Fragments of Ugetsu: The Kutsuki Chapter

English translation

AI-assisted English translation. The Japanese original remains authoritative.

AI-assisted English translation. The Japanese original remains authoritative.

Originally published: 2024-07-13

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

Fragments of Ugetsu: The Kutsuki Chapter

橘かほり

The human world is made of fragments.

It seems to have a beginning, a development, a turn and an ending—and yet it does not.

Families living in the vortex of a world in turmoil are to be pitied: they can find no certain support there, not even a thread to cling to.

In every age and place, people seek harmony in the disconnected links between fragments, or struggle to impose it. Things do not go as they wish. Usually there is nothing to do but abandon the effort and give up.

The prototype of 上田秋成's 『雨月物語』 is said to be the story of 真間の手児奈 in Chiba, but its strange supernatural beings and spirits have their origins in Noh. 溝口健二's 『雨月物語』, which recreated it by transplanting it wholesale to the country north of Lake Biwa, is not his exclusive possession either; the Kutsuki chapter of 『雨月物語』 depicted here is likewise no exception. With a different region exerting its pull, it portrays that mire of love, lust and hatred found in Japan's classics.

1. A Region of Attraction

Shizugatake and the country north of the lake are now sacred ground for photographers. Descend from the rugged rocky mountains and there are marshes of reeds. Stand on the shore of the vast, indistinct lake and you can return to the age of warring states. Yet this spirit-haunted land holds more than a terror that bars the intrusion of ordinary people.

The mountains of Shizugatake remain densely wooded. In Kutsuki's hidden settlement, the entire village is wrapped in an uncanny atmosphere. Bewitched, you long to return a second and a third time. It is a strange land that draws you in.

Is that true?

If you doubt it, go and see. Prick up your ears before the cluster of wooden memorial tablets at the village's edge. Boom, boom! Even now the ponderous reports of matchlock guns reverberate.

Shizugatake is famous as an ancient battlefield. Its slopes are too steep to penetrate. Broken swords and torn armor still lie scattered, never cleared away. The sound of the matchlocks echoes among the rocks today.

At Kutsuki, rain falls while the sun shines, and a decaying palace rises into view in the slanting light. Evening. A princess's faint, faltering voice pierces the twilight and crawls up the gorge.

The settlement here should have perished four hundred years ago. Yet at the lookout rock, the blood of a beheading still sprays over your face. The shuddering terror of history running backward may rescue you from the false space called present-day society.

2. A Land of Fire and Flame

Shibata's forces, not content with their own territory, have invaded?

They were driven north only briefly and seem to have recovered their strength?

Wipe away the commonplace history that borrows the names of Shibata and Hashiba. Descend instead into the world of events where gun-bearing bandits indulge freely in violation and outrage. A lukewarm spirit stands at your pillow night after night.

It is not only Kutsuki and Shizugatake. For villages all across the northern lake country to draw people in, there must be love and hatred there beyond the ordinary smell of human life.

You try to leave and are drawn back. There is a reason.

Earth and fire.

Good clay can be obtained. Clay of the Tamba and Shigaraki types seems particularly to favor a high firing. Red-pine logs, rich in resin, blaze at a thousand degrees in climbing kilns. The fired bowls and plates have no raw earthy smell. Ash becomes glaze, producing the kiln transformations people prize.

3. The Alchemy of Demons

源十郎, who appears in this story, became its captive. His family and his younger brother 藤兵衛 and his wife settled in a mountain village separated from Kutsuki by deep ranges. Surely armies would not come here. Rice could be grown in slash-and-burn fields. If they fired pottery in a climbing kiln and carried it to Sakamoto, Otsu, or even Nagahama to sell, they could make good money. Clay and red pine. Here too, sunshowers. Where there is firewood, life has room to breathe.

But if war broke out between 秀頼 and 勝家, drawing in the Asai and Asakura…

“It is dangerous here. We will be attacked any moment…”

It was neither 勝家 nor 秀吉 whom the villagers feared.

Hungry samurai raided villages in search of food. Refuse them and a spear pierced you. Girls were abducted, young men condemned to hardship, used as disposable pawns. They climbed to high ground and strained their eyes toward distant Lake Biwa.

4. 源十郎's Family

“Hey! How is it? Are they coming?”

“Too dark to see properly.”

“Hey, look over there. They are trampling the rice, coming this way…” He ran barefoot downhill. “At this rate they will slaughter everyone in the village. We have no choice but to flee into the hills!”

From the thatched houses, people emerged holding babies and leading children by the hand… Following the village headman's directions, they made for the nearby wooded hills.

Yet one fellow did not flee. He watched them go, quite untroubled. “Heh-heh, what is there to worry about? I will join Lord Hashiba. Become his retainer and rise in the world.”

The man beside this fellow, who had sewn padding onto the shoulders of his rags, grimaced at his muttering.

“藤兵衛! You fool. You do not even know how to handle a sword… The most you can expect is to be worked to death at hard labor.”

It was his elder brother 源十郎. “藤兵衛, food comes before those dreams. Your wife and children matter more than advancement.” “I know, brother. But I have had enough of farming… However much we grow, they take everything.”

“That is just it, 藤兵衛. Farming will not feed us, but look: there is the pottery we are firing.” He pointed to the climbing kiln before them. Flames blazed through its small opening. Throwing in red-pine logs and sealing the fire behind a slab of clay, he said, “Inside there is the source of gold coins… Across the lake, on the far shore, is Nagahama. Right under the wing of that Lord Hashiba you like so much. We can do good business.”

“You mean it will turn into gold?”

“Of course. Use it to make 阿浜 happy… She wants a child too. Once she is a mother, she will be kinder to you.”

藤兵衛 looked toward his house, watching his wife come out in a furious temper.

“No, brother. I was not blessed, as you were, with a gentle, beautiful wife… A wife she may be, but 阿浜 does nothing but shout… Better to be a samurai. From now on, spears and guns are what count… Once I am important, all the gentle women I want will fall in love with me.”

“Hey, 阿浜 can hear you… Women will not give you the time of day merely because you have joined a foot-soldier gun unit.”

5. His Wife's Secret

The elder brother 源十郎 had a wife, 宮木, whom he had married for love, and a son only three years old.

For some reason, 宮木 had fled Otsu at the lake's southern end with nothing but the clothes she wore. Her origins were unknown. Yet her skin was fair, and the flowing lines of her fingers were unlike a peasant's hands. When he held them, they were like whitebait struggling in his palm. Could she be a courtesan? Would a procurer come looking for her one day? No, that way of speaking, that dignified light makeup… There was an alluring strangeness unlike the village girls, about whom he knew everything…

Had 宮木 once been a princess? A shrine maiden? Or a snow woman?

Beware, 源十郎. A woman of bad origins will go elsewhere in a moment, even after bearing a child.

He had overcome his parents' opposition and married her. Unless he made a happy family, he could not face his dead parents.

“宮木 comes from a noble family… One can tell from that white skin…”

So his father had said as he lay dying. “Above your station… 源十郎… Or perhaps…”

He said no more, but there was no need to hear it. He seemed to mean that war had driven her into the bitter world of prostitution… “If you like her that much, you must work and dress her in fine clothes…”

He remembered his father's last words: if he made 宮木 dirty her hands farming, their hard-won marriage would not last.

6. The Secret of the Bloodline

“Brother, are you buying her another fine kosode robe? Lucky you, having such a good wife. Mine…”

阿浜 caught him in mid-sentence. “藤兵衛! 藤兵衛! You lazy good-for-nothing!” She grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.

“Brother, see? This is how it is. Marry a village girl and she shouts at you every day.”

“At least 阿浜 is full of life.”

Listen, brother, he began. “The reason I want a province and a castle of my own is that, instead of 阿浜, I would rather have a beauty like 宮木…”

“Do not talk such nonsense.” 阿浜 hit 藤兵衛 on the head. “Brother, please forgive him. He does not mean he wants to steal 宮木 from you… Still, when he has me…” Again she cuffed his head.

藤兵衛 covered his head. “I would prefer the gentler 南殿.”

“南殿? The one from Chikubushima?” said 阿浜.

“Yes,” he replied. “…Is that wrong? Could you not be more like her?”

“Ha-ha. She is… a princess. By now… another man's wife.”

“I know. Lord 羽柴秀吉's concubine.”

“Shh.” 源十郎 raised a finger to his lips. “…If anyone hears, your head will fly.”

7. The Brothers in the Hills

Meanwhile, most of the villagers seemed to have reached the hills.

宮木 came out. “藤兵衛, 阿浜, they will find this place at once…”

A villager ran toward them from a distance. Hey, hurry… Even 源十郎 and 藤兵衛 finally began to move.

“Hey, 源十郎! 藤兵衛! Hurry!” The headman's face appeared between the bushes. “The villagers are cooking rice in the hidden fields… Quickly! Quickly!” He beckoned.

The two looked at each other and began to run.

Once they slipped into the wooded hills, they could shake off soldiers who did not know the area. “Wait… 宮木… And the boy.” 源十郎 made his brother wait and dashed into the house, bringing out his wife with their child clinging to her neck. What? Then who was the 宮木 they had just seen?

宮木 was going ahead. If the 宮木 and 小太郎 who had just come out were the same ones… It made no sense.

As if a fox had bewitched him…

“Look, I have already made rice balls.” 宮木's voice. One bamboo-skin packet passed to 藤兵衛 too. Tucking it inside his clothes, he scrambled up the narrow animal trail.

阿浜 followed with a pot full of barnyard millet, miso and salt… and a sack of rice too.

“Sister, this sack…”

As it was handed to her, 宮木's eyes filled with tears. Thank you, truly. Thanks to you, 阿浜… She bowed, and 阿浜 supported her in her arms, glanced toward 源十郎, and said, “Brother, for mercy's sake, do not give this 藤兵衛 any gold. The man will never buy anything worthwhile…”

“When we get to Nagahama… Eh, brother? We will make a fortune, buy armor and win honors. 阿浜, you will fall over in astonishment when I come home with my retainers…”

“You fool, there you go again. A peasant…” “Look at Lord 秀吉. A hundred battles, a hundred victories…”

In hidden fields made by burning scrub woodland in the hills, the villagers prepared supper family by family. Dried fish came from a neighboring plot; millet dumplings went back in return. Whatever you may say about peasants, it is this mutual help that keeps us alive, the village head said as he made his rounds. “Indeed it is. 宮木, you were fortunate to marry into our village. Tomorrow, Nagahama. We cannot stay here forever. Will you and 阿浜 come too?”

At 源十郎's words, 阿浜 asked timidly, “Cross by boat?”

“阿浜, you are good at rowing, aren't you?”

“There are pirates. It is not like the old days,” she said.

They reached no conclusion.

藤兵衛 had begun to doze. 阿浜, who had been soothing 源十郎's child, joined 宮木 in layering straw to make a bed. Tomorrow's matters could wait until tomorrow…

The fire was extinguished. Darkness.

8. The Boat Ghost

They pushed through the morning mist to the lakeshore. The child fussed. 宮木 nursed him.

“Hey, found one!… Ah, thanks to the Buddha.”

Among the wrecked boats along the shore, 源十郎 found a small lighter with little rot and an oar.

Wind, mixed with rain.

If they rowed away in this boat and its fisherman owner found them… 宮木 drew a leather pouch from inside her clothes. 源十郎 saw something glitter at its opening. Gold? 宮木 nodded. Thank goodness. For your sake…

He and 藤兵衛 rushed back to the village and broke open the kiln's clay seal. Bowls, plates and jars spilled from within. “…Oh, splendid kiln effects…”

In the faint light, 源十郎 used straw to load the still-hot pottery onto a cart.

Even pirates would be asleep at daybreak. Counting on that, one quick crossing would bring them to Nagahama by dawn. They should all go.

At 源十郎's invitation, the two families rowed out. They moved slowly through the morning mist. Which way was east? If they were careless, they could trace a great circle and reach the same shore. Yet they could only press on, guided by a faint light…

They rowed for a while. A bow approached from the other direction… Had pirates found them?

“No, no one is aboard…”

…Then a face lifted. That expression! Covered in blood…

“A boat ghost…” The voice rose strained from 宮木's throat. She bowed her head. “…Why do you haunt me?”

As 宮木 kept her face lowered, 阿浜 held her shoulders with both hands. “Sister, be strong…” Then she cried fiercely, “Vengeful spirit, begone!”

“I am no ghost…” the other answered.

His mouth twisted in his blood-covered face. “They got me. Pirates… I am a fisherman from Chikubushima… Our lord told me to take the princess off the island under cover of darkness… If we reached Kutsuki, north of the lake, allies should be waiting… But they got us.”

The straw mat covering the cargo behind him moved.

“Did you say princess?” asked 藤兵衛. “…Then could it be 南殿?”

From beneath the mat, a woman wearing a veiled hat showed a pale face.

“Oh, I could never forget. You are the princess, the princess!” 源十郎 almost danced with joy. “Do you remember me? When you were still a little girl, you were drowning and I pulled you into my boat… Ah, those eyes, those lips… At a single glance I…”

“What are you saying? How shameless, 藤兵衛! When you have me!” 阿浜 flared up. “After all this time… Ah!”

Peering into the woman's face, 阿浜 exclaimed, “You… Why, you look exactly like Sister 宮木!”

She looked into 宮木's face. Limp, 宮木 kept her eyes closed. “Sister!” 阿浜 patted her cheek. “Have you fainted…?”

宮木's eyes remained shut. Fearing she might have died, 阿浜 slapped her face. Then 宮木 spoke haltingly. “…You… Did you not go to Lord 秀吉's Nagahama Castle?”

“No, that was a double, Sister.”

“Then the two of you…” Learning anew his wife's origins, 源十郎 recoiled. “But we already have a child, 小太郎…” They would not be torn apart, he thought, clutching his son. “However wealthy 秀吉 may be, he already has a wife. Taking a concubine is outrageously cruel. I will not allow it… I refuse.”

“Of course, Brother. 宮木 even has another child on the way…”

“Really? I had not heard. 宮木, is it…?” He looked into her pale face. In the morning mist: my wife, my child…

源十郎 drew her close, heedless of the rocking boat.

“宮木, forget about rank. Let us live together, poor as we are—you, me, 小太郎 and the child to be born.” 宮木 nodded again and again. “That is my intention too,” she said, opening her eyes a little to look up at him. “Is it? Is it… I have found a good wife. The Buddha has guided us…”

Even as he spoke, perhaps he remained afraid. 源十郎's tears kept falling. (End.)

Translation note: this is the source's eight-part prose fiction. Its historical framing and supernatural ambiguities are retained, not factually reconstructed. In Part 3 the source writes 秀頼 before later referring to 秀吉. In Part 8 the narrator names 源十郎 just before 阿浜 addresses 藤兵衛; that inconsistency is preserved. Unverified character and author name readings remain in Japanese.