Shunshoku Umegoyomi Vol. 1:The Apprentice Girl (part 3)

Fig. 1: 十五日を
楽しみにして。
出て来てんで
ありまさアな。

Fig. 2: 日頃の
念力とはいふ
ものゝ。

"Well, looking forward to the 15th of the month, I left my house and came here (fig. 1). Due to my usual faith (fig. 2) and the grace of Myoken (fig. 4), I had the good fortune to come to know where your house was (fig. 3)."

The "15th of the month" refers to the current day (i.e., "today"), from the context. As seen before, if a character doesn't have furigana and it's not a kana, then it's probably a number kanji, or one of the common suffixes that follow them.

I wasn't entirely sure at first about why Arima came up again here, but nothing else made particular sense in this context.

Edit: as suggested by undrentide on the Japan Reference Forums, 「でありまさアな」 is likely a form of 「であります」, which is just 「です」. I can't quite figure out the verb conjugation though, so I could use suggestions there.

Edit 2: a second post by Toritoribe cleared this up. As explained here,「まさあ」 is a sound-shifted form of 「ますわ」, which is just an emphasized form of 「ます」. Therefore, 「でありまさア」 is nothing more than an emphasized form of 「であります」.

Fig. 3: 風と
したことから
おまはんの。
在家が知れる
といふは。

I interpreted the use of the kanji 「風」 ("wind") as meaning "good fortune" (as in, "the winds of good fortune"), building on the previous phrase 「日頃の念力」 ("usual faith"). It is read here using one of its on'yomi, 「ふ」.

Note how this particular "sentence" ends in 「だと」, an informal "reversal" (where the name, "Arima" in this case, comes at the beginning of the quoted clause) also observed in modern Japanese.

Fig. 4: 妙見さま
のおかげだと。

I wasn't entirely sure about either the kanji or furigana for 「空」, but it's what turned up from my searches. 「あか」 isn't a listed reading for 「空」, but 「あく」 and 「あき」 are. I'm guessing the implied meaning behind "empty" is that, as previously mentioned, the house is "lacking in various aspects". For example, it could refer to the absence of Tanjirou's supposed wife, his poverty-stricken state, or his physical infirmity.

Edit: Chris has suggested in the comments below that the furigana for 「空」 might be 「あう」, which would give the compound 「空家」 an overall pronunciation (rendered in modern kana orthography) of 「おうか」.

I'm still not sure how the grammar would work out in that case ― it would suggest that 「空家」 is not exactly a compound, but a verb without okurigana (which we've seen numerous examples of in Umegoyomi) followed by a noun. However, I'm not sure about how the verb conjugation would work out in this case. Also, the handwritten form of 「う」 usually has a larger first stroke, as observed in fig. 6, below.

Edit: Matt's comment below seems to have cleared up the issue. The first kanji is 「在」, and not 「空」. The confusing part about this is that the bottom left stroke is missing, but that's something I should've picked up on, since it was seen before, in fig. 3 of this post.

"Although I'm happy to see you, I'm not entirely cheerful either (fig. 5) ― [because of] the rumor about you having a wife. Has she gone somewhere today? (fig. 6)"

Fig. 5: 嬉しいに付て
氣がるくなは。

There are two particles of interest in fig. 5. The first is 「に」, which is conjunctive in function in this case and indicates concession ("although"). It shows up in modern Japanese as 「のに」.

Fig. 6: おかみさん
があるとの噂。
今日はどこぞへ
お他出のかへ

The second particle of interest is 「は」, which is of course the informal modern emphatic particle, and can be seen as a less strong version of 「よ」. Once again, we observe colloquial and informal speech creeping into the dialogue in Umegoyomi. In accordance with traditional kana orthography, the particle is written using the kana 「は」, and not 「わ」, as in modern Japanese. This is something to watch out for, as it can easily lead to confusion with the topic particle, written as 「は」 in both modern and classical Japanese.

In fig. 6, we see the term 「どこぞ」, which is just a vaguer form of 「どこか」 ("somewhere"). It might be interpreted as an attempt on Yonehachi's part to appear not too concerned about Tanjirou's wife to him.

The kanji used for 「おいで」 are normally read as 「たしゅつ」, and mean "going out", so the meaning fits. We saw this once before with 「おいで」, but that time the kanji were 「在宅」 (meaning "being in" or "being at home"). Since 「おいで」 has a variety of meanings, including "coming", "going", and "being", it is very likely Tamenaga is using kanji compounds here with his desired meaning (and ignoring their readings) to clarify the meaning of 「おいで」 for benefit of the reader while preserving the ambiguous nature of the term within the context of the novel.

The final 「かへ」 is equivalent to the modern day informal interrogative sentence ending 「かい」, as previously encountered (see fig. 4).