武蔵野 English

I

"The last vestiges of Musashino linger today, barely, in Iruma district."

So I read on a map made during the Bunsei era.

And on that map, inscribed in Iruma district, were the words: "Kotesashi Plain — Kumegawa — ancient battleground. The Taiheiki records: on the eleventh day of the fifth month of the third year of Genko, the forces of the Minamoto and Heike fought a full day's battle on Kotesashi Plain, more than thirty engagements before nightfall, after which the Heike withdrew three ri and took position at Kumegawa; at dawn the Minamoto pressed upon their camp at Kumegawa — it is likely that these events took place in this vicinity."

That is what I read there.

I have always supposed that the place where traces of the old Musashino still faintly remain must surely be somewhere near this ancient battleground, and I have meant to go there once, though I have not yet gone — wondering, even now, whether it is truly still so.

In any case, the wish to see with one's own eyes at least some shadow of that Musashino which we know only through paintings and poems is surely not mine alone.

Just how that Musashino, held in such esteem, now stands — the desire to answer this question fully and to my own satisfaction first came to me a year ago, and since then that desire has only grown.

Whether this desire can actually be fulfilled by my own efforts, I cannot say.

I will not say it cannot.

I believe it is no easy matter — and that is precisely how much the Musashino of today holds for me.

I expect there are many who feel the same.

So, for now, I will open a small beginning here, and write down what I have seen and felt from autumn into winter, fulfilling in some small measure a part of that desire.

The answer I must give to that question is this: the beauty of Musashino is today no less than it was of old.

What the beauty of the old Musashino was like in person must have surpassed all imagination — that I do not doubt — yet the beauty of Musashino as I see it today moves me deeply enough to lead me to so sweeping a verdict.

I said the beauty of Musashino, but rather than beauty I would say poetic charm — that seems the more fitting word.

II

And so, short on material as I am, I will draw on my own diary for substance.

From early autumn of the twenty-ninth year to early spring, I lived in a small thatched cottage in the village of Shibuya.

It was during that time that the desire I spoke of arose in me, and it is also the reason I write now only of autumn into winter.

September 7 — "Yesterday and today a strong south wind has blown, driving clouds along and sweeping them away, rain falling then ceasing, the sun filtering through the rifts in the clouds, and when it does, the shadows of the grove flash all at once."

This is the beginning of autumn in today's Musashino.

The groves still hold the green of summer, yet the aspect of the sky has utterly changed from summer — rain-clouds borne on the south wind pass low over Musashino, sending frequent showers, and in the intervals the sunlight, carrying moisture in it, falls upon a distant grove and gleams upon a nearer wood.

I often thought: what a beautiful sight it would be to look out over Musashino from above on such a day.

Two days later, in the entry for the ninth: "Wind strong, the voice of autumn fills the fields; floating clouds shift and transform."

So it reads.

Just around that time such weather continued day after day, the great sky and the fields in ceaseless, uninterrupted change — the light of the sun summery, the colour of the clouds and the sound of the wind autumnal — and I found it deeply moving.

Taking this as the opening scene of today's Musashino in autumn, I intend to set out below the diary entries from then until winter's end, to suggest the broad arc of the changes and the elements of the scene.

September 19 — "Morning: the sky overcast, the wind still, cold mist and cold dew, insects chirping in abundance — it is as though heaven and earth have not yet awakened."

September 21 — "The autumn sky is as if wiped clean; the leaves of the trees blaze like fire."

October 19 — "The moon is bright; the shadows of the groves are black."

October 25 — "Morning fog lies thick; afternoon clears; at nightfall, the moon shines cold through breaks in the cloud. Before dawn, while the fog has not yet lifted, I leave the house and walk the fields, visiting the grove."

October 26 — "Afternoon: I visit the grove. Deep within the grove I sit and look all around, give ear, gaze intently, fall into silence."

November 4 — "The sky is high and the air clear. Standing alone in the wind-swept field at dusk, Fuji in the far distance looms close, the range of mountains marking the province border rises black along the horizon. A single point of starlight — the evening colours gradually deepen, the grove shadows draw ever farther away."

November 18 — "I stroll in the moonlight; blue smoke creeps along the ground, moonlight shatters among the groves."

November 19 — "The sky clears, the wind is pure, the dew is cool. Among the yellow leaves spread everywhere, green trees are scattered. Small birds twitter in the treetops. Not a soul on the road. I walk alone, musing silently, humming to myself, following my feet as they take me around the near country."

November 22 — "It grows late at night; outside, the sound of wind through the grove is eerie. The dripping continues, yet the rain seems already to have stopped."

November 23 — "Last night's wind and rain have stripped almost all the leaves from the trees. The rice paddies too are nearly all harvested. It has taken on the desolate appearance of winter."

November 24 — "The leaves have not yet entirely fallen. Gazing at the distant mountains, I feel an almost unbearable longing, as if my heart would dissolve away."

November 26 — Written at ten at night: "Outside, the sound of wind and rain is dreadful; the dripping answers in chorus. All day today the mist has hung low, and the fields and groves have seemed to enter into some eternal dream. In the afternoon I take the dog for a walk. I enter the grove and sit in silence. The dog sleeps. A stream issues from the grove and disappears into the grove, carrying fallen leaves as it flows. Now and again a shower passes quietly through the grove, and the sound of it crossing the fallen leaves is still."

November 27 — "Last night's wind and rain has lifted without a trace this morning; the sun rises with a gentle warmth. Standing on the hill behind the house and looking out, Fuji rises pure white above the mountain range. The wind is clear, the air transparent."

Truly this is a morning of early winter.

"The surface of the fields is flooded with water, and the shadows of the grove are reflected, upside down, in it."

December 2 — "This morning there was frost, glittering in the morning sun like snow — a splendid sight. After a while thin cloud spread and the sunlight turned cold."

December 22 — "Snow falls for the first time."

January 13, Year 30 — "The night deepens. The wind dies, the grove falls silent. Snow falls thick. Holding up a lantern to look outside, the falling snow gleams and dances in its light. Ah — Musashino is hushed. Yet if I strain my ears I hear the sound of wind passing through a far-off grove — is it truly the wind?"

January 14 — "This morning a great snowfall; the grape arbour has collapsed.

The night deepens.

The sound of wind passing through the treetops reaches my ears from far away — ah, this is the winter night wind, the frost-wind, crossing from grove to grove through Musashino.

The dripping of melting snow circles around the eaves."

January 20 — "A beautiful morning. Not a cloud in the sky; the frost-heaved ground glitters like white silver. Small birds twitter in the treetops. The tips of the branches are needle-thin."

February 8 — "The plum has blossomed. The moon is gradually growing more beautiful."

March 13 — "Midnight: the moon tilts, the wind suddenly rises, clouds well up, the grove sounds."

March 21 — "Eleven at night. I listen to the sound of wind outside; now it seems far, now it seems near. Has spring come upon us? Has winter fled?"

III

The old Musashino is said to have been famed for a beauty without equal, known for the boundless expanse of its pampas-grass plains; but the Musashino of today is a land of groves.

The grove is, one might say, the defining feature of today's Musashino.

The trees are mainly of the oak family, which shed their leaves entirely in winter, and in spring send forth new foliage dripping with green — this cycle of change unfolds all at once across the fields extending for some dozen leagues east of the Chichibu range, presenting, through spring, summer, autumn, and winter, in haze, rain, moonlight, wind, mist, autumn showers, and snow, in green shade and in red leaves, a variety of scenes whose subtlety is not easily grasped by those from the western provinces or from the northeast.

It seems the Japanese have, until now, been largely unaware of the beauty of the deciduous oak-type grove.

In Japanese literature and art, it is mainly the pine grove that has been recognized as beautiful, and one finds no poem speaking of listening to an autumn shower deep within an oak grove.

I myself grew up in the west, and it has been ten years since I first came to Tokyo as a student in my youth, yet it is only recently that I have come to appreciate the beauty of such deciduous groves — and the following passage has taught me greatly.

"It was about mid-September in autumn. One day I had been sitting in a birch grove. Since morning a light rain had been falling, and in the brief clearings now and then a tepid gleam of sunlight would slant through — capricious weather indeed. Thin white clouds spread across the sky, and then suddenly, in an instant, rifts opened here and there, and through the rents, forced apart, a clear sky looked through, bright and keen as a knowing eye. I sat, looked all around, and listened. The leaves rustled faintly above my head, and that sound alone was enough to tell the season. It was not the gay, laughing murmur of early spring, nor the languid sway of summer, nor the endless chatter of mid-autumn, nor the timid, shivering babble of late autumn — it was only a barely audible, quiet whisper. A gentle wind crept through the treetops; the shifting light and shadow within the rain-damp grove changed without pause. At one moment everything seemed to smile all at once, flushed with a rose-coloured light throughout, and the slender white birch trunks, not very densely set, took on an unexpected silken sheen, a tender lustre; the fine fallen leaves scattered on the ground suddenly caught the light and shone blindingly gold; and the tangled fronds of the paporotnik — a kind of fern — whose stems were still magnificent though overly ripe in colour like old grapes, could be seen entwined and matted before one's eyes in boundless profusion."

"Or again, in an instant the surroundings grew dim, objects lost all distinction, and the birch grove turned pale and hazy as snow fallen long ago and never touched by sunlight — and then a light rain descended, softly, strangely, whispering, and passed on."

"The leaves of the birch had noticeably lost their lustre, yet were still green for all that — only the young saplings here and there had turned red or yellow, and now and again the sunlight, slipping and sliding through the wet twigs, would fall upon them and make them glitter and flash."

This is a passage from a work written by Turgenev, translated by Futabatei under the title "Rendez-vous"

— the opening passage of that short story — and it is in no small part due to this exquisitely delicate descriptive writing that I have come to appreciate the appeal of deciduous groves.

This is a Russian scene, and the grove there is birch, while the groves of Musashino are oak — they are quite different in terms of botanical zone — yet the character of a deciduous grove is the same.

I have often thought: if the groves of Musashino were pine or some such tree rather than oak, they would be extremely ordinary, lacking in variety, uniform in colour, and hardly worth dwelling upon.

It is because they are oak that the leaves turn yellow.

Because they turn yellow, they fall.

The autumn shower whispers.

The frost wind cries out.

When a gust sweeps over a low hill, tens of thousands of leaves rise high into the sky, like a flock of birds, and fly far away.

When all the leaves have fallen, groves spanning a range of many tens of leagues are at once laid bare, the steel-blue sky of winter hangs high above them, and Musashino as a whole enters a kind of stillness.

The air clears perceptibly.

Distant sounds are heard with sharpness.

In my entry for October 26, I wrote of sitting deep within the grove and looking all around, giving ear, gazing intently, falling into silence.

In "Rendez-vous"

as well, we read that he sat, looked all around, and listened.

How fittingly this listening, this giving of ear, belongs to today's Musashino from the end of autumn through winter.

In autumn, sounds arise from within the grove; in winter, sounds echo from far beyond it.

The flutter of wings, the song of birds.

The wind sighing, sounding, moaning, crying out.

The insects chirring in the shadows of the thicket, deep within the grove.

The rumbling of an empty cart and a laden cart as they wind around the grove, descend the slope, and cross the field path.

The sound of hooves scattering fallen leaves — cavalry out on manoeuvres, or perhaps a foreign couple out for a ride.

The rough, guttural voice of a villager going along speaking of something in a loud voice — fading, too, gradually into the distance.

The footsteps of a woman hurrying alone down the road, looking lonely.

The distant boom of a cannon.

The sudden report of a rifle from the grove next door.

Once I took the dog and visited a nearby grove, and sat on a stump reading a book, when suddenly from deep in the grove came a sound as though something had fallen.

The dog, who had been lying at my feet, pricked up its ears and fixed its gaze in that direction.

That was all.

It was probably a chestnut dropping — there are a great many chestnut trees in Musashino.

As for the sound of an autumn shower, nothing could be more quietly tranquil.

The autumn shower in a mountain village has long been a subject of Japanese verse, but the sound of a shower in Musashino, passing so softly, so unhurriedly, from one end of the wide plain to the other, crossing grove after grove, wood after wood, field after field — that sound, so quiet and yet so dignified, so tender and so dear — that is truly the distinctive character of the Musashino shower.

I was once caught by a shower in the deep forests of Hokkaido — there the character is even deeper, being an utterly trackless great forest — but in exchange, there is none of the tender, almost intimate, whispering quality of the Musashino shower.

From mid-autumn to early winter, try visiting the groves around Nakano, or Shibuya, Setagaya, or the depths of the Koganei forests, and sit for a while to rest from your walk.

These sounds arise and cease in an instant, gradually draw near and gradually recede; a leaf falls from above with a faint sound, in no wind at all, and when even that is still, you will feel the quiet of nature, and will sense eternity drawing close to you.

On winter nights in Musashino, when the stars blaze thickly overhead, I have often written in my diary of the wild wind that howls as though it would blow the very stars from the sky, sweeping fiercely through the groves.

The sound of the wind draws one's thoughts far away.

Listening to that eerie wind, now suddenly near, now suddenly far, I have sometimes fallen to thinking of the life of Musashino stretching back through the long ages.

There is a poem by Kumagai Naoyoshi:

All through the night I hear the sound of leaves blown aside —

the wind it seems has been passing through in stealth.

Though I have known life in the mountains and understood the feeling of this poem, it was only during my winter in the village of Musashino that I truly felt it in my bones.

The time when the beauty of sunlight is most keenly felt while sitting in the grove is from late spring into early summer — but that is not what I should write here.

Next after that is the season of yellow leaves.

Walking through a grove that is half yellow and half green, one looks up through the gaps between treetop and treetop and sees the clear sky spreading above, while the sunlight scatters into fragments on each leaf-tip trembling in the wind — the beauty of it is beyond words.

Famous places such as Nikko and Usui aside, is it not a particularly rare and beautiful sight to see the broad plains of Musashino, with their groves, coloured to the very last, sending forth a blaze of sparks as the sun tilts to the west?

If one could climb to a height and take in this grand panorama at a single glance, there would be nothing finer; but even if that is impossible, the very monotony of the plain enables one, from seeing only a part, to imagine the full extent of the scene — broad, almost without limit.

Moved by that imagining, to walk as far as one can through the yellow leaves in the evening glow — how wonderful that would be.

When the grove ends, one steps out into the field.

IV

In the entry for October 25 I wrote of walking the fields and visiting the grove; and in the entry for November 4, of standing alone in the wind-swept field at dusk.

And so I will quote Turgenev once more.

"I stopped, picked up the bouquet, and left the grove for the open field. The sun hung low in the pale blue sky; its light too had grown pale, cold — it did not shine but shed a kind of dull, leaden brightness in all directions. There was still half an hour before sunset, and yet the afterglow had already begun to tint the horizon with a faint red. A gusty wind swept sharply over the yellow, withered stubble; curled dry leaves that had curled in upon themselves scurried to and fro with a busy rustle, crossing the road that ran along the edge of the grove, and tumbling past me toward the open field. The whole wall of forest bordering the field was in a constant rustle and shimmer — not sparkling exactly, but glimmering as though scattering tiny grains of powdered dust. Withered grass, weeds, and straw — entangled everywhere indiscriminately — swayed and undulated in the wind, and all the cobwebs woven among them billowed in waves.

I stopped again... and felt a vague unease. Everything in sight was clean-cut but cheerless and joyless; amid the desolation one seemed to see through to the approach of winter's harshness.

A wary crow flapped its wings heavily, cutting through the sharp wind, flew high overhead, and then suddenly turning its head, glanced at me sideways, rose with a start, cawing as though its voice would tear itself apart, and vanished beyond the grove.

A great number of pigeons came flying in a rush from the direction of the granary, but suddenly soared up like a pillar erected in the air, then all at once scattered across the open field — Ah, autumn!

Someone seemed to be passing on the other side of the bare hill, for the sound of an empty cart rang out through the empty air."

This is a Russian field, but the scene of Musashino's own fields from autumn into winter is much like this.

In Musashino there are certainly no bare hills.

Yet it rises and falls in undulations like the swells of a vast ocean.

On the surface it appears to be a level plain, but more precisely it might be said that portions of the plateau dip into small, shallow valleys.

The bottom of these valleys is for the most part rice paddy.

The farmland is mainly on the plateau; the plateau is divided into various parcels of grove and field.

The field is the open land.

Thus the groves extend over no distance of several leagues, and probably none even extends a league; nor do the fields stretch unbroken for several leagues at a single glance — it is rather a kind of arrangement in which one grove is bordered on all sides by fields, one parcel of field has groves on three sides, and farmhouses are scattered here and there through it all, dividing it further.

It is, in short, a mingling of field and grove, confused and interlocked — one moment you think you are entering a grove, and the next you find yourself in the open field again.

And it is precisely this that gives Musashino a distinctive character of its own — here is nature, here is life — something quite different from Hokkaido's vast untouched plains and great forests, with a charm of its own.

When the rice begins to ripen, the paddies in the valleys turn yellow.

By the time the rice is harvested and the shadows of the groves fall inverted upon the surface of the paddies, the radish fields are at their height, and as the radishes are gradually pulled and washed at the water tanks and small streams here and there, the fields are already turning green with the new shoots of barley.

Here and there at the edge of a barley field, a patch of open ground remains, where pampas grass and wild chrysanthemums are blown in the wind.

One end of a pampas-grass plain gradually rises, its far edge marking the skyline, and if you climb it on tiptoe, the Chichibu peaks that run along the provincial border appear in the gaps between the groves, lying dark across the horizon, looking as though they run along the top of the horizon and then sink below it again.

So then — should one descend again toward the fields?

Or should one lay oneself down in the pampas-grass on the far side of the field, sheltering from the strong north wind behind a heap of dried grass, and gaze upon the grove beside the field swaying and glittering in the wind, while turning one's face up to the mild light of the sun as it circles low through the southern sky?

Or should one go straight on, taking the path to that grove?

I have often stood in just such hesitation.

Was I at a loss? Not at all.

I know by long experience that whichever of the paths crisscrossing Musashino I choose, none will disappoint me.

V

A friend once wrote to me from his home village: "The other day, walking alone at dusk through the pampas-grass plain, I fell to thinking: down these ten or more paths threading this field in every direction, how many hundreds of years have passed since people have walked out saying the morning dew is bright, walked out yearning at the flowering clouds of evening — how many hundreds of souls attuned to beauty must have wandered here; those who hate one another must have taken separate paths and gone apart, while those who love one another must have returned side by side, hand in hand, along the same path."

Such was one passage in his letter.

Walking a path through open fields may indeed give rise to such poetic thoughts, but the paths of Musashino are different — if one sets out to meet someone, one may miss them entirely, and if one tries to avoid someone, one may come upon them suddenly at a bend in the grove.

For the paths here curve right and turn left, thread through groves, cross open fields; what appears straight as a railway track may, if one goes east, wind back east again in a great detour; hidden in groves, hidden in valleys, emerging into open country, hidden in groves again — it is not easy, as on a plain path, to see far in the distance the figure of someone on another road.

Yet the paths of Musashino have a quality that surpasses even the poetry of the open-field path.

Those who walk in Musashino must not be troubled by losing their way.

Whichever path you take, wherever your feet carry you, there will always be something worth seeing, worth hearing, worth feeling.

The beauty of Musashino can only first be attained by wandering aimlessly along the thousands of paths that cross and recross it in every direction.

In spring, summer, autumn, winter; morning, noon, evening, night; in moon, in snow, in wind, in mist, in frost, in rain, in autumn shower — simply to stroll along these paths, turning right or left as the fancy takes you, and everywhere you will find something to satisfy you.

This, I feel deeply, is also the paramount distinctive feature of Musashino.

Outside of Musashino, where in Japan is there such a place?

Certainly not in the wilds of Hokkaido, nor in the Nasu fields, nor anywhere else.

Where else is there a place where grove and field are so thoroughly mingled, where life and nature are in such intimate contact?

It is precisely because of this that Musashino has such distinctive paths.

So, if you come to a fork where one small path suddenly divides into three, do not be troubled — set your staff upright and go in whichever direction it falls.

Perhaps the path will lead you into a small grove.

When you reach the middle of the grove and it forks again, try taking the smaller path.

Perhaps the path will lead you to a curious place.

It may be an old graveyard deep in the grove, with four or five moss-covered graves standing in a row, and before them a small patch of open ground, and along one side patrinia flowers in bloom.

If a small bird is singing in the treetops overhead, you are in luck.

Turn back immediately and take the path on the left.

In an instant the grove ends and a wide open field spreads before you.

The ground slopes gently downward from your feet; pampas grass grows all across it, the plumes catching the light; beyond the pampas-grass plain is a field, and beyond the field a low dense grove, and above that grove a distant cedar wood is visible, and along the horizon pale clouds gather, and amid them the mountain range appears faintly here and there, nearly the colour of the clouds.

The gentle light of an October Indian summer shines warmly down, and a pleasant breeze blows softly.

If you descend toward the pampas-grass plain, the broad scene you have been looking at will all disappear, and you will find yourself at the bottom of a small valley.

You discover, unexpectedly, a long narrow pond hidden between the pampas-grass plain and the grove.

The water is clear and still, faithfully reflecting the fragments of white cloud crossing the sky above.

Along the edge of the water a few withered reeds grow.

Walking a little way along the path by this pond, it forks again.

To the right, a grove; to the left, a slope.

You will certainly choose the slope.

When walking in Musashino one always wants to head for higher ground — because one always seeks a broad prospect — and yet that desire is not easily satisfied.

A commanding view looking down from above is never to be had.

One had better give up on that from the start.

If for some reason you need to ask the way, ask a farmer standing in the middle of a field.

If the farmer is over forty, call out to him in a loud voice — he will turn in surprise and call back with directions.

If it is a young woman, go close and ask in a quiet voice.

If it is a young man, take off your hat and ask politely.

He will give directions with a certain easy nonchalance.

Do not be offended — it is the way of the young men of the suburbs near Tokyo.

Following the path you have been directed onto, the path forks again.

Even if the path you were directed to seems rather too small and a little odd, go that way all the same — you will suddenly emerge in the front yard of a farmhouse.

When that happens, do not be startled at the strangeness of it.

Ask at the farmhouse then; they will curtly tell you that the main road is right outside the gate.

Step outside the farmhouse gate and sure enough, there is a road you recognise — you think, ah yes, this is the short cut, and a smile comes unbidden to your lips; only then does the value of the directions you were given become clear.

Sometimes one comes upon a straight road where both sides are lined for four or five cho with groves in full autumn colour.

How pleasant it would be to walk alone in quiet along this road.

The tops of the grove on the right are brilliantly lit by the evening glow.

Only now and then the sound of a falling leaf — the surroundings are perfectly still and lonely.

No one in sight ahead or behind; no one met along the way.

If the leaves have fallen completely, the road is buried in them, and with every step they rustle noisily; the grove is visible to its depths, and the tips of the branches point like needles at the blue sky.

Still less likely to meet anyone.

All the lonelier.

Only the sound of one's own feet on the fallen leaves rings out clearly; occasionally one is startled by the sudden rush of wings as a wood pigeon takes flight.

It would be foolish to turn back and return by the same path.

Even if one loses one's way, this is only today's Musashino — there is little danger of being benighted and finding oneself in real difficulty.

On the way home it is best again to fix only a general direction and wander aimlessly along a different path.

And doing so, one may sometimes be rewarded with the beautiful sight of the setting sun.

The sun is about to set behind Fuji but has not yet entirely set; the clouds massed about Fuji's waist are dyed gold, and even as you watch they shift into one shape after another.

Along the crest of the mountain range, a chain of snow like white silver gradually runs farther and farther north, and at last vanishes into dark and heavy cloud.

The sun goes down, a strong wind blows through the fields, the grove sounds, Musashino begins to darken, the cold bites deep — hasten your step; turning to look back, you notice almost without thinking that the new moon is casting a cold light on the treetops of the bare grove.

The wind seems as if it might blow the moon itself from the treetops.

Suddenly you emerge into the open field again.

At that moment you will recall

the mountains darken, the fields grow dim in twilight — pampas grass in dusk

— that celebrated haiku.

VI

It was in the summer of three years ago.

I set out with a friend from our lodgings in the city, took the train from Misaki-cho station to Sakai, got off there, and went straight north for four or five cho until there was a small bridge called Sakura Bridge; crossing it, there was a small roadside tea house, and the old woman of that tea house said to me, "What are you doing here at this time of year?"

So she asked.

My friend and I looked at each other and laughed: "We've come for a walk — just for the pleasure of it,"

we answered, and the old woman also laughed — the sort of laugh that makes light of you — and said, "So you don't know the cherry blossoms bloom in spring?"

So she said.

I then tried to explain to her, in words she could understand, how pleasant a summer stroll in the suburbs could be — but it was useless.

She dismissed it all with the remark that Tokyo people had nothing to worry about.

Wiping the sweat from our faces, we ate the sweet melon the old woman peeled for us, washed our faces in the small channel — barely a foot wide — running beside the tea house, and then set off again.

The water in this channel had probably been drawn from the Koganei waterway; it was quite clear, flowing through the green grass with an air of great contentment, and now and again gurgling pleasantly as if waiting for small birds to come and dip their wings and wet their throats.

The old woman, however, seemed to think nothing of it, and used this water morning and evening for washing her pots and pans.

Leaving the tea house, we began to stroll slowly up the Koganei embankment in the direction of the headwaters.

Ah, how pleasant that day's walk was!

True, Koganei is famous for its cherry blossoms, and to amble casually along the embankment in the height of summer might look absurd to an outsider — but that is the talk of one who does not yet know the light of a summer's day in today's Musashino.

The sky billowed with sultry clouds; cloud hid within cloud, and in the depths between the clouds the blue sky appeared — where sky met cloud, it had a colour that was neither silver nor snow, a pure white transparency with a somehow quiet and pale tint — and there the blue sky appeared all the deeper, more profoundly blue.

That alone would hardly be summery, but then a kind of turbid, haze-like discolouration wove itself through the spaces between the clouds, throwing all the patterns of the sky into motion, disorder, abandon, and confusion; the light rays that broke through the cloud and the shadows that poured from the cloud crossed one another here and there, and an air of untrammelled, headlong energy trembled imperceptibly throughout the sky.

Every grove, every treetop, down to the very tips of the grass blades, was dissolved in light and heat, half asleep, languid, drowsing, as if slightly drunk.

At one corner of the grove, cut straight across, a wide stretch of open field was visible through the gap — across the whole expanse of it heat rose shimmering upward, too dazzling to hold one's gaze.

Wiping the sweat from our faces, we made our way along the embankment gasping — now gazing up at the great sky, now peering into the depths of the grove, now looking at the line where the sky met the grove at the horizon.

Difficult?

Not at all!

Health brimmed within us.

Along the three-ri length of the long embankment, we saw almost no one.

From the front yards of farmhouses, or suddenly from between thickets of bamboo, a dog would appear, look at us suspiciously, and then yawn and disappear.

Beyond the grove a rooster would flap its wings vigorously and crow, the sound reverberating from granary walls, cedar groves, forestland, and bamboo, reaching us clearly and cheerfully.

On the embankment itself, several flocks of domestic fowl were roaming about in the cherry shade.

Looking far up the waterway, the tail end of the water flowing in a straight line disappeared in a kind of silvery haze; drawing nearer, it glittered brilliantly and rushed toward us like an arrow.

We stood on a certain bridge comparing the view upstream with the view downstream.

The quality of the light made the aspect of the stream change constantly.

One moment the upstream surface would suddenly grow dim — a cloud shadow sweeping down the stream would reach us in an instant, pause above us, then abruptly veer to one side and be gone.

After a moment the upstream surface would glitter brightly, and both banks' groves, the cherry trees on the embankment, would send forth a vivid green light, as fresh as spring grass after rain.

Beneath the bridge came a water sound of incomparable gentleness.

It was not the sound of water beating against both banks, nor was it the sound of a shallow riffle.

There was an ample volume of water flowing through a deep channel of almost plastered clay walls, and the water twisted, entwined, and pressed against itself, making its own sound.

What an intimate, human sound it was!

"Let us match

This water's pleasant tune

With some old Border song, or catch,

That suits a summer's noon."

Those lines came to mind, and I found myself looking around to see whether a seventy-two-year-old elder and a boy were not sitting somewhere in the shade of the cherry trees.

I thought the farming people living scattered along both banks of this stream were fortunate souls.

And certainly ourselves as well — strolling along the embankment with nothing but a straw hat and a walking stick.

VII

The friend with whom I walked along the Koganei embankment has since become a magistrate and gone to the provinces, but having read my preceding section, he wrote back as follows.

I find it convenient to quote him here — Musashino is not the broad plain of the so-called eight provinces of the Kanto in the ordinary sense.

Nor is it the historically famous plain where Dokan received a yamabuki flower in place of a raincoat.

I have my own Musashino, with its own limits that I have defined for myself.

These limits are naturally determined in the same way that the boundaries of a province or village are determined by mountains, rivers, historic sites, and various other things — and the determination comes from the following various considerations.

Within the bounds of my Musashino lies Tokyo.

However, that must of course be excluded — for we cannot imagine the old face of the place from the eight hundred and eight streets where the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce looms imposingly and the trial in the iron-pipe affair is heard.

Besides, a German woman of my recent acquaintance remarked of Tokyo that it is "a new city,"

and given the appearance it presents today, even if it were Edo of the Tokugawa era, there are grounds for finding that description apt.

For these reasons, Tokyo must certainly be erased from Musashino.

However, the edges where the city ends — the outskirts, that is — must certainly not be erased.

In my view, in depicting the poetic appeal of Musashino, these outskirts must be taken as one of its essential subjects.

For instance, the neighbourhood of Dogenzaka near Shibuya where you lived, the Gyoninzaka slope at Meguro, and the streets around Kishimojin at Waseda where we have often walked together, Shinjuku, Shirokane...

Moreover, to appreciate the true flavour of Musashino, one must look not only with the perspective of looking out from its fields toward Fuji, the Chichibu range, Kounodai and the like, but also with the perspective of looking back toward the capital Tokyo, enfolded at its centre.

Hence there is the necessity of going out three or five leagues to describe the plain.

In your essay you speak of how life and nature are in close contact, and describe the pleasure of encountering various things at different turns — and that is indeed how it is.

I once had this experience myself: taking my younger brother on an excursion toward the Tama River, I walked for a league or two, then half a league more, and then there were rows of houses, then houses fell away, then houses appeared again — meeting people and animals, then finding oneself among nothing but trees and grass — and I spoke to my brother of how interesting I found this quality of life scattered here and there in the changes, dotted about through the scene.

To depict this quality it is necessary to describe the stations scattered throughout Musashino — or, if not quite stations, then the rows of houses, the clusters of dwellings that cartographers call rentan-kaoku — in words.

Furthermore, the Tama River must without question be included within the bounds of Musashino.

Our ancestors named six rivers玉川 — six Tamagawa — but where is there another river like the Tama of Musashi?

The quality of the places where that river meets the flat paddies and the low groves — just as the quality of the places where the capital meets its suburbs — is of inexhaustible significance.

Then consider the flat expanse to the east.

That seems as though it might be excluded — it is too developed, with too many rice paddies, and the horizon is somewhat low — yet it is still unmistakably Musashino.

The way in which the paddies, the trees, and the thatched roofs around Kameido's Kinshiori and extending toward Kinegawa compose a scene that is entirely one domain of Musashino.

Fuji tells you so, especially.

That Fuji should appear as lofty as it does when viewed from “Abuzuri” at Zushi

— only in this vicinity can one see it so.

Tsukuba tells you so, too.

When one sees the shadow of Tsukuba low and distant, one feels that Musashino breathes in one corner of the eight provinces of the Kanto.

However, to the north and south of Tokyo, the domain of Musashino is exceedingly narrow.

One might almost say it is nonexistent.

This is due to the lay of the land, and also to the fact that the railway passes through — that is to say, “Tokyo”

is connected through this line, penetrating Musashino and linking directly to other domains.

That is how it seems to me, at any rate.

So, tracing what I take to be Musashino's boundaries, I would start at Zoshigaya and draw a line from there along the west side of the Nakasendo at Itabashi to the vicinity of Kawagoe, including the Iruma district described in your piece, and curving around to reach Tachikawa station on the Kobu Line.

Within this range, how much charm the stations of Tokorozawa and Tanashi possess — especially when the green of summer is at its deepest.

Then from Tachikawa I would take the Tama River as the boundary and descend to the area of Kamimaruko.

Hachioji is certainly not to be included in Musashino.

Then from Maruko I return to Shimomeguro.

Within this range, how much charm the villages of Fuda, Noborito, and Futako possess.

The above is the western half.

The eastern half runs from around Kameido to Komatsugawa, includes the area from Kinegawa to Horikiri, and ends near Senju.

This portion may be removed if there are objections.

Yet it has a distinctive charm and is undeniably Musashino — as I said before."

VIII

I have not the slightest objection to any of this.

The suggestion in particular to take the outskirts of Tokyo as a subject strikes me as entirely congenial — it is something I had already thought of myself.

To include the “outskirts” as a part of “Musashino”

may sound a little odd at first, yet there is nothing strange about it — it is no different from depicting the shoreline when depicting the sea.

However, I have deferred that for now, and continuing on from the stroll along the Koganei embankment, I have decided first to write of the streams and waterways flowing through today's Musashino.

First is the Tama River, second is the Sumida River — I would certainly like to write fully about these two, but I will defer those as well, and first seek out the other streams that flow through Musashino.

The Koganei stream is one of them.

Approaching the suburbs of Tokyo, this stream flows between the villages of Sendagaya, Yoyogi, and Tsunohazu and enters Shinjuku, becoming the Yotsuya waterway.

Then there are the streams that issue from Inokashira Pond, Zenpuku Pond, and the like, becoming the Kanda waterway.

The one that flows through the Meguro area and enters Shinagawa Bay.

The one that flows through the Shibuya area and reaches Kanaseki.

These and other nameless trickles and small channels — seen elsewhere they might hold no special charm, but here, threading through today's level and elevated Musashino indiscriminately, passing under groves, crossing open fields, disappearing and reappearing, winding and meandering (excepting Koganei), their appeal is sufficient to draw one's heart through all four seasons.

I was originally from a mountainous region and accustomed to seeing even quite large rivers running clear, and at first I found it quite unpleasant that all the streams of Musashino — except the Tama — were uniformly turbid; but as I gradually grew accustomed to them, it came to seem that this slightly clouded water suited the scenery of the plain after all.

I remember once — it was a summer night, four or five years ago — going for a walk in the near countryside with that friend.

We happened to cross one of the bridges over the upper reaches of the Kanda waterway at about eight in the evening.

The moon that night was clear and bright, the wind cool and clean, and the fields and groves seemed wrapped in white gauze — it was a fine night beyond all description.

On the bridge four or five villagers had gathered, leaning on the railing, talking of something, laughing at something, singing something.

Among them was an old man who kept cheerfully interrupting the talk and songs of the younger people.

The moon shone clearly, depicting the scene within a dim oval, as if suspending it like a passage from a pastoral poem.

We too joined the people in the picture, leaning on the railing and gazing at the moon — the moon was reflected clearly in the slowly flowing surface of the water.

Every time a water insect struck the surface, fine ripples spread, making tiny wrinkles on the face of the moon for a moment.

The stream wound out from between the groves and disappeared again, describing a half-circle among the trees.

Moonlight scattered by the treetops fell and glittered on the dim water below.

Water vapour skimmed the surface four or five feet above the stream.

In the season of daikon radishes, when walking in the suburbs one sees farmers washing the mud from their radishes by these small streams everywhere.

IX

Whether it be Dogenzaka or Shirokane — in other words, at those edges of the city of Tokyo where one road becomes the Koshu Highway, another the Ome Road, another the Nakahara Road, another the Setagaya Highway, and they plunge into the groves and farmland of the suburbs, at those places that are neither quite city nor quite post-town, where a particular kind of life and a particular kind of nature are blended to present a particular kind of scene — is it not remarkable that describing such places stirs something like poetic inspiration in me?

Why should such places draw our feelings so?

I can answer in a single phrase.

It is because such scenes on the outskirts of town make one feel as if one is viewing a miniature of something like society itself.

To put it another way, it is because two or three small stories — the kind that could move both the country person and the city person, small stories, yet deeply touching, or stories that make one burst out laughing — seem to be hiding just under the eaves around there.

To say more precisely what is distinctive about them: it seems as though the lingering traces of life in the great city and the afterwaves of life in the countryside meet here and turn slowly in an eddy.

Look — there a one-eyed dog is crouching.

The range within which that dog is known by name is precisely the territory of this outskirts of town.

Look — there is a small restaurant.

The silhouette of a woman, her voice rising in a cry one cannot tell from weeping or laughing, is projected on the paper screen.

Outside, the evening dark is closing in, and an odour that cannot be distinguished as the smell of smoke or the smell of earth hangs stagnant in the air.

Two or three large flatbed carts pass one after another; the rumbling of their empty wheels rises and falls, ceases and rises again.

Look — before the blacksmith's shop two packhorses stand in dark silhouette, and along one side of them two or three men are whispering together about something.

A red-hot iron shoe is placed on the anvil, and sparks burst through the evening dark and fly out to the middle of the road.

The people who had been talking broke into loud laughter at something.

As the moon rose to the top of a tall oak behind the row of houses opposite, the rooftops on that side began to whiten.

Black oil smoke rises from a lantern; in and through it some ten-odd people from the village and the town are running about and shouting.

Vegetables of various kinds are heaped and displayed here and there.

This is a small vegetable market, a small auction floor.

There are houses that go to sleep the moment the sun sets, and there are houses where the fire light is still reflected on the shop's paper screen until two in the morning.

The back of the barbershop is a farmhouse, and the lowing of a cow can be heard out to the street; next door to the sake shop is the home of an old natto seller, who every morning goes out early, calling natto, natto in a hoarse voice, heading toward the city.

The summer nights are short, and no sooner have they passed than the carts begin to roll.

A rumbling and clattering without pause.

By nine or ten o'clock, the cicadas begin to sing in the high treetops visible from the street, and it grows gradually hotter.

Dust is stirred up by horses' hooves and cart wheels and swirls up into the sky.

Swarms of flies cross the road, flying from house to house, horse to horse.

Even so, at noon the faint boom of the noon gun is heard, and somewhere beyond the sky over the capital the sound of a steam whistle echoes.