Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

It was a warm early evening. The pale red moonlight filtered through the grove of ginkgo trees that had just taken on a light green hue. The woods behind Asakusa Kannon Hall saw few passersby, but the clamorous crowd by the pond resounded tumultuously, mingled with the musical instruments from the moving pictures. A woman who had left the waiting area near Hikan Inari shrine passed behind Asakusa Shrine and was about to head toward the side of Kannon Hall when, upon reaching a large ginkgo tree standing at the right roadside edge, a sturdy fedora-wearing man who seemed to have been hiding behind its trunk fluttered out bat-like and brushed past her. At that moment, the woman thought she felt the man's hand brush against the right sleeve of her coat. With a look of disgust as if repelled by a ghost, she twisted her body to the left and walked away briskly.

In the direction the sturdy man had gone stood the corner of a soba shop's wall beside the waiting area from which the woman had emerged. The moonlight brightly illuminated the sign affixed to the wall that read "Park District Five."

“Isn’t that Sansai?” called a voice from the side. The burly man halted upon hearing the familiar voice. A small-framed man wearing a hunting cap stood there.

“Iwamoto, where’re you off to?” “No particular place. I was just walking around here. And you?” “Me? I had an appointment to meet him and came here, but something came up, so I’m calling it off and heading somewhere else.” “That’s not it—you couldn’t pull off the drop, could you?” “How could I imagine someone who’s chasing after nursemaids?”

“Cut it out. You’re the one who keeps coming to that old woman by the bench up on the hill, aren’t ya?” “This ain’t just casting a wide net.” “So a fake flower peddler then?” “If you say I’m not some low-class punk—fine. Let’s hit the club and talk over beers.” The two men exited through the Niohmon Gate laughing together, turned toward the ward office, and entered a small bar beside it. About six tables stood arranged with around ten customers scattered among them. They took a table in the left-hand corner and ordered beer, whereupon their regular plump waitress brought two Western-style cups.

“Why don’t you tell me about that terrifying little advertisement item of yours?” said Iwamoto with a sneer. “After wetting my throat...” Sansai took a sip while keeping an eye on the black-bearded man arranging two or three Masamune bottles at the neighboring table. In a low voice, he continued: “The mark used to be in Yanagibashi. Now he’s by Komagata Hall—ship-plank fence with an overhanging pine, that’s the layout. And get this—the place has got remarkable beauty.” He smiled as he spoke.

“Listen, you keep chasing after those types and you’ll end up in detention again. Last night over in Senzoku-cho, when I ran into that bucktoothed detective, he was asking about you—‘How’s Sansai been lately?’” Iwamoto said in a low voice. “If they come calling, what can you do?” “Even in spring, the detention center’s cold.”

“Don’t you fret—there’s a blazing crimson crepe-silk night robe waiting.” As their beer glasses emptied, Sansai ordered refills and said while moistening his lips with a sip, “Just wait ten more days. I’ll show you something worth drooling over.”

“You’re saying that—but is it real?” Because Sansai’s story differed from his usual ones，Iwamoto stopped teasing and began pressing him seriously. “It’s true.” “Then how about explaining this ‘movie’ of yours?”

The two men moistened their throats with beer and talked engrossedly about the woman. These two men were delinquents who loitered around Asakusa Park—Iwamoto lived in Senzoku-cho and made his living posting flyers for moving picture advertisements, while Sansai was the son of a barber from Umamichi.

Gradually the bar grew crowded, and customers in Western clothes came to their table as well. Iwamoto noticed this and twisted around to glance at the octagonal clock hanging on the pillar above the counter. “Oh, it’s already 10:30. I’ve got somewhere to be.” “Which direction’s your net set in?” “Tonight’s business,” he smirked, his pockmarked mouth twisting as he adjusted his hat. “Thanks.” After Iwamoto left, Sansai summoned the waitress, settled the beer bill, and was about to depart when—while lifting the blue curtain draping the entrance—he recalled the letter he’d tossed behind Kannon Hall and wondered whether that woman had already found it.

II

The outdoors was bathed in clear moonlight. As the movies and plays let out, foot traffic had increased. Sansai passed through the night stalls lining Denbō-in’s wall and headed toward the pond. As he walked, he imagined the woman’s arrival—she might come as soon as tomorrow night… between 8 and 9… If Iwamoto were here, he’d make him green with envy—and so on. He had heard from a customer at his shop about a woman kept by a pawnshop owner serving as a ward councilor who was carrying on an affair with an entertainer. Intending to blackmail her into submission, he located the place, waited for her return, and threw in the blackmail letter.

…Come to the XXX Bar beside Asakusa Ward Office between 8 and 9 PM at night within ten days starting tomorrow. I will be wearing a red ribbon on my haori cord as identification. If you do not come, I will inform your husband and have it published in the Asakusa Public Bulletin. Recalling the blackmail letter’s wording he had written, he thought she must be desperate enough to come without fail. It was a windless, calm night. The willow trees around the pond hung their branches perfectly straight. The movie theater illuminations across the pond—which appeared to burn fiercely on dark nights—looked blurred under the moonlight.

Sansai, walking almost unconsciously until he reached the earthen bridge, suddenly noticed a beautiful young girl approaching from the other side. That was a fair-skinned girl of sixteen or seventeen wearing a haori with vivid yuzen patterns. Sansai's eyes were drawn to the girl. The girl walked toward him with a slow, leisurely gait as if out for a stroll and passed by Sansai. As they passed each other, her clear black eyes—moist and positioned between her brows and eyelids—gazed enrapturedly at his face. ……Wondering if she had companions, he glanced behind her, but only three or four drunken laborers approached, with no sign of anyone accompanying her.

Sansai’s nefarious heart stirred. He passed through the group of laborers, then turned back and followed the young girl. The group of laborers passed by the young girl, glancing back and calling out something as they went on their way. The young girl turned left and entered the woods. In the dim grove, gas lamps were lit here and there, and people passed sporadically. A suspicious woman with white-powdered face also passed through. On benches sporadically placed around the area, people sitting there conversed in faint voices. Among them were some who showed the tips of their noses red with cigarette embers like fireflies. The young girl passed through their midst and quietly headed toward the tea shop. Sansai kept about six feet back, walking slowly while attentively scanning his surroundings. This was both to avoid startling the young girl and to prevent being glared at by detectives patrolling the park.

The yuzen pattern on the young girl’s haori stood out clearly in the darkness, as if pale light were burning within it. When he stared closely, the pattern wasn’t the familiar floral and avian designs he was accustomed to. It was rendered in fine lines resembling seaweed—or perhaps, depending on one’s perspective, the swirling currents of water. When they had passed in front of the tea shop and reached the wisteria trellis area behind the aquarium—with no passersby nearby—Sansai closed the distance and called out.

“Hey, hey.” The young girl turned to show the pale curve of one cheek as she walked. “Where are you going?” Sansai said in an intentionally gentle voice. The pale curve of the girl’s cheek came into view again, seeming to faintly smile. Sansai thought he had already firmly grasped her. “Won’t you walk with me?” The young girl walked on, once again showing the pale curve of one cheek. Sansai had already forgotten about the detectives and immediately began walking close behind her.

The young girl turned her steps toward the rear, keeping Kannon Hall to her right. Sansai thought: She’s heading into the darkness on her own—I’ve got her now. “Where’s your house?” Sansai spoke with increasing presumption. The young girl walked with her body leaning limply, as though waiting for a more explicit proposition from the man’s lips.

“Why don’t you just tell me where you live?” The young girl made as if to stop her feet momentarily but immediately started walking. Sansai tried to place his own hand on her right hand. Just as two or three geisha-like female companions approached from ahead, he withdrew the hand he was about to extend.

The two were already standing before the fountain. The statue of Bishamonten, having stopped its water flow, stood yellowed under the moonlight. As Sansai glanced absently at the statue while trying to grasp what seemed like the young girl's hand at his right side, there was no hand to grasp. ...Huh? he thought as he looked—the young girl's figure had vanished completely. Sansai froze in shock. He spun around searching the area, but the young girl's form was nowhere to be seen.

“This is strange,” he thought.

Sansai ran to the back of the hall, but the young girl’s figure was nowhere to be seen there either. He returned to the fountain once more and walked around its perimeter, searching as if he were running.

“Where’d she go, that bastard?” Sansai walked round and round searching through the nearby woods, but couldn’t find her no matter how hard he tried. Still unable to give up, he went as far as the Nio Gate and searched around the pond, but ultimately found nothing.

Ⅲ

Sansai was waiting at the xxx Bar next to the ward office for the woman he had blackmailed to come visit. He alternated between watching the octagonal clock above the counter—its hands crawling forward with excruciating slowness—and monitoring customers who pushed through the blue entrance curtain. The minute hand was pointing at ten. ...Just ten more minutes now. Will she come? he wondered, unconsciously casting his eyes toward his chest. The red ribbon tied to the right base of the tea-colored flat cord on his silk Ōshima haori looked like a flower. He shifted his gaze back toward the entrance. A tall student wearing a serge hakama was leaving. ...Before long, she might go to the meeting place and send a maid instead—he thought again.

Once again rose the matter of the young girl he had lost by the fountain last night. His mind drifted unbidden toward that memory. The yuzen-patterned haori like blue drapes and that stark white face seemed to materialize before him... Still—why had she disappeared? She couldn’t have truly vanished—he turned over in his mind the young girl’s strange behavior, how she’d disappeared so abruptly.

He rested a single hand on the chair’s worn armrest, tilting his cheek—where gold glinted at the corner of his mouth—against its back. The clock struck nine. ...Had it already reached nine? he wondered, shifting his gaze from the clock back to the entrance. The blue curtain hung slack, soaking in the stale odors of liquor and tobacco that drifted through the earthen-walled room.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Sansai? You’re acting awfully quiet tonight,” said the thick-lipped waitress from the front. He merely looked at the waitress and said nothing. He grew impatient that the woman hadn’t come. He perched forward on his seat, staring at the entrance. There were customers arriving in pairs, but no sign of the woman. Five minutes passed, then ten. She might not come right away after all, he thought. If she doesn’t show after one or two more nights of waiting, I’ll have to send another blackmail letter...

The thought of the young girl surfaced again. ……She might be here tonight too—as this thought arose, he found himself wanting to see her. He hurriedly settled the bill and went outside. Outside, there was a moon like last night’s.

He moved carefully through the straggling crowd under the moonlight and went to the pond’s edge. Having left Denbō-in’s wall and emerged at the pond’s edge, he spotted the young girl in a yuzen-patterned haori among the crowd approaching from the left. He quietly approached in that direction and, while staring intently at her face, offered a smile. The young girl also gazed back at his face with mesmerized eyes. ...I won't lose sight of her tonight. “What time did you slip away last night?” Sansai said, peering into her face.

The young girl merely turned her faintly smiling face toward him and said nothing. "What's your name?" Sansai asked again. "Minawa... that's my name," the young girl said in a small voice. "Minawa... Miss Minawa, right?" Sansai found the young girl unbearably cute. "Where are you from?" The young girl merely responded with a smile.

“Why don’t we walk together?”

He noticed something brushing past his side that peered at his face as it passed. He walked in silence for a moment. The young girl crossed the earthen bridge and ascended the mountain path. Sansai, thinking they could talk on the upper bench, eagerly followed after her.

“Why don’t we rest here?” The young girl silently descended the mountain to the right and headed toward the bridge spanning a small pond. The moonlight was blocked by the grove of trees, and the surroundings were dark. When he went onto the bridge, Sansai slid closer and tried to grab her hand. And then, before he knew it, the young girl was gone.

Sansai frantically searched the area. A man and woman who had crossed the bridge passed by, their eyes darting about as they took in Sansai's face while he anxiously scanned his surroundings on the bridge.

IV

Sansai was walking around the pond. He had been waiting at the XXX Bar that night for the woman he was blackmailing, but when she still hadn’t appeared by nearly ten o'clock, he went out again to search for the young girl.

Before long, all the attractions within the park closed. The crowd around the pond thinned, but the young girl did not appear. He sat on benches on the hilltop and benches in the grove, resting his tired legs and such.

…Tonight’s no good, he muttered while walking past Egawa’s ball-riding attraction. He had given up circling the pond and started to leave, but finding himself unable to return home and go straight to bed, he walked while thinking of the woman at the butcher shop beside the post office.

The night sky held thin clouds that left the moonlight dim and hazy. Foot traffic grew increasingly sparse, and shops selling goods rattled their shutters closed. Nakamise-dori Street lay dimly lit too, most shops having closed. Sansai walked toward Tram Street, dragging his geta along the stone-paved Nakamise-dori. Just as he reached the center of Nakamise-dori, a girl emerged from an alley on the right and appeared before him. It was that young girl. The bluish-green shimmer of her yuzen-patterned haori stood out clearly.

“Hey,” Sansai called out.

The young girl halted and revealed her pale face. “Miss Minawa, you slipped away again last night.” The young girl smiled faintly. “Where are you headed now?” The young girl turned her face toward Tram Street. “Mind if I tag along?”

The young girl walked as if nodding. Sansai also followed along. As he walked, he thought... I won’t let her get away tonight, keeping his eyes fixed on the woman. When the young girl exited Nakamise-dori, she turned toward Azumabashi Bridge and walked along the edge of the roadway. The streetcar nearing the end of its service had people boarding and disembarking here and there. Sansai abruptly thought to take the young girl to the cheap inn in Hanakawado that he knew.

“Let’s not go to some place I know—I’ll treat you proper.”

The young girl faintly smiled and looked back, but— “Let’s go over there.” “You’ve got somewhere to go?”

The young girl nodded and walked briskly. Sansai thought... What kind of person is this woman? She can’t possibly be out fishing or anything... He found it suspicious, but thinking that pressing the matter would frighten her, he went along with what the young girl said.

The two of them passed by the police box at the foot of Azumabashi Bridge and walked on. A police officer standing at the entrance was staring intently at the figures of the young girl and the burly man. Sansai found this faintly eerie and unpleasant. “Aren’t your legs tired?” Sansai forced a friendly tone to show the officer he wasn’t suspicious.

The two passed along the left side of the bridge. The clatter of wooden sandals echoed sharply. Beneath the bridge flowed water from the Sumida River—like a mouse-gray carpet laid out—streaming like a river coursing through a dream world. At the bridge’s dead end stood another police box where an officer leaned against its entrance as if asleep. Sansai felt relieved. The young girl turned left at that corner and walked along the riverside edge. To their right loomed a brick building belonging to a beer company, its color resembling dried blood. There was no foot traffic there now. Sansai suddenly wondered if perhaps this girl had nowhere specific to go but was wandering toward deserted areas out of shyness around people.

When he said, “Is it still far?” the young girl looked back at the man with an expression that seemed to say, “Almost there.”

“Your house.” The young girl shook her head. The two came to the corner where they were about to turn toward Makurabashi Bridge. There stood a toilet nestled against the riverside edge. When they reached its front, the young girl suddenly ran to the stone wall at the riverside edge. Fearing she might escape again, Sansai hurried after her. Beneath the stone wall swelled river water filled to capacity. The young girl leaped into the water while fluttering her yuzen-patterned haori sleeves—not a single splash sounded. Sansai stood frozen atop the stone wall and could only watch her body vanish into the water. Her disheveled hair disappeared as she jumped. The Ōkawa River’s water that had swallowed her flowed serenely under hazy moonlight, utterly unconcerned.

Sansai ran back and forth along the top of the stone wall, peering down at the water's surface while fumbling with both hands at his waist to loosen his decorative belt, straining for any glimpse of the woman's figure. The young girl's figure never reappeared. Then Sansai became aware of his own panic - how he'd been startled when she jumped into the water. He remembered how disastrous it would be if someone spotted him here. Forgetting all sense of responsibility, he darted restless glances around his surroundings before hastily retying his half-undone belt and turning toward Makurabashi Bridge to make his escape.

Ⅴ

Sansai, terrified, stopped going out from the next day onward. Keeping a low profile inside his house, he looked through the two or three newspapers his shop carried and listened to conversations of customers visiting his home, watching for rumors about the drowned young girl—a situation he himself had driven into—but even after four or five days, no such rumors surfaced. He felt somewhat relieved and thought that since the corpse had likely been carried out to sea and thus must have become impossible to trace, there was nothing more to worry about.

Moreover, when he carefully observed his surroundings, he began to think that someone who had been prowling for women day and night suddenly shutting themselves indoors might actually increase others’ suspicions. So on the sixth night, he fearfully ventured out. And as he walked, he recalled the artificial flower shop in Senzoku-cho, so he entered through the Niohmon Gate, crossed through the park, and went into the alley known as Sarunosuke Alley. In the maze-like tangle of alleys connecting to alleys, small houses with bamboo lattices that had once housed private prostitutes until a year or two prior stood jumbled together under disorderly eaves, but now they had all been banned. The few remaining houses hung dubious signs reading "artificial flower shop," their small store shelves lined with assorted fake blooms.

The place Sansai was heading to lay a few houses down, turning from alley to alley. At that corner stood an oden shop with a red lantern hung. The red moonlight that had emerged after spreading about an hour of evening darkness rested on its eaves. Sansai wanted to lift his spirits here, so he ducked his head through the curtain. A student-looking man was eating oden alone.

“Let me get a drink,” Sansai said, looking at the familiar old man’s face.

The old man took a bottle of sake from the shelf on the right, opened its lid, passed it behind him, and said, “Here—heated up.” There was a long hibachi with a copper pot set in it, and sitting there was a young girl he had never seen before. “Right away.” The young girl deftly took the bottle the old man had produced and immersed it in the copper pot. “What would you like for your side dishes?” said the old man, holding long chopsticks. “If there’s squid, I’ll take squid.”

“Unfortunately, we’re out of squid, but we do have ganmodoki if that suits.” “Then I’ll have ganmodoki and hanpen.” The old man took ganmodoki and hanpen from the pot and placed them before Sansai, then set out a cup—just as the sake had finished warming. Sansai bowed over the counter, ate the side dishes and drank the sake, but the sake soon ran out. “Old man, another round.” The old man was rhythmically slicing pickles. Because his hands were occupied, he said while looking back over his shoulder.

“Minawa—another round. My hands are full here—you handle it.”

At the word “Minawa,” Sansai started and peered through the billowing steam rising from the pot toward the young girl. The young girl stood up to head toward the shelves and, casting a fleeting glance toward the customer, smiled. That was his young girl—the one with the clear space between her eyes and brows, her eyes moist and glistening—who had leaped into the water. That haori too was the same yuzen-patterned haori radiating a vivid blue-green sheen. He dropped his chopsticks.

“Old man, that’s enough—how much?” he said, trembling. “Will you be stopping the sake?”

“Enough, enough—how much?” “I’ll take twenty sen.” Sansai, his hands trembling, took out two ten-sen bills from his coin pouch, threw them down, and fled in a panic. And forgetting all about the artificial flower shop, he headed toward busier and busier areas, but his mind was in such disarray that he couldn’t tell which direction he was going. After entering and exiting the same alleyways repeatedly, he finally emerged onto a bustling thoroughfare with heavy foot traffic and could somewhat settle his mind. [...] Still, he thought, the fact that the woman who had jumped into the water was appearing before him surely meant she bore a grudge against him. He was unbearably terrified.

Then a bar with bright electric lights came into view. He hurriedly entered it. In a shop on Nijo or Sanjo fitted with alabaster tables, a crowd of customers was packed in. He went to its right side and sat down. "Could someone come here? We have a customer." The waitress who had been standing before a customer on the left side handling payment said while looking toward the cashier's desk. Then a waitress appeared from nowhere to stand before Sansai. "What may I bring for you?"

“Bring me a beer,” Sansai said as he looked at the woman’s face. That was now the young girl’s face—a clear expanse between her eyes and brows. Blood rushed to Sansai’s head. He abruptly stood up and fled outside.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you fidgeting around like that?” came a voice from behind as someone placed a hand on his shoulder.

Sansai started and froze in place. The one who had placed a hand on him was Iwamoto. “You’re acting all jumpy—did you pull something again?” Iwamoto laughed. Sansai wordlessly fixed his darting eyes on Iwamoto’s face.

“What’s wrong—did a mountain fox spirit bewitch you?” Iwamoto laughed again. Sansai finally regained his bearings. “Oh, just some minor business to fret over,” he joked, though his voice caught jagged in his throat.

“Ah, whatever—let’s go to ××× Bar.” When Iwamoto said this, Sansai thought ××× Bar would likely be safe. The two made their way to the area near the ward office, but Sansai—still unsettled—couldn’t bring himself to step forward into the bar entrance first. He followed timidly behind Iwamoto and entered, sweeping his gaze over the four or five waitresses there, but they were all familiar faces from usual with nothing suspicious about them.

“What are you looking around so restlessly for?” Having been admonished by Iwamoto, Sansai finally took his seat.

“How about beer?” said Iwamoto. “I’ll have whiskey.” Sansai wanted to get thoroughly drunk and steel his nerves.

Soon, beer arrived before Iwamoto, and whiskey arrived before Sansai.

“Haven’t seen you in four or five days—where’ve you been hiding?” “The shop was busy—couldn’t get out.” “That’s awfully righteous talk from you. What—detectives give you another warning? You were spouting nonsense about that ship-plank fence near Komagatadō...”

“No—really, the shop was busy.” “Seeing how hard you’re scrambling to explain yourself, you’ve clearly stepped in something foul.” Sansai, terrified his crimes might be exposed through this line of questioning, protested with all his might. “Your excuses grow feebler by the second—but for old times’ sake, I’ll play along with this ‘busy shop’ story,” Iwamoto laughed without pause.

“Mr. Sansai, there’s a customer for you,” called the waitress’s voice. Sansai started and looked up. At the entrance stood a sturdy, maid-like woman who seemed to have business there. Sansai, thinking it might be that suspicious young girl again, looked closely—but it was a round-faced woman who appeared eighteen or nineteen. “Mr. Sansai, you there,” the waitress called out, stretching up to look at him. ...Could this be from that mistress? Sansai thought. He hurriedly left his chair, headed toward the entrance, and stood facing the woman’s face.

“Are you Mr. Sansai Tokiji?” the woman asked with a smile.

“Yes, I am Sansai Tokiji,” Sansai said. Upon hearing this, the woman calmly took out a blue-enveloped letter from her bosom and presented it. “Please review this and provide your prompt response.” Sansai cut open the seal and read it. ...as there are various matters I wish to discuss, I ask that you come discreetly with my messenger so as not to attract attention... was written. It had come from the woman in Komagata.

“Alright, wait here a moment. I’ll settle things over there and come back,” said Sansai, returning to his seat before whispering into the ear of Iwamoto, who had been watching with wide eyes. “I’m stepping out for a bit—settle the bill together later,” he said, producing two 50-sen bills from his clasp purse.

“So it’s finally Komagata,” Iwamoto asked enviously. “Well, around there.” Sansai briskly left and went out with the woman. Iwamoto, envious and fueled by curiosity, wanted to see where he was going, so he hurriedly added some more money to what Sansai had left and threw it onto the table. “Hey, there’s 1 yen and 20 sen here. If it’s not enough, tomorrow night!” he said, hurrying outside.

Outside, mist rose to blur the moonlight. Iwamoto turned right from the bar entrance—assuming Komagata lay that way—and peered ahead. Eighteen meters distant walked Sansai and the woman side by side in conversation. She wore a petite haori dyed in blue-green yuzen patterns. ...Fancy maid service, he thought.

The two emerged onto Hirokoji Avenue, crossed the streetcar line, and turned onto the sidewalk on the other side toward Komagata. Iwamoto followed after them, keeping a distance of about eighteen meters. The pale gray mist appeared to envelop the woman’s figure intermittently. When they reached Komagata Hall’s front, the two quickly crossed the streetcar tracks and descended from before the hall. Iwamoto followed them while taking care not to be noticed... That must be her at last. That bastard must have gotten to her somehow—he thought, consumed with envy.

The two emerged into a back alley and moved about nine meters to the left, but when they opened a black door resembling a rear gate, Sansai’s figure disappeared from view ahead. The woman slipped halfway through the gate and closed it while turning her small white face toward Iwamoto before vanishing. “Damn it—he’s really gone in now,” Iwamoto clicked his tongue as he strode toward it. There stood a two-story house with a ship-plank fence, its main gate repurposed as a side entrance bearing a small eaves light, beside which hung a nameplate reading “Yamaguchi Hana.” “...I won’t let this slide either,” Iwamoto muttered, scanning the characters on the nameplate again and again.

VI

Five or six days later, Sansai’s mother came to Iwamoto’s house in Chitose-cho and said her son had disappeared. When they inquired about the day he had left home, it turned out to be the very night he had gone to the woman’s house in Komagata. Iwamoto reluctantly explained the events of that night, and the two of them went to the house of Yamaguchi Hana in Komagata.

An old woman who appeared to be a maid came out to answer the door, and from behind her emerged the mistress—a woman of about twenty-five or twenty-six with a round chignon. “Might my son have come to your honorable residence?” the mother said. “What son do you mean?” the proprietress asked suspiciously. “It is Sansai Tokiji.” “...Sansai Tokiji... I’m afraid I don’t know such a person.” “Is that so? As my son has been missing these four or five days, I inquired with his friend Mr. Iwamoto here—he states that on the night of his disappearance, your maid appeared to my son at the ××× Bar and took him away. This Mr. Iwamoto followed out of curiosity and witnessed them entering through the back gate without doubt.”

The proprietress listened with an exasperated look, then turned toward Iwamoto and said, “That must be some mistake. Even if someone were bringing a person through the back gate, my house’s back gate faces the river—you can’t enter except by boat. And what sort of woman was this supposed maid of my household?” “She was sixteen or seventeen, fair-skinned, wearing a haori that looked like yuzen patterns,” Iwamoto said.

“...Well then, this cannot possibly be my house. In my household, aside from the old maid who just attended to you, I have never employed any other maids,” the proprietress declared firmly. The two, having no further recourse, left dejectedly—but Iwamoto, who had clearly witnessed them entering through the back gate and found it deeply unsettling, went to investigate what appeared to be a rear gate on the left side of the property. There was indeed a gate door coated in coal tar, so when he gently tried pushing it, the door’s pivot immediately gave way. The area appeared to be a wholesaler’s unloading dock adjacent to it, with the Yamaguchi residence’s ship-plank fence on the left and the neighboring house’s brick wall on the right. The two entered there.

At the dead end jutted a single wooden walkway built against a stone wall like a veranda, and beneath it, the Ōkawa River’s waters lay swollen as if concealing countless secrets. The two gazed at the river’s surface, then exchanged silent glances and stood rooted in place.

Soon after that, strange rumors of a water demon began to circulate. It is said that Sansai’s whereabouts remain unknown to this day, and they will likely never be known.