NATSUME SŌSEKI¹ (1867–1916) endured the transformation of Japan, during the span of his lifetime, from a feudal society into a modern state modeled on Western blueprints and poignantly chronicled the emotional and intellectual turmoil that accompanied it, the paralyzing cost, in his words, of “incurring” a culture from the outside.² Between 1905 and 1916, Sōseki — in Japan he is known by his pen name alone — conveyed his bleak vision of life in thirteen novels, each one a giant step forward in his effort to elevate the fledgling Japanese novel to a level of observation that would make it “true to life” in the manner and degree of Western realism. A number of his early efforts were, as George Eliot might have said, more diagram than picture: characters are scantily revealed, and they step forward to deliver monologues that are thinly disguised lectures on themes he wants to promulgate. The narrator also intrudes didactically, delivering set speeches of his own. But book by book, Sōseki is to be observed refining the art of his fiction, merging identifiably Japanese shades of indirection and reticence with the obtrusive approaches to inquiry he adapted from the Western novel. No other writer of the Meiji period (1868–1912) was so well equipped to achieve this synthesis: steeped in the Japanese and Chinese classics, an accomplished calligrapher and brush painter and a gifted haiku poet, Sōseki was at the same time possessed of an impressive command of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English poetry and fiction, particularly after two years in London, from 1900 to 1902, that he devoted to reading in English. His later novels are informed by his deep reading of Jane Austen, about whom he wrote at length, and of George Meredith and Henry James.

LIGHT AND DARK, Sōseki’s final novel, unfinished at the time of his death, began appearing in daily installments in the Tokyo and Osaka editions of the Asahi shinbun on May 16, 1916.³ It was the ninth novel he had serialized in the Asahi since he had contracted in 1907 to publish at least one novel a year in the newspaper in return for an annual salary substantially higher than his stipend as a senior lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University.⁴ A letter to an Asahi editor dated May 21 suggests that he had begun work on the novel a mere week in advance of the first scheduled day of serialization: “I have been feeling poorly recently, in and out of bed, and apologize for my slightly delayed start with the new novel.”⁵ The illness to which he stoically refers was the gastrointestinal malaise — an infernal combination of intestinal catarrh, bleeding ulcers, and hemorrhoids — that had plagued him his entire adult life. On June 10 Sōseki writes to the same editor that he has mailed off installment 24; on that day installment 15 was published, indicating that he had managed to accumulate nine installments in advance of their serialization, a slim lead that he maintained until the final outbreak of his chronic condition overcame him on December 9.⁶

One can scarcely imagine the effort it must have cost Sōseki to create a book as minutely observed and unsparing as Light and Dark in daily installments while suffering bleeding and intestinal pain that required him to bind his stomach with a belly band. Small wonder that he sought respite in Japanese brush painting and composing Chinese poetry in the afternoons from the demanding, largely unpleasant characters he was tethered to each morning. He makes reference to this in a letter dated August 21 to two of his disciples living in the same boarding house, Kume Masao, unknown to Western readers, and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, whose sardonic short stories are well represented in translation:⁷

As before, I am at work on Light and Dark every morning. I feel a mixture of pain and pleasure but proceed as if mechanically. I am grateful above all for the unexpectedly cool weather. Even so, writing a thing like this every day, nearly one hundred installments now, leaves me feeling vulgarized. For several days I have been making it my business to work on Chinese poetry in the afternoons, assigning myself one poem a day if possible. Seven characters a line, not easy. But I quit when it gets hard so I don’t accomplish that much.⁸

In a second letter written just days later, on August 24, he counsels the young writers to carry on doggedly with an analogy distinguishing a cow from a horse, an exhortation that was obviously addressed no less to himself:

It’s necessary by all means to become a cow. Somehow or other we want to be horses; it’s not easy to become thoroughly a cow. Even a cunning old dog like me is scarcely more than the half-breed spawn of a horse and a cow….

You mustn’t hurry. You mustn’t muddy up your mind. Come out fighting and persist. In the face of persistence the world will bow its head; fireworks are accorded only an instant’s memory. Push hard until the end. That’s all there is to it. A cow proceeds phlegmatically with its head down.⁹

Toward the end of the summer, Sōseki’s physical decline becomes evident in the pages of his manuscript:¹⁰ his hand begins to waver, the characters grow fainter, and revisions scrawled between the lines increase conspicuously. Nonetheless, he was resolved to follow the novel wherever it should lead him, though increasingly troubled by his inability to conclude it. On November 16 he conveys his frustration to another disciple, studying in New York at the time, Naruse Seiichi: “It troubles me that Light and Dark gets longer and longer. I’m still writing. I’m sure this will continue into the New Year.”¹¹

Sōseki did not live to see the New Year. Too ill to write more, he took to his bed on November 21 after completing what was to be the final installment, number 188. He had intended to continue: a page of manuscript with the number “189” inked in the upper-right corner was found on his desk. In 188 installments—745 pages in the first edition published by Iwanami Shoten the following year — Sōseki’s final novel, though unfinished, was 200 pages longer than his next longest, the bitingly comic I Am a Cat (1905), and twice the length of anything else he wrote.

Light and Dark is unlike any of Sōseki’s thirteen antecedent novels, and entirely unlike anything else in Japanese fiction of the same period (or, for that matter, later periods). Thematically, it may be read as vintage Sōseki: an exploration of the conflict between selfishness and love in which the victory inevitably goes to the former. What distinguishes and, indeed, qualifies it as perhaps the only work of fiction in twentieth-century Japanese literature that can be called a “modern novel” in the Western sense of the term is the degree of interiority it achieves. The protagonists, Tsuda Yoshio, thirty, and his wife, O-Nobu, twenty-three, are revealed at a depth that Sōseki had never achieved in his previous work, and they emerge onto the page with a gratifying complexity that qualifies them as the first three-dimensional characters in Japanese fiction. If this is true of Tsuda, an emotional dullard (the critic Hirano Ken described him as a tsumarananbō, a “nonentity”), it is startlingly true of O-Nobu. Coquettish but not exactly beautiful (Sōseki alludes to her “small eyes” thirteen times), O-Nobu is quick-witted and cunning, a snob and narcissist no less than her husband, passionate, arrogant, spoiled, insecure, vulnerable, naive, idealistic, and, perhaps above all, gallant. Sometimes she reminds us of a Japanese version of Emma Woodhouse, or Gwendolen Harleth, or even Scarlett O’Hara (if one can imagine a less than ravishing Scarlett); in any event, under Sōseki’s meticulous scrutiny she emerges as a flesh-and-blood heroine whose palpable reality has no equal in other Japanese fiction.

Rendering the minute psychological observation at the heart of Light and Dark required Sōseki to forge a new language. The natural genius of Japanese is a proclivity for ambiguity, vagueness, and even obfuscation; Sōseki needed a scalpel capable of dissecting a feeling, a convoluted moment, and even, as here, a glance:

The glance [O-Nobu] cast in O-Hide’s¹² direction at that moment was lightly touched with panic. It wasn’t a look of regret about what had happened or anything of the kind. It was awkwardness that followed hard on the self-satisfaction of having triumphed in yesterday’s battle. It was mild fear about the revenge that might be exacted against her. It was the turmoil of deliberation about how to get through the situation.

Even as she bent her gaze on O-Hide, O-Nobu sensed that she was being read by her antagonist. Too late, the revealing glance had arced suddenly as a bolt of lightning from some high source beyond the reach of her artifice. Lacking the authority to constrain this emergence from an unexpected darkness, she had little choice but to content herself with awaiting its effect. (124:273–74)

“We don’t analyze a glance this way,” a Sōseki specialist at Waseda University assured me, “we direct a glance, aim a glance, and that’s as far as we go!” The sensei was suggesting that the focus of this passage was anomalous; Light and Dark abounds in similar passages, unfamiliar realism expressed in radically unfamiliar ways.

The effect Sōseki achieves, subsuming not only the minute registration of his observation but also the mode of expression he developed to convey what he revealed, is in its way unmistakably Western.¹³ More particularly, it is informed by an understanding of irony as a device for revealing character that is not to be found elsewhere in Japanese fiction. Certainly Jane Austen was one of his teachers. In Theory of Literature (1903–1905), Sōseki declares Austen “the leading authority in the world of realism. Her ability to score points while putting the most commonplace situations to paper far outstrips any of her male rivals.” He demonstrates with an excerpt from chapter 1 of Pride and Prejudice, in which Mrs. Bennet effuses about the wealthy bachelor about to move into Netherfield Park to her husband, whose affectionate skepticism escapes her entirely. Sōseki comments:

This really is the domain of our daily life, its customs and manners. By spreading this unaffected domestic scene out before our eyes, Austen permits us to take pleasure in the minute detail that lies behind objective appearances…. Austen does not simply portray the innocuous conversation between an ordinary married couple…. Anyone who can read will see that it is a matter of the character of the husband and wife in this passage, which is so vivid that it flies off the page.¹⁴

The ironic revelation of character embedded in the “unembellished” details of quotidian life and manners that Sōseki admires in Austen is evident throughout Light and Dark. Even so, the novel’s narrative strategy recalls Austen’s exquisite deftness less distinctly than it does Sōseki’s contemporary Henry James’s tenacious (and somber) exactitude, a quality that Ezra Pound characterized, describing The Odyssey, as “Jamesian precisions.” In his 1907 preface to Portrait of a Lady, James wrote, about Turgenev, that “it began for him always with some person or persons, who hovered before him, soliciting him… interesting him and appealing to him just as they were.”¹⁵ The challenge, he continued, speaking now for himself no less than for “that beautiful genius,” was to find for his characters “the right relations, those that would bring them most out; to imagine, to invent and select and piece together the situations most useful and favorable to the sense of the creatures themselves, the complications they would be most likely to produce and to feel.”¹⁶

Sōseki doubtless began reading Henry James during the two dismal years he spent studying English literature in London. At the time of his death, his library contained Partial Portraits, French Poets and Novelists, Notes on Novelists, and the 1905 Methuen edition of The Golden Bowl heavily annotated in classical Japanese.¹⁷ In a fragment entered in a notebook in 1908, he writes, “James is a writer who succeeds at revealing character without resorting to dialogue.”¹⁸ On another page he adds, “Henry James devotes more than a thousand words to describing a single instant in Charlotte Stant’s thinking,” and continues, “George Meredith takes an entire chapter to dissect the psychological interior of a character standing at London Bridge in the instant before he throws himself offit.”¹⁹ His remarks suggest that Sōseki’s attention was on the revelation of interior consciousness, a microscopic inquiry he achieved in Light and Dark.

There is no basis for asserting that Sōseki was consciously emulating Henry James. But clearly he was resolved to reveal his characters in their however contradictory entirety, and clearly he was less concerned with a story—“plot, nefarious name!” James declared — than with surrounding the protagonists with “satellite characters” likely to draw them to the surface in the manner of an astringent.

The plot of Light and Dark is a paltry matter: its 700 languorous pages proceed in an atmosphere of insistently quotidian, if highly charged, stasis. Tsuda undergoes surgery for what may or may not be hemorrhoids (I shall return to this ambiguity). During the week he spends recovering in bed, he is visited by a procession of intimates: O-Nobu; his younger sister, O-Hide, antipathetic to O-Nobu, whose extravagance she blames for her brother’s financial difficulties; his importunate, self-lacerating friend, Kobayashi, a ne’er-do-well who might have stepped from the pages of a Dostoevsky novel; and his employer’s wife, Madam Yoshikawa, plump, conniving, a meddler with a connection to Tsuda that is unknown to the others. In the longest scene in the novel, Madam manipulates Tsuda into acknowledging that he still thinks about Kiyoko, the woman who left him abruptly for another man shortly before his marriage to O-Nobu. For reasons of her own, which are left unclear,²⁰ the lady reveals to Tsuda that Kiyoko is recuperating from a miscarriage at a hot-springs resort south of Tokyo and urges him to visit her there, volunteering to pay his travel expenses. In the final 100 pages, Tsuda journeys to the spa for an encounter with Kiyoko. Light and Dark terminates with a scene in her room at the inn, during which Tsuda probes unavailingly for some indication that she retains feelings for him.

In place of a compelling plot, Sōseki created an environment, a web of interrelated characters designed to exert maximum social pressure on the two principal objects of his inquiry.²¹ While Tsuda’s and O-Nobu’s parents reside in Kyoto and do not figure directly in the action, the three Tokyo families with whom the protagonists are involved are well known to one another. Tsuda’s uncle Fujii, his father’s younger brother, raised him “more like a son than a nephew” while Tsuda’s father was posted to western Japan as a civil servant. The Okamoto family, O-Nobu’s aunt and uncle, looked after her in a similar way while she was growing up and sharing a room in their house with her younger niece Tsugiko, developing her sharp tongue at her uncle’s knee. Okamoto and Fujii graduated from the same college and are old acquaintances.

Tsuda’s employer, Yoshikawa, is a crony of Tsuda’s father, who has asked him to keep an eye on his son while he is in Tokyo. Yoshikawa has provided Tsuda with a nondescript job in his unspecified business and, while he treats him no less perfunctorily than he would any subordinate, lets him know that he is watching him and will alert his father to any irregular behavior. Yoshikawa and Okamoto, in London together at the coronation of Edward VII in 1901, are “close as brothers.”

Tsuda’s sister and her husband, Hori, the eccentric scion of a once wealthy merchant family, are also factors in the interpersonal equation in which obligation and deference determine the power to impinge. Hori has interceded with Tsuda’s father on Tsuda’s behalf, persuading him to lend his son money, and is being held responsible for Tsuda’s failure to keep his end of the bargain. O-Hide feels compromised by this burden on her husband and transfers responsibility to Tsuda, who feels constrained to save face with his brother-in-law.

Tsuda’s friend Kobayashi is connected to the others in two ways: he works as an editor on Uncle Fujii’s coterie magazine and considers him his mentor, and he knows about Tsuda’s love affair with Kiyoko. Even so, he is an outsider, indeed an outcast, and it is precisely his otherness that enables him to unhinge Tsuda and O-Nobu. A failed writer on his way to self-imposed exile in the Japanese colony of Korea, Kobayashi is brined in self-pity and takes his bitterness out on Tsuda. He is a rebarbative figure, and the reader grows impatient with his tirades. But Sōseki has written him with passion and invested him with conviction and fluency that make him hard to dismiss; moreover, the substance of his attacks on Tsuda’s self-indulgent life of “latitude” have the ring of truth. Kobayashi may be the only moralist in the novel. Even as he torments O-Nobu with his knowledge of Kiyoko, he tells her, “It may surprise you to know that I consider myself a perfectly ingenuous person, a natural man. Compared with you, Mrs. T, I believe I’m guileless” (86:192), and we are tempted to believe him. It seems likely that Sōseki intended him to function as a beacon of integrity in the murkiness of dissimulation and self-interest.

It is no accident, for example, that, among Tsuda’s critics, only Kobayashi succeeds in puncturing his complacency. At their farewell dinner, he insists that Tsuda read a letter from someone he does not know. A cry for help from its author, suffering in the isolating darkness of his despair, the letter enables Tsuda to see something about himself to which he has been blind and creates the possibility of a step forward, but for only an instant:

Something had startled him. Until now he had been wont to assume that the world was what he beheld in front of him, but just now he had been obliged abruptly to turn and look behind. He had halted in that attitude, his gaze fixed upon an existence opposite to himself. As he stared at that ghostly presence he was encountering for the first time ever, he cried out to himself Ah, this is a person, too!…

Here he stopped and circled. But he didn’t advance a single step. He went no further than understanding the meaning of the repellant letter in a manner that befitted him. (165:364)

It is in their self-conscious interactions with Kobayashi and the others that Sōseki discovers and illuminates his protagonists’ innermost feelings: relationship becomes the key to unlocking characterization in depth. Here, for example, is Tsuda, “a man who prided himself on his unfaltering perspicacity where his own interests were concerned,” revealing the cynicism he is at pains to conceal as he calculates the dynamics of the extended family:

The truth was, he didn’t care for O-Nobu to the extent people assumed he did….

Tsuda had a particular reason for allowing this misunderstanding to obtain. Kobayashi had disinterred the reason. It was in the soil of this misunderstanding that the Okamotos’ good intentions toward him grew, and it was in his interest to preserve those feelings as best he could. Treating O-Nobu solicitously, in other words, was the same as currying favor with the Okamotos, and inasmuch as Okamoto and Yoshikawa were as close as brothers, it stood to reason that the better care he took of O-Nobu, the more assured his future became. (133–134:293)

In long, successive scenes we observe O-Nobu dueling with Kobayashi, with her husband, and with her sister-in-law, O-Hide. Tsuda engages in his own fraught dialogues with O-Hide, Kobayashi, and the manipulative Madam Yoshikawa. These strategic engagements now and then explode into moments of intense emotion — jealousy, rancor, recrimination — that will surprise English readers conditioned to expect indirectness and delicacy, not to mention reticence, of Japanese social behavior.

IN SEARCH OF an overarching theme, Japanese and Western critics have leaped at the doctor’s diagnosis in the opening installment: that curing Tsuda’s condition will require “a more fundamental treatment.” This has been read to mean that the crises he encounters in the course of the novel will affect him in the nature of a cure, healing in some basic way his social, emotional, and moral infirmity. Yet the text offers no corroboration of such a reading. Tsuda suffers, often the result of wounds to his vanity, but, as with many another narcissist, his pain afflicts him but generally fails to move him toward a deepened understanding of himself. By the time they reach the end of the novel, readers are likely to feel certain that Tsuda’s focus on himself has destined him to remain, as it were, in the dark.

If there is a central theme in Light and Dark, it is precisely the impossibility of recovery from the suffering in isolation caused, in Sōseki’s view, by attachment to the self. This was by no means a new idea. Daisuke, the hero of his novel And Then (1909), has stepped aside selflessly to allow his best friend to marry a girl he himself covets, but when the couple returns to Tokyo in financial straits he declares his love for Michiyo and wrests her from her husband. The novel ends with Daisuke confronting madness as he contemplates the social implications of his actions. The married couple in The Gate (1910) has transgressed in a similar way and lives a lonely life in the shadow of an overhanging cliff, seeking refuge in each other from the ostracism they have brought upon themselves. The hero, roughly Tsuda’s age, tries meditation at a Zen temple but finds that the gates of enlightenment are closed to him and returns in resignation to his tedious, haunted life. The sensei in Kokoro (1914), Sōseki’s best-known novel in the West, torments himself with responsibility for driving his friend “K” to suicide by stealing the woman he loves before “K” can find the courage to propose to her. He warns the student narrator that nothing he tells him will allow him to change the way he leads his own life, and the novel demonstrates that he is right: the student remains trapped in his own selfishness. The sensei’s wife asks poignantly, “Can two hearts ever beat as one?” and the answer the novel implicitly provides is a resounding no. On the evidence of his work, Sōseki surveyed the world around him and concluded that his fellow man could not improve. Nor was he tempted by the possibility of redemption as an article of Christian faith that led to the pardons, marriages, and babies that end many a Victorian novel happily.

Like the hero in The Gate, Tsuda is in quest of self-knowledge as an alleviation of the uneasiness he carries inside himself. And the novel lofts the possibility that the mystery woman Kiyoko may hold the key to what he seeks. But the prelude to the actual meeting with Kiyoko suggests that enlightenment for Tsuda was not Sōseki’s intention. His journey to the spa where Kiyoko is staying deep in the mountains is long and fraught with obstacles, the most overtly symbolic of which is the dark boulder lying athwart the road in front of his carriage. His experience on arrival at the inn augurs badly: the building is dark, mostly underground, and labyrinthine. Shortly after arriving, he loses his way back to his room in the endless corridors, and his encounter with himself in a mirror just before Kiyoko’s first appearance at the head of the stairs above him is not encouraging:

He looked away from the water and encountered abruptly the figure of another person. Startled, he narrowed his gaze and peered. But it was only an image of himself, reflected in a large mirror hanging alongside the sinks….

He was inveterately confident about his looks. He couldn’t remember ever glancing in a mirror and failing to confirm his confidence. He was therefore a little surprised to observe something in this reflection that struck him as less than satisfying. Before he had determined that the image was himself, he was assailed by the feeling that he was looking at his own ghost. (175:387–88)

The meeting he finally arranges with Kiyoko, the last scene Sōseki was able to write before he collapsed, is a masterpiece of indirection and provocative hints that lead nowhere. One senses that Kiyoko’s apparent serenity may be counterfeit, that she is not so indifferent to Tsuda as she seems; one senses as well her contained anger. But Tsuda’s confusion when he ponders the meaning of her smile on the way back to his room is understandable. Choosing not to reveal her, Sōseki has managed to install Kiyoko as a mystery generating tension at the heart of the novel.

Light and Dark is also in the shadow of a second, not unrelated, mystery, or at least ambiguity: the nature of Tsuda’s illness. Ostensibly, he is suffering from hemorrhoids (although the word for “hemorrhoid” never appears). Why, in that case, is he seeing a doctor whose specialty seems to be venereal disease? This fact is revealed implicitly in a scene in the waiting room at the clinic:

The members of this gloomy band shared, almost without exception, a largely identical past. As they sat waiting their turn in this somber waiting room, a fragment of that past that was if anything brilliantly colored cast its shadow abruptly over each of them. Lacking the courage to turn toward the light, they had halted inside the darkness of the shadow and locked themselves in. (17:54)

Waiting his turn, Tsuda recalls unexpected encounters at the doctor’s office with two men within the past year. One is his brother-in-law, Hori, a playboy, who seemed uncharacteristically “nonplussed” to see him. The other is an “acquaintance” with whom he engaged over dinner after leaving the doctor’s office together in a “complex debate about sex and love,” which had subsequently resulted in a rift between them.

These passages, coupled with the fact that the medical details Sōseki provides are inconclusive, lead the reader by indirection to the speculation that the undisclosed “friend” may have been Seki, the acquaintance for whom Kiyoko had left Tsuda. Was Seki infected? Might his illness have been responsible for Kiyoko’s miscarriage? And what of Tsuda himself: Was he immune to the allure of Tokyo’s pleasure quarter? The following exchange with O-Nobu is an invitation to wonder:

“You stopped off somewhere again today?”

It was a question O-Nobu could be counted on to ask if Tsuda failed to return at the expected hour. He was obliged accordingly to offer something in reply. Since it wasn’t necessarily the case that he had been delayed by an errand, there were times when his response was oddly vague. At such times he avoided looking at O-Nobu, who would have put on makeup for him.

“Shall I guess?”

“Go ahead.”

This time, Tsuda had nothing to worry about.

“The Yoshikawas.” (14:48)

Entangling Hori and Seki and Tsuda would be structurally satisfying. But there is no hard evidence, only the absence of definitive detail on the one hand and oblique suggestion on the other. In this way, controlling ambiguity, Sōseki keeps observant readers on the edge of their hermeneutic seats.²²

If Tsuda is doomed to continue wandering in the fog of his attachment to Kiyoko, O-Nobu also inhabits a world of illusion, choosing to believe that her superior cleverness will enable her to have her way in life. Her formula for happiness, reiterated with the passion of a credo, sounds simple enough: “It doesn’t matter who he is, you must love the man you’ve chosen for yourself with all your heart and soul, and by loving him you must make him love you every bit as deeply no matter what” (78:177).

In an ironic scene in which she attempts to persuade O-Hide, married to a philanderer, that love must be unconditional, absolute, and exclusive, she exposes her naiveté and, by implication, the sense of entitlement that proceeds from her own egoism. She is of course aware that Tsuda’s love, assuming he loves her at all, is a far cry from what she expects. In the cruelest moment in the novel, tormented by the knowledge that there is, or has been, another woman in her husband’s life, O-Nobu appeals to him to allow her to feel secure:

“I want to lean on you. I want to feel secure. I want immensely to lean, beyond anything you can imagine.”…

“Please! Make me feel secure. As a favor to me. Without you, I’m a woman with nothing to lean against. I’m a wretched woman who’ll collapse the minute you detach from me. So please tell me I can feel secure. Please say it, ‘Feel secure.’”

Tsuda considered.

“You can. You can feel secure.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. You have no reason to worry.” (149:326–27)

Observing that O-Nobu’s tension has eased, Tsuda feels reprieved and turns to placating his wife, “abundantly employing phrases likely to please her.” The reader is stunned to observe that this transparent ploy is effective:

For the first time in a long while, O-Nobu beheld the Tsuda she had known before their marriage. Memories from the time of their engagement revived in her heart.

My husband hasn’t changed after all. He’s always been the man I knew from the old days.

This thought brought O-Nobu a satisfaction more than sufficient to rescue Tsuda from his predicament. The turbulence that was on the verge of becoming a violent storm subsided. (150:328)

One source of animating energy in Light and Dark is the tension between the antipodes of precision and ambiguity. Some scenes feel excessively interpreted. Elsewhere, often at key moments such as this one, the narrator slips out of the room, leaving the reader to interpret the passage on his or her own. And what are we to think? In driving O-Nobu into a gullibility as hopeless as this, as hapless and pathetic, is Sōseki revealing a lack of respect for this inexperienced, passionate young woman? Does he share what amounts to Tsuda’s contempt? Is the reader to pity or condemn her? We are left deliberating in a troubled way, which is perhaps what Sōseki intends. We are obliged to ask ourselves, what is to become of this valiant, vulnerable heroine?

SINCE ITS PUBLICATION in 1917, Light and Dark has inspired conjecture about how Sōseki intended to conclude his novel. He left no outline, and the only oracular reference is O-Nobu’s prediction to Tsuda that “the day was coming when I’d have to summon up my courage at a certain moment all at once… courage for my husband’s sake” (154:339). This has been taken to mean that O-Nobu would travel to the hot — springs resort to do battle with Kiyoko for Tsuda. In his preface to the Shinchō paperback edition, the haiku poet Nakamura Kusatao paints the grimmest picture: Tsuda and Kiyoko fall back in love, and O-Nobu, failing to win Tsuda away from her, commits suicide. In Ōe Kenzaburō’s version, O-Nobu hastens to the hot springs accompanied by Kobayashi and remonstrates with Kiyoko. But in her naiveté she is no match for her rival and, defeated, falls physically ill. Tsuda nurses her back to health and rediscovers his love for her. Together they return from the realm of darkness—Ōe locates the hot springs in a Stygian realm, the “darkness” in Light and Dark—to the world of life and “light.”²³ The novelist Ōoka Shōhei (Fires on the Plain) postulates a variety of endings.²⁴ Kiyoko concludes that she has paled on seeing Tsuda at the bottom of the stairs because she still has feelings for him, and her confession rekindles their romance. O-Nobu travels to the hot springs and accuses her rival of violating the sisterhood of women, much as the archetypal wife, O-San, pleads with the archetypal courtesan, Koharu, in Chikamatsu’s eighteenth-century Bunraku play, Love Suicide at Amijima. Unlike Koharu, who sympathizes with O-san, Kiyoko pleads her own grief at miscarrying as a consequence of an infection that her libertine husband has passed to her. (Ōoka is the only Japanese critic I have read who takes Sōseki’s intimation to heart.) Under the stress of this impasse, Tsuda begins to hemorrhage and collapses. O-Nobu nurses him, and Kiyoko, perceiving the bond between them, departs.

There are other extrapolations, but none clarifies or deepens significantly the vision that Sōseki has already conjured: the unlikelihood of an escape from the prison of vanity and self-interest into the light of liberating self-knowledge. Among the writers who have essayed to “conclude” the novel with a full-length sequel — there have been four published attempts²⁵—only Mizumura Minae has conveyed the pessimism that is Sōseki’s primary color. Her Light and Dark, the Sequel (Zoku Meian, 1990), begins boldly with the final installment of Light and Dark and develops the game of cat-and-mouse that Sōseki initiated. At moments, Kiyoko appears on the verge of lowering her defenses; she even declares provocatively, “I’m afraid of what will happen if I stay here.” Eventually Tsuda badgers her into divulging an explanation for having turned away from him: “When all is said and done I can’t trust you,” she obliges. “For example, here you are, you came all this way…. I can’t help wondering if I might have been betrayed in this same way if we’d gotten together.”²⁶ Coming from the woman who inhabits his dreams, this unsparing put-down might have withered Tsuda with chagrin, for he is guilty as charged of betraying his wife. But, as always, he is insulated against humiliation by his own self-regard and feels only anger. Just then O-Nobu arrives, but there is no confrontation between the women, only a moment of breathtaking awkwardness. Kiyoko returns to the inn with a soft “Farewell,” and the couple is left alone to suffer in silence. Thus Mizumura’s sequel concludes on a note that seems congruent with Sōseki’s intent: difficult lessons have not been learned, and the way ahead is no clearer than it ever was.

The question remains: Is Light and Dark incomplete as Sōseki left it? Certainly he intended to continue writing, but an author’s desire to augment a novel needn’t be taken ipso facto as proof that the work is unfinished; in view of the inconclusiveness that characterizes much of Japanese fiction, the question may not be as frivolous as it appears. How “complete,” for example, is Snow Country by Kawabata Yasunari, a series of impressionistic episodes loosely assembled over a period of long years, or, for that matter, the same author’s open-ended portrait of an old man preparing for death, The Sound of the Mountain? How complete is Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s Some Prefer Nettles, which ends with the mistress O-Hisa kneeling enigmatically in the doorway? And what of Tanizaki’s magnum opus, The Makioka Sisters, which leaves the reader with Yukiko, suffering from diarrhea, boarding a train for Tokyo to begin her new life as the wife of an architect who is not introduced?

Let us not belabor the point. Light and Dark appears to be as complete as many Japanese novels in the twentieth-century canon: everything the reader needs to know about its principal characters to anticipate the ineluctable outcome Sōseki intends has been revealed. The details of the ending are missing, but the essence of his conclusion is already encoded in the text: Tsuda will not succeed in liberating himself from the egoism that blinds him, and O-Nobu will continue to pursue an exalted version of love that she will not ultimately attain. This motif is a refrain that sounds throughout Sōseki’s oeuvre. It is the contradictory, terrifying, ultimately unaccountable complexity of human consciousness microscopically examined in Light and Dark that installs it as a landmark in twentieth-century Japanese fiction.

FINISHED WITH his probe, the doctor helped Tsuda down from the examination table.

“It appears the lesion extends all the way to the intestine. Last time I felt the ridge of a scar and assumed it stopped there, but when I scraped away just now to help it drain, I see it’s deeper.”

“To the intestine?”

“Yes. What I thought was less than two centimeters appears to be more than three.”

A flush of disappointment rose faintly to Tsuda’s face beneath his strained smile. The doctor shook his head, his hands clasped in front of him against his baggy white smock. “It’s too bad but it’s the reality we have to face,” he might have been saying. “A doctor can’t compromise professional standards with a lie.”

Tsuda retied his obi in silence and turned again to face the doctor, lifting his hakama* from the back of a chair where he had dropped it.

“If it’s all the way to the intestine there’s no way it’ll heal?”

“There’s no reason to think that.”

The doctor’s denial was emphatic and unhesitating, as if to invalidate Tsuda’s mood at the same time.

“It does suggest we’ll have to do more than just clean the canal as we’ve been doing. Since that won’t get us any new tissue our only option is a more fundamental approach.”

“Meaning?”

“Surgery. We’ll resect a portion of the canal and connect it to the intestine. That will allow the resected ends to knit naturally and you’ll be, well, almost as good as new.”

Tsuda nodded without speaking. Next to where he stood, a microscope sat on a table that had been installed beneath a window facing south. Entering the examination room earlier, his curiosity had prompted him to ask the doctor, with whom he was on familiar terms, if he could have a look. What he had seen through the 850-power lens were grape-shaped bacteria as vividly colored as if they had been photographed.

Fastening his hakama, Tsuda reached for the leather wallet he had placed on the same table and abruptly recalled the bacteria. The association was a breath of uneasiness. Having inserted the wallet inside his kimono in preparation to leave, he was on his way out when he hesitated.

“If it’s tuberculosis, I suppose it wouldn’t heal even if you performed what you call fundamental surgery?”

“If it were tubercular, no. In that case it would burrow straight in toward the intestine so that just treating the opening would be ineffective.”

Tsuda winced involuntarily.

“But mine isn’t tubercular?”

“That’s right.”

Tsuda looked hard at the doctor for an instant, as if to determine the degree of truth in what he was saying. The doctor didn’t move.

“How do you know? You can tell from just an examination?”

“That’s right — from how it looks.”

Just then the nurse, standing at the entrance to the room, called the name of the next patient, who had been waiting for his turn and immediately appeared in the doorway. Tsuda was obliged to exit quickly.

“So when can I have this surgery?”

“Any time. Whenever it suits you.”

Promising to pick a date after thinking it over, Tsuda stepped outside.

ON THE streetcar home, he was feeling low. Wedged into the crowded car with no room to move, gripping the overhead strap, he directed his thoughts inward. Last year’s screeching pain rose vividly to the stage of his memory. He saw distinctly his own pathetic figure laid out on the white bed. He heard clearly his own moaning, a sound that might have issued from a dog unable to break its chain and run away. And then the glitter of the cold blade, the metallic clink of scalpel against speculum, a pressure so powerful that it squeezed the air out of both his lungs in a single gasp, and a riotous agony that felt as if it could only have come from the impossibility of expressing the air as it was being compressed — these impressions assaulted his memory all at once.

He felt miserable. Shifting his focus abruptly, he cast an eye around him. The passengers near him were impassive, not even aware of his existence. He turned his thoughts back on himself.

Why did I have such an agonizing experience?

On his way home from viewing cherry blossoms at the Arakawa Wharf, the pain had struck with no warning, its cause a mystery to him. It wasn’t strange so much as terrifying. There’s no guarantee that a change won’t occur in this body of mine at any hour of any given day. For that matter, some sort of change could be taking place even now. And I myself have no idea. Terrifying!

Having proceeded this far, his mind was unable to stop. With the force of a powerful blow to the back it jolted him forward. Abruptly he called out silently inside himself:

It’s the same with the mind. Exactly the same. There’s no knowing when or how it will change. I’ve witnessed such a change with my own eyes.

Pursing his lips, he glanced around him with the eyes of a man whose self-esteem has been injured. But the other passengers were oblivious of what was happening inside him and paid no heed to the look in his eyes.

Like the streetcar he was riding, his mind merely moved forward on its own tracks. He recalled what his friend had told him a few days ago about Poincarré. Having explained “probability” for his benefit, his friend had turned to him and spoken as follows:

“So you see, what you commonly hear described as chance, an accident, a chance occurrence, is really just a case where the actual cause is too complex to grasp. For a Napoleon to be born, an extraordinary sperm must unite with an extraordinary egg; but when you start considering the circumstances that were required to create that necessary union it boggles the imagination.”

He was unable to dismiss his friend’s words as merely a fragment of new knowledge that had been imparted to him. Thinking about how closely they fit his own circumstances, he seemed to become aware of a dark, imponderable force pushing him left when he meant to go right or pulling him back when he meant to go forward. Until that moment, he would have felt certain that his actions had never been subject to restraint by others. He had been certain that he did whatever he did of his own accord, that everything he said he intended to say.

Why would she have married him? Because she chose to, no doubt. But she couldn’t possibly have wanted that. And what of me, why did I marry the woman who is my wife? No doubt our marriage happened because I chose to take her. But I have never once felt that I wanted her. Chance? Poincarré’s so-called zenith of complexity? I have no idea.

Alighting from the streetcar, he walked ruminatively home.

TURNING THE corner and entering a narrow street, Tsuda recognized the figure of his wife standing in front of the gate to their house. She was looking in his direction. But as he rounded the corner she turned back to the street in front of her. Lifting her slender, white hand as if to shadow her brow, she appeared to be looking up at something. She maintained the stance until Tsuda had moved to her side.

“What are you looking at?”

As if surprised by his voice, Tsuda’s wife quickly turned to face him.

“You startled me — welcome home.”

As she spoke, she turned her sparkling eyes on him and drenched him in their light. Then, bending forward slightly she dipped her head in a casual greeting. Tsuda halted where he stood, half responding to the coquette in her and half hesitating.

“What are you doing standing here?”

“I was waiting — for you to come home.”

“But you were staring at something.”

“A sparrow. You can see the sparrow nesting under the eaves across the street.”

Tsuda glanced up at the roof of the house. But there was no visible sign of anything that appeared to be a sparrow. His wife abruptly extended her hand toward him.

“What?”

“Your stick.”

As if he had just noticed it, Tsuda handed the cane to his wife. Taking it, she slid open the lattice door at the entrance and moved aside for her husband to enter. Close behind him, she stepped up to the wooden floor from the concrete slab for shoes.

When she had helped him change out of his kimono, she brought from the kitchen a soap dish wrapped in a towel as he was sitting down in front of the charcoal brazier.

“Go and have a quick bath now. Once you get comfortable there you won’t feel like going out.”

Tsuda had no choice but to reach out and take the towel. But he didn’t stand right away.

“I might skip a bath today.”

“Why? You’ll feel refreshed. And dinner will be ready as soon as you get back.”

Tsuda stood up again as he was told. On his way out of the room he turned back toward his wife.

“I stopped in at Kobayashi’s on the way home from work and had him take a look.”

“Goodness! What did he say? By now you must be mostly better?”

“I’m not — it’s worse than before.”

Without giving his wife a chance to question him further, he left the room.

It wasn’t until early that evening, after dinner and before he had withdrawn to his study, that the couple returned to the subject.

“I can’t believe it, surgery is horrible; it scares me. Couldn’t you just ignore it as you’ve been doing?”

“The doctor says that would be dangerous.”

“But it’s so hateful, what if he makes a mistake?”

His wife looked at him, bunching slightly her thick, well-formed eyebrows. Tsuda smiled, declining to engage her. Her next question seemed to have occurred to her abruptly.

“If you do have surgery won’t it have to be on Sunday?”

On the coming Sunday his wife had made a date with relatives to see a play and bring Tsuda along.

“They haven’t bought tickets yet so you needn’t worry about canceling.”

“But wouldn’t that be rude? After they were kind enough to invite us along?”

“Not at all. Not under the circumstances.”

“But I want to go!”

“Then do.”

“And you come too, won’t you? Won’t you, please?”

Tsuda looked at his wife and forced a smile.

AGAINST THE fairness of her complexion her well-formed eyebrows stood out strikingly, and it was her habit, almost a tic, to arch them frequently. Regretfully, her eyes were too small and her single eyelids were unappealing. But the shining pupils beneath those single lids were ink black and, for that reason, very effective. At times her eyes could be expressive to a degree that might be called overbearing. Tsuda had experienced feeling helplessly drawn in by the light that emanated from those small eyes. Not as if there weren’t also moments when abruptly and for no reason the same light repelled him.

Glancing up abruptly at his wife’s face, he beheld for an instant an eerie power resident in her eyes. It was an odd brilliancy utterly inconsonant with the sweet words that had been issuing from her lips until now. His intention to respond was impeded a little by her gaze. In that moment she smiled, exposing her beautiful teeth, and the look in her eyes vanished without a trace.

“It’s not so. I don’t care a bit about going to the theater. I was just being spoiled.”

Tsuda was silent, unable for a while longer to take his eyes off his wife.

“Why are you frowning at me that way? I’m not going to the play so please have your surgery on Sunday, won’t you? I’ll send the Okamotos a postcard or drop in and tell them we can’t come.”

“Go if you want to, they were nice enough to invite us.”

“I’d rather not — your health is more important than a play.”

Tsuda felt obliged to tell his wife in more detail about the surgery in store for him.

“This isn’t a simple matter of draining the pus out of a boil. I have to flush out my colon with a laxative before the doctor goes to work with his scalpel, and apparently there’s a danger of hemorrhaging after the incision is made so I’ll have to lie still in bed five or six days with the wound packed with gauze. But that means, on the other hand, I could postpone until Monday or Tuesday or even move the date up to tomorrow or the day after and it wouldn’t make much difference — in that sense it’s an accommodating condition.”

“It doesn’t sound so accommodating to me, having to lie in bed for a week without moving.”

His wife arched her eyebrows again. As if indifferent to this display, Tsuda, lost in thought, leaned his right elbow against the brazier between them and gazed at the lid on the iron kettle atop it. Beneath the russet bronze lid the water in the kettle was boiling loudly.

“I suppose you’ll have to take a whole week off?”

“I’m thinking I won’t pick a date until I’ve had a chance to let Yoshikawa-san know what’s happening. I could just stay home without saying anything but that wouldn’t feel right.”

“I think you should talk to him. He’s always been so kind to us.”

“If I do say something he might tell me to check in to the hospital right away.”

At the word “hospital,” his wife’s small eyes appeared suddenly to widen.

“Hospital? It’s not as if you’ll be going to a hospital.”

“It’s the same thing—”

“But you said once that Dr. Kobayashi’s place isn’t a hospital — it’s only for out-patients.”

“I suppose it’s more of a clinic, but the second floor is available for staying over.”

“Is it clean?”

Tsuda forced a smile.

“Maybe cleaner than our place—”

It was his wife’s turn to smile stiffly.

TSUDA, WHOSE custom it was to spend an hour or two at his desk before going to bed, presently rose. His wife remained where she was, leaning comfortably against the brazier, and looked up at her husband.

“Study time again?”

This wasn’t the first time she had asked the question as he stood up. And there was always something in her tone that sounded to him like dissatisfaction. Sometimes he attempted to mollify her. At other times he felt rebellious and wanted to escape. In either case he was always aware, at the back of his consciousness, of a feeling that amounted to a disparagement:

I can’t be wasting all my time with a woman like you — I have things to do for myself.

Sliding open the paper door to the adjoining room in silence, he was on his way out when his wife spoke to his back.

“So the theater is off? And I’m to decline the Okamotos’ invitation?”

Tsuda paused, turning around.

“You should go if you like. The way things are, I can’t make any promises.”

His wife’s eyes remained on her lap. Nor did she reply. Tsuda turned and climbed the steep stairs to the second floor, the steps creaking under his feet.

A Western tome was waiting on top of his desk. He sat down and, opening the book to the bookmark, began at once to read. But the context eluded him, the price of having abandoned the book for a number of days. As recalling where he had left off would require rereading the preceding section, he merely riffled the pages guiltily and regarded the volume as though oppressed by its thickness. A spontaneous feeling that the road ahead was endless took possession of him.

He recalled having acquired the book during the first three or four months of his marriage. And it struck him that, although more than two months had passed, he had succeeded in making his way through less than two-thirds of it. Against the common practice of most men, beneath contempt as he put it, of leaving books behind when they embarked on their careers, he had frequently inveighed in front of his wife. And sufficient hours had been expended on the second floor to oblige her, accustomed to hearing him carry on about others, to acknowledge that he was indeed an avid student. Together with his sense that the road ahead was endless, a feeling of humiliation emerged from somewhere and nibbled perversely at his self-esteem.

However, the knowledge he was struggling to absorb from the book that was open in front of him was of no quotidian consequence to his life at work. It was too specialized, and again too refined. It might have been styled as utterly irrelevant to an occupation such that even the knowledge he had obtained from college lectures had almost never availed him. This was knowledge he wanted to store away as a source of a certain strength that derived from self-confidence. He also wished to acquire it as an ornament for attracting the attention of others. Now, as he became sensible in a vague way of how difficult that was likely to be, he framed a question inwardly to his vanity:

Will this be tougher than I thought?

He smoked a cigarette in silence. Then, as if suddenly noticing it, he turned the book face down and stood up from his desk. With quick steps that caused the stairs to creak again he went back downstairs.

“O-NOBU!” “O-NOBU!”

Calling his wife’s name through the fusuma,* he slid open the patterned paper door and stood in the threshold of the sitting room. Instantly his vision filled with the colors of the beautiful obi and kimono she had at some point spread in front of her as she sat alongside the brazier. They appeared, as he peered at them in the lighted room from the dark hallway, more strikingly vibrant than usual, and for a long moment he stood there, glancing from his wife’s face to the dazzling patterns and back again.

“Why take all that out at this hour?”

With one end of a thick obi woven in an iris pattern across her knee, O-Nobu looked at her husband as if across a great distance.

“I felt like it — I haven’t worn this obi even once.”

“I suppose that’s the outfit you’re planning to wear for your big day at the theater?”

In Tsuda’s voice was the coldness that accompanies an ironic jab. O-Nobu cast her eyes down without speaking. In her wonted manner she arched her dark eyebrows. There were times when this singular gesture excited him in an odd way, while at other times he felt curiously aggravated. In silence he stepped out onto the engawa* and opened the door to the lavatory. Thence he moved back to the stairs. This time it was his wife who called him back.

“Yoshio-san. Wait.”

As she spoke she rose and approached him.

“Is there something you need?” she asked, stepping between him and the stairs.

What he needed that minute was related to a matter of more importance than an obi or a long under-robe.

“Still no letter from my father?”

“Not yet — when it arrives I’ll put it on your desk as usual.”

Tsuda had bothered to come back downstairs because the letter he was expecting wasn’t waiting on his desk.

“Shall I have O-Toki look in the mailbox?”

“It’ll come registered; they won’t just toss it into the mailbox.”

“Perhaps not, but let’s have a look just to be sure.”

O-Nobu slid open the shoji at the front entrance and stepped down onto the concrete.

“I’m telling you. There’s no point looking in the mailbox for a registered letter.”

“But maybe it wasn’t registered; wait just a minute while I have a look.”

Tsuda withdrew to the sitting room and sat down with his legs crossed in front of him on the cushion he had used at dinner, still in place alongside the brazier. His gaze came to rest on the brilliant profusion of scattered color, the glowing animals and flowers in a yuzen pattern.

O-Nobu was back from the front of the house a minute later with a letter in her hand.

“There was one! This might be from your father.”

As she spoke, she held the white envelope up to the bright light.

“It is. Just as I thought.”

“And it’s not registered?”

Taking the envelope from her hand, Tsuda opened it at once and read it through to the end. When he folded it to replace it in the envelope, his hands moved mechanically. He didn’t look down at them, or at O-Nobu’s face. Gazing vacantly at the pattern of broad stripes on her dressy crepe kimono, he muttered, as if talking to himself,

“Damn.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing to worry about.”

Acutely concerned with appearances, Tsuda was disinclined to reveal the content of the letter to his newlywed wife. At the same time, it was about something he was obliged to discuss with her.

“HE SAYS he can’t send money so we should manage on our own this month. That’s the thing about old people. He could have written earlier, but he has to wait until we’re just about to need some extra cash.”

“But why? Does he explain?”

Tsuda removed the letter he had replaced in the envelope and unrolled it on his lap.

“He says two of his rentals went vacant at the end of last month and he’s still waiting for the rent from others that are occupied. On top of that he has gardeners to pay, a fence to build, maintenance he hadn’t figured on, you name it — so this month is out of the question.”

He passed the unfurled letter across the brazier to O-Nobu. His wife accepted it in silence but made no attempt to read it. It was this coldness in her attitude that Tsuda had feared from the beginning.

“It’s not as though he needs that rent to manage his payment to us if he wanted to send it. And how much can a fence cost; he’s not building a brick wall.”

Tsuda was speaking the truth. His father may not have been wealthy, but neither were his circumstances such that covering the shortage in funds needed by his son and his young wife for monthly expenses would burden him. It was simply that he lived modestly. Tsuda might have called him plain and simple to a fault. To O-Nobu, far more inclined to extravagance than her husband, the old man appeared to be meaninglessly frugal.

“Your father probably thinks we love to throw money away on things we don’t need. I bet that’s exactly what he thinks.”

“The last time we were in Kyoto he did imply something like that. Old people remember how they lived when they were young, and they tend to think that young people today should behave just as they did when they were the same age. Thirty may be thirty no matter whose age it is, but we live in a completely different world. He once asked me what a ticket cost me when I went to a lecture, and when I told him five yen he looked horrified.”

Tsuda worried constantly that O-Nobu would feel contempt for his father. Even so, he couldn’t avoid speaking critically about him in her presence. And what he said was what he truly felt. By preempting O-Nobu’s own criticism, he was also proffering what amounted to an excuse for himself and his father.

“So whatever shall we do? We can’t make ends meet as it is, and now you’re going in for surgery and that has to cost something—”

Reluctant to criticize the old man out of consideration for her husband, O-Nobu shifted the subject to concrete issues. Tsuda was not ready with a reply. Presently he spoke as if to himself, his voice low.

“If Uncle Fujii had any money I’d go to him.”

O-Nobu gazed steadily into her husband’s face.

“Can’t you write back to Father? And mention your illness in passing?”

“I can always write, but I know he’ll come back at me with something or other and that’s such a nuisance. Once he clamps down it’s harder than hell to break away.”

“But what other options do we have?”

“I’m not saying I won’t write. I intend to do what I can to make our circumstances clear to them, but that won’t put money in our pocket in time.”

“I suppose—”

Tsuda looked O-Nobu squarely in the face. When he spoke, there was determination in his voice.

“How about going to the Okamotos and asking them for a small loan?”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT! I won’t!”

O-Nobu declined at once. There was no trace of hesitation in her voice. Her fluency, beyond all reserve or consideration, caught Tsuda off guard. The shock he received was as if an automobile traveling at considerable speed had suddenly braked to a stop. In advance of anger or resentment at his wife’s lack of sympathy for him was surprise. He gazed at her face.

“I won’t. I’m not going to the Okamotos with a story like that.”

O-Nobu repeated her refusal.

“Fine! I’m not going to ask you against your will. It’s just—”

These cold yet calmly delivered words O-Nobu scooped up and tossed aside.

“It’s so awkward for me. Every time I visit I’m told how fortunate I am to have married so well with no cares or troubles and no financial worries; I can imagine how they’d look at me if I showed up out of the blue with a sad story about money.”

This allowed Tsuda to satisfy himself that O-Nobu’s categorical rejection of his request was prompted less by a lack of sympathy for him than by her need to maintain appearances in front of the Okamotos. The cold light that had lodged in his eyes flickered out.

“You shouldn’t be carrying on as if we’re having such an easy time. It’s nice to have people think you’re doing better than you are, but there’s no guarantee the time won’t come when that will create its own problems.”

“If anyone’s carrying on it certainly isn’t me — they’ve decided how things are all by themselves.”

Tsuda chose not to pursue this. Nor could O-Nobu be troubled to explain further. For a moment their conversation seemed at an end; then they returned to practical matters. But Tsuda, who until now had suffered little pain as a result of his financial circumstances, had nothing useful to contribute. “Father is such a nuisance!” was all he had to say.

Abruptly O-Nobu shifted her gaze to the colorful kimono and obi as if noticing for the first time her overlooked clothing on the floor.

“Shall we do something with these?” Grasping the edge of the thick obi laced with gold thread, she held it up to the electric light for her husband to see.

“Do something?” Tsuda asked, unsure of what she meant.

“If I take this to a pawnshop, wouldn’t they lend us money on it?”

Tsuda was surprised. If his young bride so recently come to wife had known for years about something he had never once undertaken to do, contriving by one means or another to make ends meet, this surely was an unexpected and a valuable discovery.

“Have you ever pawned a kimono or anything else?”

“Of course not — never.”

Laughing, O-Nobu replied in the negative to her husband’s query as though disdainfully.

“So you have no idea what happens when you take something to a pawnshop.”

“No, but I don’t see how that matters — once we’ve decided to do it.”

Short of an emergency, Tsuda would have preferred not to allow his wife to have anything to do with such disreputable behavior. O-Nobu defended her own suggestion.

“Toki knows all about it. When she was living with us at the Okamotos, she was always going to the pawnshop on errands with a parcel wrapped in a furoshiki.* These days she tells me all she has to do is send a postcard and they come to the house to pick up whatever she has.”

It pleased Tsuda to think that his wife was willing to sacrifice her precious kimono and obi for his sake. But allowing her to make the sacrifice could only be described as painful. More than feeling sorry for her, it was the wound to his pride as a husband that gave him pause.

“Let’s give it some thought.”

Without arriving at any financial solution, he returned to his study on the second floor.

THE NEXT day he went to work as usual. Mid-morning he ran into Yoshikawa on the stairs. But since he was starting down as his employer was on his way up, he merely bowed politely and said nothing. Shortly before it was time for lunch, he knocked softly at Yoshikawa’s door and peeked into the room hesitantly. Yoshikawa, smoking a cigarette, was conversing with a visitor. The visitor was of course unknown to Tsuda. As he opened the door halfway their conversation, which seemed to be in full swing, abruptly ceased, and both host and visitor turned in his direction.

“What is it?”

Addressed before he had a chance to speak, Tsuda halted in the doorway.

“Just a word—”

“Personal?”

Tsuda wasn’t someone who came in and out of this office in the course of normal business. The awkwardness he was feeling showed in his face as he replied.

“Just briefly—”

“I’m in the middle of something. This isn’t the time.”

“Of course — please forgive the interruption.”

Closing the door as quietly as he could, Tsuda went back to his desk. In the afternoon he returned twice to stand in front of the same door. There was no sign of Yoshikawa either time.

“Has he gone out?”

The question was addressed to the office boy he encountered at the bottom of the stairs on his way out. The youth had perfect eyes and mouth; he was attempting to summon a brown, long-haired dog from where it reclined beneath a stone step by whistling at it as though magically, extending his arm in the animal’s direction.

“He left a while ago with a visitor — he might not be back today.”

Since all day long his sole concern was attending to the comings and goings of the people in the office, the boy’s predictions were apt to be more reliable than Tsuda’s. Leaving behind the brown dog, whose owner was undetermined, and the office boy at pains to make friends with the animal, Tsuda returned yet again to his desk, where he continued working as usual until the end of the day.

When it was time to leave he lagged slightly behind the others as they exited the large building. On the way to his usual trolley stop, as though abruptly recalling something, he took his watch from his vest pocket and glanced at it. It was less the precise time he wanted than a determination of which direction to take. It was very much as if he were conferring meaningfully with the watch whether to stop at Yoshikawa’s house on the way home or abandon the idea.

In the end, he jumped aboard a streetcar that ran in the opposite direction to his own house. He well knew that Yoshikawa was often not at home and didn’t expect that dropping in would guarantee a meeting. He also understood that even if his employer chanced to be there, he might be turned away if his timing happened to be inconvenient. Nevertheless, he felt it was necessary from time to time to pass through Yoshikawa’s gate. This was out of courtesy. It was also an obligation. It was furthermore in his best interest. Finally, it was simple vanity.

Tsuda’s acquaintance with Yoshikawa is privileged.

There were times when he felt like bearing this truth on his back. When he wished to shoulder his burden in plain view of everyone. But without in the least compromising his habitual self-respect. The psychology that had brought him to the entrance to Yoshikawa’s house was akin to that of a man who, even as he secludes things as deeply inside himself as possible, wants to reveal his hiding place to others. His interpretation to himself was that he had come all this way on an errand and for no other reason.

THE IMPOSING door at the entrance was closed as always. Tsuda glanced carelessly through the thick lattice bars set into the upper half of the door as though carved there. Just inside, a large granite platform waited quietly for shoes. Beyond, a cast-iron lamp shade was suspended from the center of the ceiling. Tsuda, who until now had never once set foot inside this entrance hall, circled to the side of the house and announced himself at the inner entrance immediately adjacent to the student room.*

“He hasn’t returned as yet.”

The houseboy in student hakama who kneeled in front of him answered simply. His attitude, which seemed to suggest an expectation that the visitor would now take his leave, was a little disconcerting. Finally Tsuda followed his first inquiry with a second.

“Is the lady of the house at home?”

“Yes. Mrs. Yoshikawa is here.”

To tell the truth, it was his wife more than Yoshikawa himself with whom Tsuda was on intimate terms. On the way to the house he had been largely animated by a desire for a meeting with her.

“Please let her know I’m here.”

To this new houseboy, seeing him for the first time, he addressed an amended request. The youth withdrew again into the house with what appeared to be equanimity. When he reappeared he said, in a slightly formal tone, “Mrs. Yoshikawa says she will see you if you’ll please follow me,” and led Tsuda to the Western-style drawing room. No sooner had he taken a seat, before tea and a cigarette tray had been brought in, than Yoshikawa’s wife appeared.

“You’re on your way home?”

Tsuda had taken a seat and had to stand again.

“How is your wife doing?” Settling herself into a chair, having responded to his greeting with a mere nod of her head, Madam Yoshikawa asked her second question at once.

Tsuda’s smile was strained. He didn’t know how to reply.

“Now that you’re a married man, we rarely have the pleasure of your company.”

There was no hint of reserve in her voice. She regarded steadily the younger man before her. Younger and, now as before, beneath her in social standing.

“I imagine you’re still happy.”

Tsuda held perfectly still, as though enduring the fine sand kicked up by a wind.

“Although it’s certainly been a while.”

“I suppose — half a year and a little.”

“How time flies! It seems like yesterday — and how is it going these days?”

“How’s what going?”

“How are you getting along with your bride?”

“No complaints in particular—”

“So the honeymoon is already over? I don’t believe it.”

“There never was a honeymoon.”

“Then it’s coming. If you weren’t happy in the beginning then happiness is on the way.”

“Thanks — I’ll be sure to look forward to that.”

“By the way, how old are you?”

“Am I on trial?”

“Of course not. I asked because I want to know. Please give me a straight answer.”

“As you wish — I’m actually thirty.”

“So — thirty-one next year?”

“If things go according to plan, yes.”

“And O-Nobu?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Next year?”

“Now.”

YOSHIKAWA’S WIFE often chaffed Tsuda in this manner. When she was in high spirits it was even worse. On occasion Tsuda teased back. However, he perceived occasionally in her attitude the glitter of something neither quite jesting nor serious. In such cases his natural tenacity prompted him to halt in the middle of the conversation. Circumstances permitting, he would attempt to burrow down to the root of what his partner was saying in quest of her true feelings. When the necessity of reserve prevented him from going so far, he stopped talking and closely attended her countenance. At such times his eyes, as an inevitable consequence, appeared to cloud lightly with mistrust. Or perhaps it was cowardice. Or caution. Or perhaps it was light emitted by nerves tensing in self-defense. His eyes also assumed in those moments a hint of what might have been appropriately described as “well-considered anxiety.” Every time Tsuda encountered Madam Yoshikawa, she could be counted on to drive him once or twice into this place. Though he was conscious of being dragged, it happened nonetheless.

“You’re a hateful lady.”

“How so? Is asking your age hateful?”

“It’s how you ask, as if you’re implying something, but you leave your thought unfinished.”

“There’s nothing to finish. Your problem is you’re too thoughtful. Reflection may be essential to a scholar, but it’s taboo in social intercourse. If you could break that habit, you’d be a better man, better liked by others.”

Tsuda was a little hurt. But the pain went to his heart, not his head. In his head he responded to this ungloved blow with cool disdain. Madam Yoshikawa hinted at a smile.

“If you think I’m mistaken, try asking your wife when you get home. I know O-Nobu will agree with me. And not only O-Nobu — there’s someone else too, for certain!”

Abruptly Tsuda’s face tightened and his lips quivered. With his gaze adamantly fixed on his lap, he said nothing.

“I’m sure you know whom I mean?”

Mrs. Yoshikawa sought to peer into Tsuda’s face as she spoke. Of course he knew perfectly well to whom she referred. But he had no intention of confirming her prompting. Lifting his head again, he directed his silent regard in her direction. Madam Yoshikawa failed to understand what his eyes were saying in their silence.

“Forgive me if I’ve offended you. That’s not what I intended.”

“It doesn’t bother me—”

“Truly?”

“I’m not in the least concerned—”

“I’m so relieved.”

Madam Yoshikawa’s voice was buoyant again.

“There’s still a little boy hiding inside you, isn’t there! He comes out when we talk this way. Men seem to be having the rougher time, but it turns out you’re the lucky ones. Here you are thirty, and O-Nobu turning twenty-three this year, a big gap in years. But judging by your behavior, it’s O-Nobu who seems older. Maybe ‘older’ sounds impolite — how shall I put it?”

Madam Yoshikawa appeared to be deliberating about a word to describe O-Nobu’s manner. Tsuda awaited her choice with a degree of curiosity.

“Evolved, maybe? She’s certainly very clever; I’ve rarely seen such a clever person. Take good care of her.”

Her tone of voice suggested that Madam might as well have been saying “Watch out for her!”

JUST THEN the electric light hanging above their heads came on. The student who had greeted Tsuda on his arrival padded into the room, carefully lowered the blinds, and left again without a word. Tsuda, who had been watching carefully as the color of the gas heater gradually deepened, tracked in silence with his eyes the youth’s departure. He had the feeling it was time to terminate the conversation and be on his way. He sipped the tea that remained in the teacup in front of him, avoiding the slice of lemon floating coldly at the bottom. Replacing the cup, he revealed the nature of the errand he had come on. It was a straightforward matter. It was not, however, the sort of thing that could be approved on the spot at Madam Yoshikawa’s discretion. Certainly she had no idea where in the month he should take the week or so he said he would require for personal reasons.

“I doubt it matters when. As long as you’ve made arrangements.”

Her expression of good will toward Tsuda was ever so effortless.

“I’ve made sure everything is in order.”

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem — why not take off beginning tomorrow?”

“I’d better check first.”

“I’ll speak to Yoshikawa when he gets home. You needn’t worry about a thing.”

Madam Yoshikawa volunteered her services cheerfully. She appeared pleased to have stumbled on yet another excuse to act on someone else’s behalf. It made Tsuda happy to see before him this spirited and sympathetic lady. It was additionally pleasing to realize that her generosity had its source in his own attitude and behavior.

Tsuda enjoyed being treated like a child by Madam for the particular reason that he was able to experience a certain intimacy created between them as a result. When he dissected this, it turned out to be that special variety of intimacy possible only between a man and a woman. It was if anything akin to the pleasurable feeling a man enjoys when, for example, he receives a clap on the back from a young hostess at a teahouse.

At the same time, he held in reserve an abundant portion of himself that neither Yoshikawa’s wife nor any one else could treat as a child. He was careful to prepare for coming into her presence by hiding this place away. And even as he allowed himself a superficial sense of amusement at being taunted, he was leaning against the thick wall he had constructed inside himself.

Having completed his errand, he was rising from his chair when his hostess spoke up.

“I hope you won’t cry and moan like a baby again, a big brute like you.”

Tsuda involuntarily recalled his agony the previous year.

“Last time it was more than I could bear. Every time the door slid open or shut I felt it in the incision and my whole body went into spasm. This time I’ll be fine.”

“Truly? You have a guarantee? It sounds iffy to me. When you sound so confident it makes me feel I’d better look in on you.”

“It’s not the sort of place I could allow you to visit. It’s cramped and not that clean — it’s a nasty room.”

“I couldn’t care less.”

It wasn’t clear from her tone whether the matron was serious or teasing again. About to explain that his doctor’s specialty was in an area somewhat tangential to his particular illness and that as such his offices were not the sort of place that ladies would find inviting, Tsuda, at a loss how to begin, faltered. Mrs. Yoshikawa seized the opportunity his hesitation afforded to bear down.

“I’ll definitely look in on you. I have something I’d like to discuss that’s hard to talk about in front of O-Nobu.”

“Then why don’t I drop over again.”

Tsuda rose as if to flee, and Madam Yoshikawa, laughing, saw him out of the room.

EMERGING ONTO the main street, Tsuda gradually put distance between the Yoshikawa house and himself. His mind, however, was unable to leave behind as quickly as his feet the drawing room where he had just been. As he made his way through the dusk of the relatively deserted neighborhood, pictures of the bright interior flashed in front of him. The chilly gleam of the cloisonné vase, the colors of the bright pattern splashed across its glossy surface, the silver-plated tray that had been brought to the table, the sugar and milk bowls of the same color, the heavy drapes, blue-black with a lighter pattern in brown of Chinese grasses, the table-top album with gilt-edged pages — the strong impressions created by these objects, already distant from the night lamps in the room, unfurled randomly across his vision in the gloom of the street.

He was of course unable to forget as well the phantom of his hostess sitting amid this whorl of colors. Walking along, he recalled bits and pieces of their conversation. And when he came upon a certain portion of it he sampled its flavor, chewing, as if it were a mouthful of toasted soybeans.

It might just be that she still has a mind to say something to me about the incident. The truth is, I don’t want to hear it. Yet I’m eager to hear.

Instantly, proclaiming to himself both tenets of the contradiction, he colored in the middle of the dark street, like a man who has exposed his own weakness. Hoping to get beyond his red face, he forced himself to proceed.

Assuming the lady does have something to say to me, I wonder what her point will be.

For the moment, he was unable to resolve his own question.

Does she intend to mock me?

He couldn’t say. She had always been a woman who enjoyed needling others. And their relationship provided her with an abundance of the freedom she needed for that activity. Beyond that, she had become over time, without noticing, a result of social privilege, imprudent. To sample the simple pleasure it gave her to aggravate him, she might well overstep the boundaries of decorum.

And if not that, could it be sympathy? Or because she makes me too much a favorite?

Another question he couldn’t answer. Until now she had been truly kind to him and, more than kind, a patron.

Coming to a thoroughfare, he boarded a streetcar. Outside the window glass as it proceeded along the moat, there was only dark water and a dark embankment with a darker tangle of pine trees atop it.

Taking a seat in a corner of the car, he glanced momentarily at the chilly scenery in the autumn night and had at once to return to other thoughts. Last night he had set aside the irksome subject of money, but his circumstances required that he raise some one way or another. His thoughts returned to Yoshikawa’s wife.

It would have been so easy if I’d revealed my situation to her when I had the chance.

He began to regret having come away so quickly, thinking that was the tactful thing to do. Even so, he lacked the courage to return now with nothing but this errand in hand.

Alighting from the streetcar, he was crossing a bridge when he saw a beggar squatting in the darkness beneath the railing. Like a moving shadow, the beggar bowed darkly as he passed. Tsuda was wearing a light overcoat. He had moreover just left the warming flame in a gas heater that was, if anything, still early for the season. Yet there was no room in his head for appreciating the gap between himself and the beggar. He felt like a man caught in a vice. It was a terrible inconvenience that his father hadn’t remitted his regular monthly stipend.

HE ARRIVED home in the same mood. He reached for the lattice in his front gate, and before it opened the shoji slid quietly back and he became aware that the figure of O-Nobu had appeared before him. He gazed at her profile, lightly made up, as though in surprise.

Since his marriage he had often been surprised by his wife in this way. Her actions were capable of making him feel preempted, but there were times when her swiftness proved extremely useful. Sometimes as she went about the business of daily life, he observed her movements, which manifested this special agility of hers, as if he were watching the glinting of a knife as it passed before his eyes. The feeling was of something small but acute that was at the same time somehow repellant.

At this particular moment it occurred to Tsuda that some power of O-Nobu’s had enabled her to foreknow his return. But he couldn’t bring himself to ask how this could be. To request an explanation and be turned aside with a laugh would feel like a defeat for the husband.

He went inside as if he hadn’t noticed and changed out of his kimono at once. In front of the brazier in the sitting room, a black lacquer tray with feet attached had been covered with a cloth as though awaiting his arrival.

“You stopped off somewhere again today?”

It was a question O-Nobu could be counted on to ask if Tsuda failed to return at the expected hour. He was obliged accordingly to offer something in reply. Since it wasn’t necessarily the case that he had been delayed by an errand, there were times when his response was oddly vague. At such times he avoided looking at O-Nobu, who would have put on makeup for him.

“Shall I guess?”

“Go ahead.”

This time, Tsuda had nothing to worry about.

“The Yoshikawas.”

“How did you know?”

“I can usually tell by how you seem.”

“Is that so? Not that it was hard to figure out today — I said last night that I intended to set the date for surgery after speaking with Yoshikawa-san.”

“I would have guessed even if you hadn’t said anything.”

“Really? You’re so clever.”

Tsuda related to O-Nobu only the gist of his conversation with Yoshikawa’s wife.

“And when are you planning to go in?”

“It seems I can go anytime.”

Tsuda didn’t mention the oppressive urgency he was feeling to do something about money before he had his surgery. It wasn’t by any means a large sum. But for precisely that reason a simple solution to raising it was evading him and causing additional aggravation. Briefly his thoughts turned to his younger sister in Kanda, but he had no heart for presenting himself at her door. In consideration of swollen household expenses since his marriage, his father had been helping make ends meet by sending money from Kyoto every month with the understanding that Tsuda would repay a portion of the loan out of his year-end and summer bonuses. This summer, circumstances had prevented him from keeping his end of the bargain, and as a consequence his father was already in a disagreeable mood. His sister, who knew all about this, tended to sympathize with their father. From the beginning, in consideration of her husband, he had felt that broaching money matters to his sister was somehow unseemly; now he was more than ever put off by the thought. It appeared, assuming it couldn’t be avoided, that the only thing to do, as O-Nobu had urged, was to write again to his father with an appeal. It occurred to him that including a somewhat exaggerated description of his illness would be a good tactic. Embellishing the reality to a degree that wouldn’t worry his parents excessively was a manipulation that ought to be manageable without suffering the pangs of conscience.

“I think I’ll take your suggestion last night and write my father again.”

“I see. But don’t—”

O-Nobu stopped and looked at her husband. Paying no heed, Tsuda went upstairs and sat down at his desk.

TAKING FROM his desk drawer the Western-style stationery he normally used, lavender paper and matching envelope, he had written several lines absently with his fountain pen when a thought occurred abruptly. His father didn’t normally expect, nor was he likely to be pleased to receive, a letter from his son scrawled with a fountain pen in colloquial Japanese. Conjuring his father’s face halfway across the country, he put down his pen with an uncomfortable smile. Once again he was struck by the feeling that sending a letter would accomplish nothing. On a scrap of thick, scratchy parchment similar to charcoal paper, he sketched carelessly his father’s long, narrow face complete with goatee and considered what to do.

Presently he rose resolutely, slid open the fusuma, and called down to his wife from the head of the stairs.

“O-Nobu. Do you have any Japanese paper and an envelope?”

“Japanese?”

To O-Nobu the adjective sounded oddly comic.

“Do you mind ladies’?”

Tsuda unscrolled across his desk the rice paper imprinted with a stylish flower pattern.

“I wonder if he’ll like this.”

“As long as the letter is clearly written so he can understand, I don’t think the paper matters.”

“You’re wrong about that. You might not think so, but he can very particular.”

Tsuda peered intently at the narrow page, his face serious. The hint of a smile appeared at the corners of O-Nobu’s mouth.

“Shall I send Toki out for something better?”

Tsuda grunted distractedly. It wasn’t as if plain rice paper and an unpatterned envelope would ensure the success of his request.

“She’ll be only a minute.”

O-Nobu went directly downstairs. A minute later Tsuda heard the maid’s footsteps leaving the house. Until the required articles reached him, he waited idly, smoking a cigarette at his desk.

There was therefore nothing to distract him from thoughts of his father. Born and raised in Tokyo, he had never missed an opportunity to denigrate the Kyoto area until one day he had moved there, intending to settle permanently. When Tsuda had ventured to express mild disapproval, knowing that his mother was not fond of the region, his father had asked, pointing to the house he had built on land he had purchased, “What will you do with all this?” Even younger than he was now, he had failed to grasp what his father meant. Handling the property wouldn’t be a problem, he had thought. From time to time his father would turn to him and say, “This isn’t for anyone else, it’s all for you,” or again, “You might not realize its value to you now, but once I’m dead and gone you’ll know to be grateful.” Tsuda replayed in his mind these words and the old man’s attitude when he had spoken them. Inflated with confidence that he had single-handedly provided for his son’s future happiness, his father had seemed unapproachable, an awe-inspiring oracle. Tsuda wanted to say, turning to the father in his imagination, Instead of feeling overwhelmed with gratitude when you die, I’d much prefer feeling grateful regularly each month a little at a time.

It was some ten minutes later that he began to indite, in formal epistolary Japanese on rice paper unlikely to offend his father, the phrases and flourishes that seemed most likely to coax some money out of him. When, feeling awkward and unnatural, he had finally completed the letter, he reread what he had written and was appalled by his own artless calligraphy. Never mind the text, the characters it was written in seemed to him to preclude any possibility of success. And what if he should succeed; the money couldn’t possibly arrive in time for when he needed it. When he had sent the maid to the post office, he burrowed under the covers and said to himself,

I’ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow.

THE FOLLOWING afternoon Tsuda stood before Yoshikawa, summoned by him.

“I hear you came to the house yesterday.”

“I stopped in briefly and said hello to Mrs. Yoshikawa.”

“So you’re sick again?”

“A little—”

“That’s no good — every five minutes.”

“This isn’t new — I’m still recovering from last time.”

His face registering mild surprise, Yoshikawa spat out his after-lunch toothpick. From his vest pocket he removed his cigar case. Tsuda struck one of the matches on top of the ashtray. In his eagerness to appear alert, he moved too quickly and the match went out before it could be of use. Flustered, he struck a second and lifted it with care to the tip of Yoshikawa’s nose.

“At any rate, if you’re sick, you’re sick. You’d better take some time off to pull yourself together.”

Tsuda thanked his boss and started from the room. Yoshikawa spoke to him through the smoke.

“I assume you’ve let Sasaki know.”

“I spoke to Sasaki-san and to some others and arranged for them to cover me.”

Tsuda reported to Sasaki.

“If you’re going to be taking off anyway there’s no reason to put it off. Do what you have to, recover as soon as you can, and get back to work.”

Yoshikawa’s words were a limpid reflection of his temperament.

“Start tomorrow if you can arrange it.”

“As you say—”

Now Tsuda felt he had no choice but to check in to the clinic the very next day. He was halfway out the door when once again he was detained by a voice at his back.

“By the way, how’s your father doing? Full of piss and vinegar as always?”

The rich fragrance of cigar smoke abruptly assailed Tsuda’s nose as he turned back.

“He’s well — thank you for inquiring.”

“I suppose he’s writing his poetry, taking it good and easy — what a life! I ran into Okamoto on the town last night and he was talking about your father. He was envious as hell. He’s come into some leisure time himself recently, but he’s no match for your old man—”

It had never occurred to Tsuda for a minute that his father was an object of envy among this crowd. Should someone offer to exchange their circumstances for his father’s, he had felt certain they would smile stiffly and beg to be left just as they were for at least another ten years. This was of course merely an assumption he had extrapolated from his own personality. At the same time, it was based on what he understood of Yoshikawa’s temperament and that of his cronies.

“My father is behind the times so he has no choice but to live the way he does.”

Little by little Tsuda had returned to the center of the room and was now standing where he had first entered.

“You’ve got it backward — he can live that kind of life because he’s ahead of the times.”

Tsuda felt tongue-tied. His lack of fluency in comparison to his boss felt like a burden. At an awkward loss for words, he gazed at the slowly dissipating cloud of cigar smoke.

“Be careful not to cause your father any worry. I know all about everything that’s going on with you, and if you take a wrong turn, I promise you I’ll make sure your old man knows about it, you take my meaning?”

These words, as though spoken to a child, might have been in jest or an admonishment; when Tsuda had listened to them, he finally fled the room.

ON HIS way home that day, Tsuda alighted from the streetcar before his stop and made his way a few blocks along the busy thoroughfare before turning into a side street. Midway down the narrow, winding street past the awning on a pawnshop and a go parlor and modest houses that might have been home to a neighborhood fire chief or a master carpenter, he pushed open a door inset with frosted glass and stepped inside. As the bell fastened to the upper part of the door jangled, four or five pairs of eyes glimmered at him from the cramped room just down the hall from the entrance. The room was not merely cramped; it was truly dark. To Tsuda, having stepped abruptly inside from the bright street, it felt like nothing so much as a cave. Huddling in one corner of the chilly couch, he returned the gaze of the glittering eyes, which just now had turned toward him in the darkness. Most of the men had seated themselves near the large ceramic brazier that had been installed in the center of the room. Two with folded arms, two more with one hand each on the edge of the brazier, another, apart, his face lowered to the newspaper scattered about as if to lick the print, and the last, in a corner of the room opposite the couch where he had seated himself, his body slightly atilt, in Western trousers, one leg over the other.

Having turned toward the door as one man when the bell rang, they withdrew into themselves as one man after a single glance. All silent, they sat in an attitude that might have been deep thought. They appeared to be taking no notice of Tsuda, or was it, more likely perhaps, that they were avoiding being noticed by him? It wasn’t only Tsuda; it appeared they kept their eyes lowered, looking away, in fear of the pain of noticing one another.

The members of this gloomy band shared, almost without exception, a largely identical past. As they sat waiting their turn in this somber waiting room, a fragment of that past that was if anything brilliantly colored cast its shadow abruptly over each of them. Lacking the courage to turn toward the light, they had halted inside the darkness of the shadow and locked themselves in.

Resting one arm on the armrest of the couch, Tsuda lifted his hand to his brow. In this attitude, as though he were offering to god a silent prayer, he was led to memories of two men he had encountered unexpectedly in this doctor’s house since the end of last year.

One was actually none other than his sister’s husband. Recognizing his figure in this dark room, Tsuda was astonished. Normally easygoing about such things, if not entirely unconcerned, his brother-in-law had seemed nonplussed, as if the intensity of Tsuda’s surprise had reverberated in him.

The other man was a friend. Supposing that Tsuda was afflicted with the same sort of illness as his own, he had spoken up without any hesitation or reserve, as if to do so were perfectly natural. Exiting the doctor’s gate together, they had engaged over dinner in a complex debate about sex and love.

Whereas the encounter with his brother-in-law amounted to little more than momentary surprise and had resulted in no repercussions, his conversation with his friend, which he had expected would be a one-time-only event not to be resumed, had later produced a rift between them. Obliged to reflect on his friend’s words in the past and their connection to his circumstances in the present, Tsuda shuttered his eyes open and dropped his hand from his brow as if he had received a sudden shock.

Just then, a man in a dark blue serge suit who appeared to be about thirty emerged from the examination room and walked to the prescription window. He was paying his bill when the nurse appeared in the open doorway. Tsuda had seen her before; when she had announced the next patient’s name and was about to withdraw into the examination room again, he called out to her.

“I’d rather not wait for a turn; could you just ask the doctor if I could come for my surgery tomorrow or the day after?”

The nurse stepped inside, and her white presence reappeared in the doorway to the dark room almost at once.

“The second floor happens to be vacant so you’re welcome to come when it’s convenient.”

Tsuda left the dark room as though escaping from it. He stepped into his shoes quickly, and as he pushed the large frosted-glass door open, the waiting room, pitch dark until now, lit up.

THOUGH TSUDA’S return home was slightly earlier than yesterday, the sun was already low in the western sky, the autumn days having grown abruptly shorter of late, and it was just the hour when the last chilly light, which until minutes ago had illuminated at least the open street, was swiftly fading as if swept away.

Naturally enough, the second floor was dark. But so was the front entrance, pitch-black. Having just now passed the lights shining brightly in the eaves of the rickshaw shop at the corner, Tsuda was mildly disappointed by the darkness shrouding his own house. He rattled open the lattice. But O-Nobu did not emerge. He had not been entirely pleased the night before when she had startled him at this same hour by seeming to lie in wait, but now, obliged to stand alone at the pitch-dark entrance with no one to greet him, he had the feeling somewhere in his chest that what had befallen him last night was in fact less unpleasant. Standing where he was, he called out, “O-Nobu! O-Nobu!” Whereupon his wife replied, “Coming!” from, unexpectedly, the second floor, and he heard her footsteps on the stairs as she descended. At the same time the maid came running from the direction of the kitchen.

“What’s going on?”

A measure of dissatisfaction echoed in Tsuda’s voice. O-Nobu did not reply. However, glancing up at her face, he couldn’t avoid noticing the subtle smile she customarily deployed to beguile him in her silence. It was first of all her white teeth that seized and held his gaze.

“It’s pitch dark up there.”

“I know — I was letting my mind wander and I didn’t realize you were home—”

“You were asleep.”

“Don’t be silly.”

The maid let out a whoop of laughter, and their conversation broke off.

Tsuda was on his way to the public bath, having received from O-Nobu’s hand as always a bar of soap and a towel, when she asked him to wait a minute. Turning her back, she took from the bottom drawer of the tansu a padded flannel jacket edged with silk and laid it in front of him.

“Try it on — it may not be properly flattened yet.”*

With a bemused look on his face, Tsuda stared at the quilted jacket with its broad vertical stripes and black silk collar. This was something he had neither purchased nor bespoken.

“What’s all this?”

“I sewed it. For when you go to the hospital; you have to be careful what you wear in a place like that so as not to make a bad impression.”

“You’ve been working on this?”

It had been only two or three days since he had told O-Nobu that he needed surgery and would have to be away for a week. Moreover, from that day until this moment he hadn’t once noticed his wife sitting at her pattern-cutting board with her needle in hand. He was struck by the oddness of this. O-Nobu on her part observed her husband’s surprise as if it were a reward for her diligence. Accordingly, she provided no explanation.

“Did you buy the cloth?”

“No, I brought this with me — I planned to use it this winter so I just washed and boarded it and put it away for later.”

He saw now that the pattern was decidedly for a young woman: not only were the stripes broad, but the blend of colors was, if anything, on the edge of gaudy. Slipping his arms through the sleeves and flinging them wide open in imitation of a workman kite, Tsuda regarded his own image uncomfortably.

“I arranged to go in tomorrow or the day after,” he said a minute later.

“I see — what about me?”

“About you?”

“Can’t I go with you — to the hospital?”

O-Nobu appeared to be utterly untroubled by the money issue.

THE NEXT morning Tsuda woke up much later than usual. The house was hushed, as though it had already been put in order. Moving past the front entrance from the tatami drawing room to the sitting room, he slid open the shoji and discovered his wife sitting erectly alongside the brazier with the newspaper in her hand. The sound issuing from the bubbling kettle seemed to bespeak a tranquil household.

“I didn’t mean to sleep in, it happens naturally when there’s no need to wake up.”

Tsuda might have been offering an excuse; he glanced at the clock hanging on the wall above the calendar and saw that it was just minutes before ten o’clock.

When he returned to the sitting room having washed his face he sat down absently at his usual black-lacquer tray. This morning it seemed less to be awaiting his arrival than exhausted with waiting. He was removing the cloth from the tray when he recalled something abruptly.

“Damn!”

The doctor had advised certain precautions for the day before the surgery but at the moment he couldn’t remember them precisely. He spoke to his wife abruptly.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

O-Nobu, surprised, glanced at her husband’s face.

“To make a phone call.”

He rose as if with a kick that scattered the composure of the room and left the house at once by the front entrance. Running to the public phone several blocks to the right along the streetcar tracks, he was back in a moment and, halting at the front door, called to his wife:

“Bring me my billfold from upstairs. Or your coin purse, either one.”

“Is something the matter?”

O-Nobu had no idea what her husband was thinking.

“Just bring it.”

With O-Nobu’s purse thrust inside his kimono, Tsuda went back to the main street, where he boarded a trolley.

By the time he returned, carrying a fairly large paper parcel, thirty or forty minutes had passed and it was approaching noon.

“That was some bare cupboard of a purse — I thought you’d have more.”

With this exclamation, Tsuda dropped the parcel he was carrying at his side onto the tatami floor of the sitting room.

“There wasn’t enough?”

O-Nobu’s gaze conveyed her compulsion to concern herself with minute details.

“I’m not saying that — I had what I needed.”

“I had no idea what you were buying — I thought you might be going to the barber.”

Tsuda became aware of his hair, uncut for over two months. He even recalled a sensation he had experienced for the first time yesterday that his hat, already a little small for his head, seemed to rub when he put it on because he had let his hair grow too long.

“You were in such a hurry I didn’t have time to go upstairs.”

“There isn’t that much money in my wallet, either, so it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.”

O-Nobu deftly unwrapped the parcel and removed a tin of tea, bread, and butter.

“My goodness, this is what you wanted? You should have let me send Toki to fetch it for you.”

“What does a maid know? There’s no telling what she would have bought.”

Before long, O-Nobu had prepared some fragrant toast and steaming Oolong tea.

When he had finished his simple Western meal, neither breakfast nor lunch, Tsuda spoke as though aloud to himself.

“I was planning to go to Uncle Fujii’s this morning. I wanted to tell him about my illness and apologize for not visiting while I was at it, but it’s already so late.”

He meant that he intended, having missed the morning, to discharge the obligation of a visit that afternoon.

FUJII WAS Tsuda’s father’s younger brother. Obliged by the life of a civil servant to be eternally on the move from one region to the next, three years in Hiroshima, two in Nagasaki, and so forth, Tsuda’s father, burdened by the necessity of dragging his son from post to post and sorely concerned that his education was being compromised as a consequence, had resolved early on to entrust the boy’s care entirely to his younger brother, who had managed to raise Tsuda without going to much trouble. Their relationship as a result went beyond the realm of normal uncle and nephew. To characterize them without reference to the difference in their temperaments and professions, they were more like parent and child than uncle and nephew. Perhaps it would be most appropriate to describe their relationship as, to coin a phrase, “a second father and son.”

Unlike Tsuda’s father, this uncle had lived his entire life without ever leaving Tokyo. In this regard alone, a comparison between them, Tsuda’s father having spent a goodly half of his life on the move, revealed a major difference. In Tsuda’s eyes at least, this appeared significant.

A dawdler along the road of life.

Among the expressions his uncle had employed to describe his father, these words for no particular reason had inscribed themselves in Tsuda’s mind, and he had quickly enough become certain that his father was indeed just such a man. The phrase remained with him even today. At the time, his young mind had failed to grasp its meaning, and even now he was none too clear about what his uncle had intended. It was simply that he recalled the words whenever he looked at his father’s face. It seemed to him that the fleshless, narrow face with a fortuneteller’s scraggily beard on the chin and his uncle’s description corresponded almost perfectly. Ten years ago, like a man suddenly fed up with a long pilgrimage, his father had withdrawn from government service and gone into business. After eight years in Kobe, he had built a house on land he had purchased in Kyoto in the meantime, and two years ago he had finally relocated there. Tsuda hadn’t realized that his father had settled on the secluded old capital as a retreat, or that it had transformed into the ground of his final days. At the time, his uncle had said to him, the sarcasm in his voice causing his nose to wrinkle, “It seems that big brother has managed to salt away some money. If that balloon bag isn’t floating off somewhere, you can bet it’s money that’s weighing him down.”

In his own case, money had never been a weight, no matter how much time passed, and even so he had never moved. He had always been in Tokyo and had always been poor. This was a man who had never to this day received a salary. It wasn’t necessarily that he disliked being paid; it might have been more accurate to say that he was so willful that no one wished to employ him. He was inclined to oppose anything bound by rules and regulations, and even as he aged and his thinking changed somewhat, he continued to assert his characteristic stubbornness. This was because he well understood that amending his attitude at this late date was likely to earn him only the contempt of others and would in no way inure to his benefit.

With no experience of having engaged with the real world, grappling with plain truths, it was only natural that his uncle should have been an unreliable, a slipshod life critic, but at the same time, in another sense, he was an acute observer, and his acuity had its source entirely in his negligence. To put it otherwise, it was negligence that enabled him to speak and act in startling and original ways.

His knowledge was scattered rather than deep. He tended, accordingly, to put in his two cents on a wide variety of subjects. But at no time was he able to free himself from the observer’s attitude. It wasn’t only his status that made this inevitable; it was also the effect of his personality. The man definitely had a head, but he had no hands. Or if he did have hands, he never essayed to use them. They were always thrust inside his kimono. With an inherent indolence to go along with his taste for study, he was destined in the end to make a living with pen and paper.

FOR THE past six or seven years, Fujii had been living the sort of life on the outskirts not uncommon to a man like himself in a corner of a plateau in the northwest quarter of the city near Waseda University. There were times when it struck him that the annual addition of houses large and small being erected in a district that, until recently, had been very much like a suburb, was gradually depriving him of the color green, and he would allow the pen in his hand to go idle as he reflected on his elder brother’s circumstances. At such moments he wondered whether he might borrow money from his brother and build a residence for himself. It seemed clear there was no chance a loan would be forthcoming. Not that his temperament would allow him to accept money even if it came to that. The man who had styled his brother a “dawdler on the road to life” was, truth be told, a life traveler with material anxiety. As is readily observed in the majority of people, anxiety about material things was hardly more than a degree of spiritual uneasiness.

To get from Tsuda’s house to his uncle’s place, there was a convenient streetcar that ran alongside the Edo River for half the way. But the distance was short enough to be covered on foot in less than an hour, and Tsuda had the option of combining the visit with a walk rather than relying on crowded and noisy public transportation.

Leaving his house at a little before one, he ambled along the river’s edge, approaching the end of the streetcar line. The cloudless sky was high; the world was drenched in sunlight. The deep green of the trees covering the ridge ahead was distinctly visible as though highlighted.

Along the way Tsuda recalled the castor oil he had forgotten to buy that morning. The doctor had instructed him to take some around four this afternoon; he would have to stop at a drugstore for a bottle. Instead of turning right at the end of the line and crossing the bridge, he began walking in the opposite direction, toward the bustling shopping district. A brutal swath had been cut diagonally across a portion of the road along his route, apparently a project to extend the trolley track beyond the last station. Moving past craters where existing houses had been remorselessly demolished and hauled away, he reached a turning in the new road and saw a group of people gathered at the corner. The modest crowd was standing three or four deep in a semicircle around a man roughly Tsuda’s age. A pudgy fellow, he was wearing a cotton kimono with a narrow obi and clog shoes but had neither an umbrella nor a cap to cover his head. With a willow tree that had not been cut down at his back, he was holding in both hands a large bag with a cotton flannel lining as he surveyed the crowd.

“Good people, we’re about to prestidigitate an egg from this bag. Without fail, from this completely empty bag. Don’t be surprised, the magic is already here, inside my robe.”

He declaimed these words with a cockiness that seemed an extravagance beyond the means of someone of this tribe. Then, clenching one hand into a fist in front of his chest, he flung it at the bag, opening his fingers with a flourish.

“As you can see, I’ve thrown the egg into the bag,” he said, as if to put one over on the crowd. But it wasn’t a deceit: when he thrust his hand into the bag, the egg was waiting there. Gripping it between his thumb and first finger, he held it up for the spectators to see and placed it on the ground.

Tsuda inclined his head slightly, his face a blend of disdain and admiration. All of a sudden he became aware of something poking at his hip from behind. Startled, he spun around almost reflexively and discovered his uncle’s son grinning up at him like a mischievous rascal. His cap with insignia attached, his short pants, and the knapsack on his back were all the evidence Tsuda needed to know whence the boy had come.

“Back from school?”

His nephew grunted an affirmation that was neither “yes” nor even “yeah.”

“HOW’S YOUR father?”

“Dunno—”

“Same as usual?”

“I guess — I dunno.”

Tsuda had no memory of his own psychology at around the age of ten and was a little surprised by this response. He smiled uncomfortably and, aware of his own ignorance, said nothing. The child for his part was intent on the magician. The latter, whose outfit appeared to have been stitched together in a single night, was just proclaiming at the top of his lungs, “Watch carefully folks as we conjure up another.”

Pulling the bag through his fist as if to wring it out, he mimed deftly once again throwing something into it and proceeded to produce magnificently a second egg from the bottom. As if this weren’t enough, he turned the bag inside out and displayed, apparently without embarrassment, the filthy striped lining inside. Even so, a third egg was effortlessly manifested with the same gestures. Handling it gingerly as though it were a valuable object, he placed it carefully on the ground alongside the others.

“Folks, I can show you as many of these as I please. But that wouldn’t be much fun, so let’s see what we can do about a live chicken.”

Tsuda turned around to his uncle’s child.

“Let’s go, Makoto. Uncle Tsuda’s on his way to your place.”

To Makoto, a live chicken was more important than Tsuda.

“You go — I want to watch.”

“He’s lying — you won’t see any live chicken if you watch all day.”

“How come? He did all those eggs, didn’t he?”

“Eggs aren’t chickens. He says that to trick people into staying around.”

“What for?”

Tsuda didn’t know the answer himself. Impatient now, he turned to leave, but Makoto took hold of his kimono sleeve.

“Uncle. Buy me something.”

Tsuda, who customarily escaped with a promise of “next time” whenever the boy pestered him and invariably forgot his promise on the next visit, replied in the usual manner.

“I will—”

“A car!”

“A car’s too large!”

“A small one — seven yen, fifty sen.”

Seven yen, fifty was most certainly too large for Tsuda. Without replying, he began to walk away.

“You promised last time and the time before — you’re a worse liar than that egg man.”

“He can do eggs, but there’s no way he can do a live chicken.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do — he can’t produce a chicken.”

“And Uncle Tsuda can’t even buy a car.”

“Hmm — maybe not. I’ll buy you something else.”

“Kid-leather shoes, then.”

Surprised, Tsuda walked a few feet in silence. Lowering his gaze, he looked at Makoto’s feet. There was nothing so shameful about his shoes, but they were a curious color somehow, neither brown nor black exactly.

“They were red until Father dyed them.”

Tsuda laughed aloud. It amused him that Fujii had dyed his son’s red shoes black. His impulse was to construe comically his uncle’s solution in his straitened circumstances to having provided his son with red shoes in ignorance of school regulations. He stared at the outcome of this extreme measure with an uncomfortable expression on his face.

“MAKOTO, THOSE are swell shoes. Really!”

“But nobody wears this color.”

“The color doesn’t matter; who else has shoes his own father has dyed for him? You should be grateful and take good care of them.”

“But the fellows all make fun of me — they call them shaggy dog fur.”

Uncle Fujii and the fur of a shaggy dog — connecting the words resulted in a new amusement. But this joke was accompanied by a certain poignancy.

“It’s not doggy fur; take your uncle’s word for that. They’re fine, they’re not shaggy dog, they’re outstanding—”

Tsuda faltered, groping for a word to pair with “outstanding.” Makoto wasn’t one to leave this hanging.

“Outstanding what?”

“Well, outstanding — footwear.”

If his wallet permitted it, Tsuda would like to have bought Makoto the leather lace-ups he wanted. He felt this would serve as partial repayment of his obligation to Uncle Fujii for his solicitude. He essayed a mental tally of the money in his billfold. But at this time he hadn’t the leeway to make an accommodation of this size. It would be different, he thought, if a money order should arrive from Kyoto, but to tighten the vice that held him before he knew for certain whether it would arrive at all would be a demonstration of generosity he couldn’t imagine anyone expected of him under the circumstances.

“Makoto. If you want leather shoes so badly, ask Auntie Nobu to buy them for you when you’re at our house. I’m low on cash right now, so I’m hoping you’ll give me a break on what I spend on you this time.”

Tsuda strolled along the broad street leading Makoto by the hand, as if to cajole him, and again, as if to console him. The street led directly to the end of the trolley line, and the ceaseless traffic of shoes and clogs as pedestrians tramped to and from the station had transformed it over the past four or five years into a burgeoning high street. On display in the show windows here and there was a gorgeous array of merchandise that could not be categorically ridiculed as edge-of-town items. Makoto dashed back and forth across the street, standing in front of a Korean candy store one minute and returning to this side the next to pause beneath the eaves of a goldfish shop. Each time he sprinted away there was a clinking of the marbles in his pocket.

“I won all these at school today.”

Thrusting one hand inside his pocket, he showed Tsuda a palm full of marbles. When the pale blue and purple spheres spilled as though cascading from his hand and scattered into the center of the road, he chased after them frantically. Looking over his shoulder, he petitioned Tsuda’s help with a shout.

In the end Tsuda was dragged into a toy store by this dizzying child of his uncle’s and required to buy him an air gun for one yen, fifty sen.

“You can shoot sparrows, but you mustn’t aim at people.”

“I couldn’t shoot a sparrow with a cheap air gun like this.”

“Only because you’re a lousy shot — if your aim is bad you won’t hit anything whatever gun you use.”

“Then will you shoot a sparrow for me? When we get home?” It seemed clear to Tsuda that he would be pressed to make good on any promise he recklessly offered, so he said something vague and changed the subject. Makoto reeled off a string of names unknown to him — Toda, Shibuya, Sakaguchi — and began critiquing his friends one after the other.

“That Okamoto is no fair. He gets them to buy him three pairs of shoes.”

The conversation returned to shoes. The Okamoto boy whom Makoto was criticizing was the son of a family with a deep connection to O-Nobu. Tsuda reflected in silence on a comparison of the two children.

“YOU PLAY at Okamoto’s place these days?”

“Nope.”

“You had another fight?”

“We didn’t fight.”

“Then why don’t you play?”

“Just don’t.”

It appeared that Makoto had more to say, and Tsuda wanted to know what it was.

“Don’t they give you all sorts of stuff when you go there?”

“Nope — not that much.”

“But they treat you—”

“We had rice curry last time, and it was too spicy.”

Spicy curry seemed an inadequate reason not to visit the Okamotos.

“That can’t be why you don’t like going there.”

“It’s not me — Father says I shouldn’t. I’d like to go and use the swing.”

Tsuda inclined his head in thought. What reason could his uncle have for preferring his son not to visit the Okamotos? A difference in sensibility, in family traditions, in lifestyle — all these occurred immediately. His uncle spent his days at his desk promulgating his vehement views with words in silence and wasn’t nearly as powerful in the actual world as with his pen. Secretly he was sensible of this discrepancy, and his perception had made him obstinate and somewhat reclusive. In that part of himself that feared venturing into a society where wealth and authority were paramount and being made a fool of by others, he appeared to be ceaselessly vigilant against the awful possibility that even the smallest corner of his personal domain should be contaminated by their values.

“Why don’t you ask your father what’s wrong with going to the Okamotos’?”

“I did—”

“What did he say? He didn’t say anything, right?”

“He did!”

“What?”

Makoto appeared a little embarrassed. Presently he stammered a reply in a somber tone of voice.

“He said if I go to Okamotos’ I’ll see, you know, all of Hajime’s things and come home and want, you know, the same stuff for myself. He says I’ll start pestering him to buy me things so I shouldn’t go over there—”

Now Tsuda saw the point. One family lived somewhat better than the other, and the difference in their wealth had to be reflected even in their children’s toys.

“So you only bother your old man about expensive stuff, cars and kid-leather shoes and lord knows what, things you saw first at Hajime’s house — whatever he has goes to the top of your shopping list, is that it?”

Half teasingly, Tsuda lifted a hand and tried clapping Makoto on the back. Makoto screwed his face into an expression that suggested an adult who has had an unattractive truth about himself exposed. Unlike an adult, he offered nothing in the way of self-justification.

“That’s a dirty lie.”

Pressing against his side the one-yen, fifty-sen air gun he had wheedled out of Tsuda, he took off in the direction of home. The marbles in his pocket clinked like prayer beads being vigorously fingered. From his backpack issued a bumping as of textbooks, perhaps, against a lunch box.

Pausing at a black board fence at the corner, he darted a glance back at Tsuda like a weasel and disappeared down the alley. Tsuda had traversed the alley and was stepping through Fujii’s gate at the far end when the bang of a gun sounded just yards ahead of him. With an uncomfortable smile he observed Makoto’s shadowed figure taking careful aim at him through the hedge fence on the right.

TSUDA HEARD his uncle’s voice in conversation with someone in the formal drawing room and, noticing through the lattice bars a pair of visitor’s shoes, turned away from the main entrance at once, without opening the front door, and made his way around the house toward the sitting room. The garden that might have been at one time a nursery was neither protected by a wooden gate nor enclosed inside a bamboo fence, so one had only to circumvent the kitchen entrance to a rental house that recently had been erected on the same property to reach the far end of the engawa that ran the length of the house on this side. Passing two or three tall tea bushes that were nonetheless a bit low to afford privacy, and beneath the persimmon tree that remained always vivid in his memory, he discerned his aunt’s figure in its customary place. As a reflection of her profile appeared in the glass set into the shoji, he called to her from outside.

“Hello, Auntie.”

His aunt slid back the shoji at once.

“What happened today?”

Without a word of thanks for the air gun he had bought for her son, she eyed Tsuda doubtfully. This was a woman who could never be accused of affability. On the other hand, depending on the time and the occasion, she was capable of a naturalness that far exceeded the bounds of normal reserve. There were times when her thorough-going naturalness, her innocence of affect, made her seem genderless. Tsuda was constantly comparing his aunt to Madam Yoshikawa. And he was invariably surprised by the difference between them. He marveled at how two women roughly the same age — his aunt had left forty behind three or four years ago — could convey to others such an entirely different feeling.

“I see you’re as charming as ever today.”

“Charming? What do you expect at my age?”

Tsuda sat down on the edge of the engawa. Without inviting him to step up, his aunt continued smoothing the red silk fabric across her lap with a light charcoal iron. Just then the maid, O-Kin, came in from the room next door with a kimono that had been unstitched and bowed to Tsuda, who addressed her at once.

“O-Kin-san, has your engagement been settled? If not, I could introduce you to someone promising—”

O-Kin colored slightly, smiling and nodding her head good-naturedly, and moved toward the engawa with a cushion for Tsuda. Halting her with a wave of his hand, he stepped up and into the room without waiting to be invited.

“Right, Auntie?”

“I suppose,” his aunt murmured absently; as O-Kin poured for Tsuda the obligatory cup of green tea, she looked up.

“O-Kin, you should ask Yoshio to do what he can; this is a good man and he means what he says.”

Unable to flee, O-Kin remained uncomfortably where she was. Tsuda felt obliged to say something more.

“I wasn’t flattering you — I meant it.”

His aunt appeared disinclined to continue the conversation. Just then the sound of Makoto firing his air gun rang out from the rear of the house and she turned toward the noise.

“O-Kin. You’d better go have a look. If he’s using buckshot it could be dangerous.”

Her expression conveyed her disapproval of Tsuda’s unnecessary purchase.

“You needn’t worry; I made sure he knows what not to do.”

“That’s not reassuring. You can bet that child will think it’s amusing to shoot at the chickens next door. Please take the pellets away no matter what he says.”

O-Kin took advantage of the moment to disappear from the sitting room. His aunt pulled the iron from the brazier where she had thrust it to heat up. Tsuda watched idly as the wrinkled silk fabric smoothed and extended on her lap while snatches of the conversation reached his ear from the drawing room.

“By the way, who’s the visitor?”

His aunt looked up as though surprised.

“You’re just noticing now; your hearing must be off. That voice is easy to recognize even from in here.”

SEATED WHERE he was, Tsuda struggled to identify the voice in the drawing room. Presently he slapped his knee with his hand.

“I know! Kobayashi!”

“Yes.”

His aunt’s simple answer was unsmiling and composed.

“So it’s Kobayashi. I saw the fancy red shoes and wondered who was putting on airs like an important guest paying a rare visit — If I’d known I wouldn’t have thought twice about using the front entrance.”

The image that rose to Tsuda’s mind was too familiar to him to require imagining. He recalled the odd outfit Kobayashi had been wearing when they had met last summer. Over a robe with a white crepe de chine collar, he had sported a dark blue kimono with a white splash pattern, a so-called Satsuma splash, a hakama with brown vertical stripes, and a see-through jacket of net; and in this outlandish get-up he might have been the proprietor of an umbrella shop who has stopped on his way out of a local funeral to place in the folds of his robe a thin wooden carton of ceremonial rice and red beans. At the time, he had explained that his Western suit had been lifted by a burglar. Whereupon he had begged a loan of some seven yen. A friend, sympathizing with his loss, had offered to gift him his own summer suit if he could find the means to buy it out of hock at a pawnshop.

“What’s so special about today that he goes into the great room and breaks out his fancy visitor’s manners?”

Tsuda posed the question with the hint of a smile.

“He has something to discuss with your uncle. It’s a subject it would be hard to talk about in here.”

“Really! Does Kobayashi have serious matters to discuss? Must be money, or if not—”

Observing the serious expression that had suddenly appeared on his aunt’s face, Tsuda pulled back in midsentence. His aunt lowered her voice a little. Her softened voice was, if anything, better suited to her composure.

“There’s also O-Kin’s engagement. If we say too much about that in here it’s bound to embarrass her.”

It was for that reason that Kobayashi, in contrast to his customary braying, was affecting a voice so gentlemanly that it was difficult to know, listening in here, who the speaker was.

“Has it been decided?”

“It seems to be going well.”

A glimmer of anticipation brightened his aunt’s eyes. Tsuda, who had been feeling expansive, reeled himself in.

“So I needn’t go to the trouble of making an introduction.”

His aunt regarded him in silence. Tsuda’s attitude, not superficial exactly but clowning and somehow hollow, appeared to be incongruent with her current feelings about life.

“Yoshio, was that your attitude when you chose your own bride?”

Not only was the question abrupt, but Tsuda hadn’t the slightest idea what she meant by asking it.

“I suppose I know what you mean by my attitude, but as the person in question, I myself have no idea so it’s a bit difficult to reply.”

“It makes no difference to me whether you reply or not — you try taking on responsibility for seeing a young woman happily on her way. It’s no trifling matter.”

Four years ago, lacking the means to provide his eldest daughter a dowry, Fujii had borrowed a considerable sum of money. No sooner had he finally paid off the loan than it was time to arrange his second daughter’s marriage. Now O-Kin was engaged and, if the arrangements should be settled, hers would be the third marriage he must finance. Her standing was of course different from his daughters’, and in that sense there was nothing preventing him from spending as little as he could manage; even so, the event would certainly strain the family’s household budget and cast a shadow over their current way of life.

AT A time like this, if Tsuda had been able to volunteer to cover even half the expense, the Fujiis, who had looked after him one way or the other for years, would certainly have deemed that a satisfactory recompense. At present, however, the most he was capable of by way of demonstrating sympathy for his aunt and uncle was to purchase the kid-leather shoes Makoto longed to wear. Even that, in accordance with the dictates of his wallet, must be put aside for the time being and carefully considered. As for begging Kyoto for an accommodation and using it to add a degree of luster to their finances, this was a kindness he was not inclined to undertake. His reluctance was partly due to his certainty that explaining the circumstances to his father would no more move him to action than his uncle could be induced to accept a loan if one were offered. He was left bound up in his own impatience about the money order arriving from Kyoto and displayed no sign of feeling much moved by his aunt’s complaint. Whereupon she spoke again.

“Yoshio-san. What were you thinking then, when you took a wife?”

“I wasn’t joking, if that’s what you’re getting at. I may not be much, but you do me an injustice if you conclude I’m such a lightweight that my feet are floating above the ground.”

“I know you were serious. I don’t doubt you were being genuine, but there are degrees of genuineness—”

These words, which some might have taken as insulting, Tsuda attended with curiosity.

“Then why don’t you tell me how I seem to you. Please say what you really think.”

His aunt lowered her gaze and half smiled, fiddling with the unstitched kimono fabric. For some reason, possibly because she wasn’t looking him in the face, he felt suddenly uncomfortable. But he knew there was no danger of allowing his aunt to overwhelm him.

“You might be surprised how serious I can be when it’s necessary.”

“You’re a man after all. There must be a part of you that’s put together properly or you couldn’t survive at work every day. Even so—”

His aunt started to say something and, as if she had suddenly thought better of it, changed course.

“Enough of that. There’s no point in discussing it after all this time.”

Folding carefully the piece of red silk she had been ironing, she put it away in a thickly glazed paper wrapper. Seeing then the somehow deflated look on Tsuda’s face, an expression that managed to signal that he was feeling ungratified, she observed, as though having abruptly realized it for the first time, “Yoshio-san, in general you’re too extravagant.”

She had been scolding Tsuda about this implacably since the day he had graduated from college. He had never doubted that she was right. Nor had he ever considered it such a very bad thing.

“I’m a bit extravagant, yes—”

“Not just your clothes and food. You’re a showy, extravagant person at heart and that’s a problem. You’re like a man who constantly peers around the corner looking for the next delicious thing to eat and always wants more.”

“You make me sound like a beggar.”

“Not a beggar. But you do appear to be someone who isn’t naturally serious enough. It would be nice, admirable even, if you could learn to feel content with an ordinary portion of life.”

At that moment, Tsuda felt the shadow of his aunt’s daughters, cousins to him, graze his mind. Both were already married. The elder had accompanied her husband to Taiwan when they married four years ago and still resided there. The younger, who had become a bride just recently, around the time of his own wedding, had been taken off to Fukuoka immediately after the ceremony. Fujii’s firstborn son also happened to be in Fukuoka, where he had matriculated at Kyushu University just this year.

In Tsuda’s eyes, though he was in a position to have married easily either one he chose, neither of these cousins had been appropriate candidates for his wife. So he had moved on as though oblivious. Reviewing his attitude at the time in light of his aunt’s remarks, he could find nothing in particular to be guilty about, which allowed him to face her with equanimity. Just then she rose abruptly and, opening the lid of a Chinese trunk inside the armoire, put away the lacquered paper parcel of fabric.

IN THE small tatami room at the rear of the house, Makoto, who had been reviewing his lessons with O-Kin, began abruptly to recite from his reader French sentences incomprehensible to her, purposely interposing between each syllable a long interval: je-suis-poli, tu-es-mal-ade, and so forth. Tsuda was listening with his usual amusement to the shrill second-grader’s voice when this time the pendulum clock on the wall above his head spoke up, sounding the hour. Taking from the folds of his kimono where he had deposited it the bottle of castor oil, he examined the color of the viscous liquid with a look of distaste. Just then his uncle spoke as though he had been prompted even in the drawing room by the sound of the clock.

“Let’s join the others.”

With Kobayashi in tow, he came along the engawa into the sitting room. Tsuda, straightening where he sat, paid his respects to his uncle and turned at once toward Kobayashi.

“You certainly appear to be doing well. That’s quite a suit you’ve had made.”

Kobayashi’s jacket was a coarse fabric that might have been homespun. And no one could have failed to see from the sharp crease in his trousers, a striking contrast to his habitual rumpled look, that they had just come from the tailor. He sat down facing Tsuda with his feet beneath him as if to conceal the odd color of his socks.

“Are you kidding? You’re the one who’s doing well.”

Noticing the tag attached to a three-piece suit hanging in some department store window, he had ordered one made for himself at exactly the same price.

“This cost me twenty-six yen, a real bargain. I don’t know how it looks to a big spender like you, but I can tell you it’s plenty good enough for the likes of me.”

In the presence of his aunt, Tsuda lacked the courage to disparage Kobayashi further. He held his tongue and, asking for a teacup, drank down the castor oil with a shudder. All present in the room observed him wonderingly.

“What’s that garbage you’re drinking? Is that supposed to be medicine?”

Tsuda’s uncle hadn’t been sick a day in his life, and his ignorance where medicine was concerned was extraordinary. Even castor oil was a mystery to him. When Tsuda proceeded to explain his current situation, using words like “surgery” and “out-patient procedure,” his uncle, who had no experience negotiating with illness, appeared unmoved.

“You came all the way over here to tell us that?”

With an expression on his face that might have been saying “You needn’t have bothered,” he stroked his salt-and-pepper beard. It was a beard that appeared to be growing by itself more than being grown, a garden untended by a gardener, and sprouting wildly here and there on his face it made him look like an old man.

“Young people these days are mostly unhealthy. Always sick with some crazy thing.”

His aunt glanced at Tsuda and smirked. Tsuda, familiar with the history that preceded his uncle’s recent harping on “young people these days” as if it were a verbal tic, returned her grin. He had grown up on old saws like “ill body, sick mind” and “illness is the legacy of the father’s sins”; understanding now that they could be interpreted as expressions of his uncle’s pride in himself for never falling ill, he was the more amused. With a half smile still on his face, he turned to Kobayashi. Kobayashi spoke up at once, but what he said was the opposite of Tsuda’s expectation.

“There are some young people these days who don’t get sick. Take me; I haven’t had to stay in bed once recently. It appears to me that people don’t get sick if they’re poor.”

Tsuda was annoyed.

“Hogwash!”

“I beg your pardon — you’re sick as often as you are because you can afford it.”

The seriousness of the speaker propounding this illogical conclusion made Tsuda want to laugh in his face. Whereupon his uncle chimed in with his ratification.

“You’re right about that. What’s more, once you’re sick all you can do is lie there and suffer.”

In the growing dimness of the room, his uncle’s face appeared darkest of all. Tsuda rose and switched on the light.

TSUDA’S AUNT reappeared from the kitchen, where she had withdrawn at some point to rattle plates and bowls with help from O-Kin and the scullery maid.

“Yoshio-san, please stay for dinner, it’s been such a long time.”

Tsuda declined on grounds that he was going in for treatment in the morning and rose to leave.

“We were expecting only Kobayashi so there may not be a ton of food to go around, but you should stay and keep us company.”

Unused to being spoken to this way by his uncle, Tsuda felt strangely moved and sat back down to stay.

“Is something going on today?”

“Not exactly…. Kobayashi here—”

Uncle Fujii stopped and looked at Kobayashi, who grinned as if pleased with himself.

“Has something happened to you?”

“I wouldn’t say happened — in any event, when things are settled I’ll come over to your place and explain in detail.”

“As you know, I’ll be in the hospital beginning tomorrow.”

“Not a problem. I’ll make it a sick call while I’m at it.”

Kobayashi persisted, asking for the location of the hospital and the doctor’s name very much as if this were knowledge he crucially required. Learning that the doctor’s name was the same as his own, Kobayashi, he remarked “Oh! He must be Hori-san’s—” and abruptly fell silent. Hori was Tsuda’s brother-in-law. Kobayashi was aware that he had recently been to see this doctor in the neighborhood for an ailment of a very particular nature.

Tsuda felt he wouldn’t mind hearing the details Kobayashi had referred to. It seemed likely they had to do with O-Kin’s marriage, to which his aunt had alluded. And it seemed possible they might not. Though Kobayashi’s pointed vagueness had somewhat aroused Tsuda’s curiosity, in the end he didn’t extend an explicit invitation to visit him at the hospital.

When, on grounds that he was going in for surgery, he refrained from touching the dishes his aunt had specially prepared, meat and fish and even the rice steamed with mushrooms he was usually so fond of, even she appeared uncharacteristically to feel sorry for him and sent O-Kin out for the bread and milk he was allowed to have. Tsuda winced to himself at the thought of the doughy bread made locally, which stuck in the spaces between his teeth as if held there by glue, but fearing a little to be labeled extravagant yet again, he merely gazed docilely at O-Kin’s back as she left the room. When she was gone, his aunt said to his uncle in front of everyone,

“It would be so wonderful if that child’s engagement were resolved this time.”

“It will be.” Fujii’s response was unhesitating.

“Things seem extremely promising.”

Kobayashi’s comment was also buoyant. Only Tsuda and Makoto remained silent.

When Tsuda heard the suitor’s name, he had the feeling he had met him once or twice at his uncle’s house, but he retained no memory of him.

“Does O-Kin-san know him?”

“She knows what he looks like. She’s never spoken to him.”

“So he’s never spoken to her either—”

“Of course not.”

“It’s amazing a marriage can happen that way.”

Tsuda was confident that his logic was irrefragable; as a demonstration of his confidence to the others, he assumed an expression more confounded than aghast.

“How should it happen? You think everyone must behave just as you did when you were married?”

His uncle’s tone of voice as he turned to Tsuda suggested his mood had soured a little. Tsuda felt some regret; his response had been directed to his aunt.

“That’s not it at all. I didn’t mean to suggest there was anything unfortunate about a marriage being decided under those circumstances. As long as things are settled, the circumstances make no difference.”

BUT THE mood in the room had already gone flat. The conversation had flowed along pleasantly enough until now, but following Tsuda’s remark there occurred a cessation, as if a dam had been suddenly closed, and no one ventured to pick up where it had left off. Kobayashi, pointing at the beer glass in front of him, spoke to Makoto at his side in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Makoto-san, shall I pour you a glass? Have a little drink.”

“I hate bitter stuff.”

Makoto kicked aside the invitation, drawing a chortle from Kobayashi, who hadn’t intended serving him in the first place. Perhaps the child believed he had made a friend; he spoke up to Kobayashi abruptly.

“I have a one-yen, fifty-sen air gun — want to see it?”

Standing at once, Makoto ran to the room at the rear of the house; when he returned a minute later with his new toy, Kobayashi felt obliged under the circumstances to admire the shiny weapon. It was also necessary that Tsuda’s aunt and uncle profess an obligatory word of endearment for their exuberant child.

“He’s always pestering his impoverished old man to buy him something, a watch, a fountain pen, whatever. I’ll say one thing, it seems he’s recently given up on a horse and that takes some pressure off.”

“Actually, horses are surprisingly inexpensive. If you go to Hokkaido you can pick one up for five or six yen.”

“As if you’d been there.”

Thanks to the air gun, tongues loosened and the conversation ranged. The subject of marriage surfaced yet again. This was unquestionably the sequel to the earlier discussion that had broken off. However, the participants’ remarks were governed by their moods, which had changed little by little from before.

“It’s a curious business. Just because two people who know nothing about each other get together, there’s no guarantee they’ll end up estranged, and by the same token who’s to say that a couple who prefer each other above everyone else will live in harmony forever after?”

There was no way but this to summarize honestly the reality his aunt had experienced all her life. And her desire to install O-Kin’s marriage out of harm’s way in one corner of this large truth was less a defense than an explanation. In Tsuda’s view, however, this explanation was supremely incomplete and supremely unreassuring. And while his aunt had expressed doubts about his sincerity where marriage was concerned, he couldn’t help thinking that, on this head, it was she who lacked fundamental seriousness.

“Those are the words of a privileged man,” she snapped at him defensively. “You talk about courting and engagements and whatnot, but can the likes of us afford luxuries like that? As long as there’s a taker, or someone to come into our family, we have to be thankful for that, that’s all we can hope for.”

In deference to all present, Tsuda was disinclined to comment on O-Kin’s particular situation. The matter neither concerned nor interested him sufficiently to comment; it was simply that he felt constrained, in order to paint over his aunt’s doubts about his own seriousness, to point out the superficiality of her position, and was thus unable to keep silent. Inclining his head to one side as though deep in thought, he spoke.

“I have no desire to say anything critical about O-Kin’s situation. I just wonder if it’s acceptable to think about marriage in general quite so simply. That strikes me as not adequately serious, that’s all—”

“But, Yoshio-san, if the bride decides to go to wife seriously, and the husband becomes serious about accepting her, where is there room for anything less than serious to be involved?”

“I just wonder if it’s so easy to become serious all of a sudden.”

“I’m proof that it is. Otherwise why would I have married into a house like this and worked as hard as I do to be a good wife?”

“I’m sure that’s true for you, Auntie, but young people these days…”

“People are no different now than they were in the past. Everything depends on your own determination.”

“If that’s your conclusion, there’s nothing to discuss.”

“There’s no need for a discussion. If you look at the facts, I win and you lose. There’s no way of knowing that a man who marries his bride after careful picking and choosing is one bit more serious than a man who hasn’t chosen yet and can’t feel sure.”

Like a man who has decided that the time has come for him to enter the fray, Tsuda’s uncle, who had been picking at the meat, lifted his eyes from his plate.

“YOU TWO are at each other; this doesn’t sound like a debate between aunt and nephew.”

He had stepped between them, but not as a referee or a judge.

“I sense some hostility — have you quarreled?” The remark was a caution in the guise of a question. Kobayashi, who had been playing marbles with Makoto, stole a glance in their direction. Tsuda and his aunt fell silent at the same time. In the end Fujii had to assume a mediator’s attitude after all.

“Yoshio, this may be hard to understand for young people these days, but your aunt isn’t lying. She knew nothing about me when she married into this family, but she was already prepared and determined to make a go of it. She was just as serious before she’d even arrived as after.”

“Even I know that without having to ask.”

“But hold on a minute — in case you’re interested in knowing why your aunt had resolved to take a huge step like that—”

The alcohol in Uncle’s system was making its rounds; like someone who feels a duty to provide moisture to his burning face, he lifted his glass again and took a long pull of beer.

“Truth be told, I’ve never said a word about this to anyone until now — would you like to hear the explanation?”

“Indeed I would.”

Tsuda was half serious.

“Truth be told, your aunt had eyes for this old boy. In other words, this was where she wanted to end up from the beginning. So even before she came she was fiercely determined.”

“Such nonsense! Who would have anything like eyes for a man with a face like yours?”

Tsuda and Kobayashi guffawed. Makoto, left alone with his bewilderment, turned to his mother.

“What’s having eyes for?”

“I have no idea, ask your father.”

“Father? What’s it mean to have eyes for?”

Grinning, Fujii rubbed the middle of his bald head tenderly. To Tsuda — perhaps he was seeing things — the skull appeared slightly redder than usual.

“Makoto — to have eyes for someone means — to like them a lot.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Who said there’s anything wrong?”

“But everybody laughed.”

At just this point in the dialogue O-Kin returned; Aunt Fujii had Makoto’s mattress laid out and promptly sent him off to his bedroom. Tsuda’s uncle, thoroughly engaged, was just warming up.

“Not that true love didn’t exist in the old days; O-Asa can scowl all she wants, but it did. And there was an aspect even to that you’d never understand as a young person today; it’s a funny thing. In the old days women were smitten with men but never the other way round. Am I right, O-Asa, isn’t that how it was?”

“I have no idea.”

Sitting down in the place Makoto had vacated, Tsuda’s aunt helped herself to a bowl of matsutake rice and began to eat.

“There’s no point in getting huffy. There’s truth in what I’m saying, and there’s also a kind of philosophy. Let me expound the philosophy.”

“I think we’ve had quite enough expounding for tonight.”

“Then I’ll educate the young ones. Listen carefully Yoshio, and you, too, Kobayashi, for future reference. How do you fellows view another man’s daughter?”

“As a woman.”

Tsuda’s reply was an intentional gibe, designed to miss the point.

“Exactly. You think of her as just a woman, not a daughter. Right there is a major difference between you and us. We’ve never once looked at another man’s daughter as a woman independent of her mother and father. In our minds, whenever we’re introduced to a young lady, we conceive of her as a possession of her parents, tethered to them, so no matter how passionately we may feel, we have an obligation not to be smitten. Can you see why? Because to be smitten amounts to possessing that loved one. But only a thief would reach for someone who’s already been tagged as a possession. That’s why men of old with an immovable sense of duty never allowed themselves to be smitten. Women, yes. O-Asa, for example, sitting there with her mushroom rice, was smitten with me. But for my part, I can’t say I ever loved her.”

“Just as you say. But that ought to be enough for now. Let’s have some rice.”

Summoning O-Kin from Makoto’s room, Tsuda’s aunt directed her to fill the rice bowls. Tsuda was obliged to chew away at the gummy sandwich bread reserved for him.

THE AFTER-DINNER talk was already beyond reviving. Nor did it settle into an easy repose. As if the spine of a topic capable of commanding mutual interest had been broken, people voiced their own thoughts randomly and noticed the absence of anyone willing to integrate their remarks in a central conversation.

Leaning on the low table with both elbows, Tsuda’s uncle yawned drunkenly twice in a row. His aunt summoned the maid and had her take leftovers to the kitchen. Like clouds scudding across the moon, his uncle’s words that night cast from time to time a pale shadow over Tsuda’s heart. These words that, from another’s point of view, should have vanished like the foam on a glass of beer, Tsuda pursued and called back as if they were freighted with significance. Noticing this, he felt disgruntled in spite of himself.

At the same time, he couldn’t help recalling the words he had exchanged with his aunt. Throughout their squabble he had held himself in check, careful to conceal to the extent possible his true bias. It was pride he was hiding, but he knew from his mood now that some kind of unpleasantness was also lurking there.

From this overdue visit that had consumed half a day and which he measured on a monochromatic scale of pleasant and unpleasant, Tsuda turned to contrasting memories of the vibrant Madam Yoshikawa and her beautiful drawing room. In the next instant he beheld the face of his wife O-Nobu, who was at last doing her hair up in the large bun above her neck worn by married women.

Standing, he turned to Kobayashi.

“Are you staying?”

“No, I should be on my way, too.”

Kobayashi stuffed into the pocket of his trousers his pack of Shikijima cigarettes. They were on their way out when Uncle Fujii, as though coincidentally, inquired after O-Nobu.

“I keep thinking I’ll drop over, but you know what they say about a poor man’s work — give her our best. She must have time on her hands when you’re out; what does she do with herself?”

“What does she do? Nothing in particular, I suppose.”

This vapid reply Tsuda quickly, for whatever reason, promptly supplemented.

“She’ll offer to go to the hospital with me as agreeably as you could imagine, and the next minute she’s bossier than Auntie, ‘Get a haircut. Go to the bath.’ You name it.”

“That’s admirable. Who else do you know who’d tell a swell like you what you should do?”

“That’s good fortune I could do without.”

“How about the theater? Do you go?”

“Occasionally — we had an invitation from the Okamotos but unfortunately I have this illness to take care of.”

Tsuda glanced at his aunt.

“What do you say, Auntie — shall we go to the Imperial one of these days? A good play can be a tonic — perk you right up.”

“I suppose—”

“You don’t want to?”

“It’s not that — but I wouldn’t want to hold my breath waiting for an invitation from you.”

Though he knew his aunt didn’t care much for entertainment like the theater, Tsuda chose to take her at face value and made a show of scratching his head.

“If I’ve lost my credibility, I’m done for.”

His aunt snickered.

“Never mind the theater — what’s been going on with Kyoto since we spoke?”

“Have you heard something? Has Kyoto been in touch with you?”

Tsuda searched somewhat gravely the faces of his aunt and uncle, but neither replied.

“As a matter of fact, my father wrote to say he couldn’t send money this month so I should manage on my own. Just like that — pretty brutal, I’d say.”

His uncle merely smiled.

“Big brother must be angry.”

“It’s O-Hide; she shoots her mouth off and makes everything worse.”

Tsuda spoke his younger sister’s name with distaste.

“O-Hide’s not to blame. I bet you’ve been on the wrong side of this from the beginning, Yoshio-san.”

“Maybe so. But show me the country where a son returns money his dad has sent him like change out of a cash register.”

“Then you shouldn’t have promised to pay back like a cash register in the first place. Besides—”

“Enough, Aunt! I get it!”

Tsuda stood up. It was clear from his demeanor that he had stood all he could manage. He departed hastily, making sure, however, to brace himself up following his defeat by dragging Kobayashi out with him.

OUTSIDE, THERE was no wind. As they walked briskly along, the quiet air was chilly against their cheeks. It was as if an invisible dew were falling softly from the starry sky high above them. Tsuda stroked the shoulder of his overcoat. Sensing distinctly in his fingertips the chill that had seeped inside the coat, he looked back at Kobayashi.

“It’s warm enough during the day, but nights are getting cold.”

“Autumn is upon us. Overcoat weather.”

Kobayashi was wearing nothing over his three-piece suit. Clomping along in his American clodhoppers with their decidedly square toes as he brandished his walking stick affectedly, he might have been a demonstrator protesting the chilly air.

“What happened to that coat you had made when we were in school, the one you were so proud of?”

The question was abrupt and surprising. Tsuda couldn’t help recalling the days when he had worn the coat ostentatiously.

“I still have it.”

“You still wear it?”

“I may be strapped just now, but do you suppose I still parade around in a coat from my student days?”

“I guess not. Perfect. Give it to me.”

“You can have it if you want it.”

Tsuda’s reply was on the chilly side. There was something contradictory about a man dressed in new clothes all the way to his socks and shoes wanting someone else’s worn-out overcoat. At the very least it was evidence of the unregulated ups and downs that lay along the path of Kobayashi’s material life.

“Why didn’t you order a coat along with the suit?” Tsuda asked presently.

“Don’t think about me as if I were you.”

“Fine, but how did you manage the suit and the shoes?”

“I resent your tone of voice. Things may be tough, but I haven’t started stealing, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Tsuda said no more.

They came to the top of a hill. The slope visible across the broad valley below extended into the darkness like a beast’s back. Here and there the lights in houses glimmered like points of warmth in the autumn night.

“Say! How about stopping for a drink?”

Before replying, Tsuda glanced at Kobayashi to assess his mood. On their right was a high embankment the length of which was covered by a dense stand of bamboo. There was no wind to make the bamboo murmur, but the tips of the broad leaves, which appeared to have fallen asleep, were more than adequate to produce in Tsuda a feeling of desolation appropriate to the season.

“This is some gloomy spot. It must have been the back of a daimyo estate and now they just let it go. They should clear it so it can be developed.”

With these remarks Tsuda hoped to dodge the invitation, but Kobayashi wasn’t to be diverted by a bamboo grove.

“C’mon — for old time’s sake.”

“You were just drinking; you need more already?”

“What we just had doesn’t count as drinking.”

“You said you’d had enough when Uncle offered you a good-night cup.”

“I couldn’t get drunk in front of Sensei and his wife so I had no choice. And having too little is poison, worse than nothing at all. If you’re not careful to get appropriately smashed afterward, chances are you’ll be sick.”

Propounding his arbitrary logic, Kobayashi insisted, making him a troublesome companion.

“Drinks on you?”

The question was half a taunt.

“I don’t mind — why not!”

“Where should we go?”

“Anywhere — how about an o-den shop?*

In silence they descended the hill.

THE WAY home took Tsuda to the right and Kobayashi straight ahead, but as Tsuda bid the other a polite farewell, touching his hand to his hat, Kobayashi looked at him piercingly and said, “I’ll go your way.” In the direction they were heading, places to eat and drink lined the street for several blocks. Midway along they came upon an establishment that might have been a bar, with a glass door warmly illuminated from the inside, and Kobayashi abruptly stopped.

“This looks good. Let’s go in here.”

“Not me.”

“We won’t find the kind of classy place you’d like around here — let’s make do with this.”

“I happen to be ill.”

“I guarantee you’ll be fine so you don’t have to worry.”

“You can’t be serious — I’m not setting foot in there.”

“How about if I promise to make the excuses to Mrs. T. on your behalf?”

Fed up, Tsuda moved quickly away, leaving Kobayashi where he stood. But his friend fell in alongside him and continued in a more serious tone.

“Is having a drink with me so very disagreeable?”

It was exactly that, very disagreeable. At Kobayashi’s words Tsuda stopped at once; the decision he expressed was entirely opposite his inclination.

“Let’s have a drink, then.”

Opening the illuminated glass door, they stepped inside. There were only five or six customers, but the room was narrow and appeared crowded. Having chosen seats facing each other in a corner that seemed easy of access, they eyed their surroundings, waiting for the sake they had ordered, with a certain curious unfamiliarity.

Judging by the dress of the other customers, there was no one in the bar with any social standing. A fellow who appeared to be on his way home from the bath, a wet towel over the shoulder of his kimono jacket, and another in a cotton robe and plain obi with a piece of artificial jade thrust ostentatiously into the drawstring of his jacket represented, if anything, the fashionable end of things. Very much at the opposite end was someone who could only have been a ragman. Intermingled with the others was also a laborer in his smock and worker’s tights.

“It’s a nice proletarian atmosphere.” Kobayashi observed, filling Tsuda’s cup with sake. His flashy, three-piece suit obtruded in Tsuda’s vision as if in contradiction of his remark, but Kobayashi himself seemed oblivious.

“Unlike you, I always feel in sympathy with the working class.”

Looking very much as if he were surrounded by a band of brothers, Kobayashi surveyed the room.

“See for yourself. Those physiognomies are finer than anything you’d find among the upper crust.”

In lieu of looking around him, Tsuda, lacking the courage to respond, peered at Kobayashi, who pedaled back a step.

“You have to admit they’re appealingly tipsy.”

“The upper class doesn’t get tipsy?”

“Not appealingly.”

Tsuda declined defiantly to pursue the distinction.

Undaunted, Kobayashi poured one cup of sake after another.

“I know you hold these people in contempt. You look down on them as unworthy of your sympathy.”

No sooner than had he spoken, without waiting for Tsuda to respond, than he called out to a youngster who might have been a milkman, “Hey there, don’t you agree?”

The young man addressed in this manner twisted his head on a power ful neck and glanced at them, whereupon Kobayashi thrust a cup toward him.

“In any case, have a drink.”

The young man grinned. Unfortunately, a distance of some six feet separated him and Kobayashi; feeling no need of standing to accept the cup, he merely smiled and didn’t move. Even that seemed to satisfy Kobayashi. Withdrawing the cup and lifting it to his own lips, he spoke again to Tsuda. “You see how it is? There’s not a conceited soul in the room.”

AS A laborer in a smock and crew cut was leaving, a diminutive man in an Inverness coat came in and took a seat a little apart from them. Without removing his cap, the peak low on his brow, he surveyed the room once carefully and reached inside his coat. Removing a small, thin notebook, he opened it and stared intently at the page, reading or lost in thought. He made no move to take off his worn coat, and the cap remained on his head. But the notebook did not remain open long: replacing it carefully inside his coat, he peered surreptitiously at the faces of the other customers, this time sipping from his cup of sake. From time to time, extending one hand from the folds of his shabby coat, he stroked his wispy mustache.

Tsuda and Kobayashi had been observing the stranger for a while without drawing attention to themselves when abruptly their eyes met his and they turned sharply around to face each other. Kobayashi leaned forward slightly.

“You get it?”

Tsuda maintained his unbending posture; his tone suggested the question wasn’t worthy of a reply.

“Get what?”

Kobayashi lowered his voice further.

“That fellow is a detective.”

Tsuda did not reply. A stronger drinker than his companion, he was unruffled. He drained the cup in front of him in silence. Kobayashi filled it to the brim at once.

“See the look in those eyes?”

With a faint smile, Tsuda spoke at last.

“If you keep going out of your way to bad-mouth the upper class, you’ll get yourself mistaken for a socialist.”

“A socialist!”

Kobayashi lifted his voice on purpose and glanced pointedly at the man in the Inverness.

“Don’t make me laugh. I may not be much, but I support the good citizens of the working class. Compared with me, elitists like you who pretend that things are as they should be are the bad guys. So which of us deserves to be hauled away by the police — think about it!”

The man in the cap was looking at his lap in silence, obliging Kobayashi to rail at Tsuda.

“Maybe it’s never occurred to you to treat laborers and ditch-diggers like this as human beings.”

Kobayashi paused and glanced around him, but unfortunately no ditch-diggers or laborers were in evidence. Supremely unconcerned, he continued his tirade:

“Yet they’re possessed by nature of a sublime humanity people like you and that detective can’t even imagine. It’s just that the beauty of their humanity is covered in the grime of poverty and tribulation. In other words, they’re soiled because they’re not able to bathe. So have some respect for them.”

Kobayashi seemed in his vehemence to be defending himself more than the poverty-stricken. Tsuda was, however, cautious of engaging energetically lest his own stance be compromised, and so he avoided an argument. But Kobayashi pursued him.

“You’re silent, but I know you don’t believe what I say. I can see it plainly in your face. Well, let me explain — you must have read the Russian novelists?”

Tsuda, who hadn’t, not one, said nothing.

“Anyone who has read Dostoevsky in particular will know this: no matter how lowly a man is, or how uneducated, there are times when sentiments so pure and genuine and entirely undaunted they make you want to weep with gratitude will usher forth from him like a crystal spring. You think that’s fiction?”

“I haven’t read Dostoevsky, so I wouldn’t know.”

“If you ask Fujii sensei, he’ll tell you it’s a lie. He’ll say it’s merely a literary device imitated by lots of writers who came after Dostoevsky because he was so popular, a stratagem for getting readers worked up sentimentally by serving them sublime feelings in a vulgar bowl. I don’t agree. It makes me mad when I hear Sensei talk that way. Sensei doesn’t understand Dostoevsky. No matter how old he gets, he’ll never be any wiser about books. I may be young but—”

Kobayashi had gradually worked himself up. Finally, looking as though he were unbearably moved, he spilled tears on the tablecloth.

UNFORTUNATELY, TSUDA was not sufficiently drunk to be caught up in this display. Observing from outside the realm of empathy, he was inclined to be critical of what he saw. He wondered, was it sake or his uncle that was making Kobayashi cry? Was it Dostoevsky or Japan’s working class? Whichever should be the case, he well understood that it had scant relation to himself. He was disgusted. And he was uneasy. He gazed at the stains left by tears that had rained from the eyes of his overwrought friend as if they were merely an annoyance.

The man who had been identified as a detective took out again his thin notebook and began scribbling something in pencil. Appearing to notice everything, in the manner of a cat, while immovably composed in a similarly feline way, his behavior made Tsuda uncomfortable. As for Kobayashi, his ebriety had carried him well beyond concern: the detective appeared to be the last thing on his mind. Abruptly he thrust one suited arm in front of Tsuda’s nose.

“If my clothes are soiled, you deride me for being dirty. If I happen to be wearing something bright and clean, you deride me for being bright and clean. So what can I do? What must I do to earn your respect? I implore you to let me know. I may not be much, but I want your respect.”

Smiling stiffly, Tsuda pushed the arm away. Oddly, there was no resistance; as though its original strength had drained away, the arm returned submissively to its former position. But Kobayashi’s mouth was not so docile. Having withdrawn his hand, he opened his mouth at once.

“I can read your mind. I sympathize fervently with the working class. I’m poor as a church mouse myself, but here I am in a brand-new suit — you perceive a contradiction that makes you want to laugh at me.”

“It seems natural enough to have a suit made no matter how poor you are — you can’t very well walk the streets naked. The suit is fine; no one thinks anything about it.”

“Not true. You think I’m just being a dandy. Dressing myself up. You think that’s disgraceful.”

“Maybe you’re right — I should apologize.”

Having concluded he could bear no more, Tsuda finally sought relief in surrender and tried a glib accommodation. Whereupon Kobayashi’s attitude also softened naturally.

“It’s my fault, too. I was wrong. I do enjoy dressing up, I’ll give you that. I’ll concede that as far as it goes, but there’s a reason I had this suit made that you know nothing about.”

It was impossible Tsuda should have known anything about a special reason. Nor did he wish to know. Having come this far, however, he couldn’t avoid asking. Kobayashi, who had spread his arms wide open and was examining his own outfit, responded somewhat forlornly.

“The truth is, I’ll be going into exile in this suit. I’m running away to Korea.”

Tsuda regarded his companion with surprise on his face for the first time. When he had taken the opportunity to point out something that had been bothering him, that Kobayashi’s necktie was twisted to one side, and had bid him straighten it, he resumed listening to his story.

Having worked for a long time at Uncle Fujii’s magazine as an editor and proofreader, writing articles of his own when he could find the time, and making the rounds to places that seemed likely to pay for them, Kobayashi, who had always appeared to be a busy man, had finally found himself unable to endure being in Tokyo any longer and had resolved to cross the water to Korea, where arrangements for his employment at a certain newspaper were nearly concluded.

“When things get this painful, it makes no sense to keep hanging on in Tokyo. I can’t stand living in a place where there’s no future for me.”

Kobayashi spoke as if a future had been prepared and would be awaiting his arrival in Korea, and in the next breath he contradicted his seeming certainty.

“The long and short of it is I may be someone who was always destined to spend my life wandering aimlessly. I can’t settle down. The cruel part is, I want to settle down and the world won’t let me. So what choice do I have but to become a fugitive?”

“You’re not the only one who can’t settle down. I’m not in the least settled down myself.”

“Stop indulging yourself. If you can’t settle down it’s because you’re extravagant. I’m in pain because I’ll have to scramble for a slice of bread until my dying day.”

“But feeling unsettled is a defining predicament of modern man in general. You’re not the only one in pain.”

Kobayashi betrayed no sign of feeling in the least consoled by Tsuda’s words.

THE WAITRESS, who had been observing them, approached abruptly and began to clear the table pointedly. As if on that signal, the man in the Inverness glided out of his seat. Engrossed in their conversation, Tsuda and Kobayashi had stopped drinking a while ago and could hardly carry on as though oblivious. Tsuda took the opportunity to stand at once. Before leaving his seat, Kobayashi helped himself to a gold-tipped Manilla from the box that had been left on the table between them and lit it. It was as if he had decided he deserved a modest bonus on the side, Tsuda thought, piqued by the irony as he retrieved the cigarette box and put it in his sleeve.

Though the hour wasn’t that late, the crowd on this autumn night had dwindled surprisingly. The distinctive rumbling of a streetcar that would have been inaudible by day reached them from a distance. They walked along together, each in the grip of his own mood, their paired shadows wavering down the river bank.

“When will you be leaving?”

“It depends, maybe while you’re in the hospital.”

“That soon?”

“Not necessarily. I won’t know for certain until Sensei has another meeting with the head writer on the paper.”

“When you’re leaving, or if you’re going at all?”

“Something like that—”

Kobayashi’s reply was vague. As Tsuda moved quickly ahead without bothering to probe, he amplified.

“The truth is, I don’t really want to go.”

“Is Uncle saying you absolutely must?”

“Not at all — it’s not like that.”

“Then why not call it off?”

Tsuda’s words, with the force of logic that would have been plain as day to anyone hearing the remark, had the effect of cruelly squelching what appeared to be his companion’s expectation of sympathy. A few steps further, Kobayashi turned to Tsuda abruptly.

“Tsuda-kun!* I’m horribly lonely!”

Tsuda made no reply.

They walked together in silence. The trickle of water in the very center of the shallow riverbed vanished darkly beneath the indistinct stanchions of a bridge with a faint gurgling audible between the rumbling of a trolley.

“I guess I’ll go after all. I just think I better go.”

“Then do.”

“Right — I’ll go. Going to Korea or Taiwan is a much better deal than staying in a place like this and being made a fool of by everyone around.”

Kobayashi’s voice had tightened to shrillness. Tsuda sensed the importance of keeping his own voice calm.

“It’s foolish to be so pessimistic. As long as you’re young and in good health, why shouldn’t you succeed splendidly wherever you go? Let’s throw you a farewell party — to cheer you up.”

This time Kobayashi said nothing. Even so, Tsuda tried to remain sympathetic.

“How is O-Kin going to feel if you’re away when she gets married?”

Kobayashi appeared startled, as if he had just realized he had forgotten all about his younger sister.

“I feel sorry for her, but what can I do? It was her misfortune to end up with a hoodlum like me for a brother; she’ll have to resign herself.”

“Auntie and Uncle will look after things even if you’re away.”

“I guess that’s how it will have to be. Otherwise she can break off this engagement and stay on at Sensei’s house working like a maid. The way I figure it, she’d be a maid either way — I feel even sorrier about Sensei. If I do go, I’ll have to borrow travel money from him.”

“They won’t pay for the trip?”

“It doesn’t seem so.”

“You’ll have to squeeze it out of them.”

“Right—”

When Kobayashi spoke again, breaking another minute of silence, he might have been talking to himself.

“I borrow travel money from Sensei, I bum an overcoat from you, I leave my only sister in the lurch — I’m hopeless.”

These were the last lines Kobayashi uttered that night. Shortly after, they went their separate ways. Tsuda hurried homeward without looking back.

HIS FRONT gate was closed as usual. He reached for the half door in the gate; tonight it wouldn’t open. Thinking it must be stuck, he tried again several times and finally yanked at it forcefully and only then, hearing on the inside the leaden rasp of the latch resisting, resigned himself.

Inclining his head to one side at this unexpected development, he stood a moment where he was. Not once since becoming a new householder had he spent a night away from home, and even on the rare occasion when he returned late at night he had never until now encountered this.

Today he had been wanting to come home since dusk. He had dined perfunctorily at his uncle’s house because he had been given no choice. The small quantity of sake he had reluctantly consumed had been a concession to Kobayashi. Since evening had fallen he had spent the time away from home with O-Nobu on his mind. As he returned through the chilly night, it was very much as if he had been guided by his longing for the warm lamplight of his house. It wasn’t simply that his body had halted as a horse halts before a wall; his anticipation had been abruptly extinguished in front of his gate. Whether this stanching was O-Nobu’s fault or simply accidental was a matter of no small concern to him.

Lifting his hand, he rapped twice smartly on the locked door. The sound that rang into the darkness of the deepening night in the street was less a command to “Open up!” than a demand to know “Why is this locked?”

“Coming!” a reply immediately sounded from within. It reached his ear as swiftly as an echo, and it was O-Nobu’s voice, not the maid’s. Going suddenly still, he listened in silence outside the gate. He heard the sound of the switch at the entrance, an outdoor light used only when needed. The lattice at the gate immediately rattled open; clearly the front door hadn’t yet been closed.

“Who’s there?”

Footsteps halted at the half door, and O-Nobu requested identi fication.

Tsuda was more impatient than ever.

“Open up! It’s me!”

“Goodness!” O-Nobu cried out. “I didn’t know — forgive me.”

Rattling open the latch, O-Nobu appeared paler than usual as she ushered her husband inside. From the front entrance Tsuda proceeded straight to the sitting room.

As always, it was perfectly tidied. The iron kettle was clanking as it was meant to be. In front of the brazier a thick muslin cushion had been positioned as always on the tatami floor as though awaiting his arrival. Opposite, at O-Nobu’s customary place, a woman’s ink-stone and brush lay next to her cushion. The lid of the box, a mosaic of plum blossoms inlaid with mother-of-pearl, had been set to one side, and the small ink-stone inset in flecked, pear-yellow lacquer ware was glistening. Evidence that the writer had left her seat abruptly, a blot of sumi ink from the tip of the narrow writing brush had seeped into the rice paper, smudging the seven or eight lines of a letter in progress.

O-Nobu, who had followed her husband inside after closing the doors for the night, plumped herself down on her cushion dressed as she was, in an everyday kimono jacket thrown over her nightgown.

“I’m so sorry.”

Tsuda looked up at the pendulum clock. It had just struck eleven. Though he was normally home earlier, this was not the first time since his marriage that he had returned at this hour.

“But why did you lock me out? Did you suppose I wouldn’t be coming home tonight?”

“Of course not. I was waiting, thinking any minute now, any minute now; finally I began to feel so lonely I started a letter to my parents.”

Like Tsuda’s mother and father, O-Nobu’s mother and father also lived in Kyoto. From a distance, Tsuda regarded the letter just begun. But he still wasn’t feeling persuaded.

“But why lock the gate if you were waiting? Afraid to leave it open?”

“No — and I didn’t lock it.”

“You can’t deny it was locked.”

“Toki must have forgotten to unlock it this morning. That must be it — she’s impossible.”

In her habitual way, O-Nobu arched her eyebrows. As the half door was never used during the day, it wasn’t unreasonable to explain how it came to be locked as an oversight that morning.

“What’s Toki doing?”

“I sent her to bed a while ago.”

Deciding it would be going too far to wake the maid to pursue his investigation of the responsible party, Tsuda put aside the matter of the half door and went to bed.

THE NEXT morning, before he had even washed, Tsuda was surprised by a spectacle he hadn’t anticipated when he went to bed. It was close to nine when he awoke. As always, he went past the front entrance and into the sitting room on his way to the kitchen. And there was O-Nobu, dressed resplendently and sitting in her usual place as if that were nothing out of the ordinary. Tsuda was startled. O-Nobu smiled, appearing gratified to observe her husband reacting as if water had been thrown in his sleepy face.

“You just woke up?”

Blinking rapidly, Tsuda gazed wonderingly at O-Nobu’s high chignon secured at the base with a red ribbon, the brightly embroidered pattern of her kimono over-collar, and, in the center of it all, the whiteness of her heavily made up face, as if he were beholding something unfamiliar and exotic.

“What are you doing? The sun is scarcely up.”

O-Nobu was unruffled.

“I’m not doing anything — but you are; you’re going in to the clinic today.”

Tsuda’s hakama and kimono jacket had been picked up from where he had let them fall to the floor on his way to bed and, neatly folded, laid out on lacquered wrapping paper.

“You’re intending to go along?”

“Of course I am — will I be a bother?”

“I wouldn’t say a bother—”

Tsuda looked carefully again at his wife’s outfit.

“I’m just wondering why you had to get so dressed up.”

Tsuda recalled the scene he had witnessed recently in the murky waiting room. The group of patients sitting there and his gorgeously attired young wife were fundamentally irreconcilable.

“But today is Sunday.”

“Maybe so, but we’re not exactly going to the theater or cherry-blossom viewing.”

“But I was hoping—”

As Tsuda saw it, Sunday meant only that patients would be crowding into the clinic from the moment it opened.

“It feels as if waltzing into the clinic as a couple with you in that get-up would be a little—”

“Excessive?”

Amused by O-Nobu’s choice of a formal Chinese compound, Tsuda laughed aloud. O-Nobu’s eyebrows briefly arched, and then she was wheedling.

“It will take forever to change my kimono now. And since I went to the trouble of wearing it, won’t you please put up with it just this once?”

Tsuda accepted defeat. Washing up, he heard O-Nobu’s voice instructing the maid to hail two rickshaws and felt unsettled, as if he were the one being rushed.

The meager breakfast he was allowed took less than five minutes. Standing without even using a toothpick, he started to go upstairs.

“I have to put together some things to take with me.”

As he spoke, O-Nobu opened the closet behind her.

“I put everything in here, look and see.”

Dressed up as she was in her finery, Tsuda felt obliged to spare his wife some effort and dragged from the closet with his own hands a satchel on the heavy side and a smallish bundle wrapped in a knotted silk cloth. The bundle contained only the quilted jacket he had just tried on and an unbacked sash for use with his sleeping robe. The satchel disclosed a jumble of articles — a toothbrush and tooth powder, his customary lavender stationery, matching envelopes, fountain pen, a small scissors, and tweezers. Tsuda removed the Western tome that was the heaviest and bulkiest object.

“I’ll leave this.”

“Really? It’s been on your desk forever and there’s a bookmark in it so I thought you’d surely want to read it.”

Tsuda said nothing, lowering ponderously to the tatami matting the German book on economics that remained unfinished after two months.

“This monster is too heavy to read lying in bed.”

Tsuda knew this was a legitimate reason for leaving the volume at home, but it felt bad nonetheless.

“I have no idea which books you need and which you don’t, so please choose the ones you want to take—”

From the second floor Tsuda brought down a few slender novels and stuffed them into the satchel.

AS THE weather was fine, they had the hoods lowered and set out with the satchel in one rickshaw and the bundle in the other. They had turned the corner of their side street and traveled several blocks along the trolley tracks when O-Nobu’s rickshaw man abruptly hailed Tsuda’s. Both rickshaws stopped.

“I left something at home.”

Looking back, Tsuda gazed in silence at his wife’s face. It wasn’t only her husband who could be brought to a standstill by the power of the words that issued from the lips of this meticulously groomed young woman. The rickshaw man, still gripping the wooden traces in both hands, directed at O-Nobu a similarly curious gaze. Even passers-by couldn’t help glancing with interest at the couple.

“What is it? What did you forget?”

O-Nobu appeared to be deliberating.

“Wait just a minute. I’ll be right back.”

O-Nobu directed her man to turn around. Left behind in a state of psychological limbo, Tsuda watched her receding back in silence. The rickshaw disappeared around the corner, and when it presently reappeared it bore down with reckless speed. When she had pulled alongside Tsuda, O-Nobu took from her obi a foot-long metal chain and dangled it for him to see. At the end of the chain was a ring of five or six keys of varying sizes; as she held the chain aloft for Tsuda’s inspection, the keys jangled.

“I forgot this — I left it on top of the tansu.”

In a household of only two and the maid, they took the precaution of locking up their valuables when they left the house together; accordingly, one of them had to carry the key chain.

“You keep them.”

O-Nobu stuffed the jangling keys back into her obi, patted them with her open hand, and smiled at Tsuda.

“Safe and sound.”

The rickshaws moved off again.

They arrived at the clinic slightly later than the appointed hour but not too late for morning office hours.

Troubled by the thought of sitting side by side in the waiting room, Tsuda stepped to the prescriptions window as soon as they were inside.

“May I go straight up to the second floor?”

The student at the window summoned from the back the apprentice nurse. No more than sixteen or seventeen, she bowed to Tsuda with an easy smile and then, noticing O-Nobu standing at his side, as though put off a little by her splendor, frowned as if to say, “Who let this peacock in?” When O-Nobu stepped into the silence and spoke first, thanking her in advance for her trouble, the nurse also dipped her head in her direction as though noticing her for the first time.

“Can you carry this for me?”

Tsuda handed the nurse the satchel he had taken from the rickshaw man and moved toward the stairs to the second floor.

“This way, O-Nobu.”

O-Nobu, who had been standing in the entrance peering at the patients in the waiting room, hastened to follow Tsuda up the stairs.

“My goodness! It’s gloomy in there.”

Fortunately, the second floor, open to the south and east, was light.

O-Nobu slid open the shoji and stepped onto the deck. Eyeing the clothes drying just below at the Western laundry, she turned back to Tsuda.

“At least it’s cheerier up here — this is quite a decent room. The tatami are stained, though—”

Formerly a house used by someone’s mistress, a contractor perhaps, even the second floor, which had been remodeled, retained somehow a hint of its flavorful past.

“It’s old all right, but it might just be nicer than our second floor.”

Having observed the dazzling white of the laundry in the sun in a fresh, autumn mood, Tsuda glanced around him as he spoke at the ceiling, soot-darkened over time, and the decorative posts on either side of the alcove.

THE SAME nurse brought in a small pot of green tea.

“It will be only a little while. Make yourselves comfortable.”

They had no choice but to sit down properly, facing each other, and sip their tea.

“I’m feeling too nervous to sit still.”

“It’s like being guests in someone’s house.”

O-Nobu withdrew from her obi a lady’s watch and glanced at it. Tsuda was less concerned with the time than the procedure he was about to undergo.

“I wonder how long it’s going to take. Even if you can’t see it, just hearing the scalpel is enough to make you feel awful.”

“It scares me just to look at something like that.”

O-Nobu arched her eyebrows as if she were actually afraid.

“That’s why you’re going to wait up here. There’s no need for you to go in just to watch that dirty business.”

“But you should have family with you at a time like this — it’s wrong not to.”

Seeing the serious look on O-Nobu’s face, Tsuda laughed.

“That’s if you’re so seriously ill it’s a matter of life and death. Nobody’s going to haul people in for a minor surgery.”

Tsuda was a man who disliked showing a woman anything dirty. Especially about himself. To dig deeper, it might be said that observing even his own dirtiness caused him more distress than it would another man.

“Then I’ll wait here,” O-Nobu said, taking out her watch again. “Do you think it’ll be over by noon?”

“I imagine. But now that I’m here, what difference does it make?”

“You’re right. I was just—”

O-Nobu didn’t continue, nor did Tsuda pursue her thought.

The nurse looked in from the head of the stairs.

“We’re ready — if you’ll just follow me.”

Tsuda rose at once. At the same time, O-Nobu started up.

“I told you to wait here.”

“I’m not going in with you. I want to use the phone.”

“You have business somewhere?”

“Not business — I wanted to let O-Hide-san know you’re here.”

His sister’s house was in the same ward, not far from the clinic. Tsuda, who hadn’t thought of O-Hide at all in connection with his illness, stopped O-Nobu as she attempted to stand.

“Don’t bother letting her know, you’re making much too much of this; besides, if that one shows up she’ll be an awful nuisance.”

Though she was younger than he, his sister’s temperament was very different from his own and he found her difficult to manage.

“But I’m the one who’ll be criticized afterward.”

Lacking a reason to require her to desist, Tsuda acquiesced in spite of himself.

“I don’t mind if you call but it doesn’t have to be now. Since she’s in the neighborhood she’s certain to show up. That means I’ll be listening to her carry on about me and my father, my faults and his virtues, and that will be an ordeal with my jittery nerves after surgery.”

O-Nobu laughed softly, as if she feared being overheard downstairs. But the white teeth she revealed informed her husband in no uncertain terms that she was feeling less sympathy for him than simple amusement.

“Then I won’t phone.”

O-Nobu rose to her full height and stood alongside Tsuda.

“You have other calls to make?”

“The Okamotos. I promised to phone them by noon, would you mind if I call?”

Descending the stairs one behind the other, they separated, one moving to the telephone, the other sitting down in a chair in front of the treatment room.

“I ASSUME you took the castor oil?”

The doctor’s freshly starched surgical gown rustled as he spoke.

“I drank it, but nothing much happened.”

Tsuda hadn’t had the leisure the day before to focus on the castor oil’s effectiveness. All day he had been obliged to concern himself with one thing after the other; the laxative’s effect had been psychologically negligible and unexpectedly feeble even physically.

“Let’s give you an enema, then.”

The result of the enema was also unsatisfactory.

When it was over, Tsuda moved straight to the table and lay down on his back. As his skin made contact with the chilly, rubberized sheet he shivered involuntarily. With his head propped on an unforgiving pillow he was struck full in the face by a beam of light from the opposite direction so that his eyes, as though he were sleeping with his face to the sun, were restless. He blinked repeatedly and repeatedly looked up at the ceiling. The nurse moved past him with a square, shallow, nickel-plated tray of surgical instruments, and a white metallic light glinted. Lying on his back, he felt that the glinting tray had registered in the far periphery of his vision; it was very much as if he had stolen a look at something awful he wasn’t meant to see. Just then a phone in the hall abruptly rang. He had forgotten about O-Nobu and now he remembered. As her phone call to the Okamotos was ending, his surgery was at last about to begin.

“Cocaine is all we’ll need. There shouldn’t be much pain. If an injection doesn’t work I’ll apply the anesthetic topically as I go deeper and that should do it.”

Spoken as the doctor swabbed the area clean, these words terrified Tsuda and at the same time struck him as nothing to worry about.

The local anesthetic worked well. Peering intently at the ceiling, he had no idea what sort of major incident was occurring below his hips. From time to time he was merely aware in one sector of his body that someone was applying pressure in a distant place. In that area he could feel a dulled resistance.

“How are you doing? No pain, is there?”

There was abundant self-confidence in the doctor’s question.

Tsuda replied with his eyes on the ceiling.

“It doesn’t hurt. I feel a heaviness.”

The words he needed to express appropriately the feeling of oppressiveness eluded him. Out of nowhere he found himself wondering if the ground might feel that way, the nerveless ground, when a shovel dug into it.

“It’s a strange feeling. I can’t explain it.”

“I see. Any dizziness?”

The doctor’s tone of voice, as if he were concerned about impeded blood flow to the brain, effectively churned the calmness Tsuda had been feeling. He had no idea whether it was customary in such a case to give a patient wine or something else to drink, but he hated the idea of receiving emergency treatment.

“I’m all right.”

“Good. We’re about finished.”

The doctor’s attitude as he conducted this conversation with the patient while his hands moved incessantly seemed to radiate the competence that can only have come from mastery.

The procedure, however, was not wrapped up as quickly as he had indicated.

From time to time there was the ping of a blade against the tray; the amplified echo of what sounded like scissors shearing through flesh reached him menacingly. Each time, he saw with a rich, fulsome bloodiness in the eye of his imagination the red gushing that had to be stanched and swabbed with gauze. His nerves as he lay there not allowed to move grew strained and taut to a point where holding still was agony. The feeling was of insects swarming in his veins.

Opening wide his eyes, he stared up at the ceiling. His beautifully attired wife was on the floor above. What she was thinking, what she was doing at this moment, he had no idea. He was overcome by a desire to call out to her in a loud voice. Just then the doctor’s voice sounded from down at his feet.

“Finished.”

He felt gauze being packed inside him endlessly, and a terrible itchiness, and the doctor spoke again.

“That scar was surprisingly tough so there’s a danger of hemorrhage. Try to lie as still as you can for a while.”

With this final word of caution, Tsuda was at last helped down from the operating table.

THE NURSE followed him out of the procedure room.

“How are you doing? You’re not feeling ill or anything?”

“No — do I look pale?”

Somewhat concerned himself, Tsuda couldn’t help asking. His wound had been stuffed with the maximum quantity of gauze that would fit inside it, and the feeling of oppressiveness it produced was beyond what anyone could have imagined. The best he could manage was a languid shuffle. Even so, climbing the stairs it felt as though the gauze and his torn flesh were rubbing abrasively.

O-Nobu was waiting at the head of the stairs. The minute she saw Tsuda, she called out.

“It’s over? How did you do?”

Tsuda entered the room without venturing a clear reply. As he had expected, a futon mattress wrapped in a white sheet had been unfolded on the floor to its full length, beckoning him to recline in comfort. Throwing off his kimono jacket, he stretched out on it. With a wan, deflated smile, O-Nobu, who had been holding up by the collar with both hands the silk jacket padded with gray flannel she had sewn for him with the intention of helping him into it from behind, folded it once again and placed it at the foot of his mattress.

“Is he taking any medicine?”

O-Nobu addressed the nurse, turning to her.

“Nothing orally. I’ll be bringing his meal in just a minute.”

The nurse turned to leave.

Tsuda abruptly broke his silence without getting up.

“O-Nobu — if you want something to eat you should tell the nurse.”

“Yes—” O-Nobu hesitated.

“I’m wondering what to do—”

“It’s already past noon.”

“Yes — it’s twelve-thirty. Your surgery took exactly twenty-eight minutes.”

Springing the lid on her watch and looking at its face, O-Nobu announced the time precisely. All the while that Tsuda had been submissively enduring, laid out like a fish on a chopping block, O-Nobu, above the ceiling at which he had been obliged to stare, had been keeping track of the time, eyeing her watch as if in a competition to see which would blink first.

Tsuda spoke again.

“There’s no point in going all the way home now.”

“I know—”

“Then why not have them bring some Western food and eat here?”

“I suppose I could—”

O-Nobu’s responses continued to lead nowhere satisfactory. Finally the nurse went back downstairs. Like a man who feels in his fatigue a desire to avoid the stimulus of light, Tsuda closed his eyes. But O-Nobu’s reaction was to call his name repeatedly just above his head, obliging him to open them again.

“Are you feeling poorly?”

“I’m fine.”

Having persisted, O-Nobu immediately added,

“The Okamotos send their best. They intend to drop in shortly, as soon as you feel up to a visit.”

“Is that so?”

Tsuda started to close his eyes again, but O-Nobu wouldn’t allow it. “They insisted I should come along to the theater — would that be all right?”

Little was lost on Tsuda. A light came on his mind that illuminated all of O-Nobu’s behavior since that morning: her choice of an outfit too bright and showy for a trip to the hospital, her protest that today was Sunday, her distraction after arriving at the hospital, and her eagerness to phone Okamoto — all of this he now saw as part of the excitement provoked by a single word, “theater.” Seen from that vantage, it was impossible not to discover a seed of suspicion even in her motive for tracking so meticulously the passage of time the surgery was taking. In silence, Tsuda turned aside. His eye fell on the books, the scissors, the envelopes and stationery neatly piled on the tatami mat in the alcove.

“I asked the nurse for a small desk to put your things on but she hasn’t brought it yet. I put them there for the time being — would you like something to read?”

O-Nobu rose quickly and picked up a book.

TSUDA DIDN’T take it.

“You didn’t say no to Okamoto?”

Looking more disappointed than suspicious, he turned away, and as he shifted his weight on the mattress the floorboards creaked as if in accordance with his mood.

“I did. I declined.”

“And they insisted you come along even so?”

Tsuda looked at his wife for the first time. But no hint of what he was searching for appeared in her face. On the contrary, she smiled.

“I went ahead and declined, and they said I should come along by all means.”

“But that’s—”

Tsuda faltered. Because there were things he still wanted to say, his mind refused to function as rapidly as he wished.

“—how could they press you after you’d turned them down?”

“They just did — Uncle Okamoto is a mule.”

Tsuda went silent. He wasn’t sure how he ought to proceed with his inquiry.

“You won’t take me at my word? I hate it when you doubt me this way.”

O-Nobu’s bunching eyebrows signaled emphatically her displeasure.

“I’m not doubting you — there’s just something odd about it.”

“Really! Then you tell me what you think is odd and I’ll explain until you’re satisfied.”

Unfortunately, Tsuda couldn’t say with any preciseness what was odd.

“So you are doubting me!”

Tsuda had the feeling that a failure to declare the absence of any particle of doubt would reflect on his character as a husband. At the same time, to be seen as a pushover by a woman would be painfully distasteful. Despite the battle for supremacy inside him between these two aspects of his ego, he appeared cool and collected on the surface.

“Aah—” With a faint sigh, O-Nobu quietly stood. Sliding back the shoji, which she had carefully closed, she stepped out on the engawa that opened to the south and, placing her hands on the railing, gazed vacantly up at the clear, high, autumn sky. In back of the laundry next door, white shirts and sheets, hung on poles to dry with no spaces between them, were swaying in the crisp breeze as before.

“What a beautiful day!”

O-Nobu spoke the words quietly as though to herself. Tsuda had the sudden feeling that he had been given to hear an appeal from a small bird in a cage. He felt vaguely sorry about tethering a weak woman to his side. He wanted to speak to O-Nobu, but he couldn’t think of an avenue back to the conversation. O-Nobu was still leaning against the railing, in no hurry to come inside.

At that moment the nurse reappeared from downstairs with their food.

“Here we are.”

Tsuda’s tray held only two eggs, a small cup of soup, and some bread. The portion of bread, ordained at some point by the doctor, was one-half of half a small loaf.

Lying on his stomach on the mattress, Tsuda wolfed his food and, when the moment came, spoke up.

“Which is it? Going or not going?”

O-Nobu lowered her fork at once.

“That depends on you. I’ll go if you say I may; otherwise I’ll stay.”

“You’re so obedient.”

“I am, always. Even Okamoto said I should ask you and he’d take me if you agreed. He told me to ask if you weren’t too sick.”

“But you phoned them.”

“I did, I promised to — I said no once, but there was always the possibility that I could go after all, depending on how you seemed, so he asked me to get in touch once more by noon to let him know how you were doing.”

“That’s what Okamoto wrote back to you?”

“Yes.”

But O-Nobu hadn’t shown Tsuda the letter.

“And how do you really feel about it? Do you want to go or not?”

“Of course I’d like to.”

“So the truth is out. Off you go, then.”

With this conversation, they finished their lunch.

BY THE time O-Nobu had seen to it that her postoperative husband was reposing comfortably on his mattress and descended the stairs alone, the hour when she was expected had come and gone. Giving the rickshaw man the name of the theater and nothing more, she climbed into the cab at once. The rickshaw that was waiting for her in front of the gate was the newest among the four or five lined up at the station on the corner.

Emerging from the side street, her vehicle with its modern rubber tire wheels stuck to main, trolley streets. The rickshaw man seemed to be racing along to no purpose except his eagerness to reach the bustling part of town, and his exuberant gait was contagious. Installed on the thick, well-cushioned seat, O-Nobu felt, even as she experienced a rush of movement in her body, an uplifting of her spirits on a wave of something gentle and cheerful. She was borne aloft by the pleasure of proceeding headlong to her destination with no concern for the teeming humanity surrounding her.

In the speeding rickshaw she hadn’t the leisure to think about things at home. The image she retained, of Tsuda reclining in good spirits on the second floor of the clinic, provided her assurance that she might safely put him out of her mind for this one day at least, and she was entirely untroubled by thoughts of him. Rushing along with her was only what lay ahead. Having never fancied theater in particular, she was less concerned about arriving late than eager to be quickly there. Her breakneck journey in the brand new rickshaw was exciting, and so, in that same sense, was arriving at the theater.

The rickshaw stopped in front of the teahouse connected to the theater. As she responded to the woman who emerged to greet her with “Okamoto,” O-Nobu took in a glittering impression of lanterns, indigo banners at the entrance, silk and paper flowers of crimson and white. But before she had fairly managed to organize the colors and shapes that confronted her all at once as she alighted, she was ushered down a long corridor and found herself peering all of a sudden into the theater itself, a heaping sea of patterns spun into a tapestry many times richer and more intricate than what she had just seen. Such was her feeling as she gazed into the distance through a crack in the door at the end of the corridor that the man from the teahouse had opened for her with a polite “This way, please.” To O-Nobu, who took inordinate pleasure in coming to such places, there was nothing so very unfamiliar about the excitement she was feeling, and yet it felt always like a new excitement. It was, in other words, a perennially unfamiliar feeling. As with a person who traverses the dark and suddenly emerges into the light, O-Nobu’s eyes opened. The awareness that she was about to move from a far corner into the living pattern in front of her, to become a part of it, her every gesture and action woven into its fabric, rose distinctly through her nervousness.

Uncle Okamoto appeared to be absent from the audience. As only his wife and two daughters were there, there was plenty of room for O-Nobu to sit. Even so, the elder daughter, Tsugiko, apparently concerned that O-Nobu’s seat was in the shadow of her own, twisted around and spoke, her body angled to one side.

“Can you see? Shall I switch with you for a while?”

“Thank you — I’m fine here.”

O-Nobu shook her head.

The younger sister, Yuriko, going on fourteen, turned back to O-Nobu in the seat directly in front of her, her left elbow resting on the railing wrapped in velvet, small, ivory binoculars held, as she was left-handed, in her left hand.

“You were awfully late. I thought you were coming to the house.”

Still too young to know better, she neglected to include in her greeting a word of inquiry about Tsuda’s illness.

“You had something to do?”

“Yes.”

O-Nobu turned toward the stage without further explanation. This was the direction in which the girls’ mother had been gazing raptly all along without a glance to either side. The first time their eyes met they merely acknowledged each other with a silent dip of the head and didn’t speak a word until the wooden clappers signaled the end of the scene.

“I’M SO glad you managed to come. I was just saying to Tsugi that today might be difficult for you.”

Appearing to relax for the first time now that the scene had ended, Okamoto’s wife finally began speaking to O-Nobu.

“Didn’t I tell you so? It’s just as I predicted.”

Tsugiko addressed her mother with a look of pride on her face and, turning at once to O-Nobu, explained.

“I made a bet with Mother. Whether you’d come today or not. Mother said you might not come so I assured her you would no matter what.”

“So you consulted the box again?”

Among Tsugiko’s prize possessions was a box, three inches long and less than two inches wide, of fortune tallies. On the black lacquer lid, the words “Fortune Tags” appeared in gold in the spidery characters of the Sung dynasty style; inside were tags fashioned from beautifully planed slivers of ivory inscribed with the numbers 1 to 100.

“Let’s have a look,” Tsugiko would say, shaking one of the thin ivory wafers from the box as if it were a toothpick holder and then unfolding the booklet designed to fit inside. To read the text inscribed in characters the size of a fly’s head, she would remove from its chintz bag lined with habotai silk the magnifying glass that came with the set and bring it close to the tiny page portentously. This gift, which O-Nobu had purchased for four yen, too much to spend on a simple toy, at a shop on the temple grounds on an excursion to Asakusa with Tsuda, had become, for Tsugiko, who would turn twenty-one next year, an accessory that added a dimension of mystery in an innocent and playful way to her young girl’s imagination. Sometimes she even took it with her when she went out, tucking it into her obi just as it lay on her desk in its thick paper case.

“Did you bring it along today?”

O-Nobu had an urge to ask the question half teasingly. Tsugiko shook her head with a strained smile. At her side, her mother spoke as though replying in her stead.

“Today’s prediction didn’t come from a Fortune Tag. We had a far greater oracle today.”

“I see.”

Surveying the faces of mother and daughter, O-Nobu appeared eager to inquire further.

“Tsugi was hoping—,” her mother began, and Tsugiko interrupted, speaking over her.

“That’s enough, Mother. That isn’t something to talk about here.”

Her younger sister, Yuriko, who had been listening to the conversation in silence, giggled.

“I don’t mind telling her.”

“Yuriko-san, you hush. That’s just being mean. You stop or I’m not helping you with piano practice anymore.”

Tsugiko’s mother laughed softly, as if to avoid drawing attention from people seated nearby. O-Nobu was also amused. At the same time, she was even more interested in knowing.

“Tell! What if your sister does get mad — I’ll stand behind you.”

Yuriko looked at her sister with her jaw thrust forward. It was as if, with this however small show of dissatisfaction, she was flaunting in front of her sister the victory of someone who has seized for herself the right to speak or hold her tongue.

“Go ahead and tell, then — do whatever you like.”

Standing as she spoke, Tsugiko opened the door behind their seats and stepped into the corridor.

“Big Sister’s angry, isn’t she?”

“She’s not angry — she’s embarrassed.”

“But there’s nothing embarrassing about saying what she said.”

“Then tell me.”

Yuriko was some six years younger than herself, and her psychology was a child’s; O-Nobu understood her feelings and tried to make clever use of them, but her elder sister’s abrupt exit had already altered the teenager’s mood, and O-Nobu’s attempt at inducement had no effect. Finally, it was the girls’ mother who was obliged to accept responsibility for everything.

“It’s nothing worth making such a fuss about. All Tsugi said was that Yoshio-san would surely come today because he’s so kind and gentle and always does whatever O-Nobu would like him to.”

“Really! Yoshio appears that dependable to Tsugiko-san? How wonderful, I should be grateful; I’ll have to thank her.”

“And Yuriko said in that case it would be nice if Sister could marry a man like Yoshio-san — that’s what Tsugi would have been embarrassed about in front of you, and that’s why she left.”

“Gracious!” There was sadness in O-Nobu’s softly spoken exclamation.

UNEXPECTEDLY, O-NOBU found herself thinking about Tsuda as a self-centered man. Despite the fact that she extended to him from morning to night what she intended to be the fullest extent of kindness and consideration she was capable of, was there no limit to the sacrifice her husband required? The question that nagged at her perennially now broke into her thoughts in vivid color. Aware that the sole responsible party capable of addressing this doubt was at that moment right in front of her eyes, she looked at Okamoto’s wife. With her parents residing far away, Aunt Okamoto was the only person in all of Tokyo on whom she could rely.

Is a husband nothing more than a sponge who exists solely to soak up a wife’s tenderness?

This was the question she had long wanted to ask her aunt face to face. Unfortunately, she carried within herself inherently a variety of pride. And this hauteur, as it were, which might be interpreted, depending on the viewpoint, as either grim forbearance or simple vanity, constrained her powerfully when it came to this matter. In a relationship between husband and wife that was in a certain sense like two sumo wrestlers facing each other daily in the arena, the woman observed from inside by the two combatants was invariably her husband’s opponent and sometimes even his enemy, but when presenting to the outside, it was O-Nobu’s nature to feel painfully embarrassed, as if she were exposing the weakness of a couple who had been decorously united in the eyes of the world, unless she appeared to take her husband’s side in all things. Accordingly, even when she felt the need to reveal something that was tormenting her, in the presence of this aunt, who, after all, from the couple’s point of view, belonged in the category of others, she was reluctant, fearing in her tremulous way what it might lead her to think about herself and her husband, to speak up. In addition, she worried constantly that her husband’s failure to requite her kindness with the kindness she expected of him might be interpreted as a consequence of her own inadequacy. Among all the rumors about her that might circulate, she most feared, as if it were fire, being labeled “thick.”

There are young women about who hold men far more difficult than Tsuda in the palm of their hands, and here you are, twenty-three years old and unable to tame your husband — it’s because you lack the wisdom.

For O-Nobu, who held that wisdom and virtue were as good as identical, words like these coming from her aunt would have been more painful than anything. To confess as a woman that she had no skill with a man would be no less demeaning, wounding her self-esteem, than the confession that she was a human being unable to function as one. An intensely personal conversation of this sort was impossible at the theater, but even at a different time and place, O-Nobu would have had no choice but to hold her tongue. Having looked at her aunt expectantly, she quickly averted her eyes.

The curtain on front of the stage rippled, and someone peered out into the audience through the narrow opening between the seams. O-Nobu, feeling as if the eyes were looking in her direction, shifted her gaze yet again.

The audience came murmuringly to life all at once as people left their seats or returned to them or moved back and forth in the aisles. The majority, who remained seated, shifted their positions in every direction, incessantly moving: the countless dark heads below them appeared to eddy. Some were dressed gaily, and the shifting panorama of bright color revealed glimpses of a restless pleasure.

Taking her eyes off the orchestra, O-Nobu began to inspect the seats across the pit on the far side of the house. Just then, Yuriko turned around and spoke unexpectedly.

“Mrs. Yoshikawa is sitting over there — do you see her?”

Directing a somewhat surprised glance in the direction Yuriko was indicating, O-Nobu easily identified a figure that seemed to be Madam Yoshikawa.

“Yuriko-san, you have eyes like a hawk — when did you notice her?”

“I didn’t have to notice — I knew she was here.”

“Did Auntie and Tsugiko-san know too?”

“We all did.”

As she continued to stare from behind Tsugiko in Mrs. Yoshikawa’s direction, realizing that only she hadn’t known, the binoculars in the matron’s hand were abruptly turned on her, accidentally or on purpose, she couldn’t say.

“I hate being looked at that way.”

O-Nobu shrank into herself as if to hide. Even so, the binoculars across the theater remained trained on her.

“Fine. I’ll just run away.”

As if in pursuit of Tsugiko, O-Nobu stepped into the corridor.

THE SCENE outside surveyed from the corridor was, as to be expected at a venue like this, bustling. Unfamiliar faces paraded back and forth unceasingly across the slatted flooring held in place by braces so that it could be removed. O-Nobu stopped at the far end of the corridor and, half leaning against a pillar, searched for Tsugiko. When she finally located her in front of the shops lining the far side of the lobby, she descended at once and moved toward her with quick, light steps across the slatted wooden flooring.

“What are you buying?”

As O-Nobu spoke, leaning forward from behind as if to peer over Tsugiko’s shoulder, her cousin wheeled in surprise so that their faces nearly rubbed as they smiled at each other.

“I’m having a terrible time. Hajime-san asked me to buy him something so I’ve been looking, but I can’t find anything likely to please him.”

Under the mistaken impression she would find a toy for a small boy, Tsugiko had gone from one item to the next, finding nothing and unable to stop until by now she was in some distress. Pausing in front of hairpins decorated with plastic flowers and bearing the crests of famous actors, wallets, hand towels, on and on, she kept glancing at O-Nobu with eyes that appealed for help. O-Nobu responded at once.

“You’re wasting your time. If it’s not a murder weapon he won’t like it, a pistol or a wooden sword, and you won’t find any such thing in these stylish shops.”

The man behind the counter laughed; O-Nobu took the opportunity to grasp Tsugiko’s hand.

“Anyway, you should ask your mother first — sorry to trouble you, another time.”

With these words to the shopkeeper, O-Nobu led a disconsolate-looking Tsugiko briskly away, half dragging her back to the corridor. There they stopped and chatted for a while, leaning against a pillar supporting the roof.

“What happened to Uncle? Why isn’t he here?”

“He’s coming. Any minute now.”

O-Nobu was surprised. Okamoto wedging his bulk into a space already cramped with the four of them would definitely be an incident.

“I’m already so skinny, if Uncle squeezes in on top of me I’ll be squashed flat.”

“He’ll take Yuriko’s place.”

“Why?”

“No special reason. It just makes more sense. It doesn’t matter if Yuriko isn’t here.”

“Really! I wonder what would have happened if Yoshio weren’t sick and he had come along with me.”

“We’d have managed — bought more space I guess, or maybe joined Yoshikawa-san.”

“Was Yoshikawa-san invited too?”

“Yes.”

Tsugiko said no more. O-Nobu had never thought of the Okamoto and Yoshikawa families as being so close, and for just a moment she was suspicious, wondering if there might be some significance in this, but as there was abundant room to view it simply as an afternoon’s entertainment people with leisure time were likely to arrange, she didn’t pursue it further. They did touch briefly on Madam Yoshikawa’s binoculars. O-Nobu went so far as to demonstrate with a gesture.

“She pointed them at me openly like this. I couldn’t believe it.”

“How rude! But that’s apparently how foreigners behave — that’s what Father says.”

“So in the West it’s not bad manners? Does that mean I’m allowed to stare at her in the same way? I should return her kind attention.”

“Give it a try. I bet she’ll be pleased. She’s always saying, ‘Nobukosan is classy.’”

As they laughed aloud, a young man came out of nowhere and halted briefly alongside them. He was wearing a plain kimono jacket embroidered with a crest in slightly darker colored thread and stylish, serge “lantern” hakama, and their eyes had no sooner met than, conveying without words an attitude of polite respect as he passed, he descended to the wooden floor and moved away. Tsugiko blushed.

“Let’s go back in.”

Prompting O-Nobu, she stepped inside.

THE SCENE inside was just as before. The figures of the men and women moving about in the parterre directly beneath them were a tangled, dizzying spectacle, as if they were underfoot. Activity designed to attract as much attention as possible was in evidence everywhere. As one gesture completed itself, it vanished as if to cede a place to the next ostentatious burst of color. The small world compassed in their field of vision was all a wavering blur, complex and disordered and always resplendent.

From the rear of the relatively quiet stage, the sounds of the property master’s hammer from time to time ringing out across the theater awakened a sense of anticipation. And the wooden clappers striking behind the curtain at intervals rang in the ears like night alarms attempting to focus scattered attention on a single point.

What was odd was the audience. Without a word of complaint about this long intermission with nothing to do, appearing ever so content, people supped with equanimity on the scattered excitement as they were swept along unprotestingly by the passage of time. They were tranquil. They appeared happy. They seemed drunk on the breath they inhaled from one another, and when they began to sober up a little they had only to shift their eyes to another’s face. There they would immediately discover something lulled and mellow. And they were able to assimilate at once their neighbor’s mood.

Returning to their seats, the girls glanced around them with what appeared to be pleasure. As if by prearranged signal, they turned in the direction of the Madam Yoshikawa. The binoculars were no longer trained on them. But neither was their owner anywhere in sight.

“She’s disappeared.”

“It seems so.”

“Shall I try to find her?”

Yuriko lifted her own opera glasses to her eyes.

“She’s not there — she’s gone off somewhere. She’s fat enough for two people so there’s no way I could miss her if she was there.”

Yuriko lowered the ivory glasses. Coming from a girl who still wore her obi so high that it obscured the beautiful pattern of beasts and flowers on her back, the remark was hardly appropriate for use in public: her elder sister, projecting grown-up authority even as she tightened her mouth to conceal her amusement, spoke admonitorily.

“Yuriko-san!”

The younger sister offered no reply. Looking slightly disgruntled as before, an expression that seemed to be exclaiming “What’s the problem?” she turned pointedly to her sister.

“I want to go home now. I wish Father would hurry and get here.”

“If you want to leave, you may. It doesn’t matter if Father isn’t here.”

“I’d better stay.”

She didn’t budge. Sitting alongside this contrary cousin as she carried on like a child, O-Nobu turned to her aunt with a show of discretion appropriate to her age.

“Shall I find Mrs. Yoshikawa and just say hello? It seems rude to ignore her.”

To tell the truth, O-Nobu wasn’t overly fond of this matron. Nor did it seem to her that the other party liked her any better. She even had a vague explanation: that the awkwardness between them had occurred because Madam had taken a dislike to her from the moment they had met. She was furthermore confident that this had occurred despite the fact that she had given her no cause. O-Nobu had realized when the binoculars had been trained on her a while ago that she would be obliged to pay her respects, but she had been unable at the time to summon the courage required and was therefore hoping as she consulted her aunt, having converted her internal uneasiness into a question, that she would help her fulfill her obligation more easily by going to greet Madam Yoshikawa herself and taking her along.

Her aunt replied at once.

“That’s a good idea. Do go and find her.”

“But she isn’t there now.”

“Of course she is, probably in the corridor.”

“But — then I’ll go, but you come too, please.”

“I was planning—”

“You won’t come with me?”

“I suppose I could. But since we’re having dinner together, I thought I’d wait until then.”

“That’s been arranged? I didn’t know a thing about it. Who’s having dinner with whom?”

“Everyone.”

“Including me?”

“Yes.”

Taken by surprise, O-Nobu paused before replying.

“In that case, I’ll wait, too.”

A MINUTE later Uncle Okamoto arrived. Glancing through the crack in the door opened for him by the man from the teahouse, he beckoned to Yuriko. Following a whispered exchange of two or three sentences standing at the door, Yuriko immediately left the theater as arranged, accompanied by the attendant from the teahouse. Entering as she went out, Okamoto wedged himself into his seat. A fat man who looked as though he might find it onerous to adjust even a little the position of his body in a space such as this, he settled in and then, as if something had occurred to him abruptly, turned halfway around.

“O-Nobu, shall we change places? I must be in your way.”

O-Nobu was indeed feeling as if a mountain had risen in front of her, but out of consideration for those around her, who were intent on the stage, she didn’t move. Okamoto, who never wore wool against his skin, had dressed for the occasion; folding his wool-clad arms, he directed his gaze in the same direction as the others as if resigned to being good company. Onstage a wan, odd-looking fellow was pacing beneath a willow tree. Carelessly dressed in a kimono with broad stripes, his Hakata obi purposely tied low over his hips, the rake was wearing zoris with leather soles that slapped against the floor at every step, a sound that grated on Okamoto’s ears. He took in the bridge next to the willow tree and the white mud walls on the other side of the bridge and then shifted his attention to the audience. Their faces, every one of them, were tense. As if there were major significance in the movements of the young man as he paced back and forth, slapping the floor with his zoris, the full house was hushed, not a single cough. Perhaps, having just come from outside, Okamoto was still insulated against this very particular atmosphere, or perhaps he simply found it ridiculous: after a brief interval he turned halfway around again ponderously in his seat and addressed O-Nobu in a low voice.

“Is this any good? How’s Yoshio-san?”

Having posed three or four simple questions, to which O-Nobu replied with one-word answers, Okamoto spoke again with a pointed glint in his eye.

“How did it go today? Yoshio-san must have had a thing or two to say. He must have done some grumbling, ‘Here I am sick in bed and you’re off to the theater’—I can imagine him thinking that was going too far and saying so.”

“He said nothing of the kind.”

“But he must have had a comment or two. Something about me having some nerve, at least. You sounded strange on the phone.”

In a place where no one around her was talking, not even in a whisper, O-Nobu felt extremely awkward about engaging in a long dialogue and merely smiled weakly.

“Anyway, it’s not a problem. Your old uncle will get on the phone with him later so you needn’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

“No? But you must be a little concerned — to have offended your husband so soon after getting married.”

“It’s fine — I’m trying to tell you, he’s not offended.”

O-Nobu arched her eyebrows as if in annoyance. Okamoto, who had been chaffing her for his own amusement, turned a little serious.

“Truth be told, our invitation today wasn’t just to theater; we rather needed you to be here. That’s why I dragged you out even though Yoshio-san is ill. When I explain the reason to him later, I’m sure he’ll understand. You can count on your uncle to explain.”

O-Nobu quickly looked away from the stage.

“What reason are you talking about?”

“It’s hard to talk in here. I’ll tell you later.”

O-Nobu could only fall silent. Okamoto offered an amplification.

“We’re having dinner here this evening with Yoshikawa-san. Did you know that? Look, he’s sitting right over there.”

O-Nobu hadn’t noticed him before, but this time she had no trouble identifying the figure of Mr. Yoshikawa.

“He came with me from the club.”

At this point their conversation broke off. O-Nobu returned her attention to the stage. But ten minutes had scarcely passed when she was distracted by the man from the teahouse quietly opening the door behind them once again. The man whispered something to her aunt, who immediately leaned over to her uncle.

“Yoshikawa-san has arranged for dinner and is asking us to join him in the dining room at the next intermission.”

O-Nobu’s uncle responded at once.

“Tell him it will be our pleasure.”

The man opened the door quietly and went outside.

O-Nobu, wondering what was about to happen next, waited in silence for the dinner hour to arrive.

JUST UNDER an hour later, O-Nobu left her seat with Tsugiko and followed her aunt and uncle on their way to the capacious dining room in a corner of the second floor. As they proceeded along the corridor side by side with shoulders almost touching, she spoke softly to her cousin.

“What sort of party is this?”

“I don’t know.”

Tsugiko looked down as she replied.

“We’re just going to eat dinner?”

“I suppose, yes.”

Sensing that the more questions she posed, the vaguer Tsugiko’s answers became, O-Nobu stopped talking. Perhaps Tsugiko was being reticent on account of her parents just ahead of them. Perhaps she didn’t know anything. Or, even if she did, who was to say she wasn’t responding in monosyllables in her soft voice because she didn’t want to explain to O-Nobu? The people they passed in the corridor tended to cast sharply appraising glances in their direction; the majority paid more attention to Tsugiko than to O-Nobu.

Abruptly a comparison between herself and Tsugiko flashed in O-Nobu’s mind. Her figure and posture were superior to Tsugiko’s, but her outfit and looks were certainly no match. O-Nobu glanced at this cousin of hers with a hint of jealousy in her eye: forever bashful in the manner of a child, made of innocence unblemished by any trace of care, a delicious young lady pure as a flowing stream. While a measure of pity that verged on derision wasn’t entirely absent from O-Nobu’s tangled feelings, the dramatically active component was a degree of envy sufficient to make her feel she would like to try trading places. O-Nobu questioned herself.

There was a time when I was still a miss, but was I ever such a young lady?

Standing shoulder to shoulder in the brightly illuminated bustle of the corridor, O-Nobu, who had lived her life day to day as it came to her, with no thought of measuring herself against Tsugiko, was struck by a kind of sorrow she had never felt before. The feeling was mild. But it was the sort of feeling that could easily turn to tears. It was the sort of feeling that made her want to grasp tightly the hand of the companion she had just now been observing with a jealous eye. In her heart she spoke to Tsugiko.

Cousin, you’re purer than I am. You’re so pure I envy you. Your purity is a weapon, but against your future husband it will be useless. Even if you attend to him as I attend to mine, irreproachably, without a lapse or fault, he won’t return the appreciation you long for. Soon enough, to secure his love, you will have to lose the natural purity that is your treasure. And even if you sacrifice something so very precious for him, he may repay you with harshness. I envy you, and at the same time I feel sorry for you. Because in your innocence you don’t understand that before long you will have to destroy the precious treasure you possess without even knowing it. For better or for worse, I was never blessed with a perfectly natural vessel like the one you possess, so I suppose in my case it might be said there hasn’t been so very much damage, but you are different from me. The minute you leave your parents for good, your heavenly innocence will be blemished. You deserve pity more than I.

They were walking slowly. When the Okamotos disappeared, the view of them obstructed by others in between, O-Nobu’s aunt made her way back to them.

“Hurry along, you dawdlers. Yoshikawa-san is waiting for us.”

Her aunt’s eyes were fixed on Tsugiko, her words addressed to her in particular. But the name Yoshikawa rang in O-Nobu’s ears with the force of a wind that scattered with one gust her mood until now. Her mind turned at once to Madam Yoshikawa, a woman she had no special fondness for and who, it appeared, had no particular fondness for her. As the wife of a powerful man whose not insubstantial patronage her husband regularly enjoyed, this was a person in whose presence she would be obliged to comport herself with the utmost amiability and politeness. Her face impassive, though her composure concealed a variety of uneasiness, O-Nobu followed the others into the dining room.

IT WAS as her aunt had said: the Yoshika-was had arrived ahead of them, and the matron who was the object of O-Nobu’s attention was engaged, facing the entrance as she stood at the table, in a conversation with O-Nobu’s uncle. The first thing O-Nobu noticed was her bulk, so considerable that not even the corpulent figure of her uncle’s back was sufficient to conceal it. At that same moment Madam Yoshikawa, her abundantly fleshed cheeks brightened by her dazzling smile, fixed her eyes on O-Nobu. But no sooner had recognition flashed between them than contact was broken, and the women did not acknowledge each other again until they exchanged formal greetings.

Glancing in Madam’s direction, it was impossible to avoid also seeing the young gentleman standing at her side. As this was unmistakably the silent man who had surprised her and Tsugiko in the corridor as they were joking indiscreetly about Madam’s binoculars, O-Nobu shuddered in spite of herself.

O-Nobu stood modestly behind the others as greetings passed among them, and when her turn came the unknown man was introduced to her simply as Miyoshi-san. It was Madam Yoshikawa who introduced him; as the introduction was identical to what she had said to O-Nobu’s uncle and aunt and even to Tsugiko, O-Nobu was left in the dark about Miyoshi’s identity.

When they took their seats, Madam sat next to Uncle Okamoto. Miyoshi was seated next to her. O-Nobu’s aunt was on the corner. Tsugiko was opposite Miyoshi. O-Nobu, whose only choice was the one seat remaining, hesitated. Yoshikawa was in the neighboring seat; Madam was opposite.

“Have a seat.”

Yoshikawa looked up at O-Nobu with a sidelong glance as if to prompt her.

“Do sit down.” Madam Yoshikawa said casually, looking directly at O-Nobu.

“Don’t stand on ceremony — join us.”

O-Nobu had no choice but to take the seat opposite Madam. Though she had intended to make the first move, she had been preempted, a bad start. From this moment on she would have to conduct herself in such a way that her hesitation would be interpreted as genuine deference grounded in politeness. In light of this resolve, Tsugiko, her exact opposite, appeared more distinctly innocent than ever as she sat across the table.

Tsugiko was even more subdued than usual. She spoke hardly at all, her eyes lowered, and there was something visible beneath the surface of her demeanor that appeared to be close to agony. O-Nobu looked across at her sympathetically and quickly turned to Madam Yoshikawa directly opposite her with the winsome eyes that were her specialty. An adroit socializer, Madam wasn’t one to remain silent.

They exchanged several fragments of polite conversation. But the topics offered no possibility of development and fell flat. O-Nobu considered building a conversation around Tsuda, whom they had in common, but as she deliberated whether she should bring him up herself, Madam Yoshikawa abandoned her and turned to Miyoshi far down the table.

“Miyoshi-san, will you kindly share one of your interesting adventures abroad with Tsugiko-san?”

Miyoshi, who had just broken off a conversation with O-Nobu’s aunt, turned toward Madam and spoke quietly.

“Certainly — if you wish.”

“I certainly do. You mustn’t just sit there.”

At this command everyone laughed. Yoshikawa hastened to make his wife’s request specific.

“Give us that one about escaping from Germany.”

“I’m always repeating that Germany story. It’s starting to seem old hat to me more than to others.”

“Even someone as calm as you must have been a little panicked—”

“More than a little. I think I was frantic — of course it’s hard to know about yourself.”

“But I bet you never thought you might be killed.”

“I suppose not—”

Miyoshi paused to reflect, and Yoshikawa spoke up from the neighboring seat.

“There’s no way he thought he’d be killed — not this fellow.”

“Why is that? Because he’s so brazen?”

“It’s not that — it’s just that this is a man with a keen taste for life.”

Tsugiko, without looking up, tittered. O-Nobu was able to gather only that this was a man who had escaped from Germany just before the war.*

FOR A while the table was engrossed in stories about travel abroad that centered on Miyoshi. Whenever there was a lull, Madam provided an opportunity for someone to pick up the thread of the conversation, and O-Nobu, observing her skillfully at work, saw through to the effort she was making to push the unknown young man into the center of attention. Miyoshi, more taciturn than merely placid and unaware that he was being borne aloft on the fluency of someone kindly disposed toward him, was presenting himself to the others in his most appealing light.

There was no room for O-Nobu to put in a single word of her own. Nonetheless, while the natural course of the conversation consigned her to the position of attentive listener, her critical faculty was actively engaged. Perceiving that Madam’s technique included a blend of frankness and presumption, and seeing clearly each step of the procedure by which she moved her strategy toward success, O-Nobu had to acknowledge that a vast distance separated Madam Yoshikawa’s temperament and her own. But she sensed that this was not a matter of superior and inferior, but a distance across a flat surface. That was far from meaning, however, that there was nothing to fear from it. Quite apart from her imperiousness, which seemed to come from the privileged status she enjoyed, there was, O-Nobu sensed uneasily, something dangerous about Madam’s skill, as if a time might come when it would be accompanied by a frightening power of destruction.

I wonder if I’m imagining things?

As O-Nobu pursued her thoughts, the lady shifted her attention back to her.

“Nobuko-san looks dismayed. Because I’m talking so much.”

Taken by surprise, O-Nobu felt overwhelmed. Heretofore she had never found herself at a loss for something appropriate to say to Tsuda, but at this moment her wisdom failed her. A hollow smile was all she could bring to filling the emptiness of the moment. But that was merely a display of counterfeit charm that served no purpose.

“Not at all. It’s been fascinating,” she said finally, realizing that the moment had come and gone. A bitter feeling of having bungled it again rose in her throat. She had told herself that today would be the day to restore herself in Mrs. Yoshikawa’s good graces; now her resolve withered. The lady in question, changing her tone so swiftly it seemed cruel, turned at once to Okamoto.

“Okamoto-san, it’s been some time, hasn’t it, since you returned from your travels in foreign countries.”

“Well, past history certainly.”

“When you say past history, what year are we talking about?”

“Let me think — in the Western calendar—”

Was it to be expected or just an accident? O-Nobu’s uncle deliberated pretentiously.

“Around the time of the Franco-Prussian War?”*

“Are you joking? I happen to remember taking your good husband here on a guided tour of London.”

“So you weren’t behind the barricades in Paris?”

“Certainly not.”

Having wound up at a suitable juncture Miyoshi’s exploits in foreign lands, Madam had quickly shifted the subject to another, closely related topic that obliged her husband to ally himself with Okamoto.

“At any rate, automobiles had just come out, and every time one rattled by people would turn and stare at it.”

“It was in the days when those beastly slow buses were popular.”

While beastly slow buses meant nothing to the others, who had never availed themselves of this mode of transportation, it appeared that the friends reminiscing about the past were vaguely stirred by the memory of them. Okamoto, looking from Tsugiko to Miyoshi, turned to Yoshikawa with a wry smile.

“We’ve aged, you and I. I don’t notice it normally, I carry on as if I were still young, but when I sit here beside my daughter it gets me thinking—”

“Then you should always be sitting at this child’s side.”

O-Nobu’s aunt turned at once to her uncle. And her uncle replied at once.

“You’re right. When I came back from Europe she was only—”

Pausing, he reflected and spoke again.

“How old was she, anyway?”

When O-Nobu’s aunt remained silent, the look on her face seeming to say that such a careless question didn’t merit a reply, Yoshikawa spoke up from the side.

“It won’t be long now until they’re calling you ‘the old man.’ You’d better watch out.”

Tsugiko colored and cast her eyes down. Madam immediately looked at her husband.

“But at least Okamoto-san is lucky enough to have a living watch that keeps track of his age. But you have no device for self-reflection, so you’re always acting up.”

“Maybe so, but the good news is I stay young forever.”

At this the table laughed aloud.

OTHER DINERS, smaller groups than theirs and, accordingly, relatively quiet, glanced from time to time at O-Nobu’s table where, as though the theater had been entirely forgotten, an apparently relaxed conversation was proceeding. The moment arrived when those who had purposely ordered a light meal to save time were preparing to leave even before they had their coffee, and still one new dish after the other was being laid out in front of O-Nobu. They could hardly throw their napkins down in the middle of the meal. Nor, it appeared, were they inclined to rush. They took their time, feeling that they had come to the theater to enjoy themselves more than to see a play.

“Has it started?”

Having glanced around the dining room, suddenly quiet, Uncle Okamoto posed the question to a white-jacketed waiter.

“The curtain just went up.”

“Let it! Just now our mouths are more important than our eyes.”

O-Nobu’s uncle commenced at once an attack on a chicken thigh with the skin still on it. Across the table, Yoshikawa appeared largely unconcerned with what was happening on stage. Following Okamoto’s lead, ignoring the subject of the play, he spoke of food.

“You still revel in what you eat — Mrs. Okamoto, have you heard the story about your husband riding piggyback on a foreigner in the days when he ate more and was even fatter than he is now?”

O-Nobu’s aunt shook her head. Yoshikawa posed Tsugiko the same question. Tsugiko hadn’t heard either.

“I’m not surprised. It’s not exactly an admirable story, so I suppose he’s been hiding it.”

“What story?”

Looking up from his plate, Okamoto eyed his friend warily. Madam Yoshikawa spoke up from the sidelines.

“You must have been too heavy for the foreigner and crushed him.”

“At least that would have given him something to brag about. He was clinging to that big man’s shoulders for dear life, in the middle of a London crowd, with everybody staring at him with weird expressions on their faces. So he could see a parade.”

O-Nobu’s uncle had yet to crack a smile.

“What an imagination! When was this supposed to have happened?”

“At the coronation of Edward VII. You were standing in front of Mansion House to watch the parade, but since we weren’t in Japan everybody was taller than you, and you were so distressed you asked the proprietor of your boarding house who had come along with you if you could climb on his shoulders — that’s what I heard.”

“Balderdash! You’re confusing me with someone else. I know a fellow who did ride piggyback but it wasn’t me — it was that ‘Monkey.’”

Uncle Okamoto was unmistakably in earnest about his explanation; the sudden, vehement utterance of the word “Monkey” brought a laugh from everyone at once.

“Of course. Now I can see it. No matter how gigantic the English are, there was something not quite right about the picture with you in it. But Monkey was an absolute dwarf.”

Whether he was just pretending to be mistaken or had actually been ignorant of the facts, Yoshikawa sounded convinced at last, repeating the party in question’s nickname, Monkey, as a spur to the hilarity of the assembled company.

The question Madam Yoshikawa posed was part curiosity and part impatience.

“So who in the world was Monkey?”

“No one you would know.”

“Madam needn’t worry in the slightest. Even if he were here at the table he’s the sort of person who wouldn’t mind if we came right out and called him Monkey to his face. Besides, he’d be calling me Piggy in the same spirit.”

From start to finish, O-Nobu was unable to secure for herself a portion of this meandering conversation that should have been her due as a member of the party. An opportunity to recommend herself to Madam Yoshikawa failed to present itself no matter how long she waited. Madam paid no attention to her. More properly, she avoided her. It was to Tsugiko in particular, seated two places away, that she addressed herself. Her efforts to draw her out for even just a minute were distinctly visible. Tsugiko, unable to take advantage of these attempts, appeared annoyed rather than grateful, and each time she displayed her annoyance openly to the table, O-Nobu, always inclined to compare herself with her cousin, felt a ripple of envy in her heart.

If I were in her position …

The thought occurred to her frequently during the meal. Afterward, she secretly lamented Tsugiko’s lack of worldliness. In the end, as always, thinking how pitiful she was, she felt disdain.

BY THE time they left the table, an inch or so of white ash had accumulated on the men’s postprandial cigars. The words from someone’s mouth, “What time is it getting to be?” had the incidental effect of producing at that moment a change in O-Nobu’s position. Seizing an opportunity in the instant just before they rose, Madam Yoshikawa suddenly addressed her.

“And how is Tsuda-san doing?”

Without waiting for O-Nobu’s reply, she continued at once.

“I’ve been meaning to ask ever since we sat down, but I got so caught up in my own prattling—”

O-Nobu judged this excuse to be false. Her doubt had not arisen from the lady’s manner of speaking just now. O-Nobu would have said that her surmise was based on more substantial evidence. She remembered distinctly her own words of greeting to the lady on first entering the dining room. She had spoken less for herself than on behalf of her husband. Dipping her head respectfully, she had said, “Thank you so much for all you’ve done for Tsuda.” At that moment, however, Madam had said nothing about Tsuda. Since O-Nobu was the last member of the party to exchange greetings with her, there would have been ample time to speak, yet Madam had turned immediately away. She appeared to have forgotten entirely the visit she had received from Tsuda just days before.

O-Nobu didn’t interpret this conduct to signify merely that she was disliked. She believed there was something else at work in addition. Otherwise, she felt certain, even Madam Yoshikawa would have no reason to go out of her way to avoid mentioning Tsuda to the woman to whom he was married. She was well aware that the lady was very fond of her husband. But why should the fact that she was a patron of sorts create reluctance to introduce him into a conversation with his wife?

O-Nobu didn’t understand. During dinner she had hoped to display in front of Madam Yoshikawa her singular charm as a woman, natural gifts that were impossible not to appreciate, and her failure to launch herself from a platform provided by Tsuda, who seemed to represent the only common ground between them, was due in part to this clot in her understanding. To have the subject broached at last by the other party just as they were rising from the table left O-Nobu doubting more than simply Madam Yoshikawa’s excuse for having waited too long. She wondered if something more than mere social convention might not be lurking beneath the lady’s decision to express concern about her husband’s illness only now.

“Thank you so much — he’s doing nicely.”

“He’s had his operation?”

“Today.”

“Just today? How extraordinary that you were able to get away for something like this!”

“He really isn’t very ill.”

“But he is in bed?”

“Yes. He’s resting.”

Madam appeared to be thinking “And that doesn’t concern you?” At least in her silence that was how she appeared to O-Nobu. She had the feeling that Madam Yoshikawa, who comported herself in other company with a masculine absence of reserve, emerged as an entirely different person when dealing with her.

“He’s in the hospital?”

“It’s not really a hospital — the second floor above the doctor’s office happens to be available, and they’re letting him stay there to rest for five or six days.”

Madam asked for the doctor’s name and the address. Though she said nothing about intending to pay a visit, O-Nobu, who suspected she had brought Tsuda up with that purpose in mind, felt that she had some notion of what the lady was about for the first time.

Yoshikawa, who, unlike his wife, had given no indication that Tsuda was particularly in his thoughts, now mentioned him abruptly.

“When we spoke, he said he was suffering from the same thing as last year. Young as he is, it’s terrible that he’s sick so much. There’s no reason he should limit himself to five or six days, tell him he should take as long as he needs to recover.”

O-Nobu thanked him.

In the corridor outside the dining room, the party of seven separated into two groups.

THE REST of the time O-Nobu spent with her aunt’s family was unperturbing. A phantom picture of her husband lying abed in his night clothes and quilted jacket did, however, take shape in her mind as she raptly followed the play. The phantom she imagined had put down a book he had been reading and appeared to be observing her from the distance as she sat here in the theater. This made her happy; but in the instant when she essayed to meet his gaze, his eyes flashed a message at her: Don’t fool yourself. I was just taking a peek out of curiosity — you won’t find me having anything to say to a woman like you.

For allowing herself to be deceived, O-Nobu felt foolish. Whereupon the phantom Tsuda vanished like a ghost. At his second appearance, it was O-Nobu who declared, I’m not going to think about a person like you any longer! When Tsuda floated before her eyes a third time, she was inclined to dismiss him with a tsk of her tongue. Since her husband hadn’t entered her thoughts even once before she went to the dining room, O-Nobu would have said that she was experiencing this relentless activity in her mind after dinner for the first time. She tried comparing these two different versions of herself. And she was unable to avoid silently naming Madam Yoshikawa as the party responsible for the dramatic change. Somewhere in her mind she felt certain that this troubling phantom would not have materialized had they not dined tonight at the same table. However, asked to identify what it was about the lady that had acted as a fermenting agent in brewing this bitter liquor, or in what manner it had made its way into her brain, O-Nobu would have been helpless to provide cogent answers. Her data were simply unclear. Nonetheless she had reached a comparatively clear conclusion. Undaunted by the insufficiency of her data, she saw no reason to suspect that her conclusion might be flawed. She firmly believed that Madam Yoshikawa was at fault.

O-Nobu feared encountering Madam again when the play ended and they gathered once again at the teahouse. But she also felt inclined to probe deeper. Though she was resigned to the fact that no opportunity would present itself in that brief moment of milling confusion when everyone was hurrying away, her curiosity peeked out from the shadow of her desire to avoid another meeting.

Happily, the Yoshikawas had chosen a different teahouse, and there was no sign of Madam Yoshikawa. As Uncle Okamoto wrapped himself in a heavy-looking cloak with a fur collar, he turned back to O-Nobu, who was pulling on her own coat.

“Why not stay with us tonight?”

“Oh — that’s kind of you.”

Neither accepting nor declining the invitation, O-Nobu glanced at her aunt with a smile. Her aunt glared at her uncle as if to say, “Not a care in the world — it’s appalling.”

Perhaps he didn’t notice, or perhaps he noticed but didn’t care, but Okamoto repeated the invitation in a more serious tone than before.

“Please stay if you’d like — no need for formality with us.”

“Listen to Mr. Hospitality. Do you realize they have only one maid and she’s waiting for this child to come home? She can’t just stay out!”

“No, I suppose you’re right. Not with one maid all alone in the house.”

Okamoto abandoned his idea readily; it seemed clear he had asked merely for the sake of asking and had been unconcerned with the outcome from the beginning.

“I haven’t stayed over one night since I married Tsuda.”

“Is that so? You’re a paragon of virtue.”

“I certainly hope not — Yoshio hasn’t stayed out either, not once.”

“That’s how it ought to be. Side by side as a couple, never faltering.”

“No greater joy, no sweeter bliss.”

Repeating in a small voice one of the lines from the play, Tsugiko, as though dismayed at her own forwardness, turned bright red. On purpose, Okamoto nearly shouted.

“What’s that?”

Embarrassed, Tsugiko walked briskly toward the gate, pretending she hadn’t heard. The others followed her outside.

As he was stepping into his rickshaw, O-Nobu’s uncle spoke to her.

“If you can’t stay with us that’s fine, but do drop over sometime in the next few days. There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

“I have something to ask you as well, and I want to thank you for today. Tomorrow maybe, would that be convenient?”

“Oh-yes-please!”

As if this English were a signal, the four rickshaws sped on their way.

THE OKAMOTO residence was a considerable distance but in the same general direction as Tsuda’s house, which meant that O-Nobu, whose “rubber wheel” had followed theirs, was able to accompany them all the way to her side street. As they parted at her usual corner, O-Nobu called from under her hood to the others as they passed, but before she had ascertained whether her voice had reached them, her rickshaw had turned off the main street. Moving down the hushed side street, O-Nobu was struck suddenly by a kind of loneliness. Like a person who has been circling until now within a group and, misstepping without realizing it, has fallen as from a tree outside the domain of the community all alone, O-Nobu entered her house with a sense, however pallid, of abandonment.

The maid did not emerge in response to the rattling of the lattice door. In the sitting room the lamps were shining brightly, but that was all — even the iron kettle was not rattling cheerily as usual. O-Nobu surveyed the room, unchanged since morning, with eyes that had changed. Chilliness was beginning to wrap around her forlorn mood. The moment passed, and as simple loneliness began to transform into anxiety, O-Nobu, exhausted by the pleasure of her social outing, was on the verge of collapsing in front of the brazier when she turned abruptly toward the kitchen and called the maid’s name, “Toki, Toki!” At the same time she opened the door to the maid’s room to one side of the kitchen.

O-Toki was slumped over the sewing she had strewn across the two-tatami-mat floor. Lifting her head, she responded with a “Yes, Missus—” and abruptly stood up. Rising, she struck her disheveled head against the shade of the lamp, which she had purposely lowered to sew by, and became even more flustered as the bulb threw a wobbling wash of light against the rear wall. O-Nobu didn’t smile. Nor did she feel like scolding. It didn’t even occur to her to wonder how she might have reacted in a similar situation. At this moment, even the presence in the room of the maid befuddled with sleep was reassuring.

“Lock up in front and go right to bed. I’ve already bolted the half door at the gate.”

Having sent the maid to bed, O-Nobu sat again in front of the brazier without even changing her kimono. She stirred the ashes mechanically, adding charcoal to the dying embers. Then she put the kettle on, as if boiling water was a household procedure that must not be neglected. But as she sat alone in the dead of night with her ears peeled for the rattling of the kettle, a feeling of aloneness attacking out of nowhere built up inside her even more overwhelmingly than when she had arrived home. Because this was loneliness incomparably more intense than what she was accustomed to feeling as she waited unbearably for Tsuda’s return late at night, she found herself gazing in her heart’s eye with a fond longing at the figure of her husband lying in bed at the clinic.

I must tell you it’s all because you aren’t here.

Thus she spoke to the picture she had conjured in her mind.

She resolved that the first thing she must do on the morrow, no matter what, was visit him at the clinic. But in the very next instant her chest was no longer pressed against her husband’s. Something was wedged between them. And the closer she tried to snuggle, the more sharply the unwanted something jabbed into her breast. Her husband was unperturbed, as if he hadn’t noticed. Very well then! she felt like saying, half annoyed, turning her back on him.

Having reached an impasse, she shifted her reverie unceremoniously to Madam Yoshikawa. It was just as she had thought at the theater, even clearer now: if she hadn’t encountered the lady this evening, she might well have escaped this so very disagreeable feeling about her beloved husband.

She was left with a desire to bare her heart to someone, somewhere. She took up her brush, thinking to continue the letter home she had begun the night before, but in the end she was unable to set down her thoughts on paper and could only compose her usual assurance that she and Tsuda were getting along famously so her parents were not to worry. Tonight, however, these words alone were in no way adequate. Exhausted by her effort to put her thoughts in order, she finally threw down her brush. Leaving her kimono in a heap on the floor, she went to bed. The spectacle she had observed at the theater for all those hours exploded across her agitated mind in fragments of vivid colors, stimulating even as it irritated her, and hours passed before she was able to fall asleep.

LYING IN bed, she heard the clock strike one. She heard two. Then she was awakened by morning light. She didn’t know what time it was, but the sun seeping through a crack in the wooden shutters informed her that she had slept later than usual.

She looked at the clothes scattered near her pillow in the sunlight. They lay on the tatami where she had let them fall the night before, kimono and underwear and long kimono slip in a heap, top and bottom, inside and out, a careless tangle of runaway colors. From beneath the pile, one folded end of her long, narrow obi, an iris pattern in gold thread, extended to within reach of her hand.

O-Nobu gazed at the tangle with a certain dismay. As the work of someone who had always considered neatness to be one of the female virtues, there was something disgraceful about it. As far as she could recall, she had never once since marrying Tsuda allowed him to see this kind of mess; remembering that her husband was not sleeping in the room with her, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Her carelessness today went beyond clothing. If Tsuda hadn’t gone to the clinic and were at home as usual, she would never have allowed herself to sleep this late, no matter what time they had gone to bed the night before, nor had she leapt out of bed the minute she opened her eyes — how could she avoid rebuking herself as a lazy creature?

Even so, it wasn’t easy to get up. O-Toki, possibly to make up for her own remissness the night before, had risen before her and could be heard moving around in the kitchen; that seemed ample justification for remaining in bed, wrapped in bed clothes that were warm against her skin.

As she lay there, the feeling of transgression she had awakened with gradually dwindled. Even a woman, she began to feel, could hardly be blamed for an infraction as minor as this once or twice a year. An easiness spread through her body from head to toe, and in her relaxed mood she savored with gratitude the freedom to experience a rare sense of unburdened tranquility for the first time since her marriage. When she realized — there was no denying it — that her husband’s absence was making this possible, she even felt blessed to find herself alone for the time being. And she was surprised to perceive that going to bed at night and rising in the morning with her husband day after day, a constraint she had overlooked until now, scarcely pausing to register it, had been for her an unexpectedly heavy burden. But this spontaneous awakening was of short duration. By the time she left her bed, having observed with her newly liberated eye her agitation of the previous evening with a measure of ridicule, she was already being governed by a different mood.

Late as it was, O-Nobu discharged her duties as a housewife with the same meticulous care as always. Since her husband’s absence saved her considerable bother, she folded her kimono herself without troubling the maid. When things were put away, she dressed hastily and left the house at once, proceeding straight to the newly installed telephone booth a few blocks down the street.

She made three calls. The first, not surprisingly, was to Tsuda. As he was confined to his bed and unable to come to the phone, she was obliged to learn news of him indirectly. She had expected to hear that there were no complications, and her expectation was confirmed. “He’s doing well — there’s nothing to worry about.” Hearing this assurance from a voice that sounded like the nurse’s and wanting to determine how urgently Tsuda was awaiting her, she requested the voice to ask the patient whether it would be all right if she didn’t visit today. Tsuda sent the nurse back to the phone to ask “Why?” At the other end of the line, unable to hear his voice or see his face, O-Nobu, at a loss to make a judgment, inclined her head. In a case like this, Tsuda wasn’t a man to request that she come by all means. But he was a man to turn sour if she didn’t come. Not that he could be counted on to express satisfaction or happiness if she did. Nor was there any guarantee, having deflected her kindness, that he wouldn’t pout, as if to say “that was your duty as a woman.” Having considered all this on the spot, she let slip on the phone an attitude toward her husband that she had apparently picked up, or thought she had, from Madam Yoshikawa the previous evening.

“Please tell him I won’t be coming in today because I have to go to the Okamotos.”

Hanging up, she called Okamoto to ask if she might stop in. Finally, summoning Tsuda’s younger sister to the phone, she reported his condition in just a very few words and returned to the house.

SITTING DOWN to a tray that was both breakfast and lunch with O-Toki helping her to rice was another first experience since her marriage. This change occasioned by Tsuda’s absence made her feel anew like a queen; at the same time the freedom from daily routine in which she greedily indulged had the opposite effect of binding her hands more tightly than usual. With a heart that was agitated for a body so relaxed, O-Nobu turned to O-Toki.

“Doesn’t it feel odd with Mr. Tsuda away?”

“It does — it feels lonely.”

O-Nobu had more to say.

“This is the first time I’ve slept so late.”

“But since you’re always so early it can’t hurt to have breakfast and lunch together once in a while.”

“‘Just look at her the minute Mr. Tsuda is away’—is that how it seems?”

“To who?”

“To you, silly.”

“’Course not.”

O-Toki’s intentionally loud voice offended O-Nobu’s sensibility more grievously than her clumsy conversation. She stopped talking.

Thirty minutes later, stepping into the dress-up clogs that O-Toki had set out for her on the concrete just inside the entrance, O-Nobu turned back to the maid, who had accompanied her to the front door.

“Please stay alert. Falling asleep the way you did last night is dangerous.”

“Will you be late again this evening?”

O-Nobu hadn’t considered for a minute when she would be coming home.

“Not as late as last night.”

She felt an urge to enjoy herself at the Okamotos as late as she liked on this rare occasion of her husband’s absence.

“I’ll be home as early as I can.”

Leaving the maid with this assurance on her way out to the street, O-Nobu turned at once toward her appointment. As the Okamotos’ residence lay in roughly the same direction as the Fujiis’, the same streetcar along the river would take her at least partway. Alighting at the first or second stop before the end of the line, she crossed the small wooden bridge over the river and proceeded on foot down the street on the opposite bank. It was the same street along which, two or three evenings ago, Tsuda and Kobayashi, leaving the bar, had discussed, mutually entangled in feelings that came from differences in their status and personalities, relocation to Korea, O-Kin’s marriage, and other matters. O-Nobu, who had heard nothing about this from Tsuda, walked innocently along in the opposite direction to the one they had taken, without picturing them, and started up the long, narrow hill that had to be climbed to reach her uncle’s house. Just then, Tsugiko happened to be coming down.

“Thanks for last night.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have a lesson—”

Having graduated from girls’ upper school the previous year, this cousin occupied herself during her leisurely days studying a variety of things — piano, tea ceremony, flower arranging, watercolor, cooking. Knowing her predilection for trying her hand at everything that occurred to her, O-Nobu, hearing the word “lesson,” felt like laughing out loud.

“Which lesson—ballet?”

The girls were sufficiently intimate to engage in this variety of inside humor. From O-Nobu’s point of view, her remark might have been construed as conveying a measure of irony directed at Tsugiko’s status, which allowed leisure time far greater than her own, but her cousin appeared to detect in it no hint of mockery.

“Of course not.”

Tsugiko had only this to say and laughed good-humoredly. Sensitive as she was, O-Nobu was obliged to acknowledge the laugh as innocence itself. Nonetheless, in the end, her cousin wouldn’t disclose what the lesson was.

“You’ll just tease me.”

“Something new?”

“There’s no telling what I’ll take up next — after all, I’m such a glutton.”

No one in the Okamoto family hid the fact that, where lessons were concerned, Tsugiko had been labeled “Miss Glutton.” First applied by her younger sister, the pejorative had been adopted by the entire family; recently Tsugiko had taken to using it herself unhesitatingly.

“Wait for me — I’ll be back soon.”

Turning around to watch Tsugiko’s receding back as she descended the hill with her light step, O-Nobu was sensible of the blend of respect and derision she invariably felt about her cousin.

THIS TIME it was her uncle whom O-Nobu encountered as she approached the Okamotos’ manorly house. With no kimono jacket, his plain obi cinched low over his hips and his hands folded over the single knot at his back, he was engaged in an animated conversation at the entrance to the house with a gardener who was plying a hoe next to him, but as soon as he caught sight of O-Nobu he called out to her.

“There you are! I’m just mucking about in the garden.”

A long piece of akebia vine lay coiled on the ground next to the gardener.

“We’re thinking of training this above the gate at the garden entrance — wouldn’t it go well there?”

O-Nobu surveyed at a glance the thatch-roofed gate in the middle of a solid fence of plaited bamboo, the hatchet-hewn pillars supporting it, and the log crossbeams.

“Umm — you uprooted it from where it was growing on the little trellis?”

“Right, and I replaced it with a blinder-gate with embellished trim.”

Her uncle had been using his newly acquired leisure to remodel the house according to his own design, and his architecture and landscape vocabulary had expanded in no time. As the word “blinder-gate” conveyed no image to her, O-Nobu’s only choice was responding with a vague nod.

“This is good exercise after a meal — good for your appetite.”

“Are you joking? I haven’t had lunch yet.”

Pulling O-Nobu out of the garden and into the house with him, her uncle called loudly to her aunt: “Sumi! Sumi! I’m starving out here. Some lunch right away, please.”

“Didn’t I say you should have eaten a while ago with the rest of us?”

“You may be surprised to learn that the world isn’t organized around the convenience of the kitchen. Has it ever occurred to you that there is a time for everything?”

Her aunt’s unruffled attitude — that her husband had only himself to blame — and her uncle’s response were the same as always. O-Nobu, feeling as though she had breathed the air of home for the first time in a long while, couldn’t help comparing the aging couple before her with herself and Tsuda, married for less than a year, just embarking as it were on their new life. Assuming they traveled the long matrimonial road together, could they also expect to end up this way, or, no matter how long they stayed together, might it be, given how different they were temperamentally from her aunt and uncle, that their relationship would remain different? For someone as young as O-Nobu, this was a riddle not solvable by wisdom and imagination. She was not satisfied with Tsuda as he was today. Nor could she imagine a future version of herself in which her abundance as a woman had withered away very much like her aunt’s. If that were the fate that awaited her unavoidably, it would be a sad blow to her desire to maintain forever the luster of the present. Surviving in the world as a woman having lost everything womanly about her appeared to O-Nobu in her youth as a truly terrifying existence.

Unaware of the meditation on a distant future churning in this young wife’s breast, O-Nobu’s uncle sat cross-legged on the tatami facing the lunch tray that had been placed in front of him and regarded her.

“Are you there? You seem lost in your thoughts.”

O-Nobu replied at once.

“Why don’t I serve you for a change — it’s been a long while.”

There was no rice tub, and, as O-Nobu stood, her aunt stopped her.

“I know you’d like to serve him, but today is a bread day so there’s nothing to serve.”

The maid came in with nicely browned toast on a plate.

“It’s unbearable what’s happened to this uncle of yours. Born in Japan and not allowed to have rice — how pathetic is that?”

His doctor had forbidden her diabetic uncle to consume more than a designated quantity of starch.

“Look at me — all I eat is tofu.”

Laid out on his plate was a portion of white, uncooked tofu that no single person could possibly have consumed. Observing her rotundly obese uncle contorting his features into a face he intended to look pitiful, O-Nobu, far from feeling substantially sorry for him, was inclined to laugh aloud.

“A little fasting would be good for you. Getting through a day as fat as you are would be an agony for anyone.”

Her uncle turned to look at her aunt.

“She’s always been good at insults, but since she married it seems she’s mastered the art.”

O-NOBU HAD been under her uncle’s care since she was a little girl, and she knew better than others the idiosyncrasies that emerged and receded in him from a variety of angles.

Oversensitive to a degree incongruent with his corpulent body, there were times when he would seclude himself in his room for half a day without speaking, while at other times the mere sight of another person would trigger what appeared to be an uncontrollable garrulousness. It wasn’t so much that he needed an outlet for his robust energy; he was either attempting out of consideration for others to put them at their ease as best he could or, as was more frequently the case, anxious to avoid the awkward silence generated by his own boredom in the presence of a guest, with the result that his conversation, when it wasn’t about practical matters, tended to center around subjects from his daily life of personal interest to him. His gift for talk, which he employed in social situations to great effect and which, it appeared, had contributed in no small way to his success, was frequently enhanced by a scintillating sense of humor. O-Nobu, who had grown up at her uncle’s side, had somewhere along the way inherited this gift. Trading digs with him when he was in the right mood had become second nature to her, requiring no effort. However, since her marriage to Tsuda she had reformed. As a consequence, two months passed, then three, and the wisecracking she had at first suppressed out of respect no longer came easily to her. In the end, she found herself relating to her husband in this regard as a different person than the self she had experienced when she was at the Okamotos. This left her unsatisfied. At the same time, she couldn’t help feeling that she was deceiving her husband. In her uncle’s unchanged behavior, observed on occasional visits, there was something that led her to recall a former freedom. As he sat cross-legged on the tatami in front of his raw tofu, she observed his waggish face nostalgically, as though it were a memento from the past.

“But it was you who taught me how to be insulting. I certainly haven’t learned anything of the kind from Tsuda.”

“Mebbe not, I reckon.”

Intentionally rolling the words on his tongue in old Tokyo dialect, Okamoto glanced at his wife, who loathed this verbal affectation and would have forbidden its use in her house if she hadn’t known that any criticism from her would only incite him to persist. She said nothing, pretending not to have noticed. Like someone whose expectations have been disappointed, her uncle turned to O-Nobu.

“Is Yoshio-san so severe?”

O-Nobu merely grinned, saying nothing.

“I see by your smile that pleases you.”

“What does?”

“You needn’t play dumb with the likes of me. I ask you in earnest, is Yoshio-san so serious?”

“I really couldn’t say. But why do you ask so seriously?”

“I have thoughts of me own about this — depending on your answer.”

“Goodness gracious! Then I’ll tell you. Just as you suspect, he is rather severe. What about it?”

“You swear?”

“What a fuss you’re making.”

“I’ll get right to my point. Assuming what you say is true, that he’s a severe person, if it is, he’ll never be right for someone as good at insults as you. Now Auntie here, she ought be a perfect fit.” As he spoke he nodded at his wife with his chin as she sat beside him in silence.

O-Nobu felt brushed by a sense of loneliness like a wind out of the distance. Observing herself, abruptly gripped by sadness, she was surprised.

“How lucky you are, Uncle, not a care in the world.”

O-Nobu would have liked to laugh off her uncle’s remark as a casual jest on the spur of the moment that proceeded from his assumption that she and Tsuda were, if anything, an excessively intimate couple, but her heart was too undefended to allow this. Even so, her determination to conceal her wounds, presenting herself to others as the wife of a man with no deficiencies, prevented her from revealing any of the things she was feeling deeply. She blinked rapidly to camouflage the tears she could feel would shortly be welling in her eyes.

“Even if I am a perfect fit, it wouldn’t make any difference at my age. Right, O-Nobu?”

Seen as younger than she was wherever she went, her aunt turned her pure, lustrous eyes to O-Nobu, who said nothing. Neither did she neglect to avail herself of the first opportunity to conceal her feelings. As if amused, she laughed aloud.

O-NOBU’S REWARD for preferring her uncle, an in-law, to her aunt, a blood relative, was her certainty that he doted on her. She understood profoundly the mixture of easy affability and nervousness that constituted his temperament, and she comported herself in a manner that perfectly suited both aspects of his makeup; because her actions were enabled by the flexibility that comes with youth, she was able almost effortlessly to please her uncle and satisfy herself. Believing that he was observing her behavior at all times with an affirmative eye, she sometimes wondered how her immovable aunt could be so unbending.

What she knew about handling the opposite sex she had learned from her uncle exclusively, and she believed she would have only to apply his training to her husband to succeed in her marriage. When that man turned out to be Tsuda, she was aware in the beginning of slight differences in their approach to doing things, a new experience that she observed with a certain wonder. Frequently she encountered situations that required efforts either to train her new husband to be someone like her uncle or to reconstitute the person who was herself, already fully formed, to accommodate him. Her love was for Tsuda. But her sympathies were reserved for someone modeled on her uncle. Often at such times she found herself thinking, if only this were her uncle he would be pleased by what she had done. At such times her nature ordered her to tell her uncle everything. But she was willful enough to defy this command, and having managed until now to choke things down, she couldn’t bring herself to confess at this late date.

In that sense, O-Nobu had continually deceived her aunt and uncle, and she was confident that they had allowed themselves to be deceived for her benefit without misgivings. At the same time, she was sensitive enough to have perceived that her uncle on his side was keeping a secret with regard to Tsuda no less substantial than her own that he wanted to admit to her but was unable to reveal. What she had seen hidden inside his heart was that he had disliked Tsuda as her choice for a beloved husband. Without going to the trouble of an actual comparison, she surmised easily enough that his negative reaction was due to differences in sensibility that lay between them. O-Nobu had become aware of this soon after getting married. And she had additional evidence. Apparently coarse but refined in his own way, apparently unheeding and at the same time acute, his dispassionate words belying the kindness in his heart, O-Nobu’s uncle seemed to have conceived an intuitive dislike for Tsuda at their first meeting. Detecting behind his question “You like that sort of person?” what felt like the echo of other words, “That means you never liked someone like me,” O-Nobu had shuddered in spite of herself. However, by the time she had replied to his question with one of her own, “What do you think, Uncle?” he had moved beyond the awkward impediment he had placed between them.

“Go to him. If he’s the one, don’t worry about any of us,” he had replied with kindness in his voice.

Another bit of evidence remained. Though her uncle had said nothing to her directly, she had heard his most unsparing criticism from her aunt’s lips.

“He looks as though he thinks every woman in Japan should be in love with him.”

Curiously, O-Nobu wasn’t put off or even surprised by the remark. She was confident she could love Tsuda with all her heart. And she expected, and was reassured to feel certain, that she would be loved completely by him. Because her first thought had been, “Here he goes, criticizing as usual,” she had laughed aloud. In the next instant she interpreted his denigration as jealousy and felt secretly pleased with herself.

“He’s already forgotten how sweet he was on himself when he was a young man,” his aunt had said supportively.

Sitting in front of her uncle now, O-Nobu couldn’t help recalling this moment from the past. Whereupon she had the feeling that his frivolous jesting about Tsuda’s “severity” and her suitability or unsuitability as the wife of such a man might have been significant in a way she hadn’t recognized.

I have a feeling I was right about what I said. I hope not, but if something does come up, not now maybe but later on, I want you to come straight to me and tell me all about it.

In her uncle’s eyes, O-Nobu read these compassionate words.

HAVING COVERED her sentimental moment with a laugh and wishing to move away from the pain she was feeling, O-Nobu broached to her uncle and aunt the subject on her mind.

“What was that party all about?”

She had given her uncle notice that she would have something to ask him, and now she sought an explanation. But instead of providing an answer as he should have, he turned the question back on her.

“What did you think?”

Placing a particular emphasis on “you,” her uncle looked observantly into her face.

“How would I know? And what an odd question out of nowhere. Don’t you agree, Auntie?”

Her aunt grinned.

“Your uncle says a scatterbrain like me wouldn’t understand, but you certainly would. ‘She’s so much cleverer than you,’ he tells me.”

O-Nobu could only smile uncomfortably. She did have an idea, of course, a vague conjecture, but she wasn’t being pressed for it and she had been taught too well how to be a lady to reveal it as a display of her own cleverness.

“I haven’t the foggiest—”

“Take a guess. You must have a pretty good idea.”

Reading in his face his determination to have her venture something first, O-Nobu, after bantering back and forth, said what she supposed.

“It wasn’t a miai?”*

“What makes you think so? That’s how it looked to you?” Before validating her guess, O-Nobu’s uncle persisted in posing her questions in response to hers. Finally he laughed heartily in a loud voice.

“Bull’s-eye! So you are cleverer than Sumi after all.”

This attempt to place their cleverness on the scales of a balance the women dismissed with ridicule.

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out a simple thing like that, right Auntie?”

“No, and I don’t imagine you were that thrilled to be complimented for it.”

“Goodness, no! — it’s almost an insult.”

O-Nobu was recalling how brilliantly Madam Yoshikawa had played the table in her role as go-between.

“I had a feeling that must be it. Otherwise why would Yoshikawa-san have been working so hard to draw out Tsugiko-san and that Mr. Miyoshi.”

“But our Tsugiko has a gift for resisting. One tug at her and she pulls into herself like a turtle. She’d fare much better if she were more like you — a girl with some moxie.”

“Because I’m pushy and say whatever comes into my head? I’ve no idea whether I’m being praised or scolded — when I see a reserved person like Tsugiko-san I so wish I could be like her.”

As she spoke, O-Nobu reviewed with an unpleasant feeling of dissatisfaction last night’s gathering, which, in her view, had ended in failure for herself precisely because it had provided her with no room to exhibit what her uncle had chosen to call her moxie.

“I’m wondering why I had to be there.”

“You’re Tsugiko’s cousin.”

If the only reason was that she was a relative, there were any number of others who should also have attended. Moreover, the prospective groom had come alone; with the exception of the Yoshikawas, there was no one representing the other side.

“I still don’t understand. Does that mean that if Tsuda hadn’t been sick, he would have been obliged to come too, as a relative?”

“That’s another matter. There was another reason.”

O-Nobu’s uncle explained that one of his objectives had been to provide Tsuda and O-Nobu with a new opportunity to socialize with the Yoshikawas, which he assumed would be good for them. Hearing this as a revelation of his kindly nature as she liked to imagine it, O-Nobu was grateful; at the same time, she wondered with a certain resentment why, in that case, he hadn’t done more to promote a deeper acquaintance with Madam Yoshikawa. To be sure, he had seated them at the same table with that end in mind, but he seemed unaware of the possibility of a result that might be worse psychologically than before he had acted to bring them together. No matter how painstaking they might be, O-Nobu felt moved to conclude, men were, after all, just men. On the other hand, she thought more generously but with a sigh, no one who didn’t know about the subtle something that lay between Mrs. Yoshikawa and herself could have been expected to do better.

ALLOWING THE thought to drop by the wayside, O-Nobu pursued the point that continued to trouble her. “I understand what you intended, and I know I should be grateful. But there must be something more to this.”

“Maybe, but even if there weren’t, I think you can see from what I’ve already said that inviting you was more than worthwhile.”

“I suppose—”

O-Nobu felt obliged to concur. But it seemed to her that the manner of the invitation had been too urgent to be entirely explained by this. It turned out that her uncle had characteristically retained one final element.

“Actually, I wanted your assessment of the prospective groom. I’m asking because you have a gift for seeing into people. What did you think of him? A good bet for Tsugiko? A bad idea?”

O-Nobu was uncertain, in view of his typical behavior, how seriously he intended his question.

“Such an important role for me. I’m honored.”

Laughing as she spoke, O-Nobu glanced at her aunt and, observing her to be unexpectedly somber, changed her tone at once.

“I don’t see how someone like me is qualified to assess anyone. Besides, all I did was sit there for an hour. No one could learn much from that — unless they were clairvoyant.”

“Well, there is something clairvoyant about you. That’s why everyone wants to hear your opinion.”

“I hate it when you mock me.”

O-Nobu pretended to dismiss her uncle. But the taste of a certain pleasure was flirting with her. It was self-satisfaction with its source in her certainty that people did apparently think of her in that way. But this was a fragile pleasure easily damaged by undeniable facts that were an occasion for disappointment. Her husband’s case came to mind as damning evidence to the contrary. Before her marriage, O-Nobu had been confident that she had seen through to her husband’s nature with a clarity that exceeded clairvoyance, but in the time that had since elapsed, her confidence, as a lucent sun is mottled with dark sunspots, had been tarnished by misapprehensions and misplaced feelings. Having learned from her experience as time passed that her intuition regarding her husband might well require emendation, O-Nobu, who was just now beginning to bow her head in acknowledgment of this dolorous truth, was not so young that a little flattery from her uncle could restore her to good spirits.

“There’s no way to know much about anyone without spending time with them—”

“Nobody needs you to teach ’em that.”

“I’m just telling you I have nothing to say after just one meeting.”

“You sound like a man. A woman will have something to say after one look, and often she’ll hit the mark. I’m asking you to give me something for future reference. I’m not going to hold you responsible, so give it a try.”

“But how can I? I’m not a fortune-teller, right, Auntie?”

Her aunt didn’t support her as she normally did. Neither did she take her uncle’s side. Though it didn’t appear she wished to push O-Nobu for a prediction, she did nothing that might have inhibited her husband from pressuring her. Her attentive expression suggested she was eagerly interested in anything, however insubstantial, in the nature of an evaluation of a potential husband for her precious daughter now preparing for the first time to marry.

O-Nobu felt obliged to deliver herself of one or two anodyne remarks.

“He seems very respectable. And very poised for his age.”

Her uncle was waiting for more; when she added nothing, he prompted her with a question.

“Is that all?”

“I was sitting two seats down — I could barely see his face.”

“I guess it was foolish of me to put our oracle in that seat — but you must have something more than those clichés, something more in line with your special gift that would catch the essence of the man.”

“But I don’t — not after one meeting.”

“But what if you absolutely had to say something after just one meeting? You’d find something to say.”

“I have nothing.”

“Nothing at all? What’s happened to that intuition of yours?”

“I lost it when I got married — now I’m numb.”

ALL THE while she was engaging at length in verbal head-butting with her uncle, different thoughts were playing incessantly across her mind.

She didn’t doubt that Okamoto acknowledged her and Tsuda as a prime example of matrimonial harmony. She also understood, however, how unlikely it was that he had revised the dislike he had felt for Tsuda from the time of their first meeting. Accordingly, she felt certain that he must be observing skeptically the intimacy she and her husband appeared to share. To put it another way, beneath his surprise that a woman like O-Nobu should succeed in loving a man like Tsuda, he maintained his confidence in the astuteness of his own vision. His conclusion, that it was O-Nobu and not himself who had misjudged the man, seemed to have sifted down to the bottom of his heart like a fine powder, ready at any time to diffuse itself into the surrounding air.

Then why does he persist in pushing me for my thoughts about Miyoshi?

O-Nobu failed to understand. She was aware that he regarded her privately as a wife who had misjudged her husband, and to put her awareness aside and respond to his request without hesitation would have taken more courage than she possessed. In the end, her only choice was to hold her tongue. But to someone who had grown accustomed over the years to her immoderate lack of reserve, her silence on this occasion was hard to comprehend. Her uncle turned away from her to her aunt.

“This child’s a bit of a different person since she got married. She’s become timid. I wonder if that’s also her husband’s effect — it’s odd.”

“It’s because you keep hounding her to say something; it sounds more like a scolding than a request — who could handle that?”

Her aunt’s attitude was less admonitory toward her uncle than protective of her. But O-Nobu’s heart was now too full of her own feelings to rejoice at this.

“But isn’t this a matter for Tsugiko to decide? All she has to do is make up her mind and it’s done, she doesn’t need me to get involved.”

O-Nobu couldn’t help recalling the moment when she had chosen her own husband. Discovering Tsuda, she loved him at once. Loving him, she confessed her desire to become his wife to her guarantors at once. Receiving permission, she married him at once. And from start to finish, she was ever her own protagonist. The responsible party. She couldn’t recall ever being inclined to disregard her own intentions and rely on others.

“What in the world does Tsugiko-san say?”

“She says nothing. That girl is more timid than you.”

“If the principal party is acting that way, what can we do?”

“Exactly right! Timid as she is, there’s nothing we can do.”

“She’s not timid. She’s docile.”

“Since she isn’t saying anything, it hardly matters which. Or maybe she can’t say anything because she has nothing to say.”

O-Nobu profoundly doubted that two people whose connection was as tenuous as this could ever become a genuine couple. Not when even my own marriage is turning out this way, she reasoned. Unable to perceive her cousin’s situation as closely resembling her own, she saw only the logic in front of her nose. It seemed less ridiculous than frightening. How superficial her cousin was, she even thought.

“Uncle—” she began, looking at him with her small eyes wide open as though in dismay.

“It’s a disaster. She never intended to say anything. Which is why we wanted you there. Truthfully speaking.”

“But what was I supposed to do?”

“Tsugi insisted that we invite you. She considers you much cleverer than herself. She was convinced you’d have all sorts of things to say afterward even if she didn’t have a clue.”

“I wish you’d said something so I could have been prepared.”

“She wouldn’t let us. She wouldn’t let us say a word.”

“But why?”

O-Nobu glanced at her aunt.

“Because she was embarrassed,” her aunt replied before her uncle could interrupt her.

“It wasn’t only that. Mostly she was afraid she wouldn’t get a useful evaluation if O-Nobu went in prepared. She wanted to hear your unbiased first impression.”

O-Nobu finally understood why her uncle had been pressing her.

TSUGIKO OCCUPIED a unique position in O-Nobu’s world. She wasn’t nearly as concerned with O-Nobu’s best interests as her aunt was. And when it came to a mutual affinity, her connection was vastly more distant than her uncle’s. Nevertheless, the power of shared bloodline, an attraction based on different personalities, and, beyond that, the closeness in their ages made Tsugiko someone who was easily approached.

When O-Nobu encountered any of the issues that move the hearts of all young women in common, in the natural course of things it was to Tsugiko rather than her uncle or her aunt to whom she was inclined to turn. In such cases her natural aptitude for dealing with such matters invariably proved superior to Tsugiko’s. In terms of experience, she was of course Tsugiko’s senior. At least, as she was well aware, Tsugiko looked up to her as such a person.

This appreciative younger cousin made a habit of accepting solemnly at face value everything O-Nobu said. In O-Nobu’s view, her pliable cousin had been trained to feel this way by her extravagant display of her own superiority during the long years when they had shared a room under the same roof.

“A woman must see through a man at a single glance.”

With a remark like this, she had once surprised her naive cousin. She had spoken as someone equipped with an acuteness of vision more than adequate to accomplish this. Just as Tsugiko’s surprise had transformed into appreciation and was on its way to becoming worshipful, an event designed accidentally enough to affirm O-Nobu’s confidence, the spontaneous love between herself and Tsuda, had blazed before her eyes like the flame of a mystery. Subsequently O-Nobu’s declaration was enshrined in Tsugiko’s mind as everlasting truth itself. O-Nobu, more than adequately content with herself as she considered the world around her, couldn’t help feeling particularly satisfied where her cousin was concerned.

Quickly enough, Tsuda was conveyed to Tsugiko as O-Nobu saw him. Supplementing with indirect knowledge provided entirely by O-Nobu that part of the picture outside her own ken because she had no opportunity for daily contact, she had effortlessly constructed a complete and total ideal called Tsuda.

In the little more than half a year that had passed since her marriage, O-Nobu’s thoughts about Tsuda had changed. But Tsugiko’s vision remained intact. She believed in O-Nobu implicitly. O-Nobu was not the sort of woman who retracted things she has declared after all this time. Manifestly she was among that small number of fortunates who had succeeded in wresting happiness from the heavens by virtue of her own clarity.

Having to sit with her disillusionment while bearing in mind the relationship with her cousin that had survived from the past was not so painful as unpleasant. It was disturbing to feel surrounded by indirect demands that she own up to the failings she had managed to gloss over until now. She couldn’t help feeling it was others, not herself, who were behaving perversely.

As long as I’m suffering on account of my mistakes, that should be enough.

She was always ready with this sort of defense, which she kept stored away in her heart. But this was not the sort of thing she could hurl in the faces of her uncle, her aunt, or Tsugiko, who were ignorant of her process. If she must appeal, her only choice was to cry out to the heavens, the void above her that would provoke the three of them innocently enough to retaliation with insinuations of their own.

Her uncle, who had pulled his tray closer and begun to gulp the tea her aunt had freshly brewed for him, couldn’t possibly have had any idea of this tangle of feelings swirling in O-Nobu’s heart. Looking out at the single-level garden just completed, his face clear and calm, he exchanged a few comments with his wife about the placement of trees and rocks he was contemplating.

“Next year I’m thinking of planting a maple alongside that pine. From here that’s the only place that looks unbalanced, as if something is missing.”

O-Nobu glanced vacantly in the direction her uncle was pointing. Along the wall that ran from the house next door, earth had been spaded into a high mound to permit the planting of a small, dense grove of Mencius bamboo, and where the roots clustered there was indeed, as her uncle had pointed out, a feeling of sparseness. O-Nobu had been waiting for an opportunity to change the subject, and now she took agile advantage.

“You’re right — if you don’t fill that it will be obvious that you went out of your way to plant a grove there.”

The conversation, as she expected, flowed into a different channel. But when it returned to its original path there was an even steeper slope than before that had to be climbed.

AS UNCLE Okamoto reentered the tatami room from the garden, having been summoned by the gardener who had been hoeing at the entrance a while ago, O-Nobu’s conversation with her aunt, which had begun with Yuriko and Hajime, not yet back from school, was just veering back to Tsugiko.

“Miss Glutton should be home by now; I wonder what’s keeping her?”

O-Nobu’s aunt purposely used the nickname Yuriko had assigned her sister. O-Nobu conjured an image of her greedily ambitious cousin. Self-indulgent to a fault in the little universe she was permitted, one step outside and she came instantly to a standstill, the very model of circumspection; in the cage that was home, bounded by the supervision of her mother and father, she chirped away carelessly like a happy little bird, but once the door was open and she was thrust outside, she had no idea how to sing or whither to fly.

“What lesson did she have today?”

“Take a guess,” said Aunt Okamoto, who proceeded at once to satisfy the curiosity O-Nobu had brought with her from the hillside. When she heard that the subject, “foreign language,” was one of those Tsugiko had recently begun with her usual enthusiasm, O-Nobu was surprised all over again by the quantity of her cousin’s interests. She even found herself wondering whatever in the world she intended by striving for such a variety of accomplishments.

“But foreign language is a bit different; it has a special significance.”

Her aunt explained, defending Tsugiko as she proceeded, that the special significance she had in mind related indirectly to the possible marriage currently being considered, obliging O-Nobu out of deference to nod as though in agreement while looking as intently interested as possible. Anticipating and acquiring before the marriage the skills likely to please her husband, or those that would be professionally convenient for him if she possessed them, was a laudable demonstration of kindness toward a woman’s future spouse. Or it might be considered worthwhile simply as a means of winning his affection. In Tsugiko’s case, however, there remained any number of skills to be acquired that would be important to her as a human being and a wife. As O-Nobu pictured them in her mind, such accomplishments unfortunately were not likely to make a better woman. They would, however, sharpen her wits. They would almost certainly chafe. But they would whet her cleverness. She herself had begun these lessons with her aunt. And with her uncle’s help, they had ripened to maturity in her. In this sense her two teachers had raised her, and it appeared that they observed the results of their mentoring with satisfaction.

How can those same eyes be satisfied by what they see in Tsugiko?

Her aunt and uncle had never betrayed signs of discontent with anything having to do with Tsugiko, an attitude O-Nobu failed to understand. Pressed for an explanation, she would have had to say that they beheld their niece and their daughter through different eyes. The thought chagrined her; from time to time it seized her like a convulsion. But in each case, before it had a chance to blaze up, it was extinguished by her uncle’s liberality in all things and by the kindness of her aunt, whose treatment of her had never once lacked fairness. Hiding the flush inside her with an invisible sleeve pressed against her face, O-Nobu observed her uncle and aunt with what would have to be called perplexity, their attitudes and intentions an eternal riddle.

“Tsugiko-san is so fortunate — not to be a worry-wart like me.”

“That child worries much more than you do. It’s just that when she’s here at home she can’t find anything to worry about no matter how she tries, and that’s why she seems so carefree.”

“But I think I was more of a worrier even in the days when you and Uncle were looking after me.”

“But there’s a difference—”

Her aunt interrupted herself, and O-Nobu was uncertain how she intended to finish. She might have been referring to different personalities, different social standing, different circumstances, but before she had a chance to pursue this, something stopped her. Her pulse had skipped a beat, as though she had been jolted by something she had been unaware of until now.

Could they have dragged me to the miai yesterday because I’m plainer than Tsugiko and could serve as a foil to her good looks?

The suspicion flickered in O-Nobu’s brain like a spark from a flint stone, and in that instant she reached frantically for her will power and drew it about her. Finally she regained command of herself. Her face revealed nothing.

“Tsugiko-san has an advantage — everyone likes her.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But there’s no accounting for taste. Even a foolish girl like her.”

Uncle Okamoto stepped up to the engawa just as her aunt was speaking. “What about Tsugiko?” he asked in a loud voice, entering the room again.

AS HE settled himself on the tatami, a feeling O-Nobu had managed to suppress until now came surging back. Just then, for a brief instant, her uncle’s infinitely good-natured face, infinitely robust, infinitely optimistic in its plump rotundity, touched a nerve.

“You’re a very bad person, Uncle!”

O-Nobu couldn’t help striking like a snake. The words themselves were blunted by frequent use between them, but today O-Nobu’s voice was different, and there was something out of the ordinary about her expression as well. But her uncle had been oblivious of the tide rising and ebbing in her breast for some time, and, uncharacteristically for someone normally attentive and sensitive, he was in the dark.

“I’m that bad?”

Feigning ignorance in his usual manner, he packed unperturbedly the small bowl of his long-stem pipe with loose tobacco.

“You must have heard something from your aunt while I was outside.”

O-Nobu fell silent again. Her aunt responded at once.

“She appears to know all about your villainy by now without hearing anything from me.”

“Undoubtedly. She’s so intuitive. And maybe she’s right. After all, she can tell with a single glance at a man how much money he has in his wallet, and whether he carries it in his knickers or in a belly-band atop his navel — she’s that kind of lass so you can’t be too careful.”

Her uncle’s joke did not produce the effect he had anticipated. O-Nobu cast her eyes down, and her eyelids quivered. Unnoticed, tears had accumulated at the ends of her eyelashes. Her uncle’s taunting had seemed out of character, and now abruptly it ceased. An odd oppressiveness enveloped all three of them.

“What’s the matter, O-Nobu?”

To fill the emptiness of silence, her uncle struck his pipe against the hollowed bamboo on his smoking tray. Her aunt also felt impelled to lighten the moment somehow.

“Who cries about such a thing! It’s so childish — and it’s the same old joke.”

Her aunt’s scolding sounded like more than an obliging gesture in her uncle’s direction. From where she stood, understanding as well as she did the relationship between her husband and her niece, the comment was fair. O-Nobu knew this. But the more reasonable her aunt’s reproval seemed, the more she felt like crying. Her lips trembled. She was unable to hold back a flow of tears. And now the dam that until now had stopped her mouth crumbled. Bursting into tears, she spoke.

“Why must you go out of your way to humiliate me!”

Her uncle appeared bemused.

“Humiliate? I’m praising you. You remember, before you married Yoshio-san, you had some perceptions about him. And we all appreciated what you had to say, so I thought—”

“I don’t want to hear this; I’m already fed up. I shouldn’t have gone to the theater.”

Briefly, they were silent.

“This has turned into a mess somehow. Is it your uncle’s fault for teasing you?”

“No — it’s all my fault. Everything.”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic. I’m asking because I don’t understand what happened.”

“And I’ve told you that it’s all my fault.”

“But you don’t say why.”

“There’s no reason.”

“You’re just sad for no reason?”

O-Nobu burst into tears again. Her aunt scowled

“What are you thinking? Are you a baby throwing a tantrum? When you lived with us you never cried so hard no matter how badly he teased you. You’re married for five minutes and your husband dotes on you a little and look what happens. Young people are unbearable.”

O-Nobu bit her lip and fell silent. Her uncle, convinced as he was that she was the cause of all the trouble, looked sorry for her.

“There’s no point in scolding her that way. It’s my fault for teasing her too much. Right, O-Nobu? I’m sure I’m right. Look here, to make up for upsetting you, your uncle will get you something nice.”

With her seizure behind her and her uncle treating her like a child, O-Nobu wondered what she could do to bring a peaceful transformation to this awkward moment.

JUST THEN an unsuspecting Tsugiko, back from her language lesson, appeared in the doorway.

“I’m home.”

The others, lacking the impetus for a reconciliation, seized on her sudden return eagerly, responding to her greeting all at once.

“Welcome back.”

“You’re late — we’ve been waiting for a while.”

“Waiting impatiently. Everybody’s wondering why you’re so late.”

Hoping to recover lost ground from his earlier misstep, Uncle Okamoto, always restless, was even more animated than usual.

“At any rate, it seems there’s something your cousin here wants to discuss with you.”

Converting with this unnecessary remark his real objective into its exact opposite and casting its inverted shadow on O-Nobu, he appeared, if anything, altogether pleased with himself.

However, when the maid appeared, dropping to her hands and knees just outside the room to announce that the bath was ready, he rose as though suddenly remembering something.

“I haven’t time for a bath yet, there’s still work to do in the garden — feel free to go ahead if you like.”

Intending to spend the rest of the autumn day with his feet on the ground in the company of his favorite gardener, he descended to the garden again. On his way out he turned back to the others.

“O-Nobu, have a bath and stay for dinner.”

Two or three steps more into the garden and he was back again. O-Nobu observed with admiration this incessant mental activity so characteristic of her uncle.

“Since O-Nobu is here should we invite Fujii to dinner as well?”

Though they were in different professions, Fujii and her uncle had graduated from the same school and were old acquaintances; recently, the result of the connection to Tsuda, Fujii had had more to do with her uncle than ever before. While O-Nobu interpreted the invitation as issuing from her uncle’s good will toward her, it didn’t please her particularly. If the Fujii household and Tsuda were separate entities, the distance separating her from the Fujiis was even greater.

“I wonder if he’ll come.” The expression on her uncle’s face reflected accurately what O-Nobu was thinking.

“Recently everybody says I’m cloistered, relishing my retirement, but I’m no match for him when it comes to dropping out of the world; he’s been doing it forever. What do you think, O-Nobu, if we ask old man Fujii over for a bowl of rice will he come?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I don’t think it’s likely he’d come—”

O-Nobu’s aunt sounded tentative.

“You might be right — he probably doesn’t accept last-minute invitations. Bad idea? But let’s give him a call anyway, just to see.”

O-Nobu laughed.

“You say ‘Let’s give him a call’ as if there were a telephone in that house.”

“Shall we send somebody over then?”

Not wanting to go to the trouble of writing a letter, or because he thought it a waste of time, O-Nobu’s uncle moved briskly toward the entrance to the garden without another word.

“I think I’ll just excuse myself and have a bath,” said O-Nobu’s aunt, rising.

Everyone knew about her uncle’s fastidiousness where bathing was concerned, but only her aunt was able at a time like this to act decisively on his invitation to precede him into the tub, and O-Nobu envied her unapologetic boldness. She was also repelled. Unfeminine and unpleasant, her attitude was at the same time manly and admirable. How wonderful if only that were possible, O-Nobu felt, and, at the same time, intertwined with that feeling was as always another, that she hoped never to behave in such a way no matter how old she became. As she gazed vacantly at her aunt’s receding back, Tsugiko, the only other person remaining, issued an invitation.

“Shall we go to my room?”

Leaving the clutter of tea things and the brazier as they were, they left the room.

TSUGIKO’S ROOM was unchanged from the days before O-Nobu’s marriage to Tsuda, when it was also hers. The atmosphere from the past when they had sat here at neighboring desks remained in the walls and in the ceiling. The wooden dolls nicely arrayed atop the small cabinet with glass doors were as before. The pincushion embroidered with roses in its wicker basket was as before. The pair of single-stem vases in blue arabesque patterns they had purchased together at Mitsukoshi were as before.

Glancing around her, O-Nobu breathed in the aroma permeating everything of the virgin days she had spent here with Tsugiko. It was an aroma replete with saccharine reveries, and when those reveries had at last resolved themselves with Tsuda as their object, it was she who had danced jubilantly in front of feelings suddenly transformed into vivid flames. She who had assumed, because there was gas, even though it was invisible to her, that a flame had suddenly been lit. She who had concluded there was no need of discriminating in any way between the reverie and reality. Looking back, she saw that more than half a year had passed since that time. At some point it had begun to appear that reverie would, after all, stop at reverie. That reverie, no matter how far it went, was not to be realized. Or at best, that making it come true would prove exceedingly difficult. O-Nobu sighed faintly to herself.

Am I moving away little by little from my tangible self as though it were a pale dream from the past?

With these thoughts in mind, she looked at her cousin seated in front of her. This maiden’s destiny, which would take her down the same path she herself had followed or possibly bring her to a future even more contrary to expectations than her own, would be decided, in a matter of days, by the fall of the dice her uncle held in his hand.

O-Nobu smiled.

“Tsugiko-san, let me draw a lot for you today.”

“Why?

“No special reason. Just let me.”

“But there has to be a goal or it’s meaningless.”

“There does? Let’s choose one then — what would be good?”

“What would be good, how should I know? You have to choose for me.”

Tsugiko couldn’t bring herself to mention marriage. She even appeared troubled that O-Nobu might blurt it out. It was also perfectly clear that she wanted the subject indirectly broached. O-Nobu wanted to make her cousin happy. At the same time, she was unwilling to accept responsibility for something that might become a nuisance afterward.

“How about if I draw and you decide your own question? There has to be something in your heart you want most to know about — make it that, on your own, whatever you want it to be. Do you agree?”

O-Nobu reached for the gift she and Tsuda had bought her, in its usual place on top of Tsugiko’s desk. But Tsugiko moved quickly, gripping her hand.

“Don’t!”

O-Nobu couldn’t withdraw her hand.

“Why not? Let me try. I’ll draw one that will please you.”

O-Nobu, who was emotionally indifferent to the tallies, was possessed abruptly by a desire to play with Tsugiko. The impulse was like an intermediary, helping her recall her maidenly self in the days before her marriage. Employing the strength of her arm to take advantage of another’s weakness vitalized her in a manly way. Having wrested her hand from Tsugiko’s grip, she had already forgotten her original objective. She wanted only to seize the little box of tallies from her cousin’s desk. Or she wanted that merely as a pretext for vying with Tsugiko. They vied. Allowing themselves without embarrassment to cry out in the affected voices that seem to emerge instinctively from women, they lost themselves in playful battle. Finally they managed to upend one of the precious vases on display in front of the writing box. Tumbling offits rosewood stand, the vase fell to the tatami, spilling water as it rolled. The cousins finally released each other. Together in silence they observed the charming vase that had been suddenly dislodged from its natural place. Turning to face each other, as though suddenly gripped by an irresistible impulse, they laughed aloud in unison.

THIS UNEXPECTED tussle drew O-Nobu even closer to her childhood. For an instant a freedom she had never felt in Tsuda’s presence revived in her. She had completely forgotten herself in the present.

“Tsugiko-san, you’d better get a rag.”

“Why me? You spilled it, you should clean it up.”

Together they played at mutual concession and more butting of heads.

“Then paper, rock, scissors,” O-Nobu said abruptly, clenching her slender hand into a fist and thrusting it at Tsugiko. Tsugiko complied at once. The jeweled ring on a finger glinted between them. Each round, they laughed.

“That’s sneaky.” “That’s cheating.”

“You’re sneaky!” “You’re cheating.”

By the time O-Nobu finally lost, the spilled water had been neatly absorbed by the desk cover and the weave in the tatami. Calm and composed again, she took a handkerchief from her sleeve and blotted the wet spots.

“We don’t need a rag, this will do perfectly well. It’s not even wet.”

Returning the tipped vase to its original position, she carefully rearranged the disarrayed flowers. Then she settled herself as if she had forgotten completely the ruckus a minute earlier. Appearing to find this unbearably amusing, Tsugiko couldn’t contain her laughter.

When she had contained her laughing jag, Tsugiko removed the box of tallies in its paper cover from her obi where she had hidden it and put it away in the drawer in the bookshelf beside her. As she locked the drawer with a click, she looked pointedly at O-Nobu.

But this interest in meaningless play that Tsugiko appeared able to sustain endlessly couldn’t hold O-Nobu’s attention for long. Having forgotten herself briefly, she sobered more quickly than her cousin.

“How wonderful to be so carefree all the time!”

O-Nobu returned Tsugiko’s gaze. Her harmless remark was lost on her cousin.

“And you’re not?”

“As if you’re not as carefree as anyone,” she might have been saying; and her emphasis seemed to convey an accumulated resentment at being treated by everyone like a young lady who understood nothing of the real world.

“Whatever in the world is so different about you and me?”

Their ages were different. Their personalities were different. But where inside themselves and in what way they differed with regard to being in consideration of others and feeling constrained was a question Tsugiko had yet to consider.

“What sorts of things do you worry about, Nobuko-san? Tell me.”

“I have no worries.”

“That’s what I thought. So you’re as carefree as I am.”

“Perhaps you could say I was carefree — but in a different way from you.”

“What makes you say that?”

O-Nobu could hardly explain. Nor did she feel like explaining.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“But we’re only three years apart — just three.”

Tsugiko hadn’t taken into account the difference marriage made.

“It’s not only about age. There are changes in status. When a girl becomes someone’s wife, or when a wife loses her husband and becomes a widow—”

Tsugiko looked doubtful.

“Did you feel less burdened when you were here with us or now that you’re with Yoshio-san?”

“I really couldn’t—”

O-Nobu faltered. Tsugiko didn’t give her a chance to prepare a reply.

“It’s easier now, isn’t it? I thought so.”

O-Nobu felt obliged to respond.

“It isn’t that simple.”

“But he’s the man you wanted, isn’t he? Tsuda-san?”

“He is — so I’m happy.”

“Happy but not carefree?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m not carefree—”

“So you’re carefree but you worry about things?”

“I don’t know what to say when you grill me that way.”

“I don’t mean to grill you, but I don’t understand so I can’t help it.”

AS THE grade of the conversation gradually steepened, it had turned back at some point toward the question of Tsugiko’s marriage. Though O-Nobu wished to skirt the subject if she could, in view of what had passed between them so far she felt an obligation that made avoidance impossible. Even if she couldn’t express the sort of prediction an inexperienced young lady might like to hear, as a slightly older woman who knew more about relations between men and women than her cousin, she wasn’t beyond wanting to extend her the kindness of a relatively emphatic warning. And so she made her way over treacherous ground gingerly and by harmless indirection.

“I don’t know what I can say. Tsuda was a personal matter and I understood myself. But when someone else is involved, it’s like a foreign country to me, I have no idea.”

“Must you tiptoe around?”

“I’m not tiptoeing.”

“But you sound so uninvolved, you sound cold.”

O-Nobu paused a moment before replying.

“Tsugiko-san. There’s something you may not know: a woman’s eyes see clearly for the first time when she encounters the person whose destiny is closest to her own. That’s the moment, the only moment when her eyes accomplish more than ten years of seeing in just one second. And moments like that come very rarely. You might live your whole life and die without ever having one. And so my eyes might as well be blind. At other times—”

“But Nobuko-san, you have such clear eyes, why won’t you use them to see for me?”

“It’s not that I won’t, I can’t!”

“But don’t they say the onlooker sees the go stones more clearly than the players do? You were on the sidelines; you should have been able to see way more impartially than I could.”

“You intend to decide the course of your life based on someone else’s vision?”

“Of course not, but it’d be something to refer to — especially from the person I trust most of all.”

O-Nobu was silent again for a moment. When she began again she was more serious.

“I told you a minute ago I was happy—”

“Yes?”

“You know why I’m happy?”

O-Nobu came to a full stop. Then, before Tsugiko could speak, she subjoined, “There’s only one reason. Because I chose my husband with my own eyes. Because I didn’t rely on an observer watching the game. Do you understand?”

Tsugiko looked forlorn.

“So there’s no chance for someone like me to be happy—”

O-Nobu had to say something. But nothing came to her. Finally, all at once, in a voice that sounded suddenly excited, she spoke in a rush of words.

“There is. There is. Just love someone! And make him love you! If you can just do that, you’ll have more prospects for being happy than you can imagine!”

Vividly etched in her mind as she spoke was an image of Tsuda and no one else. Though she was speaking to Tsugiko, scarcely the shadow of an image of Miyoshi came to mind. Tsugiko, who fortunately had interpreted O-Nobu’s remarks as solely for her own benefit, was not sufficiently stirred to take her exalted mood seriously.

“But who?” she said, looking at O-Nobu as though slightly dismayed. “That gentleman we met last night?”

“It doesn’t matter who. Just love the person you’ve decided is the one for you. And make him love you no matter what.”

The cutting edge of O-Nobu’s pertinacity, normally hidden away, gradually revealed itself. Gentle Tsugiko stepped back a little each time it emerged until, becoming aware of a distance between them not easily bridged, she breathed a quiet sigh.

“Are you doubting what I say? It’s true. I’m not fibbing, it’s true. I’m truly happy, do you understand?”

Having compelled Tsugiko to affirm what she said, O-Nobu continued, as if speaking to herself.

“It’s the same for everyone. A person may not be happy now, but all it takes is her intention and there will be happiness in her future. She will be happy. She will be happy and show everyone. Do you see, Tsugiko, do you agree?”

Failing to understand what O-Nobu was thinking, Tsugiko could only consider vaguely that this prediction was intended to apply to her. But it made little sense no matter how hard she thought about it.

JUST THEN the footsteps that had rapidly approached down the hall stopped and the door was thrown open. Home from school, Yuriko barged into the room. Removing the bag hanging heavily from her shoulder and depositing it on her own desk, she spoke only a formulaic word of greeting to her elder sister. “I’m back.”

Her desk was installed in the corner just to the right of where O-Nobu once had sat. Yuriko had been allowed to move in to the room the minute O-Nobu had left to join Tsuda, and she had been far from unhappy about her cousin’s departure. Knowing how she felt, O-Nobu was careful to say something.

“Yuriko-san, here I am again — I hope you don’t mind?”

Yuriko didn’t even say “Welcome.” Lowering her right leg to the tatami from the edge of her desk, where she had rested it as she rubbed her big toe encased in black tabi-socks that appeared to be in need of darning, she replied.

“I don’t mind you being here — as long as your husband hasn’t kicked you out.”

“What a thing to say.” O-Nobu laughed as she spoke and, after a pause, resumed.

“Yuriko-san, if I had been kicked out by Tsuda, I assume you’d feel at least a little sorry for me?”

“Umm, I guess so—”

“And if that happened, I could stay in this room again?”

“I suppose—”

Yuriko appeared to be considering.

“You could stay as long as Sister had left to be married.”

“I mean before Tsugiko-san gets married.”

“You’ll be kicked out before that? That would be — I hope you’d put up with whatever you’d have to not to be — I mean, I’m living here, too.”

Yuriko joined the two older girls in laughter. Without removing her hakama, she moved to the brazier and, sitting down between them, began at once to eat the rice cookies on the wooden tray the maid had brought in.

“Snack time so late? This tray brings back memories.”

O-Nobu recalled the days when she was about Yuriko’s age. She remembered vividly coming home from school and reaching for the eagerly awaited tray. Tsugiko, watching with a smile as her little sister gobbled the cookies, seemed to be recalling the same past.

“Do you do have snack time at home even now?”

“Sometimes — it’s a bother to shop for snacks, but even when we happen to have something at home, it doesn’t taste the way it used to; it’s not as yummy anymore.”

“Because you don’t get enough exercise.”

While they were talking, Yuriko had emptied the tray. Finished, she broke into their conversation as incongruously as bamboo grafted to a tree.

“It’s true — Sister will be going to wife any day.”

“She will? Where?”

“I don’t know, but somewhere.”

“Really? What’s the husband’s name?”

“I don’t know his name, but she’ll be going.”

Patiently, O-Nobu framed a third question.

“What will he be like?”

Yuriko replied insouciantly.

“Probably like Yoshio-san. Because Sister adores Yoshio-san. She says he’s a wonderful person who does whatever Nobuko-san wants.”

Tsugiko flushed and lunged at her sister. Shrieking, Yuriko leaped away.

“Uh-oh, the truth is out.”

Pausing briefly at the entrance to comment, she ran from the room, leaving O-Nobu and her sister behind.

SHORTLY THE maid conveyed to O-Nobu an invitation to stay for dinner, and she left her seat together with Tsugiko once again. The cheerful faces of the entire household were assembled in the bright room. Even Hajime, who had been sulking about something under the engawa and had had to be coaxed out, was engaged in a good-natured conversation with his father. Yuriko had already come in to report that her younger brother had opened his mouth wide and snapped at a rice cookie dangled from above in front of his nose “just like a dog.” Smiling, O-Nobu tuned in to the rambling of her canine cousin.

“When Mercury appears in the sky something bad happens, right, Father?”

“People thought so a long time ago. But now that science has advanced, nobody thinks that anymore.”

“How about in the West?”

O-Nobu’s uncle appeared not to know whether the same superstition had prevailed in Western antiquity.

“In the West? Never in the West.”

“But don’t they say that Mercury came out before Caesar died?”

“You mean before Caesar was murdered—” It appeared that Uncle’s only choice was to camouflage his ignorance.

“You’re talking about the Roman Empire — that’s a different story from the West.”

Persuaded, Hajime lapsed into silence. But he posed another question almost at once. This one, quirkier than the first, he presented as a splendid syllogism. A hole in the ground called a well filled with water; the ground must therefore be on top of water; ergo the ground should sink. Why didn’t it? Uncle’s response was such confabulated nonsense that everyone was amused.

“There’s no way it will sink.”

“But if it’s on top of water it has to.”

“It doesn’t work out that neatly.”

The women burst into laughter, and Hajime swiftly shifted to his third subject.

“Father, I wish our house was a battleship. How about you?”

“Your dad prefers a plain old house to a battleship.”

“But in an earthquake a house would be crushed.”

“But an earthquake wouldn’t disturb a battleship, is that it? I never thought about that. Well done.”

O-Nobu observed with a smile the genuine admiration on her uncle’s face. His earlier suggestion that Fujii should be invited for dinner seemed to have slipped his mind. Her aunt appeared oblivious, as if she had also forgotten. O-Nobu found herself wanting to question Hajime.

“Hajime-san, Makoto is your classmate, right?”

Hajime grunted affirmatively and proceeded to satisfy O-Nobu’s curiosity. His account, which could only have been delivered by a child, abounded in observations, interpretation, and facts. For a while the power of his narrative enlivened the table.

Among the episodes that had everyone laughing was something like the following.

One day on their way home from school, Hajime and Makoto had peered into a deep hole. Dug by the department of public works smack in the middle of the road, the hole was bridged by a cedar plank. Hajime offered Makoto 100 yen if he walked across the plank. Whereupon the reckless Makoto, exacting a promise, had started across the narrow, slippery-looking plank in those same shoes of shaggy dog hair, his knapsack on his back. At first it looked to Hajime as if his friend would fall, but as he watched him slowly approach the opposite side, step after careful step, he began to worry. Abandoning his companion teetering above the deep hole, he ran. Makoto, who was obliged to keep his eyes on his feet, had no idea until he was all the way across that Hajime had disappeared. When he had accomplished his feat and at last raised his eyes, thinking to receive his 100 yen, his friend was nowhere in sight, so the story went.

“It appears that Hajime outsmarted his friend in this case,” Uncle observed.

“It appears that Fujii-san hasn’t been over to play much recently,” said Auntie.

BEYOND THE fact that the children were classmates, O-Nobu’s presence in the picture added a distinctive coloring to the recent interaction between the two families. The prospect of having to gather in the future willy-nilly at auspicious and inauspicious moments required both sides, to the extent that circumstances permitted, to arrange opportunities to socialize on a regular basis. Okamoto, who represented the bride’s in terests, was, even more than Fujii, in a position that placed him under this obligation. Furthermore, Uncle Okamoto was possessed of a kind of tactfulness that is often found in successful people. He was also inherently optimistic and generous. But he was a nervous man and feared misunderstandings. He was particularly afraid of being seen as arrogant, a quality people relatively less fortunate were prone to impute mistakenly to those leading lives of ease. Recently, having taken a step back to a somewhat quiet place, an attempt to restore his health after long years of too much work and study, he also enjoyed an abundance of free time and took pleasure in filling the emptiness of his leisure hours with a mosaic of things that accorded with his tastes. This included developing an interest in gradually approaching people he had neglected until now as having no connection to himself.

This tangle of reasons prompted him from time to time to set out for Fujii’s house. Fujii, who appeared to be reclusive, made no effort to repay Okamoto’s visits formally, but neither did he seem displeased by the intrusion. On the contrary, the men took pleasure in their conversations. And while they never managed to reveal themselves to each other in any depth, they found it interesting to exchange glimpses of their respective worlds. These worlds were oddly incongruent. Something that appeared coarse and slapdash to one seemed highly refined to the other; vulgarity from one point of view was of practical interest from the other, and in the space created by the disparity between them, unexpected discoveries abruptly emerged.

“I suppose you’d call him a critic, a fellow like that. But I don’t see what kind of work he could do.”

O-Nobu wasn’t sure what her uncle meant by a critic. Someone who was useless in any practical way, she supposed, obliged to pull the wool over people’s eyes by saying things that sounded momentous.

A man with no occupation who simply plays with logic — what use would society have for such a person? Isn’t it to be expected that a man like that would be in trouble because he was unable to earn a respectable living?

Unable to advance beyond this, O-Nobu smiled at her uncle.

“Have you been to Fujii-san’s recently?”

“I stopped off on my way back from a walk the other day. That house is in a perfect spot to stop when I’m feeling tired and need a rest.”

“Did he have interesting things to say again?”

“He has odd thoughts as always, that one. Last time we talked all about men attracting women and women attracting men.”

“Goodness!”

“Such nonsense, at his age!”

O-Nobu and her aunt expressed their respective dismay, and Tsugiko looked away.

“It’s a funny thing. You have to admire him for considering things as carefully as he does. According to the sensei, in every household the male child will inevitably desire the mother and the female child will desire the father. And when you think about it, of course he’s right.”

O-Nobu, who preferred her uncle in-law to her real aunt, turned a little serious.

“And what about it?”

“It goes like this: if men and women aren’t constantly attracting one another, they can’t become complete people. In other words, there’s an inadequate place inside each of us that we can’t complement on our own.”

O-Nobu’s interest quickly waned. Her uncle’s observation was no more than a fact she had known for a long time.

“That’s just the male-female principle. Opposites attract.”

“Yes, the attraction part is essential, but what’s interesting is that the opposite is essential too — discord instead of harmony.”

“Why?”

“It’s like this: the male and the female are attracted because they have their respective differences. As I said—”

“And?”

“Well, the different part isn’t you. It’s something different from yourself.”

“I don’t—”

“Follow along. If it’s different from yourself, there’s no way you can come together with it. All you can do, forever and ever, is remain apart. It’s clear as day.”

Her uncle cackled as though he had vanquished O-Nobu. O-Nobu refused to cry uncle.

“That’s just theoretical.”

“Of course it is. It’s logic that will hold up splendidly no matter how you look at it.”

“It isn’t. It’s zany. It’s just the kind of false logic that Uncle Fujii throws around.”

O-Nobu was unable to talk her uncle down. But she couldn’t bring herself to believe in what he was saying. No matter what, she didn’t want to believe.

UNCLE OKAMOTO ran on about a variety of things that happened to interest him.

As a man achieves enlightenment encountering a woman, so a woman achieves enlightenment encountering a man. But this is a truth limited to pious Buddhists before marriage. The minute the principals enter into a relationship as a couple, the truth turns in its sleep and presents us with a different face, its diametrical opposite. To wit, a man cannot achieve enlightenment without separating from his woman and vice versa. The power of attraction that has obtained until now instantly transforms into a repellant force. From that moment on, we are obliged to acknowledge the truth of the old saw: a man belongs, when all is said and done, in the company of men, a woman, in the company of other women. In other words, the male-female principle, the state of harmony that exists between them, is merely a step on the road to realizing the principle of male-female disharmony that is imminently on its way….

O-Nobu wasn’t sure whether these were original thoughts or a repackaging of Fujii, nor could she be certain what portion was intended seriously and what was in jest. Her uncle, who was useless with a pen, was terrifyingly agile when it came to talking. He was the sort of man who could dress up a simple thought with hand-sewn kimonos beyond counting. Wisdom packaged as proverbs rolled off his tongue ceaselessly. Objections from O-Nobu only added fat to the fire, feeding his fluency until there was no stopping it. In the end she was obliged to cut short the conversation.

“You’re so long-winded, Uncle.”

“You’ll never best him with talk, so you might as well just give it up. If you say something he gets pushier.”

“I know — he’s trying to brew some male-female discord.”

Uncle Okamoto observed O-Nobu and her aunt with a grin as they exchanged their critiques, waiting for a break in their dialogue to pronounce sentence.

“It appears you’ve finally surrendered. And I accept your surrender, I don’t pursue the defeated — because one of a man’s virtues is pity for the weak. Even a man like me.”

Assuming the well-satisfied look of the victor, he rose, slid open the shoji, and stepped outside; decisive footsteps in the direction of the study gradually receded. When he returned a minute later he was holding four or five slender volumes.

“O-Nobu. I’ve brought you something amusing. Give these to Yoshio-san the next time you visit the hospital.”

“What are they?”

O-Nobu took the books at once and looked at the covers. Inexperienced with foreign languages, she had difficulty deciphering the English titles. She read them haltingly, one word at a time: “Book of Jokes. English Wit and Humor…”

“Gracious!”

“They’re all funny. Puns and riddles and suchlike. And they’re the right size for reading in bed; they won’t give him a stiff neck.”

“Made to order for you, Uncle—”

“Maybe so, but it’s harmless, nothing to make Yoshio-san angry no matter what a stick-in-the-mud he is.”

“Of course he won’t be angry.”

“Anyway, this is in the interest of couple harmony. Take it to him and give it a try.”

O-Nobu thanked her uncle, and when she put the books in her lap, he held out to her the slip of paper in his other hand.

“This is reparation for making you cry before. I promised, so please take it along.”

O-Nobu knew what the paper was before she had received it from her uncle’s hand. He waved it pointedly in front of her face.

“When you’re experiencing discord with your mate, this is absolutely the best medicine. In most cases one dose of this and you’ll recover at once — it’s a miraculous cure.”

Looking up at her uncle, O-Nobu protested weakly.

“We’re not suffering discord. We’re truly in harmony.”

“So much the better. If you take this when you’re united, it will make your hearts even healthier. Your bodies, too, more robust. With this wonder drug you can’t lose either way.”

O-Nobu took the check from her uncle’s hand, and, as she peered at it, tears filled her eyes.

O-NOBU DECLINED the rickshaw her uncle offered to call for her. But she was unable to reject his offer to see her to the trolley stop. Presently they descended together down the long hill to the river’s edge.

“This sort of exercise is the best thing for my condition — I guess I can damn well walk if I please.”

The remark suggested that he had forgotten, fat as he was and easily winded, the almost ludicrous degree to which he would suffer when he had to climb back up the hill.

Along the way they discussed their late evening the night before. In passing, O-Nobu mentioned finding O-Toki slumped over the table fast asleep. Since the maid had been in the Okamoto house before moving in with the new couple, O-Nobu’s uncle couldn’t escape a feeling of responsibility as her guarantor.

“Your aunt knows her well; she’s a good, honest woman. Otherwise we wouldn’t have assured you she could stay alone in the house. Even so, falling asleep is irresponsible. Of course, she’s young and probably sleepy most of the time.”

Listening to her uncle express his sympathy, O-Nobu, who well knew that if it had been her, no matter how young she was, she would never have been able to fall asleep in a similar situation, merely smiled. In her view, her principal reason for going home this early was a desire to avoid repeating the consequences of her late return the night before.

She boarded the trolley hurriedly as it pulled up. From inside she turned to her uncle and said “Sayonara.”

“Sayonara,” her uncle replied, “our best to Yoshio-san.”

No sooner had they exchanged parting words than O-Nobu was isolated inside the noise and motion of the trolley.

She let her mind wander. The faces and figures of the participants from the night before took their places, one on the heels of another, and rotated past her mind’s eye with the speed of the trolley she was riding. Even so, she was sensible of something connecting the images in the dizzying display. Possibly that certain something underlay and was generating the whirling images. She was compelled to derive its meaning somehow. But her efforts were in vain. She perceived a series of things, a cluster like dumplings, but she had alighted from the trolley without having resolved the nature of the logic holding them together.

The rattling of the lattice door being opened brought O-Toki running from the direction of the kitchen, and, as O-Nobu expected, she bid her mistress “welcome home” and pressed her head politely to the tatami. O-Nobu felt that she was responsible for this dramatically changed behavior.

“Tonight at least I’m home early.”

It appeared the maid didn’t think so. Seeing the self-satisfied look on O-Nobu’s face, she agreed unconvincingly, “Yes—” prompting O-Nobu to a small conciliation.

“I intended to be even earlier, but the day just flies away.”

Bidding O-Toki fold the kimono she had thrown off, she inquired whether anything unusual had come up during her absence.

“Not really,” O-Toki replied.

Just to be sure, O-Nobu reframed the question.

“I suppose no one stopped by?”

O-Toki’s reply was taut, as if she had abruptly recalled something.

“There was someone, yes. A gentleman named Kobayashi-san.”

This was not the first time O-Nobu had heard the name mentioned as one of Tsuda’s friends. She could remember having spoken to him two or three times. But she wasn’t fond of him. And she understood that her husband had little respect for him.

“What was he doing here?” she almost blurted, rudely enough, and then, restraining herself, inquired of O-Toki in a more appropriate tone, “Was there something he needed perhaps?”

“Yes Missus, he came to get that overcoat—”

O-Nobu, who had heard nothing from her husband, made no sense of this.

“Overcoat? What overcoat?”

In her meticulous way, O-Nobu posed O-Toki a variety of questions in an attempt to comprehend what Kobayashi had intended. But she got nowhere. Repeated questions and answers only led them deeper into a labyrinth. When they finally realized it was Kobayashi who was the odd one, not the two of them, they laughed aloud together. An English word Tsuda used often, “nonsense,” surfaced in O-Nobu’s memory. “Kobayashi and ‘nonsense’”—the combination struck O-Nobu as hilarious. Releasing herself without reserve to the comedy that rose in her like a spasm, O-Nobu forgot for the time being the nagging task she had brought home with her from the trolley.

THAT EVENING O-Nobu wrote a letter to her parents in Kyoto. Having begun and left off the day before yesterday and again yesterday, she had resolved that it must be completed today no matter what, a resolution by no means exclusively in consideration of her parents.

She was unable to settle down. In her attempt to flee uneasiness, she required something on which to focus all her attention. She was also urgently in search of a conclusion to the lingering question she had been carrying with her. In sum, she had the feeling that writing a letter to Kyoto would enable her to collect the tangled thoughts that were buzzing in her brain.

Taking up her brush, she began with the usual comments on the season, proceeded to a mechanical apology for having been out of touch, and paused for a while to think. Inasmuch as she was writing to Kyoto, she was obliged to center her letter around news of herself and Tsuda. This was the news every parent wished to hear from a newly married daughter. It was at the same time the topic that every young woman was required to address in a letter to her mother and father back home. O-Nobu, who believed there was no point in writing a letter home without including such news, was obliged to consider, brush in hand, the state of her relationship to Tsuda at the current moment, how far it had progressed. It wasn’t that she felt oppressed by a necessity to report things to her mother and father exactly as they were. But as a married woman she was sensible of an urgent need to scrutinize and confirm her situation. She descended into deep deliberation. Her brush was stilled in her hand. She had to think, forgetting about even her poised brush. The harder she thought, the farther removed she felt from grasping anything substantial.

Until she took up the brush, she had been distressed by a nettling, random uneasiness. Having begun to write, she had finally landed. Now she was beginning to feel distressed by uneasiness about the place where she had come to ground. On the trolley she had divined that the images flickering across her brain converged here, in this place — she had at last arrived at the wellspring of the anxiety that was tormenting her. But she was unable to apprehend its actual form and substance. Consequently she would have to carry the riddle forward into the future.

If I can’t solve it today, I’ll have to solve it tomorrow. If I can’t resolve it tomorrow, it will have to wait until the day after. If not the day after…

This was her logic. This was her hope. It was this she was ultimately resolved to achieve. She had already proclaimed her determination in front of Tsugiko.

It doesn’t matter who he is, you must love the man you’ve chosen for yourself with all your heart and soul, and by loving him you must make him love you every bit as deeply no matter what.

Yet again she swore to herself to go to this length. She commanded her own will to settle for nothing less.

Her mood brightened a little. She began writing again. Unabashedly she assembled sentences into a picture of herself and Tsuda designed to afford her parents as much pleasure as she could manage. From one touch to the next she conveyed the flavor of the two of them living their life together as though happily. She marveled at the buoyancy of her brush as it danced brightly across the paper. A long letter composed itself in a single breath. She had no idea how to measure the length in time of this effortless effort.

When she had finished and put the brush down, she read over what she had written. Because the same mood that had governed her hand now governed her eye, she found nothing that seemed to require revision. Even the Chinese characters she had trouble with that would normally send her to the dictionary seemed perfect as they were. With just two or three corrections of mistaken particles that obscured the meaning of a sentence, she rolled the letter up. Then, in her heart, she put her parents on notice.

Everything I have written in this letter is true. I haven’t lied, or exaggerated, or gone out of my way to put your minds at ease. If anyone doubts this, I shall detest him, disdain him, spit in his face. Because I know the truth better than he. I have described the truth beyond the superficial facts on the surface. A truth that is understood only by me. But this is a truth that will have to be understood by everyone in the future. I am not deceiving you in any way. If there is anyone who will say that I have written a deceptive letter to put you at ease, that person is blind though his eyes be open. That person is the liar. I beg you to trust the writer of this letter to you. Surely god trusts me already.

O-Nobu placed the letter next to her pillow and went to bed.

SHE RECALLED the moment when she met Tsuda for the first time in Kyoto. She had been home for a long-overdue visit with her parents for two or three days when her father had sent her on an errand. She had been obliged to take a sealed letter and a Chinese book in its cloth case to the Tsuda residence eight blocks or so away. She had learned for the first time directly from her father that he had been in and out of bed with a mild case of nerve pain, and that he had from time to time been borrowing books from Tsuda’s father to divert him in his hours of idleness. The errand was returning one volume and bringing home another. Standing at the front of the house, she called inside to announce herself. A large screen was standing open just inside the entrance. As she was gazing curiously at the strange characters that appeared to be dancing on the white parchment, the person who emerged from behind the screen to greet her was neither a maid nor a student houseboy but Tsuda Yoshio himself, in Kyoto at just that time on a visit to his own parents.

Until this moment, they hadn’t met. O-Nobu knew about Yoshio only what she had heard from her father that morning, that he had recently returned and was currently at home. Even this much she had chanced to learn only because her father had decided to borrow another book, written a letter to that effect, and, in passing, had mentioned his friend’s son.

Yoshio had taken from O-Nobu the Chinese book in its case and, for some reason, had studied at length the title, inscribed in imposing calligraphy, A New Anthology of Ming Dynasty Poetry. His prolonged scrutiny of the book obliged O-Nobu to observe him the while. When he lifted his eyes abruptly, it was at once apparent that O-Nobu had been gazing at him intently. O-Nobu would have explained that, having placed her in the position of awaiting his reply, he had left her no choice. “Unfortunately my father isn’t at home just now,” he said, looking up. O-Nobu turned to leave. But he bid her wait and, while she looked on, without a word of explanation or apology, opened the letter addressed to his father. This unhesitating action also attracted O-Nobu’s attention. His behavior was improper. But it was also unmistakably decisive. O-Nobu felt disinclined to characterize him as unmannerly or reckless.

With a glance at the letter, Yoshio had asked O-Nobu to wait at the entrance and had withdrawn to look for the requested book. In just ten minutes he was back and apologized for having detained her to no purpose. The designated volume was not to be found, but as soon as his father returned he would make sure it was delivered. O-Nobu declined to impose to that extent. Promising to come back for it the following day, she went home.

That afternoon, Yoshio had appeared with the book in hand. Quite by chance it was O-Nobu who had gone to the entrance to see who was calling. Once again they came face to face. And this time they took notice of each other at once. The volume in Yoshio’s hand was roughly three times thicker than the one O-Nobu had returned that morning. He had wrapped it in a batik shawl for carrying, and as he lifted it, swinging from his arm, he might have been showing her a bird cage.

Accepting an invitation to come in, he had stepped up to the tatami parlor and spoken with O-Nobu’s father. To O-Nobu it appeared that he engaged effortlessly in a rambling conversation suitable for elders and of no possible consequence or interest to young people, bantering about random subjects of particular interest to her father as if it were no trouble at all. He knew nothing about the book he had brought and even less about the one O-Nobu had returned. He confessed he was unable to read the complex characters in many strokes that filled page after page, but with the four block characters in the title as a guide, Poems of Mei-Cun Wu, he had searched the bookshelves high and low. O-Nobu’s father had thanked him profusely for going to the trouble….

An image of Tsuda in those days flickered in O-Nobu’s mind. He was the same person as now. And yet he wasn’t. Speaking plainly, the same Tsuda had changed. The man who had appeared indifferent in the beginning had gradually been drawn closer to her. She wondered if now he might not gradually move apart. The doubt very nearly constituted her reality. To dispel the doubt she would have to overturn the reality.

WHEN SHE awoke the next morning, spineless was the farthest thing from what she was feeling; her entire body was bursting with the force of her determination She sprang out of bed. As she threw off the bedding, she felt the strength in her own arms. The impact of the morning chill on her flexed muscles made her body contract.

She opened the rain shutters one after the other by herself. Outside, it appeared to be much earlier than usual. It made her somehow happy that, in contrast to yesterday, she was up this morning if anything earlier than when Tsuda was here. A portion of her satisfaction was this compensation for having lolled about in bed yesterday.

When she had folded away her bedding and swept the tatami floor, she sat down in front of the mirror. She loosened her hair, which had been up for nearly four days. Running her comb twice or thrice through the greasy strands, which had stiffened, she forced them back into buns on either side of her head in the style favored by school girls. Not until she was finished did she go downstairs and wake the maid.

Waiting for breakfast to be ready, they did housework together; when O-Nobu sat down at her tray O-Toki, who knew nothing, seemed surprised that O-Nobu was awake at this hour. She also appeared to be feeling apologetic about having risen later than her mistress.

“I’m going to look in on my husband today.”

“So early?”

“I didn’t go yesterday, so I think I’ll leave a bit early today.” O-Nobu’s speech was politer than usual, well formed. It revealed a certain calmness. And an eagerness churned her calmness. The resolve accompanying her eagerness was also discernible in the background. Her state of mind was revealing itself in her comportment.

Even so, she made no effort to depart at once. When O-Toki came in with the breakfast tray, the cord that held up her kimono sleeves loosened, they chatted for a while about the Okamotos. This household, where O-Toki had begun her service, was a subject of keen interest to both of them, and they discussed the family often, to the point of repeating themselves. Particularly in Tsuda’s absence. When he was present, this had led on occasion to an uncomfortable situation in which he felt excluded. Having experienced once or twice an awkwardness that she quickly perceived was due to an imprudent turn in the conversation, O-Nobu, who desired to avoid the unpleasantness of being seen by her husband as a woman who enjoyed boasting about her affluent relatives, had previously cautioned O-Toki about the need for care in this matter.

“Has anything been decided about young miss?”

“There’s some talk but nothing definite—”

“It would be so wonderful if she could find someone suitable.”

“It won’t be long now. My uncle is impatient. Besides, unlike me, Tsugiko is so good-looking.”

O-Toki began to say something. Because flattery from her maid was painful, O-Nobu quickly resumed.

“If a woman isn’t attractive, she’s at a terrible disadvantage. No matter how clever she is, or how attentive, if she isn’t good-looking, men simply won’t like her.”

“That’s not so.”

O-Toki’s emphatic denial, as though in self-defense, prompted O-Nobu to an asseveration.

“Oh yes it is. Men are like that!”

“Maybe at first, but as they get older things change.”

O-Nobu didn’t reply. But her self-confidence wasn’t all that fragile.

“Plain as I am, my only hope is being reborn, and that’s the truth.”

O-Toki looked at O-Nobu in dismay.

“If Missus is plain, what in the world would you call me?”

O-Toki’s protestation may have been intended as flattery, but it was also the truth. Satisfied by the degree of each, which she perfectly understood, O-Nobu rose.

As she was changing her kimono to go out, she heard footsteps approaching the gate and the bell at the entrance rang. When O-Toki went out to see who it was, a voice could be heard saying, “A moment with Mrs. T—”

Attempting to discern to whom the voice belonged, O-Nobu inclined her head.

O-TOKI BURST into the room in giggles, her sleeve to her mouth, scarcely able to get the name out. Standing in front of O-Nobu, she writhed in her struggle to choke back her hilarity. It took her considerable effort to say merely, “Kobayashi.”

O-Nobu had no idea how to handle this unexpected caller. In the middle of tying a thick obi, she was unable to go straight to the entrance. Nevertheless, it would be improper to keep him waiting there forever as if he were a bill collector. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, she arched her eyebrows in perplexity. In the end she had no choice but to have him shown in, advising him, however, through O-Toki that she was on her way out and had little time to spare. But when she went down to greet him, she saw that his face was not entirely unfamiliar and found herself unable to ask him to leave as soon as he had explained his visit. For his part, Kobayashi, whose natural-born ignorance of consideration or reserve was the equal of any man’s, appeared to have persuaded himself, though he knew that O-Nobu was pressed for time, that sitting there as long as he liked was not a problem so long as his companion betrayed no sign of impatience.

Kobayashi knew all about Tsuda’s illness. He explained that he had found employment and was on his way to Korea. As he described it, the position was of sufficient importance to allow for a hopeful future. He also spoke of being followed by a detective. Mentioning that this incident had occurred on the evening when he and Tsuda were returning from the Fujiis’, he observed the surprise on O-Nobu’s face as though amused. He appeared proud of having been followed by a detective. He went so far as to explain that he had likely been targeted as a socialist.

Portions of his story were shocking to a woman of faint heart. O-Nobu had heard none of this from Tsuda; listening tremulously, she was swept up and ended by squandering important time. Even so, if she continued listening compliantly, it appeared there would be no end to what he had to say. In the end she was left with no choice but to take the lead and prompt him in the direction of quickly bringing up the nature of his errand. Looking a little uncomfortable, he finally explained. It turned out to be about the overcoat O-Nobu and O-Toki had been cackling about the night before.

“Tsuda-kun promised to give it to me.”

What he had in mind was trying the coat on so that if it appeared to fit him badly he would have time to have it altered before he left the country.

O-Nobu was inclined to remove it from the bottom of a chest of drawers and hand it over straight away. But she had heard nothing of this from Tsuda.

“I don’t imagine he’ll be wearing it again—” O-Nobu hesitated, well aware it was in her husband’s temperament to be unexpectedly testy about this sort of thing. A scolding for carelessness on account of an outgrown overcoat would be mortifying.

“I’m sure it’s fine. He definitely said he’d give it to me. I wouldn’t lie about it.”

A refusal to hand the coat over would be making a liar of Kobayashi.

“I may have been blind drunk, but I knew what was going on. You won’t find me forgetting about something that’s coming to me.”

O-Nobu made up her mind.

“If you’ll just wait a minute. I’ll have the maid phone the hospital.”

“I didn’t realize you were so cautious,” Kobayashi said and laughed. But O-Nobu discovered in his face no sign of the displeasure she had secretly feared. Even so, she couldn’t help adding a word of justification as a precaution against giving offense.

“Just to be sure. I’d hate to receive a scolding afterward.”

O-Toki hurried off, and until she returned from the public telephone with Tsuda’s reply, they remained seated. Awaiting her return face to face, they chatted. When the conversation took an unexpected turn, glinting in the light of her surprise, O-Nobu’s heart began to pound.

“TSUDA-KUN SEEMS to have settled down lately. It’s all your influence, Mrs. T.”

The remark came out of the blue the minute O-Toki was out the door. In view of who the speaker was, O-Nobu felt her reply should be limited to something vague.

“You think so? It seems to me I have no influence at all.”

“How can you say that? He seems like a new person.”

O-Nobu’s impulse was to mock him for this hyperbole. But she was unable to descend from the plateau of her hauteur and fell pointedly silent instead. Kobayashi wasn’t the sort of person to register such a signal. He rambled on, unconcerned with order or sequence, gathering himself from time to time to bear down with rude directness.

“At the end of the day, no man is any match for his wife’s power. For a bachelor like me it’s beyond imagining, but there must be something there, I guess, that makes that so.”

Unable to repress herself longer, O-Nobu laughed.

“There are lots of mysterious things that someone in your shoes would never notice — between a man and his wife.”

“How about giving me an example?”

“What good would it do a single man to know anything about it?”

“For future reference.”

A clever light gleamed in O-Nobu’s small eyes.

“The best thing would be for you to find a wife for yourself.”

Kobayashi made a show of scratching his head.

“I might want to but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“If there are no takers how can there be anyone to find?”

“Good gracious, Japan has an excess of women. There are brides galore standing around on every corner, any kind you want.”

Having spoken, O-Nobu wondered if she had gone too far. But her companion was indifferent. His nerves, accustomed to stronger, more vitriolic language on a daily basis, had been numbed.

“No matter how many extra women there are, I’m poised to flee; no one would become a fugitive with me.”

The notion of fleeing evoked abruptly in O-Nobu’s mind the lyric journey of a man and woman heading away from the world toward double suicide at the end of a play. Picturing momentarily the Kabuki figures bewitchingly symbolizing a fervid love, O-Nobu looked across at Kobayashi, as utterly unrelated to such an image as he could be, sitting before her in hopes of acquiring someone else’s worn overcoat, and smiled.

“If you’re going to flee, why not go all the way and take someone along?”

“Who?”

“That goes without saying. A man must take his wife.”

“Is that so—”

As though he had been struck, Kobayashi stiffened. O-Nobu, who had not expected this reaction, was a little surprised. If anything she felt unexpectedly amused. Kobayashi, on the other hand, was serious. After a momentary pause, he spoke again, oddly, as though to himself.

“If there had been a good-hearted woman to accompany me all the way to Korea, even I might have ended up a regular human being instead of a twisted one. Truth is, it’s not only a wife I don’t have. I have nothing. No parents and no friends. In other words I have no world. You might even say, broadly speaking, that I’m not even human.”

O-Nobu had the feeling she was meeting a person like this for the first time in her life. She had never heard anyone say such things, and she had difficulty comprehending even their surface meaning. When it came to how she ought to handle her companion, she had no idea of a direction to take. Meanwhile Kobayashi was becoming more emotional.

“Mrs. T! All I have is one kid sister. And to me, who has nothing else, my sister is extremely precious. I couldn’t even say how many times more precious than she would be to an ordinary person. Even so I have to leave my sister here. She tends to want to tag along wherever I go. But I can’t possibly take her with me. Because it’s safer for us to be in separate places than together. There’s less danger of being murdered!”

O-Nobu felt unnerved. She had wanted O-Toki home again as soon as possible, but she hadn’t returned. Her only choice was to see if changing the subject might bring her some relief from this oppressiveness. She succeeded easily enough. And tumbled once again into an impossible situation.

THE EXTRAORDINARY trajectory of the conversation that followed was launched by O-Nobu.

“But I wonder if what you say is true?”

Predictably, Kobayashi surfaced from the melancholy in which he appeared to have been submerged until now. And he rejoined, as O-Nobu had hoped, with a question of his own.

“Whether what is? What I said just now?”

“No, not that—”

O-Nobu cleverly lured her companion down a byway.

“What you were saying before — that Tsuda has changed a lot recently.”

Kobayashi was obliged to return to where he had begun.

“I did say that. Because there’s no mistaking it.”

“He has changed so much?”

“Yes he has.”

O-Nobu examined Kobayashi’s face with dissatisfaction on her own. Kobayashi, looking very much as though he had some kind of evidence in hand, stared back. All the while they held each other’s eyes, the shadow of a faint smile played at the corners of his mouth. But in the end the shadow faded before it had the opportunity to bloom into a genuine smile. The steadiness of O-Nobu’s gaze made it clear that she was not about to be toyed with or mocked by the likes of Kobayashi.

“Mrs. T! You must have noticed something?”

It was Kobayashi’s turn to prompt. Unquestionably O-Nobu had noticed. But the change she had perceived in her husband was tending in precisely the opposite direction from the changes Kobayashi had in mind or at least was speaking of. It felt as if, in some unfocused way, it had been coming to light gradually since she and Tsuda had been together, a subtle transition that moved slowly through stages of color and texture that were difficult to distinguish. This was a change the essence of which would be incomprehensible to an observer peering in from the outside, no matter how sensitive he might be. And it was O-Nobu’s secret. An infinitesimal change in a person she loved as he readied himself to detach from her, or perhaps a change in feeling as he began at last to acknowledge the sad truth that he was already detached. And how should someone like Kobayashi know of this?

“I haven’t noticed anything. Is there something so different about the way he is?”

Kobayashi laughed aloud.

“The great pretender. I can’t believe it. I’m no match for you, Mrs. T.”

“You’re the one who’s pretending.”

“Fine, have it your way. In any event, I had no idea you were so gifted. Now I finally understand. It explains Tsuda changing the way he has. I thought it was strange.”

O-Nobu declined to engage. But neither did she betray distress in her face. She struggled to appear unruffled, amiable even. Kobayashi boldly advanced another step.

“The Fujiis are all surprised, too.”

“At what?”

At mention of Fujii, O-Nobu had immediately turned her small eyes on her companion. Knowing she was being lured into a trap, she was unable nevertheless not to respond with the question.

“At your skill. At the miraculous skill that allows you to you hold Tsuda in the palm of your hand and do with him as you wish.”

He was too blunt. But his bluntness appeared to be half playful. There was no amusement in O-Nobu’s reply.

“I see. Do I have such power? It never felt that way to me, but if Aunt and Uncle Fujii do me the honor of saying so, goodness, it must be true.”

“It is true. I can see it and so can anyone, because it’s really there.”

“You’re too kind.”

The words conveyed unmistakable derision and an echo of bitterness that appeared to be beyond anything Kobayashi was expecting. He spoke again at once as if to console her.

“I can imagine you’re not aware of your influence on Tsuda-kun because you didn’t know him before your marriage.”

“I certainly did know him before we were married.”

“But you didn’t know him before that.”

“Obviously not.”

“But I’ve known him all along.”

In this manner the conversation finally turned back to Tsuda’s past.

ACCESSING HER husband’s domain at a time when he was still unknown to her was hugely interesting to O-Nobu. She prepared eagerly to attend Kobayashi. But when he began to speak, his stories were inconclusive. And when they were heading toward something of importance, he abbreviated them. For example, he touched on a scene when the two of them had been stopped at a police checkpoint in the middle of the night but left blurred any account of where they might have been until that late hour. When O-Nobu inquired, he merely grinned at her knowingly. She couldn’t help wondering if this behavior might be calculated to irritate her.

O-Nobu had never taken Kobayashi seriously. Behind her contempt, based partly on the standard set by her husband’s evaluation and partly on a belief in her own intuition, was yet another determining factor she had never revealed to anyone. This was simply that Kobayashi was poor. That he had no social standing. In her eyes, editing a magazine with no readers could hardly be considered reputable employment. The Kobayashi she saw wandered aimlessly though life with the look of the outcast eternally on his face. As if in a panic, he lurched from place to place, whining like a vagrant and spewing abuse.

But this variety of contempt was always accompanied by a measure of suspicion. This was particularly so for a woman unaccustomed to this class of person, a young woman at that, with meager experience. In the event, this was how O-Nobu felt as she faced Kobayashi. It was by no means the case that she had never until now met people as poor as he. But the people who were in and out of Okamoto’s household knew their place; understanding that there were differences in rank and station, they dared to act only inside the sphere that was open to them. Never in her life had she had contact with a person as impudent as Kobayashi, who took such liberties, spoke with such self-importance though he had neither wealth nor position, vilified the upper class so vociferously — this was a first.

Abruptly something occurred to her.

Is it possible this fellow I’ve always considered a fool is actually a cunning scoundrel who can make a lot of trouble?

As the suspicion lurking behind her contempt stepped boldly forward, O-Nobu’s attitude abruptly changed. Whereupon Kobayashi, possibly as evidence that he had registered the change, and possibly in indifference, loudly guffawed.

“Mrs. T! There’s a lot more — things you’d like to know.”

“Is that so? I think I’ve heard enough for today. If you tell me everything at once I’ll have nothing to look forward to.”

“Maybe you’re right — shall we call it a day? If you have a fit because I’ve upset you, Tsuda-kun will hold me responsible.”

O-Nobu turned around. Behind her was a wall. She made a show of straining to hear evidence of O-Toki coming from that direction. But the kitchen, just beyond the sitting room, was quiet as before. O-Toki, who should have been back long ago, had not returned.

“Where could she be?”

“She’ll be back. She’s not about to get lost, so you needn’t worry.”

Kobayashi didn’t budge. With no other choice, O-Nobu used the empty teapot as an excuse to rise, but even here he intervened.

“Mrs. T! Since we have time I can continue where I left off; there’s plenty more to say. With a ne’er-do-well like me, talk is just as cheap as silence for killing time, so you don’t have to stand on ceremony. What do you say? I think there are plenty of things Tsuda-kun has kept from you in the name of, what shall I call it, propriety?”

“Perhaps—”

“He’s not as frank as he seems.”

O-Nobu shuddered. There was no way she could avoid secretly affirming Kobayashi’s assessment, and the fact that it was so precisely on the mark wounded her even more. How rude he was, she thought, looking at him, with no understanding of her own position. Heedlessly, Kobayashi repeated himself.

“Mrs. T! There’s a lot more that you don’t know.”

“What if there is?”

“Things you’d want to know.”

“I’m sure I don’t care.”

“Let me put it another way: what if I said things you really ought to know! You still don’t care?”

“That’s right, I don’t!”

CYNICISM EDDIED in Kobayashi’s face. His countenance proclaimed the certainty of victory in just a matter of time. His manner even suggested he would like to extend this moment of elation into the future so that he might live the rest of his life basking in it.

What a despicable man, O-Nobu thought to herself. For a time she returned his glare as though unwilling to be bested. It was Kobayashi who spoke up first.

“Mrs. T, there’s something I absolutely must tell you as proof that Tsuda-kun has changed, but you seem so defeated, I’ll save that for afterward and begin with an opposite example, for your reference, of how he hasn’t changed one bit. I’d like to insist that you listen to this no matter how disagreeable it is — may I proceed?”

“Do as you wish,” O-Nobu said coldly.

“Much obliged,” Kobayashi replied, laughing.

“Tsuda-kun has had contempt for me since the old days. It’s true what I said before about his big change. But his contempt for me is the one thing that’s the same now as always. Not changed in the slightest. It appears that even your power to reform him, clever as you are, hasn’t mattered. Not that either of you would necessarily feel there was anything unreasonable about his attitude—”

Interrupting himself, Kobayashi peered at the forced smile on O-Nobu’s face. Then he continued.

“Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying I want him to change particularly. I have no intention of relying on your efforts in that regard, so you needn’t concern yourself. The truth is, Tsuda-kun isn’t the only one who has contempt for me. I’m a person who is held in contempt by everyone. Even cheap women have contempt for me. To paint the complete picture, the whole world is clamoring to hold me in contempt.”

Kobayashi’s eyes were glazed. There was nothing O-Nobu could say.

“Goodness!”

“It’s a fact. Can you tell me you’re not actually thinking the same thing?”

“I’ve never heard such silliness.”

“I know you have to say that.”

“It seems you’re feeling terribly persecuted.”

“Maybe so. But no matter how I’m feeling, a fact is a fact. But never mind. I’m a born good-for-nothing, so I can’t really complain about being disrespected. I have no right to resent anyone. Still, Mrs. T! Do you have any idea how it feels to have been treated with contempt by everyone with no letup?”

His eyes never leaving her face, Kobayashi waited for her reply. O-Nobu had nothing to say. How could she be concerned about the feelings of someone for whom she could find no sympathy? Besides, she had problems of her own to consider; she was simply unable to spread the wings of her imagination for his sake. Perceiving this in her demeanor, Kobayashi exclaimed, “Mrs. T! My reason for living is to be abhorred by others. I say and do things to make people abhor me. Otherwise I couldn’t endure the pain. I couldn’t go on living. I can’t make people recognize my existence. I’m worthless. No matter how people disdain me, I can’t strike a decent blow back at them. Since I have no options, I think to myself, at least I can try to be hated. I take that on myself.”

The psychological state that had been unfurled for O-Nobu belonged to a person from a different planet. To be loved by everyone, to see to it that she was loved by everyone, particularly where her husband was concerned — this desire was in the fiber of her being. Moreover, she had always believed implicitly that the same desire was alive and undeniable in everyone, close to a natural law.

“You seem surprised. I suppose you’ve never met such a person. But you should know that people come in many flavors.”

Kobayashi looked somewhat less dyspeptic, as though relieved.

“I can see you’ve been sick of me for a while now. You’re thinking, ‘If only he’d leave, if only he’d leave.’ But for some reason the maid hasn’t come back, so you’re stuck with keeping me company. I see that clearly. You’ve been thinking I’m a hateful sort, but you have no idea why I’ve become so hateful, what turned me into this. So I offered you a little explanation. Even I wasn’t born hateful, at least I don’t imagine so—”

Once again, Kobayashi laughed aloud.

IN THE presence of this unaccountable man, O-Nobu felt her mind whirl in confusion. First of all, she failed to comprehend him. Second, she felt no sympathy. Finally, she had doubts about his seriousness. Defiance, dread, contempt, suspicion, ridicule, disgust, curiosity — the tangle of sentiments intersecting in her breast rejected any attempt at organization. As a consequence they served only to unseat her. Finally, she framed a question.

“So you’re saying you came over here just to make me dislike you?”

“No, that wasn’t my purpose. My purpose was to pick up the overcoat.”

“So you came to get the coat, and as long as you were here you thought you might as well make me dislike you?”

“Not at all. It may surprise you to know that I consider myself a perfectly ingenuous person, a natural man. Compared with you, Mrs. T, I believe I’m guileless.”

“That’s beside the point, why won’t you answer directly?”

“But I have. I’ve told you I am without artifice, a natural man. And that’s what makes you dislike me.”

“And that’s your purpose?”

“But it isn’t a purpose — it may be a fundamental desire.”

“What’s the difference between a purpose and a desire?”

“Could they be the same?”

Hatred flashed in O-Nobu’s small eyes.. The glance that stabbed at Kobayashi read, “Don’t toy with me because I’m a woman.”

“Don’t get angry,” Kobayashi said. “I was just trying to explain that I’m not striking back at you for any trivial reasons of my own. I went out of my way to say what I did because I want you to understand that I have no choice, that Providence commands me to be a wretch and make people dislike me. I want you to recognize the fact that I have no evil objective. I want you to realize that I have no purpose and never have. Providence may have a purpose. And that purpose may be manipulating me. Being manipulated may even be what I desire.”

O-Nobu’s own thinking was insufficiently rigorous to uncover the lapses in Kobayashi’s anfractuous logic. Nor was her mind sufficiently trained to determine whether it should be unconditionally accepted or rejected. But she was more than quick-witted enough to grasp the essentials of the argument he had confronted her with, and she promptly demonstrated her swiftness.

“So on the one hand you admit to being nasty so that people will dislike you, and on the other hand you say that you’re not in any way responsible.”

“Exactly. That’s the gist of it.”

“That’s so cowardly.”

“It’s not cowardly. Where there’s no responsibility, there’s no cowardice.”

“Of course there is. In the first place, I don’t recall ever having done anything bad to you. If I have I’d like to hear about it.”

“Mrs. T! I’m a person the world treats like a vagabond.”

“What does that have to do with me and Tsuda?”

Kobayashi laughed, as if he had been waiting for the question.

“From where you both stand, probably nothing. But as I see it, more than plenty.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

This time, Kobayashi declined to reply. With an expression that seemed to say “You’ll understand if you think about it carefully,” he began smoking a cigarette in silence. O-Nobu felt even more distressed. She wanted to say she’d had enough and to ask him to leave. Kobayashi, as if he had read her mind and dismissed her feelings as insignificant, was unperturbed, an attitude that further infuriated her. Just then O-Toki returned, a moment she had been impatiently awaiting, and as a result her turmoil had to be dissipated before she had an opportunity to express it cogently.

SITTING ON the engawa, O-Toki slid open the shoji screen from the outside.

“I’m back. Sorry it took so long — I had to take the trolley all the way to the hospital.”

O-Nobu looked at O-Toki a little angrily.

“You didn’t phone?”

“Oh yes I did—”

“You couldn’t get through?”

As questions followed answers, O-Nobu gradually grasped the reason for O-Toki’s trip to the hospital. At first her call had not gone through, and even when it finally did she had been unable to communicate her purpose. She had asked for the nurse, thinking to request her to convey the message, but even this attempt had failed. The student apprentice or the pharmacist or whoever it was who had taken the call had said this and that, but nothing that made any sense. To begin with, the voice was indistinct, and even what she could hear clearly made no sense. When it began to seem that the man on the other end of the line had not taken her question to Tsuda, she had given up and left the telephone box. But she was loathe to return to the house with her errand unaccomplished and had hurried straight to the streetcar.

“I thought about coming home first and asking, but that would just take more time, and since I knew you had a visitor waiting—”

O-Toki’s explanation was reasonable. O-Nobu ought to have thanked her. But when she considered the suffering at Kobayashi’s hands her thoughtful maid had caused her, she felt all the more resentful.

Rising, she went into the sitting room and opened the bottom drawer of the tansu with shiny brass hinges installed just inside the door. Removing the overcoat in question from the bottom of the drawer, she placed it in front of Kobayashi.

“You mean this?”

“Yes indeed.” Kobayashi reached for the coat at once and flipped it over, examining it with the eye of a dealer in second-hand clothing.

“I didn’t expect it to be so worn—”

“It’s plenty good enough for you!” O-Nobu wanted to say, peering at the coat in silence. As Kobayashi had observed, it was somewhat faded. This was conspicuously evident when the collar was folded back and the cloth beneath it was compared with the rest.

“I suppose I can’t expect too much since I’m getting it for nothing.”

“If it doesn’t suit you feel free to—”

“Are you suggesting I should leave it?”

“Yes.”

As expected, Kobayashi retained his hold on the coat. O-Nobu was thrilled.

“Mrs. T — would it be all right if I just tried it on?”

“Go right ahead.”

O-Nobu’s reply was intentionally the opposite of what she was thinking. Sitting where she was, she watched cynically as Kobayashi struggled to force his arms through sleeves that appeared too tight.

“How does it look?” Kobayashi turned his back to O-Nobu. The multiple creases where the garment had been folded were unsightly. Once again, instead of suggesting, as she should have, that the coat needed ironing, O-Nobu moved in the opposite direction.

“It seems perfect.”

As there was no one else in the room, O-Nobu felt deprived of the chance to exchange eye-to-eye with someone a smile at the ludicrous figure of a back that had been offered her as an opportunity for ridicule.

Just then Kobayashi turned smartly around and, still wearing the coat, sat himself heavily down facing O-Nobu with his legs crossed.

“Mrs. T! People may make fun of me because I’m wearing something odd, but it’s still good to be alive.”

“Is that so?”

O-Nobu fell stubbornly silent.

“That’s maybe hard to understand for someone like yourself who’s never known hardship.”

“Is that so? Personally I’d prefer to be dead than have people laughing at me while I’m alive.”

Kobayashi did not reply. Then suddenly he spoke.

“I thank you. Thanks to you I’ll manage to stay alive this winter.”

He stood up. O-Nobu also rose.

But as they were about to follow each other out to the engawa, Kobayashi wheeled around.

“Mrs. T! If that’s how you feel, you’d better take care never to be laughed at!”

THEIR FACES were less than a foot apart. Since Kobayashi had turned back just as O-Nobu was stepping forward, they were obliged to halt in their tracks. They stood there, frozen, face to face. Or, more precisely, peering into each other’s eyes.

At that moment, Kobayashi’s thick eyebrows filled invasively O-Nobu’s field of vision. The black pupils beneath them were trained on her unwaveringly. If O-Nobu wished to understand what they were saying, her only choice was deflecting them with force applied from her side. She spoke.

“That’s not your concern. I don’t require that sort of warning from you.”

“On the contrary, you require it urgently. I suppose you mean to say you can’t remember ever having received a warning before. And I suppose it’s true that you’re essentially a splendid young gentlewoman. Still—”

“That’s enough. Please leave!”

Kobayashi did not comply. As they spoke their faces were mere inches apart.

“But I was talking about Tsuda-kun.”

“What about him? Are you saying that I’m a gentlewoman but Tsuda is not a gentleman?”

“I have no idea of what a gentleman is. First of all, I don’t acknowledge the existence of classes in society.”

“What you choose to acknowledge or not to acknowledge is up to you. But what are you saying about Tsuda?”

“Would you care to hear?”

A blinding stroke of lightning flashed from O-Nobu’s small eyes.

“Tsuda is my husband.”

“I know — so you must want to hear.”

O-Nobu gnashed her teeth.

“Please leave now!”

“I’ll leave — I’m on my way.”

As he spoke, Kobayashi turned and moved, heading for the entrance, just two steps away from O-Nobu along the engawa. Watching in dismay as his back receded, O-Nobu stopped him again.

“Wait!”

“Yes?”

Kobayashi slowed to a halt. Extending in front of him both arms clad in the overcoat that was too long for him, he examined himself from head to toe, as though admiring the figure he cut, a cartoon character in Punch magazine, then turned to O-Nobu and grinned. O-Nobu’s voice was taut.

“Why are you leaving without saying anything?”

“I believe I’ve already thanked you.”

“Not about the coat.”

Kobayashi feigned ignorance. He went so far as to appear puzzled. O-Nobu pursued him.

“You owe me an explanation.”

“For what?”

“For what you said about Tsuda. Tsuda is my husband. If you say things that cast doubt on a husband’s character in front of his wife, even if you insinuate things, you have an obligation to explain clearly what you mean.”

“Or at least to retract what I said; I suppose that would do? Since I’m a person with a limited sense of obligation, as you call it, or responsibility, it might be hard for me to give you the explanation you require, but at the same time, as a man who has no fear of shame, it means nothing to me to retract something I’ve already said. Fair enough. I retract my misspoken remarks about Tsuda-kun. And I apologize. Will that do?”

O-Nobu glowered in silence.

“I hereby declare Tsuda to be a man of impeccable character. A gentleman (assuming that sort of privileged class exists in society).”

O-Nobu, her eyes still lowered, said nothing. Kobayashi continued.

“A minute ago I cautioned you to take good care not to be laughed at. You replied there was no need to heed warnings from the likes of me. That made me feel I should refrain from saying more. Now that I think about it, even that was speaking out of turn. So I retract that, too. I’m sorry if I’ve said anything to offend you. My mistake in every case.”

When he had finished, Kobayashi took his shoes from where they had been neatly aligned on the concrete and put them on. Then he slid back the lattice and, as he was stepping outside, turned and said “Sayonara, Mrs. T.”

Murmuring her own good-bye, O-Nobu stood vacantly where she was for a long while. Finally, she hurried upstairs, sat down at Tsuda’s desk and, all at once, slumping forward, burst into tears.

O-TOKI FORTUNATELY remained downstairs, enabling O-Nobu to cry unobserved. When she had cried to her heart’s content, her tears naturally abated.

Stuffing her wet handkerchief back into her sleeve, she abruptly opened the desk drawers. There were two of them. But a methodical examination of their contents turned up nothing new of any interest. That was to be expected: she had already rummaged through the same drawers two or three days earlier, when Tsuda had gone to the clinic, looking for the things he had wanted to take along. Removing what was left, envelopes, a ruler, receipts for lectures he had paid to attend, she carefully replaced them one by one. A small pamphlet advertising Panamas and other sorts of straw hats with lithographs of each recalled an early summer evening when they had gone shopping on the Ginza. Tsuda had brought the booklet of samples home from a store where they had gone to buy a summer hat; distant associations seemed to cling to the pages like the fragrance of past days, the fiery red azalea blossoms in Hibiya Park, the tall, luxuriant willow trees and the pale shadows they cast on one side of the boulevard leading to Kasumigaseki visible in the distance. O-Nobu sat for a while with the booklet open in front of her, deep in thought. Then, as though suddenly resigned, she slammed the drawers shut.

Alongside the desk was a Secession bookshelf in the same functional, rectilinear style. It also had two drawers, but as both slid open with no resistance when she tried the ring handles she felt disappointment in advance of examining them. A place so easily accessed was unlikely to reveal a new discovery. She riffled idly the pages of bound volumes like notebooks filled with writing from the past. Reading each page would be a task. Nor could she imagine that the things she wanted to know would be lurking in these jottings. She was well aware of her husband’s cautious nature. His extreme fastidiousness would not permit him to strew secrets about without placing them under lock and key.

Opening the doors of the cabinet, O-Nobu looked to see if there was anything locked. But it was empty. Sundry papers and booklets and other junk had been stacked carelessly on top of it. The space beneath was jammed with wooden storage boxes.

Turning back to the desk, O-Nobu selected from the rack on top of it a number of letters that had arrived addressed to Tsuda and began to examine them. She felt certain more or less that nothing suspicious would have been left in a place like this. Nonetheless, these letters, which she had noticed right away and refrained from touching, had continued to beckon her interest, drawing attention to themselves as requiring, after all, perusal before she was finished. Telling herself that this was just for the sake of thoroughness, she had finally felt obliged to reach for them.

One by one the envelopes were turned over and the letters unrolled in order as she came to them. Some were quarter sheets, some halves, the rest were full size, but all were read by O-Nobu in silence. When she was finished she returned them to their original places in the order in which she had read them.

Of a sudden, a flame of suspicion ignited in her breast. An image of Tsuda pouring oil on a packet of old letters and carefully incinerating them in the garden rose vividly to her mind. As scraps of blazing paper fluttered into the air, he had pinned them to the ground with a bamboo pole as if afraid they would get away. The cold wind of early autumn had just begun to knife into the skin. It was a Sunday morning. The scene had occurred not five minutes after they had finished breakfast, facing each other across their trays. Putting aside his chopsticks, Tsuda had gone straight upstairs and had returned carrying a package bound with narrow cord; by the time she noticed he had stepped into the garden, circling around by way of the kitchen, he had set the package on fire. The heavy wrapper was already charred when she stepped out to the engawa, the letters inside it just visible. O-Nobu had asked why he was burning the package. Because it was bulky and a nuisance to dispose of, he had replied. When she inquired why he didn’t save it for scrap paper that would be useful when she was putting up her hair and at other times, he hadn’t replied. Instead, he continued to jab away with the bamboo pole at the letters appearing from the bottom of the package. Each time he stabbed at the smoldering package, thick smoke obscured the end of the pole and the burning letters. Gasping, Tsuda had turned his face away from O-Nobu….

Until O-Toki came upstairs to urge her to come down to lunch, O-Nobu pursued these thoughts, sitting as motionlessly as a doll on a stand.

SOMEHOW THE clock had advanced to past noon. O-Nobu once again sat down to lunch by herself with O-Toki helping her to rice. This was precisely the routine they repeated daily when Tsuda was away at the office. Today, however, O-Nobu was not herself. She appeared stiffened, though her mind was careeningly in motion. Even the kimono she had changed into when she was preparing to leave the house earlier contributed to an intensified sense of stepping out that was dramatically different from how she was accustomed to feeling.

If O-Toki hadn’t let slip a remark that touched on her agitation that day, she might have finished the meal in silence. The truth was she had no appetite and was attempting to get by with the merest show of eating to avoid giving O-Toki cause to wonder.

For her part, as if out of consideration, O-Toki pointedly refrained from conversation. But when O-Nobu put aside her chopsticks after a single bowl of rice, she asked, “Is something the matter?” and, receiving a mere “No—” in reply, left the tray in place without taking it to the kitchen.

“I hope you’ll forgive me—”

This was regret for her arbitrary decision to go to the clinic. As for O-Nobu, she had other things on her mind.

“I was really loud a while ago — could you hear me down in the maid’s room?”

“No, Missus—”

O-Nobu turned a doubting eye on O-Toki. As if to evade her glance, O-Toki spoke at once.

“That visitor, he had no right—”

O-Nobu didn’t reply. As she merely waited in silence for what was to come, O-Toki was obliged to continue. This provided an impetus to the conversation that developed between them.

“Mr. Tsuda was really surprised. ‘He has some nerve,’ he said, ‘showing up here at the house without an invitation and no warning and speaking with you directly when he knew perfectly well that I was in the hospital.’”

O-Nobu let out a soft laugh of disdain. But she withheld her own comments.

“Did he have anything else to say?”

“He said to give him the coat and get him out of here at once. And he asked whether you were discussing anything with him, and when I told him yes you were, he made an awful sour face.”

“Was that all?”

“No, he asked what you were talking about.”

“What did you say?”

“I went ahead and told him I couldn’t say much because I didn’t know.”

“And then?”

“And then he looked even more sour. ‘Opening the door to every hound dog that passes by is reckless,’ he said, and—‘damn irresponsible.’”

“He said that? But what choice is there if it’s an old friend?”

“That’s just what I went ahead and said. Besides, I told him, the Missus happened to be changing when he showed up and couldn’t come down downstairs right away so there wasn’t nothing else to do.”

“Exactly — and then?”

“And then he made fun of me for always taking Missus’s side no matter what. He said it was amazing how well the Okamotos had trained me and how impressed he was.”

O-Nobu smiled uncomfortably.

“You poor thing. Was that all?”

“There’s more. He wanted to know whether Kobayashi-san had maybe been drinking. I didn’t notice anything, but I couldn’t imagine a person getting drunk in the morning even though it wasn’t New Year’s and then visiting someone at their house—”

“No, I suppose you couldn’t.”

O-Nobu appeared to be expecting there was more to come. Sure enough, O-Toki hadn’t finished.

“Missus — Mr. Tsuda said I should be sure to say this to you when I got home.”

“Say what?”

“There’s no telling what that Kobayashi will say. He’s a dangerous cur particularly when he’s drunk. And no matter what he says, you’re not to pay him any mind. Just take everything he says as lies and you won’t go wrong.”

“I see—”

O-Nobu had no desire to say anything more. O-Toki burst out laughing. “Mrs. Hori had a laugh when she heard that.”

Until that moment, O-Nobu hadn’t known that Tsuda’s younger sister had been visiting at the hospital that morning.

ONE YEAR older than O-Nobu, Tsuda’s younger sister was already the mother of two children. The elder, a boy, had been born four and a half years ago. The simple state of motherhood had more than sufficed to awaken O-Hide’s awareness of herself. There was not a single day when she wasn’t a mother.

Her husband, Hori, was a voluptuary. And he possessed the magnanimity of spirit often observed in a man in pursuit of his own pleasure. In return for disporting himself as he pleased, he extended his wife a commensurate freedom, which was not to say he was intemperately affectionate with her. He congratulated himself on his attitude toward O-Hide. In his view, it was the cumulative effect of his hedonism that had opened the door to this liberal state of mind. His approach to life, assuming he possessed something worthy of a label so formidable, might be precisely put as engaging in all things temperately. Moving on with a smile. Detached. Traversing life casually, untidily, straightforwardly, high-mindedly, benignly. This was his, what might be called, éclat. Unburdened by financial need, he had managed thus far to live by his credo. And no matter where he went, he had never felt the lack of anything. His achievement had made him ever more the optimist. Confident that he was liked by everyone, he was of course convinced that he was also liked by O-Hide. Nor was he wrong about that. In truth, he was not disliked by O-Hide.

O-Hide, who had been courted for her beauty, had come to understand Hori’s disposition only after settling down as his wife. It had taken her some time to comprehend a sensibility that was like innards washed clean in the liquor of dissipation. And her doubts about why a man with so few concerns should have felt it necessary to insist with such seriousness that he wanted her for his wife were obscured quickly enough in the mists of ambiguity. O-Hide was not as tenacious as O-Nobu: before she had divined the answer, she had detached her wifely interest in her husband and been required to turn the sparkling new eye of motherhood on her first-born child.

This was not the only difference between the sisters-in-law. While O-Nobu’s new household comprised only a husband and wife, both sets of parents residing in distant Kyoto, Hori lived with his mother. A younger brother and sister lived with them. There was even a penniless relative in the house. The circumstances simply didn’t permit O-Hide to attend to her husband exclusively. In particular, unnoticed by others, she was obliged to be in tense consideration of her mother-in-law.

Not surprisingly for someone who had been chosen for her good looks, O-Hide appeared never to age. Even compared with O-Nobu, a year younger than she, she looked young. So young it was hard to imagine she was the mother of a four-year-old. Even so, having spent the past four or five years in family circumstances very unlike O-Nobu’s, her understanding of certain things was also different. Not unlikely to be seen as younger than O-Nobu, she was definitely older in some ways. It wasn’t so much speech and attitudes; she had an older spirit. In a word, she had been domesticated, imbued with family life.

Obliged to observe her brother and his wife with her domesticated eye, O-Hide was constantly aware of her dissatisfaction with them. And her dissatisfaction, whenever something happened, tended to ally her with her parents in Kyoto. Even so, she tried her best to avoid opportunities for collisions with her brother. Feeling as she did that discomfiting her sister-in-law was even worse than attacking her brother directly, she kept constant, careful watch over what she allowed herself to say. In her heart, however, her feelings were the opposite of those she expressed. Her resentment was directed less at her brother, to whom she spoke out, than at O-Nobu, to whom she said nothing. If only her brother hadn’t married such a flamboyant woman! was the feeling she carried always deep in her breast. It never occurred to her to think that she was merely favoring her kin and criticizing O-Nobu unjustly.

O-Hide believed she was well aware of where she stood. And it did not escape her attention that her brother and his wife, while they may not have gone so far as to keep their distance, were certainly not overly fond of her. Even so, it never occurred to her that she should reconsider her position. To begin with, they both objected to it, which made the notion of reform even less conceivable. Since, in the final analysis, disliking her position came down to disliking her, she felt inclined to resist out of spite if nothing else. Second, her conscience told her she was correct: as long as she believed she was acting in her brother’s best interest, what did it matter how much she was hated? Finally, there was the simple fact, accounting for all the rest, that she didn’t like her flamboyant sister-in-law. As a woman with more latitude than O-Nobu, capable of greater extravagance, what was it about O-Nobu, who, in this regard, was beneath her, that she couldn’t stomach? She didn’t bother to ask herself the question. She had a mother-in-law, and O-Nobu, except for her husband, was entirely her own mistress. It didn’t occur to her to consider even this difference relevant.

The morning after O-Nobu had telephoned with news of Tsuda, O-Hide had left for a visit to the clinic barely an hour before O-Toki showed up, just as Kobayashi was barging into Tsuda’s home in quest of the overcoat.

HAVING SLEPT poorly the night before, Tsuda picked at the food on the tray the nurse had brought in and, lying back again, closed his heavy eyelids hoping to recover some of the sleep he had lost. O-Hide came in as he was drifting into a state of half sleep; he awoke as she was sliding the paper door open quietly in consideration of the patient, and their eyes met.

At moments like this they never displayed affection for each other. Nor did their expressions seem happy. They would have said that such a display was nothing more than a far too conventional social formality. And close to an exercise in a kind of dissimulation. There was a tacit agreement visible only to themselves as brother and sister and not binding on others. Since there was little point at this late date, conscious of wishing to be thought well of by the other, of going through the motions in a normal way, why not leave aside entirely any clumsy efforts aimed at deception and come face to face with an expression that was not at odds with their conscience? Over the years they had managed to reach this agreement without speaking a word. And the expression that was not at odds with conscience was precisely this one, void of affection.

In the first place, their connection was unusually intimate for a brother and sister. This obviated the need for restraint between them, which made an unaffectionate greeting a simple matter. There was also, besides, something out of tune about them. This troubling discordance inclined them to draw back reflexively, as though repelled at the sight of the other’s face.

Small wonder, then, that Tsuda’s eyes as he raised his head abruptly and discovered O-Hide in the doorway were hooded in lassitude and indifference. Having lifted himself upright, he fell back again on the pillow. O-Hide, true to form in her way, strode into the room as though she hadn’t noticed, and without a word.

The first thing she took in was the tray at the head of Tsuda’s mattress. It was a mess. Alongside an eggshell crushed beneath the weight of a milk bottle that had fallen on its side, a slice of toast with bites missing lay where it had been dropped. A second slice, untouched, rested neatly on a plate. There was also a remaining egg.

“Are you finished, Brother? Are you still eating?”

The state of the food remaining on the tray might have been interpreted either way.

“I’m through.”

Frowning, O-Hide carried the tray to the head of the stairs. Having just left her own tidy home, the breakfast remains, abandoned at her brother’s pillow side for who knew how long, possibly because the nurse had too much on her hands to come and fetch them, struck her as something of a disgrace.

“Filthy!”

The exclamation wasn’t admonitory so much as spoken to herself as she returned to her original seat. In any event, Tsuda did not engage with her.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“I was notified by phone.”

“O-Nobu?”

“Umm—”

“I told her she didn’t have to bother.”

It was O-Hide’s turn not to engage.

“I wanted to come right away but, unfortunately, I had a little problem yesterday—”

O-Hide caught herself and didn’t continue. Since her marriage, she had developed a habit of breaking off in the middle of a thought. There were times when Tsuda took this badly, interpreting it to mean “Since I’m married now even you are an outsider, Brother.” Considering the nature of his own marriage, Tsuda was by no means incapable of perceiving on reflection a certain logic in this. Far from it, he found himself secretly thinking how welcome it would be if O-Nobu would only engage the outside world with an attitude like his younger sister’s. And yet the feeling he was left with when O-Hide treated him in this manner was definitely not pleasant. He no longer had time, nor could he be bothered, to reflect that this was precisely the way he invariably behaved toward her.

Without urging O-Hide to finish, Tsuda spoke his mind.

“Busy as you are, there was no reason for you to come today either. I’m not that sick.”

“But Sister went to the trouble of phoning to ask me to visit if I had time.”

“Is that so?”

“Besides, I have a little business to discuss with you.”

For the first time, Tsuda turned toward O-Hide.

SINCE THE surgery he had been plagued by an unpleasant feeling in the afflicted area. It was merely a sensation caused by the sudden contraction of the muscles around the incision, which was packed with gauze, but once it began, it was the sort of feeling that progressed as regularly as breathing or the beat of a pulse and did not abate.

He had felt the first contraction the day before yesterday. It had occurred as O-Nobu was on her way downstairs after receiving his permission to go to the theater, and it was by no means a new experience. Familiar with the same sensation from the last time he had been treated, he cried out involuntarily to himself, “Not again!” And indeed, as if on purpose to revive in him a bitter memory, the contractions progressed regularly and unabated. First his flesh contracted and he could feel the gauze chafing; next came a gradual unknotting until he was feeling almost normal, whereupon, with the force of a wave that has receded breaking again upon the shore, a violent contraction assaulted him newly. At this point his will was stripped of its normal authority to command the afflicted area. And the more urgently he struggled to relax his muscles, the more disobedient they became.

He didn’t know what sort of communication existed between these strange assaults and O-Nobu. He had begun to feel sorry about treating her like a bird in a cage. He had felt it was unmanly to keep her tethered to his side. And so he had happily released her into free air. But no sooner had she thanked him for his kindness and left his sick bed than he had begun abruptly to feel abandoned. His ears peeled, he had heard O-Nobu’s footsteps descending the stairs. Even the sound of the bell ringing as she pushed open the door at the entrance had seemed unsolicitous to an extreme. It was just at that moment that the unbearable feeling in the muscles around his wound had begun to recur. He attributed this to some stimulus. And it seemed to him that the stimulus must be coming from hypersensitive nerves. Did that mean that O-Nobu’s actions had rendered his nerves acutely sensitive? Displeased as he was with her behavior, such a conclusion was going too far. Even so, it seemed plain that this was no coincidence. Arbitrarily enough, he posited some connection between the two. And he was inclined to spell it out for O-Nobu after the fact. To make her regret the unfortunate consequence of leaving her husband in a hospital bed and rushing off to enjoy herself for the entire day. But he didn’t know how to convey this appropriately. Assuming he found the right words, he felt certain they would make no sense to her. And even if she did understand, it would be difficult to make her feel just as he wished her to. He would be left with no choice but to suffer his feelings in silence.

As he turned to O-Hide, a new contraction seemed to forewarn him that this would be the outcome. He grimaced.

O-Hide, who knew nothing and could not be expected to follow the minute turns in Tsuda’s reasoning, interpreted his expression as the familiar face he seemed to hold in reserve for when he was alone in her company.

“If this is a bad time, shall I wait until you’re out of the hospital?”

Though there was nothing particularly sympathetic about her attitude, she was nonetheless obliged to be somewhat in consideration.

“Does it hurt somewhere?”

Tsuda merely nodded. Silent for a while, O-Hide observed him. The contractions around his wound began again their regular throbbing. The silence between them continued. All the while, Tsuda maintained the scowl on his face.

“It’s terrible you’re in such pain. What was Sister thinking? On the phone yesterday she was talking as if you were doing well and not in pain.”

“What does she know?”

“So it started hurting after Sister left?”

Unable to say “Hardly! It was O-Nobu’s fault that it started hurting!” Tsuda began suddenly to see himself as a spoiled child. Never mind appearances, he was embarrassed that in his heart he was feeling so very unlike an elder brother.

“So what are you after today?”

“Brother, I don’t have to talk about it now when you’re in pain — it can wait.”

Tsuda was adept at dissembling. But at this moment he had no heart for it. He had already forgotten the feeling in his rear. An important feature of the contractions was that they ceased if forgotten and were forgotten if they ceased.

“I’m all right — why not say what you have to say?”

“As you can imagine, coming from me it’s nothing very nice — you don’t mind?”

Tsuda had a good idea what to expect.

“THE USUAL again, I suppose?”

It was all Tsuda could think of to say after a brief pause. But his countenance was already declaring as always that he had no desire to hear. O-Hide was angrily aware of this contradiction.

“I said we could talk about it some other time. Then you go out of your way to prompt me and it makes me feel like talking now!”

“Then say what’s on your mind. That’s what you’re here for.”

“But you look so annoyed.”

O-Hide wasn’t a woman to be given pause by a simple look of displeasure, not in front of her brother at any rate. There was accordingly no reason for Tsuda to feel sorry for her. On the contrary, it struck him that this was a creature capable of criticizing him excessively despite the fact that she was his younger sister. Without engaging her in an argument, he leaped ahead.

“Has Kyoto said something again?”

“You might say that.”

Since the almost invariable pattern was that news from Kyoto arrived in duplicate, his letter from their father and hers from their mother, he saw no need of confirming the author of the letter to her. However, in view of current circumstances, he was unable to feel indifferent about its contents. Since he had sent off his second request to Kyoto, the question of whether money would be coming had been constantly on his mind. Despite how careful he was not to talk about the incident they now referred to as “the usual,” he understood better than O-Hide the circumstances that entangled the question with his urgent concern about expenses at the end of the month and the cost of hospitalization in a manner that made it difficult to separate them. And so he felt obliged to step forward with an explicit inquiry.

“What did Mother say?”

“Father must have written to you.”

“He did. You must have a pretty good idea of what that was all about.”

This O-Hide neither affirmed nor denied. She merely allowed the shadow of a faint smile to play about her pretty mouth. It irked Tsuda that the smile appeared tinted by a hint of self-satisfaction at having bested him. At times like this and no other, O-Hide’s beauty, which normally he failed even to notice because it was in the family, affected him uncomfortably. Not for the first time he found himself wondering whether his sister’s uncommon attractiveness mightn’t enhance her ability to make others feel bad. Frequently he wanted to say admonitorily, “I suppose you intend to live your whole life patting yourself on the back for having been chosen for your looks?”

Presently O-Hide turned to Tsuda with her perfectly symmetrical face composed.

“And have you done anything about it?”

“What is there to do?”

“You haven’t said a word to Father?”

Tsuda was silent for a while. His reply seemed hopeless.

“I wrote back.”

“And?”

“And nothing. No reply. There might be something waiting at home, but I won’t know until O-Nobu gets here.”

“But you have some notion of the sort of reply Father is likely to send?”

Tsuda didn’t answer. Groping with one hand beneath the silk collar of the quilted jacket O-Nobu had sewn for him, he withdrew a toothpick and began digging in his front teeth. When O-Hide saw that he was not inclined to break his silence, she tried a different approach to asking the same question.

“Do you think Father will send money?”

“I don’t know.”

Tsuda replied brusquely. And there was anger in his voice as he continued.

“That’s why I’m asking you to tell me what Mother wrote in her letter.”

Averting her eyes, O-Hide looked out at the engawa. This was merely a way to avoid sighing in front of him.

“It’s not as if I’m holding anything back. I’ve been thinking all along it would turn out this way.”

ACCORDING TO O-Hide’s account of their mother’s letter, his father was angrier than he had expected. It was one thing if Tsuda were to handle the insufficiency at the end of the month; if, however, he insisted that even that was too much for him, his father was apparently deliberating whether to punish him by withholding future remittances as well for at least the time being. If that were true, it would have to mean that his recent references to repairing a fence or delinquent rental payments had been lies. Even if they weren’t exactly lies, they would need be considered glib excuses. But why had his father found it necessary to put him off with transparent excuses as if he were a stranger? If he were angry, why not scold him like a man?

Tsuda sank into thought. His father’s face and his goatee, his expression reflecting his tendency to pretension in all things, his mother’s hair invariably piled in a bun atop her head because of her meaningless aversion to hairdos — the only way she would ever wear it — trivial details such as these were no help in interpreting the current situation.

“It’s your fault, Brother, for not keeping your promise.”

These words, repeated endlessly by O-Hide since the incident, were the last thing Tsuda wanted to hear. As if he needed a lesson from his little sister to know that breaking a promise was wrong! It was simply that he hadn’t acknowledged the necessity of keeping his word this time. And he had hoped that others would affirm his position.

“But that’s so unreasonable!” O-Hide declared. “A promise is a promise even between a father and son. Maybe it wouldn’t matter so much if it concerned only you and Father.”

For O-Hide the most serious problem was her husband Hori’s involvement.

“When a letter like that arrives from Mother, it’s difficult for Hori, too.”

It was Hori who had persuaded his father to compromise his view that once a man had graduated from school, secured a substantial job, and placed himself at the head of a new household, he was obliged by hook or by crook to support himself independently without help from his parents. Acting without hesitation on a request from Tsuda, Hori had talked his parsimonious father-in-law down from his pedestal with a variety of effective arguments arbitrarily selected — inflation, the necessity of professional entertainment, changing times, the distinction between Tokyo and the provinces. He had furthermore proposed the arrangement according to which Tsuda in turn was to put aside the lion’s share of the bonuses he received in midsummer and at year’s end for use in paying back in a lump sum a portion of the monthly help he had been receiving. The responsibility that came along with the acceptance of his plan was of small concern to this insouciant man. Not only had he placed little importance from the outset on the question of making good on the agreement, but by the time the obligation was due he had forgotten all about it. In fact, the entire proceedings had receded to such a distant place in his thoughts that he was surprised when he received from Tsuda’s father a letter close to a reprimand. But Tsuda had expended the money to the last penny and there was nothing he could do. Ever an optimist, he wrote a letter of apology in reply and considered the matter closed. But the fact that society wasn’t constructed to accord with his carelessness was a lesson he was obliged to learn from Tsuda’s father, who had treated him as a guarantor ever since.

Meanwhile, a ring so splendid it appeared to be beyond Tsuda’s means had begun to sparkle on O-Nobu’s finger. The first to notice was O-Hide. Her curiosity as a fellow member of the female sisterhood made her acutely conscious. She praised O-Nobu’s ring. In the process, she sought to determine the time and place of its purchase. Ignorant of the agreement between Tsuda and his father that had been guaranteed by Hori, O-Nobu, in spite of her normal wariness, was completely naive where the ring was concerned. Her desire to demonstrate to O-Hide the degree to which she was loved by Tsuda overcame entirely her normal discretion. She related the story of the purchase exactly as it had happened.

O-Hide, who had been critical all along of what she considered O-Nobu’s extravagance, passed the details on to Kyoto. Moreover, she represented in her letter that it was O-Nobu who had provoked her husband into spending money that might otherwise have been returned even though she knew about his promise regarding summer and year-end bonuses. O-Hide had decided arbitrarily that the vanity toward his wife that had in truth prevented Tsuda from revealing the family circumstances to O-Nobu was instead O-Nobu’s own vanity. And she had conveyed her misunderstanding to Kyoto as if it were the truth. Even now she was unable to put aside her misapprehension. As a consequence, her resentment about the ring was directed not at her elder brother but at her sister-in-law.

“I’m wondering what in the world Sister intends to do about all this.”

“This has nothing to do with O-Nobu. I haven’t told her a thing.”

“Really! How fortunate for her that she’s not involved.”

O-Hide’s smile was ironic. Tsuda vividly recalled O-Nobu asking, the evening before she had gone to the theater, if she might pawn her obi as she held the thick, shining cloth up to the light.

“WHAT IN the world do you intend to do?”

This might have been intended as an attack on her improvident brother, but it was also an expression of O-Hide’s own perplexity. She had her husband to consider. And lurking in the background was a mother-inlaw in whose presence she tended to be even more deferential.

“It’s true that Hori spoke up because you asked him to, but I don’t think he intended to assume responsibility beyond a certain point. Not that he’s about to turn his back on you after all this and deny any responsibility. But it isn’t as if he signed a personal guarantee either, and so when Father treats this as though it were a legal matter, he makes it terribly awkward for me at home.”

On the surface of things, Tsuda had no choice but to acknowledge his sister’s position. In his heart, however, he was unable to sympathize with her, and his indifference reverberated in O-Hide. She saw standing before her an unrepentantly selfish elder brother. An elder brother who thought of little but his own convenience. If he did have other thoughts, they were exclusively about his new wife. And on this new wife he fawned. More properly, he was her pawn. To satisfy her he had been obliged to become even more arbitrary than before with regard to the outside world.

Tsuda would have said about this view of himself that it was destitute of sympathy and extremely unbecoming for a younger sister. An unsparingly frank expression of what she was feeling might have been, “You made your own bed, Brother, so you must lie in it; but what do you intend to do for me?”

Tsuda had nothing to propose. Nor was he inclined to do anything. Instead he broached the difficulty of divining his father’s thoughts.

“It’s Father’s intentions I’m wondering about. Do you suppose he’s thinking, ‘All I have to do is announce there’s no more money coming and Yoshio will find a way to manage’?”

“If only we knew!”

O-Hide cast a meaningful look at Tsuda before she subjoined, “That’s what’s making it so awkward for me with Hori.”

Something in the nature of a faint intimation flickered in Tsuda’s brain. Like lightning seen in early autumn, it was distant, but it was also vivid. It had to do with his father’s character. Distant because until now he had been unaware of it and yet, having once become aware it seemed, judging from the old man’s usual comportment, difficult to gainsay, and, in that sense, to Tsuda as his father’s son, it cut deeply into his consciousness with the sharpness of a blade. His first impulse had been to cry out inside himself, “Impossible!” but in the next instant he had been obliged to amend the thought to “For all I know—”

As reflected in the mirror of unfounded surmise, his father’s psychology might be parsed in the following order, one step generating the next in a progression meant to produce the desired result. Monthly remittances are tactfully intermitted. Tsuda is distressed. In view of foregoing circumstances, he informs Hori. His hand forced by his sense of responsibility to Kyoto, Hori is enabled for the first time to discharge his obligation to Tsuda’s father by helping Tsuda in his time of need. This leaves him no choice but to repay the monthly remittances. Tsuda’s father need only thank him for his generosity and hold out his hand.

Considered this way in stages, it appeared that a certain care had been taken. There was logic involved. And of course a degree of skill had to be acknowledged. And nothing in the least straightforward. Though not exactly despicable, there was about it a faint odor of vulpine cunning. An immoderate attachment to a small sum of money stood out particularly. In other words, in every way it smacked of his father.

No matter how they might disagree about other things, with regard to a lack of regard for their father’s way of doing things, Tsuda was uncharacteristically aligned with his sister. O-Hide, normally sympathetic to their father in every sense, was obliged in this particular case to join Tsuda in knitting her brows in disapproval. Their father’s immorality — that was a separate issue. Tsuda was not pleased at the thought of receiving aid from O-Hide. O-Hide did not feel kindly disposed to her brother and his wife. She was also made to feel painfully burdened by her duty to her husband and mother-in-law. But she was tormented, first of all, as was Tsuda, by what to do about the actual problem facing them. Even so, they lacked the courage to sound the depths of their feelings aloud to each other. Their conversation advanced without reference to their father’s thinking except for a tacit acknowledgment that they had construed it correctly in their imaginations.

UNABLE TO advance by unbraiding the tangle of logic and their mutual feelings, they moved in circles, approaching but never quite touching the issue at hand and concealing their irritation at the other’s avoidance. But they were siblings; they shared a dogged, viscous quality like asphalt overheated in the sun. While secretly deploring the other’s incapacity for frankness, neither was sufficiently tactless to level an accusation. Tsuda, however, as the elder brother and the man, was more adept than O-Hide at bringing the conversation to bear.

“So you’re saying you have no sympathy for your big brother.”

“Of course I’m not.”

“Or at least that you have no sympathy for O-Nobu. Which comes down to basically the same thing.”

“But I haven’t said a word about Sister.”

“Anyway, it turns out I’m the real offender in this affair. I’m perfectly aware that’s the conclusion without having to ask you a thing. Fine! I’ll accept my punishment. I’ll get through this month without any money from Father!”

“You can manage that?”

Tsuda’s reply was elicited by the skeptical chill in O-Hide’s voice.

“If I can’t I’ll die trying!”

O-Hide relaxed a little her tightly pursed mouth and revealed a glimpse of her white teeth. The figure of O-Nobu fingering her shiny obi beneath the electric light rose in Tsuda’s mind.

Maybe I should explain our financial situation to O-Nobu once and for all, the whole story.

For Tsuda there was no simpler approach to a resolution. Under the circumstances, however, there was no confession likely to prove so difficult. He had an intimate understanding of O-Nobu’s vanity. It was equal to his own, the vanity that required him to satisfy hers to the extent possible. To rend her trust in him in a place so important to a woman would be like striking a crushing blow to himself. The source of his considerable pain, as he imagined it, was not so much feeling sorry for O-Nobu as having to compromise his dignity in front of his wife. Even in a case like this, so trivial a matter it would invite the laughter of others, he was unable to act. The truth was, his family had more than sufficient money to maintain appearances in front of O-Nobu. This was a fact there was no denying, and it took precedence.

He was, moreover, a man who never lost his temper. A man who had inherited from his mother and father a temperamental inability to forget himself, he took a dim view of emotional outbursts. Having just blurted “Or die trying,” he continued to observe O-Hide closely. He wasn’t embarrassed by the absence in his gut of any feeling nearly so resolute as his exclamation. Far from it, he began dispassionately to work the scales of a balance. Against the pain of confessing to O-Nobu he weighed the unpleasantness of accepting aid from O-Hide. Between the two, he was feeling inclined to choose the latter.

O-Hide, who possessed the means to accommodate him easily, was left unsatisfied by the absence of any heartfelt regret coming from her brother. And she loathed the fact that O-Nobu was installed smugly behind him like the statue of a Buddhist goddess. It also infuriated her that her father was initiating conversations with her husband that suggested in a roundabout way that he viewed him as the responsible party. Roiled by this and by that, even after Tsuda’s desire had become transparent, she refrained from vouchsafing any sign that she was favorably disposed toward him.

As for Tsuda’s attitude toward O-Hide, who had been chosen by virtue of her beauty to marry into a family of considerable affluence, it contained an abundant measure of self-esteem. Since her marriage, he had detected something close to the odor of a parvenu issuing from this younger sister. At least so he thought. At some point he had begun to view her from inside the formidable armor of the elder brother. It was therefore unthinkable that he should hasten to bow down to her.

So there they were, neither venturing to broach the subject of money. And both waiting for the other to speak up. In the midst of this indecisive, foundering, very private conversation, the maid, O-Toki, burst into the room and broke at once the impasse they were in the process of constructing between themselves.

IT WAS a fact that Tsuda had received a phone call shortly before she arrived. Halfway up the stairs, the apprentice from the pharmacy had called out, sounding annoyed at having to go the trouble, “Tsuda-san, telephone!” Interrupting his dialogue with O-Hide, he had responded “Where from?” “Home, I guess,” the student had replied on his way back down the stairs. This brusque exchange after his immoderate absorption in a difficult conversation focused Tsuda selfishly on himself. Off to the theater and not a sign of her since, not yesterday or today, he hadn’t appreciated O-Nobu’s behavior, and now he liked it even less.

She’s fishing with a phone call.

This was his first thought. A call yesterday and again today and, for all he knew, again tomorrow, and only then, when she had done a fine job reeling him in, would she put in an unexpected appearance; such was likely to be her game. Judging by her usual behavior toward him, his expectation was hardly unreasonable. He could even imagine her smiling face when she surprised him with a supple entrance when he was unprepared. He knew well the strange power of that smile to steal into his heart. Brandishing that sharp weapon for just an instant, she never failed to vanquish him. To feel his mood being flipped over like a leaf in the wind despite his struggle to sustain it was like, as he might have put it, watching his own helpless fall into the arms of her magic.

Ignoring O-Hide’s advice, he hadn’t taken the call.

“I don’t need anything — ignore it.”

O-Hide didn’t know what to make of this. In the first place, it was entirely unlike her brother, with his aversion for carelessness. Second, this couldn’t be the brother who was invariably at O-Nobu’s beck. She concluded that Tsuda must be feigning indifference to his wife to conceal his normal pliability in deference to his sister. This was secretly not displeasing to her; even so, when she heard the apprentice loudly summoning her brother to the phone from below, she felt obliged to rise in his stead. She went to the trouble of going downstairs but to no avail: following the confusion created by the apprentice’s inattention, the line was dead.

Having gone through the motions of discharging her duty, O-Hide returned to her seat upstairs and took up again the thread of their conversation, by which time O-Toki, no longer able to endure the wait after her breathless haste, had abandoned the public phone booth and boarded a trolley. Not fifteen minutes later, Tsuda, surprised by her unexpected arrival, was no less surprised by her unexpected inquiry.

After she had left, he had trouble settling down. He felt confident he knew Kobayashi inside and out, but it had never occurred to him that he would barge into his home in his absence and attempt to draw O-Nobu into conversation when they were hardly on intimate terms — he couldn’t help being aghast at this, nor could he avoid thinking about it. This was not about whether to give him an overcoat. The problem here, entirely unrelated to the coat, was a personality that would permit Kobayashi to think nothing of wresting another man’s coat from the hands of his wife, whom he barely knew. Perhaps this was a second personality created as a survival response to his circumstances. But the real issue as it concerned him was the behavior this personality had manifested in O-Nobu’s direction. Craziness, apparently. Desperation. The cold eye he invariably trained on people who were content. He worried that among all the satisfied people Kobayashi knew, his old friend Tsuda and his new wife had been chosen to become paragons of satisfaction. Tsuda was well aware that he had prepared the foundation for this himself with his unrelenting contempt.

There’s no knowing what he might say.

A variety of fear rose abruptly in Tsuda’s chest. O-Hide, in contrast, burst out laughing. Her brother’s constant derogation of this fellow called Kobayashi meant nothing to her.

“Why does it matter what Kobayashi — san says? Nobody’s going to take a person like him seriously!”

O-Hide was familiar with one side of Kobayashi. But her knowledge was limited to things he had said in front of Uncle Fujii. And that was his placid side, as strikingly different from how he was when he was drinking as if he had been reborn.

“Not so! You’d be surprised.”

“Has he turned into such a bad person recently?”

O-Hide’s expression was incredulous.

“One match is all it takes to burn down a large house, if that’s what you want to do.”

“But if it doesn’t catch fire, it’s all over no matter how many match boxes you bring in! Sister isn’t the sort of woman a man like that can set on fire. Or at least…”

HEARING THIS, Tsuda was careful not to move his eyes. Turned away as he was, he waited for O-Hide to complete the thought. But having expressed just half of something that was likely to concern him, she quickly changed course.

“What makes you start worrying about such a foolish thing today? You have a special reason?”

Tsuda continued to look away. He wished to prevent his sister from reading his eyes. And he was affected by his own unnatural behavior. He felt somehow intimidated. At last he turned toward O-Hide.

“Who says I’m worried?”

“You’re just concerned?”

If things continued in this vein he would feel ridiculed. He went silent.

Just then the contractions that had assailed him a while ago commenced again around the wound. He endured several and was succumbing to worry that the spasms would begin recurring regularly. O-Hide, unaware of this, was unable to let the subject go. Having lost for a minute the thread of her inquiry, she thrust it at him again in a different form.

“Brother, I wonder what sort of person you think Sister is?”

“Why question me now about something like that? It’s ridiculous.”

“Fine! Then I won’t ask.”

“But why? At least tell me why you ask?”

“It seemed important.”

“Important how? Just tell me that.”

“I felt it was important for your sake.”

Tsuda looked disturbed. O-Hide continued at once.

“Because you’re so concerned, Brother, with what Kobayashi-san may have said! There’s something odd about that.”

“It’s nothing you’d understand.”

“That’s why it’s odd, because I don’t understand. Tell me, then, what sort of thing might he bring up to Sister, and what could he say about it?”

“I haven’t said a word about bringing anything up!”

“But what are you afraid he might bring up?”

Tsuda didn’t reply. O-Hide peered into his face as if to bore a hole in it.

“I just can’t imagine it. No matter how bad a person he’s become, what could he possibly have to say? I can’t think of a thing.”

Still Tsuda declined to reply. O-Hide persisted in pressing him for a response.

“What if he did say something; all Sister would have to do is ignore him, isn’t that so?”

“I know that much without hearing it from you!”

“That’s why I’m asking. What in the world do you think of Sister? Do you trust her or not?”

Abruptly O-Hide bore down. Tsuda wasn’t sure why. But sensing the need to throw his antagonist off her stride, he burst into laughter, avoiding a direct answer.

“You should see yourself glowering. I feel as though I’m being cross-examined.”

“Stop faking and say something real.”

“What would you do if I did?”

“I’m your sister.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“The trouble is, you’re not frank.”

Tsuda inclined his head as though bewildered.

“It seems the conversation has gotten very complicated all of a sudden; I wonder if I haven’t misled you. I didn’t bring Kobayashi up with anything serious in mind. All I meant was, this is the sort of troublesome fellow who goes to see your wife when you’re not home and tells her heaven knows what.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all I have to say.”

O-Hide looked as though she felt an expectation had been betrayed. But that didn’t silence her.

“But, Brother. Imagine that someone came to see me and said something when Hori was away. Do you think Hori would worry about that when he found out?”

“I wouldn’t know about Hori-san. I suppose you’ll insist he wouldn’t worry?”

“That’s right.”

“Fine — and?”

“And nothing. That’s all I have to say.”

The conversation had led them to silence.

BUT THEY were bound together by the process of unveiling they had begun. Nothing short of bringing certain things to light by means of conversation, hammering them out of each other, would suffice. For Tsuda in particular, this was a pressing necessity. His need to produce some cash was urgent — a source of funds was right in front of him. He had the feeling if he once let it slip away it would remain out of reach forever. As a consequence he had lapsed, in this regard at least, into a position of weakness relative to O-Hide. He wondered how he might retrieve the topic of conversation that had been dropped.

“Why not have lunch with me before you go?”

It was just the hour of the day when this overture was appropriate. The fact that Hori had taken his mother and children to Yokohama that morning for a visit with relatives so that no one was at home allowed him the convenience of imparting to the gesture a special significance.

“In any event there’s nothing for you to do at home.”

O-Hide did as Tsuda bid her. A dialogue between them was easily resurrected. But this was a simple conversation befitting a brother and sister and provided none of the sustenance they required. Each awaited the opportunity to venture more deeply into the thoughts of the other.

“Brother, I brought something with me.”

“Yes?”

“Something you could use.”

“Is that so?”

Tsuda scarcely bothered to respond. His indifference was proportional to his self-esteem. He was disinclined, psychologically and as a matter of form, to lower his head to his sister. But he wanted the money. To O-Hide the money meant nothing. But she wanted to oblige her brother to bow to her. And achieving her objective required using the money her brother desired as bait. The inevitable effect was to irritate him.

“Shall I give it to you?”

“If you like.”

“Father isn’t about to help you out.”

“Maybe not.”

“Mother says exactly that in her letter to me. I brought it along today thinking to show you, and then I forgot all about it.”

“You’ve already told me what she wrote.”

“Exactly. And so I’ve brought something along.”

“To aggravate me? Or do you intend to hand it over?”

As if she had been struck, O-Hide fell suddenly silent. And as he watched, tears welled in the corners of her beautiful eyes. Tsuda could only imagine they were tears of chagrin.

“What’s made you so cynical, Brother? Why can’t you accept what’s genuine in another person as you used to?”

“I’m exactly the same as I always was. You’re the one who’s changed!”

This time a look of dismay appeared on O-Hide’s face.

“How have I changed? Since when? Tell me.”

“You shouldn’t have to ask, just think about it and you’ll know.”

“I won’t, I don’t! Please tell me!”

Tsuda observed O-Hide lean toward him beseechingly with coldness in his eyes. Having come this far, he deliberated whether it would be more in his own interest to restore his sister’s sense of well-being or to squash her altogether. Resolving to take the middle road, he commenced speaking slowly.

“O-Hide, you may not see this, but from where your brother stands it appears you’ve changed a lot since you married Hori-san.”

“Of course I have! What woman doesn’t change after marriage and two children?”

“So it’s no surprise.”

“But how are you thinking I’ve changed toward you? Tell me that.”

“It’s a question of…”

Tsuda didn’t finish. But he made sure that his emphasis conveyed to O-Hide that he wasn’t incapable of finishing. O-Hide paused briefly and then pushed back.

“You never forget for one minute that I tattled on you to Kyoto, do you!”

“That’s not important.”

“Oh yes, it is! I have a sworn enemy as a result.”

“What are you talking about? Who?”

The unfortunate inquiry ignited the name that had been inscribed between them in, as it were, invisible ink. “O-Nobu.” O-Hide thrust the name in her brother’s face as though it were a firebrand.

“It’s you who’ve changed, Brother. You’re an entirely different brother now than you ever were before you married Sister. Anyone can see you’re a different person.”

AS SHE appeared to Tsuda, O-Hide was armored in her bias against him. This last attack in particular had been driven by sheer misunderstanding. Her voice, repeating “Sister, Sister,” grated on his ears. It displeased him immoderately that she should interpret his every effort to satisfy himself as intended to satisfy his wife.

“You think I’m henpecked, but you’re wrong.”

“Perhaps I am. You did ignore a phone call from Sister and went out of your way, in front of me at least, to appear indifferent.”

Facing O-Hide as she let fly such remarks one after the other, letting them fall where they might, Tsuda was pushed dangerously close to forgetting what was in his own interest. Lying motionless on his mattress, he voiced his annoyance to himself.

I warned O-Nobu not to get on the phone with this brat.

Like someone trying to distract himself from screaming nerves, he pulled repeatedly at his short mustache. Gradually his expression turned sour. Little by little, he grew taciturn.

This change in attitude had a surprising effect on O-Hide. Apparently assuming that her brother’s silence signified the shame he was feeling as the integument covering his faults was peeled away layer after painful layer, she intensified her assault. Her vehemence suggested she was feeling able to push him into comprehensive remorse.

“You were more honest before you got married to Sister. More straightforward, at least. I don’t want to be accused of saying things without evidence, so I’ll state the facts as they are. And I hope you’ll answer me straightforwardly. Before you were married, do you remember ever lying to Father as you are now?”

At this, Tsuda staggered for the first time. Clearly, what O-Hide said was true. But the truth resided in a place altogether different than she supposed. Tsuda would have said it was merely a coincidental truth.

“Are you suggesting that O-Nobu is responsible for this mess?”

“Yes, I am!” she would like to have answered, but she essayed a deflection instead.

“I haven’t said a word about Sister. I simply emphasized that fact as proof that you’ve changed, Brother.”

On the surface of things, it appeared that Tsuda had been defeated.

“Insist I’ve changed if you must; what’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong with it is how it feels to Father and Mother.”

“Is that so?” Tsuda replied at once and subjoined coldly, “I can’t help how it feels.”

“And still no regrets from you?” O-Hide’s expression seemed to be saying. “There’s more proof that you’ve changed.”

Tsuda’s looked at her blankly. O-Hide presented her evidence without hesitation.

“You’ve been worrying all this time that Kobayashi-san might have said something to Sister when you weren’t home.”

“What a nuisance you are! I’ve already explained I’m not worried.”

“But certainly you’re concerned.”

“Think what you like.”

“Fine. But either way, isn’t that proof that you’ve changed?”

“Nonsense!”

“It is! Undeniable proof! It proves how afraid of Sister you are.”

Tsuda rolled his eyes. Without lifting his head from the pillow, he looked up at O-Hide as though to peer inside her. A cold smile wrinkled the well-formed bridge of his nose. This show of composure caught O-Hide off guard. A breath away, or so she thought, from pushing him backward head over heels into a deep valley of remorse, she was obliged to wonder for the first time whether there might still be level ground behind her brother. But she was compelled to push forward as far as she could.

“Until just a little while ago, you looked right through Kobayashi-san as if he weren’t there. You paid no attention no matter what he said. So why is it that today you’re suddenly so afraid? Aren’t you afraid of a nobody like him because today it’s Sister he’s talking to?”

“Maybe. But what about it? No matter how afraid I might be of Kobayashi, it doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful to Father and Mother.”

“So you’re saying I have no business saying anything?”

“Something like that.”

O-Hide was livid. At the same time a bolt of lightning arced across her mind.

“NOW I understand!”

O-Hide’s voice was sharp as a knife. But her clipped formality appeared on the surface to effect no change in Tsuda. There was nothing in his countenance to suggest he was prepared any longer to answer her challenge.

“I understand now, Brother.”

“Understand what?”

“Why you’re so concerned about Sister.”

Tsuda felt the budding of a certain curiosity.

“Say what you think.”

“There’s no need to say anything. It’s enough for me if you just acknowledge that I do understand.”

“Why should that matter? Just tell yourself you understand and keep quiet about it.”

“I can’t do that. You don’t consider me a true sister. As far as you’re concerned, I have no right to say anything to you unless it has to do with Father and Mother. So I’ll hold my tongue. But just because I don’t speak doesn’t mean I’m blind. I just want to be sure you don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m silent because I don’t know what’s going on.”

It seemed to Tsuda that discontinuing the conversation was the only course to take. Engaging even halfheartedly seemed likely to lead to trouble. Not that he had any intention of lowering his head to his sister. In his wildest dreams it would never have occurred to him to engage in histrionics like repenting in front of her. Normally he could have managed such a flourish, but when it came to O-Hide, whom he was accustomed to looking down on, he was prevented by an unaccountable pride. This was in fact an arrogance he found relatively easier to exhibit in her direction than toward others. Accordingly, though his words may have been conciliatory, they were essentially ineffective. As for O-Hide, she perceived only the contempt in her brother’s heart reaching her though his lukewarm protestations. It had been clear from his countenance for some time that he was feeling tormented beyond endurance, but she had no intention of showing him mercy. “Brother!” she began again.

At that moment Tsuda perceived a change in O-Hide. Until now she had been aiming her attack at O-Nobu. To be sure, she had also been attacking him, but that was because he stood in the line of fire: her intention had been to fell O-Nobu where she hovered behind him. At some point she had arbitrarily redefined her target. Now she charged directly at Tsuda.

“Brother! Does a sister have no right to say anything about her big brother’s character? Maybe she has no right — but assuming she has any doubts at all, isn’t it her brother’s duty to dispel them — I take back ‘duty,’ maybe that’s a word I have no business using — how about compassion? As a sister I feel so sad to be looking at a brother of mine who has no compassion.”

“What kind of impertinence is this? Hold your tongue! You have some nerve talking about something you know nothing about.”

For the first time Tsuda’s control of his fury slackened.

“What do you know about character? It’s preposterous that you think your girls’ school diploma qualifies you to even use the word in front of me.”

“I’m not putting any importance on the word. I’m concerned with facts.”

“Facts? Do you think a woman with your education can hope to grasp the facts in my head? How moronic!”

“If you’re going to dismiss me with such contempt, let me give you a warning. Are you prepared?”

“I have nothing to say to you. I just wonder how you can talk this way to a sick man. And you consider yourself my sister?”

“Because you don’t behave like a brother.”

“That’s enough.”

“I’m not finished. I’ll say what I have to say. You’re being used by your wife! You care less about Father and Mother and certainly me than you do about Sister.”

“Show me a world where it isn’t normal to care more for a wife than a sister.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad if that’s all it was. But there’s more, Brother! You care a lot about Sister, and at the same time there’s someone else you also care about.”

“Meaning?”

“And that’s why you’re afraid of Sister. And what you fear—”

In the middle of her sentence the fusuma slid open and O-Nobu’s pale face peered into the sickroom.

SHE HAD arrived at the entrance to the clinic three or four minutes earlier. The doctor saw patients in the morning and afternoon, and since afternoon hours had been set between four and eight to accommodate people working at companies and in government offices, O-Nobu opened the door and stepped inside into relative quietness.

Not realizing she had arrived at an off-hour, she found it odd that the interior should be so hushed. Not a single patient was in evidence. On her previous visit a tangle of lace-up boots and various styles of geta had been heaped just inside the door. Now only a single pair of women’s geta had been left neatly side-by-side on the quiet concrete. New geta that, by the look of them, were too expensive to be worn by a nurse or a menial, they made her pulse quicken. Unmistakably they belonged to a young wife. Her heart heavy with the suspicion Kobayashi had instilled in her, she was unable to take her eyes off them.

A student’s face appeared in the small square window on the right. Noticing the unmoving figure of O-Nobu, he looked at her inquiringly, as if to ask who she might be. O-Nobu promptly asked whether Tsuda had a visitor and whether it was a young woman. Then, declining the offer to usher her in, she went alone to the foot of the stairs and looked up.

From the second floor came the sound of voices in unflagging conversation. But the tenor of the talk was nothing like the unimpeded flow of words between partners in a normal chat. There were strong feelings. There was agitation. And, clearly detectable, the aftermath of a struggle to contain resentment. This dialogue, unmistakably intended to be heard by no one else, beset O-Nobu’s nerves like pins and needles. She felt even more overwhelmed than when she had stared at the geta. She strained to hear.

Tsuda’s room was directly above the surgery. Immediately at the top of the stairs was a wall with a small tatami room on the right; to reach Tsuda it was necessary to move down the hall past this room. This meant that the dialogue was reaching O-Nobu from behind her, which made it difficult to overhear.

She tiptoed up the stairs, her lissome body as quiet as a cat’s. And she was rewarded with the same success as a cat.

At the head of the stairs to the right, as a precaution against falling, a railing six feet long had been installed. Leaning against it, O-Nobu peered in at Tsuda. Immediately O-Hide’s sharp voice reached her. She registered in particular the word “Sister.”… Breathless with surprise, she felt her nerves tauten again. The word had exploded from O-Hide’s lips like a bullet aimed at Tsuda — she had to know the context in which it was being deployed.

As she strained to hear, the pitch of their vehemence steepened. Clearly they were arguing. And before she knew it, she had been dragged down into the whirlpool of the argument. For all she knew, she might have been its principal cause.

But without knowledge of the context, she was unable to ascertain her position in the exchange. And the words they used — more precisely, the words O-Hide was using — pelted the air like frantic hail. There simply wasn’t time to take up and scrutinize the words as they came tumbling down. “Character,” “cherish,” “predictable”—one after the other, words like these assailed O-Nobu’s ears as she stood rooted to the spot.

She considered waiting where she was until the argument should become clear. Then O-Hide discharged as though it were a final round a remark that thudded into her and quickened her pulse yet again. “There’s someone else beside Sister you care about.” Nothing mattered to O-Nobu so much as this single, so distinctly audible, line. At the same time these words, more than all the others, were unclear. Independently, unless she heard what followed, they were of no use to her. No matter what it might cost her, O-Nobu wouldn’t be satisfied until she had heard what came next. At the same time she couldn’t bear to hear more. At each exchange, the words between the siblings had climbed in pitch until now it was impossible not to suppose they had arrived at a summit. Forced to advance further, one of them would raise a hand against the other. O-Nobu accordingly felt obliged to enter the sickroom as a kind of relaxant against a spasm of impropriety.

She understood well the nature of the bond between these siblings. She had also known for a while that she herself was the cause of the disharmony between them. To show her face at this moment would require skill. But she was not without confidence that she could manage. Taking a deep breath at what sounded like the most volatile moment, she slid open the door as quietly as she could.

SMALL WONDER that the siblings went abruptly silent. But their silence, the abatement of a gale on the way to unleashing its fury, was by no means an indication of peace. In this moment when words had been unnaturally suppressed, something menacing lurked.

Because of their positions relative to each other, Tsuda was the first to see O-Nobu. Having placed his pillow toward the south-facing engawa, it was only natural that he should discover her the minute she entered from the opposite side of the room. In that instant, lacking the presence to wrap and hide either one away, he revealed two sentiments for O-Nobu to read in his face: uneasiness and relief. She could see that he was at once discountenanced and thankful. This accorded precisely with her expectation as she abruptly entered the room. From one aspect of his expression she took proof and stored it away in her heart that she was justified in a certain suspicion. But that was a secret. In the spur of the instant, she must make her objective in entering to respond to the other aspect. Brightening her pale cheeks a little with a forced smile, she looked at Tsuda. Since this occurred just as O-Hide turned around, the latter took it to mean that O-Nobu, excluding her, was in tacit communication with her brother. A pale flush of which she was unaware rose like a tide to her own cheeks.

“Look who’s here.”

“Good morning.”

They exchanged a simple greeting beyond which the conversation did not extend. Uncomfortably at a loss, they began to feel oppressed. O-Nobu, who was incapable of small talk, untied the large kerchief she had brought with her and removed the books of English humor Okamoto had lent her and handed them to Tsuda. On her finger sparkled the ring that rankled O-Hide incessantly.

Tsuda lifted the slender volumes one by one but merely thumbed the pages before replacing them next to his pillow. He couldn’t bring himself to read a single line. Lacking the courage even to comment, he maintained his silence. Meanwhile, O-Nobu exchanged a few remarks with O-Hide, in every case obliging the latter to reply briefly as though extracting comments from her throat.

Presently O-Nobu produced a letter from the folds of her kimono.

“I found it in the mailbox on my way out so I took the liberty of bringing it along.”

O-Nobu’s language was punctilious. Her letter-perfect politeness, compared with how she was when sitting alone with Tsuda, made her seem a different person. In truth she deplored this sort of formal reserve, but in front of others, O-Hide in particular, she felt she had no choice, in one very specific sense, but to speak through an artificial filter.

The letter was the eagerly awaited reply from Tsuda’s father in Kyoto. Like the previous missive, this one had also been sent by regular mail, which allowed O-Nobu to surmise vaguely even without having heard from O-Hide that it would have little to offer in the way of resolving the problem at hand.

Before opening the envelope, Tsuda spoke.

“I’ve been warned.”

“What?”

“Apparently Father won’t be sending any more money no matter what we say.”

Tsuda’s tone conveyed something unfamiliarly genuine. It was as if his antagonism toward O-Hide had turned him into a more considerate husband, a change that he himself had failed to notice. His unaffected sincerity made O-Nobu happy. Her reply was warm and consoling. Without realizing it, even in her manner of speech, she was herself again.

“If that’s how he feels, fine! We’ll figure something out ourselves.”

Tsuda opened the envelope without replying. The letter it contained was not overly long. It was, moreover, written in characters so large that the contents could be gleaned at a glance. Even so, the women exchanged no comments as they had about the books of humor. Instead they focused intently on the scrolled letter in front of them. Thus it was that by the time Tsuda had finished reading it, returned it to its envelope, and dropped it on the tatami next to his pillow, they were both aware of its gist. O-Hide made a point of inquiring.

“What did he write, Brother?”

Tsuda merely shrugged. O-Hide turned briefly away. Then she inquired again.

“I assume it’s just as I said?”

The contents of the letter were as she had surmised. But his sister’s complacency annoyed Tsuda. Even without the additional provocation, he was already too angry at her to provide a spontaneous reply.

O-NOBU WAS able to read her husband’s mood distinctly. In her heart she feared yet another upheaval. And she had her doubts about her husband’s real intention. His normal behavior as she observed it was testimony in all things to self-control. Beyond self-control, there was also an accompanying coldness when he was looking down on someone deep inside himself. She believed there was also something more lurking inside this special quality of his, beyond her ability to manage. This was still an unknown quantity, but she was convinced that if only she could bring it to light she would be able to handle him to her satisfaction easily enough. Characterizing him as he revealed himself on the surface was a matter of no great difficulty. He was a person not easily angered. But why would someone who didn’t, in the English phrase, lose his temper begin to crack open this way in front of his own sister? Properly speaking, why had he already cracked so unequivocally before O-Nobu had entered the room? In any event, she would have to interpose herself between them before they summoned back the wave that had begun to recede. She attempted to make herself a party to the argument.

“Did you receive a letter from Father as well?”

“From Mother.”

“I see — about this same matter?”

“Correct.”

O-Hide said nothing more. O-Nobu pressed ahead.

“I suppose they have their own expenses in Kyoto. And it’s not as though this wasn’t our fault to begin with.”

The jewel on O-Nobu’s finger had never appeared so dazzling to O-Hide as at this moment. She spoke.

“I doubt it’s about that. Old people are set in their ways; they believe in Brother. They assume he’ll figure out a way to manage a minor problem like this.”

O-Nobu smiled.

“Of course we’ll manage somehow if it comes to that. Won’t we, Yoshio!”

O-Nobu looked at Tsuda with eyes that appealed, Say right away that we’ll be fine. Tsuda saw that he was being signaled, but he couldn’t comprehend the message in O-Nobu’s eyes. He said again what he repeated constantly.

“It’s nothing we can’t manage, but I can’t help thinking that what Father says is weird. He rebuilt a fence, the rent is late — those expenses add up to nothing.”

“I don’t think we can assume that, Yoshio-san! Until we have a house of our own.”

“We damn well have a house!”

O-Nobu smiled in her singular way, this time at O-Hide.

O-Hide responded, returning unstintingly the same degree of charm.

“Brother suspects there’s a plot behind this.”

“That’s mean of you, Yoshio, to be suspicious of Father. Father has no reason to be plotting anything. Don’t you agree, O-Hide?”

“It’s not Father and Mother; he thinks there’s a plot elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?”

O-Nobu looked surprised.

“Yes — he’s definitely thinking it’s someone else.”

O-Nobu turned back to her husband.

“Yoshio, what does that mean?”

“O-Hide said it, ask her.”

O-Nobu smiled uncomfortably. O-Hide’s turn to speak had come round again.

“Brother thinks that I secretly provoked Kyoto.”

“But why?”

O-Nobu was unable to say more. And what she had said was meaningless. O-Hide promptly stepped into the emptiness.

“That’s why he’s been in such a foul mood. Not that we don’t fight whenever we get near each other. Especially since this affair.”

“How awful,” O-Nobu exclaimed with a sigh and turned to Tsuda yet again.

“But can that be true? I can’t imagine you thinking something so unmanly.”

“I wouldn’t know, but it seems that’s how it appears to my little sister.”

“But why would Hideko-san do something like that?”

“To punish me, maybe. I don’t really know.”

“For what? What have you done that deserves punishment?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Tsuda was clearly annoyed. O-Nobu looked at O-Hide as if she had no one else to turn to. The expression that furrowed her brow above her small eyes might have been an appeal for help.

“MY BIG brother is so obstinate,” O-Hide said abruptly. Having been driven into the position of having to offer her sister-in-law an explanation, she felt in her heart even as she spoke a renewed hatred for her. She had never seen a woman so brazen and disingenuous as O-Nobu appeared to her at that moment.

“It’s true, I have a stubborn husband,” O-Nobu said, turning at once toward Tsuda. “You really are stubborn, Yoshio! It’s just as Hideko-san says. It’s a trait you really must work on.”

“What’s so stubborn about me?”

“I can’t say exactly—”

“Is it that I’ll try anything I can think of to get money out of Father?”

“That’s it, yes.”

“But I haven’t said a word about extracting money.”

“No, how could you? And even if you did, what good would it do?”

“Then how am I being stubborn?”

“It’s no good your asking because I just don’t know. But it’s there somewhere, a stubborn part.”

“Idiot!”

Notwithstanding this imprecation, O-Nobu’s smile was if anything contented. O-Hide could endure no more.

“Brother! Why won’t you accept what I brought you without protesting? Gratefully.”

“Grateful or ungrateful, stubborn or meek as a lamb hardly matters, I don’t see you offering me anything.”

“How can I offer when you won’t tell me you’ll accept?”

“From where I stand, I can’t accept anything because you’ve given me nothing to accept.”

“But if you don’t acknowledge you’re accepting something when you take it, I can’t feel good about it either.”

“Then what should I do?”

“It should be plain as day.”

All three were silent a moment.

Tsuda spoke up abruptly.

“O-Nobu, how about apologizing to O-Hide?”

O-Nobu looked at her husband as though dismayed.

“For what?”

“I think she intends to give me what she’s brought if only you’ll apologize. That’s what O-Hide is thinking.”

“I don’t mind apologizing. If you tell me to, I’ll apologize as much as you like. It’s just that—”

O-Nobu looked at O-Hide entreatingly. O-Hide interrupted.

“Brother, what are you saying? When did I say I wanted an apology from Sister? If you accuse me falsely of something like that, how will I look Sister in the eye?”

Silence descended once again. Tsuda intentionally said nothing. There was no necessity for O-Nobu to speak. O-Hide gathered herself.

“Believe it or not, Brother, I think of myself as dutiful where you two are concerned.”

O-Hide had finally managed to get this far when Tsuda abruptly interposed a question.

“Hold on a minute. Are you talking about duty or kindness? Which?”

“To me they’re the same thing.”

“Is that so? That leaves me nothing to say. And then?”

“There’s no and then! I’m speaking about because. It hurts me to have you thinking I went behind your backs and provoked Father and Mother and deprived you both of freedom as a result. That’s why I came here today, because I want to provide you with just the amount you need. The truth is, I wanted to come the minute Sister called yesterday, but there was something I had to do at home in the morning, and in the afternoon I had to go the bank on the same business and was unable to get here. It’s such a small amount of money it isn’t worth talking about; I just want to say it seems a shame that you can be so unaware of my concern for you.”

O-Nobu studied Tsuda’s face as he maintained his silence.

“Say something, Yoshio!”

“Such as?”

“Such as Thanks! Thanks to O-Hide for her kindness.”

“I don’t appreciate having my arm twisted to be grateful for such a piddling amount of money.”

“I just said I wasn’t looking for your gratitude!” O-Hide exclaimed defensively, her voice rising toward shrillness. O-Nobu managed to preserve the calmness she had begun with.

“That’s why I’m saying you should put your stubbornness behind you and say thanks. If you dislike the idea of borrowing the money then don’t take it, but thank O-Hide-san anyway.”

O-Hide grimaced. Tsuda’s mien conveyed his disgruntlement.

THEY FOUND themselves in an odd predicament. Bound together by the course of the conversation, it became difficult gradually to shift away to other subjects. Leaving the room was of course impossible. Their only choice was to remain as they were and search for a resolution.

In the eyes of someone able to assess dispassionately and at a distance their respective positions and circumstances, their problem would have registered as something small and insignificant. Nor did they require someone to point this out to be well aware of it. Even so, they had to contend. The background they carried on their shoulders reached out with complex hands from a past unknown to others and easily manipulated them.

In the end Tsuda and O-Hide engaged in a dialogue rather like the following.

“If I hadn’t said anything in the beginning, that would have been the end of it, but now I’ve brought it up it will feel terrible to go home with what I’ve brought without giving it to you, so please, Brother, take what I have.”

“If you want to leave it, go ahead.”

“But I want you to acknowledge that you’re accepting it.”

“I have no idea what the devil I’m supposed to do to satisfy you, why can’t you just state your conditions outright?”

“I’m not making a fuss about conditions. I’m asking you to accept gracefully what I have for you. I’m asking you to behave as if we were brother and sister, that’s all. Then all you’d have to do is say you’re sorry to Father, a few words you genuinely mean.”

“I already apologized to Father quite some time ago. You know perfectly well I did. And it wasn’t just a few words.”

“But I don’t mean that kind of mechanical apology. I mean genuine regret from the bottom of your heart.”

Tsuda had been thinking his sister wasn’t requiring much. But regret hadn’t occurred to him.

“You’re telling me my apology was insincere? I may really want the money, but I also happen to be a man! I’m not about to bow and scrape, think about it.”

“But the truth is, you really want the money.”

“Who said I didn’t?”

“And that’s why you apologized to Father, isn’t it!”

“Why apologize otherwise?”

“Exactly! And that’s why Father stopped giving you money. You don’t realize that?”

Tsuda went silent. O-Hide pursued him at once.

“As long as you feel that way, it’s not only Father, I can’t give you money either.”

“Then don’t. I’m not trying to pry it out of you.”

“That’s not how it sounds. You said you really want the money.”

“When?”

“You’ve been saying it for a while.”

“That’s a damn lie. Numbskull!”

“It’s not a lie. You can’t tell me you haven’t been saying it all along to yourself over and over again. You’re not frank, Brother, so you can’t say it out loud.”

Tsuda looked at O-Hide with grim fierceness in his eyes. His stare was lit with hatred. Nor was there any indication that his conscience was making him ashamed. When he spoke, even O-Nobu was surprised by what he said. With the utmost composure he could command, he said precisely the opposite of what she had expected.

“O-Hide, it’s just as you say. Let me start again and reveal myself to you. This brother of yours desperately needs the money you’ve brought. Let me declare that you are a woman filled with deep sisterly love. I appreciate your kindness. So please, by all means, leave the money at my pillow side.”

O-Hide’s hands trembled with anger. She flushed bright red. Her blood appeared to be rushing all at once into her face. This was vividly apparent beneath the whiteness of her skin. Only her tone of voice was little changed. Smiling wanly even in her anger, she abruptly dropped her brother and turned sparkling eyes on O-Nobu.

“Sister, what shall I do? Since my brother has gone to the trouble of saying all that, shall I just leave the money?”

“Whatever you decide.”

“Yes? But he did say the money was an absolute necessity.”

“That may be so for him. As for me, I have no need of the money whatsoever.”

“So you and brother are separate?”

“Not in the least. We’re a couple after all; take us or leave us.”

“I don’t—”

O-Nobu didn’t let her finish.

“Whatever my husband needs, I make sure to provide for him.”

With these words, O-Nobu took from her obi the check she had received from Uncle Okamoto the day before.

AS SHE handed the check to Tsuda, making sure that O-Hide could see it, O-Nobu had in mind a request to make of him. Based on the turn of the conversation thus far and on her own personality, her request was more important to her than anything else. If only, she prayed silently, her husband, aligning himself with her, would accept the check! He might nod with a faint smile of relief and let it fall carelessly to the tatami alongside his pillow, or again, he might hand it back to her with a word of thanks that was simple enough yet conveyed his profound satisfaction with his wife — if only, with regard to the disposition of the check, he would allow O-Hide to perceive a previous understanding existing between them, the kind of understanding that befitted a couple, that would suffice.

Regretfully, O-Nobu’s action and the check itself were too abrupt for Tsuda. Beyond that, his sensibility regarding a theatrical gesture in a case like this was somewhat different from his wife’s. He stared at the check with an odd look on his face. Then he asked, taking his time, “What the devil is this?”

Instantly the coldness in his voice and the equivalent coldness of the inquiry itself was a hateful blow to O-Nobu’s eagerness. Her expectation had been betrayed.

“It’s nothing special — you needed something so I arranged to get it for you.”

The words were spoken casually, but O-Nobu was trembling inside. She was terrified that Tsuda would pursue the matter. That would serve only to reveal to O-Hide that there was no understanding whatsoever between them.

“You don’t have to look for an explanation while you’re sill recovering. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

Still uneasy, O-Nobu hastened to continue before Tsuda had a chance to speak.

“What does it matter, anyway? It’s such a small amount, it could have come from any number of places.”

Tsuda finally dropped the check beside his mattress. He was a man who desired money but did not prize it. Though he understood more keenly than others the importance of money when it was necessary, his inherent contempt disposed him to affirm O-Nobu’s words wholeheartedly. And so he said nothing. But neither did he feel it necessary to offer O-Nobu one word of thanks.

O-Nobu was disheartened. Even if he had nothing to say to her, she thought to herself, he might at least have conveyed his relief to O-Hide.

Just then O-Hide, who had been observing them, abruptly withdrew from the bosom of her kimono a pretty woman’s wallet.

“Brother! I’ll leave what I brought you here.”

Removing from the wallet a packet wrapped in white paper, she placed it alongside the check.

“I suppose I can leave it here?”

Having addressed Tsuda, she appeared to be waiting for O-Nobu’s reply. O-Nobu obliged at once.

“This is so kind of you, Hideko-san, but please don’t trouble yourself on our account. It would be different if we couldn’t manage on our own, but we’ll be fine.”

“But that will leave me feeling so uncomfortable. It gave me such pleasure to bring this along, I even wrapped it up for you; please accept it without objecting.”

The women took turns acceding to each other, repeating lines in the same dialogue. Tsuda listened forbearingly for what seemed like forever. Eventually they had to turn to him.

“Brother, please accept this.”

“May we take it, Yoshio?”

Tsuda grinned broadly.

“It’s odd, O-Hide, you were so stubborn a minute ago. Now you’re practically forcing this on us. Which do you really mean?”

“I mean both,” O-Hide said gravely.

Her reply caught Tsuda off guard. And her vehemence foiled his inveterate tendency to handle everything with condescension. The more so for O-Nobu. She looked at O-Hide in surprise. Her face was flushed just as before. But the glow in her cool eyes was not only anger. It was impossible not to apprehend something smoldering there that was neither regret nor chagrin nor animosity. What exactly it was they would have to hear directly from her lips. They were both intrigued. Some adjustment in the angle of the sentiments they had sustained until now seemed necessary. Without interrupting her, they hoped to hear in her words an explanation for that slow burn. Just then, as if prompted by their anticipation, she gave them what they wanted.

“I’VE BEEN wondering for a while whether to say something or be quiet, but now that you’ve had your fun insulting me, Brother, I don’t feel good about going home without speaking my mind. So I’m going to say what I have to say here and now. Just one thing: what I’m about to say is a departure from our conversation until now, so it would be a pity if you have to listen in the same frame of mind. Not because I’m afraid of being misunderstood, but for the simple reason that my feelings simply won’t get through to you.”

Tsuda and O-Nobu were already in the process of adjusting their attitudes, and these opening words altered the more dramatically the angle of their perception. In silence they waited for what was coming. But O-Hide had yet again to make sure of them.

“You’ll take me a little seriously won’t you? If I get serious?”

O-Hide turned her powerful gaze from Tsuda to O-Nobu.

“Not that I haven’t been serious until now. In any event, now that Sister is here, there’s nothing to worry about. If we get into one of our usual sibling squabbles, all she has to do is order us to stop.”

O-Nobu essayed a smile. O-Hide did not respond.

“I’ve been thinking of saying this to you for the longest time. In front of Sister. But there hasn’t been an opportunity, so I’ve kept quiet. And now that you’re here together, as a couple, I can make a point of speaking out. What I want to say is precisely this, are you ready? You two think of nothing at all in this wide world except yourselves! So long as the two of you are doing well, it doesn’t matter how distressed or confused someone else may be, you can turn the other way and pretend they don’t exist — that’s it.”

Tsuda was able to accept this characterization with equanimity. He was enabled in this by his certainty that O-Hide had identified a salient characteristic, not only in himself but in every human being. O-Nobu, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine a more unexpected appraisal. Her only feeling was dismay. For better or for worse, O-Hide moved on at once before she could open her mouth.

“All you do, Brother, is adore yourself. And Sister devotes herself to being adored by you. Neither of you sees anyone else. Certainly not your sister, that goes without saying; even Father and Mother have disappeared from view.”

Having come this far, O-Hide, as if fearing that one of them might interrupt her, abruptly supplemented her remarks.

“I’m just stating the truth as it appears to me. I’m not saying I want you to do anything about it. It’s too late for that now. Actually it became too late today. Just now, in fact, unnoticed by either of you. That was destined to happen just as it did; there’s not a thing I can do but resign myself. But I do want you both to consider the consequences of the facts as I foresee them.”

Once again O-Hide shifted her gaze from Tsuda to O-Nobu. Neither of them had any clear notion of what she meant by consequences. They were, accordingly, curious. And, for that reason, silent.

“It’s a simple consequence,” O-Hide subjoined. “So simple it can be stated in a single sentence. But I doubt that either of you will understand. Because I don’t think you realize that you’re unable to accept the kindness of another person. The consequence of not being able to think of anyone but yourselves is that you’ve both lost the capacity to respond as human beings to another’s kindness. In other words, you’ve been degraded to people who can’t be grateful for another person’s good intentions. Maybe that doesn’t bother you. Maybe you’re thinking you already have everything you need, that nothing is lacking. But, as I see it, this will lead to unimaginable misfortune. To me it appears that you’ve been deprived of your ability to feel happy in a human way. Brother! You say you want the money I’ve brought. But you say you don’t need the kindness that moved me to bring it. To me it’s the other way around. As a human being, it should be the other way around. So this is a terrible misfortune. A misfortune you’re unaware of. As for you, Sister, you’re hoping Brother won’t accept the money; you’ve been suggesting all along that he mustn’t accept it. By declining the money, you’re also hoping to reject my kindness. And you’d like to gloat about that. But it should be the other way around for you, too. You simply don’t understand that humbly accepting this sister’s sincerity would bring you a thousand times more pleasure as a human being than any gloating you plan to do.”

O-Nobu felt unable to hold her tongue. But O-Hide was even less able. Overriding O-Nobu with the fervent torrent of her words, she was unable to stop until she had finished speaking her mind.

“IF YOU have something to say, Sister, I promise to listen carefully afterward, but please let me finish what I have to say even if it disturbs you. I’ll be only a minute longer.”

O-Hide’s request was oddly composed. She appeared to be moving in the opposite direction from the state she had been in during her collision with Tsuda, from frenzy toward mildness. Under the circumstances, this struck the other two as an unexpected transition.

“Brother!” O-Hide said. “Why do you suppose I didn’t give you this little package earlier? And why was I able to produce it just now without feeling uncomfortable? I wonder if you have any thoughts. Or if you do, Sister?”

It required no thought at all for either of them to interpret this invitation as a preface to more of O-Hide’s specious logic. This is how it seemed to O-Nobu especially. But O-Hide was in earnest.

“I wanted to use this to make you behave like a big brother. Maybe you’ll laugh at me for making a fuss about such a small amount of money. But for me the amount isn’t the issue. If I see an opportunity to make you behave like a brother, I leap at it. Today I tried my very best to do what I could. And I failed miserably. Especially since Sister arrived, I’ve been a horrible failure. And that obliges me to throw away my attachment to my brother as his sister — I beg of you, Sister, put up with me just a little longer.”

With these words, O-Hide once again restrained O-Nobu as she attempted to speak.

“I already know your position. Instead of listening to a long explanation from you I’d prefer to reach my own conclusions based solely on what I’ve seen here today, so I shan’t ask you anything more. But I must still explain myself, and I implore you to listen to what I have to say.”

Thinking what an extraordinarily presumptuous woman this was, O-Nobu said nothing. It cost her little to remain silent: from the outset she had been in possession of the leeway that goes to the victor.

“Brother!” O-Hide began. “Look at this. You see how carefully I wrapped it for you at home before I came here. That should tell you how I feel about this, the kind of person I am.”

O-Hide pointedly lifted the packet from alongside the pillow and held it up.

“This is called kindness. Since you two have no understanding of what that means, I have no choice but to explain it. And at the same time I must explain that even if my brother won’t behave in a brotherly way, I have no choice but to leave the kindness I brought from home at his bedside. Dear brother, does this represent your sister’s kindness or her duty? When you asked me that, I said they were the same. If your sister remains determined to show you kindness even though you won’t accept it, then how in the world does that kindness differ from duty? Isn’t it simply that you transform my kindness into duty?”

“O-Hide, we get it,” Tsuda said, speaking out at last. He had grasped clearly what his sister meant to say. But he wasn’t feeling any of the things she expected him to feel. He had put up with her tirade, devoutly wishing she would stop. In his view this sister of his was neither kind nor sincere. There was nothing attractive or appealing about her, nor was she high-minded. She was merely a pest, a nuisance, nothing more.

“We get it. That’s enough. More than enough.”

O-Hide had already given up and didn’t appear particularly resentful. She added merely, “This money isn’t my husband’s. If this were money he had put up for you because he felt responsible to Father when you broke an agreement that he’d guaranteed, I imagine even you wouldn’t feel so good about accepting it. And I would feel terrible about imposing on him. So I want to make it crystal clear that this money has nothing to do with Hori. It’s mine! And that should mean that you can take it without objecting. Even if you reject my kindness, you can at least accept my money. At this point I’d rather have you accept the money without a protest than offer me thanks you don’t mean. This isn’t for you anymore anyway. The truth is, it’s for me. Please, Brother, take the money for me.”

With these words, O-Hide rose. O-Nobu looked at Tsuda and discovered no hint or signal in his face. This left her no choice but to see O-Hide out, accompanying her downstairs. At the entrance to the clinic, they exchanged the standard pleasantries and separated.

THERE WAS nothing so very surprising about running into O-Hide at the clinic. The result of the encounter, however, was beyond surprising. Though O-Nobu was familiar with O-Hide’s attitude toward her, she hadn’t expected to find herself involved in the kind of scene that had just ended. Now that it was over, she couldn’t help interpreting it as a quirk of destiny. Certainly she wasn’t moved to discover a reason why the encounter should have been inevitable by reflecting on their connection in the past. To put her psychological state more simply, she felt no responsibility whatsoever for the incident. That was something O-Hide would have to shoulder alone. Accordingly, O-Nobu felt unexpectedly serene. At least she was unable to discover any reason for her conscience to be making her ashamed.

The interview had affected her in two ways. There was, first of all, the disagreeable feeling that had followed it. Folded into this unpleasantness was the prospect of strife that seemed almost certain to befall them through O-Hide’s agency. O-Nobu felt well prepared to make her way through the jungle of this conflict. But only if Tsuda would take her side from start to finish. When it came to that, she felt seven parts secure to three parts uneasy. She had to wonder, somewhat urgently, the extent to which, as a result of her actions today, she had managed to further diminish her cause for concern. At the very least she felt that she had earned some confidence in that regard by doing everything she could to demonstrate to Tsuda her genuine intention to buy, or possibly to repurchase, his love.

While this had to be accounted the most important aspect of what she herself understood, the encounter had also generated, and delivered into her hands as a natural consequence, a second benefit she hadn’t recognized at the time. To be sure, it was only temporary: it had been O-Nobu’s good fortune to have evaded the eye of suspicion her husband would inevitably have directed at her. It was a change in Tsuda that had made this possible: it was as if, in terms not only of sentiment but of the focus of his consciousness, he was a different man before he had taken on O-Hide as an opponent and after she had begun to vex him. Having appeared at just the agitated moment when this transformation was occurring and undertaken to promote the natural surging of the wave, O-Nobu had, without realizing it, put money in her own purse.

She was spared, that is, the trouble of explaining the details of why the Okamotos had persisted in inviting her to the theater, and why it had become necessary to visit them at home the following day. Nor was there an opportunity to say a word about a subject she might have wished to bring up herself, Kobayashi’s visit and what he had said to her. Once O-Hide had left, their minds were completely occupied with thoughts of her.

They read this in each other’s faces. Just as O-Nobu was reappearing lissomely at the entrance to the room, in that instant, having seen O-Hide out and climbed back up the stairs, their eyes had locked. O-Nobu smiled. Whereupon Tsuda smiled too. There was nothing there save the two of them. Each of their smiles touched the other’s heart. O-Nobu, at least, felt that she was encountering for the first time in a long while the Tsuda she had known in the beginning. She scarcely knew what the smile that had risen from inside her signified. It was as if her face itself, assuming the form and shape of a smile, was a memento of a happier time. She stored the sensation carefully away at the back of her heart.

At that moment their smiles abruptly bloomed; they laughed aloud together, revealing their teeth.

“I was so surprised.”

Moving as she spoke, O-Nobu sat down next to Tsuda’s pillow. Tsuda’s reply was calm.

“I told you not to phone her.”

They were naturally drawn back to the subject of O-Hide.

“I don’t suppose that Hideko-san could be a Christian?”

“Why?”

“I was just wondering.”

“Because she left the money?”

“Not just that.”

“Because of her sermon?”

“That’s partly it. That was the first time for me. I’ve never heard Hideko-san sound so complex.”

“She thinks she’s a logician. She has to take everything apart and put it back together the way she thinks it ought to fit.”

“I’ve never heard her be that way before.”

“You haven’t, maybe — I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to her run on. She has a habit of making sturgeon out of a mudfish. She’s been influenced by Uncle Fujii, and that turns into poison.”

“What makes you say so?”

“She spent all those years at his side listening to him arguing about everything, and eventually she became as fluent a sophist as he is.”

Tsuda shook his head dismissively. O-Nobu forced a smile.

BUT SHE felt that she and her husband were facing each other directly for the first time in a long while, and how happy that made her! It was a refreshing feeling, as though the thin curtain that had been hung between them at some point along the way had suddenly been cut and allowed to fall.

She must labor tirelessly to make him love her by loving him — such was her resolve. Her determination had spurred her to immense effort. Happily she had not labored in vain. In the end she would be rewarded. To the extent at least that she was able to divine the future, she would be rewarded. In her view, the current upheaval, an entirely unexpected incident it would have to be called, was in and of itself the dawning of her recovery. Above the distant horizon she was able to gaze at the pale brightening of a roseate sky. And in the warmth of the hope it conveyed, she forgot the unpleasantness the encounter had caused her to feel. But Kobayashi’s cruel remarks remained as a blot on her heart of an obscure nature. And the disquieting words spoken by O-Hide had become a star of doubt pulsing in her brain with a dull light. But these feelings had already receded to a vast distance. At the very least they were no longer so very painful. And she felt no need of recalling the memory of her agitation in the instant the words had assailed her ears.

Even in the event the unthinkable happened, I should be all right.

In the moment, O-Nobu was that confident in her husband. When the time came, she felt equipped to take whatever steps might be required to handle the situation. If that should entail moving an opponent out of the way, so be it, she would be more than up to the challenge.

What sort of opponent? What would she have answered if she were asked? This was an opponent sketched nebulously in pale ink. And it was a woman. A woman who wanted to steal away Tsuda’s love for her. That was all she knew. But she sensed that such an opponent was lurking somewhere. Had the confrontation between O-Hide and themselves not ended so badly, her next step in the course of things would have been to probe Tsuda for the identity of her opponent.

If anything, she felt happy about her intention not to proceed according to this strategy. Postponing her concern until later was something she could easily endure. For the moment it occurred to her that taking advantage of this opportunity to inscribe as deeply as possible in her husband’s mind the kindness she was feeling toward him now would be the strategic thing to do.

No sooner had she resolved to proceed this way than she told a lie. It was a trivial lie. To O-Nobu, however, firmly believing that the check she had brought had rescued her husband from a dire situation that was not only material but also spiritual, it was immensely significant.

Tsuda had reached for the check and was staring at it again. It was written for an amount that was actually greater than he had required. Before he addressed this, however, he spoke to O-Nobu.

“O-Nobu, thanks. This is a life-saver.”

O-Nobu’s lie escaped her lips immediately following his words of gratitude.

“The reason I went to the Okamotos yesterday was to get this from Uncle.”

Tsuda looked surprised. It was after all this same O-Nobu who had flatly refused when he had asked her to speak to her uncle about a loan. Wondering what can have accounted for this change in less than a week’s time, he felt in the presence of an unsolvable riddle. O-Nobu explained in the following way.

“I hated doing it, troubling Uncle for money. But, Yoshio, what choice did I have? How can I fulfill my duty as a wife to you if I can’t find the courage I need at a time like this?”

“Did you explain to Okamoto-san?”

“Of course, and it was painful.”

It was her uncle who had handled the lion’s share of the expenses for her wedding.

“Especially since I’ve behaved until now as if money were the last thing in the world we were worried about. That made it all the more awkward, I declare.”

Judging by his own disposition, Tsuda could easily understand the degree of awkwardness O-Nobu would have felt in such a situation.

“I’m impressed.”

“The hard part was bringing it up. It’s not as if they don’t have money.”

“But the world is full of difficult people like Father and O-Hide.”

The look on Tsuda’s face suggested his self-esteem had been damaged. O-Nobu spoke as if to reassure him.

“It’s not as if they’re the only reason I took the money. I have a promise from Uncle that he’ll buy me a ring. He’s been saying for a while that he’ll get me one now in return for not having given me anything when we got married. I expect that’s what he was thinking when he gave me the money. So you needn’t worry about it.”

Tsuda looked at O-Nobu’s finger and confirmed that the stone he had purchased for her was splendidly there.

TO A rare degree they moved closely together. Tsuda’s heart, armored until now in order to maintain appearances in front of O-Nobu, softened. The care he had taken to obscure the situation in Kyoto behind a curtain of vagueness, a precaution motivated by his fear that O-Nobu might perceive his father as parsimonious, or that her estimation of his father’s wealth might fall below the affluence he wanted her to assume, relaxed. He didn’t notice this. With no effort or even conscious volition, he had arrived here as if swept along by the force of nature. It was very much as if the incident had lifted him gently despite his cautiousness and carried him to this place for O-Nobu’s sake. This made O-Nobu uncommonly happy. She sensed something natural about her husband’s attitude, reformed without any effort at reform.

Tsuda for his part observed in O-Nobu a similar change in feeling. Ever since their marriage, other issues aside for the moment, they had been engaged covertly in a strange battle over money. There were specific reasons for this. To appear to O-Nobu in the best possible light, Tsuda, who tended to make wealth an object of pride no less than any man, had assessed his father’s holdings at an amount that far exceeded the reality and bragged about it to his wife to be. But that wasn’t all; in his weakness he had taken a step further. The picture of himself he had conjured for O-Nobu suggested that he was, more than now, a young gentleman of considerable means. He had hinted that in the case of an emergency he would be able to request financial aid from his father in whatever amount was needed. Even without such help, monthly expenses would be met without difficulty. By the time they were married, he was already burdened by the responsibility of making good on his intimations. In his clever way he understood full well that, when it came to placing importance on wealth, he had met his match in O-Nobu. Believing as he did, to put it extremely, that love itself was born from the glitter of gold, he felt uneasily the necessity of maintaining appearances somehow or other in front of his wife. In especial he was deeply afraid of being exposed to her contempt. It was partly the lurking presence of his determination to maintain this front, quite apart from actual need, that underlay the arrangement for monthly help from his father that had been brokered by his brother-in-law, Hori. In any case, there was a place in him that was concealed and inaccessible. At the very least there was a considerable discrepancy between his feelings toward his wife and what he allowed to reach the surface. O-Nobu, quick as lightning, felt this distance as palpably as if she held it in her hands. This was inevitably a source of dissatisfaction. But instead of arraigning her husband’s falsehood, she resented his inability to be frank. She explained this to herself as a kind of stand-offishness. It hurt her that he couldn’t expose his weaknesses in front of his wife like a man. In the end she resolved that if this were a man who kept his distance, unwilling to risk exposure, she would prepare for the worst in her own way. This resolution reached her husband faintly like an echo in the woods. Facing each other directly became impossible no matter the lengths they went to. Moreover, in their deference to each other, they were careful never to touch on the problem. However, their quarrel with O-Hide had accidentally battered to the ground at one blow this door to O-Nobu’s heart, though she was unaware that it had fallen. Without any effort or determination to release herself in front of her husband, she quite naturally opened. Thus it was that Tsuda beheld in her something so pleasing she might have been a different person.

In this state they moved together with a degree of closeness that was rare. And, merged as they now were, something strange happened. They took up with ease a subject they had been avoiding until now. Together as one person, they began devising an approach to resolving the Kyoto impasse.

The same presentiment gripped them both. Their hearts were constricted by a worrisome certainty that nothing they could do would correct the situation. O-Hide could be counted on to take action. It would surely be directed at Kyoto. And the result was certain to prove disadvantageous to them. To this point they were aligned. When it came to deciding on a corrective measure, their opinions diverged, and it was no simple task to synthesize a compromise.

O-Nobu designated Uncle Fujii as her first choice for a mediator. Tsuda objected. He knew that both his uncle and aunt were on O-Hide’s side. He proposed Okamoto. This time it was O-Nobu who demurred, on grounds that Okamoto had never been closely associated with Tsuda’s father. She suggested paying a visit to O-Hide herself with an eye to a simpler reconciliation. Tsuda had no particular objection. In his view, even if it weren’t for this most recent incident, it was meet, assuming they wished to avoid a total break, that relations between the two families should be renewed on one pretext or another. That didn’t mean, however, that they shouldn’t try to come up with a slightly more efficient approach in addition to O-Nobu’s visit. They bethought themselves.

In the end the name Yoshikawa came to both of them. Yoshikawa’s position, his connection to Tsuda’s father, the fact that he was even now looking after Tsuda in accordance with a special request from his father — the more they thought about it, the clearer it seemed that he was admirably equipped to handle things to their advantage. There was, however, an impediment. If they intended to ask someone as difficult to approach intimately as Yoshikawa to speak for them, it would first be necessary to enroll his wife. But O-Nobu found Madam Yoshikawa impossible to be around. Before agreeing to Tsuda’s proposition, she deliberated a minute. Tsuda pressed for his recommendation because, close friends with Madam Yoshikawa, he felt it highly likely to succeed. In the end O-Nobu gave in. Having concluded this conversation in mutual openness, they took warm leave of each other.

AIDED BY his fatigue from the restless night before, Tsuda’s sleep that night was unexpectedly sound. Awakening with clear sunlight in his eyes, he peered through the window glass at the bright day and heard the familiar swish-swash of scrubbing from the laundry next door, a sound that somehow invoked an autumn mood.

“If you be going, go in this! Oh yes! Oh my…”

The laundry men were singing a popular song, adding at the end of every verse a made-up refrain, “O yes! Oh my! No flies on me!” The song helped Tsuda imagine their busy hands as they bent to their work.

Abruptly, the launderers emerged from an odd opening onto the roof with arms full of white cloth. Approaching the clothes pole, they spread the cloth as if it were a single piece beneath the autumn sky. This activity, repeated daily since his arrival here, was monotonous. But it was also industrious. If there was significance in that, it escaped Tsuda.

But he had more pressing matters to consider. An image of Madam Yoshikawa rose to his mind. When he tried imagining his future, the picture was all too vague. When he attempted to render it more sharply, the matron always came into focus. Today there seemed to be more than ordinary significance in this focal point representing his future.

First of all, there was the remnant of his recent visit that continued to trouble him. On that occasion it was she who had abruptly shined a light in his mind on an issue that had been closed between them and sealed. He had struggled, resolved not to hear what more she might have to say. Simultaneously he had willed her to continue. Inasmuch as it was she who had broken the seal, it occurred to him that he had a right to unpack the contents.

Second, he was concerned about Kyoto. The relative weight of the two matters aside, it was the latter that pressed upon him more urgently. Clearly he was well advised to meet with her as soon as possible. Lumbered with a body that would be unable to move for four or five days, he had gone so far, before O-Nobu had left the previous day, to urge her to visit the matron in his stead. O-Nobu had declined to go, leaving him without a plan, but he still felt strongly that a visit from her was the appropriate move to make.

It struck Tsuda as passing strange that O-Nobu was so opposed to paying the lady a visit. A woman who normally would have stepped into a delicate situation like this eagerly without a word of encouragement! Such was his thought at the time. He had even tried to persuade her that the errand was a pretext for coming into Madam’s presence that he had prepared expressly for her. But she had not relented, and Tsuda hadn’t felt inclined to apply further pressure at the time. His reluctance was partly a function of the mutual openness they had managed to achieve as a couple, but it was also a reflection of her reason for declining. If she were to go, she had insisted, she would certainly fail. She declined to offer an explanation, saying only that Tsuda himself was certain to succeed. When he objected that timeliness rather than success was the issue, pointing out that a meeting would be impossible until he had left the hospital, which might be too late, her response had surprised him. Madam Yoshikawa would certainly be coming to the clinic for a visit, she declared. She insisted that the matter might be handled most naturally and simply by making use of that opportunity.

Gazing at the laundry drying on the roof next door, Tsuda gathered in this manner, as though hauling in a net, fragments of the previous day’s conversation and examined them one after the other. He began to feel that Madam Yoshikawa might indeed pay him a sick call. It also seemed she was unlikely to come. He was unsure why O-Nobu had insisted so emphatically that she would appear. He pictured the large group that was said to have sat down to dinner in the restaurant in the theater. He tried assembling in a novelistic manner the conversation that might have transpired between O-Nobu and Madam Yoshikawa. But he was unable to isolate anything in particular that would have led to her prediction, and he had to admit that he was baffled. He acknowledged in O-Nobu a certain degree of the intuition that the heavens unfortunately had chosen to deny him. This gift put him always a little in awe of her, and he lacked the courage it would have taken to dismiss it carelessly. At the same time, he was altogether incapable of relying on it, and he considered whether he might not contrive by himself to draw the lady to the clinic. A phone call occurred to him at once. He tried hard to think if there mightn’t be a way to call that would induce her naturally, without seeming presumptuous or deliberate, to pay a visit. He might as well have been struggling to build something out of foam. No matter how he labored to work something out, it seemed to evaporate before he had managed to complete it. When he realized he was scheming to actualize a fundamentally unreasonable fantasy and was accordingly doomed to failure, he smiled with a certain bitterness and returned to gazing through the window glass.

A wind had risen. The single willow tree in front of the laundry was swaying in unison with the drying sheets. The three power lines that nearly grazed the tree trembled as though in concert with the rest.

TO THE doctor, Tsuda appeared beside himself with boredom. As their eyes met he inquired, “How are you doing?” and added at once, consolingly, “It shouldn’t be much longer.” Then he changed the dressing on the wound.

“You still have to be careful not to disturb the incision or it could be dangerous.”

With this warning he informed Tsuda that blood had oozed from the wound when he had loosened just a little the gauze that was packed against it. Only a portion of the dressing had been changed. So long as there was a possibility of hemorrhage if the underlayer of gauze was peeled away, Tsuda mustn’t even think of dragging himself out of bed and going home.

“I’m afraid you’re going to need the full week of bed rest I predicted.”

The doctor looked sorry for Tsuda.

“But of course your progress could always accelerate.”

But the doctor’s attitude suggested he considered Tsuda a privileged patient for whom time and expense mattered little.

“I assume you don’t have any pressing business?”

“I think I can manage a week here. But something a little out of the ordinary has come up.”

“I see. Well, you’ll be on your way soon enough — be patient a little longer.”

Having nothing more to say about this, the doctor sat down and, possibly because outpatients hadn’t begun to arrive as yet, beguiled Tsuda with a few anecdotes. One of the stories from the doctor’s days as an intern at a large hospital made him laugh in spite of himself. Someone had stormed into the director’s office accusing a nurse of having killed a patient by administering the wrong medicine and demanding that she should be “beaten within an inch of her life!” The story struck Tsuda, whose disposition was exactly opposite the angry protagonist’s, as a ludicrous example of the ridiculous and little else. To put it plainly, his attention was focused exclusively on the plaintiff’s shortcomings. At the same time, on the obverse side of these faults, he strung his own virtues like lights beneath the eaves and congratulated himself on them. The exercise reduced to something very like evidence of his inability under any circumstances to register his own shortcomings.

When the doctor had finished his examination, Tsuda was inclined to despondency at the prospect of being condemned by a nasty condition to bed rest for an entire week. Perhaps it was his mood; the current moment felt inestimably precious. He even regretted a little not having postponed the surgery.

He began thinking about Madam Yoshikawa again. If only there were some way to lure her to the clinic, he had been thinking, and now, gradually, he began instead to hope that she would visit him of her own accord. Though he normally deprecated O-Nobu’s intuition because it so often led her to see through him, there was a place inside him now that hoped, in this exceptional situation only, that she had hit the mark.

He withdrew a volume from the pile O-Nobu had left. There was evidence here and there of a sensibility that made it clear why Okamoto would have added such a volume to his library. Unfortunately Tsuda wasn’t good at understanding humor. The meaning of the words printed on the page made sense to his mind but had scant impact on his feelings. And he encountered one passage after the other that he couldn’t decipher at all. With no commitment to the book, he skimmed it for something he could handle, skipping pages at a time, until the following passage caught his eye:

When a young woman’s father turned to a youth and inquired of him, “Do you love my daughter?” the youth replied: “It’s no longer a question of loving or not loving: I would happily die for the young lady. I would die in return for a single tender glance from those precious eyes of hers. I would have you watch me hurl myself from yon cliff, fall to the rocks below, and be smashed thereon to a bloody pulp.” Shaking his head, the father spoke: “The truth is, I’m also disposed to indulge in an occasional lie, and having two liars in a family as small as mine is something I’ll have to think about.”

Today, the word “liar” made Tsuda more uncomfortable than usual in an ironic way. He was a man who affirmed the liar in himself. A man who fundamentally recognized the lies of others. Even so, he wasn’t inclined even a little to turn his back on life. On the contrary, he was a man who went so far as to believe that lies were necessary if life from day to day was to be managed. Without knowing it, he had conducted his own life until now according to this vague view of humanity. He had simply lived. As a consequence, when he thought about things at some depth he managed only to confuse himself about where he stood.

Love and falsehood.

The anecdote he had just read had evoked these two words, but he was at a loss to explain the connection between them. He felt bewildered, possessed by a grave problem that clamored for resolution, but until he could find an opportunity to experiment, his only choice was to turn it unavailingly in his mind. He was not a philosopher; even a properly systematic approach to examining the view of life he had lived until now exceeded his ability.

TSUDA TURNED over in his mind one unresolved issue after the other, and when he noticed the time, it was past noon. His brain was tired. He had lost the courage to continue considering anything more at length. But there was too much daylight left, even though it was autumn, to simply lie in bed. He began to feel bored and turned his thoughts back to O-Nobu. It was unreasonable of him to have expected her to show up again today. He had spent hours dwelling on matters best concealed from her for her sake, and the minute he had tired of such considerations he had expected, complacently enough, that she would soon arrive. It hadn’t even occurred to him to absolve himself of any responsibility for thoughts that had naturally risen to his mind. Just as he perceived things in O-Nobu that defied his understanding, he was also hiding things from her — the thought may have been at work on him in the background of his consciousness, but even such a notion wasn’t about to articulate itself in words until a crisis was at hand.

Time passed, and O-Nobu failed to appear. Neither, of course, did the person he was awaiting more eagerly, Madam Yoshikawa. Tsuda was annoyed. For some time he had been assaulted by a voice nearby practicing his least favorite song passage from the Noh theater. Abruptly he recalled having seen an oblong sign advertising “instruction in Noh recitative.” It was hanging in front of a two-story house diagonally across the street from the laundry. Apparently the second floor had been turned into a rehearsal studio; in view of the distance, the rising and falling cadences reached him at an astonishing volume. Unable to think of a reason that would give him the right to interfere with someone’s arbitrary behavior, he could do nothing about his disgruntlement. He could only wish devoutly to be discharged from the hospital soon.

Behind the willow tree was a red-brick warehouse; to the left and right of a company crest, an inverted “V” for mountain with a single line beneath it, two large spikes with right-angles at the end protruded from the wall. As Tsuda gazed at them vacantly with eyes that were scarcely focused and wondered what they might be for, he heard the sound of footsteps hastening up the stairs. He winced. From the headlong sound it was easy enough to surmise with some confidence whose footsteps they were.

His prevision quickly became reality. He turned toward the open door and at just that moment, clad in his newly acquired overcoat, Kobayashi strode into the room.

“How goes it?”

Kobayashi sat down on the tatami at once, his legs folded beneath him. In place of a greeting, Tsuda smiled uncomfortably. He was already wondering, seeing Kobayashi’s face, why he had come.

“Have a look,” he said, thrusting the arm of the overcoat at Tsuda. “Thanks to you, I’ll survive another winter.”

He had said exactly the same thing to O-Nobu, but Tsuda, who had received no report from her at yet, missed the irony.

“Your wife must have dropped in?” he continued.

“Of course — why wouldn’t she have?”

“She must have said something?”

Uncertain whether to reply yay nor nay, Tsuda hesitated. He wanted to know what Kobayashi had said to O-Nobu. Either response would do so long as it prompted him to repeat himself. But in the instant the choice had to be made, he couldn’t decide which was more likely to succeed. His silence affected Kobayashi in an unexpected way.

“She was hopping mad, wasn’t she? I thought so.”

Tsuda leaped at this obvious opening.

“Because you tormented her.”

“I did no such thing. I teased her a tad too much, poor thing. Did she cry?”

Tsuda was surprised a little.

“You said things that would make her cry?”

“You know me, just my usual drivel. The problem is, your missus doesn’t realize that despicable characters like me even exist — that’s what happens when you grow up in an upper-crust family like the Okamotos. So every little thing appalls her. You should teach her not to get involved with a scoundrel like me and she’ll be fine.”

“I have taught her that, I’m trying,” Tsuda countered in kind. Kobayashi laughed aloud.

“It appears she could use some more lessons.”

Tsuda changed his tone.

“But how did you tease her?”

“You must have heard from O-Nobu-san.”

“I didn’t.”

Their eyes met. It was clear they were attempting to fathom each other’s thoughts.

TSUDA’S DESIRE to induce Kobayashi to tell the truth had a special significance. He well understood the more dramatically evident aspects of O-Nobu’s disposition. Quite unlike O-Hide, while her behavior in his presence tended to be supremely compliant and supremely gentle, she was also capable of an equal degree of intractability where he was concerned. She had but one gift and deployed it equitably in both domains of her personality. In cases when she had decided there was something that he mustn’t know or that was more conveniently hidden from him, she became a wife who was altogether beyond managing. The more obedient she was, the less possible it became for Tsuda to extract anything from her. Because of the upheaval O-Hide had caused, there hadn’t been time to inquire about what had passed between her and Kobayashi the day before, but when he considered, though it hadn’t been an option, whether, in the absence of any impediment, asked by him for a report of exactly what had happened, O-Nobu would have satisfied him straight away with a reply that was deficient in no minutest detail, he had his considerable doubts. Judging from her usual behavior, Tsuda believed on the contrary that he would have been deceived. In the event that Kobayashi had indiscreetly blurted precisely what he feared, in that case in particular, O-Nobu appeared to be the sort of woman who could bypass her husband by pretending not to have heard and saying nothing. In his observation at least, she was abundantly capable of this. Assuming it was already necessary to give up on O-Nobu, Tsuda’s only access to the information he required was Kobayashi.

Kobayashi seemed somehow aware of this.

“I can tell you, I didn’t say a thing. If you don’t believe me, ask O-Nobu-san again. I did apologize on my way out because I felt bad, but the fact is even then I had no idea why I was apologizing.”

To hear him talk, he might have been oblivious. Abruptly he reached for the book open at Tsuda’s pillow side and scanned it for a minute in silence.

“This is the sort of thing you read?” he inquired in a voice that dripped contempt. Riffling the pages carelessly, he moved backward from the end toward the beginning. Discovering Okamoto’s small seal on the inside cover, he murmured, “No wonder!”

“O-Nobu-san must have brought this with her, I thought it was an odd book. By the way, I imagine Okamoto has plenty of money?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Of course you do. It’s where O-Nobu-san grew up.”

“I didn’t marry her for his money.”

“Really?”

This simple “Really?” rang oddly in Tsuda’s head. It might have been taken to mean, “As if you’d marry without checking into Okamoto’s assets!”

“Okamoto is O-Nobu’s uncle, in case you didn’t know. It’s not as if that were her home or anything like it.”

“Really?”

Kobayashi repeated the word. Tsuda found it even more unpleasant.

“If you’re so keen on knowing what Okamoto is worth, shall I look into it for you?”

Kobayashi snickered. “When you’re poor, even other people’s money makes you suffer.”

Tsuda didn’t reply. He hoped his silence would terminate the conversation, but Kobayashi resumed at once.

“I do wonder what he’s worth. Seriously.”

This persistence was distinctly characteristic. And it was always possible to interpret his attitude in two ways. One could adjudge him a fool and there was an end to it; at the same time, once it began to seem that he was making a fool of you, there was no end to evidence of that. Tsuda found himself standing midway between credence and doubt. As a result, at times when his own shortcomings seemed latently implicated, he couldn’t help tending toward the latter interpretation, that he was being played the fool. Feeling that his only option was taking care not to grant his companion the upper hand, he merely smiled wanly.

“Shall I borrow a little for you?”

“To hell with borrowing. I’d accept a gift if you can get it — no, I don’t want a gift either; anyway, he doesn’t seem inclined. But if that’s the only choice, well, why not?” Kobayashi guffawed. “Maybe I should let Okamoto-san in on an interesting secret before I go to Korea and accept a little something from him.”

Tsuda quickly turned the conversation to Korea.

“When do you plan on leaving?”

“Not sure yet.”

“But you will be leaving?”

“I will! With or without any prompting from you, when the day comes I’ll be on my way.”

“I’m not prompting. I just want to plan a farewell party.”

Tsuda’s unstated reason for proposing a party was to create as a precaution a second opportunity in the event he should be unable to learn all he needed to know from Kobayashi today.

INASMUCH AS, intentionally or as it happened, Kobayashi wouldn’t be led in the direction Tsuda wanted, this precaution may have been necessary. Throughout, while appearing to respond to Tsuda’s inquiries, Kobayashi was actually deflecting them. And from start to finish, he clung pertinaciously to topics that concerned himself. Since what he had to say related, however indirectly, to what Tsuda wanted to hear he listened, if impatiently and with annoyance. He had the feeling that he was being shaken down in a roundabout way.

“I was wondering if Yoshikawa and Okamoto were related,” Kobayashi said inconsequently.

“They’re not relatives, just friends. I told you that the last time you asked.”

“You did? They have so little to do with me I must have forgotten. They may be friends, but they must be more.”

“What does that mean?”

Tsuda wanted to add, “Idiot!”

“I just mean they must be special friends — you needn’t get so angry about it.”

The relationship between Yoshikawa and Okamoto was just as Kobayashi imagined it. The simple truth was simply that. But it was easily possible to observe both sides of that reality, front and back as it were, by installing Tsuda and O-Nobu just behind it.

“You’re a lucky man,” Kobayashi said. “All you have to do is care for O-Nobu-san.”

“I do care for her. I don’t need you pointing out how important that is.”

“Really?”

There it was again! Every time Kobayashi repeated his sanctimonious “Really?” Tsuda felt that he was being threatened.

“But unlike me, you’re a clever one. I suppose you know that everybody thinks you’ve surrendered completely to O-Nobu-san.”

“Who’s everybody?”

“Sensei. His missus—”

It had already occurred to Tsuda that his Aunt and Uncle Fujii held such a view of him.

“I have surrendered, so I can’t help if that’s how it looks.”

“Really? — I’ll say this, an honest John like me can’t hope to emulate you. You’re a class act.”

“You’re honest and I’m a fake, is that what you’re saying? But the fake is admirable and the honest John’s a fool? Since when is that your philosophy?”

“It’s been a while now. And I’m getting ready to go public with it, on the occasion of my departure to Korea.”

An odd premonition flickered in Tsuda’s head.

“Do you have your travel expenses?”

“I don’t think that will be a problem.”

“The company has decided to pay?”

“By no means. I decided to borrow some money from Sensei.”

“Did you? How convenient!”

“There’s nothing convenient about it. You might not think so, but it makes me sick that I have to rely on Sensei.”

This was the man who had no trouble asking Uncle Fujii to see to his younger sister’s marriage.

“I may be a shameless wretch, but I feel terrible about bothering Sensei about money on top of everything else.”

Tsuda didn’t reply. Kobayashi’s next remark sounded genuine enough.

“Isn’t there anyone you can put some pressure on?”

“Not really,” Tsuda snapped, pointedly looking away.

“No one at all? There must be someone somewhere?”

“There isn’t. Business is bad recently.”

“How about you? The world may be in a slump, but you always seem to be doing well enough.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

Having handed over to O-Nobu both the check from Okamoto and the parcel O-Hide had left, Tsuda’s wallet was as good as empty. But on this occasion, with or without assets, he didn’t feel like making a financial sacrifice for Kobayashi’s sake. So long as circumstances left him any choice, he felt no need of accommodating his companion.

Oddly, Kobayashi didn’t press him further. He did, however, turn the conversation abruptly in a curious direction that came as a surprise.

At Fujii’s house that morning, having been served lunch as always, he had already spent considerable time editing a manuscript when the lattice door at the entrance had opened and he had gone out himself to greet whomever was there. The figure standing in the doorway turned out to be O-Hide.

Damn her! Tsuda cried out to himself. She’s beaten me to the punch!

But that wasn’t the end of it. Kobayashi had more surprises in store.

HE DELIVERED his surprises in stages in his own singular way. He began by chaffing Tsuda.

“She told us she’s been fighting with you. She went on about it and Sensei was pretty upset, your aunt, too.”

“And you were just listening on the sidelines?”

Kobayashi scratched his head, smiling awkwardly.

“It’s not as if I was trying to listen! I couldn’t help hearing. Anyway, O-Hide talked and Sensei did the listening.”

It was partly O-Hide’s nature to be willful and single-minded. When this predilection was stimulated in some way, her normal composure evaporated and she was capable of displaying a sudden and surprising fierceness that was foreign to anything in Tsuda’s own temperament. Uncle Fujii was no slouch himself, a man who was never satisfied until he had plumbed a situation to the bottom of the well without caring how that was to be achieved. His attitude toward a companion at a time like this was to insist to the bitter end, even if only in words, that all things must be aligned and consecutive in a context that made sense. Putting his thoughts in order on the page had become a habit that was reflected in his approach to daily life, and its impact was visible in his tenacity. In an argument he granted the other side unlimited opportunity to speak. In return he asked an unlimited number of questions. Past a certain point, it was frequently the case that the nature of his questions transformed into interrogation.

Tsuda pictured his uncle and his sister sitting across from each other. He couldn’t help worrying that their exchange might have provoked yet another upheaval. In Kobayashi’s presence, however, he strove to appear, on the surface at least, insouciant.

“She must have had a grand time cutting me to pieces.”

Kobayashi’s response, after laughing loudly, was to say,

“It’s unlike you to fight with O-Hide.”

“She picked the fight because it was me! You can bet she’d be more careful in front of Hori.”

“Maybe so — you hear a lot about a lover’s spat, but I wonder if a sibling quarrel isn’t more common. I’ve never had a wife so I don’t know a thing about that department, but even I have a younger sister, so if we’re talking about a sibling quarrel I can understand what that might be like. But you know what? I may not be much of a big brother, but I don’t think I’ve ever quarreled with my kid sister.”

“Kid sisters aren’t all alike.”

“But it must have something to do with the brother.”

“Even a big brother gets mad sometimes.”

Kobayashi grinned.

“Maybe so. But you can’t be thinking this was a good time to make O-Hide fighting mad.”

“Obviously not. No one would go out of his way to get into a fight with a hellcat like that.”

Kobayashi laughed even louder. With each outburst he became more voluble.

“There was no avoiding it, right? But that’s my line. I’m a man who doesn’t give a fig who I fight with. You’re looking at a human being who’s fallen so low he can’t possibly be harmed no matter whom he fights. Even if a fight has repercussions, they can’t touch me. I’ve never had anything that could be harmed. In other words, if a fight changes anything, the change is bound to be favorable to me — so I have good reasons for welcoming a scrap. But you’re different! Your fights are guaranteed not to benefit you. And there’s no one around who understands self-interest as well as you do. And not only understands; you live every day on the basis of that understanding. At least you believe that’s how you ought to be living. You see where I’m heading? So for such a man—”

Tsuda interrupted impatiently.

“I get it. I understand. You’re advising me not to collide with people. Since a collision with you in particular will only hurt me, you’re advising me to me to proceed as amicably as I can, isn’t that it?”

Kobayashi’s face was a picture of innocence.

“With me? I have no intention of fighting with you.”

“I told you I get it!”

“If you do, that’s fine. Let me just say to avoid any misunderstanding, I’ve been talking all the while about O-Hide-san.”

“I know that.”

“And you’re thinking about Kyoto, right? About the Kyoto situation ending badly?”

“Obviously.”

“But the trouble is, that isn’t all! There will be other repercussions. If you’re not careful.”

Kobayashi stared at Tsuda as if to ascertain the effect of his words. Tsuda, trying to remain unconcerned, failed.

KOBAYASHI SAW the moment and seized it.

“What you should know about O-Hide—” he began, taking Tsuda captive at once. “What you need to know is that she stopped somewhere else before she came to Sensei’s place. Can you imagine where she might have gone?”

Tsuda couldn’t imagine. Where this matter was concerned, there was no place she would have been likely to go other than Fujii.

“It’s not in Tokyo.”

“But it is.”

Tsuda was obliged to rummage in his mind. But no matter how he pondered, he could find nothing where there was nothing to find. When Kobayashi finally disclosed the name with a laugh, there was understandably surprise in Tsuda’s exclamation.

“Yoshikawa! Why would she go to see Yoshikawa-san? He has nothing to do with any of this.”

Tsuda couldn’t help thinking how odd this was.

Connecting Yoshikawa and Hori was accomplished easily enough without the help of a powerful imagination. At the time of his marriage, it would have been clear to everyone that the Yoshikawas, who had undertaken to serve as pro forma go-betweens, had established a social connection with Tsuda’s sister O-Hide and her husband, Hori. Even so, there was no apparent reason why that connection should have prompted O-Hide to appear at Yoshikawa’s door with this problem in her hand.

“She must have gone just to visit, to pay her respects.”

“Apparently not. Not by her own account.”

All of a sudden Tsuda wanted to hear his sister’s story. But instead of satisfying him, Kobayashi spoke reprovingly.

“For someone as cautious and well prepared as you appear to be, you can also be a real dunce. Maybe it’s because you work so blessed hard at being perfect there are places you just don’t get around to. What we have here is a good example. First of all, you had no call to make O-Hide angry, not in your position. And to rile her up and then let her race off to Yoshikawa was just plain dumb. But you’d convinced yourself she’d never go; from the beginning you’ve been underestimating her, and that was a mistake that seems very unlike you!”

In hindsight, based on the consequences, Kobayashi had an easy time uncovering Tsuda’s lapses.

“Your père is friends with Yoshikawa, correct? And your père asked Yoshikawa to look after you, correct? So it’s only natural that O-Hide would have gone straight to him.”

Tsuda recalled the gist of his employer’s warning in his office before he had checked into the hospital. Don’t be doing anything to worry your father. I know exactly what you’re doing in Tokyo. If anything irregular happens, you can count on me letting Kyoto know. So be careful. Even at this distance he could see that the admonition had been intended half in jest. Now it appeared that O-Hide was attempting to convert it into something altogether serious.

“The woman is a loose cannon!”

Tsuda’s assessment included a measure of surprise: imprudence wasn’t part of the family legacy.

“What the devil can she have said to Yoshikawa-san? If you take that one at her word, she’s the only one in the right and everyone else is wrong, and that’s a problem.”

Tsuda had a fleeting vision of serious consequences that lay beyond the immediate impact of what his sister might have said. His own credibility with Yoshikawa, the relationship between Yoshikawa and Okamoto, even Okamoto’s intimacy with O-Nobu — there was no telling how any of these connections might be deranged depending on what O-Hide chose to say.

“Women are all the same: shallow!”

At this Kobayashi suddenly laughed again, and his laughter this time, uproarious, made Tsuda shudder. For the first time he became aware of what he had said.

“But that doesn’t matter now — I assume you heard O-Hide telling Uncle Fujii what she said at the Yoshikawas — what was it?”

“She was talking a blue streak about something. Truth is, I didn’t pay much attention.”

Having come this far, to the critical juncture, Kobayashi went blank and drifted off. Tsuda was dismayed. He had been stewing in his disappointment for a while when Kobayashi returned to the matter at hand.

“But just be patient a little longer. You’ll hear all about it whether you want to or not.”

Tsuda couldn’t believe that O-Hide would show up again.

“I’m not talking about O-Hide. She won’t be coming. But Mrs. Yoshikawa will. I’m not lying, I heard her say so. O-Hide even told her what time she should visit. She’ll probably be here soon.”

O-Nobu’s prediction had come to pass. Tsuda had been wondering how to summon her, and now Madam Yoshikawa was on her way.

TWO THOUGHTS flickered in his mind in quick succession. The first was a presentiment that handling Madam Yoshikawa when she arrived would require skill. In view of the strategy he had planned, a visit on her own accord was what he most desired, but inasmuch as a new dimension had now been added to the significance of her visit, he would have to change his approach to their conversation. Imagining what her attitude was likely to be in this situation, he felt a certain uneasiness. It seemed reasonable to anticipate a perceptible difference in the lady before and after O-Hide had infused her with a negative bias. But he was also in possession of his customary self-confidence.

He felt prepared to overturn in a single interview whatever prejudice and antipathy she might bring along. To achieve less would be to jeopardize his own future. He awaited her visit with three parts of anxiety to seven parts of confidence in himself.

The second thought suggested he was well advised to alter for the moment his attitude toward O-Nobu. Earlier, in an excess of boredom, he had counted the minutes until she should arrive. Now he was feeling another sort of tension; he anticipated a difficulty of another sort entirely. O-Nobu was no longer needed. Perhaps it were better to say that a visit from her now would seriously incommode him. There were issues, a particular issue, Tsuda wanted to discuss privately with Madam Yoshikawa. He was determined to do what he could to prevent O-Nobu and that lady from running in to each other here.

A related concern was how to get rid of Kobayashi quickly. Though he had as much as said a minute ago that Madam Yoshikawa would appear, his friend gave no indication that he was ready to take his leave. This was not a man who troubled himself about being a nuisance. This was a person who, depending on the time and the circumstances, was not incapable of creating a nuisance intentionally. This was, moreover, an infuriating rogue who carried on exactly as he liked without vouchsafing any basis for judgment as to whether he was unaware that he was distressing others or fully conscious of what he was about.

Tsuda made a show of yawning. This action, utterly at odds with how he was feeling, divided him in two. In the midst of this agitated though apparently listless exchange with Kobayashi, he became aware of a frustrating sense of interruption. Kobayashi continued to appear oblivious. Tsuda lifted the wristwatch next to his pillow again, and as he put it down he asked the question he could no longer postpone.

“Did you have some business today?”

“In a way — but that can wait.”

Tsuda had a good idea of what Kobayashi was thinking. But he couldn’t bring himself to surrender yet. And he was even less in touch with the courage to repulse the attack. His only choice was to say nothing. Whereupon Kobayashi spoke up.

“I wonder if I should stay and meet Yoshikawa’s wife.”

“You must be joking!” Tsuda wanted to say.

“You have business with her?”

“You talk a lot about business, but business isn’t the only reason for meeting someone.”

“But you don’t even know her.”

“That’s why I’d like to meet her. Get an idea what she’s like. I’ve never even been inside a wealthy home, and I’ve certainly never had any dealings with the rich. So when an opportunity like this comes along, I can’t help feeling I’d like a peek at the genuine article.”

“It’s not as if she’s a circus act.”

“No, but I am curious. And I’ve got time to spare.”

Tsuda was flabbergasted. He shuddered at the thought of presenting the lady with evidence that he numbered among his friends a wretched creature such as this. If the time ever came when he incurred her contempt for associating with such a person, he believed the repercussions would extend into his future.

“Does anything ever inhibit you? You know perfectly well why Yoshikawa’s wife is coming here today.”

“I do — will I be in the way?”

Tsuda’s had no choice but to hand Kobayashi his walking papers

“Yes. You will be in the way. So please leave now before she gets here.”

Kobayashi didn’t seem particularly offended.

“If that’s how you feel, I don’t mind leaving. I don’t mind, but before I go I should explain why I came all this way in the first place.”

Annoyed, Tsuda finally spoke for Kobayashi.

“It’s about money, I’ll wager. If you have a request I can afford, I don’t mind listening. Which isn’t to say I won’t mind if you try to collect when I’m not home the way you did with that overcoat. But I don’t have a farthing with me.”

Kobayashi simpered, and the flush that rose to his face seemed to be asking, “Then what am I to do?” As Tsuda still had questions for him, it was in his interest to meet Kobayashi once again before his departure. But he worried that he might run into O-Nobu if he came here again. Designating a day and time and place where they should meet as if he were intending a farewell party, he finally got rid of his burdensome visitor.

TSUDA TURNED at once to the second preventative measure. From beneath the small toiletries box on the tatami, he removed the familiar stationery and matching lilac envelopes and began plying his fountain pen. In scarcely more than a minute he had scrawled a note requesting O-Nobu to put off her visit today because it was “a trifle inconvenient.” He was feeling in such a hurry that even reading the letter over seemed a waste of time. He sealed the envelope at once. He didn’t pause to consider the confusion the cryptic contents of the letter were likely to arouse in O-Nobu. The circumstances that had deprived him of his normal caution had not only made him careless but required him to act resolutely as a thought occurred. With the letter in hand, he went straight downstairs and summoned the nurse.

“Please give this to a rickshaw man and have him deliver it to my house right away, it’s urgent.”

“Of course,” the nurse said, accepting the letter and peering at the name as if hoping to determine the nature of this urgent matter. Tsuda, meanwhile, was thinking about the time it would take a rickshaw to reach its destination.

“Please have him take a trolley.”

Tsuda was worried the letter might not arrive in time. If O-Nobu had left for the hospital before receiving it, his effort would have been in vain.

Even after he had gone back upstairs, this continued to trouble him. The mere thought made him feel that O-Nobu had already left home, boarded a trolley, and was on her way. That possibility led him naturally to Kobayashi. Should his wife make her graceful appearance at the top of the stairs before he had accomplished his objective, he would know whom to blame. Having wasted precious time on Kobayashi, Tsuda had as good as sent him from the room, and even so, watching his back recede, he had been on the verge of entrusting him with his pressing errand. I know it’s a bother but I’d like you to stop off at my place and caution O-Nobu not to show up today. Surprised at himself, he had just managed to swallow the words before they left his mouth. If only this weren’t Kobayashi, he had thought to himself, how convenient it would be at a time like this!

While Tsuda waited with his nerves humming, in thrall to his prevision that Madam Yoshikawa was about to arrive at any minute, the letter to O-Nobu he had handed the nurse was on its way ineluctably to a fate he could never have imagined.

In accordance with his instructions, it had been handed to the rickshaw man without delay. In accordance with the nurse’s instructions, the rickshaw man had boarded a streetcar at once. He had alighted at the designated stop. Turning down the familiar side street a short distance away, he had easily identified a wooden plaque bearing the family name on the envelope in front of a small but attractive two-story house. Approaching the entrance, he had handed the letter to O-Toki, who had emerged to greet him.

To that point, everything had proceeded in the order Tsuda had imagined. The subsequent reality, however, had never occurred to him as he penned his note. The letter did not make its way into O-Nobu’s hands.

As Tsuda had feared, O-Nobu was not at home, but neither had she set out for the clinic as he had also feared. Her destination was otherwise, a choice arrived at nimbly and governed by her desire to deploy all her skill to take advantage of a perilous opportunity.

All morning, O-Nobu had been herself again. She had arisen as always and gone about her business as usual. Conducting herself in all respects no differently from when Tsuda was home, she nonetheless found herself with time on her hands, an excess that was an inevitable result of his absence, and had lounged the morning away. When she was finished with lunch she went to the public bath. Thinking to present herself at the clinic looking as attractive as possible she took her time, and when she returned feeling wonderfully refreshed, her skin glowing from the hot water, she was greeted by O-Toki with news she couldn’t help thinking must be a lie.

“Hori-san’s wife was here.”

O-Nobu was so surprised she couldn’t believe what the maid was saying. One day after a day like yesterday, O-Hide had come to see her. A visit so unexpected simply couldn’t be. Twice and a third time she confirmed what the maid was saying. She even felt compelled to ask the purpose of the visit. And why hadn’t O-Toki bid her wait? But the maid knew nothing. On her way out, O-Hide had told her only that she had stopped after visiting the Fujiis because it was on her way home.

O-Nobu instantly changed her agenda. Abandoning her visit to the clinic, she decided grimly that her only choice was to go to see O-Hide. This was, after all, one of the promises she and Tsuda had made to each other. The moment was at hand when she could make good on her promise without the need of an awkward pretext. O-Nobu left the house as though in pursuit of O-Hide.

HORI’S HOUSE lay in the same general direction as the clinic; alighting from the same streetcar two stops sooner and turning immediately to the right brought O-Nobu to the front gate five blocks or so down the street.

Unlike the Okamoto house or the Fujiis’, this residence was far from the suburbs and had no room in front for anything that could be called a garden. Needless to say, there was no driveway for rickshaws or carriages. Built virtually on the street, the two-story house was set back from the gate a mere fifteen feet. Since even this area had been cobbled with stones, the ground was nowhere visible.

In the process of urban renewal, the street had been long since cleared and was relatively wider than others. Even so, there was not a single shop in evidence. Instead, it was lined with lawyers’ and doctors’ offices, inns, and other such establishments and was consequently quiet at all hours in spite of the lively neighborhood that surrounded it.

Willow trees had been planted in regular rows on both sides of the street. Accordingly, in seasons when the weather was fine, even the drab urban wind created a certain charm as it stirred the luxuriant green branches. The largest willow, standing just at the corner of Hori’s wall, draped its long branches diagonally over the gate so charmingly that it might have appeared to an onlooker to have been transplanted there specifically to complement the house.

A second striking feature was the large, antique rainwater vessel made of iron in front of the main entrance. This sizable relic, which brought to mind the pawnshops in the old part of the city, also fit perfectly with the layout of the front entrance just beside it. In this relatively wide portal there were no doors, plain or decorative in the inlaid Chinese style, only a fine lattice.

Once this was seen to be an elegant townhouse, a glance at its exterior would have sufficed to make clear that its owners, at least in previous generations, had been prosperous merchants, though the present occupant would have to be styled an eccentric. Hori himself had never had any idea what sort of house he was living in. He lacked the disposition to trouble himself about such things and was utterly unconcerned with what others might have to say about his métier. Certainly he was a bon vivant but with a personality, unlike that of an uneducated man who was merely rich, such that a house like this, suitable for a flamboyant actor, might have been an inappropriate abode — this was a man with a very small ego. To put it less generously, Hori was a man who had lost his sense of self. There was about him an easygoing carelessness: he lived according to the customs and conventions of the world around him yet made no effort to amend the idiosyncrasies that were the family legacy. This allowed him to be satisfied to live in a house constructed, according to his father and mother, by ancestors in the manner of a sturdy warehouse that was at the same time imbued with a stylishness appropriate to a traditional showman. Assuming there was virtue in this, he would have to be commended for an attitude entirely innocent of self-congratulation. To be sure, he had no reason to gloat. His residence, as reflected in his eyes, was too antiquated to allow for gloating.

Every time O-Nobu visited Hori, she was sensible of a dissonance between the house and herself. Often she felt this distance even after going inside. In her view, only Hori’s mother inhabited the house in perfect accord. Yet Hori’s mother was the woman in the house O-Nobu disliked most. Perhaps it was less dislike than a difficulty in relating. Or a difference in generations, or, more harshly, that the old woman was a living anachronism, or perhaps, if that failed to capture it precisely, personal incompatibility or the difference in backgrounds, there were any number of ways to describe the problem, but it reduced in the end to the same awkwardness.

Hori himself was another problem. In O-Nobu’s eyes, the master of the house appeared at once to fit in and not to fit in here. But to take this a step further, it was hardly more than saying that he appeared to fit in and not to fit in anywhere, so there was scarcely a point in making an issue of it. The same ambiguity was precisely reflected in O-Nobu’s feelings of affection and dislike for Hori. In truth, it was as if she both liked and disliked him.

When it came to the last member of the household, O-Hide, the essence of what O-Nobu felt could be simply represented. In her view, O-Hide’s upbringing had prepared her to fit in to the structure of this family least well of all. To translate her conclusion into psychological terms, adding a touch of pretension, there was no way in the world that O-Hide could ever assimilate into the ethos of this family. O-Hide and Hori’s mother — whenever O-Nobu tried aligning these two in her mind, she found herself confronting a contradiction. But it wasn’t easy to determine whether the result was tragic or comic.

When she considered the household and the individuals in it together in this way, one thing struck O-Nobu as odd.

Hori’s mother, more comfortable here than anyone, was the most trouble, and O-Hide, the least at home, seemed likely to cause her in another sense the most distress.

As she slid open the lattice at the entrance a bell jangled, activating the thoughts that were always at the back of her mind.

THE FACT that Hori’s mother had not yet returned from taking her grandchild to visit a relative in Yokohama provided an unexpected opportunity to O-Nobu, who had been ushered into the sitting room. Her absence, likely to be convenient or awkward depending on how it was viewed, spared O-Nobu an old woman she found difficult to talk to but at the same time obliged her to deal face to face and alone with her adversary of the moment, O-Hide.

As it happened, this unforeseen circumstance, which she couldn’t have known about in advance, had the effect of throwing her off her stride from the outset. Whereas normally Hori’s mother would emerge first of all with her hair in a tight bun and make a dutiful fuss over O-Nobu, today for the first time not only was O-Hide there from the beginning, but the old lady she was eagerly awaiting showed no sign of appearing at all, a deviation that upset her timing. The glance she cast in O-Hide’s direction at that moment was lightly touched with panic. It wasn’t a look of regret about what had happened or anything of the kind. It was awkwardness that followed hard on the self-satisfaction of having triumphed in yesterday’s battle. It was mild fear about the revenge that might be exacted against her. It was the turmoil of deliberation about how to get through the situation.

Even as she bent her gaze on O-Hide, O-Nobu sensed that she was being read by her antagonist. Too late, the revealing glance had arced suddenly as a bolt of lightning from some high source beyond the reach of her artifice. Lacking the authority to constrain this emergence from an unexpected darkness, she had little choice but to content herself with awaiting its effect.

The glance was not lost on O-Hide. But her response was unexpected. When the recent sequence of events was considered in light of the personality she consistently revealed to an observer, the breech in the wall of normality as she defined it, that is, and O-Nobu and Tsuda lunging at the breech and reveling in it, there was no reason to expect she would return to normal peacefully. Even O-Nobu, who placed considerable store in her own diplomacy, didn’t believe that this could be settled without provoking the next upheaval, be it large or small.

She was therefore surprised. When O-Hide had taken a seat and, contrary to her expectation, proceeded to greet her more warmly than ever, she had to wonder if she were dreaming. Queasily in her companion’s behavior she observed what appeared to be her determination to dispel any such doubts. Her surprise at this remarkable change gave way to uneasiness about its significance.

But O-Hide made no attempt to answer that crucial question. To the very end, she appeared disinclined to say one word about the unfortunate clash at the hospital the previous day.

Inasmuch as her companion intentionally avoided mentioning this sensitive subject, it would have been odd for O-Nobu to bring it up. There was no need to go out of her way to touch on a sore spot. That said, to what purpose had she dragged herself here today if not to put this somehow behind them and clear the air? But since it appeared that a reconciliation had been achieved without undergoing a process of resolution, it would have been foolish to air their differences.

O-Nobu was clever enough to feel outmaneuvered. As the conversation continued to glide smoothly forward as though over ice, she began to feel that something was lacking. Finally she decided to pierce her companion’s defenses and have a look inside. Adventurous as she was when it came to a sortie of this nature, she was not unaware that a failed assault in this case would expose her to danger. But she was bolstered by her confidence in her own prowess.

If circumstances permitted, she wanted to try touching O-Hide in a certain place above her heart. Percussing the patient in hopes of stimulating an echo of her genuine feelings was by no means an objective of the visit she had planned in consultation with Tsuda, but to O-Nobu it was a far more important mission than simply enabling a reconciliation.

This mission, which must be hidden from Tsuda, closely resembled in nature the incident that Tsuda had to keep secret from O-Nobu. Just as Tsuda was concerned about what Kobayashi had told her in his absence, so O-Nobu wanted to ascertain what O-Hide had said to Tsuda when she was not in the room.

After deliberating about how to create an opening, O-Nobu decided her only choice was to mention once again O-Hide’s visit to her house on her way home from the Fujiis’. On arriving she had opened with, “I’m so sorry I was at the bath when you stopped in”; this time, when she attempted to revive the subject with a question, “Was there something you wanted?” O-Hide replied with a simple “No!” and deftly turned her aside.

HER NEXT attempt to gain access was through Fujii. O-Hide’s acknowledgment that she had visited her uncle that morning provided a convenient means of moving the conversation in that direction. But O-Hide guarded her gate as vigilantly as she had before. When necessary she ventured outside the gate and engaged with O-Nobu amiably. O-Nobu knew that O-Hide had grown up under her uncle’s protection. She also understood that she had been influenced by him spiritually. This meant that her first task in the order of things was to remark on Uncle Fujii’s personality and lifestyle in a manner likely to please her. In fact, her words struck O-Hide’s ears as exaggerated, not to mention false: not only was she unable to discover in them anything to engage with seriousness, but as the same path was followed at length, she couldn’t help revealing in her countenance the displeasure and even disgust she was naturally feeling. Nimble as ever, O-Nobu drew back the instant she noticed that she had underestimated her companion. Whereupon O-Hide began to descant about Okamoto. As far as O-Hide was concerned, this uncle, who stood in the same relation to O-Nobu as Fujii did to herself, was a perfect stranger toward whom she felt neither intimacy nor anything else. Her words, accordingly, were smooth skin only with no flesh or blood beneath them. Even so, O-Nobu was obliged to swallow whole as if it were delicious the hand-cooked meal O-Hide had prepared in return for her own flattery.

When her turn came round again, O-Nobu was not so foolish as to heap a bowl with a second portion of ingratiation and force it on O-Hide. This time, deftly seizing an opportune moment to shift the conversation, she tried stirring things up with Madam Yoshikawa. However, by merely lavishing praise as before, she was in danger of achieving a similarly dismal result. Accordingly she put aside considerations of good and bad and merely launched the name into the air between them. She was prepared to proceed gradually in accordance with the effect this had.

She knew that O-Hide had called at the house when she was at the bath on her way back from Fujii. It never occurred to her that she had already visited Madam Yoshikawa before going to see her uncle. Nor would she have dreamed that O-Hide would have taken herself to the Yoshikawas as a result of the upheaval that had occurred at the clinic the previous day. On this head, O-Nobu was naive to the same degree as her husband, and she was to be surprised by O-Hide to the same degree that Tsuda had been surprised by Kobayashi. The manner in which they were surprised, however, was different. Kobayashi reported undeniable facts. O-Hide resorted to silence that felt pregnant with meaning. And to a pale flush in her face that accompanied the silence.

When the lady’s name first escaped O-Nobu’s lips, she felt as if a single drop of miraculous medicine had fallen from the skies and landed between them. Its effect was immediately apparent right before her eyes. Unfortunately it was of no use to her. Or at least it was an effect she didn’t know how to make use of. Its unexpected nature was shocking to her merely. Even as she spoke the name, she wondered whether she ought to apologize at once for speaking out of turn.

The second surprise followed hard on the first. Observing O-Hide as she averted her face slightly, O-Nobu was obliged to amend the impression she had received at first. She understood now for the first time that the change in O-Hide’s complexion was not due to anger. Her expression, which could only be described as a simple awkwardness so commonly observed that one grows tired of seeing it, surprised O-Nobu even further. The meaning of the expression was clear to her. Accounting for it would have to await an explanation from O-Hide.

As O-Nobu wondered in confusion what to do, O-Hide abruptly changed the subject. The change, a leap inconsequent to everything that had preceded it, as if O-Hide had grafted bamboo onto a tree trunk, was more than sufficient to hand O-Nobu a third surprise. But she was confident. She stepped into the challenge with open arms.

O-NOBU WAS struck first by the word “love.”

If she felt ambushed by so commonplace a word, it was partly due to its abrupt appearance entirely out of context, but it was also the fact that such a word had never until now found its way into her conversations with O-Hide. Relative to O-Nobu, O-Hide was a logical woman. Arriving at that conclusion, however, required some explanation. O-Nobu was a woman who expressed her logic in her actions. If she didn’t normally argue, therefore, it wasn’t because she didn’t know how but because there was no need. In consequence, her store of knowledge, instilled in her by others, was small. Recently she rarely opened even the magazines she had enjoyed reading in her student days at a girls’ school. Even so, she had never once felt about herself that she was deprived. Vain as she was, she had never felt much moved to address her ignorance, not because she had little time to spare or lacked a conversation partner to compete with, but because she was insensible of anything lacking.

O-Hide, beginning with her education, was entirely different. Books in the main had made her who she was. At least she had been taught to think that was how things ought to be. Having been educated by her uncle Fujii, whose connection to books was profound, had had an odd effect on her in both a good and a bad sense. She had come to place more importance in books than in herself. But that didn’t exempt her from having to live the best life she could independently of books. The result, perforce, was that she and books had gradually diverged. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that she had fallen into the unfortunate habit of promoting arguments that were at odds with her own nature. In view of her limited capacity for self-reflection, however, she had a considerable way to go before she would recognize that arguing for argument’s sake was foolishness. If she was obstinate, it was due to her outsized ego. Plainly put, it came down to this: despite the fact that this self of hers was her true essence, she would go out of her way to extract logic that did not accord with her essential self from the books she revered, and would then proceed to defend such logic with the power of the language on the page. From time to time this resulted in a comic spectacle, as though she were brandishing a cannon in place of a dagger.

Not surprisingly, the issue that surfaced now had been lifted from a magazine. The question posed by O-Hide, who had read views on love held by various writers that appeared in a monthly magazine, was actually of no special interest to O-Nobu. But when she admitted she hadn’t seen the article, her curiosity was abruptly piqued. She resolved to find an application of this abstract question that she could use to her own benefit.

O-Nobu understood well enough her companion’s tendency to be swept away by empty theories. And there was no weakness more likely than this to present an obstacle to what she purposed to do: confront an actual issue of some gravity. Better not to begin at all if she was to be argued with for the sake of argument merely. She would have to anchor her companion to the ground by any means available. Unfortunately her partner had already ascended. The love O-Hide was speaking of was neither Tsuda’s love nor Hori’s nor O-Nobu’s nor O-Hide’s nor anything of the kind. This was a love floating aimlessly high in the sky. O-Nobu’s task, accordingly, was to pull back down to earth the suspended balloon of O-Hide’s reflections.

When she discovered that O-Hide, already the mother of two children and more domestic than herself in every way, was, in regard to love at least, less grounded by far, O-Nobu, while she continued to nod in approval at everything her companion was saying, began to feel impatient and even aggravated. She wanted to say, “Put aside your words, join me naked in the sumo ring and let’s test our actual strength against each other!” and she considered what it would take to strip the clothes from this incorrigible debater. Presently she felt the dawning inside her of a crucial discrimination. To make use of this issue, she now understood, it would be necessary to sacrifice either O-Hide or herself, or things would never go her way. Sacrificing O-Hide would be a matter of small difficulty; breaking through her weakness from one direction or another was all that would be necessary. Whether that weakness was actual or hypothetical was of no concern to O-Nobu. Examining for its validity the stimulus she would apply in hopes of producing the reaction that was her goal seemed an unnecessary consideration. This was accompanied, however, by a commensurate danger. O-Hide would certainly be angered. To be sure, making O-Hide angry was O-Nobu’s purpose, and again not her purpose. She couldn’t help feeling conflicted.

Finally she saw an opportunity and seized it. By that time she had already resolved to sacrifice herself.

“I DON’T know what to say — I’m in a fog about whether Tsuda loves me or not. But goodness. Aren’t you lucky. When it comes to being loved, you’ve had a guarantee from the beginning!”

O-Nobu had known even before she was together with Tsuda that O-Hide had been chosen for her beauty. To women in general, and especially to a woman like O-Nobu, this fact was certainly a cause for envy. When Tsuda mentioned it for the first time, before she had laid eyes on O-Hide, O-Nobu was aware of feeling mildly jealous. Later, understanding that this fact was insubstantial as paper, she had even experienced, in addition to mild derision, the pleasure of having had her revenge. Thereafter, her attitude toward O-Hide where the question of love was concerned was always contempt. She was careful to make it appear that the other’s views were mutual and a source of delight, but that was of course mere flattery. Put less generously, it was a variety of ridicule.

Happily, O-Hide didn’t notice. There was a good reason why. Talk aside, where the actual experience of love was concerned, O-Hide was certainly no match for O-Nobu. With no experience of having loved ardently and no memory of having been the object of pure and unwavering love, she was a woman who remained ignorant of how large and powerful this gift could be at its grandest. She was at the same time a wife who was satisfied with her husband. In this regard at least, the maxim “ignorance is bliss” described her perfectly. Having accepted at the time of her marriage the stamp of love applied by her husband’s hand as a guarantee of her future and locked it away in her heart, her naiveté was such that she was able to accept O-Nobu’s appreciation at face value.

Having never identified the true shape of love, O-Hide’s idle, questionable pronouncements on the subject were a window that allowed keen-eyed O-Nobu to see into her heart. Apparently she was satisfied to derive from her own marriage her view of O-Nobu’s relationship to Tsuda. That much was apparent from the look of genuine surprise on her face when she heard O-Nobu’s remark. How could Tsuda’s love for O-Nobu be an issue now? And how could such a question be raised by his wife? And what in the world could she mean by saying such a thing in front of her husband’s sister? All this O-Nobu read in her companion’s expression.

In fact, what O-Hide actually saw was that O-Nobu was either too conceited to be satisfied with Tsuda’s love for her or a dissembler pretending not to realize that she held him in the palm of her hand.

“Gracious!” she exclaimed. “You want even more love than you have already?”

Normally this response would have been just what O-Nobu hoped for. The way she was feeling today, however, it couldn’t possibly have satisfied her. Somehow she must make herself clear. But that would require her to say candidly, “If Tsuda is still thinking of someone beside me, then how am I to be content with things as they are now?”

“But listen,” she had begun, and then hesitated and went silent, sensing that if she dared to lead this way, she would be sabotaging her own plan.

“Is there still something missing?”

As she spoke, O-Hide lowered her gaze to O-Nobu’s hand. The familiar ring was sparkling magnificently on her finger. But O-Hide’s sharp glance had no effect on O-Nobu. Her naiveté about the ring was unchanged from the day before. O-Hide was annoyed.

“It seems to me you’re the fortunate one. If you want something, it gets bought for you, and if you want to go somewhere, you get taken.”

“I suppose I am fortunate in that way.”

Accustomed to thinking how awkward it would be if, declining to assert to others her good fortune and happiness, she should happen to reveal her plight, O-Nobu had recourse now, as usual, to one of the set phrases she kept on hand. And once again she came to a stop. Only after she had repeated the very words she had said to Tsugiko when she visited the Okamotos the day after the theater did she realize it was O-Hide she was addressing. O-Hide’s expression appeared to be asking, “If you’re fortunate in that way, isn’t that enough?”

O-Nobu didn’t want to show O-Hide any evidence that she was suspicious of Tsuda. The trouble was, pretending to know nothing while she watched O-Hide make a fool of her was even more disagreeable. O-Hide would require skillful handling. She believed that making her way to her objective would prove to be a travail. She didn’t realize that her efforts were misbegotten and doomed to fail. She took yet another tack.

WITH A deep breath, she jumped with both feet. She was determined to cast off the restraints imposed by the circumstances and confront O-Hide head on. But this required her to speak abstractly. Even so, she thought, perhaps the stimulus of a debate might uncover at least a shadowy reflection of the truth.

“Do you suppose a man can love more than one woman at the same time?”

It was O-Nobu’s intention to use this question as a starting point, but at that moment O-Hide had nothing to offer in response. The knowledge she had gleaned from books and magazines was related to conventional romance only and was of no use in this case. With nothing in reserve, she feigned deliberation. Then she replied honestly.

“I really couldn’t say.”

O-Nobu felt disheartened. Doesn’t this woman have a husband named Hori to use in her research? Doesn’t she observe her husband’s attitude toward women at his side day and night? Even as she formed the thought, the next words issued from O-Hide.

“How could I understand? I’m a woman, after all!”

Was this woman an imbecile? O-Nobu wondered. If this reflected O-Hide as she truly was, her dullness was to be pitied. O-Nobu hastened to turn the foolish remark to her own use.

“Then how about from the woman’s point of view? Can we imagine that our husbands could be in love with someone other than ourselves?”

“Can’t you imagine that?”

O-Nobu heard the question with alarm.

“Am I in a position now where that’s something I need to imagine?”

“You’ll be fine,” O-Hide returned at once.

O-Nobu instantly repeated the words.

“I’ll be fine—”

It was unclear from her emphasis — even O-Nobu wasn’t sure why — whether she was asking a question or exclaiming.

“You’ll be just fine!”

O-Hide also repeated the phrase a second time. In that instant O-Nobu glimpsed a shadow of ridicule in the corners of her companion’s mouth. But it vanished at once.

“You’re the one who’s obviously fine! Given the circumstances when you married Hori-san.”

“What about you? Wasn’t Tsuda head over heels about you?”

“Goodness no! That’s how it was with you.”

O-Hide was suddenly unresponsive. O-Nobu abandoned the effort of futile digging in a vein where no gold was to be found.

“I wonder what Tsuda’s thoughts about women are?”

“His wife would know that better than his little sister.”

Even as she was rebuffed, O-Nobu realized she had framed a question as dumb as O-Hide’s.

“But as his sister, you must understand him better than I do.”

“I suppose I do, but my understanding won’t be of any use to you.”

“Of course it will — besides, if that’s what we’re talking about, I’ve known about it for quite a while.”

It was a dangerous trap, but O-Hide, being O-Hide, couldn’t resist the bait.

“Even so, you’ll be fine. In your case, it will certainly be fine.”

“Maybe so, but it’s dangerous. Unless you’ll kindly tell me all about it.”

“Gracious sakes! I don’t know anything.”

O-Hide abruptly colored. Even in her heightened state, O-Nobu couldn’t surmise the source of her embarrassment. But she had retained her memory of the same display earlier in her visit. Gifted as she was at discriminating similarities and differences, she was unable to identify the connection between the faint blush her mention of Madam Yoshikawa had produced earlier and the red face confronting her now. She wanted urgently to establish a connection, however farfetched. But no matter where she searched, the cord that would bind them eluded her. What troubled her most was her conjecture that a connection must exist between these two moments, each beyond her power to manage. And a premonition that this connection was bound to be of momentous importance to her now. It was only natural that she should feel impelled to probe more deeply.

RULED BY a momentary impulse, O-Nobu was unable to suppress the lie that escaped her lips.

“I’ve heard about it from Yoshikawa-san’s wife as well.”

As she spoke, O-Nobu became aware of her own boldness. Her only choice, halting there, was to observe the result of her daring. As she watched, the embarrassment that had reddened O-Hide’s face was replaced by a strikingly different look of puzzlement.

“Goodness! All about what?”

“About that!”

“What do you mean by that?”

O-Nobu had nowhere to go. O-Hide had room to advance.

“I think you’re fibbing.”

“I’m not. About Tsuda.”

O-Hide didn’t respond. But a hint of ridicule played about her pert mouth. It was displayed less guardedly than the last time, and O-Nobu, observing this, felt that she had stumbled off the road and stepped into a muddy field. If she hadn’t been so incorrigibly a sore loser, she might well have bowed her head to O-Hide and asked for her help. O-Hide spoke.

“It’s so odd. What reason can Mrs. Yoshikawa have had to talk about Tsuda?”

“Hideko-san, it’s the truth.”

O-Hide laughed aloud for the first time.

“I’m sure it is — I don’t want you to think I’m doubting you — but whatever are we talking about? Truly.”

“About Tsuda.”

“But what about him? What about my brother?”

“I can’t say. You have to tell me.”

“But that’s so unreasonable. Tell you what, I haven’t the foggiest.”

O-Hide appeared to stand her ground calmly, ready for anything. O-Nobu’s underarms began to sweat. Abruptly she launched out.

“Hideko-san, you’re a Christian, aren’t you?”

O-Hide appeared surprised.

“Certainly not.”

“I don’t think you could have said the things you said yesterday otherwise.”

The state of affairs had turned, reversing their positions from the day before. It was now O-Hide who appeared to be in command with room to maneuver.

“I couldn’t have? Fine, have it your way. I assume you hate Christianity?”

“On the contrary. That’s why I’m appealing to you. Because I want you to take pity on me. In the same noble spirit as yesterday. If I behaved badly, look! I bow to you in apology.”

O-Nobu placed both hands on the tatami in front of O-Hide, the jewel in her ring sparkling on her finger, and, true to her word, bowed her head deeply.

“Please, Hideko-san, please be honest with me. Please tell me everything. You see me opening myself to you. You see my deep regret.”

As she arched her eyebrows in the customary gesture, tears spilled from her small eyes onto her lap.

“Tsuda is my husband. And you’re his sister. Just as he’s important to you, he’s important to me. So for Tsuda’s sake, for Tsuda’s sake, please tell me everything. Tsuda loves me. Just as he loves you as a sister, he loves me as his wife. So as someone loved by him I have to know everything for his sake. And since he loves you, too, I know you’ll tell me everything for his sake. Won’t you? That’s an act of kindness by you as his sister. Even if you don’t feel any kindness toward me at this point, I won’t resent you for it one little bit. But I know there’s still kindness in you toward your brother. I can see in your face that you’re filled with kindness toward him. I know you’re not a cold, indifferent person. Yesterday you said yourself that you’re a kind person, and I’m certain it’s true.”

Having said this much, O-Nobu looked at O-Hide and observed an extraordinary change in her face. From flushed she had gone slightly pale. In a rush of words that seemed excessive, she spoke as if to gainsay as quickly as possible what O-Nobu had said.

“As far as I’m concerned, I have nothing to feel ashamed of. I have only the best of intentions toward my brother and toward you. I have no ill will! Just so there’s no misunderstanding.”

O-HIDE’S DEFENSIVENESS surprised O-Nobu. And it was abrupt. She understood neither whence these words came nor their purpose. She was simply surprised. What could be lurking in the background of this O-Hide, revealed to her like a benefaction from the skies? O-Nobu attempted at once to penetrate the darkness. The third lie issued effortlessly from her lips.

“I understand that. And I know everything you’ve done and the spirit it was done in. So why not tell me what you know without holding anything back? Please!”

O-Nobu looked at O-Hide with every particle of charm she could summon sparkling in her small eyes. But if she expected this gesture to have the same effect as it had on men, she was mistaken. As though startled, O-Hide asked an unexpected question.

“Nobuko-san, were you at the clinic before you came here today?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“But you came here from somewhere else?”

“I came straight from home.”

O-Hide appeared relieved. Unfortunately, relief left her with nothing more to say. But O-Nobu wasn’t ready to release the hand she was clinging with.

“For goodness sake, Hideko-san, won’t you talk to me?”

At that moment, a cruel light glinted in O-Hide’s cool eyes.

“How willful you are, Nobuko-san! Must you feel that you’re the only one being loved perfectly? You can’t be satisfied otherwise?”

“Of course not! That doesn’t matter to you?”

“With the husband I have?” O-Hide replied without a trace of self-pity.

“Hori-san doesn’t count. Let’s match each other truth for truth, leaving Hori-san out. I can’t imagine you’d be fond of a man with a roving eye.”

“But there’s not a husband alive who’s so devoted he behaves as if his wife is the only woman who exists.”

O-Hide, who relied on books and magazines for her knowledge, transformed abruptly at this moment into a conventional pragmatist. O-Nobu didn’t have time even to remark the contradiction.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Hideko-san! There must be men like that as long as there are men who deserve to be called husbands!”

“You don’t say? Where would you find such a wonderful man?”

O-Hide gazed again at O-Nobu with ridicule in her eye. O-Nobu lacked the courage to shout the name “Tsuda!” But she had to say something.

“That’s my ideal. I can’t accept anything less.”

If O-Hide had become a pragmatist, O-Nobu had also transformed along the way into a theorist. Their positions relative to each other until now had been reversed. Unaware of this, they were swept along by the natural flow of the conversation. From this point on their dialogue, neither theoretical nor pragmatic, became a contest between remarks traded like blows.

“That may be your ideal, but it’s unreasonable. The day your ideal was realized, every woman who wasn’t somebody’s wife would lose her qualifications as a woman.”

“But love has to go that far to be complete love. Otherwise you could live your whole life and never experience genuine love.”

“I don’t know about that, but to expect your husband to think of you as the only woman in the world simply doesn’t stand to reason.”

O-Hide’s remarks were beginning to sound like a personal attack. O-Nobu was undaunted.

“I don’t know about reason; I’m talking about feelings. As long as he feels I’m the only woman, that’s all I ask.”

“I understand you want him to feel that you’re the only woman for him. But if you’re also saying he mustn’t think of other women as women at all, that amounts to suicide. A husband who can go that far won’t be thinking of you as a woman either. Only the flower that blooms in his own garden is a true flower; all the rest are straw — is that what you expect?”

“Straw would be fine!”

“Fine for you. But to a man they aren’t straw, so you’re asking the impossible. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying for you if among the women in the world he loved, he loved you best? Because that would mean you were being loved in the truest sense.”

“I want to feel that I’m loved absolutely. I hate comparisons.”

A hint of disdain appeared in O-Hide’s face. It was easy enough to see that she was thinking “how dim this woman is!” Anger rose in O-Nobu.

“Anyhow, logic is too much for my poor brain.”

“Show me an actual example. Convince me that way if you can.”

O-Hide coldly terminated the conversation. O-Nobu could have stamped her feet with chagrin. All her efforts until now would avail her nothing more. Not realizing that a letter from Tsuda awaited her at home, she took her leave.

WHILE O-NOBU and O-Hide traded blows face to face, the clinic was the scene of another drama unfolding independently.

The visitor Tsuda had been eagerly awaiting arrived before the rickshaw man who had been sent off with his letter to O-Nobu had returned, just ten minutes or so after Kobayashi had departed. Hearing the nurse announce Madam Yoshikawa, Tsuda was above all thankful that a pitched battle in his cramped room between these two nearly alien creatures had been avoided. At that moment he had scarcely time to reflect that this good fortune had required him to make a material sacrifice.

As the lady entered the room he attempted to sit up on his mattress, but she waved him down. With a glance back at the flowerpot the nurse who had accompanied her was holding in both arms, she asked, “Where shall we put that?” as though seeking advice. Tsuda observed that the autumn leaves were beautiful against the white of the nurse’s chest. Not until the bonsai had been installed in the alcove — three stunted trunks looking cramped in the small pot with some small stones prettily arranged beneath them — did Madam take a seat.

“How are you feeling?”

At that moment Tsuda, who had been observing the lady carefully, was able to ascertain her attitude toward him for the first time. Goodly half of his concern about what she might be feeling was dispelled by this simple inquiry. She wasn’t as cheerful as usual. But neither was she as high-pitched. It appeared, in other words, that she had come to see him in a mood he had never observed in her until now. She seemed composed almost to a fault, and at the same time she appeared to be displaying her generosity and open-mindedness to a similarly extreme degree. Tsuda was surprised. But it was a pleasant surprise, and, precisely for that reason, he began to feel uncomfortable. Even assuming this attitude represented no antagonism toward him, he didn’t know what might lie behind it. Even if there were nothing fearsome lurking there, there was no way of knowing how her feelings might change in the course of their conversation. Accustomed to being an object of ingratiation, Madam Yoshikawa gave herself permission to change as much as she liked whenever it pleased her, and Tsuda’s position obliged him to accommodate the lady as if she were, at least in this sense, a female tyrant. He was obliged to attend, as in the classical Chinese expression, “her every frown and smile.” This was especially so today.

“Hideko-san dropped in this morning.”

The words were placed on the table as though O-Hide’s visit were the first item on an agenda. Tsuda was of course obliged to respond. He had been considering what he ought to say since before the lady had arrived. He had intended to pretend ignorance of O-Hide’s visit. That would spare him having to mention Kobayashi’s name when he was asked how he knew.

“You don’t say? I suppose she felt she’s been so out of touch that a brief visit was the least she could do?”

“No, that wasn’t it.”

Tsuda followed at once with his next lie.

“But she can’t have had business with you.”

“But she did.”

“You don’t say.”

Tsuda awaited what would follow.

“Try guessing what business she had.”

Feigning ignorance, Tsuda pretended to deliberate.

“Let me see — why come to you — I don’t really—”

“No idea?”

“I — it’s a tough riddle — you understand, we’re brother and sister, but we couldn’t be less alike.”

Tsuda here invoked inconsequently the sibling relationship. His purpose was to excuse himself in advance at a distance before anything should happen. He was also listening for some echo of the effect his words might have had on the lady.

“She seems proud of how logical she is.”

The minute he heard this, Tsuda sensed the match was his and leaped at the opening that had been revealed.

“Her so-called logic is unbearable even to me, and I’m her brother. No one can sit there listening and not run out of patience. That’s why I end up agreeing to whatever she says when we quarrel. And off she goes feeling good about herself, maybe thinking she’s won, and tells everyone she meets whatever it takes to make her look good.”

Madam Yoshikawa smiled. Tsuda interpreted the smile as sympathetic to him. Then she spoke, and her words betrayed his expectation.

“I very much doubt that’s how she is. In any event, she has a clear, consistent head on her shoulders, don’t you agree? I quite like her.”

Tsuda smiled stiffly.

“I doubt she’d pay you a visit and wave her real self around like a flag; she’s not that foolish.”

“I think she’s more honest, not less.”

More honest than whom, the lady didn’t say.

TSUDA’S CURIOSITY was aroused. He thought he knew whom she meant. But a detour in that direction would be inimical to achieving his principal goal. It would be enough to uncover the relationship between O-Hide and Madam Yoshikawa, whose purpose in visiting him, beyond simply wishing him well, was certain to be a tete-à-tete about that very subject. But the lady had a style that was singularly her own. With no limits on her time, she needed no invitation, given the opportunity, to meddle in the private affairs of others, and she enjoyed looking after people beneath her, particularly those she was fond of, all the while making clear unabashedly that she was acting principally in the interests of her own amusement. At times she went about arranging things helter-skelter. On other occasions her approach was the opposite. Though she never let on, it seemed clear at such times that she was intent on drawing the matter out. Notwithstanding what an observer might think, she appeared to view her approach, very like playing cat-and-mouse, as the special prerogative of an actor who was obliged to enliven an otherwise dreary moment with drama. To someone trapped in such a game, forbearance was critical. And the reward for patience always came. In fact, the lady encouraged people with the prospect of the reward to come. She even took this proudly as evidence of her ethical superiority.

As a result of the tacit agreement that had been exchanged between them, Tsuda had been seriously wounded just once until now. He was too shrewd not to see that the lady privately felt responsible. Though he allowed her venerable wishes to dictate his actions in all things, he reassured himself with the leverage this gave him. But this was a weapon held in reserve until the unlikely advent of an emergency. Day-to-day he had to content himself with becoming a mouse in front of the cat and allowing her to toy with him as she pleased. On this occasion, like so many others, she was taking her sweet time coming to the point.

“I understand Hideko-san was here yesterday.”

“Yes.”

“And Nobuko-san came too!”

“Yes.”

“And today?”

“She hasn’t been here yet.”

“I suppose she’ll be coming soon?”

Tsuda didn’t know. In front of the matron he couldn’t say that he had sent off a letter telling her not to come. As a matter of fact, he was concerned at not having received a reply as he had expected.

“I wonder — I’m not sure.”

“You don’t know if she’ll be coming?”

“I’m not sure.”

“How very offhand!”

The matron laughed as though mockingly.

“Me?”

“Both of you!”

Tsuda smiled uncomfortably, and Madam waited for his mouth to close again before she spoke.

“I understand that Nobuko-san and Hideko-san ran into each other here?”

“Yes.”

“And something happened, something out of the ordinary.”

“Not really—”

“I wish you wouldn’t play dumb. If something happened, why not say so, like a man?”

Now at last the lady had begun to resort to the language and style that were singularly hers. Tsuda was at a loss for a reply. He felt his only choice was to wait and see in silence.

“According to Hideko-san, you both tormented her. Ganged up.”

“That’s absurd! She’s the one who got angry and stormed out.”

“Really? But you did fight. Maybe not with your fists, but a fight anyway.”

“Yes, but O-Hide has exaggerated it way out of proportion.”

“That may be, but there’s no question that you argued.”

“We had a small disagreement, yes.”

“And the two of you attacked Hideko-san together?”

“There was no attacking! She got all fired up and read us chapter and verse like a Christian.”

“But it was two of you against one of her.”

“I suppose so.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. That was wrong of you.”

There was no sense or logic in the lady’s conclusion. Accordingly it made no sense to Tsuda. But in cases like this, it was her custom to declare herself indisputably; with her accusation already driven into his brain, he had no choice but to submit to being scolded.

“I didn’t intend it to be that way; maybe it just happened naturally. In the course of things.”

“‘Maybe’ won’t do! Why not say right out ‘It happened!’? You may think it’s rude of me to say so, but this is all because you’re too protective of Nobuko-san.”

Tsuda inclined his head.

NOTWITHSTANDING HIS cleverness, he failed to grasp the nature of the relationship between Madam Yoshikawa and O-Nobu. In his presence the matron conducted herself with caution where O-Nobu was concerned, and O-Nobu felt constrained in her own way in front of him; as a consequence, the wisdom that would otherwise have allowed him to perceive their genuine sentiments was foiled. Unaware of this, Tsuda, who tended to discount somewhat steeply the value of what he heard women say, accepted Madam’s critique of O-Nobu word for word and, at the same time, never doubted what he heard O-Nobu remark about the other. Moreover, their assessments were mutually laudatory to a fault. It was only now, when the circumstances made it inevitable, that the subtle discord the two women had both been feeling and striving not to reveal was to be laid out for Tsuda to see.

Turning to the lady, he spoke.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t care that much for my wife, so you needn’t trouble yourself about that.”

“Apparently that’s not so. That’s not what the world says.”

Tsuda was taken back by the lady’s hyperbole. Madam felt obliged to explain.

“By ‘the world’ I mean everyone!”

Tsuda was unable to picture clearly whom she meant by “everyone.” But he had no trouble divining the significance of her exaggeration. It seemed she was determined to drive this point into his brain. He forced himself to laugh.

“I assume ‘everyone’ means O-Hide?”

“O-Hide-san among them, of course.”

“Among them and represents them all, I suppose?”

“Possibly.”

Tsuda laughed aloud again. He noticed at once as it rebounded on him the laugh’s unfortunate effect on the lady, but it was too late to recall it. Having perceived the advantage of accepting guilt and punishment without protest, he quickly reformed his stance.

“I’ll be careful from now on.”

But Madam wasn’t finished.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only Hideko-san. Your uncle and aunt feel the same way, you should be aware of that.”

“I didn’t realize.”

Obviously, word of the Fujiis had reached the lady through O-Hide.

“And there are others,” Madam subjoined.

“I see,” Tsuda said simply, and in the instant he looked at his companion’s face, the words he had been expecting issued from her.

“To tell the truth, I’m of the same opinion as the others.”

Facing her as she declared herself as though definitively, Tsuda didn’t feel it necessary to hunt for the courage it would have taken to lift his voice in protest. He was silent, but he couldn’t help wondering if she was thinking more than she said. What accounts for this attitude all of a sudden? When she scolds me for treating O-Nobu too solicitously, is she also criticizing O-Nobu? This was a brand new suspicion. So new he had difficulty conceiving the process in his imagination whereby he had arrived at it. Before addressing his suspicion, he asked a question that remained in his mind.

“Does Okamoto-san feel the same way?”

“Okamoto is different. What Okamoto thinks is not my affair.”

This curt disclaimer was a surprise to Tsuda.

So you and Okamoto have nothing to do with each other? He was on the verge of asking this question, next in the natural order of things.

The truth was, he didn’t care for O-Nobu to the extent people assumed he did. Explaining to someone else how this partial misunderstanding had resulted would require time and effort, but he had his own lucid notion of the process and understood the pattern of facts with sufficient clarity to identify them one by one.

O-Nobu herself was principally responsible. It was O-Nobu who possessed the skill, and made full use of it unabashedly everywhere she went, to create, from the most complex possible angle, a reflection of how precious she was to Tsuda, and conversely of how much freedom she accorded him. The second responsible party was O-Hide. Her already distorted view of the situation was exacerbated by a kind of jealousy. Tsuda didn’t know whence her jealousy came. Having understood for the first time only after his marriage the meaning of a sister-in-law, he was unfortunately unable to apply what he had perceived and was left confounded. Fujii and his wife were third on the list. The villain here was neither hyperbole nor jealousy but rather an intemperate aversion to ostentation. Hence this, too, came down to a misunderstanding.

TSUDA HAD a particular reason for allowing this misunderstanding to obtain. Kobayashi had disinterred the reason. It was in the soil of this misunderstanding that the Okamotos’ good intentions toward him grew, and it was in his interest to preserve those feelings as best he could. Treating O-Nobu solicitously, in other words, was the same as currying favor with the Okamotos, and inasmuch as Okamoto and Yoshikawa were as close as brothers, it stood to reason that the better care he took of O-Nobu, the more assured his future became. A man who prided himself on his unfaltering perspicacity where his own interests were concerned, Tsuda wasn’t fool enough to celebrate the fact that Madam Yoshikawa had acted as formal go-between at the time of his marriage simply because he considered it an honor. In her involvement in his marriage he perceived a significance that was distinct from and went beyond honor.

But this was hardly more than a surface consideration. Deeper inside, layers below, there was a bottom beneath the bottom. Long before things had come to this pass, Tsuda and Madam Yoshikawa had been yoked together by circumstances unknown to others. Having traversed together a tortuous path private to themselves, they had been obliged to view the new relationship that had been forged half a year ago with more complex feelings than the others.

To put it plainly, before he married O-Nobu, Tsuda had loved another woman. And it was Madam Yoshikawa who had encouraged, perhaps even ignited, his love. She had manipulated the couple at will, contriving capriciously to push them together and then to tear them apart, and she had amused herself watching them on each occasion tumble into helpless confusion or drive each other to distraction before her eyes. Nonetheless it had never occurred to Tsuda to question his firm belief in her kindness. Madam on her part never hesitated to insist that a happy destiny was in store for the couple. Not content to speculate, when she saw that the moment had ripened, she attempted to unite their hands forever. However, at the last possible moment, her confidence received a bone-shivering blow. There was no protecting Tsuda’s arrogance, either; it received its own drubbing at the same time. Once the precious bird had flown suddenly away, she had never returned to Madam’s hand.

Madam Yoshikawa blamed Tsuda. Tsuda blamed her. Madam felt responsible. But Tsuda was unable to assume responsibility. To this day, unable to understand what had happened, he wandered in a dense fog. Meanwhile there arose the question of marriage to O-Nobu. Thinking to participate in this second romance, Madam Yoshikawa went into action. By undertaking the role of formal go-between with her husband, she neatly resolved her unfinished business with Tsuda.

Observing her minutely at the time, Tsuda was convinced by what he saw.

She intends this as compensation to me.

Certain he was correct, he attempted to derive from her intention a general policy toward his future. Living in harmony with O-Nobu, he was convinced, would constitute partial fulfillment of his obligation to the lady. He went so far as to assume that his future was guaranteed so long as he didn’t quarrel with his wife.

It was hardly surprising, then, having dealt with Madam Yoshikawa from the outset in the certainty that there was no miscalculation in his understanding, that he should be alarmed to perceive coming from his companion even the faintest trace of disapproval directed at O-Nobu. Before he could reform his own position in a way that would please her, he had first to ascertain whether he was correct.

“I know you think I treat O-Nobu too well, but if you’re also thinking she has her own shortcomings, I’d be grateful for your advice on that subject, too.”

“As a matter of fact, it’s just that I’ve come to see you about.”

Tsuda was consumed with curiosity about what she would say. The lady continued.

“I bring this up only because I don’t believe anyone else could say it to your face — and please don’t think I’ve been coached by O-Hide. If this should be awkward for her later, I’d feel awful. I’m sure you understand. It’s true she came here with the same thing on her mind. But her point is different. She’s mostly worried about Kyoto. I understand, from your point of view, that Kyoto is all about your father and simply can’t be neglected. Especially since he asked my husband to look after you — you can hardly afford to turn your back and say nothing. The problem, as I see it, is that Kyoto is only a branch and the root is elsewhere; I think you should consider beginning treatment at the root. Otherwise we’re certain to run into the same sort of misunderstanding we have just now. It’s one thing if it’s merely a misunderstanding, but if O-Hide comes racing over here each time, it makes it very difficult for me to say anything.”

It was clear enough that the root of misfortune the lady had in mind was O-Nobu. And how was she suggesting it should be treated? Inasmuch as there was no physical illness, Tsuda wondered how the word “treatment” could be used so casually unless it referred to separation or divorce.

HE COULDN’T help asking.

“What are you suggesting I do?”

The matron assumed the condescending look of a mother in the face of a childish question. But she didn’t get right to the point. She merely smiled, as if to say “that was precisely the question.”

“Let me ask you, how do you feel about Nobuko-san?”

Tsuda recalled his reply to O-Hide when he had been asked the same question in the same words the day before. He hadn’t prepared a special answer for Madam. That at least allowed him the freedom to reply however he liked. In truth, he felt inclined to provide whatever reply would please her. The difficulty was, he couldn’t imagine what such an answer might be. Thrown off balance and flustered, he grinned. Madam took advantage of his silence to close the distance between them another step.

“I assume you care for her.”

Even here, Tsuda was insufficiently prepared. If it were a matter of dealing with the lady half in jest, there were any number of things he might have said. A responsible reply, however, seriously considered and delivered in a form that was likely to please, did not come easily. What was most convenient, and most inconvenient at the same time, was his feeling that he could speak freely from his heart either way. The truth was, he loved O-Nobu, and then again he didn’t love her so very much.

The lady appeared increasingly grave. The tone of her third question allowed him no escape.

“I promise this will remain a secret between us, so I want you to tell me the truth. I’m not asking for much. A word from you, how you truly feel, and I’ll be satisfied.”

At a loss for what to say, Tsuda felt more and more flustered. The lady spoke.

“You’re so irritating! Can’t you just get on with it, say what you have to say like a man? Nobody’s asking you anything so very difficult.”

Finally, Tsuda felt compelled to speak.

“It’s not that I can’t answer you. But it’s a complex question, ambiguous—”

“Shall I speak for you, then? May I?”

“Please.”

“The fact is—” the lady began, interrupted herself, and continued again.

“You’re sure you don’t mind? You know how undiplomatic I can be, I often find myself regretting having spoken my mind after the fact, when it’s too late to take it back.”

“Please feel free.”

“But if I make you angry at me, the damage is done. Apologizing afterward won’t make any difference — I’ll have played the fool and I don’t want that.”

“But so long as nothing you could say will bother me.”

“I suppose, if you’re sure about that.”

“I promise. True or false, I couldn’t get angry about anything you said. So you shouldn’t feel in the least constrained.”

Having decided it was far easier to place all the responsibility on his companion’s shoulders, Tsuda followed his promise with an encouraging look at the lady, as if to prompt her. It was then, having solicited and received assurance repeatedly, that she finally spoke out.

“Forgive me if I’m mistaken. Secretly, I don’t think you truly care for O-Nobu as much as everyone supposes. Unlike Hideko-san, I’ve suspected as much for quite a while. Are my observations accurate?”

Tsuda was unmoved.

“Of course. Didn’t I tell you before that I don’t care for O-Nobu that much?”

“But you were just being agreeable.”

“I was telling the truth.”

This Madam adamantly refused to accept.

“You shouldn’t try to fool me, of all people. Very well then, may I go on?”

“Please.”

“Even though you don’t care that much for Nobuko-san, you do everything in your power to have others think that you adore her, am I right?”

“Did O-Nobu say anything of the sort?”

“No!” she retorted crisply. “But you say it all the time. I can read it clearly in your face and in your attitude.”

The matron paused a minute. Then she continued.

“I’ve hit the target, haven’t I? And that isn’t all — I even understand exactly your reason for sustaining appearances.”

THIS WAS the first time Tsuda had heard Madam Yoshikawa speak this way. He hadn’t troubled himself with speculation about how she viewed his marriage from the sidelines, and now he had an inkling. Thinking she might at least have alerted him sooner, he decided nonetheless that he was well advised to listen patiently to her assessments. “Why not just say everything on your mind? It will help me understand how to carry on from here.”

Having come thus far, Madam would hardly have been able to restrain herself even without an invitation from Tsuda, and she proceeded to lay out in front of him everything that remained on her mind.

“I know you treat Nobuko-san so well because you feel an obligation to my husband and Okamoto. If you’d like to hear it even more bluntly, I can oblige you. You make it appear to others that you care for her deeply, while in your heart that isn’t exactly so — am I right or am I wrong?”

Tsuda would never have dreamed that his companion was observing him so cynically.

“That’s how I appear to you?”

“Indeed it is!”

She might as well have slashed him with a Japanese sword. Reeling, he sought an explanation.

“What is it about me that you see?”

“Why bother to conceal it?”

“I’m not aware of concealing anything.”

Madam bore down with confidence that ten out of ten of her assumptions were accurate. Tsuda was unable to concede entirely, and the vagueness of his responses suggested unspoken reservations. It was easily seen that these would become the seeds of further misunderstanding. Repeating herself endlessly, the lady drove Tsuda in precisely the direction she wished him to move.

“Concealing things simply won’t do! You make it impossible for me to continue.”

Tsuda was determined to hear the rest. As he listened to what followed, he found he had no choice but to accept every one of her conclusions.

“Is that clear enough?” When she had driven him into a corner, she advanced yet another step.

“You’re making a big mistake. You’re putting me in the same boat as my husband. And you make no distinction between my husband and Okamoto. Perhaps that’s understandable, but it’s absurd of you, a huge misunderstanding, to lump me together with them, at least where this issue is concerned. It’s astonishing to me that someone who’s read as many books as you have should make such a simple mistake.”

Tsuda had managed at last to understand the lady’s position. He remained uncertain, however, where that position located her in relation to himself.

“It should be plain as day. I’m different because I’m the only one with a special connection to you.”

Tsuda perfectly understood the substance of their “special connection.” But that wasn’t the issue at hand. After all, precisely because he did understand, he had been careful to make sure to this day that his actions had been appropriately shaped and colored to reflect the connection. Determining more clearly just how it was governing the lady was likely to uncover a new problem; realizing as much, Tsuda sensed that merely acknowledging his misunderstanding would no longer be adequate.

The lady declared herself unambiguously.

“I’m on your side.”

“I’ve never doubted that. I believe it absolutely. And I’m grateful to you for it. But how do you mean that? I wonder what it means to you to be on my side in this case. I’m such a lamebrain I’m not sure I understand what you mean. If you could be a little clearer.”

“In this case I believe there’s only one way I can be on your side.”

“But you probably—”

Madam Yoshikawa rested her gaze on Tsuda’s face. He supposed he was in for more aggravation. But the lady’s question, an abrupt change, suggested otherwise.

“Will you listen to what I say or won’t you?”

Tsuda had retained his common sense. He considered what anyone driven into a place like this would have to think. But he lacked the courage to make clear what he was thinking in front of the lady. As a result he felt stymied. Unable to say he would or would not listen, he hesitated.

“You might as well say what you’re thinking.”

“I won’t accept ‘might as well.’ It’s hard for me to speak when you sound so unsure.”

“It’s just that—”

“Never mind ‘it’s just that’—be a man for heaven’s sake and say you’ll listen!”

TSUDA HAD no idea what sort of request was likely to issue from Madam, and he was secretly afraid. It would be terrible to find himself in a vice that compelled him to retract his now avowed willingness to engage with her. He tried imagining how the lady would behave if that were to happen. In view of her station and personality, and taking into consideration their special connection, she could hardly be expected to let him off the hook. Eternally unpardoned in her presence, he would become a living corpse, a man in a deep coma who had been deprived of all means of revival. A cautious man, he lacked the courage to venture into perilous territory whence the chances of returning alive were by no means assured.

Madam was unlike an ordinary person; there was no telling what sort of painful subject she might broach. Having grown accustomed to living for years in an environment that allowed her an excess of freedom, she was nearly blind to her own unreasonableness. In a word, virtually anything was acceptable. In the rare instance when a subject exceeded even her own limits, she obstinately willed it back across the line. Unburdened as she was by any pressing need to dissect her own motives, she enjoyed latitude that made things particularly difficult. Perhaps it wasn’t as much latitude as a prodigality with regard to her own feelings. Having resolved as she went into action arranging other people’s lives that everything she did was a manifestation of kindness and good intentions and accordingly selfless, there was no reason she should ever feel assailed by uneasiness. Since from the outset her self-criticism remained inactive and the criticism of others went unheard or was never communicated to her, her current state of mind was an inevitable outcome.

Having been brought to bay by the lady, such were the thoughts that heaped and twisted in Tsuda’s mind, leaving him more than ever rattled.

Madam observed him and finally laughed aloud.

“What are you wracking your brains about? I suppose you’re thinking I’m about to say something unreasonable again. Well, let me guarantee you I’m not thinking of anything immoral. This is something you could do effortlessly if you just put your mind to it. And the result would only benefit you.”

“It would be that easy?”

“Simple as a joke. You might think of it as sort of a game, a bit of mischief. So take the plunge and say you’ll do it.”

To Tsuda, the lady was talking in riddles. But he was beginning to feel, so long as it was only mischief she had in mind, why not? At last he acceded.

“I don’t really understand, but I might as well give it a try. What did you have in mind?”

But the lady was in no hurry to explain the nature of this caprice. With Tsuda’s assurance in hand, she changed the subject again. But this topic was in every sense at a vast remove from simple mischief. To Tsuda it was a matter of looming importance.

The lady introduced it in the following way.

“Have you run into Kiyoko-san since then?”

“No—”

Tsuda was startled, but not simply because of the abruptness of the question. It was hearing the name of the woman who had unexpectedly dropped him from the lips of the lady who bore half the responsibility for letting her get away. Madam pressed on.

“Then you’re not aware of what she’s doing now?”

“No idea.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“What if it did? She’s already gone off and married someone else.”

“I can’t recall if you went to the reception?”

“I didn’t — I thought about it, but it seemed awkward.”

“But you received an invitation?”

“Yes.”

“Apparently Kiyoko-san didn’t show up at your reception.”

“No.”

“You sent her an invitation?”

“Yes, I did.”

“So not since then — that was the last time?”

“Good thing it was. It would be a problem otherwise.”

“Perhaps. But there are problems and there are problems.”

Tsuda wasn’t sure what Madam meant. Before explaining, she tacked yet again.

“Does Nobuko-san know about Kiyoko-san?”

Tsuda felt clogged again. Without interrogating Kobayashi, he couldn’t say with certainty. The lady tried a different approach.

“You haven’t told her anything?”

“Of course not.”

“So Nobuko-san is completely ignorant? About what happened?”

“In any event, she hasn’t heard anything from me.”

“So she’s oblivious. Or could it be she suspects something?”

“I wonder—”

Tsuda had to think. But deliberation didn’t lead him to a conclusion.

AS THEY spoke, Tsuda encountered something in his companion’s thinking that had never occurred to him. Until now he had never questioned his assumption that keeping O-Nobu in the dark about Kiyoko was at once convenient for him and in accordance with Madam Yoshikawa’s wishes. But now it appeared, no matter what he may have thought about it, that Madam was hoping O-Nobu suspected something.

“I can’t imagine she doesn’t have some vague idea,” the lady said. Knowing O-Nobu’s personality made it that much harder for Tsuda to reply.

“Is that something important to know?”

“Absolutely.”

Tsuda couldn’t imagine why. He replied nonetheless.

“If it’s so important, should I talk to her?”

The matron laughed.

“At this late date that would ruin everything. You must play dumb until the bitter end.”

With this the lady came to a full stop and then began anew.

“Would you care to hear my conclusion? Clever as she is, I believe Nobuko-san must have sensed something already. I’m not saying she knows everything, and we’d have a time of it if she did. I think she knows and doesn’t know, which couldn’t be better. From what I observe, I believe that Nobuko-san is in exactly the place I’ve made to order for her.”

What else could Tsuda say but “Is that so?” To himself, however, he was thinking the lady had very little in the way of evidence to lead her to such a conclusion. But she spoke as if she had.

“Otherwise why would she feel she had to bluff?”

This was the first time she had characterized O-Nobu’s attitude as bluffing. He questioned her choice of words; on the other hand, how could he help affirming straight away the cynicism it conveyed? Nevertheless he was unable to accede without hesitating. Once again, Madam laughed carelessly.

“You needn’t worry. Even if it turns out she’s completely in the dark, there are any number of hands I can play.”

Tsuda waited in silence for the continuation, but there was none; the conversation abruptly turned back to Kiyoko.

“I imagine you still have feelings for Kiyoko-san?”

“Certainly not.”

“You feel nothing at all?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s called a man’s lie.”

Tsuda hadn’t intended to lie, but now he noticed that he wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“Do I appear to have feelings?”

“Of course not. Obviously!”

“Then why do you conclude I do?”

“For just that reason. Because they don’t appear.”

Her logic was the opposite of the expected. And yet somehow there was nothing outrageous about it. Now she expanded with evident self-satisfaction.

“Some people assume that what’s on the surface is what’s inside. As for me, precisely because those feelings of yours don’t emerge, I can’t help thinking you must be keeping them pent up inside.”

“That’s because you approach me with a preconception of how it must be.”

“And what’s so unreasonable about presuming that something is the way it must be?”

“It’s a bother to be arbitrarily interpreted that way.”

“When have I arbitrarily interpreted anything? I’m not sharing an interpretation; this is fact. I’m stating a fact known only to you and me. It’s a fact — you may be able to deceive others, but how can you expect to hide it from me when I know all about it? It would be one thing if it were a fact relating only to you, but this is a fact for us both, and until we’ve discussed it and buried it somewhere, so long as it lingers in memory, it’s not about to fade away.”

“Then let’s get on with the discussion part so we can bury it.”

“But why? Why must it be buried? Why not turn it to good use instead?”

“To good use? I prefer to stay far away from treachery.”

“Who’s talking about treachery? Have I suggested you should stoop so low?”

“But you—”

“You haven’t finished listening to what I have to say.”

Tsuda’s eyes burned with curiosity.

IT WAS very much as if Madam had felled Tsuda by thrusting proof of his lingering attachment in his face. His attitude following the equivalent of a confession brought to a conclusion one round of their match and spurred the lady on. But it turned out she wasn’t, where this matter was concerned, quite the arbitrary tyrant Tsuda had anticipated. In fact, she appeared to be observing his psychological state minutely. Having won the first round, she showed him certified proof of her victory.

“I’m not just grasping at clouds when I make a fuss about your attachment. I have firm hold of something substantial that satisfies me. I feel I could explain how it is with you to others if I chose.”

Tsuda hadn’t the vaguest notion what she was talking about.

“I wish you’d explain it to me.”

“If you like. But I should say that my explanation will amount to an explanation of you.”

“By all means, have at it.”

The lady burst out laughing.

“Are you just pretending to be as dumb as you sound? Here you are in person, you yourself, and you tell me that self is something you don’t understand and must be explained — how ridiculous.”

If the lady had it right, it was indeed ridiculous. Tsuda thought a moment.

“But I don’t understand myself.”

“Nonsense!”

“Then maybe I haven’t let it in?”

“You’ve let it in, all right.”

“What have I been doing then? Have I been hiding what I know from myself, is that what it comes down to?”

“I’d say so, yes.”

Tsuda gave up. What point could there be in attempting to conceal anything even as he was being driven into a corner?

“I can’t help it if I am ridiculous, I’ll take the criticism and content myself with it, so please do explain.”

The lady released a faint sigh.

“You’re no challenge at all. I’ve poured my heart into preparing for this, but if you’re going to roll over and play dead, I’ve gone to all this trouble for nothing. Perhaps it would be just as well if I left now—”

This only drew Tsuda deeper into a maze. He knew he was being lured in, but he felt compelled nonetheless to chase after his companion. His curiosity functioned powerfully in this. His sense of obligation to the lady and his desire to accord with her were also no small part of it. Repeating himself more than once, he pressed her to explain.

“Very well,” she agreed at last, appearing if anything highly satisfied with herself. “But I must ask you something first,” she warned, catching Tsuda off guard before she had fairly begun.

“Why didn’t you marry Kiyoko-san?”

The question was startling; Tsuda quietly caught his breath. The lady observed him in his silence and only then began anew.

“Let me put it another way — why didn’t Kiyoko-san marry you?”

This time Tsuda blurted his reply as though he were echoing her voice.

“I have no idea. It’s a mystery. No matter how hard I think about it, I come up with nothing.”

“She just up and married Seki-san suddenly?”

“That’s right. And ‘suddenly’ doesn’t begin to do it justice. It happened so fast it was flabbergasting. Before you knew it, she was already married.”

“Who was flabbergasted?”

Tsuda wondered how any question could be so meaningless. What difference did it make, except to satisfy her nosiness, who was flabbergasted? But the lady halted there and didn’t budge.

“Were you flabbergasted? Was Kiyoko-san flabbergasted? Maybe you were both flabbergasted?”

“I wonder—”

Tsuda felt compelled to consider. The lady moved ahead of him.

“Wasn’t Kiyoko-san content with what happened?”

“I wonder—”

“For goodness sake, stop wondering! I’m asking how it appeared to you, how Kiyoko-san appeared to you at the time? Didn’t she appear content?”

“Now that you mention it—”

The lady turned on him a look of contempt.

“Welcome to the real world. Wasn’t it that you were flabbergasted because Kiyoko-san was content?”

“Possibly.”

“And how do you intend to resolve that feeling you had at the time — feeling flabbergasted?”

‘There’s no way to resolve it.”

“But the truth is you’d like to?”

“I would — I’ve thought about various things to do.”

“And you’ve figured it out?”

“Not at all. The more I think about it, the less I understand.”

“Does that mean you’ve given up thinking about it?”

“I can’t help myself.”

“So you think about it even now?”

“That’s right.”

“There. What did I tell you? That’s the attachment I’m talking about!”

The lady had finally maneuvered Tsuda into just the place she wanted him.

HER GROUNDWORK virtually complete, Madam sensed that the moment to reveal herself was at hand. She began obliquely.

“In that case, how about behaving in a more manly way?”

“Not again!” Tsuda thought.

All along she had been exhorting him to “act like a man,” to stop being “unmanly,” and each time he heard the phrase he had dismissed her derisively to himself. He wondered skeptically what she meant by “manly.” It was evident that she used the insult arbitrarily and with no particular basis whenever she wished to put him down for the sake of her own convenience.

“In a manly way? What must I do to become manly?” he inquired with a strained smile.

“Resolve your attachment, I reckon, clear your feelings. What other way is here?”

“How do I do that?”

“How do you think? What would you have to do?”

“I have no idea.”

Abruptly, the lady became vehement.

“You’re such an idiot! How can you manage not to understand something as simple as that? Obviously there’s only one thing to do: meet her and ask.”

Tsuda could think of nothing to say. It was one thing to decide a meeting was necessary and quite another to know how to arrange it — where and on what pretext? That needed resolving first of all.

“That’s exactly why I took the trouble to come over here today.”

Tsuda looked up involuntarily at the lady’s face.

“I’ve been intending for some time to sound you out, and when Hideko-san showed up this morning about that other matter, I thought this might be a perfect opportunity, which is why I’m here.”

Unprepared for this, Tsuda submerged into confusion. The matron observed him closely before she spoke again.

“Don’t misunderstand. I’m me and Hideko-san is Hideko-san. I assume you realize that just because she asked me to come and see you doesn’t mean I’m entirely on her side. As I said before, no matter how it may seem, I sympathize with you.”

“I know that.”

Having brought this part of the conversation to a conclusion, the lady moved promptly to stage two along the way to reaching her main point.

“Do you know where Kiyoko-san is now?”

“With Seki, I imagine.”

“Normally she would be. I’m asking if you know where she is right now. In Tokyo or out of town?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Take a guess.”

Tsuda went silent, his expression indicating he was in no mood for guessing games. Whereupon there issued abruptly from Madam’s lips the name of a place he hadn’t expected to hear, a fairly well-known hot-springs resort less than one day’s journey from Tokyo that still resided in his memory. Recalling the scenery around it, he exclaimed, “Good heavens!” and stopped, lacking the presence of mind to say more.

Madam Yoshikawa obliged him with a detailed explanation. According to her, the person in question was there to convalesce for an indefinite period of time. And she knew even more: when she had informed Tsuda that Kiyoko was there to regain her health following a miscarriage, Madam smiled at him pointedly. Tsuda sensed he had successfully interpreted the smile. But that wasn’t the issue before them now. Disinclined to add any comments of his own, he waited patiently to hear what she might have to say next. At that moment she leaped forward to her conclusion.

“You should go there, too.”

Tsuda’s feelings had been in play before he heard this. But even after her suggestion, he felt unresolved about going. Madam fanned the flames.

“Just go. You won’t be making trouble for anyone. Just go and don’t make a fuss about it.”

“I suppose I could—”

“It’s not as if you haven’t always acted independently, so why should this be any different? And why weigh yourself down with baggage you don’t need like duty and consideration for others? Besides, in your condition it will do you good to take a little trip to the mountains when you get out of here. As I see it, your health alone is more than ample reason for going. So you really must. Go and bask in the sun as if you have a perfect right. And while you’re there, you can put an end to your attachment.”

The lady further encouraged Tsuda by offering to pay his travel expenses.

RECUPERATING AT a comfortable spa with travel expenses paid and time away from work arranged by someone else would have appealed to anyone. For Tsuda in particular, this was a rare opportunity that seemed tailor-made for a man who tried to live his life as though its principal theme were his personal pleasure. He would have said that standing idly by as it slipped away would have been the height of foolishness. This was an opportunity, however, that came with a contingency that was by no means trivial. He bethought himself.

The nature of the psychology holding him back was clear as day. But his very awareness of its manifest power prevented him from reflecting carefully on its meaning. On this head as well, the lady was a more reliable observer of his psychology than he. Seeing him appear to hesitate when she had assumed he would promise her to act at once, she spoke.

“You’re dragging your feet even though in your heart you want to go, isn’t that so? If you ask me, that’s the worst of your unmanly traits.”

Not so very disturbed by the accusation of unmanliness, Tsuda replied.

“You may be right, but this requires some thought.”

“Your addiction to thinking will come back to haunt you.”

“I beg your pardon?” Tsuda exclaimed in surprise. Madam continued as if she hadn’t noticed.

“At a time like this, a woman doesn’t think.”

“Doesn’t that make me manly, then, since I’m a thinker?”

The lady turned severe.

“This is no time for wisecracks. What do you think you prove by putting someone down with words and nothing more? Such foolishness! You’ve been to college and read all those books, and even so you’re invisible to yourself, it’s pathetic. In the end that’s why Kiyoko-san ran away on you.”

“What are you talking about!” Tsuda protested again. The lady paid no attention.

“Since you’re in a fog, let me explain. I understand perfectly why you don’t want to go. You’re a coward. You’re afraid to appear in front of Kiyoko-san.”

“That’s not so. I—”

“Hold on a minute — you want to say you’re courageous. But that’s not how it will come out — I bet you’ll say it’s a matter of saving face. And I say that carrying on about your pride is nothing more than cowardice. Think about it. Saving face is merely vanity. Or be kind to yourself and call it concern with how things appear on the surface. But once you’ve subtracted your deference to others and your concerns about what they’ll think, what do you have left? It’s the same as a young bride who pushes her food away because she thinks that eating will compromise her in the eyes of her parents-in-law even though no one has said a word.”

Tsuda was appalled. But the lady’s tirade continued.

“The trouble is, frankly, you’re too concerned about what everybody thinks, and that prompts you to bridle and dig in your heels when there’s no need. That stubbornness shows up in an odd way as infatuation with yourself.”

Tsuda could only remain silent. The lady proceeded relentlessly to explain what she meant by his pride and conceit.

“You’d like to maintain your superior silence forever. To sit there utterly still as if you hadn’t a care in the world. And yet inside you’re tormented by what happened. And try looking even deeper. You’re thinking, ‘If I just sit here this way some explanation from Kiyoko-san will arrive before long.’”

“I’m thinking no such thing. How can you say that about me?”

“What I can say is that you might as well be thinking that. What else can I possibly say if there’s no change in you somewhere?”

Tsuda had lost the courage to resist. The lady sensed this at once and swiftly took advantage.

“Goodness! What an audacious fellow you are! And I bet you think that audacity is crucial to getting ahead in the world?”

“Not in the least.”

“Au contraire! If you think I haven’t seen that yet, you’re making a big mistake. Besides, what’s wrong with it, I like audacity. So why not make use of yours now when it would stand you in good stead? Like a man. After all, I’m here to help you do just that.”

“Make use of my audacity?” Tsuda said, changing his tone. “Is she there by herself?”

“Of course.”

“Where’s Seki?”

“Seki-san is here. He has things to do here.”

In the end Tsuda resolved to go no matter what might happen.

HOWEVER, ONE problem between them remained unresolved. Until they returned to it, their conversation wasn’t over. Before Madam could turn back, Tsuda had already arrived.

“Assuming I do go, what about the other matter you mentioned?”

“Exactly. I was just thinking of bringing that up. If you ask me, this will be the best treatment possible. Don’t you agree?”

Tsuda didn’t respond. The lady prodded.

“I assume you follow me? I needn’t say more?”

Tsuda didn’t need an explanation to grasp in essence what she meant. But he had no substantial notion of what this could have to do with a treatment for O-Nobu. The lady laughed aloud.

“All you have to do is play dumb. I’ll handle the rest.”

“You will?” was all Tsuda said, but he had his doubts. Leaving things up to Madam would amount to entrusting O-Nobu’s fate to someone else. Already somewhat afraid of the lady’s cunning, he was left feeling apprehensive. It oppressed him to think he had no idea what she might do.

“I don’t mind leaving things in your hands, but if you know the approach you’ll be taking, I want to hear about that.”

“You don’t need to know. Just watch, I’ll teach O-Nobu-san how to be a better wife to you, a more wifely wife.”

Tsuda knew that the O-Nobu who appeared to him was an incomplete picture of who she was. Which meant that the faults he perceived in her were not necessarily the same as those the lady chose to criticize. In the event, she appeared to be under the misapprehension that creating an O-Nobu that suited her was the way to produce the most appropriate wife for him. In addition, he had the feeling that if he stepped further into her thoughts, probed to the very bottom, he might surface with a terrible conclusion. It seemed at least possible that she might be contriving a means of tormenting O-Nobu simply because she didn’t like her. Perhaps she was preparing to teach the enemy a lesson on the sole basis of her dislike. Happily for her, insulated as she was against pressure from others and from herself to examine her own motives, she was not likely to be given pause. “O-Nobu’s education”—she had spoken the words without a second thought. Tsuda, who had never had the opportunity to see through the relationship between Madam and O-Nobu from the inside, lacked the qualifications to mistrust these words. In general, he proceeded on the assumption that Madam was sincere. When it came to how her sincerity would manifest itself, he was unable to put aside a certain fear.

“You haven’t a thing to worry about. As the saying goes, ‘There are more ways than one to skin a badger.’ Watch and wonder.”

Having declined to offer details no matter how many times Tsuda inquired, the lady delivered these condescending remarks as though she were instructing him.

“There are ways in which that young lady is too taken with herself. And what you see doesn’t always correspond to what’s going on inside. On the surface she’s as polite as she can be, but in her heart she’s too sure of herself. And she’s too clever to show it, but she’s plenty conceited. All of that needs treating — weeding out.”

Madam was in the middle of her untrammeled assessment of O-Nobu when the nurse’s voice reached them from halfway up the stairs.

“Phone call for Yoshikawa-san from Mrs. Hori.”

“Coming,” Madam responded, standing at once and, looking back at Tsuda from the doorway, “I wonder what she wants?”

Going downstairs to take the call that had puzzled them both, she was back a minute later and spoke as she entered the room.

“Goodness! I’m glad she reached me.”

“What is it?”

Smiling, the lady settled herself before responding.

“She called just to let me know—”

“Know what?”

“It seems O-Nobu-san was at O-Hide-san’s house until now. O-Hide-san called to let me know she had mentioned she might stop in at the clinic on her way home. She had just left — that was so considerate of her. I would have been mortified if O-Nobu-san had walked in just as I was criticizing her.”

Having just seated herself, Madam stood again.

“I’ll be on my way.”

She appeared to be embarrassed at the thought of facing O-Nobu immediately following her conversation with Tsuda.

“I’d better not be here when she arrives. Give her my best.” With this gesture in O-Nobu’s direction, Madam left the room.

BY THEN O-Nobu was already heading for the clinic.

To reach the doctor’s office from Hori’s house, she had to walk east from the gate some two or three blocks and then cross the intersection at the main thoroughfare to the next street over. As she was approaching the corner, a trolley coming from the north stopped diagonally across the street. Happening to lift her head, she glanced at the window on her side without really looking and saw through the glass among the passengers the figure of a woman. From where she stood she was able to see only half or perhaps one-third of the woman’s profile, but what she did see made her gasp. She was struck instantly by the impression that she was looking at Madam Yoshikawa.

The trolley pulled away at once, depriving O-Nobu of the time she needed to confirm her impression. She stood for a while, watching it recede, then crossed to the east side of the street.

From there her way lay along side streets only. Familiar with the geography of the area, she chose the shortest route to the clinic, turning now left, now right down narrow streets. But since her encounter with the trolley, her legs were feeling heavy. She had come to within a few blocks of the clinic when it occurred to her it might be better to go home first and set out again from there.

She had left Hori’s place feeling disheartened. She had come away with the disagreeable feeling that by probing O-Hide frantically, she had only hurt herself. Part of her displeasure was frustration at having been allowed to catch the scent of what she was seeking though it remained hidden from her. Now she felt imbued even more deeply with the color of the uneasiness that scent had stirred in her. She was troubled most of all by the suspicion that it was her own vulnerability that had been detected and used to manipulate her, rather than the other way around.

O-Nobu’s sensitive antennae had picked up more than this. She sensed that a plot against her was developing invisibly. Whoever the conspirators might be, one among them was certainly O-Hide. It was easily surmised that Madam Yoshikawa was also involved. Imagining this, she felt suddenly forlorn. From a distance she was assailed by a feeling of helpless isolation, a lone brigade cut off and surrounded by the enemy. She surveyed her surroundings. But there was no one there she could rely on except her husband. The first thing she must do was hasten to Tsuda. Though she had her doubts about him, she retained her confidence in herself. Ardently hopeful that, no matter what else might happen, her husband would never join the conspirators, O-Nobu had no sooner left Hori’s gate behind than her feet had turned as if on their own in the direction of the clinic.

Now it had become necessary to contravene the effect of her thinking, and O-Nobu cursed from the bottom of her heart the streetcar she had run into on the way. If the person onboard had been Madam Yoshikawa, if Madam had paid a visit to Tsuda, if, following that visit — clever as she was, O-Nobu, unable to imagine what might follow, was at a loss to speculate. But there could be only one result. Her mind leaped from O-Hide to Madam Yoshikawa and from Madam to Tsuda. For no particular reason, she began to perceive them as all of a piece, a single whorl of being. Maybe they conduct a kind of electric current back and forth among them that I’m not allowed to feel.

Until this moment, her only thought had been of racing to her husband as if he were a safe haven; now she had to stop and reflect.

The way things are, just visiting won’t suffice. What counts is what to do when I get there.

She realized she had come this far with no idea of how she should behave. Determining an attitude that would be most effective in a meeting with Tsuda at this juncture now appeared to be critically important. She detected no internal voice insisting it was foolishness to deliberate about a visit to her husband as if he were a stranger; having decided that the wisest move would be to go home and collect herself before setting out again, O-Nobu turned back halfway down a side street that had already taken her to within just minutes from the clinic. Walking along a main boulevard planted with willows on both sides to a bustling thoroughfare, she boarded the first trolley.

THE LIGHT was failing as she reached home. Having walked the five blocks or so from the trolley stop in the chill of twilight mist, she craved the warmth of the brazier. Sitting down beside it as soon as she had removed her coat, she extended her palms toward the embers.

But she managed to rest for scarcely a minute. No sooner had she seated herself than O-Toki handed her the letter from Tsuda. The text couldn’t have been simpler: in the same time it took her to open the seal, she read it at a glance. But having read it, she was no longer the same person. A mere three lines, the note affected her so powerfully it might have been an entire volume. Her heart was pounding in her chest; Tsuda’s message had ignited the mood she had brought home with her.

Don’t come to the clinic today — what could that possibly mean?

Even before the note, she had intended to set out for the clinic at once, and now she was too intent on leaving to waste another minute. As O-Toki came in from the kitchen carrying a dinner tray, she rose, surprising the maid.

“I’ll eat when I get back.”

Throwing over her shoulders the coat she had just now removed, she left the house. But as she approached the main street where the trolley ran, her feet stopped at the corner. For some reason she couldn’t bear to think of showing up. She was abruptly sensible of feeling that appearing now, with things in this state, would avail her nothing.

Knowing Tsuda, I can’t even expect an honest explanation of his note.

Standing on the corner despondently, she watched the streetcars passing to and fro in front of her. If she boarded the one to the right, it would take her to the clinic; the other, to the left, went to the Okamotos’. Even as she considered abandoning her original plan and dropping in on the Okamotos instead, she was able to imagine a difficulty that awaited her in that direction as well. Seeking counsel at her uncle’s house would oblige her to reveal herself. If she expected to get anywhere at all, she would have to expose intimate details of the relationship with her husband she had been concealing until now. In front of her uncle and aunt, she would have to admit to an undiscerning eye where Tsuda was concerned. But she decided that enduring such shame wasn’t called for yet. She had only contempt for indulging in the sort of honesty that would destroy one’s vanity before any sign of recovery was in sight.

Unable to decide, she wavered between right and left. At that moment, oblivious of her quandary, Tsuda, sitting up on his mattress, was preparing insouciantly to sample the dinner the nurse had brought him on a tray. Even before the phone call from O-Hide, he had expected that O-Nobu would show up and had been quietly readying himself for her appearance on the heels of Madam Yoshikawa’s departure, but as his wife had turned back on her way, he had been waiting for the dinner hour in mild disappointment. Possibly because he was tired of waiting, he spoke to the nurse the minute she entered the room.

“Food at last. When you’re alone, a day is so damn long.”

The nurse was a small woman with a sallow complexion. But she had an unusual face that made it impossible for Tsuda to assess her age. The white uniform she always wore helped to distance her from the flock of ordinary women. Tsuda always wondered: When this woman wears a regular kimono, are the shoulders still gathered this way as if she were a child, or have they been let out? Once he had tried asking her the question seriously. She had replied with a grin, “I’m still an apprentice,” satisfying Tsuda’s curiosity in a vague way.

Placing the tray next to his pillow, the nurse hadn’t gone back downstairs directly.

“Are you bored?” she asked, grinning, and subjoined, “Your wife isn’t coming today?”

“Not today.”

His mouth already full of burned toast, this was all Tsuda could manage to say. The nurse was free to continue.

“But you had some other visitors instead.”

“You mean that old lady? She’s a chubby, isn’t she?”

As the nurse showed no sign of joining him in deprecation, he had to carry the conversation himself.

“If I had a bunch of younger, prettier visitors, I’d recover a lot faster,” he said, making the nurse laugh.

“But everyone who comes to see you is a woman,” she teased back. “They must find you very charming.”

It appeared she was unaware of Kobayashi’s visit.

“That lady yesterday was very pretty.”

“Not so pretty — she’s my sister. Do we look alike?”

Without replying one way or the other, the nurse grinned as before.

IT HAD been an unexpectedly easy day for her. The doctor, confined to his house by a touch of diarrhea, had asked his friend to stand in for him; the friend had arranged to be there in the morning but had not returned for afternoon and evening hours.

“He’s on call today so he can’t come in this evening.”

With this explanation, the nurse took her time at Tsuda’s bedside as though she hadn’t a care in the world. Tsuda, pleased to have a perfect companion with whom to while away the time, rambled on. To amuse himself, he posed the nurse a variety of questions.

“Where are you from?”

“Tochigi Prefecture.”

“Now that you mention it, I can see that. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say—”

The nurse wouldn’t divulge her name. Enjoying the resistance he encountered, Tsuda repeated the question over and again.

“In that case I’ll call you Miss Tochigi, Miss Tochigi Prefecture — will that be all right?”

“Fine with me.”

Her first name began with the letters “Tsu.”

“Tsu-yu — Miss Mist?”

“Wrong.”

“Of course Mist wouldn’t be right. How about Tsu-chi? Miss Earth?”

“Wrong again.”

“Hold on a minute. If it’s not ‘mist’ and it’s not ‘earth’—I get it. It must be ‘luster.’ Or maybe ‘eternity’?”

Tsuda continued nonsensically, and the nurse, grinning, shook her head at every guess. Each time she smiled, Tsuda pressed her again. When it became clear at last that her name was Tsu-ki, he joked about the unusual name.

“Miss Moon, then? That’s a wonderful name. Who named you?”

Instead of replying, the nurse countered.

“What might your wife’s name be?”

“Take a guess.”

After proposing several female names, the nurse said, “Is it O-Nobu-san?”

Was it a lucky guess? More likely she had heard the name and remembered it.

“There’s no putting anything over on you, Miss Moon.”

Just then, as Tsuda was enjoying himself largely, the actual O-Nobu appeared in the doorway, surprising the nurse, who picked up the tray and rose at once.

“Here’s your missus at last.”

Seating herself at the head of the mattress in the nurse’s place, O-Nobu turned her eyes instantly on Tsuda.

“You must have been thinking I wouldn’t come.”

“Not really. But it is late so I was beginning to wonder.”

Tsuda wasn’t lying, and O-Nobu could see it. But that served only to underscore the contradiction.

“But you sent me a letter earlier.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You wrote that I mustn’t come to visit today.”

“Today would have been a bit inconvenient.”

“Why was that?”

Tsuda finally came to attention. Observing O-Nobu closely, he replied.

“It was nothing, really. A trivial matter.”

“But you went to the trouble of having the letter delivered. Something must have been happening.”

Tsuda tried to dissemble.

“It was nothing serious. Why do you bother to get all worked up, you’re such a silly!”

Tsuda’s attempt to beguile O-Nobu had the opposite effect. She arched her dark eyebrows. In silence, she withdrew the note from her obi.

“Have another look at this.”

Tsuda accepted the letter in silence.

“What about it? It’s nothing so unusual.” Even as he spoke, he couldn’t help gainsaying his own words in his heart. It was a simple note. But it was more than sufficient to arouse O-Nobu’s suspicion. He realized that, already under suspicion, he had misstepped.

“If it’s nothing unusual, why don’t I understand what it means? I think you might explain it to me since I came all the way over here.”

“That’s why you came?”

“Yes.”

“Just for that?”

“Yes.”

No matter what, she wouldn’t budge. As he was realizing his companion was implacable, Tsuda stumbled on a convenient lie.

“If you must know, Kobayashi was here.”

The name was certain to have reverberated in O-Nobu’s heart. But that was hardly an end to it. To satisfy her, he had now obliged himself to provide an explanation.

“I ASSUMED you’d rather not run into Kobayashi. So as soon as I learned he was coming, I wrote you.”

When it appeared that O-Nobu was still unsatisfied, Tsuda had no choice but to amplify his attempt to reassure her.

“Even if you wouldn’t have minded, I would. Allowing a scoundrel like that to see you again. Besides, he was here on a nasty errand I didn’t want you to know about.”

“Something I couldn’t be allowed to hear? So there’s a secret between you?”

“It’s nothing like that,” Tsuda said and, observing O-Nobu’s small eyes fixed on him with a vigilance that would allow nothing to escape unnoticed, hastened to add, “He was here begging for money again, that’s all.”

“And why couldn’t I have heard that?”

“It’s not that you couldn’t. I’m saying I didn’t want you to.”

“So warning me was just being considerate?”

“You could say that—”

The small eyes that had been trained on Tsuda narrowed further even as a faint laugh escaped O-Nobu’s lips.

“How fortunate for me.”

Tsuda was losing his composure, and with it the control he needed to avoid speaking imprudently.

“But wouldn’t you have hated running into him anyway?”

“Not in the least.”

“You’re lying.”

“What makes you say so?”

“Because I heard that Kobayashi told you some things.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I’m saying you’d hate seeing him because of that.”

“Do you have any idea what I heard from Kobayashi-san?”

“I don’t. But since it’s him we’re talking about, it can’t have been anything pleasant. What the devil did he say?”

Choking back the words that had risen to her throat, O-Nobu turned the question around.

“What did Kobayashi-san tell you he said?”

“He told me nothing.”

“Now that’s a lie. You’re hiding something.”

“I think you’re the one who’s hiding. I think Kobayashi fed you some nonsense and you took him at his word.”

“Maybe I am. When you conceal things from me, what choice do I have?”

Tsuda was silent. So was O-Nobu. Each waited for the other to speak. But O-Nobu’s forbearance gave out before Tsuda’s. Her voice was sharp.

“Lies! Everything you say is lies! Kobayashi-san coming here meant nothing, but you cook up a story about it to deceive me.”

“Cook up a story? Why would I go to the trouble when I have nothing to gain?”

“But you do. You make a fuss about Kobayashi so you can hide a visit from someone else.”

“Someone else? Who would that be?”

O-Nobu glanced at the maple bonsai in the recessed alcove.

“Who brought that, I wonder?”

Tsuda knew he had stumbled. He regretted not having made a clean breast of Madam Yoshikawa’s visit right away. Not having mentioned her was a conscious decision. It would have been easy enough to do, but he was afraid to reveal the nature of their discussion and had decided, though his conscience bothered him, that, in the end, discretion was the best policy. Turning to look at the bonsai, he was on the verge of mentioning Madam Yoshikawa’s name, but before he could speak O-Nobu preempted him.

“Yoshikawa-san’s wife was here, wasn’t she!”

Tsuda spoke without thinking.

“How did you know?”

“It’s so obvious.”

Tsuda had been watching O-Nobu carefully, and now he regained his courage.

“Yes, she came. So your prediction came true.”

“I even know that she took the streetcar.”

Another surprise for Tsuda. Other than imagining that a car was probably waiting for her on the main street, he had paid little attention to Madam’s choice of conveyance.

“Did you run into her somewhere?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

Instead of replying, O-Nobu posed a question of her own.

“Why was she here?”

Tsuda replied off-handedly.

“I was just getting to that — but let’s be clear about one thing. Kobayashi was definitely here. He came first, and then she came. They arrived one after the other.”

O-NOBU REALIZED that she was more agitated than her husband. Having observed that launching herself against him in this state was not bringing him to ground, she veered before her own secret was exposed.

“Is that so? That’s all very well. Because I couldn’t care less whether Kobayashi-san came or not. What I would like is to hear from you about Mrs. Yoshikawa’s errand. I know perfectly well she didn’t visit just to see how you were doing.”

“You say that, but I’m telling you she wasn’t here about anything important. I don’t know what you’re expecting, but I imagine you’re going to be disappointed when you hear what it was.”

“I don’t mind being disappointed; I just want to know the whole truth so I can put my mind at ease.”

“Her main purpose was a get-well visit; the so-called errand was an afterthought.”

“That’s fine. Either way.”

Tsuda reported only that Madam had suggested he take himself to the hot springs after leaving the hospital. No less a tactician in his own way than O-Nobu was resourceful in hers, he delivered himself effortlessly of an explanation, deftly scoured of anything awkward, that would have sounded unembellished and plausible to anyone listening. On the surface this left no room for O-Nobu to interject so much as a word of protest.

But their uneasiness was mutual. O-Nobu struggled to see through his simple explanation to what lay behind it. Tsuda was determined to keep it hidden no matter what. Beneath the placid surface they waged a silent battle in which courage was posed against courage, artifice against artifice. It was only natural, though, inasmuch as the defending husband was vulnerable, that the attacking wife should have been strengthened in proportion to his weakness. Accordingly, viewed from their positions in relation to each other, without consideration of their inherent skill, O-Nobu was the victor before the battle had begun. Even judging by a standard of intrinsic right and wrong, reasonable and unreasonable, O-Nobu had won before the competition began. Tsuda certainly was aware of this. O-Nobu also had a general idea that it was so.

A resolution of the battle would depend on whether the interior truth could be driven to the surface unaltered. If only Tsuda were able to be honest, this might be an unimaginably simple contest. By the same token, if even a vestige of dishonesty remained in him, it would be a fortress unimaginably difficult to breach. Unhappily for O-Nobu, she had not yet fashioned for herself a weapon adequate to driving him into the open. In circumstances such that her only option was finding a way to force open the gates to the fort, she was as good as helpless.

Why couldn’t she content herself with a victory in her heart and make a clean break? Why must she give tangible shape to her song of victory to feel satisfied? At this moment she lacked the presence of mind to do otherwise. Battles more important than this one awaited her. With a second and a third objective still before her, she feared she would be helpless to move on unless she broke through the resistance confronting her now.

In fact, the bout itself was not the most important thing. She was looking for the truth. Her principal aim was less defeating her husband than resolving her own doubts. For O-Nobu, who had made Tsuda’s love the object of her very existence, clearing those doubts was a matter of absolute necessity, a major objective in its own right. It thrust itself at her with an importance that transcended anything that could be deemed an approach or a means.

Given the context of things, to the extent that deliberation would avail her, this was the enigma she must dedicate herself to dwelling on. This was her natural course. Unfortunately nature itself dwarfed her. It extended far above and beyond her. Impartial as the sun, it did not scruple to scorch her in her pitifulness.

She continued to dwell, and at each utterance Tsuda withdrew a step. If she spoke twice, he took two steps back. Gradually the distance between them widened. Nature didn’t hesitate to trample on the actions that proceeded from her own small nature. At each step it broke the back of her objective without remorse. Inside herself she recognized this. But she was unable to fathom its significance. She could only insist to herself that such a thing couldn’t be. But the moment came when she could no longer quiet her tortured heart.

“You have no idea how much time I spend thinking about you.”

A look of dismay appeared on Tsuda’s face, as if this were beyond enduring.

“Which is why I never doubt you.”

“Why should you? If I had to live with your doubts on top of all this, I’d be better off dead!”

“Must you be so dramatic? First of all, nothing is going on. Not anywhere. If there is, accuse me of it. That way I can defend myself if necessary, or explain, or something. But I don’t see what I can do about grievances that have no basis.”

“You know perfectly well what the basis is; it’s locked away in your heart.”

“I don’t know what to do if that’s all you have to say — Kobayashi put something in your head, didn’t he! That must be it. Why don’t you tell me what he said? The whole story; you needn’t worry about how I’ll feel.”

FROM TSUDA’S manner of speaking and countenance, O-Nobu was able to divine clearly what was on her husband’s mind. It troubled him that Kobayashi had come to the house when he wasn’t home. He was even more concerned about what he might have said to her. He lacked a firm hold on what had passed between them. So he had baited a trap and hoped to lure her out.

Clearly there was a secret. Everything that had been accumulating in her heart until now as evidence pointed unquestionably and without contradiction in the same direction. The secret was a certainty, as clear as a blue sky on a perfect day. And yet, very much like a blue sky, it cast no shadow. She could only stare at it. Reaching out to take it in hand was beyond her art.

Notwithstanding her turmoil, she retained a sufficient measure of craftiness to set a trap of her own without springing her husband’s.

“I might as well tell the truth. I heard the whole story in detail from Kobayashi. So you can’t hide anything anymore. What a terrible person you are!”

This was hardly more than babble. But she spoke the words in earnest, as though she were fighting for her life. She felt compelled to call Tsuda “a terrible person” with vehemence.

The impact on Tsuda was immediately apparent. In the face of this empty insinuation, he appeared to stagger. The courage it had taken O-Nobu to attempt the very experiment that had failed so miserably with O-Hide seemed about to be requited. She leaped forward.

“Why couldn’t you have been honest about it before it came to this?”

What did she mean, “came to this”? Tsuda struggled with the ambiguity. O-Nobu was even more uncertain of what she had intended. Asked to explain, she demurred. Tsuda continued to press her somehow absently.

“I can’t imagine you’re talking about going to the hot springs? If you’d rather I didn’t go, just say so, it doesn’t matter to me.”

O-Nobu appeared surprised.

“I’m not saying anything of the kind. If you can go away to recover with everything at work all arranged, what could be better? Do you really think of me as the kind of person who would object to that and make a fuss about it? As if I were hysterical? How could you!”

“So you don’t mind if I go?”

“No, I’m sure I don’t.” As she spoke, O-Nobu had removed a handkerchief from the bosom of her kimono, and no sooner had she held it to her face than she began to cry softly. Her words escaped her now as fragments stammered between sobs, like something broken.

“No matter how — selfish I may be — to stand in the way of your treatment — such a — grateful as I am for the freedom you always give me — to think that — stopping you from going away to recuperate—”

Tsuda was at last relieved. But O-Nobu had more to say. As the convulsion subsided, the flow of her words evened.

“I’m not thinking about anything so trivial. I may be a woman and a fool, but I happen to have my own honor. And I want to uphold my honor, whether as a woman in a woman’s way or as a fool in a fool’s way. If that should be sullied…”

Having come this far, O-Nobu burst into tears again. She continued, brokenly.

“If ever — if that should happen — how will I ever — hold my head up — to Uncle and Aunt Okamoto? — I’ve already been made an utter fool of by your sister — and you stand there watching — pretending — pretending you have no idea — what’s going on—”

Tsuda spoke up at once.

“O-Hide made a fool of you? When? When you went over there today?”

This was a serious slip. He couldn’t possibly have known about that meeting unless O-Nobu had told him. Not surprisingly, O-Nobu’s eyes flashed.

“Lovely. So you already know all about my visit with Hideko-san today?”

“She telephoned me”—the reply rose only as far as Tsuda’s throat. He paused in confusion, wondering whether to say it or desist. But the moment offered no reprieve. The longer he floundered, the more danger he was in. He felt trapped. Then, at the last possible instant, a hair’s breadth away from being too late, a clever excuse fell out of the sky.

“The rickshaw man told me when he came back. O-Toki must have spoken to him.”

Luckily, the maid had known where O-Nobu was going when she hurried out of the house. The shot in the dark had hit the mark, and Tsuda breathed for the second time a sigh of relief.

HAVING FLAILED away at Tsuda’s defenses, O-Nobu halted. The thought that her husband had not been deceiving her so unconscionably drained the energy she needed to press forward as she had intended. Sensing her hesitation, Tsuda seized upon it.

“Why should you care what someone like O-Hide has to say? O-Hide is O-Hide and you’re you.”

O-Nobu replied, “Why should I care? Why should you care what someone like Kobayashi says to me? You’re you and he’s him.”

“I don’t care. I wouldn’t care if you just stood your own ground. But when he creates suspicion and misunderstandings that get waved in my face, then I have to defend myself, that’s all.”

“It’s exactly the same for me. O-Hide’s contempt wouldn’t trouble me; I could even handle Aunt Fujii turning away, if only you would stand your ground. You’re the only one who matters, but you—”

O-Nobu faltered. She had no clear facts. Consequently, she had nothing clear to say. Once again, Tsuda seized hold.

“You must be afraid I’ll behave in a way that reflects badly on you. Why not lean on me a little instead and take some comfort?”

O-Nobu abruptly lifted her voice until she was almost shouting.

“I want to lean on you. I want to feel secure. I want immensely to lean, beyond anything you can imagine.”

“You think I can’t imagine?”

“You can’t at all. If you could, you’d change for me. You’re able to be so aloof because you can’t imagine.”

“Since when am I aloof?”

“You don’t feel sorry for me, you don’t pity me.”

“Feel sorry? Pity you?”

Tsuda repeated after O-Nobu and momentarily floundered. When he spoke again, his voice wavered.

“You say I don’t feel for you. I want to; I certainly would, if only there were a reason. But there isn’t, so what am I to do?”

O-Nobu’s voice was taut.

“Yoshio! Oh, Yoshio!”

Tsuda was silent.

“Please! Make me feel secure. As a favor to me. Without you, I’m a woman with nothing to lean against. I’m a wretched woman who’ll collapse the minute you step away. So please tell me I can feel secure. Please say it, ‘Feel secure.’”

Tsuda considered.

“You can. You can feel secure.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. You have no reason to worry.”

As if she had burst the chains that bound her heart, O-Nobu hurled her passion at her husband.

“Tell me, then. Please. Tell me everything right here and now, the whole story. Come out with it and give me some peace of mind.”

Tsuda was flummoxed. His feelings surged and ebbed like a wave. He considered summoning his courage and revealing everything. In the same moment, he reflected that whatever doubts O-Nobu might have about him, she almost certainly did not have hard evidence in hand. Had she known the facts, he reasoned further, having gone this far she would undoubtedly have thrown them in his face.

He did feel sorry for her. But there was still room for him to get away. He vacillated between moral scruple and self-interest. Abruptly the weight of a trip to the hot-springs resort was added to one side of the balance. Making good on his promise was an obligation to Madam Yoshikawa. And it was something he had to do. The victory went to his sense that the wiser policy would be to avoid a confession until after the journey had been accomplished.

“We’re just working ourselves up with all this talk. Since there’s no limit to it, I say let’s stop here. But I’ll make you a promise you’ll appreciate.”

“A promise?”

“A guarantee. I’ll guarantee that nothing will happen to compromise your honor.”

“How can you do that?”

“How? Since I can hardly present you a certificate, I’ll swear it.”

O-Nobu was silent.

“If you’ll just say you trust me, that’s all I require. In the unlikely event something should come up and you feel threatened, all you need to say to me is ‘Make this go away.’ And I’ll reply, ‘You bet I will, I’ve promised.’ How about it? Does that feel like a decent compromise?”

THE NOTION of a compromise may have seemed incongruous under the current circumstances, but it was a reasonable description of what Tsuda was feeling in his heart at that moment. He wanted a compromise in the most appropriate sense of that term. O-Nobu was quick to perceive the truth of this, and her mounting agitation was finally quieted. Tsuda, who had been secretly tormenting himself with worry that the tide of her emotionality would rise again, felt reprieved. In the next instant he recovered the presence of mind he needed to turn the force of her staunched emotion back upon itself. He set to work placating O-Nobu, deploying abundantly phrases likely to please her. Possessed of a calmness and composure he could marshal when necessary, he was inveterately adept at accommodating himself in the moment to his companion’s feelings. Small wonder that his efforts were not in vain. For the first time in a long while, O-Nobu beheld the Tsuda she had known before their marriage. Memories from the time of their engagement revived in her heart.

My husband hasn’t changed after all. He’s always been the man I knew from the old days.

This thought brought O-Nobu a satisfaction more than sufficient to rescue Tsuda from his predicament. The turbulence that was on the verge of becoming a violent storm subsided. As a couple, however, they had changed. Somewhere along the way through the turbulence, without realizing it, they had altered the nature of their connection.

As the storm was subsiding, Tsuda had an insight.

In the final analysis, a woman is easily consoled.

Embracing the confidence the upheaval had conferred on him, he secretly rejoiced. Until now, dealing with O-Nobu, he had never once escaped feeling in some way or other that she was more than he could handle. Even as he reminded himself that she was a mere woman, at some point every day there came a time when he was forced to taste a sickening sense of defeat. He hadn’t yet dissected this to discover whether it was attributable to her intuition, to the adroitness that might be seen as an active function of her intuition, or to something else entirely, but there was no question that it was a fact. It was, moreover, a fact that he had folded away inside himself and never yet revealed to anyone. In that sense, it was at once a fact and a secret. Why had he converted this undeniable fact into a secret? Put simply, because he wished to think as highly of himself as possible. No matter that in the war of love, which was how he viewed their relationship, he regularly found himself in the position of the defeated, he was nonetheless a proud man. To be sure he was vanquished, but since defeat was inevitable, out of his hands, he never truly surrendered. Not that he accepted his captivity to love with open arms; instead, invariably, he was caught off guard and felled. Much as O-Nobu, failing to notice that she was wounding his pride, experienced the only satisfaction she took from love in vanquishing him, Tsuda, who hated losing, gave in each time his strength failed him and she knocked him to the ground even as he lamented his surrender. Now that his manipulations had in the course of a single, painful evening inverted their unusual relationship, it was only natural that his attitude toward O-Nobu should change. Until now, he had never once beheld this woman called O-Nobu come at him so candidly and with such fierceness, highhanded yet deferential to the point of fawning, but without falsehood. Fleeing before her with his weaknesses in his arms, he had succeeded for the first time in defeating her. The result was clear. Now at last he was able to disdain her. At the same time, he was able to extend her more sympathy than before.

For her part, O-Nobu was also in the process of changing following the upheaval. Having confronted her husband in this manner for the first time, she had been so intent on striking at his weakness that she had finished by showing him a weakness of her own that she had never revealed until now, and this above all she regretted. Desiring nothing more than to be loved by Tsuda, she was accustomed to believing implicitly she could rely on her own skill. She was resolved that her wisdom in all things should prevail. Needless to say, her insight could not be called complex. It was hardly more than a stubborn determination not to indulge in unseemly behavior such as bowing her head in an appeal for pity no matter how essential to her existence her husband’s love may have been. It was a firm resolve to demonstrate, should her husband fail to love her as she desired, that she could free herself with the power of her own wits. Sustaining this determination had taken its toll in constant tension. It was inevitable that this extreme of tension must snap. When it did, all too clearly, she would be compelled to betray her own determination. Unaware of the contradiction, the unfortunate girl charged headlong. And finally she snapped. Afterward she was filled with regret. Happily the outcome was not as cruel as she might have thought. Even as she exposed her weakness, she received a kind of reward. Until now, no matter how flushed with victory she may have been, the effect on her husband had never once satisfied her, but this time there was a slight change. Tsuda, heading in the general direction of her satisfaction, took a step closer. Unmistakably he had used the word “compromise.” The choice of words amounted to a tacit confession of the existence under the rose of the secret she was laboring to spade up. Confession? She tested the notion on herself. And when she had confirmed to her own satisfaction that it was unmistakably a confession akin to a tacit acknowledgment, she felt at once chagrined and happy. She didn’t press her husband further. Just as Tsuda had felt sorry for her, she found herself able to feel sorry for him.

BUT THE natural course of things proved unexpectedly stubborn. They were unable to separate on this note. An odd twist in the conversation threatened to roil again the stormy sea that had begun to calm.

It happened as O-Nobu was beginning to quiet her agitated feelings. The effect of the turbulence she had come through was already working on her. As a person who has had too much to drink will make use of his intoxication, she turned to Tsuda.

“When do you plan to go to that spa?”

“I was thinking as soon as I get out of here. The sooner I can soak this body at a hot springs, the better I’ll feel.”

“I can imagine. There’s no point delaying now that you’ve decided to go.”

Feeling that the matter had been settled, Tsuda was relieved. As he relaxed, O-Nobu dealt him a surprise.

“I’d love to go along if you don’t mind.”

Tsuda had lowered his guard and now he was aghast. He had to consider carefully before he replied. It had never occurred to him to take her with him. Which made opposing her now the more difficult. One false note and there was no telling how she might react. As he deliberated what to say, a critical moment passed. O-Nobu persisted.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not really—”

“What does that mean? You do mind?”

“It’s not that I mind—”

Tsuda’s desire not to take her was in danger of being dragged little by little into the light. Understanding that the slightest indication of suspicion in O-Nobu’s eye would mean an end to the matter, He was being influenced by the same psychology that governed O-Nobu. The effect of the recent storm had already possessed him. He had no choice but to make use of it in his way. He recalled the two-character Chinese compound for “appeasement.” Appeasement would do the trick. No woman can resist being appeased. Armed with this new conclusion, he turned to O-Nobu.

“Of course you can come. In fact, it would be a boon to me if you did. I’ll have trouble managing by myself. Nothing could be better than having you there to look after me.”

“It makes me so happy to hear that. Of course I’ll come.”

“There’s just one thing—”

O-Nobu frowned.

“What?”

“The house. What will you do about the house?”

“Toki will be there, so I won’t have to worry.”

“You won’t have to worry — that’s so typical of you, careless as a child.”

“What’s careless about that? If you think Toki can’t watch the house by herself, I’ll have someone stay with her.”

O-Nobu recited the names of several people who would be suitable house sitters; Tsuda rejected them one after the other.

“A young man will hardly do. We can’t leave Toki alone in the house with a man.”

O-Nobu laughed.

“What are you suggesting? There won’t be time enough for anything improper.”

“You don’t know that. You have no idea.”

Tsuda put up an adamant front even as he made a show of considering.

“I wonder if there isn’t someone. An old grannie somewhere close by would be just what we need.”

But there was no one so conveniently available either at the Fujiis or the Okamotos or anywhere else.

“Let me think about it.”

Tsuda’s attempt to conclude the conversation with this misfired. O-Nobu was in no hurry to release the sleeve she had grabbed.

“What if you have no thoughts, what will happen then? If we can’t find someone, will that mean I can’t go along?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“But there won’t be a grannie just waiting around to help out — it doesn’t take thinking about it to know that much. So if you won’t allow me to go anyway, why not just tell me so and get it over with?”

In a tight corner, Tsuda managed oddly enough to produce yet another plausible objection.

“If it came to that, I wouldn’t really care so much who watched the house. But whether it’s Toki or someone else isn’t the only problem. Mrs. Yoshikawa will be paying my expenses. What will people think if we appear to be taking ourselves on a vacation as a couple using someone else’s money?”

“Then let’s not accept money from Yoshikawa-san. We have Uncle’s check.”

“But we need that money to pay our bills this month.”

“We can use the money Hideko-san left.”

Once again Tsuda was brought to a stop. At that point he opened a dangerous avenue of escape.

“I need some to lend to Kobayashi.”

“Of all people!”

“You say that, but he’s on his way to Korea of all places. You have to feel sorry for him. Besides, I’ve already promised. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

It was no surprise that O-Nobu did not appear satisfied. Even so, Tsuda had managed somehow or other to wriggle free, at least for the moment.

SUBSEQUENTLY THE conversation flowed with an ease that could not have been predicted, and before long they had arrived at a second compromise. To satisfy his sense of friendship toward Kobayashi, and to make good on his promise, Tsuda would put aside a portion of the money O-Nobu had received to be presented to Kobayashi as a farewell gift before he departed for Korea. Nominally this would be a loan, but as the recipient would have no intention of repaying it and the money could not, consequently, be included in a budget for use at a later time, it amounted to a gift. Naturally enough, judging by the flush that came and went in her face, O-Nobu was obliged to overcome more than one attack of indignation to arrive at this point. To bestow on this presumptuous man a gift of money, or even, for that matter, to extend him a loan to help him in his hour of need in return for a signed note, would be, in her view, a kindness he scarcely deserved. Tsuda had no reason to expect her to feel otherwise; moreover, sensing the possibility that she was seeing through his insistence on her agreement to what lay behind it, he shuddered.

“I just don’t understand why you must be so kind to a man like that.”

O-Nobu repeated a similar sentiment a number of times.

Observing that Tsuda, who persisted in his appeal for compassion, betrayed no sign of taking her seriously, she persevered.

“I want to hear why. If you can just make clear to me what the circumstances are, and why that means not doing this would be dishonorable, you can use the whole check as far as I’m concerned.”

This was precisely the critical barrier O-Nobu must not be allowed to pass. Instead of defending Kobayashi, Tsuda alluded to their longstanding acquaintance and to his nostalgia about their history together. When he found himself being criticized for sentimentality, he was obliged to explain that Kobayashi today was a different animal from Kobayashi in the past. Seeing in O-Nobu’s face that she remained unsatisfied, he abruptly shifted to a more exalted tone and began a descant on ethics and humanity. However, since his remarks on humanism inevitably reduced to something pragmatic, there were moments when he moved in spite of himself and without noticing it straight toward the trap he had set himself and came close to being brought down by O-Nobu. An illustration of how this proceeded using simple examples and representative language might look as follows:

“In all events he’s suffering, and since he’s heading off to Korea because he can’t bear to be here anymore, I don’t see what’s wrong with feeling a little sympathy for him. You attack his character mercilessly, but you really go too far. I’m not saying he’s not hopeless. To be sure, he is, but when you consider how he ended up where he is, it’s not his fault. It’s just that he was disappointed. Because he couldn’t earn a living. Yet he’s no dullard or fool; he’s got a good head on his shoulders. But unfortunately he didn’t receive a proper education, and when you consider that’s why he turned out this way, you have to feel sorry for him. In other words, it’s his circumstances that are at fault, circumstances he didn’t create. When you consider that — he’s just an unlucky fellow.”

To this point, even as lip service, Tsuda had done splendidly, but he was unable to stop.

“And there’s something else to think about. There’s no telling what a person that desperate is likely to do if you oppose him. He declared right here that he was ready to fight with anyone, and he boasted that any fight he started would turn out well for him — this is a dangerous man. If I were to toss his request back in his face, he’d get angry. Just angry wouldn’t be so bad; he’d do something. He’d be sure to strike back. I have proprieties to maintain, but he has no constraints at all, which means that if something were to happen, I’d be no match for him. Do you follow me?”

By now his original humanism had been largely effaced. Even so, if he had only ended here, O-Nobu would have had no choice but to nod affirmatively in silence. But he moved onward.

“It would be one thing if all he did was attack the upper class and say nasty things about the wealthy as a matter of principle. But that’s not his way. He focuses on the reality. He tries to sink his teeth into whatever he can find, beginning with what’s within easy reach. So the one who gets damaged most is me. Which means that I’m well advised to show him the kindness he thinks he deserves from me, get him feeling all sunny and warm, and then pack him off to Korea as quickly as possible. Otherwise heaven knows what he might have in store.”

This last O-Nobu was unable to absorb in silence.

“No matter how wild Kobayashi might be, I can’t see what reason you could possibly have to be so afraid unless you were hiding something.”

Bandying words in this manner, it took them considerable time simply to agree about the check. But once the question of Kobayashi had been settled, the rest fell quickly into place. O-Nobu’s condition that she would be allowed to use the rest as spending money, indulging herself in whatever she desired, was conceded at once. In return O-Nobu agreed not to accompany Tsuda to the hot springs. She was also required to agree to his proposal that Madam Yoshikawa’s generosity in offering to pay travel expenses would be accepted.

On this chilly, autumn night, the wake of the upheaval the young couple had suffered finally subsided. For the time being, they separated.

THE POSTSURGICAL recovery Tsuda had to endure was proceeding well. More properly, it was on schedule. On the fifth day, when the doctor had changed the gauze dressing, he confirmed this.

“You’re looking good. There’s no internal bleeding; just at the entrance.”

On the sixth day the dressing was changed again. The wound was even healthier than the day before.

“Am I still bleeding?”

“Just a little.”

Tsuda failed to understand the significance of the bleeding and so the significance of the reply was also lost on him. Choosing arbitrarily to interpret it to mean he had recovered, he was pleased.

But the facts were not exactly as he wished them to be. His brief dialogue with the doctor made that clear enough.

“What would happen if this doesn’t heal?”

“Another resection. But the lesion would be less pronounced than before.”

“That’s discouraging.”

“Shouldn’t be. I’m telling you, your chances of recovery are eight or nine out of ten.”

“Does that mean I still have a way to go?”

“Another three weeks maybe, four at most.”

“And when can I go home?”

“You should be ready by the day after tomorrow.”

Tsuda was thankful. He resolved to leave for the hot springs as soon as he was released. Thinking it was better not to mention this to the doctor even in passing in case he should advise against the trip, he said nothing. The rashness of this was entirely unlike him. Even as he resolved to follow his imprudent impulse no matter what, he was aware of the contradiction, and it made him uneasy. Perhaps to divert himself, he posed the doctor an irrelevant question.

“You said you cut around the sphincter, so I’m wondering why the gauze is packed from below?”

“The sphincter isn’t at the entrance to the wound; it’s recessed a good two centimeters. But there’s a place where we shaved a centimeter or so diagonally from underneath.”

That evening Tsuda began eating rice gruel. Having endured for days a diet of bread alone, the taste of the watery rice was refreshing. He may have lacked the sensibility to appreciate “gruel on a cold night” as poetry,* but sipping the thin gruel he relished, more than an ordinary haiku poet would, its warmth in contrast to the autumn chill.

He was constipated from the surgery, and to help him move his bowels he had once again to drink a mild laxative. His stomach hadn’t bothered him so much but, as it emptied, his mood seemed to lighten. Sprawled on his mattress, physically more comfortable, he spent his time waiting for the day when he was to be released.

Once the night had passed, that day came quickly. O-Nobu had come to pick him up in a rickshaw; the minute he saw her, he spoke.

“So I can finally go home. I’m thankful.”

“But not that thankful, I imagine.”

“I absolutely am.”

“Compared with being in a hospital, I suppose you’d say?”

“Something like that.”

Having replied in his usual style, Tsuda quickly added, as if he had suddenly remembered something, “That jacket you made for me really came in handy. It feels wonderful to wear; maybe it’s the new cotton padding.”

Laughing, O-Nobu chaffed her husband.

“Gracious! You’re so good at flattery all of a sudden. But I’m afraid that you’re mistaken.”

As she folded the jacket in question, O-Nobu confessed to her husband that she hadn’t used only new cotton for the padding. Tsuda was changing his kimono. What was important to him at that moment was wrapping a silk obi with a tie-dyed pattern around and around his hips. He had paid scant attention to the lining in his jacket, nor was he moved to respond affably to O-Nobu’s honest revelation.

“Is that so?” he said merely, and added nothing.

“If it’s comfortable, why not take it with you?”

“I suppose it would put me in mind of your kindness once in a while.”

“Except if the jacket they have for you at the spa turns out to be much nicer, you’ll feel so embarrassed — to wear mine.”

“That would never happen.”

“It could. If something isn’t well made, it’s better not to have it. At a time like that. Because whatever kindness was intended flies out the window.”

O-Nobu’s innocent words conveyed more to Tsuda’s ears than the simple meaning she intended. He heard in what she said the vibration of a certain irony. It was possible to interpret the jacket as a symbol of something. Feeling uncomfortable, Tsuda tied a simple knot in his masculine obi with his back still turned to O-Nobu.

A few minutes later, accompanied by the nurse, they emerged in the street and immediately seated themselves in the waiting rickshaw.

“Sayonara.”

With this single word, the curtain finally fell on an eventful week of hospital life.

BEFORE TSUDA could leave for the hot springs, the first item of business on his agenda was meeting Kobayashi. On the designated day, having received from O-Nobu the money he would need, he turned back to her, smiling.

“It’s too bad he has to cost us so much.”

“Then you shouldn’t give it to him.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to.”

“Then why ever would you? Shall I go instead and turn him down?”

“I certainly wouldn’t mind.”

“Where are you meeting him? Just tell me and I’ll be happy to go.”

Tsuda wasn’t sure if O-Nobu was serious. But it was easy enough to imagine that encouraging something like this as if it were a harmless joke was not unlikely to backfire and leave him with an unmanageable problem. O-Nobu was a woman who acted on her word to the letter when the chips were down. It made no difference that this would entail breaking a promise; there was no guaranteeing she wouldn’t willingly undertake to reject Kobayashi in his stead. As a precaution against entering a danger zone, he purposely diverted the conversation in a frivolous direction.

“Such unexpected courage for a woman.”

“I believe I do have courage. But it’s never been tested so I don’t know how far it actually goes.”

“Let’s not put you to the test. I know it’s there and that’s quite enough. It can be awkward for a man when his wife starts throwing her courage around.”

“It shouldn’t be the least bit awkward. Not if a woman is being courageous for her husband’s sake.”

“I suppose there are occasions when a man might have cause to feel grateful,” Tsuda remarked with no intention of engaging in a serious dialogue. “But I can’t say I’ve seen you display any courage that’s worthy of admiration so far.”

“Of course you haven’t. Because I haven’t let anything out, nothing at all. Try having a look inside. Because it happens I’m not as placid as you think.”

Tsuda didn’t reply. But O-Nobu didn’t stop there.

“Do I appear to be so easygoing?”

“You do. Immensely.”

This unconsidered, vapid exchange brought from O-Nobu a faint sigh before she spoke.

“It’s so unrewarding, being a woman. Why did I have to be born a woman?”

“It’s no use haggling about that with me. You should hold your mother and father responsible and complain to them.”

O-Nobu smiled uncomfortably but had more to say.

“Just you wait!”

“For what?”

Tsuda was a little surprised.

“Just you wait and see.”

“I’m waiting, what the devil will I see?”

“I can’t say until something actually happens.”

“You can’t say meaning you don’t know yourself?”

“That’s right.”

“What a joke! Then your prediction is like grasping at clouds.”

“And I’m saying you just watch because my prediction will definitely come true any time now.”

Tsuda snorted. O-Nobu’s attitude, conversely, was gradually turning grave.

“I’m serious. I don’t know the details, but I’ve been thinking for a while now that the day was coming when I’d have to summon up my courage at a certain moment all at once.”

“At a certain moment all at once? Sounds like a fantasy.”

“I’m not talking about sometime in my whole life. I mean soon. A certain moment all at once that’s coming soon.”

“It’s sounding worse and worse. In the near future a day is coming when I’ll be subjected to a show of reckless courage from my wife — how am I to handle that?”

“I’ll be doing it for you. Just as I said before, this will be courage for my husband’s sake.”

Observing O-Nobu’s earnestness in her face, Tsuda was drawn in little by little. In his temperament there was no poetry equal to hers. In its place, somewhat distasteful facts oppressed him from a distance. Gradually O-Nobu’s poetry, what he had called her fantasy, became active in him. He had been toying with the wings of a bird thinking it was dead; when the wings began abruptly to move, it gave him an odd feeling and he wound up the conversation at once.

Removing a watch from his obi, he glanced at it.

“It’s time. I’d better be on my way.”

Standing, he moved to the front entrance followed by O-Nobu, who took a brown fedora from the hat rack and put it into his hands.

“Hurry back. Don’t forget to tell Kobayashi-san that O-Nobu sends her regards.”

Without turning around, Tsuda stepped into the chilly evening air.

THE PLACE he was meeting Kobayashi was down a side street to the right midway along the busiest thoroughfare in Tokyo. To avoid the unpleasantness of having the man call for him at his home and to save himself the trouble of going to his lodgings, Tsuda had designated a restaurant and set the time.

That time had come and gone while he was on the streetcar. But his lateness, the result of having changed kimonos, received the money from O-Nobu, and sat briefly with her chatting, didn’t concern him. To speak plainly, he didn’t want his behavior toward Kobayashi to reflect a scrupulously proper attitude. On the contrary, he intended, by arriving late, to tweak his self-indulgence and complacency. Whether it was deemed a farewell party or not, inasmuch as this was actually an occasion at which one person was providing money and the other accepting it, Tsuda was unquestionably in charge. His best policy, therefore, using his superior status to optimal advantage, was to install himself in advance as the host to Kobayashi as the guest and thereby to nip his companion’s arrogance in the bud. Quite apart from arithmetic considerations of loss and gain, this also seemed to be an amusing way of simply getting even.

Inside the rattling streetcar Tsuda glanced at his watch and wondered if even now, late as he was, he might still be too early for his presumptuous guest. Assuming that was so, he considered frustrating Kobayashi’s inflexible expectations a little more by spending some time browsing in the night shops.

When he alighted from the trolley at a stop on the Ginza, the pell-mell flashing of lights all around him was more than adequate to convey dizzyingly the frenetic activity of the capital of the night. Standing there, he debated whether to spend ten minutes or so wandering among the lights before turning down the side street toward his destination. However, as he surveyed his surroundings, turning away from the evening paper a newsboy thrust in his face, he received a sudden shock.

The man whom he had assumed by this time would be tired to death of waiting was standing just across the street. Because he was standing at the far corner of the intersection where Tsuda had alighted, their sightlines fortunately didn’t intersect, and the night and the crowds and the flashing lights helped prevent Kobayashi from identifying him. Moreover, he was facing away, engaged in conversation with a young man Tsuda didn’t recognize. As only two-thirds of the youth’s face and perhaps one-third of Kobayashi’s were visible from where he stood, he was able to observe them attentively with virtually no risk of revealing himself. Their eyes never strayed. They were standing face to face, and as Tsuda continued to watch he could see clearly from their attitudes that they were discussing something serious.

There was a wall just behind them, but unfortunately it was windowless so there was no light on them. Just then, however, an automobile turned the corner noisily from the south and both men were caught in its large headlights. For the first time Tsuda was able to make out the young man’s features plainly. He was struck by a wan complexion and unkempt hair that looked uncut for months and hung from his peaked cap down both sides of his face. As the car passed, Tsuda turned smartly around and walked off in the opposite direction.

He had nothing in mind to do. The brightly lit shops were cosmopolitan and beautiful, but that was all. He discovered nothing complex about their appeal except the transformation in the merchandise as the business changed from one to the next. There were nonetheless sights that pleased his eye wherever he looked. When he came upon a stylish necktie displayed in front of a foreign haberdashery he went inside, selected the item he thought he wanted, and turned it over in his hands.

When he felt he had probably taken long enough, he retraced his steps. Not surprisingly, Kobayashi and his companion were no longer to be seen. He quickened his step a little. From the window of the establishment he had chosen, warm light was spilling into the street. The window was high in the brick wall of the building, and because the band of light that issued from it merged with the night indirectly, filtered through a patterned, yoke-yellow awning, Tsuda, looking up as he passed, imagined a serene dining room appointed with a gas fireplace.

Reposing in what might be described as dignified silence at the far end of a long block, the restaurant wasn’t large. Tsuda had only recently learned about it. Except for the fact that he had dined there four or five times, having heard from his friend that the proprietor had served as cook for many years to an attaché at the Japanese embassy in France, he had no reason for inviting Kobayashi there.

Pushing through the doors resolutely, he stepped inside. As expected, Kobayashi was waiting. Looking a little at a loss for what to do with himself, he was peering gravely at what must have been the evening paper.

LOOKING UP, he glanced quickly toward the entrance and then quickly lowered his eyes to the paper again. Tsuda was obliged to approach the table in silence and was the first to speak.

“Apologies. Been here long?”

Kobayashi finally folded his paper.

“You must have a watch.”

Tsuda refrained on purpose from taking out his watch. Kobayashi turned and glanced behind him at the large clock hanging on the wall. The hands had moved forty minutes past the appointed hour.

“Actually, I just got here myself.”

They sat down facing each other. As only two other tables were occupied, both by men accompanied by women who were dressed for the evening, the restaurant was unusually quiet. The gas stove burning just a few feet away suffused the air of the elegantly appointed room, which tended to shades of white, with a comfortable warmth.

Tsuda was visited by an odd recollection. In his mind’s eye he saw with perfect clarity the seedy bar he had ended up in thanks to Kobayashi. It gave him a certain satisfaction to think that this time he had invited his companion of that evening to a restaurant like this.

“What do you think? It’s an attractive place, isn’t it?”

Kobayashi looked around as if he were noticing for the first time.

“Not bad — at least there doesn’t seem to be a detective here.”

“No, but there are some beautiful women.”

Abruptly, Kobayashi raised his voice.

“Are they geisha or what?”

Tsuda was a little embarrassed.

“Don’t be an idiot!” he scolded.

“Well they damn well could be. The world is chock full of surprises you’d never imagine.”

Tsuda lowered his voice further.

“A geisha would never dress that way.”

“Is that right? If you say so — a rube like me doesn’t understand that sort of distinction. If I see someone in a pretty kimono, I assume she must be a geisha.”

“Sarcastic as usual.”

Tsuda allowed his annoyance to show. Kobayashi was unfazed.

“I wasn’t being sarcastic. Being poor has blinded me to stufflike that. I was just speaking my mind honestly.”

“Fine.”

“Even if it isn’t, it’ll have to do. But let me ask you how it really is.”

“What?”

“Is there really that much difference between a so-called lady and a geisha?”

Tsuda had to demonstrate to his companion, who was a masterly dissembler, that he was beyond replying in earnest as though he were a child. At the same time, somehow or other, he wanted to land a punch that Kobayashi would feel. But he refrained. More accurately, the words he needed eluded him.

“You must be joking!”

“I’m serious!” Lifting his eyes, Kobayashi stole a look at Tsuda’s face. Tsuda noticed, and though he abruptly perceived that his companion purposed saying something more, he was too clever not to intervene in the natural course of the conversation. Certainly he possessed the skill necessary to change the subject, but somehow he lacked the courage to slip away as though he were oblivious. In the end, he knew, Kobayashi would succeed in ensnaring him. He spoke.

“How’s the food?”

“Pretty much like everywhere else. To someone like me with an unrefined palate.”

“It’s no good?”

“No, it’s tasty.”

“Glad to hear that. Since the proprietor does the cooking himself, it should be a little better than elsewhere.”

“No matter how good the proprietor is, he’s no match for taste buds like mine. I’ll bring him to tears.”

“As long as it tastes good to you.”

“You could say that. But if I told the cook it’s no better than a joint where I can eat for ten sen a dish, he’d be pretty unhappy.”

All Tsuda could do was force a smile. Kobayashi went on by himself.

“The state I’m in, I don’t have the luxury of carrying on like a damn connoisseur — it’s good because it’s French, it’s bad because it’s English, whatever. If I can gag it down it’s good, and that’s about it.”

“But that means you lose any sense of what makes something good.”

“On the contrary, it’s clear to me. It’s good because I’m hungry. No other logic need apply.”

Once again Tsuda was left with nothing to say. But as the silence between them lengthened and began to oppress him, he opened his mouth to speak again, feeling he had no choice, and was preempted by Kobayashi.

“TO SOMEONE discriminating like you, maybe a philistine like me is worthy of contempt in every way. I expect I deserve your contempt. But I also have quite a lot to say about that. If I’m thick as a plank, it isn’t necessarily because I was born that way. Give me some stinking time. Give me some stinking money. Then let’s see what sort of person takes his place among you royals.”

By now Kobayashi was already a little drunk. There was something about his fervor, neither entirely serious nor joking, that suggested he was trying to borrow the power of the alcohol to help him liberate pent-up feelings. As Tsuda was left with little choice but to affirm his words at their face value, he felt obliged to fall into step alongside his companion.

“I think that’s exactly right. Which is why I sympathize with you. You must know that. Otherwise I’d hardly go to the trouble of inviting you out to dinner before you leave for Korea.”

“I appreciate it.”

“No, I’m serious. Just the other day I was explaining to O-Nobu how I feel.”

A glimmer of mistrust flashed in Kobayashi’s eyes.

“You don’t say? Apologizing for me to Mrs. T? It appears a little of the kindness you used to have is still in you. But I wonder — what did the missus have to say?”

Without answering, Tsuda reached inside his kimono. Observing the gesture, Kobayashi spoke again as if to halt him.

“Aha! So you were obliged to defend me. I thought it was odd.”

Tsuda withdrew his hand. Intending to say “This is O-Nobu’s reply” as he handed over the money he had brought along in a pretty package, he hesitated. Instead, he returned the conversation to where it had been.

“It seems we’re shaped by our circumstances.”

“I’d say by the latitude we enjoy.”

Tsuda didn’t protest.

“I agree. That, too.”

“From the day I was born until this minute, I’ve lived my life without an inch of wiggle room. I don’t even know the meaning of latitude; how do you think that makes me different from someone who’s been raised with all the freedom in the world to indulge himself?”

Tsuda smiled thinly. Kobayashi was grimly serious.

“There’s no need to think. We’re sitting right here. You and I. We need only compare ourselves to see the different effects of a life characterized by latitude on one hand and desperation on the other.”

Tsuda believed what he was saying to an extent. He also felt it was pointless to be listening to these old complaints, but Kobayashi wouldn’t let it go.

“Consider this. You hold me in contempt; not only you, so does your missus, so does everyone — wait. I have more to say — that’s a fact, you and I both know it. It’s just as I said it was before. But there’s one thing that neither you nor your wife understands. It’s not the sort of thing that mentioning at this late date will affect our relationship, so maybe there’s no point in bringing it up; it’s just that if I go off to Korea, I may never have an occasion to see you again while I’m alive.”

Kobayashi appeared to have worked himself up to a considerable pitch, but then he subjoined honestly, “Of course knowing me, I might find when I get to Korea that I can’t stand it and come right back,” which elicited from Tsuda an involuntary laugh.

Kobayashi appeared to flag momentarily but recovered himself quickly.

“Anyway, I think you should hear this because it might be of use in the future. The truth is, just as you hold me in contempt, I have contempt for you.”

“I know that.”

“You don’t. You may recognize the effect of my contempt, but neither you nor your wife understands what it’s based on. So in return for your kindness this evening, and as a farewell from me, I’d like to explain. Fair enough?”

“Fine.”

“Even if it isn’t, without a penny to my name it’s all I have to leave you, so it’ll damn well have to do.”

“I said fine.”

“So you’ll hear me out? If you will, I’ll say what I have to say. With a palate as unrefined as mine I can’t taste any difference between this French food and what we had at that sleazy bar I got into trouble for inviting you to. To someone like me, they taste equally good. I know you disdain me for that. But the truth is, I take pride in that very fact, and I disdain you for disdaining me. I wonder if you take my point. Think about it in this regard: Which of us is constrained and which of us is free? Which is happy and which feels his hands are tied? Which is tranquil and which one wavers? As I see it, you’re always unsteady on your legs. You can’t find your courage. You’ll go to any length to avoid what displeases you, and you gallop after whatever you want. And why is that? There is no why; it’s because you’re free to. You enjoy the luxury of picking and choosing because you have the latitude. You’re never pushed into a tight corner as I am, so it never occurs to you to thumb your nose at the world.”

Tsuda was accustomed to dismissing his companion. But he could hardly refuse to accept what was fact. There was no mistaking that he was no match for Kobayashi where boldness was concerned, or audacity for that matter.

BUT THERE was more to come of Kobayashi’s lecture. Following a long look of appraisal at Tsuda, he returned suddenly in an unexpected leap to an earlier subject. This was precisely the issue that had surfaced briefly here and there at the beginning of their conversation, only to be submerged beneath the vigor of what followed.

“I know that what I’m saying is getting through to you. But it seems you’re not ready to accept it. You’re caught in a contradiction. And I know why. First of all it troubles the hell out of you as a so-called wise man that the person doing the talking has no rank or social standing, no assets and no steady job. If this were coming from Mrs. Yoshikawa or someone like that, you’d sit up and take notice no matter how idiotic it was. And no, I’m not just feeling sorry for myself; that’s an incontestable fact. There’s something you need to appreciate — I’m able to say all these things because I’m who I am. You need to understand that neither your uncle Fujii nor Mrs. T would know anything about this. Why? Because no matter how poor he may be, Sensei has never had to lick the dregs the way I have. Much less the rest of your gang with their easy lives.”

Tsuda wasn’t certain who was included in “the rest of his gang.” His only thought was that it must refer to Madam Yoshikawa and the Okamotos. But Kobayashi moved briskly on without affording him the time to frame such a question.

“In the second place, the suggestion I just made — maybe it was advice or an admonition or just simple knowledge, it doesn’t really matter — at any rate what I’ve been saying hasn’t made you feel it was anything you had to pay attention to. Your mind understands, but in your heart you’re not persuaded; that’s how you are right now. We could always blame it on the abyss that separates us and forget about it, but my objective is to see if I can’t compel you to pay attention, you follow me? It turns out the gap created by circumstances and social position isn’t so very important. The truth is that ten out of ten people repeat the same experiences in different forms. To put it even more plainly, I’m me and I see things in the way that’s most urgent for me to see them; you’re you and you see with an eye that’s most appropriate for you. And that’s really the extent of the difference between us. When someone in privileged circumstances gets a bit bewildered or stymied or maybe stumbles, the light he sees things in will change. But seeing things in a different light doesn’t mean he’s changed his vantage point. In other words, all I’m saying is the day will come when you’ll have occasion to recall what I’m telling you now.”

“I’ll be careful to remember.”

“You do that, I guarantee you the time will come when you’ll think back on it.”

“Fair enough — I get it.”

“The funny thing is, whether you think you get it or not won’t make any difference.”

With these words Kobayashi abruptly broke into laughter. Tsuda had no idea why. Before he was asked, Kobayashi explained.

“Let’s say the moment arrives when you see that I’m right. Will you be able to yell shazam! and transform on the spot? Will you be able to transform into me as I am now?”

“I don’t know.”

“The hell you don’t. You know perfectly well that you won’t. I’m not boasting; I had to lock myself in a monk’s cell to get where I am now. I may be something of a dunce, but I can tell you I’ve paid for this with my own lifeblood.”

Kobayashi’s self-satisfaction irked Tsuda. What can he have paid for with his sickly whoreson’s blood? He allowed his contempt to shadow his countenance as he spoke.

“Then why bother to tell me this? You’re saying even if I bear it in mind, it won’t do me any good when I need it.”

“Of course it won’t. Still, it’s better to hear it.”

“Better not to.”

Kobayashi leaned back in his chair as though happily and laughed again.

“Bravo. You’re showing your true colors now just as I hoped you would.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m just stating a fact. Let me spell it out for you. When you get driven into a corner with nowhere to go, you’ll remember my words. You’ll remember, but you won’t be able to act on them. That’s when you’ll feel it would have been better not to have listened at all.”

“To hell with you! What’s the point of all that?”

“No point — it’s at that moment that I’ll finally have my revenge for your contempt.”

Tsuda spoke more calmly.

“You feel that hostile to me?”

“How can you say that? Hostility? I have only the best of intentions where you’re concerned. But the fact remains, doesn’t it, that you hold me in contempt. And when I point out conversely that there are reasons for me to have contempt for you as well, you settle back on your high and mighty throne and ignore me. Words are useless with you; you challenge me to have at you in a real battle, so what choice do I have but engaging you and doing the best I can to win?”

“Fine. That’s clear enough — Is that it, have you said your piece?”

“Hardly. I’m just getting to the main argument.”

A little dismayed, Tsuda watched Kobayashi lift a glass of beer to his lips and empty it in a single draft.

BEFORE HE continued, Kobayashi put down his glass and surveyed the room. The lady at one of the two tables where women were sitting, producing a beautiful handkerchief from her sleeve, was just drying the hand she had removed from a finger bowl after using it to eat a piece of fruit. The other female diner, diagonally opposite him, a young woman in her mid-twenties who had been stealing looks in his direction for a while, was engaged in animated conversation about the theater with her male companion, a coffee cup suspended in her hand as she eyed the smoke trailing upward from his cigarette. As both tables had arrived in advance of Tsuda and Kobayashi, it appeared that they were further along in their meal and would be leaving earlier.

“Perfect,” Kobayashi exclaimed. “They’re still here.”

Tsuda was alarmed again. It was predictable that Kobayashi was preparing to say things that would shock them in a voice he intended to be overheard.

“Behave yourself, will you!”

“I haven’t said a word.”

“I’m asking you not to. I can put up with your attacks on me, but please take a deep breath before you start insulting people who have nothing to do with us. In a place like this.”

“You’re such a timid soul. I guess you’re saying you couldn’t stand it if I carried on here as if it were that neighborhood bar?”

“Yes, in a way.”

“‘Yes, in a way’ means you made a mistake when you invited a hoodlum like me to a place like this.”

“Then do as you like.”

“You say that, but I bet you’re shaking inside.”

Tsuda was silent. Kobayashi laughed as though amused.

“I win. I win. You surrender, don’t you?”

“If you consider that a victory, then go right ahead and feel victorious.”

“I shall. But that means you better brace yourself for more and more contempt from me. And your contempt is a fart in the wind as far as I’m concerned.”

“Feel however you must feel. You’re an obnoxious piece of work.”

As he spoke, Kobayashi peered at Tsuda’s sullen face as if to look inside it.

“Don’t you get it, this is a real battle. It doesn’t matter how privileged you are or how many rich friends you have or how loftily you parade yourself around, when you’re defeated in a real battle you’re defeated. I’ve been saying it all along: a man who hasn’t tested himself with his feet in the real world is no better than a rag doll.”

“Why of course. There’s no one in this world who’s any match for a sly dog or a drunk.”

Kobayashi must have had something to say to this, but instead of replying at once he circled the room once more with his eyes, lighting on first one and then the other of the women at the other tables.

“That brings me to my third point. I feel I have to get it out before those women leave. Are you ready for this? It follows what I said before.”

Tsuda looked away in silence. Kobayashi seemed indifferent.

“In the third place, or, as I might say, my main argument. A while ago I asked you whether those women over there were geisha and got a scolding for it. I guess you were dressing me down for being a boor who doesn’t know how to behave around the ladies. Fair enough, I am a boor. And a boor doesn’t understand the distinction between a geisha and a lady. Which is why I asked you, what’s the stinking difference between a geisha and a lady.”

As he spoke, Kobayashi directed his gaze at the women for the third time. As if his glance were a signal, the woman who had been drying her hands with the handkerchief rose from the table. The remaining couple summoned the waiter and paid their bill.

“So they’re leaving at last. It’s a pity; I was just coming to the interesting part.”

Kobayashi followed the woman with his eyes as she moved to the entrance.

“Look at that, the other one’s leaving, too. So it’s just you and me after all.” Kobayashi turned back to Tsuda.

“Here’s the thing, my man. When I can’t tell the difference between French and English food and boast that shit and miso are the same to me, you’re not interested. You get that dismissive look on your face, as if the problem is simply my sense of taste. But the truth is they’re the same, my underdeveloped palate and confusing geishas and ladies.”

Tsuda turned his eyes to Kobayashi with a look that might have been saying, “And what of that?”

“Which means that the conclusion must also come down to the same thing. Just as I can assert that I’m happier than you even as you disdain me for my sense of taste, I have no trouble insisting that my circumstances are freer than yours even as you disdain me for failing to distinguish a lady from a geisha. In other words, the more clearly a man can appreciate that this is a lady and that’s a geisha, the more suffering he’s in for. Think about it. What do you end up with? You can’t stomach this one here or that one there, or maybe you can’t do without this one or that one — you put yourself in a straitjacket.”

“But what if I like how that feels?”

“Just as I thought. If it’s food we’re talking about you’re indifferent, but when it comes to women it appears you can’t hold your tongue. And that’s exactly the actual issue I want to bring up.”

“I’ve had enough.”

“No, apparently not.”

Exchanging glances, they smiled awkwardly.

KOBAYASHI WAS skillfully reeling Tsuda in. Tsuda knew it, but he had his own agenda and allowed it to happen. The time came when they were obliged to enter dangerous territory.

“For example,” Kobayashi said. “You were obsessed, weren’t you, with that Kiyoko-san? For quite a while she was all you could think of. And you were sure you were the only man in the world as far as she was concerned. So how did that work out?”

“It didn’t.”

“That’s all you have to say? Simple as that?”

“There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“I wonder. Even if there were, you’re probably too stuck on yourself to make a move. Or maybe you’re already hard at work and just hiding it from me.”

“Don’t be an imbecile! If you talk that kind of drivel, you’ll create a terrible misunderstanding. Get hold of yourself.”

“The truth is—”

Kobayashi interrupted himself with a look on his face that seemed to suggest that Tsuda must know what was coming. Tsuda wanted urgently to hear the rest.

“The truth is?”

“The truth is, I told your wife the whole story.”

Tsuda’s expression changed instantly.

“What story?”

Kobayashi was silent a minute, as if he were tasting deeply of his companion’s tone and countenance. When he finally replied, his attitude had changed.

“Just kidding. Really. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Who’s worried? Why should I care if you tell tales on me about something like that after all this time?”

“Not worried? Fair enough. Then I might as well tell you. Actually, I did tell her the whole story.”

“You go to hell!”

Tsuda had raised his voice inappropriately. The waitress, who had seated herself daintily in a chair, turned her head slightly and glanced in their direction. Kobayashi was quick to make use of this.

“Lower your voice, you’re startling the ladies. It can be so embarrassing to dine out with a hooligan like you.”

He flashed a smile in the waitress’s direction. The girl smiled back. Tsuda could hardly be angry all by himself. Kobayashi was quick to take advantage of this as well.

“How did that end? I never heard details and you didn’t say anything — or maybe you did and I’ve forgotten, it doesn’t matter. Did she run away from you or was it you who ran?”

“What does that matter?”

“It doesn’t to me. But it must matter a lot to you.”

“Naturally, it does.”

“There you are. It’s what I’ve been saying all along. You have too much latitude. And that makes you extravagant. The result is, the minute you acquire something you like, you want the next thing. But when something you like gets away, you stamp your feet in chagrin.”

“When have I ever behaved that way?”

“Believe me, you have. You’re behaving that way now. It’s the price you pay for your latitude. And it’s what gives me the keenest pleasure. It’s the Karma principle, poverty taking its revenge on affluence.”

“If you enjoy judging people based on notions you’ve fabricated, go right ahead. There’s no need for me to defend myself.”

“I’m not fabricating any notions. I’m specifying things that are actually at work in you. If you don’t understand that, maybe you’d like a lesson illustrated with facts?”

Tsuda neither requested nor declined a lesson and had in the end to become a student.

“You married O-Nobu-san because you wanted her, right? But I can’t imagine you’ll tell me you’re satisfied with her now.”

“Nothing in this world is perfect.”

“But of course. And that gives you the right to look around for a superior choice?”

“What gives you the right to vilify people? The truth is, you’re the lout you were calling me. Your obscene, cynical observations, the insolence of what you say, your crudeness, you’re nothing but a thug through and through.”

“And that makes me worthy of your contempt?”

“You bet it does.”

“So you see, words alone are useless with you. Unless there’s an actual battle, you’ll never get it. Mark my words. The battle is about to begin. Only then will you finally understand the sense in which you’re no match for me.”

“I don’t care; it will be my honor to lose to a cunning scoundrel.”

“You’re so stubborn. It’s not me you’ll be fighting.”

“Who then?”

“You’re already fighting inside. And it won’t be long until that battle emerges in the form of actual behavior. Latitude will incite you to a losing battle for nothing at all.”

Abruptly Tsuda took a wallet from his kimono and thrust at Kobayashi the money he had set aside as a farewell gift in consultation with O-Nobu.

“You’d better take this now. Talking with you is making me feel unhappy about keeping my promise.”

Kobayashi fanned the new ten-yen notes folded in two and carefully counted them.

“There are three tens here.”

HE CRUMPLED the notes and stuffed them into his jacket pocket. The move was as off hand as his gratitude was perfunctory.

“Thanks. I’d like to be borrowing this, but I suppose you’re intending it as a gift. Given the contempt in which you hold me, you must have told yourself from the beginning I won’t have the means to pay you back or the desire either.”

Tsuda replied.

“Of course I’m giving it to you. I assume you’ll notice the contradiction in accepting it.”

“What contradiction? I’m not aware of any contradiction. Is accepting money from you a contradiction?”

“You don’t see that?” Tsuda condescended. “Think about it. Until just now, that money was in my wallet. And in the twinkling of an eye it moved to your suit pocket. If that sounds too much like a novel, let me put it another way: Who transferred the right to that money from me to you so quickly? Answer me that.”

“You of course. You gave it to me.”

“Wrong. It wasn’t me!”

“You’re sounding like a Zen monk. Who was it then?”

“It wasn’t anyone. It was latitude — that same latitude you’ve been denigrating gave it to you. So accepting it without a word amounts to dipping your head to latitude even as you hack it to pieces. What’s that if not a contradiction?”

Kobayashi blinked rapidly before he spoke.

“You may have a point there — it’s funny, though. I don’t feel as though I’m bowing to latitude.”

“Then give the money back.”

Tsuda thrust his hand in Kobayashi’s face. The palm appeared to be as smooth as a woman’s.

“Like hell I will. Latitude isn’t telling me to give it back.”

Smiling, Tsuda withdrew his hand.

“I rest my case.”

“What case? It appears you’re not getting my meaning when I say latitude hasn’t told me to give it back. Poor Little Lord Fauntleroy!”

Turning aside, Kobayashi glanced toward the entrance as he spoke.

“He should be here by now.”

Tsuda, who had been observing him closely, was a little surprised.

“Who’s coming?”

“Nobody; someone with even less latitude than I.”

Kobayashi made a show of tapping the pocket where he had stuffed the money.

“The latitude that transferred this money from you to me isn’t saying return it to you. It’s commanding me to pass it along to someone even more deficient in latitude. Latitude is like water. It runs downhill, but it doesn’t flow back up.”

Tsuda understood Kobayashi’s drift as a concept. But he was unable to see how it actually applied. This unsettled him, and he withdrew into rumination. Kobayashi’s subsequent words came marching through the haze like an invading army.

“I will bow down to latitude. I’ll acknowledge my contradiction. I’ll affirm your illogical assertions. I’ll do anything. I thank you. I’m grateful.”

Abruptly, large tears began spilling from his eyes. This radical transformation left Tsuda, already surprised, feeling all the more uneasy. Unable to avoid recalling the recent scene at the bar where he had been placed in an awkward situation, he frowned, realizing at the same moment that now was the time to manipulate his companion.

“Why would I expect gratitude from you? You’re the one who’s forgotten the past. I’m doing now what I’ve always done, in the same spirit, but you stand everything on its head, which just makes associating with you more and more a bother. For example, you go to my house when I’m away and say something to my wife while you’re there—”

Having said this much, Tsuda tried assessing its effect on his companion without seeming to. But Kobayashi was looking down, and Tsuda was unable to read his mood to see whether it might have changed.

“Did you have to go out your way to see if you could drive a wedge between your friend and his wife for the fun of it?”

“I don’t recall saying anything about you.”

“But just a minute ago—”

“That was a joke. You were taunting me so I taunted back.”

“I don’t know who started the taunting, but that hardly matters. I just don’t see why you can’t tell me the truth.”

“But I have. I’ve said over and over again I don’t recall saying anything about you. Try questioning your wife and you’ll see.”

“O-Nobu won’t—”

“What’d she say?”

“Nothing, that’s the problem. If she’s thinking something without saying it, I can’t defend myself or explain; I’m the only one who’s left in the dark.”

“I didn’t say anything. The question is what you’ll do now; are you up to behaving like a husband or not?”

“I don’t—”

As Tsuda began to speak, footsteps signaled the arrival at the table of a third party.

TSUDA SAW at once that it was the young man with long hair with whom Kobayashi had been conversing on the street corner, and he was further surprised. But not entirely: it was as if at the same time he had been expecting the youth. The fleeting feeling was a contradiction, a certainty amounting to a conclusion that no one like this would appear, and a presentiment that if anyone were to appear, it would have to be this young man.

The face illuminated in the headlight of the car as it turned the corner had struck him as odd. As he shifted his interior gaze from himself to Kobayashi and from Kobayashi to the young man, he had been sensible of the distance separating them in social standing, philosophy, profession, even dress. This required him to observe the young man as though from afar. But as he regarded him, however distantly, a vivid impression had burned into his mind.

So this is the sort of fellow Kobayashi keeps company with!

Reflecting at that moment on his own circumstances, which did not require him to associate with such people, and having felt, all in all, fortunate, Tsuda’s attitude toward the newcomer was unambiguous. The look on his face suggested he had been abruptly introduced to a disreputable character.

Holding his rumpled cap in his hand, the young man took a seat next to Kobayashi. He appeared to be feeling uneasy in Tsuda’s presence. The odd light in his eyes reflected nervously a tangle of hostility and fear and the untempered self-regard of someone unaccustomed to being in company. Tsuda felt increasingly repelled. Kobayashi turned to the young man.

“Take off your coat.”

The youth stood up again in silence. Throwing off the long mantle favored by art and music students, he threw it over the back of his chair.

“This is my friend.”

Kobayashi introduced the youth to Tsuda, who learned subsequently that his surname was Hara and that he was a painter.

“What happened? How did it go?”

This was Kobayashi’s next question. Before the artist could reply he immediately added, “No luck, right? How could it go well with a dullard like that? It would be an insult to you if he appreciated your work. Oh, well, relax and have something to eat.”

Kobayashi pounded on the table with the handle of his knife.

“Hey. Let’s get this man something to eat.”

In due course, the glass in front of Hara was filled with beer.

Tsuda had been observing in silence; finally he realized that the matter of business that had brought him here had been concluded. Just then Kobayashi suddenly turned to him.

“His paintings are wonderful. Why don’t you buy one? He’s having a tough time right now. How about it? Why not have him bring some work to show you on Sunday?”

Tsuda was surprised.

“I don’t appreciate paintings much.”

“I don’t believe that, do you, Hara? Anyway, take some work and show him.”

“Certainly, if it’s not a bother.”

It was, of course.

“I’m someone with no appreciation for paintings and sculpture and that sort of thing. So if you don’t mind—”

The young man looked wounded. Kobayashi came to his aid at once.

“I don’t believe it. There aren’t many people with tastes as refined as yours.”

Tsuda had to force a smile.

“There you go again — stop mocking me.”

“I’m not mocking you; it’s a fact. I can’t believe that someone with an appreciation for women as keen as yours would just dismiss art. Any woman lover must also love art, wouldn’t you say, Hara? There’s no way you can hide that.”

Tsuda had arrived gradually at the limit of his forbearance.

“It seems you two have a lot to say to each other, so I think I’ll be on my way — Waitress. Check please.”

As the waitress rose from her chair, Kobayashi stopped her in a loud voice and turned back to Tsuda.

“It so happens Hara-kun has just finished something very special. He went to discuss a price with someone who said he wanted to buy it, and he happened to stop off here on his way back — it seems like a perfect opportunity — you should really buy it. The way I see it, he shouldn’t be selling to the kind of person who’s not ashamed to take advantage of an artist and bargains his price down as low as he can get it. So I volunteered to help him find an appropriate buyer and, to tell the truth, I suggested when we were talking on the corner that he should stop in here on his way back. So buy one, it’s nothing.”

“You expect me to agree to that before I’ve even seen the painting?”

“He’ll show it to you — didn’t you bring it back with you?”

“He asked for a little more time so I left it there.”

“You’re a fool. First thing you know, he’ll have wangled it for nothing.”

Hearing this, Tsuda sighed with relief.

THE OTHER two began an animated conversation about painting that excluded him. The talk was full of Western terms — some, like “Cubism” and “Futurism,” that he had heard before and others that were exotic-sounding and unfamiliar. There was no need to expel him from the conversation: finding nothing of any interest in what he heard, he had left through the gate on his own accord. But even where he stood, he felt a boredom that exceeded the ordinary, in addition to which there was something irking him more aggressively than boredom. From the beginning he had considered these two, Kobayashi in particular, dilettantes eager to wave the banners of new art. Observing them flaunt their sophistication confirmed his prejudice. When it began to appear to him that their objective might be expressly to make him regret his own ignorance on this head, he gave over the effort he had made to sit patiently and ventured to take his leave. Kobayashi detained him yet again.

“Another few minutes. I’ll leave with you.”

“No, it’s getting late.”

“I don’t see why you have to make anyone feel embarrassed. Or are you saying that waiting for Hara-kun to finish eating will reflect poorly on your status as a gentleman?”

Hara, who had placed some ham on top of a shredded lettuce salad and was just digging in with his fork, paused.

“Don’t trouble yourself about me.”

Tsuda responded appropriately and was rising from his chair when Kobayashi spoke as if to himself.

“What can he be thinking this occasion is for? He invites a man to something he calls a farewell dinner and then insults the guest of honor by leaving him alone at the table and going home — with people like this in the world, no wonder life is miserable.”

“That’s not what I intended.”

“Then stay for a while.”

“There’s something I have to do.”

“I have a little something, too.”

“If it’s the painting, forget it.”

“I’m not twisting your arm to buy it. Don’t be such a cheapskate!”

“Then whatever it is, get on with it.”

“Not with you standing over me. Sit down like a gentleman.”

Obliged to take his seat again, Tsuda took a cigarette from the pack in his kimono sleeve and lit it. Glancing at the ashtray, he saw that it was already full of Shikishima butts. He reflected briefly that there could be no more fitting memorial to this evening. Like the others, the cigarette he was about to smoke would be reduced in under three minutes to ash and smoke and a butt that would end up cold and useless in the ashtray — somehow, the thought was dispiriting.

“So what is your little something? I assume you’re not looking for another handout?”

“There you go again, sounding like a cheapskate.”

Gripping the right front of his jacket with his right hand, Kobayashi reached inside his pocket with his left. As though groping for something he fumbled in the pocket, his eyes never leaving Tsuda’s face. Out of nowhere, an outlandish question framed itself in Tsuda’s mind, a bizarre delusion wispy as the smoke from his cigarette.

Is this scoundrel going to take a pistol from his jacket? Does he intend to stick it in my face?

A minute foreboding whispered through him, his nerves trembling like slender branches in an invisible wind. At the same time, regarding as a spectator the scene in the melodrama he had perversely imagined, his mind dismissed it as absurd.

“What are you looking for?”

“There are a lot of things in here; I can’t just pull something out until I know it’s what I want.”

“It would be awkward if it turned out to be the money you stuffed in there before.”

“There’s no mistaking the money. The money isn’t dead paper, it’s alive. It jumps like a fish when I touch it.”

Talking nonsensically the while, he withdrew an empty hand.

“I can’t find it — how weird.”

Kobayashi thrust his right hand into his left vest pocket but produced only a soiled handkerchief.

“You’re planning to do magic tricks with that?”

Kobayashi paid no attention. With a serious look on his face, he stood, patted both hips at once, and then exclaimed “Here it is.”

From his hip pocket he withdrew a letter.

“I’d like you to read this. And since we won’t be seeing each other for a while, it has to be tonight. Please have a look while I wrap up with Hara-kun. It’s a bit long, but it shouldn’t be much of a bother.”

Extending his hand mechanically, Tsuda took the letter.

SCRAWLED IN pen on manuscript paper, it was more than twice the length of a normal letter. Moreover, though it was addressed to Kobayashi, the author was someone entirely unknown to Tsuda. When he had read the front and back of the envelope, he wondered what connection this could possibly have to him. But a kind of curiosity adjacent to his cold indifference beckoned him. Removing the ruled manuscript paper from the envelope, ten rows of twenty characters on each page, he read to the end without pausing.

I find myself already regretting having come here. I know you’ll consider me capricious, but my feelings originate in a temperament altogether different from yours, and there is little to be done about it. But before you think “Not again!” please listen to my lament. I was asked to look after the place for a while, until the reorganization of the bank should be settled, because it seemed imprudent to leave the women alone at night. The terms offered me if I accepted the invitation were irresistible: if I wished to work on my novel I should feel free to, if I wanted to go to the library I could take a lunch with me; in the afternoons I could study painting if I liked. When the bank was finally relocated to Tokyo I should have my tuition for the college of foreign languages, I needn’t worry about dealing with the house, my moving expenses would be provided, and so on. Obviously, I didn’t count on all of this, but I was convinced that a certain percentage was true. But when I got here I found that none of it was; it was all lies dressed up as truth. Not only is my uncle mostly away in Tokyo, but I am treated as a houseboy and have no time for anything but the chores I am assigned from morning to night. My uncle refers to me as “our house boy” even in front of guests when I am standing there. Every task, from buying a pint of sake to dusting and polishing the wooden floor of the engawa, falls to me. And I’ve yet to receive one penny. When the one-yen clogs I was wearing cracked, I was fitted out with a pair that cost twelve sen. Promising to give us some money on the morrow, my uncle moved the family into my sister’s house, but once they were there he didn’t breathe another word about money, so I am left without even a home to return to.

My uncle’s business is swindling. He has no money at all. He and my aunt are extremely cold and extremely stingy people. For some time after I arrived, I had to endure an empty stomach and would return to my sister’s house once every three days or so for something to eat. Sometimes when we had run out of provisions we were obliged to make do with yams and potatoes. But not my uncle and aunt. My aunt is an extremely disagreeable person. She is calculating about everything, interested only in appearances, and is inclined to poke into everything around her, which often enough includes me, so that I feel the sting of her busybody’s needle. As for my uncle, broke as he is, he drinks his sake. And when he returns to the country he carries on like a lord. But if you look beneath the surface you find nothing but surprises. He’s even involved in more than one lawsuit. He can never leave on a train without dashing off to a pawnshop to raise money for a ticket, or going to my sister’s place and wheedling from her what he needs to get by; it seems he feels he’s repaying the loan with what it costs him to board me.

My aunt must have been thinking all along that I’d be paying my way with my writing; when she catches me with my pen in hand she’ll take a dig at me, asking what I expect to earn by scribbling on a scrap of paper. Sometimes, by way of dropping a hint, she’ll wave an ad in my face from the help-wanted column in the newspaper, “Hiring clerks.”

All this is repeated endlessly until I lose all sense of why I ever came here. I find myself thinking strange thoughts. The bizarre, utterly formless life of this family and the constantly shifting miasma of their internal circumstances haunt me day and night and I feel as if I am lost in a terrifying dream. When I consider that no one could possibly understand my plight no matter how I explained it, I must conclude forlornly that I am living all alone in a world inhabited by demons. Sometimes I feel I shall go mad. Properly speaking, when I begin to suspect that I have already lost my mind, I become unbearably afraid. Not only does no ray of light reach me in the underground dungeon where I suffer, but I feel I no longer have hands or feet. I suppose I feel that way because even if I lift my hands or move my feet, I remain in pitch-darkness. I can appeal all I like, a thick, cold wall blocks my voice and prevents it being heard. In all the world there is only me. I have no friends, and even if I did it would make no difference. Who, after all, would have a mind capable of touching the feelings of a ghostly presence like mine? An excess of pain has prompted me to write this letter. I haven’t written expecting to be rescued. I know your circumstances. I haven’t the slightest desire to receive any sort of material aid from you. If some portion of my pain, reaching you, would only create in the compassion flowing in your veins like lifeblood a swell of sympathy for me, I would be satisfied. For that alone would place within my grasp a guarantee that I exist in society as a member of the human race. Is there, I wonder, no single ray of light that can reach the vast world of people from the darkness of this devil’s confinement? I begin to think not. A reply from you, or no reply, will determine my certainty of this.

The letter ended here.

JUST THEN the ash on Tsuda’s cigarette, which had lengthened to nearly an inch, dropped on the letter. Eyeing the powder scattered across the vertical and horizontal indigo ruling of the manuscript page, he became suddenly aware that until now he hadn’t moved the hand in which he was holding the cigarette. More precisely, his lips and hand at some point had forgotten the cigarette’s existence. Moreover, since finishing the letter and dropping the ash had not occurred simultaneously, he was obliged to acknowledge an interval of vacant time that had been sandwiched between the two events.

What could have accounted for that empty time? It was hard to imagine anything with less relevance to Tsuda intrinsically than this letter. He didn’t know the author. He had no inkling of the connection between the author and Kobayashi. As for the contents, the incidents described were so alien to his own position and circumstances they might have been occurring in another world.

But his observations didn’t end there. Something had startled him. Until now he had been wont to assume that the world was what he beheld in front of him, but just now he had been obliged abruptly to turn and look behind. He had halted in that attitude, his gaze fixed upon an existence opposite to himself. As he stared at that ghostly presence he was encountering for the first time ever, he cried out to himself Ah, this is a person, too! He saw in front of his eyes with blinding clarity the fact that someone at a vast distance from himself was if anything closely connected.

Here he stopped and circled. But he didn’t advance a single step. He went no further than understanding the meaning of the repellant letter in a manner that befitted him.

As Tsuda brushed the cigarette ash off the manuscript paper, Kobayashi, who had been in conversation with Hara, turned at once in his direction. Tsuda had caught a few phrases apparently intended to conclude their business.

“Don’t worry about it…. Something will work out…. You’ll be fine.”

He pushed the letter toward Kobayashi in silence. Leaving it on the table, Kobayashi spoke.

“You read it?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think?”

Tsuda offered no reply. But he felt the need of ascertaining his companion’s intention.

“I don’t see why you had me read this.”

Kobayashi returned the question.

“You don’t see why I had you read it?”

“I don’t even know who the author is.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“Let’s say that doesn’t matter; why should I care?”

“About the author or the letter?”

“Either one.”

“What do you think?”

Tsuda hesitated again. His hesitation was in fact evidence that the meaning of the letter had reached him. It was as if, to put it more clearly, his awareness that he had managed to interpret the letter in his own way was impeding his reply. Presently he spoke.

“In the sense you mean, they’re both irrelevant to me.”

“And what’s the sense I mean?”

“You don’t know?”

“Tell me what you think.”

“I’ve had enough of this.”

Tsuda wondered whether the letter wasn’t intended by Kobayashi to serve the same purpose as the painting. Perhaps he was trying to maneuver him into making a material sacrifice so that he could crow, “What did I tell you? You’ve surrendered after all.” To Tsuda that would amount to an affront beyond enduring. Then let him try, he bridled, let him threaten all he liked with a destitute ghost and see where it would get him. When he spoke, his resentment was audible in his voice.

“How about telling me outright what you were thinking. Like a man!”

“Like a man? Well—” Kobayashi began and, interrupting himself, added, “Fair enough, I’ll explain. Neither this man nor his letter, the contents of his letter, has anything to do with you. Not in the social sense — do you know what I’m saying? Let me also explain ‘social’ while I’m at it to avoid any misunderstanding. Out there in the profane, work-a-day world, you have no obligations where the contents of this letter are concerned.”

“Obviously not.”

“Exactly — no social obligation. But what if you expanded your moral vision a little and then had a look?”

“No matter how I expand, I’m not about to feel an obligation to put my hand in my pocket.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t, being you. But I’m guessing you will feel some sympathy.”

“Sympathy, yes.”

“That’s more than enough, for me. When you talk about sympathy, you mean you’d like to give some money. But the fact is you don’t want to spend any, and that leads to a battle with your conscience that creates anxiety. And with that I’ve achieved my goal.”

So saying, Kobayashi put the letter away and, withdrawing from the same pocket the yen notes from before, spread them on the table.

“Help yourself. Take what you need.”

He looked at Hara.

TSUDA WASN’T expecting this. Caught off guard and compelled to taste fully of the cynicism in the move, he felt his pulse began to hammer. In that instant an electric current of what would have to called hatred shot through his body.

At the same moment a suspicion flickered in his canny mind.

Have these two been in cahoots from the beginning, conniving to make a fool of me?

This thought, and their attitudes in conversation on the street corner, and Kobayashi’s behavior after showing up here, and Hara’s mien when he joined them, and the back-and-forth that had transpired subsequently — all this whirled and sputtered in Tsuda’s brain like firecrackers on a wheel, too fast to discern which was cause and which effect. Seeing the new ten-yen notes laid out neatly on the white tablecloth, Tsuda yelled involuntarily to himself: Is this the punch line of the farce this wily scoundrel has cooked up? Villain! You think I’ll let you have your way in this?

His wounded pride required him to turn this humiliating denouement around before he parted from these two. But he felt helpless, unprepared to deflect and turn to his own advantage a move that had been played against him so skillfully at the very last minute.

Outwardly he remained calm enough, but beneath the surface of his composure his clever mind wheeled unavailingly. Thoughts crowded into his head, but the congestion they created was a snarl and nothing more, revealing nothing of any use — he was left feeling overwrought but helpless to act. Moreover, he was aware that his agitation was beginning to move toward panic.

At just this critical moment he perceived something else no less unexpected. It was the effect the ten-yen notes had had on the young artist. As he gazed down at the money Kobayashi had laid out, there was an odd light in his eyes. It conveyed surprise and happiness. A certain hunger. And the intensity of his desire to reach for the bills and scoop them up. Each of these feelings, the surprise and happiness, the hunger and the desire, appeared to be altogether genuine. It was impossible to mistake them for false, or contrived, or part of a complicit farce. Tsuda, at least, was persuaded they were real.

What followed sufficed to confirm his judgment. Hara, despite his evident desire to have them, didn’t reach for the notes. But neither did he display the courage to reject Kobayashi’s kindness out of hand. His struggle to restrain the hand that wanted so very badly to reach out was clearly visible in his face. If the pallid youth should be ultimately unable to take the notes, the farce Kobayashi had gone to the trouble of devising would lose half its impact. And should Kobayashi be obliged to return all the money to his pocket despite his declaration that Hara should share some, the comedy would be rendered even more ludicrous. Either way, since the drama appeared to be developing in a direction that would allow him to avoid feeling that his honor had been compromised, Tsuda was encouraged to wait and watch for a while.

Soon enough, the other two commenced a dialogue.

“Hara-kun — why don’t you help yourself?”

“I feel sorry for you.”

“And I’m feeling sorry for you.”

“I appreciate that—”

“And the gentleman sitting across from you is feeling sorry for me, too.”

“I see.”

Hara’s face as he looked at Tsuda suggested he was entirely in the dark. Kobayashi promptly explained.

“I accepted that money from him just now. It’s newly accepted money.”

“Then it’s all the more—”

“Never mind ‘all the more.’ This is about ‘therefore.’ He gave me the money; therefore I’m free to give it to you. I’m free to give it to you; therefore you’re free to take it.”

“Is that logical?”

“Of course it is. If this were money I’d earned working all night to finish a manuscript for thirty-five sen a page, I reckon even I’d be attached to it a little. Otherwise I’d be insulting the sweat that dripped off my brow all night. But this means nothing. This is a donation from the latitude to hang money from trees. And the more of a blessing it is to the recipient, the happier latitude is. Am I right, Tsuda-kun, or am I right?”

Having transcended his initial mortification, Tsuda felt he was being consulted at an opportune moment. A generous concession from him would be more than adequate, in the formal sense at least, to bring to a seemly conclusion tonight’s meeting of three unlikely dinner partners. He seized the opportunity presenting itself to avoid a withdrawal that would appear awkward.

“I agree. I think that would be best.”

At the end of a further dialogue, one of the three notes was finally placed in Hara’s hand. As he returned the remaining money to his pocket, Kobayashi spoke to Tsuda.

“For once, latitude has flowed uphill. But I understand it won’t be flowing any further uphill from here. So once again I say to you, thanks.”

Leaving the restaurant, they walked to the edge of the moat and, waiting for the trolley, looked up at a night sky filled with stars as bright as the moon.

SHORTLY THEY went their separate ways.

“Travel well; I won’t be coming to see you off.”

“No? Seems like you should. Your old friend is moving to Korea, after all.”

“I wouldn’t come no matter where you’re going.”

“How hugely heartless of you. In that case I’ll drop in one more time to say good-bye before I leave.”

“I’ve had enough. You needn’t come.”

“I insist. Otherwise, I won’t feel right.”

“Suit yourself. But I won’t be there. I’m leaving on a trip tomorrow.”

“A trip? Where?”

“I have some recovering to do.”

“Recuperating in the countryside? How stylish of you!”

“I’d say latitude is making me a gift. Unlike you, I can never be thankful enough for latitude.”

“And you can never stop demonstrating to me that my advice is meaningless.”

“If we’re being honest, that sounds about right.”

“Fair enough. Wait and see which of us wins. My guess is, a little enlightenment from old Kobayashi will be easier to take than the sock in the teeth from reality you’re heading for.”

Such was their exchange as they parted. It was an expression merely of the hard feelings Tsuda had been storing up since the beginning of the evening. Now, feeling somewhat relieved, he had no room inside himself to consider Kobayashi’s final remarks. Whether he was right or wrong made little difference; Tsuda was adamantly determined, out of pride if nothing else, to be shut of the man, rid of his worldview and his tiresome theorizing. Alone at last in the streetcar, he began at once to conjure a picture of the hot springs.

The next morning was windy. The wind raked the ground aslant with flurries of rain.

“What a bother!”

Tsuda, who had arisen on schedule, looked up at the sky from the engawa and frowned. There were clouds in the sky. They moved incessantly, like wind visible to the eye.

“It could always clear up by noon.”

O-Nobu’s tone of voice suggested she was in favor of carrying on with the schedule they had agreed on.

“If you postpone for a day, that’s just a day wasted. I’d rather you went right away and came home a day sooner.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

The icy rain had not deterred them, but as Tsuda was preparing to depart, a small hitch developed. Removing a kimono for herself from a drawer in the tansu, O-Nobu placed it alongside Tsuda’s clothes atop the lacquered-paper wrapping. Tsuda noticed.

“You don’t have to see me off.”

“Why not?”

“No special reason, it will be unpleasant in this rain.”

“I don’t mind.”

There was something so innocent about O-Nobu’s remark that Tsuda couldn’t help laughing.

“I’m not objecting because I mind you coming along. I feel bad for you. The trip doesn’t even take a day; it seems silly to put you to the trouble of coming to the station. Just last night I told Kobayashi I wouldn’t see him offeven though he’s leaving for Korea.”

“Really! But there’s nothing to do at home.”

“Go out and enjoy yourself — I’d like you to.”

Eventually, with a strained smile, O-Nobu acquiesced, and Tsuda was able to hurry away by himself in a rickshaw.

Despite the crowded streets surrounding the station, it was bleakly deserted on this rainy day. Standing in the emptiness, Tsuda was gazing vacantly at the second-class ticket he had just purchased when a student approached abruptly and addressed him as if he were an old friend.

“Too bad about the weather.”

It was the youth Tsuda had met for the first time at the Yoshikawas’ the other day. This morning, from the moment he doffed his cloth cap, in contrast to his chilliness to Tsuda at the entrance to the house, he was exceedingly polite. Tsuda had no idea what this might mean.

“You’re traveling somewhere?”

“Aren’t you?”

“It happens I am, but what about it?”

The student appeared flustered.

“Unfortunately, Mrs. Yoshikawa is occupied today and asked me to bring you this.”

He held up the basket of fruit he was carrying.

“That was kind of her.”

Tsuda reached for the basket, but the student held on to it.

“I’m to carry it to your seat.”

As the train was leaving, the student bowed and Tsuda, commending himself to the Yoshikawas, settled himself deliberately in a corner of the relatively uncrowded car and thought to himself, Good thing I didn’t have O-Nobu come along after all.

BY THE time he had removed the newspaper O-Nobu had thought to put in his overcoat pocket and begun reading it more attentively than usual, the weather outside the window was worse. It had been drizzling; now it had begun to rain heavily, and the water streaming from the sky, inundating the space visible through the wide window of the train, appeared the more torrential.

Higher up was a thick layer of clouds. On the periphery of the panorama framed by the window, low-hanging clouds like walls hemming in the rain were also visible. Feeling oppressed by the seamless merger of clouds and rain, Tsuda compared the bleakness of the scene outside the window with the comfort inside the pleasantly appointed car. He believed that physical ease and comfort were special prerogatives of civilized man; imagining how it would feel in the afternoon when he would have to venture outside in the pelting rain, he hunched his shoulders in anticipated discomfort. Just then the passenger next to him, a man who appeared to be around forty who had been gazing vacantly at the rain breaking into droplets as it drove against the window and streamed down the glass in rivulets, leaned forward and addressed his companion, facing him with his legs crossed under him on the seat. The sound of the rain on top of the rattling of the train appeared to prevent his friend from catching everything he said.

“It’s pouring. If this keeps up, the tracks on the narrow gauge might loosen up again.”

He had no choice but to speak in a voice so loud that Tsuda could hear him, too.

“I wouldn’t worry any. Mebbe it’s narrow gauge, but it’s not a damn toy you can’t use in the rain — how’d that be for a blessed catastrophe!”

The speaker was an older man, sixty or so perhaps, in a long, woolen Japanese coat. On his head he wore an odd hat without a brim, an exotic article that looked as though it must have been special-ordered at the sort of shop that displayed in its window an artful array of tobacco pouches, Madras fragments, and antique batiks; its owner, judging by the evidence offered mistakably by his speech, had been born and bred in Tokyo. The elder’s vitality belied his outfit, surprising Tsuda, who also found his language, close to the “cockney” argot of downtown workers, unexpected.

The term “narrow gauge,” which had come up in passing, held special significance for Tsuda. He was a convalescent who would be spending a number of hours that afternoon lurching along on the narrow gauge. Thinking that these two might well be heading in the same direction on a vacation, he began eavesdropping. Since there was no room to change seats and they were obliged to lean forward uncomfortably and speak in loud voices, he heard every word.

“I didn’t imagine the weather would turn this bad. It would have been easier if we’d postponed for a day.”

The self-possessed man in the fedora and camel-hair coat had this to say, to which the elder replied at once.

“What’s a dribble of rain? So long as you’re prepared to get wet, it don’t mean a thing.”

“But the luggage is a problem. I hate to think of it on the narrow gauge, outside on the baggage car.”

“Then how about we stay out in the rain and have them put the luggage in our seats?”

They both laughed aloud. Then the elder spoke again.

“Course there was that ruckus a while back. When the boiler blew and we got stuck — talk about this old heart sinking.”

“I forget what happened — how’d you manage to get out?”

“We waited in the mountains for a train a-coming the other way.

Then we used their boiler to pull us up and over.”

“What about the train they pulled the boiler out of?”

“What about it? It wasn’t going nowhere, that’s what.”

“That’s what I’m asking — I can’t imagine they left it there to rust after it rescued you?”

“Now I think about it, I know what you’re saying. At the time we couldn’t be thinking about that other train. It was getting dark, and cold as a blessed knife. I was shivering.”

Gradually a detailed picture formed in Tsuda’s mind. He was even able to predict that the men would be visiting one or another of the three hot springs on the left and right of the narrow-gauge tracks. In the event, if the train he was about to ride for two hours or possibly three was the unreliable hazard they were describing, there was no guarantee, in this rain, that some sort of calamity wouldn’t occur. On the other hand, their account was likely to be colored by the exaggeration that was bred into all Tokyoites. On the verge of inquiring whether the train was the disaster they made it out to be, he remembered this and, with a wry smile, saved himself the trouble of asking a question. Thoughts about the train led him abruptly to Kiyoko. Thinking Even a woman can travel there and back by herself, he paid no further heed to the aimless conversation.

SHORTLY BEFORE the train arrived at their station, as the weather that had been a concern to all of them was beginning to clear, the rain on the verge of abating, Tsuda gazed up at the sky and beheld a bank of clouds sailing across it. On they came like a stampede passing the train overhead from the opposite direction. They bore down with no space separating one from the next as if they were in mutual pursuit. Presently patches within the moving bank that appeared wispier than the rest gradually expanded. One corner in particular appeared to be breaking up in the wind and about to allow a pale light to shine through.

Thankful that the weather appeared to be more kindly disposed toward him than he had anticipated, Tsuda got off the train and onto a streetcar just steps away, where he encountered again the two travelers from before. Seeing that, as he had imagined, they were after all traveling in the same direction as he and using the same transportation, he looked carefully at their hand luggage. But he saw nothing either large or bulky enough to have occasioned concern about getting wet in the rain. The elder at any rate appeared to have forgotten what he had said before.

“Looks like we’re in luck. That’s why I always say when you feel like leaving get up and go. Imagine how miserable we’d be if we’d of stayed home thinking if only we’d of known and feeling sorry for ourselves.”

“Exactly. But I wonder if the weather in Tokyo is as good as this right now?”

“No telling without you go back and have a look. We could always phone and ask. But I’ll wager it is — wherever you go in Japan, the weather’s about the same.”

Tsuda was amused. Just then the old man addressed him.

“I reckon you’re heading for the hot springs. I thought so the minute I saw you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yessir. When a man’s on his way to a spa, you can tell just by looking at him. Right?”

He turned to his companion sitting next to him.

“Exactly,” the fedora replied as if he had no choice.

Unable to suppress an uncomfortable smile at this display of clairvoyance, Tsuda tried to terminate the conversation, but the expansive elder wasn’t about to turn him loose.

“Seriously, though, traveling is so handy anymore. No matter where you’re going, you don’t need to bring nothing along but just yourself. It’s made to order for an impatient old geezer like me. Take this trip; except for my pouch here and that bag of the General’s, all I brought along is me own hide. Isn’t that so, General?”

Once again, the man who had been addressed as “General” had nothing more to say than “Exactly.” If this single piece of hand luggage couldn’t be brought aboard and had to be loaded on a baggage car to soak in the rain, the so-called narrow gauge would have to be either jammed with passengers or poorly designed beyond imagining. Tsuda considered inquiring but decided there was no point in asking now and remained silent.

After alighting from the streetcar, he lost sight of the two men. In the teahouse in front of the station, gazing at the assortment of color posters and gravures on the wall advertising one spa after the other as appealingly as possible, he took lunch. It was more than an hour past his usual lunchtime, and he attacked his tray hungrily. But his departure time was approaching. By the time he had put aside his chopsticks, it was time to board the narrow gauge.

The station at the beginning of the line was directly in front of the teahouse. Tsuda received his change from the waitress with his eye on the train, which appeared to be smaller than the trolley, and went outside at once. There was scarcely any distance between the ticket taker and the platform. A few strides carried him to the steps. Inside the car he encountered his fellow travelers yet again.

“Well met. Have a seat.”

The elder slid over for Tsuda, making room for him to spread out the lap blanket he carried over his arm.

“It’s nice and empty today.”

Describing with gusto and his usual effusiveness the milling crowd that rode this line to the hot springs at New Year’s and again in July and August to escape the heat, he turned to his companion.

“In season, it’s a sin to bring a woman along. For one thing their rear ends are too blessed big to fit in the seats. And they get drunk on you right away. We’re packed in here like sardines and they’re belching and puking; it’s enough to make a good man sick.”

He spoke as if oblivious of the young woman sitting next to him.

IT APPEARED that even here on the narrow gauge, Tsuda was not to be left in peace by this aging optimist. What would he find when he arrived at his destination? What attitude would he adopt in accordance with the circumstances? As considerations like these faded in and out of the scenes he conjured in his imagination — the inn, the surrounding mountains, whitewater streams — the elder roused him, rapping smartly at the door to his reveries.

“They’re still making do with a temporary bridge; you’d think they didn’t have a care in the world. Even so, them laborers are scrambling down there.”

When the elder had finished cursing the fact, implying that the railroad’s negligence was at fault, that the real bridge had yet to be replaced after a flood had washed it away a year ago, he called Tsuda’s attention to a newly constructed house at the mouth of a river that flowed into the sea.

“That house was washed away, too, but somebody didn’t waste no time rebuilding it. Put the railroad to shame.”

“They probably don’t want to lose this year’s summer guests.”

“Closed for the summer in these parts will set you back some, that’s for certain. Without greed it seems that nothing gets done in much of a rush. It’s the same with this narrow gauge; one way or another they’re making do with a temporary bridge so the company jumps on its high horse and won’t replace it.”

Tsuda was left with no choice but to fall into step alongside the elder’s view of life, but during lulls in the conversation he closed his eyes as if dozing and abandoned himself to his own thoughts. A series of random, fragmented images paraded back and forth across his mind: the expression on O-Nobu’s face that morning; the Yoshikawas’ houseboy at the station; the basket of fruit he had carried onto the train. He was aware of an impulse to open the basket and share Madam’s gift with the two travelers. But he pictured vividly the effort the gesture would cost him and their insufferably overdone expressions of gratitude on accepting his generosity. Thereupon the elder and the fedora abruptly vanished and in their place a shadow-puppet image of plump Madam Yoshikawa marched into his imagination. From there at once he leaped to Kiyoko, the focal point at the center of his destination. In tandem with the train, his heart lurched forward.

The conveyance hyperbolically deemed a train clanked and rattled perilously up the steep grade of a mountainside that rose directly above the sea and then in a twinkling had nosed into the mountains and was ascending and descending on its way. The tangerines planted in terraces on most of the slopes spread a colored carpet of warm southern autumn beneath the beautiful sky.

“They look delicious.”

“They’re sour as lemons. They look much better from here.”

As it was winding its way up a steep slope, the train suddenly stopped. There was no station in sight, only some scrub trees whitened by a dusting of frost.

“What happened?”

As the old man thrust his head out the window, the conductor and the engineer alighted and began a tense exchange.

“She derailed!”

Hearing this, the old man looked quickly at Tsuda and the fedora facing him.

“Wha’d I tell you! I had me a feeling something would happen”

With these oracular words, as if he felt the time for him to babble was at hand, the old man began to indulge his garrulousness excitedly.

“In the event, I drank a farewell cup when I left home this morning, so it ain’t as if I wasn’t prepared for the worst, but Benkei’s last stand on this mountain ain’t what I had in mind. But I’ll tell you what, we could all be in our graves before they get around to hauling us out of here. The days are short and so is my patience; I can’t just sit here cooling my heels. How about we all get off and give this trash can a push?”

As he spoke, the elder rose spryly and jumped out of the train. The others, with forced, uncomfortable smiles, also stood up. Tsuda, who could hardly remain sitting in the train by himself, alighted with the others. Groaning, they threw their weight against the train while the women stood behind on the yellow-colored turf, eyes wide and mouths gaping.

“Too far! We went too far!”

The car was pulled back. Then pushed forward again. After pushing and pulling, the wheels were finally reseated on the tracks.

“We’re late again, General. With help.”

“Help from who?”

“From this old narrow gauge, who else? ’Course, without a little something like this to wake us up, we’d sleep through life.”

“We came all this way for nothing.”

“You mought say that.”

Concerned about the time, Tsuda took leave of the vigorous elder at the station where he had been told to get off and stepped alone into the twilight.

THE IMAGE of the village that coalesced nebulously, enfolded in something that was neither distinguishably mist nor the color of night, appeared to be altogether a desolate dream. Gazing into the darkness that extended vastly beyond the reach of the flickering lights nearby, Tsuda felt that he was standing unmistakably in a dream.

I seem to be following this unending dream where it leads me. Since before I left Tokyo, strictly speaking since before Madam Yoshikawa suggested coming to this hot springs, for that matter since before I married O-Nobu — No, it goes back even further; the truth is I’ve been haunted by this seeming dream from the minute Kiyoko turned away from me. And here I am, pursuing it. I can see in hindsight that I’ve been carrying this dream with me all this while, now I must wonder whether I’ll awaken from it the minute I reach my destination. Madam Yoshikawa thinks so. And since I’m on this journey because I agreed with her, I must share her opinion. But will that turn out to be a fact? Will my dream vanish without a trace? Can it be that I’m standing in the middle of this desolate village as insubstantial as a dream for no other reason than my certainty it will? The eaves so low they enter my vision, the narrow road that appears to have been paved with gravel only recently, the faint shadows cast by naked bulbs, the thatched roofs beginning to sag, the one-horse carriage with its yellow hood down, and, rendering this configuration that might be ancient or new the more dreamlike to me, the chill of the night in my bones and the darkness — might this blur of impressions symbolize the destiny I’ve brought with me all this way? A dream until now, the present a dream, what lies ahead a dream that I’ll take back with me to Tokyo. There’s no guarantee this whole affair won’t end that way. On the contrary, it very likely will! Then why did I set out from Tokyo in the rain and come all this way? Because I am, after all, a fool? If only that were clear, that I am a fool, I could turn back even from here—

This reflection occurred all at once. In just seconds the entire sequence with its own logic, the parts interlocked as though in an embrace, traversed his mind embedded in a reverie. But just seconds later he was no longer his own master. Out of nowhere a young man suddenly appeared and took his luggage. Before he knew it, the youth had dragged him into a tea shop on the street and in a brief space of busy time had ascertained, with a degree of charm Tsuda found surprising, at which inn he was booked and whether he preferred a rickshaw or a horse and carriage.

Shortly he was escorted to a carriage with the canvas hood lowered. He was surprised yet again to discover that the passenger who took a seat opposite him with a murmured “By your leave” was the same young man.

“You’re going, too?”

“If you wouldn’t mind—”

The young man turned out to be the hostler at Tsuda’s inn.

“We have our banner.”

Craning his neck, Tsuda glanced at the red banner thrust into a corner of the coachman’s seat. In the dark he couldn’t make out the crest. The banner flapped noisily in the wind created by the speed of the carriage, streaming back in Tsuda’s direction. He hunched his shoulders and raised the collar of his coat.

“The nights are getting a mite colder.”

As the hostler was sitting with his back to the coachman’s platform and taking none of the wind in his face, the remark struck Tsuda as somehow impertinent.

He had the feeling there were paddies on both sides of the road. And he thought he could hear from time to time the sound of a stream running between the road and the paddies. He also sensed that the paddies were sharply hemmed in by mountains on both sides.

Baring to the wind only that portion of his face he was unable to cover between his hat and his overcoat, Tsuda fell silent and purposely closed his eyes as if he were bracing himself against the cold. The young man, apparently finding this easier himself, made no effort to break the silence.

All of a sudden, Tsuda felt a tremor in his heart.

“Are there lots of guests?”

“By your leave, quite a number.”

“About how many?”

The youth’s reply, which didn’t include a number, was, if anything, defensive.

“Right now, being it’s this time of year, we’re not so full. Around New Year’s and then again in summer, July and August anyway, that’s when we’re really busy. At times like that we have to turn guests away if they show up without a reservation.”

“So it’s slow just now?”

Yes — please stay as long as you like.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you staying with us because you’ve been ill?”

“You could say that.”

His purpose had been to inquire about Kiyoko, but having come this far he suddenly faltered. He felt embarrassed. He couldn’t bear to say her name. On top of that it occurred to him it might cause trouble later. Turning away from the young man and leaning back against the carriage seat, he closed his eyes again.

PRESENTLY THE carriage approached a large boulder darkly obstructing the road and had to veer sharply around its base. It appeared that the opposite bank of the river was also blocked by what might have a fragment of the same rock. The coachman, who had jumped down from his perch, took hold of the horse’s bridle.

On one side a large tree soared so high it blocked the sky. This giant, which, judging from the enormous shadow it cast in the moonlight, appeared to be an ancient pine, and the sound of a rapids that had become abruptly audible, induced in Tsuda, who had not been outside the city in a long while, an unexpected change in mood. It was as if a forgotten memory had been recalled.

So things like this always existed in the world; how can I have forgotten until now?

Unfortunately this moment of nostalgia did not arise and fade in isolation. An image of the woman he was on his way to meet promptly traced itself in his mind. Nearly a year had passed since they had separated, and in all that time he was not aware of having forgotten her for even a minute. And what was he doing now, swaying down a night road in this carriage, if not single-mindedly pursuing her shadow? The coachman, lamentably, as if he were afraid of running late, had been lashing the horse’s skinny rump with his intemperate whip for some time. How was he himself, Tsuda wondered, pursuing his memory of the woman he had lost, any different from this bony nag? And if this miserable animal snorting through his nose was himself, then who was applying a harsh whip? Madam Yoshikawa? No, that was too black and white. Was it himself, then? Preferring to avoid a precise conclusion, Tsuda tossed the question aside but was unable to avoid moving beyond it in his thoughts.

Why am I going to meet her? To remember her forever? But haven’t I remembered her until now without a meeting? To forget her, then? Maybe that’s it. But will I be able to forget her once we meet? Maybe, maybe not. Just now the color of the pines and the sound of the water put me in mind of mountains and valleys I had completely forgotten. How will I be affected by this woman I absolutely haven’t forgotten, the woman who dances in my imagination, the woman I’ve followed here from Tokyo?

In the chill mountain air, Tsuda felt his existence being swallowed up by the same color of night that was blurring the mountains mysteriously, and he was afraid. He felt horrified.

With his hand still on the horse’s bridle, the coachman made his way carefully across the bridge that spanned the rapids, dashing white foam against the rocks as they roared below. As they cleared the bridge, Tsuda made out a number of lights and assumed they had arrived. He even considered the possibility that one of those lights might even now be shining on Kiyoko.

Those lights are beacons. I have no choice but to follow them to my destiny.

Tsuda was hardly a poet; these words wouldn’t have come to him normally. But there was no other way of describing what he felt. He leaned forward toward the youth.

“It seems we’ve arrived. Which place is yours?”

“It’s just ahead.”

The road through the hot-springs village was so narrow the carriage could barely pass. Moreover, it wound and twisted through the village in an irregular way that seemed intentional and prevented the coachman, back on his seat, from using his whip. Even so, it took only five or six minutes to reach the inn. There wasn’t much to the village, not against the vastness of the mountains and valleys.

As the hostler had predicted, the inn was hushed. It wasn’t the lateness of the hour or the size of the building; this was a quietness that could be explained only by a virtual absence of guests, and when Tsuda had been shown to his own room he felt glad of the happy coincidence that had brought him here at just the right season. By natural inclination he would have chosen to be among people, but he had an agenda.

“Is it this way during the day?” he inquired of the maid facing him across his supper tray.

“Yes.”

“The place feels empty.”

The maid, referring to the “new wing,” “the annex,” and “the main building,” explained the silence.

“It’s that big? It seems you’d lose your way without a map.”

Tsuda had to ascertain Kiyoko’s whereabouts. But he was no more able to put a direct question to the maid than to be straightfor ward with the hostler.

“I suppose there aren’t many people who come alone? To a place like this.”

“Some do.”

“Men, I suppose. I can’t imagine a woman staying here by herself.”

“We have someone now.”

“You don’t say. Is she sick, I wonder?”

“She might be.”

“What’s her name?”

Because it wasn’t one of her rooms, the maid didn’t know.

“Is she young?”

“Oh, yes, and beautiful.”

“Is that so? I’d like to see for myself.”

“She passes by here on her way to the baths. You can see her anytime.”

“Excellent.”

When he had learned which direction the woman’s room was in, Tsuda had the maid take the tray away.

THINKING TO have a quick soak before he went to bed, he asked the maid to show him the way to the baths and realized only then that the size of the place was as she had described it. Turning down unexpected hallways and descending sudden flights of stairs, when he finally reached the tubs he wondered if he would be able to return to his room by himself.

The baths were partitioned by boards and glass doors into several areas; there were six small tubs, three on the left facing three on the right, and a large tub a little apart that was more than twice the size of a normal public bath.

“This here is the largest and the best,” the maid said, rattling open the door inset with frosted glass. There was no one inside. Possibly to prevent steam from accumulating, the transom was fitted with a glass shutter; the draft of night air entering through the half-opened space beneath the ceiling struck Tsuda’s body as he was removing his padded jacket and reminded him that he was in a mountain village.

“That’s cold.”

Tsuda jumped into the tub with a splash.

“Please take your time.”

About to close the door to the bath on her way out, the maid came back in.

“There’s another tub downstairs; you can also use that one if you like.”

Having descended one or two flights of steps on his way here, Tsuda had trouble imagining there could still be a downstairs.

“How many floors is this place?”

Smiling, the maid didn’t answer. But she didn’t hesitate to inform him what she thought he needed to know.

“Being this one is new, it’s nicer, but they say the springs downstairs is better for your health. Most of our guests who are really here for treatment go downstairs. And downstairs you can massage your shoulders and back under the falls.”

Submerged in the tub to his neck, Tsuda replied.

“Thanks. That’s where I’ll go from now on, so please take me there next time.”

“I will — is something ailing you?”

“A bit, yes.”

For some time after the maid had left, Tsuda was unable to forget what she had said, “our guests who are really here for treatment.”

Does that include me?

He wanted to think of himself that way, and then again he preferred not to. In his heart he was aware of his purpose in being here. But having come all this way through the rain, he perceived there was still bargaining room. There was hesitation. A certain latitude remained. It told him something.

This can still go either way. If you want to be a guest who’s serious about treatment, you can be. At this point, old boy, you’re still free to decide. And you’ll never tire of freedom. On the other hand, with freedom nothing ever gets resolved, which keeps you unsatisfied. Will you toss your freedom away, then? But when you’ve lost it, what will you be able to take firm hold of? Do you know? Your future has yet to reveal itself. What if it holds many times more wonder than the single skein of mystery in your past? You want to dispel that mystery in the past in order to secure the future that you want, and to achieve that you contemplate throwing away your freedom in the present — does that make you clever or a fool?

Tsuda couldn’t reach a conclusion either way. And the inevitable consequence of letting everything be determined by the outcome was that, in the moment when he began to question that outcome, he would have already bound himself helplessly hand and foot.

From the beginning there had been only three paths open to him. Just three and no others. The first was to stew forever without a resolution while preserving his current freedom; the second was to advance without caring if he played the fool; the third, the route he had his eye on, was to obtain a resolution that satisfied him without playing the fool.

He had set out from Tokyo with only the third path in mind. But having rattled along on a train and swayed down the road in a carriage, been chilled in the mountain air and soaked in a steaming tub, he had finally discovered that the person he sought was actually within reach, and as he perceived that the moment had at last arrived when, as early as the next day, he would begin to execute his plan, the first path had appeared to him. Then, before he knew it, the second was also there, beckoning him with a wan smile. They had showed up abruptly. But not clamorously. The haze that had obscured his field of vision had blown away with no sound of the dispelling wind, and his sight was of a sudden assured and reasonable.

Unexpectedly romantic, Tsuda was also unexpectedly staid. And he was unaware of the opposition between these two aspects of himself. There was accordingly no reason the contradiction should trouble him. He need only decide. But before he could reach a decision, he had to go to battle with himself. Play the fool and pay no mind? No, he hated being a fool. But there was no need. His resolve had been won in battle; now it must break down once again into three parts and come tumbling all the way down before he could rise to his full height.

Alone in the large tub, Tsuda splashed and scrubbed himself in the clean water from the hot spring.

JUST THEN, oblivious of his surroundings, his gaze directed inwardly, he was startled by the sound of the glass door rattling open. Without thinking, he lifted his head and glanced at the entrance. When he made out through the steam the figure of a woman just partly revealed in the doorway, his heart rang like an alarm bell. But this instant of presentiment faded in the next. This was not the woman who had come to surprise him in the true sense.

Appearing to be ready for bed, this young woman, whom Tsuda couldn’t recall ever having seen, appeared before him clothed in a manner that would have drawn disapproval in broad daylight for insufficient modesty. Her long slip, normally an undergarment entirely hidden beneath the kimono, confronted him unabashedly with its garish colors.

Seeing Tsuda squatting naked in the steam like a beggar, the woman immediately drew back.

“Oh. Sorry!”

Tsuda felt he had been beaten to an apology he should have offered himself. Just then he heard again the sound of slippers coming down the stairs. No sooner had the slippers halted outside the glass door than a conversation between a man and woman commenced.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s someone in there.”

“What about it. As long as it’s not crowded.”

“But—”

“Let’s use a private one, then. They’re probably empty.”

“Where’s Katsu-san, I wonder?”

Tsuda was inclined to finish quickly so the couple could come in. At the same time, something he detected in the woman’s attitude, an insistence that no other tub would do but the one he was using, annoyed him. If you want to bathe in here come ahead, no need to stand on ceremony, he thought to himself, screwing up his courage, and lowered his body into the tub again.

He was a tall man. Extending his long legs luxuriously, he moved them up and down and took pleasure in observing the flesh of his lower limbs rise and sink in the limpid water.

Abruptly a second man spoke, evidently the Katsu-san the woman had been looking for.

“Good evening. You’re so early today.”

It was the man who replied.

“We’re bored, so we thought we might as well go to bed early.”

“Is that so? Have you finished practicing?”

“I wouldn’t say finished exactly.”

The next words were the woman’s.

“Katsu-san, there’s someone in there.”

“There is?”

“Isn’t there a fresh tub?”

“Of course — it might be a little hot yet.”

From down the hall came the sound of another door opening, presumably to the bath Katsu had led them to. Almost at once the door at the entrance to Tsuda’s tub rattled open again.

“Good evening.”

So saying, a small man with a square face entered the room.

“Shall I do your back, Boss?”

Stepping down at once to the sink, he filled a small bucket with hot water from the springs. Tsuda was obliged to present his back to him.

“You must be Katsu-san?”

“One and the same, Boss — how did you know?”

“I heard you mentioned just now.”

“I see. I don’t recollect I’ve seen you down here before.”

“I just got here.”

“Ah!” Katsu exclaimed again and laughed.

“From Tokyo?”

“Right.”

Using words like “inbound” and “outbound,” Katsu pursued a more precise answer. He followed with other questions — Had he come alone? Why hadn’t he brought his wife along? — and provided sundry information: the couple just now were silk-thread dealers from Yokohama; evenings, the wife gave her husband a lesson in puppet theater recitation; his own old lady was a skilled singer of traditional songs. Having been told more than he needed to hear, it seemed to Tsuda that Katsu-san had touched on every subject but one. That subject was of course Ki-yoko. This was more than a little disappointing. But he wasn’t equipped with a means of coaching the man, and in any event before there was time Katsu-san, having run on about this and that, had finished washing and rinsing his back.

“Please take your time.”

Watching Katsu leave the bath, Tsuda felt no need to stay longer. He toweled himself dry and stepped outside. But when he had climbed the stairs with the wet towel in his hand, passed the sink and the mirror at the top, and turned once down a corridor, he realized, as he had feared, that he had lost his way back to his room.

AT FIRST he had walked along scarcely noticing. He wasn’t even certain whether he had passed this way before with the maid; the blurred memory was part of a pale d ream. But when he had failed to arr ive anywhere that seemed even vaguely to resemble his room, notwithstanding the distance he had traveled down one hallway after another, he stopped short.

Hold on. Can I have passed it? Or is it just ahead?

The halls were brightly lit. He was able to proceed in any direction he liked. But there was no sound of footsteps to be heard anywhere. There were no maids to be seen hurrying back and forth. Putting down his towel and soap, he tried clapping his hands as he did in his study at home when he wished to summon O-Nobu. But there was no response from any direction. Unfamiliar with the premises, he had no idea in which direction he might find the maids’ room. As he had come in through an entrance at the back of a thickly planted garden, indistinguishable from the front entrance of a private residence, the locations of the front desk or the kitchen or the service entrance were as good as secrets from him.

When he had tried clapping several times and confirmed that no one was responding, he retrieved his towel and soap with a faint smile. He began to feel amused. Perhaps circling around and around until in the end he came to his room was a kind of adventure. In the spirit of someone intentionally savoring an experience he had never had at an inn, he began to walk again.

The hallway came abruptly to an end; up two or three steps at an angle were more sinks. Into four glittering metal basins in a row, water that was piped either from the mountain or directly from the hot spring was running in an uninterrupted stream from nickel-plated faucets; not only were the basins full, but a thin film of overflow like colorful crystal was constantly running down the sides. The surface of the water in the basins, subtly agitated by the incoming stream, trembled minutely.

Tsuda was accustomed to using tap water, and his eyes quickly tricked him into forgetting where he was. His only thought was that water was being wasted. He was on the verge of turning the faucets off when he became aware of his own misapprehension. At the same time he felt strangely stirred by the irregular eddying on the surface of the water in the white enamel basins.

How quiet it was! Just as the maid had said as she served him his supper. More precisely, the reality itself affirmed her words, though in fact it was far quieter than he had imagined at the time. It wasn’t simply a matter of thinking it odd that no guests were in evidence; one had to wonder if the place were deserted. In the silence the electric lights illuminated every corner. But this was merely light; there was neither sound nor movement. Only the water in the basins moved. It circled like an eddy, rippling across the surface and folding in on itself as he watched, as if it were breathing.

He looked away from the water and encountered abruptly the figure of another person. Startled, he narrowed his gaze and peered. But it was only an image of himself, reflected in a mirror hanging alongside the sinks. It wasn’t full length, but it was large, at least as long as the mirrors in a barber shop. It was also, like a barber’s mirror, due to the space it occupied, perpendicular: not only his head but his shoulders and trunk and hips as well were reflected back at him in the same plane as he was standing. Even after he had recognized that he was facing an image of himself, he was unable to avert his eyes. Though he was fresh from the hot bath, he looked pale. He couldn’t understand how that could be. His hair, badly in need of a haircut and disheveled, covered his head like a mop. Having just been soaked in the tub, it glistened like lacquer. For some reason it put him in mind of a garden in the aftermath of a violent storm.

He was handsome, with regular features. The skin of his face had a silky abundance that was wasted on a man. He was inveterately confi-dent about his looks. He couldn’t remember ever glancing in a mirror and failing to confirm his confidence. He was therefore a little surprised to observe something in this refection that struck him as less than satisfying. Before he had determined that the image was himself, he was assailed by the feeling that he was looking at his own ghost. Horrified, he resisted. He widened his eyes and studied the reflection even more closely. Stepping closer, he picked up the comb in front of the mirror. He combed his hair carefully, composing himself.

When he finished with the comb and threw it down, the spell was broken; he was looking for his room as before. Glancing up the stairs facing the sinks, he perceived something distinctively different about them. The steps were a third wider than usual. And they were built so sturdily it seemed they wouldn’t creak even if an elephant ascended them. Moreover, unlike ordinary stairs, they were thickly varnished as if they belonged in an imitation Western building.

No matter how inattentive he may have been, Tsuda was certain he had not come down these stairs on his way to the baths. Realizing that ascending them was not the way back and resolved to retrace his steps once again, he turned away from the mirror.

JUST THEN he heard a shoji door being slid open and closed again on the second floor. Judging from the imposing stairway, the rooms upstairs in this large building seemed likely to number more than two or three, yet the sound had reached Tsuda with a distinct immediacy that allowed him to gauge the distance of the room from where he stood. Immediately at the top of the stairs there appeared to be the sort of sizable room with a wood floor commonly seen in restaurants and other similar establishments. He couldn’t determine its width from below, but judging by the wall at the back it appeared easily deep enough to accommodate the long side of a tatami mat, about six feet. Without ascending the stairs, there was no telling whether the hall twisted in three directions or simply moved down either side of the room, but it seemed certain that the sound of the shoji must have issued from the room immediately behind the wall and accordingly closest to the stairs.

Hearing this sound suddenly in the silence that had resumed, Tsuda understood for the first time that there were also guests upstairs. More precisely, he became aware finally of the existence of another human being. Until this moment his attention had been intently focused elsewhere, in a different direction, and he was surprised. It was of course mild surprise. But in its nature it was akin to surprise at seeing someone thought dead coming suddenly back to life. Tsuda wanted to flee. The impulse had partly to do with his reluctance to reveal the witless-ness that had kept him wandering the halls in search of his own room; moreover, truth be told, he was ashamed to expose the ugliness he sensed in himself for allowing his surprise to unseat him even a little.

But the natural course of the event didn’t allow for simple flight. As he turned on his heel a thought occurred.

It could very well be the maid.

This newly considered possibility restored his courage at once. Having transcended his surprise, he found that he was no longer concerned in the least if it was a guest or otherwise.

I don’t care who it is, when she comes down I’ll ask the way to my room.

Resolved, he peered up the stairway from where he stood alongside the mirror. As he did so, he heard soft footsteps coming from just behind the wall as he had imagined. The steps were quiet, so quiet he wouldn’t have detected them but for the slapping of the slipper against the heel. At that moment something in his heart lurched.

This is a woman. But she’s not a maid. For all I know…

Even as the thought passed, the very person he had supposed it might be appeared above him ineluctably; in the grip of surprise ten times more powerful than a minute ago he stopped, rooted to the spot. Not even his eyes moved.

A similar emotion seemed to have assaulted Kiyoko with even more virulence. As she reached the wooden floor and halted there, she became for Tsuda a kind of painting. The impression he received would remain engraved on his heart.

Lowering her gaze innocently enough from the top of the stairs and recognizing Tsuda appeared to occur at once and yet were not truly simultaneous. Not at least as Tsuda perceived them. Between oblivion and discovery, time elapsed. There was a progression of feelings from surprise past amazement to disbelief before she finally stiffened. Brought up short in her tracks, she stood there so rigidly it appeared that a single finger thrust at her shoulder from the side might topple her as if she were a clay figurine.

Apparently intending like most guests staying here for treatment to warm herself with a quick bath before going to bed, she was carrying a small towel. Like Tsuda, she also had with her a nickel soap holder with no cover. Later, revisiting the moment, Tsuda would remember wondering why, standing there so rigidly, she hadn’t dropped it to the floor.

Kiyoko wasn’t dressed as carelessly as the woman he had encountered at the bath a while ago. She had, however, availed herself of the freedom guests at a place like this tacitly agree to allow one another. She wasn’t wearing a proper obi. Instead, she had wrapped around her waist a brightly colored sash of pretty red and yellow stripes. She had stepped into a pair of thin wool slippers, and the long undergarment she was wearing beneath her night dress brushed the tops of her naked feet.

As her body stiffened, the muscles in her face also tensed. And the color in her cheeks and forehead visibly drained. In the midst of observing this distinct transformation, Tsuda snapped out of his trance.

I’d better do something! She looks ready to faint!

He resolved to call out to her. But just then she came to life. Whirling around, she moved away. No sooner had she disappeared down the hall, leaving Tsuda below, than the light at the top of the stairs that had brightly illuminated her suddenly went out. Tsuda heard again what must have been the shoji door being opened in the dark. At the same time, in a small room he hadn’t noticed next to where he was standing, a guest bell rang ear-splittingly.

A minute later, he heard the sound of footsteps hurrying lightly down a distant hall. It was a maid responding to a summons from Kiyoko. Intercepting her, Tsuda asked for directions to his room.

THAT NIGHT he had trouble sleeping. He was bothered by the sound of water, an incessant plash and patter outside the rain shutters. Unable to shut it out, he wondered what it was. Had it begun to rain? Was a mountain stream running past the building? But if it were rain he would be hearing it on the eaves, and the sound was too gentle to be the rushing of a stream — even as he considered possibilities, his mind was troubled by a more important question.

Discovering that the provident maid had taken quick advantage of his absence to lay out his mattress and bedding, he had burrowed under the covers at once and submerged in thoughts about his accidental adventure. Looking back, it seemed to him that he had been very nearly sleepwalking. It was as if he had spent the time wandering the inn without purpose. His behavior at the bottom of the stairs in particular, observing the water eddy in the basin in the stillness and studying the uncomfortable image of himself in the mirror appeared, even at a distance of only a brief hour, to have been a function of what would have to be called an abnormal mental state. Unused to being abandoned by common sense, Tsuda, lying comfortably in his bedding, reflected on what for him had been an anomalous moment and felt embarrassed. Aside from how bad this might have looked to others, he was unable to explain to himself how he had come to feel as he had.

Whatever the answer to that question, when he moved on to wondering how he had managed to forget about Kiyoko’s existence at that time, he couldn’t avoid being struck by an odd feeling.

Can it be that I’m indifferent to her?

He was confident it wasn’t so. He had inquired of the maid where she was staying in the inn before he had finished his supper.

Nevertheless, old boy, you weren’t thinking about her.

It was a fact that, somewhere along the way in his wandering, he had shaken Kiyoko off. But how could a man with no idea where he is going be expected to know someone else’s whereabouts?

If only I’d been aware of the general direction; I wouldn’t have been caught off guard.

The thought led him to the feeling that he had already let slip his first opportunity. To be sure her appearance, the way she had turned her back, discouraging him from ascending the stairs by switching off the light, the sound of the bell she had rung at once to summon the maid, what was all this if not a warning? An admonition. A severing of ties.

Yet she had been surprised. Far more surprised than he. The simple explanation might be that she was a woman. It was also possible that, while his surprise had been mitigated by a certain expectation, she had experienced abruptness and nothing else. But was that all there was to say about her surprise? Mightn’t it also be that she had felt confronted by her complex past?

She had paled. She had turned rigid. Tsuda yoked his hope to this. He essayed an interpretation that suited him at the moment. Then he turned his interpretation over and examined it from the other side. After a careful look at both sides, he had to judge which was rational. Insufficient data made it hard to arrive at a determination. Each conclusion was quickly invalidated. When he was tending one way, his self-confidence intervened. When he tilted in the other, a fire gong of disillusionment clanged in his ear. Oddly enough his confidence, what he referred to invidiously as his vanity, seemed to reside inside him. In contrast, the clanging fire gong of disillusionment seemed to assail him from outside his mind. Though he intended to consider them both without bias, he couldn’t help distinguishing between the intimate and the removed. Perhaps it was rather the case that near and distant were natural attributes, intrinsic to each respectively. The result was inevitable. Admonishing self-love, he stroked its head; peeling his ears, he cursed the sound of the gong.

With these thoughts pursuing each other back and forth across his mind, Tsuda was unable to fall peacefully asleep. Resolving to revisit everything in the morning, he tried to summon sleep but could only toss and turn to no avail.

About to smoke a cigarette, he reached for the box of matches next to his pillow and noticed the quilted jacket the maid had folded and hung on the kimono rack on her way out of the room. He realized it was the jacket O-Nobu had packed for him; he had crawled into bed still wearing the one provided by the inn. He recalled the flattery he had used as they were leaving the clinic to thank O-Nobu for the jacket she had made for him. And he remembered her reply.

“Try comparing them and see which is better.”

Not surprisingly, the jacket provided by the inn was superior. Even Tsuda could tell at a glance the difference between something woven with synthetic thread and pure silk fabric. Comparing the jackets, he summoned to the stage of his memory his secret thought in his wife’s presence at the time.

O-Nobu and Kiyoko.

Speaking the words aloud to himself, he crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and, hearing it hiss, pulled the comforter up over his head.

It was only as his determination and efforts to sleep disappeared somewhere in exhaustion that they were finally rewarded. At last, unaware, Tsuda fell deeply into a dream.

ON THE verge of shattering when a man entered the room and threw open the rain shutters early in the morning, his dream managed to sustain itself in the space between deep sleep and waking. When he finally rose from his bed as the sun was lifting in the sky and the light flooding the room was making sleep impossible, his eyes were heavy. Cleaning his teeth with a toothpick, he slid open the shoji. With the eyes of man who has at last awakened from a domain haunted by demons in which he had been trapped since the night before, he surveyed the scene outside.

The garden in front of his room appeared out of place in a mountain village. The landscaping, an irregularly shaped, artificial pond with young pines and azaleas and the like installed around it in predictable places, was more vulgar than merely commonplace. From the miniature mountain near his room, water piped from a real mountain spring emptied into the pond like a diminutive waterfall; there was even a fountain that gushered into the air like fireworks in five or six modestly sized plumes. Observing with a mirthless smile what was unmistakably the source of the noise that had troubled his sleep, Tsuda was led at once to thoughts of Kiyoko, who had distressed him infinitely more than the sound of the water. What if their connection turned out to be in essence the same lackluster affair as the fountain, just as meaningless? That would be intolerable.

With the toothpick still between his teeth and his hands thrust into his robe, he was musing at the threshold of his room when the young man who had been sweeping leaves in the garden with a bamboo broom approached and greeted him politely.

“Morning. That was a tiring journey.”

“You’re the fellow who rode with me in the carriage?”

“By your leave—”

“It really is quiet, just as you said. And this place is endless.”

“Not really. As you can see, there’s hardly any flat land, so they kept digging out and building and building some more on levels. The halls, though, I’m afraid they’re like you say, endless.”

“I got lost on my way back from the bath last night — I was in a panic.”

“That’ll happen.”

While this exchange was in progress, a man and woman were coming down from the hill just beyond the garden. To ease the relatively steep pitch of the hillside, the trail descended through brilliant maples and withered trees in switchbacks, so that even after the couple was in sight it took a while for them to emerge at the entrance to the garden. The young hostler, who knew a generous tipper when he saw one, didn’t stand around waiting. Leaving Tsuda behind without a backward glance, he dashed to the bottom of the hill and greeted the other guests as if he had been waiting to welcome them when they appeared.

Tsuda had a good look at their faces for the first time. He nearly failed to recognize the woman, who had let down the large knot of hair piled atop her head the last time he had seen her and reset it in a normal hairdo, but this was unquestionably the female who had opened the door to his bath in her seductive state of semidress the night before. Her male companion he knew only by his voice; under cover of the distance separating them, he examined his face for the first time. He wore a mustache, closely cropped in the style of the day, and there was an aura about him that somehow confirmed what the bath attendant had said, that he was a merchant. Something in his countenance put Tsuda instantly in mind of O-Hide’s husband, Hori Shōtarō, slightly abbreviated “Hori the Shō-san,” and further shortened “Hori-shō,” a nickname Hori himself often used that seemed to accord perfectly with his brother-in-law’s manner. He imagined that this fellow, too, must have a nickname so redolent of the merchant class it would overpower his high-faluting mustache. Tsuda’s speculation based on a single glance didn’t stop there. Advancing a step further into cynicism, he wondered whether this was truly a married couple. With that question in mind, he sensed something incongruous about the domesticity of their morning as they described it, a walk following a bath after rising early. Tsuda was still standing as before, working on his teeth with his toothpick. Though he was observing them at a distance, the conversation, which included the hostler, was distinctly audible.

“Is there anything the matter with the lady in the annex today?” the woman inquired. The hostler replied.

“No, Ma’am, not that I know of. Is there anything—”

“Nothing special. But we always see her at morning bath, and she wasn’t there today.”

“Is that so? It could be she’s still asleep?”

“Maybe. But we always take morning bath at the same time.”

“I see.”

“And this morning we had a date to walk into the hills together.”

“Shall I go and remind her?”

“It doesn’t matter now — we’ve already been on our walk. I just thought I’d ask you if maybe she wasn’t feeling well.”

“I think she’s probably still asleep. On the other hand—”

“Never mind about the other hand. You don’t have to be so serious, I was just asking.”

The couple moved away.

With his mouth full of tooth powder, Tsuda ventured into the hall to search for the bath he had used the night before.

BUT THIS morning he was spared the necessity of a search. When he had made his way downstairs to the bath without a misstep despite some confusing twists and turns, he was overtaken anew by a sense of how ridiculously he’d been acting since the night before.

Through the glass transom installed beneath the eaves, the strong sunlight of an autumn morning was pouring into the room. Glancing up through the glass above his head, Tsuda could just make out what might have been a rock or an embankment and realized that the tub he was soaking in was below ground. The difference in height between the bath and the cliff outside was considerable. From what he could see, he judged it to be some ten or twelve feet, which meant, inasmuch as he had heard there was an older bath below him, that the inn had been built on multiple levels.

Silverleafs were growing on top of the cliff. Unfortunately the morning sun wasn’t shining there, and the hard sheen of the flowers as they swayed occasionally in the wind made them appear icy cold. Camellias were also visible from the tub as they dropped from the bush and scattered. But the scenery was fragmented. Outside the two feet of view permitted by the glass, Tsuda could see nothing above or below. The vista unknown to him was bound to be ordinary. And yet for some reason it piqued his curiosity. A bird had suddenly begun to warble, a bulbul judging by its melodic song, and hearing it just outside at the cliff but unable to see it, Tsuda felt somehow dissatisfied.

But this dissatisfaction was a mere afterthought. The truth was, from the moment he had come downstairs to the bath, he had been playing over in his mind the incident from the previous night and was as a consequence submerged in a far deeper sense of dissatisfaction. Finding the sunlit bathing room deserted, he had stood in the desolate hallway of the bathing area and just to be sure, as if he were within his rights to do exactly as he pleased, had opened each of the doors to the small tubs lined up on both sides. Possibly he had been prompted to try this by the pair of slippers that had been left in front of one of the doors. But when he came finally to the tightly closed door with the slippers in front of it, he hesitated. He wasn’t unaware of what he was about. He was moreover disinclined to be rude. At a loss for what to do, he strained to hear from outside the door, and the silence inside empowered his hand to turn the handle and push it boldly open. Encountering a private tub as empty as all the others, he experienced relief and disappointment at the same time.

Naked now and soaking in the tub, he had been left in the aftermath of his experiment with an incessant sense of anticipation. With a mirthless smile, he tried comparing himself before and after the change he had undergone since the previous evening. Last night, until the woman with the upswept hair had walked in on him, he had been, if anything, innocent. This morning, before anyone had appeared, he felt a kind of tension that came from lying in wait.

Perhaps the unidentified slippers had incited him to this transgression. But if the slippers had churned him, it was because on arising he had overheard talk of Kiyoko in the banter between the woman from Yokohama and the hostler. She was still in bed. Or at least she hadn’t taken her bath yet. If she were intending to bathe, she would have to be bathing now or on her way here, one or the other.

Tsuda’s keen hearing detected abruptly the sound of someone coming down the stairs. He stopped splashing water on himself. Whereupon the footsteps stopped. Perhaps he was imagining things; it seemed to him that when they resumed a second later they were moving in the opposite direction, back up the stairs. He thought he could imagine why. He wondered if the problem mightn’t be that he had left his slippers outside the door as he had seen others do. Why hadn’t he worn them inside? he asked himself regretfully.

A minute later he was surprised to hear footsteps again, this time outside the building. Both sets of footsteps were immediately connected in his imagination. It came to him easily that the person who had avoided the bath had subsequently gone outside on purpose. Just then he heard a woman’s voice. But this issued from an entirely different direction. From what he could see outside looking up from below, the cliff leveled off at the top, and it appeared that an annex facing the baths had been built on this patch of level ground. At any rate, the voice was coming from that direction. It belonged unmistakably to the woman who had been discussing Kiyoko with the hostler a while ago on her way back from a walk.

The glass transom beneath the eaves that had been ajar last evening to let steam escape was tightly closed this morning, and as a result the woman’s words reached Tsuda indistinctly. But judging from the way she was lifting her voice, one thing was certain: she was standing on the top of the cliff calling out to someone below. In the order of things, some sort of acknowledgment was to be expected from the base of the cliff. Strangely enough, there was no response; the alternating remarks of a normal conversation did not occur. The only talking came from the top of the cliff.

But this time the footsteps did not stop as they had before. Tsuda heard the sound of garden clogs treading irregular stone steps as a woman, unmistakably a woman, ascended the path. About the time she should have been nearing the top, a portion of her skirt appeared in the upper part of the glass transom. It was gone at once. The momentary impression Tsuda retained was the fluttering of a beautiful pattern. In that pattern as it moved out of sight he had the impression he recognized colors he had seen from the bottom of the stairs the night before.

RETURNING TO his room, he sat down to his breakfast and engaged the maid who was serving him in conversation.

“Are those guests from Yokohama staying on top of the cliff I can see from the new bath?”

“Yes, did you have a look?”

“No, I just thought they might be.”

“You guessed right. Why not drop in? They’re both charming, Mr. and Missus.”

“They’ve been here a while?”

“Just ten days.”

“And they’re the ones who sing?”

“You seem to know everything. Have you heard them?”

“Not yet. Katsu-san told me.”

The maid provided answers unhesitatingly to whatever Tsuda asked, but she understood boundaries. When he touched the quick of the matter she deflected his question.

“What’s the story with that woman?”

“She’s his wife.”

“His real wife?”

“I imagine so.” The maid laughed. “I don’t guess she’s an imitation wife; why do you ask?”

“Isn’t she a bit saucy for a housewife?”

Instead of replying, the maid abruptly offered Kiyoko as a comparison.

“The lady staying in the back is more refined.”

The layout of the rooms was such that Kiyoko was behind him. The man and woman from Yokohama were staying in what amounted to the front.

“So I’m midway between the two,” Tsuda said, finally realizing.

Even so, since his room was slightly recessed it wasn’t on the way for either of them.

“Is that lady friends with the couple?”

“They’re on good terms.”

“From before?”

“I wonder — I wouldn’t know that. But most likely they became acquainted after they came here. They’re back and forth all day long; they don’t have much to do. Just yesterday they went to the park together.”

Tsuda reeled the conversation in.

“I wonder why that lady is here alone.”

“She needs to recover a bit.”

“What about her husband?”

“They came together, but he left right away.”

“He abandoned her? That wasn’t very nice. He hasn’t been back since?”

“There was something about coming back right away — I don’t know what happened.”

“She must be bored — the wife.”

“Why don’t you drop in on her for a chat?”

“Would that be all right? Ask her when you get a chance.”

“I could do that.” The maid grinned, not taking him seriously. Tsuda inquired again.

“What does she do with herself?”

“Well, she takes her baths, she walks, she listens to them singing — sometimes she does some flower arranging, and at night she often practices her calligraphy.”

“I see — does she read?”

“I suppose she does,” the maid responded carelessly and broke out laughing at the bothersome detail of Tsuda’s questions. Tsuda realized he was being obvious and hastily changed the subject as though a little flustered.

“Someone forgot their slippers outside one of the private baths this morning. At first I thought it must be occupied and didn’t want to barge in, but when I tried opening the door there was no one inside.”

“Goodness! It must have been that sensei again.”

The sensei was a calligrapher. Tsuda remembered having seen his seal here and there on framed and mounted scrolls.

“He must be pretty old.”

“He’s an old man. With a white beard down to here.”

The maid placed a hand on her chest to indicate the length of the calligrapher’s beard.

“You don’t say. Does he practice?”

“He’s working on something huge, a little bit every day; he says it’s going to be inscribed on his tombstone.”

Tsuda was surprised and impressed to hear from the maid that the calligrapher had traveled all this way expressly to work on his own epitaph.

“Can it really take so much effort to create something like that? An amateur would think it could be done in half a day.”

This observation elicited no response from the maid. And it was only a fraction of what Tsuda was thinking but didn’t say. He was comparing this aging sensei’s mission and his own. Alongside the sensei he installed the couple from Yokohama with nothing to do but rehearse old songs. He added Kiyoko to the same line-up, Kiyoko who apparently practiced flower arrangement and calligraphy for no particular reason. Finally, when he heard the maid describe the sole remaining guest as a man who neither spoke nor moved but only sat the livelong day gazing at the mountains, Tsuda said what he was thinking.

“There are all kinds of people, that’s for sure. Just five or six of us are already such an assortment, it must be a madhouse here in the summer and at New Year’s.”

“When we’re full we have 130 or 140 people.”

Having missed Tsuda’s point, the maid reported the number of guests likely to show up at the busiest seasons of the year.

AFTER SUPPER Tsuda sat at the low desk next to his mattress and wrote some of the picture postcards he had asked the maid to bring him, one line only on the back and the address on the front. He finished those he had to send, one to O-Nobu, one to his uncle Fujii, and one to Madam Yoshikawa, and a pile of empty cards remained. Still holding his fountain pen, he gazed vacantly at regional scenes with odd titles that seemed unsuited to a mountain village — Fudō Falls in Yugawara, Lunar Park in Asakusa, and others. Then he began scribbling again. In no time he wrote one to O-Hide’s husband and another to his parents in Kyoto. Now that he had begun in earnest he might as well continue; he even felt that leaving any of the postcards blank would amount to a dereliction of duty. There was Okamoto, whom he hadn’t even considered at first, and Okamoto’s son, Hajime, who put him in mind of his schoolmate, his own nephew, Makoto, and a host of others. There was one name only that had occurred to him from the beginning to whom he didn’t write. Other reasons aside, Tsuda didn’t want Kobayashi to see a postmark because he was afraid he would track him down. He was due to leave for Korea any day. Since he was leaving of his own accord with nothing to constrain him, he might be rattling along on a train even now, resolved to embark. Undisciplined as he was, however, there was no guarantee that he would leave on the day he had announced as his departure. Who could declare with any certainty that, seeing the postcard (assuming Tsuda sent him one), he wouldn’t make his way here at once? Thinking about this impossible friend who was like doing battle with unstable weather, about this enemy it were better to say, Tsuda hunched his shoulders involuntarily. Whereupon the scene he had launched in his imagination began to play. Pulling him along, it progressed unstoppably. Right before his eyes he conjured an image of Kobayashi pulling up in a rickshaw at the entrance and storming into his room shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Why are you here?”

“There’s no why, my man, I came to distress you.”

“For what reason?”

“Who needs a stinking reason? As long as you reject me, I’ll follow you forever no matter where you go.”

“Villain!”

Making a fist abruptly, Tsuda would punch Kobayashi in the face. Instead of resisting, Kobayashi would instantly fall in a backward sprawl to the floor.

“You punched me, you rat. Fine, do your worst.”

A scene of violence such as could be seen only on a stage would ensue. The entire inn would be aware and feel threatened. Kiyoko would naturally be involved. Everything would be dashed to bits forever.

Having painted in his mind in spite of himself an imaginary scene more vivid than reality, Tsuda came abruptly to his senses with a shudder. He wondered what he would do if that kind of preposterous brawl were to materialize in his real life. He was aware of feeling shame and humiliation distantly. He could feel the inside of his cheeks begin to burn as if to symbolize his feelings.

But he was unable to develop his critique beyond this. To disgrace himself in the eyes of others was more than he could contemplate. Saving face was the fundament of his ethics. His only thought was that appearances must be preserved, scandal above all avoided. By that token, the villain of the piece was Kobayashi.

If only that scoundrel were out of my life, I’d have nothing to fret about!

Tsuda’s assault was directed against the Kobayashi who had taken the stage in his imaginary play. He placed full responsibility for his own dishonor on Kobayashi’s shoulders.

Having sentenced this phantom perpetrator, Tsuda’s mood shifted, and he took from his wallet a calling card. Writing on the back with his fountain pen, “I arrived last night to convalesce,” he paused to reflect, then added, “I heard that you were here this morning” and paused again.

This is too artificial. I must mention seeing her last night.

But touching on that tactfully wasn’t easy. And the more complicated the message became, the more words it required, until it would no longer fit on a single card. He wanted this to be sweet and simple. A letter and envelope would be overdoing it.

Glancing at the dresser, he saw Madam Yoshikawa’s gift on top of it, untouched since the night before when it had been carefully placed there, and quickly took it down. Writing on another card, “I hope you are recovering quickly. This is a get-well gift from Yoshikawa-san’s wife,” he slipped it under the lid of the fruit basket and summoned the maid.

“I think someone named Seki-san is staying here?”

The maid laughed.

“Seki-san is the lady we were talking about.”

“Is that so? Good, please take this to her. And mention that I’d like to see her briefly if she doesn’t mind.”

“Very well.”

The maid stepped into the hall carrying the basket of fruit.

WAITING FOR a reply, Tsuda might have been tipped as easily as a vessel with uneven legs. When the maid failed to return as quickly as he had expected, he grew even more agitated.

I can’t believe she’d turn me down.

He had used Madam Yoshikawa’s name because he was already considering that unlikely possibility. The get-well gift in Madam’s name ought to release Kiyoko from whatever constraint she might be feeling toward him. Even assuming her principal desire was avoiding the unpleasantness of a meeting or the suspicion that might arise as a result, it seemed only natural that she should want to thank the bearer of the fruit basket in person. Believing that he had devised what anyone could see was an inspired and altogether natural strategy, and unable to avoid feeling for that reason the more troubled by the maid’s tardiness, Tsuda flicked away the cigarette he had begun to smoke, stepped out to the engawa, gazed vacantly at the red and orange koi swimming silently in the pond, and petted the nuzzle of the dog sleeping beneath the eaves. By the time he heard the sound of the maid’s slippers turn the corner of the hall, he was so worked up he felt the need of collecting himself sufficiently to display some degree of composure on the surface.

“Where were you?”

“I’m sorry I took so long.”

“Not a problem.”

“I was making myself useful.”

“Doing what?”

“I tidied up the room. And I did the lady’s hair. So I wasn’t that long.”

Tsuda didn’t think a woman’s hair could be done up so easily.

“Chignon? Butterfly?”

The maid merely laughed.

“Go and see for yourself.”

“See for myself? Will that be all right? I’ve been waiting here for an answer since you left.”

“Gracious, I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten the most important part — she says please feel free.”

Relieved, Tsuda made certain half in jest as he stood up.

“She said that? It won’t be a bother? I don’t want to get over there and feel bad for having imposed.”

“Are you always so distrustful? If you are, Madam must be—”

“Who do you mean? Madam Seki or my wife?”

“You must know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Honestly?”

Tsuda retied his obi, and as he was on his way out the maid, who had circled around behind him, draped his kimono jacket over his shoulders.

“This way?”

“I’ll show you.”

The maid led the way. As they came to the familiar mirror, the memory of having wandered these halls as a sleepwalker the night before flickered in Tsuda’s mind.

“So this is where it is!”

The words escaped him on their own. Ignorant of the circumstances, the maid’s inquiry was innocent.

“Where what is?”

Tsuda essayed a deception.

“I’m saying this is where I ran into a ghost last night.”

The maid winced.

“What a thing to say! As if we had ghosts here! You really shouldn’t—”

Tsuda, understanding that his joke about an establishment in the guest business had been in poor taste, glanced up at the second floor knowingly.

“Seki-san’s room must be up there.”

“How in the world did you know?”

“I know things.”

“Magic eyes?”

“A magic nose — I nose things out.”

“Like a dog.”

This exchange, begun halfway up the stairs, was already in earshot of Kiyoko’s room, the nearest to the landing. Tsuda was aware of this.

“While I’m at it, I’ll nose out Seki-san’s room — watch closely.”

The light slap of his slippers stopped at the door to Kiyoko’s room.

“This is it.”

Peering up at Tsuda askance, the maid burst out laughing.

“I told you.”

“You have some nose, all right. Keener than a hunting dog’s.”

The maid was laughing heartily, but no response to her hilarity issued from inside the room. It was impossible to tell whether anyone was there; the interior was quiet as before.

“Your visitor is here, Ma’am.”

Calling in to Kiyoko, the maid slid the well-seated shoji all the way back.

“May I come in?”

Stepping into the room as he spoke, Tsuda halted in surprise. He had been prepared to come face to face with Kiyoko, but the room appeared to be empty.

THERE WERE actually two adjoining rooms. Tsuda had entered an antechamber with no alcove for hanging a scroll or exhibiting flowers. Thick, cross-hatched pillows in front of a rectangular mirror edged in black on a black wooden stand and the small brazier of paulownia wood alongside it evoked, on a small scale, the atmosphere of a sitting room in a normal Japanese house. There was a black lacquer kimono rack in a corner. The bright colors of the striped garments tossed over it and their silkiness, as if they would be smooth to the touch, evoked the fairer sex.

The heavy paper door to the adjoining room had been left open. Tsuda saw an arrangement of fresh-cut chrysanthemums in the alcove there. Two cushions had been placed face to face in front of it. Tea-brown silk with a round whiteness in the center, a single peony perhaps, the elegant cushions seemed excessively formal as a preparation for receiving a casual visitor. Even before he had seated himself, Tsuda had intuited something.

Everything is too proper. This must represent the distance that separates the destinies of the two people about to face each other.

Recognizing this all of a sudden, Tsuda was on the verge of regretting having come.

But what produced this distance? On reflection it seemed inevitable it should be there. Tsuda had merely forgotten. But how could he have forgotten? Perhaps forgetting was also inevitable.

It was just then, as he was standing in the anteroom lost in thought, gazing at the cushions inside without moving to them or taking a seat, that Kiyoko stepped into view from the far corner of the engawa. What she had been doing there until now Tsuda couldn’t imagine. Nor could he understand why she would have chosen to step outside. Perhaps, waiting for him after straightening the room, she had been gazing at the terraced layers of autumn foliage on the mountain, leaning against a corner of the railing. In any event, her manner seemed odd. To be precise, her behavior at that moment would have been more appropriate to running into an unexpected guest than welcoming someone she had invited.

And yet, curiously enough, this was less offensive to him than the cushions stiffly awaiting them to take their seats or the oblong brazier that had been positioned between the cushions to create what appeared to be an intentional obstruction. Doubtless that was because this attitude was not so distant as to be incompatible with the Kiyoko he had been painting in his imagination.

The Kiyoko whom Tsuda knew was by no means a restless, fussy woman. On the contrary, she was inveterately unperturbed. It might even have been said that a distinguishing feature of her temperament, and of the actions that derived from her temperament, was a certain languor. He had always counted on that quality of hers. He had placed inordinate faith in it, and as a result his faith had been betrayed. Such at least was his interpretation. Even so, notwithstanding his interpretation, the faith he had established at the time, though he wasn’t conscious of it, had remained intact inside him. Her marriage to Seki may have occurred as swiftly as the darting of a swallow, but that was an inconsistency and nothing more. Since his turmoil began only when he strove to connect these two realities without contradiction, he preferred to consider them separately: just as a was a fact, so then must b also be true.

Why did that languorous woman leap into an airplane? Why did she fly loop-the-loops?

It was precisely here that serious doubt lingered. Facts, however, were in the end facts, no matter how they might be doubted, and would not disappear by themselves.

On this head, Kiyoko the rebel was more fortunate than faithful O-Nobu. If, when Tsuda had entered the room, it had been O-Nobu instead of Kiyoko who had thrown him off his pace with an oddly timed entrance from the far end of the engawa, what would his response have been?

She’s up to something again.

Certainly this is what he would have thought. But coming from Kiyoko, this same behavior had an entirely different effect.

She’s as languid as ever.

Having persuaded himself, Tsuda had no choice but to assess her behavior as languid even though she had knocked his legs from under him with a move of dizzying speed.

It wasn’t simply that she had thrown his timing off. She had appeared from the far end of the engawa carrying in both hands the large basket of fruit he had presented her in Madam Yoshikawa’s name. Whatever her intention, it seemed clear the nuisance the gift may have created for her until now couldn’t be taken as a measure of her indifference to Tsuda. Even so, this behavior had to be accounted odd, the more so if she had kept the basket with her on the balcony until now, even more so assuming she had put it down once and picked it up again. At the very least, it was awkward. And juvenile somehow. Nonetheless Tsuda, who knew her normal behavior as if by heart, couldn’t help discerning in this something unmistakably like her.

It’s funny. It’s funny in a way that’s just like you. And you’re not the slightest bit aware of what’s comical about it.

As he watched Kiyoko appear to struggle with the basket as though it were heavy for her, this is what Tsuda would have liked to say.

AT THAT point Kiyoko held the basket out to the maid. Not knowing what she was to do with it, the maid extended her hand mechanically and took it, saying nothing. While this simple interaction occurred between them, Tsuda had to stand where he was. But instead of the awkwardness that such a moment would normally have created, he felt at ease, untroubled in any way. He interpreted what he saw as merely a continuation of the languid behavior that was consonant with the Kiyoko he knew. Accordingly the confusion he was feeling about what he remembered of the night before doubled in intensity. Why had this imperturbable woman paled? Why had she gone rigid? No matter how he thought about it, there was no reconciling the extremity of her surprise then and her composure now. He felt like a person who has awakened for the first time in his life to the difference between night and day.

Without waiting to be asked, he sat down on the cushion that had been provided. He then turned his gaze on Kiyoko who, still on her feet, was instructing the maid to arrange the fruit on a plate.

“Thank you for the lovely gift.”

These were her first words to him. The subject shifted perforce from the bearer of the gift to the kindness of the person who had provided it. Having resolved to lie from the moment he used Madam Yoshikawa’s name, Tsuda was no longer even conscious that he was misrepresenting.

“I almost gave the tangerines to an old fellow I met along the way.”

“For heaven’s sake, why?”

It mattered little to Tsuda how he replied.

“The basket was a nuisance, heavy as a piece of luggage.”

“You were carrying it the whole way?”

To Tsuda, this sounded like the brand of naiveté that was typical of Kiyoko.

“Don’t be silly. Unlike you, I’d hardly go to the trouble of lugging something like that out to the engawa and back again and the devil knows where else.”

Kiyoko merely smiled. Her smile offered no justification. In fact, it conveyed a certain nonchalance. Tsuda, having begun with a lie, felt increasingly unconstrained.

“As usual, you look as though you haven’t a care in the world. How wonderful!”

“Thank you.”

“You haven’t changed one bit.”

“Of course not — I’m the same person.”

Hearing this, Tsuda abruptly wanted to say something ironic. Just then the maid, who had been transferring the tangerines to a plate, laughed aloud.

“Why do you laugh?”

“I can’t help it — what Missus said is funny.” Seeing the serious expression on Tsuda’s face, she felt obliged to add a more concrete explanation.

“It just tickled me to think that’s really how it is — everyone stays the same person while they’re alive, and unless they’re reborn, no one changes into anyone else.”

“You’re wrong about that. There are any number of people who are reborn even while they’re still alive.”

“Is that so? If there is such a person I’d like a peek at him.”

“I’d be happy to introduce you to one.”

“I’d be obliged.” The maid laughed again. “I reckon this is how you find them.” She brought her forefinger to the tip of her nose.

“You wouldn’t believe this gentleman’s nose. He sniffed his way straight to your room.”

“That’s nothing. I can guess your age, your hometown, where you’re registered, you name it. All with this sniffer.”

“That’s enough to give a person a fright. I’ve never met the likes of you, Sir.”

So saying, the maid rose. On her way out of the room, she took a parting shot at Tsuda.

“You must be wicked good at hunting.”

Left to themselves in the sunlit room, they were suddenly silent. Tsuda was facing into the sun. Kiyoko was turned away from the light, her back to the engawa. From where he sat, the folds of the mountains rising in the distance in heaping tiers allowed him to see so clearly he might have touched them the areas of sun and of shade. The autumn leaves blanketing the slopes also revealed, according to the luster or paleness of their colors, a brilliant mountainscape of light and dark. While Tsuda’s field of vision was panoramic, there was nothing at all for Kiyoko to see but the shoji on the northern side of the room partially obstructed by Tsuda’s figure. But her restricted field of vision didn’t appear to bother her. Despite circumstance that O-Nobu could not have refrained from correcting, she was, if anything, tranquil.

In contrast to the previous evening, her face was somewhat redder than what Tsuda knew to be her normal complexion. But that might be interpreted as the physiological effect of the strong autumn sunlight falling directly upon her. Such was Tsuda’s thought as he shifted his gaze away from the mountains to Kiyoko’s flushed earlobes. They were thin. The position of her head was such that the sun struck her ears from behind, and Tsuda had the feeling the light reaching him had been filtered through her bloodstream on its way.

HAD HIS companion been O-Nobu, the question of who would speak first would have been a foregone conclusion. She was a woman who left him no leeway. On the other hand, she was temperamentally incapable of reserving for herself even half that much room to relax. No matter when or where, she pursued with all her might the effect she desired. As a consequence, Tsuda was forced into a passive position. Standing up to her required a convulsive effort that was invariably accompanied by distress and a sense of constriction.

Placing Kiyoko in the picture instead created an entirely different atmosphere. The order of things was abruptly reversed. In the language of sumo wrestling, her charge was triggered by the sound of his voice. Installing her opposite him as an opponent had required him therefore to make the first move. Ten out of ten times that move had come easily to him.

He became sensible of this distinguishing characteristic only after they had been left alone together. With the discovery, his memory of how it had been with her in the past revived. Oddly enough, the feeling of awkwardness he had been anticipating abruptly vanished just as the awkward moment was arriving. Sitting across from her, he took his ease. The feeling was little different from what he had experienced in her presence in the past, before the incident had occurred. He was conscious of it being at least of a similar nature. And so, as in the past, when their conversation had trailed off, it was he who initiated a renewal. The fact that he was able to function with the same feeling as in the past was in itself an unexpected satisfaction.

“How is Seki-kun getting along? Working as hard as ever? I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to see him at all since then.”

The remark was unconsidered. The wisdom of opening a conversation with an inquiry about Seki warranted reflection — was it in their mutual interest, appropriate in view of the continuing flux of feelings between them until now, or, for that matter, setting aside the personal bias in which those feelings were tangled, natural or unnatural? One thing was certain: in choosing Seki as a topic of conversation in a manner so unlike his habitual prudence, casually and without the slightest concern, Tsuda had quite forgotten the precautions he invariably took when dealing with O-Nobu.

But it was no longer O-Nobu he was dealing with. And it was immediately evident from Kiyoko’s reply that he needn’t worry about having forgotten his inveterate caution.

“He’s well, thank you,” she said, smiling. “Same as ever. We sometimes speak of you.”

“Is that so? I’m so busy all the time I’ve been neglecting everybody.”

“It’s the same at home, Yukio-san. These days it seems a man can’t afford any leisure time. So you sort of drift apart. There’s nothing to be done about it, it’s how life seems to go—”

“Isn’t that so!”

Tsuda wished that instead of replying “Isn’t that so” he had tried instead an inquiry, “Is that so?”

Is that so? You’ve become estranged just being busy? Are you telling me the truth? At that moment these questions, an interrogation, were already hiding silently inside him.

The Kiyoko sitting before him was the same, uncomplicated Kiyoko as ever, or at least a Kiyoko impossible to interpret as otherwise. Certainly she had all the latitude she needed to engage in a conversation between them about Seki. The degree of her simplicity was revealed in her ability to do this without distress. Tsuda had expected this was how it would be yet hadn’t managed to imagine it until now. The satisfaction he derived from encountering his heroine once again just as she had been in the past reached him together with dissatisfaction that she was able, with the same generosity of spirit he remembered, to speak about Seki in front of him so easily.

Why does that bother me?

Tsuda lacked the courage he needed to confront this question squarely. Since Seki was her husband in fact, he was obliged to acknowledge her attitude respectfully. But that was merely on the surface of things, an acknowledgment ventured by a stranger who happened to be passing by. But there was another, privileged point of view. Closer to home, someone altogether different from a casual passerby obstinately stood his ground. Loathe to identify that someone as himself, Tsuda preferred to think of him as a “special person.” By “special” he referred to the difference between a professional and an amateur. Between a savant and an ignoramus. Or between a connoisseur and a philistine. It seemed to him, accordingly, that he had the right to say more than an ordinary man in the street.

It was only a matter of time until his attitude toward Kiyoko, affirmative on the surface and critical underneath, should make an appearance.

“I APOLOGIZE for last night.”

Abruptly Tsuda tried this approach. He was curious about the effect it might have on her.

“I’m the one who should apologize.”

Her reply came easily. Detecting no discomfort in it gave Tsuda cause to wonder.

Can it be that the surprise she felt last night is already in the past for her this morning?

If she were no longer able to recall what she had felt, his mission, for better or for worse, had been reduced to insignificance.

“I felt sorry afterward for having startled you.”

“Why did you, then?”

“I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it because I didn’t know. I had no idea you were staying here.”

“But you came all the way from Tokyo with a present for me.”

“That’s true. But the fact is, I didn’t know. I ran into you by accident.”

“How can that be?”

Her response came as a surprise: clearly she was thinking his behavior had been intentional.

“Why would I have done that on purpose? Certainly not for my own amusement.”

“You seemed to have been standing there for quite a while.”

To be sure, he had been gazing at the water overflowing in the basin and peering at his reflection in the mirror. No question he had tarried, even combing his hair with the comb that had been lying there.

“What are you supposed to do when you get lost and have no idea where you’re going? There’s nothing you can do.”

“I suppose. But that wasn’t how it seemed to me.”

“Are you thinking I was lying in wait? You can’t be serious. I may have a prodigy of a nose, but it didn’t tell me when you’d be going to the bath.”

“Of course not! That’s silly.”

Kiyoko’s “Of course not!” was articulated with such conviction that Tsuda couldn’t help laughing.

“Why would you even suspect such a thing?”

“You must know why.”

“I don’t, I have no idea.”

“Then it doesn’t matter. It’s something that shouldn’t need explaining.”

Tsuda could only try approaching from a different angle.

“But what reason would I have to lie in wait for you at the end of a hallway? Just tell me that.”

“I can’t say—”

“There’s no need to be polite — please tell me.”

“I’m not being polite. I can’t say what I can’t say.”

“But it’s something you’re thinking, isn’t it? So if you wanted to, you should be able to come out with it.”

“There’s nothing on my mind — not a thing.”

This simple remark thwarted Tsuda’s advance even as it intensified his persistence.

“Then where does your suspicion come from?”

“If it’s wrong to be suspicious, I apologize. And I won’t be anymore.”

“But you’ve already doubted me.”

“I can’t help that. It’s true I doubted you. And I’ve admitted it. All the apologizing in the world won’t change that.”

“But why can’t you just tell me what it is you’re doubting?”

“But I already have.”

“That was only half of it, a third of it — I want the whole truth.”

“Oh my god! I don’t know what to say!”

“It’s so simple. All you have to say is I doubted such-and-such about you for such-and-such a reason and you’d be finished in one breath.”

Apparently distressed until that moment, Kiyoko suddenly appeared persuaded.

“That’s what you want to hear?”

“Obviously. That’s precisely what I want to hear, which is why I’ve persisted in making you miserable. But you keep trying to conceal it.”

“If only you’d said so right away. That’s not something I have to conceal. There is no reason. It’s just that you’re a person who does that sort of thing.”

“Lies in wait?”

“Yes.”

“That’s absurd!”

“I’m sorry, but the person I’ve seen you be is that sort of person.”

“I see—”

Folding his arms, Tsuda lowered his head.

PRESENTLY HE looked up again.

“It feels as though we’re arguing. I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

Kiyoko replied.

“I certainly didn’t mean for that to happen. I got swept away somehow, it wasn’t on purpose.”

“I know it wasn’t. Maybe it’s my fault for grilling you.”

“Maybe so.”

Once again, Kiyoko smiled. Discovering in her smile the same easiness he had identified before, Tsuda could forbear no longer.

“As long as we seem to be doing questions and answers, would you answer just one more?”

“Of course. Anything.”

The reply issued from someone prepared to respond to whatever question Tsuda wished to pose. That in itself disappointed him not a little before he had spoken.

She’s already forgotten everything, this woman.

Even as the thought formed, he recognized that this was characteristic. He felt a need to confirm this.

“You went pale last night, didn’t you, at the top of the stairs?”

“I suppose so. I couldn’t see my own face so I don’t know, but if you say I did, I must have.”

“Really? So I’m still not a total liar in your eyes? I’m grateful for that. So you’ll accept the facts as I perceive them?”

“Whether I accept them or not, if I truly went pale what can I say?”

“Exactly — and I think you also tensed.”

“Yes, I could feel that myself. It was so bad I felt I might collapse if I stood there any longer.”

“In other words, you were shocked.”

“Yes, I was utterly surprised.”

“Which is why—” Interrupting himself, Tsuda looked down at Kiyoko’s hands as, bending slightly forward, she carefully peeled an apple. The transformation, the lusciously colored skin curling under the knife and dropping to reveal gradually the pale, juicy whiteness of the fruit, recalled for Tsuda a time that was already more than a year in the past.

Can this be the woman who used to peel an apple for me just this way, in this same posture, in those days?

The way she held the knife and moved her fingers, her elbows almost touching her knees and her long kimono sleeves flaring open, everything was a replica of how it had been except for a single difference he noticed right away. A beautiful twin-stone ring adorned her finger. Nothing separated them so incontrovertibly as the glittering brilliance of those small gems. Gazing at the pliant movement of her fingers, Tsuda was lulled into a reminiscence like a dream in the midst of which, rapt as he was, he couldn’t avoid acknowledging the bright flash of a warning.

He quickly looked away from Kiyoko’s hands and glanced at her hair. The hairstyle the maid had alleged to have helped her with that morning was the conventional “eaves,” hair gathered in a bun on either side of her head. There was nothing unusual about her darkly lustrous hair except that it retained the regular, vertical furrows left by the teeth of the comb.

Resolved, Tsuda began again where he had left off.

“Which is why I’m wondering—”

Kiyoko didn’t look up. Tsuda continued anyway, undaunted.

“I’m wondering, since you were shocked last night, how you’re able to be so composed this morning.”

Kiyoko responded without lifting her eyes.

“Why? Why does that matter?”

“I ask because I don’t understand what’s going on psychologically.”

Once again, Kiyoko replied without looking at Tsuda.

“I wouldn’t know about psychologically. Last night was last night, this morning is now. That’s all there is to it.”

“That’s the only explanation?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Tsuda felt inclined to heave a sigh at this point, but he lacked the courage to protest in this manner, and he was further impeded by his sense that theatrics would avail him nothing with this woman.

“But isn’t it true that you didn’t get up at your usual time today?”

“Goodness! How do you know that?”

“A little bird told me.”

Kiyoko glanced at Tsuda and quickly lowered her eyes again. As she spoke, she cut into slices the apple she had beautifully pared.

“Is it that magic nose of yours? It appears to be very keen after all.”

There was no telling whether this remark was intended mockingly or in earnest, and it made Tsuda wince.

Kiyoko finished slicing the apple and moved the plate toward him.

“Have some, Yoshio-san — apples are your favorite.”

TSUDA DIDN’T reach for the apple she had peeled for him.

“Help yourself. After all, Madam Yoshikawa sent this along especially for you.”

“And you came all this way to bring it to me. Not having any would feel like ignoring your kindness.”

Kiyoko took a piece of the apple from the plate between them. But before she lifted it to her mouth, she spoke again.

“But it’s odd when I think about it; how in the world could this have happened?

“What?”

“I wasn’t expecting a gift from Mrs. Yoshikawa. And I certainly wasn’t expecting you to deliver it to me.”

Of course you weren’t. Even if I hadn’t thought of it.

Kiyoko peered intently at Tsuda’s face and her eyes were lit with her anticipation of a clear answer. He recalled special memories of that light.

Aah, I know those eyes.

Scenes from the past endlessly repeated between them appeared vividly before Tsuda’s eyes. In those days Kiyoko had believed in a man whose name was Tsuda. She had looked to him for all her knowledge. And for the resolution of all her doubts. Lifting her unknown future in her hands, she appeared to place it at his disposal. That explained the quietness in her eyes even when they moved. The light of trust and of peace shone in her questions to him. He had had the feeling he had been born with the unique right to be illuminated by that light. It had even occurred to him that those eyes of hers existed because he was there.

In the end they had separated. And now they had met again. Feeling as though he had been given to see that Kiyoko’s eyes since she had left him were after all the same eyes as he had known in the past, albeit in a different sense, he had been deeply moved.

That’s what’s beautiful about you. But must your beauty serve now only to break my heart? Speak to me!

Tsuda’s uncertainties and Kiyoko’s met briefly in the look they exchanged; Kiyoko was the first to avert her eyes. Tsuda, observing the manner in which she withdrew, recognized a different degree of eagerness between them. Kiyoko made no effort to advance. Looking elsewhere as if she were indifferent, she rested her gaze on the chrysanthemums arranged in a vase on the shelf in the alcove.

Since her eyes had fled, Tsuda was obliged to pursue her with words.

“I trust you’re not thinking the only reason I’m here is on an errand for Madam Yoshikawa.”

“Of course not, and that’s what’s odd.”

“There’s nothing odd about it! I was planning to come down independently when I met her and she told me you were already here, and that’s when she asked me to bring a gift for you.”

“I see. That’s how it must have been — otherwise it’s odd no matter how you think about it.”

“You keep saying odd, but things do happen accidentally in life. Maybe not in your—”

“But I’m not thinking it’s odd anymore. Everything has a reason, and once you hear it, it makes sense.”

Tsuda was on the verge of saying That’s why I’m here myself, to learn the reason. But Kiyoko, who appeared unconcerned with the past, asked an honest question.

“Are you convalescing?”

In just a few words, Tsuda described the course of his illness. Kiyoko spoke.

“How fortunate for you, Yoshio-san, that you can arrange to be away from the company at a time like that. If only Seki could be so lucky; he slaves away from morning to night.”

“Seki-kun gets carried away, so it can’t be helped.”

“That isn’t kind. And it isn’t true!”

“I didn’t mean carried away in a bad way. I meant he’s industrious.”

“Always the smooth talker!”

At that moment footsteps could be heard hastening up the stairs; about to say something, Tsuda thought better of it and decided to observe in silence. The maid who peeked into the room was different from the one before.

“The guests from Yokohama told me to ask Madam if she would like to come for a walk to the falls with them around noon.”

“Certainly.”

Registering Kiyoko’s reply, the maid stood up, glanced at Tsuda, and asked, “Won’t you come along?”

“Thank you. By the way, is it lunchtime?”

“It is — I’ll be bringing lunch right away.”

“Time flies.”

Tsuda forced himself to stand.

“Kiyoko-san—” He had intended to address her as Mrs. Seki, but the words had somehow eluded him. “—how long will you be staying?”

“I have no plans. I could receive a telegram from home and have to leave today.”

Tsuda was surprised.

“Could that happen?”

“There’s no telling—”

Kiyoko smiled. On the way back to his room, Tsuda attempted alone with himself to explain the meaning of her smile.

UNFINISHED