Pathway to Japanese Literature

Since my family was out, I drew bath water alone, lit the fire, and felt just the right warmth in my body.
Then, sitting down in the tatami room and drinking a cup of hot tea, I gazed at the swarm of red dragonflies coloring the sky above the garden and felt an unusual stillness.
The air was so clear that even in the sunlit areas, not a speck of dust could be seen.
Over the neighbor's wall, a pomegranate was ripening.
It had not yet split open.
As I raised my eyes in curiosity, thinking it still had flowers until recently, a single small ash-colored bird moved through the dense branches.
While gazing vacantly at it, I noticed the gentle sunlight gradually shifting onto the neighboring house's eaves.

Even when I went out to the riverbank before my gate, I gazed desolately at the mountains I viewed daily, now showing gaunt wrinkles and folds.
The mountain slopes showed a weariness like that after anger, their harshness seeming to have subsided.
The river shallows had cleared, and according to what the sweetfish vendor who came yesterday said, they claimed that sweetfish were no longer present except downstream, and that those remaining in this area were still young and hadn't developed their full flavor, with only a countable number left.
From late September onward, the sweetfish had matured, but once October arrived, they became all the more intensely so.
This summer, I called fishermen who cast their nets in the shallows before my gate and had sweetfish served on the dining table nearly every day.
In early spring, when I gazed at the sweetfish that were still about an inch long, I could visibly see them growing as summer deepened.
I recalled how they, who once had beautiful soft skin, were now carrying eggs and beginning to yellow from their tails, how they could no longer navigate the rough rapids, and how they only drifted downstream without ever swimming back up—comparing it all to something akin to human bonds.

The seasons had already brought me two autumns.
I had grown weary of the countryside, but considering that even if I were to leave this place for Tokyo, I would likely come to yearn for it again, I still thought I would stay a while longer.
In the countryside, old friends would come to visit, and when I saw how those friends had changed from before, now conversing with such forced amiability, I realized I was the one who had grown far more detached.
While my old friends enthusiastically recounted tales of their peers' livelihoods and successes from those days, indulging in nostalgic childhood reminiscences that were hard to forget, I had become such an unresponsive listener that I would halfheartedly let even matters concerning myself wash over me as if they were someone else's business.
And in the end, I began to feel that such old matters were of no consequence, and would fall silent, ending up giving perfunctory replies.
My old friends didn't notice such things.
They would go on endlessly about the state of my occasionally visited hometown, its transformations, and human connections there.
I would encounter such human bonds about once a month, and in the end, I would grow both annoyed and melancholic.
Not only that, but when I found myself having to share meals with such people, I felt both unmoored and filled with endless loathing for being someone who had to spend an unfortunate late night on account of these reunited old friends.

A hometown was a place one came to alone and then slipped away from to return, whether by night or day. And if one were to unexpectedly meet someone they had been thinking of visiting or seeing, that would be one thing, but if not, then one should truly pass them by without a second thought. In all my past experiences, I had always stayed for about two or three days before slipping away, but as I settled in this time, I noticed with listlessness how the persistence of old human bonds—devoid of any stimulation or novelty—had begun to decay and stain my heart like strangely darkened persimmon tannin. However, I had lived even that as something interesting, but lately, the fact that this persimmon tannin had taken on a luster only to become tarnished beyond removal had somehow begun to weigh on my mind. Even people who had never engaged with me in the past began visiting my life, which appeared somewhat carefree on the surface, and though I could perceive the shallow nature of human affairs and understood their sentiments, I couldn't help but feel a gloomy melancholy in such human hearts. To the extent that they seemed to think I wouldn't have done such things, such people sat across from me and told various stories, yet still made me sad. Their passion was of a type that demanded everyone clap in unison—old-fashioned tales steeped in vulgarity. I had grown tired of listening to them. For that very reason, how much I might have been unable to lose myself in contemplation of the old scenery and human bonds I had been trying to immerse myself in alone, precisely because it had become such a bother?

“Wouldn’t old friends be better as people who just meet at the train station and part immediately?”
“In other words, wouldn’t it be truly authentic for them to separate right after momentarily coming together?”

I tried saying this one day, but my old friend responded as if admonishing himself, stating that such an approach would be too abrupt—that humans must not come to hold such ways of thinking.
Thus, finding it fortunate that our conversation failed to connect, I had no choice but to remain silent.

Lately, especially since returning to my hometown, I had begun sensing a certain obstinacy in my own preferences, and started feeling that this awareness—how a stubborn person must grow even more stubborn precisely because of their stubbornness—carried something slightly unbecoming.
I came to think that entrenching myself in that theory of loneliness was like a pomegranate rotting without ripening or splitting open.
I too was one such person—having no dealings with literary circles, keeping myself distant from them while maintaining some stubbornness—but now found myself keenly realizing the triviality of such things.
Interacting with others—with people engaged in the same work—how much better that would be, I thought, than those tedious old friends with their nostalgic tales.
I couldn't grasp how much preferable it was to converse with people who calmly pursued the same work without mental reservations, compared to forcing myself into loneliness's mold out of sheer obstinacy.
I thought that even obstinacy itself, if maintained too long, would ultimately harden like a withered vine on dead wood—twisted into fixed form, losing all charm.
That said, this wasn't me longing for literary circles from the countryside; having realized I'd been overconscious of my own loneliness and stubbornness until now—and because I even felt awkward about how I couldn't fully endorse such thoughts myself—this was why I thought so.
If there existed the worst, ugliest thing among humans, it would be people who perform—calmly or deliberately—transparently obvious emotional acts.
Even the slightest hint of something "transparently obvious" might be acceptable like observing an untouched point—but what followed immediately after a glance, those "transparently obvious" things, became what I found most detestable and unpleasant.
At last, those transparent "loneliness" and "stubbornness" became visible through past mists and clouds—like flipping through a tedious old diary—and I found myself disapproving of their very roots.

Loneliness itself always comes alone, and before one knows it, appears to form such feelings all by itself; I found myself rather fond of my vacant, unthinking self during those moments when I wasn't consciously aware. To claim things like disliking people or being unsuited for human company seemed akin to casually practicing loneliness like calligraphy exercises. While this study wasn't inherently bad, the way it was turning me into a stubborn, socially wary person had gradually become distasteful to me. I wanted to stop it myself. Though naturally capable of calm conversation, I found unbearable this deliberate maintenance of prejudiced views on life's periphery. Why couldn't I move among people with the same composure I maintained at home? I wondered. Perhaps terms like "austere refinement" or "venerable antiquity" refer precisely to this state. There might be inconsistency between schemers walking among others and those conversing calmly through hardened hearts, but cunning people quickly expose their flaws while the latter, having none to reveal, let others sense their beautiful austerity. I thought even mountain marsh dwellers with scant social contact yet speaking freely must inhabit this same realm. Conversely, among those same mountain residents, the speechless remain utterly silent from the start. In essence, while everyone contains this subtle duality of beauty, I perceived they must eventually share the same essence of pared-down simplicity.

Taking advantage of some leisure time I had recently, I went to a riverside restaurant in the upper reaches of a certain riverbank and had lunch with a friend.
It was an elegant riverside establishment nestled between the foothills of a small mountain and a stream called the Asano River.
Springs bubbled up here and there, with all the arranged stones wrapped in bluish moss that exuded its distinctive earthy scent.
The garden contained about four detached rooms positioned such that guests' voices could just barely be heard through the trees.
Being autumn, fallen leaves naturally scattered about went without saying.
In any case, my friend and I were eating a meal of river fish in one of these detached rooms.
At that moment something suddenly fell onto the moss.
When we looked, it was a blue wild pear with a swollen base and distorted shape; to us who had only seen perfectly round pears until then, it initially seemed hard to tell whether it was even a pear at all.

“I’ve never seen such a strange pear.”
“It’s completely warped.”

I picked up the mud-covered one and marveled at its shape.
It closely resembled what's called a foreign-style bit-shaped water jar used in tea ceremonies.

“Wild pears often have ones like that.”
“Anyway, it has a nice shape.”

My friend also found it curious, and I placed it on the wooden floor of the alcove.
And I even sensed a harmony in the alcove that could be described as rustic elegance.
After finishing our lunch there, we parted with the woman who had escorted us to the entrance where about fifteen or sixteen pine trees stood, and remarked to each other what a calm, fine restaurant it was.
But try as I might, I couldn't forget the distorted shape of that pear with its swollen base.
I thought that it too, having remained lonely without care, had hardened in its distorted form until even teeth couldn't make a mark, until finally its stem gave way and it fell.
Even when merely contemplating the soft yet strangely physical sound of it hitting the ground, there seemed to linger an unutterable solitude; for someone like me who hears such sounds perhaps once a year or once every two years at most, it stirred a fascination so profound it felt almost childlike.
Moreover, contemplating its indescribably peculiar form—perhaps distorted through loneliness—I felt an inexplicable urge to shout “Distorted! Distorted!” at the top of my voice, making the word echo through the air.
Moreover, the pear itself had a somewhat sickly quality to it.
“No pear—only ants,” I muttered under my breath, thinking this must be an exceptionally gloomy specimen among tree fruits.

About a week after that day, I went to see the garden of an old restaurant, now out of business, located at the foot of Mount Utsutsuyama.
The old man there—who had abandoned restaurant operations altogether since there was no chef he particularly liked, and now spent his days enjoying his favorite tea—appeared elderly at first glance, but was in fact a tea master of unyielding disposition: austere and taciturn.
The garden was, in a word, one of stones and moss.
Everything bore the appearance of a tea garden; around the stepping stones clung century-old moss that had taken deep root—likely sprinkled with water in preparation for our visit—now glistening with moisture and appearing pristine.
Stone lanterns carved with ancient Buddhist figures stood inconspicuously in every corner, while all the standing trees were pines.
Wherever one went, there were only stones and moss, and perhaps seven or eight clumps of bamboo grass rustling faintly.

The tea master called out from the narrow tea room.
A woman around forty with a black collar, still bearing a faintly bright complexion—who appeared to be his wife—came to call us to the inner garden.
Even though the tea master was in his seventies, I was struck by a certain realization.
The figure of that person walking along the stepping stones was aged, yet possessed a composed beauty.
Outside the restroom leading to the tea house, beneath the dripping water from a bamboo gutter lay fifteen or sixteen black pebbles, and about a foot away from them, five small stones were piled decoratively with two or three bamboo stalks clustered around—the sight couldn’t help but catch my eye.
The mind that had long governed such dripping rainwater—though seemingly insignificant—made me perceive, with an austerity that transcended austerity itself, the spirit of the tea garden executed with meticulous care down to the finest details.

“The hibiscus in my garden brings me great pleasure.”

This tea master was a man of few words.
His weathered face held the enduring strength of ancient Bizen pottery.
In the alcove’s bamboo vase stood two white hibiscus blooms alongside stripped stems of Persicaria.
I protested that I didn’t know tea ceremony etiquette, but he dismissed my concerns and prepared a bowl.
He ladled fresh water into the boiling kettle, stirred it gently with the same dipper, then poured it into the tea caddy.
The tea tasted exquisite.
He confirmed being seventy years old, spending his days watering the garden at dawn and dusk while brewing tea.
In the dim tearoom’s alcove nook lay what seemed an aged cat curled like an incense box – only when my eyes adjusted did I recognize it as painted decoration.

Before long, the setting sun spilled through the pine branches from the window and lay upon the old wisteria-colored summer fabric like perfectly round fireflies.
On the old wisteria-colored fabric where no zabuton had been laid out despite it being October, I grew impatient with the numbness in my legs.
The tea ceremony is also quite difficult, I thought.
But the taste of that first sip of tea I'd had in so long—perhaps due to my mind playing tricks over time—left me feeling refreshed.
Being young, I still delighted in being startled by such a life.
The evening sun too was flickering in the garden.—Moreover, the red berries of the beautyberry entwined around the lantern appeared even more vividly crimson, perfectly still and serene.
With a garden of this size to tend morning and evening, I supposed about two hours each would be required.
With all the time spent on tea utensils, flower arranging, and various other things, I thought this old man must lead quite a full daily life.
I thought he was certainly not idle, but when I considered that this state of mind must be one of utter solitude, I found myself unable to commit to such a lifestyle—and this realization, despite my deep yearning, left my heart momentarily clouded with melancholy.

In this tea master's garden stood a Chinese copper lantern shaped like a stone seal.
The head was a copper-made Chinese lion.
But one morning, the head of that Chinese lion had disappeared.
Later discovering that nearby beggars had taken it away, broken the lion into pieces, and sold them to foundries, the old man divided efforts to collect the shattered fragments across eight directions.
The beggars had sold them not to a single location but to about three foundries.
The old man had them recast into the same stone seal shape as before and was said to have longed for the aged simplicity of the old bronze with its angular verdigris patina.

As I stood on the stone before the entrance on my way back, the gracefully aged woman who appeared to be his wife performed a respectful bow at the ship-plank-clad doorway with waist-high paneling.
Even in my life of resentment toward the world, I had casually overlooked the soul that called out to that friend.
After descending the mountain, at a certain tea shop where I heard about this tea master keeping a young woman in the city, I couldn't help but feel that the way of tea somehow connected to the world of carnal pleasures.

When I woke up this morning, the stream before my gate chilled me to the bone with its damp cold, and passing hail blew fallen leaves against the plank fence.
The mountains were completely white.—The same heart that had listened listlessly last night to the creaking storm shutters now murmured, "I suppose I should return to Tokyo after all," when seeing these view-blocking mountains and hearing the cold current's murmur.
Moreover, this was now my second winter since returning to my hometown.
The loneliness of winter days spent shut away on the second floor with no visitors became, even for someone like me who enjoys solitude, a feeling nearly unbearable.
If it rained here, Tokyo was clear.
If Tokyo rained, here was clear.
This contrasting climate became visibly apparent to me, and I recalled how Tokyo's cityscape—looking as if cut from colored paper—would be bathed in the gentle softness of winter sunlight. Like a child, I found myself imagining how pleasant it might be to stroll aimlessly through those streets with no particular purpose.
The improving seismic conditions reported in newspapers and acquaintances' accounts also became a source of reassurance, and being able to watch motion pictures remained one of my few pleasures.
In this rural area, there was only one Western-style establishment, and even that had few customers during the day.
Instead of drawing black curtains, ink was thickly daubed on the glass doors.
Through gaps in the poorly applied ink, roof tiles of houses and shadows could be seen peering through.
The photographs were mostly ones I had seen once in Tokyo, but I found myself astonished at how much my memory had deteriorated—to the point where unless I viewed more than half of a photo, I couldn’t even tell if I’d seen it before.
But as I sat alone in the cold shack’s second floor listening to hail and snow, I—having nothing to do and unable to engage with worldly matters—felt as though I were simply killing time in that manner.
Unable to write popular novels centered on entertainment or work as a teacher, translator, or editor, I remained with nothing to do but those same dull time-wasting activities.
I had not once gone out to visit anyone during the entire year.
It was a way of life where staring fixedly made my own face seem reflected upon the mountain.

When I encountered an acquaintance in town, I was asked, “Are you still living here?”
There were also people who would say, as if pitying me, “I’m amazed you can endure living in a place like this.”
Even when seeing off people returning to Tokyo, I had stopped wanting to return myself—but now that merely opening the window and hearing carts creak on the desolate embankment made me feel lonely, I wondered what this meant. Perhaps I’d started wanting someone to talk to, I thought.
I had conversed with myself to the point of weariness—could it be that I now desired an interlocutor?
I even tried thinking that way.

The families and acquaintances who had returned here during the earthquake disaster had all gone back to Tokyo, leaving nearly no one behind—I was likely the last remaining.
It was said that when Tokyo children enrolled in local elementary schools, fixed routines would develop.
And though all the parents declared things like “How could children get an education here?” before returning to the capital, I felt I could dimly grasp their sentiments.
I wondered if it was truly so different, but for me personally, the countryside indeed sapped imaginative power day by day.
This also seemed to leave me physically lethargic.
Yet my tendency to overprotect my body had become even more pronounced since moving here.
If I didn’t write for two weeks, I’d gain 150 monme; writing continuously for ten days made me lose 150 monme.
Idling about made me gain 350 monme.
People often say mental exertion tires you out—I’d never paid it much heed—but after recently examining my body in detail, I finally discovered that not writing caused weight gain.
After six years of hackwork, I’d at last realized how brutally I’d abused my body.
For me, idling leisurely still seemed healthier than taking Vitamin A after every meal or downing Politamin three times daily.
Yet I couldn’t break free from these habituated medications.
Relying on them felt more vital than a million acquaintances—something I could actually believe in.
My health—merely a path where depending on every drug under heaven would soon leave me no healthier than medication-free people—would likely persist this way forever.
One might say those inclined toward solitude are always unhealthy.
Could this be why he remains perpetually alone?—

When I went to the coast the other day and saw that the man who had been living alone with his mother in a thatched hut under the pine grove beneath those sand dunes fifteen years prior was still living there in good health—though it was only natural—I shuddered.
He lived with his real mother in a manner akin to a married couple.
Even after those fifteen years, maintaining the same appearance, he would rise quietly from the dim hearth and emerge beneath the rack where chili peppers hung,

“Hey—”

he said.

Located about four or five blocks from town with a small potato field and what appeared to be a livelihood of gathering pine mushrooms, even the black cat still crouched in the dark house where the hearth fire burned bright, just as it had in former times.
Apart from going out to fish for catfish and crucian carp in the river, he rarely ventured into town.

“With wireless telegraphy even installed here now, things have become quite lively indeed.”

He said that and forced an ingratiating laugh.
Indeed upon the sand dunes stood a telegraph office, wires strung crisscross from its tall mast.
They hummed beneath the sea wind.
To my eyes that remembered this coast from years past, the landscape had acquired a distinctly civilized air.
Though roads and streetcars now ran through the area, the house within this pine grove retained its somber countenance unchanged.
His mother having died, he now appeared to dwell there alone.
When I contemplated how this man of some standing would spend his remaining years in these pines without human intercourse, I understood how his very habituation to such circumstances rendered his solitude invincible.

After coming here, I had considered creating a small garden, but before I knew it, I found myself placing a stone basin, planting banana plants, and arranging horsetail around the stones.
This was my affliction.
People love natural scenery, but they seemed to want to love it once again within something they owned.
In ponds and plants claimed as their own, they love another kind of stone—stones not borrowed from distant mountains.
To put it another way, there must also be a childlike desire to mimic nature.
The emotion of cherishing a miniature nature within my solitary world—the wish to tend and nurture my own heart—these too must qualify as natural scenery.
It cannot be said that only desolate mountain vistas deserve to be called masterpieces.
I feel inclined to regard this melancholic state not as poetic refinement, but rather as something closer to deskbound contemplation.
It resembles the satisfaction of arranging fine inkstones, writing screens, and ornate paperweights upon one's desk.
Gardening springs from a finicky disposition.
It's work that aches the mind.
People imagine those who fuss over gardens must find it refreshing labor—in truth, it's anything but.
The mind grows perpetually strained until exhaustion sets in.
When I'm out gardening, others likely perceive me as being in ill humor.
Trying to arrange living plants according to one's will inevitably brings weariness—both from sharing life with them and battling the immensity of earth itself.
There exist those who pour their soul into a single manuscript page.
This shares the same essence as garden-making.
A garden left wild should preserve its wildness; one made intricate demands meticulous carving.
Rock gardens especially should reveal their beauty without a single blade of grass.

When I saw the garden of Seisonkaku in Kenrokuen Garden the other day, I found particularly appealing the hexagonal stone lantern carved with a Buddha by Goto Yujiro.
Its aged quality, the slender portion of its torso, and the stone Buddha carving all remained unadorned.
Though Goto Yujiro was a metal caster, when told he likely couldn't handle stone carving, he immediately accepted the challenge.
These were artifacts spanning generations from the old domain era.
The stone basin too showed exquisite craftsmanship.
Beneath it wound a small stream drawn beneath the tea room's deep eaves—even with winter shutters closed, one could still glimpse this slender waterway at night.
I felt nostalgic for that meticulous gardening spirit which conveyed the garden's essence even after dark.
While every plant in this garden displayed crafted wonders, what pleased me more was a clump of moss growing upstream—venerably azure and thriving in dense clusters.
This moss's blue intensity resolutely heightened the withered garden's atmosphere.
Black oil stones lined the narrow stream where water flowed soundlessly beneath fallen leaves.

I was impressed by two devil’s fern leaves hanging heavy with morning dew where three receiving stones formed a washbasin-shaped gravel basin at the drainage outlet of the stone hand-washing basin along the corridor. Ferns could often appear coarse and unrefined, but the beauty of these two leaves hanging resolutely was something rarely witnessed. The three small stones placed atop the main stone there also possessed an indescribably refined appeal. They served to soften the main stone’s austere presence.

I wanted to look once more at the stream flowing inside the storm shutters, but since the guide urged me on, I reluctantly omitted it and went outside—even then, I imagined that the sensation of perceiving that stream through a single layer of shoji on a winter night would be an entirely different matter.

Kenrokuen Garden was now falling into decay.
Due to neglected upkeep and being surrendered to vulgar crowds' amusements, moss and streams had become clogged with unsightly debris that sorely offended the eye.
Yet as seasonal hail continued pelting down relentlessly, around bamboo grass leaves bordering the meandering stream lay spread out a pure white winter scene in most pleasing repose.
While drinking tea at a shop overlooking the pond, it suddenly struck me that both Seisonkaku and Kenrokuen Garden somehow evoked old Kutani ware's essence.
Even in their aged austerity lingered vestiges of beautiful refinement.
This was not Bizen's rustic vigor nor Iga or Shigaraki's severity.
Nor was it bamboo and bush clover's monochromatic desolation.
It truly embodied old Kutani's spirit.
That even this now seemed poised to degenerate into Yoshidaya's vulgar imitations—this conviction likely wasn't mine alone.
Tasteless wooden lanterns and crude shelves cluttered certain areas; roads had been pointlessly widened through unnecessary construction.
I perceived the renowned garden's decline unfolding before me like some chaotic scattering resonating with audible finality.
That modern Kaga's Kutani ware had fallen into nationwide disrepute appeared proof these once-distinguished gardens were transforming from old Kutani into Yoshidaya-style vulgarities.
Each time I glimpsed those garish Shōzō-esque imitations with gold and red overglaze crowding town shops, I sank deeper into listless revulsion's embrace.

However, parting with Kenrokuen Garden was something that particularly tugged at my heart, precisely because it was what I had grown most deeply accustomed to during my year in my hometown.
With no particular purpose, I would often visit this park on various errands, listening to the sound of dripping springs and sitting in tea shops, but now that I thought of leaving this place, the feeling sank in all the more profoundly.
When I emerged near the old pine tree by the fountain where its branches grew thick, the hail swept down fiercely once more, scattering across the blue moss like untimely plum blossoms.
The beauty of moss in this region reached its most vivid coloration in early winter across all four seasons, and then, having been buried under snow, it would begin to sprout.
The moss on the town’s commonplace stone walls, cliffs, and roofs glistened amidst patchy snow, deepening its vivid hue.
Now, from the base of a pine tree a few steps ahead of me, a carpet of moss burned with an intensity no less than the severe cold.
It was a vivid color that could not be seen except in winter.

The trees enveloping the town had become completely bare, and here and there the houses with gardens lay buried under austere standing trees and fallen leaves patterned like Mishima designs on small cups. When November came, the townspeople who made no effort to sweep their gardens left them disordered—their colors shifting to persimmon under sleet and hail—abandoned to the elements. The sound of that rain and hail beating upon fallen leaves might have been slightly too late to serve as a haiku topic that truly resonated with the season, yet they formed countless scenes that seeped deep into one’s being. As I continued my lonely, deceptively chill stroll—glancing back at gardens with yellowing citrus trees, entranceways where white camellia flowers peered through, and fields containing persimmon trees left with only their heavily clustered fruits—I repeatedly drew my hands from my coat sleeves to sneeze. Everything composed a scene that resonated perfectly with the depths of my heart. I felt as though even the form of those trees was imprinting itself upon my very skin. The sight of wet, emaciated withered trees—their pleasingly frozen branches standing rigid—reached into my heart. ……

When I returned home, two river fishermen at the gate saw me walking along the riverbank and greeted me with their winter hats pulled down over their eyes.
Looking closer, I saw that one of the men was carrying a large salmon.
It glistened.—They said they had caught it in the river upstream just now and placed the salmon, with its nori-like deep blue back, on the entrance stone.
On its belly—as large as a woman’s thigh—ran a sunrise-like redness, and its large gills gaped open.
Its eyes were still alive and beautiful.
I touched the fin that stood upright like an arrow fletching on its blue back.
From how swollen its belly was, it appeared unusual.
Female salmon apparently dig holes about two feet square in the riverbed gravel with their own heads when laying eggs.
Sometimes they would find three or even four such holes, and within them salmon could apparently be seen swimming motionlessly.
Somehow, an extraordinarily magnificent canvas captivated my heart.
After the fishermen had left, I spent a long time admiringly gazing at this magnificent fish.
In its belly, two strands of roe were contained in thin sacs, holding a transparent crimson color like that of a pomegranate.
When put in the mouth, it burst like fireworks.
A mysterious liquid overflowed.
I smiled bitterly, thinking that if it had been me in the past, I would have written some polished poem titled something like "The Ruby-Eater".

That night, as I lay alone on the second floor listening to the sound of river rapids, I visualized the form of the river's sovereign now stealthily ascending upstream from the depths of the stone embankment. Somehow, I could see with my own eyes how the salmon stealthily swimming past me would illuminate their bodies—as large as beautiful thighs—each time they maneuvered through the rough rapids. I recalled how fishermen would strike their heads five or six times with riverbed stones immediately after capture, yet they still wouldn't weaken much; how being struck by their tails would leave red marks like bruises that wouldn't fade for ten days—but somehow it seemed pitifully cruel to mistreat such beautiful bodies so harshly.

In the riverbed before the gate, there was a stone called Kogarashi.
It was a stone resembling a cliff fragment, its dark surface etched as if with knife-carved grooves, but prized for garden use.
When water was sprinkled on it, the liquid would seep into those grooves, leaving damp streaks in those spots even after the surface dried.—I had asked gravel scoopers to bring that Kogarashi stone into my garden and used it as a middle stone in the basin; what fascinated me was how its grain patterns split deeply like sinews even without water being sprinkled.
Then I had them carve a stone basin from Noto stone as well.
In any case, my small garden was created with an utterly modest, childlike design—just placing one stone basin at the base of bamboo-like reeds where their plumes emerged. But ever since the banana plant by the gate tore, fallen leaves from the neighborhood would blow in and accumulate, making cleaning quite laborious.
Moreover, the snow gleaming on the Kokkyō Mountain Range upstream of the riverbed kept inexplicably intimidating me.
Each time I went out into the garden, the snow-clad mountains appeared much closer, summoning and menacing with the harsh winter right before my eyes.

The town where I lived was Tokyo multiplied fifteenfold.
One district of Tokyo corresponded to my town's population.
I often recalled such trivial matters.
Such childish thoughts of mine would make me feel as though I had been cut off from the capital for about ten years, and now I found myself thinking there might actually be a place for me to live in Tokyo after all.

“It seems you’ll be returning soon, won’t you?”

The landlady, having heard from who knows where, called out to me as I was bundling the banana plants.
The torn banana plant lay in tatters, so much so that it brought to mind the verse "Banana Plant Torn, Listening to Rain in a Basin at Night."
The moisture-laden leaves were cold.

“Yes, since I’ve already stayed a full year, I’m thinking it’s about time to go back.”

The landlady gazed at the garden containing nothing but what I had planted since arriving and said, “What will you do with the plants and stones? Will you take them with you?”
Having said that, she stroked the leaves of the Chinese windmill palm.
“Since I’ll be leaving them as they are, you’ll kindly look after them, won’t you?”

“How regrettable, after you’ve put so much care into all this.”

I wanted to leave everything in place as much as possible and avoid moving anything with roots. While I couldn’t help if they withered after my departure, I found unbearable the thought of replanting them while still here only to let them die. Moving from one rented dwelling to another and leaving behind fragments of my heart in each—this was the redeeming quality of a tenant’s existence. To destroy such traces, I felt, would be akin to wounding those very emotions themselves.

I resolved to take just one stone basin as a memento. It had been carved this summer by a skilled artisan in his sixties—a close relative on my mother’s side. Made of honmikage granite with a faint bluish cast, it featured a gently curving rim and compact proportions that made it perfectly suited for practical use.

“I think I’ll take just this one,” I said.
“Please do,” she replied. “After you went to such trouble having it carved.”

The other stone basin was a rock that had half its face protruding from the riverbank cliff; though the stone itself was soft in texture, its moss was beautiful.
I had a gardener excavate it, but upon digging it out, it turned out to be a massive stone measuring three shaku in length and two shaku in width; however, since moss had grown thickly around it in sunlit patches to create a beautiful sight, I had them dig a hole for this one as well.
By now, the moss had gradually spread, its aged quality and bluish hue becoming more pleasing, but I thought I would leave this one as it was.
The Japanese sweet flag that Mother had suggested planting beside it and brought over had now taken root well, its green leaves hanging over the water.
From time to time, a white-feathered wagtail would fly over from the riverbed, perch on it, and drink water.
Startled by me peering from the second floor, the wagtail would flutter back to the riverbed.
Compared to the abundant water in the riverbed, there must be something quaintly charming about the wagtails coming to drink from this modest pool of bluish water held in the stone basin—the thought suddenly occurred to me.

Even in the view from the long embankment stretching both upstream and downstream from the gate, there was a melancholy that seemed to deepen with each passing day as yesterday became today.
In summer I would carry a chair out onto the embankment to enjoy the evening cool, but now oppressed by the desolate roar of the current, not even a speck of blue remained on the stone wall.
The withered Japanese knotweed had borne fruit, but even these were fiercely blown about and swept downstream.
What profound melancholy!
――I picked up stones and threw them into the river, spending a good ten minutes at this diversion before climbing to the second floor to peer down at the embankment and riverbed once more.

In the evening, as a farewell gesture over the kotatsu, I decided to have Mother stay the night.
Mother, who rarely stayed over, had done so only twice during my year-long residence.
Because her coughing during stays would often wake the child, I hadn't invited her before.
Thus when I asked her to stay this time, she showed boundless delight.
Our plan to play flower cards over the kotatsu for old times' sake revealed Mother struggling with fresh cards that slipped under her once-familiar shuffling hands - a pitiful sight.
When she tried cutting them neatly into two stacks, cards spilled messily from her grasp.
Though frustrating to watch, this scene sank deep into my being.
"You do it," I said, passing the deck to my wife.
Yet she demonstrated perfect recall of every intricate rule and combination from years past.
Only she showed no investment in winning or losing, appearing indifferent to outcomes.
Even her methodical card-turning carried an air of elderly mannerism.

"I thought I'd forgotten how to do it, but once you start playing, it all comes back to you," Mother said as she put on her glasses.

Fortunately, she ended up with a good hand and some luck in her draws.
When my wife remarked, "Mother's really showing us up," Mother chuckled happily. With her gnarled hands, she hurriedly flipped through the cards—accidentally turning over two extra—and kept murmuring apologies.
After a full year here, even Mother finally seemed worn out.
Sucking on the cold, velvety persimmon flesh in the kotatsu's warmth brought a fleeting coolness. Then I noticed—the outside had grown too quiet. Without thinking, I strained to listen.
The storm shutters pressed flush against the sliding doors. Three shaku beyond them stood the sasanqua hedge, its leaves rustling with a sound like silk brushing silk. We all heard it.
The river's rush had faded from even the innermost room downstairs. Not a single other noise intruded.

“It’s snowing.”

Each of us sucked persimmon juice through our teeth while listening intently to this year’s first snowfall—the kind that might actually accumulate—with fresh curiosity.
The sound against the thick sasanqua leaves resembled some profoundly distant insect.
Yet in northern climes it wasn’t uncommon to hear insects shrilling beneath eaves even as snow fell.
Under those same eaves I’d buried late-autumn chestnuts in river sand for storage.

“Powder snow, isn’t it? That sound...”

The rustling continued unabated.
Outside, the sound of snow being knocked from geta against utility poles came through as distinctly as if held in one’s hand.
I thought I wouldn’t hear that sound again for some time.
“Let’s retire for the night. Mother, please sleep by the kotatsu—if you cough and wake the child after midnight, it will be troublesome,” my wife said as she laid out the futon.
Mother compactly curled herself up and slipped into the bedding.