Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

First comes the need to explain the dialect term 'gorigan'.
Explaining words—whether in foreign languages or Japanese—is truly a difficult task; there exists no complete explanation beyond the words themselves.
Using words to explain words—there is nothing more foolish than this.
The means to explain words lies in an intuitive communion through the sounds they produce; no matter how many other words one lines up, they cannot elucidate that word down to its very core.
However, one cannot help but marvel at the persistence with which humans have created all these various words in this manner and smoothly put them to use.
It might be called nature rather than persistence, but within nature's depths lies persistence.
No matter how incomplete a national language its people may possess, the persistence required to refine it to a state capable of serving ordinary purposes remains truly remarkable.
Setting aside what linguistics—that desiccated discipline—teaches us, consider this: when one hears the Japanese word *hishaku*, it inevitably conjures the image of that long-handled utensil for scooping liquids; say "box," and one immediately envisions that square container.
(There are round ones too,) but even if someone were to swap the names of *hishaku* ladles and boxes in such fashion—digging in their heels about their *gorigan* with declarations like "To me, this is a *hishaku* and that's a box!"—it would never gain acceptance in society.
The persistence with which people drove the power of words so deep was truly remarkable.
After all, these are merely words and names created by humans—there would be no harm in reassigning them however one likes. Yet convincing the masses to accept such changes proves difficult.
Even if ladles were boxes and boxes were ladles, if fire were water and water were fire, there would be no real issue—but since there’s no particular need to swap them, people just end up carrying on with things as they have always been.

Even so, within words and characters there gradually emerged over time slight distortions—enough that some people came to mistake abalone for pufferfish—but one need not dig in their heels about such things with a know-it-all air, labeling them speech defects or dialects through sheer *gorigan*.
Whether you call it abalone or name it pufferfish, the actual shellfish and fish themselves remain utterly unaware. To make such declarations—well, that too is a form of stubbornness.

It’s not as if I’m picking a fight with linguistics or anything.
I thought to naturally incorporate an explanation of *gorigan* and so wrote all this.
*Gorigan* is, first and foremost, a Kamigata dialect term created by blending sixty parts tantrum-throwing child, twenty parts eccentric, and twenty parts arrogance—all thoroughly mixed together.
“You folks really dug in your heels with that *gorigan* over there,” or “It’s all that *gorigan*’s fault”—though such expressions might vex those long accustomed to hearing them, these matters simply must be written down.

"In the matter of Gorigan: On March 12th, he embarked upon the eternal journey."

I received this postcard—bearing the clumsily written characters "We hereby inform you of this matter"—on March 14th. Ah, so that old priest had finally died, I thought, and as I was struck by that mixture of painful sorrow and loneliness that always accompanies news of someone's passing, I found myself reflecting anew on life while absently rolling and unrolling the postcard.

Even so, thinking what manner of son would mockingly announce his own father's death under the pretense of *gorigan*, I found myself gazing at the name Tennan written there.

Ryūhō's children—being born only to die, being born only to die again—reached their fourth, Tennan, where at last, like a fire finally burning itself out, they survived and grew.
“We hereby announce the recent birth of our first son and name him Tennan.”
Postcards from Ryūhō bearing such words were sent out far and wide.
The children born thereafter all grew up healthy, and by the time Ryūhō had become fit to be called an elderly priest, he was the father of three sons and two daughters.

The problem was Tennan, the eldest son.
After graduating from the sect's middle school, he had idled about the temple but never got along with his father, the old monk.
The old monk was such a figure as to be known by *gorigan*, and though his reputation among parishioners was poor, being hereditary head priest of a Shinshū temple meant they couldn't expel him—nor was he so disliked that any parishioners considered driving out the temple itself.
His only flaw was *gorigan*; he properly fulfilled his duties.
Yet Tennan combined *gorigan* with great eccentricity and laziness.
Left to his own devices he caused little trouble, but temple duties he treated like sworn enemies, leaving them half-done.
As the saying goes—Zen temples stay clean while parishioner temples grow filthy—Ryūhō's temple lived up to its Shinshū nature: inadequately swept, its main hall's forecourt pristine only because debris had been brushed into every corner to fertilize weeds.
Snakes, lizards, grasshoppers—such creatures made their home in these chance-formed trash heaps, thriving through summer's abundance.
Tennan often tried catching grasshoppers using green onion roots as bait, though sometimes snakes startled him into fleeing back.
Most unsettling were the lizards with broken tails that came skittering out.

In the particularly high trash heap at the southeastern corner, not only grasses but even lacquer trees grew naturally, forming a small forest.
In that place, particularly unpleasant insects seemed to dwell; a puddle formed at the base on one side where red-bellied newts lived alongside frogs—yet the frogs would often fall prey to snakes, their half-swallowed forms left to be witnessed by dismayed newts.

Tennan often threw snakes to save frogs.
When he was young and playing with a bamboo stick, because frogs were crying out frantically, he would use their plaintive cries as a guide to poke through the weeds with his stick, and a frog that had nearly been swallowed by a snake would hobble away on injured legs, narrowly escaping danger.
The tips of its legs appeared to have already begun dissolving slightly from the snake’s venom.

“Come evening, that frog will bring a big manjū to thank you,” Father had said. That night, Tennan waited with such anticipation for the manjū—though Father’s words turned out to be an outright lie.
From that time onward, Tennan stopped trusting Father.

There had been many times when his father had ordered him to replace the flowers in the Main Hall, but Tennan had never once done so.
In the Shumidan's flower holder stood dried-out branches—who could say when they'd been arranged—looking fit to serve as kindling.

II

“Tennan’s already thirty—gotta get ’im married off proper. I took a wife myself at seventeen, I tell ya,” Ryūhō had said two or three years prior, during what would prove both his first and final visit to the capital.

“Is that so?” I replied, paying little heed to some country priest’s marriage affairs.
Then Ryūhō the old monk, forcibly stroking his proud white beard—though it was rather sparse—with both hands,
“On my way back, I’ll stop by Kyoto and deliver the betrothal gifts,” he muttered as if to himself, then opened the mouth of a mid-sized cloth bag and took out an impressive bundle of formal paper labeled “White Robe Fee” in carefree calligraphy.
The faintness of the ink color struck me.

“Oh my, how splendid!” said my wife, sticking her face out from the fusuma sliding door that had been left open about a foot.

“Ah, now really,” said the old monk, uttering his customary phrase as he gave a slight twitch of his nose.

“‘White Robe Fee’... Hmm, interesting. Normally when people give it as ‘Obi Fee,’ the woman’s side returns half as ‘Hakama Fee,’ but you use ‘White Robe Fee’?"
“So will they return it as a ‘kesa fee’ or something from their side?” I said, peering into the old monk’s hands.
The old monk’s palm—with a little finger nail grown over an inch long—was completely concealed by the formal paper bundle, which still overflowed on both sides, though only the very tip of that little finger nail remained slightly visible.
The mizuhiki cord stood stiffly upright with vigorous flair.

"I don't know what lay households do, nor whether temple folks write 'White Robe Fee' or not," said the old monk. "I'll write it how I damn well please," he added, inadvertently revealing gorigan's essential nature.

"Well now, Temple Priest—how auspicious of you to use black and white ceremonial cords!" said my wife, edging closer as if noticing this for the first time.
The old monk snorted "Hmph," gazing contemptuously at her face.
The mizuhiki cords bore thick coats of Kyōbeni crimson pigment—though following red-and-white convention, their iridescent sheen made the red appear nearly black at first glance.

The old monk said, “I came to see Tokyo,” yet never once went sightseeing.
I thought of taking him around Ueno, Asakusa, Marunouchi and Hibiya, but even when I offered to guide him, he’d say: “Nah, that’s too bothersome.
It’s best to sip tea while chatting like this at our leisure.
If you want to go, go by yourself.
I’ll be sitting zazen and waiting meantime,” he declared with feigned innocence.

The thought of me touring Ueno, Asakusa, Marunouchi, and Hibiya alone would look absurd—I felt utterly foolish—but this too must have been another surge of the old monk’s *gorigan* stubbornness.

“Where might the bride be from?” said my wife, perhaps having realized her ignorance regarding the ceremonial cords, her tone feigning composure.

“Another temple, it is.
’Tis temples between temples,” said the old monk, scratching behind his ear with the mouthpiece of the tobacco pipe he held.
With its zundon-gata shape—a bluntly cut, peculiar form—this tobacco pipe had struck me even as a child as perfectly suited to the old monk’s belongings.
I had grown so deeply accustomed to both the old monk and his tobacco pipe.

In my hometown, my father was a Shinto priest.
The old monk’s temple stood about ten chō east, and from my house one could clearly see its Tiantai-style double-layered roof tiles; from the kitchen window of the old monk’s quarters, one might glimpse the cedar grove of our family shrine, its cypress-bark-thatched roof, even the forked finials atop the ridge.
Since both Buddhist and Shinto priesthoods were professions many abandoned, the old monk—who in those days was a vigorous young priest though his inherent *gorigan* stubbornness already showed—and the aging shrine priest often visited each other.
People would whisper “Gannenshi’s *gorigan*” behind his back, while Gannenshi himself called my father “Nakaomi no Ason” even to his face.
My father’s true name was Jūbei, but as reciting “Chief Priest Jūbei Ujimono Unane Tsukinuki Amashiro” in norito prayers sounded absurd, he had been given the separate name Nakaomi.

While loudly uttering something like “Koharu sleeps in the Shinto priest’s office,” Gannenshi would often come stealthily through my residence’s back gate, pass through the garden, cross the stone bridge over the spring-fed pond, and arrive. In the local dialect, adopting what was called a “hunched cat” posture—in his mouse-gray kimono with a white stiff sash, thrusting both hands into the front fold and squaring his shoulders—was Gannenshi’s customary way of carrying himself. In the midst of tending bonsai at his own temple, he would suddenly take it into his head and come over as if merely making the ten-chō journey to a neighbor’s place.

“Welcome, Gannenshi-san,” said Father, wearing a white robe and purple-ground Goro-maru patterned hakama, his bald head gleaming as he welcomed him to the veranda laid with thin-edged tatami, tobacco tray in one hand.

“Nay, Gannenshi does not move—the one who has come forth is Ryūhō, head priest of Gannenshi, at your service.”
With a playful riddle, Gannenshi said without even a faint smile, pursing his lips.
Even at such times, he would properly carry a damask tobacco pipe case in his pocket and take out his zundon-gata tobacco pipe, but sometimes he would forget to bring it,

“One... two... I’ll take these,” he said with affected grandeur, reaching for the drawer of Father’s tobacco tray.—I recalled Gannenshi from those days when he was still young, and now sitting face-to-face with the old monk’s present form while seeing that zundon-gata tobacco pipe remained unchanged from long ago, a peculiar loneliness welled up within me.

“I was originally your father’s friend, you know—but before I knew it, you went and stole me away,” said the old monk, picking at the bowl of his pipe with the tip of a fire rod while looking more at my wife than at me.

“If we were to be friends, there’s quite an age difference between us,” said my wife, already growing fond of the old monk’s unreserved nature as she made this remark.

“Ah, now—”
“But y’see—me and this one here…” he said, pointing at me with his zundon-gata pipe, “there was just about this much age difference between me and your father too, but we got on like a house on fire.”
“This one’s father here—no scholar, didn’t play Go, knew nothin’ about bonsai, an old codger with no skills ’cept drinkin’—and yet he wasn’t even much for talkin’, y’see. But I liked that fellow all the same. Just sittin’ there smokin’ my pipe, starin’ at that forehead of his—so broad you could write ‘Foolish Fellow’ across it—felt downright pleasant, I tell ya.” The old monk seemed lost in reminiscence of my late father.

Over ten years had passed since I left my family home in the countryside and came to Tokyo—I was on the verge of forgetting about Ryūhō of Gannenshi Temple and Tennan—when Ryūhō appeared at my front gate looking far more aged than his years and uttered his old-fashioned “I’ve come to pay my respects,” to the great astonishment of the maid who answered the door; though rumors from my hometown spoke of Gannenshi’s *gorigan* stubbornness growing ever more pronounced, I had paid them no particular mind.

It was the cold of January.
The old monk carried a mid-sized cloth satchel, his sparse white beard spilling onto the serge haori at his chest, a bashō-fiber hood covering his head.
In his customary light clothing—he never wore a shirt, claiming it made his shoulders stiff—the tea-brown mottled skin of his gaunt frame peeked through the white collar of his underrobe.

“When is the wedding to be held?” asked my wife with an oddly inquisitive air.

“It hasn’t been decided yet,” said the old monk in a clear tone like polished crystal, eyes glinting with satisfaction as he pursed his lips and blew a straight column of tobacco smoke.

“Did they hold a matchmaking meeting?”

“No, we don’t do such things.”

“Well then, are they acquainted with each other? That seems perfectly acceptable,” said my wife with a contented look, as though this were someone else’s affair.

“No, the two principals themselves don’t know each other in the slightest.” “Hmph,” said the old monk, now fully revealing the essence of his gorigan.

“But isn’t there something improper about the betrothal gifts?” said my wife, furrowing her brows.

“Since he’s come of age, I’ll have him take a wife.”
“Since he’s come of age, I’ll get him settled.”
“……That’s how it should be.”
“……No one’s born ’cause they wanna be born, folks don’t die just ’cause they wanna die—all the same in the end.”
“Weddings alone don’t need folks makin’ a ruckus ’bout consent.”
“If they just hunker down with what their parents decide—that’s good enough. All ’bout trustin’ another’s power,” said the old monk airily, putting on his best vacant look.

“Well…” said my wife, dumbfounded.

III

From then until last year, I had no opportunity to meet this stubborn old monk.
Two years ago in early summer, during one of my annual excursions to the countryside, as I passed by Gannenshi Temple’s double-layered roof from a gaunt little train running between wheat fields, I briefly considered stopping by. But being pressed for time and uncertain of the old monk’s whereabouts, I instead called out through the halted train window to a child returning from elementary school and asked them to deliver a message to Gannenshi.
At once the child dashed down a narrow ridge-like path toward Gannenshi Temple with a delighted expression.
Even after the train started moving, that small figure appeared liable to be blown away beyond the wheat fields—I kept my eyes fixed on the child carrying my calling card until they vanished behind the hedge of a thatched-roof house.

In the wheat fields of a village near Gannenshi Temple, I plucked soft ears of wheat to make a flute that peeped shrilly, and placing it in my summer coat’s pocket, I returned to Tokyo.
That it had accidentally emerged from my pocket along with concert tickets was something I regarded with peculiar nostalgia about two weeks after returning from my countryside trip, while the sky threatened a gloomy early summer rain.
Just then, as a bundle of mail was tossed in, among it was mixed a postcard from the old monk.

"...Just as I was on the verge of forgetting that a certain Mr. ×× resides in Tokyo, your calling card arrived and finally jogged my memory."
He would likely emerge again eventually; when that time came, I had been looking forward to giving it a proper attempt after so long—but he never did emerge.
(The old monk too, with changing times, had gradually taken to using Edo dialect these days.
(and he'd even been dabbling a bit in this genbun itchi business—found it rather handy indeed) Thus, though no winter night was upon us, [I] tapped my pot while grandly embracing calligraphic Zen, wishing to present a splendid literary offering—but upon reflection, written bravado couldn't match spoken bravado's artistry, so economizing my efforts, I hereby commit these words to postcard.
Brush bravado, tongue bravado.
All amounts to futile bravado.
Thirst comes—tea; hunger comes—rice.
Silent stillness—true bravado.
Beneath the gaunt electric light, the Pot-Tapping Monk bows in reverence."

All of this was written in small characters.
I could do nothing but imagine that even to the old monk’s village the reach of the electric company had extended—envisioning tungsten light glowing in that dim temple kitchen—there being nothing else to perceive from this postcard.
Still, I found myself wanting to know how Tennan and his young wife were faring.

However, last year during the fresh greenery season, when I traveled to the countryside again and found myself confined by rain at an inn in Osaka’s Senba district, a telephone call came in the evening.
The maid who answered was giggling, making it impossible to discern who had called.
When pressed, “’Twas from Gorigan,” she said, pressing sleeve to face as she burst into peals of laughter.

The contrast between that old monk and the telephone was striking enough. Here was Gorigan—who’d even taken to using electric lights and making phone calls—seeming at last subdued by modernity, or so I thought as I picked up the receiver. But the voice wasn’t his; it belonged to a young woman. “I was thinking of calling on you tonight—would that be convenient?” she asked in crisp Tokyo dialect. “If this evening doesn’t suit, tomorrow morning would be perfectly acceptable.” Since I had plans to attend a yose performance with an old friend that night, I replied, “I’ll expect you tomorrow morning,” and hung up.

Then, the next morning while I was still asleep, the old monk arrived. I had him shown to the next room for the time being, washed my face, and began my meal, but from the neighboring room came constant sounds of coughing and the tapping of Hatsugetsuhō. Both that coughing and the sound of Hatsugetsuhō being tapped were nearly childhood familiars to me, their rhythms long since memorized.

“Eating your meal?” As soon as the voice spoke, the engawa’s shoji slid smoothly open.
The old monk, unable to wait any longer, had burst in.
In his hand, he carried the same cloth bundle I had seen in Tokyo two or three years prior.

“Excuse me,” I said, and continued my meal.
The old monk arranged his emaciated knees on the cushion the maid had offered and sat properly.
His painfully bony body was wrapped beneath a thin serge surplice.

“What’s rude about eating your meal?”
“Making me wait in the next room—now that’s downright rude.”
“Not even bringing out a tobacco tray,” said the old monk with a sour look.

“Well… Couldn’t you even bring out a tobacco tray?”
With that, the maid made a surprised face.

“Oh, I heard the sound of Hatsugetsuhō,” I said with a laugh.

“Well now—there was indeed a tobacco tray.”
“But that wasn’t the tobacco tray they brought out for me.”
“They must’ve given it to some guest who came before.”
“Since it had been left like that, there was naturally no fire or anything.”
“As you see, I used my own tobacco tray and only borrowed the Hatsugetsuhō,” said the old monk as he rummaged through his sleeve and produced a tin-plated portable lighter.
Between emaciated fingers, the characters “Utility Model…” could be read.

“You’ve become quite the modern monk—turning on electric lights, making phone calls. You even have such things.” I said, still laughing, and continued drinking my post-meal tea.

“Well now, just because people say they’re convenient and recommend them, I’ve tried using them, but they’re not all that convenient, I tell you. For one thing, you can’t smoke properly with electric light, and you can’t see the other person’s face on the telephone... I don’t know about others, but I’ve no mind to talk when I can’t see their face. Among such things, this one’s still the most tolerable,” the old monk said, toying with the lighter.

“Is that so,” I replied perfunctorily and continued drinking the tea.

“Does such a thing exist where the master just drinks tea and doesn’t serve any to his guest?” said the old monk in a chiding tone.

“That was mighty rude of him, weren’t it?” said the maid while laughing and serving tea to the old monk.

“That teacup has a flaw. Change it for that flawless one over there,” the old monk said, staring at the Rokubei ware teacup resting on the buried wood tea tray.

“There ain’t no flaw anywhere, weren’t it?” said the maid, staring at the teacup with a dubious look.

“No, there is.
“There’s a flaw at the foot.
“You must’ve chipped it when washing in the kitchen,” the old monk said, fixing his gaze in a glare.
The maid silently picked up the teacup, poured out the tea she had poured, and upon examining the foot, found that just as the old monk had said, the foot was slightly chipped.

“Well I’ll be—you really are clairvoyant, aren’t you,” said the maid with an astonished look.

“I dislike flawed utensils, ya see—it’s intuition from years of experience,” the old monk said triumphantly.

“You must be living the carefree retired life by now. Do you still not have any grandchildren?” I said as I poured tea into the flawless teacup with my own hands and offered it to the old monk.

“Where’s a grandchild? There’s a matter regarding Tennan’s bride. That’s precisely why I wanted you to hear about it. Since there was a lodging ad in the newspaper, I came all this way on purpose, but when I called last night—busy signal! So infuriating I thought about barging in anyway, but somehow held back. Came early this morning only to be made to wait in the next room. Infuriating, absolutely infuriating!” exclaimed the old monk, leaning forward.

IV

According to the old monk’s account, Tennan had not been informed at all and did not seem particularly opposed to the marriage his parents had arbitrarily arranged, but on the wedding day, amid the commotion of the bride’s arrival, he vanished somewhere.
Just when it came time for the three-times-three exchange of cups, the groom had disappeared without a trace, so chaos compounded chaos—in the kitchen quarters, the reception hall, the main sanctuary, people crisscrossed like threads in a loom.
Unable to remain idle himself, Ryūhō—though ailing at the time—searched all the way beneath the altar base alongside Fusako, who still lived despite her frail health. Yet they found only mouse droppings strewn about, with no trace of human footprints upon the accumulated dust.

The incident of a monk official from the head temple—who had embezzled offerings from branch temples and stayed at Gannenshi Temple with a pallid face—biting off his tongue and dying in the outhouse dated back three generations before the old priest. That latrine still remained at the rear of the reception hall’s engawa, its door nailed shut to this day.
The old priest had checked there as a precaution, but over time the nails had rotted, and the outhouse door that wouldn’t open was flapping in the wind.
In such a place teeming with spiderwebs and an eerie atmosphere, it was unthinkable that Tennan could be hiding there.

At their wits’ end, they announced that very night that the groom had suddenly fallen ill and postponed the ceremony, sending home both the matchmakers and helpers from the parishioners. However, the bride and her parents remained lodged at Gannenshi Temple for some time, waiting for Tennan to show himself.

Three days, four days, five days, seven days, ten days… Tennan’s whereabouts remained utterly unknown.

“What are we to do?
At least take her back for now,” said the old monk to the bride’s parent—who was himself quite elderly—his usual stubbornness having completely withdrawn into his shoulders as he spoke pitifully.

“Now see here—we’ve received the betrothal gifts and formally presented them once.
Taking her back is absolutely out of the question.
If you can’t make her your bride, then take her as your daughter.
Whether you dispose of her elsewhere from your side or keep her here in this temple as a servant—that’s your affair.
I too have pressing matters—I can’t keep dawdling here forever. Since we can’t exchange wedding cups, let us instead perform parent-child pledge cups.” With this counterproposal, they dug in their heels with stubbornness.

So when they sent for the matchmaker again, he—mistaking this to mean the groom had returned—came rushing over in delight, but his duty now was not to arrange a young couple’s union, but rather to have the old monk couple and the bride perform parent-child confirmation cups.

“Mr. XX, I’ve never been as worried before or since as I was then.”
“Fusako (the temple caretaker) died because of that,” said the old monk, having reached this point in his story, and let out a sigh.
His eyes held tears.

“Then what happened?” I asked a little impatiently.

“Now hold on there—I’ll tell it proper and slow,” said the old monk, taking a leisurely draw from his tobacco pipe with the zundon-shaped mouthpiece before

“Mr. XX—what can you say about today’s youth and their ways?”
“...For a child to be against the marriage arrangement their parents decided—preposterous!” said the old monk with a look of astonishment.

“That may be so—she’s not your wife, she’s Mr. Tennan’s wife.”
“Humans aren’t objects, so you can’t just handle them however you please.”

“Selfish?
“...Outrageous! How could parents deciding their child’s bride for them be called selfish?”

“You may have electric lights in your house, but it’s no good because you’re still lighting a paper lantern in your head.”
“Even people from hundreds of years ago would have at least inquired about the person’s consent in such situations before proceeding—they wouldn’t have decided their child’s marriage solely based on parental will.”
“Especially nowadays—such recklessness!”

"The whole issue is you all saying such things and egging on the youngsters."
“Now listen...” said the old monk, continuing his tale.
——

Tennan’s whereabouts remained unknown for about a month after that.
However, on the mountain above Takarazuka—famous for its girls’ opera—there stood an abandoned hermitage left to ruin. When a traveling painter who wandered through various provinces came asking to borrow the place temporarily, the villagers decided that since it was vacant anyway, he could stay provided he took care with fire prevention.
Though they warned that if rain leaked in and floors rotted, they wouldn’t perform maintenance.
Having strictly forbidden stripping off wall panels for firewood no matter how dilapidated it became, they allowed the traveling painter to reside in that hermitage.
The painter proved quite an eccentric—his various peculiar antics startled the villagers—but since he caused no real harm, everyone simply watched and laughed.

This traveling painter and Tennan had somehow formed a connection.
The old monk remained completely unaware of this connection. Having misread Tennan’s occasional trips to Takarazuka—ostensibly to watch those girls’ operas—as mere peculiar fascination with women, he concluded that securing a wife as quickly as possible was the only solution. In his eyes, this bride—slightly superior to average yet still ordinary—would surely rejoice at being bestowed upon his son without consultation. Yet contrary to all expectations, Tennan slipped away moments before exchanging wedding cups and sought refuge with the traveling painter in that dilapidated mountain hermitage.

Thinking that perhaps Tennan was there, Ryūhō had the temple servant search around Takarazuka, but he failed to notice the hermitage on the mountain.
While Fusako, more than Ryūhō himself, was drowning in tears of grief at the thought he might already be a rotting corpse somewhere, the old priest—contemplating the unity of life and death—stroked his sparse cheek whiskers and doted on Kinuko, now his adopted daughter, as if she were his biological child.

At last came word that Tennan was living in a dilapidated mountain hermitage, cooking meals with the traveling painter. Fearing others might drive him deeper into hiding, Ryūhō donned straw sandals and leaned heavily on his staff as he trudged uphill on a clear day.
Though the hermitage roof seemed close at hand, the narrow path proved unexpectedly long—a stone walkway sloping with rustic charm.
It was already March, yet frost pillars still clung to the mountain's hollows.

The old monk, who had long been plagued by asthmatic tendencies, clung to his staff on the high path overlooking the village, coughing violently enough to nearly expire as he gasped for breath.
Perhaps hearing his coughing echoes, the broken door of the hermitage opened slightly before closing again.
When he finally reached the hermitage gate, beneath its doorless roof where a woodcutter had stacked firewood to block passage, the path continued past a collapsed section of earthen wall beside it—from there lay traces of human comings and goings.

Approaching the closed entrance and calling out “Pardon me?”, a clattering sound came from within, and a man with shoulder-length greasy hair hanging down—filthy all over—appeared, wearing what looked like a jerkin made from dog skin or something similar over his soiled padded robe.
On his forehead, he wore a headband like that of a mountain ascetic.
This must be the traveling painter—what a strange man indeed, thought the old monk as he casually expressed his desire to meet the painter known as Mr. Kōun.
Handing over a name card he had prepared by cutting the edge of an old ledger and writing “Gannenshi Temple Head Priest Hashikawa Ryūhō” in large characters, Ryūhō said, “This is who I am,” to which Kōun arrogantly replied, “I am Kōun of literati painting. Do come up.”
Though Kōun looked considerably aged, he was still a youth not yet thirty. The old monk thought, What the hell? But fearing that angering him might make Tennan hide again, he politely excused himself with “Pardon me,” and attempted to step up from the rotted entrance platform. However, finding it impossible to walk in tabi socks, he put back on the straw sandals he’d removed earlier and entered the dust-filled interior.
Looking closer, the traveling painter was clattering across the torn tatami in his fair-weather clogs, but here and there rainwater leaked through, and from a large hole where the tatami and floorboards had rotted away, lush green bamboo grass was vigorously sprouting.
Even so, in the innermost part that served as the Buddhist altar room—though torn—the tatami mats were adequately laid out. On the sutra desk lay brushes and paper, while nearby, paintings of landscapes and orchids by that traveling painter who called himself Kōun lay scattered about.
Looking at those paintings that weren’t entirely unskilled, the old monk began to feel somewhat impressed.

Though Ryūhō offered a courteous greeting for their first meeting, Kōun merely nodded with his usual arrogance. Then Ryūhō—in what was for him the first display of deference in his entire life—said, “I understand a certain Tennan has been under your care. As he is my eldest son and heir to the temple, I must formally request his return.” At this, Kōun snorted a laugh. “So that’s your brat?” he said curtly, drilling his gaze into the old monk’s forehead. Under normal circumstances, Ryūhō would have unleashed his stubbornness full force, but here he kept his anger leashed, staring fixedly at the floor.
In the next room, he had removed his straw sandals and sat upon the torn tatami, but Kōun kept the sole brazier hugged to himself, offering neither tobacco tray nor zabuton cushion to his guest.

“Please let me see Tennan,” he pleaded tearfully. Kōun clicked his tongue in annoyance before turning toward the Buddhist altar and calling, “Tennan... Tennan!”
Then the lid of one of two long storage chests placed before the altar—whose purpose had puzzled me since earlier—began shifting with muffled creaks. “Behold my emergence...!” boomed a voice in the dramatic cadence of gidayu narration as the figure heaved up the lid with both hands, straw clinging to his form while striking a grandiose pose—this could only be Tennan.
Yet until one’s eyes adjusted and truly saw him, those few short months had so utterly transformed his appearance that he remained unrecognizable.

At that moment, the old monk thought his son was like a madman; though this was his own flesh and blood, he found him eerie and terrifying, utterly unable to speak.

“Mr. XX, listen well—I don’t know what sort of tears they were, but they came streaming down my cheeks then.”
“Truly.” The old monk’s eyes brimmed with tears as he finished speaking up to this point.

V

Since then, Tennan had become a completely different person.
He would sometimes suddenly return to the temple—coming back in silence, eating his meals in silence, sleeping in silence, and leaving in silence—more often than not.
Having become Kōun’s disciple and gained some ability to imitate literati painting, whenever he returned to the temple, he would draw bamboo shoots and lychees on the sliding doors, adding cocky little notes of self-praise before leaving.

The girl whom he had adopted with the intention of making her Tennan's bride was later settled at a temple in Hyogo through favorable circumstances—a prosperous parish temple of the Western sect where she would likely fare better than becoming Gannenshi Temple's caretaker—and though the old monk felt he had finally unburdened himself, he still wondered why Tennan had rejected that gentle, obedient, good-natured girl; even before her relocation to Hyogo, when she greeted Tennan upon his return from the mountains, he turned his face away.

“Mr. XX, I can’t help but think Tennan is a cripple—what do you make of it?” said the old monk at the close of a lengthy conversation at an inn in Senba, tilting his head with a hollow clunk. Each time he inclined his head, the bones emitted a rather loud creaking—a lifelong peculiarity of his. When he turned it side to side like a nodding doll, the joints produced dry knocks. This served him as substitute for proper massage.

Was it mental disability or physical? I found myself wanting to investigate this Tennan character. While I dimly recalled him from elementary school days, what manner of man he’d become remained utterly unknown to me. Thus we parted company that day, having agreed I’d visit Gannenshi Temple within days. And so it was settled—the old monk and I would venture together to that ruined hermitage atop the mountain to see both Tennan and the itinerant painter called Kōun.

Tennan had two younger brothers and two sisters. The next brother had left without even graduating elementary school, wandering through various provinces until he apparently ended up in Manchuria—hardly qualified to inherit the head priesthood in any case.
The youngest brother was being sent to middle school with great difficulty from the temple's strained finances, but it was unclear when he would amount to anything.
The older sister had become the priest’s wife at a certain mountain temple and rarely looked back at the temple where she was born, while her nineteen-year-old younger sister had taken full charge of caring for the old monk.
The old monk sniffled as he said that the first anniversary of Fusako—the temple caretaker who had fallen ill from despair after Tennan’s elopement, then died without properly taking her medicine—would soon arrive.

“I was born with weak ties to the flesh,” he said resignedly. Watching the old monk’s retreating figure leave my lodgings, even in this verdant early summer world, an autumn wind seemed to blow—the bones of his once-broad shoulders jutted starkly through.

The day we’d arranged to meet dawned bright and clear. From my room at the Senba inn, I looked through the garden where Chinese parasol tree branches hung lushly green and saw the neighboring house’s drying rack beyond it. Thin boards—about an inch wide and five inches long—were tied with string like dried sardines and packed tightly to dry. What could those be? I’d wondered about them often of late but remained baffled.

When I asked the old monk, he snorted a laugh. “Give it a proper think,” he said, puffing out his chest in perfect keeping with his stubborn nature. “Strugglin’ to know what ya don’t know—that’s how ya learn.”

I had completely forgotten about that matter until now, but today again from early morning, those yellow thin boards lay bathed in the glorious morning sun and dried like sardines. The soft wind of new greenery blew even onto these roof tiles deep with city grime, making the dried thin boards sway gently. Today of all days I resolved to determine what they were—stepping out to the railing and craning my neck—but the more I looked, the less I understood why such wood-scrap-like objects were being treated so preciously. Several times I thought to ask the cleaning maid, but as the old monk had said—feeling it would hold no value unless I figured it out myself—I racked my brains yet still couldn’t comprehend.

When I considered asking the maid who brought the meal tray, it somehow felt like disregarding the old monk’s words—this trivial matter abruptly loomed as a grave concern, and I even felt a faint pang of distress.

“Miss, what’s that—that thing drying over there?” I finally blurted out, pointing at the neighboring house’s drying rack.

Since the meal was finished, the maid who had been preparing tea turned toward it and gave an indifferent reply—“That thing?”—before adding nonchalantly, “It’s a comb (kushi).”

Yet I still did not understand.

Having misinterpreted “kushi” as skewers rather than combs, I thought—could such wide skewers exist? Perhaps they meant to split them into thinner ones, but they seemed too short for that purpose. Besides, skewers are usually bamboo—what use were wooden ones? Maybe for dumpling sticks?

But from what I’d glimpsed since yesterday, whoever handled them treated them with excessive care for mere skewers, leaving me tilting my head in puzzlement.

After the maid cleared away the meal tray, I went out to the railing again and gazed at those thin boards swaying in the breeze like dried sardines on skewers, but I simply couldn't reconcile them with being mere skewers.

A morning breeze, unseasonably chilly for early summer, swept through, making the inn's padded robe feel unnecessarily heavy.
With my skewer conundrum still unresolved, I changed into an unlined robe and draped a lined haori over my shoulders before ambling outside.
My destination remained unchanged - Gannenshi Temple.

When I transferred from the crowded suburban train to a small, emaciated-looking electric car, the fellow passengers were mostly pilgrims wearing straw sandals. Passing through a village where peony fields could be seen, going through a thicket where a large striped snake seemed likely to emerge, and crossing a precarious bridge spanning a mountain stream, there spread out before my eyes a stretch of impoverished village, and the familiar double roof of Gannenshi Temple came into view on the right. When I got off the train, a narrow farm path wound its way like a thread continuing toward Gannenshi Temple.

I encountered up to three farmers who looked as if the earth itself had become human, their clouded eyes—ignorance and benightedness laced with menace—fixing on me with fearsome intensity. Why do those who receive heaven and earth's greatest love, who bathe most abundantly in nature's blessings, bear such harsh faces? Every time I venture into the countryside and see people working intimately with the soil, this thought persists within me. By the roadside, wheat ears had grown to that perfect length for fashioning flutes.

When I stood at the entrance to Gannenshi Temple's priest's quarters, the old monk's voice—having apparently heard my footsteps—promptly said, “Please come right in.”

In one room of the priest’s quarters, the tatami mats were torn, and a large brazier made of natural wood had been placed. The old monk wore a yellowish garment resembling a child’s over his black padded robe and sat properly upright before the brazier; yet even in this familiar setting, with an expression that seemed to say “manners are manners,” he greeted me courteously.

“Today I thought I’d have to go mountain climbing with your guidance and was getting worried, but it’s become unnecessary now.”
“That one came over from beyond.”
“Just like Shakyamuni descending the mountain,” said the old monk as he prepared tea.

Then suddenly, from behind a torn shoji screen to the side, a man appeared as if tumbling out.

“I am Tennan. It’s been a while,” he said with a gentle smile, his face retaining unmistakably priestly features. His hair was cut short and his kimono neat—not a trace remained of that “Shakyamuni descending the mountain” appearance. Moreover, compared to his father the old monk, who had withered to little more than skin and bones, he was sturdily built with good flesh on his frame.

“Are you studying painting?” I asked.

“Yes... This is what they call flair in Tokyo. Do you grasp it?” he said with a laugh that creased his face like weather-beaten bark.

He didn’t particularly strike one as an eccentric or madman—just a country priest of the sort even a widow-run pawnshop could size up.

“Is it true you’re a misogynist?” I asked again.

“Well, how does it look to your eyes?” Tennan replied with feigned composure.
Given his robust build, he couldn’t possibly be a misogynist—or perhaps there was some physical disability? Struck by a heartrending feeling, I stared intently at Tennan.

“Are you going back to the mountains again?”

“Yes.
“This ain’t no real style.”
“……I’m sick of down here.”
“But y’know, the food down here’s tastier, so I sometimes come down to eat.”
“As long as there’s no food, I’ve got no use for down here,” Tennan declared as he stood up and headed toward the kitchen, after which he never showed his face again.
The old monk had beads of sweat on the tip of his nose and clenched his fist tightly.

Six

Since then, I did not meet the old monk.

Since it was possible that I might visit the Osaka inn again, I ended up returning to Tokyo after waiting expectantly for a couple of days.

At this final meeting, the old monk—as if sensing something—said, “××-san, you’ll remember me now and then even after I die, won’t you?"
“As something to remember me by, I shall present you with this one,” he said, and gave me a vermilion clay teapot.
The firing technique had given the clay body wrinkles like Shibugami paper, so the old monk called it Shibugami clay.

When I informed the old monk that I had bought Uji’s new tea in Kyoto on my return trip and promptly brewed and drank it using that Shibugami clay teapot, he replied, “Shibugami’s a fine one indeed—a most fortunate piece.” A postcard arrived bearing these words: “Though this humble monk remains unacquainted with new tea, you have already savored its full aroma—pray inform him that even its former master rejoices at your good fortune.” The old monk still possessed teapots of various clays—vermilion, purple, black—and seemed to take pleasure in brewing coarse tea while alternating between them. Since he had little connection with his children, he may have come to think of these teapots as his own.

I sent out a New Year’s card in January of this year, but no response came from the other side.
Was it last New Year when I recalled that postcard from the old monk? Amongst many “Respectfully Celebrating the New Year” greetings, his had borne a skeleton drawing overlaid with the words: “How diminished grows the daikon’s flesh through vigorous grating, leaving but meager remains.” I had pitifully wondered if those radishes had now been completely worn down—yet at January’s end arrived another “New Year’s Felicitations” in a child’s hand, bearing the old monk’s name.
Then the very next day came a postcard in an uneven script showing traces of anguish: “Having caught this common influenza, I barely clung to life—but that respite proved brief. Now my lungs have worsened, and death looms near.”
“Well then,” I promptly wrote back, “If there’s anything you wish to eat, please say so without hesitation.
When I wrote “I’ll send it immediately,” about a week later arrived another postcard in that labored hand: “While deeply grateful for your kindness, I find myself presently wanting nothing—yet after pondering a full day and night lest I let slip the shooting star beneath the light and the long serpent, I would request crucian carp sparrow-grilled.
The smaller the better.
Moreover, I am tormented by cold at the nape during these frigid nights.
Should there be an old shoulder wrap of your wife’s, pray bestow one upon me.
How does Your Excellency perceive this destitute monk’s realm where even a neck wrap lies beyond reach?
Though never having known wealth’s comforts, I’ve thoroughly savored poverty’s scant joys these fifty-eight years......”—here traces of his abandoned brush lingered in the margins as if he’d wished to write more.
The address on front remained in that child’s script.

So I promptly went to Senzu to buy crucian carp sparrow-grilled and sent it along with a wool shoulder wrap. Immediately came a strained postcard reading “Delicious warmth, delightful!” and another saying, “After eating crucian carp sparrow-grilled, I’ve now developed a craving for sparrow crucian carp-grilled.” “Having obtained Long, we set our sights on Shu...” Though this message was cut short, two postcards arrived together—the latter bearing these words in relatively vigorous handwriting.

While I was thinking of going to Zoshigaya’s Kishimojin to buy sparrow skewers and send them to him, March arrived. As I began preparing to embark on a new long-form work that required fresh writing, I temporarily forgot about the old monk.

The death notice from Tennan arrived: “Stubbornness... onto the eternal journey.”
I immediately sent incense offerings addressed to Tennan, but whether they reached him or not—even that much remains unclear.

According to recent hearsay from someone visiting from the capital, the old monk’s body had been left undisturbed until his second son in Manchuria could return—but since they couldn’t properly ascertain the son’s whereabouts, it had taken over half a month before he finally made it back.