Snow in the Wilderness

English translation of the prose

AI-assisted English translation of the prose; quoted poems remain in Japanese. The Japanese original remains authoritative.

Originally published: 2020-02-26.

This material was published on the Japanese website. Dates and notices in the text reflect the time of original publication.

Seishu Hamano

English translation of the prose narrative. The quoted line of verse remains in Japanese. Two short expressions whose wording or meaning is uncertain in the source are also retained and explicitly noted. Character names without a verified reading retain their Japanese spelling.

Spring was still young in Muro. A fine mist wavered along the ravine and, seeming about to settle low over it, slowly crept upward toward the pagoda and temple halls. The stream had hushed its voice and waited motionless for the mist to leave the surface of the water, little by little.

The arched bridge leading to the temple caught a faint light on its vermilion railing, welcoming 瀬島志保 as she reached its foot.

When had she last been here?

志保 wondered as she looked toward the dark temple halls rising in the distance. She had visited countless times and should have known the place intimately, yet it even felt as though she were coming for the first time. Had it been when the leaves were newly green? Yes, her husband had been with her. Takashina would be returning later than the appointed hour, he had said; they had plenty of time, so why not look around the halls? At his invitation, she had crossed this bridge.

That day her husband had carried a paulownia box containing a Joseon-dynasty tea bowl with a white slip coating, wrapped in a cloth and tucked protectively under his arm. Takashina was to buy it. When she said he should have asked to leave it at Takashina's house, since an accident would be dreadful, he had shaken his head. No, he could not do that until he formally delivered it. No doubt he meant to bow reverently before the master, then take out the bundle at his leisure and open it for him to see.

At the thought, she had suddenly found it distasteful to walk beside her husband. Had she already begun to draw away from 瀬島 then?

Having crossed the bridge, she asked to visit the temple. Whether because the hour was still early or because the cold kept people away, there were no other visitors in sight. The bare earth of the path beside the river, leading toward the Niō Gate, held the rain that had fallen at dawn. Cold. As she began to walk, feeling the earth through the soles of her footwear, her eyes came to rest on the water beside her.

It was certainly since their previous visit that she had begun to see her husband with different eyes. Was this a place suited to looking steadily into one's own heart, rather than at another person, or was it simply a turn of fate? Perhaps something throughout this mountain had the power to change the two of them, this particular husband and wife who had first met here. Even this stream had no need to think of building a weir or diverting its course, yet it demanded such a change of them. Is it all right to be carried along forever just as you are? How long will you linger with your body immersed in that flow, whose filth shows through? It spoke to her.

Taking the passage through the Niō Gate as her opportunity, 志保 turned her eyes from the stream and began slowly climbing the stone steps that appeared on her left. Ancient cedars towered on either side, deciding for her that there was only this one way ahead. Silently, concentrating on the ground beneath her feet, she planted each step until suddenly the space in front of her opened out. The Golden Hall shone in the morning sun. An unexpectedly bright space lay there.

On her last visit, too, she had felt relieved when she reached this point. In those days she still kept a feeling of expectation in a corner of her heart. 隆志 was in the first year of high school, and 深雪 was in junior high. There had been youth for her too—or at least the pleasure of waiting to see what they would become. There had been a quickening of the heart, rather like standing before this very Golden Hall and watching the drops lodged along the upturned edges of its wooden-shingled eaves catch the morning sun, swell little by little, and turn into beads of light. But what of now? Was there anything at all still being created?

志保 went up to the hall and, standing on the surrounding veranda, looked back along the path she had taken. Last time, she had done so leaning against a veranda post. Rhododendron blossoms had dotted both sides of the Yoroi-zaka steps. Now the stone stairway before her lay sunk in darkness, and even the rhododendron leaves were blackened. It was difficult to believe there had ever been days when she admired those pale pink flowers.

Was she to go on now, past the Initiation Hall and the five-storied pagoda, with the sixth sacred site to one side, and climb all the way to the Inner Sanctuary? The thought seemed to sap her will. A rope twisted firmly together was coming unraveled and slowly breaking apart. Was she to climb stone steps while living such a life?

志保 cast her gaze at something close by. Anything would do, so long as it was close. Looking up, she saw the densely fitted rafters arranged in two tiers around the Golden Hall's eaves. It seemed strange that they should remain in their place across the years, their splendid form intact. A little of the vermilion paint had flaked away, but nothing had changed. There was an irony in the unchanging nature of a lifeless construction. The structure joining 瀬島 and me has become uncertain not merely beneath the eaves but down to its very foundations, she thought as she stared; the faded vermilion wood looked like a woman's skin that had lost its color and luster.

“志保, it has been a long time since you visited Murōji. Why not go around as far as the Inner Sanctuary?”

Takashina had said this early that morning as she left his house, halfway up the hillside across the river.

“Visiting at this time of year—the temple may not even be open…”

“Oh, it will be all right. I'll telephone the temple and tell them. I've known the chief abbot for years; there's nothing to worry about.”

“Even so, I would feel uncomfortable having them open it just for me.”

“You understand Buddhist sculpture very well. I'll tell them that. Stop at the temple residence first, and give them my name.”

志保 had answered yes, but she thought it cruel advice. Takashina knew perfectly well that she and 瀬島 had first met here at Murōji. If he had taken to heart what she confided last night, at the evening tea gathering they had begun a little ahead of him while still waiting for 瀬島, he ought not to have made such a suggestion. Was that, after all, what it meant for something to be another person's affair?

Though she felt sorry toward Takashina, 志保 had intended to go straight home. Somewhere along the way she could telephone and say she would not be visiting. With that in mind she had come down the long, gentle slope, but there had been no telephone near the bus stop. With no alternative, she had walked as far as the foot of the arched bridge, where the inns and souvenir shops stood, but all the shops were closed. Suddenly a rustic inn caught her eye. Its entrance lay silent. It must be in business, but she could not imagine anyone staying there. This was an inn where she and 瀬島 had stayed several times. From that window beside the Muro River, they had leaned their elbows on that railing and gazed together at the mountains edged by the morning glow. Thinking of this, she had begun to feel that perhaps she would visit the temple after all. But let this be the last time.

It was a presumptuous thought, but if she were permitted such a thing as a final look, she had thought, gazing up at the temple halls hazy in the fine mist.

There was no point in returning directly to their home in Sakai. It was not merely that she would have nothing to do: in the house where the atmosphere of her life with 瀬島 still lingered so strongly, she would have to face alone all the tangled, twisted years up to yesterday. Precisely because she could see that ahead of her, she had not wanted to start home. It might be a selfish hope to imagine that walking among the pagoda and halls could cleanse her heart, but she wanted something to hope for. The day she met 瀬島, and the younger days that followed, might return in all their ugliness, yet even that might suggest how she could live from now on. So she had told herself.

Ironically, however, as she had climbed the Yoroi-zaka steps one by one a little earlier, the first thing to return was 瀬島's liquor-scented breath blown against her ear. Only the most recent things clung to her mind. There was her husband's flushed face when he came home drunk late at night. His dutiful excuses—This is part of work too; keeping up connections matters—belonged to the distant past. For the last few years he had simply come home drunk. Much of his talk had been full of self-centered calculation about whom he had met and who might help him get ahead, but at least there had been communication.

Lately, though, her husband did not even grow talkative when he came home drunk.

“I'm going to Karatsu for a while, starting tomorrow. With all these odds and ends chasing me, I can't do any proper buying.”

Had it been about five days earlier? Late at night, 瀬島 had stepped out of a taxi at the entrance, tramped along the wooden corridor to 志保's room, and said this the moment he slid open the door. He seemed quite drunk. Roused from a doze, 志保 had answered yes from inside her bedding, but he did not seem to hear. He came over to her futon, flopped down on the tatami, twisted his neck toward her, and studied her profile in the dim light as she lay still with her eyes closed.

“Are you listening? Hey.”

Surely you have no need to ask your wife's permission now, she wanted to tell him. Usually her husband scarcely showed any sign of coming into this bedroom. Yet whenever something happened to arise, he would come straight in as soon as he returned home. It always filled her with foreboding. He would state his business without discussion and usually leave at once. Only the feeling that her premonition had proved right remained behind. That last occasion, in particular, had brought back a jumble of things she did not want to remember.

The presence of 季実, who had left 志保, kept appearing and disappearing.

You arranged days ago to stay at 季実's apartment and haven't been able to bring yourself to say so, have you? How unfortunate for you. She wanted to taunt him. Instead, 志保—

—asked in an offhand tone, “When will you be back this time? I'm going to be busy myself from tomorrow.”

志保 taught tea ceremony at home and also went out to teach, so she became busy at fixed times. Was it out of consideration for her that her husband announced business trips to coincide with them? That was why she always asked him when he would return. It had become almost a ritual, 志保 thought.

As she wondered whether that was all he had to say, 瀬島 spoke in a husky voice—

—asking, “When was the tea gathering at Takashina's house in Muro?”

“This Saturday, wasn't it? Are you planning to cancel?”

“No. When the master invites us, I can't carelessly forget.”

“More to the point, you shouldn't treat a tea gathering so lightly…”

“I know.”

Calculation showed through 瀬島's words; when it irritated 志保, he too grew tense. 志保 found it both base and pitiful that her husband always regarded other people in terms of business, and 瀬島, for his part, seemed to have much to say to her. Yet it did not become an argument. Both of them sensed that something was missing even before the point at which an argument could begin.

“Will you be back from Kyushu in time?”

“I think it'll be all right. But in case the plane is delayed or something, could you go ahead of me?”

“I don't mind, but…”

It was an empty exchange. Whatever 瀬島 might have done in the past, these days he seldom went around the kilns of Arita, Imari, and Karatsu to discover new artists. Usually he ordered dozens of pieces on the strength of photographs or samples: works made by apprentices and produced in quantity at the kilns of well-known artists whose names made them easy to sell. Sometimes he conducted this kind of business so brazenly that even she could see it, and then suddenly announced a trip at a time when there seemed no particular need for one.

She hated 瀬島 for being like that, but she was disgusted with herself as well for knowing it and still pretending not to notice, accepting what he said.

“It looks as though it'll be a rather rushed itinerary, but I'll make sure I'm back in time.”

“The last time Takashina telephoned, he said how much he liked the old Ki-Seto piece you supplied from your shop. When you go to Arita this time, why not bring him something good among the new work? Leave business out of it. He actually prefers contemporary pieces, and besides, he's been looking after us for more than twenty years, from the time we married until now. Once in a while we ought at least to do that much…”

“I know,” 瀬島 cut in disconsolately. “I was thinking of taking him something myself.”

Her husband did not seem particularly at a loss. No doubt he would choose something suitable as a gift for the Takashina household from his everyday stock. Perhaps not a scrap remained of the feeling that this was the benefactor who had sustained them through their difficult early married life. Perhaps this man had only one scheme in his mind: Takashina had shown him kindness as his wife's teacher, and so he had made use of him.

His wife's irritation had made 瀬島's brows harden again. Reading each other's minds, they spoke around the central issue. Wondering how many years they had carried on such conversations, 志保 could feel her own heart becoming more and more twisted. “What will you do if you really can't make it? Telephone at the last moment and ask him to postpone it?”

“You do go on. I'll come back. Even if I don't manage to get all the way around Karatsu, I'll come back once.” She thought that perhaps this business trip was genuine, yet at the same time she saw 瀬島 getting out of a taxi in front of 季実's apartment building and walking straight to the elevator. Of course you couldn't possibly be late. It's only an hour from 季実's place to Muro. You could take your time getting ready and still make it, couldn't you? 志保 also saw herself thinking of one accusation after another to fling at her husband. It was a wretched sight. Yet she could not be satisfied unless she made him taste her suffering too.

“Still, you must take proper care of the masters in Karatsu as well.”

Surely that must have made him suspect something. 志保 stole a look at her husband's expression. But his fleshy cheeks merely looked terribly pale, perhaps because of the light; there was not even the shadow of a rueful smile.

—

A figure climbing the Yoroi-zaka brought 志保 suddenly back to herself. An old man. Apparently the man who had taken her admission ticket at the Niō Gate. Was he going to guide her? He tottered up to the Golden Hall, then mounted the steps in one effort, unlocked the thick wooden doors, and pulled them open. The hall was dim, its damp air utterly stagnant. The old man stepped in first and shone a light at her feet, inviting her to enter. Guided by the flashlight, she took off her sandals and stepped inside. Along with the chill of the boards beneath her feet, she felt the cold air that had settled at the bottom creep upward to envelop her entire body. At his prompting, she turned vacant eyes toward the back. The principal image, Shakyamuni Buddha, stood suspended at the center of a circle of light. Even in the dimness, its features were sharply visible. To the left of Shakyamuni is the bodhisattva Manjushri, and farther left the Eleven-Headed Kannon, the old man began to explain. But 志保 was watching the folds of the robe descend like waves from Shakyamuni's chest to his belly, enfolding the full modeling of the flesh from either side. Did the power to embrace others naturally dwell in such a body? As she wondered, she suddenly remembered her husband's flesh and hurriedly turned her eyes away. “You're quite absorbed in Shakyamuni, aren't you?”

“No, not really…”

“You have a discerning eye. The workmanship is different from that of the Yakushi or Jizō on the right. Oh yes, Shakyamuni's halo is a single boat-shaped board painted in brilliant colors. Splendid, isn't it? Do have a good look.”

The beam of the flashlight darted about busily, serving as a pointer. After talking excitedly at length about the sculptures' origins, the old man paused with a sigh. A shadow of fatigue showed on his cheeks. Even so, he said, “Still, no matter how many times you worship before a Buddha, it's a blessing, isn't it?”—

—seeking 志保's agreement. When she nodded vaguely, murmuring yes, he nodded deeply in return. Surely he had had many troubles to weigh on his heart over a long lifetime; had he now reached a state in which he could go beyond every bitter memory and devote his heart to these images? 志保 envied the old man.

“Where have you come from?”

“Sakai. The southern part of Sakai.”

“Near Kanshinji? There are fine Buddhas there too.”

“No, not as far as that… Near Jōrokuji, down at the foot of the hills.”

“Well, well.” [The source's description of the old man's eye movement, “目をかせた,” is incomplete and is left unresolved here.] “Jōroku has splendid Buddhist images, and a splendid master lives there too—”

志保 could not think whom he meant by a master, and said nothing. The old man seemed about to say more, but as she took her eyes from him and looked up again at Shakyamuni, he fell silent. His gaze, however, remained fixed on her profile. Avoiding it, she walked farther into the darkness of the hall. She felt like speaking to the Buddhas that once again rose into the light. “Well then, take your time,” the old man said, handing her the flashlight, and settled heavily onto a folding stool nearby. “I'm sorry to trouble you.” “No, it doesn't matter. Take as long as you like. These Buddhas want to be seen by someone like you.”

Accepting his kindness, 志保 stepped forward before Shakyamuni, but she could do nothing to prevent her exchange with 瀬島 from rising again in her mind.

That night, after coming to her bedroom and confirming the date of the tea gathering at Takashina's house, 瀬島 had suggested inviting the master to their own home for a formal noon tea gathering with the sunken hearth. It was entirely like him to feel no embarrassment about a garden whose tea path and middle gate were little more than token features. But she could not understand why he put forward an impossible plan when he knew that, under present conditions, they could hardly hold a satisfactory gathering. After 季実 and the senior pupils had left, 志保 had only students who could barely manage the separate exercises.

She could not bear to receive Takashina 宗元 in such circumstances. Surely he could not be hinting that she should summon back 季実, who had left. 志保 found herself searching her husband's face.

“Why invite Master 宗元 to a place like this, now? What are you thinking?”

“No reason. I just thought I'd like to repay him somehow.” After saying this, her husband breathed heavily, as though his drunkenness had returned, perhaps conscious of her irritation. He remained sprawled with his back flat against the fresh green tatami. Was he about to reach slowly out and slip his hand under her bedding? If he did, what could she say to evade him? Or would she have to endure it and submit? 志保 braced herself. But 瀬島 rolled the other way, toward the alcove, and studied the scroll with its single line of calligraphy. Then, almost to himself, he said, Yes, Takashina could stay in this room… Did that mean she was to come to his bedroom that night? 志保 let it pass. Her husband asked about the ability of her present pupils. Without actually naming 季実, he also wondered what the senior pupils who had left were doing. Poor things, that was a false accusation, he said, but 志保 would not engage with that.

The occasion that prompted her to dismiss 季実 had been a full rehearsal of a tea gathering, to which she invited only the pupils she had carefully trained. 季実, who knew every detail, served as host, while 志保 took the part of a guest. As they ate the kaiseki meal, she taught them how to handle the sake-warming pot, the sake cups, the simmered-dish bowls, the grilled-food bowls, and the small soup bowls. After the main sweets, served in high-sided tiered boxes, came the interval, and they rested on the bench in the waiting shelter. Then she noticed that the barrier stone, always placed at the center of the same stepping-stone to indicate that one should go no farther, had shifted to the side and was tilting as though about to roll off the edge onto the earth. Without thinking, 志保 went to put it back. Squatting for a closer look, she found faint traces of mud clinging to each of the sprinkled stones. They continued beyond the barrier stone. Puzzled, she followed the marks and heard a man and woman whispering in the shadow of the main house. Unmistakably 瀬島 and 季実. Standing on the veranda at the rear, they seemed to be arranging a day to meet. She could not make out the details, but the fact that they were using even this brief interval for a secret rendezvous was enough. On returning, she saw the barrier stone sitting forlornly at the edge of a stepping-stone where the sprinkled water had pooled, bound crosswise with black palm-fiber rope. In its appearance, 志保 recognized her own shadow.

She would let 季実 go.

She had not made that decision out of jealousy or a wish for spiteful revenge. She had simply thought there was no other way to protect her future with 瀬島 and spare the children sorrow.

But had she really been worrying about the family's future, or their future as husband and wife?—

Looking at the image of Shakyamuni, 志保 felt ashamed that her mind kept whirling around thoughts of the mundane world, so far removed from the world of the Buddha. Yet she could not suppress them. No, rather she seemed driven by an ever stronger impulse to pour out those irrepressible thoughts.

So that was it. What had troubled her then had not been the family at all. What constantly moved back and forth inside her was something far removed from such composure, something more cruel: a wish for the other person to be hurt as much as she herself had been. Yet in casting aside 季実, a beloved pupil of many years and a distant relative of Takashina 宗元, something was buried deeper than mere desperation. Unless she could find it, she felt she could not move forward.

Or had it been attachment to her past days with 瀬島?

志保 asked herself again, but found no answer. Only the bitterness of that day returned again and again. If only she could escape this sense of humiliation. How long would it cling to her? With every recollection, she suffered and struggled for breath.

She had put the barrier stone back in its place and walked deliberately slowly through the tea garden to the waiting shelter. But the pupils, who should have been sitting side by side on round straw cushions, respectfully awaiting the sound of the bronze bell struck by the host, were nowhere to be seen. Lively voices came from inside the tearoom. The pupils who were supposed to be guests were rolling up the hanging scroll in the alcove, hanging the flower container on the central nail, burning incense, and setting the fresh-water jar in its place: performing, in 季実's stead, the procedures that rightly belonged to the host. 志保 stood rooted in shock. Were they following 季実's directions? Or, since the host showed no sign of striking the bell and their teacher had also left the waiting shelter, were they doing it on their own, as practice? 志保 tried to interpret it as generously as she could. But she could not dispel the feeling that she alone had been left behind. Young, bright, excited voices rose in little squeals from the tearoom. Is this all right? It's fine. Won't the teacher be angry? Don't worry, don't worry; she's become much gentler lately. Laughter burst out. 志保 thought she understood everything.

What she could not understand, however, was her own heart. Rikyū says, 「心の塵をなどちらすらん」.

Yet dust rose and danced in her heart, and she felt as though a wilderness filled with dust were spreading into every corner of her body. Fierce hostility toward 季実 and disappointment in her pupils assailed her. At the same time, her own carelessness ached within her: why had she not noticed her husband's relationship with 季実 earlier and taken some measured action? What had her pupils thought of her as she quieted her heart in the simple tea garden and taught them, through the changing appearances of morning and evening, how to hold the mind? Had they been learning only empty forms while turning their hearts elsewhere? In her heart, 志保 forgave those young pupils. She tried to forgive 季実 as well. But something remained.

Ever since then, she had continued to feel the unbearable thinning of her own spirit. At practice, her pupils competed only in the skill or clumsiness of outward form. She would admonish them and explain the ordinary, untroubled mind as an actually lived state, yet she could not keep her own heart from wavering. The young pupils would not have noticed, but through her own hollow self 志保 saw beyond to their lives: though far from the state of tea, they were shaken by nothing.

That day, to her surprise, winter daphne had been arranged in the alcove. Its scent is strong, and the flower is forbidden in wabi tea. 季実 could hardly be unaware of that, she thought, yet 志保 pretended not to notice.

It was only a single blossom, she told herself, arranged according to the rules, and this was not a formal gathering. Yet the piercing scent spread into every corner of the small room. Surrounded by it, she taught the procedures from inspecting the alcove through thick tea, the later laying of charcoal, and thin tea. The smell clung to her nose. 季実, according to the Secret Teachings of Standing Flower Arrangement, even the scent of winter daphne is described as harmful in various illnesses. The words rose to her throat, but she held them back and continued teaching with an effort at composure. As she taught, she searched each pupil's eyes to see whether they sensed her feelings, but found them no different from usual. 季実 knelt formally before the kettle, drawing hot water and pouring it into the bowl. The fingers of the hand that placed the ladle on the kettle curved back, slim and white in the dim light, the fine down looking fresh and young. As the principal guest, 志保 received 季実's tea and took a sip. Like a proper host, 季実 asked whether it was to her liking. Never mind that—replace the daphne. Again the words rose to her throat, but 志保 answered, “It is truly excellent.” As she sipped the tea, the scent struck her nose more sharply than ever. There she saw 季実's heart, and the almost suffocating young flesh of 季実 and the pupils seated in rows in their yūzen-dyed kimono—.

Suddenly she realized that the excited voices had ceased. She thanked the old man, who had waited patiently despite the chill inside the hall, and went out of the Golden Hall. The sun was somewhat higher, and the treetops seemed to welcome it gladly, but the outside air had grown harsher still. Cold. The old man who had guided her was having great difficulty fastening the lock. He seemed unable to move his fingers as he wished. Would he go on showing her alone around the halls with that infirm body? The thought made her feel sorry for him.

“Please don't trouble yourself about guiding me. I can manage alone…” 志保 called to the old man's back.

“Have you had enough already?” The old man turned and blinked his tired eyes.

“What about the Miroku Hall and the Initiation Hall…?” “Thank you. But I know them fairly well, so even on my own…”

“Is that so?” He seemed deflated. “But they're locked. You won't be able to see inside.”

Certainly that was true. But 志保 answered that she did not mind being unable to see the interiors. She did not seem able to return to the self of former days, moved by the spirit the sculptors and craftsmen had invested in Maitreya and in the shrine cabinet within the Initiation Hall's inner sanctuary.

Even as she viewed the Golden Hall's Buddhist images, her heart had only skimmed their surface. Without even feeling ashamed, she had stood facing them in that darkness. It seemed that she no longer had even the right to worship before them.

“Since you've come all this way, it would be good to pay your respects to the Buddhas in the other halls too.”

The old man came down the hall's stone steps as he spoke. 志保 bowed deeply and started walking, past the Miroku Hall on her left and toward the five-storied pagoda. But her steps were heavy. When she raised her eyes to the steep approach to the Inner Sanctuary, she felt the presence of the young 瀬島 standing there. 瀬島 in the guise of an itinerant monk smiled at her. 志保 lowered her eyes to her feet. She walked on, looking squarely at a self unable to reach the state in which she could cast everything aside and make an aimless journey her own. Unable to sweep away her own dust, she saw only the faults of others. Had she been looking at her husband with such arrogant eyes all this time? It had been the same when 瀬島 said he had a tea gathering and, for the first time in a long while, they went into the tearoom together so she could watch him prepare thin tea. The disturbance she had discerned in her husband then might perhaps have been her own heart itself—.

She climbed the stone steps to the Initiation Hall. She felt that her husband was inside, rinsing and checking the tea whisk. He was a young man in an informal kimono, kneeling alone in a corner of the wooden-floored hall, lifting the ladle… Yes, she had been watching her husband's handling of the silk cloth. She had been smiling. Her suspicion of him had turned into a smile that distorted her lips.

When rinsing the tea whisk, its handle touches the rim of the bowl and makes a sound in the stillness. There must be no shadow in that sound. Yet in her husband's whisk-rinsing, a faint cloudiness had briefly shown itself. Her husband of earlier days would have performed it without fussing over minor details of procedure, and that carefree manner had instead spread a refreshing clarity around him that she liked. But what was this cloudiness? Was he hesitating? If so, over what? Come to think of it, his hand had trembled a moment before as he poured the hot water into the waste-water bowl.

志保 continued following her husband's hands with her eyes. Yet she sensed no hesitation either in the left hand wiping the tea scoop or the right hand shaking out the silk cloth. Perhaps it had only been her imagination that his whisk-rinsing was clouded. Or perhaps she had been projecting the wavering of her own heart onto his movements and pursuing it there—.

She came out beside the Initiation Hall. Then 志保 stopped. The interior was utterly still, and clearly no one was there, yet she strained her ears for the sound of clothing rustling.

“What are you thinking of doing?”

A voice came from a distance. Turning, she saw the old man again, looking at her with puzzled eyes.

“You should see the Initiation Hall too, after all.”

The old man climbed up to the hall with uncertain steps, inserted the key into the lock, and opened the paneled door with a heavy sound. “Come, please,” he beckoned. The back of his hand, like crumpled paper, was covered with spots of all sizes. Holding the wooden door with one hand, he nodded repeatedly for her to enter. Perhaps he had an eye ailment; his old eyes were watery, but the gentleness of his expression drew 志保 toward him.

It was dark inside. A faint light leaked through the latticed windows on either side, but she entered by the flashlight's beam. Standing in the outer sanctuary, she felt the darkness bear down from above. It was as though she had been imprisoned in a cave. She could scarcely believe there was a raised central ceiling overhead. The darkness hung down mercilessly, and 志保 shrank beneath its weight.

As she strained her eyes, the altar platform in the inner sanctuary appeared black at the edge of the light's reach. The shrine cabinet's decorative fittings gleamed. The last time she had seen this cabinet… A distant memory flickered like a candle flame. On the day she first met 瀬島 along the approach to the Inner Sanctuary, she too had come here alone. Not knowing that an encounter that would change her life profoundly awaited her immediately afterward, she had gazed, entranced, at the seated, bare-bodied Kannon within the black-lacquered cabinet. She remembered looking on with pain at the gold-leaf skin, worn away until it resembled dull, unpainted wood. Yet the figure's pose, its right elbow resting on the raised right knee and its cheek supported by that hand, was sensuous. Could sensual beauty remain even after the skin's color and luster had peeled away? From that dim pedestal, how many young monks had it enchanted and spoken to?

By drawing in the thread of memory, 志保 brought the moment of her meeting with 瀬島 very close. Yet she could not escape the thought that her own body, having lived in the worldly realm, could no longer remotely match the flesh of this figure beyond the world before her. The day she first met her husband here, more than twenty years ago, had also been wrapped in fiercely biting cold. On leaving this hall, she had found light snow beginning to dance, while against the overcast sky the Golden Hall, built out over the slope, and the unpainted wooden Miroku Hall stood dark and deeply still, backed by old cedars. Each hall had a gentle silhouette.

When the light snow stopped, mist appeared. It had probably crept up the mountainside from the ravine. In layer upon layer it rose along the cliffside walkway leading to the Inner Sanctuary. 瀬島 had been beyond it. His face terribly drawn, seeming possessed by something, he stood in the shadow of a giant spear-pointed cedar rooted as if clinging to the edge of the precipice beside the walkway, gazing into the distance through its branches. Was he looking at the village houses? No, perhaps he was imagining the world of the Buddha. Could he be intending to enter the priesthood? After a hundred days of preparatory practice, he would master the esoteric rite of the goma fire offering and receive the samaya precepts. That young man looked like an ascetic who had only just completed the initiation ceremony. The young 瀬島's profile had even seemed dazzling. Perhaps it was because this Initiation Hall had made so deep an impression on her.

志保's eyes were held by the Kannon, its right shoulder bared and more than half of both breasts exposed. Superimposed on the image, she recalled 瀬島 as a thin young man barely into his twenties. The young man who seemed even to carry an air of nirvanic stillness had certainly etched into his hollow cheeks thoughts resembling an obsessive attachment to life. He had even seemed pitiable. A troubled, twisted state of mind appeared and disappeared, and she had meant to open her heart to him, at least until it grew calmer—.

The old man went on with his halting explanation. The hall held the echoing voice and gave birth to the shapes of many monks. But nowhere was there the figure of 瀬島 preparing tea. No, there need not even be a brazier.

If only she could hear the turning of the potter's wheel that 瀬島 had kept spinning for so many years afterward, she thought, straining her ears; yet not even the floor creaked. Had the wandering monk been cast out of the hall, rolled down the stone steps, and flung onto the frozen earth? Even so, he need only have knocked at the door. Why had he strayed down a side path? Why did he never think of washing away the smell of the world? The life they had begun twenty years earlier in their temporary lodging at Jōrokuji, south of Sakai, surely had not been a world of idle indulgence between a man and a woman.

Before the seated Kannon, 志保 could barely hold herself up as she seemed to crumble. Perhaps noticing, the old man asked whether they might move on to the next place.

Once they were outside the Initiation Hall, he asked whether she still intended to go as far as the Inner Sanctuary. She was only half inclined to do so, but wanting to be alone, 志保 answered yes.

“It's a long way, and you'll get chilled on the path. Why not come back to the temple residence first and have some hot tea before you go?”

“Thank you. But to trouble you all just for me…”

“But His Reverence has told us to do just that for you, madam.”

“Pardon?”

“You're Master 瀬島's wife, aren't you?”

Startled, 志保 looked into the old man's eyes. He was smiling, his eyes narrowed, as though to say he had known from the beginning. No doubt he had waited at the entrance as soon as the call from Takashina came, but what had he intended by not asking when they met? She could not think it merely a mischievous joke. The old man was smiling in apparent delight, intoxicated with the satisfaction of having taken someone in, but 志保 felt something she could not understand, and her face stiffened. She wondered what he had heard from Takashina, though even if she asked, he would hardly tell her the truth. It seemed undeniable, at any rate, that this kindly-looking old man before her knew something and had been dealing with her while keeping it constantly in mind. Yet why did he call her husband a master? Did even a mere merchant look like an eminent person because of the things he traded in?

“Do you know 瀬島?”

“Oh, certainly. I've heard he's a very considerable ceramic artist.” How had Takashina introduced 瀬島?

“Have you actually met him?”

“He comes to the temple often. Didn't you know?”

The old man's eyes smiled again. As 志保 struggled to say that she had known nothing about it, his face grew serious once more.

“You see, madam, when Master 瀬島 finishes a piece, he brings it here. Not all the time. But when he does, now and then, it's truly splendid. His Reverence calls him the finest of our day, and we too are given a feast for the eyes.” “He makes the pieces? 瀬島 does?” At 志保's question, the old man nodded firmly.

Surely those must be other people's work. If he was not boasting that he had fired someone else's pieces himself, he must be asking a kiln to produce his designs, having his signature added, and bringing them here. Just like 瀬島, 志保 thought. And they revered him, knowing none of this. She felt terribly apologetic toward the people of the temple.

“He said once that he tries not to bring many pieces home. But had he even kept quiet about making them?”

“When did he start?”

“Well, it's been quite a while now. Let me see—he said about five or six years ago.”

The old man stared at her. His expression seemed to ask what sort of husband and wife they could be if she did not even know that. Blushing under his gaze, 志保 searched her mind for some clue, but still thought 瀬島 was having other people make the pieces.

“Does he bring in tea bowls, and large blue-and-white platters and jars as well?”

“No, nothing as large as that. He was complaining that his workshop is small and he still can't put in a large-scale kiln.” Where had 瀬島 installed a kiln? From the way this man spoke, it sounded very much as though he had resumed making pottery.

志保 briefly thought of 季実's apartment, but dismissed it: surely he could not knead clay in a place like that. She could think of nowhere else. Though she had lived with 瀬島 for many years, she knew far too little of the world in which he lived. He did not tell her, and she took little interest. They had remained untroubled by that until they reached a point from which they could no longer move either way.

At this thought, self-reproach welled up in her: there were things she too had to reconsider; she must make more effort to understand him. Yet to do so, she would have to do something about the gulf that had opened between her husband and herself, and she had no confidence about that.

“At any rate, why not have a look? You'll be surprised, I'm sure.”

As he spoke, the old man started walking ahead. His feet were uncertain, but his back conveyed a determination that would not allow 志保 to do anything but follow.

“You say I'll be surprised—are they all such fine pieces, even though he makes only small things?”

Catching up with the old man, 志保 asked as they descended the Yoroi-zaka steps side by side. He merely nodded yes and walked steadily on.

“Are there many of them?”

“Well now…” The old man raised his gaze from his feet and glanced at 志保, then looked down again and continued walking. “It's been over a number of years, so we're not talking about five or ten.”

Were there that many? It was almost impossible to believe. Even if he would not bring in someone else's work outright, she could only think that he was having others make and fire pieces to his own designs. This trip to Kyushu, too, though he called it a buying trip, might include business of that kind. Did that mean she was now to be led to the temple residence, meet the chief abbot there, and be shown one piece after another as Master 瀬島's work—pieces she could scarcely imagine as anything but the work of other hands?

At the thought, 志保 lost her nerve and stopped halfway down the slope. What's the matter? There's no need to be shy. The old man came back and took her arm. For the first time in her life, 志保 walked the path to the temple residence feeling like a prisoner being led along a courthouse corridor to hear the verdict.

“I've brought Master 瀬島's wife!”

The old man called out from the earthen entrance floor of the temple residence, and a young female voice answered from the back of the rooms. The girl who emerged looked about junior-high-school age and wore a pale pink sweater. Grandfather's been waiting for ages. You took a very long time, she said to the old man. Then, realizing she might have offended 志保, she suddenly covered her mouth with her hand and bobbed her head. I'm sorry.

Apparently she was the chief abbot's granddaughter, and her bright manner put 志保 at ease.

She was guided along a long corridor into what seemed to be the farthest room, with a two-ken-wide alcove and staggered shelves. The girl withdrew and came back with tea. Setting the tray on the tatami, she performed a proper, fully formal bow—unusual for a child of her age. Come to think of it, her movements in opening the sliding doors had also followed the rules. There was still some awkwardness, but 志保 liked the freshness and absence of affectation. There was far more heart in her than in the young city girls of today who came to study tea halfheartedly. Watching her with that thought, 志保 suddenly saw herself as a child again. Yes, it had been at about this girl's age that she began going to Master Takashina 宗元. The master had still been young then too—in his mid-thirties, or perhaps not yet so old. As he sat upright in a dark-blue Yūki silk kimono, she had timidly lowered her bobbed head before him in an imperfect formal bow. 志保, you needn't be so tense, he would say to her faintly trembling shoulders. Yet at the beginning of every lesson, she always trembled from too much tension. 志保, Master Takashina is a very great teacher. The head of the school has entrusted Sakai, the home of tea, to him.

Long ago in Sakai, there was a great man called Sen no Rikyū, who spread the practice of tea. So Master Takashina may become as great as Rikyū.

Every time she met Takashina, 志保 recalled these words of her mother's. From junior high school into adulthood, through the years that followed, and even when she was old enough to supervise lessons on his behalf, her awe of Takashina had never changed—.

“How old are you?” 志保 asked the girl.

“Fifteen.”

“I see. And you can bow so properly…”

“Oh, I'm no good. The teacher still scolds me because my back isn't straight enough.”

“The teacher?”

“Master 宗元. Oh, didn't he tell you about me? The other day he said that when he next saw you, he'd tell you he had a new pupil who was your second self, very like you when you were little—a mischievous modern girl, but with a remarkably similar air.”

At the evening tea gathering at Takashina's house, there had been no mention of this child. Instead, the master had felt sorry for 志保 as she worried about 瀬島's late arrival, then spoken about the time when she and 瀬島 first met, and gone farther back still, to her high-school days—.

The girl's name was 夕布子. Showing no shyness before 志保, whom she was meeting for the first time, she moved her clear eyes brightly. He's also told me, Master 志保 wasn't a tomboy like you. 夕布子 laughed, showing white teeth.

Carried along by this carefree manner, Takashina must have casually said he would tell 志保 about her when they met. Yet given yesterday's subjects of conversation, it would not have been unnatural for the child to come up.

On reflection, though, it was curious. Ever since withdrawing to Muro, Takashina had stopped taking pupils. Once she had asked why, but received no satisfying answer. Why, then, had he now accepted 夕布子 alone? Of course—the chief abbot must have asked, and he had been unable to refuse.

In lively 夕布子, 志保 sensed an expansive vitality absent from her own childhood, and continued talking, finding it pleasant. Indeed, when the girl nodded repeatedly, the way her chin jutted a little and the hair at her temples touched her cheeks faintly resembled 志保 as a child. But her disposition was wholly bright. One could almost call her the exact opposite of 志保, who had always been timid and inclined to retreat. As they talked, 志保 kept denying that her own image was present in 夕布子. It was then that the chief abbot, 下村道雪, entered.

“夕布子, you may leave us now.”

“Oh, Grandfather, Master 志保 isn't frightening at all. Master 宗元 says it would do me good to be scolded by her once, so I wondered what a frightening teacher she must be…”

Rising as though driven out by 道雪, 夕布子 said, Master 志保, please do teach me the tea procedure next time, and left.

She had heard that 下村道雪 was an old friend of Takashina's, but he looked fully twenty years older. He seemed to be approaching his seventy-seventh birthday. After the conventional greetings, he observed every courtesy, saying how often he had heard of her from Takashina.

The conversation turned to 瀬島. I first met him in the tearoom at Master Takashina's house. The Shino bowl fitted my hands so softly and fully that I asked the master where he had obtained it. He said it was the work of the second guest, and that was how it began: I took the liberty of asking whether he might make one for me too.

As he spoke, 道雪 rose and brought down a tea bowl from the staggered shelves. It was a Shino nerikomi bowl, made with kneaded, patterned clay. The glazing was generous; from its uneven application, she could see signs that, after the bowl had been formed thickly on a hand-turned wheel, the glaze had apparently been applied directly without a preliminary biscuit firing. This was certainly a method 瀬島 had liked. Yet if he simply asked a potter, the potter would surely follow those steps properly.

志保 realized that, rather than being unable to believe 瀬島 had made it with his own hands, she did not want to believe it even as she was being driven to a point where she had no choice. That was something she had not expected.

“Master 瀬島 seems especially fond of Shino,” 道雪 said, gazing admiringly at the bowl in 志保's hands. “Black bowls are good for thick tea, but this is good too. Whatever anyone says, I use Master 瀬島's Shino.”

“Are there others?”

Before 志保 could even ask, 道雪 stood and brought two more bowls from the staggered shelves. One was gray Shino with slip decoration; the other was Shino with contrasting areas of glaze. Two crane motifs were boldly drawn on the gray Shino. A white crane spread both wings and soared through the sky; behind it, a black crane spread its wings in the same way and kept close. The black one could have been the white crane's shadow, but to 志保 they looked like a male and female beating their wings powerfully together. Where had this boldness come from? Nowhere was there the hesitation that had shown in his rinsing of the tea whisk. She had never imagined that 瀬島 could paint a design like this, yet throughout the construction there was her husband's distinctive manner of working the clay, and that could not be denied. Unmistakably it was the work of 瀬島's own hands. What caught 志保's eyes more than ever before was the vitality brimming in the painting: the two cranes in flight were filled with a majesty that allowed nothing to approach. Moreover, unlike the tortoiseshell and cypress-fence patterns her husband had once favored, the whole was wrapped in a sensuous grace to be found only in living things.

There was no sign of painstaking concern for the outward-curving rim or the effects around the foot that tea practitioners favor. The finish was thoroughly characteristic of Shino in its “背勢.” [The meaning of “背勢” in this sentence is uncertain in the source and has not been conjecturally translated.]

“When was this made?”

志保 asked, keeping her eyes lowered to the bowl in her hands.

“It was the first piece I received after asking Master 瀬島. About five years ago, perhaps. Still so vividly young, isn't it? At my age, I often feel almost pushed aside by the energy of the person who made a piece of pottery. That gray Shino overwhelmed me. When I told Master 宗元, he said he felt the same. Master 瀬島 has recovered himself, he said; he brings things that only someone released from long suffering could create. And I thought that was exactly right.”

She could scarcely believe 道雪's words. Here was an artist bearing no resemblance to her husband, that merchant gleaming with grease. How had Takashina seen her husband, who never worried about anything? Was he overestimating him too, as he had when he praised an inept pupil like 志保 to her mother as having an exceptionally good natural sense?

She recalled last night's tea gathering at Takashina's house again. Her husband had never appeared, owing to work, and in the end she had conducted the entire evening gathering face to face with 宗元. When she lamented her husband's irresponsibility, she now remembered, 宗元 had said something oddly protective of him.

志保, if 瀬島 hasn't appeared, there must have been some unavoidable circumstance. Well, couldn't we let that be? Unless one forgives most things, one cannot do good work.

志保 had answered yes, and Takashina had said no more, but as he continued nodding as if to make her understand what she could not accept, his eyes had seemed unusually stern—.

“Madam, would you like to see more? If so, come to this room.” 道雪 started walking ahead. 志保 rose unsteadily and followed. They went around the gallery and past several guest rooms, then, with a courtyard of stone lanterns and pagodas on their left, stepped down into the tea garden, walked beside the waiting bench, and entered the tearoom through the full-height guest entrance. The stepping-stones had been sprinkled with water, as though preparations were being made for a tea gathering, but there was no one in the tearoom and no sign of preparations in the service area either.

This way, Master 志保. 道雪 called from farther inside. Looking, she saw a new, separate building across a small stream, with a brand-new covered passage bridging it. For a moment her feet faltered at the sensation that she had become a Noh actor passing from the mirror room along the bridgeway and into the musicians' place. The chorus sounded, the seated recitation began telling old stories at will, and the small and large hand drums played insistently, yet the actor could not decide whether she was the principal, the supporting role, or the comic interlude, and stood utterly bewildered behind the entrance curtain. Those around her noticed her state, yet, unconcerned, tried to drag her onto the stage. Here is where I feel at ease, in the mirror room—no, only in the hut of the tearoom can my heart be quieted! She might cry out, but no one would pay her any heed. The audience clamored from the viewing area. Hurry up and take the stage. Why hesitate? With your own eyes, confront the questions you have had for so many years.

“What's the matter, Master 志保? Come, this is the room. Look—Master 瀬島's works fill it to the brim, just as you see.”

By the time she stepped onto the connecting bridge, guided by the voice from the back of the room, the small and large drums had already fallen silent. The clamoring audience had vanished too. All that remained was 志保, wholly become a guilty person about to receive a beating.

“Please take your time. I'll leave you for a little while.”

When 道雪 went out, 志保 was forced to confront the multitude of works, whether she wished to or not. Eight tiers of shelves covered the entire wall of the six-mat room opposite the alcove, and tea bowls and larger bowls were arranged almost to fill them. There were incense containers and plates as well. Small serving dishes in the “whose sleeves” shape, coated in Oribe glaze, also caught the dull light entering through the shoji. She could see the thought given to the clay and glazes. There was no room for doubt now. She felt 瀬島's fingers in every piece. Her husband's fingers, which no longer sought her flesh, had unmistakably explored something abundant and from it created, one by one, forms of rich, glittering beauty. It was hard to believe that the finger pads she had thought filthy and lascivious could produce such chaste refinement, yet every form carried an air of mature elegance.

志保 watched herself grow rapt and intoxicated. She had thought the works would attack her and go on beating her; instead, what struck her were a man's fingers clasping the supple curve of a woman's fingers. The fingers of the thin young man were not there. What was there was a fleshy hand gliding over the smooth surface of colored glaze. Yet 志保 even felt that she might surrender her softly drowsing body to this unimpeded movement of the fingers.

“Master 志保, Grandfather says…” A voice sounded far away. “He says I should show you the hill behind the temple.”

It was 夕布子 who had entered the room.

“The hill behind?”

“Yes. Where Master 瀬島's kiln is.”

So this was where he fired his work, 志保 thought; perhaps sensing the thought, 夕布子 shook her head.

“He hasn't been making the pieces here, then?”

“It's a climbing kiln being built now. Five little clay kilns run up the slope in a row. They're lovely.”

夕布子 stared at 志保's hesitation, unable to understand it. 瀬島 has told me nothing. Truly, 夕布子, isn't it natural for me to hesitate? Someday you too may face a day like this and have to endure it.

志保 looked at 夕布子 with the desperate feeling of speaking to herself as a girl. The pale sunlight caught the girl's sweater at the shoulder, making it seem to blaze dazzlingly. Her lips slightly parted, her eyes puzzled, she waited for 志保 to leave the room. 志保 could not superimpose her own gaze on 夕布子's. Though she had recognized her younger self in the endearing taper of the girl's chin, it seemed terribly pitiful to lodge herself there. On the stage toward which 瀬島 was pressing forward, she knew no act other than to cast light on days that had passed.

Following 夕布子 along the mountain path, 志保 saw another self falling away from 瀬島 for the first time. Her husband was climbing to a height she could not reach. It would probably be 瀬島 and 季実 who lit the kiln and fed it firewood without respite. The sweat she had shed twenty long years ago, helping to fire the kiln without sleep or rest, had dried from her body, and now there was nothing she could do about it.

The mountain path was winding and steep, reminding her of the cliffside walkway to the Inner Sanctuary. Perhaps accustomed to it, 夕布子 walked lightly. Moving now behind, now ahead, she seemed always to watch over 志保's slow steps.

“Master 志保, listen.” Suddenly 夕布子 stopped and turned. “How do you feel about Master Takashina?”

“How do I feel?”

“I think Master Takashina may be in love with you. Because he talks about you so often.”

“夕布子, that couldn't possibly be. We're different from you young people.” 志保 laughed as she gently reproved her, but the girl did not laugh.

“No, he's loved you for a long time. I'm a woman too; I can tell. Do you remember yourself when you were little? Master 宗元 remembers you very well…”

“It isn't right to decide something like that on so little, 夕布子.” At 志保's words, the girl shook her head fiercely.

“At last night's evening tea gathering, Master Takashina didn't tell you about me, did he?”

“I'm sorry, 夕布子, but I didn't hear anything.” “I thought so. It would be hard for him to bring it up himself. But he did suggest you visit the chief abbot of this temple, didn't he?”

“Yes, but only as I was leaving, this morning.”

“But I think he and Grandfather must have been discussing it for some time. When the call came this morning, Grandfather—

—said, So she's finally coming. And I think he brought you here so you could see Master 瀬島's pottery. But I thought it wasn't enough just to show you that. Not for Master Takashina's sake.”

It seemed that inviting her to the kiln had been 夕布子's own decision.

“Why?”

“Apparently Master Takashina wanted you to know Master 瀬島 properly. Grandfather feels the same. I think they believe a marriage goes well only when each person has something in the other to respect. But that wouldn't solve anything. It would just be a deception on the surface.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Master Takashina would never be happy. Even if he thinks he wants you to get along with Master 瀬島, that isn't his true heart. Really, even if it meant destroying your happiness together, he wants you… Because he can't do that, I think he's watched over you all these years. So, Master 志保, if you dislike Master 瀬島, you should leave him and go to Master Takashina. I've always wondered what kind of person you were. I thought you would surely understand; if I met you and talked to you, I could make you understand Master Takashina's feelings. Forgive me for interfering. I'm still only a child…”

As she spoke, 夕布子 began to sob. Without a word, 志保 put an arm around her shoulders and kept walking. If she had been able to act like this child when she was young, perhaps her life too might have taken a different course. Savoring the bitterness of that thought, she saw a self who could no longer change.

“夕布子, thank you. I'm grateful you told me.”

“I'm sorry, Master 志保. But I can't pretend I haven't seen. Because, you see…”

Beyond the thicket, the ground became level, planted with a grove of plum trees. Swelling buds covered the branches, and some had opened into flowers. Weaving between the branches, 夕布子 took 志保's hand and pulled her in. Here, Master 志保, it's here.

The view suddenly widened. Behind the plum grove rose a hill, and the climbing kiln built into it showed a fresh skin of earth. Once the firing mouth was built, they could try lighting it.

“Because, Master 志保…” 夕布子 scratched the kiln's surface with her nails. “Ever since Master 瀬島 started building the kiln here, he's come many times to look at the work. But he's always with the same woman, and they look so happy. I can't bear to watch. When the workmen leave, that woman is alone with him, and she goes bounding up the path built beside the climbing kiln. And then, like this…”

夕布子 ran up the side path and, beginning at the top, went into each kiln in turn, peeping out with an air of delight and waving to 志保 below. Out and in, out and in, one after another, she acted like a little girl absorbed in hide-and-seek, but her eyes were swollen from crying.

Master 瀬島 gets as excited as a child and runs along with her. As 夕布子 said this, holding back sobs, tears spilled down her cheeks. Master 志保, even if you could respect a husband like that as an artist, I think it would be a false marriage. What have you been thinking? You haven't even understood Master Takashina's feelings. 夕布子 did not say these things, but they showed on her tear-streaked face.

夕布子, thank you. It's all right now. That's enough. I'm grateful for your kindness. But this cannot work out the way you imagine. As she followed 夕布子 with her eyes, tears suddenly overflowed. The free-moving girl dissolved into layers of 季実 working at the kiln's firing mouth, 季実 bent over shaping clay, appearing and disappearing before her eyes. 瀬島 was everywhere too. In front of 季実, before the potter's wheel, beside 季実 working at the firing mouth. He was no longer sitting formally before the brazier in the tearoom. He sweated at the kiln, exchanged glances and smiles with 季実, gazed at her, pressed his cheek to hers. He did not turn his eyes toward 志保. She placed herself inside the vision made by her tears and thought to find a starting point from within that state.

Leaving the temple residence, she climbed the Yoroi-zaka again toward the Inner Sanctuary. Snow began to dance once more. Low-hanging clouds wrapped the temple halls. The old guide had seen her off as far as the foot of the slope, but now she was alone. The old spear-pointed cedars rose high. As she walked with her eyes lowered to the patchy snow remaining at their roots, she felt she might someday wander out into a wilderness. She searched for the giant tree she was aiming for, but it was hidden beyond the steep stone steps. Step by step, she planted her feet and climbed. Far away, the winding cliffside walkway came into view. Ancient trees stood thickly, and among them the tip of a spear-pointed cedar, rising higher than the rest, entered her sight. Two decades before, the young 瀬島 had stood in that tree's shadow.

A young man whose face had grown pitifully gaunt—.

With each step upward, her view widened. The snow had stopped. Sunlight streamed through the clouds, warming the ancient trunks and drawing lines of shadow across the ground. Snow on the bark melted into little beads of light that shone all at once in the slanting rays. As she reached the top of the steps, the giant tree revealed its whole form. It was unchanged from twenty years ago. Watching over the stirrings of tiny human beings, it would surely go on living for hundreds of years. In both the thick trunk and the great branches she felt a life without hesitation. 志保 stopped for a while and gazed at it.

Suddenly she noticed a moving shadow beyond the trunk, near its roots. Surely not 瀬島. As she stared, the shadow moved again. What had seemed a single human shadow on the patches of snow separated into two. The taller figure came onto the temple path. It was 瀬島. For a moment 志保 thought of hiding in the shadow of a great tree, but her body would not move. He had seen her. 瀬島 too looked startled, but after calling something to his companion in the shade, he turned back toward her and waved repeatedly. His face was smiling. It had been years since she had seen her husband look so radiantly clear. Presently the other person too emerged timidly and, though bewildered, turned toward her and bowed. It was 季実. 志保 was smiling back at them both. The wind blowing up from the ravine caught the powdery snow in a small whirlwind, dancing in the sunlight at her feet. (End)