Pathway to Japanese Literature

I lived freely with my father, who was nearly seventy, in the inner temple of the lonely temple precincts. By then, I was already seventeen. Father liked tea. Gazing at the shadows of fresh zelkova leaves covering the inner garden swaying on the damp moss, I would often sit with Father around the small tea hearth. Even on sweltering summer days, when I sat with Father by the tea hearth, I would paradoxically find the kettle’s clear, profound, and reverent simmering sound refreshingly cool and invigorating.

Father would take up the tea whisk with practiced hands, then skillfully yet vigorously stir within the heavy Nanban-imported vessel—quietly, with a delicate tremor that belied his considerable strength. In moments, the thick green liquid transformed into pure white foam as fine as crushed quartz sand, holding a substantial yet balanced weight—its mellow, noble fragrance permeating deep into our minds. Around that time, though it had become a habit, I had not yet reached the point of quietly savoring that thick, heavy liquid—yet I found myself fond of this beverage with its strangely intermingled bitterness and sweetness. When I let it rest on my tongue and savored it, just as Father always said, a certain calmness would gradually infuse my spirit, and my mind would grow still.

“You’ve become quite skilled at drinking tea, but when ever did you learn that…?” Father would say things like that. “Before I knew it, I had learned it.” “Whenever I watch you drinking it, don’t I just naturally come to understand?” “That’s true.” “It’s best to remember everything.”

At such times, Father would take out various old tea bowls and show them to me. Many were Ko-Kutani blues said to resemble first-generation kettles, black-lacquered stoneware appearing almost corroded, and bold yellow-green Chinese pieces—all polished over decades by the clean residue and luster from countless tea gatherings. I did not understand such things, but it was true that Father’s fondness for ceramics had gradually made me come to appreciate pottery, even without truly comprehending it.

Father took out from among them one old tea bowl in pale egg-yellow intended for a woman’s use, “This one should be yours,” he said, placing it in my hands. I placed it in the corner of the tea shelf and was happy to make it my own. Father had what one might call a childlike face and an ethereal build, with eyebrows so long they turned white at the tips. In the quiet intervals between sutra chanting, he would make tea, practice calligraphy, turn the calendar pages, polish Buddhist implements—spending his days in diligent industry. After losing his wife in his youth, he lived out soundless, desolate days with a single manservant. On days when tea was prepared, well water was deemed too coarse-grained to use, so in the mornings,

“I’m sorry to trouble you, but fetch me a cupful without any debris.” Worrying that I might find it bothersome, he always had me fetch water from the Sai River out back. In Tokyo—where this Sai River held significance comparable to the Sumida River—its rapids-honed water possessed a fine-grained softness indispensable for tea days. At such times I would take up my bucket and hurry straight to the shallows. Stone steps led from our garden down to those shallows, and from there one could reach the river itself.

The upper reaches of this Sai River formed part of Mount Dainichi, a peak extending through the Hakusan range; its waters stayed crystalline through all seasons, and people said the shallows held an especially beautiful sound. I would thrust my hand bucket into those clear shallows to draw the morning's first water. Gazing at the Hida Range looming massively behind mist-veiled upstream peaks, I drew fresh water with my new bucket again and again. Even after filling it, seeing that splendid new water ceaselessly flowing made me think what streamed past now was brighter and lovelier than what I'd just drawn—so with nervous compulsion, I'd scoop anew each time.

At this hour every morning, on Mukōgishi—the opposite bank—the water fetching by the sake brewery’s errand boys would begin. The errand boys all stripped naked, shouldered two hand buckets filled to overflowing on a carrying pole, and headed toward town. On quiet mornings, the water spilling from the buckets would gleam, shining in the fresh morning sun like white blades. In my hometown, we brewed an elegant sake called Kikusui from this river’s water—a drink that boasted a beautiful flavor. From these shallows, the temple where I lived stood clearly visible. With two tall Tsuga trees flanking its sides, the main hall lay beneath sprawling zelkova and maple giants whose branches reached toward the river, growing so thickly they nearly grazed the water’s surface. There, where surplus flow from the irrigation channel had carved deeply into the riverbed at the rapids’ end, it formed a dull blue pool of profound depth. Occasionally one could see people fishing for ayu and rockfish there—crouching by the wicker fish traps in silence as they angled through the day.

Father would put the first water I had fetched into a brass pot that was always carefully washed and offer it in the main hall. It had become customary to release it into the river at sunset. The remaining water was transferred to the tea kettle. Around nine in the morning, the kettle would begin to sound quietly in Father’s sitting room, and especially in winter, through the sliding doors, it would make a noise like distant wind through pines—literally like the sound of a passing rain shower fading away. At such times, Father would sit as solemnly as a decorative object, tilting his head slightly as if pondering the water’s heat. In summer, clad in a pure white linen kimono, his crane-like thin hands resting on his knees—his figure appeared too lonely, almost solemn. Apart from the occasional visits from fellow monks, he would usually spend his days in silence in the tea room.

As for me, ever since leaving school, I had been spending my days in the inner temple with my favorite books as companions. Since I kept failing at school, I took advantage of my kind father’s assurance that studying at home amounted to the same thing—secluding myself in my room all day like some young retiree. Around that time, I was subscribing to the poetry magazine *New Voice*, and when I submitted a poem for the first time, it was immediately accepted. It was selected by Mr. K.K. I often went daily to Katamachi’s bookstore to check on this frequently delayed magazine. For those of us in the provinces like myself, getting a poem published in the poetry section of *New Voice* was not only difficult but nearly impossible without genuine talent. On the other hand, if one was published there, one’s standing as a poet—particularly in the provinces—was undeniably secured. On my way to the bookstore, my heart would race with uncertainty over whether it would be published or not, and I would turn pale and then flush all by myself.

“‘*New Voice*’?” “It hasn’t arrived yet.” “I’ll have it delivered to you when it arrives.” The bookstore clerk said this with a look as cold as if my poem had been rejected outright. I would, each time,

“Ah. Right,” I muttered awkwardly and hurried away. On such days I would be gloomily disappointed, but once night gave way to dawn, I could not remain calmly in my room unless I went to the bookstore by morning to confirm whether *New Voice* had arrived. I would stand in front of the bookstore, scan through all the new magazines in one full sweep, and even after realizing it still hadn’t arrived, I’d think things like Maybe the shipment’s here but hasn’t been unpacked yet (such things had happened before)—and I couldn’t rest until I asked one more time.

“You. ‘Hasn’t *New Voice* arrived yet?’” I said, turning red. “I was just about to deliver it to your residence. Would you like to take it now?”

“Ah—I’ll take it.” When I received the magazine, my heart immediately started pounding. After turning the corner from the bookstore past the inn and emerging into the back street, I abruptly opened the table of contents to look. The names of various famous poets and novelists resounded in my head all at once—and there I was, already flustered—yet when I saw my poem, which I had nearly resigned to rejection, sandwiched among those renowned literati in disciplined, earnest square typeface firmly imprinting my name, I flushed crimson. As if all the blood had rushed to my head, my ears grew unbearably hot.

My fingertips trembled as I turned the pages, flipping through the same ones repeatedly. I grew so flustered I couldn't even reach the crucial page bearing my own poem. When I finally arrived at my poem's page, I saw myself there—in a splendid world I'd never known—projecting a grandeur alien to my present self, sitting as though fully armored from head to toe. That my poem should appear in such an oversized Tokyo magazine—the kind unseen beyond the capital—felt dreamlike in its miraculousness. Dazzled by July sunlight glaring off white-painted streets, I couldn't remember which paths I'd taken, what districts I'd entered, or whom I'd encountered. I walked dream-drunk until finding myself before the temple gate without knowing when I'd arrived.

I entered my room， placed the magazine on the desk， and for a while was left dazed by the sheer joy of it. With vacant eyes and a lingering smile， I gazed at the shallows beyond the shoji screens. From the shallows， the great bridge was visible. Pedestrians walked by incessantly. It was then that I first remembered having just crossed the great bridge and that underfoot， through my geta， I had indeed felt ground unlike any other. But still， I couldn’t remember which path I had taken.

As I alternated between placing the magazine on the desk and reading it, though I felt I absolutely had to tell Father about this, I also somehow felt intensely embarrassed—yet I couldn’t help wanting to say it. I entered Father’s room carrying the magazine. “A piece I wrote has been published in a Tokyo magazine.” “This is the magazine.” As I said this, I took out *New Voice*. “I see. That’s well-balanced.” “If you do your best, you can accomplish anything.” “Let me see.”

Father tried reading my poem but made a face that suggested he didn't understand. He read it over and over,

“It’s like an old Chinese poem.” “Or perhaps it’s different from that?” “Well, I suppose it’s much the same.”

I smiled bitterly. When I returned to my room, I could now clearly grasp the fact that my poem had been published in a magazine I respected. And I thought that everyone who read that magazine must surely be paying attention to my work. Even the people of this hometown and the neighboring young girls must surely be reading my poem. Because of this exhilarating, irrepressible excitement—as if I were the focus of the world’s dazzling attention and praise—I even felt like going out into the garden and shouting aloud. It seemed to me there was absolutely no one in this hometown worthy of properly judging the merits and flaws of my poetry. I thought for the first time I could truly believe myself to be the most accomplished poet in my hometown.

From the very next day, I was able to live with immense pleasure. I wrote poetry every day. While clinging to my desk, driven by the demand that I must somehow become great, there were days I spent staring at a single point in the garden, feeling daily restlessness and unfounded trembling in my heart. Then I wrote a long letter to the editor Mr. K.K., conveying that I absolutely did not want to remain in my current insignificance and that I wished to keep writing poetry even if it meant devoting nearly my entire life to it. Mr. K.K. was a man who, due to his intense day-and-night drinking, had spent his youth as a socialist and even published a socialist poetry collection. A reply came.

“Poets like you are rare.” “I have high hopes for you, so do not neglect your poetry.” Then came a postcard written in unadorned, smudged ink brushstrokes that seemed to say something like, “May passion be with the poet raised on the rough northern shores,” as if it had been scribbled in some bar. I held deep respect for that editor’s passion. Around that time, a new colloquial poetry movement was beginning to emerge in literary circles, but toward Mr. K.K.’s passion—unyielding in integrity, never chasing trends—I held deep respect and affection that surpassed even my regard for his art.

What does the deep blue fish grieve, All day long gazing at the sky? The sky shimmers across the water’s face, The fish’s yearning never reaching high. Ah, sky and water lie far apart— Each fish peers upward, solitary heart. (July 1904 [Meiji 37], debut work) At that time, there existed a friend named Hyō Tōei who wrote poetry like me. This friend lived in a place called Nishimachi at the town’s very center. Three days after sending me a letter wishing acquaintance, this stranger-friend came visiting my temple.

Hyō had round cheeks that seemed incongruously cute for his large build—a quiet man who spoke sparingly. He was seventeen, the same age as me. We became fast friends. I soon went to visit this new friend. He lived with his sister and mother in a three-person household; his second-floor room had a desk positioned by a window where young persimmon leaves cast vibrant greenery. Magazines titled *New Voice* and *Bunko* lay piled on the desk. "I was impressed when I read your poem in *New Voice*," he said. "I thought it remarkably skillful."

With that, he showed me his tanka: "The barley ears pierce through cloth To stab your skin—let us part now." "The sun burns crimson— Each bears their own sorrow As tears fall in solemnity." These two poems left me astonished. I was glad to find that besides myself, there existed in this hometown a friend who could compose such splendidly beautiful and skillful poems. At the same time, I thought the phrase "to stab your skin" was exceptionally well-crafted. Most of Hyō's works contained within them this richly sentimental weight and warmth. Not only did the second-person noun "you" catch my attention, but I became convinced there must be a lover involved since he used that term.

Hyō was constantly writing letters and sending them to women. And he received letters from several women as well. He often showed them to me.

“How do you get so many chances to become acquainted with women?” As I asked—feeling a pang of loneliness— “Women? You can befriend them straight away.” “I’ll introduce you to some too,” he said offhandedly. “Then do me the favor of arranging one for me.”

When I inadvertently said something like that, he replied, “Wait a little longer.”

One day, Hyō and I went to the theater. We were on the second floor. Hyō was restlessly going down to the lower floor and coming back up,

“That girl’s rather pretty, don’t you think?” “I just sent her a letter.” “The reply will come tomorrow.” With that, he gestured with his chin toward the box seats. There, visible from the side, was a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl with a center-parted hairstyle—likely attending a girls’ school—her white nape and plump white cheeks in view. Beside her sat a woman who appeared to be her mother, while in front lay elaborately arranged boxed meals—the kind traditionally used for sightseeing outings in this castle town since time immemorial.

“How could you get the letter to her? You didn’t take it over there yourself, did you?” “Oh, you know—most women’ll accept a letter.” “But if she tells her mother, what will you do?” “Would she ever tell? “She won’t say a word. “If she did something that stupid, she’d just get scolded by her own mother. “Look—she turned this way. “She’s dying to read it.”

In truth, the fair-skinned girl feigned ignorance while stealing occasional glances in our direction. I was startled, but Hyō remained calm. The girl—her eyes somehow both enigmatic and inviting—continued to fix her attention on Hyō rather than me, all the while feigning ignorance as she stole repeated glances toward our second-floor seats.

“During the next intermission, I’ll call that girl over and show you.” “She’s a girl from my neighborhood.” “She must know for certain.”

“But how exactly are you going to call her over? Her mother’s right there with her, isn’t she?” “Just watch.” Hyō remained calm as he told me to wait for the next act to begin, so I found myself staring at the girl’s center-parted hairstyle and showy drum-shaped obi. That such a meek, timid girl had received a letter from the friend beside me already seemed nearly miraculous—Hyō’s claim that he would summon her felt equally unbelievable, a suspicious assertion beyond credence. Though he appeared casual toward women, he always possessed the ability to see through to the depths of their intentions. He never made advances toward anyone but unmarried women, often declaring that with virgins, things were generally safe.

“If it’s going to fail, it’s doomed from the start. If she shows even a slight displeased look or doesn’t let me hold her hand, no matter how much I push, it’s hopeless. I just drop that sort of girl. And it’s better to go for beauties as much as possible, you know?” “Wouldn’t that make it even harder?”

I asked back. “Beautiful women who haven’t been approached two or three times are easier to handle—they’ve been doted on since childhood, so they’re used to it.”

Hyō assumed a serious expression.

“Is that how it works—I’d always thought the opposite was true.”

I sensed a kernel of truth within Hyō’s words. “That’s why beauties usually fall into vice—based on my experience, you can definitely cast aside bad women.”

While we whispered, the curtain fell. Hyō stared fixedly at the noisy, dust-clouded box seats before abruptly rising and moving toward the corridor. He stood there a long while beyond the railing that separated him from the women's section. My heart pounded as I watched—the girl kept stealing glances toward Hyō while conversing with her mother. By his knee, Hyō made strange scooping motions with his right hand, a furtive summoning gesture. Her agitation showed plainly even to me: blank stares at the stage curtain interspersed with sudden anxious looks his way. That flustered timidity—so fearful yet tender—struck me as infinitely delicate. All the while, Hyō persisted with vulpine beckoning motions too subtle for other spectators to notice. The girl hovered in an untenable half-crouch before finally darting into the corridor—a tall figure with a slender neck. At once Hyō too scrambled after her.

From the moment the girl stood up, I felt an excitement so intense it stole my breath, as if blood had rushed to my head. And then I felt an urge to go right up to Hyō’s side. For some reason, that girl seemed so endearing that I could no longer stay seated. I tried to stand and go downstairs, but contradictory impulses gripped me—it seemed I shouldn’t go, yet also that I must—until I grew so unsteady I no longer felt like myself, and dizziness set in.

At that moment, Hyō returned. With his usual gentle gaze and a voice tinged with excitement and a slight tremble, “We’ve already become close.” “Did you see?” “Yeah. “A little—you talked.”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “She told me she’d send that reply we discussed earlier.”

I fell silent. Hyō too, sitting across from me, wore an expression that seemed to regret having gone so far, and we sat in awkward silence. And then, “I’ll introduce you too,” he said in a placating tone, but I deliberately stayed silent, staring fixedly at the girl’s center-parted hair where she sat. The fact that the woman had spoken with Hyō just moments before, and that it had been carried out so swiftly and effortlessly, seemed nearly impossible to believe. While feeling intense jealousy, I was utterly dumbfounded by the sheer suspicion and miraculousness of it all.

During the next intermission, the woman would occasionally turn toward Hyō and offer subtle smiles. Hyō sent a bold, resolute smile at such moments. That smile was so utterly unrestrained and intrusive. In my heart, I felt an increasingly intense loneliness. The fact that Hyō had softer features and gentler eyes than I did—something I always noticed—only deepened my gloom. We parted immediately after watching the play.

When I looked solely at Hyō's eyes—those perpetually blinking gently beneath near-sighted spectacles, round and childlike—they held neither cunning nor venom. Yet the manner in which he boldly approached women at festivals and theaters to such extremes remained endlessly suspect, never yielding an inch of restraint.

Once, at a theater, he deliberately pretended to trip over the legs of a seated young woman who appeared to be a maiden. “I’m terribly sorry,” he apologized with feigned innocence and excessive politeness, only for the woman to blush instead. “No,” she would say bashfully, and he would always squeeze into the adjacent seat. After sitting together for hours, he would skillfully engage in conversation, gradually softening the other party’s heart before boldly pressing forward to holding hands before they knew it—a habit of his. Even if bystanders were watching intently, he paid no heed whatsoever, being bold and cunning to the point of near recklessness.

Whenever he sent those piercing coquettish glances from over his glasses (even when conversing with me, he would cast those unpleasant sidelong looks), there was something repulsively lewd and insidious in his demeanor. Moreover, despite being the same age as me, the way his long hair was parted down the middle and the stylish hat he wore made him appear far more mature than my student-like appearance. I was beginning to understand the meaning behind Hyō’s use of kimi as a term of address. While feeling jealous on one hand, I somehow missed him. Though he would say he’d “introduce me to women” yet never did, whenever his gentle words or discussions about poetry arose, there was an innocent charm to that demonically bold man—one that made you wonder how he could harbor such tender passion. In poetry, he was a true genius, writing voraciously whatever came to mind. (Several years later, when I moved to Tokyo, I heard from Mr. K.K. that Hyō had possessed an utterly astonishing genius.)

It was said he had worked at a printing factory since childhood, but after coming to know me, he no longer went out to work anywhere. He, like me, sat at his desk each day under his sister’s care. Most temple affairs were handled by Father. In the main hall stood eight golden lanterns and four lamps before Kannon, while all other spaces—guest rooms, tea rooms, registry—each of the twelve chambers had oil lamps lit before Buddhist paintings and statues. These were tended by Father, who would shuffle through the temple mornings and evenings carrying a sanpō tray laden with oil jugs and rush wicks, his tabi-clad feet whispering across tatami as he worked. Visitors often remarked that Father’s devotion lay in offering these lamps. So thoroughly did he embrace this duty that he never spared the costly rapeseed oil. Father himself would say,

“The oil lamps are a feast for Buddha,” Father would say. However, the two gas lamps in the temple precincts—whenever the servant was absent—always had to be lit by me. When I would be reading and it came to around five in the afternoon, Father’s lamp-lighting rounds had already begun. The hands that had lit them for decades were seasoned. When new rush wicks were inserted into the earthenware vessels, the oil would flow quietly and liberally from the jug into them, and they were always lit. It was truly quiet, a most sacred task, and I would watch in constant admiration.

The sliding doors would swish open and shut, the soft shuffle of tabi-clad feet receding from one room to the next, and with each movement, fresh oil lamps were lit one by one, their glow brightening every chamber. Watching this, though outside was still bright, I began to feel as though evening had already fallen.

I would often walk through the temple precincts in the evening. An enormous Japanese cedar stood there, so large it would take several arm spans to encircle, and no matter how much rain fell, its roots remained dry. Beneath it stood a moss-covered tomb for lost children—it was said that if a child went missing, praying at this tomb would reveal the town where they wandered—and this tomb always proved convenient for my lingering or leaning against. Being near the pleasure district, maiko and geisha with their white collars would come to pay their respects in the evenings. They would tie cross-shaped prayers for good matches made of cherry-blossom paper to Konpira-san’s latticework and go about their way. These matchmaking prayers always seemed to follow a ritual—they would let out a little squeak and briefly dampen them with their lips—for I could often detect the sharp scent of lipstick lingering on that cherry-blossom paper. That faintly sweet scent stirred up a helpless youthful passion within me—one that made me want to cling to trees—and drove tormenting fantasies through my mind.

The Jizō statue I had retrieved from the river in my childhood was enshrined within one of the temple precincts' halls. Whenever I went there, I always remembered my sister. My sister soon left for Etchū in the neighboring province, and I did not see her for a long time. Whenever I saw that the flowing banners, offering trays, and Buddhist implements we had erected during those festivals with my little sister were still enshrined in this hall, I felt that even my adoption into this temple was bound by some profound karmic thread. There were those who said my missing mother had died and others who claimed she was still alive, but her death seemed to be the more certain truth. Father had written her posthumous Buddhist name and enshrined it in the family altar. Taking the day Father had written her posthumous Buddhist name as her death anniversary, I purified myself even in my heart.

When I pieced together various rumors, my mother had a flamboyant streak—whenever she saw a Fuke sect monk wandering the castle town in lacquered clogs while playing his bamboo flute, young Mother would slip on the same black-lacquered clogs the very next day. From even such small examples, I found it not unpleasant to picture my composed Mother having had such a carefree youth—indeed, to imagine her looking rather pleased with herself. Even now, deep within my mind, I feel as though the comforting warmth of my mother’s lap—which I would quietly visit from my adoptive home only to end up dozing off in—still lingers warmly, floating softly in memory.

Whenever I went to the Jizō statue, I would become overwhelmed by that endless loneliness and sink into gloom. When no one was looking, I would quietly stand before the Jizō statue I had retrieved from the river and clasp my hands in prayer. I harbored a strange superstition that somehow prayers blending my entreaties for Mother and for my own long life would reach the Jizō statue I had retrieved from the river. The single fact that I had retrieved it had become a reason to share a bond with the Jizō statue—a habit I had formed since childhood that had taken root and persisted even now.

Among the worshippers, familiar faces had formed. The middle-aged woman who came to pray for her master’s safe return from his long voyage always greeted me with a quiet warmth reminiscent of a mother’s. She would clasp her hands together, take out a photograph wrapped in a handkerchief from her pocket, place it on her lap, and sit on the wooden floor while murmuring prayers in a low voice for what felt like hours. Every day—every single day—with machinelike regularity, she would arrive in the afternoon and sit praying for over two hours. At times, she would have Father draw a divination lot to see whether life at sea remained peaceful for him. Though well past thirty, she had beautiful skin that lent her a shy appearance.

And then there was also the Burglar Woman with her sticky fingers. That Burglar Woman always skillfully timed her thefts for when worshippers were absent—around lunchtime or near four o'clock—and proved remarkably adept at picking the lock on the offerings box. By inserting a single nail into the lock's keyhole and twisting it counterclockwise, it would always open easily. That Burglar Woman lived just in the backstreets with a daughter, and I knew full well she would come time and again to scrape together whatever coins she could find and take them away. On one occasion when I deliberately inserted a nail into the lock and made rattling noises from inside the main hall to subtly warn her, she merely peeked inside and still began picking the lock. Having seen her face two or three times, I felt no inclination to blame the old woman—nor any desire to report her to the registry office (the temple's administrative office). One reason was also that the Burglar Woman had a daughter. The daughter was tall and solidly built with considerable beauty. There had been instances where she fled to Tokyo and bore a reputation for poor conduct, yet contrary to this she brimmed with fresh youthful beauty.

On the eighteenth of every month, Kannon’s festival day, the parent and child would invariably come together to pay their respects. And both of them shared a perfectly matched thieving habit. The Burglar Woman would always deftly tuck nearby scattered copper coins under her knees, move her hands around her calves, and twist them into her sleeve. This was carried out while she pressed her forehead to the wooden floor as if in prayer during brief moments of opportunity—even if someone was right beside her—so it went unnoticed by most people.

I took advantage of being able to observe all worshippers' activities through a knothole in the heavy door plank of the registry office and often could see his daughter. She cast occasional sidelong glances at what the Burglar Woman was doing but seemed constantly distracted by copper coins that had fallen two or three inches before her left knee．Though she kept stealing glances at them out of the corner of her eye，she never abruptly tucked them under her knee，and I could hardly believe this beautiful girl would pilfer such trifles． She was large-framed enough to look nineteen or twenty，her fair，fleshy skin possessing a certain luster． Those clear，large eyes would occasionally blink with unease．

At that moment, I saw her left hand slide slowly, hesitantly along the fleshy curve that arched like a bow toward the rounded swell of her kneecap. Her fingers were plump to bursting, each joint revealing a beauty as if bound by thread. Most striking was the vivid whiteness of her skin—illuminated by the inner sanctum’s light—creeping toward her kneecap with unsettling slowness, like silkworms crawling in unison. When her hand hovered through the inches between kneecap and tatami, she—with a pickpocket’s sharp, feverish unease—scanned the worshippers’ eyes. Certain no one watched, those five fingers writhing like white snakes in midair settled limply atop the copper coins. Simultaneously, her hand jerked back to press in prayer toward Kannon’s bright candle flames.

Watching that, I felt as though my breath had been stolen away. Perhaps from her state of mind, her cheeks looked slightly pale, and as her clasped left hand—unnaturally soft in its grip—suddenly darted into her sleeve. Why does such a beautiful face harbor such petty, ugly instincts? I stared intently—she had done this time and time again using such methods, but gradually grew more brazen, now lunging directly toward her goal without the unnecessary meticulousness or thorough caution of before. Moreover, no one could have imagined that this beautiful girl was sitting there for petty theft. I did not tell the registry office about this. Because this was a common occurrence at the registry office, they usually just made comments and turned a blind eye.

Two or three days later, as I was idly gazing at the road outside the temple gate from the registry office, I saw a young woman enter through the gate—and started. This was the woman from the evening of the 18th that had startled me. I immediately imagined an ominous scene and resolved to watch her through that secret knothole. She appeared neatly dressed with an ornate obi bearing red patterns. Abruptly sitting on the wooden floor, she glanced around. Peering through the lattice into the dim inner sanctum to check for observers, she then surveyed the temple grounds. It was midsummer—the sweltering heat had thinned the stream of worshippers, leaving only a rising chorus of cicadas to swarm the air. She produced a single nail. Following her mother's method, she inserted it into the keyhole and twisted counterclockwise; the lock clinked free from the offerings box. Pale as if startled by her own success, she meticulously scanned her surroundings. Though straining to detect any presence—whether unexpected worshippers or watchers from the main hall—her violently trembling white hands betrayed her even from my vantage. Those fingers stretched long and slender yet plump, each joint tinged faint crimson as if delicately shaded, with even small adorable dimples appearing along their flesh.

At that moment—whether by some impulse—I pressed my forehead against the door plank, causing the heavy wood to thud. At that moment, she started and suddenly fixed her gaze on the door plank. Directly before the knothole through which I peered—aligned perfectly with my vantage point—her large eyes, gripped by desperate terror yet gathering every conceivable anxiety, rather blazed with an eerie allure as their scorching stare pierced unwaveringly into my forehead. I tried to pull back from the knothole immediately, but fearing light from the bright registry office would leak through, I forced myself to stay motionless. Moreover, since the knothole was minuscule and the hall interior dimly lit, she soon relinquished that persistent scrutiny. I felt my knees trembling as my body stiffened with a suffocating rigidity. When she confirmed no observers remained, this time she methodically transferred one- and two-sen copper coins, five-sen nickel pieces, and even paper-wrapped offerings from the donations box into a small woman's purse—a beautiful crimson clasp pouch. What wouldn't fit inside the clasp purse, she separately wrapped in paper and tucked into her obi. Then, having firmly relocked it, she left the temple without a backward glance.

Her tall, willowy back figure—alongside that red obi—was always vividly etched into my eyes. After witnessing her acts like that, I would always feel sexual excitement and spasms weighing heavily on my mind, as though being shown pleasantly cruel scenes akin to those arising from mercilessly tormenting a beautiful boy. At the same time, how delightfully agonizing it would feel to rush out while she was engrossed in such work, menacingly intimidate her, arrogantly watch those rosy, frustratingly beautiful cheeks of hers turn pale—or calmly admonish her that what she was doing now was something unforgivable in this world, something that must never be done—and then fixate on her as she wept with tears of true penitence. And if she were to repent, come to yearn for me, and ultimately grow to love me, I surely would not feel lonely. Even without that, I was tormented by endless delusions—thoughts that I could exploit her weakness to commit any blasphemous act imaginable. If it were Hyō, he would surely coerce her at a time like this. And he would no doubt set her free immediately.

When I left the wooden door and entered the registry office, the elderly clerk asked whether she had stolen anything. "Even four or five days ago when she came, her behavior was suspicious—and on days that woman visited, we noted how few offerings there were." Each time, I would say: "It seems she didn't do anything." "That time was surely just a momentary impulse." "A woman like that would never steal," I said, never speaking the truth.

“I see. At least things are holding steady for now.” “If she does anything wrong, we can’t just keep quiet here,” the elderly clerks said. Yet she grew ever bolder, coming nearly every day. Eventually even the registry office tightened its watch, but though suspicion fell upon her, they never managed to confirm it was truly her. Each time these conversations surfaced, “There was another suspicious man loitering near the main hall today.” “A real shady character.”

I had told a fabricated story I hadn’t even witnessed. “I see.” “We must be careful,” the elderly clerk said anxiously.

In the end, even Father,

“Lately, there seem to be no worshippers at all—or perhaps no offerings coming in.” When I heard him say this while examining the ledger in the registry office, I started. The elderly clerks too seemed perplexed. Gradually, I grew unable to suppress a guilty sense that I myself might be stealing. Since the registry office stood right there before me, and since I detested being suspected as the thief, after she had carried off all the money I would later set aside an equivalent sum from my allowance and secretly slip it into the offerings box. What troubled me most was that by the nature of offerings, everything had to be broken into copper coins before being deposited. For this purpose, I often had them exchanged at the florist’s across the street before quietly placing them inside. The effect manifested immediately. The elderly clerk at the registry office,

“Lately, it seems she hasn’t been coming around anymore.” “It’s truly a good state of affairs.” Hearing this, I smiled a bitter smile to myself. However, the problem was that while I managed to cover things up for three or four days, since I didn’t have that kind of pocket money every day—having already been receiving an allowance from Father daily during this period—it became difficult to ask again. Yet I couldn’t just leave the offerings box unattended either. One day, I took out silver and copper coins from Father’s money chest—though small in amount. The inside of the chest was in disarray with banknotes and silver coins and such, so it was unlikely to be noticed. Having gotten a taste for it, the next day I quietly extracted several bills from the bundle of banknotes this time. And after exchanging them for coins, I placed them into that box. Whenever I laid hands on the heavy money chest, wary of the metallic fittings clattering noisily, I would always recall my kind-hearted father’s gentle smile. What struck me most was that while receiving an allowance far too generous for a boy my age—and with Father never uttering a single word of reproach—I only ever felt truly remorseful, thinking *I’m sorry*, during my acts of theft. However, I had no other choice but to do so. It was no longer just compensating for her thefts but had gradually begun to be used for my own purposes. Notebooks and blue ink bottles gradually began to enliven my desk with new liveliness.

Outside, she came every day. Always around three in the afternoon, during that quiet, dusty hour past the height of the sun’s glare, her slightly bright red obi would appear in the long corridor of the temple precincts alongside her sleek, tall figure. At such times, I would immediately mutter to myself, *Oh no—she’s here again.* At the same time, I also felt as though someone I had long been waiting for had finally arrived. Yet I was absolutely determined not to let the registry office find out about her thefts. For one thing, I felt pity for her, and if such a thing were discovered, she would surely never be able to come to the temple again. The prospect of her no longer coming was now quite a lonely thing for me. That said, I didn’t have the courage to rush out and reprimand her in the middle of her work. On the other hand, if I kept putting my hands on Father’s money chest like this, it would surely be discovered eventually. I didn’t know what to do. The fact that these collusive thefts—inside and out—were taking place filled me with unbearable anguish. If only she would stop stealing, then of course I wouldn’t have to commit such thefts either—I even began to think this way. Sometimes, for reasons I couldn’t name, I would lose myself in almost childish notions—wanting to cling to her like a child seeking an older sister’s comfort and spill out my grievances.

One day, at the hour when she usually came, I wrote a letter and placed it inside the offerings box. I thought that if I did this, it would surely slip out along with the coins once they were taken out—and once she saw it she would undoubtedly read it. It said: “You must not come here. Since everyone at the temple knows about what you’ve been doing every day—once you read this letter—you must never come here again.” That’s what I wrote. Even after placing it into the box—knowing she would likely stop coming once she saw this—I felt lonely. And thinking it would have been better not to put it there at all—grew restless wondering if I should take it back out.

But time was already closing in on the hour when she would come. As I waited at the usual door panel, swatting mosquitoes emerging from the darkness, she arrived. With practiced hands, she swiftly inserted the nail, and the lock clicked open. She quietly tilted the box diagonally, and from the opened side of the lock, copper and silver coins clattered free. At that moment, the letter I had placed came out. Since I had written “To Mr. Tanaka,” her face flushed crimson the instant she saw it. I stared intently through the familiar peephole. Eyes burning with terrible curiosity, I tried not to miss a single movement—the moment she blushed, her gaze flashed with lightning-quick alarm as she scanned her surroundings. As I watched, her hands and knees trembled violently, every limb shaking. She hesitantly picked up the letter, and in that moment, a cunning composure surfaced—she turned it over, comparing front and back before slicing open the seal. She read it. Her eyes widened enormously then, instantly clouding with shock. The moment she finished reading, she crumpled the letter into her pocket and—as if kicked—hurriedly thrust her feet into the straw sandals before breaking into a run. At the temple gate, she glanced back briefly. The entire incident had lasted less than two minutes.

As I watched her retreating figure, I felt intensely lonely. I had no choice but to do that. She ran out amid shock and utter terror. If she were to become honest because of this, then what I wrote would have been worthwhile. She surely couldn’t be resentful. If she were to keep coming to the temple any longer, I too would have to wander down that same path of anguished thievery.

I pondered things like “Why must someone with such a beautiful face do such dirty things?” and became lost in thoughts about whether she knew it was me who had written that letter. But I began to be enveloped in a helpless loneliness, as though I had discarded every possession I owned.

However, from that day onward, I ceased to lay hands on Father’s money chest. Fortunately, since what I had done remained undiscovered, I never went near that heavy chest again—resigned to the thought that there would come a time when I would have to apologize to Father.

Before long, every day when three o'clock approached—the hour she used to come—I would wander about the temple precincts here and there, feeling intensely lonely that she never came again after that incident. At times I would quietly conjure up in my mind the pattern of her red obi tied in a small drum-shaped knot, then squat absentmindedly at the roots of an ancient hemlock and spend two or three hours gazing at lines of ants climbing up and down its towering height. Why had I sent her that letter? Why hadn't I simply let her keep coming to the temple every day as before? But as I gradually reasoned through it, it was better that I had discovered her rather than someone from our side catching her. For a long time, with restless smoldering emotion I could neither contain nor resolve, I kept envisioning her figure—who would never come again—in the gatehouse's long corridor and upon the worship hall's plank flooring, imagining her pale dimpled cheeks and the rounded contours of her seated posture. At such times, between her and me—who had never exchanged a single word—there existed something like a mutual understanding in our hearts, an intermingling of each other's weaknesses that made this separation from her feel intensely intimate.

I desperately wanted to see her again. Through the base confession that I was the one who had sent that letter, I wanted to make her realize in her heart that I was her savior. On one hand, there was anxiety that she must resent me now—whether because her own misdeeds had been discovered or for some other reason—but regardless, I burned with desire to see her again.

I knew she lived in Orusugumi-machi—a district situated directly behind the town where I resided. In a town where many impoverished samurai families of the former Kaga Domain resided, her house was a poor single-story dwelling with a front garden—its old, crumbling roof stones still bearing last year’s leaves unreplaced in their gaps. Inside the small brushwood gate-like entrance stood two or three plum and pomegranate trees, their small pomegranates just beginning to fruit.

The house stood silent, water sloshing at the kitchen doorway. At that moment, my heart pounded anxiously as intuition told me she was in the kitchen. A rush of water poured over something, followed by the vigorous scrubbing of a brush against what sounded like a bucket. I immediately recalled her hands—soft as white rice cakes, dimpled—and fell utterly still, tracing their beautiful curves and contours in my mind’s depths.

The most compelling evidence confirming she was home came when I saw her red-thonged wicker sandals faintly floating like lipstick in the dim twilight of the entryway—undeniable proof of her presence. That was because she had always worn those red-thonged sandals when coming to visit the temple. That was because I had almost daily gazed at them where they were always left off on the temple’s front steps, and because they had been vividly engraved into my mind.

When I saw thick black hair styled in a Western-style bun moving through the small latticed kitchen window, I knew without doubt it was her. My chest fluttered as I stood silent on the street, struggling to contain the violent trembling in my kneecaps—but when my geta crunched gratingly against the gravel, cold sweat broke across my skin. At that instant, she suddenly looked out through the window toward the street, and seeing me standing there, her face seemed to pale somehow. This was an entirely different beauty from when she'd pried open the offerings box—even those large eyes now stared at me sternly from straight ahead.

At the same moment I sensed the light from those large, lustrous eyes, I felt her gaze pierce me with a somewhat fleshy yet well-proportioned nose and lips, and beautiful, sanguine skin. Those delightful yet gaudy details momentarily reminded me of her base acts of theft, yet at that instant, with the majesty of a beautiful woman, she seemed to reproach me for standing so presumptuously outside the fence. Not only had my desire for a glimpse been satisfied, but I also felt a fulfillment as if the cherry-blossom hue of her pleasing skin had now seeped softly into my heart. "Her acts of theft and her beauty were in no way connected." "She would remain beautiful forever." "And theft is ugly." "They’re entirely separate things," I found myself pondering. Then also: "Because she is beautiful, even her thieving isn’t unpleasant." "Because she had pried open the lock with those beautiful hands, I had been drawn to her."—Thinking such thoughts, I quietly stepped away from the brushwood gate. At that moment, I plucked two or three crimson leaves from the hedge. For even within those deep scarlet-tinged crimson leaves, I could imagine fragments of her skin.

I exited the backstreet onto the main road and walked along the edge of the Sai River. The grass on the gravel shoal had grown thick and tall enough to reach the bridge’s underbelly, while the water lay dried up. The area around the iron bridge had become such an expanse of grassland that one could scarcely discern the banks, with many people strolling about to cool themselves. Though immersed in these scenes, I found myself bound by an obsessive urge to glimpse once more—on my return path—the phantom of her who had lingered since earlier, and so I walked back again toward that backstreet.

Before long, as I neared her house, my chest fluttered with anxiety while my legs began moving hurriedly of their own accord, as though following some separate command. When I reached the brushwood gate there, suddenly the lattice door opened and she—dressed in what seemed to be outing clothes—emerged just as my eyes met directly with hers. I involuntarily flushed and lowered my gaze, yet she seemed to have smiled faintly. Whether it was my imagination or some kind of illusion, it remained true that deep smile lines had intertwined from her thick lips up to the bridge of her nose. At the same moment she suddenly approached the brushwood gate, I pretended to hurry back down the path I had just come. She opened the brushwood gate like a falcon and went down the path opposite mine. When I looked back, she was already a block ahead, and from the opposite direction she too turned around.

I began to feel that I shouldn’t have sent such a letter. And as the base shame of exploiting her weakness grew more intense—after she had turned the corner and disappeared from view—I stood alone, my face flushing.

At the temple’s registry office,

“That woman hasn’t been coming at all lately, has she? Ever since that person stopped coming, the discrepancies have disappeared—but mark my words, she’s still suspicious.” said the old registry clerk.

“But even though I kept checking over and over, there was nothing suspicious going on at all, you know.”

But deep down, I often felt as though the old clerks knew about such work I’d done, and so I would always slip away from my seat with feigned nonchalance. Even when sitting at my desk, fragments of her skin—a manner that felt intimate precisely in its roughness, and a smile whose impression ran deep (though I couldn’t quite grasp its meaning)—would rise before my eyes from that day onward, and I would find myself walking to Orusugumi-machi without any purpose. For example, whether it was the red thongs of the straw sandals at the entrance, the crimson of the young hedge leaves, or even the texture of the soil in her front garden—each one came into view like something dear to me. Beneath that boldness of hers in committing such thefts, there surely lay something gentle—something that could hold my heart—or so it seemed to me.

That day too, I wandered dazedly to her house as if pulled by an invisible thread. The interior lay silent, though perhaps it was just my imagination—I thought I heard what sounded like a woman’s voice. The front garden was neatly swept, and under the pomegranate tree, evening primroses bore sparse flowers typical of a backstreet garden—today, they looked especially nostalgic to me. The quiet interior of the house seemed suffused with an indescribably warm air, as though painted by her warm breath and rosy, cherry-colored skin.

No matter how long I stood there, there was no sign of anyone, so just as I was about to leave dejectedly, a ball of thread scraps discarded by the garden stones, with its red and white hues, suddenly caught my eye. For no apparent reason, I suddenly began to want it. However, to get that far in, I absolutely had to open the brushwood gate, so I hesitated for a moment—then suddenly eased it open. The brushwood gate made no particular noise, so I crept forward about ten steps and was able to pick up the thread scraps.

The thread scraps had been rolled up without practical purpose, leaving no pretext to linger for her sake, but when I clenched that small, fluffy yet fibrous ball in my hand, I felt a connection to womanhood—as though I could forcefully sense some fragment of her hand or foot through it. When picking up the thread scraps, I was startled by my own sudden craving for the red-thonged straw sandals discarded at the entrance. For no particular reason came the thought that it would be fascinating to gently place my foot upon those sandals—because doing so might let me feel the warmth of her entire body through them. Since childhood I'd often been scolded for wearing my sister's straw sandals, but now a far more intense, secretive, ticklish pleasure was sure to course through my whole being the moment my foot touched these sandals. As this sensation climbed from heels to knees to chest—surely becoming a beautiful rapture unlike anything I'd ever known—I glared resentfully at the sandals. Just as any man might feel compelled to hook a woman's geta out of curiosity, I now wanted both to rub my hands wantonly over the rattan surface and to cruelly dismantle these sandals piece by piece—thong from sole, surface from lining—when suddenly this near-brutal impulse resurfaced.

Another mischievous impulse sprouting from my heart's depths—whether as proof I'd infiltrated this garden or from wanting her to somehow know this fact—led me to consider stealing just one of her straw sandals (in this case, I absolutely didn't want both). On one hand, I'd grasped a reason why she might forgive me even if discovered; on the other, I sensed she herself wouldn't rebuke me. The closed lattice door would surely creak if opened, and that noise might summon someone—this anxiety gripped me. I contemplated how to open it. Though this backstreet saw few passersby, people still came intermittently. At such moments, I'd adopt a stroller's leisurely pace until they passed, then urgently peer inside. There glowed the red-thonged sandals—transcending mere footwear to become something severed from her beautiful form, their troubling allure rooting me motionless as if nailed in place.

At that moment, shuddering as though some force had been violently poured into me, I kept watch for passersby. In the exact lull when foot traffic ceased, I slipped through the brushwood gate as if pushed from behind by unseen hands. Gently touching the lattice door of the entrance while aware of a lightning-like tremor coursing through my body with rough pulsations, I began sliding it open inch by inch. The lattice door opened more quietly than anticipated—without creaking—inch after inch. Once widened enough to admit my small frame sideways, I removed my shoes and crawled into the entrance. The air inside—chilly, damp, and cool unlike outside—and the cold of the garden's hardened earth traveled up from my heels through my entire body, making me shudder even more violently. I looked. There lay the red-thonged straw sandals—I suddenly grabbed them softly and slipped through the lattice as if in a dream, crossing from the garden through the brushwood gate to emerge outside. When my kimono caught on the gate and I yanked it free, the wood emitted a high-pitched creak. Nearly dizzy now, I broke into a desperate run.

When I returned to the temple, I took out the women's straw sandals from my pocket. They were still new, their rattan surfaces glossy. As I stared fixedly at them, I strangely began to feel an anxiety and restlessness—as though being chased—as if having stolen these straw sandals was a terrible crime I couldn't keep even momentarily. They exuded both a weight akin to living flesh and the greasy scent of a woman's heel steeped in some mysterious unguent. Rather than gazing at them longingly, I found myself pondering why I had come to steal such things. I stashed them under my desk, but fearing Father might abruptly discover them, I then shoved them into the dark space beneath the veranda amidst spiderwebs. Yet even there, the vividness of their concealment rose before my eyes, leaving me unsettled. In the end, I could no longer even sit still while possessing these straw sandals.

My heart gradually began to fill with regret. How she must be searching. And if it becomes clear that I did it, I have committed the same crime as her. I began to feel terrified. I took them out from beneath the veranda again, brushed off the dirt, gently placed them into my pocket, and left the temple once more. When I arrived in front of her house—only about an hour after I had sneaked in earlier—the interior remained just as silent as before. I quietly slipped in through the brushwood gate, gently placed the straw sandals into the entrance, and immediately stepped back out to the street. When placing the straw sandals back in their original position would have required opening the lattice nearly a foot, I instead set them right beside the threshold to make it look like a dog’s mischief. On the inner entranceway, one straw sandal, separated from its pair, sat forlornly alone, left behind as though waiting for its soon-to-arrive companion.

After that incident, I stayed shut in my room for some time without going out. Ever since committing that impulsive prank—something I hadn't even anticipated doing myself—I felt certain someone would reprimand me whenever I ventured outside. As days passed, I even began doubting whether those mischievous acts of mine had truly occurred. Of course, she never walked past the temple gates again. I helped Father by taking his hand when he ascended to the main hall and by drawing water for tea ceremonies. The temple kept sand from mysterious amulets that had undergone incantation rituals—sand which devotees often came requesting. When wrapped in paper parcels of five or six grains and swallowed with pure water, this became a medicinal remedy said to miraculously soften possessing spirits and rigor-mortis-stiffened corpses. Every time I saw it prepared, I felt something peculiar stir within me.

Another thing was that many women came to draw divination lots. The middle-aged mother of a fairly renowned Japanese-style painter in this city would come to see Father whenever there was a marriage proposal for her daughter and have him draw divination lots for judgment. That daughter was a famous beauty. She always came to worship Kannon with her mother. What seemed peculiar was that this old castle town had long been home to many Buddhists. This extended beyond just the elderly; mothers with young daughters would take them on temple visits starting at six or seven years old—building faith in their hearts, teaching that religion formed life's essential core for women, or using these pilgrimages to suggest such truths. The painter's daughter possessed an astonishing pallor, her cheeks bearing a delicate frailty reminiscent of consumption that carried an air of troubled allure.

The mother would always come to Father and say, “While this marriage prospect seems generally favorable, if you would be so kind as to draw a divination lot for certainty,” having him perform the ritual. Father would descend from the main hall and declare, “The divination lot’s result isn’t favorable, but if you consent, you may proceed with the marriage.” This response stemmed from the painter’s wife having spent over three years seeking a suitable match for her daughter—each consultation yielding ominous lots—prompting Father’s pity-driven leniency.

“Oh, so the divination lot is unfavorable?”

Not only was she always disappointed, but it was also customary for her to cancel even the hard-won marriage proposals. I had always pitied both the absurdity of human fate being determined by a single divination lot and the skewed heart of that mother who could not help believing in it.

“That person comes to draw divination lots but cannot bring themselves to believe in them,” Father said. Last month, I had Father draw a divination lot for me regarding this matter. There was also the reason that I myself wanted to clearly see whether it would come true or not. “Please see whether what I sent to Tokyo will be published or not.”

Father came down from the main hall and,

“It will be published.” “It will definitely be published,” he said. Somehow, I felt Father had given that vague answer out of concern that I might be disappointed. “Is that true? What kind of ‘divination lot’ is it?” “It says, ‘Like the rising sun.’”

Father showed me a bamboo slip (the divination box contained one hundred of these; when shaken one by one, they would emerge—this coincidence determined people’s fates). On it had appeared the literal “Great Blessing.” And then my poem was printed. Even while I couldn’t fully believe it, I began to believe it at times. I even came to feel that something akin to mysticism was manifesting in the divination lots every hour.

Rice brokers and the like often came early in the morning.

When an “auspicious result” came out,

“Is it truly alright to buy? It’s truly alright?” pressed the man, his eyes wild with urgency. Those who prospered by following the divination results would often bring large golden lanterns, brass candlesticks, and paper lanterns as offerings of gratitude. Young geishas frequently came to have their marital prospects judged. Father spoke sparingly to all who visited. He would state only what was essential before often withdrawing to the inner chambers. Ten years before that time, an accidental fire had broken out in the temple kitchen and spread to the roof. As it was still early evening, the flames were quickly smothered. Yet when I later took stock of things, Father was nowhere to be found. Searching for him, I discovered him reciting the Heart Sutra at the goma altar in the main hall. Someone who witnessed it later remarked, “That young reverend chanting sutras with a voice like a temple bell—it was truly something awe-inspiring.”

“Won’t you have some tea?” Father would sometimes come to call me in the room where I was reading. When the afternoons grew so quiet they felt lonely, even Father would look lonesome. “Oh.” “I’ll have some.” When I entered Father’s room, the kettle was humming as usual. Father silently poured tea and made me drink it. Sweet bean jelly and such were served alongside. Father liked flowers and plants, and seasonal blossoms were always arranged in the tea cabinet. “You must become an adult soon.”

He would occasionally say things like that. Every time I stared at Father’s face, I became certain there must come a day when he too would leave this world. I grew convinced this day must arrive soon. And still I kept gazing at Father’s face in sorrow. The tea Father brewed always carried a gentle mellowness in flavor and perfectly tempered heat, suffused with the vibrant green fragrance of fresh leaves. It was as if Father’s kind nature had permeated both taste and scent.

Father had always kept a vermilion bronze kettle holder prepared outside the hearth as well. From both its size and weight, it was truly an impressive piece. Father would always say, “When I die, I’ll give you this kettle holder.” And from time to time, he would polish the vermilion bronze body with a silk cloth. I also wanted it. (After Father’s death, I received this kettle holder. It now sits beside my desk in this suburban house.) Hyō’s reputation was poor. When Hyō wandered through theaters and festival markets at night, the town girls would avoid him as if clearing the way—all pointing from behind and fearing this gentle delinquent. Even at girls’ schools, Hyō’s name seemed to have been generally known.

Around that time, Hyō was getting along well with a girl named O-Tama-san, the daughter of a park teahouse. At a neat little teahouse with a wisteria trellis where a fountain pond could be seen from the window, I too was often taken there by Hyō. O-Tama-san wore a merino apron and had gradually developed an intimate relationship with Hyō before we knew it. Often when Hyō and I went for walks together, "My mother is away today, so please make yourselves comfortable," she would say. At such times, Hyō,

“Alright then, show Mr. M the sarasa you got from the Russki.” “Mr. M is terribly fond of those kinds of fabrics, you see.” “Is that so?” “Then I’ll show you.” She brought over a patchwork-lined box filled with assorted fabrics—exactly the kind a girl would possess. It was around the time when there were Russian prisoners of war, and everyone would come to this teahouse for their three o’clock strolls; among them were some who had become utterly smitten. “This one’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?”

It was genuine Russian sarasa, with white polka dots dyed onto an entirely crimson ground. Among them were expensive handkerchiefs with intricate embroidery that created raised patterns on the fabric. And then there were old silver cross-shaped pins and such—truly splendid things in abundance. Hyō, at such times, “It’s surprising they actually brought handkerchiefs like these when going off to war.” “After all, Russians are such laid-back people,” he said. I,

“And do the prisoners come often?” he asked.

“Oh, when it becomes time for their walk, they do come.”

O-Tama-san remained silent, concerned about Hyō. Hyō grew sullen at such times. And when afternoon approached three o’clock, he would declare in a hollow voice, “It’s three.” “Time for their walk.” “Let’s go back... you.”

Hyō left, uttering a jealously sarcastic remark.

O-Tama-san, who had just turned seventeen, watched him leave with delicate, lonely eyes that seemed to want to say something. Even when Hyō drank beer here, O-Tama-san would tidy up in front of the house and never let him pay. I thought O-Tama-san loved Hyō deeply. Her anxious eyes appeared to tremble over each of Hyō's habitual movements. He possessed that quality which made him invariably cherished by such delicate girls. What seemed like careless abandon was in truth Hyō's skillful art of winning women over—a method that appeared random yet always functioned through underlying calculation.

One day, during Hyō’s absence, a high-ranking detective came from the police and investigated his ordinary daily life. "And then a patrolman came and told Mother she shouldn’t let me go out too much at night," Hyō later said with a laugh. Nevertheless, Hyō still went to festival markets and parks, inviting O-Tama-san out, staying out late drenched in night dew, and returning home well after dark.

One day when I visited Hyō, he had a slightly pale, swollen face. "You... I think I've been done in," he said to me. "Is it your lungs?" "But you're physically strong—it's nothing serious." "Just your imagination." "Is that so..."

And we often went to O-Tama-san’s place. I already knew the taste of beer. There were times when we sat in silence for long periods with O-Tama-san joining us. At such times, I came to understand that Hyō surely wanted to talk with O-Tama-san alone.

At such times, I alone would return first. O-Tama-san would sometimes come to see me off up to the top of the slope.

“Please do come again, won’t you?”

“Thank you. Since Hyō seems unwell, you shouldn’t offer him so much beer.” “Yes. I’ve thought it strange myself. He has these dreadful coughing spells at times.” “Please take good care of him. Goodbye.” “Goodbye.” On such days, Hyō would gaze at me with eyes like silent prayer. For reasons I couldn’t name, I cherished this fragile aspect of him. Within that brazen philanderer lay an ineffable tenderness—soft and intricate—that I approached with near-love. In the evenings, I would clasp hard the hand O-Tama-san so often held. A large hand, yet soft.

I had no doubt his illness was actual tuberculosis. The unhealthy redness gradually coloring his cheeks seemed to me its telltale sign. He had been publishing short stories in Bunko. "In the evenings she often comes calling," he said. "Whistling like this." Hyō had spoken happily of O-Tama-san visiting him. At dusk in Nishimachi's quiet backstreets, I would mentally carve her figure like a relief print—that downtown girl pacing before Hyō's house, whistling as she came and went. Since taking up with O-Tama-san, he'd largely stopped glancing at other women. I contemplated their tender affection with a heart turned poetic. Not the faintest jealousy stirred within me. Through such delicate womanhood, even that friend's face appeared transformed—his countenance growing beautiful alongside his heart.

One day, I visited Hyō after a long time. He was lying in the inner room where a futon had been laid out. "He had finally taken to his bed."

His face was pale. In that short time, he had grown terribly emaciated.

“This morning… Seeing the persimmon leaves begin to fall made me terribly lonely.”

In the garden, the balsam flowers were already blooming. “I never thought you would take to bed.” “So you won’t be going out for a while, then.” “I intend to rest for a while.” “I can’t die now.” “I’m desperate to write so much more—all kinds of things.”

His lips alone were dry with fever and glowed a vivid red. “Does O-Tama-san know?” “That you’ve taken to bed.”

“No, she doesn’t seem to.” “And…” “In the evenings she often comes calling on me.” “Since our signal’s that whistle, even lying here in bed keeps me on edge.” “I want to go out but can’t.” “There’s my mother too.” “Does your mother not know?” “She doesn’t seem to have noticed.” “I’m sorry—could you meet her and tell her about me?”

“Then I’ll stop by on my way back today.”

I was gazing intently at the narrow garden. And I thought of my friend who had said that seeing the persimmon leaves scatter in his mind’s eye had filled him with loneliness.

We remained silent for some time.

“I somehow feel like I won’t die.” “It doesn’t seem like dying could ever happen, you know.”

Hyō stared intently at my face. In the depths of his eyes—which seemed drained of their feeble vitality—there flickered a glint of emotional intensity. When I remained silent without responding to that,

“What do you think?” “Do you think there’s such a thing as anticipating death?”

“Well… I can’t say for sure right now, but there must be at the moment of death.” “The moment of death—the verge of death, right?”

He sank into thought again. After another long silence, he spoke.

“I kept trying to tell my mother about O-Tama-san, but I just can’t, you know.” “I want to leave that unsaid.” “I’ve been causing nothing but worry to my mother and sister, you know.” I too had often considered whether it might be better to just tell Hyō’s mother, but in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. When I looked at Hyō’s face, I felt as though I could never say it. The very recklessness born of all those years of living freely made it impossible for him to now tell his mother about the woman’s existence.

“I suppose so. “Better not to tell.” “When the time comes, she’ll find out.” “When the time comes… it will come to light—” Hyō trailed off and made his eyes dart nervously. I was coming to understand that Hyō had become far more neurotic than when I’d last seen him, and how that bold, carefree disposition of his was gradually weakening. I soon took my leave and was about to depart, “Will you come tomorrow?”

“I don’t know about tomorrow.” “If I can come, I will.”

“Please come.” “It gets lonely lying here, you know.” “I’ll be waiting, you know.” He stared at my face with an uncharacteristically quiet intensity. When I saw my friend’s slightly thinned hair, I suddenly thought I must come tomorrow too.

“I’ll definitely come. And since *Heretical Gate* has been published, I’ll bring it.” “Ah! Has *Heretical Gate* come out? I want to see it… Come tonight.” Hyō suddenly grew agitated and spoke with fervor. “I’ll come tomorrow, so wait for me. Well, goodbye then.” “I will.”

When I stepped out into the street, I took a deep breath.

As I began to climb the slope of the park, the cries of cicadas had already grown sparse, and the grove of trees appeared translucent. I stopped by O-Tama-san’s teahouse. Just then, O-Tama-san came out. I felt as though my face turned red somehow. We had always met, but moments when we were alone together had been rare—that was why.

“Welcome, thank you for coming.” O-Tama-san said in a polished voice. In the time since I had last seen her, her face had grown even more beautifully vivid. “Hyō has finally taken to bed.” “I came by today—he said to tell you that.” “But it is nothing serious,” I said. “Oh! I had a feeling that might be the case.” “And it isn’t anything serious… do you suppose?”

“Oh. But he’s grown quite thin.”

We remained silent for a while. Suddenly, O-Tama-san said.

“Is it really that illness after all?” “They say that illness is terribly hard to recover from.” “They say nine out of ten cases are hopeless.” “But Hyō isn’t yet at a point where you need to worry so much.” O-Tama-san’s eyes were already glistening. The beautiful eyes, filled with tears befitting a guileless young woman, captivated my impressionable heart. And I felt that women possess a deeper beauty than usual when they hold back tears.

“When will you be coming next?”

“I’ll go again tomorrow.” “If there’s a message, please tell me.”

O-Tama-san hesitated slightly, but “Please do. And please tell him to take good care of himself.” “I too am praying that he recovers.” I felt that Hyō and O-Tama-san’s bond resembled something out of a beautiful tale, and my cherished affection for Hyō seemed to transform directly into a tender love for O-Tama-san. When I viewed the two side by side, my partial passion always felt a more intense yet harmonious love in the act of beholding them together.

“You truly love Hyō, don’t you?”

I blurted out. When O-Tama-san’s face reddened, I thought I had said something unnecessary.

“Yes.” O-Tama-san replied in a low yet mellifluous voice. Then, “My family has started noticing things... They’ve been saying awful words.” I spoke emphatically, “Hyō is a good man. Please keep being with him.” “Thank you,” she murmured, tears brimming in her eyes. I soon bid farewell. As I started down the slope beneath the wisteria arbor, O-Tama-san—who had been watching me leave—hurried after me and, fidgeting nervously,

“Um… I have a request,” she said in a low voice. The area was already growing dark, the coolness having reached a point where it felt slightly cold. O-Tama-san pressed close to me,

“Please let me meet him once.” she said desperately. The warmth radiating from her face reached my cheek like distant charcoal fire. And there was an intense smell of her hair. “I’ve thought about that too, but Hyō can’t go out, and you can’t visit him openly.” “I really was being selfish, wasn’t I?” “I’m terribly sorry.” She stared at the ground and said. That slender, delicate neck stood out in pure white, moving gently with each breath.

“I was wrong.” “Excuse me.”

She ascended the slope. The sound of heavy footsteps descending the slope became inaudible to me. When I casually glanced back, O-Tama-san had stopped and was watching me depart. That sorrowful figure weighed heavily on my heart. The next morning, I asked Father to recite sutras so that Hyō’s illness would be cured as soon as possible. Father, while wrapping his priestly robe around his shoulders, “That person, you mean?” “That’s truly unfortunate.” “I will offer sutras,” he said, proceeding to the main hall.

I too prayed quietly with all my heart on the lower platform where Father’s sutra chanting seemed to cascade down like rain. Though I knew the illness was incurable, I found myself unable to stop believing some external force might intervene. Father’s voice, rising from the depths of his emaciated belly, resonated through the ancient bronze bells of the main hall. A solemn hour slipped by. Father came down from the main hall. His face bore a sorrowful look, as though some ominous prophecy were tormenting him.

Father said. “How old are you?” “I’m seventeen.” “The truth is,” “The offering lamp went out during the sutra.” “That person’s condition seems grave.” “There have been times when the offering lamp has gone out like that，and whenever it does，things turn grave.”

Father gazed at my face.

“Is that true?” “Do not doubt it.”

The taciturn Father entered the next tea room. I couldn’t decide whether believing was good or bad.

In the afternoon, I couldn’t stop thinking about Hyō. A pale, sickly face floated before my eyes. It quietly called my name from the corner of the room. “Murō-kun,” I heard a voice call. I immediately went out to visit my friend.

I bought a little fruit. In front of my friend’s house, I stood for a long time, straining my ears to detect any sign of disturbance, but the interior remained desolately quiet. Occasionally, a feeble cough sounded. When I heard that sound, I felt a terror as if my chest had been lightly struck. I entered, thinking that things really were bad after all. When Hyō saw my face, he looked delighted and spoke as if leaping forward. “You came after all.” “Since this morning, whenever I heard clogs at the front, I kept thinking you’d come and nearly got up time after time.—You were out there just now, listening intently to what was happening inside, weren’t you?” “I knew because the clatter of your clogs suddenly stopped.”

I flinched. But I couldn’t lie. “You’ve become quite sensitive.” I took advantage of the moment when Hyō’s mother left her seat,

“I met with O-Tama-san yesterday and spoke to her about it.” “I see.” “Thank you.” Hyō’s eyes shone as if anticipating the words I was about to report. “That person loves you.” “When I said you were sleeping, she told me she would take good care of you.” Hyō remained silent. “And—she says she wants to meet you once. I somehow felt sorry.” “She’s really kind, you know.” “You are fortunate.”

“But women are impossible to understand.” “I just can’t fathom what lies in their hearts.” “But the one who loves you does so utterly. You ought to feel gratitude.” Hyō stared at his own hands with that skeptical gaze he sometimes wore, “I believe I’m loved too—yet somehow it won’t take root.” “When I dwell on things... I want desperately to live.” “To heal quickly—that’s all.” “You will recover. Have an apple?” “Thank you.” “A small piece.”

I peeled the skin off the apple. The apple’s crimson skin was gradually and smoothly peeled away. Hyō was watching it, “This time, kindly take the letter there. I’m counting on you,” he said in a slightly brighter tone. “Of course. I’ll take it once you write it.” “That apple has a lovely color.” “Ah.”

We were eating this tender fruit. Suddenly, Hyō spoke again. "I feel like seeing her." "Once you've recovered." This afternoon in Nishimachi was quiet, bright sunlight streaming into the small garden. I had been gazing at it when I took out the promised *Heretical Doctrines* to show him. "It's already out, then." Hyō took it in his hands and examined it with delight. This ardent poetry collection—bound with habutae silk interleaved like proof sheets—brought him solace. With each page of this book swelling with sensation, exoticism, and raw sensuality came an intense rhythm that not only flushed my friend's cheeks crimson but even imparted to him a fierce will to live.

My friend placed the book beside him, “I wrote a short piece the other day—take a look,” he said, taking out his notebook and showing it to me. The notebook too was steeped in medicine, and when its pages were turned, a smell burst forth. I read the work I hadn’t seen in some time as if savoring it. Whence does this loneliness come visiting? From the depths of the soul’s innermost depths, As if passing away into distant skies, As if whispering within my heart Though I try to grasp it, it has no form. Ah, I, sitting all day long...

To touch my loneliness they strive. Yet they cast the shadow of formless things. They waste my heart away day by day. I saw my friend being tormented by a spiritual loneliness that had pervaded the very essence of this poem. Moreover, as he—like one whose vitality was being stolen away by some unseen force day by day—gazed intently at the subtle decline of his own life, I could discern how this friend, even while denying death, was gradually coming to accept it.

“You wrote this after you got sick, didn’t you?” “I wrote it four or five days ago.” “Even now I can’t escape that feeling.”

We remained silent again for a while. Hyō coughed two or three times during that interval. The feeble voice made me avert my face. I sometimes felt anxious that I might catch it, but the feeling would quickly vanish.

I soon took my leave and returned. When I got back, I was running a severe fever.

Already, only the lingering heat of summer could be felt, and everything on earth was hastening to don autumn’s attire. In the temple garden, chrysanthemums formed buds while persimmons hung heavily from branches. Yet the soil lay parched and white. For some reason, as I gazed upon them, a profound emotion born of this seasonal shift from late summer to early autumn settled thickly upon my heart. In autumn, pilgrimage groups making rounds of thirty-three temples often visited mine as well. Among women clad in desolate white leggings, young girls mingled too. When these crowds finished chanting hymns before Kannon Hall and departed—their lively yet lonely bustle now stilled—I felt an autumnal desolation all the keener.

I composed poetry every day. After my friend fell ill, amidst the loneliness of being utterly alone, I secluded myself in my riverside study as though living alongside my own heart.

That day too, I visited Hyō. This friend had become terribly emaciated in the mere four or five days since I last saw him and was now completely bedridden, unable to rise. “How about it? If you believe I’ll definitely recover, then I will.” He wore a pale, lonely smile. It could be taken as both mocking his own illness and sneering at my lack of involvement with his condition. It was a serious, unpleasant smile.

“I truly think it’s hopeless now. “Having wasted away to this extent…” My friend drew his hand from beneath the covers and rubbed it demonstratively. The pallid, slackened skin devoid of luster appeared so lifeless it might slough off if pinched. “You’ve grown terribly thin.” I gazed with pained intensity. “And listen. “You must become friends with O-Tama-san. “In my stead. “I’ve been contemplating this for some time.”

He assumed a sincere expression. I immediately felt myself blushing, but “That doesn’t matter. If you get better, we can all go out together again. You shouldn’t think about anything.” “I see,” he said weakly, then coughed. He suddenly flushed as if with fever and tried to sit up as he spoke.

“If I can’t go on, you alone must become famous. You must work double for my share as well.” I stared fixedly at his eyes. The eyes glistened with fever. “Don’t talk nonsense. Once you’ve recovered, why don’t we work together?” I tried to encourage him, but my friend seemed to already know himself. Such decline gradually crushed the strong will of this stubborn friend.

However, he spoke again. “I’ll lend you my strength, you know.” “Do twice as much.”

“I’ll strive with all my might—your share too. I’ll study relentlessly for ten years straight.” I shouted in an involuntary surge of fervor. We conversed in this manner until sunset fell. Soon after, I took my leave from this friend and stepped outside. Once beyond the threshold, a constriction seized my chest as tears welled in my eyes. Mid-autumn had passed when this friend died.

The day of Hyō’s funeral was a pale, starkly clear afternoon near the equinox, and when at last the coffin was carried from the house, there in the midst of the neighborhood crowd stood O-Tama-san—quietly seeing it off all alone, her pitifully tearful eyes immediately imprinting themselves upon my sight. The meager funeral procession—though one could hardly call four or five mourners a procession—wound its way through town after endless town until it emerged into the open fields. In the fields, northern gales had already begun to blow fiercely, their gusts continuing along millet-lined paths and through taro fields where laborers hurried their steps.

Hyō’s brief seventeen-year life was, even in its own way, a considerably fulfilled one. I came to feel that even his use of various ruthless means to entice girls and his bold temptations—charging ahead without any external constraints or the slightest consideration—had gradually seeped into my own way of thinking. Yet on another side, he also possessed an indescribably tender friendship—a thing not to be forgotten.

After the funeral ended, I returned home and passed my days in loneliness. One day, I found myself wanting to visit O-Tama-san at the park. Though I considered going, the very notion of calling upon the woman my deceased friend had loved relentlessly weighed on my conscience. Partly it was an unburdened sense of brightness—that with Hyō gone, I might converse leisurely with O-Tama-san without interference; partly it was the justification that since Hyō himself had committed so many wrongs, what did it matter if I associated with her; and partly it was a profound shame before his departed spirit—these together kept me from visiting her.

The tips of the park's lawn grass began to scorch, and around the thickets of pampas grass and bush clover where wild bell crickets had started singing - it was that time of year. When I walked through the groves of tall pine trees that afternoon, the air hung so crystalline that even the sound of my geta clogs took on a strange resonance.

When I stopped by the teahouse, O-Tama-san came out. The demure red sash stood out vividly, imprinted clearly upon my eyes. “Thank you ever so much for coming,” she said, quickly looking at me before immediately recalling Hyō and tearing up. Our rare moments alone only heightened it—drawn in by the moistness of her eyes, I felt a slight tightness in my chest.

We spoke of many things. At times it seemed the deceased Hyō sat despondently between us. I remembered when Hyō had said, “Keep company with O-Tama-san. With you, I could rest easy.” Hyō—who had declared, “With anyone else I couldn’t die properly, but with you I can”—had worn that lonely expression even as he spoke those words himself. “Please visit me sometimes,” she said. “I truly have no friends at all.”

The death of a single human being intervened between me and her, gradually making her girlishly vulnerable self feel at ease and drawing her closer to me. As for me, while troubled by a guilt akin to preying on Hyō’s death, I gradually began to feel a familiarity born from the gentle, approachable nature of a woman. “Please don’t speak of that person anymore. I end up recalling so many things and feeling sad,” she said.

When I heard that, I sensed she was striving to forget Hyō as much as possible. I felt dissatisfied. Yet at the same time, while her endless yearning for the dead might have been inevitable for someone as meek as her, I found myself feeling a jealousy unlike any I had ever known. "They say Hyō's illness is contagious—is that true?" O-Tama-san said.

At the same time, I recalled how I had often poked at meat hotpots and drunk sake with Hyō, and felt a chill wondering whether I too had been infected. “It often spreads through food, you know. People with weak constitutions do seem to catch it easily indeed.”

I recalled a time when Hyō was coughing—how the mosquito-like tuberculosis germs had seemed to suddenly spread all the way to where I sat. At that time, I had felt there was no way it could be contagious, and I had deliberately leaned in close to reassure my friend—but now, remembering this, I was suddenly seized with fear, feeling as though something irreversible had occurred.

“I’ve been having this strange cough lately.” “My face must look quite pale, don’t you think?”

Compared to when we first met, her face now seemed tinged with a moisture-laden bluish hue. And immediately I visualized Hyō and her relationship—their lips joining with dizzying rapidity. Thinking of those two—whom I had once regarded through a lens as beautiful as poetry—now tainted by an impurity I’d never before sensed, I felt jealousy pulse violently within me. Even now, speaking here with such solemnity while imagining the myriad forms I’d revealed to my departed friend, it seemed inevitable that tenacious illness had rooted itself deep in her breast—yet this also stirred something pitiable in me. On another level, I felt perverse satisfaction, an irritable urge to unsettle her taking seed. Yet hearing how she faced daily reproaches at home these days due to her ties with Hyō—never finding respite, constantly reduced to tears over loans she’d granted him—I came to think, “Hyō truly was a cruel bastard.”

“It was all my fault, so I don’t resent that person at all,” she said, looking at me. “If Hyō had lived just a little longer, he might have been able to do something tangible for you… though.” Even as I spoke those words, I keenly felt how Hyō’s emotions had never been grounded in any firm foundation—a realization that now extended palpably to O-Tama-san’s circumstances. Hyō should have simply indulged in pleasure. Hyō wanted to savor the woman before him rather than dwell on past or future. When I considered how Hyō’s deeds continued tormenting his victims’ souls even after death, I sensed there exists an atonement that not even mortality can fully discharge. He himself might have found peace in that. But as I pondered what became of those left suffering, I recognized fate’s cruelty—how Hyō, in his brief span, had compressed a lifetime’s worth of living that others stretch across decades.

“Lately, I can’t help feeling like I’m going to die.”

“You shouldn’t dwell on so many things.” “But I truly do feel that way.” She too seemed to be contemplating the gentle death common among women. I promised another day and parted.

November arrived, and one day when dusk approached with a sudden crash of coldness, it abruptly turned into large hailstones—sharp and piercing with frost—that battered the fallen leaves on the roof. The violent downpour fell so fiercely that human voices became inaudible beneath its clamor. When I opened the study’s shoji screens to look, the hail striking the river’s surface and rebounding off garden leaves resembled pure white jewels being cast about. Every year when this season came—and particularly when I witnessed this hail—I felt an otherworldly sensation. It was as though winter’s transient message were being solemnly proclaimed—a hurried yet profoundly lonely feeling that welled up inside me.

Father began secluding himself in the tea room. The quiet sound of the kettle came through the sliding door to my room. "Father’s having tea again," I thought as I closed the shoji. The scent of plum blossoms wafted gently and distantly, though I couldn’t tell from which room it was being burned.

In the evening, I quietly slipped out of the temple and made my way alone from behind a certain shrine toward the brothel district. Hail had accumulated on the brothel district’s roads, with elegant silk lantern lights lining the streets here and there, and rows of vermilion-lacquered lattice houses stretching into the distance. I moved furtively through there, taking care not to be seen, and entered a certain large house. “I must apologize for the other day.” “Please do come up.”

I was led upstairs. The previous night, I had invited a woman of considerable standing. I felt that if I simply kept looking at women as much as I wanted, it might gradually fill that persistent hunger within me. "You were Konpira-san’s young master, weren’t you?" "I’d thought I recognized you from when we met before." She turned back to laugh at the little apprentice geisha. Whenever I saw her slender figure in the temple grounds, I had always wanted to meet and speak with her—now coming here like this, I was glad our meetings could always be arranged so easily.

“You came often even in the rain, didn’t you.” She stirred the brazier’s fire. As custom dictated in this brothel quarter, incense burned in every house. There was also a beautiful doll-like maiko called Red Collar—it had become customary for her to enter the parlor with her elder sister. “Would you care for some sake?” She looked faintly surprised. “Since I can manage a little now, please bring some.” Lately I had mentioned being able to tolerate small amounts of alcohol.

“You’re always so quiet.” The woman said idly. I had nothing particular to say, and the words seemed to spin dizzily in my mouth. Moreover, whenever I entered this brothel district, my body would tremble uncontrollably. Especially when speaking with her, seeing the bold contours of her large face and her imposing seated form close to me, I felt a kind of pressing beauty tinged with something uncanny—an oppressive force that seemed to bear down on me. That gradually turned into trembling, and my fingertips began to quiver. What I never felt even when meeting with O-Tama-san would always come to be felt here.

“Please stay still.” “You won’t tremble—I promise.”

The woman said this, but even when I focused intently on staying still, my fingertips still trembled. The more I tried to suppress it, the more violently the trembling surged. In that place, time always seemed to stretch endlessly. Because the woman and I were separated by barely three shaku, the oppressive weight of her body—emanating gradually from her beautifully rounded sitting posture, from the curves of her entire form, and especially from that vivid mouth which opened like a small bird’s beak—seemed to bear down on me with relentless pressure. My frail adolescent body was overwhelmed by it, and I noticed a certain timidity in my voice whenever I spoke.

“As for myself…” “When I went to pray yesterday too, I waited awhile in the corridor thinking you might come out into the grounds.”

“Since I’m usually in the back quarters, I’ve rarely gone outside—” The woman said something that struck me as implausible. Moreover, I couldn’t stop thinking about the temple ever since earlier. Thoughts of Father and the money I had deceived him into giving me kept repeating in my mind until I grew restless. For instance, while engaged in such diversions, anxieties would seize me—the dread that a fire might break out from some mishap or that some extraordinary disaster might occur—and I couldn’t shake these looming possibilities. Above all, when comparing this gaudy parlor with its garish decorations, the shamisen she had brought, and the ostentatiously arranged fruit dishes to the temple’s quiet rooms, it felt like merely sitting here was an act of profound wrongdoing. In the end alone, I began thinking so frantically that my face turned ashen and my chest tightened bitterly until I felt compelled to return home even a moment sooner.

“I’m in a bit of a hurry tonight,” I said, rising to my feet. “There’s no need to rush,” she countered. “It’ll be too late for you to return home if you linger much longer—though it’s still only nine.” Though she tried to detain me, I felt compelled to leave and stepped outside. When I returned to the temple, I couldn’t bring myself to meet Father’s gaze, convinced he knew precisely where I’d been.

“It seems quite late, but when you’re young, it’s better not to go out too much at night.”

Father said gently. "I ended up getting caught up talking at a friend’s place."

I entered my room as if fleeing. My room was situated where the sound of the Sai River’s rapids could be heard immediately from the veranda. Tonight, for some reason, even the sound of those rapids failed to lull me to sleep as it usually did. While lying awake for a long time, I also thought that I should have stayed longer with the woman. “I generally decline young gentlemen such as yourself, but as I am well acquainted with your household…”

Even such a madam felt a profound, unprecedented kind of human compassion. Yet I could not reconcile the woman I had summoned to the parlor with her temple visits—how she sat properly ablaze with devotion during prayers—as though she were an entirely different person. From the registry area, one could recognize her praying form—hands clasped, eyes closed, voice quivering like stifled sobs—so sharply sensual it was. Yet face to face, she lacked both that allure and beauty. When seen in the main hall, her ginkgo-bun hairstyle harmonized perfectly with red lanterns dangling from the ceiling bearing words like *offerings* and *devotional lamps*. But up close, she seemed merely an ordinary woman, insipid. I felt everything I pursued was always slipping away.

As a result, I would resolve not to go anymore, yet I couldn’t help but think it was terribly wrong that I started frequenting such places.

Even when sitting alone at my desk, I would either write various love poems or sit staring blankly at one spot for hours on end, doing nothing at all. My entire body felt strangely restless with an itch, my mind grew agitated, and I found myself incessantly thinking of women. Not only would I gaze at the pale underside of my own arm—stretching and bending it to form beautiful curves that brought intense sexual pleasure—or suck at my own firm white flesh while indulging in endless tormenting delusions within that closed room, but at times, when seeing those abhorrent semi-nude women in newspaper advertisements, aided by the shapes conjured through my internal fantasies, my mind would agonize for prolonged periods over treating them as living entities. With small cries of gratification, I would build up then dismantle their beautiful shapes.

Each morning’s awakening brought a hazy, heat-like weight that hung heavily on my eyelids like a spider’s web; a mist I couldn’t brush away seemed to cling everywhere, and so my listless days continued.

I staggered outside.

After the hail had fallen two or three times, the forms of the border mountains grew deeper with each passing day, gleaming under the weight of thick, sharply carved snow. The gravel-bed grasses had completely bowed their heads, now trembling within the bleak, rough landscape, honed by the harsh seasonal winds that would no longer let them stand. It was something felt by those born in northern regions: the suffocating monotony and stillness of the landscape before winter’s arrival seeped into people’s very hearts, rendering all actions sluggish and numb.

The roofs of Mukaigishi were blurred into the same color as the sky on that cloudy day, and only the shoji doors of each window could be seen projected bleakly upon the water’s surface.

I then ascended the slope and emerged toward the park. The beginning of winter could be felt in the leaves swept across the park paths, in the tightly shut shoji doors of the teahouse, and around the bush clover stumps—closely pruned—left forlornly here and there along the winding stream. The chill moisture seeping from the soil around the sasanquas—blooming amidst the bright, leafless thicket—swelled here and there, ravaged nightly by frost’s icy bite and hail’s harsh assault.

I looked through the sparse grove toward the fountain that lay on slightly lower ground. Pitter-patter… pitter-patter…—the splashes striking the water’s surface wet the small azalea leaves there, endlessly continuing their desolate, chilly, monotonous sound. I squatted down and thought of how Hyō would often meet O-Tama-san for trysts around this spot. Her house stood right beside the fountain, but the utterly hushed stillness behind its shoji doors made me feel a loneliness like that of a house deep in mountain country. Now that people had stopped coming for walks around this time, even the gardener’s diligent sweeping—done to no real purpose—only rendered those roads all the more bleakly forlorn with their bleached desolation.

I went to O-Tama-san’s house. When I said, “Excuse me,” a hushed voice sounded from within. I couldn’t discern whose voice it was, but it stirred unease in me nonetheless. When the hushed voice ceased, O-Tama-san’s mother appeared. I had met her two or three times before and knew her.

“Please come in,” she said, but when I looked at her mother’s face, I saw a flustered, preoccupied expression. “O-Tama-san...” I said, and her mother drew closer as if to approach. “The truth is, she’s been feeling unwell since the other day and has been lying down...” I was startled. At once, I recalled her pale, damp face from when we had last met. The inner cry of “It’s infected me” immediately turned into a muttered “I’ve been struck down.”

“Is she quite ill?”

“Oh.” “It has its ups and downs—the doctor says it will drag on—but I believe it’s the same illness as Hyō-san’s.” There was something faintly ironic about this that made me say, “Please look after her well.” “Do give her my regards,” I added before quickly stepping outside. Right then, I sensed that dreadful illness had already begun to show itself in her. Tormenting myself with anxious fears—could that sickness be lurking within me too?—the image of that small, girlishly delicate body lying still at home made me feel she wouldn’t last much longer, just like Hyō. With a heavy heart, I watched the fountain’s ceaseless flow and made my way down the park slope.

“I’ve been feeling like I might die soon.” I felt those words she had spoken earlier were now truly taking hold of her.