Now, let's take a look at section 22.
This section begins with the words "In all things I yearn for the past. Modern fashions seem to keep on growing more and more debased". And he refers to the contemporary spoken language, and says" The ordinary spoken language has also steadily coarsened". This section also reveals his respect for the Heian period.
Now, let's take a look at section 29.
In this section, Kenko's great emotional movement can be observed. I can see his emotional instability in this section. He looks like a monk who is in the deep sentimental state. The cause of this sentiment is because of "a friend who has died". The translator again has had an idea that the person is a male, but I would like to emphasize that the gender in the original text is unknown. In my opinion, I think this is a woman. First of all, thinking about the fact that the correspondence of letters was frequently done between man and woman, "a friend who has died" could be his female friend. Second, he frequently mentions his female friend who has died in other sections. I would talk about it in more detail later.
Now, let's take a look at section 32.
In this section, the translator says "the ninth month" instead of saying "September", but actually the original text uses the word "September", and Kenko doesn't use the synonym of the old calendar here. In this point, he distinguished October from other months, for October in the old calendar is, as I explained in the previous article, Part 4, "the month when there are no gods". Absence of gods brings out the beauty of Wabi-sabi culture in remote and backward mountain village described in section 11. In section 32, because he fully uses the polite form of speech to describe a certain person, the person must be considered as a person of high rank. The original text doesn't even reveal those people's gender, but the translator's description to the person as "a certain gentleman" is correct.
This section reveals a certain fact which is not described. Now, let's see more detail. Kenko went out "at the invitation of a certain gentleman", but the gentleman suddenly remembered to drop in another person's house. Though the original text doesn't reveal the gender, but as we can see from the context the person is absolutely a woman. Though the gentleman invited Kenko, the gentleman didn't care about Kenko and left him outside alone and visited the house. On the other hand, Kenko had been waiting until the gentleman finished his business, but Kenko didn't care about the gentleman. On top of that, he peeped the house as if he is a stalker.
The incident that the woman looked at the moon for a while has just happened later. While he was waiting, he would never expect to see the woman incidentally after the gentleman left the house. So why did he waited? What was the purpose of his waiting? One can see that the person is a woman whom he had been interested in.
In the exactly previous section, section 31, he talked about a certain woman. Of course, he never mentions that the woman in section 31 and the woman in section 32 are the same person, but if you deduce the connection between section 31 and 32, the question to the purpose of his waiting and peeping will be cleared.
Since the editor's selection doesn't include section 31, I would translate this section by myself for the reference. My translation of section 31 is as follows:
One morning when the snow beautifully accumulated on the ground, I wrote a letter to a certain person to request something briefly and sent it without mentioning about snow. Then I received the reply which stated that "You didn't ask me how I thought about the snow in this morning. I'm not willing to have ears to listen to such an insensitive man's request. It is the shallowness of your mind that makes me disappointed, honestly". After I reread the letter, I was thrilled with emotion. Since the person has already passed away, even such a little thing is precious memories. (Translated by Mutsuko)
As you can see at the end of each section, both women in section 31 and 32 had died already. I deduce that they are the same person.
Now, remember that I previously mentioned that I would explain the more detail about section 29, and I would explain about it now. In section 29, he recollected about a certain person who made him sentimentally. I think the person appeared in his recollection in section 29 is the same person with the person in section 31 and 32. He talks about someone whom he had correspondence, the person makes him sentimental, it looks like he is interested in that person, and the person has already died. That is the reason why I think those people are the same person. Therefore, I think the person in section 29 is a woman, and is not a man.
To be continued on Part 6
