Pathway to Japanese Literature

This is an attempt to express something vaguely reminiscent of human old age in a form that is neither fairy tale, novel, nor prose.—

I On the bow of the boat perched a single white bird, its wings stilled in repose. —Its shadow lay upon the water like a pristine lily, trailing a luminous, translucent tail down to the lake’s motionless depths. Now and then it would unfurl one fan-like wing—perhaps pecking at insects with its beak—when abruptly the white reflection sharpened and trembled. “What could have become of Mother? She rushed off so urgently—should I go see about her?” “Even after hurrying like that—shall I go check on her?”

Nemuri Genro, in the midst of untying the mooring rope, turned to look at his daughter on the shore.

“She’ll be here soon, so get in first.” “I’d rather you didn’t untie the mooring rope.” “The boat might drift away.” “It’s fine.” “The wind comes from the lake—even if we turn back, it won’t carry us out to open water.”

When the daughter nimbly boarded the boat, the shadow of the swift-legged small bird vanished from the bow. The daughter—who had boarded so quietly against the boat's hull, determined to catch his small bird today of all days—ultimately lost sight of its shadow and sat down in visible frustration. “When that bird appears, doesn’t the island become clearer to see?”

“If even one of those birds takes flight, it’s certain to clear up.—And it’s strange how whitefish gather in schools along the shore when it does.” Nemuri Genro untied the mooring rope and eased the boat from shore inch by inch. Guiding it through troughs between receding waves, the craft skimmed across water like a pale duck. He gripped the water-polished oar. Drops from its oil groove traced silver threads beneath the blade, etching ripples into the lake’s glassy skin.

“Even though Mother hasn’t boarded yet, it would be wrong to set out in the boat.” “I’m not setting out, I’m telling you.” “But I can’t help worrying.” “You might end up taking the boat out again like last time—I often find myself worrying afterward about the things you do.” “Even though you said you wouldn’t go out for days on end, you ended up going all the way to the island—.”

Nemuri Genro smiled to himself as he guided the oar through the water one deliberate stroke at a time. "True enough—that day I did row us out to the island. But then we learned Mother couldn't join us after all." "She's been holding back these days—I get the sense Mother no longer finds joy in boarding the boat." "I can't help feeling that way." "You think she doesn't find joy in it? What makes you say that?" "Well today again—she didn't even hurry to come aboard when pressed—that's why it seems so to me."

The slender fingers immersed in the water and idly toying with it lay beneath the standing father’s gaze. Her neatly aligned knees and small feet—the head skilled at pondering minutiae bore smoke-tinted hair that cascaded sleekly down to her shoulders. —Nemuri Genro rested his oar and sat facing his daughter. And he quietly gazed at his daughter’s face. “Do you prefer your father or your mother? Could you say that once more for me?”

The daughter felt stirred by the sincerity deep within her father's expression, yet still found it amusing in her childlike way. What struck her as comical wasn’t so much being asked to repeat herself, but rather his unrelenting earnestness in demanding an answer. “I like you both—.” “That won’t do. You must prefer one of us more—even two different small birds each have their own favorites.”

The daughter continued toying with her fingers on the water’s surface, smiling as she averted her gaze and looked up into her father’s eyes. The innocence that seemed to struggle to gather her bewildered thoughts stirred a refreshing feeling in her father’s chest. “This is so troubling…” The daughter immediately continued her words, suddenly asking as a new thought arose in her mind. “What do you gain by asking such things? “It shouldn’t matter which I prefer, should it? “I won’t go anywhere else, and there isn’t anyone human-like here at all, you see.”

“Because there’s no one else here—that’s why I want to ask you this.” “I enjoy hearing it.” “Then if I say I like you more than Mother—that would put you in better spirits.”

After saying this, the daughter glanced back at Nemuri Genro, who remained silent. Nemuri Genro sank into silence for a while due to his heart's stubbornness.

“If it would please you, Father, I can say I like you.” Nemuri Genro did not respond, letting his gaze drift toward the island where Peach Blossom Village lay. It was not that he had sunk into gloom from her reply; rather, it was because the sudden trivial boredom and ultimate futility had abruptly startled him from the depths of his heart. The thoughts occupying his mind, the very fact of his present existence, and thoughts of his wife—all these drove him into the depression that had long festered unused within him. ——At such times, he found speaking unbearable and listening detestable. Even as he knew he could do nothing about it himself, and even realizing he was allowing his heart to fester, he still dwelt solely within himself.

“Father, when you make such a face, I suddenly become frightened—please, I beg you, don’t make that face.” The daughter’s face remained beautiful, yet that beauty seemed poised to transform into sorrow. Because that transformation had appeared all too vividly in Nemuri Genro’s eyes, he tried to regain his former calmness, as though catching something perilous from behind.

“This is just a quirk of Father’s, so don’t dwell on it—there’s no need to be frightened anymore.” “But….” The daughter strove to smile, yet for some reason sensed a stiff rigidity in her own face.—She thought Father must surely be hoping to see her smile, but still she couldn’t manage it.

After a while, the daughter’s pale face brightened and returned to its former clear, unclouded hue. Father was quietly watching it but finally calmed down and said to his daughter.

“It was wrong of Father to try to make you understand something he himself doesn’t comprehend.”

After saying this, he fell silent again and gazed sorrowfully at Peach Blossom Village through the rippling waves, its colors faintly tinged.—Father remained silent, then pointed toward that Peach Blossom Village and told his daughter to look at it. “My, it grows redder each day, I must say.” “There’s a white square thing in there, right? Do you know what that’s for?”

“No.” “There are humans just like us over there, though you don’t know it….” The daughter gazed at the beautiful shadow of Peach Blossom Village shimmering along the lakeshore but said nothing.—It was a distant place, one that neither her father nor her mother had ever visited, it seemed. On a day when the waves were calm, the daughter boarded a boat with her mother and found themselves near the lake’s center, in the shadow of a purple-hued island. At that moment, at the farthest reach of the mother and daughter’s gaze, Peach Blossom Village—still tinged with the madder-red hues of early spring as though smoked—appeared tranquil beneath an excessively quiet sky.

“Mother.” The daughter called out to her mother and said with sparkling eyes, “I want to see that village.” Yet Mother’s reply sounded unexpectedly cold—no, rather spiteful—to her daughter’s ears, in a way she had never heard before. “No, you must not go there.” “There is no place for someone with a beautiful heart like yours to go.” “Why is that? —And besides, I don’t have such a beautiful heart at all…”

The daughter suddenly looked at her mother’s face, but found herself staring at a completely stiffened and pallid complexion that seemed utterly terrifying. “Never mention Peach Blossom Village again,” she implored. “Now swear this to Mother, won’t you?” “Yes…” “Because you’re Mother’s precious one—you mustn’t look toward it.” “And there’s no need for tears anymore.”

While feeling her mother’s hand on her shoulder, the daughter regretted that what she had said had pained her mother, and then sank into tears.—

From that day on, the daughter stopped speaking of her mother and Peach Blossom Village. Nevertheless, whenever her father mentioned Peach Blossom Village, he was always in a good mood. For even now, Nemuri Genro was gazing at the village—pale red and resembling a beautiful row of seashells washed ashore—with eyes that were calm yet feverish in their intensity. “Father, why does Mother look so sad whenever she talks about that village?”

The daughter placed her hand on her father’s knee and said, gazing enraptured at the village. But when there was no reply from her father, she turned back absentmindedly to look and found Nemuri Genro with gloomy eyes, seemingly deep in thought. —The expression in those eyes was one that had once been in her mother’s eyes. The daughter secretly marveled in her heart at how her parents’ strange expressions had unwittingly converged—both equally gloomy, both revealing the same uncertain light.

“I don’t understand that at all…” While stroking her father’s kimono near his chest, the daughter spoke in a voice faintly creased with sadness, mingling affection with sorrow. “That’s something even Father doesn’t fully understand.—But you mustn’t try to know such things.” No—until she came to desire understanding, who could have instilled such feelings in her? Nemuri Genro thought that his daughter, who had been so pure-hearted, had now begun to gently sink her claws into the blemishes of her father and mother’s hearts.

“Must I still remain silent?” The daughter began to sob softly. On her father’s lap—Nemuri Genro placed his hand on his daughter’s hair and gazed sorrowfully at the red haze enveloping Peach Blossom Village. What was reflected in those fatherly eyes? The daughter merely stared fixedly, knowing nothing at all. The act of seeking to know was not something anyone would naturally permit. —At that moment, the daughter heard her father’s voice as though wandering through a hazy dream.

“You do care for your Father, don’t you?”

The daughter felt as though she were hearing his voice from a great distance, making her father seem all the more sorrowful.

“Yes…”

Nemuri Genro noticed after a while that the boat had drifted to the lake's center. The daughter too now felt a chill in her heart as the purple-tinged island shadow half-covered their boat. At the same moment, a woman's voice pierced Nemuri Genro's ears. Moreover, it was a voice that had traveled across the lake from afar. The daughter turned toward the shore and let out her first startled cry. “Mother is calling—”

Nemuri Genro looked in the same direction as his daughter but said in a calm voice. “Mother probably isn’t lonely—”

The father made no move to take the oar. But the daughter handed the oar to her father. “Please return the boat.” The daughter’s eyes remained fixed, unmoving, on her mother standing at the shore. Nemuri Genro gazed sadly at his daughter’s eyes, wore a half-resigned expression, then firmly planted the water-seasoned oar—whereupon the large island shadow cast small waves like a petroleum-hued rainbow and began to gently disturb its own tranquil reflection.

Two

What kind of place was this? A lake, an island, Peach Blossom Village beyond them, ever-clouded daylight followed by moonlit nights, and three hearts whispering in turn—beyond these, nothing else could be found. As for why they lived here, or when this existence had begun, even when sifting through scant memories, they could only think of it as a dreamlike state. Even when they would suddenly wonder if they were merely three separate individuals brought together, Nemuri Genro still felt that he possessed a deep, enduring past intertwined with his wife. —Yet he could not comprehend the origin of why their life had come to be placed here. —However, since their life had come to this lakeside, it was indeed true that everything without exception had been renewed.

Nemuri Genro lived gazing only upon his wife and daughter. There was nothing else to stimulate their eyes. There were only countless small white birds, shellfish among the waves, and purple wisteria vines crawling over the sand dunes.—How many months and years they had spent here—the span felt both excruciatingly long and fleetingly short—all things passed by flatly like oil flowing away. Nemuri Genro sat with the woman on a simple bench beneath pine trees by their small house near the shore, gazing fixedly at their daughter by the same window, passing time that was half dozing and half boredom—a decaying interlude. In the same manner, the woman too lay half-asleep, only occasionally watching over Nemuri Genro with a listless air. All things stilled their hearts and passed solely under tranquil, hazy moments akin to gazing up at a clouded sky.

Nemuri Genro caught sight of the woman’s face as she sat sleeping on the same bench and felt the usual calm wash over him. The unclouded, radiant cheerfulness was an emotion that always welled up within him while the woman slept. He stealthily left the bench and started walking toward the shore. He walked carefully, trying not to make a sound and to avoid being noticed by his sharp-eared daughter.

At the shore, the boat lay moored, rocked peacefully by waves that sank it low and lifted it high. —Nemuri Genro placed one foot on the boat and boarded it, then suddenly glanced back toward the woman—yet both she and his daughter still seemed deeply asleep, not even stirring. Nemuri Genro took this in and abruptly began rowing.—The lake’s surface rippled calmly yet grew disturbed, but before the boat could reach the island’s shadow, his daughter’s voice called from shore. When he looked, the woman too had risen and was calling toward Nemuri Genro.—Powerless to resist, he quietly guided the boat back along the waterway it had come from. His face bore a lonely distortion while his eyes remained fixed on Peach Blossom Village.

When the boat reached the shore, the daughter immediately clung to her father and said in a coquettish voice. “Oh, you terrible Father—!”

“Why?” “You went out alone!” “While we slept—how dreadful to do such a thing—”

Nemuri Genro scratched his head and smiled while patting his daughter’s hand with soft pitter-patter taps. “That was Father’s fault. Now, do bear with me.”

Nemuri Genro looked over his daughter’s shoulder and suddenly saw the woman. At that moment, he stared in astonishment at how her face—one he hadn’t seen in years, no, one he had glimpsed long ago—had somehow shifted into this unfamiliar expression. Within their placid existence, this woman had never before worn such a countenance. “While you were asleep, your features altered drastically—you might as well be a stranger.” “No—more than that, your own face has changed too; it isn’t its usual self.”

Nemuri Genro hurriedly pressed both hands to his own face. And yet, despite the woman’s eyes having been so calm until now, what was this transformation before him?—Nemuri Genro turned this time to look at his daughter, but her supple features rested relaxed and free like a dream unto themselves, her perfectly round pupils guarded by a beautiful whiteness as she smiled radiantly. “Does Father’s face look different from usual? Look closely and tell me.”

“No, Father,”

The daughter shook her head. The mother also approached her daughter and pressed her with the same question, but the daughter replied that there was still no change, smiling thinly with an air of amusement. "Oh, how strange you are, Mother—both of you have done something odd, haven't you?" The daughter had never gazed at her father's and mother's faces so close to her own—so near and with such wariness. When she once again turned over in her mind whether they might harbor some change in their expressions, she saw her mother's unexpected eyes. They bore a severe cast, as though reproaching Father for something. —And as for Father himself, he wore a sorrowful look in his eyes that she had never seen before. Between such a father and mother, the daughter felt as though her heart alone were being menaced into shrinking. Though she would normally have thrown herself into one of their arms, today she found herself unable to cling to either. There mingled too a sense that she must not do such a thing. —The daughter had stepped away from them both for the first time in her life, then turned her back and begun to cry.

“Mother was wrong—it’s not your fault…”

After some time had passed, the mother embraced her daughter and, while stroking her hair, said gently. The daughter grew even sadder and began to cry.

“Mother, why do you and Father exchange such looks? At such times, I feel as though I’ve seen those eyes somewhere many times over—and when I try to recall where, I can’t quite grasp it—it’s so painfully distressing.”

The mother looked into her daughter’s eyes. And in a clear voice, “That’s your misunderstanding. We only had that disagreeable quarrel for the first time today—there’s no way you could have seen it before.” “No, no—I saw it long ago, yes, when I still didn’t understand anything.”

The mother silently tried to cover her daughter’s mouth. The daughter, while frantically trying to push away that hand, let out a voice that escaped through her fingers. “I’m scared—so many things keep appearing before my eyes, I tell you.” “What…?”

“I keep seeing nothing but those terrifying eyes.”

The mother, flustered, whispered into her daughter’s ear. “You mustn’t start dwelling on trivial things—now that we’ve come this far, don’t drive Mother mad.”

Having said that, the mother began to sob softly while holding her daughter. As they remained motionless in the shadow of the rocks, the twilight gradually began to blend this entire area with amber hues. “Father?” When the daughter emerged from the shadow of the rocks and started to address her mother, she looked toward the shore and saw Nemuri Genro sitting with his knees drawn up, his face slightly tilted upward toward the lake’s surface.—Peach Blossom Village had faded into haze. But a beautiful melodic tone—as if someone were playing a bamboo flute—traversed the damp air above the lake and grazed the ears of the daughter and her mother.

“Shall I call him?”

The mother stopped her daughter by the hand, urging her to be quiet. “Once it gets dark, he’ll likely return anyway…”

When the two started walking side by side, Nemuri Genro also stood up. And caught sight of the two figures who had gone ahead. Yet he made no move to follow them; instead, plodding along their sandy footprints—matching his own steps to their gentle footfalls, one large and one small—as he walked.

A small, shabby house that seemed built solely of ashen brown—within it, a gray lamp glowed blurred like an egg yolk, its shadow falling from the distorted window onto the white sand.

Mother and Daughter drew near the window and waited for Nemuri Genro’s figure to gradually approach. “Mother, why does Father seem so disinterested? I simply can’t stop dwelling on it.” The mother caught sight of the father’s drooping hands and downward-tilted face as he walked, casting a shadow darker than the evening gloom upon the sand. “That has been Father’s habit since long ago.—Yet I never imagined he would still brood so mournfully even after coming this far.—Though we cast aside such contemplations all at once…”

The daughter looked at her mother quizzically.

“Why did you abandon thinking, Mother—but still, aren’t you pondering something every day as always?” “That…” The mother sighed. “When everything in this world had completely renewed itself, and before we knew it, we were left all alone as just the three of us—even then, we still had to realize that we needed to ponder all sorts of things—you see. For even Father hasn’t changed from how he was in the past; the only thing that’s changed is that we’ve come to this lakeside—that’s all, you see.”

The daughter tilted her head repeatedly, but it seemed she couldn’t comprehend anything at all—as though half a dream had been excised.

—At that moment, Nemuri Genro stood outside the window and grasped his daughter’s outstretched hand. The daughter let out a coquettish voice to her father.

“Father, since evening has come, won’t you tell me more stories?” Nemuri Genro pondered as he spoke, “If you were to hear all of Father’s stories, you would grow to hate being here—”

Having said that, he looked at the mother’s face. The mother also gazed into Father’s eyes.

“Why is that?” “Because what you love isn’t here—it’s all in Father’s stories, isn’t that why?” The daughter took her father’s hands and said with eyes like those of someone praying.

“Please tell me that story.” “I simply must hear that story—please ask Mother too! Look how much I want to hear it, I tell you.”

When the mother realized where her grasped hand was on her daughter’s body, she suddenly felt her own heart pounding. From beneath her daughter’s soft breast, she sensed that subtle throbbing—the same delicate palpitations she had once felt in a small bird she’d gently held one evening long ago, when she herself was still young. “Father, please look at your daughter.”

The father also placed his hand on his daughter’s chest. What a deeply fragrant breath it was—like that of a reverent flower! Nemuri Genro felt each wisp transmitted through his palm more tenderly and sorrowfully than petals unfurling one by one. “Father, can you hear…?” “Ah, I hear it.” The mother turned away, sobbing. To her eyes, the world sliding downward—bricks and white buildings, townsfolk, her parents and friends, even that peculiarly sorrowful female friend of her husband—seemed to dangle limply like a painting torn in half and dashed before her. In such a moment—had she forgotten her daughter? No—more pressingly, why had she needed to witness Nemuri Genro pacing through that clamorous evening town’s bustle?

The door was half-open, and the surface of the white sand appeared even whiter, tinged with a tremulous bluish hue. And Nemuri Genro, who had moved away from the window, quietly entered through that entrance.

“Don’t close the door.”

When the three of them sat down at the table, the peculiar ash-brown house was enveloped in that same bluish-gray light, now completely trapped around it. And were someone to peer inside through that square little window, they would surely be startled to find three shadows there—why there were three—.

When he sat at the table again, the daughter’s voice—quieter than sleep—was whispered many times before these two. “Please tell me—I beg of you.”

But the two remained silent. And they gazed fixedly at the rise and fall of their daughter’s chest. They maintained their stern, sorrowful countenance until the light creeping in from outside the door finally reached the table legs.

III

Everything was filled with either a hushed uniform gray or a pale whitish color that seemed like an even denser version of it. To be sure, moonlit nights existed here as well—but theirs was no crystalline light; instead, heavy overcast hues layered upon one another until they took on a sorrowful countenance like one gazing at brown. Even the lake’s surface held light yet cast no clear shadows—the rock walls and boat and wave-lapped shore alike blurred like frosted glass. This dominant brown tone—resembling human skin stretched uniformly everywhere—evoked an unseemly sensation throughout.

How many evenings like this—so many they could hardly be counted—had Nemuri Genro observed with his eyes and immersed in his heart, one wonders. Therefore, whenever Nemuri Genro walked through this brown evening scene, he felt as though his own heart were being folded into wrinkles stained with brown. However, such monotonous scenery seemed as though crammed into a box, and he couldn’t help but feel a stifling sense of confinement—as if gazing outward through the frosted glass atop that box. —As Nemuri Genro walked across the desolate sandy plain within this evening scene that seemed doubly entwined with ennui and weariness, he found himself glancing back at his own transformed figure—and felt an irrepressible smile rise to his lips. —Nemuri Genro, as though only now realizing it, looked around at his surroundings and, amidst the desolate scenery, time and again inclined his ear to the lake’s murmur—a sound like listening through a seashell.

“What desolate, motionless scenery this is—to be trapped within it—if not a dream, then what?” Moreover, Nemuri Genro’s emotions—carrying what continued from those of a distant past—ceaselessly yearned for something. He understood all too clearly both what his longing was and how his wife ceaselessly directed her gaze toward that longing. To them who had once abandoned their dreams—those dreams had now returned unnoticed, laying between them a connection to some dark, distant world. Now they no longer even attempted to hide it from each other—like light received head-on, how bitterly must these two hearts face one another in this brown, lonely world? In that distant past, Nemuri Genro had never felt such suffocating tension from human hearts confronting one another—yet now, with nothing but this starkly vivid mutual awareness between them, the days must be vanishing like ash and charcoal. Nemuri Genro stepped out onto the rock wall and cast his gaze upon the dim reddish glow at the lake’s heart. At that very moment, within something like a triangular scrap of torn paper, he saw the cacophony of the distant world he once inhabited and the rows of white buildings in the town—alongside various flags and vividly colored signs—appear before his eyes like an old city’s schematic map.

“Those are certainly not night scenes—there could have been nothing more precise than they.” In his mind’s eye, the scrap of paper still lingered—opening the doors of houses with blue windows to reveal the peace, tranquility, and order of that other world within, even depicting the figures that dwelled there before him. He found himself quietly moved, even by the question of what manner of person that figure might have been. Truly, those lives had given Nemuri Genro nothing but ennui, weariness, and suffocation—yet now, how strangely wondrous this triangular scrap of paper must appear to him. In the end, however, he came to think that the distant world and the one he now inhabited might not be separate at all—perhaps they were never meant to be considered separately. He went and stood atop the rock wall. And he gazed at the lamplight of his own dwelling in the ashen-hued distance.

“Is that... my house?”

He smiled and looked back at his house. Only a single lamplight leaked beyond the window; the surroundings were nothing but desolate sand dunes or stretches of sandy hills. Perhaps aged by time, the hilltops—worn thin against the night sky—glimmered like faintly glowing phosphorus. As Nemuri Genro turned back and attempted to climb even higher up the rock wall, he saw the figure of a woman standing at the edge of a clear puddle found only there—unmistakably a woman’s form.

She turned her back and, while combing her hair, reflected her form in this clear puddle. Her white neck and exposed elbows alike bore the maidenly roundness and quivering softness of flesh. The grayish light, though faint, sufficed to cast her figure upon the water—appearing like some heavy white blossom that blooms only to wilt within a single night. When he took another step closer and glimpsed the face reflected on the water’s surface, he froze.—Simultaneously, that face within the depths erased its shadow from above.

“Oh, Father!”

Nemuri Genro saw his daughter flustered and blushing as she tried to adjust her clothes. “Why are you coming to such a place at this hour?” The daughter came to her father’s side and let out a breath that seemed finally relieved. “I always come to this puddle.” “When I come here, I can talk, you see.” “With whom?” The daughter lowered her eyes and smiled bashfully. “With the person in the water?” “With your own shadow, perhaps?”

Nemuri Genro came to feel as though he was seeing his daughter as a woman for the first time. What remained etched in his mind’s eye was the daughter he had just perceived as a woman.

“Come, let’s go down. Mother must be feeling lonely by now.”

The solitary lamplight of the lone house existed within a faint, almost imperceptible glow from this vantage point. Across the sandy plain streaked with stripes of purple and gray, there was nothing resembling light except for that house.

“Do you think yourself beautiful, then—is that why you talk to your reflection like that? You have me and your mother here.”

Nemuri Genro, realizing that his silent daughter would slip away from her parents’ gaze at every opportunity to ponder something alone, felt a faint surprise—as if he had tripped over an object. "But…," the daughter began bashfully before resolutely continuing, "there are times I wish to be alone. Though I’ve never considered myself beautiful…." Nemuri Genro felt pity for his daughter’s low, moist voice.

“Because you’ve yet to see anything beautiful beyond yourself—perhaps you no longer wish to stay by your father or mother’s side. Such things are common at your age.” “No, I want to stay forever.” “Please don’t say such things.”

Nemuri Genro was descending the rocky slope when suddenly assaulted by a violent sense of desolation. This daughter too would soon begin living a life apart from him—the very existence in that distant world he had loathed was now tremblingly crying out to emerge not from without, but from within his own being. Nemuri Genro felt the plump roundness of his daughter’s hand beneath his arm—a sensation resembling some unfathomable terror from an alien realm. In that instant, with one abrupt leap through time, he glimpsed his own lingering emotions from that distant world still not wholly extinguished.

But in the next instant, he very gently stroked his daughter’s shoulder. And he firmly embraced her small frame.

“Don’t leave your father all alone.” “Look—your father’s heart grows restless and pained even walking such a path as this.” In her palm pulsed a tumultuous noise from her heart. Then came violent shortness of breath. When the daughter inadvertently caught her father’s face in view, there lay sagging eyes—sunken and lifeless like those of a village elder. She watched her father stagger down the slope on unsteady feet, seeing it anew—how unreliable his footing had become.

“Father, you’ve suddenly grown weaker lately, haven’t you? It wasn’t like this before.” Nemuri Genro remained silent. As he wondered whether even his daughter—whom he cherished in his heart—saw him this way, an indescribably warm feeling arose within him. Yet simultaneously, he felt as though his waist had abruptly given way. “I have energy when alone,” he said. “But when with you, before I know it, your youth overpowers me—leaving me to stagger.”

“Why is that?”

“Well…”

Nemuri Genro couldn’t respond for some reason.—They emerged onto the sandy plain.

Beside the window of the house made from brown wood of that color, the mother had been there, but upon seeing Nemuri Genro and her daughter, she hurried out to the front of the house. On the mother’s face too, the weariness of a tedious night was vaguely apparent. Even as they faced each other at the table, the quiet night seemed to revolve fruitlessly, slowly, to a degree imperceptible to the eye. “How long must we stay here? I feel as though even my heart has drifted far away.”

The woman raised herself from the lamplight’s shadow after saying this.

“You’re bored too, but there’s nothing to be done. “I suppose we must stay like this forever. “That must be our fate here— “Here, even fate itself has become so stifling that it cannot budge—such is the boredom.”

Nemuri Genro’s words contained a sneer—almost too mocking—and directed at no one in particular. “Then for what purpose are we here? Even I don’t understand that myself.” “To live on, I suppose—it’s nothing more than that.”

The daughter turned her lustrous face from the lamp’s glow toward her father. “Is living truly this tedious and uninteresting?” Nemuri Genro compared his daughter’s face with her mother’s and pictured in his mind that one was withered while the other was beginning to open.

“To live is undeniably ennui—but yours will not plumb such depths. “You will not become like us.”

Nemuri Genro gazed at the woman, but she—with an expression that seemed to assent to those words—quietly turned toward her daughter. The daughter remained silent. And finally opening her mouth, she said: “I’ve grown so dreadfully bored already, you know. There’s not a single interesting thing….”

The father gave a wry smile. And after gazing intently at his daughter’s face, he said resolutely, “If you were to leave our side, you probably wouldn’t feel so stifled by boredom—but I won’t let you go—” “Why?” When the mother said this while looking at her husband’s face, he turned his bleary-eyed gaze toward their daughter with palpable loneliness.

“Because you yourself would feel lonely, I suppose.” “You know, Mother, isn’t that right?” Nemuri Genro muttered in his heart—*That must be exactly it—I cannot hand my daughter over to others*—but for some reason, an unpleasant sensation lingered like dregs. “That may be so, but what does Father think—?”

The woman glanced briefly at Nemuri Genro. Nemuri Genro’s face bore a loneliness so stark it verged on excessive clarity—yet he remained silent instead of replying, his mouth twisting peevishly. “We’re all so dull and mired in this boredom, aren’t we?” “As long as this never heals, I suppose we must stay like this—mustn’t we?”

After murmuring this almost to herself, the woman looked at her sullen husband and her daughter, who was gazing at her father and mother with a dreamlike expression. But no one said anything. The brown air, thickening with the night, had congealed everything—the house, the sandy plain, even the surface of the lake—as if into hardened candy.

IV

The daughter, while walking along the shore with her father, picked up the beautiful shells scattered there and took genuine delight in the lukewarm lake water that occasionally washed over their feet. “When it grows this warm, even the shells seem to rise up as if hoisting sails toward the offing, don’t they?” “Look—this half of the shell lies wide open, you see.” “I see—they all appear to be propping up their half-shells.” Nemuri Genro perceived that even the washed-up shells and these strange, clam-like creatures still alive seemed to yearn for something toward the warm lake water.

“Can you see that over there? This morning it had such a beautiful color, glistening with dew—wasn’t it practically crimson? And can’t you see how the shadow stretches on and on?” “I’ve been watching it since earlier—I think I’d like to go there alone, secretly, without even telling you, Father.”

Nemuri Genro watched as Peach Blossom Village—already consumed by its own burning—formed a resplendent royal castle so radiant it seemed impossible it could grow any more beautiful. “Then why don’t you just go alone if you’ve resolved to?” “There’s no need to restrain yourself so much for Father’s sake.” “But...”

The daughter looked up gently and calmly at her father with sorrowful eyes. “If I were to go there, I feel as though I’d never return once I did.” “If that were the case, what would Father do—?” The daughter’s eyes flashed a gentle cunning across her lovely cheeks in that instant. Nemuri Genro felt a sharp prick in his chest, as though stung. It was a feeling tinged with mild discomfort.

“If you don’t return—well then, I will go out to search for you. No matter how difficult it may be, I might find you somewhere—though whether I’d bring you back here or not remains uncertain. But search for you I would—” “And if I were nowhere to be found! And if you couldn’t find me no matter how hard you tried—what would you do then?” “There’s no such possibility—even if I have to throw away my entire life for it, I’ll definitely find you. Even so—do you think you could manage to hide somewhere?”

Perhaps because sunlight now fell upon her father’s truly desolate face, the daughter gazed into his eyes with even deeper sorrow and could no longer restrain herself from voicing her thoughts. Though she felt how profoundly lonely it would make her father, she somehow wanted to say it.

“Yes, I will definitely hide away from you.” “And I’ll keep hiding forever and ever—until Father becomes completely disheartened.”

“Until Father finally gives up completely on someone like me—” “Nonsense! Do you think I’d ever give up over such a thing? I’ll find you without fail—mark my words.” Nemuri Genro’s voice had acquired a faint tremor before he realized it, laced with anxiety and apprehension resembling fear. Moreover, he found himself wondering when his daughter had grown so tenacious in wounding his heart. Yet deeper still, he regretted nothing more than how his initial playful remarks had gradually drawn out her earnestness.

“No, I will definitely hide from you soon.” “Watch closely, for I will definitely, definitely disappear from your side, Father.”

Nemuri Genro abruptly looked at his daughter’s eyes at that moment. The rims of her eyes were flushed, their black pupils motionless at the whitened centers, fixed on nothing yet holding a bottomless gleam. "Dangerous," Nemuri Genro thought. How long had it been since he had last seen such beautiful, intense eyes? That within his other self there existed eyes so beautiful—eyes which had grown unfamiliar and now sought to rebel against him—this he gazed upon with dread.

“Are you saying that in earnest?”

“Yes, I am in earnest—what else could it be but earnestness? I will truly leave Father’s side.”

Nemuri Genro reached out to his agitated daughter’s shoulder and firmly grasped it with his palm. And he spoke in a voice hoarse with sorrow. “Calm yourself more—it’s troubling when you grow so agitated like this.” “Now then—look gently into Father’s eyes.” “And try to understand what Father is going through—consider what would become of Father after you’re gone.” “You’ve understood now, haven’t you?”

The daughter turned her perfectly round eyes toward her father’s eyes. The perfect roundness gradually enlarged, but its outline blurred and distorted until she could no longer contain it; suddenly she clung to him and sobbed with a sorrowful voice as soft and long as silk. Each time she cried, she struggled in apparent anguish, thrusting against her father’s chest.

“I won’t go anywhere．Definitely，definitely won’t go．”

Having said that, the daughter sobbed even more convulsively, clasping her father’s shoulders with all her strength as she clung to him. But from the moment his daughter did so, Nemuri Genro felt a heavy, weary sorrow permeate his entire body as though emptied of all else. He made no attempt to speak now—contrary to before—for he had twisted his daughter’s heart once more with lies and truth. What a worthless, self-centered father I am, he thought. He resented that his thoughts were riddled with falsehoods and felt an urge to shout out some truthful words right then and there.

“Father, I was wrong, so please forgive me.” “I’ll never ever say such things again—so please, please become your usual self again.” “I beg of you.”

Nemuri Genro hurriedly took his daughter’s hands, causing them to come apart as she tried to clasp them together, and then stammered sorrowfully again and again. “The one who should apologize isn’t you—it’s I.” “I have deceived you time and time again.” “And because I myself was lonely, I brought you to such a lonely place and tried not to show you anything of the distant world.” “To the point where life itself didn’t even exist for you—so meticulously did I try to confine you to this world of wind and water and sand dunes. What else could this be but a mistake—a small, lonely, warped notion born of my self-centered delusions.” “Even in those moments—though I knew I was being unfair to you—I would sneakily relish my pleasures through some crack, never knowing weariness.” “I did not let a single pleasure escape me as a human being.”

Across Nemuri Genro’s desolate face surged a seething swarm of tempests, flowing with such ferocity it rang like tinnitus in the ears. He clasped his daughter, and they remained in their naturally leaning postures until at last they collapsed flat upon the sandy plain. “You were always begging me to speak of the distant world, yet not only did I refuse—I went so far as to force you to avoid those very topics.” “However fiercely you yearned to venture into life, however lonely it left you—I turned away from that truth, until I had silenced even your heart for all time.”

Nemuri Genro looked at his daughter with eyes filled with painful sorrow, his expression begging for forgiveness.

“I was thinking only about myself.” “Why did you—you who exist beyond my own circumstances—never emerge into this world?” “No, you should have gone out into a more splendid life much sooner—yet my stubborn, or rather brutal feelings have confined you for so long.” “Moreover, until this very moment, I have been trying to forcibly destroy even what you were thinking.” “My daughter—the fault lies solely with me, not you nor your mother. For boredom to visit you would be an impossibility.” “Boredom itself belongs to me.”

Nemuri Genro suddenly felt a refreshing sensation, as though his chest were expanding—a release of some long-pent-up emotion. He felt as though, for the first time, he could gaze at his own daughter at length. “Look—with the sun shining so brilliantly upon it, doesn’t Peach Blossom Village sparkle before your eyes?” “It is now that you may go to Peach Blossom Village whenever you wish.” After her long, choked sobs, the daughter vacantly gazed at her father’s face—as though he had awoken from a dream—followed his line of sight, and beheld the beautiful Peach Blossom Village bathed in sunlight. From there, a strange music continued its crystalline, joyous tones from deep within clusters of blossoms. Whether it was her imagination or not, a few boats adorned with beautiful dragon flags appeared to float serenely on the lake in the morning sun.

“Father, I don’t quite understand what you’re saying……but I still wish to remain by your side. Just as before—.” “Just as before—.” Yet the daughter gazed at Peach Blossom Village on the opposite shore, her heart strangely yearning toward it. Yet for some reason, she had to tell that lie.

“You need not remain by my side.” “Go forth bravely—to the place you love.”

Nemuri Genro took his daughter to the shore and, having said that, suddenly slid the boat from the shore onto the water. On the lake’s surface, sunlight casting a shadow like a blue dragon slanted toward Peach Blossom Village, spreading out golden scales. “No, Father—if you do such a thing, Mother will resent you for it later.” “No one will resent you—come now, get in! And row on as far as your strength holds.”

When the daughter reluctantly boarded the boat, it was slid out onto the water by her father’s hands. The shadow of the blue dragon wavered. The boat was rowed by small white hands.—The daughter, with a clarity in her face unlike ever before, then raised a bright, joyful voice. “I must be going now, Father.” “Of course… What a joyful face you’re wearing.”

The father’s voice was indeed hoarse with loneliness. “Oh, I’m so happy—then please take care of yourself, Father.”

Nemuri Genro squatted down and stared at his daughter’s boat as it sped away. The boat drew a white wake toward where Peach Blossom Village lay and surged forward furiously. Nemuri Genro's eyes grew wet, and the sand he had been toying with spilled listlessly from his palm.