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chats for long hours, unaware that the greens he's brought are withering. You know, the other day ..."

      Ichi, thinking over Tatsuya's words, was moved. When she had heard about wrapping hemp around a dog's belly, she had almost laughed. But in his own way Tatsuya was showing concern about her.

      Ichi also knew that the farmer would chat for long hours with Tatsuya whenever he came. He was a short, small old man with a flabby body, looking more like a retired townsman than a farmer. His clothes were neat, and the strings of his sedge hat were always white as though freshly washed. The farmer would sit on the stump of a paulownia beside the hut in which the firewood was stored, take out a tobacco case, old and worn and made of India leather, and talk and smoke simultaneously. His topics of conversation were never the same. He could be said to have a simple, honest personality. He always put the year, month, and date at the beginning of his conversation: "Since it was the Year of the Tiger, it must have been such-and-such year, such-and-such month, such-and-such day." That was his way of talking, and Tatsuya would listen with enjoyment from his room, leaning over the window or sitting on the window sill.

      The Kugata family had always made it a practice to talk to everyone as equals, and when Ichi listened to the conversations between Tatsuya and Josuke, they sounded like conversations between friends. Now she could imagine them talking about a charm for easy delivery.

      A few days later Ichi again told the family that she was not going back to her parents' house, and the Okumuras were informed through Shinzo. The wife of Chusai Yonezawa, a family doctor of the clan, was skilled at examining pregnant women, and Ichi had therefore been consulting her from the beginning of her pregnancy. Each time she was examined, the foetus had grown so well that the doctor's wife was satisfied, and Ichi was told that she was doing very well. She had been performing exorcisms on tabu days and trying to observe the prohibitions and warnings about foods, ways of sleeping, and compass directions. After she had definitely decided not to go back to her parents' house, she became more cautious and tried to avoid everything that pregnant women were said to detest, even though such sayings were probably only superstitions.

      After the letter of refusal had been sent to the Okumuras, Ichi's mother sent her a letter together with an amulet to ensure an easy delivery.

      I don't think it will happen, but if the baby refuses to come out at the time of delivery, you should write down the word "ISE" with India ink on white paper, and swallow the paper. The word "ISE" consists of the characters which mean "this is one who has power to be born," and it has long been said that to swallow it draws the grace of the gods remarkably well.

      The letter also contained a kaiba (a dried sea fish resembling a dragon) and a cowrie shell, the name of which, koyasugai, means "safe delivery."

      Since her husband was again late in returning from the castle, Ichi brought the objects to the living room after supper and showed them to him.

      "Giving birth to a child is really something." Shinzo forced a smile. "This one is called kaiba, isn't it? What is this shell called?"

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