Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Earlier, guided by a young maid, my wife and I went to the inn’s vegetable field during a break in the rain to pull some onions.
...we planned to ask the cook to prepare miso soup with them for that evening.
We broke raw eggs—using some for clear soup and others for what’s called ojiya—and prepared a high-quality rice curry in a hand pot... With unsettled stomachs and those chilly autumn evenings made colder by continuous rain, nothing tasted sweeter than this.

After finishing in the field, we picked vivid crimson tade flowers, knotweed, and azure bellflowers no larger than pea grains, then borrowed a glass cup to arrange them on the low dining table.

...Now, the maid came again to invite us, saying that the manzai was about to begin in the performance hall on the front second floor.
Since the rain kept falling day after day, the inn must have been making these considerations to prevent their bathing guests—particularly those staying longer—from growing bored.

I was lying down reading Mérimée’s Madame de Thurgis.
Truthfully, one ought to read this author’s works with proper respect at a desk, but here at this hot spring inn during daylight hours—wrapped in a padded kimono and lounging carelessly without reproach—I found this leniency most welcome.

But even for this renowned author, these country-style manzai performances felt somewhat irreverent.
...so my wife went along out of some sense of obligation.
However, it wasn't that unpleasant feeling of being forced into obligatory attendance at some urban theater where they didn't allow smoking—as if tickets had been thrust upon you.

I too felt no small interest in the rustic charm akin to village plays during harvest season.—My wife hurried out eagerly.

Well then, I couldn’t just lie here forever.
It was already past the twentieth—time to get some work done.—I stacked Mérimée’s Chronicles of Charles IX—my cultural edition—with Tamenaga Shunsui’s Ukiyoburo and placed them in the cupboard shelf.
—Without this resolve, I couldn’t get any work done.
—Now then, I decided to set down the story of my new acquaintance (he had left this inn yesterday)—Mr. Akinobu Toshiyuki.…

The characters appearing inside were two geishas and a daughter from a seaside restaurant in Ashiura—set apart from Shonan’s bustling areas—but describing her as such made her sound like a fresh-faced girl of seventeen, eighteen, or twenty, which felt slightly off-key. She was a woman of twenty-four or twenty-five—middle-aged by the standards of the time—whose private circumstances remained unknown and who had no publicly acknowledged man in her life. In the Kyoto-Osaka region, there existed a suitable term for referring to such women. (Tōhan), as they called it... Under this designation, even a woman of around thirty with her hair done in a round chignon—working as a daughter at a restaurant or teahouse—would present no issue. In the past, even Edo had possessed its equivalent—what was termed musumebun (a category of surrogate daughters). Thus there were also those temporarily regarded under this surrogate daughter status—one named Ms. Yuki and Mr. Akinobu.

And then—shadow-like, illusion-like, resembling paintings and sculptures, god-like, demon-like, thought perhaps to be phantoms... there existed two women akin to sacred trees from ancient ballads.

The time was midsummer of this year.— It could be said that from there on out, I presented Mr. Akinobu’s account almost exactly as he had told it.

II

“Now then—that would have been around what year of Meiji?... There were geishas in Shinbashi who, while always maintaining similar popularity through their usual means, became quite renowned through picture postcards and society columns.”
“A pair of renowned geishas claimed it was for the elimination of sins.”
“As for the sins of geishas—even when compared to prostitutes maintaining respectable fronts—it appears all women share the same burden; thus resolved, they embarked on a pilgrimage across the land.”
“Setting out from Itabashi along the Nakasendō, they deliberately traced the lonely mountain paths of Kiso before circling through Ise and Yamato to undertake the Shikoku Pilgrimage.”
“…They had prepared their pilgrim’s backpacks and sedge hats, and day after day, newspapers reported everything from their initial resolve to their preparations and even the send-off parties, causing quite a stir.”
“When speaking of pilgrim’s backpacks and sedge hats—these were the definitive pilgrimage attire, appearing exactly as they do in picture books and stage plays… Now suppose this had been mistaken—even if through some sudden erroneous article or misguided rumor—and they had gone straight from Tokyo to Kiso still wearing their elegant obi and kosode, radiating nobility, spirited charm, and allure… Had that been the case, I cannot imagine what would have become of me then.”

"Moreover, had it been that one wore a round chignon and the other a ginkgo-shaped chignon as they set out on the Shikoku Pilgrimage, I might well have grabbed a ladle and rushed out then and there. However, whether I would have slipped on the plank path or been blown away by the Ontake gale midway—that much remained unclear."

"You are likely aware that at Kawagoe Kitain Temple, there exists a tradition of never standing mortar pestles upright. If placed vertically, strange occurrences happen. Long ago, when the archbishop of that temple had flown through the air to Togakushi in Shinano Province, the roof's ridge detached and floated into the sky. Upon seeing their master's figure, a young acolyte who had been grinding miso in the kitchen flew out from the gable still clutching his upright pestle and disappeared into the clouds. This was said to be because his ascetic power proved insufficient, causing him to fall into Mount Futara."

"As for me, I may share the same fate,"
Two beauties flowed along the Kiso Kaidō like waves crashing against shores and drifting away—
were I—clad in gold buttons and clutching a ladle—to come tumbling down like an acorn from Sobamichi Forest’s heights and collapse... something most peculiar might have taken shape.

"It may seem absurdly fantastical," he continued, "yet this truth remains—yearning for my mother’s embrace, aching for my sister’s presence, my idealist heart straining toward empty skies... At that age when any woman tied to me seemed sun and moon incarnate, I found myself utterly paralyzed.—Orphaned young, I lived then under my uncle’s roof in Hongō—attending university."
"...The liberal arts department."

Whether it was fortunate or not—merely perceiving them as pilgrims, and because I failed to discern from their appearance as geishas the significance of their round and ginkgo-shaped chignons—I was left with nothing but this heart-rending anguish.

Of course, when separated individually—the round chignon and the ginkgo-shaped chignon each on their own—they meant nothing to me.—Needless to say, were I to chase after them with a ladle every time I saw those chignons, I would have transcended mere lechery and become something inhuman—no different from a dog wagging its tail in the middle of the street.

Moreover, the mysterious women I speak of—the one with the round chignon is always refined, noble, oval-faced, and slenderly tall. Her complexion remains clear and smoothly white. The Woman with Ginkgo Chignon differs—her skin carries a slight pinkish tinge, with a plump face and medium build... slightly full-figured, somewhat broad-shouldered, and comparatively shorter in stature. This one stands three or four—yes... perhaps even about five years her junior. She wears a striped kimono. The Woman with Round Chignon dresses in a light-colored kosode that appears either komon-patterned or plain.

At unexpected moments—without any fixed place or time—when I saw the figures of these two appearing side by side like a comet, there was no describing that feeling. It couldn’t be called terrifying, beautiful, yearning, lonely, helpless, dreadful, or even precious—it defied all description.

As I had just stated—when separated individually, the two were nothing remarkable. "It was only when I saw them approach side by side swiftly, suddenly noticed them present, or caught sight of them departing that this peculiar feeling came over me."

While listening to this, the author inadvertently sat upright and restrained his cup.

Hearing this, it became clear that it was not limited to those moments when the two stood side by side.
Even when separated, there would be another shadow-like figure—colored and striped—attached to each: one trailing behind the Woman with Round Chignon, another following the Woman with Ginkgo Chignon. No—rather two, three, five, seven identical figures would appear swaying unsteadily in a line... and hearing this account, an inexplicable dread crept over me.

III

"The first time I saw those two women was when I was about eight or nine years old, at my ancestral home in my hometown."
...Around the first anniversary of my mother's early passing—on a dark, desolate, freezing midnight when sleet fell upon the town from mountains, rivers, and sky alike—I glimpsed them with an elementary school friend. Mocked as a lazybones cramming for exams, I had been staying up all night studying while reading a geographical compendium: 'Hakusan reigns as Hokurikudō's supreme peak, dominating the district's southeastern corner where it straddles Echizen, Mino, and Hida.'
Three peaks form its crown: Betsuzan to the south, Ōnanagi-dake to the north, and Gozenpō at the center.
...Beyond these rises Kenpō, its silhouette resembling five planted swords, each summit eternally snow-capped.
Within the mountains flows a thousand-jin waterfall.
It plummets down Gozenpō's precipice.
From Bijozaka one may behold it distantly.
Yet only as white streamers tearing through clouds—a truly wondrous spectacle.
As I sat drenched and shivering through accounts of Midori Pond and Chitose Valley—the sleet that had momentarily stilled everything now clattered down as hail.
Hail... Through cracks in the aged fusuma panel beside me, lamplight suddenly flared from the pitch-black ceiling.
In cold so bitter even mice lay silent, on that childless second-floor landing, the two women materialized atop the staircase.
The striped-clad Woman with Ginkgo Chignon gripped a sooty Western lamp upon its glass stand.
Here, had there been any artifice at all, I might claim it was a blue candle—but no, it remained a lamp.
By that lamp's glow, every detail of the Round-Chignon Woman's pale kosode and obi stood revealed.
No sooner had I gasped than they descended—tap-tap—their quiet footsteps echoing down wooden steps.
With a shriek my friend leapt up, and together we tumbled into the storehouse where Father slept.
"This marked their first apparition—a childhood encounter pure of guile—which I've occasionally recounted to others."

Perhaps it was the following year—again on an autumn evening—that the motherless child, compelled by loneliness after parting from his friend under the pretext of returning home before frog-croaking nightfall, ventured as far as the lattice door of the left-side neighbor’s house. This tenant dwelling had once served as a secondary residence for a prominent merchant from the front district, featuring an expansive earthen floor wide enough for ten people to walk abreast—so they said—that extended straight through to the main residence. Yet between this earthen floor and our house’s staircase I mentioned earlier lay nothing but a single dark wall.

In my childhood, therefore, I would often sit on the middle step of the staircase, listening through the wall to the footsteps traversing that earthen floor and the murmurs of voices. If I delved endlessly through those sounds—for who knows how many years or months—voices would emerge just beneath the soil layer, and faint murmurs from another world would leak through the earthen floor, as if carrying distant rooster crows.
In my childish mind, the staircase in our house was like a dimly lit slope from some mysterious mountain in a fairy tale.
There, viewed from the lattice door of the neighboring house with a single threshold in between, it appeared suddenly like a great hole.
—There, at that opening, the Woman with Round Chignon suddenly appeared.
At the same time, the Woman with Ginkgo Chignon who had been standing beside her vanished from the waist down and briefly bowed toward the earthen floor beneath her feet.
This was because—I observed—they had removed their geta to cross the tatami area and were holding them in their hands... but rather than entering that tenant house, they were attempting to pass through the empty space and emerge at this lattice door. For some reason, when this realization struck me, I was suddenly seized with terror. Once, I dashed toward them—only to flee back frantically into my own house.

It was about two years later.

There were those who frequently recommended remarriage for my father, leading us to Nemunohama—a place six or seven ri from the castle town... It’s a lovely name, but locals would say “Look, the welcoming party’s come from Sleepy Beach!” whenever someone looked drowsy-eyed or dozed off sitting up.
Because of this, it felt like a dreamlike village.
However, the village had a peach grove whose shadows fell upon the white sand of the beach, and it was said that it always looked as though silk tree flowers were blooming there.
Because the niece of the priest at Ikkō-ji on that shore was to become the prospective stepmother under discussion, I was taken by my father to go there.
That was the first time since my birth that I had walked more than three ri.
Because they said there would be a mother, no matter how much they tried to stop me, I ran through the pine trees in large straw sandals.
At a small temple resembling a hermitage, quiet waves came right beneath the damp veranda of the abbot’s quarters.
To be sure, there was a beach along the way worth gathering shells from.—We had our evening meal at Tateba Teahouse along the road—by the time we reached the temple, night had already fallen—a summer evening in early June.
With the lamp between them, Father and the priest were discussing something.
Mosquitoes pricked at my cross-legged feet with needle-like bites; unable to maintain proper composure, being but a child, I slipped out from the veranda to the beach without a thought for footwear.
...For a snow country, it was already sweltering.
There was not a breath of wind.
Along a shore that I thought might be a pond or a lake, only children were walking.
But as the moon shone upon the back mountain while a blanket of mist hung over the sea, I found no coarse shells and grew restless. Leaning against a shore pine twice my height, I gazed at the inlet sky and waves stretching endlessly into unfathomable distance. Through eyes misted with loneliness appeared a small boat floating high upon the water—not far from shore within that haze stood two shadow-like women—as the vessel glided smoothly closer.

The Woman with Round Chignon rested her wrist slightly propped on one elbow against the gunwale, gazing fixedly at me; beside her stood the Woman with Ginkgo Chignon, paddling through the waves with her hands. At that moment, the boat gleamed silver while the beach abruptly flushed pink—a moonlit night of silk tree flowers. (Ah Father—there's Mother and another older sister over there...) In later years, I often wondered why I hadn't leaped into that boat then. This occurred when I grew disillusioned with the world, when illness tormented me, when love abandoned me... Of course, had I tried boarding, I would have surely drowned—yet by clinging to the damp veranda instead while thinking There's Mother and another older sister, I suppose fate destined me not to die just yet.

Needless to say, the matter of the stepmother was discontinued there.

"A detestable, miserly old woman had come and was sitting in the lamplight's shadow...."

Mr. Toshiyuki spoke up and then seemed lost in thought for a moment.

“……After that, without fixed times or places, I had now and then caught glimpses of those two women."
Somehow, this felt like celestial women who had clung to me since a past life—no, even that notion faded after I became mired in worldly affairs and burdened by household matters, even taking a wife. I grew prone to forgetting... or rather, it became rare to recall them at all, except when glimpsed occasionally in dreams—"Ah, that vision again," I’d think.

But this August incident—

Let me skip ahead in my story, as though the temple and sea had drifted apart.
"But unlike Nemunohama Beach with its peach-blossom reflections upon white silk, the path through those parts was like a boundless desert.…"

IV

“At Tokyo Station, I had arranged to meet a bit early.”
“……As I moved from the waiting room toward the platform exit, wondering where my companion could be, I was struck by a thought. Though still morning, the heat felt truly oppressive.”
The air hung stifling—I couldn’t help imagining how the day would worsen. Even if we went to the coast, what would the journey entail?
I had wavered so intensely—thinking it might have been better to cancel—that I grew anxious whether my mind was unraveling.

In that rising swelter... through the suffocating crowd—the Woman with Round Chignon and Woman with Ginkgo Chignon—the two women approached like phantoms yet starkly vivid in sheer silk robes.
“My,” smiled the younger one gently. “Good morning.” The older refined woman greeted me with a slight downward nod of her eyes.

――Earlier, the Author had simply written of "two geishas."――Mr. Toshiyuki, however, had described them as "the older one and the younger one."
But as I write this here, I find that neither―nor henceforth―would that description correspond to the impression the Author received from this tale.
I shall tentatively consider them as sisters―an older and a younger one―.…

"I felt as though I had awoken—or rather, as if I had surfaced from the Dragon Palace straight into Tokyo Station." At the same moment, disrupted by the clamoring tide of passing feet, the two were no longer standing together. Having formed light interlocking swirls with me, they came to a halt... There was no secret, no mystery—for this was the companion on the very day of our promise... The truth was, last night at a certain place—due to the unbearable heat—the older sister had suggested staying overnight at some nearby cooling retreat. In the heat of the moment over drinks, I had agreed—"Fine, let's go tomorrow"—but now with obligations piling up, I hesitated over the cup I'd received, thinking: How should I handle this? Though waiting four or five days would be more convenient—I remained indecisive... Since Older Sister is gentle, eeeh... any time that suits you is fine." And just as we were about to proceed to wash the cups—the younger sister, arriving late, suddenly interjected, "What’s this discussion?… Tomorrow would be better—make it tomorrow, make it tomorrow! Ah, if we keep talking like this, it’ll slip away again." Thus the plans were settled, and it was decided we would depart——After all, it was this very morning following last night—to find those two peculiar would itself be peculiar.No—nature’s whims are truly strange. The slender older sister carried a slender cloth bag, while the broad-shouldered, shorter younger sister held a suitcase that bulged squarely with a swollen body—so much so that I suddenly found it comical. The illusion had become reality; the storybook boy had transformed into an unpleasant middle-aged man accompanied by geishas.

Once aboard, when somehow the two women would line up or be seen from this side in such a manner, even just the shapes of their hairstyles—resembling linden or pomegranate flowers, with bird-like figures bearing women’s faces perched as if sitting—might have drawn me back into a dreamlike state. However, the crowding left no room for such musings.

As it was a Sunday, day-trippers flocking to the coast had transformed the train car into an open-air steam bath where passengers stewed fully clothed.
Even so, when first boarding, there had been one or two vacant seats.
The cushions being arranged for those two women each to sit, I somehow found myself seated on the inner side beside a large-framed gentleman in Western attire—obese and sweating.
Just as there opened an empty seat facing them where chairs stood spaced apart, the women who had been jostled toward the car's midpoint arrived.

(Sister.)

*(Oh, you.)*

Yielding to each other, the Woman with Round Chignon tried to sit there regardless,

“(There’s someone here.)” said a man who had been occupying the seat—a sallow-complexioned figure in a tea-and-mouse-hued linen blend... wearing a high-collared Western suit, lean yet solidly built—as he tapped the seat with one arm.
Tapping while removing his jacket, he flung it into the vacated space.
Fortunately, the older sister managed to sit on the slanted cushion, while the younger sister settled in with their backs against each other.
As you know, since her chignon sat high, the Ginkgo Chignon’s hair hung low... resembling a sky-blue velvet lid placed atop a small doll’s box—invisible from my angle.
Only the older sister’s round chignon remained properly arranged across the aisle—vexing me. I couldn’t even exchange meaningful glances.
——The journey would take barely three hours, yet I found myself dreading its tedium—though complaining about boredom seemed a luxury when another passenger crush at Shinagawa made sheer discomfort paramount.
Even then—hands pushing, fingers flicking, fists clearing seats—("There’s someone here—one person here!")—but your... White Shirt Man’s efforts hardly deserved the name.
He sought to let no one sit.
……Likely his companion was chatting elsewhere on the train or visiting the restroom—still absent.
Amid this crowding—or perhaps his attempt at monopolizing space—just as I deemed it improper, we reached Omori Station.
When White Shirt Man shrugged his shoulders upright and leaned halfway out the window, a crimson Western umbrella shot through like an arrow.
White Shirt Man snatched it up and clutched it to his arm with blood-drawing force—yet in this chromatic display lay an air of Spartan valor.
“A deft maneuver executed mid-journey.”

Mr. Toshiyuki exhaled through pursed lips and said:

"With startling agility... there floated before the surging passengers a woman wearing a blue drawstring-pleated hat tilted back, dressed in knee-length Western clothes. She carried a glittering opera bag studded with Nanjing beads on her elbow while clutching her nearly overflowing bosom with one hand—not waving it about, but rather because the momentum from having thrown her Western umbrella left her unable to check its motion."

"She plopped down those famously uncontainable buttocks of hers—yet with practiced ease gave a light thump of those massive buoyant hips against the cushion. The red Western umbrella splayed open between her thighs like some obscene growth. Kicking it aside, she twisted yellow split-toe tabi boots at the knees to cross her legs—whereupon rubber boot tips and umbrella-handle-tapping fingers began tap-tapping in rhythm—all while draping one elbow over White Shirt Man’s shoulder. Propping her round chin on a palm, she swayed her shamelessly bared chest so wantonly that it nearly concealed both nipples. 'Ooh, how thrilling,' she cooed in affected Kyoto dialect before launching into nonstop chatter."

"She prattled endlessly… her yellow teeth chattering up and down in perfect sync with her thick neck jabbing against her drawstring hat’s brim."

From her upper arms to her neck and down below her chest, her prized skin showed through thick makeup - white powder slathered over every inch.
For that alone, one had to be grateful.
Moreover having revealed even her precious bloodmarks - on that exposed solar plexus seething with body heat - there clustered small scattered flea-bitten marks.

By the time we passed Kawasaki she began dozing upright - her hairy neck gone slack - eyebrows mashed against White Shirt Man's shoulder.
Finding it uncomfortable to sleep face-down - she swayed her head groggily before slumping diagonally supine against his shoulder.
What proved truly troublesome was her hemline riding high - yet she managed deftly - even while vigorously scratching those flea bites with one hand - twisting her knees together only to abruptly kick up shoe soles before others' eyes.

The man, under that weight, was pressed and bent toward the window, his body arched like a bow as he endured this arrangement. At first he had pulled her shoulders into an embrace, his hand roaming around to the woman's back. With heat radiating from their pressed skin and the velvet folds at her waist, he likely couldn't withstand this sweltering contact much longer. Soon he was cooling himself against his bulging lower abdomen—like a fish flipped belly-up—while whistling in rhythm with the train's sway.

"The mundane world could stand to be sent off already," she prattled on about her envy and such.

I was at a loss where to rest my eyes.
The aisle too was packed solid, leaving not a single gap.
Indeed pressing down on my head was a large round chignon wrapped in scarlet cloth, its owner now beginning to hunch over as she drifted into sleep.
With each rhythmic nod of her head, stray hairs brushed against my ears and cheeks.
Though even mentioning these temple strands grazing me risked divine retribution, unlike the chilling encounters described in ballads and chapbooks, this held no such thrill.
Damp with sweat, each clinging strand blurred my vision.
She was fair-skinned and rather pretty for a suburban matron, yet burdened with an astonishing brood.
Beyond the partition stood her lanky husband—or so I presumed—being jostled while clutching two children in navy-style caps.
Counting restlessly—the husband's share and wife's portion, plus those of the children—nine Western umbrellas... What do you make of that?

Well, now that things had reached this point—with reality’s density having thickened—the dreamlike figures of the Woman with Round Chignon and the Woman with Ginkgo Chignon had grown far too faint. …Perhaps they had vanished and turned into ghosts.

(Cooling medicine…)

When over there, the Woman with Ginkgo Chignon’s voice—boisterous and tomboyish—rang out, eyes flickered toward the sound. A face peered halfway out with forced curiosity. Hmph—she gave a muffled laugh at her lips while her hand reached over the yokakari, trailed along her sister’s round chignon, and descended pale. Her sister accepted the paper-wrapped package, reaching over the motherly lady’s shoulder,

(Cooling medicine, she says... Truly sweltering it must be...)

With a sidelong glance at the hand swaying over an abdomen, I withdrew.

Forcing a wry smile, I licked the lemon-infused sugar—unfamiliar to my palate.
“Now then—through this gesture, don’t you sense those two women have finally manifested their shadows?”

At that moment, while I too faced the conjoined-wing form of that Red Bat before my very eyes, the elderly gentleman seated beside me might well be called a worldly adept—nay, one might say a saint.
The reason being—this gentleman had remained asleep from our departure at Omori until those paired bats stretched crimson wings to alight at Kamakura...

Just when one might think he had been truly asleep, such was not the case. When he saw the pair fly away, he opened his eyes wide with sudden alertness, took the Panama hat from the rack, and with a huff flicked the dust out the window—

"You must have been so cramped... My apologies for the inconvenience."

Being addressed with composed formality, I was startled,

(No—
There was nothing I could do.)

“In that moment of bewilderment, he alighted leisurely with his cane tucked under his arm, you see.”

Mr. Toshiyuki adjusted his sitting posture there and continued.
……

Five

“Depending on how you take this story—though I cannot presume to know—I wish to express my respect for the gentleman while also giving thanks to the Red Bat and the middle-aged lady.”
“I bear absolutely no hostility.”
“I myself do not know under which of those influences it was.”
“But in any case, that night, I slept in the same mosquito net as the two women... though we kept as far apart as possible.”

Well, what time could it have been—the second time I awoke from the oppressive heat, my sweat sticky—it must still have been in the sunken depths of midnight.
Drowsily stifling as if choking on rice bran, the hollow hum of winged insects and mosquitoes pressed down through the great mosquito net, making each breath laborious.

The mosquito net was wide; it was enormous.
Hung across the fifteen-tatami space of the corner room with a veranda, fastened at four or five points yet still sagging heavily in the middle, it draped over three laid-out futons, its hem spilling beyond the edge.
It was of daimyo-grade furnishings, rare even for me.
Though not widely known, I had heard that the inn was an old family establishment dating back to the Edo period; being a noted place and a restaurant inn, it must have been of some historic significance—hence its age.
Moreover, it was riddled with holes the size of an infant’s palm across its entire surface; like crab burrows in tidal flats, there were fifty tears on just one side alone.
Of course they had patched each tear individually... The ancient hemp cloth developed light and dark mottling, surrounded by countless holes that blinked like eyes... To imagine this monstrous face riddled with large pockmarks thrusting down from the ceiling—the terror alone could annihilate a village.—Let me clarify here: though this inn had escaped last year’s earthquake disaster unscathed, one building burned down entirely, claiming two or three lives—whether sparks from that fire damaged the mosquito net, or whether field mice swarmed in from the mountains and ravaged the fields, invading through walls and sliding doors that offered no resistance at the time, devouring everything in their path—such possibilities came to mind.

When the two maids hung this mosquito net in the evening,

(Oh...)

As the elder sister remarked airily,

"What a pity."

The younger sister too let slip unconsciously.
...Yet even these two—dwelling in this barrack riddled with knotholes and gaps, no better than a plank-made mosquito net, having narrowly survived with nothing but a single hand-towel yukata to their names—uttered such words nonetheless.

In truth, since the coastal area had been largely restored already, I knew nothing of its actual condition—having only heard descriptions and seen illustrations.
That the inn had collapsed, burned down, and claimed lives—this I first learned from the driver during our journey.

(That's a bit concerning, I thought.)

The two women also silently exchanged glances.

The terrifying landslide remained untouched where the car was violently shaken about.
……And it was precisely this that made me want to inquire about the situation.

The driver planted his stance as though subduing a wild horse and declared with pride,

“Coming… I guarantee safety until September 1st at 11:58.”

he said with a laugh.
—(This occurred around August 10th)—

"Damn it, they're messing around," I thought. I... three years prior—had lost my wife—but were they that sort, one wouldn't speak with such scorn. No—even regarding this, I now had no desire to suggest moving elsewhere, though considering that establishment, it was likely just a farmhouse offering seasonal rentals by this point.

(Never mind—I'll stay until September 1st.)

He took a defiant stance.
The car's violent shaking intensified as it barreled onward.
The earthen bridge spanning the inlet at the village outskirts was treacherous.

The location was a bay between Zushi—passing through Hayama—on the way to Akiya and Tateishi. But reality differed drastically from what I had imagined. Firstly, there was no water beneath this so-called earthen bridge... According to the original description, sea waves should have flowed quietly underneath into the grand pond of Mito-ya inn's garden, with fishing boats rowing right past its veranda. The reeds were supposed to form a lush green curtain. Yet no matter which way I looked, there stretched only barren mudflats—a shallow depression that could scarcely be called a swamp. What had surged under the blazing sun as though dashed into a ditch now lay scorched by the tide, parched and crackling... Those distant clouds might have been the sea for all I could tell. It resembled less a tidal flat than a desolate swamp. The sensible frogs had long since fled. Earthworms writhed sluggishly through tidal-channel hollows as if begging for rain, while water boatmen traced meandering paths... Above them swarmed great clouds of winged insects, clustering thickly here and there like gunpowder smoke under the fiery sky.

From the half-crushed wisteria trellis side, over the sturdy log of the support prop that held up this framework, the three of us stood on the wide veranda gazing in three directions at this desiccated great swamp—and in that moment, I felt an inexplicable longing for Tokyo’s burnt fields.

You may scold me for being extravagant.

We went out to the sea to cool off.

(The sea has its tides, you know—soon the tide will come in and it'll all be water.)

Feeling sorry for the women who came so excitedly looking forward to it, I said by way of explanation,

(Well now, how splendid it would be if this were a moonlit night...)

What the elder sister had said was composed.

Now listen to what that rather spirited younger sister had to say.

(If snow were to fall, what a splendid scene it would make.)

It was a truthful matter.
......This was by no means sarcasm or anything of the sort.
Indeed, if snow were to fall here, it would resemble Sesshū's ink painting of charcoal briquettes.

That too was not because the room had yet to be properly arranged.
...In this parlor lay scattered mandarin orange peels and caramel boxes—appearing exactly as left by guests traveling with children who had likely stopped for lunch en route to Misaki.
The paper sliding doors were naturally left open.
The old sliding door remained ill-fitting, its painted Kanzan and Jittoku figures seeming to whisper about us while a broom stood propped nearby as if dropped mid-sweep.

Though the absurdity of it all made staying unbearable, what kept me from minding in the slightest was—the moment we passed through the broad kabukimon gate earlier—having glimpsed that gentle woman kneeling at the veranda beyond the front garden, hands pressed to the floor... Right there on the veranda, a man in Western-style attire—likely a Forestry Bureau inspector on patrol—sat perched atop a high shoe-removal stone, a beer bottle resting on a tray. The layout—apparently preserved from Mito-ya’s days as a teahouse inn—held curious interest... Without formal entryway protocol, we were ushered directly from beside it to the veranda, where a gentle woman watched the guests with evident delight,

“You must have suffered from the heat—well, welcome—please rest here for a moment.”

No sooner had they entered the shadow of those sliding doors than the Western-attired man—who had been meticulously tying his shoelaces—clutched his change into his coat pocket, steadied his sturdy umbrella, and strode out... The woman who had just welcomed them saw him to the gate, and in that passing moment, a maid emerged bearing a tea tray to the edge of the veranda, inquiring about seating cushions—or so it seemed?

...Behind them stood an antique folding screen with a mounted pheasant specimen peering through its surface.—There sat the three of them encircling the tea tray—a scene so oppressively gloomy it felt as though sutras for restless spirits might commence any moment in the main hall—until their clammy sweat became unbearable... Thus they ended up shuffling through the still-uncleaned parlor to stand at the right-side wraparound veranda.

...As they gazed at this briny great swamp, they spotted on the opposite shore at the mountain’s base the tragic sight of a small boat sunk in mud—its gunwale splayed outward like what seemed less a carp’s mouth than the jutting jaw of a crocodile wrestled by Asahina.

The mountain-bred maid came and said, "Please come upstairs"—what a relief! He’d resigned himself to enduring there until morning.
No—the staircase was far wider than the Misaki Kaidō they had just come along, a splendid structure.
Like three scattered figures, they ascended unsteadily until—at the spacious wooden landing where the staircase turned toward the veranda—they encountered that gentle woman: white cloth tied in an older-sister-style headscarf, one hand gripping a tall broom, work sash across her shoulders, emerging with deliberate pace. Briefly removing her headscarf to bow, she slipped past them lightly, her clattering descent down the hard steps carrying through the commotion such refined grace that her footfalls seemed softened.

She had an agreeable demeanor tinged with loneliness—sharply defined features, her obi tightly secured at the waist, and an alluring presence. Her attire suggested a maid, yet she was a splendid middle-aged woman. I had thought her to be in her mid-twenties—this ward of Mito-ya—and later learned she was called Ms. Yuki.

—Again, I saw something strange—

To you, this may indeed sound abrupt, but for me, it is a frequent occurrence. When I say 'something'—it refers to the appearance of those two suspicious women. When I emerged from the bath, the two women had already changed into their own yukata and were descending to the bathhouse wearing their usual datejime sashes—one in a checkered pattern, the other with vajra motifs… That too was fine… The elder sister’s discarded akashi kimono had been lazily hung from a beam onto an ebam bamboo rod against the railing facing the white waves offshore. Concealed at the hem, the akashi kimono with its pale purple gradient at the flared edge swayed in the sea breeze as though gliding effortlessly.

I believe it was past two in the afternoon.
In the midday heat, on both the earthen bridge and the beach road, not a single person passed by.
However, a slight wind had finally arisen.
The sweat subsided, leaving a refreshing coolness.
―And there beneath the flared hem lay the white tabi socks they had removed and neatly arranged—lotus... no, forgive me for mentioning lotus, but allow me to speak my mind.
……They looked like white lotus buds.
At the same time, on the adjacent sliding door—hung from the transom beneath the younger sister’s Akashi kimono—a gathered piece of ibis-colored brocade appeared as a single pale crimson lotus flower.

From the moment I left Tokyo Station and was assailed by the Red Bat Woman on the train until now, the only time I had thought Ah, how cool was when—on the way here by car—I saw a lotus pond by the roadside in Yamato: two or three white blooms still dewy despite the drought, with a single crimson lotus mingling among them in the distance.

Another cool breeze swept through abruptly.
The gauze was lighter than wind... The elder sister’s Akashi kimono slipped from the bamboo rod and fell cleanly away—unfolded, its fluttering collar slightly tightened into narrowing folds as it caught at the side opening—then suddenly floated skyward... In my moment of astonished hesitation, the younger sister’s was drawn along, fluttering side by side in formation.
When the hem of the latter flipped upward, the ebam rod clattered down where the gauze had been removed.
One seemed to caress while the other embraced—as I watched, they both swayed sideways toward the floor’s edge and let their hems stream outward.

I shuddered.

It was not just that.
When I observed this place—not a dream from which one might awaken—the kimonos had transformed into ephemeral shells, and the two women seemed to have vanished from the bathhouse toward the pine-covered mountain behind… Though it may sound exaggerated, it was genuine—I even stealthily went to check the bathhouse’s exterior, familiar as I was with its layout.
As for the women, the door was naturally closed.
The younger sister’s laughter lingered in the steam while the elder sister quietly used a small bucket.
That white, bent back and the pinkish area around breasts in the bathwater—base as it was—were imagined.
……However, having praised how the red and white lotuses bathed, he suddenly made footsteps sound from in front of the toilet and returned to the second-floor viewing area.

Ah, the two gauze kimonos hung exactly as before in their original place—though if one supposed the maid had come and rehung them, that would explain matters—yet still it struck me as uncanny.

However, when lunch was brought out and I found myself facing the two women fresh from the bath—seeing the flathead fish sashimi arranged on ice and small shrimp mixed with cucumber—things seemed uneventful enough. Moreover, the women drank beer. No Buddha drinks beer; no demon drinks beer. Moreover, ("It’s not like there’s a refrigerator.") th-there’s no such ghost. Let alone three people idly napping there—on top of that, there were no guests, no geishas, no sisters, no aunt, not even a single person—nothing at all.

Dusk fell once more, a suffocating evening calm clinging thick and clammy.
But then, emboldened by the gentle incoming tide peeking from the promontory of the inlet, and having learned from the maid about a hill renowned as the most scenic spot in the area, we set out.
The tide had already come up to beneath the earthen bridge.
Along the path, neither the cornfields nor the touch-me-nots so much as rustled—it was simply a clinging, oppressive heat. When buying cigarettes—("Me." "Hey, the slim ones are mine.")—the women... these Tokyoites spent their pocket money.
In a carefree, open-air mood, we wandered leisurely some seven or eight blocks, passed through thickets and graves along earthquake-crumbled, precarious stone steps, wound our way up several turns to the summit—no one was there.
There stood a single reed-screened teahouse—a dark-skinned, wrinkled old woman clutching a pitch-black dog to her lap—and together they stared piercingly at us…

From this old woman, we heard something repulsive.—

……Here, the elder sister leaned one hand on the camp stool, slightly arching her back as she languidly draped her yukata-clad hips at length, gazing faintly at the evening haze.
The spot where the younger sister stood—a mere six-foot-wide viewing platform at the cliff’s edge—was, as everyone remarked, the very image of a Hiroshige woodblock print—yet the old woman’s words left us with an uncanny feeling.

It’s said that wild geese descend to the rice paddies below.
It’s said that at the mountain temple in the forest beyond, the bell tolls the sixth hour of dusk.
That bell tower had also collapsed.
To the right, Fuji was visible in the sky.
That was merely a haze so deep it held not even a breath.
The open sea was also dyed crimson, not a single white sail dotted the horizon, and not one star could be seen in the sky.

Look here now—from that inky-black water’s edge where the tide’s drawn back three, even five tan fields toward the open sea, reeds have sprouted up thick from crab and shellfish holes, I tell you.
“If reeds take root like this… this inlet will soon dry up and become land, I tell you.”
“That’s how it must be… With last year’s great earthquake, the seafloor all rose up three shaku here and there, so the ground beneath every house sank three shaku deep when stepped on, I tell you.”
“Look here now—the tide that’s just surged in, see there.”
“……Like sea cucumbers crawling, they scuttle back through the reeds, I tell you.”
“If the whole village doesn’t unite to dredge the mud, this inlet will turn into a tidal flat before long—soon it’ll be nothing but endless reeds stretching as far as the eye can see, I tell you.…”)

She muttered as if talking to herself, squatting on a rusty iron kettle; each time she grumbled and rubbed the Black Dog’s back, the dog would groan and growl.
Strangely, it sounded as if voices were being kneaded out from the dog’s belly—ah, that old woman’s teeth, which sometimes bared in a grin, resembled the dog’s.
In the twilight, I came to know for the first time the eeriness of a dog sitting so utterly still.…

“The Mito-ya inn where you masters stayed was the very first to sink into the sea, I tell you.”

Beneath the haze, the restaurant inn emitted no electric light—its old house's roof tiles blackened, zinc roof faintly gleaming on three sides as if harboring some unnatural lunar shadow—while veranda and eaves were drawn into the garden toward that snake-like earthen bridge, tilting heavily in the direction where a small wisteria trellis seemed trying to flee.

(...Back then, this inlet beneath the mountain—the one by the earthen bridge—was all sea, I tell you. When the roar came crashing from the open water and sky, both earth and waves shook as if some great sieve were sifting them all at once.)
"...That Mito-ya's roof got crushed into a mangled heap—beams snapping free, pillars wrenching apart—and we locals... this rain-soaked pine..."

“Stood tall like the character for ‘umbrella’,” said the old woman, pointing to the pine tree with one broken branch leaning toward the cliff.

“Clutching at the pine roots to look—just moments before, some white dog from who knows where had climbed onto the roof tiles of that collapsed house’s ridgepole, I tell you. The yukatas drying there flew out from the railing like people, flapping wildly before sticking fast in the tidal flat. By then, the tide had already drained all the way out to sea, I tell you. That—I thought the whole ocean had flipped upside down.”

“When that white dog—mad as could be—went racing toward the open sea like it meant to reach the world’s edge, a yellow cloud rose through Mito-ya’s northwest corner roof—red flags crackling all tangled up—and pitch-black smoke came billowing up to the ceiling.”

“While the men and women were fighting that fire—running from the front desk to everywhere—the grandmother who’d been managing that whole household died right there, I tell you.”

“In these parts, they say you should save lives before putting out fires, I tell you.”

“The two little ones she’d been cradling like dolls died with her too, I tell you.”

“At that house of endless widowhood—the widow herself passed two years back... Now the daughter alone keeps everything going all at once, I tell you.”

“The older sister.”

“The younger brother’s off at school in Tokyo, I tell you.”

“He was away when the quake hit—so it’s the elder sister who’s made something of a name now, I tell you. Even if your house and yourself survive... killing off the old and young—that’s what the Black Dog does—the Black Dog—”

Do as you will.
They weren’t killed—they died.
In such circumstances, I thought, to share the same fate as those crushed by collapsing beams and engulfed in flames wasn’t rescue—it would have been suicide.
……I had heard something vile—yet in this moment knew with sudden clarity that the young woman who survived by abandoning grandmother and siblings to shoulder Mito-ya’s burden—that gentle soul—how it must torment her… In this constricted world, how her existence must chafe.—Until my chest tightened with her dearness, until she became pitiable beyond measure.

(Disgusting old hag…)

(The black dog seems possessed.)
(The dog resembled the old woman too.)

As I began descending the stone steps just as the two had said that, I suddenly looked back and saw them leaning over to peer from the base of the slope.
At times like these—deer were a luxury.
Rather, a tiger would be better.
When I tried to pick up a stone to throw, the two stopped me... There were numerous new graves—I descended while gazing at those graves.

At that moment—("I want to see it," or something to that effect, the younger sister had said)—but Ms. Yuki did not show her resolute figure.

The narrative had become quite disjointed.

It was then—in the middle of the night—when I awoke from restless sleep.
Yet she never complained about her lot as a dependent... The mosquito net’s antiquity and riddled holes only heightened one’s sense of Ms. Yuki’s thriftiness in all matters—yet even so, it remained appalling—that wretched patchwork I had mentioned before.
The adjacent room contained two eight-tatami-mat chambers lined up in a house that stretched vast in its vertical dimensions—and that night again held not a single guest.
Not just here—electric lights were dim everywhere in rural areas—so even when lit directly before one’s face, they barely revealed the tatami’s weave. This would have been tolerable had the light shone upon the mosquito net’s ceiling, but swarms of winged insects clustered thickly around this lamp.
After all—with muddy swamps hemming us in on three sides and their seething masses steaming through—it proved unbearable.
The minute ones spilled through gaps in the net’s mesh—swarming down in clusters—so though I had initially lain down to sleep, I rose up; then the younger sister worked at tugging the cord and carried the lamp to the next room, leaving one panel open accordingly.
Through those sliding doors came a faint glow—imagine if you will—the dimness within the mosquito net’s confines.
The Nanga painting on the sliding doors—depicting a sage with deer—now resembled that old woman and her black dog... Ah—when I thought of this house collapsing into mangled ruin—flames bursting from its northwestern corner—three lives burned beneath those beams—the hues and wrinkles and countless holes made it feel as though we had fallen to some pitch-black swamp’s depths.

Ah, this is no ordinary matter.

From childhood through nearly thirty years—whenever the figures of these two women manifested unexpectedly around me, blocking my vision—whether for good or ill, it has been an invariable rule that their appearance would mark a turning point in my circumstances or way of life. At any rate, for my small self alone, this was a crucial occasion that demarcated an era.

(This is no ordinary matter.…)

I take form... lured by this cinematic reel of fate to a strange place now—perhaps I would end my life here, or maybe die.

Pillow and hair alike dissolved into shadows; in the sweltering heat where even clogs would be cast off, only the older sister's pale feet—damply placed after slipping through the hem of her yukata that stretched smoothly from properly crossed legs—appeared floating through the lamplight's play.
White fingers etched swift strokes; eyes floated ethereally, weightless.
I thought of that white lotus again.

Should I cling to her and ask about the future? Or inquire into past lives?—

And then—this person lay beside me.
Over there, slightly lower, the younger sister lay sleeping.

......Three minutes......five minutes......

Red lotus flowers flickered into bloom.
Appearing faintly—only a wrist—like chasing butterflies through a dream, it seemed to beckon me closer.…

——Should I hold her close and ask about the future?
Should I inquire about past lives?——

The direction of the beckoning felt easy to approach.

I—you—extinguished the rolled tobacco’s ember.

It was then.
With only crackling sounds remaining, every last one of the hundreds of patched holes in the great mosquito net became eyes.
——The mesh holes turned into eyes——no——each one was a human eye. Can you comprehend such a thing?... All at once, those dozens of eyes——nothing but eyes——stared fixedly.
Gaping open, blinking, pupils shifting.
……Utterly absurd——yet undeniably real.
Gaping open, blinking, pupils shifting.
……They gazed with raw vividness.
Dark and low, leaving only the vast ceiling——all four sides of the mosquito net were eyes.

I froze.

But I couldn't just stay frozen.
Lying on his back, he tightly clasped his hands to his chest, pressed both eyes shut, and tried to calm himself.

Three minutes... five minutes—ten minutes—

When I firmly opened my eyes—convinced the demonic presence must have passed—the deer and sage now resembled the old woman and black dog at the sliding door’s edge in the adjacent room and the bedding’s foot where they all oriented their pillows seaward—between hem and closet lay another passageway to the back stairs, an entry for one.

The front second-floor veranda—stretching wide with connecting passages on both sides—had felt dark and desolate since nightfall for reasons unknown.

Then—in that narrow back stairway opening—a pale woman’s figure materialized faintly.
I didn’t startle.
This was the round-chignon one… soon her ginkgo-knotted companion would emerge—when standing together they’d kneel and take their patterned clogs.
Just like my childhood visions.
And I imagined them passing through storm shutters from mosquito net to sea sky.
“There had even been times when those women manifested around me—once emerging lamp-in-hand from within a bedpost’s pillar…”…

“Ah.”

The author unconsciously stiffened his arms and listened.

VI

"However, the woman stood alone, her obi of dusky indigo bearing a faint hem pattern that flowed like reed leaves."
If she stretched her back just a little more, she could reach it.
She stood up, floated lightly as if leaning in, and pressed her face tightly against the mosquito net.
Ah, she peers.
...All existing eyes gathered in that one spot, blazing fiercely like a great serpent...then in the instant of startled realization—no eyes, no nose, nothing at all—within the glossy blackness of disheveled jet-black hair, a smooth white faceless apparition appeared.—

“……”

The author listened silently, holding his breath.

"Ugh—" Swallowing a scream that threatened to choke me—in that moment holding two women's lives in my hands—I jerked upright, resolved to die if need be, and slashed through the mosquito net. Just then, the woman who had swayed sideways and stepped back—retreating across the floorboards under overwhelming terror, staggering unsteadily backward—I desperately lunged to seize her.
My hand nearly reached her chest when it slipped—then occurred something beyond description: the woman floated three or four shaku upward, suspended midair.
Her toes—dangling like split white lilies—arched and quivered, feet bare.
Indigo, pale cerulean, ibis-pink; dappled patterns, shibori tie-dye, purple stripes—every obi sash and waist cord fused like some night-born rainbow—twining from beneath her breasts down to her waist, coiling about her hem.
……it cascaded over my shoulder as I knelt beneath.
Her snow-white arms twisted into a single line—the knotted end of an obi sash hung from the back railing's beam clung as though the scarlet-dappled fabric's edge were blood-wrapped.
Wrenching her head sideways again and again to turn away, her pale throat stretched painfully taut; the color drained swiftly from her cheeks, staining her neck with faint shadows, and with each convulsive shudder her legs—clenched tight without footing—thrashed wildly.
Whether terrifying, beautiful, or pitiful—…a stepping stool had been placed there.
"What seemed a faceless specter with neither eyes nor nose was in truth a white hand towel masking half her face as a blindfold."

Toshiyuki-kun spoke with a slightly hurried voice.
He paused here to catch his breath.

"Now, to deal with this situation—whether she be someone’s wife, mistress, or daughter—I had to take her into my arms."

I rescued the beautiful specter, cradling her sideways in my lap.
In a hushed voice,

(What are you doing?)

Both knees were bound with the obi sash.
However, to hang oneself while blindfolded was suspicious.
I wondered if she had tried to hide her face—if only in spirit.
"No, that wasn’t it.
Moreover, she hadn’t actually intended to die.
Because she tried to escape from me—hiding her eyes wasn’t about refusing to see or be seen.
Because she intended to peek through the mosquito net instead—it was extremely odd."

VII

“From the sequence of events, you must have discerned most of it by now. That was Ms. Yuki.”

“I must beg your pardon, but—that woman who just now went to the bathhouse with the assistance of your honorable wife—is she.”

"In this situation... should that woman’s words become entangled with how I responded to Yuki at that time—I must apologize most sincerely—so I shall explain only the essentials concisely...

Yuki guarded the ruined house on tidal flats where human vitality itself seemed to ebb away with blood and tide—until both sun and moon grew dark.
...When village gossip and shadowed whispers turned eyes and heart utterly blackened—she would sit before shrine shelf and Buddhist altar since some time prior—and each time she closed eyes to pray like this...bow head...the stripes of garments and knees would float faintly like shadows.
As this repeated daily—it gradually grew clearer.
In mirrorless space—what seemed her face reflected—whether shadow-self or self-shadow—she felt unutterable desolation—so they say.
Kasuri differed—stripes being sharper-defined—came gradually reflected same way.
Only when prostrating before deities—nothing else occurred."

However, on that day, it was said that our arrival had been known from as far as the edge of the earthen bridge.
They didn’t pay it any particular mind.

At dusk when she watched us three setting out for Shigure no Matsu no Mise—silently peering through wisteria trellises while stretching up from veranda pillars—being led by those two meant my path took me not toward mountains but across tidal flats extending seaward; I couldn't dispel this sensation of irrevocable departure.
We safely reached the mountain.
Yet whether peering through field glasses or observing someone sit down—she could perceive everything down to their withdrawal into the kitchen.
Simultaneously, she grew able to hear even the old woman with the black dog prattling about Yuki's circumstances.
......Because of this, she felt such self-reproach that she neglected tending anyone's bedding.
It was an awkward predicament, she explained—not attributable solely to the mosquito net.
As night deepened, she became acutely cognizant of our every movement......

The three of them had likely dozed off—drifting in and out of sleep when she awoke once at that moment.
The younger sister was carrying the lamp to the adjacent room.
"What dreadful insects there are here," murmured the older sister languidly fanning herself while lying down.
Due to fleas and mosquitoes... I was itchy too.
My entire body prickled fiercely—unbearable—I burst from the mosquito net and rolled up my sleeves as I headed toward where the lamp had gone next door.
From head to toe stretched skin taut enough to split under glistening white ointment.
She was shaking off fleas while undressing.
...She stood imposingly under electric light and laughed with an “Ahaha!”
(You’ll get hurt holding me... Summer Insect——)
(No—this won’t do,) I thought shrinking behind fusuma doors and collapsing small before evening’s pushed-aside table.
"How unfortunate—the ointment’s gone," said one.
"I’ll apply perfume instead—it’ll soothe itching..." pressed forward against that skin.
"Since you’ve already seen me anyway—to beat heat..."
"Hohohoho!" She groped out a small jar from cupboard shelves.
Chilling its fragrant mouth against chest flesh—
("Here...here too...and here...")
she made it kiss each bite mark.

Ah, this was quite a predicament indeed.
...They said Yuki had been sitting upright alone within the mosquito net in the Buddhist altar room—eyes shut, head bowed all along—yet from the second-floor darkness, that very figure could be seen distinctly through from the depths below.
Despite her advanced age, she remained unmarried.
She didn't know what to do.
Fleeing here, dodging there—they say she sought only deserted spaces, pressing her face against walls and pillars, hiding it with her sleeves.

Cold sweat streamed down my body, blood seeping into my palms along with the perspiration.
There I remained holding Yuki against the wooden floor—her obi loosened and hair disheveled, both knees firmly bound—but when I tried to release my hands, she shook her head violently, keeping her eyes tightly shut. The persistent mosquito I'd underestimated finally fell with a plop, its body gorged with blood.

I turned cold with shame.
Yet I believe you can imagine how even that younger sister—let alone the elder one beside her—being mere women, mere geisha, proved beyond my capacity to manage.

The itching subsided immediately thanks to the perfume, but it was stifling—so unbearably hot that I stood and slid open one storm shutter. ("Ah, cool at last!") Seizing this momentum, the younger sister stepped boldly onto the veranda's front edge—parting the mosquito net's black cloud-like drape—her breasts standing pale and firm, when suddenly—a low rumble—clang! The distant cart sound shattered midnight's stillness; startled, she hid in my shadow as I cooled myself on the rattan chair. This noise held uncanny dread. It seemed some transformed one-wheeled cart passed by—when it clanged against the gate, there came such violent momentum as if an oni were storming in.

The older sister murmured languidly, "Ah, I'm sleepy... Go to bed now, I insist."
"You've said quite enough already," came the reply. The night had grown oppressively deep.
Their whispers resembled beautiful phantom birds conversing in the darkness.
(Ah—an owl's cry.) A solitary hoot echoed faintly from the direction of Shigure Pine on the distant mountain.

When the owl cried and the cart's sound faded away, Yuki thought to follow that vehicle outside—so it was said. Yet she came to her senses. Were she to go out now, she would grope for branches, yearn for water, and resolutely end her life without fail......That was terrifying. Yuki believed she still clung to lingering attachments—a will to live. In truth, had she passed through that door then, a demon would surely have claimed her.

We too were dreadful.
For it appeared that each and every landmark—the capes, sandbars, tidal flats, mountains, and pines on the peaks—was individually ruled by its own demon.
(I wonder—is it Tengu-sama? An oni? Their sect is different from ours.)
“Let’s go inside—it’s terrifying.” The Ginkgo-chignon woman—having shifted position to sit facing backward on my lap—said.

Yuki knew everything.

After that, it seems I must have slept quite restlessly—apparently no more than an hour had passed before I awoke a second time as mentioned earlier—but from Yuki’s vantage point below, everything appeared so distinctly visible through the floorboards that she grew terrified of herself, fearing she might be going mad.
Or perhaps it was merely a delusion perceived through the heart—the patterns within the great mosquito net might differ completely from reality.
If so, then it was simply confusion rather than true madness.
To ascertain which it was, she would need to climb to the second floor herself and observe.
Though convinced she kept her eyes tightly shut...yet suspecting this might itself be madness—that in truth they were slightly open—she sat up and made herself minimally presentable, clattered open the dresser, changed her kimono, then tied a hand towel over her eyes and ascended to the second floor. Despite the many steps, she climbed flawlessly without missing a single one—yet guilt-ridden, she descended and reascended two or three times...and even when repeatedly feeling with her hands, the thrice-folded towel remained securely covering half her face.
......When the moment finally came to peer into the mosquito net, the extremity of it—at this zenith of her madness—left her uncertain whether she might convulse, faint, or collapse.
Having bound both knees to avoid appearing unsightly at that critical moment—and thus constrained—she approached the mosquito net. Though the distance was short, moving discreetly in such a state proved impossible.
......After fastening her obi sash and clinging to it like a stage prop from Dōjō-ji Temple, she staggered ghostlike on tiptoe into a poised stance to peer inside—or so the story goes.
When chased by me and attempting to flee with them—since this sash was her sole support—the instant she yanked on the obi to leap back, her hips lifted into empty air.

“Disgraceful… Unbearable… Yuki can’t go on living now.—Even like this—” (turning her face toward you for the first time) “—the face and hands you’re holding are all visible.”
“This is what will kill me—” she said, turning her face away with an expression of having nowhere to go.
More pitiable than even a gag-like restraint was the sight of the face bound in shame for sin—

“There’s no need to worry.”
“I’ll make sure you can’t see me.”

Having said that, he sucked on two spots on the blindfold.

Whether you meant to comfort her or offer empty consolation—what a foolish, detestable, cursed thing to have said.

The hand towel came off.

(Oh—the two of them.)

As she bowed her head, this time he sucked directly on her eyelashes.
As for those two—it wasn’t merely that Yuki had hesitated.
Smoothly to the edge of the front second-floor veranda, distinctly, the faces of the Woman with Round Chignon and the Woman with Ginkgo Chignon—pale, eyes snapped open—appeared side by side.
When he crouched holding Yuki close and looked, the Woman with Ginkgo Chignon smiled gently while the Woman with Round Chignon gave a slight nod and lowered her brows—then their faces vanished, leaving only garments transformed into the gauzy veils seen in daylight, before they sank smoothly down the wooden stairs, shoulders overlapping, with a clatter-clatter-clatter.

The figures of those two women—it was customary for them to disappear somewhere once their business was concluded.

However, it goes without saying that both the older sister and younger sister were sleeping peacefully in the mosquito net.

The only strange thing was that even after returning to Tokyo—though I encountered them occasionally afterward—it was always either one alone or three together; I never met them when the older sister and younger sister were standing together as a pair.

――I had managed to arrange some funds.
When I finally resolved myself and visited Mito-ya again last month...October...the car crossed Morido, Ōkuzure, and Akiya before veering onto a side road....There, I believe it was—where a single stalk of crimson lotus bloomed among white lotuses at the edge of a withered field, before an autumn-grass ridge glistening with phantom dew—that I saw a woman lingering faintly, as if cradled by the cliff's massive boulder, as if entombed within its stony hollow, desolate and alone.

(Ah, it’s Mito-ya’s elder sister.)

said the driver.

He alighted lightly,

(Master...)

Even though I hadn't notified her, she somehow knew I would come today—she came out to greet me, clung to my hand, and wept hot tears.
This time, even when she opened her clear eyes, only dew-like tears overflowed, and she could not see my face......

Yuki had suddenly developed an eye disease and lost her sight.

Though I hadn't married yet, I took charge of all household matters and went on a recuperative trip, if only in spirit.—From midway, I received your kindness.

……Ah, I’ve returned.
“……The honorable ladies took my hand and…”

Gazing at the corridor as she teared up.

"They did my hair and makeup... those beautiful, lovely, pitiful... looking so happy."

She began to say—then, with childlike innocence, he pressed his eyes with a clenched fist and shed tears.

Tears were drawn forth in unison.
But as for the audible slipper footsteps and those two women, to the author there remained almost no sense of wonder, no miracle nor anything resembling mystery—a dissatisfying state of affairs……