Pathway to Japanese Literature

Wilderness

"I’ve lost my way!"

By the time he realized it, he had already walked some ten miles since entering this wilderness. From the time he left the inn in the morning until he had walked seven or eight miles, he followed a path through waterlogged areas marked by fresh horse hoofprints, moving from forest to field and back again, and encountered people two or three times. In one of the forests, he saw a solitary house devoid of people. From that path to this one—he couldn’t tell when or where he had strayed. In the blink of an eye, it occurred to him that someone might have dug him out and abandoned him in this Wilderness.

The straw sandal chafing on his instep ached.
Dragging his aching foot heavily, the traveler staggered onward.
Having walked for ten hours without eating anything, his stomach was hollowed out to the point that not a single millet grain remained inside.
Hunger and fatigue and the despair of having lost his way pressed darkly upon his mind, while the pain in his foot—intensifying with each step—throb, throb, pierced his dulled heart.
No matter how much energy he tried to muster, his vision would immediately blur.
His ears began to ring.

Should I turn back? Should I turn back? I wondered, yet my feet still moved forward.
Even if I resolved to turn back, my body still moved forward.

An endless Wilderness, like the undulating waves of the sea—amidst green grass stretching as far as the eye could see, a single narrow path no more than two feet wide ran straight through.
The sky was a sheet of gray clouds, sealed without even a needle’s-eye gap, covering the Wilderness heavily like the lid of a black iron coffin.

Not even a breath of wind stirred.
From the great mountain range that forms Earth’s backbone, even a thousand-mile wind roaring like a lion would, upon blowing into this Wilderness—where there were no mountains to block it nor trees to resist it—naturally lose its strength and die.

With no sunlight visible, he couldn’t tell whether it was morning or afternoon, but the Traveler calculated with his stomach as his clock and realized that the sun would set in another two or three hours.
He couldn’t tell west from east.
Along a path whose origin and destination were unknowable, the Traveler simply kept walking forward.

After trudging on for about two more miles, a narrow path branched off to the right and left.

This was precisely the center of the Wilderness, and three paths arriving from three directions of the Wilderness converged here.
The convergence point formed a slightly wider area that laid bare patches of red earth where no grass grew, with a single puddle at its center.
Beside the puddle sat a red dog, emaciated to skin and bones like something fashioned from steel wire.
When the dog saw the Traveler, it wagged its thin tail briskly in a show of familiarity, then gingerly rose and staggered two or three steps forward.

Even the Traveler, who had walked alone through the endless wilderness, felt an undeniable pang of nostalgia upon seeing the dog.
Walking through the capital of an unknown country, he felt a nostalgia akin to unexpectedly encountering someone from his homeland.
The Traveler approached the Dog.

The Dog whimpered faintly and looked up at the Traveler’s face but narrowed its ears and lowered its head.

Then, with the tip of its nose, it stroked the dust-covered instep of the Traveler’s foot.

The Traveler plopped down heavily onto the ground.
The Dog also sat about three feet away, front legs upright.

The sky was overcast.
There was no wind.
In dozens of miles of Wilderness, there were only two living beings.

The dog silently gazed at the Traveler’s face.
The Traveler also gazed silently at the dog’s face.

If humans and dogs were the same, then at this moment, whether it was the dog that was the traveler or the traveler that was the dog—no one who looked could have told them apart.
Starved and exhausted—two lives were gazing at each other.

The dog had come to this crossroads of the Wilderness about seven days prior, perhaps by some similar chance.
And it had forgotten which path it had come from.
Whenever it thought of returning to human settlements, it would set out, but no matter how far it went, there was only the same wilderness grass without end, so it would return here again.
Crossing and recrossing the three paths—it had set out countless times only to return just as many.
The dog had eaten nothing for seven days.
And not a single person or other dog had it met.
About three days prior, a single bird had flown across the high sky, and the dog had watched until its shadow vanished into the clouds.

Not even a faint sound stirred.
The only sound that could be heard was the echoing pulse of two hearts, worn to utter exhaustion, beating in unison.
—the Traveler thought.

Presently, the Traveler searched his sleeve and took out tobacco.
And then struck a match.
In the Dog's eyes that the Traveler saw, sparks flickered momentarily.
In the Traveler's eyes that the Dog saw, sparks also flickered momentarily.

The Traveler threw the burnt matchstick in front of the Dog.
The Dog immediately pressed its nose tip to it but, finding no scent at all, readjusted its posture and gazed at the Traveler’s face.
Seven days of starvation had made the Dog’s eyelids heavy and sluggish.
The tobacco smoke alleviated the Traveler’s hunger.

The Traveler, in a somewhat relieved mood, came to feel pity for the emaciated red dog before him, reduced to mere skin and bones.
And then stretched out a hand and pulled the Dog closer.

Even when stroking its head or pulling its ears, the Dog merely narrowed its eyes and remained docile.
Even when he blew tobacco smoke into its face, it merely sniffed faintly a few times.
Even when he tried stroking its fur against the grain, spreading its legs, rolling it on the ground, or squeezing its gaunt, pointed face between his knees, the Dog remained utterly docile.
Finally, he twisted its thin tail to the right, twisted it to the left, and wrapped it around his finger, but when he applied a bit more force, the Dog growled low in its throat and managed only a feeble resistance.

Suddenly, the Traveler hit upon an amusing idea and secretly let a smile creep across his lips. He took paper scraps from his sleeve, twisted one into a paper string, and tied the scraps to the Dog's tail.

The Dog wagged its tail briskly.
The Traveler struck a match and set fire to the paper scraps.

The Dog suddenly leaped up.
On its tail, fire burned.
The Dog twisted its neck trying to bite it off, but since its neck couldn't reach its tail, it began spinning in circles while letting out shrill, pained cries.

The Traveler—thinking even to himself how cruel he'd been—hurriedly stood up to pin down the Dog's tail and remove the paper scraps. But the Dog kept shrieking at full voice as it spun with dreadful force.
It whirled so violently fast that no hand could intervene.
The Traveler reached out his hand and began circling around the Dog.

The shrill, pained cries pierced through the Traveler's utterly empty stomach.
It was a feeling of utter hopelessness.

The fire on its tail soon began to die out.
And then—just as the Dog's spinning began to slow—it staggered unsteadily and collapsed into a rainwater puddle.
The Traveler stood rigid as a rod.

The yelps—those shrill cries—could no longer be heard.
The Dog lay collapsed in the water, writhing in the excruciating throes of death as it thrashed with all four limbs and whimpered pitifully, but as its cries gradually weakened, its limbs too grew still.

The red dog, starved beyond starving, had thus died.

The surface of the rainwater puddle cradling the wretched dog’s corpse appeared like a bottomless abyss once the small waves subsided.
The gray sky, deeply mirrored, had unknowingly darkened into the color of twilight.

The Traveler, who had been standing like a rod, looked around in surprise.
An indistinct dimness seeped across the grass of the Wilderness.
His face was etched with unspeakable pain.

The sun had set!
To think—there was nothing sadder for a Traveler who had lost his way.

He hurriedly tightened the laces of his straw sandals, glanced at the dog’s corpse, and when he was about to set out—wondering where he should go—he surveyed the twilight wilderness.

He looked around three times in the same manner, but suddenly,

“Ah!”

With that cry, he raised both hands high—then suddenly burst into loud sobs.

"Which way did I come from?!"

Three paths rose from his feet and stretched identically across three directions of the wilderness.

White Bird, Sea of Blood

I had a strange dream—

Enormous, enormous—aboard a pitch-black ship with a beautiful person, just the two of us ventured out into the ocean.

Whenever that person saw me, they kept their head perpetually bowed and never spoke a word, leaving me unable to discern whether they were joyful or sorrowful.
In the dreamscape, this had unquestionably been someone with whom I’d shared mutual affection for years, yet upon waking I found myself incapable of identifying who.
Though the profile resembling some acquaintance still lingers within my mind, strain as I might, I cannot determine whose likeness this might be.

After Mount Fuji disappeared from view, the ship had been heading somewhere across the ocean for a considerable length of time.
How many days it had been—ten days? Even that remained unclear.
It might have been hundreds or thousands of days.

That lover of unknown identity wore a flame-like crimson robe day after day, from morning till night, standing at the ship’s bow to gaze at the path ahead.

It remained unclear whether that person had acted of their own will or whether I had made them do it through my orders.

One day.

High, high above the towering pitch-black mast, the golden sun shone, and the sea—the blue, blue sea—stretched as far as the eye could see without a single ripple, as calm as if oil had been poured upon it.

Ahead of the ship, a fist-sized white cloud had barely formed when—in the blink of an eye—it spread across the entire sky and blotted out the golden sun.
——Upon closer inspection, it was not a cloud.

They were birds.
White, white—birds beyond counting, hundreds of millions of them.

Though not a single ripple stirred upon the sea, in the sky, hundreds of millions of white birds beat their wings in unison, their movement coalescing into a strange, terrifying resonance.

The lover stood at the bow as usual wearing crimson robes; I was at the stern gazing at her form from behind.

The terrifying sound of flapping wings suddenly grew louder, and the birds filling the sky began descending in waves.

High, high—the upper half of the pitch-black mast was completely obscured by the swarming birds.
Then those birds descended one by one, each taking their turn to kiss the palm of the lover’s hand.
On that hand extended to shoulder height rested something dazzlingly brilliant.
Upon closer inspection, it was the golden ring I had given.

The birds were ordinary white birds, but those that had kissed the ring were no longer ordinary—they had transformed into human faces adorned with white feathers.

Before long, all the birds in the sky had transformed into human faces. And finally, a slightly larger bird descended - just as it approached the lover's hand, the crimson-robed lover emitted a shrill scream and collapsed backward. The bird that had pecked at the golden ring flew in wide circles around the mast. Why was it that only this bird hadn't transformed into a human face?

I shot a silver-tipped arrow with all my might before I could even take the bow hanging from the sail rope. The arrow pierced clean through the bird. The bird’s belly was instantly stained with blood. And then, that bird came plummeting down toward me like a falling stone. I nimbly twisted my body and reached for the bundle of swords—whereupon the bird plunged into the sea directly behind the stern. The swan’s corpse pierced by a silver arrow! When I saw the surrounding water turn blood-red, it spread into a vast ring in an instant—and the boundless ocean became a sea of crimson in the blink of an eye!

The sole point of white was the pitiable corpse of a bird.
I thought—then in the next instant, it was no longer a bird’s corpse but my lover’s face, spreading a flame-like crimson robe across the entire sea.

The ship sailed on, sailed on.
The ship sailed on like an arrow.
The face in the sea receded further into the distance with each passing moment.……

In the sky were the sound of countless human-faced beings flapping their wings and an eerie wail like rending silk.
……

Theater on Mars

“Got anything interesting?”

“I went to Mars last night.”

“Is that so.”

“I really did go there.”

“Was there anything interesting there?”

“I saw a play.”

“Is that so? In Japan they’d perform *The Courier for Hell*, but on Mars I suppose it’s *The Celestial Courier*?”

“That’s no penny-ante production. From the First Theater onward—everything’s different.”

“Is it a square mile in size?”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“First, they cut out a piece of blue sky ten ri square and compress it into stone.”
“Harder than stone, blue and clear through.”

“What’s that supposed to be?”

“They stacked those up to build high, high, endlessly high walls—and in two rows at that.”
“The space between the walls is only about five ken wide, but since they’re endlessly high, when you look up, the sky appears like a single silver thread.”

“Can they even perform plays on a five-ken stage?”

“Now then, listen well.
“No one knows how far those blue walls stretch.
“It’s like they took the Great Wall, doubled it, and painted it blue.”

“Where do they actually perform?”

“The play hasn’t even begun yet.
“Those walls *are* the passageway itself.”

“Enough already.
“Stop this.”

“The actors first lead the audience through that passageway.
“On Mars, you see, actors hold more power than kings. There’s a constitutional law requiring every single citizen to attend once the play starts—which makes for an unimaginably packed house!
“Given how elaborate the production is, they say just preparing everything takes ten months.”

“It’s just like childbirth.”

“And those actors are surprisingly unassuming.”
“Martians, you see, have smaller feet and higher chests than us, and the ones with the largest heads become first-rate actors.”
“So you see, on Mars, Aving and Danjuro wear eboshi hats larger than the dome of Nikolai’s Hall.”

“I’m shocked.”

“You’d be surprised, wouldn’t you?”

“With your tall tales.”

“It’s not a tall tale.”
“It’s the truth.”
“At the very least, it’s a fact within a dream.”
“So you see, actors wearing Nikolai’s Hall’s roof as hats guide billions of spectators along the passageway.”

“Do they guide the audience from the passageway?”

“That’s right.”
“That’s where it differs from Earth, you see.”

“It’s not just there.”

“Anyway, it’s different.”
“So then, let’s suppose I become one of the audience members and walk along that passageway.”
“And then—after borrowing a telescope from a fellow walker to look ahead—I can just make out three rooftop spires of Nikolai’s Hall about twenty ri in the distance.”

“Ah ha ha!”

“No matter how far I walk, no matter how far I go—blue walls.”
“No matter how far I walk, no matter how far I go—blue walls.”
“No matter how far I go—blue walls.”
“You, no matter how far you go—still blue walls.”

“Won’t dawn break before we even see the stage?”

“Far from it—they say you spend years just on the passageway.”

“Enough already—pray raise the curtain!”

“But no matter where you go, it’s still blue walls.”
“This isn’t some joke.”

“It’s no jest.”
“Well—since I woke up before long—the dream ended.”
“Ha...ha...ha...”

“What a terrible man you are.”

“But that’s how it is, isn’t it? If I kept having this dream for years on end, wouldn’t I starve to death before the Martian play even begins, leading us to a ‘joyous’ grand finale? Even I wanted to see where those blue walls ended, but since I woke up in the meantime, the dream ended too.”

Two People

Young men, as a category, sometimes found themselves in peculiar states of mind.
A shadowy, floating thing thrashed left and right in his chest—for no particular reason—refusing to let his mind settle.
Even when he tried to read, he couldn’t comprehend the words.
Deeming this unacceptable, he tried reading aloud—only to find himself mimicking sutra chants or adopting the dramatic tones of a Satsuma biwa performance.
When he attempted to write letters to distant friends, the neighboring tobacco shop girl would flicker across his vision.
A train roared past right under his nose.
When the stack of books he’d piled up collapsed, he startled and flushed crimson despite being utterly alone.
He couldn’t fathom why this restlessness gripped him.
It wasn’t as if some new romance had ensnared him.

One evening, I too fell into such a mood and performed all sorts of antics by myself.
I set aside the book I was reading and even mimicked a temple school student’s drooling.
Facing the mirror, I opened my mouth wide and tried moving my bright red tongue about freely.
I pretended the desk’s edge was a piano keyboard and, striking an affected pose, banged on it wildly.
Just as I was imitating Naninosuke—or whatever her name was—that female gidayū performer throwing down her floral hairpin, tousling her hair, narrowing her pretty eyes oddly, and pretending to stretch atop the stage platform, the fusuma slid open with a whisper. Panicking, I tried to feign nonchalance and pretended to read the open book, but when the maid who had brought the mail left, I noticed the book was upside down.

Unable to bear it any longer, I rushed outside without even putting on my hat.
I ambled leisurely at times, hurried at others; boarded streetcars and ventured into narrow alleys I’d never seen before.
I was yelled at by rickshaw drivers and peered into *milk halls*.
I even followed a stylish woman for about one *chō*.
It’s curious how in this world—the more reserved you are, the more you lose out—but walk through town with bold confidence, and everyone coming your way, every last one of them, will clear a path.

"If I had a wife," I thought, "I would never let her walk the night streets of the capital."
The dazzling electric lights of avenues that mock daylight—they inevitably stir restlessness in human hearts.
When couples resolved on lovers' suicide stroll through such streets, they invariably cast aside their plans and bolt.
The tepid summer night wind ceaselessly fans this already wavering, temptation-filled state of mind.

After exiting Hibiya Park and walking a short distance, about eighteen meters ahead walked a man and woman at a leisurely pace.
They didn't seem particularly young, but both wore splendid Western attire—and there they went, rubbing shoulders as they walked! Damn them!

I had been made to witness dozens of such couples that night and felt no small indignation, but especially because this was a less-traveled street, the pair appeared all the more affectionate—and I grew all the more irritated.

Just then, fortunately, a young woman came up from behind me and hurried past, so I conceived a brilliant idea.

I promptly quickened my pace and walked side by side with the young woman.
I made it look as though we'd been walking together all along, intending to show this off to the couple ahead.

The woman—poor thing—knew nothing of my amusing plan.
What had gotten into her—she suddenly looked down and quickened her pace further.
This ultimately worked well for catching up to the couple—I too strode hurriedly, shoulders nearly brushing.
The woman accelerated even more; I pressed forward to keep pace.

I was unbearably pleased.
I straightened my neck and walked with an arched back.

Before long, I caught up to the couple ahead, and the four of us formed a straight line.
After five or six seconds passed, the line became slightly distorted, and we edged a bit forward.

Since the day I was born, I had rarely felt such triumph.
Maintaining the demeanor of an endlessly persistent suitor, I walked pressed close to the woman’s side—yet my heart’s triumph remained unsatisfied even then—and with a furtive glance stole a look at the Western-clad couple.
I wondered what expression they might be making.

I shrank my neck and stopped in my tracks.

Father and Mother—who were supposed to have been invited to a relative’s wedding—were strolling home hand in hand!

“Oh! If it isn’t Kotaro (my name)!”
“What are you doing walking around without even wearing a hat?!”

Mother said...

Since the day I was born, I have rarely suffered such humiliation!

Grandfather

In a forest atop a certain mountain stood a house with sagging eaves, where an old man over sixty and five-year-old Oyuki lived alone together.

Oyuki had been born on the morning of the first snow five years prior—a child as lovely as a mountain peach blossom.
Grandfather was a large man nearing six feet tall; even at this age, his back remained unbent, his health robust. His head was splendidly bald, his face a reddish bronze, and his left eye had gone blind.

Apart from the parentless grandchild and the childless grandfather, there was one more living thing in this solitary house.
It was a white-haired blind horse three times older than Oyuki.

Grandfather wielded a heavy axe and cut down the trees in the forest.
Oyuki laughed softly and played alone nearby.

When a large tree fell with a terrifying crash, Grandfather said, “Oyuki, it’s dangerous!”
When a small bird sang a cheerful song on a branch, Oyuki called out, “Grandpa, there’s a bird! There’s a bird!”

The clang of woodchopping and Oyuki’s joyous laughter echoed through the forest every single day.

Deep within that forest stood a thick, thick single beech tree, and surrounding it was a crude wooden fence.
Oyuki was allowed to grow up doing whatever she pleased, but the one thing strictly forbidden by Grandfather was approaching that beech tree.

Grandfather would turn the felled trees into firewood and, every other morning, load them onto the white-haired blind horse's back to sell in the town at the mountain's foot.
Each time, Oyuki would be carried on Grandfather's back and taken along.

On rainy days, Grandfather would make a fire in the hearth and spend all day staring fixedly at its flames.
Oyuki would spend her time playing quietly beside it.

At times, Grandfather would
“Oyuki, my dear, your mother was a remarkably beautiful woman.”

There were times when he would say such things.

When she asked where her mother had gone, he told her she had gone to a distant place.
And when she asked whether her mother would return,
"She might not come back."
he answered, then turned aside and sighed.
Oyuki was not particularly interested in this story.

What brought Oyuki, who was five years old and lived deep in the forest, the most joy was,

“Grandpa, make it dark for me.”

Having said this, she would tightly, tightly close her starlike eyes.
Oyuki believed that if she closed her eyes, the world would darken, because she herself could no longer see anything.

Oyuki darkened the world countless times a day.
Each time, Grandfather would laugh while—

“Ah, it’s dark now, it’s dark now.”

he said.

One day, Oyuki was studying Grandfather’s face intently when—

“Grandpa, is your eye always half-dark?”

she asked.

“That’s right.”
“Grandpa’s left side stays half-dark no matter how many days pass.”

Having said that, the one-eyed grandfather laughed with an amused look.

On another occasion, Oyuki was gazing at Grandfather’s head.

“Grandpa, why don’t you have any hair on your head?”

“When folks get old, they all end up bald like me.”

Oyuki didn’t understand what that meant.
“It’s ’cause they got old and withered away.”

“Ah ha ha!” Grandfather laughed, his gap-toothed mouth opening wide. “That’s right, that’s right. ’Cause they dried up with age, all my hair’s withered away like grass.”

“Then if you put water on it, will it grow back?”

“Might grow back, mightn’t it? Our Oyuki says such clever things now.”

Grandfather laughed, but from that day onward, Oyuki never forgot—no matter what day it was, once their meager supper was finished, even when desperately sleepy, she would bring water herself in a lacquer bowl where the coating had peeled off, and with her small hand pat-pat it over the scalp of Grandfather sitting cross-legged. When the water droplets ran down his forehead to his nose, Grandfather—

“Oyuki dear, keep putting water on my nose like that and I’ll get hair growing there too.”

Grandfather laughed.
Then Oyuki too found it amusing and began to giggle, but in her delight, she deliberately poured water over his nose.
Each time, the two of them would say the same thing and laugh in the same way.

When the evening meal was finished and he had applied the hair-growth medicine, Grandfather would immediately take Oyuki in his arms and go to bed.
Oyuki would fall peacefully asleep before the tales of Momotaro, the moon and stars, or the stepmother had even ended, but Grandfather found sleep hard to come by.
Then he would rise, add firewood to the hearth, and while his aged face was illuminated by the vigorously crackling flames, his single eye brimming with tears, he would replay sixty years of memories in his heart—

Every child born, every child born, all died, and the only daughter who survived—Osato—she was, oh, such a beautiful daughter that even her own parents were enraptured, but in the spring of her seventeenth year she disappeared; they searched through mountains and rivers, went down to the town at the foothills and inquired at every house, yet despite their efforts until nightfall, her whereabouts remained unknown.
The grandmother had fallen ill from that time, but Osato returned from somewhere at the beginning of summer when she was twenty-two, drifting in as though carried by the wind.
Her parents did not know from where she had returned.
They asked, but she did not answer.
On the morning of the first snow in late October, she suddenly went into labor and gave birth to Oyuki.

In the early spring of the following year, when patches of snow still lingered in the forest, Osato vanished once more.

The next day, Grandfather discovered his daughter’s corpse under a large beech tree deep in the forest—stripped naked and covered in blood.
That was the beech tree they kept Oyuki away from.

Within less than two months, Grandmother too had died.—
Whenever it didn’t rain, day after day, the resounding sound of tree-felling and Oyuki’s innocent, clear laughter echoed through the forest.
Two or three thick old trees each day sent a terrible echo through the air before crashing to the ground.
Small birds sang cheerful songs as they flitted from branch to branch.

One sunny day.

Unusually, Grandfather said he wasn’t in good condition and didn’t go into the forest from morning.

Oyuki spent time alone in the shade of trees picking flowers and chasing birds that hid among the leaves, their shadows nowhere to be seen, but soon grew strangely lonely and returned home.

Grandfather was lying down asleep at the edge of the hearth.
The wrinkles on his forehead were etched more deeply than usual.

Oyuki quietly climbed up onto the wooden floor—sat down at Grandfather’s bedside—but a desolation with nowhere to turn pressed upon her, and with a child’s unrestrained heart, tears immediately moistened her star-like eyes.
Even so, she managed to suppress her sobs and gazed intently at Grandfather’s face.

After a short while, Oyuki would close her own eyes and then open them again.
Even though both of Grandfather’s eyes were closed, for some reason Oyuki wasn’t in darkness.
If I don’t close my eyes, it isn’t dark………

Oyuki found it so strange, so strange that she could no longer bear it.
When I close my eyes, Grandfather says it becomes dark for days.
Yet even though Grandfather had his eyes closed now, she wasn’t the least bit in darkness…… A suspicion—that maybe Grandfather had been lying all along—filled her small chest with a peculiar terror.

After some more time had passed, Oyuki stealthily stroked Grandfather’s bald head with her small hand.
Ah, every single night—every night I’ve been putting water on it—and still not a single hair has grown.
“Lately it seems like a little’s starting to come in,” Grandfather had said two or three days ago, and yet still not a single hair had grown.…

Grandfather groaned “Uunn” in discomfort and lowered the hand resting on his chest, making Oyuki withdraw her own hand in surprise.

A red-copper-colored face, vigorous yet aged!
An angry lion-like nose; several wrinkles across a broad forehead; even vertical wrinkles not normally visible were carved between thick eyebrows.
Through slightly parted lips, the toothless mouth seemed like a bottomless cave.

Oyuki stared silently at his face, but before her eyes—though until now she’d felt nothing of the sort—Grandfather’s face began transforming into a terrifying visage. An unspeakable terror welled up within her. It felt like peering at the slumber of some unknown ferocious beast. Then Oyuki was suddenly overcome with longing for her birth mother—the mother she had never seen, whom she had always heard described as a beautiful woman. And then, at last, she let out a voice and burst into tears.

Grandfather, awakened by the sound,
“What’s wrong?”

As he said this and started to rise, Oyuki began to cry even more violently.

Grandfather opened wide his single eye, twisted his face into a strange expression, and fixed his gaze on Oyuki—his beloved Oyuki.
The corners of his mouth were twitching.
His chest became so tight it felt like dying, and nausea welled up.
The aged heart thudded irregularly—thudded—sending its pulse through the weakened body.

(June 22–23, 1908)