Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Kume Masao

I

My father died in the spring when I was eight years old. Moreover, he died by suicide.

II

The spring of that year was an unseasonably warm early spring, unlike typical Shinshu springs. Along the dry bed of the Chikuma River that washed against Ueda's edge where we lived, riverbank mugwort had just begun pushing tender shoots through the pebbles, while Mount Tarō—outlining the town's sky with its gentle curve—already wore a haze of purple. Clear days stretched endlessly—a parched spring. Despite being snowmelt season, the clear waters had shrunk, leaving withered winter debris clinging stubbornly to the white-painted gauge post at Ueda Bridge's foot. At times Asama's smoke would bend and trail as glinting winds swept the horizon, stirring what little spring dust lingered in these small towns. Let me repeat—it was a dry spring.

On that day, I cut short my play earlier than usual and returned home. Wherever I went, I always had two or three friends. And many of those friends were invariably older children. This was partly because I was terribly precocious—able to read primers freely even before entering school, with a tendency to scorn the ignorance of children my own age—and partly because my father served as the local elementary school principal, which meant that wherever I went, under the handicap of being “the principal’s son,” I earned a peculiar respect among them that granted me special admission into their groups. The principal’s son broke away from his playmates and returned home that day. A fleeting melancholy that arose without reason and a dull pain felt in my lower abdomen compelled me to this decision.

“If I have diarrhea again, I’ll get scolded.” I thought to myself in my young heart as I walked home. And, “If I go home and stay quiet for a little while, it’ll probably get better. If I do that, no one will find out, and I won’t get scolded either. That’s right. I’ll stay quiet. If it heals while I stay quiet, I won’t have to take that awful medicine again. If I return home early like this, my stomachache will surely go away right away. Playing outside until evening in the biting cold was always what caused me to fall ill…”

While these thoughts churned in my chest for a long time as I walked along, before I knew it, I had arrived in front of my house. When I suddenly noticed and looked up, Father was just returning from the opposite direction and about to enter the gate. Father turned around and looked at his small second son’s pale, somewhat dejected complexion and the two eyes that were slightly afraid of something. The son, too, stood staring intently at his father’s face—marked by wide, faint pockmarks—where paternal warmth and an educator’s sternness formed a strange blend. The son felt that between them lay a vague love and a vague fear, quietly spread out.

“Tatsuo, your stomach isn’t hurting, is it?” Father asked me. I looked at Father’s face again in stunned amazement. And in those eyes that restrained their kindness, I felt as if I had perceived some sort of mysterious ability. Like some protagonist from a fairy tale, Father had instantly seen through what I had kept so carefully hidden. So I made up my mind in an instant that hiding it was utterly futile, and answered softly. “Yes… a little….”

“I see. “So yours is hurting too?” “The truth is, I’m in pain too. That’s why I came back,” Father said. “Yesterday you went with me to Shinohara’s place. That eel must have been too rich.” While saying this, Father took my hand—which had been bracing for a scolding—and led me into the house. I had not thought about the cause of my stomachache. Even if I had thought about it, I would only have tormented myself as solely my own responsibility. However, now I completely understood it through Father’s words. And realizing that this wasn’t merely my own problem—that Father, who was the very focus of all my trust, was sharing the same affliction—a complacent sort of relief suddenly sprang up within me. And so I desperately concluded in my small heart that exaggerating my stomachache as much as possible was now the best strategy. When I saw Mother come out, I made a kind of effort, suddenly clung to her hand, and began to complain of my stomachache in a tearful voice.

“My, what’s happened to this child?” Mother said. Mother had not noticed that behind these innocent tears lay a strategy as earnest as a young child could muster. “Tatsuo and I seem to have been poisoned by last night’s eel at Shinohara’s. Have him take the medicine and put him to bed. I’ll sleep too,” Father answered. “My, so it’s food poisoning from the eel? Serves you right for going off alone like that. Tatsuo. You must stop going off alone with Father now.”

While delivering this warm scolding to both father and son, Mother took me and put me to bed in the back room. The sun was still brightly filtering through the shoji screens. Outside, there was a bright and clamorous late afternoon. It was the time when children were most deeply engrossed in their play.

I was left alone in the sitting room. Several times I raised my buried head from the bedding, thought of the sun shining outside, and compared it with the darkly shadowed depths of the sitting room. Because Mother had slid two or three storm shutters closed, there was now a faintly cold gloom there even in midday. Dark sliding doors, sooty pillars, blackened walls—in the indistinct boundaries between these things, some vague large being sat waiting with closed eyes....

I suddenly wondered if I might die like this. Together with Father sleeping in his study across the way, I thought I might be led forever away from this bright world to where that grease-colored figure dwelled. When I thought this, the person with closed eyes in the darkness seemed to loom ever closer toward me. I resolutely opened my eyes wide and stared into that gloom. At first, I felt the presence there appeared faintly white against the blackness. But looking closer, it seemed an even blacker shadow formed in the dark space. In the end, I could no longer tell what it was. Yet my young heart sensed something was there. That’s right—something held its breath, watching me from every dark corner. My moment of weakness! My death!

At that moment, a fine shudder suddenly surged up from my feet. “If I’m with Father, I won’t be scared.” While thinking this, I valiantly tried to suppress it with reason.

However, the next small deduction that arose—that Father, being an adult, might not die like this—frightened me. And I would be left all alone. Then what would happen next? I thought that praying to the gods Grandmother and others often spoke of was meant for times like this. And straightening up in bed, I prayed with all my might. Dear God, if I must die, please let me die together with Father. If we are to live, please let us live together. No—even if Father dies, please let me live. No, that’s not it. Even if I die, please keep Father alive....

As I kept praying like this, I somehow lost the logical thread of my words—mixing up phrases and reversing their order multiple times—until I abruptly stopped. And in the very next moment, I realized with dread—if God had heeded the flawed part of my prayer, would Father alone die leaving me behind? Or would I perish while Father lived on? If only Father were to die, what would become of me? That broad face with faint pockmarks; the somber, dignified complexion; the eyes that sometimes transformed into an exceedingly gentle gaze. What would happen if those things suddenly vanished from my surroundings? I would no longer need to go to the entrance every morning and say, "Take care." At noon, I would no longer need to deliver the lunchbox wrapped in purple cloth to school. And I would no longer need to go all the way to Mr. Kakeyama in Koshomachi for Go errands. And then... And then... And then. Beyond that lay something unknowable. I grew angry that my reasoning could only grasp such trivial matters. Beyond such things—if Father died—there must surely exist some vast, sorrowful thing. What could it be? Would I cease being the principal's child and become a beggar? That wasn't it. There existed some vague, tragic, unknown world....

I lay in bed with my eyes wide open and stared fixedly as I thought. But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't understand. My fear of my own death had slipped away without me noticing. But that vague unease pressed against the small chest.

“No—but Father won’t die. "And I won’t die either.” The presence that had been in the dark place had vanished unnoticed. And a single yellow line glided smoothly through where it had been. The sinking sun sent a slanting beam of light through the vertical gaps in the storm shutters.

While this boy now stared at that day’s line, he continued to dwell—tears pooling in his eyes—on the anxieties stretching endlessly ahead and the darkly resplendent thing lying at their ultimate end.

Before I knew it, it grew dim. The slight fatigue of my mind lured me into a dazed few minutes of shallow sleep.

Just then,

“The whole house is full of sick people!” With that, my brother came in.

When I opened my eyes and looked, neither the giant nor the single line remained on the wall. A dusty dimness filled the entire room, and my brother’s face appeared pale and faint. My brother had returned tired from playing with different friends in different places than his younger brother. The two of them strangely never played together. Even on the rare occasions they played together, he was so intent on demonstrating his authority as the elder brother before others that he treated his younger brother with deliberate harshness. And yet, when at home, he was extremely kind.

“How are you feeling, Tatsuo? Does it hurt?” my brother asked, his boyish eyes shining with brotherly sympathy as he brought his face closer. “Mother says it’s your punishment for acting selfishly all by yourself.”

“I still feel like it hurts a little.” I said with deliberate timidity. I thought that speaking that way would be the path to repaying my brother’s sympathy. “Rather than that, how is Father doing?” I asked, recalling the vague terror and unease from earlier as if they belonged to the distant past. “Hmm. Father said that after going to the toilet twice, he’s completely recovered now.” “So he’s already up?”

“No, he’s still in bed—lying down reading a book.”

I thought everything was over and had all returned to calm. Relieved by this, I asked about my sister—though it wasn’t truly on my mind. “What about Elder Sister?” “Elder Sister?” “She’s still lying there quietly.” “When she heard you got sick from the eel, she said she’d still want to try eating it even if it poisoned her.” My thoughts shifted from Father to my lonely, quiet Elder Sister. Elder Sister’s death was not far off. She had been attending Nagano Higher Girls’ School but developed a lung condition and returned home; now she lay pale and still in the room two doors down from mine, next to Father’s study. Yet this anticipation of her quiet death left no anxiety in my small heart. Death’s terror lies in its sudden arrival and abrupt taking away. I felt as if I’d clearly seen Elder Sister’s pale death-face. But there was nothing there to threaten me.

“Brother, go to Elder Sister’s room and stay with her. I’m fine now.”

Brother left the room without a trace of emotion on his round face. Afterward, only a calm, purplish darkness remained. “I’m okay now.” I muttered to myself. And somehow closed my eyes within the trance-like state that came after fever and pain had departed. In that world, there was no more anxiety or fear. At last, a deep sleep overcame me.……

III

Around midnight, I was awakened from that sleep by a clamorous alarm bell. Outside, the night wind blew. The ceaseless pealing of bells intermingled with it and flowed, instantly transforming my heart—which had awoken in momentary irritation—into anxiety. Brother was already gone. In an instant, I understood only that it was a fire. People passed by along the street, letting out voices that sounded as if they were being crushed. I hurriedly tightened my obi again. And then I went up to the second floor. When I ascended, there at the railing leaned all members of the family except Father and Mother, silently gazing at the fire.

“Tatsuo? So you’ve finally opened your eyes, have you?” Brother said, looking at me. “Look—Father’s girls’ school has caught fire.”

I looked where Brother pointed beneath that crimson-scorched sky. Beyond several layers of black rooftops and tree silhouettes lay a mass of fire that swelled and shrank. From those flames shot countless crimson embers straight upward to a certain height before streaming sideways. Where those embers scattered and where fiercely glowing clouds faded away stretched an eternal sky holding its breath in silence.

Where the flames rose, there was a sound like blowing on a seashell and the crackling of things bursting apart.

Every so often, the fire would flare up brightly, each time clearly illuminating the figures of several people on the roof beyond.

The jangling of bells from fire pumps hauled in from the countryside intertwined chaotically with alarm bells resounding near and far, filling every heart with pathos. Yet none seemed to have truly heard those sounds. And they felt as though they were merely standing with hands clasped, watching the silently burning crimson mass before their eyes. A violent trembling seized my entire body. However, it did not seem to be fear. Within it was a strange mixture that included the pleasure of witnessing something abnormal.

After some time, I finally returned from a state of merely watching to one where I could begin to think. And then what immediately came to mind was the six-sided clock tower at the center of the girls' school. So I asked. “Brother.” “Has the Six-Sided Clock Tower already burned down?”

“I don’t know for sure, but it might have burned down,” Brother answered.

Now, the image of that six-sided clock tower rose clearly in my mind. And I simply couldn't imagine that it could burn away and vanish. The white-plastered six-sided clock tower overlooking Ueda Town. It made this school appear more beautiful than anything else and served as the central axis that unified all the rows of houses in this town. And in a certain sense, it was both the pride of Father, who was the principal there, and the object of longing for the students who attended. In my young heart, I remained convinced that everything in the school belonged to Father as if it were his possession. And now—how could I possibly conceive that these school buildings which were his possessions, particularly that six-sided clock tower, would burn to nothing? I thought of Father. And I wondered if Father was still suffering from his stomachache and might not even be witnessing this spectacle.

“What happened to Father?” I asked.

“Father hurried out a while ago,” answered Aunt, who was nearby, without any hesitation.

I silently gazed into the fire again. There, something collapsed, making the firelight grow even more ghastly. “It’s burning fierce!” a voice called out from somewhere on a nearby roof. “Truly burning fierce!” Before I knew it, Mother had come up and placed her hand on my small shoulder. Then in a forcibly steadied voice, “You’ll catch cold—off to bed now,” she said.

I silently looked at Mother’s face. Illuminated by the flames in pale crimson, her face showed unmistakable, irrepressible agitation. Mother too, like the child, was at this moment picturing Father’s figure rushing through the darkness toward the mass of flames, driven by anguish and dread.

IV

The following morning, when I awoke, Father still had not returned. I gazed at Mother’s face, ashen with heartache, and read everything in the silence. As I washed up in the kitchen, I learned from the conversations around me—the rumor that the fire’s cause lay with the school janitor’s error, that the Six-Sided Clock Tower had burned down in an instant, and that the Imperial Portrait and vital documents stored upstairs had been utterly consumed by flames. At first, I did not understand what “Imperial Portrait” meant. Though I came to grasp it through that man’s explanations again, I still could not fathom why its loss by fire was so grave a matter. (O childish ignorance!)

After finishing breakfast—though I still had diarrhea, my stomachache had subsided without my noticing—I secretly left home to go see the fire scene. Despite my young heart’s fervent wish as I went, when I turned the street corner and looked ahead, the six-sided clock tower that always shone in the sunlight was not there. And the street trees that always completed that scene now outlined the sky with terribly lonely treetops.

When I approached the site of the fire, a strange smell first struck my nose. And in what seemed to be its vicinity, smoke—white mottled with yellow here and there—rose thickly, and within that smoke, black human figures flickered in and out of sight.

I mingled with the people standing in a row and took my place beside the partially burned school gate. Above the smoke rising from below, several remaining blackened walls and pillars stood pitifully. “How about that? It really went up in flames, didn’t it?” One spectator turned to another and remarked. “Well,” another answered, “with everything so dry and that new building coated in oil paint—it didn’t stand a chance.” “Spread to the main building in the blink of an eye, didn’t it?”

“Hmm, they had wanted to leave at least that Six-Sided Clock Tower standing.” “But isn’t the skeleton still there, as if reluctant to be gone?” Having said this, the two looked at the charred remains once more. However, their faces clearly showed nothing but interest. To me, their indifferent attitude was utterly detestable.

In another group, they were discussing such matters. And there, I clearly heard and understood the rumors about Father. “They say he didn’t manage to retrieve a single thing.” “That’s what they say.” “They say he couldn’t even retrieve the Imperial Portrait.” “What happened to the night duty person?” “By the time they noticed it and tried to go, the fire had apparently already spread to the staircase.” “Well, it was all so sudden.” “Even so, the Principal rushed there and tried to dash into the spreading flames to retrieve it, but everyone stopped him, they say.”

“Hmm.” “Mr. Principal acted like a madman—he wouldn’t listen to anyone trying to stop him, but they finally managed to restrain him.” “After all, if he went in, he was certain to die.” “But if the Imperial Portrait burns up, it’ll be the principal’s responsibility.” “That might be.”

“After all, wasn’t he supposed to retrieve it even at the cost of his life?” “That’s right.”

I strained my ears, determined not to let a single word escape me. However, the conversation did not progress any further. In short, they too were uninvolved individuals. But even among them, the burning of the Imperial Portrait had become some sort of issue, and he could perceive only that it was of grave significance for Father. From within the crowd came a shout: “Mr. Principal has come—” “It’s Mr. Principal!” a voice called out.

At that moment, I saw Father emerging from the smoke beyond, stepping over crumbled wall debris as he approached accompanied by an official. The crowd by the gate spontaneously opened a path for them. His usual authority and the solemn pallor of Father’s face at that moment naturally commanded the crowd’s sympathy. They walked forward. And I could see Father’s face clearly now—his broad, faintly pockmarked features bore a gloomy pallor, bloodshot eyes holding a darkened gleam. He slightly creased a wrinkle at the right corner of his mouth, glanced back at his companion as if to speak, then stopped.

I stepped forward and called out in a small voice, “Father.” There was some grievous thing I needed to say to Father—something Father carried on his back.

Father silently surveyed his surroundings, and when he finally located me—the source of the voice—his expression turned distinctly dubious. Without offering any response, he hastily departed with his companion. I agonized over whether Father had truly recognized me as his son. Yet I lacked the courage to call out again. Standing alone, I watched his receding figure while tearfully gnawing at my finger.

The old crowd dispersed, and a new crowd filled their place in even greater numbers. And there too, fresh rumors of the Imperial Portrait and talk of Father were heard. Certain people noticed this small son standing there for a long time. However, they did not take enough interest in this boy to notice that his eyes were brimming with tears.

Five

When I returned home after a while, Father had also come back. However, once he entered his study, he refused to come out even when well-wishers arrived, saying it would be unpleasant. I heard from Brother that Father was in some great distress. And from Mother, I was informed that she had prohibited anyone from entering the study and that he was earnestly reviewing some documents.

A breath-held anxiety filled the entire house. Everyone moved in and out of the rooms as if walking on tiptoes. All tense attention was directed toward the study. The entire house was hushed. And every sound arising from the study—even the peeling of a single sheet of paper—carried an abnormal resonance. The only thing that occasionally disturbed this bleached-white silence was Elder Sister’s hollow cough as she lay in bed.

When noon came, Mother stood before the sliding door (since entry inside was prohibited), “It’s noon—won’t you please have your meal?” Mother called out to Father. From beyond the sliding door in the study came the sharp, ripping sound of paper being torn. And in the next moment, Father’s hoarse, weighty voice resounded.

“I still don’t want to eat.” “I’ll have it later.” Mother clearly detected both anger toward something and conviction toward something in that voice. Moreover，she felt sorrowful that his voice somehow resembled an old man’s—restless and impatient.

Mother silently lowered her head before the sliding door.

Father did not come out even at three o’clock, nor at four. And in the study, not even a faint click could be heard. Even at dinnertime, there was no sign of him coming out. The people of the household grew hesitant even to meet each other’s eyes. They did not want to see the anxiety throbbing in each other’s eyes.

Finally unable to bear it any longer, Mother devised a plan with motherly wisdom to ascertain Father’s condition. Mother called me to a corner and imparted this plan. It was that I would break through the strictly prohibited boundary, innocently invade the study, and observe Father’s condition. “If it’s you… Even Father won’t get angry at all. Just go in pretending you don’t know a thing and see what happens,” Mother said.

For Mother, Father was in some cases far more frightening than he was to a child. I listened dimly to this entreaty of something fragile within Mother’s eyes, seeping into my heart. And my heart first flashed with the joy of fulfilling a great duty toward Mother and the thrill of acting beneath innocence’s mask. And so, feeling a strange boldness, I followed those instructions. I stood before the study’s sliding door and paused in hesitation. A sense of guilt over the plot I was about to execute flitted through my mind. But that vanished at once. Greater emotional courage and curiosity overwhelmed it. I straightened my posture slightly—then, under supreme confidence that I could feign perfect innocence—slid open the door handle smoothly.

In the center of the eight-mat study, before a lacquered desk, Father sat upright with perfect composure. His eyes were gazing fixedly into the far distance ahead. On the desk lay a Japanese-style book and a bound manuscript. I immediately thought Father must be composing a poem. And I even felt a pang of disappointment that not a trace of the agitation I had anticipated showed in Father’s demeanor. Father’s entire body exuded nothing but composure. But how could this boy discern the anguish eternally pleading within those eyes fixed upon eternity? I clearly recognized a change between Father this morning and Father now. But I did not realize that this change—one being movement and the other stillness—were equally expressions of the same anguish.

“Father, why aren’t you eating your meal?” In that split second, I asked. Father quietly turned his face toward me. A broad, white face with faint pockmarks was fixed in my direction for a while, deeply suspicious. “I’ll go eat when I want to,” Father said. And with a softness more pleading than scolding, he added, “Tatsuo— “You mustn’t come in here either.” When I heard that calm reprimand, I could no longer muster the courage to say another word and fled the room as if escaping. And I reported to Mother only the composure that was visible to her. Even Mother, however, could not find reassurance in the father’s composure that her son so vehemently described, instead tilting her head several times in doubt.

Six

The next day, Father suddenly committed suicide.

Such an outcome had indeed been feared, but what they had dismissed as unthinkable had now become reality, appearing before the family’s very eyes. The family, sensing something amiss, took every possible precaution and had discreetly put away all swords in the house. However, none of them knew that Father had concealed Yoshimitsu’s short sword deep within the bookshelf stacked with poetry books and documents.

The first to discover Father’s suicide was my elder sister, who had been sleeping in the next room. In a sense, Elder Sister had been tasked with monitoring Father’s movements and remained constantly attentive to any sounds from the study. At that very moment, she felt the need to relieve herself and left the room. However, while in the toilet, she was suddenly struck by a foreboding unease. While I am here like this, something will happen in Father’s study. ...a vague thought suddenly rose and swirled in her heart. When she hurried back, the study beyond the sliding door held its usual quiet, and soon the faint rustle of Father’s clothing could be heard. With that, Elder Sister, now completely relieved, let out two light coughs and went to bed.

Two or three minutes later, Elder Sister heard a low moan. And no sooner had she thought “Huh?” than a sudden, beast-like scream erupted. Startled into action, Elder Sister staggered to her feet and slid open the sliding door—only to find Father facedown in his black formal kimono, body contorted, fresh blood streaming diagonally from his neck in a straight line about three feet long.

And so Elder Sister let out a wordless scream and stood frozen in shock for an instant.

Hearing these two voices, Mother was the first to rush over.—

At that time, I was out playing far away outdoors. Some time had passed before the housemaid found me in front of Matsudaira Shrine. The housemaid,

“Young master, something terrible has happened!” she said, grabbing my hand tightly. I read something abnormal in the face of the housemaid who had just said that. And I immediately understood what that abnormality was. The two hurried straight home.

Arriving home and entering the study, the first thing that struck my eyes was Mother’s figure above all else. I saw that and stopped dead in my tracks. "Mother was crying with her entire body!" So thought my young mind. Mother held Father’s blood-smeared upper body on her lap, bending over as if to cover him completely, her face drawn close to gaze into his. I too approached and looked at Father’s face. Yet on that same broad, pallid face I had seen the night before—now clearly visible beyond yesterday’s composure—was something pleading about something to someone. It was exactly as if saying:

“It’s not my fault. “It’s not my fault!”

I looked around Mother’s knees where glistening black blood had pooled across half a tatami mat’s space, its edges traced by a fly—unseasonal yet voracious—lapping at the crimson margins. (To this day I wonder why such trivial details seized my attention amidst that horror.) My gaze shifted between Father and Mother. How I longed to weep! Yet my eyes stayed parched deserts. Restlessness consumed me—compelled to act yet paralyzed. Unthinkingly I rose toward the next room. Only when crossing the threshold did numbness shatter, ordinary grief flooding through at last. A wail tore from my throat. Aunt followed, murmuring comfort through tears I couldn’t comprehend. Still the sobs racked me—until consciously I fed them, drunk on my own convulsive weeping.

At that time, people who had heard the emergency began gathering in the study. And they lowered Father from Mother’s lap and laid him down normally. The elder retainer from the old domain—Father’s Go friend who had hurried over—upon entering, immediately spread open Father’s kimono and examined his left abdomen. There lay a relatively shallow cut about two inches long, gaping open and saturated with blood. The man shouted with a voice brimming with tearful joy as he pointed at it. “Truly worthy of samurai blood!” “He mastered the proper technique!”

Father thrust the blade into his left abdomen as if in apology, then turned its edge to his throat and plunged it through, having splendidly severed the carotid artery. People were now raising voices of admiration for that very act of apology. Even Mother, through her tears, summoned a resolute spirit and nodded several times at the elder retainer’s words. But I couldn’t understand why that was considered great. Yet I forced myself to believe that it must indeed have been greatness. The teacher who had been on night duty that night also came. This person prostrated himself before Mother and me, shedding tears as he apologized. The school janitor kneeled down in the entranceway and said, “I have no excuse. “I have no excuse,” he said, unable to lift his face.

Profound emotion was present everywhere.

When this news spread from door to door through Ueda’s townhouses, beneath the quietly burning Western-style lamps that night, all the people forgot every other reason and spoke together of Father’s splendid deed.

7

The day of the funeral was faintly clear.

At the head of the funeral procession was a band. I found that extremely delightful. I wore a black family-crested haori and, while listening to the rustling of its lining, followed behind the coffin holding an incense burner. Ahead of me walked my brother, four years my senior, holding aloft the mortuary tablet with a childlike dignity. Behind us continued a long, long funeral procession that had gathered nearly the entire educated class of the town. Male and female students occupied half of it. Among the female teachers and female students, there were those with red eyes.

Along the roadside, women and others were pointing at us and exchanging words. To me, this awareness of being discussed felt somehow pleasant. And so I walked with as much dignity as I could muster. What strange happiness Father's death had brought! I was already thoroughly immersed in the emotion conveyed by the shadow of something great...

The funeral procession left the town and approached the rice field path. Ahead, the large temple roof came into view. From there, amidst the clamor, a lonesome bell’s toll drifted quietly in. I mouthed “Ding-dong” to myself. Yet it hadn’t actually sounded that way.

When the funeral procession had fully arrived at the temple grounds, sutra chanting began as per the ceremony. Then I offered incense together with Mother. After that, long, long eulogies were read by several people. Most of them contained roughly the same content, differing only slightly in the demeanor of each person who read them. And every single one of them read "Alas, how sorrowful!" over and over again, laden with emotion. Midway through the eulogies, I suddenly felt the need to relieve myself. I tried to scold myself for finding myself in such a state during such an occasion. But how could a young boy's efforts overcome this physiological urge? The eulogies no longer reached my ears. I nearly forgot I was even attending Father’s funeral. So I finally resolved to quietly slip away and find somewhere to go.

At last, one person finished reading. I casually stepped back with the tide of people, and once outside everyone’s field of view, I dashed toward the grove at the temple’s boundary. I thought someone might be watching there too, but I resolutely relieved myself.

With a feeling as though revived, while beginning to return to where I had been, I surveyed the entire temple grounds for the first time. There lay a densely packed crowd of silent black-clad people. A wordless sorrow somehow pervaded the spaces between them. I pressed my finger to my lips for a while and gazed at this silent yet straining black mass. For some reason, tears suddenly welled up.

At that moment, a man in a black Western-style suit tapped my shoulder. Before I could turn around, the man firmly grasped my hand and, shaking it several times, said this.

“You must become great like Father. “You must become great like Father.” I stared intently at the man’s face. Bright tears floated in his eyes. So I gripped his hand back firmly and nodded.

Bathed in the yellowed light of the tilting evening sun, the stranger and I held hands and remained silent for a while.

I wish I could have lived forever in this moment of profound emotion.