Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

A small white bird perched quietly at the bow of the boat, its wings at rest. --Its shadow lay upon the water like a vivid lily flower, yet trailed a bright, translucent tail all the way to the bottom of the wave-less lake. At times spreading a single fan-like wing to catch insects with its beak, the white shadow on the water suddenly quivered vividly.

“What could have become of Mother? She was in such a hurry—shall I go check on her?”

Nemuri Genro, who was in the midst of untying the mooring ropes, turned to look at the daughter on the shore.

“She’ll come soon enough. Just get in first.”

“I would hate for you to untie the mooring ropes.” “The boat will drift away!” “It’s fine.” “Since it’s wind blowing from the lake, even if we turn back, we won’t be blown out to open water.” When the daughter nimbly stepped onto the boat, the shadow of the swift-footed small bird vanished from the bow. The daughter had boarded so quietly today, hiding against the boat’s side determined to catch his bird, yet in the end she’d lost sight of even its shadow—now she sat in the boat with palpable frustration.

“When that bird leaves, the island comes into clearer view, doesn’t it?” “If that bird takes flight—even a single one—it’s sure to clear up. ――And what’s strange is how whitefish swarm to shore when it does.” Nemuri Genro untied the mooring ropes, then gradually slid the boat out from the shore. Aiming for gaps between the receding waves, the boat glided over the water like a white duck. Nemuri Genro grasped the water-worn oar. Drops of oil trailed down along the oar’s back, creating ripples on the tranquil lake surface.

“It would be improper to depart without Mother boarding.” “I will not set out.” “Yet I cannot help worrying.” “You might recklessly cast off as before—there are so many things you do that leave me fretful afterward.” “Though you claimed you wouldn’t go out for days, you ultimately rowed all the way to the island—”

Nemuri Genro smiled to himself as he slid the oar one measured push at a time. “Yes, that day I rowed all the way to the island—but didn’t we learn afterward that Mother couldn’t come?” “She’s been holding back—lately Mother doesn’t seem to find joy in boating anymore.” “I just... somehow sense it.” “Not finding joy in boating—do you truly grasp what that means?”

“Considering she didn’t join us today despite being in a hurry, that’s precisely why I think so.” Slender fingers toying with the water—one hand immersed up to the wrist—lay within view of her standing father’s eyes. Neatly aligned knees and small feet—above them, hair tinged ash-gray streamed sleekly down to shoulders from a head adept at pondering trivialities.—Nemuri Genro laid down his oar and sat facing his daughter. He gazed quietly at her face. “Won’t you tell me once more—do you prefer Father or Mother?”

The daughter was stirred by the sincerity deep within her father’s face, yet found it amusing in her childlike way. More than being asked the same thing repeatedly, it was the very earnestness of it that struck her as amusing.

“I like both—.” “That won’t do. There must be one you like more—even two different birds each have their own preferences.” The daughter kept toying with the water’s surface using her fingers, smiling with averted eyes as she looked up at her father’s face. And the innocence that seemed to strain toward organizing her bewildered thoughts sent a refreshing sensation welling up in the father’s chest. “That’s so tiresome—such things—.”

The daughter immediately continued her words, hit upon some new thought that had suddenly arisen in her head, and abruptly asked. "What do you gain by asking such things?" "Does it truly matter which one I like?" "I won't go anywhere else, and there isn't a single person here who's even remotely human, you know."

“Because there’s not a single person here, that’s precisely why Father wants to ask you this.” “Father enjoys hearing that.”

“Then if I say I like you more than Mother, it would put you in a better mood, right?” The daughter said this and glanced back at Nemuri Genro, who remained silent.

Nemuri Genro remained sunken in the stubbornness of his heart for some time.

“If it would make you happy, Father, I can say I like you.”

Nemuri Genro offered no reply, letting his gaze drift toward the island where Peach Blossom Village lay. It was not that he had sunk into gloom from his daughter’s reply, but rather that trivial weariness and ultimate futility had suddenly assailed him from within. The things he was thinking, the fact of his present existence, and matters concerning his wife had driven him into the very depression he had long let fester. He disliked speaking—and listening—at such times. He knew he could do nothing about it himself, and even as he realized he too was letting his heart fester, he still dwelled solely within himself.

“Father, if you make such a face, I’ll suddenly grow 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 passed too vividly before Nemuri Genro’s eyes, he tried to regain his former calmness, as if catching something perilous from behind. “This is just Father’s habit, so don’t you worry about it—you’ve no reason to be frightened anymore.”

“But….” The daughter tried to force a smile, but for some reason felt a stiff tightness in her own face.—She thought Father must be hoping to see her smile, yet still she couldn’t manage one.

After some time, the daughter’s frail face brightened back to its former state, regaining a completely clear hue. Father had been calmly watching this, but finally composed himself and said to his daughter: “It was wrong of Father to try making someone as unknowing as you understand.” After saying that, he fell silent again and gazed painfully at the faintly tinged colors of Peach Blossom Village amid the waves.—Father remained silent, then pointed toward Peach Blossom Village and told his daughter to look there.

“My, it grows redder each day, doesn’t it?” “There’s a white square thing in there—do you know what that’s for?” “No.” “There are humans there—the same as us—though you wouldn’t know of them….” The daughter gazed at the beautiful silhouette of Peach Blossom Village glittering along the lakeshore but said nothing—a place both distant and, it seemed, one where neither Father nor Mother had ever set foot.

——On a day of calm waves, the daughter was on a boat with her mother near the lake’s center, where the shadow of a purple island lay. —At that moment, at the farthest reach of the mother and daughter’s gaze, Peach Blossom Village—still tinged with the crimson of early spring as though smoked through—stretched beyond a sky too quiet, looking serene.

“Mother.” The daughter called out to her mother, her eyes shining as she said, “I want to go see that village.” But the mother’s reply struck her daughter’s ears colder—rather, more spitefully—than she had ever heard before. “No, you must not go there. “That is not a place for those with a pure heart like yours.” “Why is that?—And besides, I don’t possess such a pure heart to begin with…”

The daughter suddenly looked at her mother’s face but gazed upon its completely stiffened and pallid complexion as something utterly terrifying.

“Please don’t bring up that Peach Blossom Village again.” “Right? And you’ll promise Mother that, won’t you?” “Okay.”

“Because you’re precious to Mother—you mustn’t look that way.” “And you needn’t cry anymore, I suppose.” The daughter, while feeling her mother’s hand on her shoulder, regretted that what she had brought up had pained her mother, and wept quietly—

From that day on, the daughter stopped bringing up that village to her mother.

Despite this, whenever Father spoke of Peach Blossom Village, he was always in good spirits. For even now, Nemuri Genro was gazing at the faintly red village—resembling a row of beautiful shells washed ashore—with eyes that were calm yet intense. “Father, why does Mother make such a lonely face when speaking of that village?” The daughter placed her hand on her father’s lap and said enraptured while gazing at the village. —But when there was no reply from her father, she turned back without particular thought to find Nemuri Genro appearing deep in thought with gloomy eyes. 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 father and mother’s expressions had unwittingly become equally gloomy, both revealing the same uncertain light.

“I don’t understand it, you see….” The daughter said in a voice faintly quivering with sorrow, her tone childlike and clinging as she stroked her father’s kimono near his chest.

“That’s something even I don’t fully understand.—But you mustn’t try to know such things.” No—who had stirred such curiosity within her? Nemuri Genro thought of how his daughter—once so pure-hearted—had unwittingly begun pressing tender claws against the blemishes staining her father and mother’s hearts.

“Must I still remain silent?”

The daughter began to sob quietly. On his father’s lap—Nemuri Genro placed his hand upon his daughter’s hair and gazed sorrowfully at the crimson haze enveloping Peach Blossom Village. What was reflected in such a father’s eyes? The daughter merely stared fixedly, knowing nothing at all. The act of trying 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 like Father, don’t you?” The daughter felt as though she were hearing that voice from some distant place, and her father seemed all the more sorrowful.

“Yes.”

Nemuri Genro noticed after some time that the boat had drifted to the lake's center. —The daughter now felt a somewhat chilly sensation as the purple island shadow lay half-covering the boat. At that same moment, a woman's voice pierced through Nemuri Genro's ear. Moreover, it was a voice traveling across the lake surface from afar. —The daughter turned toward the shore and let out a cry of surprise.

“Mother is calling—” Nemuri Genro looked in the same direction as the daughter but spoke in a calm voice.

“Mother wouldn’t feel lonely—” The father did not attempt to take the oar. But the daughter passed the oar to the father. “Please return the boat.” The daughter’s eyes remained fixed unwaveringly on the mother standing on the shore. Nemuri Genro gazed sorrowfully at his daughter’s eyes, wore a half-resigned expression, and thrust the water-worn oar upright—whereupon the great island shadow began to crumble its tranquil form, swaying gently as it cast small waves like an oil-colored rainbow.

II

What manner of place was this? A lake and an island, Peach Blossom Village beyond them, days ever under clouded skies followed by moonlit nights, and three hearts taking turns whispering—beyond these, not a single other thing could be found. As for why they had come to dwell here, or when it all began—even if one were to sift through hazy memories, it could only be thought of as something dreamlike. Even when they wondered if they were merely three separate individuals who had suddenly come together at some point, Nemuri Genro still felt he possessed a deep, enduring past that continued on with the woman. Yet why their life had come to be placed here—the very origin of that—remained unclear. But since their life had reached this lakeside, everything without exception had indeed been made anew.

Nemuri Genro lived gazing only at his wife and daughter. There was nothing else to stimulate their eyes. There were only countless small white birds, aquatic creatures in the waves, and purple wisteria vines crawling over the sand dunes.—How many months and years had they spent here? All things flowed by uneventfully with such flat, monotonous flow that the duration seemed at once interminably long and fleetingly short. Nemuri Genro sat with the woman on a simple bench in the shade of a pine tree by their small house, gazing intently at their daughter by the same window, passing time that was half dozing, half boredom—a stagnant interlude. In the same manner, the woman too was half-asleep, only to gaze listlessly at Nemuri Genro from time to time. All things calmed even their hearts and passed solely under tranquil, dazed moments like gazing up at a clouded sky.

When Nemuri Genro suddenly saw the woman’s face as she sat sleeping on the same bench, he felt himself becoming calm as usual. An unfettered, clear-hearted vivacity—this was the emotion that invariably welled up within him while the woman slept. He stealthily left the bench and started walking toward the shore. He walked with care to make as little sound as possible and avoid being noticed by his sharp-eared daughter.

At the shore, the boat lay moored, swaying peacefully as it was tossed by the waves—now lowered, now lifted. Nemuri Genro placed one foot on the boat, and as he boarded it, he abruptly glanced back toward the woman—but both she and the daughter still seemed soundly asleep, not even stirring. When Nemuri Genro saw this, he suddenly began rowing.—The lake surface rippled quietly into disorder, but before the boat could reach the island shadow, the daughter’s voice called out from the shore. When he looked, the woman had also risen to her feet and was calling out toward Nemuri Genro.—He had no choice but to quietly guide the boat back along the watercourse from which it had come. His countenance bore a lonely distortion, yet his eyes were directed toward Peach Blossom Village.

When the boat reached the shore, the daughter immediately clung to the father and said in a sweetly pleading voice.

“Oh, how awful of you, Father—” “How so?” “Because you went off all by yourself.” “While we were sleeping—how awful of you to do such a thing—.” Nemuri Genro scratched his head and, while rhythmically patting his daughter’s hand, smiled. “That was Father’s fault. Now, bear with me.” Nemuri Genro suddenly looked over his daughter’s shoulder and saw the woman. At that moment, he looked in astonishment at a face he hadn’t seen in years—no, one he had seen long ago—now having imperceptibly shifted into its current expression. In this tranquil life they led, the woman had never before made such a face.

“Your face has changed so much while you were sleeping—it’s like you’ve become a different person.” “No, more than that—your face has changed as well. It isn’t as it usually is.”

Nemuri Genro hurriedly brought both hands to his own face. And though the woman had possessed such calm eyes, what of this present transformation—Nemuri Genro now turned to look at his daughter, but her supple countenance had settled serenely into itself like a dream, her perfectly round pupils framed by a beautiful whiteness as she smiled with captivating charm. “Does my face look different than usual? Look closely and tell me that.”

“No, Father,” The daughter shook her head. Mother also approached her daughter and pressed her with the same question, but the daughter—still insisting nothing had changed—smiled thinly, as if amused.

“Oh, how strange you are, Mother—what have you both done.”

The daughter had never before gazed upon her mother and father’s faces so close to her own—and with such suspicion. When she once again pondered whether their expressions might harbor some change, she saw her mother’s unexpected eyes. They held a harsh hue, as though reproaching Father for something. —and as for Father himself, he bore a sorrowful look in his eyes that she had never seen before. The daughter felt as though her heart alone were being menaced and shrinking between them. Though she would normally throw herself into either parent’s embrace, today she found herself unable to cling to either. There was also a mingling feeling within her that she must not do such a thing. —For the first time since birth, she moved away from them both and, turning her back, began to cry.

“It was my fault—you’ve done nothing wrong….”

After some time had passed，Mother embraced Daughter and，while stroking her hair，said gently. Daughter grew all the more sad and burst into tears.

“Mother, why do you and Father look at each other like that?” “I feel like I’ve seen those eyes before—over and over—in those moments. I try to remember, but I can’t figure it out, and it hurts so much.”

Mother looked into the daughter’s eyes. And in a clear voice,

“That’s your misunderstanding. We only had such unpleasant quarrels today for the first time. You couldn’t have seen such a thing before.” “No, no—I saw it long ago, yes, back when I didn’t even know what it was.”

Mother silently tried to cover the daughter’s mouth. The daughter, frantically trying to push away that hand, let out a voice that leaked between her fingers.

“I’m scared—all sorts of things keep flooding into my mind, I tell you.”

“What…?”

“I keep seeing nothing but those terrifying eyes.” Mother, flustered, whispered into her daughter’s ear.

“Don’t go dredging up pointless thoughts—don’t drive Mother mad now that we’ve come this far.” With that, Mother began sobbing while holding her daughter. While they remained motionless in the rock shadow, twilight began gradually blurring the entire area with amber. “What about Father?”

The daughter emerged from the rock’s shadow and began to say this to her mother; when she turned her gaze toward the shore, she saw Nemuri Genro sitting with his knees drawn up, face tilted slightly upward toward the lake surface—Peach Blossom Village was too hazy to see. But a beautiful musical sound—as if blown through a bamboo tube—crossed the damp air above the lake and grazed the ears of the daughter and mother. “Shall I call him?” Mother took the daughter by the hand and stopped her to quiet her.

“When it gets dark, he’ll probably return…”

When the two started walking side by side, Nemuri Genro also stood up. And he caught sight of the two figures walking ahead. But he did not follow them; instead, stepping into their footprints in the sand—one large, one small, with gentle footfalls—he trudged along in his own way.

A small, shabby house seemingly built only of grayish-brown material—within it, a gray lamp burned blurred like an egg yolk, its shadow falling from the distorted window onto white sand. Mother and Daughter drew close to the window and waited for Nemuri Genro’s figure to gradually approach. “Mother, why does Father seem so disinterested?” “I can’t get it out of my mind.” Mother took in Father’s drooping hands and habitually downcast face as he approached, casting a shadow darker than the evening gloom upon the sand.

“That’s a habit Father has had since long ago.—But I never imagined he would still be lost in such lonely thoughts even after coming all this way.—Though we had cast away such contemplations long ago…” The daughter looked at her mother quizzically. “Why did you abandon thinking—yet you still ponder something every day, don’t you?”

“That…” Mother sighed. “When everything in this world became completely new, and before we knew it, we were left all alone as just the three of us—even then, we realized we still had to ponder so many things. Father remains unchanged from the past—the only thing that changed was coming to this lakeside.”

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

—At that moment, Nemuri Genro stood outside the window and grasped the daughter’s hand that was extended there. The daughter let out a cooing voice toward the father. “Father, since evening has come, please tell me the story again.” Nemuri Genro said pensively, “If you were to hear all of Father’s stories, you would surely grow weary of remaining here—”

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

“Why would that be?” “The things you love aren’t here but in Father’s stories—is that why?” The daughter took her father’s hands and, with eyes like those in prayer, said: “Please tell me that story.” “I simply must hear that story.—Mother, please ask him too! Look how desperately I want to hear it!” When Mother realized where on her daughter’s body the hand had been grasped, she herself felt her heart begin to pound all at once. —She felt that subtle fluttering—the same delicate palpitations she had once sensed when gently holding a small bird on a certain evening long ago in her youth—now emanating from beneath her daughter’s soft breasts.

“Father, please look at your daughter.”

Father also placed that hand upon his daughter’s chest. What a deeply fragrant, reverent breath it was—like that of a flower! Nemuri Genro felt the breath transmitted through his palm as something even more tender and heartrendingly sorrowful than petals unfurling one by one.

“Father, can you hear…?”

“Ah, I can hear it.”

The mother turned away and was sobbing. For some reason, to her eyes, the world that came sliding down before her—bricks, white buildings, towns, her parents, friends, and that even more sorrowful female friend of her husband’s—seemed like a painting torn in half and slammed before her, its fragments dangling and fluttering loosely.—At such moments, had the mother forgotten about her daughter? No—rather, why had she needed to see her husband Nemuri Genro pacing back and forth amidst the noisy evening town’s commotion?

The door was half-open, and the surface of the white sand grew even whiter, mingled with a quivering bluish tinge. And Nemuri Genro, having moved away from the window, quietly entered through that entrance. “Don’t close the door.”

When the three of them sat at the dining table, that peculiar grayish-brown house was enveloped in the same bluish-gray light. And if someone were to peer through that square little window into the room, they would surely wonder in astonishment why there were three shadows there— 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.”

However, the two remained silent. And they gazed intently at the rising and falling of her chest. They maintained their difficult, sorrowful demeanor until the light stealing through the door soon reached the table legs.

III

Everything was filled with either a calm uniform gray or a pale whitish color that seemed to deepen it further. True，moonlit nights existed here too，but their light lacked crystalline clarity—instead，layers of heavy，leaden overcast gave them a sorrowful countenance akin to gazing upon brown hues. The lake surface too had light but cast no clear reflections—whether they were the rock walls，the boat，or the shore where waves lapped，all blurred hazily like frosted glass. The dominant brown tones—uniformly resembling human skin everywhere—evoked a certain drab sensation.

Nemuri Genro couldn’t tell how many such evenings he had witnessed and immersed his heart in—so many that they were nearly impossible to count. Therefore, every time Nemuri Genro walked through this brown-hued evening scenery, he felt as though his own heart were being folded into wrinkles stained brown. However, such monotonous scenery was as if pressed into a box, and he couldn’t help but feel a stifling confinement, as though gazing outward through the frosted glass atop that box. —Nemuri Genro, walking across the desolate sands within this evening scenery that seemed to twist around him twofold with weariness and fatigue, looked back once more at his own transformed figure—and felt an irrepressible smile rise to his lips. —Nemuri Genro, as if only now realizing his surroundings, looked around at the desolate scenery and repeatedly turned his ear to the lake’s murmur—a sound akin to holding a shell to one’s ear.

What desolate, motionless scenery this is—to be trapped within it must be nothing but a dream.

Moreover， Nemuri Genro’s emotions—inherited from those of a distant world—ceaselessly yearned for something． He understood all too clearly what this yearning was， and that his wife kept her eyes fixed upon it． —Dreams they had once abandoned had now returned unbidden， casting between them a shadowed tether to that distant world． Now they no longer even attempted to conceal it—like light received head-on， how starkly must two hearts face each other in this brown desolate world？ In that distant world， Nemuri Genro had never felt such suffocating intensity from human hearts confronting one another， yet now—how vividly they perceived each other’s hearts—time itself crumbled away like ash and charcoal． Nemuri Genro stepped onto the rock wall and let his gaze fall upon the dim reddish glow at the lake’s heart． At that instant—within something resembling a triangular scrap of torn paper—he saw appear before his eyes： the clamor of his former distant world， its town of white buildings lined with vibrant flags and richly colored signs， like an old city map．

“Those are certainly not nighttime—there could have been nothing more precise than they.” The paper fragment remained etched behind his eyes, opening doors of houses with blue windows to reveal within them the peace, serene order of that other world—and there, revealing the figure that dwelled there. He found himself quietly moved even by the question of what manner of figure this might be. Indeed, those lives had given Nemuri Genro nothing but weariness, fatigue and suffocation—yet now how wondrously this triangular paper fragment must appear to him—but in the end, it seemed that distant world and this one where he now dwelled might not be separate things to consider after all. He stood upon the rock wall. And gazed at the lamplight of his own house in the ash-laden distance.

“Is that… my house?” He smiled and looked back at his house. Only a single lamplight leaked beyond the window, surrounded by nothing but desolate sand dunes or undulating sandhills. Perhaps worn by age, the hilltops—abraded against the night sky—glimmered faintly like phosphorus with a dim glow. As Nemuri Genro turned around and tried climbing higher up the rock wall, he saw a woman’s figure lingering at the edge of a clear water puddle found only there.—Truly, it was the form of a woman.

She turned her back and combed her hair while reflecting her figure in this clear water puddle. Her white neck and exposed elbows bore youthfully rounded curves and a soft fullness of flesh. The grayish light, though faint, sufficed to cast her form upon the water—a heavy white blossom that blooms only to fade within the night’s span. When he stepped closer still, he glimpsed the face mirrored on the surface and froze.—Simultaneously, that visage within the water withdrew its shadow from view.

“Oh, Father!”

Nemuri Genro saw the flustered, blushing daughter trying to cover her chest. "Why are you in a place like this at this hour?" The daughter came to her father's side and let out a breath that seemed finally at ease. "I always come to this puddle." "When I come here, I can talk, you see." "With who?" The daughter lowered her eyes and smiled shyly. "With the person in the water?"

“Your reflection, perhaps?” Nemuri Genro felt as though he was seeing his daughter as a woman for the first time. What remained etched in his eyes was the daughter he had just seen as a woman. “Come, let’s head down. Mother must be feeling lonely.”

The lone lamplight existed in a faint, scarcely perceptible glow when viewed from here. The sandy plain streaked with striped hues of purple and gray held not a single light-like thing other than that house. “Do you think yourself so beautiful that you talk to your reflection like that? You have me and mother here, don’t you?” Nemuri Genro realized that his silent daughter, given even the slightest opportunity, would slip away from her parents’ gaze to ponder something alone—and felt a slight surprise akin to tripping over an object.

“But…” The daughter hesitated shyly before continuing resolutely. “I sometimes want to be alone. Though I’ve never thought myself beautiful…” Nemuri Genro felt pity for his daughter’s low, moist voice. “Because you’ve yet to see anything beautiful outside yourself—you might no longer want to stay by your father or mother. Such things are common at your age.”

“No—I want to stay here always,” “Please don’t speak such things.”

Nemuri Genro, while descending the slope of the rock wall, was suddenly struck by an intense sense of desolate loneliness. His daughter, too, would soon be living a life apart from him. The life of that distant world he had despised was trying to cry out—not from without, but surging up from within. Nemuri Genro felt the perfectly rounded shape of his daughter’s hand beneath her arm. It was a sensation akin to terror of an unfamiliar kind. In that instant, he suddenly saw his own lingering emotions from the distant world—those that had not yet completely weakened.

But in the next instant, with utmost gentleness, he stroked his daughter’s shoulder. And then he firmly embraced her small body.

“Don’t leave me all alone.” “Look—even walking such paths makes Father’s heart race and grow heavy.” In the daughter’s palm, a clamorous noise was felt from his heart. And then he was overcome by a fit of breathlessness. —When the daughter suddenly caught sight of her father’s face, there lay the light of sagging, sunken, powerless eyes belonging to a withered village elder. The daughter watched her father’s unsteady steps as he staggered down the slope, as though realizing it only now.

“Father, you’ve weakened so suddenly lately, haven’t you?” “You weren’t like this before.” Nemuri Genro remained silent. When he wondered whether even his daughter—the one he cherished in his heart—saw him this way, he felt an indescribable warmth; yet simultaneously, it was as though his back had given way.

“When Father is alone, he has vigor.” “But when I’m with you, before I know it, I succumb to your youth and end up staggering.” “Why do you think that is?” “Well…”—

Nemuri Genro was somehow unable to respond.—They emerged onto the sandy plain. The mother had been by the window of the house built from brown wood of that hue, but upon seeing Nemuri Genro and the daughter, she hurried out to the front of the house. ――The weariness of the night was vaguely apparent even on the mother’s face.

Even as they faced each other across the table, the quiet night seemed to rotate slowly at a pace imperceptible to the eye.

“How much longer must we stay here? I feel as though even my heart has drifted far away.”

The woman, having said that, raised her body from the shadow of the lamp.

“You’re weary too—but there’s nothing to be done.” “We must stay like this forever, I suppose.” “It must be our fate here—” “Here, even fate itself has become weariness so profound it cannot stir.” Nemuri Genro’s words contained a sarcasm so biting it verged on mockery—aimed at no one in particular. “Then for what reason could we be here?” “I don’t even understand that myself.”

“It must be to go on living—nothing more than that.”

The daughter turned her lustrous face from the lamp toward her father. “Is living truly this wearisome and uninteresting?”

Nemuri Genro compared his daughter’s face with her mother’s, and in his mind conjured this thought: one had withered away, while the other was beginning to open. “Living is undoubtedly weariness, but you probably don’t feel it so keenly.” “You probably don’t have anything like our kind.”

Nemuri Genro gazed at the woman, but she, with an expression that seemed to assent to his words, quietly turned toward the daughter. —The daughter remained silent. And then she finally opened her mouth and said.

“I’ve already become completely weary. There isn’t a single interesting thing either…”

The father gave a wry smile. Then, staring intently at his daughter’s face, he spoke with resolve.

“If you were to leave our side, your weariness might lessen—but I will not let you go—”

“Why?”

When the mother looked at the father’s face and said this, the father gazed at their daughter with bleary, lonely eyes.

“Because Father himself would feel lonely.” “Right, Mother? Isn’t that so?” Nemuri Genro muttered inwardly, That must be exactly it—I cannot hand my daughter over to others, yet somehow an unpleasant sensation lingered like sediment. “Yes, but what does Father think—?”

The woman glanced at Nemuri Genro. Nemuri Genro’s face bore an expression so desolate it verged on painful clarity—as though standing exposed in a bleak landscape. Yet he remained silent, mouth twisted in sullen refusal to respond. “We’re all so joyless, and all mired in weariness, aren’t we?” “As long as this remains unhealed, we must stay like this forever, mustn’t we?” The woman uttered this like a soliloquy, then looked at her taciturn husband and their daughter—who watched her parents with dream-hazed eyes. But no one spoke. The brown air deepening with night had congealed everything—the house, the sandy plain, even the lake’s surface—into amber-like solidity.

IV

The daughter, while walking along the shore with the father, picked up the beautiful shells scattered there, and as the lukewarm lake water occasionally washed over their feet, she delighted in it wholeheartedly.

“When it grows this warm, even the shells all seem to rise up as if setting their sails toward the open sea.” “Look how many of these shells lie half-open.” “I see—they all appear to be propping up their half-shells.” Nemuri Genro thought that even the washed-up shells and this strange creature—something like a freshwater clam yet still alive—seemed to yearn toward the warm lake waters. “Can you see that?” “This morning it glowed such a beautiful color—dewy and crimson, wouldn’t you say?” “And can’t you see how its shadow stretches long?”

“I’ve been watching it for a while now, and I feel like going there alone—secretly, without even telling you, Father.”

Nemuri Genro watched as Peach Blossom Village—which had burned so fiercely it could burn no more—formed a blazing royal citadel so splendid it seemed unlikely to grow any more beautiful. “Then why not simply go alone if you’re resolved to?” “There’s no need to restrain yourself so on Father’s account.” “But….” The daughter looked up at her father with calm, gentle eyes that nonetheless held unease. “If I go there...I feel I might never return.” “If that were so—what would you do then, Father—?”

The daughter's eyes glimmered with gentle slyness across her adorable cheeks in that instant. Nemuri Genro felt a needle-like sting pierce his chest. It was a sensation tinged with faint unease. "If you don't return—well then, Father would set out to search for you. However difficult it might prove, he might yet find you somewhere—though whether he'd bring you back here remains uncertain. He would search regardless—"

“And if I were nowhere to be found!” “What would you do if you couldn’t find me no matter how hard you tried?” “Impossible—I’d search even if it meant spending Father’s entire life on it.” “But even then—do you think you could manage to hide yourself away completely?” Perhaps it was because the sunlight struck her father’s truly desolate face that the daughter gazed into his eyes with deepened sorrow, unable to keep her thoughts unspoken. Though she knew full well how lonely this would make her father feel—somehow she wanted to say it anyway.

“Yes, I will certainly hide.” “And I’ll keep hiding forever and ever—until Father grows utterly disheartened.”

“Until Father completely gives up on someone like me—” “No—do you think I’d ever give up so easily? I’ll definitely find you.” Nemuri Genro’s voice had imperceptibly taken on a faint tremor, laced with an anxiety and apprehension akin to fear. Moreover, he wondered when his daughter had become so tenacious in wounding his own heart. But deep within, he regretted more than anything that what he had initially said in jest had gradually drawn out his daughter’s seriousness.

“No, I will certainly vanish before long.” “Just watch—I shall absolutely, absolutely disappear from your side.”

Nemuri Genro suddenly looked into his daughter’s eyes at that moment. The rims of her eyes were flushed, and the black pupils at the center of their whites remained motionless, holding a depthless gleam while seeing nothing. Nemuri Genro thought it was dangerous. How long had it been since he last saw such beautiful, intense eyes? Moreover, that within his own flesh and blood there existed eyes so beautiful—eyes that had imperceptibly grown unaccustomed to his presence and now sought to rebel against him—he gazed upon this with terror.

“Are you truly serious when you say that?” “Yes, I am serious—what else could it be? I will leave you completely, Father.” Nemuri Genro reached out to his agitated daughter’s shoulder and pressed it firmly down with his palm. His voice emerged hoarse with sorrow. “Calm yourself more—this excessive agitation does no good. Here—look gently into Father’s eyes. Consider what Father is, and what would remain after your departure. You have understood now, haven’t you?”

The daughter turned her perfectly round eyes toward her father’s eyes. The perfect roundness gradually enlarged, but as its outline became blurred and distorted, she could no longer contain it—suddenly clung to him and wept with a sorrowful voice as soft and long as silk. Each time she wept, she writhed as if in anguish, thrusting against her father’s chest. “I won’t go anywhere.” “I definitely, definitely won’t go.”

The daughter, upon saying that, sobbed even harder, tightened her grip on her father’s shoulders, and clung to him. But from the moment his daughter did so, Nemuri Genro felt an oppressive, weary sorrow throughout his entire body, as though he were lost. He made no attempt to speak now—unlike before. He had twisted his daughter’s heart once more with lies and truth. What a worthless, self-centered father I am being, he thought. He was disgusted by the lies filling his thoughts and felt an urge to raise his voice then and there to speak some words of truth.

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

Nemuri Genro hurriedly took the daughter’s hand, disrupted her attempt to clasp them together, and then stammered sorrowfully multiple times.

“The one who should apologize isn’t you—it’s I.” “I 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 not even a life of your own could exist—so meticulously did I try to confine you to this world of wind, water, and sand dunes. What else could this be but a mistake? A desolate, warped little thought born of my self-absorbed mind.” “Even as I thought myself unforgivable to you, I continued to steal and indulge in my own pleasures through whatever cracks I could find, never knowing satiety.” “I did not let a single pleasure escape me as a human being.”

Across Nemuri Genro’s desolate face seethed and surged a tempestuous swarm—so intense it rang in the ears—before sweeping down. He embraced his daughter, and they continued in their naturally leaning positions until finally collapsing onto the sand flat. “You were always asking me about various things, but not only did I refrain from telling you about the distant world—I even made efforts to have you avoid those very topics.” “No matter how much you yearned to live your own life, no matter how lonely that made you, I refused to consider it—and in doing so, I forced even your heart to stay silent forever.”

Nemuri Genro gazed at his daughter with eyes brimming with heartrending anguish, his expression that of one pleading for forgiveness.

“I was only thinking about myself.” “Why didn’t a being like you—beyond my own circumstances—emerge into this world?” “No—you should have ventured forth into a more splendid life far sooner, yet my stubborn—nay, cruel—heart has confined you here all this long time.” “Moreover, up until this very moment, I had even been trying to forcibly destroy what you had been thinking.” “My daughter, the one at fault is I alone—not you, nor your mother. It is unthinkable that boredom could ever come to you.” “Boredom itself is something I shall bear.”

Nemuri Genro suddenly felt a refreshing sensation as though his chest expanded—a certain pent-up thing within him dispersing. He felt as though, for the first time, he could gaze upon his daughter at leisure.

“Look—the sun shines so fully upon it. Can’t you see how Peach Blossom Village sparkles?” “Now you can go to Peach Blossom Village whenever you wish.” After her long bout of sobbing, the daughter gazed vacantly at her father’s face as though waking from a dream, followed his line of sight, and looked upon the beautiful Peach Blossom Village bathed in sunlight. From there, a strange music continued with crystalline, joyful tones from amidst the flowers crowded together. Whether it was her imagination or not, several boats that appeared to bear beautiful dragon flags floated serenely on the morning-lit lake.

“Father, I do not quite understand what you’re saying… but I still wish to remain by your side. Just as before—” “Just as before—”

However, the daughter gazed at Peach Blossom Village across the lake, and her heart felt a strange longing toward it. However, for some reason, she had to tell that lie.

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

After leading his daughter to the shore and saying this, Nemuri Genro abruptly slid the boat from the shore onto the water. Upon the lake’s surface, sunlight that cast a blue dragon-like shadow spread golden scales like those of a giant diagonally toward Peach Blossom Village. “No, Father, if you do such a thing, Mother will resent you later.” “No one will resent you—now, get in!” “And you must row on as long as your hands endure.”

When the daughter reluctantly boarded the boat, it was slid out onto the water by her father’s hands. The blue dragon’s shadow rippled apart. The boat was rowed by small white hands—at that moment, the daughter wore a clarity of expression never before seen and let out a sharp, joyous cry. “I may go now.” “Of course… What a joyous face you’re making.”

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

Nemuri Genro squatted down and gazed at his daughter’s departing boat. The boat drew a white wake toward where Peach Blossom Village lay, darting forward in a dizzying rush. Nemuri Genro's eyes were moist, and the sand he had been toying with spilled powerlessly from his palm.