by Izumi Kyōka · 1895
A painter watches the surgeon Takamine operate on Countess Kifune, who refuses anesthesia because she fears her delirious words will betray a secret she keeps from her husband. As the knife goes in she grips his arm and says he does not know her, and he answers that he has never forgotten; a flashback to a garden nine years earlier explains why both are buried on the same day.