Pathway to Japanese Literature

I. The Chief Retainer's Estate

The judge who met such an inexplicable death—Mr. Tanakada Kouichirou—was someone I knew well since childhood. Since there was perhaps a seven or eight year age difference between us, we didn’t attend the same schools or share playmates, but the Tanakada house stood directly across from mine, separated by wide rice fields. At that time, my father worked as a technician at this small town's agricultural research station and lived in government housing, but across the rice fields on the other side of the dusty old highway stood the Tanakada house with its castle-like, imposing stone walls and embankments.

Since the Tanakada house was said to descend from this town's former domain chief retainers, it differed from my cramped home not only in its vast grounds but also in the mansion's overwhelming grandeur. Ascending the gravel-strewn slope along a bamboo grove so thickly overgrown it remained dark even at noon, one would find boxwood hedges running parallel to the bamboo for nearly a small block atop an embankment built with layered stone walls. And beyond the spacious stone steps towered a massive karamon gate. The moss-covered granite paving stones flanked by neatly trimmed enkianthus shrubs, the old-style samurai entrance with its formal step, the bronze basin serving as a rainwater vessel at the side, the towering roof ridges that made visitors crane their necks—all these evoked visions of ancestors in ceremonial kamishimo being seen off by their wives, maidservants, and young retainers as they departed in splendid procession for the castle. Yet precisely because no such maidservants or retainers remained—only a mother, a housemaid, and a manservant couple keeping the diminished Tanakada household perpetually hushed—the place could not help but convey to even a child’s senses a peculiar desolation, like that of a great family fallen from grace.

Moreover, what gave it that desolate air was not solely due to such a grand mansion or ancient stone walls. What felt indescribably eerie even to my childish mind were the stories about the Tanakada ancestors that I was constantly told by my grandmother. As I mentioned earlier, behind the Tanakada house soared a great cedar forest. Within this wood stood several earthen storehouses scattered at intervals since ancient times, while beyond the artificial hill in the inner garden stretched a vast stagnant pond with deep blue water—a marsh so expansive it seemed impossible for private ownership—whose farthest edge dissolved into a mixed grove that melted into open fields. When you emerged into this field, beyond the path where silver grass and reeds battled for dominance, you could often glimpse on summer evenings the purple-hazed mountains of the Shimabara Peninsula—Myojingatake and Ouchiyama—their mid-slope grasslands perhaps being cleared by fire, crimson flames smoldering in the distance. Grandmother always warned that even if I went to play at the Tanakadas', I must never go near the cedar forest behind their house or the pond under any circumstances. "There used to be an execution ground there," she would insist, "where vengeful spirits of the slain still wander. That's why ghosts appear!" I can’t count how many times she sternly warned me. According to Grandmother, among the Tanakada ancestors of some generation—I believe it was the fourth—there had been a chief retainer with an irascible and exceedingly cruel disposition, who regarded killing people as no more consequential than crushing an insect. His wife had died young, and his favorite beautiful maidservant had been attending to his needs, but even this maidservant—claiming she wouldn’t obey his orders—he relentlessly tormented until finally executing her by the sword, or so the story goes.

What I still remember from listening to Grandmother’s stories is how, as a child, I simply couldn’t comprehend why they had executed this maidservant by the sword. "They didn’t need to kill O-Taka just because she wouldn’t listen to them!" I couldn’t help feeling this dissatisfaction. But as I grew older, even the circumstances surrounding it that Grandmother had been unable to explain in detail—"Ah! Now I see!"—began to make sense. I had come to fully grasp it. Grandmother had been evasive in her storytelling, reluctant to expose my young ears to such matters—that summary execution too must have stemmed from the chief retainer’s jealousy over his spurned affections. But for a child, the actual truth of the matter was of no importance whatsoever. My wrinkled, white-haired grandmother would become so emotionally invested...the terror on her face when she’d thrust out her bony hands to berate and punish me defied description. With emotions on the verge of screaming, I clung to Grandmother’s sleeve, but regardless—after incurring the wrath of that lord of some generation—the beautiful maidservant had been tortured to death. Moreover, fearing that news of the torture killing might reach society, despite repeated inquiries from the woman’s family, the chief retainer absolutely refused to disclose the truth of the matter. "That vile wretch who violated our house laws by taking a lover and absconded—cut them down on sight!" he would spout nothing but furious words while maintaining appearances. In those days when samurai families held unchallenged authority, though her parents suspected some grave circumstance behind their daughter’s alleged misconduct—knowing such disgrace could never truly befall her—they dared not voice these doubts to the peerlessly powerful Chief Retainer. The woman’s family had no choice but to swallow their tears in silence. Yet the one who could not abandon hope was the maidservant’s betrothed. This betrothed had been sent to a temple as a child and become a monk, but he alone could not abandon hope regarding his fiancée’s disappearance unless he heard the truth. "If she did elope," he earnestly requested to hear the full account, repeatedly visiting the Tanakada estate, but the head of the household naturally had no intention of meeting him. They would drive him away with nothing but half-baked excuses. However, since rumors of this cruel, selfish chief retainer’s misdeeds had spread far and wide—"Ha ha!" Even the monk might have found something he could acknowledge in this. Though he believed his betrothed had indeed been killed, he had no way to confirm the truth. Even if he wished to avenge her grievance, against none other than the most fearsome authority in the land—the Chief Retainer himself—a powerless monk could do nothing.

Driven to desperation one day, this monk had sneaked into the chief retainer’s estate carrying his treasured shakuhachi flute. The chief retainer happened to be away attending at the palace, but the distraught monk staggered to the base of a towering pine tree on the pond’s bank, lowered himself to the ground, and took out the shakuhachi he had brought. He had wanted to let the soul of his betrothed maidservant—who must lie dead somewhere within this estate—hear at least this shakuhachi she had loved since days of old, but when he moistened the mouthpiece and began to play, the melody seemed only to weep and choke, laying bare before heaven a frail human’s helplessness.

“The sound had grown so pure—seeping into people’s hearts until even those unaware of the circumstances found themselves in a somber mood bringing tears to their eyes—when the Chief Retainer returned from the palace.”

“Hmm, someone’s playing the shakuhachi.”

With a sense of personal anguish, the Chief Retainer dismounted from his horse. Contrary to his usual self, he crossed his arms in utter silence, moved stealthily along the long stone-paved path, silenced the welcoming party with just a glance, and even after entering the living room remained standing behind the shoji screen—listening intently toward the pond. Having finally finished playing the shakuhachi, the monk put the flute into its bag and stood glaring fixedly at the estate, his eyes brimming with tears.

“O-Taka! Now you understand how I feel, don’t you? I don’t know where you rest, but find peace. Go where you must go. But isn’t this infuriating, O-Taka! Do you hold no grudges? Become a demon and take revenge on the Tanakada house! Through life after life, generation after generation, curse them! See how Tanakada Daizen’s house falls within three generations! Let weeds choke this estate to ruin!” The monk then walked toward the field, but in that selfish chief retainer’s heart—he who had listened with such tearful intensity—there abruptly revived a sentiment too cruel and heartless to name. The mere thought that this young betrothed’s existence had made her disobey him sent rage clouding his vision.

“You insolent wretch! How utterly disrespectful!” “How dare you barge into the Chief Retainer’s estate without permission!” “Sōhachi, Gōzō, Kakunoshin!” “Chase after him, capture him, and drag him back here!” At their blue-veined demon of a master’s command, the retainers immediately pursued the monk. But this resentful monk—tough-limbed and unhinged of mind—proved no easy quarry for their grasping hands. If the master embodied mastery, so too did his men embody servitude… In the end, they bound him hand and foot—these retainers emboldened by borrowed authority.

“They beat him, kicked him, tormented him relentlessly—what an outrage!” In the end, they falsely accused the monk of enticing the maidservant to plot stealing the master’s money and fleeing, then killed him. Moreover, they did something even more terrible. “You know that pond I’m always warning you about? The one I tell you never to go near alone? Around that pond, you know—there used to be an execution ground long ago. And around that execution ground, they’d erected a bamboo palisade all the way…”

On a certain month and day, they circulated notices throughout neighboring villages that they would carry out a burning at the stake as a public example. And then, amid a large crowd of spectators swarming…,

“They piled mountains of firewood around the monk bound hand and foot, burning him alive at the stake.” “The flames spread from the kindling to his robes, and with a sizzling hiss, his body fat began to burn.” Writhing in agony, he screamed, ‘You, Tanakada Daizen!’ ‘You’ve committed every imaginable atrocity and framed the innocent!’ ‘Do you think others bear no grudges?!’ ‘Behold! Behold! Within three generations may weeds choke your estate!’ ‘Enough of your noise! You there—pile on more firewood!’ And so they burned him to death.”

As a young child, I sighed and looked up at my grandmother.

“But would you believe it? The sheer force of human resolve is terrifying. Just when they’d burned him completely black—when they thought the monk’s body was done for and removed the firewood—that corpse took two or three steps toward Daizen, they say.” “The spectators turned pale and fled in a panicked rush.” “The monk’s body that had started walking suddenly tripped over something and fell with a thud… The moment it collapsed, it sent up a cloud of dust and crumbled into ashes.” “That’s why Grandma’s always telling you, isn’t she?” “When you walk there alone at dusk with no one around, even now that monk appears dimly beyond the pampas grass and reeds, his face full of bitter resentment.”

In a thin voice, it called out, “Hello? Is there a Tanakada house around here where a maidservant named O-Taka works?” Unable to bear it any longer, I buried my face in Grandmother’s sleeve. “Ha ha ha ha ha! It’s all right, it’s all right—the story’s over now.” “If you don’t go to such places, nothing so frightening will appear.” Grandmother patted my head and ended her frightening tale, but stories of men who walk after being burned completely black only to crumble into ashes were by no means limited to the monk from Tanakada’s execution ground. In later years, I seemed to recall reading in a kōdan storybook about a certain valiant samurai—a retainer of Toyotomi Hideyoshi who had burned down Sakai in Izumi Province—that after being subjected to burning at the stake, his charred corpse bereft of eyes, nose, or mouth began walking, only to crumble into ashes upon collapsing. To such eerie legends, strange tales might be an inevitable companion—but there appeared no particular indication that Grandmother had added any embellished falsehoods.

In any case, when I recall the desolate scenery around Kamikōji from forty or fifty years prior—the very landscape Grandmother had described to me with such terror—it occurs to me that her stories reach even further back, a hundred or two hundred years into the past. Given that era’s lonely mountain samurai estates, where even in daylight one might hear foxes wail, one cannot flatly deny that such tyrannical chief retainers existed—nor that maidservants and monks like those in her tales were altogether absent. Yet I still vividly remember gazing at Tanakada Kouichirou—my younger friend with jet-black hair and cool eyes who grew up unperturbed in that dreadful house steeped in eerie karmic bonds—as though he were some supernatural being... a young master enveloped in mystery within his ancestral samurai residence.

II　The Death of the Elder Sister

Given the considerable age difference between us, we didn’t play together all that often, but there were times when I forgot Grandmother’s warnings, ventured deep into the Tanakada house, and joined the neighborhood children in games like tag. And then we became so absorbed in play that we ran out into the fields, and while hiding in the hollow of a large tree by the pond’s edge, a faint evening mist drifted across the water’s surface as the deep tolling of temple bells echoed from afar. Suddenly—"Is there a Tanakada house around here?"—a thin voice seemed to whisper by my ear... Forgetting that rushing outside then would mean being caught by an oni, I impulsively leaped out to the front...

I have numerous such memories from my childhood. However, when I was in fourth grade at the village elementary school, my father was transferred to the main ministry in Tokyo, and so I abandoned this secluded rural life and came to the capital. About two years after that, as my father was transferred again, I went to Nagano, then to Maebashi, then to Urawa, where my grandmother passed away at the age of seventy-six. Of course, since leaving Omura, it wasn’t as if I went around openly discussing rumors about the Tanakadas. Yet it seemed the fear had seeped into our very bones—for we appeared genuinely relieved to have left Omura; or rather, to have abandoned that house in Kamikōji.

“If I say such things, you might mock Grandma again, but... Back then, even after daybreak, I’d feel this truly oppressive, unpleasant mood—maybe it was just my imagination—but whenever I looked at anyone’s face, somehow... they all wore expressions like souls weighed down by some lingering curse. It felt like perpetual dusk from morning onward.”

As if sealing her words with solemn conviction, Grandmother was chanting Buddhist prayers while vigorously washing her face in the bathwater with loud splashing sounds.

Now then, I wonder how many years had passed since then when I met Mr. Tanakada Kouichirou, whom I had not seen in ages? By that time, my father had retired and was peacefully spending his remaining years in the tranquil suburbs of Shizuoka, his final post. I had graduated from university, completed my residency at the university hospital, and become a full-fledged doctor. It must have been around the time when I was visiting my parents’ home in Shizuoka after a long absence. Though my mother kept pestering me—"You must visit! You must visit!"—I truly had no time for such things. Yet during summer vacation when I returned to Omura, Mr. Kouichirou made a point of coming to see me.

In his childhood he had seemed fair-complexioned, but this Mr. Tanakada Kouichirou I now met had become a slim sunburned youth of striking gallantry - a First Higher School student through and through. He was said to be a second-year liberal arts student when my parents asked with some surprise: "And how fares your father?" "Is your mother keeping well too?" they inquired while making every hospitable effort. I was startled to learn his father - who had long served as county magistrate - had passed five or six years prior; yet according to accounts from that remote Kyushu castle town, particularly its outlying samurai residences unchanged through time, that same lonely great house now held only his mother with a maid and tenant farmers. Accustomed as he seemed to this arrangement, Kouichirou-kun showed no particular air of loneliness.

Since I was idling about with time to spare anyway, I kept Kouichirou-kun company in conversation as we talked of this and that—memories of the land where we had spent our childhood days. Yet what remains etched in my mind even now is when Kouichirou-kun himself touched upon those peculiar old legends entwined with his family.

“I can’t quite explain it, but my family has had all sorts of rumors passed down through the generations—that House sees at least one unnatural death per generation, or that ghosts appear there.”

he said in a tone tinged with bitter resignation and faint mockery. Of course, since we weren't native to Omura, they likely thought we couldn't possibly know such rumors. Yet he offered no further elaboration—it had simply slipped out in that characteristically youthful vehemence, an impulsive remark born of momentary agitation.

“But my father didn’t die any strange death either… So rather than those absurd rumors, what I still can’t understand…” The young man trailed off with a pensive expression, as though weighing whether to speak further. “It concerns my elder sister’s death.” “Oh, you had an elder sister? I had no idea at all.” “There was [a sister]. She’d been sent away to live with another family since I was a child, so you wouldn’t have known.”

The young man smiled with melancholy. The sister had returned to her parents’ home at thirteen years of age—this must have occurred after we had left Omura. As for why his sister had been sent to live with another family in the first place—of course, the young man did not mention this. “…She was just seventeen years old at the time.” “I hadn’t known my elder sister had such a profound conflict with Father, but one morning when I awoke, the house felt different from usual.” “Mother wasn’t in the drawing room, and Father was gone too.” “Moreover, the tenant farmer couple were gone too.” “Beyond the artificial hill…near the pond, I thought I heard human voices, so I went to check just as I was upon waking, still in my nightclothes.” “Father, Mother, and the tenant farmer couple—they were all there.” “In the pond, two or three large rocks protruded from the water.” “Father stood atop those rocks, peering into the pond as if about to submerge his face into the water.” Mother crouched at the water’s edge, pressing her hands to her eyes. The tenant farmer’s wife drew close beside her, earnestly offering comfort. “The tenant farmer waded through the pond holding a long pole—thrusting it repeatedly into the water while gauging for resistance.”

Submerged in the deep blue water up to his thighs—his belly and legs tangled with algae as he thrust the pole downward—the tenant farmer must have sensed something through the resistance. His face suddenly contorted. Father, Mother, and the tenant farmer’s wife—all who had been watching—rushed toward that spot. Even now, the young man cannot forget that breathless instant. Moreover, in the next moment, the tenant farmer—his face even paler than the pond’s blue waters—appeared to be gently pushing some heavy object toward the shore with his pole… Then he abruptly cast aside the pole, and I saw him press his hands together in prayer.

“Y-you...!” “O-oh Young Mistress!” A piercing scream erupted all at once—and amidst the rippling disturbance emerged... ...A white leg visible through disheveled kimono...a hand...closed eyes within snake-loosened hair...Mother and the tenant farmer’s wife, weeping prostrate and splashing water wildly as they clung to the corpse, heedless of their soaked garments... “M-Miyo… why must you appear in such a wretched state?” “Young Mistress, how utterly pitiful! Young Mistress!” “If that’s how it was… why didn’t you say a single word...”

Amidst those faltering voices, what remains etched in the young man’s memory even now is the figure of his father—standing motionless behind Mother and the tenant farmer’s wife, gazing down with icy detachment at it all. To call it 'coldly' might not have captured it adequately. Rather than that, describing him as a figure unleashing fierce rebuke—such as the young man had never witnessed before—might have been words more fitting for that scene.

“Fool! Fool! You complete fool! “You’ve shamed us all!” “Is this your way of teaching your parents a lesson?” “You think dying will make us regret something?!” “If it was so unbearable, why didn’t you speak up from the beginning?” “Why didn’t you say something if you felt that way?!”

Moreover, Father was shouting through streaming tears, stamping his feet in apparent vexation. This father who had always doted on his elder sister and never once uttered a harsh word to her now berated her so vehemently without regard for appearances—perhaps this violent reproach itself constituted one form of his anguished grief over her death. Yet with no one attempting to restrain Father as he stood there shouting—Mother and the tenant farmer’s wife clinging to my sister’s waterlogged corpse and weeping… Why had my sister died? And why was Father so consumed by rage? Though entirely ignorant of these causes, even now the young man could not forget that horrific scene from that time.

It was a cold morning. It had been a bitterly cold morning with an unusually severe frost for Western Kyushu—even that was vividly etched into his mind. “And even now, you still don’t understand why your elder sister committed such a suicide?”

“I don’t understand.” “It may sound negligent of me, but even now I still have absolutely no inkling.” “Though they wore sorrowful expressions, neither Father nor Mother ever spoke of my sister... While Father had always been a man of few words, after that incident he became even more reticent... Since I didn’t want to raise unnecessary matters and see my parents’ gloomy faces, I too kept silent... And what’s more, even the tenant farmer’s wife soon fell ill and died...”

"I see. I was unaware that you had an elder sister, let alone that she had passed away in such a manner... When you entered First Higher School, your father must have been overjoyed."

“Father had already passed away long before that. After my elder sister died—three or four years had passed—when he died.” “And then you stayed in that house with Mother all along…”

“That’s correct.”

“Well! How on earth don’t you feel lonely?” “I’ve grown accustomed to it—it doesn’t trouble me in the slightest.”

And the young man let out a knowing chuckle. Though I had ceased such melancholy tales myself, these accounts were never something Kouichirou had methodically recounted to me of his own volition. In response to my questions, he had answered haltingly from heavy lips... All I have done now is arrange those memories into coherence.

In general, this young man—contrary to his seemingly lively exterior—appeared to have an introverted nature and carried himself with a composure beyond his years, though perhaps because of this, he sometimes even seemed gloomy. It was thought that such a personality harbored inner melancholy and sorrows—emotional undercurrents he rarely allowed to surface. Yet, as I listened to his story at that time, I had entirely failed to notice that the pond where his sister had committed drowning suicide was the very same cursed pond: one that had served as an execution ground in ancient times and witnessed a monk's unnatural death.

III The Tanakada Residence in Omura

How long did the young man stay at my house—was it about three days? Since a rare visitor had come, both Father and Mother were overjoyed; when he departed, they had him take local specialties such as strawberries, tea, and dried fish. Yet I recall that before long, the other party also sent famous products from Omura. Our side became engrossed in talk of Omura and rumors about the Tanakadas as if suddenly remembering them, but since ours was never an especially close relationship to begin with, before long our interactions ceased altogether, and just like that five, then ten years seemed to slip away. As if suddenly remembering, they maintained an exchange of letters; thus over those ten-odd years, we came to know of how the young man graduated from the university’s law department, passed the judicial examination, worked as an assistant judge in Osaka, been promoted to full judge, and was now serving at the Osaka District Court.

One time, when I returned to Shizuoka, I found my parents happily discussing something with hakama fabric spread out on the kotatsu. “What’s this? And that...”

When I inquired, “We thought we’d send a wedding gift since Tanakada’s son is getting married.” “They say he’s marrying the daughter of some prominent merchant from Okayama or such.” That was Father’s reply.

Because the other party had an elderly mother while my side had elderly parents steeped in old-fashioned obligations, they would occasionally send such news through formal channels. And though such tidings must have sometimes reached my ears too, by that time perhaps fifteen or sixteen years had already passed since I first opened my practice in Nishi-Ōkubo. With three boys—the eldest being fourteen—and patients thronging in at thirty or forty a day, managing both house calls and clinic duties alone proved utterly impossible. Doctors multiplied; nurses grew numerous; maids arrived; wet nurses came; live-in students and male servants increased—as for me visiting my parents in Shizuoka, once every two or three months... such visits had become truly rare by this period.

Consequently, while the name Tanakada no longer reached our ears as frequently as before, I believe it was around that very time that the name "Chief Judge Tanakada" began appearing prominently in newspapers. At that time, there existed a major political party called the Kenseikai led by Katō Takaaki, within which was Minemura Kazuhito—a renowned elder of unimpeachable integrity who had frequently served as a minister—yet what demon possessed him when this venerable figure became embroiled in the relocation scandal of Osaka’s Matsushima red-light district, triggering a corruption case that shook the nation as the Matsushima Incident. Judge Tanakada was appointed to this case, presided over the court as Chief Judge, and sentenced the defendant to three and a half years of penal servitude! ...and he declared such a harsh punishment—these were the matters making newspapers abuzz.

The pale child of the estate had now risen to become an imposing Chief Judge presiding over trials of a major political party's elder statesmen—apparently moved by profound emotion at this transformation, they would occasionally take their children to visit the retirement home in Shizuoka. "How about that? That boy's really made something of himself, hasn't he?" "When you look at it this way, I just can't see him as the same snot-nosed brat from what feels like yesterday..." Father would narrow his eyes and gaze repeatedly at the newspaper he'd already read, unable to get his fill.

“Why, you know—even this child would become a splendid doctor if we sent him back to Tokyo with a stethoscope.” “Parents never think of their children as anything more than five or six years old, though.”

“I see, I see. That makes sense now.” “Even when parents understand their children are growing up, they remain utterly blind to their own advancing years.” And so it became a laughing matter. But, “And Tanakada’s mother must be overjoyed as well, I imagine?”

When I asked this, "Oh, didn’t you know yet? She passed away quite some time ago, but... Hmm, when was that again? When was it that Tanakada’s mother passed away—" And Father was seeking Mother’s recollection. It was then that I first learned this mother too had passed away, but just as the father’s death had not been an unnatural one, I remembered that this mother’s death likewise held nothing mysterious.

Around that time, I once visited Omura. That said, I hadn't made a special trip there. I had extended my visit when attending a conference at Nagasaki Medical University—since it was just a stone's throw away from Nagasaki.

After leaving my bag at Sanukiya Inn in front of the station, I traced paths to places like the elementary school I once attended; the former feudal lord’s castle ruins along the road stretching from its entrance; the castle-town coast where ancient pines roared beneath sea winds—a spot I often played with friends; and my family’s old Kamikōji residence where we had lived. How many years had passed since I last wandered these memory-laden grounds? Everything I saw and heard brimmed with nostalgia, yet finding not a single tree or blade of grass altered from bygone days made me marvel that I had endured childhood in such cramped confines—and coming from Tokyo after so long, I could not help but recoil at how utterly provincial and stiflingly narrow it all now seemed.

In any case, with feelings caught halfway between nostalgia and disillusionment, I stood lingering around the house where I once lived while dogs barked at me—when suddenly casting my gaze toward the slope ahead, I saw the Tanakada residence soaring like a castle keep atop its timeworn stone wall, looming solemnly. I found myself unable to resist the impulse to extend my stroll there and reminisce about times past. Though no one had perished, my feelings at that moment were perhaps filled with something akin to that sentiment of "people perish yet mountains and rivers endure." As I climbed up this path through the bamboo grove—unchanged from days of old—I passed by Tanakada’s gate and ventured into the marsh and fields area.

The winding, twisting wild path was completely overgrown with pampas grass and miscanthus, and beyond the tips of the leaves, Myōjōgatake of the Shimabara Peninsula and Ōuchiyama still showed their faces as always—but as for this area, whether anyone lived here or not! How that desolation pierced through me in the oppressive silence! How on earth had the Tanakada family lived in such desolation for so many years... No wonder Grandmother had been terrified of this place long ago! And feeling something ominously oppressive closing in, I turned back down that same path.

As I passed through Tanakada’s kabukimon gate once more—fully expecting that by now a different name would be displayed—my casually glancing eyes found the nameplate still bearing “Tanakada Kouichirou” unchanged. “Oh? Still keeping it without selling, are they?” The old man in his sixties, sweeping fallen leaves, gazed at me—who had looked up—with a puzzled expression.

“Is this house still Mr. Tanakada’s property?” And so, without any particular reason, I stood there and found myself wanting to exchange words with that old man. "...That it be..." "Mr. Tanakada who’s in Osaka—" “The master ain’t in Osaka, sir—he lives in Nagoya, but…”

“Ah yes, Nagoya, Nagoya... There had been such news coming in, but...” “Beggin’ yer pardon, but what manner of person might ye be?” “Well now—it’s nothing pressing...” “I was friends with your master long ago, and used to live just up the road...” “...Then might you be practicing as a doctor in Tokyo now...?”

“Ah... I am that doctor. Did Mr. Tanakada mention something about me?” “That he did! Beggin’ yer pardon for comin’ all this way—now won’t ye step inside for just a spell…?” Seeming to have heard about me from Mr. Tanakada, he persistently urged me inside—insisting he would open the storm shutters now and that I should come in for tea—but I declined and made my way from beside the winter camellias blooming nearby toward the rear garden. Through gaps between the tips of old trees growing beneath the stone wall and among the moso bamboo, my former home could be seen far below, small in the distance.

According to the old man, Mr. Tanakada felt an extraordinary attachment to this ancestral estate, and even now, whenever he had a few consecutive days off from the courthouse, he would immediately bring his wife back to enjoy life in the timeworn residence. Therefore, the old man entrusted with the house during his master’s absence said he never neglected cleaning throughout the year so that it would be ready whenever the master returned. “No, no—there’s no need to open them… I don’t have any particular business here… I’ll be leaving soon anyway.”

But since he opened them daily anyway to air out the house, the old man proceeded to slide open each storm shutter one by one. I peered in from outside without removing my shoes, but between the profound stillness enveloping the surroundings and the musty odor of antiquity—not to mention how vividly it recalled those supernatural tales Grandmother used to tell—I couldn't help feeling an eerie sensation that made my hackles rise. Old houses like this, I reflected, had imposing structures with their timber joints solidly constructed, but perhaps due to their careless approach to lighting and ventilation, an indescribable gloom permeated them. Let me attempt to sketch roughly what I observed here. Through this, you might comprehend just how profoundly this friend of mine favored desolate places.

Even through my sketch, you might not sense any particular gloominess. You might think there are merely ten rooms or so. Though I only peered from outside, I imagined there must be seventeen or eighteen rooms in total. Thus I had marked my conjectured areas with dotted lines—after all, this being a feudal retainer's mansion, they might have demolished parts that once made it far grander. My drawing lacks precision, but whether kitchen or parlor, each space had towering ceilings and massive lintels darkened by age's soot, each seeming to span ten tatami mats. Worse still, the cedar grove behind blotted out all sunlight beneath its pitch-black canopy—a macabre effect that made me reconsider my earlier description: where I had said "gloomy," perhaps "macabre" better suited this darkness. Never had I encountered a house so macabre. Whether from Grandmother's ghost stories etched in my mind or some other cause, I couldn't help feeling an eerie creepiness that begged antiquated descriptions—demons whimpering in shadows, roof beams sagging ominously as if bearing spectral weight.

As I walked around the house and came near the north-facing sitting room I had marked with a II—this room, its front shielded by cedar trees, was especially gloomy even within the macabre house—a dark space where even in daylight one might expect ghosts to emerge—there in its corner lay something glinting blackly. "Oh, isn’t that a piano?"

Startled, I stopped in my tracks.

“Whose is that? That is...” “This here be the master’s room…” With that, I came to a halt alongside the old man. “When the master returns, he plays it, be.” “The master’s got another one in Nagoya too, but he’s so fond of it that he keeps it stored away all careful-like, be.” “When he returns, he often plays it, be.” “Mrs. Tanakada?” “No, ’tis the master’s, be.” “Well, I had no idea Mr. Tanakada played the piano... Huh!” “The piano!”

According to the old man, even at the end of last year, the Tanakada couple had stayed for as long as half a year. I don’t quite understand the details myself, but it seems something disagreeable had occurred at his government office—there was talk of him resigning his post or not… Though the couple ended up living here for half a year, throughout that time the master would sit before the piano nearly every day, they said.

"What on earth does he play so much?" "Well now, we ain't got a lick o' clue 'bout that."

The old man laughed, opening his toothless, pitch-black mouth. “The master composes his scores, see… and then plays ’em on the piano, be.” “Huh, so Mr. Tanakada—” I nodded along, but of course I had no musical taste whatsoever. I merely nodded, feeling as though I were glimpsing a hidden aspect of that stern man who had presided over the Matsushima Incident as Chief Judge. “Though ye’ve gone to the trouble o’ visitin’, I couldn’t offer ye proper hospitality… Had ye come inside and taken even a sip o’ tea, I reckon the master would’ve been right pleased.”

After bidding farewell to the urging old man, I soon descended the bamboo-grove-lined slope again, emerging at the path by the rice fields with its Kōshin mound and along the stream bank where I’d once chased fireflies with bamboo leaves in hand during childhood. When I stopped and looked back—gazing up at the slumbering forest and stone walls where nothing had increased or decreased these forty or fifty years, at the Tanakada house unchanged in its castle-like grandeur—even I, who was neither a father of three nor a doctor, found myself gripped by an illusion of still being that snot-nosed brat from those days.

IV. Rhapsody

Thinking that my elderly parents would be more deeply interested in the stories of Omura than I was, on my return trip I stopped by Shizuoka and engaged them in a lively reminiscence about Omura. Of course, I had also sent a brief letter to Judge Tanakada in Nagoya—written out of nostalgia—stating that during his absence, I had visited his residence and, guided by the old servant, reminisced about the past from an outsider’s perspective. A reply came from Judge Tanakada—he had been informed by the caretaking old man about my visit and mentioned having discussed with his wife that it would have been preferable had I come inside for tea—stating that should I ever visit the region again, he earnestly wished for me to call upon him, and that when he next traveled to Tokyo, he hoped to meet to share reminiscences. I recall it being a formal response. But of course, I had no occasion to visit Nagoya myself, nor did they have any pressing reason to go out of their way to visit me; such visits were unlikely to bridge our growing estrangement, and thus another two or three years slipped by like a dream. In the meantime, both my father and mother had passed away one after another, and now my relationship with Judge Tanakada had become as distant as in days of old; but then around that time, I came to be scheduled to go to America for a period of about a year. At my age, it might seem absurd to speak of studying abroad now, but having been responsible for my parents in my youth—which ultimately prevented me from remaining at the university laboratory—this became something akin to late-life studies; entrusting my hospital to the staff physicians, I came to go inspect new medical facilities.

I spent the period from the twenty-fourth year after the war’s end through March of the following year at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, and on my return trip I decided to tour Western Germany, France, Italy, and other European countries while inspecting medical facilities—but what I want to discuss concerns my stay in Bonn, West Germany.

The people I happened to meet at the same hotel were a group of judges and prosecutors—including one Doi from the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office and a prosecutor from the Ministry of Justice’s Secretariat General Affairs Department—who were touring France, Germany, and other parts of Europe before heading to America to observe its judicial system, contrary to my own itinerary.

"Oh, were you friends with Judge Tanakada?" “Yasui!” "This person here was friends with Judge Tanakada when they were young." “Well now, that’s quite unusual!” "I work at the Judicial Training Institute." The judges and prosecutors who had been introduced all found it unusual that I had been friends with Judge Tanakada, while being utterly engrossed in gossip about the judge. While we may have been friends in the past, the current me knew absolutely nothing about Judge Tanakada, of course. On the contrary, I learned various things from these people—among them being how Judge Tanakada, who had been a frail-looking boy in childhood, had now become a physically robust yet extremely taciturn man with a disposition verging on gloominess. "But isn’t being too serious rather problematic?" “Scholars and professors can get away with it, but judges pass judgment on living people—I think they could stand to be a bit more approachable and cheerful, don’t you?” said Judge Yasui, who was conversing with me. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘human-like,’ but that man is kind-hearted and deeply compassionate. As a judicial officer, I think he’s quite commendable,” answered the Director-General of the Secretariat.

“Of course I won’t discuss Mr. Tanakada’s character! However, I believe he may have strayed from the proper path. I think he should have become a composer and diligently honed his own talent by himself. Don’t you think he was destined to live as an artist? So don’t you think he’s been suffering quite profoundly without even realizing it himself?”

“Heavens! Does he compose?” In my astonishment, I couldn’t help but blurt out. “Goodness! You weren’t aware?” Judge Yasui appeared even more startled. “Miura Jo is rather celebrated in those circles.”

Mr. Yasui mentioned Judge Tanakada’s compositional pen name. “People like us rough types can’t comprehend it, but he seems to possess a remarkable talent.” “He must have published quite a few pieces by now, don’t you think?” “Huh, I didn’t know that.” “Did he really have that kind of talent?” “...That he did?!”

I widened my eyes, but in that moment I could not help recalling those words I had once half-heard in Omura. “Now Professor Riesenstock from the music school was—”

interjected Prosecutor Doi of the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office.

“He has returned to Germany,” “After dining with us tonight, he’s agreed to play the piano—how about having Professor Riesenstock perform one of Mr. Tanakada’s compositions then?” “Won’t you join us as well?” “Ah yes, excellent… We’ll be expecting you—do come.”

And with the others also agreeing—and ultimately being urged by everyone—I too ended up attending that evening’s dinner.

As for what sort of person Professor Riesenstock was—the readers likely know better than someone like me, making it unnecessary to enumerate superfluous details—but how many years had passed since he, once Germany's foremost pianist driven out by Hitler, had been taken from his post as conductor at the Gregor Theater to become a professor at Tokyo Music School? Having sent forth many disciples into Japan's music world, taken a Japanese wife, wielded the language as skillfully as his native tongue, and devoted himself completely to Eastern customs—it was evident to all that this elderly professor nearing seventy would bury his bones in Japan. Yet here he was visiting his war-ravaged homeland of Germany after many years. But what I wish to convey concerns that evening when—after being introduced to the elderly professor and sharing an hour around the dining table with him alongside the judges and prosecutors—we came to listen intently to his piano performance. Though called a hotel hall, it wasn't particularly spacious. Was it perhaps fifty or sixty tatami mats in size? In the shade of palm trees yonder, beside coconut and rubber tropical plants here, upon scarlet carpets spread across the floor—legs crossed, cigarettes smoked, wine cups tilted—the group listened to the professor's piano playing. As per prior arrangement, after finishing brief pieces by Saint-Saëns and Bach, the professor picked up the scorebook resting atop the piano.

“Is it this you wish to hear next? Or perhaps this one?” He picked up another scorebook. “Professor, if I may trouble you—could you play a piece by this Miura person for us? Dr. Maejima here, who has been friends with Miura since childhood, says he’s never once heard any of Miura’s compositions.” The Director-General of the Secretariat said this while pointing at me.

“Very well.”

the Professor replied in German. “Let me try playing… *My Childhood Memories*… Indeed… A piece titled *Memories of My Infancy*… By Joe Miura.”

While reading aloud, the Professor took his seat at the piano. Cool, crisp notes spilled forth from the Professor’s withered fingertips. After playing in this manner for some time—perhaps having grasped the essence of the piece—the Professor began anew, starting from the beginning at a more deliberate tempo.

But what I want to convey is that very moment. The Professor, rocking his body back and forth as if keeping time while putting full force into the pedals with each keystroke, had around this moment finished playing what seemed like a single sheet of music when—

"Yaffa tsoi!" And… I didn’t know how to render that pronunciation on paper. This was neither German, nor English, nor French. Yet it wasn’t just Germans—Americans, French, Dutch… all Westerners would mutter these words with a bitter smile, their entire faces scrunched up in a tone of exasperation whenever thoroughly perplexed. Even now, as the Professor suddenly let out this universal bitter smile and rose to his feet, he clutched the scorebook like an eagle while shaking his entire body and scrunching up his face.

“This is a tremendous composition… This composer is possessed by something. “This is a dreadful composition… I have never played such a piece before… Mr. Doi, what manner of person is this composer?” "His real name is Tanakada... He is a judge named Tanakada Kouichirou. "A currently serving..." “Oh, Judge! “A currently serving...!” "If it’s Judge-san... he might bind me." “I cannot bear it... This is a terrifying piece.” "...This person is possessed... This isn't a composition made by humans... This person won't live much longer..."

And then he fixed his soft aged eyes intently upon me. “Do you wish to hear this piece?” “If it wouldn’t trouble you, Professor…” “I don’t mind… If you wish to hear it… Very well! Let us play it—this terrifying composition.” And the Professor turned back to the piano once more.

We strained our ears even more intently than before, but at first came an accompaniment that sounded like a roaring north wind battering roof tiles and shaking the treetops in a forest. Amidst that noise, human shouts would occasionally resound. Then, before long, from somewhere unknown, the clear sound of a shakuhachi flute struck our ears with its mournful, plaintive tones. Moreover, what made us all prick up our ears was that about five or ten minutes further into the piece, amidst another storm-like uproar of shouts and screams, came a crackling sound as if someone had set brushwood ablaze—something roaring into flames. And then it blasted forth with a ferocity akin to a gale. When that subsided into hushed stillness—Snap! A sound like something collapsing rang out, and afterwards, only an eerie cry resembling an owl’s hoot could be heard within the quiet accompaniment—and thus, quite naturally, the piece came to its conclusion.

It was an indescribable aftertaste. Moreover, even after the piece had ended, not a single person uttered a word. Everyone remained utterly silent. Amidst this silence, only Professor Riesenstock replaced the scorebook and began playing either a Strauss piece or Batalchevskaya’s *The Maiden’s Prayer*. No longer interjecting even a single comment about Miura Joe’s current composition—as if wishing to wipe away all memory of that disturbing piece as swiftly as possible—he now poured the passion of his later years entirely into this new work. And in both the Professor’s eye color and bodily movements, not a trace remained of that earlier oppressive air; he seemed thoroughly engrossed in enjoyment as his fingers danced with vitality.

Some lit cigarettes for the first time, while others exchanged whispers; an oppressive atmosphere had settled over the gathering. But,

“Where is Mr. Tanakada now?”

When I tried asking the person next to me, “...I believe that person should currently be working at Tokyo High Court...” was the reply. Why had the Professor been so astonished to declare this a tremendous composition? And what had he meant by saying its creator would not live much longer? Shortly thereafter, the Professor too returned to Japan and continued teaching at Ueno as before, but due to differing professions and social positions, we never met again afterward, leaving me entirely unaware of its meaning. To add to this—it being a December 24th newspaper article from last year—I considered that in order to explain it properly, I should first present the full text of that article.

Five: Mysterious Duel

On December 24th of last year, newspapers nationwide simultaneously devoted two or three columns in their social sections—with some even allocating four or five columns—

“Horrific! Tokyo High Court Judge Tanakada Engages in Duel with Colleague Judge Izawa. Nagasaki Prefecture, Omura City—Major Disaster on Remote Island”

Beneath this opening headline, they were reporting an unprecedented, mysterious incident.

Within the picturesque bay visible at a glance from Omura City lay Usu Island—a small, uninhabited islet with a circumference under five kilometers. The entire island was so densely covered with pine trees as tall as a person that there remained no place to set foot—this small island, shaped like an inverted mortar bowl and quite picturesque—had been beloved by the townspeople and was regarded as an excellent picnic spot.

The waves were so clear you could see straight to the bottom. Crossing them by small boat took approximately fifteen or sixteen minutes. On Sunday the 22nd of this month, staff members from Omura Immigration Detention Center—Nakagomi Sadao (26), resident of 93 Furumachi Housing in the city; Iwase Chuichi (24); Akizuki Toshiko (21); and Eimura Michiko (23)—who had gone to Usu Island for leisure, discovered a gruesome scene while strolling along the southern coast of the island. Seven or eight meters from the shoreline, beneath the roots of a creeping pine, lay a gentleman in his mid-forties dressed in a gray suit and checkered overcoat, collapsed in a pool of crimson. Twelve meters northward, another slender gentleman of similarly refined attire lay lifeless, equally drenched in blood. The discovery caused a major commotion.

According to investigations by Omura National Police responding to the emergency alert, the gentleman in the gray suit was identified as Mr. Tanakada Kouichirou (44 years old)—a Tokyo High Court Judge currently on leave due to lung illness contracted a year prior, also renowned as a composer under the pen name Miura Joe. The other gentleman was confirmed to be Judge Izawa Takao (46 years old) of the same court, who had traveled west four or five days earlier to visit the ailing judge and had been staying at his residence. From surrounding circumstances, it became evident that both men had secretly landed on the uninhabited island two or three days prior, clashed with lethal weapons, sustained multiple critical injuries, and perished.

According to the autopsy by Police Doctor Yoshida Yosaburo, the duel was believed to have been conducted between the 18th and dawn of the 21st of that month; having occurred on an uninhabited island with no witnesses, it was determined that the bodies had been abandoned for four days until discovery, with the corpses exhibiting extreme gruesomeness. The sword found beside Judge Tanakada measured 1 shaku 8 sun 6 bu (approximately 56.2 cm) in blade length. Though unsigned, it was attributed to Rai Kunimitsu—a renowned master of Yamashiro Province's Kyo-rai school. Similarly bloodstained, the blade beneath Judge Izawa's corpse was identified as a work by Bizen Ichimonji Yoshifusa of identical dimensions—a weapon celebrated for its lethal sharpness. Based on both men's countless sword wounds and the human fat clinging to bloodstained steel across both blades, investigators concluded they had wielded these ancestral swords in a gruesome duel fought until mutual annihilation.

Moreover, in a strange turn of events, after summoning Mitsuko (39 years old), his wife, from the Tanakada residence at 320 Kamikōji in the city and conducting a thorough investigation, it was confirmed that both swords were unquestionably ancestral heirloom blades passed down through the Tanakada family. On the 18th of this month, Mitsuko had gone to Nagasaki City with her young maid Tamaki Ume (nineteen years old) to purchase ingredients for entertaining Judge Izawa—her husband’s close friend who had traveled all the way from Tokyo—but upon returning to Omura Station via the 5:07 PM evening train and spending over forty minutes in a rickshaw ride home, neither Judge Tanakada nor Judge Izawa could be found. It was presumed that during her absence, the two men had likely taken the Tanakada family’s ancestral swords and secretly departed for Usu Island.

Since then, Mrs. Tanakada had been desperately searching through acquaintances and potential leads; however, Judge Izawa had maintained a close collegial relationship with Judge Tanakada since their time in Tokyo, never once engaging in so much as an argument—leaving those within their social circle who knew both men utterly perplexed and unanimously at a loss to comprehend why they had felt compelled to wield lethal weapons in a duel fought to the death. Mrs. Tanakada had long been celebrated for her beauty while maintaining an unimpeachable reputation for chastity, and Judge Izawa—being a man of unimpeachable integrity—naturally left no grounds for suspicion of any romantic entanglement surrounding her. "Even the relevant authorities, regarding this as a bizarre recent incident, have urgently convened intensive deliberations and are frowning in suspicion."

This was the initial report on the incident that appeared in newspapers nationwide on the 24th of last month—and given both its content and bizarre nature, I presume dear readers will already recall it well.

Taking this opportunity to directly quote from newspaper articles, if I were to append a bit more of the full picture reported at the time, by the 26th each paper was further striving to provide detailed coverage under headlines like "Detailed Report on the Mysterious Duel Incident."

"At the Nagasaki District Public Prosecutors Office’s Omura Branch investigating the mysterious duel incident involving Judges Tanakada and Izawa, as the inquiry progressed, no elements that could be considered central to the case had emerged, leaving the investigation wandering through impenetrable fog." "Until the very day of their disappearance on the 18th, both judges had maintained an utterly amicable atmosphere—with Judge Tanakada particularly delighting in his close friend Judge Izawa’s visit—and despite his post-illness condition, he had uncharacteristically taken up a wine cup to engage in congenial conversation. Yet over the three days since Judge Izawa’s arrival at the residence, the complete absence of any discernible cause for a duel had left Mrs.Tanakada and all involved officials utterly perplexed."

Incidentally, Judge Tanakada had been renowned for his distinctive compositions as a hobbyist while being one of Tokyo's foremost authorities on criminal procedure law. The amiable Judge Izawa had served as Civil Division Chief at Tokyo High Court for three years; Judge Tanakada had been slated to succeed the Director-General of the Correction Bureau following recent judicial personnel changes. "In any case, as a mysterious incident, it has plunged the authorities into an abyss of deep suspicion and despair." While authorities lamented the impossibility of uncovering the incident's truth, matters grew more convoluted: by December 28th—two days later amidst intensifying year-end bustle—the follow-up reports served only to plunge those already preoccupied with New Year preparations ever deeper into a bottomless swamp of bewilderment, even as they tantalized readers' curiosity.

"Statement from Chief Judge Kimata of Tokyo High Court: Regarding Judge Tanakada's case, while the prosecution authorities are expediting their investigation, they remain troubled by being utterly unable to speculate about its cause. Judge Tanakada had taken medical leave in November two years prior due to treatment for a chronic illness, secluding himself in his hometown of Omura City to focus on recuperation. His leave was scheduled to expire on the eleventh of next month, but given his excellent health condition, arrangements had been made for his return to duty. To coordinate this reinstatement while also paying a visit, we specifically requested Judge Izawa—Chief of the Civil Division—to make this trip."

Both judges were by nature mild-mannered and scholarly individuals; there should have been no cause for conflict or personal animosity between them. Within the department as well, given their normally close collegial relationship, this incident alone left everyone completely baffled, feeling as though they were trapped in some surreal dream. "There was just a phone call, and even Chief Justice Nakada is deeply shocked."

Another development was that the account of the boatman who ferried the judges to Usu Island that day had apparently been discovered, with his testimony appearing under the headline "Temporary Insanity?" “On the evening of the 18th, while I was mending my nets, the two gentlemen came over. There’s no doubt it was me who took them across.” “The round trip to Usu Island was agreed at sixty-two yen.” “I rowed them over, and neither gentleman showed the slightest sign of discomfort in the boat—they smoked and laughed all the while.”

"I reached Usu Island around five-thirty. 'I'll return tonight and come back to pick you up around eight tomorrow morning. Will that be alright, Master?' When I said this, they laughed and replied, 'With Benten-sama's shrine atop the island and two grown men carrying these, there's nothing to fear.' Among the guests I ferry to Usu Island, some stay overnight on moonlit evenings, so I didn't think it particularly strange. That night I simply returned home, then went back to fetch them around eight the next morning. But when I couldn't find them anywhere around there or at Benten-sama's shrine atop the island—and my arrival to collect them was delayed—I figured they must've taken another boat back."

"I am utterly astonished that things have come to this," stated Naruse Hannjiro (65 years old) of Nishi-Omura Katagami 245, Omura City. In essence, with no apparent cause for the two gentlemen's deaths and based on the aforementioned boatman's testimony, one could only conclude that after dismissing the boatman on the evening of the 18th, Judge Tanakada—a man of artistic temperament and delicate nerves—had suddenly developed a mental aberration amidst the moonlit solitude of that uninhabited isle. Wielding the Rai Kunimitsu blade, he launched an attack, compelling Judge Izawa to resort to defensive measures until both met their unfortunate ends. "And with no other way to interpret it but this conclusion," the investigating prosecution authorities had completely thrown up their hands."

The newspaper articles I quoted ended here, but of course even within these articles, there were many points that remained unconvincing.

Could it be that the desolation of that uninhabited island deranged the delicate sensibilities of an artist engaged in composition? The newspapers posit this theory, but regardless of one's mental fortitude, it defies belief that mere exposure to a single night's loneliness could induce madness. Furthermore, given they had already carried their cherished ancestral blades when departing home, beneath their casual banter and laughter lay an irrefutable truth: both judges had covertly designated Usu Island in Omura Bay as their death site—this stands as self-evident fact. If they harbored no intent to kill each other, what necessity existed for procuring two swords?

Therefore, at this point, it was no longer something that could possibly be resolved with the power of today's civilization and science. Admittedly, this was an unscientific argument—but I could conceive no interpretation other than that matters had reached this point through ancestral karmic bonds, through the single-minded resolve of a vengeful spirit cursing this household...through something beyond modern scholarship's capacity to rationalize, a logic transcending reason itself.

The aforementioned reasons are precisely why I traced my childhood memories and recorded my recollections of Judge Tanakada. How could such preposterous things exist in our modern world! If you would kindly understand my intent without dismissing it with laughter, I would count myself most fortunate. Moreover—as if to endorse my conviction that this must stem from a vengeful spirit's curse perpetuating ancestral karma—on January 19th of this year after the case concluded, while Mrs. Tanakada Mitsuko, the young maid, and the elderly servant couple I had met were all conducting memorial services at the family temple Genjoji in Aiekura-cho, an inexplicable fire erupted from the unmanned estate. The venerable 180-year-old buildings burned entirely to ashes in broad daylight. And since hearing that from within those smoldering ruins where embers still lingered, a complete set of human remains confirmed as belonging to a woman from two centuries ago had been discovered, I found myself compelled to strengthen this conviction ever further.

Whether those remains belonged to O-Taka, the murdered maidservant, I shall leave to each reader's judgment, for my current interest rests solely upon Professor Riesenstock. Professor Riesenstock is currently traveling across America, but once he returns to Japan, I intend to meet him immediately to ask why in April of Showa 25—that is, two years and one month ago—he declared this composition to be extraordinary, and why he stated that its creator would not live much longer? This time, I intend to thoroughly interrogate what was channeled through this elderly pianist’s spiritual power.