on the island since being stranded—all without prompting.

Synthesizing Sayama’s account, until that calamity occurred, an unrivaled life of debauchery and lawlessness had persisted on this island. The four carpenters and laborers were a handpicked collection of outcasts—the laborers Araki and Kondou being brutish men of low intellect who had served seven years in Abashiri Prison for attempted murder and assault, while the other two carpenters were lawless, rough fellows who had wandered Sakhalin and the Maritime Province panning for gold and illegally logging government forests; when the watchmen withdrew from the island, they immediately revealed their true nature, neglecting all work to indulge in drinking and gambling from morning onward, their drunken stupors inevitably culminating in bloody brawls.

Technician Shimizu had locked the warehouse containing alcohol barrels to maintain order on the island and barricaded himself in the watchmen’s hut after gathering firearms, but to no avail—he was dragged out of the hut and violently tossed up and down until nearly lifeless. They placed the technician on a blanket, and the four assailants took hold of its corners, hurling him skyward like a ball only to catch him again. The technician flipped upside down then sideways, legs flailing wildly, hurled relentlessly between air and wool until breath failed him. At first came shrill screams, then only silence. Though his organs were pulp and breath extinguished by the violence, the drunken brutes laughed without cease as they prolonged their sport. He had merely vomited blood—not yet killed—but after lying bedridden half a month immobile (so they claimed), they rose to pantomime the scene anew before collapsing in endless mirth. Then came their ghastly play: crawling toward their cots to drag out a fur seal, commencing deranged acts too grotesque to witness—felling it with morbid tenderness, rolling it about as if caressing. The seal wailed a visceral lament, its mournful cry clawing through air like shredded viscera. I could endure no more and fled the hut. Through fog boomed distant thunder.

Day Six

Around ten at night, a fierce north wind began to blow, and by morning it turned into a blizzard that raged like a tantrum.

The hope I had held of leaving the island around today was also utterly dashed by this.

I grew too lazy even to sit up, flopping back onto the bed made of lined-up wooden boxes as I listened to the blizzard’s roar and pondered the problems of these past three days. If no humans could be hiding on this island, then the owner of the hairpin must be dead—but then what became of the corpse? There were only five burned bodies—why was there no corpse belonging to the owner of the hairpin? Last night, Sayama recounted life on the island since being stranded, but much of it consisted of trivial matters not even worth mentioning. The fact that a young girl had been on this island and died here would have been a sensational event for this place—one that should naturally have been brought up—yet he hadn’t uttered a single word about it. As I pondered various possibilities, I came to believe that the girl had been murdered before January 4th.

The Confession of Swelldorepp (Confession of Swelldorepp, London), published in Britain in 1903, records the tragedy in which ten crew members of the Fram, stranded in Jones Bay during an expedition to the Arctic’s Kungnest Island, nearly annihilated themselves while fighting over a single woman. Two men went mad, and the other eight attacked each other like wild beasts. Among them were two pairs of fathers and sons. The conflict continued endlessly, and just when it seemed all would perish, a stalwart sailor secretly strangled the woman to save his surviving comrades’ lives, then cast her corpse into the sea.

This secret had been kept for twenty years through each man’s rigorous silence, but it was first brought to light through Swelldorepp’s deathbed confession. On a desolate, isolated island in the remote sea, six brutish men and a single young girl... It was inevitable that such circumstances would lead to tragedy. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of scene unfolded. To use a metaphorical expression, the six men—emulating the island’s fur seals in temperament—after a fierce struggle, had mercilessly torn apart the female. The reason Sayama does not disclose it is that he upholds the code of honor surrounding their shared secret—such is the conscience of this society.

Then how was the corpse disposed of? The first method that came to mind was incineration in the boiler's fire chamber, but the drying room on the island contained a horizontal fire-tube Cornish boiler—a simple apparatus designed to efficiently utilize hot gases through water tubes suspended within the combustion chamber. As it used pulverized coal and featured a small firing door with a specialized double-grate structure, even were one to dismember a corpse, incinerating a human body within that fire chamber would prove impossible.

Moreover, since the ice here rests upon Tertiary-era bedrock, it would be meaningless to consider having chiseled through it for disposal; and were they to bury it in the sandy beach, the tidal forces during thawing season would risk the corpse suddenly surfacing at the sea's edge come spring. In short, they must have either thrown the girl’s corpse into the sea or dismembered it for seabirds to peck apart. While having lunch, I decided to investigate the ice formation period using Technician Shimizu’s weather log and set out for the hut around midday.

Sayama sat on the stool with a gloomy air as ever, while the fur seal lay sprawled out with a famished expression. I brought out the weather log beneath the lamp and, while meticulously turning through its pages, discovered the following entry under December 20th. December 20th, clear weather... Around 5:00 PM yesterday, the 19th, numerous drift ice were observed NWN of the island; from midnight onward, they rapidly developed into field ice. It extended approximately five nautical miles from the coast to the edge of the ice embankment.

Based on this entry, I concluded that the corpse had not been discarded into the sea. The girl must have survived until December 27th, but a week prior on December 20th, the sea had frozen over up to five nautical miles offshore. Not only would transporting a corpse five nautical miles across severely uneven ice fields prove an arduous task, but the outer limits of field ice remain inherently imprecise—from the surface alone, one cannot distinguish between drifting ice floes and solid field ice. To dispose of a corpse in the sea, one would inevitably have to go to the very edge of the ice field; but unless intending to commit suicide, carrying this out would be precarious.

I recalled the multitude of white bones scattered beneath the rocky overhang of the salt storage and took a lengthy detour on my return route to investigate there. With my heart thundering, I rummaged through them but found only walrus and fur seal bones—no trace of human remains whatsoever.

I sat down by the shelter’s stove, toying with a blood-red rose hairpin in my hands as I pondered just what sort of girl she had been.

Day Seven

Around nine in the morning, a fleeting thought brushed across my mind—one I maintained with faint awareness in my half-asleep state—but upon waking, it crystallized into an utterly lucid form within my consciousness.

Could she still be alive on this island? Even if there had been a young girl on this island, that would have fallen within their right to live as they saw fit—hardly a matter requiring any particular concealment. Moreover, even if they had killed the girl, the corpse would likely have been left carelessly.

In Karafuto (at that time), there existed no neurotic custom of making undue fuss over a single human death. Death was treated as a “postulate”—they did not probe into its causes. If necessary, they could get away with spouting whatever absurdities they wanted—that he fell off a cliff and died, that beriberi struck his heart and killed him—so indolent as they were, there was no reason for them to go to the trouble of disposing of a corpse under any circumstances.

Now, that corpse was nowhere to be found. Despite there being no reason to dispose of it, if the corpse could not be found anywhere on this island, it was more reasonable to conclude that she was still alive here rather than dead. The result of my sentimental exploration confirmed she was nowhere to be found, yet logically speaking, she absolutely had to be surviving on this island.

Where was she? If we took survival limits as our premise, no human could have sustained life in this fiercely cold atmosphere of -20 to -30 degrees Celsius without shelter. Therefore she had to be inside the laborers' hut without exception. Yet there were only three living beings in that hut. Myself, Sayama, and the fur seal. Following logical necessity—if she absolutely had to be surviving within these walls—then one of these three beings must necessarily be her. Now I remained myself who spoke these words, while Sayama persisted as none other than Sayama himself.

Exhausted from thinking, I had kept my eyes closed for a long time when I was struck by an abrupt, inexpressible emotion and suddenly sprang up on the wooden boxes.

The thought that this island was governed by some unknowable mystical force, transforming all who came here into fur seals, flashed through the depths of my mind like autumn lightning across a field’s edge—no forewarning, no prelude—and in an instant, cast its pallid light upon forms shrouded in profound darkness. Come to think of it, Sayama was becoming more like a fur seal with each passing day. The crown of his head was gradually flattening, the excess flesh at his throat swelling more bizarrely each day until now it nearly erased the boundary between chin and chest... Even the hands and feet that still faintly retained human form would soon transform into grotesque fins with five grooves. If that was the case, then that fur seal must be her wretched transformation.

At that moment, I clearly solved the mystery of why tens of thousands of fur seals would gather solely on this island every summer. The marine creatures that roared mournfully on this island's shore were unfortunate humans transformed into fur seals while still alive by the island's curse. And so, hoping to be reborn as humans as quickly as possible, they would journey all the way from southern seas to this accursed homeland—only to be clubbed to death.

The reason I had been seized by inexorable melancholy the moment I first glimpsed this island that morning now made perfect sense. I could not comprehend why or from what this melancholy arose, but now, in retrospect, I realized that this island’s abhorrent visage steeped in malediction had acted upon my senses, making me feel, deep within my consciousness, an inescapable ill-fated destiny.

Driven by terror, I ran to the window and peered at my reflection in the faintly glowing windowpane.

What appeared on the frosted glass surface dusted with snowflakes was none other than the face of a fur seal. The crown of the head flattened out, the nose melted into the face, ears adhered to the temples, and lips twisted unnervingly toward the ears.

"I’ve been had." In despair, I sank onto the dirt floor and wept aloud, calling out my wife’s name, my children’s names, the names of dear friends in rapid succession. Strangely, my tongue seemed glued to the roof of my mouth—the harder I struggled to form words, the more they twisted into bestial roars. I must have cried myself to exhaustion and fallen asleep without realizing. When I opened my eyes, evening approached.

I had been having a sorrowful dream. I was mindlessly frolicking with a beautiful female on the moonlit beach. Waves of ebony edged in silver ceaselessly lapped at my feet, while the damp sea breeze carried faint traces of seaweed and reindeer moss, pleasantly inviting drowsiness. On the wide beach, countless fur seals lay prostrate and squirmed, their wet bodies reflecting the moonlight to glow with a phosphorescent light like fireflies. As they interwove, they appeared to shimmer like a pale heat haze. My lover with beautiful limbs would gently embrace me with her front flippers and rest her smooth, round face against my chest. I ate the silver fish flung up onto the sandy beach and felt satisfied, then spoke at great length in the language of fur seals.

The hearth's fire had completely died out, leaving the room in dimness. I rose up, lit the candle, sat on the edge of the bookcase, and folded my arms. Moderate drowsiness and cold had properly calmed my oversensitive nerves, and as my mind regained its cool rationality, I came to consider all that talk of transmigration and transformation under reincarnation theories as nothing but baseless delusions unworthy of serious attention.

I took out a small hand mirror from my knapsack and held it close to the candlelight to examine my face, but what it reflected was my utterly ordinary visage—neither feverish nor handsome—while that horrifyingly strange countenance I had seen in the windowpane earlier that afternoon had been nothing more than the distortions and air bubbles of inferior glass playing tricks.

Since it was an absurd notion after all, I resolved to stop thinking about the girl—but then, a fleeting insight unraveled this mystery. Given the island’s particular characteristics, all necessary taxidermy tools and materials—plaster powder, collodion bandages, suturing needles, glass eyes, and so forth—had been gathered without a single item missing, and Sayama was a skilled tanner. By my visual estimation, the fur seal’s height fell between 1.4 and 1.5 meters—meaning a petite woman could easily conceal herself within it and, while clad in the fur seal’s pelt, take any manner of mocking actions against others.

The girl was inside the fur seal. With the bitter realization that I had been thoroughly outmaneuvered, I clicked my tongue—"Damn it"—but struggled to discover why anyone would have put the girl inside a fur seal. I became so unbearably weighted by curiosity that I wanted to seize the fur seal and verify the truth. To execute this plan, I had no choice but to wait for Sayama's absence—yet there was only one opportunity each day. It came solely when Sayama went to fetch firewood from the shed.

I moved the wooden boxes and old desks piled before the door back to their original positions along the wall as quietly as possible, unlocked it, and readied myself to rush out at any moment. Before long came the familiar sound of a handhook catching and dragging out the firewood box, followed by the back door slamming shut as Sayama went outside. I tore open the dirt-floor door and flew to Sayama’s bedside.

The fur seal lay curled asleep, its slender back visible. I grabbed the nape of its neck and pulled it out from under the bed. The fur seal stared blankly at my face, but with a shudder, it curled its whiskered lips upward and bared its fangs to ward me off. Paying no heed to particulars, I pressed down on its spine, flipped it onto its back to examine its abdomen—yet found no trace of sutures anywhere, only the tepid body warmth and a clammy, greasy residue transferred to my palms. Undoubtedly, it was a real fur seal. Beneath the beautiful sepia-toned dense fur could be felt a sluggish layer of fat and the distinctive skeletal structure of a fur seal, its flippers emitting faint joint creaks with every movement. The fur seal flapped its flippers wildly and thrashed about trying to escape my grasp, but then opened its maw wide enough to expose the gullet in a threatening display before suddenly lunging forward to sink its teeth into my hand. Inside its mouth, I saw a red tongue resembling a peony petal.

When I rushed back to the dirt floor, both my excitement and anxiety vanished at once, and I sat down on a wooden box with a feeling of utter helplessness. When it came down to it, everything had started with the flower hairpin on the dirt floor and the strands of a woman’s hair entwined in the pillar calendar. But when I thought about it, that flower hairpin might have been something someone on the island had received from a regular prostitute, and there was no reason to assume the date on the pillar calendar was from last year. It could have been from the year before last, or even three years prior.

I felt both relief and fatigue simultaneously and slept soundly for the first time since coming to this island. I didn't know how long I'd slept when a clamorous noise startled me awake. Sayama was dashing about frantically, calling the fur seal's name in an anguished voice. The creature had fallen ill again. Standing on the brink of worthless delusions as I watched Sayama—arbitrarily feeling disgust and fear toward him—I found that once I cast off my self-righteous assumptions, my aversion toward the man seemed to vanish. Instead, I even began feeling something akin to affection, aware that only this man and I remained together on this desolate island. Unable to ignore the grief of this companion of recent days, I resolved to offer what help I could manage. Snatching up my coat, I went to where Sayama stood.

Under the dim lamplight, the fur seal lay stretched out, convulsing as though rippling waves along its spine while making retching motions. Its coat had lost all sheen, whiskers hung limp, appearing moribund even to untrained eyes. Sayama seemed oblivious to my presence beside him, tears coursing endlessly down his flushed black cheeks as—in a voice choked with weeping—he uttered phrases like "It'll subside soon" and "Stay strong," forced water between its jaws, warmed his palms at the hearth, then devotedly rubbed the fur seal's back. The creature moaned piteously while lifting its head to gaze at Sayama's face, entangling its front flipper about his arm in a sorrowfully affectionate gesture. At this, Sayama ceased his ministrations and broke into loud sobs. Intermittent spasms of acute pain appeared to strike—even as we watched, it would arch its spine like a bow and tremble from claws to crown, weakening visibly with each paroxysm. Sayama seemed utterly bereft of recourse, cradling the fur seal in his arms and rocking it ceaselessly like an infant needing comfort. For Sayama—who had endured life on this desolate island at sea's end, sealed off by blizzard winds' howl, with only fur seals as companions—was such profound grief at this juncture inevitable? My heart was struck by this pure communion transcending human-beast divides; I nearly shed tears myself, but gradually my breathing shallowed until finally hiccups overtook me.

Sayama clung persistently to the fur seal like a child refusing to relinquish what he held, but whether he thought it cruel to prolong the suffering of something beyond saving, his expression abruptly hardened. Drawing a fish-gutting knife from the wooden sheath at his waist, he thrust its sharpened tip into the area around the fur seal's neck. Just as I could no longer bear to look and turned my eyes away, Sayama threw down the fish-gutting knife, pressed both hands to the wound, and peeled away the pelt with a deft twist as though removing a glove from a noblewoman's hand.

It was a transformation that happened in the blink of an eye. Just as a phantom might vanish into nothingness, the form of the fur seal disappeared, and in the very spot where it had been lay the pale, youthful body of a woman. She stretched out both hands smoothly, her eyes faintly closed. The beauty of her countenance surpassed any form imaginable. Her skin was white like freshly fallen snow, frail as a newborn's. Her beautiful limbs swayed ceaselessly like a heat shimmer, seeming as though they would vanish if touched. Sayama knelt on the floor, pressed his palms together, and stared without blinking, his gaze rapt.

Morning light seeped through the fog, and the eighth day dawned. Sayama had been sitting on the edge of the silkworm shelf, head bowed in grief, but then quietly stood up, sat down on the stool opposite, and began to speak.

Agrapha (The Unstated Part)

“That was Araki’s niece—went by Yamanaka Hana.” “She was eighteen years old—a good-natured girl with a playful streak.” “She came to this island from Shikuka on a mid-November supply ship to visit her uncle.” “Course she never meant to winter here—planned to return on the next ship straightaway. But storms kept that last run from coming, left her stuck whether she willed it or not.” “To put words to it—’twas like a fair flower sudden-blooming on this rockpile of an island.” “Araki aside—for us lot, she shone so bright we scarce dared approach careless-like.” “Hanako made no airs nor distinctions—clung to all alike with her jests, mended shirts’ frayed seams for any man, fixed their hair neat-like.” “Even this island’s devil-brutes turned clean unrecognizable—gawped at each other’s faces gasping awe-struck.” “Rowdy bastards beyond control became pup-tame before her—though she never asked special fare, they’d night-fish for sport, hunt grand ducks, dig beach greens ’neath snow, gather loppin eggs.” “No highborn lady—however comely—could match how Hanako was cherished here.” “So matters stood till year’s end—New Year’s Eve proper.” “Evening saw us start the farewell-drinking—but soon all showed true colors soused-drunk, hurling lewd jests at Hanako from all sides—Kondou there tried taking her hand for bed-sport.” “From first light I’d revered Hanako sacred-like—cherished her as blood-sister—but seeing this pass? Couldn’t abide it.” “I leapt up shouting—‘From today Hanako’s mine! Any bastard objects—come at me!’” “Old spite at being mocked as mere pelt-flenser fueled me—stood before those curs spouting any nonsense pleased me.” “Then Araki flew wrathful—drink-fired likely—putting on airs as uncle declared ‘Who beats Sayama gets Hanako!’” “None refused—all joyous as bridegrooms already.” “Next morn near ten we gathered ’fore drying shed’s yard—passed cold sake round—set to dueling proper.” “Blinding clear morning—all grinning cheerful-like.” “First foe was Suzuki—he came dagger-armed; I met him with thick club for clubbing seals dead.” “Suzuki—gambler from Oshamambe with killing past—turned to the lads sticking tongue out jesting.”

“He handled that dagger like he was cracking a whip, nimbly darting in and out—but to me, it wasn’t threatening in the least; just downright comical.” “I fended him off for a while, but growing thoroughly annoyed, I yanked him down and smashed his head with all my might—whereupon he toppled over flat on his back.” “He was making such an indescribably funny face that they all doubled over in uproarious laughter.” “Next, Saotome came at me, but I took care of him the same way, and with Mr. Shimizu last, by around noon I’d beaten them all down.” “I had only acted with the resolve to go to prison to prevent Hanako from being defiled,” he said, “but seeing them all lying there exhausted, a sudden desire arose. I became determined to somehow escape punishment, go to Obihiro, and live with Hanako. After much deliberation, I dragged all the corpses into the boiler room, took out just enough rice, miso, and vegetables for Hanako, recklessly stuffed the coal furnace, and blew up the drying room along with the food storage.” “As for why I didn’t take my share of rice or greens either—well, since I knew you’d be coming on inspection this March tenth, I resolved to get scurvy without fail by then. Swore I’d eat nothing but dead sea ducks and loppin eggs.” “That was why I figured if I did this, there’d be no chance anyone would suspect me of having beaten them all.” “After all, this is such a small island—there’s no way Hanako could have been unaware of this ruckus.” “She had perceived the entire commotion and was trembling in the hut.” “At first she was too frightened to even come near me, but eventually my sincerity must have reached her, for she gradually opened up and became so tender it defied reason, until at last we became husband and wife, living on this island all alone like two parakeets in perfect harmony.” “Now then, as time passed, my deterioration gradually worsened—hair and eyebrows fell out, gums rotted and began oozing foul-smelling blood. Though I had steeled myself for this outcome, even I became a wretched sight to behold.” “A young girl truly is a fragile thing—once I became like this, she grew too frightened to approach me. Now she stays holed up in the dirt-floored room where you’re lodged, blankly staring out the window all day.” “The fact that she’s thinking of somehow escaping from me shows plain as day in her every move—but even as this drags on, the day when you’d come to this island kept drawing nearer and nearer.” “If I let you meet Hanako, she would expose everything and use it as a means to escape from me—this became clear. So I racked my brains devising ways to hide her just long enough until your departure in a day or two, planning to take Hanako on the next scheduled ship and flee to Hokkaido.” “After all, in this cold, you can’t hide anything properly outside.” “Given my trade, I finally hit upon the idea of hiding her inside a fur seal and immediately set about preparing it.” “Of course I didn't tell Hanako anything about it, and had prepared the pelt as a souvenir from my hometown.” “I meticulously taxidermied it to avoid detection from any angle, thoroughly patched the inner side, treated decay with collodion, smoothed it with plaster powder until it resembled a fine kid leather glove, then waited for your ship to arrive.” “At last that day arrived—when a steam whistle sounded offshore—so there I finally laid bare the truth to Hanako and explained all circumstances. Then Hanako too came at last to understand my heart, and consented to enter the fur seal.” “The reason I wasn't there when you came to the hut was that at that time I was in the woodshed, earnestly stuffing cotton to shape it and sewing up the opening.”

“Even so, it was truly foolish to have dismissed it as merely a day or two and not factored in the weather or storms at all.” “This must be what they call providence.”

That night when Hanako began suffering, Sayama confessed he had repeatedly contemplated killing me. The excessive stuffing around her body had prevented proper cutaneous respiration, and combined with her involuntary contorted posture and the chill, this had induced gastric spasms. Had I not withdrawn to the dirt-floored room at that precise moment, I would most certainly have been slain by Sayama. I reflected that my nervous hypersensitivity was not yet an attribute I could afford to discard.

Even so, there was something suspicious. I decided to inquire about it.

"I touched it directly with my hands and checked—it was unmistakably a real fur seal."

Then Sayama

"I had another one of those creatures kept in the kitchen water tank," he replied matter-of-factly, "and when I went to the woodshed to let Hanako catch her breath, I placed that one under the bed as a substitute."

It must have been around eleven o'clock at night when I suddenly found it hard to breathe. A crackling, popping sound began. When I opened my eyes, flames were already creeping stealthily across the floor up to my feet. Startled, I rushed out of the hut and ran frantically to the shore. After catching my breath, I looked back to see the hut had become a mass of flames. The fire's color reflected off the fog and snow, making both sky and ground shimmer entirely in vermilion-gold, presenting a ferocious spectacle as though a volcanic eruption had begun. It appeared as if the earth had opened its maw—a hellish conflagration blazing with furious flames that seemed intent on burning away every impurity: Sayama and that beautiful human-beast corpse along with the entire island.