My master became bedridden with ulcers, and then he died. As his most trusted servant, I was given the task of setting his rooms and affairs in order. He did have a wife, though by the time of his pyre, she was living in her own accommodation (by his gracious support) that they may not have to look upon one another any longer. He had one daughter who survived infancy, but she was wed and did not even take up the blue of mourning for a single hour.

Because of the indifference of those surrounding my master (and might I say, unfair indifference, for the man had not harmed one soul as long as I’d known him), I was left unattended with what remained of his life. Of course, I obeyed both the law and the faith in this undertaking, but much of the work had no prescribed guidelines.

The other servants took from his home what they felt owed as not all daily wages were granted at the time of his death, for he died very early in the morning (they did, of course, err on the moon and collected objects worth much higher wages despite my efforts to humble them). In case you think my master disorganized for this, let it be known that he never once missed a wage payment. At the setting of the sun each day, he had for all his servants and day hires a fair wage.

When the body was cared for and the datcha was cleaned and all the servants gone, I wandered the rooms cloaked with depression. I struggled to find something to take for myself to equal my own wages and to give my heart something by which to remember the man who lifted me from the dirt and gave me a home and a livelihood.

I settled for a wooden chest, kept at the foot of his lounging bed in the study, for he once told me that the chest had been built by his grandfather and though it was worth no gold nor silver, my master cherished it and often amused me with tales of his early childhood surrounding it. You would not know by meeting the man, but he had humble beginnings, much like me.

Given I was without work and without shelter, it seems a misguided item to select, but it is what I chose. When I did manage to find accommodations and further work, the room I was granted (that I shared with another servant—an illiterate one), was far too small for the crate and the bedding mat and the table. I chose to be rid of the table and keep my master’s crate, eating many meals atop it with the man who shared the room with me.

It was perhaps three shūhir after my master’s death that, in a melancholy, I looked inside the chest. I knew that it would have contents given the weight, but had put the idea of going through it to the clouds, knowing that I would become too emotional and not be able to complete my daily work should I leaf through it.

It is when I opened the chest that I found what you are about to read. I cannot say whether this was already written and given to my master or it was a conversation he copied down himself. I can say with near-perfect certainty that the tone with which the tale is written does not match what I know of my master's other writings. I have since tracked down more of his belongings sold or given or taken and begun to collect additional manuscripts, letters, poems, and songs.

What is enclosed in this binding, I have done my best to translate and verify, though much of it I could not confirm. I can say that, if the contents are true, they must have occurred somewhere around 485 or 486. No use of shūhir is present, rather the girl in the story uses moons to determine the passage of time. It seems to cover a little more than a year.

I will continue my efforts of validation and research, seeing as I now consider this undertaking to be the dying wish of my master. He often spoke aloud his desire to have the story of the world written down.

—The Collector

Shūhir numhi, 922