A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East by László Krasznahorkai

Author:László Krasznahorkai
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811234481
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2022-11-01T00:00:01+00:00

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Someone thought they’d seen him at the first stop after Shichijō, and so that was where the eight or ten men sent to look for him got off the train on the Keihan line.

They were all wearing European clothes, and they were all thoroughly hammered.

For a good long while, behind the station, they stood, lost, tottering, perplexed, gazing at the streets that led from there. Then one of them pointed somewhere randomly, and they finally set off in that direction. The two in front clutched at each other as they led the troupe. The others followed, dizzy, reeling, stumbling. At times someone in the back yelled out to the one in front, but received no reply.

There was not a single living soul on the street, only a bit higher up, through the gate of one house opened to a mere crack, an old lady leaned out, her head leaning forward, her gaze dubious as she tried to size up who these people might be. Her suspicious expression did not auger anything good, but they had no other choice but to ask her.

Had she seen Prince Genji’s grandson around here anywhere?

The old woman remained stock-still for a moment, looking them up and down as if she’d seen some kind of repulsive sludge on the sidewalk.

Then, without a word, she shook her head, and, like someone who was afraid these men might attack, withdrew into her courtyard, latched the wooden bolt on the gate, but they heard no steps indicating she was fleeing back into the house, so presumably the old woman was standing there behind the bolted gate, waiting and listening for them to be gone already.

The grandson of Prince Genji.

Drunken pigs.

She had never heard this name.

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