Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

A shadow moved—or so he thought—then vanished in an instant.

"Was it just my imagination?" Hayamimi Sanji wondered as he peered through the darkness ahead. He had taken two or three steps forward when a single chilling splash echoed from beneath the bridge.

Startled, Sanji leaned against the railing and peered down below.
The Great River’s waters swelled thickly with floating stars, striking against the oar poles and shattering into white foam.
On that black water surface, bobbing up and down, a human-like figure was drifting.

“Damn! She went and jumped!”

After shouting involuntarily and dashing through Great River Bridge, Sanji stood at Zaimoku-cho's riverbank and stooped to peer through the night sky. Beneath hanging river mist illuminated by lamplight leaking from the Hojo, Akiyama, and Matsudaira mansions across the water, he saw a pitch-black object being pushed along by the current.

“In this freezing cold— Tch, what a damn nuisance!”

He swiftly untied his obi and ran downstream, bellowing as he went.

“A jumper! A jumper! Someone’s jumped—!”

Anticipating the stir of people emerging from awakened merchant houses, Sanji picked his spot and plunged into the black water.

Humans are strange creatures, made to be utterly selfish through and through. Once someone resolved to drown themselves, heat or cold should have been irrelevant—yet instinct appeared to drive them to choose the least painful path until the final moment. Thus in summer many drowned to escape the heat, while in winter, even those determined to die often avoided the cold water and chose other methods. Therefore, winter drowning suicides represented truly desperate acts—though it seemed contradictory to speak of pretense in death—for these could never stem from momentary impulses, sheer stubbornness to make a point, or feigned suicide attempts. Moreover, though most would-be drowners entered the water resolved to die yet typically thrashed about and screamed for help when death became imminent, this figure who had cast themselves from Great River Bridge into the turbid current—whether man or woman remained unclear—appeared thoroughly resolved, surrendering to the torrential flow without uttering a sound.

Sanji swam up with sweeping strokes, knowing better than to approach recklessly. Straining his eyes, he discerned what appeared to be a woman. Her seaweed-like black hair swayed in the current—had that waving hand meant to refuse rescue? But he couldn't simply mutter "Oh, is that so?" and retreat. Kicking powerfully to circle ahead, he ducked beneath the water as her form surged toward his back, slipping past to position himself behind her. This was Shinden-ryu's water pillow technique—the secret method for retrieving drowning victims. Desperate souls cling like grasping at straws; approaching head-on would mean being dragged under together. Having maneuvered behind her—where he'd grip a man's fundoshi knot—Sanji instead seized the woman's obi. He clamped down with his left hand, yanking her close as he wedged his elbow beneath her armpit. With his right hand, he executed the single-handed Ryūgumisaki sweep. Three inches below the surface, a human face isn't papier-mâché—submersion does no harm. Errors arise from forcibly lifting it into air. Sanji pulled her along and returned effortlessly to shore.

The group standing onshore—who had been shouting for boats and ropes—pulled her up with their combined efforts, but whether from swallowing too much water or simply due to the bitter cold, she didn't survive.
The woman had already passed away.

Since they were locals, everyone recognized the drowned woman's identity at a glance.
The drowned woman was Ofuji, wife of Kawaraya Isuke who ran a rice cracker shop in Zaimoku-cho—this was her registered household status.

Even before Sanji could give instructions, it seemed someone had run off, for Kawaraya Isuke came rushing up, breathless.
Isuke initially stood frozen in shock, staring down at his wife's corpse at his feet, but soon collapsed to his knees and began weeping unrestrainedly with raw sobs.
The gathered people instinctively turned their lantern lights outward, and among them were some who chanted Buddhist prayers.

Before long,

“Damn it all!”

With that shout, Isuke stood up.
His eyes were bloodshot, his face pallid with madness.

“Damn me! Ofuji’s enemy—!”

As he tried to stagger forward, Sanji caught him.

“Oh Boss— Boss Sanji, I’ve caused such a commotion, and then you went and pulled her out yourself. I’m truly sorry, so very sorry. But th-this is too much. When they’ve gone this far to prove it, I’ve got my pride as a man. Right now—right now I’ll go confront them—”

Like dammed water bursting forth all at once, Isuke tried to sputter out something through his stuttering.
The sudden drowning suicide of this young wife—who despite their impoverished household had always lived cheerfully free from worldly cares—drew the surrounding crowd that had been peering, tugging sleeves, and pricking up ears since earlier, convinced some profound circumstance must underlie this tragedy; now they pressed in thickly, seizing their chance.

Sanji swiftly cut off Isuke’s words.

“Now, now, the deceased comes first.
“You can’t just leave her lying on the ground.”
“That I happened by and saw her jump—that I even managed to retrieve just the corpse—this too must be some kind of fate.”
“Hey Isuke, let’s head home and hear the story proper there.”
“Anyway, revenge ain’t no peaceable business.”
“Depending on how things go, helping out ain’t something I can’t do. Let’s move.”
“Dead or not, she’s your wife—come on, Isuke, you carry Ofuji—Hey! You lot, this ain’t no street show!”
“Move! Back up, clear out!”

When Sanji and Isuke carried the corpse back to Isuke’s shop—Edo Arare Kawaraya, a rice cracker store midway along Zaimoku-cho Street—it was the Hour of the Ox in winter’s deepest night. Along the Great River’s banks, pitch darkness reigned as a bitter north wind roared.

II

At the corner where Kuramae Hatagomachi led to Saifukuji Temple’s gatefront stood Kamean, a venerable establishment in the hair ornament trade.

For the Yotsuya Festival on the 18th, Ofuji had been invited by relatives for a visit, and as there was also a prior arrangement, this morning Isuke had her take some silver coins from their meager means and sent her to Kamean to purchase a crepe silk hair ornament.

Though she was his wife, Ofuji still retained a childlike air.
Having finally been allowed to purchase something she had long desired, Ofuji bustled about excitedly from early morning. The moment she finished preparing the rice crackers, she eagerly left home near dusk—but barely half an hour later, she returned through the back door with a pallid face and clenched teeth, burst into wails, and collapsed crying on the kitchen floorboards.

Startled, Isuke rushed over and lifted Ofuji up, questioning her thoroughly—but she merely,

“It’s so… so mortifying! Damn it!”

and kept crying without answering.

Only crying, Ofuji did not answer anything.

While Isuke—a devoted but timid husband—stood bewildered and panicking, soon enough, the clerk from Kamean sundries shop came storming in, steam rising from his head as he put on a furious bluster.

“I don’t know if she’s the mistress of this house, but that young madam there”—he pointed at Ofuji—“shoplifted a flat coral ornament worth twenty-five ryō from our establishment. Either return the item now or pay the full price here on the spot. If not, we’ll take this matter to the proper authorities. Until then, I’ll be sitting right here in your shopfront and not moving an inch—that’s our position.”

This was no time for rice crackers.

The Kawaraya household—though it was just the two of them, a married couple—was thrown into an unbelievable commotion.

It goes without saying that Isuke—honest and steadfast—was shocked nearly to madness.
Ofuji, even so, shook her head while crying and persisted in asserting her innocence, but the clerk only grew more insistent in his accusations as Ofuji collapsed into wracking sobs.
Isuke, standing between them in a distraught state, now hit upon a crucial matter—the presence or absence of evidence.

“Hey Boss,” Isuke said, shuffling closer to Sanji on his knees. “I may be scraping by in this humble trade, but never once have folks pointed fingers at me behind my back. It feels strange coming from her own husband’s mouth, but she’s no different—there’s not a chance in hell she’d do something so outrageous.”
“This here’s some kinda mistake.”
“No matter how wealthy they might be, I couldn’t just sit there and let them slap a false accusation on us right before my eyes—no, not just sit there—they were trying to drive us out! And I wasn’t about to let them drive us out like that—that’s what I thought—”

Sanji rapped Tsugetsuho sharply,

"But Isuke—hold on. When they go through the trouble of hauling in something bigger than petty complaints, you can bet they've got what they think is solid proof."

"Hmm."
"I pressed 'em on that too, but..."

"So what's this? That Kamean clerk claim he saw Ofuji-san swipe the coral with his own eyes?"

"Preposterous!"

"Then out with it—what proof'd they use to point fingers at Ofuji-san?"

According to the clerk’s account, shortly after Ofuji entered the shop, they noticed one of the coral ornaments there had gone missing. Having mobilized the entire shop to search for it but finding nothing, they took Ofuji to the back room as a last resort to reason with her. When they attempted to search her person, Ofuji broke free from their grasp and fled home in tears.

“Boss—how could they search her like that?”
“I’d argued that very point with them.”
“No matter how destitute we become—how dare outsiders meddle in—…”

“So then, Isuke.
Since they went so far as to chase her here and force their way in, they must’ve conducted another body search in this house—with you present—right?”

“Right.”

“So the item didn’t turn up, huh?”

“Boss, if that hadn’t turned up, Ofuji wouldn’t have had to die—.”

“What? So you mean it turned up?”
“Did that coral come from Ofuji-san’s person?”

“Right.”

“Hmm.”
“Then what happened?”

“Then I was so disgusted and disheartened that I didn’t say a word for the longest time. Ofuji just kept lying facedown, but then in the dead of night, she ran out and finally—.”

“No way Ms. Ofuji would ever commit such a theft.”

“B-Boss… If you put it that way… her soul can find peace.”

Glancing back at the corpse covered with a futon in the corner, Isuke sniffled.

"But Isuke."
Sanji continued in a sharp tone.
“Once the physical evidence has come to light, that’s proof enough."
"No doubt about it—Ofuji-san must’ve stolen it after all."
“What became of that coral?”

“The clerk took it back.”

“Listen Isuke—strange question maybe—was Ofuji-san in her monthly courses?
“Happens all the time.”
“When women’re bleedin’, they get these mad impulses sudden-like.”
“Well—guilt got to her and she did herself in.”
“Buryin’ her’s what matters now.”

Sanji stood up.
And then, as if realizing something,

“From where on Ms. Ofuji did the coral come out?”

“Right.”
“From between the obi.”

At Isuke’s response, Sanji lifted the futon and spent some time examining both sides of the corpse’s obi, then abruptly raised his face and—

“Isuke—does this house have any solid-form hair-styling karo oil, huh?”

“Well… Ofuji didn’t use karo oil, though.”

“Hmm.”
“That’s right.”
“Hmm. Maybe I should look into this a bit more.”
“If Ms. Ofuji’s proven innocent, I’ll help you take revenge on your enemies.”
“There might be an unexpectedly interesting scheme at play here.”
“For now, you might wait until tomorrow.”

Ox-blood lip rouge—said to have optimal coverage and luster when made from cattle blood drawn on the winter Day of the Ox—lent its name to coral harvested on that same midwinter day. This Ushi Beni coral boasted deep base coloration and fine texture, its exceptional hardness combined with workability making it ideal for intricate carving. Thus named and prized beyond measure by fashionable women.

Particularly, Kamean of Kuramae was an established shop that had risen to prominence through its crimson coral carvings. The item at issue today was also an Ushi Beni product—a slender, flattened surface carved with the Kokuinya crest in a dynamic nine-and-i character pattern, crafted with youthful vigor to align with trends from Tadanosuke’s heyday. By any measure, this had been Kamean’s prideful showcase piece priced at 25 ryō.

Having extracted this much from Isuke's mouth, Hayamimi Sanji hastily left the tile shop.

Dawn was still some time away.
Deep in thought about something as he hurried home, Sanji roused his house in Hanakawado.

III

Dressed in dark blue tortoiseshell-patterned Yūki silk with a brown Hakata obi tied in the Kai style, Sanji presented an image of austere respectability. He slipped under Kamean’s shop curtain the moment dawn broke.

Spotting the head clerk—a man past forty—leaning against a brazier near the edge while tending the shop, Sanji recognized him: So this was the white rat who’d confronted the tile shop yesterday.

Settling onto the entrance step, his eyes fell on a rosewood platform rising about thirty centimeters from the tatami near the raised flooring’s edge. Displayed to catch customers’ eyes lay high-value fashionable items—tortoiseshell combs, jade, ivory, crystal, agate pieces, and gold-silver ornaments.
The platform’s upper section stood ninety centimeters from the earthen floor, its overlapping boards protruding three centimeters on either side—unmistakably modeled after a sutra desk.

As it was a major establishment, Sanji had occasion to come and go for various reasons, but he hadn’t committed the staff members’ faces to memory. Thus, until Sanji revealed his identity and dug out every detail root and branch, those at Kamean had been reluctant to speak freely about the previous day’s events.

However, given that the rice cracker shop’s wife had drowned herself and Hayamimi Sanji of Hanakawado had come out to investigate the matter, they could not help but disclose everything.

Yesterday afternoon—or rather, evening.

When the rice cracker shop’s wife came shopping and was selecting a hair ornament, they suddenly noticed that one of the Ushi Beni coral pieces that had been on the platform was now missing.
So they encouraged the apprentice to search around, but it couldn’t be found.
Then, a stylish woman who appeared to be a mistress—having arrived earlier, finished her shopping, and been about to leave at that moment—returned along with her maid and, with considerable sarcasm, requested that since such an incident had occurred, she could not comfortably return home as things stood and wished to have her person inspected to settle the matter satisfactorily.
The shop staff humbly obliged by inspecting her garments and such in a back room, but of course, the missing item did not turn up.
With a haughty snort, the woman departed, taking her maid in tow.

Therefore, following the natural course of events, they next moved to inspect the rice cracker shop’s wife. However, not only did she weep and refuse to let them touch her, but she soon took the chance to flee home. Had she been innocent, she should have voluntarily submitted to an inspection then and there to clear suspicion—yet this very resistance made them grow all the more suspicious. They immediately pursued her to her house and conducted a bodily search with her husband present. Sure enough, beneath her breasts within the folds of her obi emerged the missing coral. Since the coral had been recovered after all, they settled the matter privately this time and refrained from making any forceful demands. When the clerk heard that the housewife had killed herself the previous night, he wore a look of bewilderment.

On the platform, alongside other items, were five or six Tadanosuke corals decorated with a circular design enclosing the character 'i' (井). They were all similar in size and design, crafted as front ornaments for obi clasps. Sanji silently stared at them, but after a while,

“Is yesterday’s coral among these here?”

he asked.
When the clerk answered “Yes,” Sanji—
“I’ll figure out which one it is.”
As he said this, he took them one by one—testing their surfaces with his fingertips and holding them to his nose to smell—until finally selecting one to place in his palm,

“This one, huh?”

he said and thrust it out before the clerk’s eyes.
The clerk, startled, nodded in assent.

“Whoa!
Well I’ll be!
How’d you know that was the one?”

“Ah, that don’t matter none.”
“Instead o’ that—clerk—when you said the coral was gone, what’d the rice cracker shop’s wife do?”

“She froze in shock.”

“She was sittin’ next to the platform, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.
She was sittin’ by this platform, but when the commotion over the missin’ coral started, she hurriedly stood up.”

Sanji thought for a moment, then,

"You're wiping down these coral beads every day, yeah?"

"Yes, yes, that goes without saying."
"Hai, every morning when I take them out from the storehouse and arrange them on the platform, I myself diligently wipe them with a red silk cloth, you see."

Yet despite this, it was strange that the very item Sanji had identified among the numerous corals still retained the slipperiness and scent of karo oil.
Sanji recalled how there'd also been a thick stain of karo oil on the underside of Ofuji's obi.

Once one piece unraveled, the rest followed easily.

While frowning in deep contemplation, Hayamimi Sanji abruptly came alive with vigor.
With irrefutable evidence secured, Investigator Sanji suddenly assumed an air of imperially-sanctioned authority. Without uttering a word—as if to indicate he merely required making a slight adjustment—he had the clerk procure a single go stone from the rear quarters.
Then standing before the aforementioned platform on the entry frame, he repeatedly stepped back and crouched to scrutinize it from multiple vantage points—until suddenly bending to peer beneath the platform.

On the right underside of the upper board protruding about an inch was a thick clump of karo oil smeared.
Because it was midwinter, the air was cold.
The oil hadn't melted in the slightest.
Sanji grinned broadly and attached the aforementioned go stone there.

Having done that, he sat down some distance away and faced the clerk.
Two or three customers came in.
Sanji, also pretending to be a customer, requested that various combs and hairpins be brought forward and, while handling them one after another, said in a hushed voice—

“That woman who tried to leave when the rice cracker shop’s wife came yesterday—the one who volunteered for a body inspection—want me to tell you what she bought here? *Heh*—hardened karo oil, wasn’t it? How’s that?”

“Ah, that’s right.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“She purchased a bottle of karo oil.”
“But Boss—how did you come to know that?”
“And what relation does that have to anything?”

“Did that woman come back again last night?”

“No.”

“Alright,” Sanji said with resolve, “you—you’d recognize that woman’s face, wouldn’t you?”

“Well… There’s nothing particular to emphasize, but since we did show her into the back, I suppose seeing her would make it clear.”

“Yeah. When the woman comes, give a cough for me. Alright then—countin’ on ya, yeah?”

The clerk indicated his understanding with his eyes.

Then the two waited.

The clerk and Sanji found themselves there, poised to wait endlessly for the woman from yesterday who’d bought karo oil—whether she would come or not remained uncertain.

Whether she would come or not was uncertain.
But Sanji was confident she would come.
However, no matter how long they waited, the woman did not come.

Half an hour passed.
An hour passed.
In the meantime, two or three female customers came in.
However, not a single woman matching that description showed any sign of appearing.
Sanji grew impatient.
He considered that she might be playing it safe and wouldn’t come until afternoon—that perhaps they should call it quits here—but when he thought of dead Ofuji and Isuke’s frenzy, even Sanji couldn’t bring himself to abandon the operation after pushing this far.

"Hmph. Reckon it's a battle of wills now."

Muttering to himself internally, Sanji planted himself even more firmly in position.
As he silently stared at the chain of events, Sanji felt as though everything became clear.
Now, all Sanji could do was wait.

Four

It was raining.
Unnoticed, it had turned to rain.
The cold rain roared down, torrentially lashing the Eight Hundred and Eight Districts.

“I’d call this good rain, but with the roads turnin’ to mud like this, it’s downright unbearable.”
“Hell, keeps pourin’ and pourin’—puttin’ on one hell of a show.”

As he said this, Sanji blew the tobacco ember into the dirt floor.

“Excuse me.”

A gentle voice sounded as a young man entered—dressed head-to-toe in garish striped silk like some rakish pleasure-quarter denizen—using a slender snake-eye-patterned umbrella to shield himself from the wind-driven downpour lashing sideways. Sanji gave a single glance in that direction and paid it no further heed,

“Please show me a women’s haori cord.”

he said.

Thinking "What a shady character," Sanji began observing through the gaps between his fingers pressed against his temple. He was a handsome man with a bland face, somehow restless. This is the job—this guy’s suspicious, Sanji thought, immediately bracing himself.

Unaware of such matters, the clerk stifled a yawn,

“Yessir—”

While giving some vague response, he turned toward the back to fetch the requested item—whereupon the man resolutely stepped forward and sat down beside the display stand.

Ah! Sanji tensed up.
The clerk was still in the back preparing the box of cords.

Then, the man’s hand slid smoothly and slipped beneath the stand.
In that instant—unaware it was a go stone—he swiftly tossed whatever he'd retrieved from beneath the stand into his sleeve without even looking, then composed his face into perfect innocence.
Just then, as the clerk turned back with the small box of cords and placed them before his eyes, the man began browsing for preferred items while whispering some consultation, but ultimately declared he didn’t like any of them and tried to leave the shop without purchasing anything.

Should I grab him now? Sanji wondered.
But they said yesterday's visitor had been a woman.
That meant they must be accomplices.
Having concluded that deliberately letting this one slip away safely and tailing him to cast a wider net would be the shrewder approach, Sanji quietly fixed his gaze on the man's retreating figure.

After confirming that the man—his umbrella half-open, body bent like a shrimp against the wind—had exited the shop and turned right, Hayamimi Sanji dashed to the display stand and searched beneath it.

Only karo oil clung to his hands.
The go stone he’d planted was gone—.

Sanji, without uttering a word, stepped into the footsteps of the departing man.

His legs felt thick and cold to the point of pain in their rolled-up hollows.
The man was about half a block ahead.
Sanji hurried, raising splashes of mud.

Five

After emerging onto Hatagochō’s main street and cutting through Moritachō Ten'nōchō and Kawarachō as far as the first block, Sanji followed while thinking the man might cross a bridge toward Asakusa Gate—but at Daichi’s corner, [the suspect] turned right and emerged before Lord Sakai Saemon’s secondary residence along Fukuimachi’s riverside.

The area ahead was lined with samurai residences.
A man like him had no business being here.
But to the left was Shinbashi Bridge.
Crossing this would lead one all the way to Kanda Nihonbashi, so there shouldn’t be anything suspicious about this.

Yet the man did not cross Atarashi Bridge either, passing instead beneath the walls of the Satake and Itakura lords’ estates, moving past Sakumachō 2-chōme before veering right at the corner guardhouse.

It was Matsunaga-chō.
There was a soba shop called Eijuan as the second building.
When he reached that point, the man closed his umbrella even tighter and slipped into a side alley.

At the alley’s end stood a modest single-family dwelling, its thousand-lattice windows polished to a shine—a somewhat stylish residence.

Hayamimi Sanji, having watched intently as the man’s figure vanished into this dwelling, pressed himself flush against the window frame and strained to listen to what was happening inside.

Sanji, already renowned for his sharp ears, now strained them to their limits—an almost unbearable intensity of listening.
He could make out every detail.

“Who’s there? Oh, Suke-san! Welcome back. Good work there.”
“How’d it go, huh?”

came a woman’s languid voice.

The man answered.

“There ain’t no way around it.”
“Had it gripped tight when I left, but then I looked on the way—hmph, ain’t never had such a damn fool day like today.”
“Ugh, this is awful.”
“Just awful.”

“Well, what’s gotten into you?”
“You sayin’ it didn’t stick?”

“Nah, it was there all right.”
“Nah, it was there all right, but… Here, take a look at this!”

“Ugh, you’re impossible.”
“Hey now—look here, you. This is a go stone, isn’t it?”

“It’s a go stone.”

“This isn’t any damn go stone!”
“This isn’t a joke!”
“Who’d be fool enough to bring a go stone knowing what it is?!”

“Hmph, I didn’t know it was a go stone from the start and bring it here.”
“Since you said you’d rigged it yesterday, I went and peeled it off thinking it was the real deal.”
“So what’s this, huh? You damn cat-hag—you tried to pull a fast one with that coral ornament and set me up, didn’t you?”

“Suke-san, what’re you blabbering about? You’re the one who’s stashed away the real deal proper-like, aiming to hog it all yourself—ain’t you? That’s about the size of your little scheme.”

“What?!”

“Oh? Playing dumb now? Quit making that stupid face. You haven’t forgotten—though it pains me to boast—I’m O-Tetsu of Kazusa. Since when do I bungle a job? Yesterday at that shop—we swiped the plain coral, stuck it under the display with the karo oil we bought, then made a big show of ourselves when they kicked up a fuss on our way out—all so we could have you fetch it later like this.”

“When I went today to check, sure enough the oil was strong enough to keep it stuck—but instead of coral...”
“This go stone?”

“O-Tetsu.”

“Suke-san.”

“Might’ve left a trail after all.”

“I can’t just sit around like this.”

At that moment, the front lattice slid open with a clatter, and Hayamimi Sanji stood in the dirt-floored entryway.

“Well now, I’ve come to collect the go stone from Kamean.”
“Both front and back are swarming with associates of Hayamimi Sanji from Hanakawado.”
“First off—keep quiet where you are.”

Decisively stepping inside,

“Hah! What's this now? You lot’ve got murderous crimes on your hands!”
“Shut up! Too damn loud!”
“Hey, O-Tetsu! That woman with you at the shop—when the clerk accused her and she froze up, her obi’s front flap caught under the display stand. The coral you stuck there fell right into her sash.”
“Because of that, though she bore a thief’s stigma with no way to clear her name, last night she threw herself into the Great River.”
“Might as well say you killed her yourself.”
“Not just that—her husband’s drowning in tears of grief.”
“This too’s your handiwork.”
“From the hardened karo oil on that obi, I traced back and saw through your tricks.”
“So I pasted a go stone under the display and set a trap since morning to wait.”
“O-Tetsu! Suke-san! How’s that? Scared shitless now?”

“Who’re you supposed to be?”

“Me? I’m Hayamimi Sanji.”

At these words, the two villains showed remarkable resignation. They surrendered without protest, submitting meekly to their fate. Condemned to a hundred lashes under heavy chastisement laws, they were cast out from Edo beginning at Denmacho Prison Gate.

This is a story from Bunkyū 2.