Pathway to Japanese Literature

Two or three days ago, a letter arrived from an old friend living deep in the mountains of Kishū Kumano after quite some time.

Respected Sir, I humbly understand Your Esteemed Self has deigned to return to your hometown of Joshu on this occasion to take up residence and farming—a most judicious course given present circumstances, I respectfully submit.

I too have now spent a full year’s time since evacuating and relocating to these mountains of my hometown here in Kumano.
When those who have grown accustomed to city life over long years first relocate to their ancestral mountain villages, they may fear poor water quality or encounter harsh dispositions among the locals—indeed, I myself initially harbored various such apprehensions—but I have come to feel these were nothing more than groundless anxieties.

Both my wife and children had grown fond of rice cooked with clear water drawn from the mountain stream behind our home, their health improving day by day. Since early summer arrived recently, we savored the fresh produce adorning our meals—green peas, spring-sown Chinese cabbage, Kameido daikon radishes—clicking our tongues in delight. On rare occasions when we treated ourselves to delicacies, I cast a fishing line into the ravines where the Totsukawa and Kitayama Rivers converge to form the Kumano River, and the yamame trout we caught never failed to astonish our palates. When fortune granted us a rare allocation of fine sake, even a modest cup left us blissfully intoxicated, allowing me to deeply contemplate my life’s purpose.

The opposite shore lies the mountains of Ise; this side, the cliffs of Kii. The rice fields and mountain plots scattered between them may be small as a palm, yet these constitute my farm; already I could see calluses rising upon my arm that wields the hoe, and while gazing upon the fresh greenery of peaks and foothills, I resolved henceforth to strive with redoubled effort toward increased production.

In closing, what I wished to report was this: the sight of my children nourished by wild herbs and fresh produce—though still in their tender years of nine and eleven, a boy remains ever a boy; resembling myself, their flesh already grows sturdy, and in mornings and evenings during school breaks, they follow their parents—shouldering firewood along cliffside paths and turning over soil in terraced fields. To have these children become thoroughly acquainted with their hometown’s simple nature and to watch them grow constitutes my life’s enduring pleasure.

My village lies along Emperor Jimmu’s campaign route from over two thousand six hundred years past, when he subjugated Yamato Province. I resolve to nurture these children toward swift adulthood so they may serve in military forces in accordance with Emperor Jimmu’s divine will, cherishing them with utmost care. Yet in contrast, I myself tread the path of old age with each passing day; the vestiges of former times vanish away, leaving me in a truly desolate state.
Ah...
First and foremost, my apologies for the long silence.
Respectfully yours.

I read over this long-awaited letter from my old friend two or three times.
My friend had returned to live in his hometown of Nanki Kumano, embraced by nature’s vastness, and appeared to be leading a spiritually rich and happy life.

For humankind, there exists no village that feels as smooth as one’s hometown. Moreover, through the very script of his letter there vividly emerged my friend’s figure—utterly absorbed in wordless joy as he nurtured his two children. Children and their hometown’s beautiful wilderness; children and vast nature clad in vibrant plants and trees.

Having finished reading, I kept the letter loosely rolled in my palm as my meditations gradually drifted in various directions.

And finally, the question arose in my mind—why are Japanese people so pure-hearted?
Beyond the window, May's green wind turned the pages of shining young leaves.

There must be many factors that have cultivated this purity in the Japanese people.

But what I consider the foremost contributing factor is our nation's beautiful scenery—its mountains, rivers, plants, and trees.
In other words, it is our country’s lush and resplendent, richly vibrant landscapes that have nurtured people’s pure hearts.
To this I would add another fundamental cause—the deeply affectionate bonds found within hometown communities.

It is precisely because we love this beautiful land that we Japanese are pure.
The clear-warm hue of the sky; the fragrant scent of fields; the pristine flow of water; mountains steeped in emotional richness.
How could anyone bring themselves to destroy such a splendid country?
I believe the sentiments people cherish must have been cultivated through tradition's enduring strength.

We will never allow others to trample upon the "beauty" of our homeland. This is it. This was the wellspring of the Japanese people's strength.

Everyone has a hometown; for everyone, the depth of their attachment to it is something words cannot fully convey. Along with the tenacity with which we love Japan's entire land, we are enraptured by the exquisite nature of our hometowns. Therefore, we too have been strongly nurtured by the mountains, rivers, plants, and trees of our hometowns.

Those born and raised in mountainous regions, those born and raised on plains, those born and raised in cities—each place is their respective hometown. I have several friends whose families have continued for seven or eight generations since the Edo period and who possess no hometown in the countryside. Among them is Mr. Yoshio Kimura, a Shogi Meijin, who often states that he has no hometown surrounded by grasslands, mountains, and rivers.

Therefore, he does not know the emotional richness of rural life.
Therefore, if asked where his hometown is, Tokyo remains his hometown after all.
I was born in Honjo’s Warihesui.
In other words, Warihesui was his hometown.
At low tide, from the pitch-black depths of the canal’s water, that stench of the ditch gurgling and bubbling up is the scent of hometown.

The willow trees by the Marunouchi moatside that he occasionally visited on strolls—their reflections in the water were also the colors of his hometown. Therefore, he truly felt attached to Tokyo’s mornings and evenings. No—it was not mere attachment. He was inseparable from Tokyo. Thus， though relatives and friends evacuated and relocated here and there， he could not bring himself to leave Tokyo.

Once, Kimura-kun had reminisced to me like this.

From Kimura-kun’s perspective, the distant haze over Chiyoda Castle and the shitamachi ambiance of Honjo—a district of waterways—must have been the environment surrounding him since birth.
Just as we would wake each morning to the sight of Akagi and Haruna whether greeted by spring breezes or battered by winter winds, growing up while listening to the Tone River’s rushing currents.

From our perspective, Tokyo was truly a bleak place.
I too had lived in Tokyo for many years, yet somehow it lacked emotional richness.
But for Kimura-kun, that remained his one and only hometown.
And it was said he felt supreme attachment.

Meijin Kimura’s feelings were well understood.

When I thought of that—how fortunate we were to have been born in such blessed land compared to Kimura-kun! Wherever I looked, mountains rose in endless layers. Green fields stretched before me. With each step I took, clear water flowed beneath my feet. Fields of vegetables and grains hung heavy with blossoms. To this was added the pure warmth of villagers from my birthplace that one encountered.

"A nation in ruins yet its mountains and rivers remain"—this was a Chinese expression.
In our Japan, the nation prospered endlessly, its mountains and rivers remaining clear and radiant.
Should the country ever perish, its mountains and rivers too would cease to exist.

We Japanese were a people who protected our homeland's pure and graceful scenery until fully devoted to death.
This was Japan’s tradition.
Our tradition had purified the people.
In silent accord, we staked our very destiny on protecting our beautiful scenery.
Mountains, rivers, fields—these were our heart.

Ah, Joshu! Oh, Joshu! Akagi! Haruna! Tone River! I shall share life and death with thee, and go as far as I must go.

When I was a boy, I transferred to a school in Tokyo.

Looking back, it was midday on May 14th in the thirty-eighth year of Meiji.
We fourth-year students became the ringleaders and executed a full-school strike in Maebashi Middle School's student waiting room.
At that very moment in mid-May over thirty years prior, an early summer wind—still verdant—swept through the schoolyard, rustling the leafed cherry trees and young zelkova boughs.

The outcome was expulsion by official reprimand.
Forty-three young conspirators including former House of Peers member Honma Chiyokichi, Dr. Takahashi Dorikono, and ex-Argentine ambassador Uchiyama Iwataro shouldered their traveling packs and began trickling toward Tokyo to apply for openings at private middle schools.
I too numbered among them.

But enough digression.
Though my pen strays slightly from the path, within the stated purpose of our school strike lies an amusing anecdote I wish you to hear.

The principal at that time was Mr. Oka, a strict educator from Kagoshima Prefecture.

At that time, we students had a rule requiring us to eat our lunchboxes in the classroom; however, when noon arrived, the students would disregard this regulation, carry their lunchboxes out to the schoolyard, then cross the embankment surrounding the grounds and sally forth to the banks of the Tone River.

Then they sat upon the boulders, facing the white foam of the torrent, viewing Mount Akagi to the right and Mount Haruna to the left in a seven-to-three ratio as they leisurely moved their chopsticks.
The school authorities deemed this behavior improper.

Before we knew it, the embankment around the schoolyard had been surrounded by a wooden fence.
By the way, I recall that within the resolution document of the school strike, there was an article stating “We students are not cattle,” intended to demand reflection from the principal.

Such immature students we were, yet we had no other path but to go to Tokyo.
However, in the depths of the ringleaders’ hearts who had plotted the school strike lay the belief that remaining at a rural middle school was outdated.
They wanted to breathe Tokyo’s air.
But even if they had made such a request to their parents, it was perfectly clear they would only get a scolding.
Therefore, if they carried out a school strike, they would face expulsion.
If we were faced with expulsion, our parents would have no choice but to send us to schools in Tokyo.

That such a three-stage secret plan had been secretly plotted cannot be denied.
Thus did they successfully achieve their objective.

For those first two or three months in Tokyo, we had no thoughts whatsoever of our hometown as we studied diligently to uphold our honor while vying for private school vacancies. But when I passed the entrance exam and sat cross-legged in relief within my boarding house’s four-and-a-half tatami room, visions of my homeland’s skies began drifting into mind.

I was quite poor at studying; I took the entrance exams for Tokyo Middle School in Kanda and Taisei Middle School but failed both.
Finally, after taking the entrance exam for Ikubun Middle School in Hongō Komagome, I was barely permitted to enroll in the second term of the fourth year.
That exam took place in late August or early September—a time when autumn winds began stealing through morning and evening air, brushing against kasuri-patterned unlined kimonos.

When I moved to a boarding house on Tabata Heights and reached the season where I would hear—without consciously listening—the autumn poem sung by crickets in the rice field ridges along my commute to Komagome School, faint homesickness began stirring within my boyish heart.
That faint longing grew more fervent with each passing day.

In those days, the valley separating Hongō Heights and Tabata Dōkan Hill held yellow-ripened rice fields stretching far into the distance; gazing southward, one could see all the way to Nezu Gongen-sama.
When I returned early from school in the evening, I would stand by the radish field at the highest point of Tabata Heights and gaze intently at the distant northwestern sky.

That was me searching for Mount Akagi and Mount Haruna.
However, those very Akagi and Haruna I sought remained sunken low within autumn haze's deepest recesses, coldly refusing to enter my view.
Only nearby Chichibu's mountains lay folded in indigo layers while at the wildland's edge where ridges ended stood Mount Fuji, its crown dabbed white.

Morning and evening I visited the radish field's edge yet never glimpsed my homeland's mountains.
I could bear it no longer.

Once, I decided to return home to see my parents' faces.
The train clattered onward.
When we had passed Okegawa Station, there came into my eyes—gazing intently at the northwestern sky from the train window—the low, faint forms of Akagi and Haruna lying along the horizon.
I focused my gaze.
My mind grew entranced.

It was as though I had been offered a cup of sweet sake on a winter's night, that warmth suffusing my body—this was the feeling that arose within me.

I was born and raised in Kamishinden, Ōaza Higashimura, Ueno Province, on the western bank of the Tone River.
From the time I was toddling—whenever I went out to the eastern rice fields, there stood Mount Akagi; whenever I ventured to the western paddies, there rose Mount Haruna—through springs and summers that came to the northern skies, through mornings and evenings of all seasons' joys and sorrows, I grew up beholding the benevolent countenances of these two mountains.

For me, the two mountains are likened to the bountiful breasts of a mother.
Mount Akagi is the right breast.
Mount Haruna is the left breast.
Now, within my closed eyelids appeared the breasts of my hometown—tears began to drift.

Body and soul, I want to melt completely into nature.
I want to be embraced by the mountain's bosom and sleep peacefully.
As I gazed entranced at the train window, memories unfolded like a landscape film without pause—from childhood days clutching a basket in small arms to fish for crucian carp in paddy streams, up through that early summer's school strike that saw me expelled through the school gates—each shadowy recollection flowed seamlessly into the next.

Over forty years passed, and I reached old age, becoming a white-haired old man.
Yet my heart’s longing for my hometown grew ever more tender.
Especially after losing my parents, the sight of the mountains grew even dearer.

This time, I returned to my birthplace of Kamishinden—where my parents were no longer—after several decades.
The dwelling was a decayed thatched farmhouse unchanged from the past.
In the backyard thicket too, bamboo unchanged from the past stretched tall.
In the village, each and every house retained its former charm.
The villagers who were once young had multiplied their wrinkles and turned their hair white but did not lose the semblance of those days.
Even when looking at children playing in the fields, they were children and grandchildren who bore a striking resemblance to the deceased Nabei and Kazo.
The wheat field that was diamond-shaped forty years ago still remained diamond-shaped as it was in the past.

The only thing missing was my parents.

But the mountains with their indigo-dyed hems trailing long—preserving their benevolent countenance from days gone by—might they not be telling me memories of days past in place of my deceased parents?

How could we ever hand over such a splendid Japan to others?
How could we ever permit outsiders to invade such a gentle Joshu?

That sentiment was not one I alone held.
Anyone born as part of the Yamato people would feel the same.

Like a loving mother protecting her child—to keep even a single finger of others from touching our mountains, rivers, and plants brimming with rich emotion and vibrant hues—suicide squads arose.
Kamikaze warriors too emerged.
In other words, both these suicide units and kamikaze forces might well be said to have been born from our very mountains, rivers, and plants.

Just as we dedicate endless affection and longing to our Joshu, so too do the people of Echigo feel the pulse of blood in Echigo's soil, the people of Shinshu in Shinshu's earth, and the people of Kishu in Kishu's land.
Who coined the term "motherland"? That is precisely why all Yamato people are pure.

Nevertheless, I consider my Jōmō Province to be the finest among fine countries.

Since I was young, I have loved traveling and, carrying a single fishing rod, wandered all over Japan from north to south.
Last year, from summer through late autumn, I traveled all around Manchuria fishing, journeying as far as the Outer Mongolian border in pursuit of fish shadows.

While fishing is all well and good, I have loved becoming acquainted with the local scenery during my travels.
The lingering clouds at journey's locales, the forms of mountains, the hues of plants and waters.
I have endeavored not to overlook their distinctive features.

Every land was blessed with its own outstanding scenery, and nature warmly and abundantly embraced the villagers.
And I came into contact with the local customs of those lands.
I also sampled the taste of the food.

But needless to say of Tokyo—in any land—there is none as splendid as our Joshu.
That is what I have come to feel.
Especially magnificent is the view of Kamishinden where I was born.

Suppose I go out to the rice fields of Kamishinden and cast a glance at the scenic aspects in all four directions.

Now, first raising my hand to shade my eyes toward the eastern sky.
From what seemed to be the Yamada District horizon, low undulating peaks of pale green formed a mountain range stretching from Kiryu City’s back hills through Yashu’s Ashikaga, Anso, and Shimotsuga Districts.
When midsummer came, by half past four in the morning, Tonkou already sparkled vivid.
At that hour when morning clouds trailed there, I as a child was taken by my father to fish for ayu in the Tone’s current.
On the river’s cliffs, oak saplings had grown leaves the size of Tenpō coins.

When May arrived, over this mountain range there always stood peaks of clouds in dull silver.
And the cumulonimbus clouds, catching the setting sun's reflection to glow crimson like scarlet fabric, were what I had watched since childhood.
However, these peaks of clouds never brought thunderstorms to the Joshu region.
They always stretched long toward the eastern sky.
They probably moistened the fields of Kōno in Shimotsuke Province with sudden rain.

Then, when I turned my gaze northeast, the Ashio mountain range emerged from Mount Akagi’s long blue hem like the teeth of a saw.
Though Mount Ashio concealed Mount Futarasan by Lake Chūgūji and the steep peaks of Oku-Nikkō, if one went about one and a half ri south from our Kamishinden to near Tamamura Town, one could behold the lofty snow-capped peaks of Oku-Shirane emitting a distant silvery-white light through the pass between Mount Akagi and the Ashio mountain range.

To the left of Ashio Mountain was my Mount Akagi.
From my village, it stood positioned more east than true north, towering as if to scoop Maebashi city into its hem.

There was no need to explain Mount Akagi.
The people of Joshu knew Mount Akagi through and through.
Yet the majestic form of Mount Akagi viewed from our village remained known only to our villagers.

Seen from Kamishinden, Mount Akagi's ridges stretched westward from Chōshichirō in the east through Jizō, Arayama, Nabewari and Suzugatake - though Kurobe,the main peak stayed hidden behind Jizōgatake's rounded summit, never revealing itself.

I liked Mount Akagi best from May to early June.
That majestic form with its long, wide hem trailing over ten ri could have been compared to Mount Fuji or Yatsugatake in Kai Province.
When spring arrived around the foothills of Maebashi, the hem of Mount Akagi gradually spread its pale green hues upward bit by bit each day, starting from the lower areas.

Spring, shading itself with young leaves, moved from the foothills toward the peak.
What appeared faintly dyed in small patterns around the hem area—was it the numerous mountain villages of Hosoi and Kosakako, or perhaps a pine forest?

In midwinter, Mount Akagi was fearsome.
When clouds as black as rice husk ash shrouded Jizōgatake, the famed Akagi-oroshi wind blew down with ferocity.
It was a bitingly cold gale.
Mixed with snow flurries, if it struck one’s cheek, even rotting flesh would split.

I remember that when I was a child, I was sent running on an errand to Maebashi along the cliff path by the Tone River where that biting storm raged.
To Tsukui Hospital in Aioi Town—it may have been to get medicine for my sick mother.

As the late autumn sun approached the western mountain ridge, its shadow crawled long and crimson across Mount Akagi's surface.
And the mountain folds cutting sharply into the bare earth appeared as clearly as if I could reach out and touch them.
The ridges splitting downward from around Minowa's hamlet toward Fujimi Village—could that be the course of the Shirakawa River?

In the evenings, my father would point to the dark patches spreading along the mountain folds and, pausing his work in the wheat fields, tell me stories of the "Shirakawa Fox" when I was young.
My father came to my household as an adopted son from Sōhobun in Maebashi City—formerly Ōaza Sōhobun in Kamikawamukai Village, Seta District—crossing the Koaogi boat bridge over the Tone River.
Until about sixty years ago, the Takasaki Highway from Maebashi ran from Sōhobun across the Tone River to Ōaza Koaogi in Higashi Village, Nishigunma District on the opposite bank.
There, a boat bridge had been built.

When my father was a young man living in Sōhobun, he would always climb near Minowa Village on Mount Akagi’s midslope under Old Man Shikagoro’s guidance as year’s end approached—gathering firewood for spring—and stay nights in a makeshift hut erected among pine trees.
One winter night, two "Shirakawa Foxes" dwelling in the Shirakawa River cliffs near that hut transformed into a maiden and visited the shelter, where my father, then a young man, received them.

The fact that two foxes transformed into a single maiden captured the interest of us children.
One fox climbed onto another's shoulders, merging into one to skillfully become a maiden of alluring form.

So the maiden set out to visit the makeshift hut where the young men were staying that night.
At this unexpected visit from a beautiful woman, the young men rejoiced and warmly welcomed her.
Thereupon, my father grilled five or six pieces of mochi he had brought from home over the embers and offered them to the maiden, whereupon she ate heartily—appearing both delighted and bashful—munching away with gusto.

Now, the one puffing out their cheeks and eating heartily was the upper fox riding on shoulders.
The lower fox carrying the other on its shoulders saw this and thought: That fellow of mine is really indulging in something delicious.
But wait.
At this point, if I were to act greedily and meddle, there might be a risk of having my disguise torn off somewhere unexpected.

"Patience brings calm seas—my turn will surely come soon," thought the lower fox, enduring with great patience as it waited for the upper fox to find an opening among the youths and toss a piece of mochi into its lap.

But the upper fox was sorely lacking in camaraderie.
He kept eating all by himself.
The lower fox, upon flaring up in indignation, lost all self-awareness, abandoned its earlier restraint, swiftly thrust a hand from between its robes to snatch the mochi the upper fox held, and crammed it into its own mouth split sideways in the crevice of its lap.

Such being the case, the beauty was finally seen through by the youths, met a dire fate, and the two foxes barely escaped with their lives back to the Shirakawa cliffs—so goes my father’s true story.

My father was a skilled storyteller who used gestures and mimicry, so no matter how many times I heard the tale of the "Shirakawa Fox," I never grew tired of it.

Years had passed since Father’s death. When late autumn returned and the sunset carved Mount Akagi’s mountain folds into relief, the figure of the Shirakawa Fox eating mochi revived before my eyes. The Shirakawa Fox was likely continuing its eternal life in those folds even now.

On Mount Akagi’s left shoulder lay snow-covered Mount Hotoke—sprawling at Tone District’s heart—revealing its bleak form through gaps in terrain. Which protrusion marked Mount Kasyo among Hotoke’s foothills famed for Buppōsō?

Komochi and Onoko sat serenely where Akagi’s western foothills met raging currents from Echigo’s borderlands across Tone River’s expanse. These twin peaks occupied northern skies above our village—a vast aerial plain where Akagi’s hem nearly brushed Haruna’s skirts. Komochi stood rightward; Onoko guarded leftward flank. How harmoniously their silhouettes blended! Through countless winters they maintained benevolent forms never hardening into menace.

In the far depths of the basin where Mount Komochi and Mount Onoko lean against each other from east to west, two white-capped mountains reveal their forms.
To the right stood Mount Shikura, to the left Mount Tanigawa.
The people of the plains would gaze at them from afar simply calling them "Echigo Mountains," though both straddled Kōzuke Province and Echigo Province.

These two mountains were the deepest peaks visible when looking north from the plains.
In mid-October they would be crowned with white snow every year.
The villagers used to say: “Since snow has fallen on the Echigo Mountains, the rice harvest must be about to begin.”
By that time cold autumn winds would occasionally blow.

The snow that falls in late October can be seen lingering in the mountain folds until mid-July’s summer Doyō period, depending on the year.
Therefore, these mountains remain entirely free of snow only during the two months of August and September.

I would gaze elegantly at these mountains' snow-covered peaks from the Tone Riverbed in my childhood, letting my imagination wander about the unknown lives of villagers in snowy Echigo Province.
From late autumn through winter, they are enveloped in snow clouds and storm clouds, rarely revealing their forms clearly.
In spring they are veiled in spring haze, in summer in summer haze, seldom telling the villagers of the plains brightly of the border’s loneliness; but on clear autumn days from September to October, the appearance of the peaks—now completely bare—draws near to the eye.

Mount Tanigawa too had been merely called a distant mountain until twenty years ago when the Jōetsu Line had not yet opened, permitting no human approach. From the plains near Isesaki City, one could see Mount Mantaro extending distantly to the left of Mount Tanigawa.

From Mount Onoko's shoulder across to Mount Haruna's right shoulder stretched the White Border Mountain Range through distant space. These were the peaks of the Mikuni Mountains centered around Mikuni Pass. Long before the Jōetsu Line's opening—indeed for centuries prior—the people of Echigo Province would cross this snowy Mikuni Pass clad in straw sandals, venturing out to seek livelihoods in places like Kōzuke Province, Musashi Province, and Edo Village. There must have been rice pounders among them, and those aspiring to become bathhouse attendants.

From the Mikuni Mountain Range extending westward stood the mountains of Shibutoge and the Kusatsu Shirane Volcano, but both Shiranesan and Shibutoge were concealed behind Mount Haruna, completely cut off from view from the plains.
However, around 1932 or 1933, during periods when Shiranesan was actively erupting, on calm, clear autumn days, one could occasionally glimpse smoke tinged amber by the setting sun—thin trails streaming northeast from Mount Haruna’s right shoulder, lingering far across Echigo’s skies.

Mount Haruna had always felt like our neighbor to Kami-Nitta.
Or perhaps Kami-Nitta itself formed part of Mount Haruna's foothills.

Positioned slightly west of true north, it enveloped all southern plains of Gunma District within its geological embrace.
Like Akagi before it, how magnificently broad these foothills spread!

When compared with Akagi - whether considering their overall forms, delicate textures or slender ridgelines - Haruna might well have been called feminine.
From east to west they stood aligned: Funabashi, Futatsudake, Sōmazan, then Haruna itself followed by Fuji - each peak maintaining soft harmony.
Though each bore features as if chiseled into heaven's vaults, none strained after grotesque beauty.

To begin with, I would call Mount Haruna a peerless peak and doubt there are many such in all of Japan.

The late Murakami Kijo, intoxicated by Mount Haruna’s spring haze, penned many haiku about it, yet I find myself devoted to Haruna in autumn.
When September waned and the first frost on the peaks brought a creeping chill, Mount Haruna would begin to crimson from its summit grasslands.
With October’s arrival came mornings already edged with cold.
The hues of autumn foliage on the ridges would gradually seep into the mixed forests of Haruna’s midslopes—and just as the fresh greenery of early summer creeps upward from Akagi’s foothills toward its summit, one could clearly see day by day how the verdant hues retreated toward the base.

When I gaze upon Haruna these days, I never tire of it from morning till night.
Particularly when late October arrives, the tapestry of autumn foliage across the Sōmagahara plain truly seems to blaze.

I think it was in early January of Meiji 39 (1906).

I had once returned home and stayed at a mountain house in Matsu-no-sawa, deep in Minowa Town.
That night at the mountain house, they treated me to handmade soba noodles with pheasant soup.
Forty years have passed since then, but I cannot forget the taste of Haruna's pheasant soba from that time.

After the meal, from Matsu-no-sawa village, I discovered a large fire shooting up flames toward Maebashi.
Later I heard that Shikishimaya in Tachikawa Town of Maebashi City had burned down, and seven or eight men and women who failed to escape met a tragic end.

Haruna Lake atop the mountain also holds many memories.
What could compare to an angler's delight—casting a line into drifting waters where vibrant flower fields meet the crater plain's edge, hooking a large trout?
The trout's flavor—blue-silver scales glistening over plump flesh rich with fat—paired with a glass of beer: truly a memory brimming with life's abundance.

Ice fishing for smelt holds profound charm.
When caught and tossed onto the ice, the smelt would freeze instantly rod-stiff, fine scales beneath emitting a lustrous purple sheen—this vivid little fish.
Perfect for tempura, ideal for salt-grilling, excellent in soups.

Ikaho Onsen lies behind Futatsudake and cannot be seen from the southern plains, but seventeen or eighteen years ago, I once nursed my second son’s illness there—he who died young.
If he had been healthy, he might have entered the Yokaren naval aviation program or volunteered for the Tokkan special officer training.
He might have become a fledgling member of the Special Attack Unit.

The May sunset seen from Kami-Nitta settles upon Mount Haruna's western edge.
The setting sun of early summer, clad in thick haze, is as large as a lacquer tray wrapped in crimson silk floss.
In the distant villages at the foothills, the evening cooking smoke already drifts.

In the western sky, Mount Asama, shrouded in smoke, solidly and imposingly stands round and large, treading upon the foremountains of Asamagakushi-yama, Hanamagari-yama, and Usui Pass.
Now, is Mount Asama facing south or east? Maekakeyama appears to hang from the mountainside toward the south.

Mount Asama is our region’s weather station.
Tomorrow's clear or rainy weather, its wind and snow—Mount Asama knows these best.
If during daylight hours one observes Mount Asama's smoke flowing toward the eastern sky or southeast toward the Chichibu Mountains, tomorrow will be clear weather as certain as an official seal's imprint.
If the smoke crawls down the mountainside to the east, tomorrow will bring an Asama oroshi strong enough to knock down sturdy storm shutters.

Now, if the volcanic smoke heads immediately north from the crater, it could be safely determined that rain would arrive by tomorrow afternoon or the day after, or that calm weather would continue for a day or two.
Therefore, if one gazed at the smoke drifting toward the skies of Echigo Province on a clear autumn day, it was finally appropriate to begin preparing tomorrow’s fishing gear.

In any case, Asama’s grand spectacle lay in the dynamic surge of its massive smoke plume thrusting skyward immediately after eruption.
The moment a thunderous boom reverberated through one’s ears—and upon rushing out to gaze westward from their front garden—they saw billowing gray masses of volcanic smoke swelling up from its crater.
One second, two seconds.
The mass of smoke expanded toward the heavens, becoming like a cumulonimbus cloud—round, thick, and towering high as it stood tall.

When the tip of the smoke thrusts skyward and reaches a certain altitude, that tip invariably tilts toward the eastern sky.
If the eruption occurs on a day when easterly winds are blowing, immediately after the explosion, the smoke will surge skyward while tilting westward up to a certain altitude; but upon rising further to a fixed height, the smoke's tip will invariably begin flowing toward the eastern sky.

Thereupon, we came to think that indeed the smoke had reached an altitude of ten thousand shaku.
In other words, we surmised that the fixed point where the smoke invariably flowed eastward might be near the stratosphere.

On the flank of Mount Asama swelled what resembled a tumor—Ko-Asama.
If one were to descend gently northward from Ko-Asama, there lay the endlessly spreading Rokurigahara plain.
In late May, the thickets of Rokurigahara finally reached that season when young leaves began to sprout.
The young leaves swelling on clustered treetops—brown, yellow, smoked silver, mouse-gray, deep indigo, pale azure—how multihued their luster appeared as they drank in the sunlight.

The color and sheen of these young leaves in the thicket made me wonder whether touching them might convey a springy resilience.

Beneath Asaito in Rokurigahara flowed several mountain streams coursing toward Azuma River's gorge.
There thrived multitudes of yamame trout pursuing the dancing hackled wet flies.
The flavor of Kumagawa Valley's silver yamame trout stood particularly exquisite.

Mount Azumaya, though a steep peak on the Kōshin provincial border, remained hidden behind Mount Haruna’s distant western shoulder, never revealing itself. Yet when riding the Ryomo Line train from Shin-Maebashi Station toward Takasaki Station, one could glimpse just a fragment of its summit near Hidaka Village’s signal station. This required a calm, clear morning in early spring when lingering snow still lay thick—otherwise it would blur among neighboring peaks, indistinguishable. Only a white crown, no larger than a fist, would peer through.

To the southeast of Asama continue Kadoo and Myōgi’s distinctive peaks, deeply familiar to all who know these lands.
Due west of my village lies Arafuneyama of Kozu Ranch, flat as a low table.
Behind Arafuneyama’s right shoulder sits a solitary snow-dappled peak of majestic bearing, silent as though unnoticed by the world.
This was Tateshina of Minami-Saku in Shinano Province.

Connected to these, in the southwestern sky, distant steep peaks stood arrayed—a truly resplendent view.
As autumn neared its end and the rice harvest was about to begin, a snow-capped mountain range appeared to float into existence in the far, far distant sky between the southern reaches of Arafuneyama and the northwestern expanse of Chichibu Mountain.

This mountain range would blend into surrounding peaks from summer through mid-autumn, utterly failing to attract people’s notice. Yet among all mountains visible from Jōshū’s plains, snow arrived earliest upon these ridges—thus they first entered late autumn farmers’ vision.
We plains people had never known these distant peaks’ name since ancient times.
The villagers simply thought them remote mountains of Shinano or Kai Province.

Now, it was I who first determined that those distant mountains were Yatsugatake in Kai Province.
That was thirty or forty years ago now, when I had developed an interest in mountaineering and began traversing the mountains of Kai, Suruga, Shinshu, and Hida.
When I viewed Yatsugatake from the southern banks of the Kamanashi River in Kofu, Kai Province, and then—during one late autumn after returning to Kami-Nitta—gazed upon that white distant range in the far southwestern sky, though differing in size and proximity, their forms were entirely identical. Thus did I solve a years-long mystery: those were indeed Yatsugatake.

When gazing upon Mount Akadake as the central peak, its eight ridges crowned in orderly succession with fresh white snow—their form resembling an enraged beast baring silver fangs toward the heavens—one could not help but feel a truly bone-chilling cold.
At that very moment, an autumn wind skimmed through the air, and the fingertips of those harvesting rice went numb of their own accord.

The majestic form of Yatsugatake is not visible only from our Kami-Nitta.
From the windows of Shin'etsu Line trains passing through Sano Village near Takasaki City and from Maebashi Park's cherry blossom embankment too, it can indeed be clearly seen.

Around mid-April when cherry blossoms scatter，a fine rain brought by southwestern breezes would sometimes fall in my hometown in soft drizzle.
The villagers long maintained these rain clouds were sent from those distant mountains deep in Kai Province.
This gentle wind blowing from far southwestern peaks carried within its clouds—along with mist-like rain—even echoes of Takasaki’s bell，linked to Suruga Dainagon’s enforced ritual suicide.

On such spring evenings，when Daishin-ji’s bell resonated through our village and its lingering tones neared extinction，the bell of Suekaze-san Fukutoku-ji—though untouched by human hands—would respond as if of its own accord，rumbling low like a beast’s growl between cough-like clangs.
This tale holds symbolic fascination，but recounting it fully would prove too lengthy；here I shall contemplate only mountain silhouettes，reserving deeper exploration for another occasion.

To the left of Yatsugatake, one would discover a tall conical mountain that always stood with unassuming grace, its deep navy hue vividly displayed. That was indeed Mount Kinpu in Kai Province. How fair and well-formed a mountain was Mount Kinpu. Given its elevation of eight thousand shaku, it must of course have been crowned with white snow from autumn through early summer, but that its surface remained stained a deep navy across all four seasons may have been due to the angle of light when viewed from our village. The neighboring Mount Mizugaki hid in the shadow of one of the mountains and did not show its face.

Then shifting my gaze eastward, nearby were Inagamiyama in Joshu’s Kitatagara district, and Tano’s Nishi Mikoboyama and Higashi Mikoboyama. Far in the distance, the Okuchichibu mountain range spanning Bushū and Kōshū stretched tenfold and twentyfold into the haze’s depths. The nearby peaks in deep purplish navy, the distant ones in pale turquoise, and those beyond in silver-gray.

Whether it be Kobushigatake, Kokushigatake, Karasugatake, Bukosan, or Mitsumine—I could not tell which was which—but far beyond where the high mountains of Okuchichibu ran eastward, Oku-Tama’s Mount Kumotori appeared silver-gray, faintly hazed. With its massive, flat base as a platform, the three or four small peaks aligned like a bear’s claws—those must be the summit of Mount Kumotori.

With this, I cast my gaze around all the surrounding mountains visible from the Jōshū plains, but the Chichibu mountain range extended further southeast, its base disappearing into the grassy plains of either Bushū’s Kodama District or Kita-Saitama District.

There now lay the vast and boundless Kanto Plain.

In the southeastern corner extending from my village—where the Chichibu Mountains vanished and the mountain ranges of Yashu disappeared—there were no mountains to be seen at all.

In summer, white clouds would billow up from that horizon; in winter, gray drifting clouds would be drawn into it.

From the southeastern part of Joshu through Bushū to Shimōsa Province stretched a vast plain, unobstructed as far as the eye could see.
Without a single small hill, blue fields and paddies spread out endlessly.
At the seaside where this plain ended lay the city of Tokyo.
Twenty-eight ri from Maebashi.

On the night of September 1, 1923, the flames of the Great Kanto Earthquake grew ever more ferocious, nearly burning all of Tokyo’s downtown area. Yet the reflection of the heaven-scorching inferno, becoming swirling clouds of fire, appeared terrifyingly on the southeastern horizon even from the villages at the base of Mount Akagi and Mount Haruna in the northwestern edge of the Kanto Plain.

Tokyo too was not entirely disagreeable when I lived there for many years.
Thus having left the imperial seat and returned to dwell in a rural village encircled by wheat fields and mulberry farms, I found nostalgia even in the southeastern sky over the capital where white clouds drifted.

My thatched cottage in Kami-Nitta stands a hundred paces from the banks of the Tone River.
Since childhood it has been my custom to hear the murmur of rapids visit my pillow at dawn and dusk.

Without the Tone River, my life would be as if it did not exist. Through the four seasons flow waters carrying memories of all kinds. In early summer, I would go with Mother and Sister to wash the silkworm mats. Though it was early summer, the water temperature—fed by snowmelt from Mount Ōmizugami at the Echigo Province border—felt as low as ten degrees Celsius. Not five minutes after stepping into the water’s edge would pass before Sister’s white calves, pierced by that frigid water, flushed crimson.

When summer came, I would carry a fish basket and trot along behind my father to cast fishing nets. I went to set bamboo fish traps. I went fishing too. Memories from my five-year-old self, ten-year-old self, fifteen-year-old self, twenty-year-old self, thirty-year-old self, forty-year-old self—my life’s history unfolded ceaselessly like an illustrated scroll upon the flowing surface of the Tone River before Kami-Nitta, projecting endless phantom images.

When I gaze upon distant mountains, when I stand at the banks of the Tone River, I truly return to my childlike heart. I completely forget all of humanity's five earthly desires.

That was not something unique to me alone.
In every person's joyful or sorrowful past, traces of mountains and water linger in dreams.
People lose themselves in those memories.
In other words, they return to a childlike heart.
I became enthralled by Ichikawa Ennosuke's dance drama *Kurozuka*, which I saw three or four times. Through the merit of sutra recitation by an itinerant monk who had come from Nachi, the demoness of Adachigahara broke free from her sinful past as if awakening from a nightmare and, unexpectedly recovering a childlike heart, wandered into moonlit pampas fields where she danced to the "Song of the Moon" learned in her youth at the capital.
The scene of her forgetting herself as she hummed and danced through madder plants left even me, the spectator, entranced and utterly lost to the world.