Pathway to Japanese Literature

Baron Itami

A slender man who called himself Baron Itami visited a village elementary school teacher and made his appearance at the shores of Lake Ushiku.

Given that the baronial heir was inexplicably delighted to be addressed simply as "Baron," I too shall henceforth refer to him as such.
And so Your Excellency—or rather, the Baron—had stayed for some time on a solitary island in Lake Kasumigaura—Floating Island—and with a letter of introduction from a certain clerk at the village office there in his pocket, came to our village teacher.
For what purpose?
That will become clear in due course, but in any case—as it was an introduction from a colleague (the teacher had previously been employed on that island)—upon finishing reading the meticulously written letter of introduction, Teacher M...

With a polite “Now then, please…”, he ushered His Excellency the young Baron into the parlor and seated him in formal posture.

The Baron wore a shabby lined kimono and haori jacket, possessing nothing but a single furoshiki bundle.
(This story took place in early autumn.) Yet without paying any mind to such appearances, he conducted himself with an unhurried demeanor, offering greetings befitting nobility.

“I must say, I’ve always detested high society.”

“Well—no matter what they say—I feel more at ease among the commoner class.”

The Baron, therefore, claimed to have come to this scenic marsh edge on a sketching trip after training to establish himself as a "painter" in society.

Teacher M served refreshments as he

"Oh, is that so? We have Mr. Ogawa Usen in this village—are you acquainted with him?"

Then Baron Itami shifted his gaze restlessly,

"Ogawa... Ogawa, Mr.... Yes, that gentleman was with the Imperial Exhibition, wasn’t he?"
"A renowned gentleman, I see."

"No—it was the Institute Exhibition..." answered honest Teacher M, but the Baron,

“Ah—the Institute Exhibition! Yes, yes, the Institute…”

When faced with this clearly flustered reply, he couldn’t help but think—This guy...

After several hours of small talk, upon being informed that the bath was ready, the Baron borrowed a hand towel from Teacher M’s wife and made his way to the bathhouse.

In the meantime, Teacher M rode his bicycle to a nearby location to summon the painter—an art school graduate and disciple of Ogawa Usen—whom he cherished like a younger brother.

“Hey S! His Excellency the Baron has come to my house. Let’s have a drink together.”

“Well now, a rare guest indeed. But what sort of Baron are we talking about here?”

“He goes by Itami.”

“Isn’t he a fake? Those types are always wreaking havoc in the countryside.”

“Well, truth is, he seemed suspicious, so I came to fetch you.”

“Alright, let’s get a good look at his true colors.”

When the two returned in high spirits, the Baron emerged from his bath. Then, laughing about how his tabi socks had gotten into such a state after walking from Floating Island, he tossed the filthy pair into the corridor and pulled out a new set from his furoshiki bundle. Though called new, they were merely laundered ones. His Excellency... or rather, the Baron—smoothing out the wrinkles of the pair—put one on his right foot, but when attempting to put on the other, somehow it too was for the right foot.

The Baron flushed oddly with embarrassment for an instant but tsked, stuffed it into his furoshiki bundle, and searched for the left one—but there was none!

“Did I leave them at the inn?!”
“Can’t be helped.”

After muttering to himself, he removed the right one too and sat motionless.
That evening saw idle chatter bloom and fade without incident.
The Baron proved remarkably adept at sustained conversation.
However much they doubted his authenticity, confronting him outright remained impossible.
After all, should he be genuine, such questioning would constitute profound "discourtesy."

＊ ＊ ＊

The following day, contrary to expectations that Baron Itami might go sketching at the marsh, he instead set out visiting village notables.
First he visited the agricultural association president.

"I've started establishing a farm in Manchuria."
"I've had about three thousand chōbu of wasteland allocated."
"I plan to operate on a grand scale using modern machinery in the American style."

He elaborated on how immensely profitable such American-style large-scale management would prove.
Regarding employee recruitment - while eventually planning immigrant labor - he expressed wanting fifty local men through agricultural association channels.
The local farmers' diligence was noted along with numerous second and third sons available.

Just then, a young man named K—an unemployed agricultural technician from the neighboring village—had arrived on the scene.
The Baron immediately directed a friendly gaze toward this K, expounded at length on how domestic agriculture held no future prospects and how farming must inevitably adopt American or Russian methods going forward, and showcased how he himself possessed new plans and schemes in those very areas.

Eventually, Baron Itami left the agricultural association president’s residence together with K.
By the time of their departure, the Baron had already arranged for the agricultural association president to introduce him to painter Ogawa Usen the following day and finalized plans to have him paint several works as partial funding for the large farm construction in Manchuria.

“Well then, I’ll leave it in your hands.”

“Understood.”

Having left there in high spirits, the Baron patted K’s shoulder,

“You there—how about it? How about taking a bold leap to Manchuria?”

“Well, I’ve actually been quite eager to make that bold leap.”

“Then I’ll offer you a high salary at my place.
“And you see, I’ve truly come to admire your noble spirit of sacrifice and that genuine earnestness unique to rural youth today.
“So then... how about it? There’s something rather important I’d like to discuss...”

The young K, having been approached with such courtesy by His Excellency the Baron from Tokyo, could do nothing but say, “Well then, let’s take a break there...”
For there happened to be a suitable “Rest Area” right there.

Gathered around the table, after some time had passed since the waitress came with a “Please have one…”, the Baron leaned close to K’s ear and said.

“To tell you the truth, I’ve been searching for a young man like you—earnest and embodying the Japanese spirit.”
“Well, this is—mind you—something from before, but it still holds perfectly valid even now... You see, among my relatives there’s someone who’s, well, practically a sister to me.”
“You there—how about marrying her?”
“For us young men, going all the way to Manchuria while single—this is sheer cruelty.”
“In fact, she herself loves agriculture and claims to detest high society and aristocratic circles.”

“She’s no great beauty, mind you…” As he spoke, Baron Itami produced a single photograph before the nonchalant Youth K.
“But you see—pure-hearted through and through.”

Indeed—no—she was an extraordinary beauty. Compared to the rustic girls from the villages around here…

＊ ＊ ＊

Youth K was so elated that the next day, he stopped by S’s place to report.

“S! I’ve gotten engaged—to His Excellency the Baron’s honorable sister!”

S, having just heard his cousin the agricultural association president was taking the Baron to visit Mr. Ogawa Usen, had been shocked into exclaiming “Wait a minute!” In any case, after seeing proof he was truly Baron Itami’s legitimate heir, they reasoned it would be better to make introductions then—and so Teacher M went together with S to lodge their protest. And they told K as well.

“It’s fishy,” but K remained convinced he could marry the nobleman’s daughter.

At that point, the Baron declared he would obtain the "proof," then abruptly departed for Tokyo.
And two days later, he returned to the village bearing a copy of the family register and Viscount X’s imposing letter of introduction.
Yet Teacher M and Painter S still could not bring themselves to trust him.

“Hey, why don’t we two go investigate this ourselves?” Teacher M said.

So, undeterred by the hardship, the two of them departed for Tokyo. And when the Baron noticed this, he abruptly vanished. In the evening from Tokyo came: "He's a fake—arrest him!" By the time this telegram reached the village constable, he had already disappeared. But he was later caught. His Excellency the Baron had been a barber in a town in northern Ibaraki. No wonder—though his general appearance was disheveled, he had always kept his hair neatly combed.

The Nihilist

His fields—exactly like "thatch mountains," the thatch-gathering grounds used for roofing material—were lush with wild grasses.
Even reeds tall enough to submerge a person mingled among them, their pale brown plumes swaying splendidly in the autumn wind like an old man’s long beard.
For several years now, he did not cultivate them.
Moreover, he uniformly allowed even the three *tan* of tenant fields adjacent to his own land to turn into dead fields and paid them no heed.

It wasn’t just the rice paddies. He had abandoned even his upland fields entirely to weeds. His relatives went out of their way to hold “meetings” multiple times to advise him. Even the mayor and police grew concerned—for he had failed to fulfill one of the three great duties of a citizen: tax payment—and resorted to threats. The landowner of the three tan plots vehemently demanded the return of the land. But he stubbornly refused to comply with any of these demands. “Do whatever the hell you want! I am who I am.”

And he had been lying in bed every day.
Night and day had ceased to exist.

He left his futon perpetually spread out in the innermost room.
Rain leaked from the roof.
The walls had collapsed.
The inside of the house—never cleaned—was covered in dust and rat droppings.

He had two children.
The eldest son was fourteen, and the next child, a girl, was supposed to be twelve.
They had become complete wild beasts, living by climbing into other people’s fruit trees and pilfering from fields.
Even when relatives took them in, they never lasted three days.
Labor and reprimands—these seemed unbearable to them.
They had acquired their own way of life—returning to the dilapidated house only at night, but when dawn broke, they would go out foraging while singing like sparrows.

The villagers whose crops had been damaged would often come to protest to the old man, but Old Man Sensei never responded.
When pressed persistently, he would shout irritably.
“Do whatever you want—beat me to death for all I care! Just do it... I am who I am.”
“Not my damn problem.”

He didn’t even do the cooking.
He seemed to subsist almost entirely on salt and water, according to the observations of those nearby.
The rice he had harvested before becoming like that remained in fifty or sixty bales, and it seemed he was eating them little by little.

"The other day when I took him his mail," my friend—a postman at the XX Office—added with a solemn face as he told this story. "Still buried in that compost-like futon even in this heat—'You didn't need to bother bringing something like that...'—he wouldn't even take the letter..."

“There might’ve been a hundred-yen note in there… Well, whatever. He’s a lunatic.”

“No, his mind’s sharper than most.”
“Once he starts talking, he’ll hold forth on political issues, social issues, life issues—anything and everything.”

Putting together my friend’s account, his new life had apparently begun several years back, after his wife died.
He’d been a son-in-law then—until that point, an exceptionally hard worker and thoroughly earnest young man.

That explains it.
He had despaired of this society.
And that was that—he had become fixed in this state.
But be that as it may, this Nihilist-sensei had—just the other day—laboriously crawled out of his permanent bed and stood groaning before his own field, now lush with wild grasses.

“He must be planning to plant something.”
“He must’ve eaten through all his rice bales.”
“Unlike his children, he can’t just go around taking people’s things at random—he must’ve had no choice.”

“The bankruptcy of nihilism, perhaps?”

Tradition Rejector

She made her living peddling kimono fabrics. She was scarcely ever home. She would stay away on her routes for weeks at a time. On those rare returns, she would go out to the vegetable garden that covered nearly half the estate grounds, pulling weeds and planting seasonal crops.

She still retained a youthful vigor. When she came back from peddling trips to wash soiled garments, the villagers would gulp at the sight—her brazenly exposed armpits and pale calves presenting an allure grotesquely out of place in their impoverished hamlet.

When she was widowed, that lifestyle of hers began in less than half a year.
She sent her fourteen-year-old son into service in Tokyo, confined her frail elderly mother to a seclusion hut—not only discarding her hoe but above all liberating herself completely from village life’s bonds: from tradition and so-called “neighborly relations” that encumbered her as a peasant woman; then severing every tie of kinship—parent-child relations, marital bonds—until she stood wholly “free” and “unfettered” as “a solitary self”—
—she began this “free” and “unfettered” life.

Even when there were funerals among neighbors or relatives, she wouldn’t show her face if she didn’t feel like it.
She did not appear even at the gatherings of wives that occurred once or twice a year.
Even when her elderly mother—her biological mother—who had been living alone in seclusion passed away, she was away on her travels and provided no care whatsoever.
When her son—working as an apprentice at a liquor store in Tokyo—suddenly confronted his mother upon her return from a peddling trip, she reportedly blurted out.

“True independence means handling your own affairs. In return for not wanting to care for anyone else’s business, I won’t have anyone care for mine—when the time comes, I’ll die on my own terms.”

Loneliness and freedom—that was her entire existence.
“When she felt like it,”
she visited distant mountain hot springs and toured historic landmarks.
When villagers who had gone sightseeing to Matsushima encountered her in Shiogama Town and greeted her, she responded with a blank look that seemed to ask, “Who are you again?”
She would pass by without answering—such incidents became fodder for conversation.
People who made unwelcome comments like “At her age, carrying on alone like that…” or spun wild speculations certainly existed at first. But her presence—drifting rootlessly through the world like some literary grande dame of Tokyo’s salons—gradually faded from the villagers’ consciousness. Even when they glimpsed her working the shutters of an old house abandoned even by mice, it barely registered as more than a fleeting impression on their retinas.

Twenty years passed.
One day, having returned from her travels to her old home in her native village, she was so emaciated there was no trace of her former self, barely managing to open the shutters and crawl into the tatami room.
In the thatched house where no one ever visited, utterly silent under the lonely late autumn sun, with only the flowers of weeds in front of the garden blooming wantonly, she remained shut in alone, not making a single sound.

And approximately half a month passed.
From her tightly shut home—which she believed held no one—a cry suddenly began to escape.

“Someone, come here.”
“It’s painful... Ah, it’s painful... Someone, come here.”

The bankruptcy of loneliness and freedom in life and in this society—indeed, those who saw her deathly face are said to have shuddered as though confronting the very essence of agony itself.

The Natural Man

At the temple gate sat he—plopped down cross-legged, utterly motionless like an enshrined wooden statue—a seated figure no master sculptor’s chisel could ever have carved.
It lives; it is a wooden statue that persists in existing.
Large glaring eyes; a thick luxuriant beard—left to grow unchecked, it carves his sharply defined high nose into relief despite itself, making him appear as though he were one of the ancient gods themselves.

This was none other than the pose of Kanekō of Hirakiya at a particular moment in time.
And he had another “signature” pose.
In the very center of the thoroughfare, completely naked, he spread his legs wide and stood erect, hands on hips, eyes wide open and fixed on a single point in the vast sky—remaining there for two days or three days, as long as it satisfied him—standing with unshakable composure like a heavenly general rooted to the earth since time immemorial.

What could those blazing eyes have been staring at?
Perhaps they saw nothing at all.
Yet having discovered some wonder in a corner of the heavens, they appeared like precision instruments installed to discern its true nature.

But once this man planted himself in the thoroughfare, he truly became “immovable as a post.”
Farmers pulling carts would shift him aside as they might a stone Jizō statue, barely squeezing past.
Young women of marriageable age would either flush crimson or else detour several blocks to avoid encountering this standing effigy.

However, no matter what was done to him, he never harmed anyone.
He had long since lost what might be called a home, sleeping mainly in mountains and fields, wandering through them and surviving by eating insects—though from time to time he would appear in the village and transform into either a seated statue or a standing statue.

At times he would also suddenly visit farmhouses.
But this was not to beg for food.
He preferred raw foods and seemed to dislike boiled ones.
Since such raw things could be found growing abundantly in the fields anyway, there was no need to trouble himself with visiting people’s homes.
In truth, unless it was winter—when neither insects nor crops remained—he would not eat rice balls or steamed potatoes even if someone prepared them.
That he maintained jet-black hair like a youth despite nearing fifty and possessed energy enough to stand statue-like for three days might have been entirely due to this raw diet.

It had been nearly twenty-five years since Kanekō had begun this lifestyle.
He has one younger sister.
While working as a maid in Tokyo, she reportedly told their relatives in the village to look after her poor brother and occasionally sent them five or ten yen.
But green mountains existed everywhere in the hills and fields, and for Kanekō—who had his own means of survival—those treasures considered gods in capitalist society were of no use or necessity.
Thanks to this, it was said that those relatives were making—or weren’t making—unexpected windfalls.

Upon hearing that Kanekō had once again planted himself before the temple gate, I went to visit him.
Of course, there was no way he could remember this classmate from their days at the elementary school long ago.

“Kanekō!”
“How’re you doing?”

Even when addressed, he didn’t move a muscle.
Like a monk who had lost human speech upon stone—or something of that nature—he remained staring fixedly ahead.

The Holy Man

A national highway passed through part of the village.
Buses ran along it approximately every hour.
At the foot of the slope leading down from my hamlet to that highway, a solitary house was being built.
They had apparently dismantled and brought it from somewhere.
When I inquired, it turned out to be exactly as suspected—this was indeed said to be “the Holy Man’s” house.

One day, as I waited for the bus by the highway, the tea shop mistress there said, “Oh my, it’s been a while! Seems you’ve got time—come sit here and wait,” already pouring tea for me.
When I mentioned the “Holy Man’s house” I’d just seen and asked, “What sort of holy man is he anyway?” she laughed and replied, “Oh, he’s quite the holy man,” then began her tale.

“Just the other day, that Holy Man stopped by here. When a sudden rainstorm hit and he didn’t seem to have a Western umbrella, he came rushing in soaked to the bone—and right there was this woman named Oisa-san from ×× selling crabs, taking shelter from the rain same as him.”
“Oisa-san’s been widowed going on ten years now—a real hard worker, they say she’s scraped together a tidy sum too.”
“If that face of hers were even halfway decent, no one’d leave her be like that… but what with those looks… Still young though—just past thirty.”
“Anyway, there’s Oisa-san staring at the sky willing it to clear up any second, while the Holy Man starts off quiet-like wiping his clothes—then out of nowhere goes ‘Ma! Pour me some sake!’”
“Once they brought it over, he downs it in one go and perks right up—‘C’mere sis, let me read your palm…’—and *whoosh* he’s right up in her space. She’s sitting there dumbstruck but he don’t care—flips her hand over blowing on it *puff-puff*—‘Sis here’s got…’ starts his usual spiel.”
“When Oisa-san tries pulling back saying she don’t want no reading fee, he grabs her wrist and won’t let go.”
“Then he launches into his stock lines—‘You’re flying solo ain’tcha? Business ain’t thriving now but tweak this ’n’ that and boom…’—and Oisa-san being dead serious ’bout her trade gets sucked right in.”
“That’s how she wound up jawing with the Holy Man.”

“Then the Holy Man started talking.
‘No—dunno what he was goin’ on about, but with ‘nother cup o’ sake… and another… ended up pushin’ his cup on Oisa-san here, makin’ a whole hullabaloo ‘bout her takin’ it.’
‘Oisa-san was startled for the first time and tried to refuse and run away, but he flew into a rage, sayin’ somethin’ ‘bout how there ain’t no refusin’ the Holy Man’s cup or whatnot.’
‘Oisa-san got so scared she said she’d give him crabs for snacks if he’d just lay off the sake—ended up pullin’ two or three from her basket to feed him, and finally got him to calm down.’”

“So what do you think happened next? The Holy Man got all delighted and said he’d cast a prosperity spell for her business—said it’d only take about fifteen minutes in that back room over there, so why don’t they drink some sake together while… y’know.”
“That Holy Man—for all that, he’s quite the womanizer, I tell you…”

The bus had arrived.
Did the Holy Man cast his spell on Oisa-san or what?
Instead of hearing the mistress’s story reaching my ears came the female conductor’s “Thank you for waiting... bound for XX.”

M-kō the Rice Thief

No matter when one looked, soot-blackened planks had been placed over sections of the thoroughly rotten thatched roof where rain leaked through, while the crumbling earthen wall on the northern side was left to collapse as it pleased—yet despite being akin to a ruin, M-kō’s house had somehow been “splendidly” (?) repaired and now stood with its back to the highway, somewhat resembling a proper human dwelling.
Wondering if M-kō had perhaps “gone straight” or even taken a wife to “settle down,” I inquired—only to learn that no, far from it, he had been “eating into” things for another seven and a half years or so, having only recently departed once more.

“Rice again—?”

“Yep,” said the speaker with a smile.

M-kō was that rare breed among thieves—one who, it was said, had never stolen so much as a speck of dust from others beyond his signature rice bale thefts.
For forty years since attaining full physical strength, how many times had he carried rice?
Moreover, he invariably accomplished this with two bales each time—thirty-two kan by weight—leaving absolutely no trace, so one might say he had truly mastered a “divine technique” in that regard.
“This time too, using his usual method, he pulled off four bales from Jihei-don of ××’s storehouse,” the speaker said.

“Well, that was on a muddy road after the rain, see—but there weren’t any traces left anywhere. Truly impressive stuff.”

“However, they at least managed to figure out they’d been robbed.”

“Hmm, seems they didn’t realize for two or three days either…”

But when the family noticed something was “off!” and counted the stacked bales, they found themselves short by exactly four bales.
“We’ve been had!”
Belatedly shocked, they raced by bicycle to the village police box.

Then what do they find? Along the way, when they suddenly glance beneath the eaves of a white rice merchant’s shop called ××-ya, there sit four bales of rice neatly stacked.
There’s no doubt someone had either just come to sell it or buy it this very moment.
As if guided by some sixth sense—or so one might say—they leapt off their bicycles and inspected the bales, which were indeed their own.
The bale sacks containing tenant rice they had taken bore the producer’s name clearly inscribed upon them.

Who had bought it?
This morning—M-kō had brought them!
Through such circumstances, this theft incident came to an abrupt end—a classic case of hiding one’s head while leaving one’s rear exposed.

When the policeman and Jihei went to M-kō’s house, he was calmly eating breakfast alone.
After a long interval, he was even drunk.

His early life—though by now what remained of his later years was dwindling—had been an unceasing repetition of such events.
He lacked the intelligence to flee or to thoroughly conceal his thefts.
Carrying rice bales from nearby houses whose circumstances he knew well, he would effortlessly "lift" them, and through repeated offenses, gradually came to have to serve increasingly lengthy prison terms.
But he didn’t seem to mind it in the slightest.
Some years ago, after sending the paralyzed old man to the next world, he had apparently been living quite carefree, plodding along like an ox.
The savings he had built up in prison seemed to cover his living expenses during those brief periods, and when those funds ran out and he stopped coming to the village shops to buy things, the villagers would laugh and say, “It’s about to start again.”

In truth, there was no point keeping watch.
When it came to rice bales, he was practically a god.
They would let him carry them and just catch him afterward—that was all they needed to do.
Thus the villagers didn't particularly fret over his existence.

When he returned after finishing his sentence, they would say, “Good day.”
“Ah, been a while!”
That was how it went.

R the Petty Thief

R, the self-cultivating farmer from S Settlement, had been "lifted" again.
This time, the customary "requested release" would not apply, and even his relatives and connections could not possibly launch another appeal campaign.
For they had only just three months prior, through the village "influentials," managed to have him—who had already confessed to thirty-some petty thefts—declared "innocent under clear skies."
And R himself had just spent a sum of money—about 500 yen—for that very purpose.

That R, completely “without an ounce of remorse,” had once again broken into a certain farmhouse commonly known as Aidaya—originally called such because it had been part of a post town and likely engaged in some trade back then, though now, like many such households following changes in transportation networks, they farmed the land—and targeted the antique long hibachi with sliding drawers placed upon the raised floor frame.

He had come to know where the small sums of money were kept in this neighbor’s house—a place he frequented for mundane errands—without ever realizing when he’d learned it. As for substantial sums of money—it was the same with any farmhouse—there could be no such thing in this house either. At times, it was not rare for there to be not even a single ten-sen coin in the tattered purse.

However, whether it was a single ten-sen coin or a one-sen copper piece—regardless, even if it were “a speck of dust”—for R, who felt supreme bliss (?) in hoarding anything as “his own,” it must have been an irresistible temptation. Who could possibly guarantee that not even a single boar has mistakenly wandered in tonight?

Even so, the inside of the house remained a house—no desolate nighttime field empty of people.
For him—who had shifted from open fields to house interiors—the way things worked there was indeed unfamiliar.

He had been discovered by the family members.
The father of this house—whom he had thought asleep—might have still been lying there with eyes closed, perhaps pondering something.
He nearly got skewered from the side by that bald-headed old man who had taken down an old soot-covered spear from the nail hook.
Though he barely managed to escape, he left behind crucial evidence there.

The evidence was one straw sandal from a pair.
They were sandals he had deliberately worn to muffle sound—crafted from R household's distinctive rag blend—and not only that, but even meticulously branded to prevent theft.

Petty thieves like R were by no means rare presences in any village.
They were neither struggling for daily sustenance nor crushed under public taxes and levies.
It was nothing but a petrified peasant mentality—feudalistic, or perhaps more accurately termed modern—that drove them to insist they must expand their personal holdings, must become landowners, must fulfill these imperatives.

At first, they invariably worked themselves into a frenzy.
They worked and worked and worked themselves to the bone like draft horses, recklessly and without foresight.
They knew nothing of illness, nor did they care about social appearances.
They worked as if possessed by some force, or rather like demons.
But five years, ten years passed, and their hope—that hope which they would achieve even if they had to gnaw through rock—remained stubbornly unfulfilled.
The current economic system utterly betrayed the production output derived from their reliance on outdated farming methods.
There, as if by prior agreement, they began furtively pilfering others’ produce.

And since there were even those who skillfully executed such methods, boldly built grand granaries, and rose to become small landowners, the world was indeed a vast place.

A the Notorious

A from I Settlement had been hauled off in his youth under the heinous charge of "attempted robbery and murder," and never once showed his face before the villagers.
There were also rumors that he sometimes “made rounds” to his family home or sent them money, but those too were likely nothing more than hearsay.

“He’s apparently become a subordinate of K of Iwata,” was also rumored.
And there were those who considered this worthy of credence.
The thief called K of Iwata was a legendary righteous bandit and “native” of this Jonan region.
Stories still persisted that he had even been hailed as the second coming of Nezumi Kozo, the famed Edo-era robber.
Yet none had ever glimpsed his true form—he remained merely a name wrapped in renown.
At times, people would speak with peculiar pride about how such great thieves had sprung from their soil, their words rippling through the village like waterborne whispers.

Now, along with the news that K of Iwata had died a peaceful death, talk had gradually spread through the village that A from I Settlement had taken over after him and was living in luxury with four or five mistresses in tow.
And A—the son of a drifter—had, over the past several years, secretly satisfied something akin to the villagers' traditional hero worship through his dual existence as both a great thief and crime boss.

That had been acceptable until then, but recently, A had abruptly returned to the village.
Contrary to expectations, he was a bedraggled wreck, presenting a truly pitiful sight.
But strange—or perhaps not so strange—A had brought a wife.

“How could there be a woman who’d even stay with a man like that?”

Even A—who supposedly kept four or five mistresses—could not withstand the villagers.
He was promptly reverted to being merely a drifter’s son, subjected to sidelong glares and contemptuous snorts.

Yet A remained utterly unperturbed, renting an old vacant hideaway belonging to a marsh-edge farmhouse where he established his household.
He appeared to have no regular occupation, spending his days gazing at the sky from a hill overlooking the marshes.
His wife alone made cloth bags and fashioned balloon toys for children.
She looked about thirty—pale and gaunt like many women raised in city back alleys—with nothing but a sharp tongue to recommend her.

The villagers kept a wary eye on this household.
How on earth had they allowed into their village a man branded with such fearsome criminal charges as robbery and murder…?

However, even after several months had passed, there had been no harm done to the village, nor had any of the disreputable-looking individuals they had worried about come to visit A.

“I wonder if he’s reformed.”

According to what A’s wife let slip, the A family had apparently been running some business in Tokyo’s Shitaya district.
However, since Tokyo too was in recession and life had grown difficult—having come to the countryside partly for recuperation—A himself began occasionally visiting nearby houses, and the villagers’ reassurance gradually increased.
Then one day, A’s tongue slipped slightly.

“With just one look at a house’s layout—be it even a daimyo mansion—I can tell exactly where they’ve hidden the money!”

The villagers were utterly horrified by this single remark.
The roundabout eviction strategy succeeded, and A left the village.
He had come empty-handed, yet transported his belongings in a large truck.

Mr. Hiroshi

Mr. Hiroshi Matsubara—who had built a small, nominally thatched house adjacent to my estate’s residence about five years prior and had been living there ever since—proposed that he work three days a month for the remainder of the year at a rate of fifty sen per day.
Of course, meals were to be his own responsibility.

At that very time, having just returned to the village from Tokyo, even just the cleanup and maintenance tasks around the estate—which I had left entirely to my sister and her husband until then—were no easy matter.
First of all—though “rubbing against the heavens” might have been a slight exaggeration—the cleanup after hiring workers to cut down the wildly overgrown branches of the large chinquapin trees surrounding the estate, which had been left unchecked for years as a southern windbreak, was beyond the capacity of my softened hands.
From repairing the broken outer fence to cleaning up after demolishing the abandoned building, dredging the well, repairing the main house… enumerating just the tasks awaiting before my eyes made them seem endless.
I sat down at my desk to work—to write my manuscript—but once those thoughts crept in, I couldn’t even begin.
And so we accepted Mr. Hiroshi’s proposal without hesitation.
Moreover, he was perfectly suited for the role—the villagers spoke of how he could skillfully handle not just farming tasks but anything from plastering walls and building fences to digging wells and transplanting trees.
He was thirty-seven years old and had been living with a wife five or six years his senior; however, shortly after our return to the village, this older wife had “eloped”—as Mr. Hiroshi himself put it—and he now lived in that single-room thatched house with “a certain woman” he claimed was his sister—this being a middle-aged villager’s drunken description of her.
He tenant-farmed a very small amount of land, but of course that alone could hardly suffice; during sericulture season he helped with that work, during busy farming periods he took day labor… in such ways he eked out a meager livelihood.
The woman of about thirty-two or three, who claimed to be his sister, carried herself like a town prostitute ill-suited to the village and idled about the house with nothing to do.
She had spent ten long years as a “caged bird”—as the villagers called it—and after leaving that life had become what was termed a “something of a...”
As her appearance suggested, she had apparently drifted between backstreet cafés and provincial town eateries, and it was her habit to flee the place once “three days had passed”—again, the villagers’ phrasing.

＊ ＊ ＊

Of course, we only heard about such matters later; when we first returned to the village, we had little opportunity to engage in that sort of conversation with the villagers, so we knew nothing at all. However, I had already heard when Mr. Hiroshi built his small dwelling in a corner of the mulberry field before my house that he was from what the village called "Towari." Even so, such matters were not in the least bit problematic for us. In the single fact that he would come to work three days a month—or even five or six days when circumstances allowed—we felt the greatest convenience and assistance.

The agreement was finalized in the evening when we requested a day to clean up the branches of the chinquapin trees left as they were after being cut down.
Mr. Hiroshi came again the next day and somehow finished clearing the branches.
It was two days before Lunar New Year, with village mochi-pounding completed as they stood on the brink of settling annual accounts.
Mr. Hiroshi had been drinking at a neighbor’s house that evening… Mumbling something to that effect, he slipped into our dirt-floored entryway.
I’d already gone to bed, but seeing Hiroshi’s dejected face beneath his drunken claims—“It’s about money,” my wife later said she’d intuited.
He returned the very next day.
When we asked how much he needed, he waffled about year-end hardships…
Finally admitting six months’ worth—no, actually ten yen would see him through.
In my ignorance of village customs, I’d assumed dividing a year’s obligations into three parts would suffice.
Ten yen cut deep for us.
In Tokyo we’d failed to sustain six mouths; returning meant a rent-free ruin’s “roof”—with other expenses somewhat lighter—plus psychological relief… We’d just made this shift when—
But literary life inures you to destitution beyond numbness, breeds thick-skinned faith that “Something’ll turn up in days!”
Farmers can’t grasp this—truth be told.
A digression: our paltry ten yen to Hiroshi spread like wildfire—soon rumors claimed we’d “retreated here with money,” ruining our standing… No—thanks to that seed, we’d face dire straits later.

＊ ＊ ＊

We came to realize Mr. Hiroshi was quite the silver-tongued talker that evening when he bustled home with the ten yen—his sister, that “certain” woman, had been seen dashing toward the village crossroads in her characteristic manner.

But such things were of no consequence at all. As for this sister, according to the villagers, it was because of her that Mr. Hiroshi’s former wife had so-called "eloped," and apparently those two had been "questionable" since their youth; but in truth, we too had initially believed—unaware she was his sister—that he must have replaced her with a younger one. But this too was ultimately of no consequence. In any case, when we saw his sister like that—assuming Mr. Hiroshi too must be preparing for the Lunar New Year in the same way as the villagers—we found ourselves rather envious of the simple life of farmers.

That year brought an unending succession of snowstorms.
Because of this, even after the Lunar New Year had ended, Mr. Hiroshi did not come to work, and I often had to leave my desk to gather firewood for heating the bath.
Still, while fetching water for his own kitchen, Mr. Hiroshi would draw mine as well.
Despite having been dredged twice, the old well at my house—what villagers called a “town well”—yielded not a single drop of water.
Every midsummer and winter without fail this happened; until the equinox arrived and water returned, we had to fetch from the “main well”—a seventy-shaku shaft reaching groundwater—that stood near only Mr. Ogawa Usen’s house about two chō away.
Melting snow and frost made roads treacherous, buckets grew heavy—for us this became a daily trial.
Having resolved to pay beyond our three-day monthly agreement, we finally entrusted this task too to Mr. Hiroshi.

However, Mr. Hiroshi was often out and about. Even when we waited expectantly, there would often be no bath water—let alone water for cooking. My wife, unaccustomed to this rural life, would each time lament the inconveniences of our post-Tokyo existence.

Such concerns held no sway over Mr. Hiroshi. He went about living his life with perfect equanimity. Nor was it uncommon for him to come borrowing a yen or two for drink money, always promising to repay it tomorrow.

＊ ＊ ＊

Before long, he himself brought up that he was going to take a wife. She’d apparently be bringing one child along—about nineteen, she was… though mind you, I’d been presented to them as around thirty or so. He remained utterly carefree about it all. He hadn’t even seen what she looked like, nor had anyone from her side come to inspect him either. The day set for the ceremony brought a fierce blizzard—newspapers reported brides meeting mishaps all over—and sure enough, Mr. Hiroshi’s bride got caught up in it too, finally dragging herself here the next day. Hiroshi had gone to fetch her but lost his way in the storm; plowing through waist-deep snowdrifts off any proper path left him with gut trouble, so there he lay—the bride(?) right before him—unable to rise for two or three days. We heard a woman who might be the bride and a child crying, but no sign of Hiroshi himself… until he came shuffling up, pallid and haggard, to beg medicine and spin his tale.

As the bride entered, the sister went off somewhere.
"I sent her off as a bride," Mr. Hiroshi said, but no one believed him.

“He’ll take another advance and skip out, then she’ll come crawling back within three days,” the villagers whispered.
Meanwhile, the bride appeared not nineteen but twenty-five or twenty-six.
The child was a girl of about two years old.
When Mr. Hiroshi had recovered from his illness, he came visiting with the child on his back, strolling casually to where I was splitting firewood.
When I asked if he could come prepare firewood when convenient, he would answer “Even tomorrow,” but when tomorrow came, he was nowhere to be seen.
He claimed he’d gone out early on some business elsewhere.
When pressed about when he might come, he replied that once the snow melted, he’d work two or three days straight preparing firewood and readying the vegetable plot.
The snow showed no sign of melting.
Just when we thought it had finally vanished from the front yard, the sky turned ominous and scattered flurries began drifting in—yet spring arrived despite it all.
Sparrows stretched frost-stiffened wings and chirped from dawn, while flocks of small birds like Japanese tits and white-eyes came foraging at the persimmon tree in the yard.
From beneath the thawing snow, black soil steamed with heat shimmers.

＊ ＊ ＊

We could no longer remain idle.
I set aside my manuscript writing and began clearing the abandoned house site for cultivation, digging up the vacant lot where I meant to plant flowers, and cutting back the thicket destined for fruit trees.
Whenever I glimpsed Mr. Hiroshi meanwhile, I would drop subtle hints—yet he showed no inclination to come.
His “bride-sent-off” sister kept returning for reasons unspecified; some relative of his bride fell ill; his father had business matters… and conversely there were always one-yen or two-yen matters.
Since he no longer drew water for us by then, we had no choice but to incorporate these into our annual agreement’s terms—yet thinking we’d have to comply regardless, we handed over the money.

Mr. Hiroshi’s figure would appear and disappear.

One day, a neighbor passing by remarked, “Mr. Hiroshi’s gone missing, hasn’t he…”

“No way.”

“Apparently the two of them—him and his sister—took off for the Kansai region or somewhere…”

We found ourselves in a state of open-mouthed astonishment.
In reality, to anyone watching, we might have appeared to be gaping in bewilderment.

“Not only had they sold off all their household belongings, but they’d even disposed of their crops before leaving—or so the story goes.”

“But… she… the bride was there yesterday too…”

“They’d make sure the house was empty first, then the two of them carried out all their belongings during that time—or so they say.”
“In the middle of the night, there’s someone who saw a truck come to the foot of this slope—or so they say…”

Mr. Hiroshi's early life became clear. No matter where he was hired, he would get his hands on the money and not show up for work, instead slowly drinking it away, so that by then there were no employers left in places familiar with his ways. From childhood he had wandered from Karafuto to the farthest reaches of Kyushu—a “wind-blown vagabond,” as the villagers called him—such was his nature.

“If they go to some unknown place, they’ll pass as husband and wife even like that,”
the speaker said with a serious face.
Then after all that talk about how much he’d swindled from the village liquor store and such-and-such place, when he asked “You got taken too, didn’t you?” we admitted to a small loss… but the real problem was this leftover work—we’d completely trusted and counted on him for it—so when we said that,

“Well, I’ve completely surrendered to that Hiroshi business,” said the farmer, grinning slyly with his bear-like face covered in unkempt stubble.