Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Tayama Katai

I

Dear Teacher K,

Amid the roaring north wind blowing down, once again no happiness visited, and evening arrived in loneliness.
In the distance, Mount Kōsha revealed its glistening white peak above the clouds, bathed in fleeting sunset glory, shining eternally silent with tragic hue.
The flying crow left a single caw behind and hid its form in the shadow of the three-peaked mountain shaped like a reclining calf.
When melancholy thoughts and evening chill assailed me, making me shudder involuntarily, the sound of white withered pampas grass leaves echoed desolately for a time.
Ah, winter now reigns supreme.
“Teacher K, just recently I happened upon two works you wrote—*The Final Days of Jūemon* and *Autumn Clear Sky*—and savored them deeply.”
Now more than ever, thoughts of you occupy my mind constantly.
Jūemon and Mr. Takei Beisaburō.
Ah, how Jūemon would wildly threaten people with “Shall I gift you a single match?” sustaining his livelihood by extorting rice and money—at which even police could only click their tongues in amazement, while villagers trembled in mutual terror.
On a night of mournful moonlight, people’s wrath finally made Jūemon’s corpse float horribly in Mr. Eisuke’s lotus pond.
Child of Nature, Jūemon!
That I should learn these truths through your writings while living in that village fills me with profound shame.

The Mr. Beisaburō whom you know, Teacher, was someone from whom even my father received personal instruction, and for a time, he had been a man of considerable esteem.
However, as was the way of this fleeting world’s storms, he ultimately became a traveler who never returned, and the family’s grief truly left none who heard it unwept.
Yet now that years had passed, Seizō-kun worked diligently with me at the village elementary school’s night classes, while Mr. Beisaburō’s father remained in excellent health—his eyes grown bleary though they were—devoting himself wholeheartedly to farming.
Moreover, Mr. Beisaburō’s wife stayed in good health; causing no more commotions with men as she once had, she poured her heart into raising Seizō-kun and now led a life of relative prosperity.

Dear Teacher K,

I, who am by nature poor at composing sentences, cannot write anything worthy of your perusal, Teacher.
Kindly read between the lines.
Toranosuke-san—the Toranosuke-san who was the protagonist of *Autumn Clear Sky*, the mad Toranosuke-san who passed away with disheveled hair, neither eating nor receiving final water rites—this you already know, Teacher. Now in these Taisho days, his eldest son Hideo-kun comes to night school together with Seizō-kun and us, and when we saw the words "Nagano Industrial Hall Owner Watanabe Toranosuke" written small at the very bottom on the back of the abacus he carries, I came to feel your novel *Autumn Clear Sky* growing ever more fascinating.
What a cherished memento this is, is it not?
I cannot help but feel as though I can somehow see Toranosuke-san in those days when he would dress in his black formal haori with his hair jet-black and perfectly styled.
When I think of how now the graves, funerary stupas, and village temple stand silent and still without a sound, I cannot help but feel a choking in my throat from hidden tears.
Yet Mother—whom you wrote of as a demon and whom even mad Toranosuke-san held in awe—still lives in good health, while Wife has since been living harmoniously with Toranosuke-san’s younger brother Ryōsuke-san, her beauty keeping her looking youthful, and their children have gradually grown older.
Shall I send you a photograph?

“However, I enjoy sword dances and often perform them at youth association gatherings and alumni meetings, but strangely enough, regarding the sword I regularly borrow and use—according to legend, it is said that Toranosuke-san either received it from you or was given it long ago, though I do not know whether this is true or false—his son Hideo-san stated this.”

“In any case, since these are Hideo-kun’s words, if they are true, please do send a reply.”

Dear Teacher K,

In the deep valleys of Shinshu, even to our small Village A in the northern countryside, a lonely winter with ten-foot-deep snow had come—everyone wore cold-looking faces, presenting a scene where they clung to the kotatsu all day long.
The time had arrived when people formed crowds to carry rice and miso on their backs toward Shibu and Tanaka’s hot springs.
A wind that could split ears blew ceaselessly down from the high mountains.
Madarao Mountain, Iizuna Mountain, Kurohime Mountain, Lake Nojiri—even Iida Town and Nagano City retained their former appearances unchanged amidst today’s Taisho-era culture.
“Farewell, dear Teacher K—while making your pilgrimage to Zenkōji Temple, foremost in three provinces, would you not come see Mr. Toranosuke’s grave and reminisce about times past?
“There isn’t much to offer, but I’ll treat you to soba noodles.
“And since there are many hot springs nearby, I’ll guide you around them…”

The flow of time rushed on ceaselessly—people were born and died while cedar trees grew thick and lush through valleys.
In people’s hearts had Jūemon vanished and Mr.Toranosuke mostly faded away; now under Taisho skies stood telegraph poles where none were before while electric lights glowed bright—twentieth-century civilization at last washing through our mountain village.
There remained much I wished to tell—how Mr.Nezu Eisuke became village head then squandered his fortune whole—but with words spilling endless from my brush,I set it down here.

January [Day], S, T,

Teacher K

II

Such a letter lay in the mailbox one morning.
K read it while warming himself at the kotatsu.
At first he mocked it as some capricious letter from that countryside youth with literary pretensions, but gradually became drawn in until—upon finishing—he felt a peculiar nostalgia rising like the tide.
As the snow-buried mountain village materialized before his eyes, so too did those who had appeared on life's stage only to vanish: their laughter and tears, how such times had slipped away unnoticed, how now young people were beginning to mirror their ways—all these thoughts circled meaningfully about his reminiscences.

Because his wife Masuko came there,

“An interesting letter has come!”

Having said this, K showed it.

However, merely by reading that letter, all Masuko could grasp was the matter concerning the person written there as Beisaburō; beyond that, it did not stir her heart as deeply as K had imagined.
Even before this, K had often told Masuko about that story—the story of that mountain village—but somehow, through words alone, she could never properly grasp it.

“So Mr. Beisaburō’s wife is still at home, then?”

“That’s right.”

“But wasn’t there some man involved or something?”

“In the countryside, they’d turn a blind eye and let her keep one man around.”
“She’s raising children and is hardworking, so her in-laws turn a blind eye to that much.”

“Hmm... So that’s how it is. The countryside is quite something, isn’t it?”

“But it’s also written in this letter.”
“Since it says here that lately she’s stopped fooling around with men and is working hard to raise a child named Seizō, she must have given up such antics and become more steadfast.”
“She’s an old woman now.”

“I suppose so—she must be older than me,” Masuko said, then abruptly asked, “Who on earth sent such a letter?”

“This sort of youth,” said K, showing her the back of the envelope, “since he says he’s playmates with Mr. Beisaburō’s son Seizō—a twenty-one or twenty-two-year-old young man.”
“He read my works like *The Final Days of Jūemon* and *Autumn Clear Sky*, and so he wrote this letter recalling those stories.”
“In the years when we went to that village and Mr. Beisaburō and Mr. Toranosuke came out to Tokyo—those boys will soon reach that age too—”

“Is that so?”
“Mr. Beisaburō’s son has grown that big already…?”
“So she’s become an old woman, then.”

Having said this, Masuko laughed.

When Masuko came to marry K in the spring of her nineteenth year, Mr. Beisaburō had left the countryside to take up lodging at K’s house in order to take the national language certification exam.
Mr. Beisaburō was already thirty-one or thirty-two at that time.
He was the sort of person who seemed to care about nothing but his studies, nonchalantly wearing a faded shawl belonging to some country wife as he walked through central Tokyo.
Even when going to school, he would often set out wearing straw sandals that flapped noisily.
Even now those anecdotes still come up from time to time, so young Beisaburō must have been quite an amusing person for the K couple.
On the K couple’s wedding night, Mr. Beisaburō got thoroughly drunk at the house of K’s brother just below theirs, returned late, and curled up to sleep in the three-tatami space at the entryway, separated from the newlyweds by just one room.
K still remembers when he opened the front door muttering something under his breath and came back.

Setting aside the K couple’s sweet nightly conversations during their newlywed days, Mr. Beisaburō diligently studied late into the night in that narrow three-tatami space at the entryway. On cold nights, he would buy roasted sweet potatoes and take them out from his sleeve with a rustling sound. At times, he taught Masuko works like Hōjōki.

“He was a good man, Mr. Beisaburō…”
“If he were alive now, it would be so amusing…”

In this way, Masuko spoke as if recalling things from time to time.

At such times, they would laugh heartily over stories—how Mr. Beisaburō had once hidden a photograph of himself taken with his rustic wife because he looked so youthfully handsome in it while she appeared aged and countrified, refusing to acknowledge her as his spouse; how he once stood stark naked in the dark to strike a match when mice grew too rowdy at night, only for the startled creatures to go scurrying down his bare body from shoulder to foot; and how in his younger days he’d fallen into a ditch while peeping at a girl from the neighboring village he fancied, returning home half-drenched like a sodden rat in winter until his clothes froze stiff as boards along the way.

Following that, K recalled the room adjoining the village stable.
It was where generations of household heads—beginning with Mr. Beisaburō—had slept on their first wedding night; there they would listen all night to horses kicking against wooden partitions, a tale that itself became grist for their conversations.
But now reflecting on it, he found no humor left in the story.
After Mr. Beisaburō's death, some man must have crept into that space too, for it surely became a pleasure garden with the mistress.
Then when his son Mr. Seizō came of age, that same room would serve as the chamber for new bridal nights.
And through it all, the horses undoubtedly kept kicking those wooden panels as ever.
Having followed this thread of thought, K felt suspended between laughter and sorrow.

III

The story of the sword once again stirred K’s heart.

That sword—the one borrowed by the youth who sent the letter from Mr. Toranosuke’s son, used to perform sword dances at youth association gatherings—was indeed a blade bearing the inscription of Seki Kanehide.
Though neither an exceptional weapon nor adorned with fine fittings, K had deliberately gone to a swordsmith in Kudan during the Sino-Japanese War and purchased it as a farewell gift for Mr. Toranosuke’s military service.

K could visualize his own youthful figure from that time.
He could also conjure the tense atmosphere of that first foreign war.
K had been twenty-five or twenty-six then.
Having nothing suitable for a farewell gift yet unable as a mere student to offer anything grander,
he resolved to buy at least an inexpensive sword and set out for Kudan.
It was a large swordsmith shop,
now vanished but once imposing in structure and splendid in appearance.
There K grew dismayed when shown exorbitantly priced blades.
He had hoped for something costing two or three yen, but no such item existed.
Prepared to leave empty-handed yet finding that too pitiful, he finally explained his purpose—whereupon the proprietor, somewhat exhilarated by the wartime mood, said, “So that’s how it is.”
“Then let me give you an affordable one.”
“But it has no decorations,” he added, rising to fetch a single sword from the rear.

“This is quite good in its own way.”
“Among the many Seki blades, this is one of the better ones.” With that, he showed K a swordsmith catalog and the like.
K gladly took possession of it, then carrying it under his arm, visited Mr. Toranosuke—who was staying in the back of the Iroha Beef Shop in Kōjimachi—and presented it to him.

Toranosuke was overjoyed,

"This is splendid! Truly splendid!"

Having said this, he drew the blade from its sheath and swung it swish-swish through the air.

“Is that the sword?”

From beside him, Masuko said.

“That’s right… That’s what makes it interesting, don’t you think? The children are swinging that sword around so proudly—isn’t that amusing?”

“That’s true.”

“As time passes, interesting things gradually come to light.”

“How many years has it been now?”

“It’s been twenty-five or twenty-six years.”

“How quickly time passes.”

Masuko sank into deep thought.
In her eyes, Mr. Beisaburō’s face appeared once more.

“How on earth did you become acquainted with such people?”

“That’s actually the interesting part.”
“When I was sixteen, I came to Tokyo and went to Banchō’s cram school in Kōjimachi to study English.”
“That’s right.”
“Where would that be now?”
“Probably around the back of the street where Fujimiken is now, I suppose.”
“The area around there has completely changed, so I can’t quite get my bearings, but it’s still that general vicinity.”
“It was just a small cram school, but you see—there was a man named Nishino Buntarō, the one who assassinated Minister Mori.”
“That man was the English teacher and often taught things like spelling, but one day at that place, three utterly rustic students suddenly came to learn English.”
“Wearing such uncouth scarves…”
“That’s just how those guys were.”

“Now that you mention it, I do seem to recall hearing something like that before…”

“I’ve told this story countless times before—but still I feel compelled to tell it again.”
“That was how those three came to stay at the willow-shaded bathhouse in Shiochō, Yotsuya—it still stands today, you know.”
“Since its proprietor hailed from their home province too, they lodged on the second floor—and sharing the same path home each evening, we naturally became acquainted.”

“How curious.”

“When you truly think about it, it’s strange.”

Having said this, K made an expression as if recalling the distant past.

He felt as though the snow-buried mountain village were floating up before his eyes.
In the vast land of Japan, he found it strange that only that place—only that mountain village—had remained impressed upon him so vividly.
The three of them, driven by their young fervent hearts—hearts that lamented being buried and forgotten in the countryside—had mutually agreed to carry what little money they possessed and, from midnight until dawn, trudged through the deep snow to leave their hometown behind.
In every era, it seems, feelings dissatisfied with the ordinary and monotonous, and young curiosity yearning to know the world—even deep within such mountains—were swirling in tomoe-like eddies.
Beisaburō was particularly scholarly among them; even then he had composed seven-character quatrains and penned verses expressing his grand ambition to leave his hometown.
Mr. Toranosuke was skilled at painting.
They told K about their hometown’s mountains and rivers.

In that mountain village—in the smoke rising from the snow-buried mountain village—there too existed the tragedies of human life, with various people living diverse lives, each harboring their own thoughts.
Thinking this, K recalled the time when, during Jūemon’s arson incident, he had gone and stayed there for about half a month.

The place where he stayed was the household of Mr. Eisuke, the wealthiest of the three.
It was situated near the high western mountains of the village, and from there—beyond jumbled paddies and fields, beyond three long peaks resembling the spine of a whale—the rounded form of Mount Kōsha across the Chikuma River appeared so close one could almost reach out and grasp it.
There, K composed Chinese poetry and wrote songs.
His emaciated figure with long hair and a pale face would at times lean against pillars, at times face his desk, and at other times wander aimlessly about the place out of boredom.
The nearby cedar grove—where during Jūemon’s infamous arson incident, red flames and dreadful black smoke had once swirled beneath its dark canopy—by then held graves for both Beisaburō and Toranosuke, who in time had turned to mere mounds of earth. Who back then could have foreseen such an end?

Moreover, at that time, Mr. Eisuke’s father was still in good health and welcomed K with all manner of hospitality.
True to form for a man who had built his fortune in a single generation, he knew the ways of the world, understood human nature, and grasped matters with clarity—handling everything from village affairs to household matters entirely on his own.
Even when Eisuke ran off to Tokyo or spent money on ambitions ill-suited to his station, his father seemed not to reprimand him much—and yet, the family’s assets remained entirely beyond Eisuke’s control.
It is said that in his youth, Eisuke’s father had been as much of a libertine as Jūemon—so unruly that even the village could scarcely handle him.
It is said that when he fell into hardship, he stole money from the village shrine’s offering box and was condemned by the villagers.
Mr. Toranosuke, being of good lineage, would often tell K how he detested that wealthy demeanor of his, but even if there had been such things in his past life, K saw that Mr. Eisuke's father possessed, in any case, an excellent spirit.
The father was another one who could not be satisfied with the village.
There is a haiku by Issa: “Today’s cold—called a starling day.” Becoming one of those starlings, the father went to Edo, became a servant in pawnshops and moneylending businesses, and vigorously worked through his youth.
And upon reaching fifty, he returned to the village and became wealthy enough to show up those who had mocked his past.

When parting ways to return home, that father considerately taught K the route from Kusatsu toward Ikaho, and that kindness remains vividly etched in K’s mind to this day.

IV

During his stay, there was another story besides the Jūemon incident.
It was something he had intended to write about someday but never found the opportunity to do so until now; but on that day, a farmer from a peasant household along the village river suddenly went missing.
His whereabouts simply could not be determined.
There were certainly no signs that he had gone to Tokyo or other regions, nor was there any apparent reason for him to run away from home elsewhere.
It was a household with considerable money and fields, and there was a male child around ten years old.
People found it strange and searched everywhere, but no trace of him could be found anywhere.

However, there was one thing that made the villagers tilt their heads in puzzlement.
It was that the Riverside Shop Mistress had a man.
Of course, such matters were common enough in the countryside, having long taken the form of open secrets.
Therefore, because of that—for such a trivial matter—there should be no reason to die or conceal one’s whereabouts.
However, even if people tried to connect it to that matter, they simply couldn’t determine the cause, so it came to be said, "Might he have been tormented by that?"
And so, gradually, the farmer’s living conditions came to light.
The farmer had dearly loved his ten-year-old son, but two or three days before his disappearance, he had come to think that even this boy was not his real child.

From then on, it was said he stopped going out to the fields, ceased eating his meals, confined himself to a single room, and behaved as though he could not bear even to see another person’s face. As a result, this was not a case of him deliberately concealing his traces—he must have gone somewhere into the mountains and died. Once this conclusion settled, they could not leave matters be; thus one person from each household in the village came out, formed search parties, and combed through nearby mountains and forests. People fashioned makeshift flags, brought out old conch shells, borrowed temple gongs, then walked searching from peak to peak. Though the village itself lay in no particularly deep mountains, M Peak loomed to its north—a place where dense primeval forests stretched from foothills to mid-slopes, home to bears and wild boars—and even after relentless searching, they found no trace of him. At last the search party wearied of seeking and reluctantly abandoned their efforts.

Neither Mr. Beisaburō nor Mr. Toranosuke joined the search party, but Mr. Eisuke found himself pressed into service for a day, trudging some twelve kilometers through the mountains before returning utterly spent at dusk.

“That’s one hell of a mountain,” he said.
“Never knew M Peak ran so deep.”
“With terrain like that—search all you want—you’ll never find a thing.”

Having said this, Mr. Eisuke took off his straw sandals—scuffed by cliffs and rocks—at the edge of the veranda.

During K’s stay, the matter ultimately remained unresolved, but two or three years later—according to the account Mr. Beisaburō gave when he came to Tokyo—in what might have been the following year after snowmelt, when one of the villagers went into the mountains to gather dead branches, there before him—right before him—something black was dangling.
Startled, he stepped back, but when he steadied his gaze and looked properly, it turned out to be that very farmer.

At that time, K was fond of reading works by Turgenev and others, so the story struck him as a kind of psychological novel; he found himself comparing it to the lives of Russian peasants.
After some time had passed, the story came to be associated with and considered alongside works like Maupassant’s “Mouche” and “Parrain.”
Mr. Beisaburō’s death—might there not be similarities between that and this farmer’s death by hanging?

At the very least, Mr. Beisaburō had been a man plagued by matters of the heart.
He would always tell K:
“Even living out here in the sticks with my old lady—there wasn’t a damn thing interesting about it.”
“And being born unlucky—weak-built and scrawny—made me useless for farming,” he’d say every time.
While academic pursuits had partly driven Mr. Beisaburō’s move to the capital, it was family troubles that had undoubtedly tormented him more.
The affair between the Riverside Shop Mistress and another man had clearly gnawed at him.
He’d desperately longed to break free from his rural shackles and secure some livelihood in Tokyo.

In what manner did Mr. Beisaburō meet his end?
Rumor had it he developed consumption, though whether this held true remained unclear.
Could it not have been his fate—being forced back into rural hardship—that delivered death upon him?

Then there remained one more curious matter.
This concerned the old man operating both a sweetshop and waterwheel business beside M River’s bridge that cut through the village.
The man was then around sixty years old—the same who had managed Yanagino-yu bathhouse in Yotsuya Shiochō, as previously mentioned, having gone to Edo in youth to labor and amass modest wealth.
His Riverside Shop Mistress went by O-ryoku—a strikingly young and petite woman compared to her aged husband.
Though her roots too lay in this village, having spent her maiden years near Tokyo’s Hatchōbori district, she carried herself with metropolitan polish as an urbane Edo-style woman.
When K first visited their village, they had recently shuttered their Tokyo residence—returning home with funds to build a trim little house where they maintained lifestyles ill-suited to rural environs.
The Riverside Shop Mistress often played shamisen.

During his stay, K often went there to visit for leisure.

With that, the Riverside Shop Mistress complained about her current life and—

“Mr. K, I must go to Tokyo soon without fail.”
“I’ve had my fill of these mountains... There’s no purpose in keeping up this sort of existence.”
“If I go to Tokyo and purchase bathhouse shares, I could live quite respectably indeed.”

"But didn't you return to the countryside precisely for an easy life?"

"But far from being easy, I truly can't endure it anymore."

She insisted repeatedly like this.
When she had withdrawn from Tokyo to return here—though reluctant—she had been deceived by the old man, who said, "Ah, it's just for a year or two of recuperation in the countryside," and thus was brought along.
However, two or three years later, the old man died, and after another four or five years had passed, she grew increasingly discontent and became a mistress to some middle-aged man in the countryside, until finally even the riverside shop was closed—so the story went.
K recalled listening to that woman's shamisen on a night when snow fell thick and fast.

5

When K recalled Toranosuke，the image of a lodging near Ueno Station，a black gate deep on the left side of Kanda’s Onaridōri Avenue，and a room in a three-story high-class boarding house in Atagoshita-machi floated before his eyes．
As described in the letter sent by the youth，it was an era when he wore a black crested haori with jet-black hair meticulously styled，and moreover，K saw that women always surrounded Mr．Toranosuke．
He found engaging in troublesome academic pursuits far too tedious and unbearable．
At that time，he turned his attention to then-popular chemical dyeing techniques，invested considerable money，and received instruction in those methods from a swindler named N．
By twenty-one or twenty-two，he had become completely ensnared by society，desire，and women．
During his stay at that swindler’s house，he went to Yoshiwara nearly every night，yet still unsatisfied，formed a relationship with the daughter of a nearby brush shop—a liaison that later saw him pursuing her all the way to Nagano．

Yet the most vivid impression remaining in Mr. K’s mind to this day was of a tall, beautiful woman of twenty-six or twenty-seven—neither quite a mistress nor exactly a woman of business—with an air of elegance, who had stayed at that three-story high-class boarding house in Atagoshita-machi; even now, that very house likely still stands.
What became of that woman?
What became of those large eyes that never failed to mesmerize people?
Even now, K could clearly recall that third-floor room.
When one requested guidance at the base of the stairs, invariably a beautiful girl who seemed to be her sister would come out and guide him up to the third floor.
And there, upon reaching the second-floor landing, stood a large full-length mirror, in which his unkempt hair and pale, nervous face would invariably be reflected.
That made K feel somehow awkward.
What especially made him feel awkward was how the girl's face would appear first in the mirror, followed by his own reflection.
And then he ascended the stairs to the third floor.
And there above was a neat six-tatami room opened on three sides, where the beautiful older woman with large eyes and Toranosuke lived in a manner that anyone would see as acting like a married couple.

The woman always urged K to use the large, showy yuzen muslin cushion.

Even now, upon reflection, it remains somewhat unclear why such a woman would associate herself with a man like Toranosuke—but then again, Toranosuke himself harbored no small measure of unsavory traits, possessing that assimilative ability or gigolo-like wiles developed in youth, which may well have drawn such a beauty beyond her station to his side.
By that time, Toranosuke was no longer a country rustic by any means.
His clothing and belongings were splendid, his demeanor carried an air of dignity, and with a face resembling that of a wealthy rural landowner, perhaps that was how he managed to maintain such a facade without anyone suspecting a thing.
K would often handle hanafuda cards there together.

There should be a photograph taken together with that woman and Mr. Toranosuke. In it, the woman appeared remarkably alluring, and Mr. Toranosuke looked oddly like a dashing ladies' man—young K had once stared wide-eyed at that photograph. K thought how interesting it would be if that photograph had remained until today in some photograph box in the countryside and he could lay eyes on it again.

Yet Mr. Toranosuke had come to tread such a path not without reason. As the most precocious among the three, he wielded a strong assimilative power with urbanites, harbored abundant ambition, and burned with fervent curiosity; he resolved that languishing buried in the countryside would prove futile, while perpetually striving to restore his family's fortunes—once prosperous, now diminished. Thus did he charge headlong into such enterprises, only to plunge into an irrecoverable abyss.

Human beings are a strange lot.
Whether they die early or late, everyone does what they must before passing on.
Even in Toranosuke’s case, before the tragic end of his later years, there had been such a vibrant life.
And such a beautiful woman had once breathed the same air as him.
Then came the post-Sino-Japanese War years—years spent in bitter isolation as the villagers shunned him, years passed roaring like an animal in a cage, until at last a tragic death carried away his soul.

However, when he launched Nagano Kōgyōkan—a new enterprise in chemical dyeing techniques—in Nagano, it was actually thriving.
The villagers all trusted him and became shareholders in his venture.
Like a feudal lord surrounded by luxuries, he constantly shuttled between Nagano and his hometown with the speed of a carriage.
The village girls all gazed after him wide-eyed.

When K considered that this abacus—one of many used during that time, bearing on its back the inscription “Proprietor of Nagano Kōgyōkan”—was now brought by his only son, Seizō, to his night school desk where he practiced abacus calculations among other things, he could not help but reflect on the passage of time and the era of a new generation of youths coming into their own.

“Long live the new era!”

K could not help but cry out.

Nor could he refrain from hoping this new age would prove wholesome.
O youth who sent the letter.
And you, Seizō—classmate of that sender—and you, Young Beisaburō.
Before you too shall such times arrive without delay.
Life’s turbulent waves shall come crashing upon you.
You shall meet varied destinies like Toranosuke and Beisaburō before you.
Joys shall visit you.
Sorrows shall visit you.
Each fate you carry shall draw near in silence.
Through grief and gladness alike, through every hardship, you’ll feel you’ve truly lived.
You’ll find a world far removed from youth’s romantic visions.
Gradually you’ll comprehend tragedies like Beisaburō’s.
You’ll come to fathom Toranosuke’s wretched end.
You’ll grasp the heart of Riverside Shop’s mistress.
You’ll ponder deeply the old farmer who hanged himself in the woods, and Jūemon who roamed setting fires.
Then too shall snow pile as ever before.
Great icicles shall hang from eaves.
O beloved youths.

With these thoughts, K once again read through the long letter.

VI

“While visiting Zenkōji Temple – foremost among three provinces – won’t you come see Toranosuke’s grave and reminisce about old times?”
“The letter adds – though there’s little worth offering – ‘I shall treat you to buckwheat noodles.’”
K felt nostalgia deepen within him.

K had received similar invitations long ago from Mr. Beisaburō or Toranosuke themselves.
Toranosuke would often regale K with tales of circumambulating Zenkōji’s ordination platform.
As for Mr. Beisaburō – breathless with effort – he’d challenge himself to recite without pause that peculiar chant: “‘From tenfold dawn till tenfold dusk at Zenkōji chant TŌ-TŌ nenbutsu – golden Buddhahood assured!’” driving K and Masuko into helpless laughter.
Indeed K and Masuko still remembered that rhyme – on autumn nights when darkness lingered early – performing it with their children till giggles shook their sides.

It was with Mr. Beisaburō and Mr. Eisuke as his guides that K had first visited Zenkōji Temple.
It was on their way back from Lake Nojiri to Togakushi that they stayed at a lodging called E House near the temple gate—the inn where teachers customarily stayed.
And the next day, declaring it was for commemoration, they took a carte-de-visite photograph at a two-story photo studio in a back alley overlooking rice paddies.
That photograph still remains in K’s photo box today, and the children would occasionally turn it over, saying, “Huh, this is Dad? Really? Does it look like him?” as they imagined that bygone era with a sense of wonder.

Moreover, the region’s famous buckwheat noodles—K was often treated to those as well.
Mr. Eisuke’s wife was particularly skilled, and during his stay, she often prepared them for him.
K thought that if he went once more and this time was treated to the buckwheat noodles the young men would make for him, it would be even more delightful.

However, for K, that mountain village—that snow-buried mountain village—was by no means merely the old impressions from his youth when he had visited.
The boys who had given him the letter did not know that K, five or six years prior, had braved the heavily falling snow to visit Mr. Eisuke at his home and spend a night there.
Nor did they know he had also met the Riverside Shop Mistress from the riverside sweetshop during that time.

At that time, K had sent a telegram to Mr. Eisuke the previous night and got off the train at Mure Station near dawn.
It was a cold, cold morning.
Moreover, since it was still early, the shops in front of the station had their doors closed everywhere, and even if he wanted to rest a little, he could not find such a place anywhere.
Having no other choice, K walked along the half-remembered paths he had frequented in his youth—now following the river, now skirting the cliffs.
The view of Kurohime’s magnificent snow was beyond words.
However, partway through, it suddenly turned into a blizzard, and by the time K passed through the village of Kurai, even his umbrella proved useless as he walked engulfed by wind and snow.

Even so, what has become of that wealthy man named S from Kurai?
Is he still wealthy and thriving even now?
There had been an instance where the son from there had come to Tokyo in that era in the same manner as Mr. Beisaburō and Mr. Toranosuke, but when he suddenly visited K’s house, K’s mother, concerned, guided him to an inn—and that inn still remains in Tokyo even now—

And so K somehow found his way into that nostalgic village.
However, locating Mr. Eisuke's house proved difficult.
Similar houses stood here and there.
No matter whom he asked, he could not get a clear answer.
It should not have been this way—he had thought it would be easily found—but whether due to the many new houses that had been built or his own memories growing vague, it took nearly an hour before he finally located Mr. Eisuke's home.

Finally having figured it out, he went in.

That rice paddy pond—the very one where Jūemon had died—remained exactly as before, with deep snow piled around its perimeter as if to bury it.

When he asked for guidance, the one who came out was none other than Mrs.Ue, whom he could never forget.

Mrs. Ue also seemed to remember,

“You’re Mr. K from Tokyo, aren’t you?”
“Oh...”

With these words, she welcomed him.

Mr. Eisuke soon came out as well.
They had both aged, half their hair turned white, yet their dispositions remained unchanged.
He welcomed K cheerfully.

Among the three, it was precisely because this Mr. Eisuke had been the most ordinary that he remained richly endowed with common sense and had undergone no particular changes up until that time. Moreover, his visits to Tokyo had been exceedingly few compared to the other two. At the very least, he had the means to live comfortably—or even arrogantly—throughout his life on the wealth his father had saved.

However, even he, caught in life’s fierce currents, could not escape impermanence—for according to the boy’s letter, had he not squandered even the fortune his father left, whether by becoming village head or through other means, until it was entirely gone?

However, when K had visited five or six years prior, he sensed a certain loneliness within the house—a feeling that vitality was not what it once was—but never in his wildest dreams had he imagined such decline had already befallen the household.
In the snow-buried house, K spent a night there pleasantly and uneventfully, warming himself at the kotatsu while being treated to local sake and having buckwheat noodles made for him.

The next morning, K,

“I’d really like to go pay my respects at Mr. Beisaburō and Mr. Toranosuke’s graves.”

When K said this to Mr. Eisuke,

“D’ya think we can get there?”

“Why not?”

“The snow’s deep…”

“Is it really that deep?”

“Winter’s no good.”
“They’re completely buried, see.”
“Even if ya go all that way, where the graves are—ain’t exactly easy to find, see?”

“Is that so?”

“Ah, in winter, the mountains are no good.”
“No matter where ya go, it’s all snow, see.”
“Well, if it were April or somethin’...”

Since there was no other way, K thought of going to the temple.

However, he was not unfamiliar with the graves.
The year after Mr. Beisaburō’s death, K had gotten off at Kashiwabara Station during his return journey from the northern provinces, visited Issa’s grave and former residence, and then come here through the mountains.
That had been a terrible road.
This was because it had just stopped raining or something of the sort—over those two ri of road, the red boots he had bought before setting out on his journey, along with everything else, were utterly ruined.
The splashes had reached up to the top of his Western-style trousers.
At that time, Mr. Eisuke being unfortunately absent, he went to Mr. Beisaburō’s house, had Mrs. Ue guide him, and stood before the earthen mound at the back of the temple.

At that time, Mr. Toranosuke was still alive and kept roaring ferociously from a cage all day long, they said.

"How's Mr. Kumegorō getting on?"

Suddenly remembering, K asked Mr. Eisuke.

"He's holdin' up."

"Made any money yet?"

"Hardly a lick, I tell ya!"

"Still there, is he?"

"Yep."

“What about Mrs. Ue?”

“Still healthy and workin’, I tell ya.”

“She’s shown remarkable endurance.”
“She was certainly one from Nerima in Tokyo, wasn’t she?”

“That so?”

This Kumegorō too was one of the villagers who often came to K’s house during Mr.Breisaburō’s Tokyo years.Before Mr.Breisaburō came to live with K，he stayed at Kumegorō’s house，commuting daily from there.The place lay deep within Ushigome’s Haramachi—a three-ken shack where Kumegorō briefly thrived in dairy farming，seeming poised to sustain his household through this venture.The Nerima-born woman who became Mrs.Ue worked at a nearby military residence where he delivered morning milk；their banter and clasped hands kindled mutual affection，and during Mr.Breisaburō’s boarding years，she frequently stole moments to visit.Even there，K encountered her two or three times，exchanging words.

“No matter where I go, it’s just young men and women flirting about—I can’t settle down to study or anything properly.”

In this way, Mr. Beisaburō would often come and vent to K.

After Kumegorō took up with that woman, the dairy business stopped thriving, so they temporarily secured funds from their hometown and tried renting out futons, but when that too went poorly, they ultimately resolved to return to the countryside. At that juncture, Mrs. Ue declared she'd rather seek a divorce than smolder away her whole life in some mountain backwater, sparking a quarrel that left Mr. Beisaburō in a bind when he mediated between them.
The thought that Mrs. Ue still labored in these mountains twenty years later filled K with an odd sense of marvel.
Such are the vagaries of human life.
Truly, such are life's manifold paths.

“What about the children?”
“Five now, sure enough.”
“Has it really come to that?”
“Time sure flies.”

K thought,

“I’d like to see him again.”

“Even if ya meet ’im, what’s it gonna change?”

“Is he in trouble?”

“Two-three years back, he up an’ started some hot spring business... got folks losin’ money. Nothin’ but trouble, that one.”

“Hot springs are interestin’, though—to think there’s such prospects right nearby?”

“Nothin’ but a half-cocked scheme, I tell ya.”

“Still, ain’t that fascinatin’?”

“Had it worked out better, might’ve been somethin’. But bein’ a mineral spring—if ya don’t boil it proper, nothin’ comes of it.”

“Did he build a house too, I wonder?”

“He built it alright, but ended up with nothin’ but headaches.”

Following Kumegorō, K also recalled a burly man who had come around that time and worked as a moneylender.

“Ah, he wore large glasses…”

“Who’d that be?”

Mr. Eisuke seemed unable to recall at first, but as K spoke of various details, he gradually came to recognize it.

“Ah, then would that be Sadakō?”

“I think his name was Sada or something—anyway, he had some savings and was well-regarded for offering low interest rates without strict collections, but one night he lost at gambling and became completely self-destructive. He said it was too painful to stay in the village where he’d once swaggered about but could no longer hold his head high, so he came to Tokyo wanting to find a proper mistress and start some new venture—that’s the man we’re talking about…”

“Then that’s Sada.”
“What’s become of him now?”
“What’s become of him, I wonder?”
“He said he was in Nagano about five years back, but now who knows where he’s gone.”
“Even in such a small village, there really are all sorts of things.”

Thus K could not help but say.

When it was time to leave, Mr. Eisuke said he would see them partway, put on his coat and such, and walked along with them.
Fortunately, the day was clear, and the weather was so fine that it was said to be rare for winter.
M River flowed beautifully, glittering in the sun.

They had gradually made their way along the snow-glittering mountain path toward here, but when they came to a certain bend, Mr. Eisuke came to a stop and

“That’s the hot spring Kumegorō developed.”
“Which one?”

“You see, over there in the corner—can you spot a single house? That’s the one. This area’s been known since olden times as a place where hot water springs forth—they swore it would gush out any day. Even in winter, snow hardly piles up here. But try as they might, it still comes to nothing in the end.”

“Even so, does some hot spring water still emerge?”

“It does come out. Well now, when they first started digging, there was quite the commotion. They even petitioned the prefectural office for geological analyses and such. For a time it was all the rage, you know—that a hot spring had sprung up in Village A! Why, even the Nagano papers wrote sensational pieces about it.”

“After all the trouble they went to, you’d think it could’ve kept going somehow.”

“It’s no good ’cause it’s lukewarm.”
“If this were real hot spring water, that’d be something—but…”

“So, Teacher, they ended up losing precious money after all, I suppose.”

“Well now, since Teacher can’t do anything about it anyway—even if they wanted to take a loss, there’s no way to—but because of that, there’s two or three folks who’ve had their fortunes halved.”
“Teacher’s got a silver tongue, that mouth of yours…”

“Just like in Toranosuke-kun’s case, I suppose they were skillfully taken in.”

“It’s not quite that extreme, but…”

“Are you one of those who took losses too?”

“Well, I did lose a bit, you know.”

With this, Mr. Eisuke laughed.

And so, the two of them gradually approached the place where the house stood.
Sure enough, around that area the snow lay sparse, with patches of soil visible here and there and withered reeds bent every which way.
Guided by Mr. Eisuke, Mr. K saw the bathhouse—though calling it a bathhouse might be an overstatement given its modest size—a place where villagers had likely once gathered to loudly sing gidayū ballads and such. Now thoroughly dilapidated, its tub contained water pooled desolately to the brim, tinged reddish-brown like patinated copper.

“When exactly was this?”

Thus K asked.

“Last year—no, it’s already two years ago now...” he answered, pausing to think. “But really, these villagers—they’re so eager to try every new thing that it’s become a problem.”
“But unlike other villages, there seem to be so many such people here.”

“It does seem that way.”

“Even someone like you would see it that way.”
“Compared to that, the Imokawa and Kurai folks earn and work much more steadily, I tell you.”

“After all, it’s a place that produces many people who can’t settle down in the countryside and sit still…”

“It’s an unfavorable tendency, isn’t it?”

With this, Mr. Eisuke came out from there.

They went to the edge of the village and parted there.

Seven

The sight of Village A, buried in deep snow among low hills as winter passed by, still came to Mr. K’s mind intermittently even five or six days after receiving that letter.

It could be thought of as a strange bond, yet also as a village inhabited by people with distinctive traits.
Had one lived there constantly—or if not constantly, had one had at least some opportunity to visit once a year—perhaps Beisaburō-kun and Toranosuke-kun’s affairs would not have seemed so strikingly unusual or particularly intriguing. Yet these occasional encounters always awakened K’s impressions, evoking in him a sensation of witnessing some vivid manifestation of life’s vastness right before his eyes.
K once again replayed in his mind the encounters at the English cram school in Kōjimachi.

Though the letter gave few details, K thought there must be some story behind Mr. Eisuke’s squandering of his family estate. He also felt that deep sorrow enveloped the circumstances of the childless Mr. Eisuke and the Riverside Shop Mistress. In Mure, Imokawa, and Kurai—particularly near Mure Station where he had glimpsed during his journey the raw vitality of barmaids’ lives, women with powdered faces noisily clamoring across kotatsu boards—might there not exist tales intertwined with such scenes? Or perhaps Mr. Eisuke—this steady, sensible, ordinary man deemed stubborn—now in his later years, had for the first time felt the backward surge of that same blood which had coursed through Beisaburō and Toranosuke. As a guardian of wealth, might he not have grown weary of treading that mundane rhythm—passing it from parent to child, then grandchild—all this time? Especially considering his childless state—this man who knew nothing of life’s flavors—K’s imaginings were hardly baseless.

Who is happy? Who is unhappy? Who is a genius? Who is conventional? Such matters could not be dismissed through simplistic categorization.
Thus even the deaths of Beisaburō-kun and Toranosuke-kun could not simply be deemed unfortunate.
One could not discern without having witnessed an entire lifetime.
One could not know without complete temporal remove.
Even Mr. Eisuke—once proclaimed the very model of happiness—now found himself adrift in circumstances none could predict.
The boy who sent the letter—nay, all those youths—proved no exception.
Life held mystery.
Life moved with inexorable leisure.

“May the young men find happiness—” With this thought, K once again pictured that snow-buried mountain village in his mind.