Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
← Back
Deepening AutumnAuthor: Oda Sakunosuke
| Original Title | 秋深き |
|---|---|
| Author | 織田 作之助 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | A solitary man arrives at a remote mountain hot spring, seeking respite for his ailing lungs. His midnight arrival plunges him into unsettling darkness—a shadowed station, a brusque lantern-swinging attendant, and a bicycle-riding tout who abandons him mid-path with cryptic directions. The inn materializes like a spectral glow, its corridors heavy with damp stagnation and whispers from neighboring guests. A gaunt couple occupies the adjacent room: a hulking woman with wandering eyes and a small, erratic man fixated on curing consumption through folk remedies. Their volatile dynamic—tearful confrontations, jealous accusations, and manic insistence on petroleum as medicine—seeps through paper-thin walls, ensnaring the protagonist in their disquieting orbit. As days blur beneath misted mountains and frigid baths, their intrusions escalate, culminating in a coercive "treatment" that leaves physical and psychological residue. When the pair departs abruptly, their farewells ring hollow against lingering questions—of isolation, vulnerability, and what unseen rot festers beneath autumn’s deepening chill. |
← Return to List← Return to TOP