"Oh, there's no end to the tales! For sheer horror, though, none of them measures up to the story of the screen depicting scenes of hell which is now a prized family heirloom. Even His Lordship, normally so imperturbable, was horrified by what happened, and those of us who waited upon him — well, it goes without saying that we were shocked out of our minds. I myself had served as one of His Lordship's men for a full twenty years, but what I witnessed then was more terrible than anything I had ever — or have ever — experienced. In order to tell you the story of the hell screen, however, I must first tell you about the painter who created it. His name was Yoshihide."

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"This is the story Patient No. 23 of a lunatic asylum tells anybody he comes across. I think he is over thirty now, but he looks very young for his age. The joys and sorrows he has experienced before he went off his head - well, let them be buried in the past. ... But if you are not satisfied with my notes, go and see him for yourself at the S— Lunatic Asylum... Patient No. 23 will greet you with a deep bow, and motion you to a hard-seated chair. Then, with a gloomy smile, he will quietly repeat his story."

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"I do hope you will forgive this presumptuous letter from a complete stranger. What I am about to write, Madam, may shock you no end. However, I am determined to lay bare before you a confession - my own - and to describe in detail the terrible crime I have committed."

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As I looked around, my gaze happened to fall upon the book that lay open on the table. There was an illustration on the page - a painting of a woman. Her breasts were exposed, and the lower half of her body was covered in something bright red like blood. She was holding a child, also drenched in blood. Around her was wilderness - a moor of some kind. The woman held one hand to her forehead; the other was almost casually wrapped around the infant. She looked as if she was getting ready to hand the baby over to someone.

Me?

Her expression was dark. But it wasn't bitter, or sad, or hateful. She just looked... distracted. If she had appeared hateful, it probably would have been more more frightening. But her distracted expression made it something else.

Eerie.

...

"Huh?"

Something was wrong.

"Isn't the lower half of her body red with blood in that painting too?"

That's what I saw, I'm sure of it.

"Don't start daydreaming on me. How could a monotone illustration be red?"

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"I would gladly turn over my entire fortune if I could find one person, just one single soul in this whole wide world, who believes my weird story of 'Love after Death' and who's prepared to decide my fate. I'd be glad to give away my mementos of the whole affair and be done with my fortune once and for all. Nothing would make me happier. Finally I'd be able to drink myself to death in a state of happiness. And now at long last, I've found you. You're the one who will pass judgment. You're the one who'll listen and see how tightly entangled my fate has been with this 'Love after Death.' Yes, you're the one. Ah, our food has arrived. Let me propose a toast to your health and happiness. You're the first Japanese gentleman to hear my story. . . . . . You'll probably be the last."

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"Oh, my hands are trembling, my heart choked with anxiety,... I can barely write. My vision is blurred with tears. The two of us will climb up the cliff that directly faces the ship and, holding each other tight... we will plunge straight into the depths of the pool and die. The sharks there will no doubt tear us up in an instant. And the people in the boat will spot the beer bottle with this letter inside and retrieve it. … We cannot atone for our sins without being punished, body and soul, as retribution for the grave and terrible trespasses the two of us committed on this remote island."

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I felt rather uneasy, not knowing what such a person might do. I was afraid that by way of response he might suddenly snatch at me and try to lick my navel. Cautiously I stepped back a little. And yet, when I thought about it a bit, it seemed that deep in the mountains like this it was unlikely that such a person would be left all alone, unattended, so I stood on tiptoe and called louder, ‘Excuse me, is there anyone at home here?’

Once again I heard the horse neighing. This time it sounded as though the sound came from the rear of the shack.

‘Who is it?’ came a woman’s voice from one of the inner rooms of the house. I retreated another step at the sound of this disembodied voice. What sort of woman would be living in a place like this, I wondered. For all I knew she might be some great, scaly serpent lurking in the depths of the house; a horrid creature speaking in a woman’s voice. I had heard tales of such things.

‘Oh, you’re a priest,’ said the woman emerging from the house.

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"Deep in his heart, the young tattooer concealed a secret pleasure, and a secret desire. His pleasure lay in the agony men felt as he drove his needles into them, torturing their swollen, blood-red flesh; and the louder they groaned, the keener was Seikichi's strange delight. ... For a long time Seikichi had cherished the desire to create a masterpiece on the skin of a beautiful woman. ... Several years had passed without success, and yet the face and figure of the perfect woman continued to obsess his thoughts. He refuse to abandon hope."

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"Nowadays, when the cherries bloom, people think it’s time for a party. They go under the trees and eat and drink and mouth the old sayings about spring and pretty blossoms, but it’s all one big lie…In the old days - the really old days - nobody gave a damn about the view. They were scared to go under the blossoms….Without people, a forest of cherries in full bloom is not pretty, just something to be afraid of."

"Even now, no one knows the secret of the cherry forest in full bloom. Perhaps it was loneliness. For the man no longer had to fear loneliness. He was loneliness itself."

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"I’ve been looking askance at the world for a long time, but I’ve never looked at it upside down. … Maybe if we looked at the world upside down, we’d see things we can’t normally see."

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The sea at night. A time of quietude.

The dull sound of the waves welled up from the endless obscurity, only to disappear again.

He sat down on the cold concrete of the breakwater and faced the expansive darkness, his body veiled by the white vapour of his breath.

He had been suffering for months. He had been brooding for weeks. He had been thinking about just one thing for days. And now his mind was focusing on one single, clearly defined goal.

Everything had been planned.

Preparations were almost complete.

All he needed to do now was to wait for them to walk into the trap.

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