The Kasane Abyss, Volume 1

A blind moneylender visits an impoverished samurai to collect what he is owed. The encounter ends in violence, but concealment does not end the debt. Years later, the consequences return through children, lovers, servants, and country households whose ordinary quarrels turn unexpectedly terrible.

In the first volume of The Kasane Abyss, desire brings Shinkichi into relationships shadowed by jealousy and death. A teacher’s disfigured face, a journey through the countryside, an uneasy marriage, and a child in danger draw him deeper into a history he cannot escape. The storyteller keeps interrupting dread with comic bargaining, village gossip, and sharp exchanges that make the people unsettlingly alive.

San’yūtei Enchō (1839–1900) was a leading Japanese storyteller. This English translation preserves his direct address to listeners, distinct speaking voices, and movement between explanations of nervous disturbance and the claims of ghosts. It includes brief explanatory notes and translates the complete supplied first-volume division, which closes during section 45 and continues in Volume 2.