Dream Ten Nights – English Translation

Certainly! Here is a natural, literary English translation of the Japanese text you provided, preserving the tone, style, and atmosphere: --- **1** It is a tale from a very distant past, but Yoshi once worked as a waitress at a udon shop. Though it was only for a short time, and her first service job, when she crawled into the dark, closet-like room that she was told would be her sleeping place, tears suddenly welled up in her eyes and she could not move a single inch. That udon shop was on an island about an hour by boat from a port town called Onomichi. Everyone called the place “Innoshima,” and so Yoshi thought it might be written as “Dog’s Island.” But the ticket she had purchased bore the characters 因ノ島 — Innoshima indeed. On that island, Yoshi spent a brief yet lonely three weeks. She wasn’t given any expensive things like baskets or trunks, so her possessions amounted to a few changes of clothes wrapped in an empty shirt box, some four or five white postcards, an old faded blue book called *Yumihari-zuki* by Bakin, and a single bottle, apparently of some peculiar lotion smelling faintly of udon flour. Because she had had measles as a child and her face was freckled, Yoshi’s mother had once said, “Your freckles get darker when you go to the seaside. Here, apply this lotion.” It was an old-fashioned cosmetic of uncertain origin that smelled of udon flour, but Yoshi never once used it on the island. Even in the bright midday sun when the freckles stood out plainly, her pale skin gave her a delicate charm; she neither minded nor felt ashamed of them. When she first arrived on the island, she found herself hesitating to go all the way to that udon shop, so she stayed at the harbor, quietly watching the boats. It was late autumn, and the sea gleamed silently, like a mirror reflecting the sky. Just above the pier, on a small hill, stood a white hospital. Every window faced the sea, and the glass panes sparkled and glistened like spectacles, making the building seem strikingly modern and stylish. Below the stone steps of the hospital, a little stall sold sour-looking first-early-season mandarin oranges. Among the goods laid out, numerous bottles of ramune lined the stall’s shelves, and a girl about Yoshi’s age stood there, desperately trying to open a ramune bottle with a wooden bottle opener that was blackened with grime. “Hey! It won’t come off at all! What’s the matter, lady?” “Try another way!” The girl folded back the loose sleeve of her kimono and pressed down harder with the opener, clutching the kimono’s sleeve for extra leverage. She had a black mole on her lower lip and thick eyebrows. Wearing a silver-colored *jōnagashi* (a long, sleeved kimono) and her hair neatly parted and tied in a style called *momoware* (peach-split), she appeared to be a lively geisha house girl from this island. She spoke plainly and briskly, and though the ramune bottle’s cap popped open, she kept coughing and spluttering, and the soda inside barely went down. Though Yoshi had begun to harbor a faint sadness deep inside her heart, the tinkling sound of the ramune marble showed up like a child’s, stirring within her an almost uncontrollable desire to drink it too. But since she had been sent on service, the best she had been given was a five-sen coin, a small white copper piece. Clutching it carefully, her mother had warned her again and again to guard it well, for who knew when it might be needed. “How much is that ramune?” Yoshi asked. “Three sen,” the girl smiled, showing white teeth. Yoshi reached out, leaning toward the mandarin juice instead, but the girl was already reaching for a ramune bottle and said with a playful tone, “Let me open it for you, won’t you?” Pressing down again on the bottle with the wooden opener perched on her sleeve. “How much for the mandarin juice?” Yoshi tried once more. “One sen, but why don’t you have ramune? Let me open it for you!” The girl insisted. Yielding, Yoshi chose the ramune, eager to hear the marble roll and clatter inside the glass, just as the girl sent the bottle’s top flying off with a loud “poosun!” Together they sat in front of the stall, the ramune marbles rattling inside their bottles as they drank. “I just love opening these marbles!” The girl looked around, as if searching to see if anyone else was coming to drink ramune. Even when some laborers passed by, she called out to them in an adult-like manner with a tempting smile, “Won’t you stop and have some ramune? It’s fun opening the marble...” That ramune girl was also the one who eventually guided the hesitant Yoshi to the udon shop. --- **2** Yoshi’s work was to rise earlier than anyone else in the household, open both the front and back doors, and start cooking the udon broth. Since early morning passengers boarding or disembarking the boat would come by asking, “Is the udon ready?” she had to keep the doors open from dawn. She placed kombu seaweed and dried sardines into large cotton bags and steeped them in an iron kettle like a *goemon-gama*, simmering the broth over a low flame. While it cooked, her task was to wet down the dirt floor, wipe the benches and counters clean. On the counter stood a chopstick holder, but the owner was a thrifty woman, not using disposable chopsticks but instead a set of pale green lacquered bamboo chopsticks that had been carefully washed and reused over and over. Yoshi chopped small spring onions and piled them generously on plates for the side, then brought a chair out to the doorway. Sitting there, she would wait with nothing to do but gaze vacantly until the broth was ready. Seated in that chair, watching the town below, Yoshi thought of it as a sunken valley—a dark, gloomy mountain town beside the sea. The roofs on both sides almost touched, creating a kind of shadowy gloom as if soot had collected permanently on everyone’s brow. As Yoshi sat like this each morning, the ramune girl who opened bottles for her would come bustling back home from school. Her name was Hinako. As Yoshi suspected, she belonged to the local geisha house, but there was another, very odd name Hinako had — one that always made Yoshi feel sorry for her. Even when the laborers and rickshaw drivers mockingly called her by this strange name, Hinako never seemed ashamed, responding with a bright “What’s up?” “Hinachan, do you have sewing class today?” Yoshi never missed asking about her school lessons. Hinako settled herself at Yoshi’s knees, setting down her school bag heavily. “Science today. We’re learning about spring flowers. You know lots of violets, don’t you?” “Are you talking about sumoplay grass? I don’t know it...” Yoshi answered vaguely. “No, there are loads of kinds. Listen, there’s *fumoto sumire*, *kosumire*, *shirobasumire*, *kemarubasumire*, *aohisumire*, *yabusumire*... then *hinasumire*, *hikagesumire*, *marubasumire*, *nagábanosumire* last, *eizansumire*, *himesumire*, *tachitsubosumire*, *tsubosumire*, *komiyamasumire*. See? There are tons!” Hinako opened a stained, four-folded journal bound with red cotton thread and showed Yoshi her drawings of these violets. Each flower looked more like rabbit ears than anything else, and none were accurate representations of violets. Only the strange violet pictures had captions, making it barely possible to tell which were *marubasumire* or *hinasumire*. For *hikagesumire*, a line pointed to the flower with the note: “This is white. Grows in shade. Roots sprout seedlings of egg color; grows without stem, having petiolate leaves growing from the root, oval leaves with rounded teeth, lightly hairy. Small, few flowers with white petals and purple lines.” The explanations were a jumble of words that seemed neither truly understood nor fully grasped. “Our teacher teaches us things you won’t find in books — it’s really hard,” Hinako said, raising her bare arms from the wide sleeves. Standing, taking her bag from Yoshi’s lap, she readied herself to go. “Hey, Okame, what’re you doing? You’ll be late for school!” The barber’s apprentice, a boy in her class, said this in a mock-proud voice. Hinako smiled and teased back, “You just want to walk alongside me, don’t you?” Her laugh was a fearless girlish coquette’s. Most of the town’s boys called her by her other name, the strange one, often taunting, “Okame, Okame!” And Hinako merely replied with a sweet “Whatcha want?” --- **3** For Yoshi, the first week was unbearably long and hateful, but gradually as the island’s landscape soaked into her eyes, a kind of resigned calm settled over her. This island was a town clinging to the lower slopes of a mountain at the sea’s edge. At night, though it was not hot, people would cluster outside every house, loudly chatting with neighbors and acquaintances. The talk was always local news, but the story Yoshi caught most often was about a certain person named Oriku. Oriku was the head of the island’s most prestigious geisha house, a woman who had her hair shorn short like a man’s and wore a crisp, sleeved kimono with a square-cut neckline, an *kaku-obi* tied around her waist, and a tobacco pouch dangling from her belt. She would stride alongside two or three young women like a sumo wrestler, greeting folks with a hearty “How’s business?” From Yoshi’s point of view, her figure seemed enormous, as if only her neck jutted out from a roof. Hinako was one of Oriku’s adopted daughters, and she called Oriku “father” as if the woman were her dad, joking that “Our father is easygoing.” Yoshi often delivered udon to Oriku’s house on orders, and whenever Oriku was present, she would toss Yoshi a one-sen coin from her tobacco pouch. The town stories about Oriku seemed almost legendary. Her plump belly and the fact that she kept two or three concubines who all helped run a single big restaurant made her something of a rare and proud figure on the small island. “Oriku-san’s gonna build a fountain on Mount Kojin,” people said. “Oh? That’s right. Probably turning it into a park.” “Perhaps a girl’s fountain, eh...” One day, Oriku slipped into Yoshi’s udon shop. After exchanging neighborhood gossip, she glanced at Yoshi and said, “Lend me your Okame for a little while. We have a couple of lawyers coming from Osaka today, and we’re short on girls.” In the evening, after returning from the town’s only sentō (public bathhouse) with Hinako, Yoshi had her hair tied up in a peach-parting after a proper hairdresser carefully brushed it and wound a silver *jōnagashi* around her shoulders. “You look splendid,” Hinako said. “I’m a girl now...” Yoshi thought but—looking at her reflection—felt no surprise. Afterward she stiffened and stood formally in the corner of the room. The women who came to help teased, “Where do you think she’s from? A geisha, or the udon shop’s big sister? She looks good on you!” But when Yoshi kept silent, Hinako tapped her shoulder and said, “You ought to smile a little.” Yoshi had come to like the Hinako she saw at school. At night, in such moments, Hinako showed a playful kindness even to strangers, smiling and saying, “I like you,” with the flickering eyes of a she-cat. “Okame, bring a sake bottle from the kitchen,” Hinako ordered. Carrying a hot bottle, Yoshi followed. Hinako turned and whispered: “Our teacher’s here too... she holds our hands and won’t let go.” Raising her eyebrows in a mock frown. The wide banquet seat was filled with two or three drunken politicians squatting and loudly arguing about harbor affairs. At the far end a woman—Hinako’s teacher—wore a high-collared jacket and a narrow black muffler tied like a necktie; she was eating a mandarin orange with relish. A hand dance began in the middle of the seat, and a song started playing, wild and loud, but Yoshi just stared blankly. “Teacher only wants to eat the mandarins—she doesn’t drink, does she?” Yoshi asked. “She doesn’t drink,” Hinako’s young teacher said, draping an arm over Hinako’s shoulder, “She’s a sweet girl.” Hinako laughed, looking older than her twenty-four or twenty-five years, and imitating the older geisha sisters, said, “I don’t like it,” and pinched the teacher’s knee sharply before running off toward Yoshi. --- **4** After two weeks, a strange, empty feeling crept into Yoshi’s heart, and though still a child, she found herself unable to sleep at night. The udon shop was run by a mistress approaching forty, the *okami-san*, along with her parents and a younger brother. This family seemed as if they had forgotten how to get angry, or cry, or even laugh. When Yoshi arrived, they acted as if she had been there forever — no scolding, no speeches, no fuss. The *okami-san* held the keys to the house. Her brother pedaled around the island all day delivering udon on his bicycle. The elders rolled out noodles, fetched water from the communal well, and their household proceeded with a clockwork precision that never faltered. Yoshi, still somewhat childlike, sometimes wished they’d at least scold her now and then. At first, she took pride in her work: placing bags of dried sardines and kelp into the kettle, lighting the fire, scrubbing the benches and shelves. But over time, an unbearable heaviness in her limbs dulled all her strength. Every afternoon, she went down to the seaside clearing to dry udon broth residue on straw mats. It was a rare pleasure. From the hospital windows, low-ranking nurses poked their heads out and sang hymns like “Jesu, Lover of My Soul.” To Yoshi, all things white seemed pure and sacred. She dreamed of studying herself and becoming a woman who could sing such songs. Hinako easily learned the shamisen songs she hummed, but she could not memorize the nurses’ hymns, which seemed grander and more lofty. That made the nurses all the more admirable to Yoshi. Yoshi often delivered udon to the hospital, where the women were regimented and always ordered the standard five-sen udon. Carrying the tightly packed delivery box up the hospital’s stone steps was difficult for Yoshi’s small stature, but these hospital orders were lighter than those of Oriku’s household, which were few but always expensive, rich with ingredients. At night, the nurses removed their white jackets and sometimes sang vulgar songs, surprising Yoshi who heard them through the windows. “Hey, you brought the udon!” they’d say, running toward her as soon as she opened the delivery box. In her closet-room, Yoshi always lay down and wrote her mother letters saying she wanted to return to Onomichi. She was not yet fully grown, and the isolated island life weighed heavily on her growing loneliness. On dull, listless days, she never changed her blank, unhappy expression. Hinako would stop by after school, share udon, and tease, “Hey, you’re like a landlubber fisherman, all spaced out.” Hinako always carried two or three dozen sen in a pink melin cloth purse, probably gifted by older geishas or customers. To Yoshi, it seemed extravagantly flashy. Yet, if a man they just happened to know came in, Hinako would immediately snatch the purse closed and glare, “I don’t like that. What do you want here?” “Even if you don’t like it, I love Okame,” most men said, gazing at Hinako’s glossy, painted eyes. Because the island had a shipyard, a parade of fashionable men flowed in from the city, enriching Hinako’s eyes and heart. She fit neatly into the island’s colors everywhere she went, like a flower arranged artfully in a vase. Her lips would part like a spring breeze, naturally radiating flirtation. Her face often made her look at least seventeen or eighteen. Every morning at Yoshi’s seat, Hinako would stop for a breath and chat about the day’s lessons. Those were the only moments Yoshi felt she had a true friend, and she spoke to Hinako more readily then. “What’s today’s science lesson?” “Thistles. But I’m so bad at drawing. The teacher had to do it for me. Look.” The drawing was slightly better than Hinako’s, but it looked like the kind of thistle that might have worn a muffler tied around the neck like their teacher. “There are lots of kinds of thistles, huh? Tall thistle, field thistle, fox thistle, field thistle, cart thistle, mountain thistle, demon thistle — how many were there?” “I didn’t remember that many.” “I forget a lot, too. It’s so tiring.” Hinako raised bare arms from her wide sleeves, carrying her school things, her expression even more listless than Yoshi’s as she stepped out for school. --- **5** Those three weeks were terribly lonely, but when Yoshi’s mother came to fetch her, Yoshi wrapped her shirt box in a cloth and thought, “I was still a child, so I must have gotten lonely and felt out of place.” “Surely you were lonely, Yoshi. What would you like to eat...?” Yoshi squatted in front of the stall and ate a red bean bun with her mother. The oranges at the stall glowed warmly in the late autumn light. The chilly wind blew high and clear, carrying the clouds along the sky. At the harbor, Oriku — wearing tinted glasses — was supervising laborers moving stones for the fountain she was having built. But Yoshi thought more about Hinako than Oriku’s figure. Though reluctant to board the boat without seeing her again, she leaned against her mother, yawning, watching children playing with bunches of bright crimson higanbana like fireworks. --- This completes the translation preserving the original’s literary tone and atmosphere.