When the cold reaches its harshest depth, the story “Niban Senji” (the second brew)—a classic piece from "rakugo," the traditional Japanese art of comic storytelling performed by a single seated performer—becomes the one you long to hear.

On a freezing winter night in Edo—the former name of Tokyo and the seat of power of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1867)—the neighborhood fire watch patrol, essentially a group of local gentlemen, trudges through the streets tapping their wooden clappers and calling out warnings: “Watch out for fire.”

Shivering in the bitter wind, the men retreat to their small guard hut, desperate for warmth, and huddle around a charcoal brazier.

“Good heavens, that cold was something else,” one of them says.

Then another pulls a gourd flask of sake from inside his kimono.

The “tsukiban”—the monthly duty officer responsible for overseeing that month’s neighborhood patrols—pretends to scold him, but........

© The Asahi Shimbun