Pathway to Japanese Literature

Festival Day · Willow Basket · Bridges Arrayed · Sutra Boat · Raindrops on Robes · Pale Green

In Memoriam

Festival Day

I

In recent years, Tachibananosuke—a lead kabuki actor adopted into the Onoe family—had perished before reaching twenty-five years of age, succumbing to lung disease after leaving a death poem expressing his desire to drink the dew of white chrysanthemums to ease his agonized chest. Not only his devoted fans but connoisseurs and fellow artists alike lamented and mourned him vociferously, as if the sole white lily gracing their theatrical world had withered away.

At Fukagawa Tomioka Gate stood a shamisen shop called Matsuchiya, whose sixteen-year-old only daughter Kikue went out at dusk in late autumn to visit the nearby Fudō shrine festival—yet past ten-thirty, approaching eleven, when the flow of people outside had thinned, she still had not returned.

There was no particular need for concern—two blocks down the same town's row of houses toward Susaki, at a corner stood a shop selling sundries like coarse toilet paper, straw bundles, pocket warmer ash, and mosquito-repelling incense, along with unsealed tobacco packets priced at one sen five rin or two sen coins, plus items like [pai-retto] and [hīrō]. Through its center ran a back alleyway that terminated at a junction where there stood one latticed townhouse.

The nameplate read “Ezaki Tomi”—a woman’s name that put on airs of demanding “bring me anything”—but this was no signboard for that sort of establishment; for “Tomi” had once been a courtesan-in-training in the northern pleasure quarters of Kyōmachi or suchlike, sitting primly in some brothel with Hakata men’s sashes looped behind her and tucked at the front, collar pulled back to peer up coyly at clients’ pockets.

Starting from age thirty, she had been overseeing second and third floors of buildings, and over the twenty-six years until her current age of fifty-seven—through her ambitious skills in securing independence for eight courtesans—she had made rental properties her own. Until about three months prior, she had leased one such property to an older woman living in Susaki; but that summer, the woman found a teahouse for sale along Nakadori in Bentencho, had it bought for her, and started her business there, leaving the property vacant. Just as Tomi was about to post rental notices again, her daughter Onui—
With a commendable disposition wholly unlike her mother Tomi’s, she had completed training at a university hospital through her own resolve and now worked as a neighborhood nurse—immaculately groomed, fair of face, capable, kindhearted, and gentle. Despite her relentless schedule, she had recently been requested by the Onoe family to attend Tachibananosuke’s sickbed, tending to him until his final breath. Though she received ample gratitude—as mountains belong to their ranges—the strain of nursing had taken its toll, so she resolved to recuperate awhile and returned home just in time to mind the vacant property alone.
Kikue had frequently visited since the time of the previous tenant, owing to some connection, and even now with Onui living there, she continued… Certain of this, her parents gave instructions to send Yakichi—an apprentice and live-in disciple—to fetch her.

“Kikue has been visiting frequently; we’re deeply grateful for your hospitality.
“Then tell Kikue: ‘After being ill so long, staying up late won’t do—you must come home.’ That’s what you’re to say.
“And don’t you go forgetting your lines while messing with that karinto’s fake coloring!”

Perhaps he’d been dozing off—with a sleep-blurred face, he acknowledged the order, sprang up with an “Ah! Got it!” and dashed out as if it were child’s play.

Chanting “heave-ho, heave-ho,” he raced over,

and when he called “Good evening,” Ezaki slid open the latticed door with a clatter,

“Good evening.”

There was no response at that moment; the upper-framed shoji had been slid open one panel to the left.
The entryway spanned three tatami mats, with a light burning in the adjoining room. Yakichi stood rigidly in the earthen-floored area, heedless of propriety.

“Thank you for your continued hospitality; we are most grateful.
Yes—Ms. Kikue—Sister.”

II

“Ms. Kikue,” he called again, but no one answered.

Without pause,

“Since it’s late, you must go home now—it won’t do to catch a cold.”

Yakichi, having embellished his master’s orders with his own commentary, thought he’d spoken rather well himself—but when still no response came, he peered around the dimly lit earthen-floored entryway. Then, planting his hands on the doorframe and leaning in up to his waist, he peered inside with a haughty expression.

“Karindo for sale! The famous karindo!” he chanted melodiously,

“Even if it rains—crispy as ever!”

What’s this—surely they’d show themselves now. Yakichi thought Kikue and Onui were feigning absence to trick him, so he smirked to himself while listening intently—anticipating laughter, snorts, giggles, or scolding—but no response came. The clock’s ticking carved into the pillar minute by minute; the iron kettle’s boiling subsided like an ebbing tide. When he noticed, there was not a trace of human presence.

“How strange,” he muttered to himself, but just to be thorough, he called out once more.

“Hey, karindo for sale here!”

Yet the loneliness persisted—whether imagined or not—the lamplight seemed gloomier still, and the earthen floor where he stood grew darker yet. With eyes like someone stifling a sneeze gone wrong, Yakichi—now utterly changed from when he had rushed in—stepped out through the latticed door looking somewhat dejected. He didn’t bother closing it behind him nor headed straight back. Instead, following along the gutter until he reached the six-tatami bay window facing outdoors, he leaned back against it from behind, glanced around front and back, then stared blankly into space.

The rattling that passed by came from about three boisterous handcarts, among which was one shared ride.

“Hey now, don’t you go getting startled,” he said with a mouth unbecoming of his years, then reached into his pocket as if craving a daifuku mochi and performed what’s called a poverty-stricken shuffle.

Amidst the commotion came the footsteps of three or four people talking loudly over each other as they hurried closer; upon reaching Ezaki’s front, they paused briefly,

“Thank you very much, Miss.”

The one who said this was the tofu shop’s wife,

“What a terrible bother that must have been for you.”

“Thanks to you,” said Tome the dyer, while an old man from Gyokkan chimed in—all speaking together.

Sandwiched among them was Nurse Onui,

“You’re welcome. Thank you all for your efforts. Please excuse me now.”
“Goodbye.”

“Good night.”

They exchanged words, and the trio then went their separate ways.

Pausing briefly as if seeing them off, Onui wore a striped everyday kimono with her obi tied properly in a taiko drum knot—her white tabi socks impeccably worn—her hair arranged in an evening-style chignon. Her attire was so rare in this locale that it drew more attention than summer parasols or winter hoods; even those who knew her as a courtesan-in-training still addressed her as "young lady."

Onui paid no heed to Yakichi standing by the bay window, turned on her heel, and made to hurriedly enter—yet both the lattice door and shoji stood wide open and gaping straight through. She involuntarily hesitated and turned back.

“Welcome back.”

“Oh—Matsuchiya’s—” she blurted abruptly, without even a moment to process her surprise.

“What happened to Ms. Kikue?”

“Have you come back?”

That was somewhat off the mark.

“Since your illness has run its course, you should go home now—look, I came to get you.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked with gentle concern, standing at the entrance.

The apprentice was breathing heavily,

“Didn’t they go out together?”

“No.”

Willow basket

III

“Hey, that’s strange—but there’s no one inside.”

“What do you mean she’s not here? She must have been tricked. Did you even try calling her?”

“I called her, I shouted—even used my karinto falsetto.”

Onui smiled faintly,

“It’s because you’re playing such tricks that there’s no reply.
Well, do come in. Thank you for your trouble,” she said calmly as she passed through the lattice door, but upon crossing the earthen entryway, her eyes fixed sharply on the pair of Komachi geta neatly removed there—their scarlet velvet cords—

“Look here, there are shoes right here, aren’t there? What are you getting so flustered about?”

Yakichi followed behind and craned his neck to peer in.

“Oh, I didn’t notice that, I tell ya.”

“Today—they said a big haul came in at the riverside, and since there was fresh tuna, I thought I’d get that red one you like—so I left Kiku-chan all alone and went to the corner Ki no ji shop. Then on my way back—” Rapidly recounting this, Onui bent slightly at the raised threshold to straighten the aforementioned shoes.

“What happened was, when I got to Ashiyu Bathhouse, there was a big crowd out front making an awful racket. So I asked around and heard that Ginji-san’s—y’know, the tattooed—old lady had passed out from the steam. Took care of her, and well… sorry to keep you waitin’.”

When she slid open the fusuma and entered the six-tatami room to find no one there, Onui showed not a trace of suspicion,

“Please forgive me.”
“You see—”
She passed leisurely askew before the long brazier, thrust her hand between her obi folds and produced a small clasp-mouthed purse from its depths—setting it atop the chest of drawers with metallic jingles—
then peered toward the entranceway—

“Young man, do come up. Ms. Kikue? Kii-chan?” she called while peering into the room—there stood a grandfather clock, chrysanthemums in a vase, magazines on the display shelf, two or three rental books, and her own figure before the chest of drawers.

For the first time, Onui looked perplexed.

“Oh, Kii-chan.”

“She ain’t here,” Yakichi said, belly-crawling to peer inside.

“Yakichi.”
“Is she truly not here, Kiku-chan?” Onui murmured, still leaning against the chest of drawers. She pulled back slightly and placed her hand on the fusuma—left about three sun ajar—that led to the adjacent four-and-a-half-tatami room they used as a bedroom. If Kikue wasn’t visible there either, it would confirm her absence entirely. Sensing this, Onui hesitated—settling her weight, her earnest face tightening with loneliness—before cautiously pushing the door open just enough to reveal nothing but worn tatami flooring.

“Huh?” she uttered while bustling inside; then hastily called out to the apprentice.

“Oh!” Yakichi answered and suddenly leaped in,

“How… how…”

“Wait—no, Yakichi—you didn’t pass her on your way here, did you? There are shoes here, and yet…”

Having called out yet without needing to inquire about what had been settled, Onui spoke half to herself.
Kneeling before the open willow basket, she tilted her head slightly, pushed it forward, flipped the lid over onto its back, inserted her right hand to lift from the bottom, turned her hand around, and pressed down on two or three folded garments from above.

“Young lady—a thief?” Yakichi blurted out abruptly.

“Wait a moment.”

Onui made herself wait and, keeping the lid pulled back, stayed perfectly still as she gazed with her deeply compassionate eyes at the single closed shoji door near the kitchen.

IV

“Yakichi.”

“Yes?”

“Come here,” she said, and in the same breath sprang up toward the shoji door dividing the kitchen.

Having grabbed the pillar to peer in, Yakichi wandered about wondering where she could have gone when Onui gathered her hem and clattered back to the familiar six-tatami room.

Two or three times she moved about touching objects here and there, but upon taking the table lamp in hand soon returned to the kitchen.

Touching its sleeve, brushing against a hand, drawing near then pulling away, retreating diagonally, circling around to the back—following along as he moved about, Yakichi darted his eyes around silent save for the gleam in his gaze.

Onui held the lamp up to her forehead, her delicate face flushed with agitation beneath its light, the broad drum-shaped bow of her obi swaying as she slipped into the kitchen, her back turned.

No sooner had she thought this than a damp, cold wind rushed in, causing the lamp's flame to dip and flicker blue, nearly going out.

Startled, Onui wrapped her sleeve around the lamp and looked up at the attic. Finding the sliding window open, she gave a firm tug to the two white ropes drawn against the soot-blackened wall—clatter.

As the sliding window closed with a soft thud, the round light—about an inch across—vanished in a puff beyond the lamp chimney, extinguished as though plucked clean from its socket without a sound.

"Ugh, it's gone out."

The kitchen entrance offered an unobstructed view through to the alley under a moonlit night near the twentieth day—why ever was this door left unlatched? To the right stood three houses, to the left two; the tenements lining both sides lay deep in midnight stillness. Here a bright roof, there a shadowed eave, darkness pooling along gutter planks—both that dwelling and this place lay desolate, save for one clear earthworm's sound calling through the night, as if believing even the moon could hear.

Directly beyond this back alley, where even the mist’s patterns did not obstruct the view, lay scattered blue angular shells being shucked in a solitary hut with a small nori brushwood fence set apart from other dwellings. Behind that shucking shed, through the thin mist, lay the river where steamships passed.

Nor was this the only sight—from the nearby eaves on this side, someone had stretched a pole across, from which hung two pure white nurses’ shirts, forgotten and left out to dry overnight.

“Ghost!”

“Ah—” was all she could manage. Bathed in a sudden shaft of moonlight across her chest, Onui sank onto the plank floor where fractured shadows stretched inward.

“The lamp’s out,” the ghost remarked with nonchalance.

Array of Bridges

V

"Hey now, wake up! Wake up! We've passed Ishimibashi Bridge—near Fudō-sama's shrine already. Soon reach Hachiman-sama's." So spoke the figure in a striped haori and bird-hunting hat as he shook awake the black-crested kimono form curled up amidships.

In their party of three passengers—one lying supine at the edge with an elbow hooked over the gunwale—Shichibei's chanting continued in a subdued tone,

if he rowed steadily and hurriedly,

the tide had ebbed; the oar found no purchase.

he murmured.

However, in reality, this boat was not being rowed toward Tsukuda.
Moreover, the tide was far from ebbing.
The sky had cleared completely since midday, turning into a moonlit night bright enough to dry a serpent’s-eye umbrella—but after last night’s storm raging until dawn, the Ōkawa River ran eight-tenths flooded, and Fukagawa’s waterways now brimmed with tidewater at every twist and bend. A boatman in a hooded raincoat for fast boats rowed through the hushed waters of such a night, his oar creaking and groaning.

Passing Hamaguri-chō’s riverbank where gravel boats, timber boats, and mud boats were packed tightly at their moorings, they moved along the left side past black boarded enclosures and towering warehouses that loomed overhead—their fronts boldly marked with the shop name “Marudai” in white pigment using the symbol ㋚※ (a stacked “he”/“一” character denoting a shop mark)—before approaching what was called Hōrai Bridge.

The water, tinted by moonlight, swirled around the bridge pilings with glinting ripples, while scores of logs submerged in the side canal shifted restlessly.

“Pops often fishes around here—what does he catch?”

Funagoto,

“You can catch sharks and mullet fry here.”

“If it’s a novice angler you’re after, you might hook one,” laughed the man in the striped haori. At this, the passenger leaning on the gunwale turned sharply toward him,

“What good would that do?”

“Go ahead and try,” someone said. As they passed beneath the bridge, the river suddenly widened, the embankments dropped sharply, and the brimming tide bulged outward in a convex swell.
To the left stretched a vast plain reaching to reed beds at the sandbar’s tip—boatbuilders’ huts dotted the landscape, with autumn grasses sparse across the open field.
Since the wind blew straight from the seaward side, the boat—as if riding midstream at high tide—swayed heavily where they were.

“What do you mean ‘can you catch anything’? On a night like this, this river’s crawling with eels crossing right over the boat!” the boatman declared, his voice swelling with conviction.

“This feels ominous!”

“What do they call this river anyway?”

“Ain’t got no name.”

“Seems like it ought to have one.”

“If it’s Ishimibashi Bridge, then Ishimibashi Bridge; if Hōrai Bridge, then Hōrai Bridge; Hamaguri-chō’s riverbank is Hamaguri Riverbank—Hachiman front, Fudō front, and this here becomes Tomioka Shrine’s backside.” As someone hummed this tune, they slipped into shadows beneath Taira Kiyomori’s planted grove.
The river surface brightened further—countless boats moored along its banks, yet upon these waters moved but this single craft.

“And this bridge here?”

As the man in the striped haori inquired about the bridge arching like a rainbow nearby, even before the boatman could respond, the crested figure—

“Shiomi Bridge.”

“How lonely.”

At this corner, the boat curved like a bow.
Countless small houses where no sleeping breaths could be heard; along the water’s edge stood spindly willows—thin and low—planted as feebly as grave offerings.
The embankment was a field of reeds; as the wind rose, they swayed and swayed, and though we rowed and rowed against their bending, there lay a heap of nori brushwood covered in shells like white coral branches—amidst this, a pale blue stone monument, taller than a man’s height, stood within reach, its base hidden.

VI

“Ugh, creepy,” said the man in the striped haori as he shifted his seat to the left gunwale, visibly deflated.

“Pops, what could that be?”

“So this is it—the place where corpses piled up during the Kansei Kanoe-Ne tsunami.”

In front,

Katsushika District, Eitai Tsukiji

was engraved, continuing in cursive script from front to back:

At this place during the great wave of Kansei 3 [1791], many houses were swept away and lives lost. As unpredictable high tides thereafter made drowning disasters inevitable, residences were cleared to create open land spanning approximately over 280 ken from Nishinirifune-chō in the west to Higashi-Kichijōji-mae in the east.

Beside this stood a stone memorial monument bearing the inscription "Kansei 6 Kinoe-Tora, December [day]."

“Ah, drowned people… I see. So this is what they call a Dosazen Mound.”

“Oh! To speak of such things aboard the boat—” The man in the bird-hunting hat hunched his shoulders,

“Ah!”

The fierce roar of water resounded—the voice of the current that plunged beneath Shinkawa Bridge, surged through the sluice gate, and poured into the sea like a loosed arrow.

“It’s too much—horrible!” someone cried out while kicking the boat’s bottom with a restless leg—and in that moment, they violently shook the man who still lay unconscious, his state between life and death uncertain, as though rousing an army of a hundred thousand.

“Won’t you wake up? Won’t you wake up? This cold has seeped into my bones.”

Soon passing Hirano Bridge and weaving through reeds here and there, they gradually reached Suzaki’s embankment—now a field of susuki grass—where from amidst the plumes they gazed at the nearly twenty-day-old moon hanging far over the open sea. With the tide high, they rowed unsteadily beneath house floors where railings nearly grazed their oars, until reaching a riverbank where seven steamboats stood moored in vertical rows.

“There’s not a soul to be seen even here.”

“Even so, it’s become somewhat more like the living world.”

“As for the living world—or rather, Pops, how about some fresh meat around here?” retorted the man in the striped haori sarcastically.

“Far from it—if anything, you folks, this Kagaya’s renowned for serving fish so fresh they leap right from the water!”

“Let’s stop around here for now—I’ll pass on eels crossing the river while the boat’s rocking like this.”
“We’ll climb over the railing here.”
“No way.”
“Well, hard to say—over in Aoyama, chestnuts come flying right into the third floor, I tell ya!”

“What a masterpiece!”

The boatman laughed heartily, then

rowed steadily and hurriedly—

but with the tide ebbed, the oar found no purchase.

Soon they reached Bentenbashi Bridge. The boatman moved to the bow, pulled the pole to dock sideways as water drew back with a soft rustle, lapping at the hull before washing against the stone wall.

“Coming alongside.”

“You alive?”

The man who had shown no sign of regaining consciousness even after being shaken twice now abruptly sat up and was the first to disembark from the boat.

"Wait," said one while the two men adjusted their kimono hems, fastened their coat cords, and clattered ashore in their clogs; when they formed a group, all three spoke in unison as if prearranged,

“Cold.”

“Quietly now,” said the boatman as he leaned toward his midsection to retrieve something.

At that very moment.

A thunderous bang erupted by his ear. The boatman snapped upright in surprise as sparks trailing like threads exploded and scattered before his eyes, vanishing two or three times over the river’s surface—it was the man who had seemed asleep that had suddenly set off Nanjing fireworks.

They uniformly retreated left and right; he glanced back at the two dumbfounded men, laughed boisterously without a word, and strode out ahead.

The crack of a whip pierced the silence—

Sutra-Chanting Boat

Seven

“What’s this now?” he muttered dismissively with evident irritation, removing the cloth from his face to offer a wry smile. The boatman was around sixty years old—lean, with refined features that hid one or two quirks beneath the wrinkles creasing his forehead, eyes, and mouth. His salt-and-pepper stubble and Buddha-like aura marked him as Shichibei, an old man living alone on the outskirts of Tsukuda-machi.

Shichibei—this boatman alone would never moor his swift boat there and return immediately after finishing his work.

Every night, after docking the last boat at Bentenbashi Bridge, he would turn back to row past that stone monument, proceed to Hōrai Bridge, moor to the pine tree on its bank, and go ashore—this being his custom. Except on nights of fierce wind and rain when he rested, without fail through the months and years, every moonlit night.

Moreover, when rowing back the last boat, this renowned devotee would recite—from "Since I attained Buddhahood" at the beginning to "quickly achieve the Buddha-body"—passages of the Sixteenth Chapter: The Lifespan of the Tathagata from the Lotus Sutra, repeating them countless times.
Night after night, the river memorial services for hungry ghosts became a subject of local gossip—whether they stemmed from virtuous or karmic causes—but even those who had known Shichibei for ten years or two decades prior found nothing particularly noteworthy about him.
He himself never spoke of it; moreover, such acts of merit were not matters for others to criticize—after all, there were even those who chanted the Buddha’s name in their daily lives—so reciting the sutra’s title aboard a boat should hold no particular issue.

Thus tonight as well, following his usual routine, he turned the bow of the boat.

Twisting his waist, he grasped the oar handle and gave one push—the boat left the shore,

"Ah, what a fine moon," he began to chant. "Since I attained Buddhahood, through the countless kalpas passed—immeasurable hundreds of thousands of billions of kalpas—asankhyeya..."
The wind lay still, the voice of the river waves unheard; as the night deepened, once every three strokes, once every seven strokes, the oar’s sound resonated intermittently.
“Constantly teaching Dharma to countless millions of beings through immeasurable kalpas.”

The voice of the Dharma crosses the reeds, rustles the willows, and approaches the pillows of those whose cricket-song grows faint.

If this were Honjo, one might count it among the Seven Wonders—the moonlit sutra-chanting boat, a lone boatman.
The people of the neighborhood felt a truly indescribable sensation.
On nights when no lamplight escapes the thatched hovels and sunken-roofed homes—when even the morning smoke grows thin beneath roofs resembling graves adorned with willow offerings—there dwell people of pitiful frailty: parents bereft of children, wives widowed, infants starved of milk, blind crones, stepmothers, women bound together in communal hardship. The dreams they see or thoughts upon waking can scarcely belong to this sunlit world they inhabit.

In these houses where those with beards, those pushing handcarts, and those wearing coats did not consider themselves inhabitants of the same world—where they had forgotten their kinship and become so utterly exhausted in body and soul that they could no longer distinguish sorrow from mere weariness—there existed no music as precious as this.

"All beings, now faithful and subdued, upright and gentle in mind, single-mindedly desire to see the Buddha, not sparing their own lives," chanted the old man as he steered his small boat beneath the moon.

When you heard of plovers crossing to Awaji Island performing love divination in various places, Shichibei's boat reached the spot with the stone monument.

What manner of person heard this voice at such an hour?
Here lay an apt example: given that Onui of Tomigaoka Monzen-cho provided care, writing of Kikue’s circumstances was not without connection.

The daughter of a man who had been a hatamoto during the shogunate era—one who had sunk into working at a certain brothel—had supported her ailing mother and bedridden father by living in a tenement near the pleasure quarters.

Eight

Though much of the earnings was deducted against considerable debts, the allowance received from what remained scarcely sufficed even for hairdressers' gratuities. Yet because the parents—even at basic rates—opened their mouths daily awaiting that day's remittance, the monthly total became no small amount, perpetually plunging into overdraft. Still, she sold as well as women with established shop reputations; though privately never frowning but compliantly obliging their requests, compliance came only through selling well—and to sell well, required devoting herself body and soul.

Even for a filial daughter, could there be any consideration in the pleasure quarters? Gradually her body weakened; though only twenty-two, her prime beauty had begun fading slightly, and when even her bare face made her hesitate before clients of samurai lineage, there came to be two or three days each month when no patron would share her pillow.

Her condition warranted nothing but ice beneath the abdominal bandage, yet the courtesan-in-training pressed close to her bedside: "How can you refuse clients for even half a day over something this trivial? That dead Ukifune—every time they wiped her sweat with a towel, her flesh sloughed off until her limbs grew thin before our eyes. Even she didn't act so willful. You who basked in your prime's glory—" While enduring these barbed words from the very apprentice she herself had trained, she had no choice but to accept another advance against her ledger—leaving her too resentful to retort.

Even amid this, she remained a woman of considerable resolve—or more precisely, of strong will—who turned ashen rather than shed tears. Though she endured, as her funds dwindled, she began making requests one ought never voice. Then lo—the loach darted away, the eel slipped through, and the ladle-bearers gasped in shock.

The fishing banks yielded poor catches; fragrant sea bream never reached the pleasure quarters, so her margins eroded; flexibility vanished; cold came then heat came; age advanced; hand towels needed dyeing; bedding covers required replacing; even if heaven-and-earth stitching sufficed for linings, her ceremonial underrobe demanded re-dyeing; tea ran out; clocks stopped; sundry shops came at dawn; colleagues bought their freedom; privately a child died; ledgers grew water-stained; jesters hosted flower parties; sumo bouts ran nearby—and even managing those lists, errands, condolences left no room for excuses from her aching womb.

To all the years of hardship she had already endured—over two years of hellish suffering piled upon her—now came the urgent demand for twenty yen.

For Obon, she had brought offerings to her parents' hut, but before she could speak—breathless, first asking for a sip of water—the woman, utterly defeated, clung to her mother's obi and wept in stifled sobs: "It's unforgivable... I'm wretched... but if only one parent..." Unbeknownst to her, the father she thought asleep had overheard this; when she returned home, he took his own life before dawn broke the next day.

The moment she heard the report, the woman’s face paled and her eyes hollowed—and that was all.
She collapsed onto a futon as if laid upon gravel, her bones visible beneath her breasts in that troubling state.

On top of her existing lung disease, the shock had damaged her heart—once the doctors abandoned hope, her household affairs became entangled in legal documents. As for her belongings, they were dismissed as “one straw hat and sundries” and swindled away.

Unable to receive care, she lay in a riverside tenement—though even there she could glimpse daylight—her head pillowed northward toward the water with disheveled black hair. For one such as her to hear the boatman’s late-night sutra chanting—how sorrowful it must have been! How desperate! How pitiful! And yet, how comforting!

As Shichibei chanted—“The Sixteenth Chapter: The Lifespan of the Tathagata of the Lotus Sutra—‘Since I attained Buddhahood, through the countless kalpas passed—immeasurable hundreds of thousands of billions of kalpas—asankhyeya…’”—an ineffable teaching rippled across the river’s surface. Shichibei’s boat, carrying him, drifted aimlessly.

Nine

Hōrai Bridge appeared at last. A thin veil of clouds had drifted across the moon, leaving only faint impressions of the boatman and his vessel as fields and river dissolved into monochrome whiteness. Though the waters bore a slight murkiness, they stretched boundlessly like some great river—Shichibei might as well have been traversing a lunar sea devoid of living, breathing inhabitants.

"He repeated 'The Lifespan of the Tathagata' chapter of the Lotus Sutra," but perhaps some specter had entwined itself here—the souls of listeners now wandering near the gunwale.
A crow cawed twice and flew past.
Shichibei looked up at the sky,

“It’s clouding over—looks like rain’s coming back. Since I attained Buddhahood...” he chanted in a fluid, detached tone, as if all worldly matters had slipped from his mind.

The boat began creating undulating waves across the water’s surface before suddenly lurching violently.

He broke off his sutra chanting mid-verse.

“Ah—what’s this—” he muttered while wrenching the stern leftward to veer away, exposing two threadlike streaks drawn diagonally—a watery pattern resembling lightning’s fading afterimage.

Shichibei bent at the waist, sprang upright, and swiftly let the vessel drift six feet downstream before twisting around to fixate on the spot—

"A guest! Wait—The Sixteenth Chapter: The Lifespan of the Tathagata of the Lotus Sutra!" he urgently chanted while steering the bow in a circular motion midstream, reversing course with a forceful oar pull. Beneath the moon scattering faint ripples, a shadowed form drew near until grazing the gunwale.

He leapt down and knelt amidships, white-haired head shaking side to side. Suddenly plunging his hand into the water, he encountered a pale blurred form—a human figure draped in water's flow—that swayed once before settling two yards downstream. As he leaned out recklessly, a wave slapped the opposite gunwale—yet by chance his fingertips caught hold, drawing both boat and rescuer into close contact with the corpse.

What he had unconsciously grabbed was precisely at the hook-shaped bend of the snow-white forearm that had been folded—

"Stiff as a board—this one's cursed," he muttered.

When he tried to yank it up roughly, the part that had slightly cleared the water offered a soft, pliant resistance in his grip.

"Heave!"
Startled, the old man stretched out his simian arm. Tilting his head back with wrinkles gathering at the bridge of his nose, he successfully maneuvered near her shoulder, slid his hand beneath, clawed in, and hauled her up through the current with heavy splashing—until her drenched chest slumped against the gunwale face-down, revealing an unmarred Shimada chignon still bound with its ornamental cord.

Not long after her plunge, the floral-patterned silk cord—meant to resemble deer spots—had come undone without being snatched by any shark's maw, now clinging thickly from her neck to cheeks like congealed blood.

The old man, determined not to let the current claim it, pressed down on the half-submerged corpse still floating in the water with both hands, trembling violently as he rapidly chanted sutras.

However, this was neither fear nor surprise.
For when he tried to bring aboard his boat this flower-like figure who might yet be saved—had her throat been pierced? Had her chest been slashed?—a sudden surge of desperate tenderness gripped him; clinging to this thread of hope, Shichibei’s chest roared as he shut eyes long stripped of all hues but mercy.

Once more came a passage from the Lotus Sutra's verses he chanted.

Bathed in the cloudy night's hues, the swollen and turbid river had just heaved the boat up with a thud when—as if forgetting—it left its offering in Shichibei's hands and flowed on uneventfully.

Drops from the Robe

Ten

When Kikue, daughter of the Machi-ya house, left home for the Fudō Temple festival, she had tied her abundant hair with an ornamental silk cord—a checkered shibori silk with a deer-spot pattern, adorned with two strands of pale blue and red floral accents completed past noon. Her attire: a pale indigo-striped silk lined kimono with lavender hem lining, a Chinese satin collar overlay, a white chrysanthemum-patterned half-collar on crimson ground, a scarlet-dappled underrobe, a crested ibis-hued obi-jime cord tightly wound around a sprout-green satin and crimson board-pressed crepe obi tied in a small, careless knot. The obi’s upper layer bore red Kikugorō checks; its clasp mingled red and purple. Bare feet in komachi-style clogs clacked sharply as she departed.

Being a shamisen shop household where even those involved with their trade considered the parents showy—especially after hearing of their favorite actor Tachibananosuke’s death, they had brooded constantly, even becoming distressed—that day happened to be her birthday, and as her mood was unusually good, she fixed her hair, changed into fresh clothes, and went out.

The komachi-style clogs remained where they had been taken off inside Onui’s threshold; thus when she threw herself into the river, she was barefoot.

Barefoot she had been, her hair still intact when Shichibei rescued her by boat. By dawn, every item—the obi-jime cord, the obi clasp, the pale indigo-striped lined kimono, the sprout-green and crimson board-pressed obi—hung haphazardly on rough ropes in Shichibei’s kitchen, not a single droplet yet ceasing to fall. Through the sliding window they dripped steadily into the morning mist’s embrace, soaking the decayed wooden floor with lingering traces of the tide.

What a waste—to hang them as if drying on a drum’s melody cord, ruthlessly strung from one side of the sliding window with rope—yet the old man’s heart was kind.

Having just opened the sliding window yet deliberately leaving the kitchen door unopened and the entrance still closed, he fanned beneath the brazier where a pot sat boiling, then turned sideways to peer into the two-panel folding screen decorated with advertisements for sold-out shows, calendars, and portraits of actresses.

“Sister, how are you feeling? Has anything become clearer to you?”

He turned squarely toward her—observing those thick eyebrows with gentle roots, that straight nose, those bell-like eyes seemingly vacant yet brimming with boundless thought—only her melon-seed-shaped face visible beneath the ragged futon as she lay there—and opened his mouth wide,

“Ahaha—with that innocent face of yours, you’re still thinking this is a dream, aren’t you?”

Kikue lay wrapped in a tattered futon like Iōjima seaweed, her head resting on a pillow of wadded cotton—even this direct contact proved harsh—and whether from Shichibei’s retching water or not, her hair remained flattened as when hauled aboard the boat, still soaked through in pitiful disarray; beneath these dripping droplets last night, a cricket on death’s threshold had chirped.

Shichibei’s meek eyes spilled over with laughter,

“Ah now, look what’s become of our pretty Sister! Ruined clean through.”
“No one here to tend you—what say? Feeling wretched anywhere? Belly all knotted up?” He rapped his own chest with a stubborn fist—*knock knock*—by way of demonstration.

Adorably, with her mouth still tightly closed, she finally shook her head at this moment.

“Ha, ha—no pain at all? Good, good. Happy to hear it. That’s how it should be.”
“When you jumped in—that moment—did your head spin sudden-like? Or rather, did you spew up a bowl’s worth of water or not?”
“Ain’t nothin’ serious—long as your mind stays clear, everything sorts itself proper.”
“From here on out, this here’s a safe spot—no grannies, cats nor dogs about. Just me alone here, so rest easy.”
“Might be all manner of complications waitin’, but nothin’ to fret over—if you’re stewin’ ’bout being dragged back against your will, know nature herself brought you round proper.”
“Listen close—think comin’ back to life as a dream, and when you wake up—” he began, then fixed those refined cool eyes on her again.

“This—since night has ended, it’s not a dream.”

Eleven

After a while, Kikue spoke in a thin voice,

"Um..."

“Ah! First cry’s out! There now—safe birth, safe birth!” he cheered merrily, thrusting himself forward to slap his knee.
After a moment,

“Could you tell me where I am?” she wept softly.

Shichibei laughed and tilted forward,

“Good! If tears come out, that’s our victory. Sister—haven’t you settled down a bit? Has your mind calmed some?”

“Where... is this?”

“Hmm, this here is… hmm,” he muttered, chuckling to himself.

“After all your worrying over me—just when you think I’ve finally settled—whatever you say, I just keep trembling all over.”
“I’m completely worn through.”
“If you’re the one asking questions now, that’s a mercy.”
“This here’s Tsukuda-machi—cross Hōrai Bridge proper in front of Hachiman-sama, past Hiroba Square. Understand? I’m Shichibei, a fast-boat boatman.”

Crossing that Hōrai Bridge... Oh yes,” she thought.

“That’s right. You know, Sister—aren’t you from around here?”

“Yes… No,” she said, suddenly falling silent.

The boatman nodded in understanding to himself,

“Ah, well, never mind your circumstances—as long as you understand your own situation. Do you know Tsukuda-machi?”

After a moment,

“Um... When I passed through there once before, a pretty young woman around my age was walking—that place over there, isn’t it? Is that correct?”

“Hold on there—at your age, what’s this ‘around my age’? You’re sixteen or seventeen yourself.”

“Uh…”

“There’s plenty of sixteen- or seventeen-year-old young’uns around, but pretty Sisters ain’t too common.”

“No, there is—a round-faced one, with lots of hair, wearing a medium-patterned yukata and a red undergarment. I’m sure of it.”

“Hold on—red undergarment? Then that’s Toshiaki from Okan’s place. She’s already pushin’ thirty.”

“No, she’s young.”

Shichibei scraped open the skylight,

“You’re makin’ this hard—don’t know the year or month, can’t even tell the day—ain’t got a single clue,” he said with evident frustration, then suddenly slapped his knee—

“Ahhh... She was there... She was there! But what of it? That’s just merchandise,” she said, but Kikue didn’t understand.

However, she appeared to have confirmed her memories and found relief,

“Yes,” came the voice, now thick with emotion—she shifted the pillow slightly, tilted her face upward, covered her eyes—and yet tears welled up once more.
When she came to her senses, all manner of things—all manner of things—were naught but profound sorrow; she wept without doubt or fear.

Her hair trembled and the futon quivered so violently that, though unaware of the details, Shichibei could only imagine the worst,

“What’s wrong? Huh? What’s wrong, Sister?”

When he asked and comforted her, she gradually turned toward him.

“Boss.”

“Oh,”

“Shall I get up?”

“What? Getting up?”

“I can get up.”

“Perfect! You’d do better staying still—not that I mind one bit—but if you can get up, go on and try! Once you do, then everything’s squared away.”
“If your mind’s clear enough, your condition ain’t nothin’ to worry over,” said Shichibei, gripping his grandson’s arm and guiding his steps with practiced form to build strength.

She had only her face peeking out from under the futon, shifted the hem slightly—her white fingers glimpsed brushing against the quilt’s collar—then hid her face.

“I—……”

*Asamidori*

Twelve

“There now, there now—those waterlogged clothes o’ yours stayed just as they were. Listen up.”

At times, the only constant sound was the dripping in the quiet kitchen.

“If you keep wrapped up in that thing, it’ll chill you right down to the bone. I’ve put a padded kimono by the pillow—there’s nobody here, so if you’re getting up, cover yourself with that.”

he had said, but the meticulously detailed hues were now evident,

“Oh, and what’s this? Quit your frettin’—it’s nothin’, really nothin’. I ain’t laid a finger on your neck nor nothin’. Look at your chest—there’s Fudō-sama’s amulet right there, see? There, look.”

Kikue wore a lonely smile on her bloodless face that seemed happy.

“Hmm,” he nodded, but turning away, Shichibei pursed his lips and peered up at the pot’s underside.

When her shoulder showed above the folding screen, her salt-damp hair still clung wet—swaying limply with each movement until she gave it a faint shake and smoothed the roots,

“Shall I put this on?”

“I just did the laundry—ain’t no bugs on board.”

Seeing her wear it over the scarlet-dappled cloth,

“Hold on—damn, there’s no sash! My best outfit’s three-shaku length won’t reach!”
“Alright then—fasten it over what’s already there! Don’t matter if it’s wet—heave-ho!”

Shichibei sprang upright on mantis-like legs with awkward posture, stepped over the folding screen in one stride, and immediately emerged into the kitchen. Autumn grasses bloomed wildly along a coarse rope outside, while mist hung like drizzling rain. Droplets dripped steadily from sash ends and garment hems, glistening like chartreuse and violet dew in the shiver-inducing morning chill.

At the center hung a yukata with sleeves and collar drooping limply—its white fabric dyed with mid-sized patterns of an axe, koto, and chrysanthemums, alongside morning glories and autumn’s mournful flowers.

When he had rescued her from the boat last night, Kikue had worn this yukata over a lined kimono, with the Kikugorō checkered obi tied atop it.

Thinking this must be the reason for something, Shichibei had regarded it with suspicion since that time and still stared directly at it now, but he surely never imagined this was the death god—the very thing that had led Kikue to the water.

Indeed, it was precisely this that had made Onui gasp when she searched the wicker basket, precisely this that had made her furrow her brows.
The yukata patterned with an axe, a koto, and chrysanthemums—this uncanny garment that drove Kikue to take her own life—was none other than the memento that kabuki actor Tachibananosuke, her beloved star whose stage appearances haunted women’s waking hours and dreams alike, had kept against his skin on his deathbed until his final moments, when he recited his white chrysanthemum farewell poem, too frail even to turn over.

Onui of the Ezaki household was a courtesan-in-training in Hanamachi, but being kind-hearted, she had become a nurse by her own volition; still, she did not find it unpleasant to attend to Tachibananosuke.

On that day when his critical condition neared death, Tachibananosuke drew close to his pillow a vase holding a single chrysanthemum blossom. He had Onui burn the renowned incense called Asamidori—once bestowed by a certain distinguished marchioness—with her own hands. The ice bag suspended from the ceiling was removed, and he lay supine on an air pillow. His bare face, more beautiful than any stage visage, appeared amidst bedding and coverlets enveloped in pure white cloth. Though the rims of his eyes held a faint pallor, the luster of hair cascading across his forehead evoked the ephemeral vision of a youthful deity—a fleeting grace as this luminary of the kabuki world prepared to vanish.

Thirteen

Tachibananosuke rested his immaculately clean hands upon his chest, inhaling the incense’s fragrance. When a wisp of smoke split into two slender threads—fluttering like rippling wave crests before draping over the pillow—he turned toward the white chrysanthemums and lay back, feebly parting his collar to either side. "What would you have done?"

When Onui asked what should be done with it, he—in the throes of his illness—had said, “It’s a shame to waste it, but since it reeks of sweat, let us burn it as an offering.” What retained the lingering traces of incense was none other than this commemorative yukata now lying here.

Nostalgic even for the sickbed, Onui—though a nurse who knew better—had forcibly taken as a memento the yukata that clung to the corpse of a tuberculosis patient, hiding it deep within a willow basket. Knowing full well how Kikue had long been Tachibananosuke’s fervent admirer—how merely seeing his name printed in playbills would make her face pale with agitation—Onui had stopped by last night after worshiping at Fudō-sama’s shrine. Though younger, they were close; calling her “Sister,” she’d dropped in with a casual “Are you home?” Yet before all else came talk of Tachibananosuke—Onui recounting it all as though holding each detail in her hands.

When Onui took out this very yukata from the depths of the willow basket—this yukata—and she and Sister drew their knees forward together with the lamp, their knees meeting atop one another as they leaned in, there in that moment before the Buddha’s presence, Tachibananosuke had been not only gentle but refined in his eyes and lips, noble in bearing—so Onui recounted—while white chrysanthemum petals flickered like incense smoke.

As their conversation swelled into logic, then seeped into her bones until tears fell, Onui—ever composed—suggested treating her to sushi and stepped outside. But while she lingered, half-unable to abandon the commotion at Ashi no Yu and passing time in distraction, Kikue donned Tachibananosuke’s yukata—its fabric still clinging to the scent of Asamidori incense, a relic of profound ties to the departed—and chased after the deceased, barefoot.

Kikue gazed enraptured at the wet yukata from behind the folding screen.

Shichibei remained completely unaware.

"How's this obi for fastenin'? Will that do?"

She continued to gaze intently,

Silence fell.

“Wrappin’ it tight should do. How’s that?”

“Yes, please take it,” she managed—her manner unworldly, a girl doted on by parents yet showing no reserve toward her savior.

Shichibei smiled gently at this,

“There now, this here’s unlined—won’t be drippin’ down no more.”

After a moment’s scrutiny, he gave a wry grin,

“Well now! Reborn into this world proper-like, eh? Turned all prim as a Shimada-coiffed missy! Hahaha! Arms stickin’ out like you’re sewin’ up a storm—yeah, just like that! Sat yourself down there neat as you please. Nothin’ pinchin’, eh?”

“It hurts here,” she said, clasping her upper arms with crossed hands as she bowed her head heavily.

“Hmm, maybe so—last night you were lying there dead, clutching your chest so tightly.”
“The pain’s right where your hands were pressing.”

“Is that so? Well, I died as hard as I could.”

“You!”
“Who the hell tries to drown themselves as hard as you could? This ain’t some damn farce! And what in blazes were you feeling?”

“When I sank down, everything went hazy, and then I suddenly floated up. Right then, I pulled my legs in a bit like this, and sank again. After that, I don’t remember a thing.”

“That must’ve been hard for you.”

“No, I wanted to cry.”

As a Memento

Fourteen

When she opened her mouth to speak a few words, the veteran Shichibei missed nothing,

“After all, returnin’ to the livin’ world’s a blessed event first! So what’ll we name the baby? O-Hana? O-Ume? Or…”

“Yes,” Kikue began to say, then suddenly fell silent.

Observing her state, Shichibei shifted his approach,

“Ah, never mind all that.”
“By the way, the porridge is ready—how about a bowl? It’ll give you back your strength.”

“I can’t eat a thing,” came Kikue’s listless reply, as she recalled something and began to weep silently once more.

“That’s fine too.”
“Haha, does it get under your skin when I say somethin’? Annoyin’, ain’t it?”
“Ah, never mind—if you were me, even havin’ Bon festival and New Year hit all at once, it’d be doable.”

"Well then, if you'll excuse me, I'll help myself to a bowl."
The pot's bottom sizzled. Having fretted since last night and crushed his craving for alcohol, he now found himself ravenously hungry. He stood up, sat down, paced about, then finally sat cross-legged, clamping the low Noshiro tray against his hairy shins as if pinning it there. Arranged on small dishes were shiso berries, sweet shrimp paste, folded sardines, and a mound of pickled leafy greens. Amidst the steam rising whitely from the porridge, his face flushed red as he scooped up the hot meal with a large Gorohachi bowl, slurping briskly. All the while, Kikue—seemingly unable to hold herself up—pressed her forehead against the bedding, sighing deeply at intervals. He watched her covertly over the rim of his bowl, drawn into her plight yet breathing quietly through his shoulders.

As if suddenly remembering himself, he hurriedly devoured the rest, wiped the corners of his mouth—etched into a “へ” shape with wrinkles—using the edge of a hand towel, then leaned forward with arms crossed without retrieving the discarded chopsticks. Looking toward the kitchen through the sliding window and peering at the entrance through gaps in the door, he saw sunlight already at nine or ten o’clock.
This area itself lacked vitality, but crossing a single square to emerge at the riverside—the ships passing, people coming and going, chimney smoke, scenery of Kiba, and in the distance, the vistas of Eitai, Shin-Ōhashi, and the Sumida River—all these scenes of the same hour and moment were etched into the old man’s mind.

“Sister, Sister,” he called again, placing a hand on her slightly stirring back,

“Makes sense—whether good or bad, after last night when you thought to die and nearly got taken by the water, even if someone talks to you now, it can’t settle in your chest and might just give you a headache instead, eh? So I’ve kept my mouth shut, ’cause there’s nothin’ to say.”

“When I saved you last night, I could’ve made a commotion right then—there’s a police box near Shiomi Bridge, after all. That’d get help comin’ and take the burden off me. And there wasn’t any reason not to… No—actually, when I looked close, I could tell from how you were—whether you’d fallen in, been pushed, or thrown yourself in. You’d made your resolve.”

“There must’ve been reasons for your resolve—whether it’s a blessing or a sorrow, I can’t tell—but if I’d made a fuss over someone who tried to die hard as you did, got all Edo talkin’, had ’em caught by folks they shouldn’t meet or meet folks they shouldn’t—that’d just cause more trouble.”
Shichibei said lightly,
“So that’s what I thought—carried you here quiet-like and tried patching you up half-measures, but no—indeed, even my clumsy hands reaching out was your luck. This here’s heaven’s mercy, not somethin’ to waste.”
“You mustn’t do anything reckless now—mm, Sister. When I look at you, seems you’ve got no parents around. Best take your time and think it through proper.”

Calming his heart and settling his stomach to think—if I stayed by her side, she’d be distracted and make no progress—he decided he would head out to work right away and open the snail’s shell.
“But the theater box is reserved for the whole day, you know.”

Fifteen

“Whether you get up or stay in bed’s your choice. Want rice? There’s cold leftovers—I’ll fix you tea over rice. Drew a bucket of water—good? Then take your time mullin’ things over.”

“Take your time thinkin’, but don’t go rushin’ down that reckless path—for your next life’s sake, mind you don’t mistake the first direction for some cursed bearing. Use whatever sense you got.”

“If you feel like headin’ back to your folks’ place or your aunt an’ uncle’s for happiness’ sake, skip the bows an’ farewells to me—just haul straight back. That Houyaku Bridge you know? Go through the square—big pine an’ willow by the riverbank. You’ll spot it slantways through the gap between ’em. Got it?”

“If you want to stay, stay two days or three ’til you figure your path—my place ain’t got no worries ’bout it.”

“If after stewin’ on it awhile, you reckon it’s best to lay things bare—come tell me. If it’s somethin’ this creased mug can handle, you ain’t gotta lose your head over it.”

I’m just not made for bein’ all tender-like.

“As long as you’re here, don’t you dare go wanderin’ outside—truth is,”

he said in a hushed tone,

“This area’s outside the pleasure quarters—a place like a lookout spot—no—procuresses，courtesans-in-training，their sisters，gang bosses，labor brokers，smooth-talkers—folks who might not hesitate to abduct you come and go here，so if you get lured by some outlandish tale or get a gag stuffed in your mouth，it’ll be a disaster.”

That’s why I keep the gates they leave open all night shut tight like this—you hear?
“If you want to go home，then hurry up and go—I ain’t got no objections.”
“Well then，I’m headin’ out．Stretch your limbs and think to your heart’s content．”

Receiving no reply, Shichibei abruptly stood up, came before the charcoal brazier, and squatted down. With a weary motion, he took a drag from his pipe—a sturdy brass one with a Daruma-style bowl—flicked the third ash, reversed its mouthpiece, poked at the embers to gather the fire, tapped the tobacco into his two-compartment pouch, then tucked both it and the hand towel roughly into his three-foot sash as he rose. He strode out, glanced back at his still-dripping, soaked clothes with a troubled air, stepped down to the earthen floor to slip on his sandals—paused—then finally took that hand towel and covered his head with it.
Shichibei slid open the kitchen door with a clatter. By daylight, the kitchen revealed its surroundings: behind lay a vast reed plain dotted with puddles that mirrored the autumn sky—so clear even the daytime moon might have reflected in them. A red dragonfly or two darted about, while far off behind a lone angler, glimpses of sails flickered where sea winds swept inland, disheveling the hues of his soaked clothes as the commemorative yukata fluttered.
The old man leaned back toward the seaweed-draped brushwood fence he was about to exit through and stared intently at the one or two late-blooming yellow yomena flowers and the withered reeds that seemed pitiful—it was then that Kikue let out a loud cry and burst into tears.

“The Lotus Sutra: Chapter Sixteen on ‘The Life Span of the Thus Come One.’ Since attaining Buddhahood I have passed immeasurable hundreds of thousands of myriads of kotis of kalpas.”

From downstream came a desolate quiet—no human stir in the air, no lamplight spilling from homes—as the current washed over willow branches along the bank with ceaseless splashing. There, Kikue—with her parents’ consent, hair properly tied and deliberately clad in matching attire, accompanied by Onui—offered the commemorative yukata in memorial from Hōrai Bridge, the very spot from which she had thrown herself.
Seven days had passed, and it was exactly the anniversary of Tachibananosuke's death.

“Kiku-chan,”

“Sister,”

The two exchanged glances but, through their tears, clasped their hands together and held them aloft,

“Namu Amida Butsu,”

“Namu Amida Butsu.”

At that very moment, from some pavilion in Suzaki—whether the second floor or the third—a drum was suddenly struck toward the sea.

The yukata flowed quietly.

Kikue became a lively woman, but the photograph she had kept close in her obiage sash with the Kikugorō checkered pattern, along with the letter written in red ink that a fellow woman had sent inquiring after Tachibananosuke’s illness—these she tied to a chrysanthemum branch bearing her namesake flower. This year, she turned twenty.

Meiji 33 (1900), November