高野聖 English

I

"I thought there was no need to unfold the General Staff Office's map again and look at it, but the road was so wretched that even touching my hand to anything felt sweltering; still, I lifted the sleeve of my traveling robe and pulled out the folding map, bound in its cover.

It was on the mountain trail deep in the hills crossing from Hida into Shinshu, where there was not so much as a single tree to pause and rest beneath; to the right and to the left there was nothing but mountains — a peak so close it seemed I might touch it by stretching out my hand, and upon that peak another peak, and its summit overhanging still further, so that not even a bird in flight could be seen, nor the shape of a single cloud.

Between the road and the sky there was only myself, alone, bearing beneath a single cypress hat pulled down deep the fiercely blazing rays of what must have been the noonday sun, its heat so intense the very color of the light had turned white; and so I looked at the map, thus."

The itinerant priest said this, and, resting both his clenched fists together as a pillow, propped his forehead upon them and bowed his head.

The holy man who had become my traveling companion, from Nagoya all the way to this inn here in Tsuruga of Echizen, until the very moment he had just now laid his head to the pillow, was — so far as I knew — a man who rarely lay face up; that is to say, a man of the sort who, in his haughtiness, did not care to look at things.

I recall that he had boarded the same train back at the post-town of Kakegawa on the Tokaido; he sat bowed in the corner of his seat, still and lifeless as dead ashes, so that he had not particularly caught my eye.

At the Owari station, the other passengers all got off as if by some prior agreement, so that inside the car there remained only the holy man and myself, the two of us.

This train had left Shimbashi at half past nine the previous night, and was to arrive at Tsuruga that very evening; it was noon when we reached Nagoya, and so I bought a box of sushi for my meal.

The itinerant priest, too, had bought the same sushi as I had, but when he lifted the lid, out came scattered flakes of nori — it was the cheap sort of scattered rice.

(Well now — nothing but carrot and dried gourd shavings.)

he cried out, in a rash sort of exclamation.

Seeing the look on my face, the itinerant priest seemed unable to hold himself back, and burst into stifled laughter; since there were only the two of us to begin with, we became acquainted from that point on — and I learned that he was on his way to Echizen, to visit someone at Eiheiji, though he belonged to a different sect himself, and that he meant to stop one night at Tsuruga.

As I too, returning home to Wakasa, would have to lodge in that same place, we made a promise then to travel on together.

He told me he was registered at Koya-san; he looked to be forty-five or forty-six years of age, gentle and mild, with nothing eccentric about him at all — a warm, unassuming figure, dressed in a square-sleeved overcoat of woolen broadcloth, a white flannel muffler wound about his neck, a Turkish-style cap upon his head, woolen gloves on his hands, white tabi and fair-weather clogs on his feet; at a glance he looked less like a monk than like some worldly master of one of the arts — or perhaps, more than that, simply a layman.

"And where might you be lodging?" he asked me, and so I sighed, deeply and from the heart, over the wretchedness of a solitary traveler's inn — first of all, the maid who carries in the tray and dozes off standing there; the clerk with his hollow flatteries; the way people stare when one walks down the corridor; and worst of all, unbearable above everything, the way that as soon as supper is cleared they change the lamp at once for a dim andon and order you off to bed in the gloom, though I myself cannot sleep until well into the night — the feeling of those hours is beyond telling; especially these days, when the nights are long, I had been dreading a night's lodging alone ever since I left Tokyo, and so, if it would not trouble him, I asked whether I might not lodge together with the reverend.

He nodded readily, and told me there was a place called the Katoriya where he always rested his staff whenever his pilgrimage took him through the Hokuriku region; it had once been an inn in its own right, but ever since the one daughter of the house, of whom there had been such fine report, had passed away, they had taken down their sign — still, they never turned away old acquaintances, and the elderly couple looked after guests quietly, within their own means; if it suited me, he said, I might come there too — and in exchange, he began to say, setting his box of sushi down,

(The only fare on offer is carrot and dried gourd shavings.)

and laughed heartily — a good deal lighter of heart than his modest appearance had let on.

II

At Gifu the blue sky could still be seen, but after that came the true skies of the northern provinces, true to their name; at Maibara and Nagahama it was faintly overcast, a thin sun showing through, and I thought the cold was beginning to seep into my bones, but by Yanagase it was raining, and as the train windows grew darker and darker, white flecks began to mingle in among the rain.

"It's snow."

"So it is."

was all he said, and he paid it no further mind, not even lifting his eyes to look at the sky — and it was not only at this moment; when I pointed out Shizugatake and spoke of the old battlefield there, and when I described the scenery of Lake Biwa, the itinerant priest did nothing more than nod.

What is enough to raise gooseflesh at Tsuruga is the wretched vice of the touts who lie in wait for travelers, and that day proved true to form: the moment we stepped off the train, from the station exit clear to the edge of town there rose up a whole rampart of beckoning lanterns and umbrellas marked with inn crests, leaving not so much as a gap to slip through, and they closed in around the travelers, each bawling out the name of his own house at the top of his lungs; the most aggressive of them would snatch a piece of luggage right out of one's hands and fling out a barked "much obliged" before you could stop them, enough to make a man with a weak head feel the blood rush straight to it — but the itinerant priest, keeping his eyes lowered as always and passing through unhurried and compact, drew no one's hand to his sleeve, so that I, fortunate enough, fell in behind him and made my way into the town, and let out a long breath of relief.

The snow fell without pause, and now, with no rain mixed in, dry light flakes came sifting softly against our faces; the streets of Tsuruga, their gates already shut though it was still early evening, lay hushed and still, running one way and crossing another, the corners of the crossroads broad and open beneath the whitening drifts, and after some eight cho along the road we came at last to the eaves of the very house he had named — the Katoriya.

Neither the alcove nor the sitting room held any ornament to speak of, but the pillars stood splendid, the tatami firm underfoot, the hearth broad and deep, and the carp-shaped hook of the hanging pot-chain had a gleam to it as though its very scales were wrought of gold; it was an old house with two magnificent kitchen hearths set side by side, hung with a great startling cauldron that looked fit to cook a full peck of rice.

The master of the house had a shaven, monkish head, and kept both his hands drawn up shivering inside his cotton sleeves, never putting them out even before the hibachi — a dull, hulking old fellow; his wife, on the other hand, was a cheerful old woman with a pleasant word for everyone, and when the itinerant priest brought up the tale of the carrot and dried gourd shavings, she laughed merrily and set out a meal of tiny dried whitebait, dried flatfish, and miso soup thick with shredded tororo kombu — and in her way of speaking and her manner it was plain to see that she and the holy man were on the most familiar of terms, so that I, his companion, could not have felt more at ease.

Presently they made up beds for us on the upper floor; the ceiling was low, but the beam was a great round log thick enough to need two arm-spans to encircle, running slantwise from the ridge of the roof down to where, at the far end of the room beneath the eaves, it came near enough to graze one's head — a solid, sturdy structure indeed, one that would not so much as tremble if an avalanche came down from the mountain behind the house.

A kotatsu had been specially prepared, and so I climbed gladly into it just as I was.

Another bedding had been laid out at the same kotatsu, but the itinerant priest did not come to it; instead he laid his pillow alongside mine and lay down in a bed with no warmth in it at all.

When he lay down to sleep, the holy man did not loosen his sash — nor, of course, did he remove his robes; still dressed, he curled himself up and slipped in from the waist down, face bowed, and once he had draped the sleeve of the bedding over his shoulder he set his hands down before him and settled in most properly; and in this his manner was the very opposite of ours, for he seemed to pillow his face itself.

Before long he grew perfectly still and seemed about to drop off to sleep, and this was exactly what I had spoken of again and again on the train — that I myself could not sleep until the night was far advanced — so I begged him, in a most familiar and almost childish way, to take pity on me and keep me company just a little longer, and to tell me some interesting tale from among all his travels and pilgrimages through the provinces.

At this the holy man nodded, and said: it has been my habit ever since middle age never to lie face up upon a pillow; I may be lying here just as I am, but my eyes are still quite wide awake, and no doubt I am the same as you in not being able to drop off to sleep so quickly.

Not everything a man of the cloth has to say need be teaching, or precept, or sermon — listen then, young man, he said, and began his tale.

I learned afterward that he was a preacher of some renown within his sect, a great priest named Shucho of Rokumyoji temple.

III

"There's another man due to come and sleep here shortly, they tell me, and he's from your own province too — a peddler of lacquerware from Wakasa. Ah, but this fellow, young as he is, is remarkably honest and decent, a fine young man.

Now, on that crossing of the Hida mountains I was just telling you about at the outset of my tale, there was a fellow I fell in with at the teahouse at the foot of the mountain — a medicine peddler from Toyama — an ill-favored, twisted, thoroughly unpleasant young man.

It was early in the morning of the very day I was to set out to cross the pass — indeed I had left my previous lodging at about three in the morning, so as to cover some six ri while it was still cool, all the way to that teahouse — but the morning was clear, and already the sun was beating down with a scorching heat.

Having pushed myself hard and hurried along at a greedy pace, my throat was naturally parched, and I thought I would have some tea straightaway, but they told me the water had not yet boiled.

Well, that made sense enough given the hour — it was a mountain road scarcely traveled by anyone, and there was no reason smoke should be rising while the morning glories were still in bloom.

There was a small stream in front of the bench that looked cold and clear, and I was about to draw some water into a bucket when something suddenly occurred to me.

It was this: given the season and the heat, a dreadful, evil sickness was going around, and I wondered whether that village called Tsuji, which I had passed through earlier, might not be covered all over in lime.

(I say, miss.)

I said to the woman of the teahouse,

(This water here — is it from a well?)

I asked, awkward and fumbling with embarrassment.

(No, it's from the river.)

she said, and I thought — well now, how strange.

(There's a good deal of the epidemic going around down at the foot of the mountain — does this water not come flowing down from the direction of Tsuji, by any chance?)

(No, it isn't.)

the woman answered, quite unconcerned, and I felt relieved at first — but listen to what came next.

Sitting right there, resting since a while before, was that very medicine peddler.

And as for this traveling agent for the Mankintan pills, well, you know the type well enough — a fine-striped cotton kimono, a Kokura sash, nowadays with a pocket watch tucked in besides, leggings, thigh wrappers, and of course straw sandals, a square-cornered bundle wrapped in chigusa cotton cloth slung round his neck by its cord, an oiled-paper raincoat folded small and tied to that same bundle with a sanada cord, or else a single cotton umbrella of the checkered kobenkei pattern — that's the standard outfit.

At a glance, mind you, every last one of them wears a face that looks earnest and full of good sense.

But once such a fellow reaches his lodging for the night, he changes into a bold-patterned yukata, loosens his sash, and sits there sipping shochu bit by bit, the sort who would just as soon prop his shin up on the plump knee of the inn's serving woman.

(Well now, if it isn't the beggar-monk himself.)

they'd say, looking him up and down with utter contempt from the crown of his head on down.

(Strange thing to say, maybe, but here's the thing — a man who's given up on women in this world and gone and shaved his head bald as an egg still wants to cling to his own life after all, does he? Isn't that a queer thing? There's no arguing with human nature. Look here, miss, isn't it better while there's still some lingering attachment left in him?) — and with that the two of them looked at each other and burst out laughing.

He was young in years, you understand, and I — I went red as fire, and stood there hesitating, unable to bring myself to drink the river water I had scooped up in my hand.

He gave his pipe a sharp knock to clear it,

(What, don't be shy about it, drink your fill — if your life gets to be in danger, I'll give you medicine for it, that's exactly what I'm here for, isn't it, miss.

But mind you, even that won't come free — begging your pardon, but the divine Mankintan pills go for three hundred a packet, buy some if you want them; I haven't yet sunk so low as to hand out charity to a monk. Or how about it — will you do as I say?)

and with that he slapped the teahouse woman on the back.

I made my escape from there without further delay.

Ah, but talking of knees and slapping women's backs, coming from an old priest well past such an age, is a shameful sort of thing to confess — but a tale is a tale, so bear with me on that account."

IV

"In my own vexation I hurried on recklessly, and from there pressed straight on along the foot of the mountain onto a path through the rice fields.

After going some half a cho, the road suddenly rose up steep, a single stretch of climb clearly visible from the side, curved like a bow, as though an earthen version of the Chokushi Bridge had been laid across the way.

Just as I looked up and set my foot upon it, the medicine peddler from before came striding briskly along and caught up with me.

We exchanged no particular words, and even had he spoken to me, I had no intention of answering him.

The peddler, insufferable to the last, glanced at me sidelong and with deliberate insolence strode straight past me, going on ahead until he stood, umbrella raised, at the very tip of the road where it rose like a little hill — and from there he went straight on down the other side and vanished from sight.

I followed after, climbing on my toes, and before long found myself standing atop a stretch of road curved like the body of a drum — and from there it was downhill once again.

The peddler had gone down ahead of me, but he had stopped and seemed to be looking all about him intently; I followed on, uneasy, wondering whether the spiteful fellow was scheming something — but when I looked closely, there proved to be good reason for it after all.

The road split into two here: one branch turned at once into a steep climbing slope, the grass grown thick and rank on either side of it, and at that corner beside the road stood a single cypress tree — four, or say even five arm-spans around — behind which two, three, four great boulders, looking as though hewn out and laid winding one after another, lay stacked upward and led on further behind it; but this was not the way I had reckoned on and set my mind toward — the true main road was surely still that broad, gently sloping one I had been walking along all this while, which, going less than two more ri, would rise into the mountains, and only after that would the pass itself begin.

And yet, looking again — how strange — that very cypress I have just spoken of stretched clean across the empty road there, thrusting out like a rainbow into the boundless midair above the rice fields, a truly splendid sight.

The earth at its base had crumbled away, laying bare countless roots that looked kneaded together like great eels, and from among those roots a single stream of water came pouring suddenly down, flowing out over the ground and spilling straight across the very middle of the path I meant to take, so that all about lay flooded.

It was a wonder the rice fields themselves had not turned into a lake — the water roared along as a rushing shallows, and ahead a clump of thicket could be seen; up to that point, for a stretch of some two cho, the whole way was nothing but a river.

Stones lay scattered here and there, set out invitingly like stepping-stones one might hop across in long, easy strides, all the way along — and for all that, they had clearly been arranged there by human hands.

It was not so serious a crossing as to require taking off one's clothes, but it was rather too difficult a stretch for the main road, and certainly not the sort of thing a horse, for instance, could manage to walk across.

I imagined the peddler too had been thrown into confusion by it, when, all at once, he turned decisively about and set off briskly up the slope to the right.

In the time it took to watch, he had slipped behind the cypress and come out somewhere above where I stood, looking down,

(Hey, hey — the road out to Matsumoto is this way,) he said carelessly, and took another five or six steps.

Leaning half his body out over the top of the rock,

(Stand around gaping like that and the mountain spirits will carry you off — they show no mercy even in broad daylight.)

he flung out, as though in mockery, and then presently passed behind the rock and disappeared into the tall grass above.

After a while the tip of his umbrella appeared at a height that made one crane one's neck to see it, but it soon grazed against the branches of the trees and vanished into the thicket.

(Yoisho,) came a leisurely, easygoing call, and there, hopping stone to stone along the stream, appeared a farmer with a straw-mat seat patch on his rear, carrying an empty carrying-pole balanced over one shoulder."

V

"From the teahouse I mentioned earlier up to that point, I need hardly say I met no one at all but the peddler.

Just now, at the moment of our parting, he had called out to me, and seeing him for what he was — a traveling tradesman on the road — I told myself surely it could not be true, and yet I found myself uneasy all the same; that morning too, before setting out, I had studied it carefully — that map I spoke of before — and here again I was about to open it up and look, when just at that moment,

(If I might trouble you to ask something,)

(What might this be, then,) — for people of the mountain country, especially when they see a man of the cloth, tend to address one with particular courtesy.

(No, it's hardly worth troubling you to ask, but — this road here, it does go straight on ahead, does it not?)

(Off to Matsumoto, are you?

Ah, ah, yes, this is the main road, all right. It's just that with the rains this past season the water rose, and an almighty river's come up out of nowhere, you see.)

(Does the water go on like this the whole way still?)

(Oh no, not at all, sir — it only looks that way, there's nothing to worry about; the flooding only goes as far as that thicket over yonder, and beyond that it's the same road as ever, wide enough for carts to pass along it right up to the mountain.

That spot with the thicket used to be the grounds of a doctor's grand estate, you know — this whole area was once a proper village in its own right, but in the great flood thirteen years back it all turned to wasteland in a single stroke, and a good many people lost their lives there too.

If it please the reverend, perhaps you'd say a nembutsu or two for them as you walk along.)

and he went on kindly telling me things I had not even asked about.

With that I understood the particulars well enough, and felt myself on sure footing again — and yet there was, in fact, one person who had lost his way.

(And this road here, where does it go to,) I asked, inquiring about the slope to the left, the one the peddler had gone up.

(Ah, that one — that's the old road folks used to travel, up until about fifty years back.

It comes out at Shinshu too, same as this one, and it's shorter overall, about seven ri or so — but it's no road for traveling nowadays, not by any means.

Just last year, reverend, a pilgrim and his child took the wrong turn onto it, and my, what a business that was — they looked for all the world like beggars by the time they came out, but a life's a life all the same, so three policemen and twelve men of the village banded together and went pushing up after them, and it was all they could do to bring the pair back down again.

So don't you go letting your youthful vigor carry you off onto the short way, reverend; better to tire yourself out and sleep in the open than to go along that road there.

Do take care as you go, now.)

With that I parted from the farmer and was about to make my way across the stones of that river, when I found myself hesitating, thinking of the peddler's fate.

It was hardly likely to be as bad as all that, I told myself — but if it were true, then to leave him be would be to let him die; and I, whatever else I was, was a man of the cloth, one under no obligation to reach an inn and sleep beneath a roof before nightfall — I would catch up with him and bring him back.

Even if I went astray and ended up walking the whole of the old road myself, there would be nothing so very strange in that — this was not the season for wolves to be prowling, nor the tide-hour for goblins and demons to be abroad, so be it, I thought, and looked around, but already the kindly farmer's figure was nowhere to be seen.

(Well then.)

I set my mind to it and took the mountain path — not out of any chivalrous impulse, mind you, nor from any rash heat of youthful blood, though from what I've just told you it may well sound as though I'd already come round to some noble resolve; no, in truth I was a thoroughgoing coward, so anxious for my own life that I had even balked at drinking river water — so why, you might ask, did I do it after all?

Had he been merely a man who exchanged a few words with me in passing, I would truly have left him be without a second thought; but because I had taken him for an unpleasant sort of man, to abandon him just as he was would have felt like doing it on purpose, deliberately, and my conscience would not let me rest for it — that was all.

So Shucho said, still lying face down in the bed as before, his hands pressed together in prayer.

"For otherwise, I felt, even the nembutsu on my own lips would count for nothing."

VI

"Now then, listen — from there I passed behind the cypress, climbed from beneath the rocks up onto their tops, slipped through the trees, and went on and on along a narrow path thick with undergrowth, on and on without end.

And then, before I quite knew it, the mountain I had just climbed lay behind me, and another mountain had drawn near; here, for a while, the fields opened out broad and wide, the path running along wider and gentler even than the main road I had walked before.

It felt as though east and west lay slightly apart, with a single mountain set between them and two roads running along on either side — a road broad enough, indeed, that even a procession bearing spears aloft might have passed along it.

Even across that whole broad expanse, as far as the eye could reach, I saw no sign of the peddler, not so much as a speck the size of a poppy seed, and now and again small insects went flitting across the burning sky.

Walking along a stretch like this is, if anything, the more unnerving — when everything around you lies open and bare, there's nothing to steady your mind by.

Of course, once a road has earned itself the name of the Hida crossing, the going rate is one house every seven ri, five houses every ten — so if you manage to come by so much as a bowl of millet rice, you may count yourself fortunate indeed.

I had resigned myself to that much already, and my legs were sound enough for the task — no, I pressed on and on without flagging.

Then, little by little, the mountains began closing in again from both sides, until the way narrowed to where it seemed near enough to brush my shoulders, and at once it turned uphill.

Well now, I told myself, this must be the beginning of the famed Amo Pass, and with that thought I braced myself for it; the heat, in any case, was fierce, and gasping for breath I first retied the cords of my straw sandals.

I learned only years afterward that just about this point where the climb begins there is said to be a wind-hole that blows clear through beneath the very floor of the main hall of Rendaiji temple in Mino, but at the time I was in no state to notice such a thing — I pressed on with all my might, giving no thought to scenery or wonders, not even certain whether the sky above was clear or clouded, plodding straight on upward without so much as a blink.

Now the tale I have to tell you, young man, begins from here — as I said at the start, the road was truly wretched, seeming hardly fit for anyone to pass along, and what was most dreadful of all were the snakes.

Tail thrust into the grass on one side and head into the grass on the other, they lay there stretched across the path like so many little bridges, undulating.

The very first time I came upon one, I was still wearing my hat and holding my bamboo staff, and I caught my breath sharply and simply dropped to my knees where I stood.

I have always, by nature, detested them above all things — no, it was not so much dislike as sheer terror.

That first time, mercifully, it dragged its tail slowly off, and no sooner had it lifted its head than it went rustling away off through the grass.

I finally managed to rise, and had gone perhaps five or six cho further along the road, when again in just the same way, its middle stretched dry across the path with neither tail nor head to be seen, came the sudden slither!

I cried out and leapt back, but that one too vanished from sight.

The third one I came upon did not stir at once, and its body, moreover, was so thick that even if it had begun to move it seemed it would take a good five minutes of that gliding motion before its tail finally cleared the path, or so the creature appeared to me — so, having no choice, I stepped straight over it, and at that very instant my belly seized tight and a shudder ran through me, every pore of my skin turning, it felt, to scale, and I shut my eyes fast, certain my face must have gone the very color of the snake itself.

A cold sweat came wringing out of me, sick with dread as I was, and though my legs had gone stiff with fright there was no question of simply standing there, so, trembling all the while, I hurried along the road — only to find, once again, that there was another.

And this one, worse still, was only the hindquarters of a creature that had been cut clean in two, its severed end tinged bluish and oozing a yellow fluid, twitching there feebly.

Beside myself, I turned and fled back the way I had come at a dead run, but then it occurred to me that the earlier one must surely still be lying in wait there too — and, even if it should cost me my life, I could not bring myself to step over that thing a second time.

Ah, if only that farmer earlier had thought, even in error, to tell me that the old road was crawling with snakes like this, I told myself, and I would never have set foot on it though it led straight down to hell itself — and scorched by the sun as I was, the tears came streaming down; Namu Amida Butsu — even now, telling it, it makes my flesh crawl."

and he pressed a hand to his forehead.

VII

"There being no end to it, I steeled myself, for there was of course no question of turning back. Where I had come from lay that severed, headless carcass still; I had run wide of it, dashing off through the grass, but I could not shake the feeling that its other half might come slithering after and wind itself around me even now, and my nerve failed me so that my legs went tight and knotted, and I stumbled on a stone and fell — it must have been then that I injured my knee.

From that point walking grew a good deal more troublesome, my legs shaking beneath me, but I told myself that to collapse here would mean nothing but being steamed to death in the mountain heat, and so, spurring myself on by main force, dragging myself along as though hauling myself up by the scruff of my own neck, I pressed on toward the pass.

The steaming reek of the grasses along the roadside was fearsome in itself, and here and there in the undergrowth at my feet lay things that looked for all the world like the eggs of some enormous bird, scattered thick among the growth.

For another two ri or so I went on along a slope that wound like a great serpent, striking against the very bosom of the mountain, turning around jutting rocks, winding among the roots of trees, until — the road being truly too dreadful to bear — I opened up the General Staff Office map here once more to look at it.

And indeed, the road was the very same one, no different from what I had heard and what I had seen for myself; the old road was, without doubt, this very one I was on — so consulting the map brought me no comfort of mind whatsoever, and in any case, however authoritative a map it might claim to be, all it showed of the road was a single red line drawn across what looked like nothing so much as the burr of a chestnut.

Naturally there was no reason it should record the hardship of the road, nor the snakes, nor the caterpillars, nor the bird's eggs, nor the reeking grass, and so I folded it neatly away and put it back inside my robe, and, murmuring a nembutsu deep beneath my breastbone, drew myself back up to my feet — but before I had even caught my breath, another wretched snake had already cut across the road.

At that I felt it was hopeless, no matter what, and it occurred to me that this must be some spirit of the mountain itself, and so I cast aside my staff, bent my knees, and pressed both hands to the scorching earth, and said,

(I am truly sorry to trouble you, but please allow me to pass. I shall go by as quietly as I can, so as not to disturb your afternoon nap so far as may be helped.

As you can see, I have already cast aside my staff.)

and, humbling myself, I begged most earnestly, and when I raised my head again there came a tremendous rushing sound.

I felt certain it must be some enormous serpent indeed — three feet, four feet, a space five feet square, then more than ten — the grass kept stirring wider and wider, and all at once it swept off in a single line toward the ravine at the side, until at last the very peaks and mountains themselves seemed to sway together; trembling with dread, I stood rooted where I was, and then a coolness came seeping into my very body, and I realized it was only the wind coming down off the mountain.

And it was just then that I began to hear a great roaring sound carried along in echoes from peak to peak, as though somewhere deep within the mountain a wind had been whirling and had at last burst open a hole from which it came pouring forth.

Whether some mountain spirit had heard my plea I cannot say, but the snakes were gone from sight and the heat had grown far easier to bear, so that my spirits rose and my feet carried me on more briskly — though before long I came to understand the true reason the wind had turned so suddenly cold.

For there, right before my eyes, a great forest had appeared.

They say, as a common saying has it, that at Amo Pass rain falls even from a clear blue sky, and I had likewise heard tell that there was a forest here untouched by any woodsman's hand since the age of the gods — and indeed, up until then there had been altogether too few trees for such a tale to seem true.

Now, in place of snakes, it seemed as though crabs might come creeping instead, and my sandals turned cold with the chill of it.

Before long it grew dark all around; cedar, pine, hackberry could just barely be told apart from one another, and even where a faint light reached in from somewhere far off, the very color of the earth beneath was black throughout.

In places, perhaps owing to some trick of the light piercing through the forest, there were spots of lovely color, folds of blue and red woven strangely together.

Now and again something would catch about my toes — a thread-like trickle where drops from the leaves had gathered and run down, striking a branch above and racing along the higher reaches.

Now and then, too, some evergreen would shed its leaves, a rustling and rattling from I knew not what tree, and now and then one would come sailing suddenly down onto my cypress hat, or spill down behind me after I had passed; such leaves must have lain accumulating from branch to branch for who knows how many decades before falling at last to the ground."

VIII

"The loneliness of it I need hardly tell you, but cowardly as it may sound, for one whose training is still so far from complete, a dark place of this kind actually lends itself better to meditation. In any case, my body had grown easier to bear now, so much so that I had forgotten the weakness in my legs, and my pace picked up considerably — and just about the point where I judged I had come some seven-tenths of the way through the forest, something dropped with a soft plop from a branch that had seemed some five or six feet above my head, and landed on my hat.

It felt like a lead weight, and I wondered whether it might be some kind of nut or seed, and shook my hat two or three times, but it clung fast and would not come loose that way, so, without much thought, I reached up and took hold of it, and it came away smooth and cold to the touch.

Looking at it, I saw something without eyes or mouth, like a sea cucumber split open, but plainly a living creature all the same.

Repelled, I went to fling it away, but it went slithering down and fastened itself to the tip of my finger, hanging there — and from the very fingertip it had let go of, bright red blood came trickling down, beautiful and startling, so that in alarm I brought my hand up before my eyes and stared, and saw, hanging smoothly down from the elbow I had just bent, another of the same shape, some five bu wide and three sun long — a mountain leech.

I stared in blank astonishment as, before my very eyes, it shrank from below even as it swelled fatter and fatter, gorging on my living blood — a blood-drinking creature with a dull, dark, glossy hide banded in tawny brown, shaped like a warty cucumber; this, you understand, was a leech.

There was no mistaking what it was for anyone's eyes, but it was so extraordinarily large that for a moment I failed even to recognize it — I could not imagine that any field, or any pond however notorious, could harbor a leech of such size.

I flung my elbow out hard, but it had evidently sunk its bite in deep and showed no sign of coming loose, so, repelled though I was, I pinched it with my fingers and tore at it, and it came away at last with a wet snap — but there was no bearing it even a moment longer, for the instant I flung it down and struck it against the ground, I understood that tens of thousands of just such creatures must have made this place their nest and their own domain, so thoroughly, it seemed, had they prepared for this — the earth beneath the sunless forest was soft, and would not crush no matter how hard I struck it.

By now my neck too had begun to prickle and crawl; I ran my open palm across it and felt something slide smoothly sideways beneath it, the back of yet another leech — and there, tucked beneath my breast, one had crept in, and another between the folds of my sash, and, growing pale, I looked carefully and found still another trailing down over my shoulder.

I leapt up unthinking, shuddering from head to foot, and dashed headlong out from beneath that great branch, and as I ran I tore off, half out of my senses, whichever ones I could remember and reach.

Whatever the case, I thought, in sheer horror, that branch just now must have been fairly crawling with leeches, and I turned to look back — and there, on I knew not which branch of that tree behind me, hung countless more, leech after leech after leech, too many to count.

And thinking so, I looked again — right, left, the branches ahead of me too — it was nothing short of the plain truth: they were everywhere, filling every branch.

Unable to help myself, I cried out in sheer terror, and then — what do you suppose happened?

At that very moment, plainly visible before my eyes, a rain of black, gaunt, streaked things came pattering down from above, falling upon my very body.

They fell too upon the tops of my sandaled feet, piling one atop another, clustering side by side until I could no longer even tell where my toes were, and, feeling them there, apparently alive, pulsing as though with a heartbeat, sucking at my blood, contracting and expanding one by one — or so it seemed to me — my senses grew faint, and a strange thought rose up in my mind.

These dreadful mountain leeches, I thought, must have massed here since the very age of the gods, lying in wait for men to pass; and after who knows how many countless measures of blood they had drunk over the long ages, at last the creatures' desire would be fulfilled, and at that moment every last leech, all of them together, would disgorge every drop of human blood they had drunk, and the earth itself would dissolve, and the whole mountain would turn into one vast marsh of blood and mud together, and at the very same moment these great trees, which blocked out the sunlight and kept it dark here even at midday, would surely, one by one, break apart piece by piece and turn themselves into leeches — yes, I was certain of it, absolutely certain."

IX

"When mankind at last comes to its ruin, I thought, it will not be because the thin skin of the earth splits open and fire rains down from the sky, nor because the great ocean rises up and swallows all beneath it — no, it will begin with the forests of the province of Hida turning into leeches, and in the end the whole world will be nothing but blood and mud, with black-streaked worms swimming through it, and that will be the world's next age — so I thought, in a kind of daze.

And indeed, this same forest had seemed like nothing at all at its entrance, and yet here I was, deep within it, in a state such as this — if I pressed on still further into its depths, surely by now every standing tree, root and all, had already begun to rot into mountain leeches, and there could be no escaping it; it seemed my very fate to be devoured to death right here — and it occurred to me, suddenly, that such wild, disordered thoughts as these must be a sign that a man draws near his hour of death.

If I was going to die regardless, I thought, then let me at least push forward one step further and see with my own eyes even the edge of that great marsh of blood and mud that the world in its ordinary dreams knows nothing of — and once my mind was made up to that, there was no more room left for squeamishness of any kind; I clawed and tore and flung away, at random, whatever was strung like beads over my whole body, plucking them off wherever my hand fell, and set off walking with my arms flailing and my feet stamping, in a manner not unlike some wild, frenzied dance.

At first it felt as though my whole body had swollen up a full size larger, and the itching was unbearable, but before long it seemed instead as though I had wasted away to nothing, and a throbbing pain set in that would not let up, and even as I trudged on relentlessly through it, more leeches kept mixing in and falling upon me all the same.

My eyes had already begun to swim, and I felt myself about to collapse, when — it seems that spot must have marked the very peak of my misfortune — as though emerging from a tunnel, I caught sight, far off, of a single hazy moon, and knew I had reached the far edge of the leech forest.

Ah, but the moment I stepped out beneath the open blue sky, I forgot everything else entirely, and flung my body sideways down onto the mountain path, crying out, let me be smashed, let me be ground to dust.

And then, whether it was gravel or needles beneath me, I no longer cared, and scraped myself against the earth, turning up the corpses of more than ten leeches beneath me, and then leapt five or six ken off to the side and stood there trembling all over.

Was it not making an utter fool of me, all of it?

Here and there on the surrounding mountains the evening cicadas had begun to cry, right at the edge of that very forest destined to become a great marsh of blood and mud; the sun hung low and slanting, and already the bottom of the ravine had fallen into darkness.

Well, I told myself, if it comes to that, better to fall prey to wolves — at least that would mean dying all at once — and the road just then happened to run gently downhill, so, little novice that I was, I slung my bamboo staff over my shoulder at some absurd angle and fled headlong down it.

Had it not been for that indescribable torment of the leeches — whether it was pain, or itching, or some unbearable ticklish agony I could not even name — I might well, out of sheer relief and joy, have gone dancing all alone along that mountain path through Hida, chanting sutras set to some heretical dance-tune; it occurred to me, in a much more practical turn of mind, that I ought perhaps to chew up a bit of seishintan and apply it to the wounds.

I pinched myself, and sure enough I had truly come back to my senses — but then I found myself wondering, what had become of that medicine peddler from Toyama? By the look of things, he must surely have long since turned to blood and sunk into the marsh of mud.

His corpse, nothing left but skin, lying somewhere in the dark depths of that forest — and worse, if some hundreds of those foul, greedy creatures had already swarmed over him to suck him down to the very bone, there would be no telling who he had ever been even if one poured vinegar over the remains.

While such thoughts ran through my mind, that gentle downhill slope proved to be a good deal longer than I had expected.

Once I had come to the bottom of it, I heard the sound of running water, and, in the most unlikely of spots, found an earthen bridge some one ken in length laid across it.

The moment I heard the sound of that mountain stream, I found myself thinking how fine it would feel to fling headlong into it, upside down, the very leeches still clinging to me that I could not otherwise rid myself of, and let the water soak them away — and I gave no more thought than that to whether the bridge might give way beneath me and that would be the end of it.

Without a thought for danger I went straight across; it wobbled a little, but I made it over without mishap.

On the far side there was another slope, and this time it was an uphill one — what a wearisome business it all was."

X

"Exhausted as I was, I thought there was surely no way I could manage to climb that slope, but just then, off ahead of me, I caught the echoing sound of a horse whinnying — Hiiin — carried faintly to my ears.

Whether it was a horse-driver coming back, or a pack train passing through, I could not tell; it had been only a short while, after all, since I had parted from that farmer that morning, and yet it felt as though some three or five years had passed cut off from any fellow human being with whom to exchange a word.

If there was a horse about, it meant, at any rate, some connection with human habitation, and the thought put fresh heart into me, so that, with one last effort, I pressed on.

By the time I came in front of a single mountain dwelling, I no longer felt the hardship of it so keenly.

It being summer, the doors and shutters stood unfastened, and being a solitary house besides, there was not even so much as a gate to speak of, thrown wide open as it was; and there on the broken-down veranda, all of a sudden, sat a man — and I, past caring about anything else by then,

called out, (I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon,) in a tone that sounded for all the world like a cry for help, all but throwing myself upon him for support.

(Excuse me, please,) I said, but he made no answer at all, his head lolling limp to one side, his face turned so far that his ear was buried against his shoulder, gazing at the figure standing in the gateway with a childish, vacant, yet oddly round-eyed stare, his whole bearing so listless that even the shifting of his gaze seemed a burden to him.

He wore a short-skirted jacket with sleeves that did not even reach his elbows, still stiff with starch, tied with a cord about the chest, and beneath it his belly bulged out fat and round as though the single small garment could barely contain it, smooth and swollen like a taut drum-head, with an outthrust navel besides, protruding like the stem of a pumpkin, which he toyed with idly in one hand while the other dangled loose in the air with the limp gesture of a ghost.

His legs lay sprawled out before him as though he had forgotten them entirely, and had he no spine at all he might have folded up flat like a shop curtain hung out to dry; and for all that, he looked to be twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, his upper lip curled back over a mouth hung agape, his nose flat, his forehead bulging.

His close-cropped hair had grown out ragged, standing up in front like a rooster's comb and flaring out at the nape to fall over his ears — whether he could not speak, or was simple-minded, I could not tell, but he looked for all the world like some youth on the verge of turning into a frog.

I was startled — my own life was in no danger from him, but the look of the man himself.

No, it was a great deal more than merely startling.

(If I might trouble you for a moment.)

Even so, there being nothing else to do, I spoke to him again, but it made not the slightest impression on him; with a thud he merely shifted the position of his head and pillowed it now on his left shoulder instead, his mouth left hanging open exactly as before.

For all I knew, a creature like this might just as soon suddenly seize hold of me, twisting at his own navel, and lick me by way of an answer, for aught I knew of what he might do.

I took a step back, but told myself that however deep in the mountains this might be, there was surely no reason to leave a creature like this all alone, and so, on tiptoe, I raised my voice a little and called out,

(Is anyone there? Excuse me,) I said.

From somewhere that seemed to be the back door came again the sound of a horse whinnying.

(Who is it?) came a voice from what seemed to be an inner room, and it was a woman's voice — and, Namu Sanbo, I thought, surely scales must be growing over that white throat of hers even now, and she would come crawling out along the floor dragging a tail behind her, and I took another step back.

(Oh, a holy man.)

came the voice, and there stood before me a small, delicately built woman, beautiful, her voice clear and cool, gentle in every manner.

I let out a great breath, and, without a word,

(Yes,)

I said, and bowed my head.

The woman knelt down, and, leaning forward as though to rise up onto her toes, peered through the dusk to make out my figure where I stood forlornly, and said,

(Is there something you need?)

She did not so much as suggest I rest, and it seemed clear from the very start that the master of the house, Tsuneyo, was away — as though it had already been decided that no guests would be taken in here.

I thought that if I hesitated any longer I would only lose my chance to speak, and it would become all the harder to ask, so I stepped briskly forward.

Bowing low and courteously, I said,

(I am crossing the mountains on my way to Shinshu — how much further might it be to a place where I could find lodging for the night?)

XI

(Why, that would still be more than eight ri from here.)

(And is there no other house nearby that might take me in?)

(No, there is none.)

she said, all the while gazing steadily at my face with her clear, unblinking eyes.

(No, well — the truth of it is, even if I were told that a mile further on there was a house where, out of pure charity, they would lay me down in their finest room and fan me all through the night, I could not, in all honesty, take another single step; anywhere would do, a storeroom, a corner of the stable, anything at all — I beg you, for pity's sake.)

I said this because I had convinced myself that the whinnying of the horse I had heard earlier could have come from nowhere else but this very house.

The woman sat thinking for a while, and then, turning suddenly to one side, took up a cloth sack, and poured out a good handful of rice into a wooden pail set near her knee, letting the water spill over the rim, and, cupping the grains in her hand, bowed her head and looked closely at them.

(Ah well, let me put you up, then — I have just enough rice on hand to cook for you, and it being summer, even if the mountain house grows cold at night, you should not want for bedding.

Come, in any case, please do come up and in.)

and before she had even finished speaking, she settled herself down heavily where she sat.

The woman rose swiftly again, coming forward, and said,

(Reverend, that said, there is one thing I must tell you first, before anything else.)

She said it so plainly that I grew rather uneasy, and said,

(Yes, yes.)

(No, it is nothing so very serious, but I have a weakness, you see — it is almost an illness with me — for hearing tales of the capital and the wider world; even if you tried to keep your lips sealed I would find myself pressing you to speak all the same, but you mustn't, whatever you do, tell me such things when that moment comes, do you understand? I shall press you quite unreasonably to speak, and however much I insist, you must be certain to refuse me and say nothing — I want your firm word on that.)

she said, as though there were some particular reason behind it.

It struck me as a strange thing for a woman of an isolated house set amid mountains of unknown height and valleys of unknown depth to say, but it was no difficult vow to keep, and so I merely nodded.

(Yes, very well — whatever you ask of me, I shall not go against it.)

The woman relaxed at once, warming to me, and said,

(Come, come, it's a shabby place, I know, but do come in and make yourself comfortable — and shall I bring water to wash your feet?)

(No, there's no need for that — if you would only lend me a rag.

Ah, and if you would be so good as to wring that rag out good and wet for me while you're at it, that would help me a great deal — I ran into a dreadful business along the way, and my body feels so foul with it that I'd like to fling it off entirely; I think I'll wipe down my back, if that's not too much trouble to ask.)

(Ah, so you've broken out in a sweat — my, it must have been terribly hot for you. Wait just a moment — they say that for a traveler, nothing is a finer treat than a hot bath the moment he reaches his inn, and here I can't even properly offer you so much as tea, let alone a bath — but if you go down the cliff behind the house, there's a lovely clear stream there, so perhaps it would be best if you went there and washed yourself off properly.)

Just hearing of it made me want to run there at once.

(Ah, that would be better than anything else I could ask for.)

(Well then, let me show you the way — and it happens I need to go wash the rice just now anyway.)

and, tucking that same wooden pail under one arm, she stepped down from the veranda in a pair of straw sandals, then crouched down to peer beneath the wooden floorboards and pulled out a pair of old wooden clogs, which she clacked together to knock off the dust and set out neatly for me.

(Do put these on — you may leave your sandals here,)

I raised my hand, bowed once, and said,

(You are too kind, truly, this is more than I deserve,)

(Now that I've taken you in as a guest, this must be some bond from a former life, they say — so you mustn't be shy with me at all.)

Now that, I must say, was a dreadfully smooth way of putting things."

XII

"(Come now, follow me this way,) she said, and rose, clasping that rice-washing pail to her, a hand-towel tucked into her slender sash.

Her hair, thick and full, was gathered up with a comb tucked in and secured with a hairpin — and the beauty of her figure just then was beyond anything I can describe.

I too made quick work of untying my sandals, and gladly accepted the old wooden clogs, and as I rose from the veranda I happened to glance over — and there was that simple-minded fellow again.

He too turned and gave me a sidelong glance, and let out some foolish, garbled sound like a man with a stunted tongue trying to talk, saying,

(Sister, coe, coe.)

and, looking utterly listless, he raised a hand and stroked at that wild, unkempt head of hair.

(The priest, is it? The priest?)

At that the woman, dimples forming in her round, full-cheeked face, nodded briskly three times in quick succession.

The young man grunted, then slumped limply again and went back to twisting and twisting at his navel.

I felt so wretchedly sorry for him that I could not bring myself to look up, and stole a glance instead — the woman seemed entirely unconcerned by any of it — and just as I was about to follow along behind her, an old man came stepping out suddenly from behind a hydrangea bush.

He seemed to have come around from the back of the house, still wearing his straw sandals, a tobacco pouch and its netsuke dangling from a long cord, a pipe clamped between his teeth, and he came to a stop beside her.

(Well, if it isn't the reverend, come along in.)

The woman turned toward him and said,

(Uncle, how did it go?)

(Ah, well now — if you want to know what a thick-headed, dull-witted fool looks like, that's the very picture of it.

He's the sort that nothing short of a fox spirit itself could ever hope to lead by the nose, but that's exactly what my tongue is for — I'll play the go-between neatly enough, and see to it the young mistress wants for nothing these two or three months, and tomorrow I'll have the whole thing settled and hauled straight here for good measure.)

(I do hope you'll see to it, then.)

(Understood, understood. Ah, and where might the young mistress be off to now?)

(Just down to the water at the cliff for a moment.)

(Now don't you go taking the young reverend and tumbling into the river together, I'll keep a sharp eye out and wait right here,) he said, and sprawled himself out sideways on the veranda.

(You hear what he says, reverend.)

she said, looking at my face and smiling.

(I'll go by myself,) I said, stepping to one side, and the old man gave a low chuckle,

(Ha ha ha, well then, off you go, quick now.)

(Uncle, we've had two rare guests here today of all days — at a time like this, who knows but another might show up after — and with only Jiro here, whoever comes would be at a loss; would you mind resting there until I get back?)

(Of course, of course.)

and with that the old man shuffled closer to the boy's side and gave him a solid thump on the back with a fist that looked for all the world like a crowbar; the boy's belly wobbled loosely, and he screwed his mouth up as though about to cry, then grinned.

I turned my face away with a shudder, but the woman seemed entirely unmoved by it.

The old man opened his mouth wide and said,

(While you're gone I'll just go and steal this husband of yours.)

(Yes, well, that would be quite a feat if you managed it. Come now, reverend, shall we go?)

I had the feeling the old man was watching us from behind, but I simply followed as she led me along the wall, in a direction quite different from where the hydrangeas grew.

Presently, at what seemed to be the back gate, I saw a stable off to the left; the clattering sound must have been the horse kicking at its boards, and already the dusk had begun to gather thick around that spot.

(Reverend, this is where we go down — you won't slip, but the path is very rough, so do go carefully,) she said."

XIII

"It seemed that this was indeed where we were to descend; there stood a pine, absurdly thin and impossibly tall, its spindly trunk bare of even a single small branch for some five or six ken up. We passed beneath it, and, looking up, I saw the moon showing white above its crown, its shape no different here than anywhere else — though where in the world the ordinary world might be, I could not have said; it was the night of the thirteenth.

The woman's figure, walking ahead of me, had slipped from my sight, and, catching hold of the pine's trunk, I leaned out to look, and found her just below.

Looking up at me, she said,

(It drops away suddenly here, so do take care.

I wonder if those high clogs are too much for you here, reverend — if you like, we could trade them for a pair of sandals.)

She seemed to have taken my hanging back as a sign that I was struggling to walk, but for my part, tumble down or not, I only wanted to hurry along and wash off the filth of those leeches.

(No, no, if it comes to that I'll simply go barefoot — please don't trouble yourself over me, I couldn't bear to cause the young mistress any worry.)

(Oh my, 'young mistress,' is it,) she said, her voice rising slightly, and laughed a rich, glamorous laugh.

(Yes — I believe that's what the old man called you just now, but perhaps you're a married lady?)

(Whatever the case, I'm old enough to be your aunt, reverend, at any rate.

Now come along quickly — sandals would do well enough, but you might get a splinter in your foot, and besides, they'd be damp and clammy, which I'm sure you'd find unpleasant.)

she said, speaking with her back to me, and hitched up one side of her hem sharply.

Something pure white flashed through the darkness, and as she walked it seemed like frost melting away before my eyes.

On and on she went, striding briskly down the path, when out from the thicket at the roadside came lumbering a toad.

(Oh, how horrid.)

she cried, and leapt away to the far side, kicking her heels up high behind her.

(Can't you see we have a guest with us? Tangling yourself around a person's feet like that — aren't you being greedy? You lot ought to be content with sucking up insects.

Do come right along, reverend, it won't do you any harm.

Living in a place like this, even creatures such as that grow fond of people — isn't it dreadful? It's almost embarrassing, as though you and I were friends. No, that won't do at all.)

The toad went lumbering off again, pushing its way back into the grass, and the woman strode on ahead.

(Now, step up onto this — the ground is too soft and crumbling to walk on here.)

And indeed, a great fallen tree lay there, its trunk showing through where the grass had parted; once I stepped up onto it there was no trouble even in my high clogs, for though it was only a bare log, it was tremendously thick — though by the time we had crossed the whole length of it, the roar of the stream struck suddenly against my ears, and it was quite some distance before we reached the far end.

Looking up, I found the pine tree nowhere in sight any longer; the moon of the thirteenth night had sunk a good deal lower, hanging now half over the peak of the mountain we had just come down, so vivid and clear it seemed almost within reach of my hand, and yet its true height was beyond all reckoning.

(This way, reverend.)

the woman said, and now, just one step more, she stood waiting below, in sight.

There the whole ground had already given way to rock, and the water of the mountain stream ran over the rock to form a pool just there; the river was perhaps a ken across, and standing so close to the water the sound of it was not so very loud, its beauty rather like strung pearls unstrung and set flowing — while off in the distance came instead the tremendous roar of water shattering against rock.

The far bank was again the foot of another mountain, its peak sunk in utter darkness, but from the ridge on down, where the moonlight struck across its flank, everything as far as the eye could see, without exception, was rock — great stones and small, some shaped like turban shells, some cut square as if to six shaku, some like blades, some round as balls — growing larger and larger the closer they came to the water, until those soaking in it looked like nothing so much as small hills."

XIV

"(It happens the water's risen nicely today, so we needn't even go in — this will do well enough,) she said, and, dipping the tops of her feet in and curling her toes, stood there on the flat rock, her bare feet white as snow.

On the side where we stood, the foot of our own mountain pressed close against the water, forming what looked exactly like a cut-out hollow, into which this slab of rock seemed to have been fitted as though made to order.

Neither the upstream nor the downstream reaches were visible, but that rocky mountain opposite curved back on itself like a winding, zigzag path, and the stream, five shaku here, three shaku there, a ken further on, grew more and more distant upstream, appearing and vanishing among the rocks as though stitched between them, every stretch of it bathed in moonlight like so many suits of silver armor, while the part nearest to us tossed and turned pure white, as though unraveling threads shaken loose.

(What a splendid stream it is.)

(Yes, indeed — this water has its source in a waterfall. Anyone who travels through these mountains hears, somewhere along the way, a sound like a great wind blowing.

Didn't you notice it yourself, reverend, on your way here?)

And indeed I had — I recalled hearing just such a sound a little before I entered that great thicket of mountain leeches.

(Isn't that only the wind striking against the forest?)

(No, everyone says that at first — but about three ri off the side road from that forest there is a great waterfall. They say it's the finest in all of Japan, but the path to it is so steep that not one traveler in ten ever makes it there.

They say that waterfall grew violent — it was just thirteen years ago now — and there was a terrible flood; the riverbed rose clear up to a height like this one, and the village at the foot of the mountain, the mountainside itself, the houses, all of it was swept away without exception.

Even this hollow up here once held some twenty houses of its own. This very stream came into being at that very time. Do look — every one of these stones, all of them, came down in that flood.)

By now the woman had finished washing her rice entirely, and stood there with her collar loosened, the edge of her breast just faintly visible, her full bosom thrown back as she stood; her nose held high, her lips pressed together, she gazed rapturously upward toward the peak, but the moon still shone only on the piled boulders halfway up its flank.

(Even now, looking at it like this, it still frightens me.)

she said, and I was bending down washing the upper part of my arm when,

(Oh, reverend, if you go about it so properly and politely your robe will get soaked — how unpleasant that would be. Do take everything right off and wash yourself thoroughly, and I'll pour the water over you.)

(No, I—)

(No such thing — look, look, the sleeve of your robe is already dipping in the water, isn't it,) she said, and all at once, from behind, she took hold of my sash, and, despite my writhing and shrinking away, stripped it clean off me without the slightest mercy.

My own teacher had been a strict one, and mine was a body meant for chanting sutras — I could not recall ever having so much as bared my own skin before another soul.

And now, before a woman besides, it was as though a snail had been driven clean out of its shell; I could not so much as open my mouth, let alone struggle with my hands or feet, and simply hunched my back, pressed my knees together, and drew myself in tight, while the woman took the robe she had stripped from me and draped it lightly over a branch nearby.

(I'll just leave your robe here like this — now then, your back, let's see — there, there, hold still.

As a reward for calling me 'young mistress,' your auntie here is going to take good care of you — aren't you a wicked one, though.)

she said, catching one sleeve up between her front teeth and laying her bare arm, smooth and round as a jewel, openly across my back — and then, looking closely, she said,

(Oh my,)

(Is something the matter?)

(You've gone all over in what look like bruises.)

(Ah, yes, that would be it — I did have a dreadful time of it.)

Even now, recalling it, it makes my flesh crawl."

XV

"The woman's face showed astonishment, and she said,

(So it happened in the forest, then — how dreadful for you.

Travelers say that in the mountains of Hida it rains leeches, and that's the very place they mean.

You didn't know of the bypass, reverend, and so you went straight through the very nest of the leeches themselves.

It's a wonder your life was even spared — that place sucks the very life out of horses and oxen alike.

But it must be itching something dreadful, throbbing like that, mustn't it?)

(By now it's turned to more of an ache than anything else.)

(In that case, scrubbing with something like this would only chafe your soft skin.)

she said, and her hand touched me soft as cotton.

Then, from both shoulders, down the back, along the sides, over the hips, she poured water in gentle streams and rubbed it in.

And you'd think it would strike cold clear to the bone, but it did not, not at all.

It was the hot season, mind you, and by all rights it ought not to have felt this way — whether it was my own blood running hot, or the woman's own warmth, the water she washed me with sank into my body in the most agreeable way; they do say, after all, that the finest water has a certain softness to it.

The feeling was beyond all telling, and though I could hardly have grown drowsy from it, I found myself drifting off all the same, the pain of my wounds fading away, my mind growing distant, and pressed close as I was against the woman's body, I felt myself wrapped as though inside the petals of a flower.

Hers was a beauty that seemed hardly fitting for a mountain dweller, rare even in the capital, not to mention it — and yet there was something delicate, something fragile in her bearing besides; even as she washed my back, her breath came quick and secret, hah, hah, and again and again I told myself I really ought to stop her, and yet, in that same rapturous daze, even while fully aware of it, I let her go on washing me.

And on top of it all, whether it was the mountain air or the woman's own scent, a faint, lovely fragrance rose about us, which I took, at the time, to be nothing more than her own breath close behind me."

The holy man paused there a moment, and said,

"Ah, you're closer at hand — would you trim the wick a little brighter? A dark room hardly suits a tale like this; from here on I mean to lay it out plainly, without holding anything back."

The holy man's figure, lying pillow to pillow with mine, had grown dim and indistinct in the failing light; I quickly brightened the lamp-wick, and the holy man, smiling faintly, went on with his tale.

"Now then, so it went on, and before I quite knew it, in a state neither waking nor dreaming, I found myself wrapped softly within that strange, wonderful, fragrant, warm flower, until it had covered me entirely — legs, hips, arms, shoulders, neck, and at last, little by little, my very head — and with a start I sat down hard on the rock, and just as I flung my feet out into the water, thinking I was about to fall, a woman's hand came from behind, over my shoulder, and pressed against my chest, and I found myself held fast.

(Reverend, don't I smell of sweat, being so close to you like this? I get dreadfully hot, you see, so even doing this much leaves me in quite a state.)

she said, and I, feeling her hand there upon my chest, flung it off in a panic and stood there stiff as a pole.

(Forgive me,)

(There's no need — no one's watching us, after all.)

she said, quite composed, and I saw then that she too had, at some point, slipped off her clothes, and stood there before me, her whole body bared, smooth as glossed silk.

How could I have helped but be startled beyond words?

(I've grown so plump, you see, that it's almost embarrassing how hot I get — these days I come here two or three times a day just to wash the sweat off like this; whatever would I do without this water. Reverend, your hand-towel, if you please.)

she said, and handed me the one she had wrung out.

(Now wipe your feet off with that.)

and before I knew it, my whole body had already been thoroughly wiped down. It's a bold thing to tell you all this, but — ha ha ha ha ha."

XVI

"And indeed, seeing her like this, she looked quite unlike her clothed self — her flesh full and rich, her skin plump and soft.

(I went into the stable earlier to see to things, and the horse's wet breath got all over me, it's a nasty feeling.

Since we're already here, I might as well wipe myself down too.)

she said, in a tone as easy and familiar as a sister chatting with her own brother.

She raised a hand to hold back her dark hair and wiped firmly under one arm with the towel, then stood wringing it out with both hands afterward — a figure pure as snow, cleansed now by this same sacred water; the sweat of a woman such as this, one might almost think, would run pale pink rather than clear.

Running a comb through her hair once or twice, she said,

(My, and here I am carrying on like such a tomboy — whatever would happen if I fell into the river? If I came floating down to the village below, whatever would the villagers make of me, I wonder.)

(They'd take you for a white peach blossom, I should think.)

I said, the thought striking me suddenly, without any particular meaning behind it, and our eyes met.

At that she smiled, delighted, so freshly and innocently that in that one moment she seemed to grow seven or eight years younger, and, with the shy modesty of an unmarried girl, cast her eyes down.

I looked away at once, but even so I could see, out of the corner of my eye, her figure there, bathed in moonlight, wrapped in a thin mist, reflected against the far bank where a great smooth black boulder, wet with spray, seemed to hold her image tinged faintly blue, as though shining clear through the stone itself.

And then, you see — though the dimness of night kept me from seeing it clearly, there seemed, from the look of the place, to be some kind of cave there.

Fluttering, and fluttering again from our side too, an enormous bat, big as a bird almost, swept across my sight and blocked my view.

(Oh no, that won't do — don't you know we have a guest here?)

the woman cried out, as though struck by surprise, and writhed where she stood.

(Is something the matter?) I asked, feeling a good deal steadier now that I had my robe properly back on.

(No, nothing,)

was all she said, and, looking rather embarrassed, she turned sharply around with her back to me.

Just then a small, mouse-gray creature about the size of a puppy came scampering up, and before I could even think, oh, it had leapt sideways off the cliff and through the air, landing squarely on the woman's back from behind.

Her bare standing figure seemed to vanish from the waist up, so tightly had the thing clung to her.

(You brute, can't you see we have a guest?)

she said, her voice tinged with real anger, and then,

(You lot are far too impudent,) she said sharply, and, as the creature tried to peer out from under her arm, she whipped her head around and struck it hard on its own head.

It let out a shrill, strange cry, and the little creature sprang backward again into the air, and, catching hold with its long arms of the very branch where her robe had been hanging, dangled there for a moment before flipping itself up and over onto the branch and scrambling straight up the tree — and what could it have been, if not a monkey?

It seemed to move branch to branch, and soon, rustling and rattling, it reached the very top of a tree so tall one had to crane one's neck to see it.

The moon, having cleared the mountain ridge, shone faintly through the sparse leaves near that treetop.

The woman seemed genuinely put out, as though sulking — this latest mischief made three in all, what with the toad, and the bat, and now the monkey.

She looked truly put out by this last piece of mischief, in the way a young mother often is when her child has carried on and grown too boisterous.

She was, in fact, growing genuinely angry.

Wearing just such an air, she put her clothes back on with a look of weary annoyance, and I, asking nothing further, made myself small and waited in silence."

XVII

"She was a woman gentle yet with a core of real strength in her, easygoing in manner and yet somehow always composed underneath, familiar and at ease and yet with a refinement not easily trifled with, the sort who, whatever came, would seem to take it in stride without the least alarm — and I thought to myself, nothing good could come of provoking such coquettish anger in a woman like this; to be treated harshly by her now would leave me no better off than a monkey fallen from its own tree, and so, timid and fearful, I kept myself small and waited — but as it turned out, the fear of it was worse than the thing itself.

(Reverend, that must have struck you as quite comical, I imagine,) she said, as though the memory of it had struck her too, smiling warmly now,

(There's simply no helping them.)

and just like that, we were as easy with each other as before; her sash was already tied again.

(Well then, shall we head back home?)

and, tucking the rice-washing pail under one arm, she slipped her sandals on and stepped briskly up the cliff.

(It could be dangerous, so—)

(No, I've got the way of it well enough by now.)

I felt sure I had the way of it too, but when I actually came to climb, I found the way up a good deal higher than I had expected.

Presently we came again to that same fallen tree trunk we had crossed before; as I said earlier, the wood lying there in the grass, fallen on its side, had a look to it exactly like scales, and it's a common enough saying that pine trees resemble great serpents.

And here, winding its way up the cliff at just such an angle, the shape of it seemed made to order for calling such a comparison to mind, and I could not help thinking of a snake with a body just that thick, its head and tail hidden away in the grass while the whole vivid length of it lay there plain in the moonlight.

Recalling that moment on the mountain path, my legs went stiff with fear all over again, even now.

The woman, ever thoughtful, kept looking back at me and watching out for me carefully.

(When you cross this, you mustn't look down.

Right about the middle the ravine drops away terribly deep, so it's a bad thing indeed if your head begins to spin.)

(Yes, I understand.)

There being no time to hesitate, I laughed myself into it and stepped up first.

Notches had been cut into the wood to give one's foot purchase, so that as long as one's nerve held steady, it was possible to walk it even in high clogs.

But that was exactly the trouble — the moment I stepped up it wobbled and swayed, soft and slippery beneath me as though it might slither out from under me at any moment, and with a cry I flung a leg over it and sat myself down hard, straddling it.

(Oh dear, what a faint heart you have.

Those high clogs really are too much for you here — do trade them for these instead. There now, be a good listener and do as you're told.)

By that point I had somehow come to feel a certain awe toward this woman, without quite knowing why, and, right or wrong, I had come to feel that whatever she said was simply to be obeyed, so I put on the sandals as she told me.

And then, listen to this — even as she herself put on the high clogs, she took hold of my hand to help me along.

At once my body felt lighter, as though a weight had lifted from it, and I followed easily along behind her, and before I knew it we had come out again at the edge of the back gate of that same solitary house.

Just as we arrived, someone called out to us.

(Well now, I thought you two were taking your time about it — so the young reverend's come back just as he was, has he.)

(What are you talking about — Uncle, what about watching your own house?)

(It's about time now, anyway — if I leave it too much later the road will give me trouble, so I thought I'd bring the gray out and get ready before long.)

(You must have had a long wait, then.)

(Not at all — go and see for yourself, your husband's perfectly safe and sound. No, my charms weren't quite enough to win him over after all, ha ha ha ha.)

and, laughing heartily at his own meaningless joke, the old man went shuffling off toward the stable.

The boy still lay there in exactly the same spot, unmoved — it seems even a jellyfish won't melt away unless the sun gets at it."

XVIII

"Hiiin! There, there, there — the sound of hooves came clattering around from the back gate, echoing against the veranda, and the old man led a horse out in front of the gate.

He planted himself firmly, holding the bridle, and said,

(Young mistress, I'll be off now just as I am. And you be sure to treat the reverend well while I'm gone.)

The woman had drawn the andon lamp close beside the hearth and was bent low, tending the fire beneath the pot, but she looked up now, resting the hand that held her iron fire-tongs upon her knee, and said,

(Take care on the road.)

(No need to fuss over me so.

There!)

and he gave a tug on the rough rope halter.

It was a gray-roan horse, unsaddled, powerfully built, though its mane was thin — a stallion, this one.

Now about that horse — it's not as though horses are any great novelty to me, but it had been standing there meekly behind the boy, looking rather at loose ends, and just as the old man went to lead it away, it suddenly sprang lightly out onto the veranda, and I said,

(Where is that horse being taken?)

(Ah, out to the horse market around Lake Suwa, it is — from here it'll cross the very mountain path you'll be walking tomorrow morning, reverend.)

(Now, you're not thinking of riding off on that thing to make your escape this very moment, are you.)

the woman cut in hastily, calling out.

(No, no, heaven forbid — a man on pilgrimage resting his legs on horseback, I'd never think of such a thing.)

(It's not the sort of horse that looks fit to carry a man in any case.

You've had your life spared already tonight, reverend — best behave yourself and let the young mistress take care of you safely within her sleeve tonight.

Well then, I'll be off for a bit.)

(All right.)

(You brute.)

he said, but the horse would not budge.

Its great muzzle twitched and quivered visibly, twisted around toward us, and it seemed to keep its eyes fixed intently on where we stood.

(There, there, there — you brute, what a wild, unruly creature this is — hyah!)

He hauled on the rope this way and that, but the horse stood planted as though its legs had taken root in the ground, not budging in the least.

The old man grew thoroughly exasperated, striking it, beating at it, circling round and round the horse's body two or three times, but it would not take a single step.

When he finally threw his own shoulder against its flank as though to ram it forward, the horse only lifted one foreleg a little before planting all four legs firmly again.

(Young mistress, young mistress!)

the old man bellowed, and the woman rose briefly, her white toes flitting quickly across the floor, and took shelter behind a thick, soot-blackened pillar, keeping herself just out of the horse's line of sight.

Meanwhile, he pulled out a limp, faded hand-towel tucked at his waist, the color of something long stewed, and wiped the sweat from the deep wrinkles carved into his brow, girding himself as if to say, now this will do it, and went around to the front of the horse once more — but it would not so much as sway an inch, exactly as before, so he took hold of the rope with both hands, planted his feet together, and, leaning back as though to arch himself backward, threw the whole force of his body into it with a great grunt.

And then — what do you suppose happened.

With a tremendous whinny the horse reared, flinging both forelegs up into the empty air, and the small old man was sent tumbling backward, flat on his back — thud! — and a cloud of dust rose pale in the moonlight.

Even the boy must have found this funny; just this once, he held his head straight and steady, his thick lips gaping open wide, baring his large teeth, and that hand of his that always hung loose in the air fluttered back and forth, back and forth, as though stirred by a breeze.

(What a lot of trouble he is,)

Flinging the words out, the woman thrust her feet into her sandals and stepped out briskly onto the earthen floor.

(Now don't you go getting the wrong idea, young mistress, it's not you the brute's after — no, it had its eye fixed on the reverend there from the very start, seems he must have some worldly bond with the creature.)

A worldly bond — now that gave me a start.

At that the woman said,

(Reverend, on your way here, didn't you happen to meet someone along the road?)"

XIX

"(Yes — just this side of Tsuji I met a peddler of Hangontan medicine from Toyama, and he went on ahead of me down this very road.)

(Ah, I see.)

she said, letting slip a knowing, satisfied smile, and glanced toward the gray-roan horse — its manner so utterly ungainly it seemed almost unbearably comical.

It seemed a perfectly easy matter to press further, and so I said,

(By any chance, did he not come by this house?)

(No, I know nothing of him.)

she said, and in that instant she became again someone utterly not to be trifled with, so I fell silent; and the woman, glancing toward where the small old man lay beneath the horse's forelegs, brushing the dust from his clothes, having given up all further struggle, said,

(There's simply no helping it,) she said, and, all but tearing at it, began to untie her narrow sash, and, catching up the end just as it was about to trail on the ground, hesitated a moment.

(Ah, ah.)

came a thick, muffled voice from the boy, who stretched out that long, spindly hand of his, and the woman handed him the sash she had untied; he coiled it up in his lap, artless and feeble as a spread-out furoshiki cloth, guarding it there as though it were some precious treasure.

The woman drew her collar closed, holding it pressed beneath her breast, and stepped quietly out onto the earthen floor and moved swiftly to the horse's side.

I could only watch, utterly dumbfounded, as she rose up on her toes, stretching herself upward, and, her hand moving with a lithe, sweeping grace through the air, stroked the horse's mane two or three times.

and then stood herself squarely before its great muzzle.

Her stature itself seemed suddenly, smoothly, to grow taller; the woman's eyes fixed steady, her lips pressed shut, her brows relaxed into an expression of utter rapture, and every trace of her charm, her coquetry, her homely, familiar warmth vanished at once, so that she seemed for all the world some goddess, or perhaps some demon.

At that moment the mountains behind the house, the peaks beyond, standing tall and straight to left and right, before and behind, seemed each to turn its beak toward us and raise its head, as though peering down together into this single fallen hollow of another world — down at the old man kept waiting off to one side, and at the beautiful woman standing beneath the moon, facing the horse — and a gloomy, oppressive air, the very spirit of the deep mountains, came gathering close around us.

Just as I felt something like a warm, tepid gust of wind pass by, she slipped one shoulder free of her robe, drew her right arm out as well, brought it around in front, and, gathering up the single kimono she had been wearing there at her full breast, rolling it into a bundle, stood there with not so much as a wisp of mist to cover her.

The horse's hide, along its back and belly, went slack, and it seemed almost drenched through with sweat, and its stiffly braced legs went weak and trembling; it lowered its muzzle to the ground and, letting fall a great clump of white foam from its mouth, seemed about to buckle its forelegs and go down.

At that instant she put a hand beneath its jaw, and, with the other, flung the rolled kimono lightly up to cover the horse's eyes — and no sooner had she done so than, quick as a hare, she twisted her body backward, flinging it over, and, in the hazy moonlight thick with some uncanny presence, for a moment her bare skin seemed caught between the horse's forelegs, but, snatching up her robe and gathering it about her even as she moved, she slipped clean beneath its belly and came out again at its side.

The old man seemed to have understood exactly what was happening, and, seizing the moment, gave the rein a sharp tug, so that the horse set off briskly, its sturdy legs carrying it up the mountain path — shan, shan, shan, shan-shan, shan-shan — and in no time at all it had passed clean out of sight.

The woman had already thrown her kimono back on and came in through the veranda, and when she suddenly reached to take back her sash, the boy, seeming reluctant to let it go, held it fast, and, raising a hand, tried to press it against the woman's chest.

She swept his hand away sharply and gave him one hard, stern glare, and at once he let his head droop limply; the whole scene, in the faint light of the andon lamp, seemed almost like some fleeting vision, but just then a bundle of brushwood on the hearth flared up with a lick of flame, and the woman hurried quickly inside.

And from somewhere far off, about where the moon must have been passing behind the sky, I caught, faintly, the sound of a packhorse driver's song."

XX

"Now then, after that came the time for the meal; the tray held pickles of the mountain household's own making — pickled ginger, boiled wakame, and a miso soup with some salted mushroom whose name I never learned — no, this was nothing like carrot and dried gourd shavings, I can tell you.

The dishes themselves were modest, but her cooking was truly fine, and I was famished besides, and blessed with such gracious service on top of it all; she sat with the tray set on her knees, resting her elbow upon it and her cheek in her hand, watching me eat with what looked like real pleasure.

The boy, still out on the veranda, seemed unable to bear being left alone and ignored any longer, and came shuffling forward on his knees, dragging that great swollen belly of his over to sit beside the woman, sprawling into a loose, slouching cross-legged heap, and kept staring fixedly at his own tray, pointing at it again and again.

(Uh, uh, uh, uh.)

(What is it now? You'll eat yours later — can't you see we have a guest?)

The boy screwed up his mouth into a pitiful expression and shook his head.

(You don't want to?

There's no helping you, is there — very well then, eat together with him.

Reverend, if you'll excuse us.)

I set down my chopsticks without thinking, and said,

(Please, don't trouble yourselves on my account — I'm already receiving far more than I deserve.)

(No, no, reverend, it's not you at all.

It's this one here — he could perfectly well eat together with me later, but no.

He really is a difficult one, this boy.)

she said, her manner never once slipping, and quickly made up another tray just the same as mine and set it out.

The way she served the rice had all the diligent, devoted bearing of a proper wife, and there was, besides, something indefinably refined about her, an air of good breeding, of a household of some standing.

The boy raised his dull, clouded eyes and glared fixedly down at the tray, and said,

(That one, ah, ah, that one.)

and looked restlessly all around him.

The woman watched him closely, and said,

(Now, isn't this good enough?

You can have that other thing any time — tonight we have a guest.)

(Mm, no, no.)

he said, rocking his shoulders and belly, his mouth puckering as though he were about to cry.

The woman looked thoroughly at her wit's end, and I could not help feeling for her in her trouble.

(Young mistress, I don't know what it is he wants, but wouldn't it be best simply to do as he says?

Your concern for my sake only troubles my conscience the more.)

I said, as courteously as I could.

The woman asked once more,

(Don't you want it? Is there something wrong with this?)

and as the boy looked ready to burst into tears, casting her a reproachful, sidelong glance, she took something out of a bowl from within a rickety, battered cupboard and quickly set it on his tray.

(There.)

she said, with a deliberate, mock-sulky air, forcing a smile onto her face.

Well now, what a troublesome business, I thought — surely he'd be devouring some rich stew of green rat-snake right before my eyes, or a whole steamed monkey fetus, and even if the worst of it passed me by, surely he'd be gnawing great mouthfuls of dried red frog — and stealing a glance, I saw him take up his bowl in one hand and pull out, of all things, an old, well-aged pickled daikon.

And not even sliced, mind you — a whole thick, fist-sized chunk cut into no more than three pieces from a single radish, which he clamped sideways in his mouth and set to devouring.

The woman seemed truly at the end of her patience with him, and, stealing a glance at me, flushed suddenly red, as bashful as an innocent young girl — though she hardly seemed the type for it — and pressed the end of the hand-towel on her knee to her mouth in embarrassment.

No wonder, I thought, that the boy had grown to be the shape he was — his whole body swollen and colored just like that pickled daikon.

Before long he had made short work of his meal, without any need for tea to wash it down, and let out a loud, laborious breath, huff, huff, off to one side.

(I'm afraid I've had quite enough already — it seems to have settled rather heavily in my chest, and I find I have no appetite left at all just now, so if you'll allow me, I'll take the rest later,)

I said, and the woman, without so much as touching her own chopsticks, cleared away both trays herself."

XXI

"For a while she sat there looking rather downcast.

(Reverend, you must be quite worn out — shall I let you rest at once?)

(You're very kind, but I'm not the least bit sleepy yet — after washing myself earlier, my exhaustion has quite completely faded away.)

(That stream works wonders on any illness at all. Even when I'm worn down with worry until my body's nothing but skin and bone, if I soak myself there for half a day, I come away feeling fresh and full of life again.

And even now, come winter, when the mountains freeze over entirely, and the river and the cliffs alike are buried in snow without exception, that very spot where you bathed just now, reverend, never once freezes over — the water there keeps flowing, and steam rises up from it even then.

Monkeys with old bullet wounds, reverend, and night herons with broken legs, all sorts of creatures come there to bathe, so many that their footprints have worn a path along the cliffside — I'm sure that must be exactly what's done me such good.

If it's no trouble to you, please do stay and talk with me a while longer like this — I get so terribly lonely. It's shameful to admit, really, but shut away like this in the mountains, I feel as though I've almost forgotten how to speak at all, and it leaves me feeling so uneasy.

But reverend, if you're truly sleepy, please don't hold back on my account.

There's no proper bedroom to speak of here, but in exchange there's not a single mosquito, you know — the people down in town, when the folk from up in this hollow come to stay the night and they try to hang a mosquito net over them to sleep, don't know how to get inside it, and go shouting for a ladder to be brought — or so people tease us, at any rate.

You could sleep in as late as you like and never hear a temple bell, nor a rooster crowing — there isn't even a dog about, so you needn't worry over any of that.

This man too was born and raised right here in these mountains, so while he doesn't know the first thing about the world, he has a good-natured heart, and you needn't feel the least bit of reserve around him.

Even so, when someone dressed differently from us comes by, he does at least know enough to treat them with respect and bow to them properly — though he hasn't given his greeting yet, has he.

These days his body seems to tire easily, and he's become quite the lazybones.

No, it's not that he's entirely simple — he understands everything perfectly well, in his own way.

Now then, do give your greeting to the reverend.

My, have you forgotten how to bow?)

she said, leaning in close and familiar, peering into his face, speaking with brisk affection, and the boy set both hands unsteadily on the floor and bowed once, abruptly, as though some spring inside him had snapped.

(There now,) I said, and, my chest tightening with some feeling I could not name, I bowed my own head as well.

In the very act of bowing, the strength seemed to drain clean out of him, and he began sliding sideways, when the woman gently caught and raised him up, saying,

(Oh, well done, well done.)

with a look on her face that seemed to say what a fine, splendid thing he had done,

(Reverend, I think if I tried, he could probably learn to do almost anything — but this illness of his is one that neither the doctor's care nor even that water of ours could ever cure. He can't stand on his own two legs, you see, and so whatever I might teach him to do, it would come to no practical use in the end.

And look at him, even a single bow like that seems to leave him quite worn out.

It must be a dreadfully painful struggle for him to learn anything at all, and thinking it would only torment his body for nothing, I've let him be and taught him nothing, so that, little by little, he's forgotten even how to move his hands, and how to speak.

And yet, you know, he can still sing a song or two.

There are still two or three he remembers even now.

Come now, won't you sing one for our guest?)

The boy looked at the woman, then looked me over closely, staring at my face, and, in the manner of someone shy before a stranger, shook his head."

XXII

"After some coaxing, the woman urging him on, now encouraging, now cajoling, the boy tilted his head to one side and, playing all the while with his navel, began to sing.

Even in summer Kiso's Mount Ontake is cold,

I'd send him a lined robe, and tabi besides.

(He knows it so well, doesn't he,) the woman said, listening intently, and smiled.

Strange to say, the boy's voice as he sang was — well, you who are listening to this tale now can hardly imagine it, and even I myself, though I had already guessed at something, found it as different as the moon from a turtle's shell, as heaven from earth; from the turns and cadences of the melody, the rise and fall of it, the way the breath sustained itself — above all, that pure, cool voice was simply not, could not possibly have been, a voice coming from this boy's own throat.

It sounded, if anything, as though the boy's own self from some former life were sending the sound down through a tube from the underworld itself, straight into that swollen belly of his.

I sat there in reverent stillness until the song was finished, my hands pressed to my knees, unable to raise my face and look at the two of them there before me; something ached sharply in my chest, and the tears came falling, one after another.

The woman seemed to notice it at once, quick-eyed as she was, and said,

(Oh my, reverend, is something the matter?)

For a moment I could not speak at all, but at last, little by little,

(No, it's nothing out of the ordinary, truly — I won't ask you anything further about yourself, young mistress, so please don't ask me anything either.)

I said this without explaining the particulars, simply speaking from what welled up within me — but the truth was plain enough already from all I had seen: here was a woman of such rich, voluptuous beauty that, decked out in golden hairpins and jeweled combs, draped in butterfly silks and shod in pearl-studded slippers, she might have stepped straight into the palace at Lishan to be embraced there as an empress — and yet the gentleness, the openness, the tender care with which she treated that poor man moved me so, even though it was no affair of my own, that the tears came spilling from me before I knew it.

At that, she — being no woman to fail at reading what lay within another's heart — seemed to grasp the whole of it at once, and said,

(You truly are a kind man, reverend.)

and gazed steadily at me, her eyes filled with some indescribable feeling.

I lowered my head, and she too bowed hers, just slightly.

Ah, but the andon lamp seems to have grown dim again — no doubt this too is the boy's doing.

It was just at that moment.

The mood in the room had gone flat, and in the silence that followed, with nothing to occupy him, our singing master, it seemed, had grown bored, and let out an enormous yawn right in front of the andon lamp, as though he meant to swallow the flame whole.

He shifted his body restlessly,

(Sleep now, sleep now,) lurching his body about unsteadily.

(Have you grown sleepy? Off to bed now?)

she said, but then, sitting back up straight, seemed suddenly to think of something, and looked all about her.

Outside it was bright almost as midday; the moonlight came slanting softly into the wide-open house, and the color of the hydrangeas showed a vivid, brilliant blue.

(Will you be turning in yourself now too, reverend?)

(Yes — thank you for all your trouble on my behalf.)

(Well now, let me get your bedding ready right away — do rest easy.

It's rather close to the outside here, but in summer, after all, the more open it is, the better, I should think — we'll sleep in the back room ourselves, so you're welcome to spread out comfortably here. Just wait one moment.)

she said, and rose at once, stepping briskly down onto the earthen floor; her movements were so brisk and lively that, with the motion, her dark hair, still curled at the tip, came loose and tumbled down over the nape of her neck.

She pressed a hand to the loosened hair at her temple, caught hold of the door, and peered out toward the darkness, murmuring to herself,

(Oh dear, oh dear, it seems I dropped my comb in all that commotion earlier.)

And indeed she must have, right when she slipped beneath the horse's belly."

XXIII

Just then the sound of footsteps came from the corridor below, someone walking quietly with long, unhurried strides — audible clearly enough in the surrounding stillness.

Presently it seemed he had gone to relieve himself; the sound of a rain-shutter being slid open reached us, and then the clink of a dipper against the wash-basin.

"Ah, it's piled up, piled up good,"

muttered the voice of the innkeeper, the master of the Katoriya.

"Ha, it seems our merchant friend from Wakasa must have found lodging somewhere after all — I wonder if he's off dreaming some pleasant dream right now."

"Please, go on, what happened after that."

To one so eager to hear the rest, this idle talk was maddening, and I pressed him, without ceremony, to continue.

"Now then, the night had grown late,"

the itinerant priest said, and took up his tale once more.

"You can likely guess most of it already, but however exhausted I was, sleep simply would not come in a solitary house like that, deep in the mountains, just as I've described it to you; and besides, my mind was somewhat troubled, and, what with her having kept me up talking in the first place, my eyes stayed wide open and alert, though at last, worn out as I truly was, my thoughts began to grow hazy and dull — in any case, I could think of nothing but longing for the first light of dawn.

At first, without quite meaning to, I found myself pinning my hopes on the sound of a temple bell, thinking, will it ring now, will it ring soon, surely enough time has passed by now, I told myself, puzzled — until it struck me at last that a place like this could hardly have any mountain temple nearby, and all at once a great uneasiness came over me.

By then the night lay, one might say, at the very bottom of a ravine in darkness, and once even the boy's loose, untroubled breathing in sleep had gone quiet, all at once some presence began to stir outside the door.

It sounded like the footfalls of some beast, though not one that had come padding from far off; I told myself, for whatever comfort it gave me, that this must simply be the haunt of the monkey, of the toad — but no, it was nothing so simple as that.

After a while I sensed that whatever it was had drawn close to the door directly in front of me, and then it turned into the bleating of a sheep.

I had been lying with my head pointed that way, you understand, so it was right there beyond the door, just past my own pillow.

After a while, from somewhere beneath where those hydrangeas had bloomed off to my right, came the sound of a bird's wings beating.

Whether it was some flying squirrel I could not say, but it went shrieking up onto the ridge of the roof, and then something that felt, by its very presence, to be the size of a small hill came pressing close enough to weigh upon my very chest, and then an ox lowed, and from somewhere far off came something running toward us at a light, quick pace, pit-pat, pit-pat, which I took to be some beast walking on two legs shod in straw sandals — indeed, all manner of things seemed to come crowding thick and close around the house on every side, the breathing and the beating wings of what must have been twenty or thirty creatures, and among them some that seemed to be whispering to one another.

It was as though — how shall I put it — some hell-scroll depicting the realm of beasts had been cast, uncanny and vivid, into the moonlit night, with nothing but a single wooden door between us and it; whether these were the mountain's own demons and goblins I cannot say, but there came a rustling, stirring sound, as of leaves shivering in the wind.

Holding my breath, I heard, from the back room,

a long, drawn breath, and a single cry — (Mm,) — it was the woman, moaning as though in the grip of a nightmare.

(We have a guest tonight.)

she cried out.

(Don't we have a guest tonight?)

After a while, a second time, her voice came clear and cool.

and then, in the faintest of whispers,

(We have a guest tonight.)

she said, and then came the sound of her turning over in her sleep, and turning over yet again.

The presence of those things outside the door seemed to swell into a single great tumult, and the whole house shook and swayed as though it might come apart.

I recited a dharani to myself.

Should any fail to heed this spell, and trouble the preacher of the Law,

may his head split into seven pieces, like the branches of the arjaka tree;

let his sin be as the sin of one who slays his own father and mother, or as the calamity of one who presses oil in wickedness,

as one who cheats his fellow men with false measure and scale, or as the sin of Devadatta who broke apart the Sangha;

whosoever offends against this teacher of the Law shall meet with just such calamity.

I recited it with my whole heart and mind undivided, and at once a gust of wind swept up the leaves and blew away toward the south, and then all at once fell utterly still; the couple's bedroom too fell silent."

XXIV

"The next day, again around noon, near the village, at a spot where there was a waterfall, I met the old man on his way back from selling the horse the day before.

It happened to be just at the moment when I had given up my pilgrimage and was thinking of turning back to that solitary house, to spend the rest of my life there together with the woman.

To tell the truth, on the way to that spot I had thought of nothing else — there had, mercifully, been no bridge of snakes this time, nor any forest of leeches, but with every difficult stretch of road, with every unpleasant trickle of sweat, it struck me all the more that there was no longer any point in continuing my pilgrimage.

What, after all, would it amount to, even if I came one day to wear the purple kasaya and dwell within some great temple complex of seven halls? To be worshipped and clamored over as a living Buddha would only leave me sick with the stifling press of the crowd, and nothing more.

It's a rather delicate thing to speak of, so I didn't lay it all out plainly before, but last night, once she had put the boy to sleep, the woman came again to sit by the hearth with me, and told me that rather than go off into the world to suffer hardship, I ought instead to stay right there beside her, by this stream that stayed cool in summer and warm in winter — and though on its own that might well seem nothing more than some demon's spell cast over me, here was the excuse I could give myself for it: I found myself unbearably moved with pity for the woman, tending to that boy day after day in a solitary house deep in the mountains, unable even to exchange a word with him, feeling, as the days passed, as though she were forgetting even how to speak at all — what a thing that was!

And this very morning, especially, when at dawn I finally tore my sleeve free from her grasp to take my leave, she said, how sorry I am to part with you — living out my life here, growing old and withering away in a place like this, I shall surely never see you again; but should you ever, somewhere, see a white peach blossom floating down some small stream, think of it as my own body, sunk into the ravine and torn to pieces — and, drooping with sorrow as she said this, she still took the trouble, most kindly, to tell me that if I simply followed the course of this same mountain stream, however far it might be, I would surely come out at a village in the end, and that when I saw the water leaping and tumbling down into a waterfall just below, I should take heart, knowing that human habitation lay near — and she pointed the way for me carefully, right up until the solitary house passed out of sight behind us.

Even without ever so much as taking her hand in mine, simply to stay always at her side, her companion in talk morning and evening, sharing meals over mushroom soup, I feeding the fire with kindling while she set the pot to boil, I gathering nuts from the trees while she peeled them for me, and then, talking and laughing together on either side of the shoji screen — and then, the two of us together at that mountain stream, she bare before me as she had been, her breath reaching my back, myself wrapped warm within that same delicate, fragrant flower — if only I could have that, I would gladly let my very life slip away right then and there!

Even now, looking at the water of the falls, it was that very thought that I found unbearable — ah, even telling you of it now brings the cold sweat out on me.

On top of that, my resolve had already begun to slacken, my legs to weaken, and I had grown weary of walking altogether, so that even the news of a village drawing near, which ought to have gladdened me, meant nothing more, at best, than being served some bitter tea by a foul-smelling old crone — and I lost all desire even to enter the village, and sat myself down with my knee against a rock, right where the waterfall lay just below me — which, I learned afterward, was called the Meoto Falls, the Husband-and-Wife Falls.

Right at the center there jutted out a great black boulder, its tip sharp as the gaping jaws of a crocodile, and the swift-flowing mountain stream, rushing down from above, struck against it and split into two, falling together in a single roaring plunge of some four jo, and then, weaving itself into white cloth against the dark green depths below, shot on toward the village like an arrow loosed from a bow; the stream on the side blocked by that rock ran some six shaku wide, cleaving the river's whole breadth in a single unbroken thread, while the other ran narrower, only some three shaku, and beneath it lay what looked like a scattering of countless jumbled rocks, so that the water broke there, glittering and flickering, as though a beaded curtain had been shattered into a thousand fragments, brushing against and clinging to that same crocodile-jawed boulder."

XXV

"It looked for all the world as though that narrower stream longed to cross over the rock and cling fast to the other, the male falls, even by a single thread, but held apart as it was, not a single drop could pass through to the end, and it seemed, in its being buffeted and shaken about, to be tasting every kind of suffering there was; this one had a wasted, worn look to it, its very form grown thin, and even the sound of its falling seemed different from the other, as though it wept, or nursed some grievance — a pitiable, gentle thing, this female falls.

The male falls, by contrast, had a force to it fit to shatter stone and pierce the very earth, a magnificent, commanding presence — and to see these two, struck apart by that same rock, split to left and right into two separate streams as they fell, struck me to the very core; the sight of the female falls, its heart breaking, was like a beautiful woman clinging to a man's knee, weeping and trembling all over, so that even standing there on the bank my own body shuddered, my very flesh seemed to leap within me.

And knowing, besides, that upstream from here lay the very spot where I had bathed with the woman of that solitary house only the day before, it seemed to me — whether it was only my imagination or not — that within that female falls the woman's own figure appeared, as vivid and distinct as a painting, rising up to the surface only to be swept under again, sinking and then rising once more, her very skin seeming to shatter to powder amid the thousand scattering threads of water, as though flower petals were falling and scattering through it.

And no sooner had I gasped at the sight than she reappeared whole once more — her face, her chest, her breasts, her arms and legs restored entire — rising and sinking, shattered apart in an instant, and then, before I could even cry out, appearing again whole before my eyes.

I could not bear it, and thought I would fling myself headlong down into the falls and take that female falls fast in my arms.

Coming to myself, I found the male falls roaring on, shaking the very earth with its sound,

calling forth echoes from the mountains as it thundered on.

Ah, with such power as that, why could it not save her — well then, so be it!

Rather than fling myself into the falls to die, I would turn back to that same solitary house.

It was precisely because of some shameful desire within me that I had come this far and still stood hesitating; if I could only look upon her face again and hear her voice, I told myself, I would not mind sharing a pillow beside that couple even as they lay together as man and wife — surely that would be a far better thing than sweating my way through endless austerities only to end my days a mere monk — and, my mind made up, I rose from the rock to turn back, when someone struck me once upon the back from behind, and said,

(Well now, reverend.)

Coming as it did just then, with my mind in the state it was, and my conscience already uneasy, I turned with a start, half expecting some messenger of the Lord of Hell himself — but it was only the old man.

He had sold the horse, it seemed, and traveled light now, a small bundle slung over his shoulder, and in his hand, a straw cord run through its gills, dangled a single carp — its scales gleaming gold, so fresh and lively it looked as though its tail might still be flicking, a good three shaku in length.

I could say nothing at all, struck suddenly speechless, and simply stared at him, and the old man gazed steadily back into my face.

and then grinned at me — not any ordinary sort of grin, mind you, but an unpleasant, knowing little smirk — and said,

(What are you doing there, reverend — a man on pilgrimage oughtn't be resting on the riverbank over a bit of heat like this; you'd best walk on with all your might, it's a bare five ri from where you lodged last night to this spot, and by now you ought to be down in the village paying your respects at the Jizo shrine.

What's this, then — has your heart grown fixed on my young mistress, and worldly passion got the better of you?

No, no, don't try to hide it from me — my eyes may be red-rimmed, but I can still tell white from black well enough.

Truth be told, any ordinary man, once the young mistress had laid her hand on him and treated him to that water of ours, would have had no business remaining a human being this long.