Mr. Ibuse returned to Tokyo that day, and I went back to Misaka Pass. Throughout September, October, and the first fifteen days of November I stayed on the second floor of the teahouse, pushing ahead with my work a little at a time and trying to come to terms with that Great View of Fuji until it all but did me in.

I had a good laugh one day. A friend of mine, a member of “The Japan Romantics” who was then lecturing at a university or something, dropped by the teahouse during a hiking excursion, and the two of us stepped into the corridor on the second floor to smoke and poke fun at the view of Fuji we had through the windows there.

“Awfully, crass, isn’t it? It’s like, ‘Ah, Honorable Mount Fuji.’”

“I know. It’s embarrassing to look at.”

“Say, what’s that?” my friend said suddenly, gesturing with his chin. “That fellow dressed up like a monk.”

A small man of about fifty, wearing a ragged black robe and dragging a long staff, was climbing toward the pass, turning time and again to gaze up at Fuji.

“It reminds you of that painting Priest Saigyō Admiring Mount Fuji, doesn’t it?” I said. “The fellow has a lot of style.” To me the monk seemed a poignant evocation of the past. “He might be some great saint or something.”

“Don’t be absurd,” my friend said with cold detachment. “He’s a common beggar.”

“No, no. There’s something special about him. Look how he walks—he’s got style, I tell you. You know, they say the priest Noin used to write poems praising Fuji right here on this pass, and—”

I was interrupted by my friend’s laughter. “Ha! Look at that. You call that ‘having style’?”

Hachi, my hosts’ pet dog, had begun to bark at Noin, throwing him into a panic. The scene that ensued was painfully ludicrous.

“I guess you’re right,” I said, crestfallen.

The beggar’s panic increased until he began to flounder disgracefully about, threw away his staff, and finally ran for dear life. It was true, he had no style at all. Our priest was as crass as his Fuji, we decided, and even now, thinking back on that scene, it strikes me as laughably absurd.

A courteous and affable young man of twenty-five named Nitta came to visit me at the teahouse. He worked in the post office in Yoshida, a long, narrow town that lies at the base of the mountains below the pass, and said he’d learned where I was by seeing mail addressed to me. After we’d talked in my room for a while and had begun to feel at ease with each other, he smiled and said, “Actually, I was going to come with two or three of my friends, but at the last moment they all pulled out, and, well, I read something by Satō Haruo-sensei that said you were terribly decadent, and mentally disturbed to boot, so I could hardly force them to come. I had no idea you’d be such a serious and personable gentleman. Next time I’ll bring them. If it’s all right with you, of course.”