Pathway to Japanese Literature

I I Nobuko placed her hands behind her back and leaned against the half-opened window frame, gazing at the scene inside the room. In the center of the room stood a large rectangular table. The chandelier's light illuminated both the chaotic accumulation of documents on its surface—thick binders blurred by typewriter purple ink, memoranda with corner pins glinting sharply—and the two men seated across from each other intently comparing their readings, before spilling onto the mouse-colored carpet below.

Just as the light that illuminated the entire room was monotonous, so too was the work of the two men—monotonous and tedious. A swarthy, gaunt man in homespun clothes held a binder in his left hand, scanning pages with his eyes, flipping them over, and reciting numbers with ever-increasing digits. Across from him, Nobuko’s father Sasa sat perched on the edge of his chair, checking numbers without pause using a blue pencil. He wore a tasteful smoking jacket with striped fabric and an unusual collar. Unsuited to his relaxed attire, he had already been immersed in that busy, mechanical work for over thirty minutes.

Nobuko, observing from the sidelines, understood neither the content of their work nor why it needed to be done at that very moment. The reason she remained quietly watching from the window was primarily due to a habit ingrained since childhood—the conviction that she must never disturb her father during his busy periods. Yet gradually, she found herself drawn into the rhythm of their work. A flat voice, neither growing stronger nor weaker, rapidly recited: “Two eight seven comma two six zero.” “Five nine three zero three comma four two seven…”

It was like the hum of a diligent spinning wheel. In tandem, Sasa’s blue pencil moved with almost mechanical agility—swiftly, briskly, meticulously precise in its motions. There, a unique rhythm arose of its own accord. As she kept watching, she began to sense something akin to the powerful certainty and vigorous exhilaration that steady mechanical operations impart upon the human heart. They sorted through two large-format binders in one go. And when they had somewhat sluggishly finished reviewing the third thin memo, Sasa—now appearing thoroughly relieved of his burden—

“Well, thank you for your efforts.” With that, he bowed his head and pushed back his chair. A release of tension swept through the room. Nobuko too felt relieved, suddenly aware of external noises pressing broadly against her back. It was just after dinner—the peak hour for outings. From Broadway stretching directly below their fifth floor came an endless flow of countless footsteps, chattering voices, and laughter blending into a thick gaseous mass of formless noise. Piercing through the city’s immense din permeating the night sky came a car horn’s drawn-out wail—Kroooooo... Beneath the lamppost rose the intermittent cries of a child hawking evening papers—“Extra! Extra!”—in a shrill voice. The man in homespun swiftly gathered documents into his yellow handbag. After exchanging brief words with Sasa and nodding distantly to Nobuko, he made a hurried exit with affected dignity. Sasa escorted him to the doorway.

When he returned, he puffed on his cigar with relish. “Well—it’s about time we get going.” Nobuko left the window, came to the nearby sofa, and asked as she sat down.

“Do you really intend to go?” “Why?” “You’re coming too, aren’t you?” “I’ve already given that reply.” “I—I want to back out.”

“Why?” “I’m exhausted—and… it doesn’t seem like it’ll be very interesting.” “Hmm…” Sasa remained silent for a while, gazing at the smoke he exhaled, then slowly began to speak. “You can come as you are in that kimono—if you go, you’ll find it worthwhile in some way.” “Moreover, if you don’t get to know as many people as possible while I’m here, you’ll be left struggling on your own when the time comes.” Tonight, she and her father had been invited to a gathering—something like a tea party—being held at the Japanese Students' Club. They had received an invitation to an informal gathering centered around a certain literary scholar who had recently arrived from their homeland, but Nobuko felt no curiosity whatsoever. She herself was also a new arrival in New York. She had gone out alone that afternoon to shop in the unfamiliar downtown area and returned with her nerves frayed. Having to maintain proper decorum among people until night was slightly tiresome to her. However, Sasa—healthy and vigorous—would rarely accommodate Nobuko’s timidity. With a vitality that belied his age as a man nearing sixty, he always kept Nobuko in motion. It was clear that beneath this lay his considerate intention—during his stay—to have her learn the geography and establish social connections in advance. He had come to this city on company business for just three months. If he were to return home, Nobuko was scheduled to remain alone. During their travels, she had usually ended up following her father wherever he went, even if reluctantly. From city hall to the stuffy, poorly ventilated hot rooms within the wire cages of a certain large bank, where people buried under mounds of gold coins counted money with bloodless fingers. Unfamiliar with the area and without any definite purpose of her own, Nobuko would surely have found her days interminably long and as dull as a discarded stone had she not done so.

Even now, she certainly did not want to go. But when she thought about being left abruptly alone in the hotel room until around twelve o'clock after her father had gone out, that too did not seem like such a dreadful prospect.

While Nobuko swung her legs restlessly and dawdled, Sasa paid no heed and strode toward the bedroom with vigorous purpose. Soon through the open doorway came sounds of splashing water and the crisp clack of a hairbrush being set down. From the window drifted the sleepless murmur of the night-owl city and the agitated flicker of advertising lights circling the rooftop across the way. Reflecting the glow from below, a patch of black night sky hung faintly luminous with moisture.

A sudden pang struck Nobuko’s chest, “I can’t afford to get left behind!” A childlike, aching emotion welled up within her—the fear of being left behind. She hurriedly stood up from the chair and chased after her father. Sasa had already finished grooming his hair and was standing in the middle of the room, halfway through slipping one arm into his jacket. Seeing that, she hurriedly said, “I’m sorry, but could you wait just a moment? I’ll go after all.” Nobuko hurried to the mirror.

Sasa looked at his watch. “We can’t linger any longer.” “Just a moment—five minutes!” Nobuko swiftly fixed her hair and put on a small round brown hat.

II

As the numbered blocks increased, the pedestrians dwindled, and the streets grew desolate. The father and daughter turned left at the corner beneath a large decorative window with gloomily drawn blinds. When they entered from the main thoroughfare, the abrupt darkness made even their footing on the gently sloping pavement appear uncertain. Beyond the main street ahead lay the Hudson River, where sharp night winds occasionally sliced through. Through Riverside Park's leafless trees, gas lamps glowed dimly with a cold pallor.

Nobuko felt an unusual tension from the cold and the eeriness of having wandered into a lonely place. She involuntarily clung tightly to her father's arm. "It’s so dark here... Have you figured out where we are?" Sasa walked with shoe heels clicking, constantly paying attention to the row of houses on his right as he answered in a somewhat uncharacteristically subdued voice.

"It must be a bit further ahead. But with all these houses looking exactly the same, it's disorienting." "If only they would add more streetlights…" Indeed, on both sides stretched countless narrow house entrances—each with low iron fences and three or four steps—all lined up in identical design. The sparse streetlights along the sidewalk did not reach those modest doorways set slightly back. They proceeded, peering into the dimly lit entrance of nearly every house as they grew increasingly forlorn. Just as they had mostly grown weary, a single arched window from which light spilled brightly appeared before them. Through the gap in the curtain came glimpses of men’s standing figures and the indistinct murmur of unintelligible conversation. ——

Nobuko pulled her father's arm. “Here it is!” Sasa surveyed the exterior and climbed the entrance steps. He pressed the doorbell. A brief, toneless sound rang out immediately beyond the door. Nobuko felt anticipation and curiosity. Having just been gripped by strange unease in the dark side street, she imagined warmth and cheer awaiting beyond this old glass-paneled door. At once a shadow fell upon the glass. The oak door swung inward with unexpected smoothness. The man who had opened it widened the entrance further upon seeing them and greeted them formally.

“You’ve come at last.—Please…” Sasa began taking off his overcoat as soon as he entered the entryway. Nobuko looked around her surroundings. Against the right wall stood a tall hat rack with a mirror. On the left side sat a bench adorned with a high-relief carving of grape leaves, from whose front a gentle staircase leading to the second floor could be seen. At the back was an open room screened from view by heavy curtains. From that hall echoed the pressurized sound of conversation and laughter, composed solely of male voices. The sturdy brown oak pillars and glossy mirror panels shining under the light throughout the area gave Nobuko a pleasantly comfortable impression. To her senses, a fresh kind of smell had permeated the area. The scent of furniture polish, tobacco, wool, and another dry leather-like odor had all blended into one—a smell characteristic of a residence inhabited solely by men.

When he helped Sasa out of his overcoat, the man who had opened the door said, “Then this way—a number of ladies have already arrived, so...”

As she lightly bowed her head, Nobuko saw the man’s face clearly for the first time. He wore a white low collar, a black necktie, and a plain black suit that was slightly worn. His face was gloomy, but his large rounded jaw caught attention. While climbing the stairs, Nobuko asked, “Is Ms. Yasukawa here?” The man, who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, answered in his characteristically low tone, “She has arrived.”

When they reached the top of the stairs, a room’s door stood half-open, and women’s chattering voices came from within. He, “Ms. Yasukawa.” called out.

“Mr. Sasa has arrived.” The voices from inside abruptly ceased. “Oh! “I see.” With her voice, Yasukawa’s figure appeared on the threshold, striding forward with slightly hunched posture. The man who had guided Nobuko went downstairs. Yasukawa Fuyuko had been a senior student when Nobuko briefly enrolled at a vocational school. She was known to everyone as an excellent student who was diligent in her studies. Though they had only exchanged words a few times, here she was Nobuko’s sole friend who could be called one from across the sea. Yasukawa had been majoring in educational psychology at C University for about a year now.

Yasukawa stared curiously at Nobuko.

“I’d heard the rumors, but since I never go out, I didn’t know a thing.” “You’ve come at last.—When did you arrive?” “About three weeks ago.”

Yasukawa asked in the same brisk tone she’d always had—so unchanged since their school days that Nobuko was astonished by its consistency. “So you’re with your father?” “Yes. A tagalong.” Nobuko felt that she was being treated like a junior in front of these women. “He’s downstairs again tonight.”

“Right.—That’s good.” “Where are you staying now?” “Your lodging—”

“Brent Hotel.” “Ah, I believe I went there once before.—Let me introduce everyone—this is Ms. Takasaki—she attended Higher Normal School and studies home economics.” “This is Ms. Natori—her specialty is music—” Nobuko bowed respectfully to each person in turn. When the round of greetings and brief responses ended, Nobuko felt something between disappointment and surprise—a vague, lonely sensation. Among those present, there was not a single person she could immediately take a liking to. Though their specialties and appearances differed, they all seemed like capable people—yet there was an air of relentless busyness about them, constantly driven in both material and mental pursuits, leaving no room for leisure. Along with their plain attire, these were characteristics they all shared without exception. Nobuko took off her coat on the nearby chair.

The school-related conversation that had once been interrupted, along with rumors about overseas students, soon revived. Someone spoke kindly to Nobuko. She amiably answered each one. However, her mood grew strangely gloomy. Nobuko found the cramped, stifling atmosphere of life contained within this room somehow oppressive and hard to adjust to. Though they had come all this way into new environments and human lives—seeing nothing and hearing nothing—even with those called friends, they could only discuss schoolwork, assignments, busyness, or gossip that held no interest for outsiders. Nobuko felt dread at the circumstances of these overseas students.

The feeling of being bound did not leave Nobuko even when she went out to the downstairs hall.

In a corner of the hall, Sasa sat contentedly in an armchair and chattered away about something. Leaning against a pillar near the curtain by the entrance with his arms crossed, the man who had guided her upstairs earlier was talking with another man seated on a chair. On the lap of the man sitting on the chair, a single black-and-white calico cat was curled up and being held—unexpectedly for the setting. The man, in a relaxed manner, stroked the cat’s back repeatedly while saying something. With this domestic scene, she felt a pleasant sensation. Nobuko tried to ask the person named Nakanishi sitting next to her—who had arrived late and spoke in a beautiful, impassioned voice—the man’s name.

Then, the man from earlier awkwardly maneuvered his large, bony frame over and stood beside the table directly before her. He made a gesture as if brushing away dust at the table’s edge, then began in a low voice— “Good evening—”

and began delivering what seemed to be an opening address. Several faces in the surroundings turned toward the voice. The commotion throughout the hall subsided. Someone shifted a chair across the hushed parquet floor.—There came a deliberate cough.……

The man, keeping his eyes downcast, expressed conventional satisfaction at the gathering of many people, concluded Dr. Matsuda’s welcoming remarks and introduction, and took his seat. Dr. Matsuda was a kind-looking middle-aged man. He stood up from his seat and began discussing his observations on American paintings from the perspective of art's regional characteristics in a conversational manner. He spoke in a slightly hoarse, flat voice, proceeding with common sense. Nobuko’s interest soon began to feel unsatisfied by it. As she listened to the talk, she began comparing the faces of the men lined up across from her. Most of the men were twisting their heads toward the doctor standing on the right side of the hall, so from Nobuko’s position, she could only see the left profiles of many faces. Glossy-skinned faces with swollen upper eyelids and vulgar complexions; features coarsened by darkened skin and rough facial contours that suggested probable bad breath; or individuals with thin flesh from cheek to mouth and smooth, phlegmatic-looking skin—the way legs were casually positioned or chairs leaned against all seemed to reveal fragments of hidden character, and Nobuko found this spectacle intriguing. When viewed head-on, the face of a certain young man that had seemed keenly intelligent now appeared to expose a dull weakness when seen in profile.—Nobuko suddenly felt a faint unease about her own profile—something she rarely saw. One after another came the turn of the man sitting diagonally across from her—a middle-aged man whose name and occupation she did not know.

He sank deep into his chair, arms crossed firmly across his chest as if out of habit, with his head slightly bowed. While giving a brief glance that showed no concern about being observed from the other side, Nobuko felt a faint unease in the corner of her heart. In his profile, there was something that none of the men she had seen so far possessed. While she perceived that in all other men, their features and physiques shared the same density of force—being uniformly wrapped in the same flesh and blood concentrated around the chest—this man alone exhibited something jarringly mismatched between his broad-shouldered physique reminiscent of northerners and the face resting upon it. When she followed upward from his feet with the same intensity of gaze, reaching his face, there abruptly emerged a complexity that disoriented her vision—plainness, sentimentality, an impression of emotions constrained inward rather than radiating outward—all coalescing into shadows that pervaded his pale profile with its tense lower lip.

Nobuko's gaze darted back once or twice. Her curiosity stirred toward that gloomy profile. What existed in his face was neither the cheerful vigor typical of confident men that many people possess, nor heroic valor. It was something shadow-like. It was closer to gloom. Every time she looked at it, that shadow-like quality was the kind that made her desperately want to know what it was and where it came from.

Dr. Matsuda's talk had ended.

A more relaxed conversation and laughter arose among those present than before. The hallway door opened as ice cream and sugar candies were brought in. Then the man who had piqued Nobuko's curiosity stood up once more. Since there were newcomers present too, he proposed they take turns introducing themselves. Nobuko—who detested such formalities—instinctively looked toward her father in distant appeal. Her father sat there radiantly delighted by the suggestion, a charming smile nestled in the crow's feet at his eyes.

“Well then—as the saying goes, ‘let the proposer act first,’ so I shall begin by introducing myself.” His full name was Tsukuda Ichirou. He majored in comparative linguistics at C University and was studying ancient Indian and Iranian languages. His home country was Ura-Nippon, and while conducting his research, he assisted with YMCA work. He— “As for what I can do, I will do my utmost to consult with you, so please do not hesitate to speak up.”

he concluded.

What inherent psychological necessity could connect the study of ancient languages with such pragmatic YMCA work? Nobuko found it unconvincing. Yet his academic specialty gave her an amorphous satisfaction. She thought she perceived something temperamentally linking what showed in his features to his research.

Those who stood up afterward were almost all majoring in politics, economics, sociology, law, and other such fields. The one holding the cat was Sawada, a person studying botany. The women also each briefly stated their ambitions and purposes. Overcome with awkwardness, Nobuko blurted out curtly, “I am Nobuko Sasa. “Nice to meet you,” she said only, and sat down. Faced with these people, she could not muster the courage to confess that she wanted to know the vast depths of human life, that she wanted to write at least one good novel before she died.

The father and daughter returned to the hotel a little before midnight.

As Nobuko, in her yukata after bathing, fiddled with the finely crafted silver sealing wax set she had bought that day—it being the fifth year of the European War, with Red Cross events and bazaars for frontline comfort held daily everywhere— Nobuko had found that antiquated tool at one such place—when Sasa, now changed into nightclothes, came in and—

“Make sure to remember Mr. Tsukuda is coming tomorrow morning at nine o'clock,” he said. “Mr. Tsukuda... you mean tonight’s?” “Hmm—I’m rather concerned about this Nanba’s nephew business they asked me to handle. Can’t manage it alone, so I thought I’d get that fellow to help out.” Sasa spoke in his usual broad manner. “That man’s been here quite some time—he ought to find some clue for us.” “Might even know something about it himself.” “Trying to find one missing man in this human anthill after years—now that’s real work!”

And then,

"You should get some rest soon too." He got into bed promptly, as if relishing sleep after his activities.

III

The next morning, Nobuko regained her energy as usual and awoke in a refreshed mood. The bedroom curtains were still closed. From the narrow gap in the curtains, a single quivering golden thread of light pierced the dim room, casting on the powder jar atop the dressing table a small flicker like that of a burning torch. She threw off the covers and sat up with a quiet mind. Nobuko stretched her neck and gazed at the distant bed. Father seemed to have already risen, and the bed was empty.

Nobuko looked at the clock by the pillow. It was half past nine. She suddenly remembered last night's promise.—

She put on a housecoat and opened the window. It was another fine day. The sky was slightly hazy, and the morning sun shone warmly over the late October streets and buildings. Nobuko washed her face, tied her hair, and changed her clothes without any particular hurry. She went down to the hall in the same neat navy-blue outfit with a white silk collar as the previous evening. The morning hall was clear and pure, and the marble columns and potted tropical plants rested in air devoid of even a speck of dust.

Nobuko surveyed the sparsely populated hall. Near the dining hall entrance, on a bench, Father and Tsukuda sat side by side in conversation. She went straight toward them.

“Oh, you’re up.” She greeted her father with a morning salutation. And then, to Tsukuda who had drawn up a chair for her, “I must apologize for last evening,” she said. “I must apologize.” “You must be exhausted.”

Sasa and Tsukuda promptly resumed their conversation. They decided to place an advertisement in a Japanese-language newspaper seeking Nanba Takeji and that Tsukuda would investigate the city’s lodging registries. While listening to their conversation nearby, Nobuko sensed that even after coming here, Tsukuda still carried in his face and voice the same air she had noticed about him the previous night. Moreover, when facing him like this, he had a way of gathering her broad, drifting emotions and drawing them narrowly toward some unknown point. What was this thing that felt so compelling? It was clearly not something external. His clothing, in the clear morning light, appeared neither more stylish than it had the previous night nor of particularly fine quality. It was rather shabby-looking. As for his features—they were not at all distant from those of a handsome man—they were even gloomier than when seen under lamplight’s reflection. Despite that, for some reason, there was something about him that aroused curiosity in Nobuko.—

When the conversation reached a natural pause, Sasa,

“How about joining us for some tea? —In fact, we’re just about to have our meal.” he invited Tsukuda. Tsukuda initially declined but took a seat at the table. Nobuko heard from him about the paths by which laborers from Japan ended up as vagrants and stories of a man consumed by gambling. Tsukuda was poor at conversation. He wasn’t the sort to develop topics on his own. Citing his classroom schedule, he soon excused himself and left.

Nobuko left the hotel with her father—who was going downtown before eleven—and went with him to the subway station. There they parted ways, and she walked alone to the museum. The museum stood quiet except on Saturdays and Sundays. Near the right-hand entrance lay a room filled exclusively with Rodin's works. Before Rembrandt's *Flora*, an Italian-looking man copied the painting. Bent earnestly over his canvas in an artist's blouse, he meticulously compared his work with the original's mysterious hues—yet to Nobuko's eyes, his reproduction seemed nothing but grotesque. Elsewhere, a middle-aged woman precisely copied—as through lithography—a scene of an Arab astride a leaping black horse brandishing a spear, perhaps for a magazine cover. Nobuko took a light lunch at the downstairs café before wandering through the galleries.

Just as she was about to leave, she suddenly thought of something and turned back upstairs once more. After wandering for a while and asking an attendant, Nobuko entered a deserted exhibition room. That was an exhibition room for ancient Persian artifacts, manuscripts, and similar items. Nobuko was astonished to discover that what she had casually favored as Turkish-style artworks until now—the exquisitely arabesqued silverwork, carpets, and pottery whose contrast of turquoise and black glazes was incomparably beautiful—were all creations of Iranian artisans. She felt an extraordinary sense of nostalgia and interest toward the decorative tiles hanging on the broad wall at the far end when she entered. It depicted aristocrats at leisure—a cheerful composition showing young noble men and women conversing under spring trees in full bloom, with a maid approaching from afar, robes billowing in the spring breeze as she carried a wine bottle. The princess’s plump cheeks, bold eyebrows, and scarf-draped garments all bore an exact resemblance to Tenpyō-period customs. But that wasn't all. From the charming shapes of flowers blooming in profusion across the surface, to the forms of trees and birds in flight, and even down to the familiar color schemes abundant in glazes of yellow, purple, green, and turquoise that adorned them—all of it could not help but recall the art of the Nara period.

Nobuko felt her body grow hot. Her mind raced through associations—Persia, China, Japan.—But Nobuko’s knowledge of East Asian art history proved too meager to immediately discern proper connections among those three. She looked at the numerous picture scrolls in the glass cases with a gaze that still showed bewilderment and curiosity. There were depictions of a king wrapped in a headcloth—large-headed with disproportionately large eyes—riding a palanquin, and scenes of hunting. In the margins were texts that appeared to be records. However, the characters—decorated with vermilion and gold and resembling patterns—were such that without the accompanying illustrations, Nobuko couldn’t even discern which way was up or down. As she steadily descended the museum’s numerous stone steps, she wondered in doubtful amazement whether Tsukuda could actually read such characters.

On Saturday, Nobuko went out with her father from the morning to visit an acquaintance in the suburbs.

They returned to the city after three o'clock, but as Sasa said he had business downtown until evening, Nobuko went back to the hotel alone first. As she started toward the elevator, someone called her name. When she turned around, a sprightly, freckle-faced bellboy came running up and reported in a businesslike manner.

“A guest has arrived.” “They’ve just arrived and are waiting over there.” Nobuko returned to the hall wondering who it could be. When she looked toward where yesterday morning’s cafeteria entrance had been—there in the same corner stood Tsukuda. His purpose became clear at once. The way he occupied that single spot as though claiming it his own somehow conveyed to Nobuko his unassuming diligence. She greeted him with relaxed ease. “Good day…” “My father hasn’t returned yet—but perhaps I can help?”

Nobuko settled into a seat facing him. “I have placed the newspaper advertisement you requested yesterday, so I came to deliver the receipt—”

“Oh, thank you very much.” Nobuko took a brief look at the scrap of paper that had been handed to her and put it into her handbag. Tsukuda said as he watched her hands. “And regarding Mills Hotel—the municipal lodging house we discussed—I went there this morning to check, but the name hasn’t appeared in recent ledgers.” "...but I had them issue the March ledgers and looked through them carefully." “Oh, you don’t have to do everything all at once like that.”

Nobuko was surprised that he had the time for such things.

“My father is such a busybody that he makes requests in rushed confusion, but you may take your time and do it whenever you’re free.”

“No, it’s quite all right. Since yesterday afternoon was completely free—please tell your father when he returns that the advertisement will likely appear in the newspaper the day after tomorrow. As for Mills, I will go check there again within the next two or three days... as I have some leads—”

“I’ll leave it to you.” Yet somehow she didn’t feel like rising to leave just yet and saying farewell—Tsukuda too showed no hurry, with no indication of reaching for the hat and gloves he’d placed on the small table beside him. Nobuko, after a while, “The Iranian languages you’re working on—they’re utterly fascinating, aren’t they? Yesterday, since I went to the Metropolitan, I took a look—but I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it.”

She said with a laugh. Tsukuda also shook his head and laughed. That smile was like ripples spreading across a quiet lake. He asked, "What did you look at? Was it scrolls, or perhaps stone rubbings?" he asked. "The scrolls in the glass cases—the ones with illustrations. Do Persians still use characters like that today?" "The characters probably aren't that different. As for the language itself, it has changed considerably over time—but even their writing system used different characters in ancient times, namely cuneiform—"

Nobuko, drawn by interest, looked at Tsukuda’s face. “What kind of things did they write with such characters?” “Was it just records and things like that?” “No!”

Tsukuda forcefully denied. "There are many epics and stories—though of course, in the much older cuneiform era, most were things like short records of kings conquering other peoples carved into rocks—"

As Nobuko became more engrossed in the conversation, she began speaking without pretense, her words growing more candid. "So as the characters gradually grew more complex and multiplied, they became able to write various stories—is that what you mean? What kinds of tales are common?... What sort of temperament do they reveal?" "In what they wrote—" "Well…" Tsukuda fell silent in thought. And because he didn’t immediately continue—after making Nobuko wait with slight impatience—he said.

“Generally speaking, it tends toward pessimism.”

“Are they pessimistic about humanity?—Or do they resent the circumstances of their era?” “Given that nation has been oppressed by various peoples since ancient times, much of their suffering likely stems from political causes.” “————”

Nobuko inquired about the academic value of his specialty and the objectives his research aimed to achieve. Comparative linguistics seemed interesting to her. It was a field that intrigued her as a living, comprehensive branch of study inextricably tied to ethnic psychology, social structures, and the rise and fall of civilizations. Tsukuda explained Nobuko’s inquiries with polite thoroughness that showed no sign of inconvenience, yet his words somehow remained incomplete. He took out a small notebook and showed her specimens of modern script he had written.

They talked for nearly two hours.

Tsukuda soon stood up, saying he had a patient to visit. “—A Japanese person?” “Yes, that’s correct.” “They’ve improved quite a bit, but since I make it a point to visit once every week, they’re likely waiting.”

Around that very time, a malignant flu had spread nearly worldwide and was raging. In New York City as well, every day a great number of patients had their brains or hearts afflicted and died. That there were even rumors of German submarines coming to the United States’ shores and spreading germs was something Nobuko had also learned from the newspapers.

She said to Tsukuda with a laugh. “Visiting is fine, but make sure you don’t catch it yourself.”

Then Tsukuda said with unexpected seriousness. "I should probably be fine—I received various preventive injections three or four months ago." "Oh? Why?" "The YMCA had me get them when I was preparing to go to France." "They were for typhus and scarlet fever... So I likely won't catch it." He solemnly declared while picking up an old-fashioned bowler hat from the table that lent him the appearance of an aging scholar. "Moreover, how such illnesses affect you depends on one's state of mind."

She wanted to ask why he had decided to go to the battlefield in the first place. Without giving Nobuko any explanation, Tsukuda bowed politely and disappeared into the crowd with an awkward gait.

Nobuko returned to the room.

The tightly closed room held within it stifling warmth alongside the soft slanting afternoon light. She opened the window wide. Then, taking off her hat and removing her coat, she lay down on the chaise longue intending to rest first.

Her hands were clasped beneath her head. Beneath them, cushions lay layered, pressed softly and comfortably. The high armrest cast a gentle shadow over her eyes from the long chair. It was warm... The room stood utterly silent save for faint city murmurs drifting through the open window—just enough to soothe without disturbing... Lulled as though her nerves were being stroked, Nobuko grew drowsy. Yet she did not sleep. With dazed eyes open, she gazed at the white ceiling where aged afternoon light played without brilliance and at wallpaper bearing muted twig patterns—she thought. For Tsukuda's antiquated black bowler hat still lingered in Nobuko's mind.......

Meeting Tsukuda and conversing with him was not without interest for Nobuko. Since embarking on her journey, she had not had opportunities for that kind of conversation—even when they arose—until meeting Tsukuda. Listening to Tsukuda’s various new stories about his specialized research was interesting—Nobuko thought. Why did he give people such a special impression? He stubbornly clung to his old-fashioned bowler hat—the kind an old Jewish man might wear—as if in defiance of fashion. That special quality akin to his bowler hat—something lonely and unfulfilled—was what tugged at Nobuko’s heart. Was it that he—no longer young yet seemingly conducting such research in poverty—invited sympathy? Or was it simply that she, feeling herself a woman brimming with vitality, found herself drawn to his shadowed existence precisely because of that contrast?—Nobuko rolled over onto her stomach on the long chair and continued thinking.

IV After two or three days had passed, Tsukuda brought a report from his investigation at the employment agency. No trace could be found of Nanba Takeji anywhere. Sasa then asked Tsukuda to enlist his friends' help in placing similar advertisements in Japanese-language newspapers published in major cities across central Japan. Tsukuda began frequenting the hotel for these consultations. He also brought over and lent out C University's course catalog that Nobuko had casually mentioned. On the evening Tsukuda visited with this printed material, Nobuko found herself in the downstairs hall with her father and a guest. She derived no enjoyment whatsoever from their conversation. The elderly guest kept staring at Nobuko's face for prolonged intervals as if she were still a ten-year-old girl, all while maintaining an ongoing discussion about iron that bore no relation to her. Then Tsukuda appeared at the edge of the hall—overcoat draped over his arm, hat in hand, features clouded with gloom. She greeted him with animation. Sasa performed introductions between Tsukuda and the elderly guest named Togo. With his characteristic sociability, Sasa persistently sought common ground between his two guests. Tsukuda responded politely both in manner and speech to Sasa's remarks and Togo's faintly patronizing questions. Yet Nobuko perceived with absolute clarity that Tsukuda took no genuine pleasure in this exchange. His perfunctory adherence to social niceties grated on her. Gradually this unspoken tension became intolerable. Without pausing to consider whether Tsukuda's attitude merited such preoccupation, she rose from her seat. Turning to her father and Togo,

“Excuse me for a moment.” She greeted them and turned to Tsukuda,

“Won’t you come over here? You’ve brought the catalog, haven’t you?”

and invited him to the nearby table. Tsukuda took out a rather thick C University handbook from his coat pocket and pulled a chair up beside Nobuko. Gentle light from the tall guest room lamp with its iridescent shade behind them poured down onto their small table. She flipped through the catalog, and whenever she found an interesting lecture title, she asked about its reputation. “Oh, here’s yours.” “Professor, what strange names they all have.”

“Ah, those are Persians.” “There are Syrian professors too... You’ll find one named Yohanan around there.” “What countries are the students from?” “A bit further ahead... There are only two students now—myself and...” Nobuko turned the page. Indeed, there were only two students. Tsukuda and a woman named Mrs. Flora Sidney. “That woman has been studying for quite some time now. Her husband is also at C University, I hear. She says she wants to write her thesis, but since Dr. Fawcett is unreliable, she often gets angry when she can’t make progress—”

“Is Dr. Fawcett elderly already?” “Well—fifty-six or seven, I suppose. He sometimes collapses because he drinks too much whiskey and smokes too many cigarettes.” The doubt she had harbored since their third meeting resurfaced in Nobuko’s heart. She asked. “Does Dr. Fawcett value you?”

At the blunt question, Tsukuda seemed to hesitate for a moment. He paused again before giving an unclear answer. "I'm not sure if you could call it being especially valued—Dr. Fawcett is an impartial person—but with so few students and hardly anyone taking these courses—I suppose he thinks I'm managing to persist without growing bored."

“You mentioned before that you tried to go to France, didn’t you?… What did the professor say at that time?” Nobuko looked straight at Tsukuda’s face as she listened, “That’s fine—did he tell you to go right away?” she said in a tone that bordered on interrogation, then suddenly looked awkward and apologized. “I’m sorry for asking so many questions…”

Tsukuda did not seem particularly offended; rather, he answered with a flatness that Nobuko found disappointingly anticlimactic. “Dr. Fawcett didn’t say anything in particular.” “The Professor knows that once I set my mind on something, I won’t listen—” And he, in a manner that suggested he believed this to be genuine kindness,

“The Professor’s wife was so delighted that she went out of her way to give me some knitted things she’d made from yarn.”

he added. “…………” To Nobuko, the professor’s wife’s encouragement felt unpleasantly typical of commonplace patriotic women. Was there really not a single person around him who would speak up with genuine concern at such times? “Did your friends also agree?” He blocked Nobuko as if recoiling. “I’m not the type to speak much about myself…” “That may be so, however—” Nobuko felt a fierce dissatisfaction toward him and those around him.

“————”

She restrained the words she was about to blurt out and shifted the conversation to a different focus. “The other day, when you told me about that, I found it rather strange—it wasn’t as if there was some compulsory obligation forcing you to do it, was there?” “That is not the case. I thought it would be too self-indulgent to keep doing only what I pleased at such a time, so I resolved that if I could be of even the slightest help to those who are suffering…”

Tsukuda made a confident, stubborn-looking expression. Nobuko stared back into those eyes with a gaze gripped by thought, resting both arms on the open C University prospectus as she asked in a slow tone: "Is continuing your own specialty selfish...? It's not mere dilettantism, is it?" "What you're doing." "If it's truly your own work, then I wouldn't be considered selfish......" "But...when the entire world is suffering..."

"I think it might be acceptable not to abandon my profession as long as circumstances permit. But isn't running around battlefields the only way to serve humanity? No matter how long or fierce the war may be, it's just a temporary storm after all. I think we can—and should—keep moving forward with our eyes fixed on what lies ahead." Nobuko thought that if Tsukuda truly held firm conviction in his own ideas, this opinion of hers would not leave him silent. She waited for Tsukuda's response. But he,

“Hmm.”

He let out a groan and said nothing.

“Of course, if you’ve given up on your specialty, that’s a different story—if you truly believe that what you were doing holds no meaning whatsoever for the present or future…”

Nobuko had said this as her second attempt to probe. Would this reach the motives hidden deep within Tsukuda’s heart? Then he dodged the question that had advanced straight toward him and, in an extremely sentimental tone, spoke as if muttering to himself. “In any case, I am an ascetic—just as my nickname from the Professor suggests.” “I’ll probably end up being a burden on the university library for the rest of my life.” Nobuko looked at Tsukuda with a face that seemed both unmoored and astonished. He talked about being a lifelong burden on the library, yet there wasn’t a trace of hope or joy in that vision for him. He even looked sorrowful! He even seemed to sigh as if lamenting an inescapable fate. If that were the case, then he should behave honestly like someone cheerfully and earnestly seeking happiness—yet he closed himself off. Why could he remain so composed while placing himself in such a glaring contradiction? Why didn’t he firmly root himself in one place, bask in ample sunlight, breathe in ample air, and resolve to live humanly?

Nobuko's youthful emotions surged toward Tsukuda in a turbulent mix of flustered confusion, bitter resentment, and compassionate pity. She understood for the first time that the single expression perpetually appearing on his face—a look that seemed to declare something missing, a wind blowing through the heart—was likely this bizarre tangle of reverberations governing his entire existence. Sinking into the armchair and feeling various sensations, Nobuko began to feel an oddly oppressive yet restless sort of excitement as she watched Tsukuda’s earnest face.

She found herself unable to calmly watch Tsukuda living in such a manner.

V

November arrived, and the city fully took on early winter’s appearance. In mornings, looking out from the hotel window at the roof across the way, one saw steam rising from melted frost. Office workers and laborers alike all chose to walk along the sunlit side of the same glistening pavement as they came and went. Afternoons grew shorter; dusk turned gray and desolate. On late nights returning from theaters, a biting wind that made people instinctively raise overcoat collars and hunch shoulders raged violently through city streets. Since summer’s end, the conclusion of Europe’s war—begun in 1914—had grown palpably imminent.

On the afternoon of November 7th, Nobuko had remained in the hotel since morning—an unusual occurrence. She took a bath, delighting playfully in the bright daytime sunlight. She then wrote a long, detailed letter to her mother. After finishing lunch and returning to her room once more, she circled around the table where the thick envelope—now only needing a stamp—lay, and began pacing aimlessly about the area. It was still before two o'clock. On her way back from the cafeteria, she had forgotten to buy stamps. If I have to go downstairs again anyway—since I haven’t gone out at all since this morning—maybe I should take a short walk. But—where to?

Nobuko opened the window and looked down at the street below, as if searching for some kind of trigger. The afternoon sunlight shone directly on the building with its closed windows, making the thick metal signboard beneath the eaves glitter dustily. Under the red-and-white striped awning of the sidewalk, a vividly dressed woman walked by, her shoe buckles glinting. The glass door of the pharmacy opened, reflecting the sunlight. Two men emerged from inside. One man put something into the mailbox directly across from the window where Nobuko was watching. Another man nearby had been tapping his toes; soon they moved off together, meticulously rounded the corner, and vanished into the side street. At the sight of their retreating figures swaying their hips as they turned sharply around the corner, Nobuko found herself laughing involuntarily.

The air was warm, dry, and light, with the smell of gasoline drifting pleasantly through the avenue's leafless treetops. Nobuko felt drawn to the street's bustling smell. She closed the window and went to the bedroom. And it was just when she had put on her hat, put on her coat, and returned to pick up the letter to be sent.

Nobuko heard an unusual sound. From somewhere far away came a single whistle—sudden, sharp, dragging a drawn-out wail—and then all at once, from here and there, countless thick, groaning, quivering whistles began to blare. It felt like a dense forest of sound. The air roared and swayed like billows. Mixed with these, other whistles—shrieking like screams—kept blaring one after another. Nobuko instinctively clutched the letter and froze in the middle of the room. What on earth happened! She instinctively pushed open the window and peered outside. Bang, bang—windows here and there flung open with similar violence. In that instant when she looked down, Nobuko felt she had never seen such an abnormally flat, small street as Broadway. The sun remained in the same position as before. Cars were running. But roaring, shrieking, the sounds kept screaming something urgent.

Nobuko abandoned the window and tried opening the door to the corridor. Here too, doors were opening and closing. In front of the room ahead, a woman in a gaudy housedress paced back and forth, wringing her hands as she screamed something hysterically. Nobuko—even that woman would do—wanted to ask what had happened and started walking toward where she saw figures moving. Then, buzz, buzz—the elevator came shooting up at high speed. Clatter—the screen door flew open. From within, a bellboy in gold-buttoned livery thrust his upper body into the corridor, cupped one hand like a megaphone by his mouth, and shouted in a deep, angry voice.

“Germany surrenders! Unconditional surrender!” With enough force to smash the shouting man’s head, the screen door was slammed shut again. Buzz, buzz—the elevator shot up sharply toward higher floors.

Nobuko couldn't believe her ears.

“Unconditional surrender... Germany surrenders...” Nobuko felt her knees trembling. She peered out the window again, as if to verify reality. Could everything transform so utterly within mere minutes?! Unnoticed until now, a massive American flag had been hoisted above the hotel’s main entrance. From the pharmacy across the street and every window lining its upper floors, flags of all sizes burst into motion—fluttering frantically as though compelled by some urgent passion—their restless snapping charged with fervor. The whistles’ cacophony swelled louder and more chaotic. Nobuko felt tears welling up from the intensity. Downtown! Countless cars streamed through the streets—all flying flags, packed with people—racing downtown! Downtown! They jostled for precedence in their headlong rush. Bang! Bang-bang! Firecrackers punctuated the tumult.

Nobuko sat down on the sofa.

Even so—had this bloody murderous work truly ended forever now?

Nobuko rose again with a thrill of excitement mixed with ache—a feeling that no one would take seriously. She left the room in exhilaration, abandoning on the desk the letter she had meant to send. To the streets, to the streets!

Six

As Nobuko, who had been waiting impatiently for the elevator doors to open, boarded it, a tall man in a black coat hurriedly stepped one foot into the corridor as if equally pressed for time. But when he saw Nobuko entering,

“Oh!” He stopped and stepped back into the elevator. In her excitement, Nobuko carelessly looked up at the man’s face—it was none other than Hirano, one of Sasa’s close friends. Nobuko grasped Hirano’s hand tightly. “To our place?” “Is anyone home?” “Yes. — I thought I’d just go out around here for a bit.”

“I see—well then, let’s head downstairs either way.”

Hirano waved to signal the elevator boy. "But it's not safe to walk alone at a time like this."

“Yes. Just around there.” “Even around there—everyone’s gone mad, you know.”

In the strangely empty lobby, bellboys who couldn’t even leave glared at them with fierce eyes.

“What should we do?—If you go out while he’s away, won’t your father worry?” “I was going to leave a message at the front desk, but—”

“Guess telling you to stay put’s a bit much, eh?” Hirano looked at Nobuko with glittering eyes and gave a short laugh. “Well, since I’m feeling restless anyway, why don’t we go take a quick look at downtown together?” While leaving Nobuko’s key at the front desk, he also dropped off the notebook.

“There! All set!” “And—” “Tonight we’ll have your father treat us to a proper feast by way of thanks!”

The already packed elevated train crammed in countless passengers at every stop as it approached downtown. “Well, what do you think of this crush!” “Squee!” Among the passengers, someone imitated a pig’s scream. A roar of laughter erupted.

“Excuse me, are you Japanese?” There was a wrinkled old man who, hooking his finger on the brim of his homburg hat that was about to be knocked off in the crush, called out to Hirano. “Yes.” “Ahem.” The elderly man kept clearing his throat excessively from excitement and spoke while forcing his thin, trembling voice to project. “Truly, this achievement of peace—ahem—is a cause for shared celebration among us citizens of the Allied nations.” Hirano smiled and replied, “Well, it truly is the best outcome possible. After all, we’ve waited so long for this.”

he replied. The elderly man nodded with evident satisfaction upon hearing this and continued clearing his throat. The elevated train caught in the festive uproar went as far as Recta Street. Descending the station's iron stairs—where trampled extra editions obscured the steps—and emerging onto the street, Nobuko was overwhelmed by the chaos and tightly grasped Hirano's arm. Enormous soot-covered office buildings loomed on both sides like iron cages crushed by urgent business. Thousands of windows gaped open toward the street like hearts ripped wide at once. That alone made an extraordinary spectacle. From those vacant windows, five-colored paper tapes spewed forth and tangled downward. Trampling yellow shorthand paper and torn ticker-tape scraps that until moments before had meant money through some arcane alchemy, a crowd of singing, laughing, flag-waving men and women wound through in a sluggish procession. Not a single office window revealed human figures within.

At a certain corner, a streetcar was abandoned in the middle of the roadway. Even the driver was nowhere to be seen. On its strangely powerless-looking yellow roof, two street children danced in time to a whistle. A hastily assembled makeshift band came marching through, playing the national anthem. Amidst the crowd, “Come on! Get a flag to celebrate!” “How about one?” “Five cents!” “Five cents!” “Come on, get one as a souvenir!” There was a man brandishing small flags of various countries in both hands while running a shrewd business.

For her to break ahead alone or cut across the street was utterly impossible. Holding a small flag aloft in one hand and gripping Hirano's arm with the other, the petite Nobuko was pushed along, her nose nearly pressed against the back of the coat worn by the person in front of her.

They found themselves at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway without conscious effort. The massive crowd that had surged like a tide from three directions now swirled immovably around the square dominated by the Washington statue shrouded in dust and grime. In front of a building befitting downtown’s fierce commercial battleground—its columns filthy and pitch-black—a man was giving a speech. Separated by layers upon layers of crowds, not a single word reached Nobuko where she stood. All she could make out were hands gesticulating wildly and the occasional glimpse of a balding forehead. This very absence came to represent the extraordinary frenzy filling heaven and earth, giving Nobuko a strangely sorrowful impression. Here, a beggar clung to the handle of a mechanical organ, grinding out a cringe-inducing waltz. In time with this, young, hatless men and women were dancing roughly.

Everyone’s faces were flushed and ugly. Not a single man or woman could be found wearing a bright, earnest, beautiful expression befitting those welcoming joyous peace. They were uniformly animalistic. Their glaring eyes were fixed, their mouths bearing drunken smirks and spasms that ceaselessly pursued voracious, intense stimulation. It no longer mattered whether the cause of their excitement was the joy of armistice or a declaration of war. All they desired was the frenzy of overturning everyday life. To become intoxicated with self-oblivion! And forward! Forward! They pushed frantically with their bellies and shoved with their shoulders. The temporarily stagnant crowd began moving slowly again. The barbaric force that had detonated civilization closed in blatantly from all sides, and Nobuko grew terrified.

“Hey, can’t we find some way through? I want to go home.” “Wait—t-t-t-t, this commotion’s too much.” “Now! Quick!” The moment they slipped through to the opposite sidewalk, a roar erupted from an alleyway to their right. “What? A fight?” Hirano stretched up to see, bumping his face against the hat brim of the man before him. “—They’ve brought out something grand! Carrying a straw Kaiser effigy!”

Painstakingly, Nobuko peered through the crowd. Indeed, atop a tall pole, a Kaiser made of old Western clothes and cardboard was being carried forth, his familiar mustache tilted at an angle. Hanging from its chest was a placard inscribed “Go to hell!” As they carried it, they skillfully raised and lowered the pole. As they did so, the Kaiser made a sadly comical gesture. Amidst thunderous cheers, the effigy was carried heave-ho to the center of the intersection. “Burn it!”

“Get to Paris already!” “Burn militarism!” Flushed and excited, she screamed piercingly in a soprano voice that stung her own tongue.

“Devil! Give back our children!” A nervous sob arose from somewhere. The Kaiser’s straw effigy made increasingly foolish gestures above thousands of faces. A second roar of voices thundered through the square. Hazily, Nobuko saw flames rising. Fire raced through the Kaiser’s tattered plaid. The mechanical organ played the national anthem. Pale blue smoke rose quietly into the transparent, somewhat languid sky of an early winter afternoon. A faintly acrid smell drifted through the air.

VII

Nobuko returned to the hotel after about three hours with a heart somehow mingled with an unsatisfied sadness.

She met Sasa, who had just returned, in the lobby. His cheerfulness was so innocently pure that it defied any possible reproach. He had indeed called out in a champagne-induced mood. “What’s the matter?” “Thanks to you, I got to see quite a spectacle!” “Truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” “You see, if we’d landed just one month later, we’d have missed out on witnessing such a magnificent historical spectacle in our lifetime.—A chance!” “It’s all thanks to Mr. Hirano—”

With enthusiastic rapid speech still tinged with emotion, Sasa recounted the time he had heard the steam whistle during a luncheon at a businessmen's club. “Well, everyone just leapt to their feet!” “What with them suddenly giving speeches as Allied representatives and toasting for Japan—it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.” “And you?” “Were you at the office?” “At that time?” “I—how absurd—got stranded on a bus roof and jumped down there.”

Around the time Hirano and the three of them headed to the dining hall, rumors began circulating here and there among the specially dressed crowds that tonight’s armistice report had been a mistake. The authorities in Washington had declared in the evening edition that they had not yet received any such official report. But as night fell, the city’s commotion surged heedless of such official reports. Nobuko went out to see the night view after dinner. Around 42nd Street where cars had become immobilized both ahead and behind, they had to continue on foot.

Under the arc lamps unfolded human frenzy more vividly colored than daylight. A staggeringly drunk young woman strode through the crowd while flipping up a walking man's hat with a short stick. The man flinched. The women shook their shoulders, collided with companions, and dissolved into laughter. A uniformed soldier—thoroughly intoxicated—forced his way against the human current. Staggering unsteadily, he shook his wobbling head to brusquely inspect passing women's faces. Suddenly lurching noisily forward, he embraced a large-built woman standing directly before Nobuko. The woman screamed and struck his face. He groaned, muttered something, widened bloodshot eyes, and contorted his features savagely to lunge again. On the densely packed pavement, she found no room to dodge left or right. Dark figures jostled as a man shouted angrily. Startled, Nobuko yanked her father's arm with full force and hid behind a lamppost.

“Let’s go home! Now!” “No—I can’t bear this commotion—” “Quite the demon parade out here,” remarked Hirano. Nobuko heard all-night foot traffic and drunkards’ shouts beneath her window. The next morning’s papers made clear yesterday’s reports had been entirely false. The authentic account should have reached them via battlefield wireless by dawn on the eleventh. Yet the masses never doubted that seventh-day armistice bulletin. They sneered through clenched teeth, “The government’s always late with facts.”

On the early morning of the eleventh, while still in bed, Nobuko was awakened by her father to hear the steam whistles announcing the official armistice treaty signing. Through cold air veiled in white mist, the mingled whistles reached her drowsy ears. Their solemn, measured tones had lost that fervor which had suddenly blasted skyward on the afternoon of the seventh. Nobuko's own feelings mirrored this change. Listening halfway through with pragmatic detachment now that fresh emotion had faded, she fell soundly asleep again before they ceased. On the thirteenth came publication of the amended armistice terms. Then President Wilson's statement about his planned trip to France for peace conference preparations became fuel for heated debate.

Nobuko felt an almost sensory appeal to the human spirit's stirring. The winter of 1918 was springtime in the hearts of the people. Human society sought to regain what it had lost through new substance and conviction. Society, having settled its accounts with the past, seemed to see a fervor surge up—one imbued with unprecedented reality—that deeply doubted, resolutely built, and sought at least to make the world a more habitable, rational place. Nobuko felt that stimulation within her own breast. A new light glimmered on the horizon. What influence would that light have on her life?...

The search for Nanba Takeji, who had initially brought Tsukuda into the lives of Sasa and his daughter, ultimately ended in failure. Yet before they knew it, Tsukuda had become an intimate part of their circle and remained so afterward. Being well-acquainted with the locale himself, he proved useful in many small ways, and Sasa continued entrusting him with various minor tasks thereafter. For this purpose, Tsukuda began visiting the hotel nearly every other day. There were frequent occasions when Sasa happened to be out. During these absences, he would converse with Nobuko while awaiting Sasa’s return. As these interactions accumulated, Nobuko gradually came to learn even the finer details of Tsukuda’s circumstances through no particular effort of her own—how he had lost his birth mother shortly after being born, been raised by a second mother, then come to America through the aid of a certain missionary when barely past twenty years old; how he had subsequently spent about fifteen years sustaining himself through work while pursuing his studies. His apparent resilience toward life’s hardships—that stoic yet faintly embittered contempt he harbored toward social pleasures that remained unattainable no matter how he might strive for them, pleasures denied him both financially and temporally—all these traits became psychologically explicable when one heard his personal history. But if this were truly the case, could Tsukuda’s soul have been genuinely resolute and serenely at peace through sheer stoicism?

Tsukuda frequently visited the father and daughter and would talk with Nobuko for three or even four hours without ever growing bored. Before long，she felt that Tsukuda was confessing what he was naturally seeking. For Tsukuda，who seemed lonely，the awareness that she herself provided some comfort was not an unpleasant feeling for Nobuko，a young woman. To ask him for something，or for him to be asked—these were not mere matters of business discussion but something faintly warm，fragments of human connection.

The time for Sasa’s return to Japan drew gradually nearer. Nobuko needed to decide how to arrange her life should she remain behind alone. What she had considered a trivial matter became something she found difficult to resolve when confronted with it. The issue arose between father and daughter during their nighttime conversations.

“I couldn’t stay much longer myself—a month at most—but isn’t there some suitable household? If you don’t settle into a proper place, unlike a son, I can’t just leave you out there on your own.” “That’s how it is. “I should’ve been born a boy instead.” “Ha ha ha. “If Mother and I kept saying that, it would be quite the predicament... Do you dislike the idea of being looked after by the Chetwolds?”

“Well…”

Dr. Chetwold was a professor in C University’s art department with expertise in Japanese nishiki-e woodblock prints and related subjects. Though he had been a long-time acquaintance of Sasa’s— Nobuko recalled the stern, officious expression of the elderly woman who had argued fervently over politics while draped in a white lace shawl. “I’m nearly at my wit’s end.” “Hmm.”

Sasa also did not seem to have any other ideas. And invariably, the conclusion was like this. "If only you were going to England—then it'd be no trouble at all. Mrs. Lehmann would handle everything as if you were her own grandchild." "Mrs. Lehmann—that old woman with the peculiar handwriting who often sends letters—you know of her?" "When I was there, I often showed her the letters you sent, so even now she still asks after Little Nobu…"

Nobuko’s struggle in selecting a place to settle had yet another reason. The fact that she had come to New York with her father was primarily motivated by her desire to obtain the opportunity to live as she wished. In the Sasa household, Nobuko was the eldest daughter. There was her strong-willed mother Takedayo’s tendency to covertly fashion her into an idol of grand ambitions, and there were the constraints of being a middle-class daughter that refused to allow Nobuko to plunge as eagerly into life as she desired. If things continued like this, she wasn’t even living half a life’s worth. The awareness that her life had not yet begun had continued to torment her for at least the past three years. (Nobuko was then nineteen years and several months old by Western reckoning.) Her father was traveling. “You may come along too.” ...No matter what discussions her parents had between themselves or what intentions led them to that decision, for Nobuko, simply being able to live apart from her parents’ home was itself a monumental thing.

After the November 11th armistice declaration, for better or worse, the groundbreaking social clamor beat against the hotel windowpanes and reached Nobuko’s heart. She too wanted to cast off this tepid existence—this hothouse-plant life she’d been living until now. To achieve that wish, choosing where to place herself for the coming six months or even a year proved difficult for Nobuko.

After visiting Nakata—who had been renting an apartment near the university—and checking his circumstances, Nobuko finally resolved to enter the dormitory affiliated with C University following Dr. Chetwold’s advice. Yasukawa was also living there. “It’s all part of the experience—that’s what makes it fine.” “If I get tired of it after a while, I’ll figure something out then.” “Ms. Yasukawa says they’ll even allow going to evening plays if you give notice—so I think this will work.” “But they say you can’t get in unless you’re an auditor.”

“That will do.”

“...I’ll go see it within two or three days and decide then.” “Is it all right if we ask Mr. Tsukuda to come along?”

“If he’s free, I don’t suppose he’d mind being asked.”

It was a warm, clear Monday when Nobuko went with Tsukuda to C University’s registry office. Mingling with students, they completed their registration by walking back and forth along the ginkgo-lined pavement. A young female student strode briskly, books clutched to her chest, wind tousling her hair. Nobuko, “I’ve started feeling rather excited about this somehow,” said to Tsukuda walking beside her. “School truly feels right after all.” “Isn’t it strange?” “Coming to a place like this makes me want to study ever so hard.”

Tsukuda tilted only his bowler-hatted head toward the petite Nobuko and answered politely, walking with his chest puffed up like someone who had undergone military training. “You should certainly do so.” Nobuko laughed. “Someone pleasure-seeking like me could never study as diligently as Ms. Yasukawa—I’m just someone who’s interested in all sorts of things. You’re the one who should stay resolute. What was that just now?” “It’s the translation of sutras,” he replied. “Something like the incantations used by ancient Zoroastrians...”

“Is it interesting?” “Well…” “Just reference material?—Is this the first time you’re translating it?”

“There was a French scholar who translated it long ago, but it’s full of errors.” “That’s why I’m working on this new version…” Beside the building housing Dr. Fosset’s laboratory, squirrels played peacefully on the sun-bleached lawn. Though situated in the city center, C University’s campus contained wide lawns and tree-lined paths, with fountains featuring cast faun statues visible here and there. They emerged from the university’s main gate onto Broadway. The subway station at 116th Street immediately caught their eyes.

“What would you like to do? Shall we return directly to the hotel?” “Let me see.” As she looked out over the city under the mild late-autumn sun, Nobuko felt the hotel room’s crampedness take hold in her mind. “Aren’t you busy? If it’s any trouble, I’ll just wander straight back on my own, so please feel free to do as you wish... Thank you very much.” “No, I’m free this afternoon anyway.” Tsukuda hurriedly said, as if chasing after Nobuko. “Then—have you ever been to Riverside Park?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll take you back to the hotel through the park.”

VIII

They crossed the roadway and passed through another smooth, wide road beyond to find a thicket of shrubs along the sidewalk. A path resembling a garden walkway threaded through the shrubbery. They walked slowly side by side down toward it. From the walking path bordering the park's lawn, the Hudson River became fully visible. The Hudson River flowed entranced under the winter sun's warmth. Its broad heavy surface glowed pearlescent. The lower reaches flowing grandly seaward lay shrouded in haze. On the distant opposite shore, winter-bare sparse woods blurred into pale russet as a single gull-like bird flew companionless. A faint water scent filled Nobuko with nostalgic yet fresh delight.

“...How quiet it is.” “This is when fewest people come out.” Keeping the Hudson River constantly visible on their right, they walked toward downtown. “Even though it’s close to both the university and hotel, I never knew.” “That such a lovely place existed here.” “I’m glad there are more spots for walks now.”

Along the path they took, there were here and there inviting lawns and plantings. “This park is so cozy and nice.” Then Tsukuda interjected with a neurotic tone, as if cutting her off,

“It would be best if you didn’t walk alone too frequently around here,” he said.

“Oh? Even during the day?” “Because there are unsavory characters.” “Oh, that’s true.”

Nobuko understood the meaning of Tsukuda’s warning and answered honestly. “I’ll be careful about that—but… Japanese people should be all right, don’t you think?”

Tsukuda looked even more doubtful, with profound significance,

“Well…”

he hesitated in his reply. “Well, you’ll come to understand gradually.” Tsukuda’s answer—delivered in a manner suggesting he had sufficient grounds but was refraining out of propriety—aroused Nobuko’s curiosity. After walking in silence for a while, she asked. “Do you know much about the Japanese people here?” “I believe I do.” As Nobuko was about to continue speaking, Tsukuda cut her off, “They’re mostly wolf-like people.”

He asserted curtly. Nobuko involuntarily smiled. “Wolf”—

She returned to her room in the relaxed mood that follows a good walk. With habitual nonchalance, she turned the key to the right as usual. With a click, a strange resistance ran through her fingertips—the door didn’t open. Nobuko bent down to examine the keyhole. Then, just to be sure, she tried turning the handle. The door swung inward without resistance. The lock hadn’t been engaged. Had a maid come to clean?— Nobuko stepped suspiciously into the parlor and scanned the room. Then Sasa’s wholly unexpected voice called out from the bedroom.

“Nobuko?” Nobuko felt a shock as her previously refreshingly carefree mood vanished in an instant. Sasa had left the inn at nine o'clock that morning with her and Tsukuda, the three of them together. He wasn’t supposed to return until evening. —Nobuko hurried over there.

“What’s happened to you?” Sasa was half-sitting up on the bed, his face pale. He looked at Nobuko and tried to produce his usual bright, warm smile. But, evidently feeling quite unwell, his smile faded midway. Recognizing the anxiety visible in her father’s eyes, Nobuko too was filled with uneasy worry. Though she hadn’t known, she began to feel remorse for having idly whiled away her time wandering around the park in good spirits.

“When did you come back?” She sat down on the edge of the bed and took her father’s hand. “I came back about thirty minutes ago,” he said. “Suddenly—I’m not feeling well at all. I have a terrible headache and seem to be running a fever.” “Let me see.” Nobuko touched her father’s forehead to check. It was quite hot.

“Are you having chills?” “While at Shokin, I started getting these chills, you see, and thinking this looked bad, I rushed back by automobile.”

Sasa cut off his words and made a face as if pondering his own condition. He eventually muttered to himself in a tone that strained to disguise it as a joke. "A cold, perhaps—has it finally gotten me?" Nobuko felt a chill settle in her heart. She too, the moment she heard her father's voice in the bedroom, remembered it and shuddered. The malignant influenza that had been epidemic since autumn was still raging. Most epidemics should see their virulence diminish as they near their end, yet this year’s influenza was the opposite. There were many new patients and many deaths. With desperate composure, Nobuko—

“That might be it. But since you noticed it early, you’ll be fine.—Stay strong!” And then, with sudden motherly resoluteness and cheer, “I’m a good nurse, so please rest assured and leave everything to me.”

While saying this, she briskly removed her outer garments. Sasa seemed to have been waiting impatiently for Nobuko’s return, for he followed her every movement with his eyes as she went to the next room to remove her coat, then returned to wash her hands. “Oh, it was there? I thought it might be in the large trunk and looked for it but couldn’t find it.”

While muttering such things, he loosened his nightclothes of his own accord and had Nobuko place the thermometer in his armpit. It was 38.9 degrees Celsius. “How high is it?” Nobuko shook the thermometer and brought down the mercury. “It’s nothing serious… If your mouth gets dry, shall I call for ice water?”

After some time, Nobuko said.

“Shall we have Dr. Sawamura come? Hmm?” “...Very well.”

Sasa seemed to have been holding himself together until he saw Nobuko's face. Once his resolve weakened, even speaking seemed too much effort. He laid his flushed face on the two stacked feather pillows and occasionally let out deep sighs.

For nearly an hour until the doctor arrived—left alone with the patient—Nobuko felt an indescribable sense of isolation. How utterly unrelated the life of this metropolis and our very survival were when it came down to it. The coldly indifferent atmosphere of her surroundings struck Nobuko's heart.

Nine

Sasa’s illness was diagnosed as being in the initial stage of the currently prevalent malignant influenza, just as Nobuko had surmised. Sawamura said in the practiced tone of a family physician, “However, there is absolutely no need for you to worry. Only very mild symptoms have manifested so far, and after all, this sort of illness depends on the patient’s usual state of health. With someone like you in good nutritional standing and free from chronic conditions—you’ll be perfectly fine, fully recovered within ten days.”

Sasa said that since the hotel was inconvenient, it would be better to be hospitalized.

Sawamura gazed at Nobuko standing by the bed while, “Since there appears to be an excellent nurse here, it might actually be better for you not to move about now. Though of course, I’d profit more if you came to my house instead—ha ha ha!” he laughed. Tsukuda was the only one who handled tasks like purchasing from the pharmacist or going to retrieve medicine from Sawamura. Nobuko called him.

Tsukuda soon appeared carrying a bundle of medicines. He assisted Nobuko and behaved with the confidence of one who understood his role. That night, Sasa drank only a small amount of glucose solution. When Tsukuda and Nobuko went to the dining hall, the scene of splendidly dressed people chatting and laughing—the glittering spectacle of the tables—now seemed to have completely lost its power to touch her heart. Tsukuda comforted her: “It would be best if you didn’t worry too much.” “I’ve frequently seen much worse cases—no,” he continued. “The severely bloodshot eyes alone make it immediately recognizable, so please truly don’t worry—it will be alright.”

For four days, Sasa’s condition gradually worsened. On the third day, even Nobuko watching at his side found it hard to breathe, so agonized did the patient appear. There was almost no cough—only a fever fluctuating around forty degrees and severe headaches assailing him. Every joint in his body ached until he could no longer turn over by himself. Yet Sasa endured without uttering a single word of complaint about his pain to his daughter. That endurance born of paternal affection instead pressed down upon Nobuko’s spirit. Her father had always been sickly. That matters would never have been settled so simply had Mother been there was something Nobuko understood all too well. Moreover, he was not a man of dull emotions. He had contracted this treacherous illness in a foreign hotel. How could anyone claim dark imaginings never once brushed through his mind? Nobuko herself was often tormented by such ominous thoughts. Thus when she gazed at her father—seemingly restraining his sentiment—or at his sleeping face after he finally drifted off, it struck her heart all the more intensely.

Tsukuda had come to spend more time in Sasa’s hotel room than anywhere else throughout the day. He would first come in the morning and complete all necessary shopping. He helped change compresses and perform other tasks. When university obligations permitted, he would leave temporarily only to return by three or four o'clock—sometimes even earlier. And he typically stayed until nightfall. There were times he sat silently for hours on either side of the patient’s bed. There were times he stole on tiptoe from the soundly sleeping patient’s side to the adjoining room and drank tea in weighted silence. During such moments, even a rustling bedsheet noise would make Nobuko—her nerves frayed—startle and prick up her ears. Tsukuda seemed to instantly grasp her anxiety; rising from his seat, he would stand on tiptoe to peer through the dividing curtain at the patient. While quietly restoring the curtain to its original position, he shook his head. Nobuko nodded upon confirming her father still slept undisturbed... To such an extent had Tsukuda’s prolonged presence ceased feeling unusual that he now stood essential to their daily existence. When Tsukuda lingered too long in idle moments, the patient—concerned—

“I must be causing you such trouble.” “Since I’m feeling much better today, please don’t hold back… Nobuko, that’s acceptable, isn’t it?” There were times when he would say such things. However, Tsukuda answered calmly. “If I’m busy, I’ll take my leave without hesitation, so please do not trouble yourself over it. Mental rest is what’s most important.” “Mental rest is what’s most important.” Around the sixth day, the patient’s fever began to subside—just slightly, little by little, but without any relapse. The physician percussed the chest, examined the tongue,

“There—this time it’s truly all right,” he declared firmly. “The critical phase has been properly passed, so what remains is the recovery period...”

While occasionally stealing curious glances at Tsukuda standing before the wardrobe, he said. “Your current condition is akin to a mild case of measles—if you grow careless now that it’s subsided, it could relapse and lead to serious consequences.” “The winds of New York are notorious, so from now on…”

When Sasa first managed to get up to the sofa in the adjoining room after ten-odd days, Nobuko felt such joy, “Hurrah! Hurrah!” she shouted while jumping about the place. “Look, Father! I was a pretty good nurse, wasn’t I?”

“There, there.” Sasa grabbed Nobuko’s hand and made her sit by his side. “Alright, I can write a letter to your mother now.” She felt happy. Relieved. Tears of overwhelming emotion streamed down Nobuko’s cheeks. She buried her head under her father’s arm while laughing through tears. Sasa progressed laboriously through his convalescence. There were days when his temperature lingered two or three tenths above normal, and he still suffered occasional severe headaches. Though Sasa had mustered the strength to reach the adjoining room on that first day, from the next morning onward he remained bedridden except for trips to the washroom. Yet however haltingly, the terrible time had passed. People began circulating around his sickbed again. Laughter resurfaced. Tea sets were carried in. Nobuko sensed both freshness and irony in this return to daily life—how the world that had withdrawn during their darkest hours now quietly reasserted itself.

Lately, the morning cold had been quite severe. Nobuko found it difficult to leave bed every morning—perhaps her mental fatigue had set in. Though she should have slept sufficiently, upon waking she felt her muscles remain slack, her back glued to the bed as if stuck fast, making it difficult to rise. There were times when she lingered until nearly noon. On one such morning, Nobuko summoned her courage and left her bed a little past seven o'clock. She absolutely had to reach B College by nine o'clock. The previous day, a postcard had arrived from Professor Lawrence, who oversaw student guidance. Fifteen days earlier, she had submitted notifications to audit English literature and sociology courses but left them unattended due to her father’s illness. It was a notification requesting her presence to discuss those matters' particulars.

Nobuko wrapped her sleep-deprived, strangely chilled body in her coat and left after only having coffee with an egg. During the morning commute, the subway station was crowded with men and women clutching newspapers and briefcases. Nobuko boarded the express train just as it arrived. From the hotel, it was supposed to take less than twenty minutes to reach the university. She got off at 116th Street. Wondering why the platform's layout seemed slightly different from when she had gotten off there previously with Tsukuda, she passed through the ticket gate and emerged onto the street. After glancing at the street, Nobuko found herself at a loss. The street was undoubtedly 116th Street, but it was certainly not Broadway. Far from being able to see C University's buildings from the station plaza, all that lined both sides of the street were warehouse-like structures. The people spewed out from underground together briskly turned the corner with indifference and vanished, while those sparsely plodding along the morning's filthy sidewalk strewn with old newspapers were either men in striped trousers, black jackets, and hunting caps, or laborers in work clothes.

Nobuko resolved and began walking single-mindedly toward uptown. The school was on 120th Street. If she followed this street up to 120th Street, there should be a cross street connecting to Broadway either to the right or left. After walking until exhausted, she finally encountered a traffic officer. And then, for the first time, she discovered she had taken the wrong train and ended up far east of Broadway. Professor Lawrence—who had apparently visited Japan before—laughed with great sympathy at Nobuko's story of getting lost. The matter concerned a recommendation that reallocating some time from English literature studies to free composition would prove beneficial. For this purpose, she was introduced to someone named Miss Platt.

10 Professor Lawrence recalled tales of Nikko and Kamakura—including the legend of Hidari Jingorō's sleeping cat that supposedly meowed—and related similar stories, such as one about a Roman temple where painted angels were said to appear at the bedsides of dying parishioners. Nobuko gradually developed a headache during their conversation. This was no ordinary headache—it felt like an iron band being tightened around her skull from forehead to nape. When the constriction periodically intensified, even moving her eyeballs grew agonizing. Her eyeballs seemed to harden, each attempted movement sending sharp pains through her sockets—that was how it felt.

Because the room temperature was unnaturally high, Nobuko—normally healthy—initially thought it was merely a flush. Thinking that taking a walk might improve her blood circulation, she went outside and began walking along the sunlit sidewalk toward the hotel. Despite the mild December midday, Nobuko found herself overcome by unbearable chills. A full-body shudder ran from her spine through her entire being as every stimulus—from blaring car horns to the unyielding hardness of pavement transmitted through her thin shoe heels—assaulted her head with terrifying intensity. The first struggle was keeping her eyes properly open. If not for fearing collapse on the street, she would have buried her head in any dark corner to sleep immediately... Overcome by a fragile urge to cry, she boarded a streetcar from some indistinct corner. The yellow streetcar basked leisurely in sunlight, advancing noisily—clattering to a stop at every block after brief movements. On the cold rattan seat, Nobuko closed her eyes and barely suppressed nausea rising with each jolt. She returned to the hotel room half-conscious.

In the bedroom, Sasa was propped up against his pillow. Tsukuda was also there; he stood before the wall, talking about something.

Nobuko did not look at either,

“I’m home,” she said. When she took off her hat, she placed it near the foot of her father’s bed as if tossing it down. “I feel so unwell I can’t stand it.” When she saw her father’s face, the desire to cry swelled within her. Sasa, who had been chatting cheerfully, was truly startled by Nobuko’s tearful voice. “What’s wrong?” Sasa placed his hand on Nobuko’s chin and turned her face toward him. “What a color your face is! Are you cold? Huh? What? Is it painful? That won’t do—rest immediately. Here, lie down right in this room.”

Nobuko did not answer, remaining sullen as she glared at Tsukuda’s outfit with a sidelong glare. Without any pretense, “Are you going to ride a horse?” she asked. Tsukuda wore only a suit jacket over a khaki-colored coarsely woven undershirt and knee-high boots. Seemingly surprised by Nobuko’s question, “Ah, this is Y.M.C.A. clothing,” he answered curtly. “You should rest… You must be exhausted.” “Surely… because he was worried about you.”

With his help, Nobuko took off her coat. “Now—come rest in the next room.” Father shifted his body toward the other bed in the adjacent room and flung off its cover. “I want that one.” Nobuko, half-supported by Tsukuda, dragged her feet to her bedroom and closed the door. “Ah, could you please ask them not to lock it?” Father’s voice said. How cold the nightclothes were! How chilling the nightclothes were! Cold, freezing, so bitterly cold that Nobuko chattered her teeth and huddled her body as small as possible. Her head was painfully heavy like stone. Ah, if only someone would stroke this head! If only someone would cover me more warmly, warmly—how wonderful I would feel!……

No one would help, and there was only this flimsy cover... Cold... A soaked rabbit. Truly a soaked rabbit. Nobuko rubbed her face against the pillow like a child.

“Mother… Mother…” Nobuko gradually grew dazed as tears streamed from the corners of her eyes.

Abruptly, Nobuko came to her senses. It was already night. The electric lights blazed fiercely as Father stood in his kimono, looking distraught. Dazzled and tossing restlessly, she worried Father might still be overexerting himself. She tried to speak but found no voice. When she attempted to turn over again, her head went numb as though she had plunged from a hundred-foot height. Chaos descended anew. The chills subsided only for high fever and convulsions to take their place.

Her body spasmed—twitching, arching backward with each convulsive heave of irresistible force. Her entire frame shuddered violently. With every spasm, Nobuko released fragmented cries that broke like shattered glass. She desperately wanted to clutch something—anything—to anchor herself against this torment, to master the exhausting impulses racking her body. But her grasping hands found only empty air. Both within and without her skull swirled a maelstrom of light, as though countless flashlights encircled her consciousness. This luminous sea never stilled—it swayed, flashed, raced about in frantic motion. Brightness everywhere. A brightness that seared.

I’m exhausted… Let me sleep. Let me sleep. She continued muttering deliriously while convulsing frequently. Her consciousness brightened and darkened.

Around 2 AM, frantic Nobuko was carried from the hotel to the hospital. In the car, she regained consciousness once. She understood that she was on the way to the hospital. But who was holding her like this, cradling her and placing a cushion against her head? She opened her gritty, painful eyes and peered intently at the figure in the dimness. It was Tsukuda. When he noticed Nobuko had opened her eyes, he said, rocking her body on his knees as if coaxing a child.

“Are you in pain?” “Please endure a little longer.” “You’ll feel relief soon.” “Soon…”

Nobuko had her clothes changed in the hospital room at midnight. As the night nurse left, Tsukuda entered. As he stroked Nobuko’s forehead, “Now that we’ve come this far, there’s no need to worry… Rest easy and sleep.” he said. “It’s alright—I’m here.” Desperate to sleep deeply and escape her suffering through slumber, Nobuko closed her eyes. Just as she was about to fall asleep, convulsions struck. Her body twitched. Each time, she moaned like before.

“Let me sleep… Let me sleep…” “There, you can sleep now. Go to sleep.”

Nobuko eventually drifted into a drowsy haze despite everything. Every joint in her body melted away, her mind drawn into some dark distant place that felt oddly comforting. She let her head—hair tangled into knots—fall onto the pillow, nearly snoring. Then some strange sensation made her half-wake. Something touched her face. Suddenly, softly and lingeringly, a pair of lips pressed against hers. Every nerve jolted awake. Tsukuda’s presence seared itself back into her awareness. Shuddering through her entire body even as consciousness slipped away again, Nobuko wrapped both arms around Tsukuda’s neck and crushed her lips against his.

Someone touched Nobuko's arm.

“It’s morning now.” And she had Nobuko’s arm released from Tsukuda. “This time I will stay with you. This gentleman must get some rest as well.” Her arm fell limply onto the pillow. Nobuko looked at the nurse with eyes adrift in fever, their gaze unfocused. She felt the cold gray light of dawn streaming into the room. Nobuko reflexively muttered.

"So——morning had come."

I couldn’t tell whether I’d slept at all, only feeling an extreme physical and mental exhaustion as if I’d been tossed about by surging waves all night long. Sleepy. So terribly sleepy.

“There, there—you’re being such a good young lady, but you really must get some rest now.” Nobuko showed a faint, distorted smile. Tsukuda’s voice sounded. “Then I shall take my leave for now.” “Is there anything you need me to bring?” Battling the sensation of being dragged into heavy sleep, Nobuko barely managed to focus her attention. “Then bring the box—the blue leather one—there’s a comb and such inside.” “And... give my regards to Father.”

She was made to swallow a single round pill. Tsukuda was already gone. At some unknown time, she was made to swallow two spoonfuls of cocoa so bad it made her want to vomit.

Nobuko suddenly awoke to hushed voices arguing at the doorway. Whether it was evening or not, the surroundings were dim. In the dimness, a harsh tone echoed. “Please do not speak.” “That’s my own business.” “I have been properly authorized by her father to come and go here.” “Yes, I’m fully aware of that.” “Therefore, you may enter the room, but please refrain from speaking to the patient.” “Because she absolutely needs to rest her nerves.”

Tsukuda entered. Looking down at Nobuko on the bed, he eventually began to speak in the manner of an ordinary person, “How are you feeling?” he said. “Oh! Please don’t!” Nobuko felt embarrassed by his oddly persistent behavior toward the nurse, and being questioned like that didn’t make her happy in the least. She muttered in her head, which ached with the urge to cry. “Why does that person keep talking?” When she remained silent, Tsukuda pressed again, asking insistently.

“How are you feeling?” Nobuko did not answer and instead reproached him with sadness. “Why must you keep talking?” Suddenly, nervous tears filled her eyes. Feeling utterly dejected, Nobuko fell asleep where she lay.

Two

I

There was a dormitory cafeteria at the top of the eighth floor. The room expanded deeper inward following the building's wing-like projection. Dinner was now underway. Dozens of tables covered with white cloths and countless girls sitting around them filled the space. A murmur of voices drifting like heat haze, laughter, and the clinking of dishware resounded through the air. From Nobuko’s position, one of the doors leading to the main kitchen was visible. The door kept opening and closing incessantly. Each time a waitress carrying a serving tray kicked it ajar with her toe while passing through, fleeting glimpses emerged—cooks’ figures and cooking stoves bearing large pots. Warm gusts from the kitchen drifted in.

Nobuko's table was an eight-seater. However, there were always only seven people there. She had been particularly looking forward to meeting Yasukawa tonight. When she saw Sakiko's face, “Ah, I’m starving!” she had been enjoying chatting nonchalantly about this and that, dispelling the gloom that had weighed on her since morning. However, when Sakiko saw Nobuko entering a bit late, she politely crossed her arms under her chest, tilted her head slightly, and—just as she would with a foreign friend—

“Good evening—how are you?” She gave the customary greeting. Nobuko began eating her tasteless dinner despite her hunger.

That morning, Nobuko attended a lecture on nineteenth-century English literary history from ten until eleven o'clock. When it ended, she hurried to Avery Hall. This was a library and research facility dedicated to art, architecture, and related fields. Several days after moving into the dormitory, Nobuko had chanced upon this building while visiting Yasukawa. Yasukawa had been researching traditional stylization methods used in Japanese artistic patterns throughout history, but what appealed to Nobuko was the unfrequented quiet and the building's compact design. Though the main library was grander, its parliamentary-style interior proved too imposing for concentration. Nobuko resolved to return daily from the next day onward to read and write. Tsukuda too began frequenting the place.

Nobuko, as was her daily morning routine, approached a desk shielded from the passageway by a large folding screen, feeling a distinct quickening of her pulse. Tsukuda had already left to attend his lecture. His familiar black leather bag had been left on the desk. Nobuko understood that he intended to return there later. Nobuko began reading a novel.

When she had read a few pages, light footsteps of a woman came to a stop outside the folding screen. "Oh—so you were here."

Nobuko looked up in surprise. With her hat and coat entirely black, her face with its beautiful skin stood out all the more as Tamako stood there. “My, you found me! Come on—” “Come on—” Nobuko took Nakanishi’s hands and made her sit next to her.

“When did you get back?”

“Last night, after eleven.” They looked at each other and smiled inexplicably. “How was it?” Tamako had been staying with her fiancé in Boston for about a week. “It was truly wonderful! So peaceful compared to here—the inn was lovely and quiet...” “Are you alright?” “Thank you, I was perfectly fine.” With her face—still flushed from the cold air—radiating fresh joy, Tamako spoke in her characteristically open manner.

“And I’m so glad I went—he’s just started this truly wonderful research now. It’ll be very promising once completed, but he says it’s quite a struggle. So he said my going was a great encouragement...” She gazed at Nobuko with glossy eyes, watching her gently yet directly from the front as she—

“How have things been with you both since then…”

she asked. …………

Nobuko bent her head with a smile that hovered between bitterness and awkwardness. "Well, it's much the same as always."

“What about today? Is he coming?” “It seems he’s gone out at this hour—oh, let’s have lunch together—the three of us—it’s been so long… don’t you think?” “Thank you—but—what time? Now…” Tamako glanced briefly at her wristwatch. “I can’t today—I must go to Brentano’s now. More importantly, I was entrusted with an important message.” “Do you have any engagements this Saturday?”

It seemed that Yokoo and Higuchi—young men Tamako had grown close to recently—wanted to invite her and Nobuko to the opera. They were in the same club as Tsukuda, and occasionally Nobuko would exchange words with them. “Let me see...” “They say it’s Samson and Delilah—” When she heard the title of the piece, Nobuko wanted to go see it. However, Saturday being a night everyone wants to spend in special festivity—I wonder what Tsukuda will do. Just as she felt a pang of reluctance at the thought of leaving him all alone and was hesitating over her reply, Tsukuda entered. Nobuko could hardly wait for the greetings to end before telling Tsukuda about the invitation she had just received.

“What will you do—I’d like to go a bit…” Without paying any mind to Tamako and Nobuko, who stood talking, Tsukuda took a seat on the chair. After hearing Nobuko out to the end, he replied with evident displeasure, “Of course I haven’t been invited, have I?” he retorted. Tamako looked at Nobuko in surprise. “This time it’s just me… I thought you might have plans or something, so I had Ms. Nakanishi wait.”

Without looking at the two women, Tsukuda set his mountain hat aside and began arranging books and notes on the desk as he spoke. "You should reply as you see fit." During her four months of dealings with Tsukuda, Nobuko had often heard such words from him. Even now, she felt fresh pain as if hearing them for the first time, "...Wouldn't it be better to find a way that works for both of us?" she said.

“You should reply according to your own judgment.—However…” “Oh, it’s nothing.” “Do you truly understand Mr. Yokoo and Mr. Higuchi so well?” Even Tamako had been dragged into this awkward position, so Nobuko’s heart filled with aching sorrow. Her expression contorted, and she remained silent for a while, but eventually whispered resolutely to Tamako.

“I’ll decline this time.” “It’s such a kind offer, but… even if I decline, will you still go?” “I’ll be fine.” With her quick understanding and light manner, Tamako placed a hand on Nobuko’s shoulder as if to cheer her up and said,

“Well, that might be better—a place like that’s somewhere even he can manage to go after all.” “I’ll let them know.”

They walked together to the entrance. “Please let them assume I have a prior engagement.” “Let’s do that—” Tamako said in an unexpectedly feminine, good-natured whisper as she walked. “...Mr. Tsukuda has his jealous side, but that just shows how deeply he loves you—you’re fortunate, you know.” Nobuko made a disbelieving face. Then, with all the warmth and insistence befitting an upperclassman, “It’s true.” She made a show of glaring.

Nobuko returned to the desk. Tsukuda neither looked at her nor opened his mouth. Nobuko was by nature unable to endure such unnaturalness for long. She,

“Hey,” she called out. Tsukuda raised his head. “What is it?” “In situations like this, you should clearly state your feelings—this is a discussion after all.” “Was I wrong to tell you to act as you see fit?” “That isn’t it… but this way nothing gets resolved.” “You tell me with words to do as I please, yet your demeanor makes it impossible—that’s what’s wrong.” “Since we’re consulting each other properly, I intend to respect your feelings.”

Tsukuda remained silent but looked up at Nobuko with a gaze where the whites of his eyes were prominent, speaking plaintively from below. “You know you have no right to tell me not to go, don’t you?” As Nobuko teared up and stayed silent, he suddenly muttered in a low, rushed voice thick with impatience and heat. “Go if you want! Just go! “Don’t bother yourself worrying about me at all.” “I’m not saying this because I want to go.—This will keep happening from now on…”

Just as she was about to speak, five or six students entered. They each took their seats at the largely empty desks in front and back. Nobuko had no choice but to keep her mouth shut.

From two o'clock that afternoon, Nobuko went to Miss Platt's place. Miss Platt was a large-framed woman who carried a certain Dutch-inspired solidity about her. Even when saying "Yes," she did not use the hurried nasal tone typical of New York women—instead pronouncing each syllable deliberately, stretching the spaces between them as she spoke slowly. In the peaceful atmosphere of this woman teacher who lived with her mother and boarders, Nobuko always found domestic solace. Last Tuesday, their conversation had turned to the dormitory.

Nobuko had a part of her nature that remained fundamentally unsuited to dormitory life, no matter how many days passed. For one thing, there were too many people. Nobuko said half-jokingly, “It’s just like a beehive.” “And since they’re all queen bees…” she laughed. Miss Platt tilted her head with its thick chestnut hair and thought, “Please come over to my place from Thursday afternoon; it’ll do you good to have a change of scenery.” “We can have a chat.” Miss Platt said. Because of that promise, Nobuko went out, leaving her emotional impasse with Tsukuda unresolved.

When she knocked on the apartment door, Miss Platt’s mother answered. “Good day.”

“Ah, good day. Welcome.”

The elderly woman amiably guided Nobuko into the hall. With her seemingly honest blue eyes showing a doubtful expression, she asked in a whisper that seemed to hover just above the floor. “I’m afraid there are other students here at the moment—what brings you by?” Nobuko, who had thought she’d been invited since her afternoon was free, was somewhat taken aback. “Today is Thursday, isn’t it?” “Yes, certainly…” “In that case, I’m terribly sorry to trouble you, but could you please inform Miss Platt that I’ve come—just for a moment? If this is inconvenient, I can always come back another time.”

Just as they passed each other, Miss Platt, wearing a Japanese haori, hurried out. Without giving Nobuko a chance to speak, she greeted her and ushered her into her private room. "It'll be about thirty minutes—my apologies—but you'll wait, won't you?" She peered at the bookshelf. Then took out a paperback edition of Austen and handed it to Nobuko. "Please read this for now." "Well then, excuse me briefly." Through the two large windows in Miss Platt's room, part of the university grounds and the side of the president's residence were visible. Neatly arranged chintz fabrics and small quilts on the sofas and beds created an orderly yet cozy room decor. Nobuko settled into the rocking chair and began reading the entrusted book.

Before long came voices bidding farewell in the hallway; then the rustling of Miss Platt’s clothes approaching.

Just as the conversation between them was beginning to flow pleasantly, another student arrived. Miss Platt seemed to have planned this from the start; after saying a few words to Nobuko, she left for the parlor. —She would have to wait a full hour more.— Nobuko began wandering aimlessly about the room. In the vacant lot in front stood a single large winter-bare tree. At the treetop that resembled an upside-down broom thrust into the sky—why had it remained?—a single vivid crimson oval-shaped dead leaf fluttered. Against the transparent February azure sky, it looked as beautiful as a droplet of blood.

As she gazed at that scene and kept watching, Nobuko suddenly became aware of finding herself in an oddly absurd predicament. Miss Platt was over there conducting her lessons as she pleased. Yet here I was in this parlor of hers where I had no particular wish to be, having removed my hat and coat, waiting vacantly as though commanded to linger. What purpose could I possibly have here? Nobuko involuntarily stifled a laugh. But truly—what on earth am I doing here?

Though I am her disciple, wasn't it strange for her to summon me only to keep abandoning me alone like this? If this was meant as kindness—to give Nobuko a different room—then why hadn't she told me beforehand: "I'll be busy, but if you want to do something alone..."? Normally Miss Platt was such an attentive person. Thinking this through made Nobuko increasingly uneasy. She crossed her arms and stood motionless, staring down at her discarded coat and hat as if demanding answers from them.…

Now that she thought about it, there were indeed things that came to mind.

It had been about ten days prior. After the lesson, Miss Platt heard from someone— “Have you been constantly with Mr. Tsukuda lately?” “Is that so?”

Miss Platt inquired. Nobuko answered that it was so. “Apparently, Mr. Tsukuda was exceedingly kind to Mr. Takasaki in the past and engaged in all manner of things together with him.”

Sensing something implied in Miss Platt's manner of speaking, Nobuko answered plainly. "So that's what he told you?—I heard it from him." "When he was at a university out West before—there was some rather unpleasant business involving a woman, I hear—the sort of thing that might damage a gentleman's reputation—I happened to come across such a story recently." "Oh, that story? Something about a policeman misunderstanding a woman he was speaking with somewhere at night..."

Miss Platt said with some surprise, “Did Mr. Tsukuda tell you?” “Yes, I heard,” Nobuko replied, lightly showing her displeasure. “But why would there be any need to tell you such rumors about others?” “I don’t think one can take rumors at face value—there are people who casually embellish facts without any sense of responsibility.”

“That’s certainly true.” “I certainly don’t intend to believe everything either.” Miss Platt casually changed the subject. But perhaps that sentiment from when she had broached the topic had transformed into today’s peculiar invitation—one that seemed to say, “Why don’t you stay in your room and think things over quietly? You must have something to tell me.” When she realized this, Nobuko became displeased with Miss Platt’s astute manner of having discerned her susceptibility to childish suggestions. Even without being put through this, she had no intention of keeping her dealings with Tsukuda hidden from Miss Platt. When the necessary time came, she would undoubtedly confide everything first and foremost to Miss Platt, whom she respected and admired. But that would never happen under such forced circumstances. Nor would it be the sort of mutual heart-to-heart talk between equals that Miss Platt seemed to be secretly anticipating—something where she would seek her opinion on what to do.—

Nobuko made up her mind.

"Today, no matter what happens, I will not mention Tsukuda of my own accord." Even if I were to rush over tomorrow morning and tell everything—today, absolutely not! Absolutely not!

Nobuko waited until Miss Platt had finished her business. Then they went walking together in Morningside. Miss Platt appeared to have perceived Nobuko's feelings and said nothing about the plan that might have existed in her own mind. Only once or twice, at what seemed like purely accidental moments, did she happen to mention Tsukuda's name.

II

That day was one where shadows had layered themselves upon chance moods. But if that were so—would there ever be a day entirely free of unpleasantness?

Her body entered the dormitory as a lone student, but since her connection with Tsukuda already deeply affected her heart, Nobuko’s inner life did not proceed as simply as those of other female students. Among the students, there were many who kept lovers or fiancés while living in the dormitory. The Maison de Plantin across from the dormitory was valued not only by late-sleeping students but grew particularly lively at night through these people’s activities. They would chat cheerfully with visiting lovers and enjoy dancing on Saturdays. There were even groups where friends made each other’s lovers into mutual companions before merrily heading out to soirées.

One time, Yasukawa,

“Japanese people truly still lack sufficient social training—that’s why it doesn’t work.” “The students here consult their friends’ opinions even when choosing someone they like.” “You’d feel ashamed to even befriend a man your friends mock.”

“Japanese people truly still lack sufficient social training—that’s why it doesn’t work,” Yasukawa said. Yasukawa had a strong admiration for foreign things. As a result, Nobuko—whose feelings sometimes rebelled contrarily—even then, “So very Republican of you, huh?” Nobuko laughed. “My approach is different—I like myself, so I like it this way. That’s just fine by me.” Even so, Nobuko and Tsukuda’s romance seemed to possess an incomparable darkness and poignancy when compared to those around her. On the night they went to the hospital, Tsukuda kissed Nobuko, who was half-delirious. Nobuko took it as a confession of his passion and responded. For him, it had become impossible to return his feelings to what they once were, and Nobuko could not do so either; gradually, they came to think of each other in a way that made separation difficult. ...Is love always accompanied by such feelings of turmoil, anxiety, and sadness?

The certainty that she gained someone to love and be loved by initially gave Nobuko ample mental calmness and hope. For Tsukuda, however, this was not the case. And as the heat of their emotions intensified, his incessant inner anxiety grew. That could not help but infect Nobuko as well. Through their mutual love, they came to feel an increased vitality in life and support each other—yet that peaceful, simultaneously noble radiance was scarcely bestowed upon them.

Tsukuda was not a very confident lover.

One evening about twenty days prior, Nobuko had been invited to dinner by several friends. They were people from companies and government offices whom Tsukuda didn't know. Many other women besides Nobuko had also attended. The next day, Tsukuda grew unusually tense. "You—you seem upset about where I went last night?" Then Tsukuda glanced at Nobuko from beneath his brows and said, "Is there some particular reason you'd think that?" "Look! Look! "That's exactly your evasive trick!"

Nobuko waved her finger in a mock-threatening gesture at Tsukuda. And then she said, “Since this will keep happening from now on, please make sure you understand that… okay? I truly care for you and love you. That’s why, on the contrary, I have this conviction that I can feel safe and secure with anyone—you understand, don’t you?” My feelings. I already have a guardian deity. “When one has someone they truly cherish, a person can’t possibly become self-indulgent. And above all, it’s *our* disgrace—that we can’t even handle something this trivial calmly!”

Tsukuda muttered stubbornly while avoiding meeting Nobuko’s gaze. “I’m by no means suggesting there’s anything wrong with you.” “I know you have sincerity for me.” “But—you trust people too quickly.” “People in the world are by no means as they appear on the surface.” “How can you associate with people so securely… That’s what makes me uneasy.” “If people can’t be trusted, then how come I can trust you this much?”

If he believed she wasn’t fickle, what was Tsukuda afraid of? Could it be jealousy, as Tamako had suggested? Even that jealousy—if he understood his own feelings—was unnecessary, Nobuko thought painfully. I can’t meet people Tsukuda doesn’t know; I can’t socialize with them.—That would be too stifling. Nobuko grew irritated with Tsukuda’s pettiness, sometimes resolving she should act freely as she saw fit without endlessly weighing his feelings each time. Let him suffer through it and learn to process such emotions himself. She grew feverish, nearly reaching resolution.Yet even as she thought this, an urge flared in Nobuko’s heart to clutch his head and smother it with kisses—

“Oh, it’s fine—just know that.” A passion that made her want to cry out blazed up within her. Nobuko came to understand Tsukuda’s pain. He was tormented by concerns that he was thirty-five years old, that he was extremely poor, that he had no social standing, and that his reputation was not particularly good. While troubled by these things, he suffered from being drawn to Nobuko’s youthful passion, suffered from his own lack of confidence, and must have been experiencing layers of anguish. Nobuko wanted somehow to ignite her heart and for them both to enter a dignified life. She understood that for them, the path ahead was the only one illuminated. But how could Tsukuda feel secure and properly nurture the emotions that had come this far together with her?

As she thought it through, tears welled in Nobuko’s eyes. Would he too refuse to accept it unless they married?

III

People all married. Men and women married. Marriage was conducted like one of life’s natural promises—as naturally as humans have eyes and noses. Nobuko harbored something like a vague questioning toward this. The human desire for a home, and the intense longing of loving couples to live together and be recognized as a pair—these were things she too understood. As for Tsukuda, Nobuko was not merely harboring medieval Platonic emotions. Someday, she and he would become physically one. If treated as a pair—a man and a woman—she could already clearly perceive how many practical advantages it would bring. However, when it came to marriage, a vague oppressiveness, narrowness, mediocrity, and anxiety would always assail Nobuko. Why did people settle down upon marrying as if they’d reached some goal in life? Why did they become so harmonized with society? Many men and women ended up spending their entire lives before they knew it—as if guided by some force other than themselves. The idea of getting married and living out her life in such a way was something Nobuko disliked. She had no desire to marry and have children; nor did she crave her husband’s social advancement or the prestige of being called someone’s wife. Tsukuda had his work. I have my own work. And economically, Nobuko had no need to make him earn a living. The reason she wanted to live with him—to mutually support one another and move forward together—was solely because she believed that by nurturing their mutual love directly in this position, they could both grow more abundantly, broadly, and boldly. Is marriage truly the only path for a couple in love? Is love between men and women inherently such a stifling thing? In the end, this feeling would always arise strongly in Nobuko’s heart—the conviction that life should allow for some slightly different form.

Tsukuda had never even uttered the word "marriage" himself. But how he suffered! When she saw how he suffered, Nobuko couldn’t help but sense something of what he truly sought. Because he did not permit himself the right to speak up proactively, the conflicting feelings within him weighed all the more heavily on Nobuko with a painful sense of responsibility.

It was an evening when March would begin in four or five days.

Nobuko was alone in her room. It was self-study time, the quietest hour throughout the dormitory. There was only the occasional sound of small shoe heels walking down the concrete corridor. Nobuko too sat facing her desk. The green-shaded reading lamp silently illuminated the white pages of notebooks and leather-bound book spines. She was transcribing a section of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter to bring to Miss Platt. Stories had always been her passion. Being self-chosen work, she would immerse herself with such enthusiasm that on some days she became engrossed in the pleasure of it, heedless of grammatical errors or extravagant turns of phrase. Yet tonight it refused to progress. This wasn't solely due to expressions missing from her limited vocabulary. The vital heat required to focus her mind until interest kindled felt somehow deficient near her chest. That was how it seemed. When she tried to think or write, Nobuko felt within herself an insubstantiality—as if her entire being's shadow had abruptly thinned—leaving no tangible resistance to her efforts. Lonely—that was what she became.

Tsukuda was traveling to a certain city north of New York on business for the Y.M.C.A. When she heard of this arrangement, Nobuko had actually welcomed it with something like relief.

“That’s fine. You should go.” “It’s good for us to be apart sometimes.” “My feelings have changed—”

She thought it would be good both to reconsider her own feelings and to give rest to her overexcited nerves. On the first evening, after dinner, Nobuko relaxed early in her nightclothes, comforted by the absence of visitors coming to see her in the downstairs hall. Tidying the wardrobe as she pleased, reading books—the long-awaited pleasure of solitude seemed to enchant her. Around nine o’clock, when she took a bath and went to bed, Nobuko felt the unhurried joy of idleness—which she had long forgotten—illuminating her being like a rising moon.

The next day—that is, today—had been a day of leisure. Even so, out of habit, she had gone to Avery Hall past ten. And when she sat down at her usual table, Nobuko felt an indescribable sense of insufficiency permeating her surroundings. There was a certain coolness in the refreshing air; the entire building, devoid of any footfalls, felt excessively vast and hollow—was this what emptiness felt like? Nobuko perceived everything around her with an uncanny intensity and novelty.

Whenever the entrance door opened or there was a sense of approaching footsteps, her nerves grew intensely taut. Tsukuda was now hundreds of miles away and would not return for two more days. Though she knew this fact perfectly well, in those moments the thought of *what if—* made her heartbeat quicken. The morning stretched as long as a full day. At last, Nobuko grew painfully distressed at how completely her heart had forfeited its freedom.

She left the library. She strolled through the park along the Hudson River and did some shopping on Broadway. And before she knew it, night fell... After fighting against her own feelings and finally managing to copy just enough of *The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter* to serve as an hour's worth of material, Nobuko hurriedly put away her notebook and dictionary. As if waiting for something good, she energetically stood up from her desk. But—in the small dormitory room, there was only herself. There was no one waiting for her to finish, and no one there to say, "Ah, finally done!" The dressing table mirror brightly reflected the white walls of the room. Nobuko wore the expression of a lonely young animal. She crossed both arms restlessly above her head and stood in front of the window.

Through the pitch-black cold night, she could see the wing protruding from the keyhole-shaped handle of the same dormitory. Like illuminated paper-cut lanterns, there were many windows, their interiors blazing with lamplight. Through one uncurtained window, across the frozen air outside, flickered glimpses of a young woman’s head and shoulders in a white blouse. Every window appeared peaceful and warm, as if unseen happiness had settled within them. Nobuko suddenly felt an impulse to break through this loneliness drowning her—to seize any instrument and strum it with all her strength. She sat on the edge of the bed and began humming a tune while tapping rhythm with her shoe tips. Was this her own voice? This wretched, quivering whisper?

She abruptly stopped singing and this time picked up a magazine. However, Nobuko soon lost even that resistance. She knew that this feeling could not be distracted away.

Nobuko knew she could not continue without Tsukuda. This desolation—as if the world had emptied—meant that no matter what she did, whether walking streets or reading books, everything felt like mere time-killing expedients until she could meet him; even the air had grown strangely thin, suffocating. Who but Tsukuda could save her from this? Did he know she was here yearning for him so desperately, enduring such anguish?

Before Nobuko’s eyes, Tsukuda’s face floated up. Gradually it grew larger. Tsukuda raised his familiar old-fashioned bowler hat, looked at Nobuko, drew near, and released a tender smile. Nobuko closed her eyes—trembling hot and cold through her whole body—and clasped the phantom Tsukuda. The sensation of his cheek... his lips—the texture conveyed to her palm as she stroked his soft hair—Nobuko moaned his name.

Leaning her head against the wall, Nobuko, who had been entranced, returned to her senses at the sound of a knock. She hurriedly rubbed her tear-dampened eyes with the backs of both hands. “Please come in.”

However, the door did not open, and the receptionist girl shouted from outside.

“There’s a telephone call for you, so please come to the hall.” “Oh, thank you.”

Who could be calling? Nobuko tidied herself with affected detachment while harboring suspicion and went downstairs. In the hall, cheerful men and women clustered in scattered groups. Three girls in evening gowns—bunched like a floral arrangement, equal parts giddy and self-conscious—threaded their way through the crowd toward the exit. Beneath a corner marble pillar sat the matronly supervisor in black uniform, surveying the animated bustle with a practiced smile frozen on her face.

Nobuko entered the telephone booth. She picked up the receiver while thinking that if someone were to invite her somewhere, she would decline. “Hello? Hello?” “Is this Ms. Sasa? I’ll connect you right away.”

A click-click-click connection sound came through.

“Hello...?” “Hello...? Who are you—” When she heard a voice—extremely indistinct, distant, and intermittent—Nobuko instinctively gripped the silver-glinting base of the desk telephone and leaned forward. “Mr. Tsukuda?” “Ms. Sasa?” “How are you?” Nobuko was rendered speechless by the welling up of joy and longing. Finally, in a voice just loud enough for the other party to hear, she— “Hello...? Hello...?”

While whispering, she pressed her quivering, feverish forehead firmly against the mouthpiece. There was kindness in Tsukuda’s voice too. “How is the weather in New York? “It’s a terrible blizzard here—can you hear me?” Nobuko let out a choked whisper, her emotions uncontainable. “I can hear you—thank you so much for calling.”

“Are you alone?” “Yes.” “There was a meeting until just now—I have been quite busy. The weather here is so terrible—I just wanted to check how you were doing…” “Thank you.” Once again, a fiery lump welled up in Nobuko’s chest. If only she could leap through the air to his side—if only this reckless passion could be seized and gripped by his hands burning with equal intensity—Nobuko remained silent, pressing her forehead against the mouthpiece, overwhelmed by inexpressible emotion.

“Hello?” “What is it?” “What’s wrong?” “……” A profound silence also fell on the other end. Nobuko felt his emotions pressing in vividly through the night’s telephone wires. The sensation pressed closer and closer—the distance between them seemed to shrink entirely—until finally, it even felt as though Tsukuda had come right to the other side of the wall. After a while, he spoke again. “It might be about time.—Shall we hang up?”

“Is that so?”

“Have you been in your room all this time? Please get some good rest. I will return as planned on the day after tomorrow.” “Around what time?”

“I’ll likely be taking tomorrow’s night train from here, so I should arrive by evening.” “I’ll see you in the evening.”

She said goodbye. And, in a daze, she took the elevator back to her room.

IV

Nobuko hardly slept a wink that night.

The next day was a gloomy drizzle. When Nobuko returned from Miss Platt’s and was shaking the droplets off her umbrella in the entranceway, Yasukawa emerged from the elevator, ready to go out. She noticed Nobuko and called out to her. “Ms. Sasa, do you have time now?” Nobuko, trapped in the unceasing inner thoughts that had persisted since the previous night, looked up at Yasukawa with a dazed expression.

“Why?” “If you’re free, Ms. Sasa, I thought you might come with me to 125th Street.” “Shopping?” “Yes, just briefly.” Nobuko felt that walking a little might do her good. She had already made up her mind the night before. “Then please wait just a moment.” “I’ll leave this clutter here and come right back.”

Nobuko left the books and notebooks at the front desk.

It was precisely because it was close that they ran their minor errands there, but the area around 125th Street was a lower-class district. The streets were littered with dust, banana and apple peels, reeking of low-grade gasoline from freight trucks. Broken windowpanes revealed yellowish half-basements where shoe repairers, secondhand clothes dealers, and shady metalworkers kept shop like rat nests. In such surroundings, even diamonds displayed in jewelers' windows with price tags of hundreds or thousands of dollars could only be seen as counterfeit.

Yasukawa bought a pair of shoes.

Nobuko bought a roll of ribbon，a white lace tablecloth，and two adorable duckling toys. Yasukawa looked at Nobuko’s childlike purchases. “You're such a funny one．What will you do with two of those things？”

Yasukawa laughed. “Aren’t they cute? They’re just adorable! I’ll give one to Mr. Tsukuda too.” Nobuko carefully cradled the soft, insubstantial paper package against her chest, opened her umbrella, and retraced her steps along the thoroughly drenched paved walkway.

Despite not having slept, Nobuko’s state of mind was clear. The problem that had long troubled her had reached its natural resolution. There was that sort of settled feeling. It by no means indicated an easy road ahead. The hardships of womanhood would begin for her. As long as there was passionate commitment to support Tsukuda, Nobuko did not think herself someone who would fear them. If he said yes, her resolve was set. In Nobuko’s chest, along with hope, lay an indescribable thread of sorrow—a premonition of misfortune. It concerned her parents. She loved her parents, and if they were to imagine Nobuko’s life partner, she could well guess what sort of young man they would picture. To be fair, Tsukuda clearly stood far removed from any figure likely to appear in their imaginings. If they learned of her decision, they might be shocked, feel displeased, even become enraged. No—they would surely be enraged, at least initially. Yet she would not retreat. Even considering the worst scenario—even should it become a lifelong source of emotional discord— The previous night too, Nobuko had thought of this and choked back sobs. And she prayed her parents might come to understand her feelings. She prayed too that Tsukuda—should fate so direct—might become their good son.

The next day, after five in the afternoon, Tsukuda called. Nobuko asked him to come to the library around seven since she would be going there herself. She ate her dinner tastelessly and solemnly, as though attending a ritual.

Returning to her room, she tied a thin rose-shaped ribbon around the duckling’s neck and wrapped it in tissue paper. Brushing her hair and putting on her hat, Nobuko went out with a face slightly paler than usual.

The rain from the previous day had cleared, leaving a windless, damp evening. In the moisture-laden black sky, countless stars glittered brilliantly. Passing through the university grounds where leafless treetops and the great library’s dome loomed faintly under distant streetlamps, Nobuko arrived at Avery Hall. Tsukuda was nowhere to be seen. Nobuko went to the great library and opened the door to the special room on the third-floor corner. Under shadowless light, bookshelves stood ranked like a forest while her footsteps echoed sharply against the ceiling. In the reading room came the sound of someone rising from their seat. Nobuko quickened her pace. Tsukuda was there. He was alone. Facing the entrance with his left hand resting on a chairback as if to greet her entry—the moment she saw his somewhat haggard face, Nobuko felt the axis that had sustained her until now collapse with a resounding crash.

When the initial surge of emotion had subsided somewhat, Nobuko began walking alongside Tsukuda. In brief terms, she inquired about his trip. She produced a thin white paper package.

“A souvenir—please open it.” Tsukuda peered curiously as he unwrapped the package, and when he saw the duckling emerge from within, a smile instantly lit up his face. “This is adorable! Thank you. What’s this for?” “I found it yesterday and bought it. With Ms. Yasukawa.” “With Ms. Yasukawa.” Tsukuda clumsily stroked the fluffy down with his flat fingertips, tried making it walk across his briefcase, and played innocently with the duckling. Nobuko gazed at his peaceful face with a heavy heart. He had no inkling of what she meant to say next. Our fate was about to be decided in these very minutes!

Nobuko felt a kind of anguish when broaching the serious matter. She lowered her eyes and laid her hand on Tsukuda's. With violent emotional turmoil taking precedence, her tongue turned heavy and stiff. Nobuko suddenly blurted out his name. "—Mr. Tsukuda."

Startled, Tsukuda looked at Nobuko. The moment their eyes met, Nobuko made a face as if her chest had suddenly constricted in pain—a look of anguish. She reached out her hand and pulled his head toward herself. And, pressing her mouth directly against his ear, she began to whisper.

“I… I…” But suddenly, tears Nobuko herself hadn’t anticipated came welling up with terrible force. She pressed her face against Tsukuda’s profile and burst into convulsive sobs. Tsukuda, not understanding why, panicked and tried to pull her face away from his chest.

“What’s wrong? “Huh? “What’s wrong?” Nobuko clung to him even more tightly and whispered through intermittent tears. “I... I’ve thought... if I were to marry... I...” Tsukuda jerked upright as though struck, then clamped both hands around Nobuko’s face and pulled it toward him. Nobuko—drenched in tears, flushed and trembling—spat out the words all at once like a child confessing.

“If it’s not you, I refuse.”

Five

At the edge of Riverside Drive stood General Grant’s tomb. On the stone steps lay a plaza encircling a monument-like structure. Below them stretched the dark Hudson River and a winter-barren park, with no strolling figures braving the cold night wind. Nobuko and Tsukuda had left the library and come here. They were visibly agitated. Yet their mood remained earnest—if anything somber. When Tsukuda heard Nobuko’s confession,

“How could this be possible!! How could this be possible!!”

Tsukuda groaned and embraced Nobuko so tightly his bones might shatter. Tears overflowed from his eyes. What greater consent could there be than this! Nobuko realized she had not erred—she had voiced the hope that had dwelled within him too. She gradually calmed down. “There’s much more I need you to hear. Shall we walk a little?” Thus they had come to Riverside Drive, where at this season and hour, the streets lay nearly empty.

Nobuko had never imagined she would lay bare her heart in such a manner. She had meant to calmly discuss various practical matters arising from the emotional journey that led to this resolution, saving those final words for last—yet all order and planning had scattered like leaves in a storm. Now she had to retrace her steps and properly explain the beginning. With Tsukuda holding her arm, Nobuko began speaking thoughtfully as they slowly circled the stone-paved plaza.

“What I’m about to say is all my selfishness—though it’s ended up coming out backwards in this odd way.” “But it’s important, so please listen.” “In daily life, there are so many things that don’t work out just by being cute… you know?” “Of course that’s true.”

Tsukuda said in an earnest tone. “Please say anything. After discussing things thoroughly, I will do everything within my power. For the past four or five years, I had completely given up on something like marriage. It’s truly unexpected—unbelievable. Now, of all times...” “It’s the same for me. This is unexpected. ……But I—during your absence, I thought it over and came to this decision because I want to take what’s growing in our hearts and nurture it straight into something splendid. It’s not that I simply want us to become husband and wife in the conventional sense, you know.”

“I understand that.” “We want to become people who feel secure together and grow even slightly in depth and breadth.” “If we can manage smoothly in our feelings, I would even think things like sharing a home or other matters don’t matter at all.” “But if you aren’t at peace, then ultimately I can’t be at peace either.—”

They walked a few steps in silence. Nobuko asked. “—This is where my selfishness lies—but could you remain unperturbed if your wife were inept at household matters yet insistent on pursuing studies?—I do truly love you.” “But I also love my work.” “As much as you!” “Well, when put into words, this might seem trivial—but if we were to live together, I think it would be quite challenging—”

Nobuko, trying not to lose courage, pressed Tsukuda’s arm against her body with all her strength and said. “I don’t think I can ever return to how I felt before meeting you. So I’ve resolved to nurture it as much as I can… But even so, I can’t abandon my work. That alone I cannot do. Even if I might never accomplish anything decent in my life, I can’t quit. If I must stop it... I... can only bid farewell.”

Biting her lip, Nobuko barely restrained her tears. Tsukuda asserted with his whole being, as if to dispel that doubt through physical earnestness. “Such concerns are entirely unnecessary—I’m well aware you hold things dear.” “How could anyone who loves you demand their abandonment?! I’d sooner discard myself than ask it of you—I want nothing more than to help bring you to fulfillment!” “I’m certainly not seeking a housekeeper... From the beginning, I’ve believed in helping a woman with her own work become something remarkable... My only regret is my inadequacy.”

Nobuko stood stock-still there, overwhelmed by joy she couldn’t contain. “Really? Do you truly feel that way?” “It’s true! Look at me.” Tsukuda also stopped walking, took Nobuko’s hands in both his palms, and turned to face her. “Look at me. I won’t lie.” “—Thank you! Thank you!”

Nobuko, her eyes brimming with tears, vigorously shook both hands that remained clasped in his. “Thank you so much!” “Do you have any idea how happy I am?” “Thank you!” “Ah, utterly!” “Thank you.”

Nobuko sat down on the frost-covered stone bench. She knelt before the cold night's nature and said, "Who was it that granted me this happiness? Have I truly been blessed and loved so much?" She felt such gratitude it brought her to tears. Ah! To have encountered such a thing! The reason Nobuko couldn't restrain her tears wasn't solely from joy at his understanding. It was the exhilaration of him declaring his feelings with masculine authority for the first time. Ah! For the first time, he had spoken to her like a man of conviction.

Tsukuda, worried, stroked Nobuko repeatedly.

“Are you all right?… You mustn’t get too worked up.” “I’m all right.” “As if I’d get sick!” “…But let’s both be careful and stay healthy, okay? After all, we’re poor.” “We’ll help each other and make a life together.” “I have no intention of receiving anything from my parents—not that there’s anything they’d give, of course.” Nobuko laughed as if even their poverty were something to delight in and love. They stepped down onto the sidewalk and walked on heedless of the harsh river wind cutting through them with its chill.

Tsukuda eventually noticed and looked at his watch.

“It’s past nine-thirty… Is that all right?” Nobuko had written “library” in the dormitory logbook when she left. The library was probably about to close. Nobuko considered for a moment.

“—It’s fine.” “If worst comes to worst, I can just explain the reason to Miss Lee tomorrow.” Nobuko’s heart was filled with courage by the belief that she was now united with him in everything. Yet when she considered that she would have to part with Tsukuda in at most another two hours, there was one more thing weighing on her mind. That was a significant matter. Tsukuda still hadn’t said a word about it. Nobuko felt a new kind of discomfort in finding an opening. Nobuko, in an awkward manner,

“There’s one more serious matter though—”

she began to say.

“What is it?” “…………” Nobuko involuntarily hesitated to speak. “What is it?”

“—……The child.” “...I understand.” “How exactly?” This time, Tsukuda hesitated. “Well...” “I believe that unless we can joyfully raise a child in suitable circumstances, it will never bring happiness to either of us.” “Is what you’re thinking also about that matter?” “Yes—and there’s work too...”

“First of all, we’ve already settled on barely making a living together as two people. I don’t want us to become parents who can’t even provide a proper education. And also… there’s something in my heart that makes me unable to just slip into being a mother—” Nobuko said in a low voice. “Do men understand this fear?... There’s something instinctive that becomes unbearably frightening—” Then Tsukuda said in a terribly prosaic manner. “That’s nothing, really.”

Nobuko felt slightly hurt by his tone, which lacked warmth. “Don’t dismiss it as nothing. While feeling that way, I have such a strong sense that I can’t calmly handle these things in a purely scientific way like the women here do—it feels terribly wrong toward myself and toward something bright and lofty and beautiful—you know? …Because both are true feelings for me—”

They emerged onto the side street leading toward the dormitory. Tsukuda spoke to Nobuko as if wrapping her in his heart. “Rest assured—I will never do anything to cause you suffering.” “Such feelings might change someday… You understand, don’t you? That I’m not—” “Regarding these matters too, I believe I understand at least somewhat.” Only now did they realize they had become like thin ice. They entered the coffee shop directly facing the dormitory.

Tsukuda escorted Nobuko to the dormitory entrance where the lights had already been dimmed.

Six

It was March—when winter and spring trade places. The weather became unsettled. In the morning there would be light flurries of snow, then by noon the sun would suddenly shine brightly, and at night a thick fog would envelop the city. The next day a strong wind blew. The air was so dry it made throats ache.—Whether clear or overcast, winter showed undeniable signs of dissipating day by day. The treetops of the street trees had begun to take on a supple bend unnoticed. When walking through shopping districts one might suddenly catch sight of red and green flags fluttering vigorously atop an exceedingly tall tower’s peak. There was nothing there at all. Only a single familiar Stars and Stripes fluttered high in the sky. Yet on this day alone people felt something like sparkling joy leap into their hearts from that flag’s colors and the sky itself. Their eyes softened in puzzlement. …That was indeed spring’s reserved harbinger.

That day, the light snow that had fallen the previous night lay accumulated on the university lawns and in the shaded areas of the pavements.

Nobuko was invited to lunch by a certain industrialist’s wife. Nobuko, firmly holding in her heart something she could never fully grasp no matter how much she thought about it, found joy in sitting among ordinary people and thus charmed them with her lively chatter and frequent laughter.

Starting at two o'clock was Miss Platt's session. However, because she had been with Tsukuda until late the previous night and had been invited out today, she hadn't been able to prepare anything. Even though she had arrived about five minutes early, Miss Platt was already waiting for Nobuko on the sofa in the side room where they usually sat. Nobuko said frankly, "—Today I was terribly lazy. I couldn't prepare anything, but will you pardon me?"

Miss Platt tilted back her full chestnut-brown bangs and looked at Nobuko.

“Why?… Well, sit here.” Putting an arm around her back, she made Nobuko sit pressed close beside her. “Why couldn’t you prepare?” “I was supposed to do it last night, but I ended up talking with Mr. Tsukuda until too late, so it didn’t happen. This morning I was invited by Mrs. Sakabe, so I had no time... Today I’ll just tell you something verbally—could you please correct that?”

“Of course that’s acceptable… but” Miss Platt, without removing her hand from Nobuko’s back, instead pressed it even more firmly toward herself with deep emotion and said— “Haven’t you been a bit too busy lately…?” “With various things…” Nobuko detected genuine concern in Miss Platt’s voice. “Are you feeling unsettled?”

“That’s not exactly the case, but…”

Nobuko naturally began to talk about the things that had been building up within her since some time ago. "I was aware that you had been concerned about Mr. Tsukuda and me... When you called for me before, that was related to this matter as well, wasn't it?" Miss Platt said Yes with her characteristic gravity. "So that's how it was—you're quite perceptive, aren't you..." Nobuko said, filled with trust.

“Thank you. I’m so glad we could speak so fully.” “At that time, you see, my feelings hadn’t settled yet… and besides, I didn’t want to bring up such matters in that way.” “But I did think that when the time came—and if necessary—you would surely consult me.” “You do know that I, though my efforts may be insufficient, sincerely wish for your happiness from the heart, don’t you?”

Nobuko fell silent. On the white wall before them where they sat side by side, the light from the snow outside was reflected. Because the snow melted quickly, the quivering of rapidly rising steam became visible even within the bright whiteness. Nobuko, after struggling inwardly, spoke in an artless monotone.

“—I love Mr. Tsukuda.”

“...I imagine so.” “...We have become engaged.” “Engaged?” Miss Platt, who had been calm, displayed such astonishment in that moment that Nobuko involuntarily averted her eyes. Nobuko felt sad. Could the fact that I was engaged to Tsukuda be such a distasteful, shocking thing? Miss Platt eventually composed herself and apologized to her.

“Forgive me… It was all so sudden… Truly unexpected… You…”

A long silence fell. After a moment, Miss Platt murmured, so moved that she teared up. “You are truly young!” “You are a lovely person.” “I do hope to somehow see you happy all your life.” She embraced Nobuko to her chest and kissed her forehead. With a pain that seeped into her very soul, Nobuko perceived the nature of these words—what could be called her first blessing of sorts. This was not the blessing an ordinary fiancé would receive. There was a resonance of pain, pity, and sighing within it, was there not? Nobuko realized that in some cases, she must even be prepared for scorn and contempt to be added on top of this.

Miss Platt asked. “Does your father know Mr. Tsukuda?” “He knows.” “Did you inform your father?” “About that matter.” “I wrote immediately, in detail.—And besides, I’ve made my feelings known since long before as well…”

Miss Platt repeatedly voiced her apprehension that Tsukuda might be up to something. For Nobuko, more than anything, that was painful, and she felt sorry for him. If he were the son of a wealthy man, if his name were listed in the social register, who would say such things? Even if that man had no intention other than to deceive and placate, society would remain silent. Tsukuda was in a position where even his defense was scarcely credible!

Nobuko felt pain as if she herself were being demeaned. She said stubbornly, “Look, Miss Platt. I am the one who loves him. I am the one who believes in him. No matter how much everyone fawns over someone—if I don’t love them, I won’t love them; if I can’t believe them, I won’t believe them. But once I love and once I believe—at least for me—that feeling cannot be shaken as long as it remains.”

Nobuko stayed at Miss Platt’s until nearly sunset. She returned filled with a kind of lightness from having bared her heart, yet simultaneously with a somewhat melancholy sentiment toward their bond.

7

On Sunday—Nobuko was invited, along with Miss Platt, to tea at Mrs. Churchill’s home in a bustling part of the city. Miss Platt,

“It’s quite interesting—they say everyone in New York lives according to the latest lifestyles and trends.” “Yet right in the heart of such a city, fragments of the Victorian Age endure intact under the name of Mrs. Churchill.” “Let’s go see it once—I’ll make sure to get you out before you suffocate.” Having said that, Miss Platt took Nobuko along. Nobuko spent two hours there with interest, yet in a rather stifling manner. She heard from Mrs. Churchill—who wore woolen socks and fed logs into the stove—a discourse on rare heraldry interwoven with pride about family lineage.

After five o'clock, the two made their way to C University's assembly hall. There was a Sunday dinner party hosted by the YMCA’s Cosmopolitan Club. The majority of its members were students from various countries studying abroad, with discussions, research, and lectures pursuing the ideal of New Worldism. Before these events, they would have a simple meal in the large hall at tables arranged in multiple rows. Nobuko wrote her name and nationality on the paper handed to her at the entrance as required and pinned it to her chest. With no particularly interesting events elsewhere that day apparently, this one proved successful. Doors opened ceaselessly as men and women from various countries gathered. Nobuko sat with Miss Platt by the fireplace in the hall. Nobuko took a seat facing the entrance and discreetly kept watch over comings and goings. Since yesterday evening, she had not seen Tsukuda. He was supposed to come tonight. That Nobuko had come despite her scant interest could even be said to stem from wanting to meet him.

Just as she was about to tire of waiting, Nobuko unexpectedly caught sight of Tsukuda’s figure in a direction completely opposite to where she had anticipated. He was standing right in front of the inner men’s waiting room, facing the entrance, talking with a Filipino young man. Even as he spoke, he seemed to be glancing occasionally toward the entrance. After parting with the young man, he came toward Nobuko with his characteristic gait. He still did not know that Nobuko was sitting there in that chair, hidden among a group of people. As he gradually approached and was about to pass by the other side of the crowd without noticing her, the instant Tsukuda did so, Nobuko involuntarily touched Miss Platt’s knee with her left hand.

“Miss Platt”

The moment her voice escaped her lips, Nobuko realized her blunder. What a fool! Hadn't Miss Platt known Tsukuda for some time now? The moment she saw him, for some reason Nobuko once again clearly— "Miss Platt, that's Mr. Tsukuda." —she felt an intense impulse to inform her. Without time to think, she had called out "Miss Platt." But what had she meant to accomplish by telling her?

Miss Platt, who had been conversing with a woman said to have been a missionary in China for many years, slowly turned her head and responded during that interval. "What is it, Ms. Sasa?" Because there was a pause between her call and Miss Platt's response, Nobuko was finally saved from her foolish confusion. "Oh, please excuse me. I mistook you for someone else." As an interlude, a Polish youth passionately performed a polonaise, bringing the gathering to a close.

It was just a little past nine o'clock. Miss Platt kept urging Tsukuda and Nobuko to come to her home. She was with another woman—a Belgian who taught French. "If you'd like, please do come." "It's been ages—I'll treat you to proper Japanese green tea." "Now, wouldn't that be nice?" Nobuko found herself unable to refuse after being pressed so insistently. The four of them went to Miss Platt's apartment.

The mother was out. As she began arranging the tea set alone, Nobuko also went out to the dining room.

“Shall I help? Would you like me to pour this hot water?” Nobuko turned the electric heater’s switch. Perhaps because she had just returned from outside and immediately begun her tasks, Miss Platt was acting hurriedly. She arranged the sweets in a bowl and carried them to the parlor.

When she returned, “Well? “It’s already boiled, hasn’t it?” she touched the kettle. Not even three minutes had passed since it was turned on. “It’s only just been turned on. You’ll have to wait a little longer.” Miss Platt, still touching the shiny aluminum kettle’s body with her palm, said, “It’s gotten quite hot.” “Only on the outside, isn’t it?” “It’s done already!”

Nobuko laughed.

“How terribly impatient you are! I’ll prepare it properly and bring it over, so please wait there. I know what I’m doing.” She found it adorably amusing that Miss Platt—usually so perceptive and composed—was getting flustered over something as trivial as hot water. But Miss Platt insisted without reason that the water had already boiled. “It’s fine—it’s definitely ready. Look, it’s making a sound. Let’s take it down.”

The stubbornness in her voice and eyes suddenly put Nobuko on guard. It was not a childlike eagerness to quickly go over there and be with everyone, but rather a persistent, almost rebellious determination. “Then I’ll turn it off.” With that, she turned off the switch and carried it to the parlor. The water was of course underboiled, and the tea came out terribly bitter. Even Miss Platt could only manage a wry smile.

“I’ve lost to you, Ms. Sasa. “I’ve ended up serving summer-appropriate tea…”

Nobuko vaguely sensed a strange atmosphere brewing around her and grew uneasy. Miss Platt kept offering topics of conversation, but there was something forced about it. She deliberately made Tsukuda the focal point where she could have gotten by with vague talk directed at no one in particular. Relentlessly, “What do you think, Mr. Tsukuda?” "Or, “Please let me hear your opinion.”

Tsukuda seemed troubled and gave no clear reply. Moreover, Miss Platt kept pressing him relentlessly without altering her approach. She said, “Mr. Tsukuda, what was your specialization again? I believe I asked you once before, but it’s slipped my mind…” When she said this, Tsukuda made no effort to suppress his agitated nerves and answered dismissively. “It’s nothing of particular interest.” Nobuko interjected.

“His specialty is ancient linguistics, particularly Iranian languages...” She said this while trying to mediate the situation.

“If you'd like someday, why don't we visit a museum together with Mr. Tsukuda as our guide—I'm sure it would be interesting.”

Then Miss Platt used her own words to relegate Nobuko to the background. “I wish to hear these matters directly from you yourself, Mr. Tsukuda.—Now then… for what purpose are you conducting this research?” This was no friendly discussion. It had become a cross-examination.

Nobuko could not understand why Miss Platt was behaving so peculiarly tonight. Before Nobuko’s nervous gaze, Tsukuda crossed his arms and replied with growing sullenness and listlessness.

“It’s research for the sake of research.”

“Excuse me, but I consider that an evasion.” “Of course I understand true research isn’t utilitarian—but if it’s research for research’s sake, doesn’t that make it all the more essential to have your own clear academic objective?” “That’s what I want to ascertain—even a dog digs in the earth because it scents something.” “—Forgive me, but I’m not disposed to debate tonight.” “...Perhaps at some more leisurely occasion.”

“Oh my, we’re not arguing in the slightest! We’re simply having a serious conversation—just earnestly discussing some ordinary topics for a brief moment, are we not?” Miss Platt turned to look at the two beside her with a smile that made Nobuko shudder. No one could muster a smile in response. It was clear that hostilities had broken out between her and Tsukuda. For the first time, Nobuko came to fully grasp that Miss Platt had invited Tsukuda along to her house precisely for this conversation.

“Well then, even if I unfortunately cannot comprehend your field of expertise—may I at least ask this one thing? As an individual human being, what aim do you have in life…” The Belgian woman, who had been sitting there perplexed while intently watching the three of them since earlier, now spoke up.

“Miss Platt, don’t you think that’s enough?” “This is getting too—” “There’s no need for concern—” Miss Platt gazed directly at Tsukuda, kept her upper body rigidly upright in the chair, and declared in a cutting tone.

“I am fully aware of what I'm saying— “Mr۔ Tsukuda، silence isn't always golden، you know—depending on۔” “……。” “As for Mr۔ Sasa—”

Nobuko’s eyes widened in shock as her own name—completely unexpectedly—was brought into the discussion. “You’ve already established certain goals for your work and life.” “Do you have nothing to say?” “Can’t you say anything?” Nobuko had become unable to bear it. She seethed with frustration at Tsukuda’s attitude and at Miss Platt’s cold scheming that deliberately exposed this before others and herself. Nobuko understood perfectly well that Miss Platt was trying to expose Tsukuda’s naked self in this manner, believing it to be for her sake. “A man who degrades himself in public!” Does Miss Platt think she herself would grow cold if she thought that way?

To the obstinately silent Tsukuda, Miss Platt spoke as though delivering a slap. “Your refusal to speak proves your character is hollow—you have no ideals, no passion, no convictions! And with that attitude toward Ms. Nobuko—”

“Miss Platt!” Miss Platt looked at Nobuko, who had turned pale. She made a nervous movement and fell silent.

VIII Nobuko gradually came to feel Miss Platt's kindness as a burden. There was something about Miss Platt’s approach that Nobuko couldn’t bring herself to accept wholeheartedly. On the next day of practice, regarding what had happened that Sunday night, they did not exchange a single word. But Miss Platt suddenly, “The other night at the Cosmopolitan Club, I noticed something, you know.”

“I noticed something the other night at the Cosmopolitan Club,” she began. Nobuko placed both hands on the notebook and looked weakly at Miss Platt. “When we sat at the dining table, Mr. Tsukuda adjusted the chairs for you and me, correct?” “His manner of adjusting them differed between you and me—did you notice?”

Nobuko shook her head. “No.” “Towards me, he was perfectly polite and showed not the slightest hint of reproach. But toward you, he did it carelessly with just one hand.” Whenever she went to Miss Platt’s place, something along these lines would come up. The time that had been her most enjoyable until now had become something muddled. What pained Nobuko was Miss Platt’s excessive partiality toward her—going beyond simply disliking Tsukuda. When Tsukuda’s minor flaws were pointed out with a cruelty that was both womanly and thorough, Nobuko was instead inflamed with defiance.

It was the day of the triumphant return for the soldiers who had been deployed from New York City to France.

The dormitory was nearly empty since early morning. Nobuko had lately been unable to muster much interest in such events and remained in her room, savoring the dormitory’s unprecedented morning stillness. The streets visible from the window were also deserted, having the feel of a Sunday morning. Nobuko stood by the window, twisting the ends of her unbound hair around her finger as she gazed at the holiday-like scenery outside. Then came a knock at the door behind her. Thinking instantly it might be word of Tsukuda’s arrival, she felt troubled. They had promised to take a long walk crossing over to the far side of the Hudson River starting around eleven. As she walked toward the door, Nobuko,

“Please come in—who is it?”

she called out.

“Oh—it’s you.” The one who opened the door and appeared was Takasaki.

“My, how rare!” “Please come in.” Takasaki’s field of study was home economics, and due to her circumstances of living with an American family, they did not interact closely on a regular basis. “How good you’re going out early.” “Yes. This is quite ordinary for me—I happened to be passing nearby, so I thought I’d call.” Takasaki, as Nobuko urged, opened the collar of her coat and draped it over a chair. “You should take that coat off entirely.”

“Yes, but—I really can’t stay long enough to trouble you like that…” Petite yet striking with her voluminous black hair, thick eyebrows, and resolute large mouth—a face even beautiful in places—she looked around the room and praised Nobuko’s health to make small talk, yet there was something distinctly uneasy about Naoko’s demeanor. There was something about her manner—as if she had something on her mind that she had been considering, and was now talking about things she had little real interest in, merely as a lead-in to broach the subject. After several minutes passed in this unsettled mutual tension, Naoko,

“The truth is,”

With that, she entered into the main subject.

“I came today partly because it’s been so long since we last met, and also because I hoped you might indulge an old woman’s meddling concern.” “Oh? Thank you.” “—What is it about?” “It’s nothing serious, really…” At that moment, as if to mask her emotional agitation, Naoko raised her hand to adjust her hat slightly and said. “You—I hear you’ve grown quite close with Mr. Tsukuda?” “Lately?”

“That’s right.”

“Regarding that—though you must surely be aware—about a year ago, I found myself greatly indebted to Mr. Tsukuda for various matters.” “Of course, it wasn’t anything financial—he assisted me with my studies and introduced me to work opportunities…” Once she began speaking, Naoko revealed her resolute nature and continued without hesitation. “Though he only became a close acquaintance after I came here, his seniority made me feel I could rely on him almost as one would an uncle.—Since we had quite a long association, I know that even if people speak ill of Mr. Tsukuda, he is by no means a dishonorable man.” “Even when we were alone together late at night in his apartment, everything remained perfectly proper.” “I can state this openly and righteously before anyone.”

As she listened, Nobuko felt an amused warmth. There must have been times when she took pleasure in this unasked-for endorsement of Tsukuda. That Naoko should be guaranteeing Tsukuda's conduct—thereby indirectly insisting on her own blamelessness—brought a smile to Nobuko's lips. Nobuko softly affirmed the other's words.

“I’ve never given such matters a single thought, you know.” Naoko looked at Nobuko with eyes that had taken on a gleam. “Of course you are. I know that. Just at the time, rather troublesome rumors were being spread—though I myself haven’t a single thing to feel guilty about—it was pitiful for Mr. Tsukuda and troubling for myself, so I temporarily put a stop to our interactions. What I wanted to say is that I still hold goodwill toward Mr. Tsukuda, but he shouldn’t become more than a friend… You—you certainly won’t find happiness.”

“Oh?” “Why?”

"Why...? Because that's simply what I think." "On what basis?" Naoko replied with confidence.

“After all that time we spent together, I’ve come to understand him a little—he’s certainly not a bad person. But… I just can’t help thinking that way.”

Nobuko said. "I think I understand why you say that." "There's something in that person's nature, you see." "Right?" "I understand that perfectly well—it's not as though I'm so infatuated I don't see anything at all." "But what do you think?" "I have one belief." "I believe love can change people."

Naoko suddenly looked at Nobuko with a vague, elusive gaze. “Well… I suppose that could be possible,”

“I’m certain there is,” Nobuko continued. “In other words, the good qualities that were buried due to circumstances will begin to grow properly under the right light.” “……Mr. Tsukuda is kind……and I do wish for his happiness as well,” Naoko responded. Nobuko leaned forward earnestly. “And besides, I simply cannot bring myself to like those rosy youths who are all vigor and social charm. A person who hasn’t endured life’s hardships wouldn’t be worth knowing. He understands the shadows and sorrows—yet still recognizes true brightness and cheerfulness.” Her voice softened with conviction. “…Don’t you think Mr. Tsukuda currently has too much darkness around him? I believe he’ll emerge from it—that he’ll gradually develop a steadfast radiance.” She met Naoko’s gaze unflinchingly. “That’s precisely what I’m counting on.”

“…………” When it came to such matters, Naoko appeared unable to comprehend Nobuko’s feelings. She let out a sigh and nodded absently. “But why is it only people who say Mr.Tsukuda is no good who come to me like this… I wonder if his side experiences the same.”

Nobuko muttered.

Eventually, with the practicality of someone who had said her piece, Naoko gathered her bag and gloves. “Anyway, I’ve wanted you to hear what I’ve been thinking for some time now, and I feel relieved. Whether you make use of it or not, I still had to say it before…” After finishing putting on one glove,

“I must apologize for intruding. Well then, until next time.” With that, she took Nobuko’s hand. “Oh?” Nobuko gave a strange, vacant reply. Naoko walked out into the hallway with brisk footsteps. “Farewell.” “Goodbye.”

Naoko walked down the hallway filled with conviction of having fulfilled her conscientious duty—a bag tucked under her right arm and left hand waving in farewell. Nobuko watched her retreating figure until she turned the corner. The moment she closed the door, a faint distorted smile formed about Nobuko’s lips without particular cause.

Within less than two weeks, Nobuko received another unexpected visit from an unexpected person.

One afternoon, a business card was presented. It was Torahiko Tanaka, the son of a friend of Nobuko’s father. She had never met the young man before.

Nobuko descended to the parlor. He was waiting in the alcove. After finishing his initial greeting in a gruff, somewhat brusque tone, he suddenly asked as though angry. “Yesterday, I heard rumors at a certain place that you and Mr. Tsukuda are engaged or something like that—is that true?” Nobuko, who had been wondering about his purpose, looked at the young man in surprise. What connection could this dark-skinned young man with sharply arched, East Asian-style eyebrows possibly have to the matter? Nobuko felt displeasure and answered coldly.

“Does this have anything to do with you?” “What the hell does that have to do with me? I came solely because of the connection between my father and yours—I thought it wrong not to caution you even though you do understand. —Mr.Tsukuda is a hypocrite.”

Nobuko stared fixedly at Tanaka from directly across. "Why do you think that way?" "It's not what I think—it's the truth!" What exhausted Nobuko's nerves more than these visitors was Tsukuda's renewed skepticism. The resolute man filled with feverish conviction from that night when they'd walked around General Grant's tomb had vanished without trace. Tsukuda had instead grown distressingly sentimental—more so than ever before. Nobuko tried to forget external anxieties through their meetings, striving to bolster each other's courage.

“Let’s truly lead a good life—if we just keep steady without wavering, we can face anything that comes our way.” “Let’s live helping each other and find happiness together.” Tsukuda stared at Nobuko with devouring intensity. Then muttered in a tone of deepest gloom. “I do hope we can do that.” “But…I don’t know…Time will prove everything.” “Until then, it’s all one great big ‘IF’.” “Why—?” “Haven’t we already decided?” “Once decided, shouldn’t we carry it through properly?” “Coward! To say such things now…”

They became unable to bear being apart even momentarily; as their attachment deepened increasingly, they ceaselessly shed tears from those tangled clashes of passion.

Easter passed, and May arrived with its dizzying northern air. The trees were all at once wrapped in fresh greenery and, bathed in overflowing sunlight, quivered with joy. The air—mornings, days, nights—was filled with the tickling scent of young leaves that teased the nostrils. In suburban woods, wildflowers began blooming beneath last year’s rotted leaves. When dusk’s sleepy mist settled over them, a chorus arose from the marshland—shwaa, shwaa, shwaa—like a horsehair bow scraping a huqin. Chirp-chirp-chirp-trill… The bush warbler sang. All through the night, Nature listened to spring’s restless murmurs.

Nobuko had grown impatient with their fate, as if pushed by early summer's waves. She often stayed awake through entire nights. As soon as the university's long summer vacation began, Nobuko departed with Tsukuda for a lakeside resort. She severed all communication with Miss Platt and the dormitory supervisors—who had opposed the plan—resolved to face their censure. Nobuko and the others remained at the lakeside until nearly October. When they returned to the city, they notified their acquaintances of their marriage. The day that would remain etched in her memory was one when autumn's fine rain dampened the city streets. They went to a restaurant on Broadway for dinner. They sat watching in sparse conversation the ornamental lamp's glow upon the table. Then from immediately behind Nobuko, beyond the partition, came the clear sound of a man's unrestrained Japanese voice.

“Hey, I heard Nobuko Sasa got married, you know.”

Another hoarse voice responded.

“Huh... So what kinda guy is he?” “That spoiled lapdog! She’s latched onto some Yank called Tsukuda or somethin’!” Nobuko heard the sharp slurp of liquor.

III

I

On a rainy night, the entrance with its wall-mounted lantern-shaped electric light was gloomy. The aged ceiling seemed to hang oppressively low, and through her thin silk socks, the tatami felt cold and unyielding against her feet. Why was no one coming out? As they neared the narrow wooden-floored area where the screen box stood, the maid's startled face suddenly appeared from the frosted glass door at the far end. When she saw the four figures approaching with her father at their head, she looked utterly shocked. "Goodness!"

Without even a greeting, she suddenly rushed into the back. The familiar rustle of Mother’s footsteps—as if tiptoeing—reached her ears. Nobuko had been certain Mother was bedridden, so when she detected those light, quick steps brimming with eagerness, she froze in alarm, fearing Mother had risen in overexcitement upon hearing of her return. Nobuko hurriedly tried to open the thick door. From beyond it came a sudden clatter of the handle being worked, and the door swung open. Takeyo emerged, nearly colliding with the maid.

“Goodness! What’s wrong, Nobu-chan!” Her mother’s face was so overwhelmed with emotion that Nobuko too found herself at a loss for words and took her mother’s hand. “Are you all right? You’ve been up?” “Oh, I’m already fine.—You must have been so cold… But still, thank goodness you’re safe.”

Nobuko, “Come now, let’s get you to bed.”

Nobuko wrapped her arm around her mother’s back—the mother wearing a padded silk kimono. “We can talk as much as we need now.” Mother planted her feet firmly, resisting Nobuko’s gentle urging to move. “I’m truly fine—no need to worry. I’m usually up anyway.” “But—” Nobuko studied her mother’s face with growing doubt. The woman looked slightly haggard, her hair drawn back tightly. Nobuko asked in a hushed voice: “What about the baby?”

Mother had a slightly awkward expression. "No, you see..." she began to say in a low yet firm voice, but— "I'll explain everything properly later." After whispering this, she suddenly raised her voice in a cheerful tone and called for her younger daughter. "Tsuya-ko! Tsuya-ko! Where are you? Your big sister you've been waiting for has come home!" Then, taking the lead, she opened the door to the room where Father and her younger brothers were. "What a strange child—you've been waiting so eagerly since this morning." "You should go sit by the fire, you know." "What a shame—it's raining today."

Nobuko had returned to the house where she was born for the first time in a year. As she walked through the tatami-matted rooms and corridors, she felt an incongruity—as if she were a guest visiting relatives. Nobuko sat down on the long bench beside the fireplace. Across from her on the matching chair sat Father and her younger brother side by side. The nostalgia of meeting after so long flowed between them. But where should I begin? Nobuko laughed nervously. "What's wrong?"

she said to her brother. “Huh, huh, huh.” In that short time, he had gained a youthful air and gave an awkward, bashful smile.

Father left to change into a kimono. Mother sat beside the table, overseeing meal preparations. On the wall behind Mother hung a framed painting of sweetfish. Both that painting and the stacked biscuit tins in the corner of the room seemed exactly as they had been on that crisp September morning last year when she had hastily glanced at them before departing. Yet Nobuko felt that between people still lay a year’s worth of days crowded with events beyond words.

To begin with, Nobuko’s return to Japan had been a sudden event even to herself. She had never even dreamed of returning within that year. She had only just married Tsukuda at the end of October. In their modest apartment near the university, their new life had barely begun. Regarding the marriage, there had been frequent exchanges of letters between her and her parents. A single letter that had slipped in among them startled Nobuko. From Father had come a letter informing her that Mother was scheduled to give birth sometime in December; that due to her longstanding severe diabetes, the doctors were by no means optimistic about the course of events; and that they deeply regretted Nobuko’s absence at this critical juncture. Nobuko was perplexed. She loved her parents. She couldn’t bring herself to coldly reject their need for her. At the same time, she still had strong lingering attachments to her life with Tsukuda. Tsukuda was now in a state where leaving C University was impossible. If they were to return home，Nobuko had no choice but to make the journey alone.

After much deliberation, she ultimately decided to return home. The parting between her and Tsukuda would not be their last. But who could predict a mother's life?

Nobuko strained herself to reserve a cabin. As she crossed the rough December Pacific, she kept thinking about her mother who must be waiting for her and of Tsukuda whom she had left behind abroad. It was a lonely voyage. As she approached Japan, her anxiety grew that misfortune might lie in wait. Two days before entering Yokohama Port, Nobuko sent a wireless telegram both to notify her arrival time and to inquire about their well-being.

That very night, there was a ball on the ship. After ten o'clock, Nobuko was looking down from the salon railing at the people dancing below. The ship pitched heavily. Amidst the music, with thunderous crashes of heavy waves striking the hull, the entire ship creaked and groaned, then lurched sharply to starboard. The dancers slipped on the heels of their delicate shoes. While sliding unsteadily, the women instinctively grabbed their male partners. The men braced their legs to support their partners, forgetting their dance steps as they stirred up a commotion. The sudden slips became part of the entertainment, and each time, peals of laughter, cheerful women’s shouts, and applause erupted in a roar from the crowd. The ship’s grand hall was warm and brilliant, alive with excitement. Contrasting the buoyant revelry with the roar of the dark winter sea outside, Nobuko felt it sharply.

A bellboy appeared at the entrance to the room. He had a piece of paper in hand. Since evening, Nobuko, who had been eagerly awaiting a reply telegram, found her attention drawn in that direction. The bellboy threaded his way through the dancing crowd for a while, then eventually exited back the way he had come. He was still holding the piece of paper. Nobuko stood up from one of the low chairs along the railing and went out to the top of the grand staircase to look. The bellboy, who had been climbing the stairs with his arms dangling and swinging them nonchalantly in front of his body in time with his steps, upon seeing Nobuko standing there, adjusted his posture professionally.

“Are you Ms. Sasa?” “—A telegram?” “They say it’s just been received.” “Thank you very much.”

Nobuko immediately opened it and read while standing. “HAHA ANZAN ANSHIN ARE”—“May Mother have a safe delivery and peace of mind.”— Nobuko felt a dance tune suddenly resound intensely yet hollowly in her ears. If only this had come two weeks earlier! Yet Nobuko mastered her emotions. Until seeing Mother’s face, she had believed a sibling—brother or sister—had been born on the day that telegram was sent. Though Mother appeared haggard, her condition bore no resemblance to someone who had welcomed a newborn just two days prior. And why—when Nobuko had rushed back breathless precisely for this—had Mother so lightly brushed it aside? Nobuko sensed only commotion throughout the house—the flustered preparations for an unexpected returnee. Did Mother even grasp why she had returned now? —

Nobuko set down the younger sister she had been holding on her lap. She said, inhaling deeply a suppressed sigh of discontent.

“Well... I suppose it’s about time I changed into a kimono…”

She stood up and surveyed herself still wrapped in her coat.

“This way I can’t relax—it feels strange somehow.—Where’s my kimono?”

Two “Well, since I was asleep—truly, things being left unattended is beyond all discussion.”

Takeyo placed both hands on the table and stood up. “I asked to have it warmed up earlier—look at the state of it now.” The rooms that had been under construction when Nobuko departed were now completely settled into. Mother’s living room had become a neat four-and-a-half-mat space.

As the low sliding doors favored in tea rooms closed behind them, Nobuko— “Hey, what on earth is going on?” she blurted out.

“There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding.” With her head bowed as she adjusted the heated table’s warmth, Takeyo answered. “Ah... Well, the truth is, I hadn’t expected you to rush back so suddenly.” “Why?” Nobuko thought she had heard something unexpected.

“I sent a telegram right after receiving that letter, but it never arrived.” “Until just recently, I hadn’t known Father had gone and said such things. —But this time, I’ve steeled myself. Because it happened much sooner than expected, when the moment came, even the midwife hadn’t arrived—that’s how it turned out.”

“When was it?” “November 28th—it was a month early, you see.”

“...”

Nobuko had arrived in San Francisco that day, completely unaware. Takeyo gazed intently at the silent Nobuko and said. "But really, Nobuko, you've managed to recover completely. When I heard you'd fallen ill over there, my state of mind was beyond description." "At that time, even here, the whole household was laid out with pillows side by side in such a state."

Takeyo momentarily paused her words.

“And you… We’ll discuss things properly in time—I must hear your thoughts thoroughly—but I was dreadfully worried.”

Nobuko blushed. "Being so far away made everything unclear." "That may be so, but first and foremost, you only know about Mr. Tsukuda from what you've briefly heard through Father, don't you? And since what someone like him says can't be taken at face value, they do hear strange things—but I thought everything would become clear once you returned. Truly, I could hardly wait." Mother's tone brimmed with deep affection, containing warmth that forgave even while harboring resentment. Nobuko realized for the first time she'd been awaited in a sense entirely different from what she'd imagined. Somehow the reason why the household atmosphere hadn't meshed with her own feelings became clear. Simultaneously, Nobuko—who until now had maintained tension through nervous sharpness—felt parental tenderness envelop her like warm water. Takeyo spoke with an amused tone that seemed less directed at her daughter than at bantering with a younger woman she favored.

“And yet you found the resolve to return alone—I must say, that’s quite commendable.” “Well, I thought it was urgent, and…” Nobuko felt awkwardly self-conscious about voicing Tsukuda’s name directly to her mother and omitted it as she spoke. “Since he couldn’t leave the university regardless.” “It was better that you came alone—there are many things we must discuss. This concerns the family gravely.” “Father being who he is won’t speak of it to you, but it’s been trying for me—both domestically and beyond.”

Takeyo picked up each delicate item—the thin blouses Nobuko had taken off, the dainty lace-trimmed things—and examined them one by one. “Women’s things stay lovely wherever you go. What do they call this one?” She noticed Nobuko was wearing items they had packed together into the trunk at departure, and spoke nostalgically. “Oh, you kept that?” “As always… I still haven’t gotten around to preparing proper kimonos.”

“What ever became of the poem card I gave you?” “I have it.” On the morning Nobuko was to depart, Takeyo had given her a farewell poem that read: “My dear child, may you flourish—even across distant seas that part us, know your mother watches over you.”

“Madam,”

At that moment，the maid called to her mother from outside the sliding door. “The meal will be ready shortly.” “Shall we go?” “Yes.—But I want to see the baby first.”

“She’s probably asleep.”

Mother led the way and opened the sliding door to the Japanese-style room around the corner of the hallway. Under a dimly shaded cover where the electric lamp was gathered to one corner, the nurse folded laundry. Surrounded by small pillow screens lay a red futon swollen like a pincushion. Nobuko approached on tiptoe, knelt down, and gazed at the infant sleeping peacefully. It was so small she couldn’t tell whether it resembled its mother or father, and referring to it as her younger sister felt incongruous. She tilted only her face upward and whispered to her mother, who loomed half-crouched behind her to peer down.

“What’s the name?”

“We decided on Yukiko, but…” “She smells milky, doesn’t she?”

When they returned to where everyone was, Father cheerfully joked. "You've finally emerged—it seems you had quite the confidential discussion, hmm?"

Nobuko felt relaxation and enjoyment gradually seeping into the heart and body.

III

Gradually, Nobuko awoke to a clear, resonant clang—clang-clang-clang—a continuous sound as if someone were striking something metallic with a small hammer. The sound produced by the intricate movements of someone’s hands carried a delicate richness, and because of that very sound, the morning’s quiet solitude seemed to deepen all the more. Nobuko knew from the resonance that it was sunny outside.

What would Tsukuda be doing right about now? The morning after that first night back, the vivid awareness of her return pressed upon Nobuko with such intensity that she felt deeply lonely. Mother was writing letters at the dining room table. "Good morning." "How was it? Did you sleep well?" Takeyo set down her brush and slid the inkstone aside as she spoke. "It's been ages since we've shared a meal like this." "It gets quite lonely during the day—everyone's always out.—What would you like to eat?"

“What will you have, Mother?” “I’ve been having bread lately.” “Then I’ll do the same.”

Nobuko had slept alongside her mother the previous night. They had talked about various things in the pitch darkness. This morning too, Mother's topics seemed endless. Nobuko too had things filling her heart. But all of them lay beyond her mother's experience. How could she possibly— "Mother, I wonder what he's doing now." How could I possibly say such a thing?! Because she was holding back what she most wanted to say, Nobuko felt constrained. Takeyo, overjoyed at having regained her conversational partner after so long, remained oblivious to these feelings of Nobuko's and spoke in a thoroughly cheerful manner.

“Isn’t it strange? Father, really—this morning he kept asking what you talked about last night.” “That’s why—it’s because we left Father out of things, I’m sure. What did he say about it?” “Well, I just told him what we talked about.” “Was he satisfied?” “You said you specifically wanted to sleep with me, didn’t you? So he thought—maybe you’d gotten pregnant or something—that’s what he said.”

As she said this, Takeyo laughed as though it were some absurd joke. Nobuko felt a peculiar bitterness. If she were actually in that condition, what kind of face would Mother make—Mother who was so convinced such a thing was impossible? From the subtle intonations in her mother’s words, she clearly understood how her marriage was being regarded. Recalling how her father, who had come to meet her at the ship yesterday, had been fidgeting and acting as if to avoid drawing attention, Nobuko felt an unpleasant emotion.

“Truly, the world is such a bothersome thing. Once people learn about you, someone like Mrs.Tsuruta—who’d never normally step foot here—comes rushing over just to say ‘I told you so.’ If we didn’t meet them, they’d think it even stranger—so we had to endure meeting each one with these big bellies through all that hardship; it was unbearable.” “Since that daughter of yours is such a selfish person, it would be best if you could just remain composed.”

Takeyo seemed dissatisfied that Nobuko had merely said that and showed no gratitude for the suffering she herself had endured. She said in a sullen tone. “You were off in some distant place, doing as you pleased and getting carried away—so you could afford to stay composed or whatever—but things aren’t so simple for us.” “If we just leave it at this, at least we can maintain some semblance of dignity.” Nobuko had not been taking her parents’ concerns lightly, but being spoken to in that manner left her feeling wronged.

“I’m truly sorry for causing you all sorts of worry.” “But I didn’t act that way out of disregard for you, Mother.” “Because there was no other way—”

“I don’t think so. If you want to love someone, that’s your business—but couldn’t you have found some way to spare our dignity a little more? First of all, he’s someone I’ve never even met—and besides—” Takeyo voiced her deep suspicions aloud. “That Tsukuda man seems doubtful to me.—It’s not just me; everyone has their doubts.” Nobuko found it both sad and comical how her mother kept calling him “Tsukuda” without any honorific, as if she’d already decided he wasn’t worth addressing properly.

“Why?” “Didn’t I explain everything in detail?”

Mother looked sharply at Nobuko. “That’s right—you did tell me honestly. "But that’s what you saw—the Mr.Tsukuda you think you saw, right?" "The things Mr.Tsukuda told you—isn’t that right?" “Is that all there is to him without any doubt?” Nobuko answered as though absorbing her mother’s fierce words. “He doesn’t lie to me.” “I pray that it is so. “It’s a matter of a lifetime.—Even I want to believe in the one you love as he is—if possible—I’d want to love him just as you do. “But as long as doubts remain—I won’t believe until they’re completely dispelled.—It’s my nature.—All this time—I’ve always been the hated one—cutting through dangerous situations alone.”

Nobuko felt a kind of oppression from her mother's decisive tone. That her mother seemed convinced she could destroy even this current matter through sheer willpower made Nobuko anxious. Nobuko countered. "What is your greatest doubt, Mother?—If there's anything I can explain, I should." "The reason being..."

Nobuko felt she had finally come up against what she had anticipated. "This isn't some game to me. Even if you and I disagree, Mother, my decision won't change. So let's at least try to understand each other."

Takeyo poured herself some black tea and took a sip. "...Since this must be discussed eventually anyway—very well. Everyone says you're being deceived." "He hasn't concealed anything about himself from the beginning." "By not concealing anything, he's ingratiating himself with your childish sensibilities." "No!" "Then why doesn't he behave like a proper gentleman—no matter what you say—and first come back here to obtain our approval before acting? Precisely because he calculates there's no loss either way with such substantial parental backing—that's why he seized upon you, isn't it?"

Nobuko took her mother’s hand and pressed it into her own. “That’s a misunderstanding. “Absolutely. “And such matters aren’t one-sided—I bear half the responsibility too. “First of all, I couldn’t bear to think like you, Mother. “Someone like me doesn’t have anything worth being deceived for!” “...There are degrees to things—compared to zero, even one becomes something of substance.”

Takeyo, her hand held and without letting her guard down, stared intently at Nobuko’s face and hair before finally saying, “But surely it’s not a lie that he’s at the university?” “What?” “Well—there are people who say Tsukuda is a laundryman.” Nobuko felt deep indignation but refused to seriously engage with this. “I just don’t understand at all!”

she answered. “Perhaps his ulterior motive is to monopolize all our relatives’ laundry.”

IV

Nobuko felt she had changed upon returning home. Tsukuda had become part of Nobuko’s heart and daily existence. On her parents’ side too, something remained unclear, making it impossible for them to fully return to their former feelings toward Nobuko. Such days dragged on. As time passed, Takeyo’s emotions regarding Tsukuda failed to settle into stability—even Nobuko came to recognize this persistent turbulence as unavoidable when considering the surrounding circumstances. What Nobuko had described in her letters and what Sasa related stood diametrically opposed to the rumors reaching Takeyo through newspapers and other channels. Having never laid eyes on Tsukuda herself, Takeyo found herself unable to determine which account merited belief; knowing only her husband’s inherent decency and Nobuko’s inexperienced single-mindedness, she inevitably gravitated toward viewing Tsukuda—the figure most susceptible to imaginative interpretation—through lenses of suspicion and ill will.

But for Nobuko, it was terrifying how her mother harbored such unreasonable suspicion, as if any man who appeared around her daughter were surely some villain. When Nobuko realized that Takeyo was deepening her suspicions all the more because Tsukuda was poor and lacked social standing, she felt a surge of public indignation. The fact that Nobuko had returned to her care was of course a joy for her. When they were face-to-face, she seemed unable to refrain from talking about the loneliness and hardships she had endured while Nobuko was away. When she spoke, she could not help but touch upon Tsukuda. When Tsukuda's name was mentioned, Takeyo lost her composure.

After Father left for work, the long daytime hours became quite a burden for Nobuko.

“Nobu,”

Takeyo called out to Nobuko from the living room. Nobuko was usually in her own room. Her mother’s unreserved calling left her vaguely annoyed. But Nobuko immediately stood up, went over, and opened the sliding paper door to her mother’s living room. “What do you need?”

Takeyo spread open a dye sample book on her lap. She brought the book closer to the bright shoji, distinguishing colors repeatedly as she spoke. “Kikuya came by, but...” “What are you going to have dyed?”

“Since I have a bolt of mountain silk, I thought I might make a haori—but these days, perhaps because the dye plants have declined, there are few colors that please me.” Takeyo eventually inquired of Nobuko as if suddenly remembering. “Speaking of which, what became of that purple Yuzen kimono you took with you?” “I still have it.” “You likely can’t wear that anymore either—though the pattern was lovely—” Still half-absorbed in the dye sample book,

“What do you plan to do? You can’t just leave your kimonos as they are.” “It’s fine… I don’t need it.” “Even if you say you don’t need it, that’s not how things will go. ……Well then, I suppose I’ll just go with this for now.” Takeyo handed the maid a white bolt of fabric and the color sample book, and as she closed the chest, she muttered in a tone that gradually broadened with her expanding thoughts. “—I wonder what kind of place Mr. Tsukuda’s hometown is like.” “Well… why? “I haven’t gone there yet, so I don’t know.”

“Well, it’s such a peculiar local custom of theirs. At any rate, when you return like this, there ought to have been some proper greeting by now.” “Or what? Is Mr. Tsukuda not informing his parents?” “That’s not true.” Takeyo retorted with sarcasm that seemed to mask wounded pride. “Are you saying they’ll keep silent until the bride’s family sends greetings first?” “They must be staying quiet because they don’t know how to approach us.” “If they themselves were to come here, I’m certain they’d handle it properly.”

Nobuko had no choice but to say with feigned nonchalance. That displeased Takeyo. She— “You two can do as you please between yourselves—since everything about you is unconventional anyway—” She snapped the metal ring shut and closed the chest. “But I’ve been thinking—just because something’s unconventional doesn’t make it right. Flaunting eccentricity only causes others trouble.” “I’m not flaunting anything. It’s simply that Mother and I have different natures and ways of thinking.”

“So you believe everything you do from start to finish is right?”

Unexpected matters often led to these heated arguments. Nobuko too, at first, always made efforts to maintain restraint. However, Takeyo’s ferocious, unforgiving character ultimately made even Nobuko lose her composure. When provoked, Nobuko, like her mother, would reveal her unyielding, innate fierceness.

It was a certain day in late January.

From a trivial matter, the argument erupted again. Nobuko said, nearly at a loss. "Ever since I returned home, it feels like we've been repeating the same things endlessly.—Let's stop this, please... I truly understand your intentions, Mother." "But—let's stop speaking this way." Then Takeyo snapped back with flushed cheeks— "You've changed too—you were never like this before."

she said. “We both once possessed the sincere purity to exchange opinions unreservedly.” “That was your defining trait.” “I don’t know whose influence this is, but it’s quite a new attitude…”

Nobuko felt as though jabbed in some part of her chest, her emotions flaring up. Takeyo, with an instinct known only to women—or perhaps only to mothers dealing with daughters—always skillfully thrust a poisoned needle into Nobuko’s vulnerable spot in this manner. And made her opponent fierce. However, on that day, Nobuko finally restrained herself and answered. “It’s not that I’m being cunning and avoiding it. I’m just saying I won’t engage in arguments for argument’s sake.”

“You call that your right—doing exactly as you please and shaming your parents! But how dare you demand I stay calm? After all I suffered to send you overseas—you should try seeing it from my position for once!” When Nobuko saw Takeyo shedding tears and wiping them with aged fingers that showed life’s weariness, the wretchedness of mother and daughter quarreling so struck her heart. She rose from where she’d been sitting opposite and knelt on the carpet at her mother’s knees. Then she spoke soothingly, as if willing understanding into being.

“Mother, just for once, try to look at the person named Tsukuda separately from everything else.” “Is there anyone among the people you know whom you’d consider acceptable for me to love?” “Have you ever once thought it acceptable to let me freely interact with any of the people who’ve come into my life?” “There hasn’t been anyone, has there?” “Whatever person it may be, whenever someone starts to have deep involvement with me, they become worthless in Mother’s eyes.”

“...I’m quite the wicked old woman, aren’t I?” Grabbing the hand that was about to abruptly turn away, Nobuko said, “That’s not what I meant! Mother, to put it fairly, you’re something of an idealist when it comes to me. Right? How many hopes you yourself have placed on my work and success—if you would just consider that, surely you can understand? Mother, in a way, you want me to do what you couldn’t in your own life, don’t you? Right?”

"There probably is some truth to that." Takeyo answered in a tone suggesting she couldn't summon proper indignation. "There's a great deal of it! You take such pleasure in imagining me transcending romance to exist in some pure, solitary height." "I never said you should live alone. If there were a proper person—someone truly capable of enlightening you—I'd welcome them with open arms any day."

“...My feelings about marriage—they’re different from yours, Mother.” “Of course I know that—you needn’t say it.” Reverting to a caustic tone, Takeyo interjected. “Your ideas are Bolshevik.” “Under normal circumstances, isn’t the goal for daughters to marry into a household, settle down, become one with their husbands, and secure the most stable life possible in today’s society? So you’d have me marry into a household of the same class and tradition, or one that allows me to climb socially as much as fate permits—whether a little or a lot—but that’s precisely where we differ... I was raised exactly as I was raised, and have seen only what I’ve seen. I feel absolutely no interest in a man whose parents are exact copies of people like Mother and your peers. Far from it—it fills me with anxiety. So whenever I am drawn to someone, it inevitably means there’s something different about them in that regard alone—do you understand? That’s why, even setting aside whether Tsukuda is good or bad, I think Mother could never be satisfied on this point anyway. I’m a barbarian, you see—the type who won’t accept anything about life or anything else unless I grab what I want with my own hands and see for myself…”

Nobuko fell silent. Takeyo also remained silent. The two of them remained like that for a long time in the twilight, where the low flames of the fireplace occasionally flickered and flared up, casting a faint red glow over their surroundings.

Five

The sky cleared completely, and the wind blew, swaying the glossy leaves of the camellias.

In an untended corner of the garden where Japanese kerria grew thick and wild, with broken twigs and fallen leaves piled haphazardly, Japanese irises sprouted buds in perfect unison. Only the verdant sprouts there appeared so bright and beautiful that one might think sunlight gathered there specially. Warmth... Squinting her eyes, as she gazed at the interplay of light and shadow within that intense green, a strange, fierce sensation coursed through Nobuko’s entire body. Nobuko felt a palpitation that caught in her throat as she stretched with all her might. She swung her arms round and round, her fists clenched tight. Her arms shone white and trembled.

The wind swept through again.—The madake bamboo thicket rustled softly.

On the veranda of the detached house, Tamotsu was intently doing something. As she approached, Nobuko— "What are you doing?"

“What are you doing?” she called out. “Look—they sprouted.”

Showing his innocent profile with its swirl of downy hair, Tamotsu did not take his eyes from the box he was peering into. “What’s that?” Nobuko stretched her neck over her brother’s shoulder. It was a seedling box measuring about two by three feet. On the exquisitely sifted fine black soil, sprouts about an inch long stood weakly in spindly rows. “What kind of sprouts?… They look a bit weak. Will they be alright like that?” Tamotsu—for the first time—

“They don’t thrive at all.” Tamotsu looked back at Nobuko with a perplexed expression. “Cyclamen seedlings aren’t something even experts can handle easily.” “So of course someone like me would be bad at it... but I can’t help feeling pessimistic.” Nobuko laughed. “But they sprouted impressively, didn’t they? —They’ll gradually grow bigger, won’t they?” “I don’t know—they’re prone to rot, you see.” “If you keep them warm enough for sprouting, mold starts growing in the soil right away.” “The trouble is—look at this one here—it’s growing so weakly.”

Tamotsu pointed at a withered sprout in the corner of the box. "I don't understand why this happens." "I prepared the soil and everything exactly as the book said, but..."

Tamotsu was fourteen years old. Throughout the winter, he had brought this box into the veranda, putting in a hibachi and placing a glass lid over it, all while enjoying watching the sprouts germinate.

Having unexpectedly gained an audience, Tamotsu began enthusiastically explaining the difficulties of cyclamen cultivation. That even after sprouting, they wouldn’t bear flowers for several years, and that adjusting temperature and humidity was no less difficult than cultivating orchids. He would eloquently, yet here and there with a childlike muddling through, expound upon the knowledge he had diligently memorized from the gardening book he carried around whenever he had time. “Well, so it’s obvious you can’t do it without a greenhouse.” “Just the other day, without me even knowing, a dog stuck its paw in and uprooted some of them, you see.”

Nobuko gave brief responses out of affection. But truthfully speaking, Nobuko was not even half listening to what Tamotsu said. Her emotional state had been off-balance since morning. Having left her room because her scattered focus had grown unbearable, within the lively atmosphere of the late March garden, the heavy, intense yet languid emotions coiled within her instead seemed to swell.

Nobuko circled around the detached building to the back of the bathhouse. The coal cinders clattered loudly, clattered again. “Who is it?” “Me.” The window slid open with a clatter, and Tsuya-ko, “Sis!” Beside where she peered out, Takeyo’s striped haori came into view. “Where’s Tamotsu?” “He’s over at Flame’s place worrying nonstop—says the cyclamen are rotting—”

Tsuya-ko said, “Please, Mother—can I? It’s okay—I’m fine now! Please!”

Her voice could be heard. Tsuya-ko, surrounded by brothers, had taken to referring to herself as "boku, boku."

“It’s no good—we’ll end up having to call Mr. Hosoya again.” “What’s with the tantrum?” “She keeps saying she wants to go outside—even though she’s only been up for two days! If she goes out now, she’ll start coughing again in no time... That impossible asthmatic child.” Nobuko wandered out from there to the side of the maids’ room. The shōji screens were thrown open brightly, and right by the window, the maids sat facing each other as they sewed. Both of them were looking down as they sewed a dark brown meisen silk men’s kimono and haori with fine black kasuri patterns. When she saw that, Nobuko felt an upheaval—the emotions she had been restraining seemed to gush forth toward those garments. They were Tsukuda’s clothes. They were hurriedly sewing like that for his return preparations.—Nobuko slipped away to the guestroom garden so as not to be noticed by the women.—

Since returning last December until March arrived, there had been times when Nobuko longed to see Tsukuda so intensely that tears would well up. However, no matter how much she stirred herself up, the resignation that he couldn't return until his work reached a stopping point had become a sort of support. Yet now it was finally decided that Tsukuda would return to Japan in early April. Particularly since March 19th, when the ship carrying him had departed Seattle, Nobuko began feeling she might collapse under the accumulated weight of anticipation. Each day until his arrival in Yokohama passed in dreadful tedium, a mental stagnation born of excessive expectation. Had she possessed ample funds to prepare a proper welcome for him, Nobuko would surely have found some relief. But she didn't have a single yen to her name. For Tsukuda's travel expenses, Nobuko had made her parents pay a considerable sum beyond what she'd earned herself.

“I have various things I want to buy. Give me money.” Yet she found herself in no position to make such demands. To begin with, not a single soul in the Sasa household rejoiced at Tsukuda’s imminent return within days. At night when her parents whispered furtively about some matter, Nobuko would wander into their space unaware. They would abruptly fall silent, “Did you need something?” her mother would ask. In those moments, her parents struck Nobuko less as parental figures than as a united marital front, leaving her assaulted by bleak alienation. With every natural outlet for this pent-up anticipation blocked, whenever Nobuko sat alone thinking of Tsukuda, a feverish malaise would sear through her heart.

At last, the second day arrived. That day was a Sunday. When she awoke, Nobuko thought: Ah, today's the day! Today... today... how that single day would exhaust her! Nobuko hated having her face seen by others or having to speak with anyone. How delighted I would feel if Tsukuda were to suddenly come in while I was lying here like this.

With a mood bordering on melancholy, Nobuko went out to the dining room. A place setting of dishes was laid out on the table. Beside her, Takeyo was cutting the castella cake. “—A guest?”

“One after another—even on your day off, having people come to the house like this does no good at all...” “That’s true.” Takeyo abruptly swept aside the wrapping paper and ceremonial cords from the confectionery box before her. “A telegram came.” “A telegram?” “It must be from the ship. It was right here just now...” Nobuko’s heart suddenly raced as she joined the search. The thought that some mishap might have occurred now was unbearable.

“Did it have his name on it?” “Hmm, now what was it…”

That composure seemed unnatural to Nobuko and was unpleasant. The telegram emerged from under the current affairs cartoon. Seeing the characters indicating the sender as Tsukuda, Nobuko felt somewhat relieved.

二カゴゴニウコウとある。 “The second—if you say ‘the second,’ that’s today, isn’t it?” “That’s right.” “That’s strange... It says arrival on the afternoon of the second, but...” Glancing at the clock, Nobuko was overcome all at once with a flustered confusion. With just "afternoon" stated, it wasn’t even clear whether it meant 1 PM or 6 PM. “I’ll go ask.”

Nobuko, appearing anxious even as she made the call, inquired with the shipping company. A young clerk responded brusquely,

“It’s arriving today,” he answered.

“Around what time? Is it evening?” “No—it’s early. They’re probably already outside the port by now. If you’re going to meet him, you’d better hurry.”

Nobuko returned from the telephone with a peculiar expression.

“So it really is today after all…”

“What’s with that face?” Takeyo looked up at Nobuko standing rigidly and gave a wry smile. “You can’t just stand there spacing out. If you’re going to go, then go tell Father or do what you must.” While changing into her kimono in the room, Nobuko felt ambushed. However much of a surprise it was—if he, whom she had waited for so long, were arriving even a minute sooner, she ought to be leaping for joy—and yet... When the moment came, Nobuko found herself unable to feel the elation she had imagined, leaving her unexpectedly bewildered. He was finally returning—yet even the fact that he—the him she held in her heart—was coming back felt strangely impossible to believe. Nobuko recalled that summer dawn fifteen years past. When her father returned from England after five years away, eight-year-old Nobuko had stayed awake all night. That morning, behind her mother arranging her hair before the mirror under a hanging lamp—fanning mosquitoes with a round fan while remaining utterly silent—she remembered being frightened by this uncharacteristic quiet. —Now Nobuko understood her mother’s complex emotions as a wife from that morning.

The Sakuragicho-bound train was empty. Facing them were only a middle-aged man who seemed to work for a foreign trading company and had the air of a pleasure-seeker, a woman of about thirty-two or thirty-three, and a few other men sharing the ride. The train clattered and rattled as it swayed, racing through the jumbled landscape between Tokyo and Yokohama that sparkled in the warm sunlight. Sasa took out a small notebook from his pocket and examined it. After some time had passed, Nobuko asked.

“What time?” “Well, it must still be around two.” He took out his watch.

“Hmm, it’s already past ten... Took longer than expected.” Sasa, holding a notebook with his index finger inserted between the pages, was gazing out the window while lightly tapping his overcoat-covered knee when he suddenly twisted his body toward Nobuko and whispered affectionately in a low voice.

“You mustn’t get too worked up—people are watching.”

He shifted his body back to its original position and added in a slightly raised voice. "You deserve sympathy—if you get me all worked up, I’ll be in trouble." "No—Father"

They took a rickshaw from Sakuragicho. The rough port rickshaw man hunched forward and sped off, bellowing like a Chinese laborer. The Korea Maru had just been moored alongside the quay. As workers attached the gangplank, a sailor leaning out from the Korea Maru barked commands. Several men on the cobblestones heaved at a wheeled stairway in response. Impatient reunions erupted everywhere—emotional embraces and frantic waves ignoring bystanders' stares. Nobuko gripped her father's arm and plowed through the human tide. Her eyes kept scanning the upper deck's railings where faces pressed tight against each other, desperately seeking Tsukuda among them.

There were indeed countless faces. They overlapped and blended with the colors of hats and coats, making it impossible for her nearsighted eyes to distinguish each one individually. Before long, those who had come to meet others and those who had disembarked seemed to find each other—men waving their hats and shouting “Hey! Hey!” in delight, women in crested formal coats bowing from this side. Because the ship was large, the faces of the lined-up passengers appeared small and confined. Nobuko grew sad,

“Do you see him? Do you see him?” “Do you see him?” she asked her father repeatedly. “In all this commotion, they can’t see us properly either. Let’s move to a less crowded spot.” They pushed through the surging crowd pressing forward and stood near the customs warehouse. As they watched, a man descended a short flight of steps from the upper deck and emerged onto the middle deck near the bow. Black overcoat—mountain hat. Nobuko unconsciously raised her entire body along with her right hand and, waving it fervently above her head, informed her father.

“You must understand, Father!” “There—the one in black!” He too took off his hat, turned toward them, and waved slowly in broad arcs. Waving her hand even more forcefully and with greater intensity, Nobuko shuddered emotionally, tears rising to her eyes.

VI

The car turned the corner of the slope along the stone wall. Sandwiched between her father and Tsukuda and being jostled, Nobuko felt her apprehension deepening as the house drew nearer.

What impression would Tsukuda and Mother give each other at their first meeting? Nobuko was worried—though it seemed trivial—that Tsukuda’s complexion appeared sallow. She also fretted over his poor conversational skills and inability to naturally introduce topics himself. At the entrance, students and maids with solemn expressions stood lined up under Mother’s direction to welcome them. Sasa handed his hat to a maid and remarked casually, as if dispelling the awkwardness. “It’s been years since anyone took off my shoes like this.” “You’re precisely the sort to catch cold through your feet.” “In Japan we still can’t escape this nuisance.”

Tsukuda stiffened and answered without a smile.

“No, it’s quite all right.”

Nobuko, who had stepped up onto the genkan first, focused her energy toward his heart as if pressing a signal switch. "Relax! Be natural!" she wished. Takeyo, having changed into formal attire, stood before a chair near the entrance to the guest room to welcome them. Nobuko was the first to, "I'm home." she greeted. And then introduced Tsukuda to her mother. Sasa supported them from beside.

“This is my wife.—Mr.Tsukuda—as I mentioned earlier，we’ve been deeply indebted to you.” “So I understand.”

Takeyo responded with her large frame maintaining a dignified and imposing air.

“It is truly an unexpected connection that brings us together on this occasion.” Tsukuda, unable to properly handle Takeyo’s altered manner of reception, answered awkwardly, his words terse and stiff. “I have been greatly indebted to your husband… Please treat me kindly.” “Do sit down… No—you must be exhausted.” Sasa began to say to his wife. “Mr. Tsukuda apparently gets seasick quite easily—he spent more than half the voyage asleep.”

“Well, I must say…” Takeyo looked at Tsukuda as though expecting some words from him. Tsukuda rested his elbows on either side of the chair, clasped his hands before his chest, and nodded at Takeyo while looking her way, “I am quite all right now.” he said. Nobuko stood leaning against her father’s chairback, observing this psychological dance. It had been clear from Mother’s stance when they entered—her uncertainty about how to engage Tsukuda. Should she maintain respectful distance toward this academic, or treat him with casual ease as her daughter’s fiancé? She appeared to have probed both approaches during their two brief exchanges. Had she already detected something jarring about him—a lingering aftertaste of dissonance? Why else would she keep twitching the tips of her immaculate white tabi socks? Nobuko avoided looking at that unsettling pale figure—raw as a freshly peeled ear—and addressed her father.

“Father, wouldn’t you like to change your clothes? Thank you very much—well, today...” Nobuko explained to Tsukuda as if trying to enliven the stagnant air. “Just when I’d overslept, a telegram arrived, you know. So I was beside myself with panic! Even Father was suddenly summoned, you know?” “Ah—but Sunday worked out well. Other days are frantically busy, I tell you. You too had better be very careful for a while, or you’ll come down with neurasthenia. Foreign countries generally have established rules, but here there’s neither a proper system for living nor any principles to speak of. It’s all haphazard chaos—well then, consider yourself back home and relax for a while.”

“Thank you very much. I’m afraid I’ll be causing you various troubles…” When Nobuko returned after showing Tsukuda to the bathroom, Takeyo was standing at the entrance to the guest room, speaking in a low voice with her husband, her face flushed with excitement.

Sasa left for the study, passing Nobuko on his way. Takeyo grabbed Nobuko there and said warningly, "Does Mr. Tsukuda always have that complexion?" "That’s no ordinary complexion." Nobuko, finding her prediction had come true so precisely, couldn’t help but let out an innocent laugh. "He’d been seasick the whole time, poor thing—though of course he’s never had those ‘apple-like rosy cheeks’ to begin with." "I wonder if people who’ve lived abroad for so long are all like that... There’s something odd about him... He doesn’t even seem capable of greeting people properly..."

“It’s because you greeted him so grandly that he was taken aback.” When Tsukuda had washed his hands and face and come back, and fruits and tea had been laid out on the table, Nobuko— “Come here, everyone! Tea’s ready!” She called her younger brothers and sisters. The three of them came at once. Nobuko, “Kazuichirou-san, Tamotsu-san, Tsuya-ko-chan.” She introduced them one by one to Tsukuda. Tsukuda smiled gently at Tsuya-ko with her bobbed hair, looking bashful, “Come here.” he extended both hands. “Now go on and let him hold you.”

Because everyone was watching and laughing, Tsuya-ko grew increasingly self-conscious and made no move toward Tsukuda,

“Sis!”

clung to Nobuko. Sensing everyone’s watchful eyes—their attention both joking and earnest—as little Tsuya-ko hesitated to approach Tsukuda’s lap, she wanted the child to take a liking to him. “What’s the matter? “Tsuya-ko, why don’t you let him hold you?” “There we go—Big Sis is moving along with you now…” Nobuko, with Tsuya-ko clinging to her like a little monkey on her lap, shuffled toward Tsukuda. Tsuya-ko suddenly wrapped both arms tightly around Nobuko’s neck. Then, holding her breath, she stiffened her entire body, planted her feet firmly against the tatami, and resisted. Though her face remained hidden against the shoulder and thus unseen, she must have been flushed crimson with sweat, teetering on the brink of bursting into tears. Nobuko stopped moving.

“Alright, let’s stop! We’ll save it for today.” “This child is such a strange one—until about last year, she was scared of tofu, scared of silk floss, and even took a dislike to me, her own father, which had me quite at a loss.”

Then, Tsuya-ko turned her back to everyone and, while being held by Nobuko, struck a pose as if performing a gesture. “Kyanmushi too,” she added in a small voice.

For the first time, they burst into heartfelt laughter. Kyanmushi was Tsuya-ko’s term for a Shinto priest.

Around ten o'clock，the maid—

“How shall I prepare the bedding?” The maid came to ask. “Well…” Takeyo looked at Nobuko. “Your room will do.”

“Fine.” “Then, as usual—” “Um, which bedding or such should I prepare?” Takeyo, without moving from her spot, replied as though this were naturally Nobuko’s duty. “Well… There must be something… Nobuko, you won’t know unless you go see for yourself.”

Nobuko silently led the maid to the storage room. She had her open the cupboard. “That... the striped one and the Hachijō one.” Nobuko had the maid carry out the bedding and went to the washroom. She turned on the electric light, watched her face reflected in the mirror while smoothing back her hair with her palm, and felt a lonely, dejected state of mind. Could this really be the state of mind in which she had welcomed him, whom she had awaited so eagerly? There were too many people around, it was mentally exhausting, and Nobuko felt more melancholy than ecstatic joy. She turned off the light. And then she left the washroom. At that moment, the sound of a door opening in a distant room grew loud. Half his body out in the corridor, Tsukuda’s figure—head bowed as he tried to put on his slippers—was visible from where Nobuko stood.

“Kazuichirou, go along with him.” “No, I can manage alone—I went earlier too… Huh? I’m fine...” Tsukuda walked straight down the dark corridor toward them as though he could see Nobuko standing there and peer into the desire within her heart. Nobuko forgot her composed self from mere moments before. Suppressing laughter like a mischievous child overflowing with glee, her heart pounding so fiercely she felt the surrounding darkness pulse in rhythm, she quietly hid herself standing beside the corner bookshelf.

VII

About a week later，Nobuko returned to Tsukuda’s rural hometown with him. They stayed for a little over ten days. For Nobuko，it was a journey interwoven with both delight and restraint. It became clear that Tsukuda’s elderly father，his elder brother and wife，and younger brother—though blood relatives who had long lived apart in wholly unfamiliar circumstances—were being considerate toward both Tsukuda and Nobuko. Rapeseed flowers bloomed gloriously，their golden clusters rising tall and reflecting off the distant Hakusan Mountain Range. In the aged villages，houses with black-painted plank fences stood along narrow thoroughfares. Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism flourished there，the village temple serving as both clubhouse and assembly hall. Each home displayed magnificent Buddhist altars. Their size，it was said，dictated the household’s social standing.

“Around these parts, everyone treasures such things.” Nobuko found it curious as she gazed at the gilded double doors and the relief carvings on the inner transoms depicting scenes from Shinran Shonin’s life in red and light blue hues. The elderly man warming himself by the hearth’s embers always visited the Buddhist altar before retiring. He would light the altar lamp, put on a ceremonial shoulder garment, and recite passages akin to those from the Tannishō. Then under his breath, “Namu, namu, namu” he returned while softly chanting the nembutsu. Rice-straw bags hung from the large ceiling beam darkened by years of bonfire smoke. The overlapping shadows of those silently watching the flames crept across the wooden floorboards, stretching and shrinking as they swayed upon the sliding door. Every aspect of life here brimmed with antiquated traditions, much like that altar itself.

When they returned, in Tokyo the cherry and magnolia blossoms had already scattered, and the maple trees were beginning to spread their young leaves.

Nobuko sprinkled water in front of her room with a watering can one day, holding up the hem of her kimono with one hand. With the persistent fair weather, the area around her room—where workers had disturbed the ground during the building’s expansion—had become severely parched. Under eaves untouched by rain, the soil lay crumbly like soybean flour. It drank water endlessly. When she briskly moved the watering can, droplets spread out and fell onto the earth with a soft, clear sound of uniform particles. A refreshing earthy scent rose. Nobuko stepped backward gradually while sprinkling intently.

The shoji slid open, and Tsukuda appeared. He remained silent for a while, watching what Nobuko was doing, "That will be over soon." he said. "Soon enough.—But—you can stop if you want." "—I want some tea." "All right, just wait a moment. I will be right there." "I want to drink it here." Nobuko stopped the flow of water from the watering can and looked up at Tsukuda, who stood by the threshold. "Why don't we go over there, hmm?"

“—” Tsukuda expressed his discontent through silence. “Since you left at noon, let’s go out for a bit and chat.” “Even over there, it must be about time you’d want some tea.” “I could go—but it would take too long.” “You’re impossible! “You and your endless tantrums over every little thing!” Nobuko scolded, her jest laced with genuine reproach. “Even though you have nothing to do, I won’t let you use ‘being busy’ as an excuse!”

Tsukuda had not yet secured a steady job.

After returning from their trip, Nobuko placed two desks in the two adjoining six-tatami rooms. He sat with his knees bent uncomfortably before them, writing resumes and vaguely organizing notes from his previous work. These rooms had originally been created as a study space for Nobuko alone—connected to the engawa yet arranged like a detached cottage. Separated from the other rooms by Kuramae’s wide veranda and a back staircase on the second floor, they could close the single sack-like entrance and spend an entire day without meeting anyone, simply gazing out at the front garden. For Nobuko and Tsukuda to be tête-à-tête, this layout proved extremely convenient. Yet when she actually began living there with him, Nobuko found this convenience bittersweet. For Tsukuda was already reclusive by nature. When Nobuko busied herself with small tasks for him, he would only leave his room when absolutely necessary—during meals, restroom visits, phone calls, or when her father returned home.

Before departing for the countryside, such a thing had occurred. Again, it was when he had said he wanted to drink tea in his room. Nobuko absentmindedly,

“Then I’ll bring it over for you.”

With that, she went to the dining room. Mother was discussing dinner preparations with the maid. When she saw Nobuko, "What is it?" she asked.

“Tea.” “I wonder if there’s hot water.”

Takeyo reached out and touched the iron kettle.

“Ah, it’s just right.” While Nobuko arranged the teacups, Mother prepared the teapot herself. “There’s some delicious steamed sweet bean jelly. Shall I cut some for you?” In Mother’s unhurried manner of pouring tea, her delight in sharing tea with Nobuko was clearly evident. Nobuko went to fetch Tsukuda from his room, leaving the three teacups in place. “Please come here. I’m in a spot because Mother’s set on it.” Though she urged him repeatedly, Tsukuda ultimately did not move. Nobuko had no choice but to return and lie to her mother.

“He says he can’t get away right now. “I’ll take this much and go… I’ll come right back, so please wait for me.” Mother said sarcastically, without malice. “My, my—it must be quite inconvenient living like you’re in a hotel, isn’t it?”

Nobuko, turning her back to her mother as she placed teacups on a small tray, felt an unpleasant emotion—as if the two of them were shamefully huddled in a corner of the large house, shrinking back in disgrace. In the hallway spanning several rooms to their room, Nobuko’s emotions churned with complexity. Having had such experiences, she returned the watering can to its original place and, picking up the bucket, said to Tsukuda.

“My feet got dirty, so I’ll go around to the bathhouse. Please go ahead without me.”

Nobuko entered the bathhouse from the rear. While washing her feet on the wooden floor, she occasionally strained her ears, attentive to whether the sliding door of their room would open. Not a sound came from it. After wiping her feet, Nobuko came to Kuramae and called out. “What are you doing?” “I’m here.” At that response, Nobuko opened the sliding door herself. “Come on, that’s enough now.”

Tsukuda still stood by the threshold facing the garden, only turning his face toward Nobuko. Gloomy horizontal wrinkles formed on his forehead. She could read the appeal in his annoyed look—a silent protest that she ought to have understood. Nobuko approached him and said in a low, serious tone. “Look, it just doesn’t feel right for us to be living in the same house yet only seeing each other at mealtimes.” “Since we’re living together, we must open up to each other, right?” “So please come—this sort of thing doesn’t happen at the house in O Village, does it?”

He answered in a voice that conveyed a sense of obligation toward Nobuko. “Then I will go.”

VIII

An extremely subtle, nervous disharmony gradually began to creep throughout the entire house. Nobuko herself keenly sensed it too.

At dinnertime, she helped with cooking as usual. During that time, Tsukuda remained in his room. When the table was set, Nobuko, “Dinner’s ready!”

She called out. Her youthful voice resounded through the house. Tamotsu from the backyard; Kazuichirou; and of course Tsuya-ko— “Food! Food!” she shouted as she came clattering over. Nobuko washed her hands and took her seat at the table. Though Father and Mother already held their chopsticks ready, Tsukuda alone remained absent. Tsuya-ko asked, “Mother, can we eat now?” Nobuko grew uneasy. Just then Tsukuda opened the front door and entered with a slight bow to all. By clock time it had been mere minutes of waiting. Yet like some noble lady making her grand entrance last at a ball when all others had assembled—something conspicuous arose in that moment’s mood. He alone stood apart—conspicuous as an outsider guest—and Nobuko sensed how everyone vaguely reawakened to his presence: Ah yes—he exists here. Nobuko—

"What were you doing?" "You're late," she said. She wanted him to say he'd kept them waiting too long. "Everyone was waiting for you."

Tsukuda sat rigidly on the zabuton cushion, his gaze fixed intently on the table as he mumbled indistinctly, “Well… just a moment.” Then he turned solely toward her parents and bowed. “My apologies for keeping you waiting.” “Ah—did you confirm Mr. Yamazaki’s schedule? I happened to meet him at the club today and discussed it again.” ……The meal gradually grew animated. By its conclusion, everyone except Nobuko had let slip their initial faint unease.

However, such matters did not conclude with just one occurrence. The next day, then a day later, then the day after that, and the next day—for some reason, the same thing kept happening. The faint feeling that would soon vanish became clearer with each repetition, taking on for Nobuko the nature of a somewhat vexing premonition. At mealtime, Takeyo said with suppressed irritation.

“You should tell Mr. Tsukuda earlier—don’t keep everyone waiting forever like some guest.” “I’ll do that.” “They say foreign universities make young men terribly laid-back and approachable." "That man could at least help you when he comes here—is he like this even when it’s just the two of you?” Nobuko untied her apron strings, her lips twisting into a bitter smile. “Not exactly.”

“Well, if you say so…” Takeyo said nothing more and began adjusting the table flowers. She plucked the leaves of cornflowers that were beginning to wilt and leaned back slightly to examine the shape of the branches. The flower arranging was merely a manual task; Nobuko intuitively sensed that her mother’s heart was filled with things she wanted to say. Takeyo said nothing further.

On a day when April was drawing to a close in just a few days, Nobuko had been invited to a friend's house with her cousins. Though cloudy, it was a beautiful day with lustrous gray skies above dense, glossy green foliage on the ground. Around four o'clock, when Nobuko went to the bathroom to get ready, Tsukuda followed her out of the room and began organizing the bookshelf built into the corner of the wide veranda. This bookshelf was shared by the family, though not a single proper book could be found among its contents. It had become a storage space for old magazines. Takeyo had once casually mentioned in passing how years' worth of women's magazines had been haphazardly crammed inside, collapsing to make one of the glass doors unusable. Seeing what he intended to do now, Nobuko was startled,

“I never meant for you to do it,” she said, stopping him.

“You can just leave it be, things like that. If it’s truly necessary, you can just have someone else do it, you know.” “—Can’t I just do it? If it helps everyone even a little, that’s good enough.” “If it’s a diversion for you, then fine…”

Nobuko, her half-brushed hair clutched in one hand, peered at Tsukuda from behind its shadow. He sat rigidly cross-legged on the wooden floor before the bookshelf, already having opened its door to begin extracting dust-coated old magazines for sorting. Something gripped and held fast to Nobuko’s eyes—eyes now accustomed through constant observation to reading his moods. Almost, “Are you displeased?” she began to ask. But stopped.

If he were in a bad mood, would I cancel my plans to go to Tomizuka? No. As she returned to the mirror, Nobuko reflected on how her emotions had come to function this way without her realizing it and smiled a wry smile. As Nobuko brought her face close to the mirror's surface to apply her face powder, thoughts progressed quietly and heavily within her head. And Nobuko felt that it was not just herself, but many married women who were weighed down and made listless by these seemingly petty, simple mental vexations.

When her preparations were complete, Nobuko lifted her own spirits and lightly addressed him, "I'm off now."

She greeted him. Rustling her obi and kimono, she bent over Tsukuda sitting cross-legged and touched his cheek. “Since Father will be out tonight too, do take your time talking with Mother.” Night fell with a drizzle beginning. Around nine o’clock, restless with thoughts of home, Nobuko had a rickshaw called. In the late spring’s persistent drizzle, the rickshaw interior felt damp, heavy with muggy warmth and the canopy’s odor. The numerous uphill slopes prolonged the journey. Returning home, she found no shoes visible in the entryway.

“Father?” “The Master has not yet returned.” As she walked toward the interior of the house, Nobuko thought how she wished she might encounter Mother and Tsukuda deep in friendly conversation. When she opened the door, she imagined their cheerful faces turning toward her, “Oh, you’re back!—We were just talking about your flaws.” How delightful it would be to hear such words! How truly delightful that would be! In the dark corridor, Nobuko found herself beginning to smile. But that warm fantasy instantly stiffened—humans possess an intuition akin to beasts instinctively scenting safety in their dens or approaching danger through the very air they inhabit. Nobuko sensed wariness in each room’s deathly stillness, in the chill that seemed to seep from nowhere yet permeated even the hallway. Nobuko quietly opened the door.

“I’m home.”

Tsukuda was not there. The brothers were also not there. In the night air, there was only Mother. Nobuko involuntarily scanned the room as if searching for something. “Did the rain give you any trouble?” Takeyo closed her magazine and looked at the clock. “No, I had a rickshaw… Father still isn’t back yet, is he?” “—He’ll surely be late tonight, what with the ceramics crowd as usual…” She looked at Nobuko—who remained seated with her coat strings undone—with a calm, observant gaze.

“Why don’t you go change into a kimono?”

Nobuko stood up obediently. With hurried steps, she opened the sliding door to her room. Tsukuda was at the desk. “I’m home.” “Welcome back.”

He remained seated with his back to Nobuko as she entered, answering without even turning his head—this too felt unnatural. What had happened? Nobuko sensed discomfort lingering between her mother and Tsukuda. She felt a sense of entrapment, as though being crushed between two unyielding cliffs that resisted all her efforts to push or pull free. After changing clothes, Nobuko went back to see her mother. Takeyo, appearing to have waited impatiently for her arrival, suddenly burst out with unrestrained frankness.

“Mr. Tsukuda is quite unhinged, isn’t he?” What had been pooling in Mother’s heart at last spilled over. “So—did something happen?” Takeyo stared unblinkingly at Nobuko.

“You already heard about it from that man, didn’t you?” “No.” “It’s just… this is how it is, you see.” Even as she spoke, Takeyo made a face of evident distaste. “—Repeating this sort of talk seems childish and truly unpleasant… but I suppose these things must be explained from the beginning.—Shortly after you left, thinking that man might be lonely alone, I invited him for tea.” “Since Tamotsu and Tsuya-ko weren’t here, and I thought it was a good opportunity, I had planned to have a proper talk with him alone about various things.” “As you well know, I still haven’t fully accepted that man, and we’ve never had a proper chance to talk seriously—in my heart, I wanted us to exchange opinions about you openly, you see. It’s unbearable for us both to keep this strange formality where he just parrots ‘Mother’ with empty politeness.”

“That’s right.” “Because I was being foolishly honest, I truly expected Mr. Tsukuda would sense that and meet me with sincerity—but that was a mistake.” A fresh surge of anger animated Takeyo’s face. Her earlobes flushed crimson. “—It’s hopeless! That man—” “That man—” “Why?” “What do you mean ‘why’? He’s utterly cold… Not a shred of genuine feeling.” “Even the most uneducated person would respond earnestly if approached with open sincerity, but him—what can I say—he just keeps retreating.” “All he does is insist he’ll sacrifice anything for you, that he’s prepared to martyr himself—nothing but empty declarations.—It’s not as if I’m demanding he immolate himself for our sake.” “I’m no lunatic.—I’m trying to have a proper discussion so you can establish yourself and he can live comfortably—but it’s utterly futile!”

Being familiar with both Mother's disposition and Tsukuda's nature, Nobuko understood these dissatisfactions well. Mother was speaking so sincerely from the heart, and yet...! Her heated heart found no outlet, and she sympathized with that exasperating frustration. However, Nobuko couldn't bring herself to think that it was entirely Tsukuda's fault. She maintained neutrality, "That person is just awkward with words..."

she said.

“Besides, even if people talk about me—it’s awkward for anyone, isn’t it? There’s no concrete issue at hand that needs addressing…” Driven into a corner by her mother’s unrelenting oratory and faced with Tsukuda’s persistent—and characteristically impassioned—abstract assertions about sacrifice and effort, Nobuko felt an inexplicable sense of despondency.

“Well… I suppose that’s how it seems—but that was—it must have been around dinnertime when the call came for him.” “Since he’d been talking so long, I should’ve kept quiet, but I absentmindedly asked where it was from.” “‘A relative in Asakusa,’ he claimed?” “I’d never heard of such relatives, and since it sounded so distinctly downtown, I blurted out ‘My, what an odd place to be staying!’” “Then he got terribly sullen—even turned pale—and snapped ‘Mother! Do you think I’m doing something improper?’ Can you imagine!” “It makes no sense to me at all!” “But given his deadly serious face—when I thought it through properly—you must’ve planted some vile suspicion…”

Nobuko felt as if her eyebrows were being wrung taut; listening, she turned aside and propped her cheek in her hand. “……I said that thinking such things is your disgrace……” When Nobuko returned to the room again, he was still sitting between books spread out to both sides of the desk. The stubborn hollows of his cheeks seemed to address her. “I know what you went to hear. You will understand me, won’t you? …But think whatever you like. I will not make excuses.”

The things she had heard from Mother were unbearable to voice again, and remaining in the room with those emotions was agonizing—she stepped out into the storehouse corridor, crossed her arms, and paced back and forth while swaying her body side to side. A ten-candlepower electric lamp hung from the high ceiling, illuminating the wooden floor below. Before her stood the mesh-covered door of a clay-walled storehouse. The polished corridor felt smooth and unyielding against the soles of her tabi. The wooden floor at night was startlingly slippery—more than one might have imagined. Feeling lonely, Nobuko walked while swaying her body ever more vigorously.

Nine

The bathhouse was thick with steam. Nobuko, tucking up the hem of her clothes, was washing Tsuya-ko’s body in the large basin. The smell of melted soap and the hot dampness of the steam seeped through her clothes and made her feel unpleasant. Tsuya-ko soaked a large sponge with hot water, wrung it out with both hands, and while pouring the water over her own belly from above, laughed boisterously. “Look, Sis! Look! The hot water’s tingling my belly button!” “Look! Look!”

Takeyo was soaking in the bathtub. To Tsuya-ko—who was being far too boisterous—occasionally,

“You mustn’t make such a racket.” While saying this, she started talking to Nobuko. It was criticism of Tsukuda. The previous night, while Nobuko was away, after an unpleasant incident had occurred, she appeared to have lost all restraint and even the last vestiges of respect toward him. Whenever she addressed Tsukuda directly or spoke about him, a particular tone invariably emerged—one laced with contempt and a sense of condescension. Even now, she said while brushing back her damp stray hairs with a temple comb.

“Well, in any case, no human being is perfect—even if we forgive each other’s flaws… But observing him has only made me more doubtful—thirty—how old is he? Five or six more?” “Five or six more? —In any case, for him to have supposedly stayed pure until that age—there’s something…”

Nobuko,

“Turn this way. Turn this way.” She made Tsuya-ko turn her back. Then she said bitterly, “Such talk… let’s stop it now.” Takeyo scooped up bathwater and, while washing her face, said in a strained voice from behind the towel.

“When I think about it, you’re truly such a woman—blind when you take a liking to someone. Even seeing you two together, it’s painfully clear you’re the one who loves more intensely… If that’s acceptable to you, then so be it—”

After a while, she muttered again as if to herself.

“It’s not as though I can stay by your side forever—well, if we’re both to come to ruin together, then I can only resign myself to accepting you’re just that sort of person.”

Generally speaking, there were many incompatible elements between the Sasa family’s domestic life and Tsukuda’s nature. The Sasa household had come to enjoy a degree of material prosperity both externally and internally since Nobuko’s father’s generation. The atmosphere of the household—what might be called a burgeoning era—was energetic, exclusive, conquering, and filled with a primordial vitality not overly intellectual. They all talked volubly, ate heartily, and slept soundly. That Tsukuda alone frequently suffered from intestinal troubles and did not possess as voracious an appetite as the others—even this single fact served to accentuate how he was an alien element within this household.

As the very embodiment of the household's atmosphere—living and moving within it—Takeyo neither saw Tsukuda as a fearsome enemy nor attempted to assimilate with him, yet his persistent presence as an alien element grated unbearably on her nerves. She gradually grew irritated and hurled blatantly spiteful words at Nobuko.

At dusk, when Nobuko would be in her room, "What could she be doing when we're so busy—go call your sister—Tsuya-ko."

Mother’s voice called out. “Sis! And—” “Yes, yes.”

Takeyo stood waiting for Nobuko as she left. "I don’t know what business you have, but you should at least help out a bit here."

she said. “When even one more person joins the household, the kitchen gets that much busier—so it’s a problem when you act like a guest.” As simply as she would have when alone, *Ugh, Mother! You’re not even busy at all!* She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Mother was venting her frustration at Tsukuda, who had taken Nobuko away, and her loneliness toward Nobuko, who had allowed herself to be taken by him. Takeyo watched as Nobuko cleared the table,

“What on earth does Mr. Tsukuda do every day?”

She added. “Will he really be able to go to university?” “He says it’s starting next week…” “Well, fine then—but if people ask and he’s still not employed anywhere at his age, that’ll be a problem… Make sure you properly thank Father—he went all the way to Dr. Tsumura’s house the other day despite being so busy, just for that…” Tsukuda began attending university. as a guest researcher in Dr. Tsumura’s laboratory. He would likely become a lecturer in his field eventually, but that wouldn’t sustain his livelihood. He asked people he had met during his stay in America to introduce him to job opportunities. Unable to feel at ease staying in Nobuko’s room for such visits, he went out every day during the daytime. In the evening, he returned home around the same time as Sasa. Despite the elderly Sasa, who had spent his day occupied with pressing official duties, it was Tsukuda who kept complaining of exhaustion. Nobuko found that desolate.

After dinner, he would join the gathering for a time. But before long, inevitably, "I must take my leave—there are matters I must attend to..."

Excusing himself, he withdrew alone to the room in front of the storehouse. In the Sasa household, maintaining a regular study routine was naturally no easy task. Since the master was not a reader, the time from after dinner until bedtime was filled with nothing but lively bustle within the household. Tsukuda’s state of mind—being unable to join in the activities with everyone—was understood by Nobuko. Yet every night—though he seemed perfectly capable of simply standing and leaving in silence—he would inevitably rise with stiff formality,

“I must excuse myself.” He stated stiffly. It was as if he were declaring that he alone had significant matters at hand, even in this situation. As he alone turned his back on them, clattered open the door, exited, and finished closing it behind him, those who had been chatting idly until that moment felt a burdensome sense of being reproached and momentarily fell silent.—That delicate gap of several seconds made Nobuko feel a poignant ache. At that, she—

“Hey,” With that, she broke the awkward silence herself first. “Listen everyone—do you know this story?” Once a policeman caught a sneaky thief. He dragged him to the police box, gave him a good beating, then asked: “How dare you do such shameless things!” “You idiot!” “Where’s your conscience?” “What’s that,” “What’s that, sir?”

“What happened to your conscience?! Don’t you know it’s precisely because every human has a conscience that they can’t commit evil acts, you idiot!” “Huh… Well… What’s that? My parents were crushed and died in an earthquake ten years ago.” “Oh, come on! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Ha! Ha! Ha.

Laughing along with them, Nobuko grew irritated at herself for being so fussy—what a ridiculous pun this was, what a ridiculous person she was. To Nobuko, Tsukuda seemed unable to relax and chat with everyone like that, but what lay on his desk in the room was by no means significant work. She knew he was either rewriting musty translations of Persian poetry or spreading out drafts, dipping his brush into the ink jar while writing yet another resume.

Ten The whirlpool of emotions surrounding them grew increasingly complex and intense, leaving Nobuko more pained with each passing day. Her nature being simple and passionate, she reacted wholeheartedly to every stimulus—those from her mother and those from Tsukuda. Rebounding from one impact to another—Nobuko found herself wanting to calm down and focus on her work. Since Tsukuda's return from abroad, a chaotic mass of unprocessed emotions and experiences had been churning turbulently within her.

She said to him one day. "I want to settle down and focus on my studies a bit more." "By all means—you should do it." "But I need to move—though..." "———" Tsukuda gazed at Nobuko with a doubtful, uneasy expression. "No, that's not it—I'm only moving the desk. Here, we keep getting in each other's way, so I want to return to my old room." After remaining silent for a moment, Tsukuda took Nobuko's hand and asked again.

“Is it really just for studying?” “Of course.” Yet in that moment, Nobuko felt a needle-thin doubt pierce some hidden depth of her heart. Was that truly all there was to it?... She asserted with renewed cheerfulness. “Of course. So you’ll help me?” “I’ll help you, certainly.” Both already wore their celluloid collars. Gripping either end of the oak desk—the one Nobuko used, passed down from her grandfather—they carried it along the garden path to the guest room’s side.

“Isn’t it too dark?” “But this should be fine... Here...”

Only the guest room and entrance remained as they had been built long ago by the tea master. The room that was part of it and faced the old-fashioned small garden had become so covered in years of dust that even its pillars had become damaged. Nobuko faced the desk placed upon the newly cleaned old tatami mats, while Tsukuda sat on the entrance threshold— “Under that pine tree, butterbur sprouts come out in spring.” “Oh?” “What?” “A lizard.”

As they gazed at the early summer sun falling on the garden moss and illuminating the white plaster wall with its brushstroke texture, they talked.

When she sat in this room, memories of her childhood came flooding back to Nobuko’s mind, one after another.

One summer, when she was playing alone, she absentmindedly turned over a square tile-like object placed on the stepping stones. Beneath it, a mound of dry, crumbly soil rose up, and to her surprise, there were many rice-like grains there. The ants scurried about in a panic, picked up the rice grains, and with a rustling sound that seemed almost audible, scrambled away, moving their legs. At the unexpected sight, Nobuko was startled. But as she watched, her fascination grew, and she used a bamboo stick to flip over another tile. There was nothing there. Another one. There it was! There it was! Savoring the sensual sensation of seeing those rice-like grains in each moment, she walked through the heat, flipping tile after tile.

Nobuko nostalgically recalled the ant eggs. The girl's thrilling feelings seemed to possess a transparent intensity that would never be experienced again. Even with the paper spread out before her, in such a mental state, Nobuko could find no means to sort through her current tangle of emotions. Just as her present real life was beyond her control, so too was the material beyond Nobuko's capabilities. To avoid the fierce whirlwind of arguments that would erupt at any provocation, Tsukuda stayed in the room before the storehouse, Nobuko in her small room, and Takeyo in the central dining room—the three of them living separately for several days.

“Are you there?”

One afternoon, Takeyo, her chignon caught on the low sliding door, entered Nobuko’s room.

“It’s surprisingly breezy here…”

“It’s because of the lower window, isn’t it?” Takeyo looked around the area as if visiting a stranger’s home before asking, “Is Tsukuda returning this evening?” “I suppose so... He didn’t mention anything specific.” “Then there’s no need to hurry...” Shifting her tone abruptly, she began—

“I’ve been giving this considerable thought myself lately—” she said. “...” “My, my—you’re making a face as if this concerned someone else entirely.” Nobuko impulsively “What do you mean?” found herself demanding. “Well, if it troubles you so, I needn’t say another word.”

"Oh, come on! What are you talking about?" "It's about you two, you know—eventually." "He's not the eldest son, I hear?"

Nobuko was puzzled,

“Yes, why?”

She looked at her mother’s face. “So that means he’ll be entering another family’s household.” “Well…” “Isn’t that right? If there’s an heir, the second son would be free, wouldn’t he? —Actually, I’ve discussed this thoroughly with Father. Since you can’t bear to leave him anyway, why not just adopt Tsukuda into the family?” Nobuko,

“Why…?” She widened her eyes. “Isn’t it odd? We already have Kazuichirou and Tamotsu properly in the household.” “That’s true—it’s not for the family’s sake. None of this—it’s clearly been thought out for your benefit, hasn’t it?” Nobuko couldn’t fully grasp what Mother meant. Though she didn’t understand, she instinctively felt intense wariness, “For our sake—we can manage just fine by ourselves!”

she said. Takeyo said impatiently,

“That’s precisely why I say you’re ignorant of how the world works,” she declared. “First of all, just think—even with the university position, it was only because of Father’s connections that Dr.Tsumura accepted him so readily in the first place, wasn’t it? Otherwise, who would show such favor to Tsukuda—a man of unknown lineage and no social standing?” Nobuko felt a pang of sorrow at her mother’s character—as if she couldn’t bestow ten acts of kindness without first loudly declaring This is ten! It’s ten, so receive it with that understanding! repeating it over and over. The voice was so loud that she instinctively blurted out Huh? What? she found herself thinking. Even now, with bitter feelings, Nobuko answered her mother’s words with silence.

“Even in society’s eyes, if he were to take the Sasa surname, who knows how much more weight he would carry compared to remaining as Tsukuda—some nobody from who-knows-where. If he did that, he might gain at least some measure of worth.” Nobuko felt a surge of resentment,

“I don’t need him to have that kind of worth!” she retorted roughly. “Tsukuda is perfectly fine as Tsukuda—human worth isn’t something measured by such things!” “You’re blinded right now,” Takeyo said slowly, each word piercing. “Of course he seems splendid to you.” “If he doesn’t do that, he’s just an awkward sort of person.” “If he’s awkward, then let him be awkward! As for adopting him…”

With the humiliation inflicted upon both Tsukuda and herself, Nobuko’s face flushed crimson. She calmed herself somewhat and said to her mother, as if explaining, “Mother, you don’t understand my feelings at all. Didn’t I tell you repeatedly that I intend to live a life with fundamentally different aims from yours? And besides, when you look at it broadly, ‘Sasa’ is just another name that no one knows who or where it belongs to! It’s only within the circles where ‘Sasa’ holds any weight that Mother operates, but…”

“After all, I’ve only lived a confined life.” “But the facts have proven it in this very instance.” “—Then I refuse all the more!” “Well then, why don’t you try discussing it with him?” Takeyo laughed sarcastically.

“Even if you refuse, Tsukuda will probably agree.” Regarding that matter, Nobuko did not say a single word to Tsukuda. A few nights later, on the veranda where Tsukuda was also present, Takeyo suddenly brought up the issue again. “Well—about that matter we discussed the other day… Of course you’ve talked it over with Mr. Tsukuda by now, haven’t you?”

Nobuko sullenly, “I didn’t.” she answered.

…………

Tsukuda asked from beside them. "What is it?" “……” Then Takeyo spoke. “We’ve discussed various future matters with your father—after all, we can’t support you forever—but there’s simply no other way, Nobuko-chan.” Nobuko felt a flicker of gratitude toward her mother, who at least hesitated to state it outright. She said, "So that’s enough."

she said. “Will that suffice?”

The moon was shining on the garden. The broad leaves of the fatsia and Chinese parasol trees glistened as if wet. The tree shadows on the opposite side—the depths within the branches were unnaturally dark, and the garden seemed to exert a pressing force unlike ever before. Clutching her knees as she gazed out at it, Nobuko listened intently to the exchange between her mother and Tsukuda. Tsukuda was certain to refuse. Of course he would refuse— "That is our thinking—"

Eventually, Takeyo came to a pause and requested Tsukuda’s response. “Admittedly, Nobuko—being of the disposition you’re well aware of—is acting quite indignant, as if she’s suffered some humiliation.” Nobuko strained her ears with such intensity it felt as though they might turn inside out, awaiting Tsukuda’s response.

“—……” “What do you think? We certainly don’t believe it would be detrimental for you either.” “I will consider it and give you an answer in due course.” Nobuko turned around sharply, “That sort of thing—there’s no need to consider it! I already know!” she exclaimed. “You don’t truly intend to go through with that, do you?” Gazing at the silent Tsukuda, Takeyo spoke. “You stay out of this—Mr. Tsukuda must have his own opinion.”

Nobuko felt desperate anxiety at her mother's words delivered with calm sarcasm. Takeyo, who had been unconsciously prodding Tsukuda this way and that, now sought to bind both him and Nobuko even more tightly under her control. Nobuko thought this would spell absolute ruin if it came to pass. More than her mother's love that sought to keep her tethered, Nobuko felt a terror that threatened the very foundation of her existence. That Tsukuda hadn't immediately dismissed the matter with a single word—as Nobuko had anticipated—plunged her into profound unease.

Tsukuda stood up to leave. Nobuko followed close behind him, "Tell me—is this really something you need to consider?" she asked, looking up at his tall face without moving from her spot. "I—I won't allow it!"

“…………” “If you do such a thing, our life together will absolutely cease to exist.” “So I said I’d consider it, didn’t I?” “A polite formality?” “So?” “…………” “Look, really—” “Just tell me quickly—only me.” “Which is it?” “Of course you refuse, right?” “Well… but—if that would bring you happiness, I—am already a devoted being, after all.”

Eleven Tsukuda’s reply—whose true intentions remained obscure, yet paradoxically demanded gratitude from his counterpart—cast a pall over Nobuko’s heart. His ambiguous response compelled her to recall her mother’s scathing criticisms of Tsukuda, plunging Nobuko into anxious torment. She was not so naive as to miss the acrid undertone in his words—“I am already a devoted being, after all”—nor to accept them at face value. Yet simultaneously, it proved too terrifying to dismiss as mere hypocritical phrasing. Moreover, her rationality discerned that this reply bore an intricately layered nature—that between his lines lay an implicit lack of aversion toward becoming an adopted heir. Indeed, it suggested he might even consider it acceptable, had he not couched his answer in vagueness out of deference to Nobuko’s concerns. ——

Nobuko felt regret, first and foremost, that Tsukuda had given the response her mother had hoped for. Mother must have been unable to help thinking inwardly—There, you see. To acknowledge that thought would be nothing less than conceding to the speculation that Tsukuda was precisely the man her prophecy had foretold—one cunning in worldly tactics who had dragged Nobuko all the way to marriage for his own advantage. For the sake of their love, Nobuko found this unbearable to contemplate. For Tsukuda’s honor, for her own honor, for her mother, for the purity of true love hidden in human hearts, Nobuko was determined not to let this matter come to fruition.

Takeyo, who already found it impossible to trust others and even took a certain pride in occasionally seeing her suspicions proven true, would only further entrench her cynical worldview. If Tsukuda—Nobuko thought with all her might, truly a one-in-ten-thousand chance—had introduced impure motives into their marriage, then this world must be made to know such a deed could not be so easily dismissed. How could Nobuko possibly conceive that this love—which she clashed with her parents over and resisted everyone around her to strive to make genuine—was merely the result of Tsukuda exploiting her naivety and manipulating her into striving to love him!

That evening, Nobuko fell into a morbidly acute emotional state, thought if only Tsukuda had carried himself with more vigor, and wept. The loneliness she felt in her existence made her cry.

After that, from time to time, Takeyo would ask, "Well? What's the decision?" she said. "No—please let’s treat this as if it was never discussed." And Nobuko pressed Tsukuda. “It would be better for you to give a clear answer quickly and be done with it. You know refusing is truly for the best, don’t you?” Whether Nobuko was absent or present, Takeyo would seize any opportunity she could find to corner Tsukuda and demand an answer. “You’ve said you’d do anything for Nobuko’s sake—surely you wouldn’t go back on your word now.—after all, there are even letters properly sent from abroad…”

Tsukuda, with a look of terror in his expression and eyes, "I'm certain that in time, you will come to understand my sincerity," he said in a voice trembling so violently he seemed on the verge of shaking apart.

"I can endure anything." However, he never explicitly stated whether he would become Sasa's adopted son or not—neither a refusal nor an acceptance. For some reason, when it came to that point, Tsukuda—with extreme caution and stubbornness—did not reveal his own will. Gradually growing impatient, Takeyo began bringing up the matter whenever she even caught sight of Nobuko's face. One day, when Nobuko could no longer endure the torment, she finally declared, "No matter what you say, it's no use!"

she declared. “Even if Tsukuda agrees, I refuse. No matter what motives Tsukuda might have, go ahead and consent if you want. You’ll never find it pleasant afterward, I assure you. I absolutely refuse to do anything that would muddy the purity of all our lives!” Though in reality her feelings would have shifted exactly as Nobuko predicted had things unfolded that way, Takeyo flew into a rage as if physically struck. She spoke through streaming tears. “Truly…truly, children never understand their parents’ hearts! What good comes from tormenting me so? Once you marry out, you become another family’s person—when I die, that’ll be the end of it. Go die in some ditch then! Just don’t bring us further shame!”

Nobuko also said through her tears. “Mother—even cedar saplings grow apart as they mature, don’t they? It’s the same with people’s lives. In a few years, you’ll surely understand why I’m being so stubborn about this. I wouldn’t insist like this without good reason.” The younger brother and sister who had been nearby stood up one by one and left the room. All the while, Mother had been making preparations to legally register Tsukuda into the family registry. Nobuko had known nothing about it, but when she was at her desk,

“You are being summoned.”

And the maid came. "What?" Takeyo sat there enraged, unable to focus on anything,

“What a dreadful man that Tsukuda is!” Takeyo said. “Why?” “Why? You—that man knows perfectly well he can’t become an adopted son!” Nobuko couldn’t comprehend the reason and fell silent. “The other day, Father met Mr. Ida at a meeting, and when he consulted him about registering Tsukuda into the family register, yesterday we received a reply stating that legally, the household head cannot permit the adoption.”

Tsukuda was the second son of the Okamoto family but had succeeded to the distant Tsukuda family name. “I had truly forgotten about that.” “Well now, you must be so relieved by this—but we’re the ones made fools of here! I’m sure Mr. Tsukuda is chuckling to himself over it all.” “Impossible. He didn’t realize that either.” “Do you really think so?—That’s highly doubtful. But I must say—after fifteen years drifting through America, he’s become quite clever! He knows full well that one clear refusal would end his charade of playing the dutiful son here.”

“Oh… Oh…” Nobuko deliberately sighed in an exaggerated voice.

“How pitiful! That man was born to be spoken ill of, wasn’t he?” Finally managing a laugh, “A person is born not to become Nobuko’s husband, isn’t he?” Due to the family registry circumstances, Takeyo’s emotions underwent a complete transformation. She declared that if Tsukuda harbored no guilty schemes, he should prove it by leaving the Sasa household at once. “You must find this unpleasant too, but I’ve endured it all this time—so let’s have you leave tomorrow.”

It seemed Takeyo could find no outlet for her despair at finally having her daughter torn from her grasp except through tears and scornful curses. Her proud nature could not endure having her sorrow acknowledged weakly or being pitied. She raged with such ferocious passion that it seemed she would burn herself out through sheer vehemence. "You must find me an utterly bothersome parent by now, but since Tsuya-ko is still young, I'll have you let me stay alive a little longer." "Observing my lifespan shrink like this must be quite entertaining for you, I imagine."

Ah... Ah... Nobuko wept, unable to find words to express the affection within herself. Since girlhood, she had been bound to her mother by a passion unlike that of ordinary parent and child. They had sustained between them both fierce love and hatred. As a woman, her mother had been to Nobuko at times a complete mother, at times a friend, at times a competitor. In any case, her mother had lived by intensely projecting every angle of her existence—raw and unfiltered—onto Nobuko. For Nobuko too, her mother had been an existence requiring full-strength counterbalance—to become aware of their differing characters, to criticize her lifestyle, and ultimately to shape herself into a woman who was not a replica of her mother—an effort demanding nothing less than her complete devotion. Between them existed an uncanny flash of life burning with an intensity diametrically opposed to the nostalgic ease daughters typically feel toward mothers. Now, as she stood at the threshold of a new life phase, how could she convey to her mother this painful, radiant swarm of memories crowding her soul? And once more through her tears, Nobuko thought: How extraordinary their mother-daughter love must be—that speaking of separation meant wounding each other with full force, clashing so fiercely they could only part through that very momentum, bound in such profound affection.—

The less passionate, peaceable Sasa could do nothing about such mental struggles between his wife and daughter. On one hand, he comforted his wife; on the other, he sighed deeply and pleaded earnestly with Nobuko. “You’re always the one causing family troubles—why can’t you be more tender-hearted? Accept love. Let’s live peacefully… eh?” “Throw away that principle that torments both yourself and others!” Nobuko managed with difficulty,

“It’s not about principles at all, Father.” She could only answer with inexpressible sorrow. Sasa too, driven by heartache and erupting in a manner typical of a pragmatic businessman, finally— “Get out! “If you abandon your parents, then I’ve abandoned one child. “Get out! Never come back!” he shouted.

IV

I

They moved.

The house stood at the end of a narrow alley between a doctor’s brick wall before Kichijoji Station and Hachaya’s latticed facade. Her parents’ home could be reached in about fifteen minutes by cutting through Kichijoji. They had moved during August’s sweltering peak. Nobuko had overexerted herself walking daily during their house hunt, developing a fever that confined her to bed. Even on moving day, she watched from her sickbed as a cart driver carried bookcases along the garden path. After they were gone, Nobuko rose unsteadily from her bedding and adjusted her kimono.

Mother was alone on the long chair of the second-floor veranda. Motionlessly pressing a fan against her chest, she lay heavily beneath the glare of the lush Chinese parasol tree leaves that spread from the eaves. Nobuko climbed up from the back stairs and stood silently beside her. Mother also remained silent. After quite some time had passed, Takeyo asked without looking at her daughter. “Are you done already?” “It seems mostly done, I suppose.” After that, the two of them once more found their words trailing off. Since continuing like this would get them nowhere, Nobuko,

“Well then…” she said. A contorted, pained expression appeared on Takeyo’s face. When Nobuko saw that, she felt a pain as if her chest were being torn open. “...I’ll take my leave.” She could not muster any other parting words. Nobuko could not bear to look a second time at her mother, who was now clearly struggling to hold back her tears. Leaving behind that choked sound—whether a cough or an attempt to speak—she clattered down the stairs. As she descended step by step with forced strength, tears spilled from her eyes. Once reaching the bottom, she pressed her head against the handrail post and wept with unbearable intensity. Living separately was only natural—what’s more, everyone had desired it—and yet how strange it all felt. To leave the house where she had grown up—this true sensation of parting pierced her soul with bitter sorrow. The aged pillars of the house seemed to jolt awake, watching in astonishment as she prepared to depart. Nobuko felt that from this moment onward, all memories of her childhood and girlhood would remain behind with the house. I leave alone. Yet those memories would continue living here eternally, sustained by their original freshness and diversity. Farewell! O strange, bright-dark life of my childhood—farewell to it all.

The house faced west, standing at the very edge of a cliff. In the afternoon, the western sun came streaming in through the veranda—open on just one side like the mouth of a small box. The western sun blazed with all its might right up to the edges of the room’s walls, but perhaps because of that very intensity, the breeze passed through quite well, and Nobuko did not feel particularly hot. In this tiny house, under this western sun, Nobuko sat bathed in the sparkling yet not-too-hot slanting light of summer, feeling an unusual emotion. Generally speaking, that year, the rental house shortage reached its peak. They had paid the highest they could afford from their meager pockets and finally obtained that unhealthy residence.

The commotion of moving had settled down, and every morning, Tsukuda would go off to the university or, failing that, to the private university where he had recently found employment. Around eight o'clock. From then until four-thirty or five in the evening, Nobuko lived completely alone. How interminably those long, bright summer days dragged on!

One afternoon, Nobuko was leaning against the open sliding door at the boundary between the eight-mat and six-mat rooms, playing the ukulele. As usual, the western sun had already danced its dazzling way about a third of the way across the tatami mats. With a simple scorebook spread before her knees and sitting cross-legged, Nobuko was neck-deep in the score, practicing a folk song riddled with flats. Chanting "Hao, hae, haae..." while adding a triple refrain of strum-strum-strum—though Nobuko's fingers refused to move like those of the Hawaiian youth in the scorebook’s illustration who played his ukulele with a massive garland hanging from his neck—she had surely missed at least one crucial part. Her fingers pressed unevenly at times, failing to produce the crucial note. Nobuko kept time in her head—one two three, one two three—and repeated it over and over. Living each day without anyone to converse with, she found herself wanting to at least vocalize along with her instrument in this manner.

Hao, hae, haae... How poorly I play! People who can play the shamisen would surely improve in no time. While earnestly practicing, Nobuko's mind was occupied with such thoughts. Not only that, but she unwittingly began to hear every single sound from the neighboring house. The structure was akin to a duplex, with Nobuko's residence and the neighboring house tightly joined by a single plank wall. Although they had not yet met face to face, in that house lived a Chinese family and a Japanese family together. It seemed they were letting a boy (Chinese) use the bath, and there was a splashing sound of water.

“Young master! Come on now—be a good boy.”

The voice of the Japanese woman managing household chores sounded gentle on the surface, yet carried a weariness that seethed with impatience beneath. Somehow, the mother’s instructions to her son in hesitant Chinese could also be heard. Nobuko became aware of the monotony in the sound she was producing from her instrument. That Chinese was also strangely subdued—and as the western sun blazed ever more intensely, Nobuko found herself gripped by an aimless melancholy.—Though "gripped" wasn’t quite right; rather, the sunlight was so harsh that it seemed to draw the melancholy out from within her.

They had acquired a house—Tsukuda had secured employment—in short, their life had begun exactly as planned. Yet Nobuko found herself unable to acclimate to this existence. Take for example a certain dinner party held there. The dishes were being carried by tailcoated waiters according to the gilded menu—no uninvited guests present nor any absence from the guest of honor—everything proceeding flawlessly from toast to table speeches per program. Yet there were times when she would attend from start to finish as witness to this perfect execution and suddenly feel no interest or meaning in it all—compelled by some strange unease to look about her surroundings—and could he find any comfort in realizing no one else shared her burdens? On the contrary—it only deepened her sense of displacement.

Nobuko was no different. The role of wife did not suit her. To pinpoint exactly why it did not suit her was difficult—nay, impossible. For it must lie in some profound place; after all, it was a matter of delicate emotional nuances. The one thing Nobuko understood was the narrowness of life's rotation—its heaviness and lack of youthful flexibility. This was now their life. Now then, my beloved—when we had set out into life with so many hopes—before we knew it life itself had surrounded us like a pasture fence; Nobuko came to feel she had ended up nose-to-nose with this unwieldy immovable thing called a husband.

Tsukuda did not seem to feel any of this in the least. The previous night, curled up in bed, he had prepared by reading aloud from his elementary Latin textbook: "The army was routed." He would take the elementary Latin textbook—from which he had prepared by reading aloud passages like “We have achieved victory, captured five enemy generals, et cetera”—and go off to work, then return. Without hesitation, he would go to work tomorrow morning as well. To him, Nobuko could find no opportunity to express her own emotions. Moreover, she would sometimes look back on the emotional life they had experienced. From the time they had first met until today, there had been too many upheavals for them. Amidst their fervor to keep sight of their love while battling their surroundings, his efforts to protect her and her own efforts to protect herself—because of all this, her heart remained perpetually tense and stimulated. Had I lost my sense of purpose now that those things had vanished? Had I become an Amazon who had forgotten how to live in peace? Nobuko sometimes thought that way. However, that thought did nothing to dispel the sense of incongruity with their current life...

Nobuko put the ukulele into the bag and stood up.

II

Nobuko locked the kitchen door and went out. On the main street out front, a streetcar screeched raucously as it raced through the dust. At the stone pavement before Kichijoji’s temple gate, three girls bounced a ball under their legs in time to a song. Nobuko passed by the bell tower and slipped into a back alley. Crossing diagonally yet another bustling thoroughfare, she emerged into a quiet residential district. She had gone out for a walk intending to see her mother and Tsuya-ko.

Due to the gate being under repair, a plasterer was working there. The apprentice was listlessly stirring the plaster in a wooden trough. Tsuya-ko, clinging to the student’s hand, stood absorbed in watching. Nobuko saw this scene from afar and instinctively laughed. The student noticed her and said something to Tsuya-ko. Tsuya-ko suddenly looked up and, spotting Nobuko approaching slowly down the street, “Oh, Big Sis!”

and she came leaping toward her. “Where’s Mother?” “She’s here. Big Sis, why didn’t you come sooner? You said you’d come right away the other day!” “Yeah…” Nobuko helped Tsuya-ko step through the gap between straw mats and wooden planks. Tsuya-ko clung to the edge of Nobuko’s sleeve as they walked, giggling while staring at her sister’s hands. “Aha! Found it, O-zuru-san!” “Yeah! I totally knew—’cause you told me before, right?”

“But this is different.” Nobuko said, feigning ignorance. “It’s just old newspapers!” “No way! “I know! I can see it clearly—it’s Kodomo no Kuni!”

Because there were women's geta lined up in the entranceway, Nobuko went around through the gate to the garden. In the shadow of the asparagus plant in a pot by the Western-style room's window, she could see the neatly bobbed back of a guest's head. In July, when she had clashed with her parents over whether to register Tsukuda into the Sasa family registry, Nobuko had stood by that very window sweating and crying. She clearly recalled her own fierce words from that time. That was already part of the past; life now flowed with a different countenance—this realization struck Nobuko with great force.

While hiding trash with Tsuya-ko, her mother—who had seen off the guest—leaned out the window and called to Nobuko. “Come up to the second floor.”

When she went up, she found two rooms with their sliding doors fully opened through both spaces, and a crimson rug laid out in the larger one. On a large tray were placed paintbrushes, a brush washer, paint dishes, and other such items. Takeyo was cutting Chinese paper on the rug. When Nobuko saw that sight, "Oh," she said. “Painting lessons? Has Ms. Izumi finally started coming to teach you?” “Ah. With all the usual this and that, it didn’t make much progress for a while, but finally... Today’s the second time. At my age starting this, I’ll never become a real artist anyway, so if I can just manage to paint a simple shikishi without embarrassing myself, that’ll be more than enough, don’t you think?”

Nobuko felt affection for her mother’s resolve to begin learning painting. “That’s perfectly splendid! Just having something to throw yourself into practicing is cause for celebration—let me see? The previous one... the very first...” “After all, I haven’t held a paintbrush in years—I’m utterly hopeless. If I’d kept at it since Ms. Shōhin’s time, why, I’d be some ‘Ko-’ something artist by now!” Takeyo laughed brightly, as if reveling in her own spiritedness—a carefree laugh. Nobuko felt oddly stirred, wondering if painting practice could affect one’s disposition so profoundly. She had long thought her mother might take up waka poetry seriously and had even suggested it before. But that path never took root; painting became her outlet instead. In her school days, she’d received kind instruction from Noguchi Shōhin—that connection now bearing fruit decades later. Takeyo showed her a bamboo painting on large Chinese paper.

“How’s this?” And then, she also peered in from the side.

“Even though I think I understand it in my head, when it comes down to it, the brush just won’t listen.” “Ha ha ha! It’s like you’ve been doing this for ten or twenty years already! ‘The brush won’t listen’—how presumptuous of it!” “You’re teasing me again! You’re so great anyway—though that’s a joke.” Takeyo brought out Ms. Izumi’s painting to show her and made a few critical comments about it. “What do you think? It’s utterly lacking in vitality, don’t you think? I’ve become too much of a professional—I detest anything that feels stiff.”

Nobuko found an unfamiliar small Chinese cabinet with mother-of-pearl inlay beneath the staggered shelves. The bold pomegranate design was striking, but it was the colors of the inlaid shells—possessing both depth and substance—that made it truly magnificent. "It's lovely. When did you get it?"

Takeyo, perhaps intending to make a clean copy of her bamboo painting, pressed one hand on the rug while moistening her brush with ink.

“Huh?” she replied vaguely. “Let me see. “Ah, that one? Isn’t it pretty?” “That’s Father’s usual recklessness, of course. "He insisted on using my paint cabinet and had it brought down." To Nobuko, the scene of her father at night, deliberately feigning ignorance as he had that large bundle carried into the room, seemed vividly clear. “Still such a faithful husband… I’d better be kind to him or I’ll be punished.”

“...I’ve been thinking that way myself lately.”

Takeyo tilted her head, gazing at the slender bamboo branch she had painted, and said slowly.

“Lately Father has been truly good—I’ve even come to feel sorry for him... Though his temper remains as dreadful as ever...” “He was always a good husband.” “When it comes to how difficult he was in his youth! You wouldn’t know about that, Nob-chan. But even so, well, considering Father was such a pure-hearted man, he must have brought it with that intention.” “If it weren’t for that... Now that I’ve seen all sorts of men, I truly think... He possessed a purity Tsukuda could never match—that much is certain.”

Nobuko, listening while watching the painting gradually take shape, felt amused by her mother’s cheerful tone as she boasted about her husband in such a womanly manner. Yet there was just a hint—the faintest hint—of loneliness in it. Nobuko found herself feeling as if she had become an elder sister listening to a younger sister’s innocent bragging about her husband, a wearisome sensation settling over her. “Well… I suppose since Father’s love for you is so certain, Mother can maintain that strong front in all sorts of ways. When the foundation’s secure, you can bounce about carefree on top of it… Isn’t that how it works?”

“Hmm… I suppose that’s how it is.”

Downstairs, the two drank tea. When talking about Kuya, her throat somehow grew irritated, and Nobuko frowned and cleared her throat. Then Takeyo, who had been about to bring the teacup to her mouth, stopped her hand and glared at Nobuko. “Oh, it’s identical!” Nobuko innocently inquired in return.

“What?” “Your throat-clearing. Tsukuda also does that same affected little cough of yours.”

Nobuko twisted her lips into a bitter, barely-there smile. "—Don't be silly. It's just a coincidence."

“No, it’s exactly the same! Because...”

Nobuko said reluctantly, yet calmly.

“Please don’t examine every single thing so nervously—I’m just doing it without any particular thought.”

Nobuko received and took home one of the still-life photographic prints from the photography work Kazuichirou had been engrossed in lately.

During dinner, Nobuko spoke to Tsukuda. “Today—since noon—I went out to Dōzaka and made a new discovery.” Tsukuda appeared disinterested. “Huh,” he said. “What do you mean?” “It’s about Mother—I’ve started thinking about her differently. “Perhaps because of a habit since childhood, I might have been taking Mother’s words and actions too seriously all this time.” Nobuko explained the simplicity and honesty of her mother’s heart that she had perceived that day.

“So all sorts of things—whether kindness or spite—must emerge straightforwardly and artlessly in each moment without connection, I’m sure.” “There’s nothing calculated about it—no scheming of ‘I’ll do this’ or ‘I’ll do that.’ Don’t you think?”

On her way back from Dōzaka, Nobuko thought about these matters and felt as though she had found a path to peace. Negotiations with her mother had been an unceasing burden for her, but it seemed a perspective had emerged there that simplified understanding, and Nobuko even felt a sense of purity. If Tsukuda too could understand this, his state of mind would surely change—with this cheerful expectation, Nobuko began to speak. However, he did not emerge from his state of apathy. He furrowed his brow while using a toothpick, looked up at Nobuko askance, and replied.

“I won’t comment.”

“It’s not criticism—it’s perspective. After all, since we can’t remain unrelated for our entire lives, I think it’s better to have as wise an understanding as possible. For our sake… A well-meaning, yet superior mindset…” “—Well, when the time comes for understanding, you’ll understand.” As he said this, he assumed a peculiar—not particularly noble—expression and cracked each knuckle one by one with a series of pops. Nobuko averted her eyes and made a pained face. Tsukuda’s general disinterest in lively topics of human interest had been a source of dissatisfaction for Nobuko, but even more detestable to her was how he would crack the flat, rough knuckles of his fingers whenever he felt disengaged or found something slightly bothersome. He had recently started doing that. When she heard the cracking sound of bones, Nobuko felt her spirits sink.

(How awful. He too cracked his fingers with a series of pops. Kareinin too, with a cold, unpleasant face, cracked his fingers at his desk. Is he Kareinin-like? Then?)

Nobuko impulsively reached out a hand, about to say, “Stop.” But held back by something inexplicable, she fell silent. Would he do it again? —Nobuko watched his hands with a cold, pained anticipation directed at herself. However, he stood up oblivious. Then at his desk, he began unwrapping the cloth bundle he’d brought from work. Nobuko remembered the small Chinese cabinet she’d seen at her mother’s place and spoke.

“The mother-of-pearl had such beautiful colors—they’re making it into a paint box, they said. It looked like they’d embedded a huge opal in it—I saw it today.” “Hmm, that must be rather splendid.”

“Right… You know how there are ones that look bluish or pale pink?” “The way it shines is completely different from those—so much more complex.” “…It was like a flame.”

However, Tsukuda, unrelated to that topic, tidied up the pencils and pens on the desk and said somewhat abruptly.

“Did you check that?” “Yes.” “How is it?”

Nobuko,

“Well...” Nobuko said.

“I’ll bring it over anyway.”

Tsukuda was preparing draft materials for a small monograph related to his specialty—a popular introduction to Persian literature. Nobuko had been selected as the ideal representative of amateur readers for this purpose. She retrieved the manuscript, roughly two inches thick, from her desk drawer. Tsukuda flipped through the pages with hands that moved familiarly around his own work. “Do you have any complaints?” Nobuko had no desire to dampen his spirits. That Tsukuda had applied himself so diligently with his weighty brush to produce this much work filled her with genuine satisfaction too.

“Calling them complaints might be too strong, but there are parts I think could stand some improvement.” “Where exactly?” “Aren’t there sections where explanations are missing?” “The explanations feel inadequate in places.” “If someone without background knowledge reads it, they’ll find it lacking.” “And how should I put it... I sense the brush hasn’t fully reached the depths of the material in certain sections...” Tsukuda said tersely. “That’s fundamentally different from fiction.” “It was never going to be engaging—this is just side work. Merely organizing the source material presents enough difficulty.”

“That’s right—which is exactly why you need to refine it into something excellent.”

Nobuko said, laboring under the strain yet conscious of an insight welling up from within.

“Since this—rather than being a schoolteacher—is your true calling professionally speaking, you must refine it into something that leaves no room for excuses.”

They discussed the manuscript for some time. Though she had felt this way while reading it yesterday afternoon and this morning, Nobuko realized that being his wife didn’t make her any more lenient as a critic. If anything, her heightened investment had made her more sensitive and exacting. Whenever she came across passages riddled with hackneyed phrases—as was typical of mediocre pamphlet writers—or convoluted sentences lacking clear ideas or emotion, Nobuko felt sorrow and irritation churn together within her.

“No good, no good! What is this?” To prevent herself from erupting in a tantrum that would fling aside all decorum, Nobuko had to constantly remind herself this was merely a draft—her husband’s first attempt. Simultaneously, she found herself doubting. Would truly kindhearted people harbor such feelings about such matters? Was it her own vanity and narrow-mindedness that made her agonize so over this deficiency—this absence of what one might call a distinctive literary sensibility? ——

Because Tsukuda also had his own rationalizations, they fell into heavy silences several times.

When they had finished a section, Nobuko said with relief.

“Ah, finally done! It’s tough because it’s a collective effort.”

She reached out and capped the red ink.

“Come on, why don’t we take a breather and chat?” “We can talk, but… didn’t you have enough fun in Dōzaka?” “I didn’t come here for fun or anything, not particularly. You’re different from others, aren’t you? Didn’t anything unusual happen?” “Well…. Then let’s do it this way.” Tsukuda said, as if it were a good idea. “Since we’re talking anyway, why don’t we jot this down while we chat, hmm?… It doesn’t require much thought, so it should be fine, right?”

He pulled out a small tea-colored account book from beneath the pile on the desk. When Nobuko saw it, she scoffed mockingly, “Haaah...” and fell speechless. “The ledger of judgment?” Nobuko said, cloaking her true feelings in jest. “Wanting enjoyment... Oh well—an allowance book? Not even a decent joke.” Tsukuda calmly wrote the date in the ledger while lecturing the grumbling Nobuko. “Years later, you’ll understand our life then and find it quite fascinating. “Today’s entries—bread fifteen sen... Three yen for Mr. Taga’s farewell gathering. “And yours?”

Nobuko answered dispiritedly.

“—I just bought Kodomo no Kuni for Tsuya-ko.”

Nobuko’s room was a three-mat space facing north, with two frosted-glass shoji panels. The top panel was made of transparent glass, through which one could always see the same view under the same light: the storehouse of the tea shop, the grimy upper edge of a corrugated iron fence, and the aged eaves of her own house. From there, the sky was not visible. On the frosted glass was a rough scribble made with a thick pencil by the child who had lived there before, growing larger toward the end. 5×82÷1.1＋000

III

Their home had no visitors to speak of. This was likely because he had not received higher education in Japan. Hardly anyone called Tsukuda a friend.

Tsukuda often went out for walks in the neighborhood at night. Nobuko went along with him. They gradually bought maki trees and hinoki cypress varieties. They planted them along cliff edges bathed in the western sun and on either side of exposed latticework. In that area, one could only glimpse the distant treetops of Koishikawa-dai in the far-off view, and each of the tightly packed houses had no room left for trees worthy of the name. The maki trees in the alley stood lush and green, catching the children’s eyes. In the afternoon, around the time elementary school let out, boys would naturally gather around the two maki trees, each just under four shaku (approximately four feet) tall.

“Hey, what’s this tree?” “It’s a pine.” “No, that’s wrong—it’s not a pine, I tell you!” “Pine needles are prickly when you touch them.”

Just when things had fallen silent, suddenly one of them shouted. “Oh no! Oh no! That’s bad!” Then another whispered timidly. “We’ll get scolded.”

When Tsukuda was home, Nobuko found herself unsettled. Upon hearing those voices, his expression grew stern as if facing a grown adversary. Quietly retrieving his geta sandals, he circled through the garden and stole toward the small door in the wooden fence. Soundlessly releasing the latch, he abruptly materialized before advancing wordlessly toward the children. The whispering cluster scattered in panicked flight. The tumult of footsteps clattering through the narrow alley testified to their genuine terror. With each recurrence, what began as absurdity left Nobuko with an oddly desolate sensation—a raw exposure bordering on humiliation.

“It can’t be helped—they’re just curious. It would be better to let them into the garden.” Tsukuda replied with nervous agitation, “It’s outrageous that they’d tear out what someone took such care to plant. “I absolutely won’t allow them inside—never.” Nobuko sensed in him something like stubborn possessiveness. When they went walking, what Nobuko wanted to buy wasn’t plants but books. She frequented secondhand shops. Whenever something caught her eye, she would pull it out,

“This.” She showed it to her husband. Tsukuda took the book in hand, turned it over here and there examining it, and asked in return: “Is this something you absolutely need?” That tone made Nobuko feel dejected. She gave up and returned the book to its original place. “Then I’ll leave it for another time.” Nobuko knew that even if she bought it, it would leave her just as unsatisfied as not buying it at all. She found it unexpected that Tsukuda—who had experienced a life never abundant from the start—did not know how to manage their circumstances boldly and cheerfully now that they were living as a married couple.

Nobuko was generally at home. She would read books or listen to the tenement women chatting at the wellside where there was a well beneath the cliff. The days passed endlessly. She waited through Tsukuda’s absence until his return. She wanted to talk as if a dam had burst, and wanted him to talk too. Yet Tsukuda did not seem to find amusing what Nobuko found amusing. He did not listen with particular attentiveness. When he did feel inclined to speak, it was mostly about workplace matters and colleagues’ rumors. Tsukuda said in a low voice that signaled this was meant for her ears alone—

“Today when I went to see the secretary two or three times about some business, Mr. Tsutsumi whispered to me, ‘Do you have some matter with the secretary?’” “Hmm, and then?” “I simply said, ‘Well, I have a small matter to discuss,’ but—they’re all pitifully nervous.” “Since someone like me can just calmly go and talk to whoever it is—the secretary or anyone else—I’m sure everyone finds it rather surprising.”

Tsukuda was not unskilled at it. —— “Gogol, you know?” She laughed, but inwardly Nobuko felt that her husband too was clearly playing his part as a petty office worker among them, and she felt a pang of sorrow that he did not even complain about it. Autumn deepened. In the garden, the moon shone. The moonlight illuminated the closely packed roofs below the cliff, and all night long, insects chirped beneath the floor. After the frost began to form, around six o'clock in the still-dark morning, the sound of wooden clogs from people heading to the factory along the cold, frozen road would reach Nobuko’s pillow as she lay sleeping.

Nobuko felt bitter dregs of emotion gradually accumulating in her heart and mind. She was gripped by a gnawing hunger every day. Though not of any lofty degree worth boasting about, this lack of artistic nourishment—as essential as food itself—deeply tormented young Nobuko in the prime of her inner development. Having grown accustomed to observing American women's lifestyles through long exposure, Tsukuda let Nobuko sleep as much as she desired. He took care of the daily shopping without complaint. She didn't even have to be left alone in the kitchen. Yet even with this well-rested sponge-like mind voraciously reading, feeling and thinking—who remained to share it with!

Tsukuda, now that their life had settled into a routine of late, appeared to have shed the various mental burdens he had carried until now somewhere along the way. His literary pursuits had not advanced beyond the Shakespeare and Bacon theories he had stored up years ago; as for magazines, he likely had not even glanced through a single one. Still, he retained an instinctive teacher-like quality, skilled at deftly parrying Nobuko's passionate advances. ——What an extraordinary loneliness this was. Nobuko would be struck by this terrible, despairing desolation and burst into violent tears.

“Ah, why am I so desperately lonely?” “Are you lonely?... Let’s try to make it a little better.” Tsukuda, perplexed, frowned as he embraced Nobuko, stroking her back and bringing his face close to hers in a soothing manner while whispering repeatedly. “You mustn’t cry like this, you know? It’ll get better with time—you’ll grow accustomed.” It was precisely this growing accustomed that Nobuko feared most of all. The fact that humans, like tamed beasts, would eventually adapt to any circumstance filled her with sorrowful dread. Will I too become accustomed to this life in time? And over years, will I lose my passions and interests, becoming someone utterly unlike who I aspired to be—living out my days without even realizing I’ve changed? Nobuko mourned her life slipping silently away, overwhelmed by anxious foreboding.—

In March, one day, she went to Ugouzaka. Relatives' children had gathered there, making it lively. Kazuichirou gathered everyone and took a photo. When that was finished, Kazuichirou came to fetch Nobuko separately for another session.

“Since the light’s in good condition today, why don’t we take another shot with just you, Sis?” “All right.”

Nobuko had always disliked putting on formal airs and having her photo taken by tradespeople. When her brother suggested it, she became curious about how she had been looking lately. "Well, maybe I’ll have you take it… But I don’t want to end up looking like some blurry ghost." “Don’t worry!” “There’s no way I’d mess up on a day like this!” Nobuko, together with her brother, made their way to the guest room’s garden. And then, they stood before the osmanthus tree.

When she went a few days later, it had been developed. “I’ve just finished drying them. They should be ready now.” Nobuko went along with Kazuichirou to his workroom. Partitioned off from the back of the laundry area, at a small window lined with numerous chemicals, the photographic prints were drying.

“Oh my, there are so many! Are they all from that time?” “Nuh-uh, there are also some from when I went to play at the university’s main hall with Tsuya-ko later.” “Well, there was still some film left over from just the other day, so...” “Let me see… Show me.” “This is the one taken at the university.” Tsuya-ko, playing around with her brother and laughing as she turned toward them, appeared to have been caught off guard in the shot; the movement of her limbs looked rhythmically beautiful. “This is from the other day. Gan-chan moved a bit, so it got blurred.—It’s better with just you alone, Sis.”

“Is that so?” Nobuko was handed a sepia-toned print. As a photographic print, it had been beautifully finished. Yet at first glance, Nobuko felt something strange—though the photograph was unmistakably of herself, she couldn’t readily reconcile it with her self-image. Something different from what she had imagined herself to be filled the face staring straight ahead with clasped hands. Had there really been two such thick vertical shadows above my eyebrows all along? It was an aged face—complex and severe. Yet only around the mouth lingered a smile composed with forced calmness, creating an ugly countenance.

"Is my face really like this?" She wanted to ask outright.

Nobuko scrutinized her own face.

Kazuichirou seemed to think her prolonged silence stemmed from dissatisfaction with the photograph. He said defensively, "It could have been a bit darker overall. Next time, I'll redevelop it properly for you." "This will do just fine, thank you." Nobuko said, looking over the photograph once more. "Well—it's come out clearly."

IV

The season of deep green foliage on the heights and sunlight filtering through it had arrived. At their house on the cliff's edge, life remained unchanged in its monotony. Life turned in narrow, expressionless circles. Though swept helplessly into its rhythm, Nobuko remained unwilling and unable to relinquish her resistance. Her mood found peace only when the two of them sat vacantly on the engawa veranda, neither speaking of anything particular nor laughing, simply gazing at the trees. Exactly like two dogs stretching their forelegs in a sunlit spot, resting their chins upon them as they drowsed. Yet this slumbering tranquility never endured for long.

First, it was always Nobuko who began to feel an indescribable sense of dissatisfaction with their state. Was this the state of the couple who had begun their life with such passion two years ago? The theme of a good married life from that time had not, of course, entirely vanished. If Nobuko spoke to him about the anxieties she felt, he would immediately bring up that theme again. And so he tried to reassure her. However, even that must have become something so doubtful lately. Nobuko found it disheartening that her husband thought everything could be resolved simply by repeating vows of love—by saying “I love you, I love you” and nothing more. Even when loved—just as one needs food—even when loved, Nobuko required a vibrant existence. In their day-to-day trivialities, they would disregard each other's feelings as if casually tossing them aside, and when Nobuko—overwhelmed—shed tears, he would suddenly passionately assert, "Can't you see how deeply I love you?" Nobuko could only respond in utter bewilderment.

“You see, these things stem from day-to-day feelings that can’t be put into words… You seem to be mistaking sheer stubbornness—this conviction you cling to once you’ve decided you love me—for actual strength of love.” “Oh, such sarcasm! Then think whatever you like!” Their sitting side by side like dogs grew lonely, “Hey,” she would call out—yet usually ended up saying nothing more. Tsukuda didn’t even notice.—Was this what people called peaceful domestic life?

Nobuko had grown unable to endure the swamp-like stagnation of her daily life.

Outside was May. A bright, vivacious May. Hadn't her own heart once been like this? As the early summer air thickened around her, Nobuko's longing to travel swelled unbearably. Yet if she were to go anywhere, only one destination came to mind. The Tohoku countryside where her grandmother lived alone. Tsukuda would surely consent if it were there. She obtained his agreement under the pretext of needing to work.

Because it was the busy farming season, the Tohoku Main Line express was not crowded. Nobuko was able to secure a comfortable spot on the side where sunlight didn't reach. Amidst the tumultuous feelings of having just boarded the train, as they left behind the cluttered grimy outskirts of the metropolis and saw the countryside gradually spreading open beyond the windows, she felt an indescribable expansive comfort and calm seeping into her heart. Over the fields, telegraph poles, people and forests swished by—appearing only to dart away. Nobuko felt childlike delight even in this. The gentle swaying and rhythmic clatter of wheels soothed her nerves, but in her heart there was something beyond that—a joy. Happiness. Delight. This wasn't merely the pleasure of traveling while viewing new scenery. The weight that had been pressing on my body was finally gone—Ah! It was that refreshing moment when she first looked around her surroundings with unconstrained ease. Nobuko voraciously savored that feeling. This absence of constraints! Such profusion of freedom! This expansive state of mind with power surging through—

The scenery along the railway line had been familiar to Nobuko since her childhood. The train approached Nasunogahara. It ran through a dwarf tree grove covered in fresh young leaves. They surged like green waves, foaming and clashing on both sides of the train. Beyond the clear atmospheric horizon, the Nikko Mountains stood towering, their snow-capped peaks glistening. Had there been no one around, she would have stretched both arms toward these mountains with all her heart. Feeling life returning to herself again, she stood firmly at the window—like someone astride a galloping horse—gazing at the distant peaks until the train's sway and its interaction with nature intertwined like sound waves, sending a musical rhythm coursing through her entire body.

Whoosh, whoosh, clack, clack, (But his mountains—) Suddenly, a haiku phrase surfaced from the depths of her memory and leapt after it.

Whoosh, whoosh, clack, clack—But his mountains— Whoosh... clack, clack—but his mountains— —His mountains— Nobuko was surprised by her own agitation. Had she been caught up in such nostalgia for fields and mountains? And how greedily she must be indulging in her freedom! For Nobuko, no desire arose to bring her husband and share this joy or nature's vivid impressions. Her feelings ran contrary. She felt glad precisely because she could gaze upon these mountains and dwarf trees alone. This very pleasure—unhindered gazing, savoring, sensing with her whole heart—truly made her feel the revival of long-lost freedom.

Five

In the entire house, there was only one mirror. An old hanging mirror with cracked mercury backing hung on the pillar beside the sink. Since coming to the countryside, every morning when washing her face, Nobuko carefully peered into that mirror. Depending on the day or the light, when her just-awakened forehead appeared smoothly clear, Nobuko felt a joy akin to an auspicious omen that she could live that day with a righteous heart. For some reason, when shadows gathered thickly there, she would grow gloomy for a time. She rubbed at it repeatedly and wondered whether these wrinkles would cling to her for life.

Grandmother lived with her maid and a woman called Ms. Otoyo—who had originally been a stranger but was now like a distant relative—the three of them keeping house together. Nobuko went out into the open every day and pruned the garden trees with her grandmother. The holly and cypress leaves of the hedge were frantically extending their spring buds. They tended to them as one would shear the matted winter coats of wild horses. While pruning with tree shears, Nobuko talked about various things with her grandmother.

“Things are going to get real busy for me from here on out. We’ve got to pick the tea leaves… but somehow or other, the men who process them keep getting fewer every year. Even when we offer money, none will come anymore—next year we might stop making tea altogether.”

“If it’s not even enjoyable, you should quit. After all, you won’t get much return even if you put in all that effort.” Ms. Otoyo, who was sitting plopped down on the engawa shelling walnuts, interjected. “Madam Retiree, you’re burdening your heart so—it’s truly pitiable to witness.” “You should let Grandmother take it easy—she’s at an age where she can make her various pleasures her work.” Grandmother clamped the pruning shears onto a slightly thick branch and, putting strength into her frail arms, managed to grip it as she replied.

"We can't just leave it like an empty house." "Why don't you come to Tokyo? Then you won't need to tend to anything... It'd make a fine little retirement place—compact and snug. Come with me next time." "Hmm..." While pondering, Grandmother had Ms.Otoyo fetch the bark-woven wide-brimmed hat. "This sun's scorching my bald spot something fierce." "You two ought to live there together."

Nobuko stepped back and gazed at the form of the maple branches she had pruned. “Where to? To Madam Retiree?” “That’s right! Then you won’t have to waste money on rent—it’d be more useful than me living there, I tell ya.”

"That won’t do—it was built for you, Grandmother…" “If I tell ’em to let me live there, that’d be fine, I tell ya?”

Nobuko said cheerfully with a laugh.

“Thank you kindly, but I must decline. Because I’d get scolded.” “If a country bumpkin like me went there, I’d surely be laughed at. Truly, someone like me with my country ways—taught nothing but how to earn a living, unable to even write—it’s so mortifying now.”

Grandmother withdrew to the tearoom to meet someone. Ms. Otoyo said to Nobuko, who was sitting on the engawa, “Truly, it would be so good if Madam Retiree would go there with you...” “...Madam Retiree still doesn’t seem inclined to agree, you know.” “You should do try to persuade her properly.” “What you say has such a curiously compelling way about it, I must say.” “...I was asked again this time to come and bring someone along...”

Ms. Otoyo intensified her tone, "By all means, you must do this." she said.

“While I’m being such a burden like this, I’ll do what little I can to help... but I too...” Her expression shifted slightly as she peered into the basket. “I don’t know how long you’ll remain like this,” She had worked as an elementary school teacher until middle age. After marrying, she had been widowed by that husband two years prior. “Is there something you wished to discuss?” “Well... a little... I’ve been thinking about various things regarding what lies ahead, you see—”

After a while, Ms. Otoyo asked Nobuko. “How much longer do you intend to stay?”

“Well...” Nobuko swung her legs listlessly and mustered a faint smile. “No telling. I’ll stay until I feel like going back.” Ms. Otoyo glanced at Nobuko with a sidelong, feminine look. “Since Mr. Tsukuda understands everything so well, you’re truly fortunate, Ms. Nobuko.” “…………” “How often you’re left alone… even though he’s a man.” “Do you get letters from him?” About five days earlier, he had sent word that Nobuko should stay as long as she pleased, and that he would wait however long it took for his love to be understood. When she received this letter, Nobuko felt more irritation and loneliness than joy. He knew full well she couldn’t work and lived with her heart tethered to him from afar—yet made no mention of it, instead neatly showcasing his own stoic endurance. After that, Nobuko stopped writing detailed letters altogether.

It was an evening two or three days after that. From outside the low hedge, “Ms. Nobuko! Ms. Nobuko!” A woman’s shrill voice called out. “Is that you there, Ms. Nobuko?” At that moment, Nobuko was reading aloud a newspaper sent from Tokyo to everyone. Outside was dark, and because there was a light above her head, Nobuko couldn’t see anyone from where she sat.

“Who is it?”

“Who’s there? At this hour?” Grandmother muttered while peering outside. “I’m Tobita. Shall I come around to your side?” “Please do.” Tobita, whose given name was Miho, was from this village and married to a Tokyo office worker. She and Nobuko were not close—rather, they belonged to that category of people one instinctively dislikes. When had she come here? I wondered—and why had she come to visit? The voice of Miho—whom she had thought was alone—could be heard addressing someone while removing her geta at the entrance.

“Come on, you come up too! Why? It’s fine!” Nobuko stood and watched. Behind Miho, who was about to step up onto the entrance platform, two plainly dressed women stood in the darkness. And, being excessively reserved, they said that since the night had grown late, they would take their leave as they were. In any case, the three of them ended up coming inside. The two women were Miho’s sister and her friend, people nearing thirty. Miho wore a gaudy Oshima kimono and greeted them in a boisterous tone.

“Well, I arrived late last night, you know.” “Today I spent the whole day chatting with these folks here, and just now when we went out for a stroll toward the Grand Shrine, Tama here made this vacant face and said, ‘Ms. Nobuko has come,’ you know?” “How dense! If they’d just said that earlier, we’d have come up no matter what! But then they insisted on visiting now—so here we are! Really, country people have no tact—no brains at all, I tell you! And when did you get here?” “When did you arrive?”

“Well, I wonder if it’s been about ten days now.”

Nobuko felt herself physically recoiling from Miho's verbal onslaught. "You must be working on some writing by now?" "Not at all! Why would I? I've just been lazing about!" "I'm frightfully busy myself these days—Father insists I indulge every whim, you see. Calligraphy practice all morning! Flower arrangement lessons! Household management! And between it all I must even manufacture a baby! Ha ha ha! Such an exhausting routine! Ha ha ha!"

Miho’s sister, who had bound her hair in a round chignon and remained timidly silent, gave a bitter smile. “Well…” she said. “But isn’t that exactly how it is? You know… Tobita just wouldn’t let us leave.” Miho’s hysteria became apparent to everyone. As if possessed, she kept talking alone—eyes glinting above her thickly powdered face. The reasons now made sense: why her two companions had resisted coming up earlier, why they sat there looking troubled as their glances shifted between Nobuko and Miho. Nobuko felt a flicker of anxiety—was she beginning to lose her mind?

“Have you been well all this time?” "No, you see, I had such a dreadful time."

Miho said she had undergone surgery for a gynecological condition and had come here immediately after being discharged. "When I'm with Father, you see, no matter what, you—" Nobuko fell silent, sensing something was off with Miho's mental state—how every topic she raised veered toward sexual matters. The two companions also seemed concerned about this, "Well... perhaps we should be going now."

They urged insistently. "We can come back during the day to talk properly—Grandmother must be ready to retire for the night by now."

“Let’s do that… How long will you be staying here, Ms. Nobuko?” Nobuko gave the same reply she had given to Otoyo-san.

Miho— “Oh my! To say such a thing!” exclaimed. “How can a wife say such things, leaving her husband behind like that?… It’s dangerous above all to leave him alone like that! You endure it so well—we could never put up with that in our household.” “Come on, let’s go, Sis.” Even after they had gone out to the gate, Miho’s voice could still be heard chattering animatedly. After a short while, Grandmother said in an utterly exasperated manner. “What the hell is with that woman?!”

Nobuko was drawn in by the comical nature of that tone and burst out laughing. But—were ordinary married couples truly as Miho had described? Such doubts arose in Nobuko’s mind. She had never even been conscious of the kind of peril Miho spoke of regarding their traveling separately as husband and wife. Even as she lay there thinking about it, Nobuko felt oddly dissatisfied with Tsukuda’s character—how it never stirred anxiety or jealousy within her. Tsukuda’s moral steadfastness seemed to stem from his scarcely being charmed by human interests and charms.

6

Otoyo-san often went shopping to a town a little over one ri away. Each time she went, she asked Nobuko if there was anything she needed. Nobuko had a men's unlined kimono purchased for her. She had it tailored and sent it to Tsukuda. When Otoyo-san went out, Grandmother would, “It ain’t just shopping—she’s probably fixin’ to stop by Shinmachi again.”

In a hushed voice, she said to the neighboring old women who were sewing together with her as companions for conversation.

“That’s right… But Otoyo-san really does look young, doesn’t she? You’d never guess she’s just past thirty… She’ll find a proper husband soon enough.” Grandmother held the needle in her aged, trembling fingers as she threaded it, her voice dripping with elderly malice. “If I were Otoyo-san, I’d hate marrying after forty… Seems people nowadays can’t stand being alone even when they’re old…” “How true… Hehehe.”

Nobuko found it both frustrating and pitiable how Otoyo-san, anxious about her future, was rushing to marry as if taking out old-age insurance. She felt sympathy for her situation, surrounded by ignorant old women exchanging knowing glances and whispering. She said to Grandmother, “Since you could never make her live happily ever after no matter what you do, you’d better stop buzzing about every little thing. Everyone finds their own happiness in the end.”

Then Grandmother began reminiscing in a strangely contrary manner. "I reckon I was just born unlucky—when I was young your grandfather kept chasing business ventures that left us poor, and now I'm old, even my own son can't stand me... Seeing you's my only joy left in this world."

Having said that, she shed tears. Otoyo-san, while playing a clumsy game of Gomoku with Nobuko, voiced her anxieties about her circumstances. She soon stopped going to Shinmachi and consequently to town for shopping. Later, she talked about how she had met with the dentist whose marriage proposal had come up and declined it herself. Nobuko felt as though she were observing specimens of women’s lives—diverse yet uniformly unfulfilled. Whether it was Grandmother or Otoyo-san, none of them were living as they truly wished. Even so, they kept on living. They went on living, dull and restless. Nobuko felt reassured that she herself was not yielding to life’s dissatisfactions. Watching them, Nobuko felt from the depths of her heart that she did not want to live such a life, and she sensed an enthusiasm welling up within her to remove obstacles, persistently confront life, and carve out the existence she desired. In a family spanning generations, shouldn’t there be at least one woman who could look back on her life with joy?

In mid-June, Kazuichirou came to take his conscription examination, having reached the eligible age. They were one of those rare sibling pairs who got along well. Nobuko was delighted to spend several days in the countryside with him after such a long separation. Kazuichirou had suffered from pleurisy in recent years, so he might have been classified as Category B or C. This made their stay all the more carefree. In Grandmother's dresser drawer lay an old Fugetsudo confectionery box containing vintage photographs - one commemorating Nobuko's hundredth-day celebration, another showing her standing with sisterly composure beside a velvet-capped infant Kazuichirou being supported by his nursemaid. Beaming with pride, Grandmother showed these relics to her now-grown grandchildren.

“Oh my, I wonder when this was taken… Not around this time—you know how there used to be kidnappers about? I was so frightened. After seeing Yoshi-san off, I’d carry you on my back from the corner of the slope and run all the way home in a panic—don’t you remember?” “Really, it’s so comical. But I was truly frightened back then—your big sister was so earnest about it!” “This time around, Kazuichirou probably won’t have to give your big sister a piggyback.”

“You were this huge? I’m done for!” “Ha ha ha ha!”

When Grandmother wasn’t around, they spoke more openly. Kazuichirou was navigating that age when one explores love. Longing, anxiety, and passion seemed to violently agitate his spirit at times. With a calmness steeped in trust and youthful candor, he spoke of his intricate psychological state and the peculiar lovelorn atmosphere among his cram school peers—a mood utterly mismatched with his own sensibilities. To Nobuko, these matters belonged to a world entirely separate from theirs, yet she found them deeply fascinating. But what truly moved her was Kazuichirou’s guileless heart—how he still clung to their childhood bond, addressing her alone with unvarnished directness, even seeming to lean on her somewhat as he shared these confidences. Nobuko felt almost overwhelmed by the weight of that trust.

Kazuichirou spat out a cherry pit and, as if skipping a stone across water, tossed it far into the garden while saying, “You’re not like us… are you?” “About such things? Are you saying I’ve properly figured things out and settled down?” “Yeah.” “Because I’m married?” “Not exactly...” “If you think that’s why, you’re mistaken… Marriage isn’t some final answer—it’s an exam question you’re given, and quite a formidable one at that…”

Nobuko involuntarily formed a suggestive smile. Kazuichirou made a complex, almost dazzling expression. “It’s strange, I tell you. Me? Let my classmates talk for one second and I’ve got their feelings figured out—but you? I’m at my wits’ end! There’s no solid ground with you… you’re all flighty, and then your eyes well up out of nowhere…”

Nobuko felt affection in Kazuichirou's expression. "You want someone flashy? Like a drama queen?" "Well, yeah... And honestly, listening to friends' conversations drives me up the wall—they're so trivial... it makes me worry."

After a pause, Nobuko asked. "That young lady—the one you used to take photos for—what became of her? Is she still playing around?" "Ah, she's no good." Kazuichirou answered plainly in a detached tone. "You saw her on the swings earlier, didn't you? I started thinking I might have some bad traits myself—what do you think, Sis? That way she looks up at people—so passive. I can't stand it."

Nobuko thought that he, who had once been sentimental, was beginning to gain the steadiness of someone who adapts to survive.

“…You’re quite steady, more admirable than me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Really! It’s just my nature—I can’t help it. But being someone like me who immediately starts fantasizing has its pros and cons.”

Nobuko added haltingly, as if talking to herself. "I do see them too, you know. But when circumstances make me fall for someone, I tell myself, 'That's just how it is,' and convince myself that the parts I dislike will vanish... But they don't. Not really, when it actually happens. If being disappointed by that is how it ends up, then maybe it's better to be someone like you—the type who doesn't see mirages from the start."

After getting into bed, Kazuichirou asked Nobuko her opinion about a certain girl she also knew. Nobuko realized, for some reason she couldn’t pinpoint, that his interest was now directed at that girl. She found herself slightly at a loss for how to respond. According to Nobuko’s impression, this young lady was not like the girls Kazuichirou had described earlier—those who seemed all flashy, colorful presence—but neither did she possess anything vivid or charming. In short, she struck Nobuko as far too ordinary by nature. Because the lamp had been left on in the adjacent room, a dim glow fell only on the ceiling from the transom between the rooms.

“It’s nothing… just something completely ordinary… But since I was made to feel rather unpleasant by that myself, I don’t want to say this or that.”

And with that, Nobuko thought. Ever since my dealings with Tsukuda began, how many anti-Tsukuda remarks had I been made to hear? Those who spoke them likely aimed to make me give up on him, but in reality, it never came to pass. It had the opposite effect instead. If Kazuichirou were to face romantic troubles, I at least wanted to maintain a respectful silence until he truly sought my counsel. What kind of love would this brother experience? What kind of marriage would he have? Now an adult, what must he think and feel as he observes my love life and married life? Nobuko suddenly felt a surge of curiosity and, half-laughing,

“If you were to get married, what kind of person would be best?”

she asked. "Well... I don't know," he said. "Our feelings haven't quite reached those practical matters yet." "Well, there's no need to rush," she replied.

“Hmm.”

Kazuichirou replied earnestly. "I think so too."

Eventually, he said somewhat awkwardly yet with apparent deep interest. "I wonder what Mr.Tsukuda's state of mind was when he got married." "Really, though." Out of a delicate sentiment, Nobuko refrained from saying more—yet that very restraint formed part of the question lingering in her heart. What emotional state had Tsukuda been in when he married, and how did he intend to guide their married life forward? I wonder. Nobuko couldn't quite grasp it firmly. For instance, even regarding his emotional state in sending her away to stay in the countryside like this—was he leaving her be because he doted on Nobuko so indulgently that he would allow her to do anything? Or was he composedly thinking that if he let her do as she pleased, she would eventually grow tired and come back? Nobuko thought his heart was a mixture of both, but treating her in such a manner—what kind of life did he intend for them to reach? When it came down to it, Nobuko always found herself at a loss. Though she couldn't clearly put it into words, she felt what lay at the core of the life she wanted to achieve. If he possessed that core, there would be nothing swifter than feeling. Surely, from somewhere, it would come straight through to Nobuko's heart—there could be no possibility of it failing to save her from disappointment.

As proof—Nobuko thought and thought—even though he had never once said he loved her, hadn't she felt that he did? —— There were times lately when Nobuko would think this way too—as if laughing at the two of them. —These were all just things she'd willfully imagined and willfully agonized over. To him, there was nothing complicated. Truly—as he himself said, there was nothing to him.

As if trying to make herself increasingly aware of the pain of disillusionment, Nobuko thought more and more contemptuous things about herself and him. However, she knew well—that her heart wasn't taking any of it seriously, and that if someone were to whisper even half those things about him to her, she would cut off all ties with that person. Whether she tried to hit him or kick him, he had already become a part of her. Without experiencing pain and suffering herself, Nobuko could not so much as strike out at him.

After some time had passed, Nobuko suddenly thought she heard Kazuichirou’s voice. She had thought he’d long since fallen asleep. —Nobuko gently—

“Were you awake?” she called out. Kazuichirou didn’t respond, mumbling incoherently. Sleep-talk. Nobuko laughed quietly at herself in the dark. He had this habit of making soft sucking noises with his tongue while asleep. Listening to the soothing sound, she suddenly heard Kazuichirou speak clearly— “Ah—” he sighed, drawing out the sound. Nobuko instinctively propped herself up on an elbow and peered at his face. The sigh felt too heartfelt for someone deep in sleep. Yet he remained asleep. He let out another short “Ah,” then continued in a low, urgent tone,

“Ah, I feel so... so stifled.” As he said this, he moved the fingertips of both hands lying on his chest in small, fluttering motions. Unintentionally feeling she had caught a glimpse of a fissure in his youthful soul, Nobuko was filled with both affection and anguish. She gently lowered them one by one from his chest, careful not to rouse him. They were large hands—warm and heavy. He kept sleeping, unaware of it all.

After Kazuichirou left, the tranquil life returned.

Nobuko felt homesick. In the evening, an acrid haze settled thickly over the village. Standing on the veranda, she gazed across the wide fields at the town lights scattered along the mountain’s base as they began to twinkle. When she imagined the chaos that must envelop Tokyo’s streets—the jostling crowds, the clamorous transportation systems darting about in confusion—she sensed within that scene both the warmth of human breath and the thrum of life, and Nobuko felt as though she wanted to summon a rickshaw this very instant. She suffered through a terribly unsettled state of mind until the shutters were closed and night had fully descended. The ten-candlepower electric light glistened upon the wooden door of the family room with its black-lacquered sheen, and the drowsy, drawn-out country evening settled Nobuko’s nerves. Grandmother, Otoyo-san, and the maid each went about quietly winding thread or removing rust from needles without so much as glancing back at their shadows. Above them, tick-tock, tick-tock...

The solitary fullness of life's flow often stirred Nobuko. What would her husband be doing alone at his desk on a night like this? She felt that this same stillness might exist where he was. After experiencing countless reactions, both major and minor, Nobuko had gradually come to think that Tsukuda must have a place where he could live as himself. In the world there are countless ordinary men. Even if he were just one of them, what harm could there be? Even if I couldn't obtain what I expected from him, wasn't that my own fault? Nobuko thought under her small lamp. If he himself were satisfied with his current life, did she have any right to hinder that? He did not suffer from his own lack of originality, and his existence as an intermediary in collecting books for Persian research in Japan might have some meaning. He would likely find happiness in his aspirations for advancement, his daily routines, and the virtue of stoic endurance—if only Nobuko did not prod and drive him.

When Nobuko thought of Tsukuda—how he had been assailed by Takeyo’s fervor and her own violently shaking passion in the Dōzaka house—she felt an odd sensation. He must have been utterly perplexed. Like a timid dog that had suddenly joined a different pack and was being barked at from all sides.

But from now on, how was Nobuko to manage herself and go on living? The kind of happiness he sought did not include her presence. Should I simply watch from the sidelines as my husband finds satisfaction and partakes of that happiness—refraining from tasting it myself while forcing a smile? Nobuko was someone who hungered deeply. Someone who felt starvation keenly. Someone who could not abstain from feeding herself. She came to realize she was a woman placed beside him who must now discover or forge what she desired through her own means. If she asked, her husband would likely share his portion with her. Yet Nobuko could not bring herself to eat it. She craved something purer.

Nobuko wept as she thought of all the misconceptions that had filled her heart until now—the childlike fantasies, the trust in herself that had been so youthful, naive, and fervent it was hard to believe it had been merely two years ago. However, even as she wept, she dimly sensed something like life’s ultimate truthfulness, and Nobuko found new courage. Let what fade fade away without hesitation. What remains will remain of its own accord. No sentimentalism—however, this was a parting from the image of a husband she had tried so hard to depict until now.

She had come to want to build within her heart a single spacious sanctuary - one so uncluttered it wouldn't feel cramped even if she treated her husband as a guest. If I truly possess the power to live authentically, how could I possibly claim such a sanctuary can't be built! And even while laughing ruefully at her own contradictions, Nobuko renewed her hope that through persistent effort, Tsukuda too - being no immovable tree root - might gradually change over time. She couldn't deny that her determination to grow resolute, her belief this wasn't futile - all ultimately drew vitality from that final mustard-seed-sized hope.

Nobuko sent a letter to Tsukuda. She informed him that she wanted to return and asked him to arrange for house access even during his absence. Tsukuda replied that since he would be going out on the evening of her intended return date, she should postpone it by two days. At the kitchen entrance, upon receiving and reading this message, Nobuko—with a force welling up from within her as if acting autonomously—tore the postcard. She found it unbearable that he would delay by two days the homecoming date she had already fixed.

7

That summer, Nobuko wrote one short story after a long interval. The long-form work she had planned since spring ultimately remained unfinished due to internal deficiencies. Since getting married, her inability to work had continually weighed heavily on her mind. But during her time in the countryside, her mental state had changed somewhat, and through concentrated effort she had managed to write forty or fifty pages. More than the quality, the very fact of having written it became an auspicious sign for Nobuko. That one could work—was this not proof that one could secure some manner of spiritual foothold, however tenuous, against one's own life and the lives around them? If she could maintain that foothold, then the way of living she had resolved upon in the countryside—amidst the tangled emotions of sorrow and courage, determined to stand independently without relying on her husband, at least in spirit—might not be entirely hopeless after all. Nobuko had written of the chaotic, turbulent emotions that had brought her heart to this point. The work was published in the appendix of a political magazine that placed little value on literary merit.

It was the day the published issue had been sent over.

Nobuko sat at her desk, absorbed in thought as she reread her own work now set in type. Then the front lattice door opened. During daytime solitude, whenever that lattice door clattered open, Nobuko felt an anxiety that seemed to agitate the very air around her. Those who entered in such manner were invariably pushy peddlers with beggar-like whines or something of the sort. She began sliding open the shoji screen but stopped upon recognizing the figure standing in the earthen-floored entryway, “Oh!”

Her voice instantly brightening, Nobuko stood up with evident delight. "You're such a pest! I thought it was someone else!"

It was Kazuichirou.

“Good day.—I just tried acting like a real guest for once.” “Please come in.” “……Thank you……” Nobuko was puzzled by his seemingly hesitant manner. “Why? Are you in a hurry? Or are you worried about the motorcycle?” “That’s all fine, but today I came to pick you up.” “……—But that’s alright, isn’t it?” Kazuichirou came up but couldn’t settle down. He asked, “Are you busy? Can’t you come?”

“I could go… but is there something you need?”

She did not like being summoned. Even if she had intended to go out that day, being suddenly ordered to fetch someone and told to come immediately would make her feel reluctant.

“Mother says she has something to discuss.” The phrase being Takeyo’s habitual tactic, both Kazuichirou delivering it and Nobuko hearing it couldn’t help but laugh at its inherent absurdity.

“Well, of course there’s something to discuss—that goes without saying—but…” “But today’s a bit more pointed.” “What do you mean?” Kazuichirou spoke haltingly, his words clumsy. “Sis… she read what you wrote this time. Says she’s got issues with it.” “Hmm.” Nobuko ran through possibilities in her mind and fixed on the one likely passage—the brief section where the protagonist’s mother nursed something like resentment, near-hostility, toward her son-in-law. If her mother meant to object, it could only be about that part.

“Well then, let’s go.”

Nobuko stood up and prepared to leave. She thought it crucial to settle matters cleanly between them before things became too entangled. In terms of emotional state, Father would likely not escape being inconvenienced, and Kazuichirou too was pitiable. Nobuko left after entrusting a short note and the key to the neighbor.

When Takeyo saw Nobuko acting as casually and normally as ever, “—Do come in,” she welcomed her in a tone laced with reservation.

“Good day.” Mother did not do it herself but called the maid to make tea. “There seems to be some Nagasaki castella around here somewhere—if you’d like, please help yourself.”

Nobuko sensed her mother wasn't harboring displeasure born of careful thought, but rather stewing in emotional irritation—and putting on a solemn air to keep herself from releasing that pent-up frustration. "You have something to discuss?" "...You know perfectly well." "...Kazuichirou mentioned something vague, but I don't know specifics... No one's properly informed me yet." "Since it's your own writing, you must understand—but what exactly did you mean by this latest work?"

Nobuko endured the awkwardness and carefully explained her motive. However, Takeyo did not listen to it all with solemn absorption, “Well, your logic may hold up however you want it to,” she said.

“It’s not logic—it’s my true feelings.” “The truth is, last night Mr. Sawatani came for dinner and asked if I’d read your latest work. When I said I hadn’t heard a thing about it, he told me, ‘It’s about your mother.’ Even though I thought it couldn’t possibly be anything good, I immediately had someone buy it and read it—I don’t recall ever doing anything that should make you drag my shame into print like this!”

Nobuko became displeased and lost her sympathetic feelings. She even thought it natural that her mother—who lacked the habit of viewing her own heart from a third-party perspective—would find it all the more disagreeable if factual, should she believe herself portrayed in an unflattering state of mind, even if the issue amounted to nothing more than a two-character adjective. That was why, regarding that very unpleasantness, she had explained at length believing mutual understanding might be achieved if her mother comprehended the sincere circumstances behind Nobuko writing that work. But through her mother's words, Nobuko grew desolate. Sawatani's attitude—unbecoming of an educated young man—was also disagreeable. The manner in which Mother had been swayed by it was equally disagreeable. Nobuko remained silent and sipped the cold tea.

“Well, since I’m your parent—if my being a stepping stone would make you better, then I’d endure any hardship for that.” “Even if you trample me with muddy feet, I’d rejoice.” “But I suppose that’s not really the case—when the world already has its eyes on us regardless of circumstances, you needn’t write things yourself that would make people say ‘I told you so!’” She added with feminine venom.

“Or what… is there something you actually gain from this?”

Nobuko, with an intensity that made one wonder what she might have said had the other party not been her mother, interrupted with a sharp “Stop it!” “If you start using that tone of speech, there’s simply no reasoning with you anymore!” Takeyo looked at Nobuko’s face and insisted somewhat weakly, “...But that’s just how it is, isn’t it?” Dragged along by the turbulent push and pull of her agitated emotions, she then launched into a prolonged attack—insisting that Nobuko ought to recognize the hardships she had caused through her relationship with Tsukuda, and declaring that Nobuko’s art had visibly begun to degenerate. Nobuko, unable to find anything sincere in those argumentative words, returned home with clashing emotions.

Six days later, another summons came from Dōzaka. It was Saturday. The message urged that they both come tonight without fail—Tsukuda and herself. When Nobuko had been summoned previously, Takeyo had mentioned she would eventually need to speak with Tsukuda. This was precisely that matter. Nobuko found it truly distasteful to drag Tsukuda into the conflict her writing had provoked. It felt pitiful enough, but what truly pained her was how this inner sanctum—the one corner of her heart she considered her own world—was being noisily trampled by so many intruders. Though Tsukuda must have undoubtedly read it, he never uttered a single word to her about it.

When they went to Dōzaka, the two were abruptly ushered upstairs. The red felt used for painting lessons had been entirely cleared away, leaving only the small mother-of-pearl-inlaid chest in the corner glimmering beneath distant lamplight. Mother ascended and settled onto the solitary zabuton cushion positioned apart before the tokonoma. Nobuko found herself unable to suppress her resistance against the smothering manner surrounding her.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Takeyo,

“The reason I went out of my way to summon you here concerns nothing else but—”

she began in this manner.

“The other day ended in such confusion that I had to send Nobuko home, but I’ve been thinking constantly since then—so much that I haven’t slept properly at night.” “You must have heard from Nobuko by now, but I wanted to hear your opinion as well.” “Since it was a summons, Tsukuda came up too, but I think this is something only Mother and I need to discuss. Tsukuda shouldn’t be involved.” “I don’t think so... Mr. Tsukuda, you must have read it too... What do you think?”

Nobuko, unable to bear looking at her husband’s face as he answered, gazed toward the dark corridor’s reed-patterned door. “...As you know, I have granted absolute freedom regarding this person’s writings...” Though this was a defense in her favor, Nobuko somehow felt no truth in this seemingly generous response, sensing instead something akin to her husband’s cunning. She perceived that this slippery manner of answering—which at times became evasions directed even at Nobuko herself—made her feel as though the ground beneath were sinking away. Whatever she writes is her freedom—I recognize that freedom. Therefore, what was written remained solely what had been written. No matter what suffering or tears might dwell within it, this was something she had written bearing no relation to our shared life—ah, how this cold magnanimity pierced through one’s heart! While Nobuko lingered in these thoughts, Takeyo pressed forward with the conversation.

“That may well be so, but... Ever since the other day, I’ve been thinking there must be some reason behind Nobuko writing that piece this time—well, even if not quite that far, it seems to me there must have been some influence at play—wouldn’t you agree, speaking fairly?” Tsukuda asked back quizzically. “In what sense do you mean that?”

Takeyo did not answer Tsukuda and instead began to speak to Nobuko. “Well, isn’t that right, Nobuko? Examine your conscience and reflect properly—even you, as someone who presumes to write, ought to understand that much.”

Nobuko had already felt an indescribable disgust toward these exchanges. Piling up unpleasant words that somehow never touched the heart's core—words that seemed almost unnecessary—what exactly were they trying to accomplish in the end? "So what exactly are you saying?" Takeyo glared fiercely at Nobuko. "If you insist on my saying it, I can say it—though I doubt it would be pleasant for Mr. Tsukuda to hear." "What do you mean?"

“To put it plainly—even if not all of it—the parts about me, I can only think that you wrote them after being covertly instigated by Mr. Tsukuda.” “…………” “Well?” “…………” Takeyo adjusted her posture. “This isn’t just my opinion—others are saying the same thing…”

“————” On the wide tatami mats of night, brightness and the silence of held breaths flooded forth with piercing clarity. Nobuko’s heart mirrored this exactly. She felt neither sorrow nor anger. It had transcended such states—her emotions, wounded to their very marrow, now honed to crystalline sharpness.

Takeyo said, “If you stay silent, you’ll never understand.” Nobuko seemed to have frozen stiff and couldn’t speak. “...If I’ve misunderstood, I’ll apologize.”

After a while, Nobuko cleared her throat in a hoarse voice and said to her husband.

“...You, please go over there.” There was no way Mother would apologize to Tsukuda. Tsukuda had no reason to endure such humiliation simply because he had become her husband, Nobuko thought. “Stay.” Tsukuda remained with his arms crossed, “Hmm.” he groaned. While he remained indecisive, Takeyo— “Before we’ve even settled the matter, I can’t let you do such a thing on your own whim.” said Takeyo.

“But Mother, you’re not one to back down, are you?” "I don’t back down because there’s no reason to back down—there’s no one who doesn’t think they’re in the wrong like you!" Driven by passionate obstinacy, Takeyo pressed Nobuko to apologize, to apologize. She pressed Nobuko to swear that from now on she would never write anything that seemed related to family. That was impossible for Nobuko. Even if I were to offer some placating apology or promise now, it would inevitably be broken someday. Moreover, Nobuko could not consider herself to be in the wrong in the sense that her mother emphasized. What was pitiful and what was wrong naturally seemed distinct. Moreover, Nobuko could not muster the magnanimity to yield simply because it was her mother speaking in response to the barrage of harsh words Takeyo had recklessly hurled at her.

“So you absolutely refuse to bend your own words?” “There’s no use in uttering empty formalities…” “Then there’s no alternative—you and I are fundamentally incompatible.” “In that case—” Takeyo pronounced her verdict anew. “From this day forward, you shall no longer visit this house. This arrangement benefits us both—and I’m certain Mr. Tsukuda would concur…”

She finally managed to say the last part and turned her face away, her chin and lips quivering. As she looked at that defeated profile, Nobuko began to feel pity for her mother. To her, it seemed that her mother had uttered such things not from any long-term consideration—though the woman herself likely believed it resulted from careful deliberation—but rather from a volatile temperament that craved intense emotional stimulation. Had she, driven by the relentless momentum of pressing attack after attack, perhaps unintentionally let slip such definitive words? Did Mother truly understand the meaning of her own words? Nobuko found the sight of her mother—unable to control her own vehemence—more unbearable than the fact that she was effectively being disowned (which, for some reason, failed to resonate with any real sense of reality). She even began to think of her as an unfortunate person. Nobuko said gently,

“Well, you needn’t make up your mind so quickly.” Nobuko said gently. Takeyo seemed insulted by this, and tears began streaming down her cheeks.

“You probably think I couldn’t possibly go through with it—but I’ve made my resolve. I won’t have you underestimating me. Once I’ve said it… Even if you want to see me so badly you feel like dying, I won’t tell you to come begging.”

A stillness like emptiness spread through the room. Then, abruptly, Tsukuda placed his hands ceremoniously on the tatami and bowed to her mother. "In that case, there remains nothing to be done... Please do take care of yourself..." To Nobuko, everything seemed unreal—artificial and profoundly alien. A restless tension hung in the air, as though they were performing some pompous tragedy over trifles swept along by circumstance. Simultaneously came an indescribable hollowness, like embers dying in a hearth. Nobuko remained seated, sinking deeper into this peculiar emotional state. As for Mother—she sat motionless, arms locked across her chest like armor, staring fixedly ahead.—

Tsukuda began to rise and urged Nobuko.

“Well… we should take our leave… since the night has grown quite late—” Nobuko found Tsukuda’s deliberately lowered voice and the possessive way he looked at her somehow irritating. While being formally pushed away, a paradoxical emotion arose within her that connected with her mother’s emotional state. As she tried to descend from the second floor, Nobuko stumbled at the top of the stairs. Tsukuda gripped her arm painfully to support her.

VIII

When she opened her eyes, Tsukuda was already up and on the veranda. It was an autumn-like morning, with dry paulownia leaves rustling high in the sky. Nobuko felt utterly exhausted throughout her body—the strength to lift herself from the bed had deserted her. She lay still, gazing at the autumn sky beyond the high ground. It was truly clear. Had she ever seen a sky like this before? Through the room where she lay sleeping, a crisp September wind blew in from that azure sky, full of vigor. Unsparing—and for that very reason all the more soul-piercing in its pathos—Nobuko involuntarily closed her eyes.

From the time she returned around one o’clock last night until this morning, Nobuko had hardly spoken a word. As he prepared for bed, Tsukuda said while changing his clothes, “Ah… Well, it can’t be helped. Humans cannot serve two gods.” “……You aren’t my god either.” Even after lying down, she found herself unable to sleep, enveloped in an unnatural desolation. If Mother had understood the feelings Nobuko held toward her husband Tsukuda and their life together, she would never have uttered such things. Though Nobuko had not volunteered any confessions, she possessed nothing that might provoke her mother’s jealousy or resentment—yet even upon waking, the desolate mood from the previous night, when she had drifted into sleep while dwelling on these thoughts, refused to dissipate. As sunlight filtered through her eyelids, that loneliness seemed to seep all the more deeply into her heart’s core.

“Are you awake?” Tsukuda came and touched Nobuko’s forehead as she lay sleeping. “Are you feeling unwell?” “I’m fine.” “Should I call a doctor?” “It’s really fine.” “...Just a bit worn out.”

One day, Nobuko lay listlessly.

As two or three days passed, Nobuko recovered. Emotionally, she had regained herself with a new element added to her state of mind. It was something that combined an unprecedented clarity of feeling—a buoyant lightness—with an enduring loneliness, sincerely connected to her persistent desire to stand firmly on her own that had remained ever since returning from the countryside. Nobuko began her next small task. In how these circumstances tightened her spirit, Nobuko even felt she could be grateful for these outwardly unfortunate-seeming things, and she carried a subdued vitality within her. They had not uttered so much as the 'D' of Dōzaka since that night.

It was a day shortly after the month had changed. Nobuko unexpectedly caught the sound of Kazuichirou’s voice at the entrance. When she saw his lively face, she found herself acting like a boy without thinking, “Hey!” she exclaimed joyfully. “What brings you here?” “What about you, Sis?” “There you have it.”

Kazuichirou looked around at Nobuko's face and the study-cluttered surroundings. "Well, that's fine then." He sat down for the first time. For about three hours, they chatted pleasantly without any particular focus. Kazuichirou mentioned he'd finally resolved to enter a vocational school next spring.

“I don’t think anyone—no matter who they are—would be so thrilled just from graduating middle school that they’d rush to take exams for higher schools.” “First off, most people don’t even know what work they’d actually like, and their feelings aren’t exactly settled—” As he was leaving, facing away while putting on his shoes, Kazuichirou remarked offhandedly. “Last night, Mother said to me, ‘It seems you haven’t been visiting your sister at all lately.’”

In the middle of the month, Nobuko unexpectedly received a visit from Ms. Otoyo. Grandmother had finally come to her retirement residence, so Ms. Otoyo had come up to Tokyo taking that opportunity. "The retired madam also said she very much wanted to come," Ms. Otoyo explained while scrutinizing Nobuko intently, "but since she's still tired today, we thought it best to refrain—" Suddenly her kind, finely wrinkled face flushed crimson, and she began weeping into her sleeve. "When I see you being so lively like this," she lamented, "it somehow makes me feel all the more sorry for you."

Her kind, finely wrinkled face flushed crimson, and she began to weep into her sleeve. "You both understand everything so well, and yet... Truly, why must it be this way? When I heard the story, I felt something quite indescribable." Nobuko felt both apologetic and awkward in the face of Ms. Otoyo's heartfelt lament. She even managed a smile as if to comfort her. "It's alright—if even you cry like that, I'll be at a loss." "Things will work themselves out eventually, so please rest assured."

“Please—you being actual parent and child—how could such a thing even exist?” Ms. Otoyo said with heartfelt sincerity. “From Madam’s perspective, Mr. Tsukuda may indeed have his shortcomings, but for you to be dragged into this as well… Though given that she is someone of such resolute temperament, it may be unavoidable…” Mother seemed to have explained the cause of the conflict to Ms. Otoyo and others differently than it actually had. Nobuko,

“Tsukuda had nothing to do with it, yet he got caught up in the fallout.”

she explained. "It was what I wrote that displeased you?" After skipping a day, Tsuya-ko came to play with the live-in student. Tamotsu brought flowers from the flower bed. Her younger siblings began visiting much more frequently than before. Nobuko sensed her mother’s intentions behind that. When they returned, she would surely ask like this: “So? Did you see Sis? Was it interesting?” Tamotsu would answer in his own way, and Tsuya-ko, being a girl, would respond in hers. Then, Mother would surely ask again.

“What was Sis doing?” Finally, as if by chance yet with particular interest,

“Was Mr. Tsukuda there?” Or perhaps, “How were they doing?” Wouldn’t she ask something like that? Since they were guileless, she couldn’t delve into specifics, and no matter how much she inquired, wouldn’t she feel her questions remained unsatisfied? After her brother and sister left, Nobuko would often imagine such scenes. Tsukuda seemed to find Tsuya-ko and Tamotsu’s visits bothersome. Tsuya-ko clung to his neck, “Hey, let’s play together! It’s no fun with just Sis and me, come on!”

When she clung to him playfully, he would stiffen up and refuse.

“I’m busy right now, so I can’t.”

When he returned home from work, they would be there. Though it was understandable that he had grown weary of people, Nobuko could not bear to see the children shrinking away from him with frightened expressions, and she said to her husband: “It’s perfectly understandable that you find all this irritating, but the children don’t know any better—they still think everything’s just as it always was.” “It would have been better if you’d spoken up boldly back then, rather than taking it out on them now.” Then Tsukuda, as if startled by the false accusation now placed upon him,

“Did I ever do such a thing?” he retorted. “Look, I understand why you said you wouldn’t let the Dōzaka crowd into the house—it can’t be helped.” "But since you're allowing it—" Tsukuda would not even openly assert his own legitimate feelings; for instance, when someone would say, "You were angry, weren’t you?" he would simply reply, "No." Nobuko dissected the circumstances of that time for him, compelling her husband to confront his own emotional state head-on. Tsukuda neither agreed nor denied anything, letting Nobuko speak until she had finished, then said resentfully.

“That’s all just what you believe,” he said. “It differs from my true feelings—I’ll state that clearly.” “Then what are your feelings?” she pressed. “How exactly do they differ?” “You know I’m not good with words,” he replied. “I keep believing you’ll understand someday. Someone who truly loves me should naturally understand.”

Nobuko involuntarily strained and vigorously rubbed her forehead. "Oh, you poor thing! Don’t give yourself more wrinkles." At such times, she felt like whistling. But no sound came out.

Nine

When November came, Nobuko began to occasionally lose her peace of mind due to various causes. The dealings with Dōzaka remained unchanged—limited to just those occasional visits from her brother and sister, and even her grandmother. Since only two full months had passed since September, this was rather natural, but what Nobuko found painful was the anticipation of December approaching. In keeping with Japanese family customs—as was common everywhere—December 31st, New Year’s Eve, was also the liveliest day of the year at Nobuko’s parents’ home. From a time she could no longer remember when it had begun, Nobuko had played the role of hostess on this festive day. While everyone else busied themselves with work, she decorated the table with flowers, candlelight, gifts, and such. The door to the room she had kept tightly closed—

“Come on! Please come in!” The thrill of that moment when she opened it! The childlike freshness always sent her into raptures. The entire household rejoiced along with her. That simple pleasure—this year, the entire household could not have it. New Year’s Eve would likely be a gloomy affair. Nobuko thought it would be better if her parents and siblings were not in Tokyo—or else that they themselves did not have to be in Tokyo. One such day, Nobuko was tending to a single chrysanthemum in a corner of the garden. Though it was a chrysanthemum in an earthen pot from a night stall, the pure white flower emitted a fragrance characteristic of November. As she was trimming the withered flower with scissors, the sound of a rickshaw bell came from the alley. Nobuko opened the wooden gate in the plank fence. Grandmother got out of the rickshaw. Nobuko,

“Grandmother, over here! This way!” she beckoned. And she said to the rickshaw driver, “We’ll arrange for the return journey, so you may leave now.” Grandmother looked around curiously, “Oh, there’s a wooden gate here?” With that, she looked around and stepped into the garden in straw sandals. “I thought I’d go out for a bit of shopping today, but well—I don’t know a thing about that sort of business, so I gave up and came to have some tea instead.”

Nobuko laughed. When Grandmother had ordered a rickshaw, she must have refrained from saying she wanted to visit Nobuko, instead likely claiming she was going to Hongō-dōri to look at silk fabrics or some such. She had come all this way to Nobuko's home just to offer that unnecessary excuse. "I can serve you endless tea.—Shall we pretend to hold a chrysanthemum viewing today?" Nobuko had cushions and tea brought out to the veranda. Then she had Grandmother sit down and settled beside her, pretending to admire what might have been an expansive flower bed,

“Well now, what a splendid view—as far as the eye can see, a thousand white chrysanthemums in their full glory!” Grandmother took a deep, savoring drag of her tobacco, then flicked the ash while chuckling teasingly. “What’s wrong with my eyes? I only see one chrysanthemum here, I tell ya.” “Oh, Grandmother! There are more! There are more!” “There are supposed to be more!” “There are supposed to be more!” From nearby, Kiyo rattled her large white Seto-ware dentures and gave an ingratiating smile.

“Madam says such amusing things, ho ho ho ho!” Every time Kiyo addressed her as “Madam” with every other word, Nobuko felt an uncomfortable sensation, as if someone were ceremoniously tugging at some part of her body with their fingertips. Grandmother, in high spirits, talked about the chrysanthemum dolls at Kokugikan. She eventually said her feet were getting cold and went up into the house. “I may not have lost to any woman back in my youth, but look at me now—just waiting to die. Threading the needle takes as long as the sewing itself these days, I tell ya.”

Everyone said they wanted to hold an eightieth birthday celebration for her early next year, but she said it was a wasteful expense. “It’s perfectly fine to have such things done for you—everyone would be delighted! Please do go ahead with it. I want to celebrate something for you too.” “It’s kind of you, but...”

Grandmother, trying not to let Kiyo—who had moved away—hear, looked around anxiously and began whispering in a flustered voice. “If y’all keep fussing over useless things like this, I ain’t getting any enjoyment from it, I tell ya.” “You ain’t got no call to come here.” Nobuko was troubled. She gave a vague murmur. “Hmm…” “I don’t know why it’s like this, but there ain’t no use in any of it, I tell ya.”

Kiyo, who usually had no one to talk to，would often chat and keep her company whenever Grandmother came. She would speak of how she had no sons，only daughters，and therefore—

“They’re utterly useless—just castoffs someone gave me.” Kiyo went on like this. Grandmother countered by recounting how she’d borne three sons yet only Nobuko’s father survived, then tallied up her grandchildren including those from her other daughters. She,

“There are a great many grandchildren, but perhaps because this one has been close since childhood, she’s the dearest of all.”

With that, she looked at Nobuko. "I kept thinking I'd die any day now, but who knows—I might yet live to see my great-grandchildren..." Grandmother looked happy as she ate her dry sweets and pondered something, then adopted a serious expression and muttered. "...You look like you're about to collapse—maybe you ain't sturdy enough, I tell ya..." "Why? I'm perfectly healthy." "How come you ain't had no child yet, I tell ya?"

With an old-fashioned lack of reserve, Grandmother continued. “Young people these days have children right after marrying into a household, don’t they?” “Oh, come on—I don’t care about that!” “I was thinking maybe you ain’t sturdy enough… Come to think of it, Mr. Tsukuda’s complexion is always poor—could it be he’s the sterile one, I tell ya?” Nobuko grew earnest, “Please stop that kind of talk.” she cut in. She found it so unpleasant that tears threatened to spill. She found any discussion about children, no matter when or by whom it was raised, utterly distasteful. To have even Grandmother speak of it in such terms—to be discussed as if she were livestock or something—was unbearable. As she hurriedly tried to change the subject, Kiyo, from beside her, leaned far toward Grandmother with a knowing smile and said in a loud voice, as if speaking to someone hard of hearing.

“Madam Dowager, there’s no need for concern—a joyous occasion will soon be upon us, I assure you.” Then she shot Nobuko a sidelong glance brimming with an annoyingly knowing smile.

“What a disgusting old woman!” Even though she knew how much I hated it. The meaning behind Kiyo’s prophetic-sounding whisper became clear to Nobuko. She had hinted that through woman’s intuition, she knew Nobuko’s monthly cycle was already half a month late. Grandmother merely replied absently, “Is that so… I wonder.” Even after Grandmother had put on her hood and left by rickshaw, Nobuko remained unable to free herself from her unpleasant emotional state. Even without Kiyo needing to say it, Nobuko had already grown thoroughly neurotic about the minor changes in her own body. For several days now, from time to time, an anxiety akin to what an animal might feel had been assailing her. Nobuko was already terrified of becoming a mother, and now, at this time when her life was riddled with doubts, what would happen if she had a child who might possess the right to bind her to that very life?

Leaning against the pillar as the dimness around her grew deeper, Nobuko thought of many things and sank into despondency. When she probed the depths of her own heart, it even seemed to her that the one promise she had pressed upon Tsukuda when they married—that she absolutely did not want to become a mother—might have been driven by what could be called some subtle feminine intuition. The reason Nobuko had given with her intellect was her work. But now, this disgust and anxiety that refused to let her heart settle were not born of such intellectual considerations. It was more instinctive. Some instinct was screaming with anxiety. Even if I respected and loved Tsukuda as my husband, would I feel such profound terror? At the very moment she took Tsukuda as her husband, the woman within her might have perceived that he was someone she could not accept as a father and rejected him. And might it not be that she had erected such defenses? I hate to have that man’s child. But I accept him as my husband. ……

Driven by complex emotions, Nobuko quietly asked her husband when they were alone that night.

“Hey... don’t you want children?”

Tsukuda scratched his head with his fingers as if they were a comb, combed through his hair with a swish, and answered loudly while gazing at the strands that had come loose. “Children are just noisy and unbearable.” And, “It’s falling out quite a bit.” He scratched his head with both hands and let the dandruff fall onto his lap.

5

1

It was an eventful late March—one that saw an exhibition held in Ueno and a visit from His Royal Highness the British Crown Prince.

Soft light that seemed to envelop both body and soul streamed from the veranda into every corner of the room. Tsukuda’s elderly father, who would soon turn seventy, “Even within Japan itself, how different things can be... When I departed that place at dusk, it was a blizzard—yet here in Tokyo, spring has already come in full.” he said while squinting at the dazzling sunlight. “...Today feels special, doesn’t it?...” Nobuko lowered her face from the direct sunlight and glanced at the old man beside her.

"My, how your beard gleams!" Tsukuda’s elderly father looked down at his own chest and spread his fingers to arrange his white beard from underneath. The long white beard gleamed purely in the spring light, like Chinese somen noodles. "Why do you wash it?" “I was told to wash it with egg whites—when freshly groomed, it’s quite a sight, so I kept at it diligently—but for someone like me who enjoys going out… The beard gets sunburned, you see, and soon turns back to that dull color again.……”

……It was tranquil…… Nobuko felt as pleasantly at ease as if she were sunbathing with her own grandfather.

Tsukuda slid open the door and entered. “I’ll just go make a phone call.” “Hm.” “Is there anything you need?” “Well now—since I myself might have to go out somewhere later…” Nobuko laughed at the thick black mantle Tsukuda had bundled himself in and his woolen scarf. “Goodness, you must be sweltering out there!” “That’s not true at all.” “Well then, I’ll be off for a bit.” Coming from the sunlit room into the shadowy four-and-a-half-mat space where objects remained indistinct for a while, Nobuko was putting away the laundry when Tsukuda returned, having finished his errand. The old man was reading a newspaper alone in the eight-mat room. Without heading that way, he,

“I’m home.” While saying this, he stood behind Nobuko. “That took a while, didn’t it? The post office?” “It’s always like this—the young ones take forever with their calculations.”

“Wasn’t it just the phone call?…” Nobuko turned around and looked at her husband. His face seemed to vaguely show some emotion. “Why?—Do say ‘I’m home’ properly.” Tsukuda rotated his neck several times as he unwound his scarf,

“I called the company,” he said, referring to Nobuko’s father’s workplace. “Was there something you needed?” “Starting Friday evening, I’ll be coming up with my father—I called to ask if that would be convenient for you.”

Nobuko made a strange face as though she'd been blindsided. "What did they say?"

“They likely consider it acceptable, but since they’ll provide a definite answer tomorrow, they instructed me to call again.” “――――”

That her father’s disposition had made such a reply inevitable became clear to Nobuko.

Even so, why hadn't he discussed it with her before making the call? Nobuko understood well Tsukuda's reluctance to inform his elderly father—who had come to stay with them for the first time since they established their household—about the unpleasant circumstances with Sasa that had persisted since last autumn. It was only natural that he would want his father to meet his wife's parents properly before returning home. Yet Tsukuda had severed all communication last year and reached this day without any reconciliation. Moved by her grandmother's illogical yet wholehearted concern, Nobuko alone had begun making occasional visits since spring. It was a distorted relationship. Amidst this unreconciled state, Tsukuda's attitude—attempting to bring the old man along with nothing but a sudden phone call and what felt like an overbearing advance notice—struck her as missing something essential.

Beyond the L-shaped veranda, the old man was warming his back in the sun while listening absently to their voices. Nobuko could hardly bring herself to voice even half of what she wanted to say. “It would have been better if you had told me first... That alone wouldn’t settle things.” He silently exchanged glances with Nobuko, but after a while, “Well, fine.”

He said resignedly. “We’ll find out when I call again tomorrow.”

And he left for the sitting room. The voices of father and son could be heard. “How about we go to Ueno today?” “He must be quite the important man—but whenever you say ‘when,’ there’s probably never a time when it’s not crowded—” The old man let out a dry cough. “...Has Nobuko-san already come?”

“Not yet… She must not be too fond of it.” “She should come along. “It’s such nice weather too…” Nobuko went out with them to see the exhibition. Dandelions were blooming on the embankment of Aoyama Imperial Palace, and the cherry blossoms along the moat were in nearly full bloom. On the train, rural visitors wearing matching flower hairpins and hand towels boarded. At the venue, the old man seemed to take a deep interest in the lumber and agricultural products gathered from various prefectures. “Even though it’s still called agriculture, nowadays everything’s completely different from when I was young." “Even though there are so many types of rice now compared to before, what everyone’s really after is getting bigger harvests faster.—The quicker and more abundant a variety yields, the blander it tastes, I tell you...”

Walking slowly with the white-bearded old man—who wore a traditional fur cap and double-layered garment—as they viewed samples like bottled wheat grains with red ribbons among the lumber was a rare and pleasant feeling for Nobuko. However, Tsukuda grew impatient, walking ahead of his elderly father and Nobuko, and at times ended up separating himself from them. Trying not to be left behind, the two of them naturally began to hurry. Tsukuda, “Shall we look at this one too?” “It’s just like the ones over there, isn’t it?”

As he said this and started to stop, the elderly father hesitantly— “That’s enough—no matter how much we look, they’re all much of a muchness, I tell you.” With that, he too passed straight through without stopping. “If possible, I’d like to see the second venue today as well.” Nobuko felt unbearably sorry whenever she saw the elderly man either straining to quicken his pace or dismissing things as uninteresting and passing them by—even though he might have wanted to look—forcing himself all the while. She wanted to let him view the exhibits slowly and thoroughly, so that he could have stories to bring back home. She adjusted her grip on the Western umbrella that served as a cane and said to the old man trying to push through the crowd after Tsukuda.

“Let’s take our time—we’ll be fine even if we get separated… If we rush, you’ll get tired.”

At the edge of the pond, they entered the World Bazaar. On the stage was placed a seaside backdrop with palm trees, and before it appeared two nude women wearing only grass waist skirts. Their fierce-looking black curly heads were adorned with floral wreaths, and similar flower decorations hung from their chests. A black male musician seated nearby thudded the floor with one leg in white pants while playing sensual South Seas-style music on a banjo and ukulele. In time with this, the women lined up clapping their hands, stomping their feet, and moving their arms while making their entire bodies quiver and undulate as their muscles trembled. The body of the plump woman who appeared to be over thirty moved with extraordinary, almost inhuman agility. Even from a distance, one could see her loose, sagging belly protruding above the grass waist skirt twisting and writhing up, down, right, and left in time with the music. At the edge of the stage was a sign that read "Egyptian Muscle Tremor Dance."

“What a strange dance, I tell you—” Nobuko laughed. Though crude, their proud twisting and shaking of their bellies in such exaggerated movements struck her as amusingly childish.

Tsukuda had been watching in silence, but eventually muttered bitterly. “How vulgar.” The nude women on stage, even when facing hundreds of spectators, appeared as carefree and wild as if they were on their home beach. They would sing a few lines of a song while joking around with each other, only to suddenly start earnestly and enthusiastically twisting their stomachs and hips as if remembering their act.

They returned home around seven o'clock, exhausted.

II

Having changed only into her haori, Nobuko began working in the kitchen.

While washing dishes, she heard the gate open and sensed someone approaching beneath the kitchen’s side window. “Good evening—” Nobuko slid open the frosted-glass shoji and looked out. In the dim light, she saw a woman’s profile. “Good evening.” “Pardon me—this is from the Yamashitas across the way. Mr. Sasa telephoned earlier.” “When I said you were out, he requested that you call him immediately upon returning.”

The girl was indeed Yamashita’s maid. “Oh, I see. Thank you very much.” “Thank you for going to the trouble so many times despite your busy schedule.”

This summons felt both unexpected and yet not entirely so to Nobuko. From the moment Tsukuda had informed her that morning about calling the company, she had been anticipating this. They were sure to contact her from Dōzaka. If not today, then surely tomorrow. Accompanied by oppressive emotions, she had kept thinking this while walking through the exhibition grounds.

Nobuko said, “There was a call from Dōzaka.”

As she said this, she went to check the eight-tatami room. Between the elderly father and her husband, a Tokyo map lay spread out. Tsukuda, who had apparently been explaining some suburban area with his head bent close, lifted his face while keeping a finger pressed on one spot.

“……?” “Earlier... They said to call immediately once you return...” He answered with affected nonchalance. “Then they can call back themselves.” “In that case.”

When Nobuko heard that voice, she was overcome by an oddly unpleasant feeling.

The elderly father removed his glasses and looked between the two of them. “What could this be about, at this hour?” “Well…” While slipping into her geta, Nobuko listened as Tsukuda gave a brief, seemingly reluctant explanation before immediately turning back to the map. Takeyo answered the phone. It was exactly as Nobuko had anticipated—the nature of the call. “Since it seems I’ve only just heard the full story now that Father has returned, there’s something I absolutely must discuss, so could you come over right away?” Nobuko was perplexed on the phone.

“It’s already late, and I’m worn out from escorting someone to the exhibition today—couldn’t we do this tomorrow instead?” On the other end, her father seemed to be by the phone too, and her mother’s voice echoed Nobuko’s words back. “That would be acceptable,” came the reply, “but tomorrow I must attend a condolence call, which complicates matters, and if we wait until Friday—as you know—there’ll hardly be any days left. So unless we settle matters before then, I imagine you’d find that troublesome too...”

“Then I’ll come over… Though it’ll be a bit late.” Nobuko returned to her own home through the lonely, dark back street in one go. As soon as she opened the sliding door, the elderly man asked seriously and with apparent anxiety, “What was it? Is someone ill?”

Nobuko, unable to come up with an immediate response, “No, it wasn’t that… I’m back.” She lightly placed her hands before the elderly man and bowed her head. And then, without addressing either of them directly, she said.

“...I have to go to Dōzaka now, but...” Tsukuda replied with the unnatural coldness of one who knew everything about the situation, “I see.” he said. “Then, take care not to catch cold.”

“What a bother this must be... at this hour...”

Nobuko sensed that the old man was deeply wondering in his heart what this could possibly be about. He was simply refraining from voicing it out of consideration. Nobuko found it painful to leave while pretending not to know about it. “Since I will surely be returning late, please go ahead and have your meal without me.” Nobuko came to their room and slipped her arms back into the haori jacket she had left hanging on the clothes rack. She took out a woolen coat from the cupboard. Until she finished putting on her gloves, Nobuko deliberately took her time, anxiously waiting for her husband. The need to deceive the elderly father, the exhaustion of riding the train alone again, and the impending errand—all of it left her disheartened. She had expected Tsukuda would come to this room before she left and offer at least a word or glance to encourage her. With only her scarf left to put on, Nobuko lingered in the center of the room. Tsukuda, perhaps cautious not to seem like he was having a private talk with his father, showed no sign of coming no matter how long she waited. Nobuko—

"Hey!" she called out in a loud voice to her husband. "Where are the train tickets?" Contrary to Nobuko's wishes, her husband did not come over and answered while remaining in the eight-tatami room. "They should be in the coat's usual pocket."

The coat was hanging on the bent nail in the entryway. Nobuko reluctantly went out to the genkan. “Well then... I’ll take my leave.” “What time will you return?” “It’s already this late to be going out... But do come back—no matter how late it gets.”

III

Nobuko left the Dōzaka house at midnight. She had a rickshaw hailed. As the rickshaw slowly made its way along the midnight tramway—where shops had closed and the rows of houses on either side suddenly seemed to drop away—she occasionally exchanged words with the rickshaw driver. From Dōzaka to Akasaka, it was a long journey by rickshaw. As she was jostled along, the fatigue from the day caught up with her, and she wanted to close her eyes. When she opened her eyes next, the rickshaw seemed to be approaching Ushigome Mitsuke—pine—pine—no matter how far they went, there were only thick pine trunks. Lanterns flickered. The rubber tires went thud! Thud! They sent small gravel scattering faintly...

Jolted back and forth, Nobuko found herself thinking back on all sorts of things her parents had said and other matters. The Sasa parents' argument had been valid. While it was understandable that Tsukuda would try not to dishearten his father—who didn't have much time left—what were they to do about everything that had happened until now? Since they hadn't hesitated before, they ought to somehow bring this matter to closure. Her parents had been saying it must be wrong to think a single phone call could settle everything based on their own convenience. On that point, Nobuko agreed.

If Tsukuda hadn’t hidden it and made that phone call, she could have found a way to make him act without damaging his dignity. Even now, Nobuko could not understand why her husband had done such a thing without telling her, and she felt ill at ease. “Not just this time—Mr. Tsukuda’s actions aren’t aboveboard. I know this sounds old-fashioned, but even during the move, why does he always put you out front to do the work? Back then too, we were quite displeased.” “Mr. Tsukuda never handles things himself, but whenever necessary, he always makes you take the lead to manipulate us—when we see you being sent all the way here tonight like some pushover, how could we possibly say we find it disagreeable?”

When Takeyo mentioned "during the move," this was what she meant. In that house in Katamachi where the western sun reached the walls, they had lived until February when one day, through a general directory, they found an affordable rental house in a convenient Akasaka location. As it was also near Tsukuda's workplace, Nobuko and the others went to inspect it immediately. Though only a short distance from the train line, it was an old house on a quiet backstreet with vines crawling over its fence. It was quite dilapidated. But maple trees and roses grew in the narrow vacant lot, lending it a certain settled charm that made them decide to rent it. Moving help and carpenters suddenly became urgently needed. At night,

“What should we do?” Nobuko consulted her husband.

“We’ll need a truck, right?” “Well... Even if we go somewhere unfamiliar, they’ll just overcharge us... But there must be someone from Dōzaka who handles these things.” “There is.” “Why don’t you ask them to check on that over the phone?” “Tonight?” “The sooner the better.” Tsukuda took Nobuko to the nearby public telephone. He waited outside the booth. Nobuko said, “Oh, Mother? We suddenly found a good house today.”

In that manner, she arranged for a moving company and other necessities. In Dōzaka, at any rate, they had all agreed to Nobuko’s requests. When she hung up and came out, Tsukuda— “How did it go?”

“How did it go?” he said as he approached. “They said it’s fine.” Tsukuda looked satisfied, “You should be the one to make the call, so...” he said. That was what he had been saying. But Nobuko could clearly recall her own satisfied emotional state from when she had answered, “They said it’s fine,” so she couldn’t bring herself to think that Tsukuda alone was at fault. If Nobuko had been firm, he would have said to stop asking Dōzaka for such things. That alone would have salvaged Tsukuda’s credibility, but Nobuko, being equally careless and complacent, had ended up proceeding with it despite thinking it somewhat ill-advised. When her mother had pointed that out to her, Nobuko had felt ashamed and angry at herself,

“I was also at fault there…” she said. “I should have said it was wrong.”

“I should have said that it was wrong.”

“That may be so. “But there’s fifteen years between you and Mr. Tsukuda, and he’s a man—a full-grown adult. “I say this because you can’t possibly shoulder responsibility for every last thing he does out in the world.”

The rickshaw was climbing the dark slope near the Imperial Palace at that moment—slowly, laboriously slow—a pace that matched Nobuko's ponderous self-reproach. While striving for an ideal lifestyle she imagined as brisk and refined, one that lacked proper gravitas in spirit, Nobuko saw with clarity how indecisive she became when facing actual matters, leaving her gloomy. Tsukuda was shiftless, and I was shiftless too. A matched pair. Nobuko kept thinking these things as resentment toward them both welled up within her.

Thud. Suddenly, the crossbar came down, and Nobuko regained her senses. She gave a gratuity to the rickshaw driver and unlocked the gate. Only the gate light and the lamp beyond the lattice were lit, while throughout the house and neighboring homes, a slumbering stillness swelled within the midnight darkness. Nobuko ascended to the entrance without making a sound and took off her coat in the faint light from outside. A sudden streak of light shot through the gap in the sliding door on the right. Tsukuda seemed to have woken up. Nobuko stealthily closed the sliding door behind her back with one hand, circled around the edge of the bedding, and sat down beside her husband's pillow. In a whisper,

“I’m home.” Tsukuda lay on the pillow, his cheeks looking warm from having slept deeply for a while. “Welcome back… How did it go?” “—Are you busy tomorrow?” “Why do you ask?” “About Dōzaka—it’s exactly as I thought. They said that phone call alone feels too pushy—since we’re going to the trouble of inviting Father over, they want us to meet once beforehand to clear the air—could you come tomorrow? With me—”

Tsukuda asked in a low voice, as if wounded, “Are you telling me to apologize?” He looked up at Nobuko, his upper eyelids lifting tautly. Nobuko—lowering her face painfully to avoid waking the elderly and speaking softly—shook her head vehemently while furrowing her brows. “No, I’m not saying you should apologize or anything like that. It’s just about meeting to talk so we can both—well, clear the air.” “That way feels more natural, really.” “After we parted like quarreling strangers and spent over half a year apart—if we suddenly meet face-to-face, even you wouldn’t be able to speak naturally, would you?”

Nobuko pressed her lips to her husband’s ear and whispered. “They understand your feelings too, you know.” Tsukuda lay supine on the white pillow, silently staring at the ceiling, but eventually spoke without moving his lips, still facing upward. “If you say that’s what will make you happy, I’ll go. I’ll do anything.”

Nobuko made a look as if something had caught in her throat and looked down at her husband’s upturned face. An agonizing confusion assailed her. Tsukuda—what strange habits or ways of thinking he must have. The summer before last, when they were in Dōzaka, there had been a fierce dispute over whether to adopt him or not. At that time as well, Tsukuda’s response to both Nobuko and her parents had been that same insistence: “I’ll do anything. If it’s for Nobuko’s happiness, I’ll do anything.” That had been his sole insistence. Nobuko had suffered so terribly over that.

“Look, your attitude isn’t helping anything at all.” “My happiness lies in your courageous refusal.” He responded, “Oh, please don’t cry so much—because I love you this much, Nobuko!” “Nobuko!” He spent the whole night swearing his love and stroking Nobuko’s hair, yet he never once gave her parents a definite answer the next morning. Because of that, Nobuko suffered to the point of hysterics. The adoption issue faded into obscurity during this time. The anguish of her confused heart from that time reawakened, and Nobuko became terrified that the same thing was beginning again. She,

"My happiness—isn't it strange somehow?" She released a sigh tinged with anguish and irony. "Even setting that aside, isn't it simply natural? I mean, since you went charging ahead so abruptly, this is just about going back through the proper steps." …………

Tsukuda remained facing upward with a displeased expression.

“If you don’t want to come, just say so—of course I’m fine with it.”

Nobuko whispered eagerly.

“There’s absolutely no need for you to apologize.” “Since it was Dōzaka who spouted nonsense in the first place.” “—If we’ve already told Father everything, then let’s just not go. Right?” “In fact, that might be more admirable—that way...” Tsukuda remained silent, still staring at the ceiling. “Hey, stop staring over there… Why are you staying silent?” “So—if you wish for it, I’ll go, I’m telling you.”

“No, I don’t want that.” “Why?” “But—did you really think everything would just go smoothly after making a phone call like that and leaving it at that? Did you think that by simply saying ‘yes’ and agreeing, everything would work out? Be honest.”

“…………” On the way home in the rickshaw, Nobuko spoke with a bitterness that stemmed from doubly resenting both her own self-reproach—which she had been stewing over throughout the journey—and Tsukuda’s peculiar way of handling those emotions that always tormented her. “If you’re being honest, that’s not really it, is it? “Then isn’t this something you’d have to do anyway? “You’re not doing this for my happiness—you’re doing it because it’s necessary given how things stand. “So it’s fine again—I won’t let you act like you’re doing me some grand favor.”

“—Since you tell me to go, I’m simply obeying.” “I never told you to go! If it’s so galling for you to bend and comply, then I’m saying you should just stop going to Dōzaka! If you want to show Father a respectable front and reassure him, then fine—go. It has to be one or the other. Which one do you actually want? Honestly!” “…………” “—You’re truly strange.”

Nobuko shed tears like bitter sap. “Can’t you be a little more honest? I’d hate that even more than making some clumsy mistake.” “I’ll go, then.” “Whether you go or not doesn’t matter to me—it’s that kind of talk that makes me angry. Someone like you, who can’t rest unless you do everything for someone else—you’re a rare breed.”

The next morning, when Nobuko said good morning to the old man, she felt terribly awkward and had to make an effort to appear unperturbed. Through the elderly father's wisdom, he remained as composed as ever. Yet the sharp-eared old man, having been roused by the noise, could not have failed to hear Nobuko's varied utterances and weeping in the room just beyond the single storage closet.

That day, Nobuko said nothing more about whether to go to Dōzaka.

After one o'clock, Tsukuda spoke up. “Since it’s become necessary for me to go to Dōzaka briefly today, would you mind going to Meiji Shrine alone?” he proposed. “Hmm—so someone was at fault after all?” “Mother just—it’s nothing serious.” “In that case, splendid.—Benkei Bridge will be upon us soon—I know that area well from my youth when I often wandered about—so take your time sightseeing there without a worry.”

“Well then.” Tsukuda urged Nobuko. “Is your hair fine as it is now?”

They stayed in Dōzaka until evening. Sasa had returned as well and was there. For Nobuko, this proved to be an excruciating vigil. With the round table at center stage—Sasa enthroned in a voluminous armchair, Mother facing him across its circumference, Tsukuda wedged between them—their halting exchanges reached Nobuko's ears from the sidelines as three discordant heartbeats refusing synchronization. Sasa naturally abhorred contentious debates. Having concluded some familial bond must persist, he meant to resolve matters amicably. Thus he uttered only temperate platitudes. Takeyo knew full well compromise loomed inevitable—yet her husband's tepid neutrality grated, Tsukuda's wishy-washy sentiments rankled, her own half-hearted vexations coiled tighter—until petty squabbles with Tsukuda hovered on the brink of resuming.

"Takeyo says she wants to use this opportunity to achieve harmony going forward, and I too wish to do so." "It would be fortunate if you would reconsider that, Mother." "Since I don't believe I've done anything wrong in the first place, it's not that I've reconsidered anything." Takeyo said irritably. "You said you wanted to come with Father, so I thought there ought to be some proper discussion—that's why I came here."

Sasa interjected words to mediate between both sides. “Well, since we’ve become family, we must live as peacefully as possible without misunderstandings—arguing would get us nowhere.” It was a poignancy akin to watching a motion picture through a lens that refused to focus. The three hearts drew closer and closer, nearly coalescing into a single image—then the outlines began to quiver, only to dissipate hazily and blur into three indistinct layers.

The discussion was not brought to a close through amicable understanding but was terminated out of weariness with the cyclical exchange of words. Tsukuda’s elderly father was invited to Friday’s dinner as initially planned.

On the way there, Nobuko had not been cheerful, but on the return journey her spirits grew heavier still. A sense that nothing was clear—nothing bright—bore down upon her heart like a weight. Why was it that in their dealings with Tsukuda, herself, and Sasa’s parents, neither conflict nor reconciliation ever seemed to improve anything? Not a single matter found clean resolution. Good and evil alike remained half-formed, shrouded in ambiguities she could not parse. The elderly father had not yet returned home. Tsukuda changed into his everyday clothes and slumped into the chair before his desk with an air of relief. Stretching his entire body, he spoke to Nobuko behind him.

“Phew—that’s finally settled.—When I brought up my deceased mother, Father was weeping, you see. Mother didn’t shed tears, but... Father most certainly had tears streaming down his face.”

He said this while slowly recalling it, as if savoring the aftertaste himself. That peculiar tone first caught Nobuko’s attention, then stirred terror. “――――”

Nobuko started to open her mouth as if to say something but fell silent and drew in a breath. Had he truly done that with such cold composure in his heart—calmly waiting to observe the effect? Tsukuda had spoken with such tearful emotion about losing his birth mother at five years old—about that endless loneliness he had tried to fill by loving Nobuko’s parents and being loved by them in turn—how eagerly he had anticipated this, yet it had not proceeded harmoniously, how nothing could be more regrettable than this—and yet. So that was how it had been. ...Nobuko wanted to laugh aloud. At the same time, she wanted to strike Tsukuda down. A violent recklessness swept through her. Both Sasa and Nobuko had been skillfully drawn into that pitiful reminiscence. Even Takeyo had softened her tone somewhat afterward, settling—in that drawn-out way—on something like "Well then..."

IV

Nobuko went out sightseeing nearly every day with the old man and her husband. They visited Sengaku-ji too. There were large glass-fronted cases like museum displays, exhibiting faded garments and calligraphy of the loyal retainers. As she gazed at items like the fan once used by Ōishi Kuranosuke, Nobuko felt a sharp question pierce her—Is it right to go on like this?—and was gripped by a dizziness so intense it threatened to swallow her consciousness. Tsukuda appeared utterly oblivious to how lethally his words—spoken after returning from Sasa's home some days prior—had struck Nobuko's heart. From that point onward, she perceived with increasing clarity the fissure running through her life with Tsukuda, her anxiety persisting unrelentingly. The doubt welling from her depths—Is it right to go on like this?—like a voice murmuring through empty air, would seize her heart repeatedly in unforeseen moments. Whenever this happened, Nobuko would be caught—for two or three breaths—in such violent inner tension that she lost all sense of where she stood or what she did.

When alone, the question shouted even louder. Immediately demanding a response, it assailed Nobuko. Nobuko’s rational mind had produced an answer. But it was as though an opposing force existed that sought to prevent even her from declaring it. —However, Nobuko renewed her terror of living as Tsukuda’s wife. She found it terrifying even to think that this state would continue for a lifetime.

It was an afternoon typical of late spring, with a dusty wind blowing. Under the eaves of the neighboring house—its storm shutters drawn tight—a small red cloth hung drying. Each time a warm, arid gust swept through, both the slender bamboo pole and that crimson scrap swayed together. Only that tiny garden and the shadowed eaves lay quiet in the stillness. With her cheek propped on her hand as she watched this scene, Nobuko found herself tormented by indecision too agonizing to resolve. Tsukuda and his father had both gone out on their separate errands, leaving her utterly alone in the house.

“Excuse me—are you home?”

Yokoo came unexpectedly.

“My, what a rare visitor—please come in.”

Yokoo was an unusual man. His sister had married a young man working at Nobuko's father's company. Once, that couple brought Yokoo—the brother—and introduced him. This dated back to their time living in Komagome; afterward, he would occasionally stop by for hours to chat before leaving. By his own account, his proficiency in various languages had landed him in circumstances where he ended up doing translation work rather than creative writing—a situation he deemed unfavorable. While removing his Inverness cape in the genkan corner, he bent his neck—his hearing being somewhat poor—and stooped his rounded back as he inquired of Nobuko.

"Are you alone? “And Mr. Tsukuda?” “He went out for a bit today, but he should be back soon.” “He’s still on break, isn’t he?” “Yes. Apparently His Highness will be visiting the school soon, so he went for that consultation.” “Apparently His Highness will be visiting the school soon—that’s what the consultation is about.” “Ah.” Yokoo nodded deeply, “I see.” He continued to nod in agreement with himself several more times. It was his habit. He kept glancing toward Nobuko’s desk. "Have you been writing anything lately?" “Nothing at all—and you? Are you busy?” “Are you busy?”

“I’m always getting chased around by trivial things, you know.” “Translation—are you working on anything interesting?” “Well…it’s not particularly interesting, I’d say. Sure, reading it can be enjoyable enough on its own. But when you actually have to translate it? That’s rather dreadful.” Compared to his sturdy build, he produced a strangely weak laugh. “What are you...?” “The Improvisatore… I have the original first edition of that… but it’s such a hassle… I’m comparing it with the German version…”

“His autobiography—it must be fascinating. Have you read it?” “Ah—there was something like that, wasn’t there?” He noticed a book on the side table, still wrapped in Maruzen’s packaging.

“What’s that?” Nobuko laughed. “My, how observant.” At the end of their small talk, he said, “How about it—when you have a house, working must be quite difficult, don’t you think?”

“—How about men?” “Well, I can’t say for certain—having no experience myself. But...while the added burden is undoubtedly a drawback, people do seem to find greater stability overall.”

And then, Yokoo nodded repeatedly to himself, as was his habit. “Is that because their wives take better care of them than when they were single? That’s how they gain some mental breathing room—for women, no matter how you look at it, the situation is completely reversed.” “Is that unacceptable? I suppose.” Nobuko felt strangely responsible for her own words. “I can’t state it definitively—I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s absolutely impossible. But…how should I put this? Even when a man becomes a husband, he can remain himself through and through, don’t you think? It seems that wives are required to possess something beyond what they’re born with—some sort of wife-like attributes, don’t you think? The role of a wife—isn’t it perilous in how it forces women to develop adaptability to extremes? It’s frightening how you can manage even without maintaining any sense of ‘self,’ don’t you think?”

While speaking jokingly, Nobuko felt within her heart the vast loneliness particular to women. “—It’s a difficult matter, isn’t it?” “Everyone knows it’s difficult in theory, but when reality comes into play, it grows all the more complex.” “So one might say staying single is better—but abandoning domestic life entirely for work? That sort of awkward existence—I couldn’t manage it. Don’t you think few people—men or women—are truly living natural, free lives suited to themselves?” “It requires courage.”

“Yes—yes, it’s restrictive, especially in Japan… Absolutely.”

While they were conversing about such matters, Tsukuda came home. Nobuko went to the entryway. "Mr. Yokoo has come." "Ah."

Tsukuda went straight into the room where Yokoo was. “Welcome.” “Ah—I came by while you were out,” said Yokoo. “How are things? You must be quite busy.” Tsukuda sank deep into a chair, twisting his upper body to prop one elbow on its back as if embracing it. “Well—still busy as ever and wasting away—you’ve certainly filled out nicely.” To Nobuko, who had entered with fresh tea, his words felt oddly jagged-edged, as though meant to wound.

“—Well then, I suppose it’s convenient for people like you and me…” Yokoo made no sound, parted his lips with a soft exhale, tilted his head upward, and formed something resembling a smile. An awkward silence descended. It seemed the situation wouldn’t resolve unless someone broached official matters. Frowning, Yokoo rummaged through his pocket and produced a folded manuscript. “If you might spare a moment, I thought to ask you about this…”

“What is this—Greek?” “I have a rough idea that it’s something along these lines, but it’s still ambiguous.” “It seems like a poem—is it quoted from something?” Yokoo glanced at Nobuko, “It’s quite troublesome how Western scholars immediately invoke Latin and Greece whenever anything comes up.”

Yokoo laughed. “Is it urgent?” “No, there’s no rush.” “Then I’ll hold onto it for now.”

The conversation lapsed again, and an uncomfortable atmosphere settled over them. Yokoo,

“Please see to this properly.”

Shortly after saying this, he left. After seeing him off, she returned to the room again. Tsukuda picked up the scrap of paper Yokoo had left behind and stood there looking at it, but with a hmph-like expression, he placed it on the nearest bookshelf. Nobuko felt a vague sense of discomfort.

“Are you sure? Leaving it there like that?” “It’s fine.” Tsukuda appeared even displeased by Nobuko’s show of concern as he spoke.

“When did he come?”

"Why?" The affected retort slid from Nobuko's lips almost of its own accord.

“Why? Because you think I interrupted you again—when there was nothing but trivial nonsense to talk about anyway.”

——Nobuko made a sarcastic face and shrugged her shoulders. She was overcome with spitefulness. Even when her friends visited, there had scarcely been a single instance where Tsukuda proved to be a pleasant companion. When he appeared in the room, visitors would start preparing to leave. Even female guests were no exception. Now too, he was clearly unsettled—and once again, for some inexplicable reason that held no responsibility on Nobuko’s part, he refused to address it directly, resorting instead to that disingenuous pretense of kindness. She abruptly thrust forward as if to push away,

“You weren’t in the way at all—I had a great time.” She spitefully retorted. Tsukuda, expressing his resentment through silence, went to change into a kimono. Nobuko—driven not by affection but by irritation, disgust, and hatred, emotions that bound her to her adversary—followed after Tsukuda as well. In truth, her feelings toward Yokoo were far more complex. She disliked how he kept glancing toward the desk and his oddly inquisitive manner. Even so, her husband’s way of speaking robbed Nobuko of her composure. As she watched Tsukuda—who, though aware of her presence, pretended otherwise as he removed his Western clothes and hung them in the wardrobe—staring at the stubbornly thick bone behind his ear, she felt a blind impulse welling up within her. Ah, this composed demeanor! If she could torment him, torment him until he was worn down enough to speak his true mind, how relieved she would feel. Not this composed him! Not this evasive him! I want to see that him! I want that him!—tenaciously, even if beaten down, I won’t back down from here. With fierce passion, Nobuko’s mind clouded. She felt two violent forces clashing within herself, tearing her apart. Somewhere within, something fervently urged her to stop—insisting it would be better to give up, to walk away instead. Ignoring it completely, brushing it aside, there was another force—single-mindedly, single-mindedly eager to pick a fight, desperate to lash out. A ferocity so violent it wanted to shatter both herself and him into pieces and scream Serves you right!—Once Tsukuda finished changing, with his characteristic cleverness, he left the storage room without a word, without so much as a glance back, in utter silence. Nobuko suddenly felt an indescribable emptiness. Sadness toward both herself and him overwhelmed her. Nobuko stood there and sobbed quietly.

Before long, Tsukuda’s elderly father returned home.

Nobuko entered the kitchen and began boiling fish. The stifling air of the narrow kitchen, heated by the fire, wrapped around Nobuko’s anguished heart and tormented her all the more. For Nobuko, there was now another sorrow. If this had been one of their quarrels from a year ago, would I have been so contrary—stubbornly protecting myself alone with a heart filled with disgust and darkness? Nobuko had no choice but to apologize to him, if only because of her own emotional state that couldn’t accept Tsukuda’s words straightforwardly. She would steal over to her husband,

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she thought. She would have given a cheerful wave in apology. Afterward, they could have at least felt somewhat refreshed compared to before the quarrel. Even now, Nobuko knew full well her own boldness. She understood that she herself had been severely agitated by her pent-up anguish—far more than by any immediate cause. Yet she simply couldn't bring herself to speak of such feelings to Tsukuda or apologize as she once had. If she were to go to him and confess, he would listen as though it were only natural that Nobuko engage in self-reflection and regret—as though he'd been expecting it all along. Then, without so much as a lash to his own conscience, he would surely bestow his blessing upon her like some spotless lamb.

Thinking of that, Nobuko seethed. Tsukuda’s hypocritical mental posture seemed to suffocate Nobuko.

Nobuko, who had been staring at the gas flame flickering beneath the pot and sinking into thought, found her body trembling at the terror of their life together as a man and a woman. What was this path that was gradually widening before her? Was this not the path where a woman ceases to be human? Even were she to act out in any outwardly selfish way—even were she to degenerate into a shameless troublemaker—to escape the pain, anguish, and frustration of their life together, Tsukuda would continue playing his role as the seemingly flawless, magnanimous, patient husband.

Nobuko shed tears out of despair and terror. Long, quiet tears—so sorrowful they made her want to burrow into the earth.

Five

The British Crown Prince's visit aroused general goodwill. A large welcome gate was erected at Bajo. By night under the arc lamps' glow, both the shuffling crowds and the pine branches along the moat looked different than usual. After observing the lively event, Tsukuda's elderly father returned to his home country with practical souvenirs useful for rural life. When they left the windows open, night air carried the scents of spring soil and young leaves into the bright room.

After the old man left, the evening felt long. On such evenings, Tsukuda would sit cross-legged in the center of the room, opening packages of books that had arrived from abroad. Nobuko was nearby, disposing of the discarded strings and paper. Because the neighborhood was quiet, only the rustling sound of her folding the thick wrapping paper stood out. “There’s an invoice on that desk over there. Please bring it here.”

Nobuko fetched it. He began cross-checking each of the books he had piled on the table against the invoice, one by one. Nobuko was intently watching this scene, but

“Say...” she called out. She had made this appeal with extraordinary feeling, but Tsukuda—distracted by the task at hand—answered carelessly. “What is it?” “I need to discuss something.” “What?” “Don’t you think... married life should be more than just this?” “Well... I don’t know what you mean exactly, but I suppose so.” “Can’t we have more freedom?”

Tsukuda picked up a book while looking at Nobuko with guarded caution. "Why?—Do you need some different form?" "I—I've been thinking for a while now... what if we tried living apart for the time being?" "I don't think that's necessary at all." His tone was sharp and dismissive. "That's precisely why I wanted to consult you properly once Father returns."

She had often thought before that it might be better to try living apart. Recently, she had come to feel that only through such measures could any new life possibly open up. Nobuko had learned through experience that abstractly critiquing or asserting differences in their marital attitudes would not alter their actual circumstances by even a fraction. Tsukuda was not that sort of person as a life partner. He was—through his peculiar brand of passivity—a tenacious survivor.

The notion that they could live together without influencing each other's feelings was an impossible proposition. As she had once contemplated in the countryside, even the idea that he had his rightful place in this world could not preserve its peaceful tepidity while they shared a roof. As an individual, Nobuko found it unbearable to become complicit in acts that filled her with shame and degradation simply because he was her husband. Straining not to be pulled into his ways of thinking and living, she inevitably grew critical. The moment criticism took hold, she saw with cruel clarity a man striving toward a direction diametrically opposed to her own.

That man was her husband. Between him and herself, there was an exchange of carnal desire. However, even with beautiful romantic feelings and the struggle to live well—precisely because they existed—the hope to live had no prospect of being fulfilled. Nobuko could not go on like that. Now that she had even lost faith in Tsukuda’s sincerity, what authority could the promise of being husband and wife possibly hold? Just because they were married—if they lived without forcibly maintaining a unified facade, each nurturing their own path while coexisting—might not both he and she naturally find harmony? Nobuko, prepared for her husband’s opposition, brought up the discussion.

“Of course this is unconventional,” Nobuko said. “But if we fell ill, wouldn’t we seek treatment elsewhere or even enter a hospital? Our married life itself is the illness here.” Tsukuda deepened the two horizontal wrinkles that habitually creased his forehead during disagreeable conversations. “I don’t understand,” he replied. “As I’ve stated repeatedly since the beginning—you’re free. Utterly free to act as you please. But I cannot comply with such arrangements.”

Nobuko explained her thoughts. She explained that even if they were to live separately, she did not intend to go to Dōzaka and that economically, she did not intend to burden Tsukuda. “If we each truly start living honestly according to our own hearts, I think even just a part of this strangely false-filled way of life would finally feel clear.” “Don’t you feel the same?” “We’re truly living such an unhealthy life of pretense.”

Tsukuda stared fixedly at Nobuko with a look as if he'd been struck across the cheekbones.

“What sin have we committed? At the very least, I love you and live with a pure heart that could answer God’s summons at any moment.”

“But… when I say our life is full of lies, I mean this sort of thing.” “To give one example, we…” As if frightened by her own words, Nobuko involuntarily hesitated. But she quickly resumed speaking hurriedly. “We—we’ve been clashing deep inside for ages now, and of course you know that.” “But you’ve been utterly pretending not to notice until I forced it out like this?” “Why?” “I… find that part of you—disgusting—… hateful.” “Yet even while feeling this way, I myself have lately become unable to speak such truths honestly to you—it’s all twisted.” “Dragging things out like this while putting on pretty faces and playing the perfect husband and wife—I find it utterly shameful, truly.”

Tsukuda, no longer paying any mind to the book, crossed his arms and, with lips trembling faintly, spoke in a voice that pressed down.

“It’s truly pitiful that I—who love you with such sincere devotion—should cause you suffering. However, living apart is absolutely impossible.” Nobuko listened with an awkward, suspicious feeling to these words of sincerity and love flowing so smoothly from her husband’s mouth. She said, “Why must it be absolutely impossible?”

“A husband and wife are husband and wife. Let’s just try reverting our way of living to that of two students and see how it goes.” “I can’t do it! Please consider—how could someone who stands at the lectern to teach possibly show their face to others after such a thing? Especially when people have taken the trouble to view our marriage as ideal.” “That makes no sense.” Nobuko earnestly denied her husband’s words.

“I don’t think so. First of all, we don’t live our lives based on how we want others to perceive us. And as for you saying we can’t face others—on the contrary, it’s precisely by continuing to degrade ourselves together like this that we should! If there were even a shred of something ideal in our connection, then precisely because of that, I think we could move forward with the substance of our lives without clinging to mere form. Look—we’re not living just to coil around each other like other couples do.”

After a long silence, Tsukuda—with a calmness Nobuko found unexpected—retorted in a manner that seemed to press upon her. “Then do you have the conviction that living apart temporarily would surely improve things between us?” “……” That it did exist—she couldn’t answer. In Tsukuda’s terms, things might improve—or they might worsen. But if this would return them both to their natural selves, wouldn’t that ultimately be for the best? A sweeping purge of married life’s customs—its backwardness—all this tangled mess. The mere thought of remaining bound like this forever made Nobuko resent Tsukuda; this position of mutual hatred had become unbearable for them both.

Tsukuda’s opinion was completely the opposite. The more discord there was, the more unpleasant aspects there were, the more they had to live together. He maintained that it was precisely by remaining near—by ceaselessly correcting and rectifying each other day and night—that a husband and wife became truly married.

When she heard her husband say that, Nobuko felt heat rising in her chest. Her face paled as she fixed him with a gaze that seemed ready to pounce.

“Then have you ever once given me a frank, manly response when I’ve asked you something?” “Have you ever once honestly admitted your mistakes—even just in your heart?”

Nobuko stared fixedly at him, tears spilling from unblinking eyes. “That right there is the hell of our married life.” “You act cold or sly until I get angry and end up saying or doing rude things.” “Afterwards, when I apologize for that, you act as if I’ve retracted even my legitimate reasons, leaving everything neatly settled on your end.” “What you offer is mere rhetoric—nothing but rhetoric!” “And you think we can have a sincere married life like this?”

Nobuko wiped her face with her sleeve. “...Because I’m a fool, I kept thinking, ‘This time for sure—this time for sure,’ but I can’t take it anymore!”

Tsukuda knit his brows and, shaking his head as if in pain, said: “Please believe in my sincerity.” “I can’t believe you anymore... I’ve stopped being able to believe you lately.” “Ah... I suppose that’s right. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t...”

After a few minutes that felt like an hour, Tsukuda returned once more to the initial problem.

“Then—do you truly wish to live apart?” Sensing a flicker in his voice, Nobuko instinctively stiffened. She looked up at her husband with tear-filled eyes. With a pale, tired expression, he turned his face away and waited for her response. Nobuko clearly felt her own words attempting to draw out some fateful resonance from within him.

“I think that way would be better, wouldn’t it?”

With the weight of trudging through mud, Nobuko said. When he heard this, Tsukuda shifted slightly in his chair as if concluding matters. “Then there’s no alternative—if we can’t live together... we must separate.” “......” Nobuko sat rigidly silent, her cheek resting on the rattan chair’s armrest, while Tsukuda now leaned forward to scrutinize her face as he continued. “Let’s proceed then—we’ve no other path. I shall abandon everything and withdraw to the countryside. Truly... truly regrettable, yet unavoidable.”

Nobuko felt her heart take a step forward, drawn by an irresistible force. “That’s a separate matter.” “Why? How is that separate? For me, it’s everything—that’s why I say you couldn’t possibly understand. If you’re going to say such things, then why—why—” Tsukuda suddenly seized Nobuko’s hand, clutching both their hands together as he began violently tearing at his hair and sobbing.

“We were never just friends from the very beginning.”

6

Her husband's face—tear-drenched, contorted and pale, hair plastered to his forehead like a drowned man's. A voice. Even two or three days later, Nobuko would shudder involuntarily when she recalled it. And she felt restless and strange. It seemed she had glimpsed some terrible truth, yet also been shown a performance that was no performance at all—the responsibility for this doubt lay squarely with Tsukuda. Nobuko had always believed that men, more than women, only shed tears with true sincerity. That time—with those sentimental tears he had once displayed before her parents in Dōzaka—he had managed to profoundly move her.

The next morning, from the out-of-season primroses Tsukuda had placed in a cup on the desk before Nobuko woke up—those flowers too gave her a similar impression. Those primroses had bloomed with modest pale pink flowers from roots left behind by previous residents beneath the bamboo fence at the back. Nobuko gazed long at the delicate flowers that seemed to be making some expression toward her—torn between hating to look at them and being unable to simply remove them.

In any case, Nobuko felt Tsukuda’s grip—like a financial shackle—throughout her entire body. Whatever the root cause may be, he did not want to release himself—did not wish to free himself from possession.

Nobuko was not entirely unaware of his presumably anguished feelings. Since their marriage, far from only he having had it good, by ordinary standards Nobuko had been quite a selfish wife. She had left him behind and gone on trips. She had overslept. There was in Nobuko an indescribable melancholy—that even such trivial daily freedoms were bestowed like grand privileges with labels attached once one became a wife—and there was in her husband a spiritual solitude that neglected all else, as if providing those very things should leave no room for complaint. Even setting this aside, he had endured many unbearable criticisms from those around him regarding their marriage. Tsukuda was said to have deceived Nobuko without love from the beginning and tried to establish his social standing. For him, living apart with Nobuko now—revealing their domestic collapse to society and thereby substantiating through fact the criticisms levied against him—would be utterly painful. She wanted to make their married life succeed at least in form, to overturn those cold criticisms with a triumphant See?—to make them realize afterward that there had indeed been true love.

Sadly, what Nobuko perceived was his secondary desire—to make her realize there had been true love. What Nobuko could feel was not love itself—elusive as the sun yet perpetually bright and warm, that vitalizes any heart it touches—but rather, like an iron crowbar prying at her, only the middle-aged man's practical obstinacy: his determination to prevent the collapse of the life structure they had built together and to solidify it. The only sincere feelings of his that Nobuko could undeniably feel were these.

Whenever the opportunity arose, Nobuko revived the conversation that had been left unresolved. ...from various directions.

“I wonder if we’ve been mistaken in how we view ourselves.” “You claim to live solely for me, but are we both such feeble creatures when it comes to life’s vigor?” “As I’ve said from the start, I cherish life itself. If you truly lacked vitality to that degree, you couldn’t have forged your own path through such hardships from youth—that’s what I believe.” “You’re fundamentally someone who survives by fiercely guarding yourself.” “That’s exactly why it’s wrong—this unnatural, excessive insistence of ‘for your sake, for your sake.’” “Let’s become what we were born to be.” “You’ll see—if we do that, everything will feel lighter.” “The space between us will clear too.” “You should stand firm and claim your full right to live—as your true self.”

Tsukuda’s reply was set.

“Think whatever you like.” “My true nature ends here—my resolve was decided already at the time of marriage.” “I will simply carry out that resolve when I deem it right.”

The so-called resolve meant things like dying or abandoning everything and retreating to the countryside. As for such words as well, Nobuko, unable to discern how seriously she ought to take them, could only fall silent. When she thought it might be true, it terrified her. Would this psychological stalemate continue until one of them died?—But when she thought she was being threatened, Nobuko smiled brightly, stepped back with one foot, and bowed, "Oh really? Then by all means."

she seemed to want to say.—

July arrived. Tsukuda had been assigned a business trip to Kansai by his workplace. None of the necessary items for the short journey had been prepared. Though their relationship simmered with instability—a low rumble of tension beneath the surface—this very unease made Nobuko reluctant to send him off on what would appear to be a shabby excursion. One day, Nobuko took what little money they had and went to Mitsukoshi with Tamotsu, who had come to join her. The heat lingered, but a crisp wind billowed Mitsukoshi’s crimson flags cheerfully across the azure sky.

They finished their shopping in about an hour. "What should we do?" "Shall we head back to Dōzaka now?" "I don’t care either way."

“If we go back to Akasaka now, it’ll get late—so why don’t we walk around Ginza a bit?”

Tamotsu looked extremely pleased and nodded with a big grin.

They drank ice cream sodas at Shiseido. Nobuko took two straws and handed them to Tamotsu, then inserted the same number into her own glass.

“Try it—it’s how people drink these days.” “Blow into one straw to froth it up really well while drinking through the other.”

Tamotsu, without any particular thought, “Hmm.” He tried pressing both to his lips at once, but— “Whoa! This feels off, really off!” and let go of the straws. “Sorry, but I don’t get it. Sis, could you go first and show me?” “It’s nothing. Here,”

Nobuko showed him by creating so much foam in the glass that it nearly overflowed. “Really?” Tamotsu peered with boyish earnestness but discovered that while the foam was rising, the yellow liquid wasn’t ascending through the other straw. He shook his body as if achieving his purpose and burst out laughing. “See! That’s why I thought it was weird—trying to split your breath into two like that—” Nobuko also burst out laughing. “But did you immediately think it was strange?” “I really did try it!”

“When?”

“A long time ago, I was carried by a Western old man.” After seeing Tamotsu off as he boarded the Ueno-bound train, Nobuko got on the tram from in front of the lion statue. It was early afternoon, and the train car stood empty. Nobuko placed her bundle on her lap and gazed through the open window at the scenery along the moat’s edge. The western sky shone bright and crystalline, as summer skies do. The heavy stone walls with their mottled surfaces, the lawns, and the ancient pines thick with dark green needles reflected vividly in the water’s broad meanders—a scene brimming with quintessentially Japanese beauty. To Nobuko’s sunken mood—where only a veneer of brightness lingered from earlier—this view brought comfort.

On the opposite side sat a woman. She was a refined lady of thirty-seven or thirty-eight, dressed in tasteful dark clothing that gave an impression of calm simplicity from her soft-looking hair down to the tips of her geta. The Western-style umbrella resting beside her knee was also black. Her modest attire revealed at a glance both meticulous grooming and an innate kindness. The woman—who had been leisurely facing forward while gazing out the window—seemed to notice Nobuko's look and turned quite naturally toward her. Their eyes met unexpectedly. It was an indescribably bright and warm gaze. Even the faint brown glimmer in her eyes caught Nobuko's attention with nostalgic familiarity.

As she occasionally gazed at the woman, Nobuko began to feel an unusual stirring within herself. The woman’s serene state of mind washed over Nobuko with palpable clarity. And then, strangely, she found herself wanting to approach close, place her own hand on that ample one, and say just a word— "Hey, I..." If she were to whisper even just that, it seemed all the anguish in her heart these days would immediately be understood by the woman. And miraculously, she felt as though her own stagnant, painful circumstances were on the verge of unfolding...

As Nobuko continued to gaze at her, the woman too began to pay her somewhat special attention. Her brownish eyes, with undisturbed cheerfulness, occasionally brushed against Nobuko’s forehead and cheeks. Nobuko felt the actual sensation of being stroked by her gaze. Should she rise from her seat now? Should she stand up now? Her heart pounded painfully. Despite knowing full well she likely couldn’t bring herself to do such a thing, Nobuko found herself unable to tear her attention away from the woman. In Russian novels, there were often scenes where a man on a train suddenly grabbed the person next to him and began recounting his life story. She had read them half-skeptically. That pitiable, overflowing heart of such men—this must be what she was feeling now, Nobuko realized.

When she reached her stop, Nobuko felt relieved. Even after stepping onto the sidewalk, the emotional turbulence still lingered. She looked up at the window of the stopped train with a feeling as if looking back at her own surprise. Behind the khaki-colored military uniforms, the woman was no longer visible. “Will you send me letters?” “To Dōzaka.” “Well… Whether I’ll have the time… My letters would probably be dull anyway.” Two days later, Tsukuda departed on his trip. Nobuko went to Dōzaka.

Seven Though he had said this upon leaving, Tsukuda occasionally sent correspondence to Nobuko. Many were postcards featuring his own sketches of scenery. They contained only brief notes about daily weather conditions. He appeared to anticipate that Nobuko's feelings might transform during his travels. In truth, Nobuko herself found greater mental freedom compared to enduring daily friction while living cramped together with Tsukuda. The Dōzaka residence stood utterly vacant during summer recess. Takeyo had taken the children summering in the countryside. Only Father and Nobuko remained behind. This too granted Nobuko respite.

One morning, in the breezy tatami corridor, Nobuko was packing yukata fabric, tins of seaweed, and other items into a large basket. The student lodger would be taking the midday train to the countryside. These were the provisions to send along with him. Postcards from Tsukuda lay scattered nearby. That morning's had come from Nara - deer with comically oversized eyes and a torii gate sketched across its surface. "Yesterday I stole a moment to tour Nara by rickshaw. The woods around Kasuga Shrine felt like another world entirely, cool and removed. Dozens of deer approached with gentle expressions. Such tender creatures must never know sore feet."

Nobuko read those words and gave a wry smile. On the day she went to Mitsukoshi with Tamotsu, she found a sandal strap chafe on her left foot when she returned home. What began as amateur treatment had worsened, and Nobuko had been going to the hospital every day lately. When she imagined the deer with their slender legs bandaged at the tips like her own, plodding along, it struck her as slightly comical. But when she reread it during breaks from packing, Nobuko found herself unable to simply laugh it off. If they're such gentle animals... There must be a mind that considers Nobuko unkind. It was just like him, Nobuko thought. Does even kindness, to him, seem like some non-depleting solid substance—the same as love?

Nobuko changed into her kimono and prepared to go to the hospital. As she was about to get into the rickshaw, the maid came running hurriedly down the hallway. “Ah, wait! There’s a telephone call for you.” “Who is it?” “He said it’s Dr.Yūgi.”

Nobuko hurried back to the telephone. The one referred to as Dr. Yūgi was undoubtedly an elderly scholar who could be called her mentor. She had sent a long letter the very day before coming to Dōzaka. She had poured into that letter the inner torment she could no longer physically endure these past days—torment that had nearly driven her to delirious outbursts—along with her longing for a life of freedom.

The caller was his wife.

“Hello? Is this Ms. Nobuko? Um, I’m calling on behalf of our household—we have indeed received your letter.” Nobuko felt awkward toward the wife. She clumsily offered her thanks. “You see, I meant to reply immediately, but I’d gone to Okitsu—my apologies.—Will you still be there tomorrow?” “Ah...I’ll remain here for now.”

The message stated that if Nobuko was at home, as they wished to meet, Dr.Yūgi himself would come to her residence. Nobuko felt overwhelmed with gratitude. She excused herself, stating that while her foot's current condition made it impossible, she intended to visit in person in due course.

“But since he apparently has business in Koishikawa and will be going out anyway...”

With a polite "Well then," Nobuko hung up the phone. The hospital was especially crowded on Monday. The waiting room was too stifling to stay in. At the far end of the corridor was a single window. From there, one could look down upon the boiler room in the backyard and the vacant lot surrounding it. There, a young deliveryman carrying stacked lunchbox containers would pass through, or a lively nurse with her forearms bared would occasionally appear. The nurse, still in her indoor sandals, nimbly hopped over the coal clinkers and disappeared into the entrance of the diagonally opposite building. The sight of red slipper tips peeking out from beneath wide white hems and such was not without a certain hospital-like beauty. Nobuko had been watching such scenes for a long time. Finally, from the crowded waiting room emerged the nurse Nobuko knew well, holding a ledger in her left hand.

“Thank you for waiting. “Please come in.” The doctor whom Nobuko disliked—a man with a sparse beard who always treated patients in a sluggish manner—was on duty that day. He responded to Nobuko’s greeting with “Yeah.”

He answered through his nose and twitched his index finger slightly. It was a signal to remove the bandages. He pressed several spots on the affected area with his fingertips. "Same as yesterday." The nurse slapped ointment across Nobuko's entire foot with her palm, as if making a plaster cast. While she worked, a man whose face was entirely bandaged—with holes cut out only for his eyes, nose, and mouth—was called into the adjacent compartment partitioned by white curtains.

Nobuko watched with a gloomy expression as her foot became like troublesome baggage. Within her lingered a tangled mass of emotions that stubbornly clung through it all. Tomorrow—Dr.Yūgi would come—would come—and yet from the moment she had hung up after that call, Nobuko remained fixated on how she could feel nothing but overwhelmed gratitude and the oppressive weight of his kindness in response. In the letter she had sent Dr.Yūgi, Nobuko had laid bare her dissatisfactions and doubts—the first time since marrying Tsukuda that she had confided in anyone beyond herself. She surmised that the emotional momentum accumulated over years must have moved the professor considerably. Knowing she stood at the critical juncture of sink or swim, Dr.Yūgi had surely decided to come tomorrow to become her concrete advisor for appropriately handling this crisis. What of her own condition? Nobuko felt startled by her spirit's dullness. When hearing that call, far from sensing any reliable courage to seize this lifeline and execute her plan decisively, she had instead felt herself recoiling with cowardice. Anxiety that the professor's visit might drastically alter circumstances; lingering reluctance to let matters become irrevocable. Even should the outcome remain unchanged, her nature would likely torment her later with awareness of having acted on Dr.Yūgi's words. Logically this begged the question: Why then had she written such a letter to this blameless professor? The compulsion to weep while writing—to voice her anguish and yearning—had been no self-deception. Her heart had burned unbearably until commanding this outburst. Yet equally true was this present hesitation—this belated doubt that despite knowing nothing remained, she might be losing something precious. These were the immovable poles of her true heart.

The next morning, when the professor arrived at the appointed time, Nobuko felt a growing sense of foolish self-consciousness. She wished she could simply fall ill instead. With one foot heavily bandaged and her whole being appearing wilted in such a pitiful state—a sight that must have looked truly wretched—the professor inquired kindly about her health, his voice aged and slightly hoarse yet retaining its vitality.

“It’s quite troublesome—my wife also struggled for a long time with something similar. Now then… I’ve read that letter of yours in detail… But… What is this… Is Mr. Tsukuda… going away on a trip somewhere?” Nobuko awkwardly gave the necessary answer. “Ah, I see...” The professor settled back into the depths of the armchair and, while thinking, lightly stroked his already white beard with the fingers of his right hand. “In your letter, I must admit I was rather unexpectedly surprised. Your mother was quite concerned from the very beginning, and there were various discussions, but since you are a lady, I mentioned that it would be perfectly reasonable for you to become a homemaker at least once... Have you already spoken to your parents about this?”

“...I have not yet.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Nobuko was overcome by an indescribable awkwardness. The moment she answered, she had intuitively sensed both that her response had been unexpected to Dr.Yūgi and that, simultaneously within his mind, this matter had completely lost its initial gravity. Nobuko thought that if her own negligent attitude made him feel his kindness was being mocked, she would truly be remiss. She spoke apologetically.

“I knew full well that this was truly an unreasonable matter and not something I should be causing you concern about...” “No, there’s absolutely no need for such hesitation. I will be glad to assist in whatever way I can.” His tone now held a faint ease that was clearly different from how it had been at first, “Well then, to put it plainly—you haven’t yet established a concrete plan, have you?” Nobuko, while being acutely aware of her own spinelessness to the point of being unable to sit still, had no choice but to answer truthfully.

"I am considering doing as I mentioned in the letter," she said. "Because if things continue as they have been, I simply cannot go on like this." "But this doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll part ways completely forever?" "...What will become of it?" Dr.Yūgi straightened his back from where he had been leaning toward Nobuko and said, "Ah." "Having heard your situation, I feel relieved," he continued. "From your letter, it seemed you were suffering greatly, and being a lady of intelligence, I grew concerned with a meddlesome old woman’s worry that something might happen—but if you still have room to consider such things, then you’ll be all right."

For Nobuko, these words only intensified her anguish. She could only perceive that her indecisiveness—this mental fixation leading nowhere—had been shrewdly highlighted, leaving her utterly wretched. Yet Dr.Yūgi, as though entirely oblivious to Nobuko's inner state, gradually adopted a more buoyant tone. "...Your resolve is truly commendable, but you're still young—for a woman to attempt living independently is no simple matter." "Even if you yourself remain steadfast, society proves meddlesome... Careful deliberation is essential." "Fortunately, with such exemplary parents, I needn't worry."

She didn’t want to hear such things—the kind any worldly person would say—coming from Dr.Yūgi. Nobuko felt the voice declaring such things surge violently within her. Then what did she want him to say? Did she want him to say something like, “Throw out a bastard like Tsukuda right this instant”? Or was this some preposterous notion—that she should spend her life as an obedient, blind wife—and did he want to scold her into submission? Ultimately, even while knowing that her own heart was making Dr.Yūgi say such things, Nobuko thirsted for some revelatory word—some thunderous utterance that would upheave her state of mind.

“These matters are complex and lifelong in nature, so there’s certainly no harm in giving them careful thought.” “Such things aren’t settled overnight... Now then, should there be anything at all where I might assist you, please speak without hesitation.” “Though my capabilities may be modest, I shall strive to be of service.” With precise movements characteristic of his fastidious nature, the professor flipped up the gauzy hem of his summer haori and stepped into the rickshaw. “Please convey my regards to your mother as well.” When Nobuko bowed formally in response to this farewell, an unbearable sadness suddenly overwhelmed her. She felt she had irreparably muddled both the professor’s kindness and her own fervent longing for a better life—a sticky mess oozing from her very core. Nobuko knew with certainty she would never again involve him in this matter.

8

When late July arrived, there came a notice from Tsukuda of his return to Tokyo.

This summer, since Nobuko had been staying in Dōzaka, Sasa had passed each evening relatively free of boredom despite his wife and children’s absence. When he saw Tsukuda’s postcard stating he would return on the 26th, he said.

“...Well then, I think I’ll go to K for about ten days.” “You’ll have to go back to Akasaka soon yourself.” Nobuko, sitting on a low footstool at her father’s feet, absentmindedly answered while wafting the mosquito coil smoke this way and that with her fan. “I suppose... I have to go back.” “Do you still have to go to the hospital every day?” “That’s improved quite a bit; she’s mostly recovered now.”

“So that’s improved then? “Well then, is there something else wrong somewhere? “If it’s poverty sickness, I’ll cure you myself.” “No, it’s not.” The father and daughter laughed in unison. Suddenly, Nobuko murmured forlornly. “Maybe I should just go along with Father.” “To K? “But as for me, given how things are, I still can’t say for sure when I’ll be able to go.”

Nobuko found returning to Akasaka truly unpleasant. When she thought of how each room looked and the daily life that would repeat within them, she felt oppressed. It even seemed like being squeezed back into iron machinery that would not release her. Since the morning of Tsukuda's arrival was a day she had to go to the hospital, Nobuko decided not to return to Akasaka. Tsukuda was scheduled to arrive at Ueno Station after ten o'clock via the Shinshu region.

“In that case,” he said. “Since Suzuki is free anyway, we’ll have him meet Tsukuda at the station and bring him here.” “After we’ve all had dinner together, you two can manage things as you see fit.” When she returned from the hospital at her usual hour, black leather shoes stood neatly aligned on the entrance stone. To Nobuko, these glossy shoes seemed to possess an uncanny sentience. With deliberate care, she placed her sandals beside them.

“Welcome back.—Mr. Tsukuda is here.” She went straight to the guest room. Tsukuda was not there; he sat in the dining room’s bay window. Having removed his jacket and collar, he sat in his white shirt while vigorously angling himself toward the electric fan. When he saw Nobuko, he uncrossed his legs like someone who had just returned after parting ways, “I’m back.” he said. “How’s your foot?”

His neck visibly sunburned, he wore a formal, probing expression on his face. Nobuko, with the same grave demeanor, wordlessly held out a hand to her husband. “Was it hot there? Over there?” “Ah, Osaka was sweltering. Though the inn was decent.” Nobuko settled beside him. Tsukuda tilted his head back slightly, studying her intently as he asked in a low voice.

“How is it?” Nobuko immediately grasped his meaning - an inquiry into the state of her heart. She felt both a surge of affection and an intense urge to repel him. Perplexed, she tilted her head and twisted her lips ambiguously.

“Let’s go back together tonight.” Because Nobuko did not respond promptly, Tsukuda repeated while pulling her close and bringing his face near hers. “You’re coming back with me, aren’t you?”

Unable to give an immediate answer, Nobuko took his hand with forced cheerfulness and pulled him up. “Anyway, go take a bath—you haven’t freshened up at all, have you?” She laid out a yukata and sent Tsukuda to the bath. In that time, Nobuko changed her clothes and sat facing him—who had even neatly combed his hair—drinking something cold in the guest room where cornflowers bloomed abundantly. Nobuko briefly recounted events from his absence. Yet throughout this exchange, she felt besieged by the awareness that she had become someone changed toward Tsukuda. How joyfully she used to welcome him when he returned from twenty-day trips. She would chatter endlessly then, clinging to him until she became a nuisance. From another room, her voice alone would have revealed a heart so purely ecstatic one could see straight through it. That she no longer felt this way—Nobuko herself understood with painful clarity. Her divided heart refused coherence; seeing her husband’s face—both intimate and alien—she wavered between affection and resentment, trapped in indecision. She realized Tsukuda similarly struggled to find his natural rhythm. Strangely, conversation flowed smoothly when she avoided his gaze, staring instead at young leaves beyond the window. But when their eyes met unexpectedly, two suspicious hearts clashed like lightning—a grappling force they both keenly felt. In such moments, words turned hollow and shameful. They naturally fell silent. Tsukuda sighed out a murmur.

“I’d been hoping... that if we took a trip together, your feelings might change during that time... but nothing came of it.” “Don’t you see?” Nobuko said, her voice trembling on the edge of tears. “I hate this too—I truly do! But... there’s nothing to be done.—Do you even understand? How utterly maddening you are—so dear yet so hateful!” With a force that nearly sang through the syllables, Nobuko cried “Hateful—!” as tears fell.

Around three o'clock, Grandmother returned from her overnight visit to relatives. Before long, Father also returned. They were finally saved. Father shook the ice cream bottle to show Nobuko. “Look! Isn’t this nice?” “This is to show our welcome for you, Mr. Tsukuda.” Having risen from his chair and turned to Tsukuda—who had greeted him—he continued amiably. “I thought about having dinner at a hotel or something, but upon reflection, I figured you’ve been subjected to Western food all along.” “Well, for tonight at least, we’d be better off sitting cross-legged and relaxing here at home.”

At the dinner table, Father and Tsukuda talked about various cities in the Kansai region. Surrounded by her son and grandchildren with their spouses, Grandmother looked supremely content. She suddenly, “Did you visit Mikage?” Grandmother asked Tsukuda such questions. “That’s a nice place, isn’t it? There was someone I knew there, and I stayed for fifty days, but right nearby—um, what was the name?—there was a hot spring that even had a hairdresser’s shop inside... Shozo, don’t you remember?”

“Speaking of hot springs… Father, do you perhaps know of any good ones nearby?”

Toward the end of the meal, Tsukuda inquired. "As for commonplace options, Hakone or Izu, but..." Sasa listed several hot springs in the Ouu region.

“Are you planning to go?” Tsukuda answered ambiguously. “Well… I’ve been considering… If there’s a place that suits a poor scholar’s means, I thought I might take a short trip.” Nobuko, who had been listening assuming it was casual conversation, involuntarily focused her attention and looked at Tsukuda. Tsukuda, keeping his face steadfastly turned only toward Father, spoke as if conversing with him. “Since we’re making the trip anyway, I’ve been thinking that if we can go for about ten days, I’d like to do so.”

“Oh ho! That’s an excellent plan. It would be beneficial for your health as well—by all means, do go. Hot springs are excellent.”

With the breadth of knowledge characteristic of his informally acquired learning, he expounded on the therapeutic value of natural hot springs.

Nobuko felt surprise at the unexpected proposal and wondered why Tsukuda hadn't told her directly, but gradually she forgot these misgivings and grew happy. By nature, Nobuko had always loved traveling. Before marriage, she often went out with Ms. Otoyo, though within limited areas. She even knew one or two hot springs herself. Since beginning life with Tsukuda however—due to his professional commitments and personal disposition—she hadn't taken even short three- or four-day trips. That summer, they had only visited Tsukuda's family home. Such visits meant merely entering a different household environment to repeat the same life they led in Tokyo.

If this truly meant going to a hot spring, then for Nobuko, it would be her first real trip worth calling a journey. The mere thought of staying at an inn with just the two of them set her imagination aglow. Though not merely echoing Father's platitudes—if some miracle could occur through mountains' vigor, hot spring air's clarity, and cells awakened by radiant mornings, where even their grievances might vanish cleanly after a petty quarrel—how magnificent that would be! What bliss that would bring! With mingled astonishment and joy, Nobuko surmised Tsukuda must share this vision. In a tone brimming with openness, she addressed her husband as he ate his ice cream.

“—Is it true? That trip you mentioned—” “Will you go?”

“Yes, let’s go!” “Then I’ll send a telegram to inquire immediately.” Tsukuda replied in an administrative tone.

“But—is it all right for us to go ahead? Should we cancel the hospital visit or not?” Nobuko cut him off with the urgency of someone who couldn’t bear to see it canceled. “Of course it’s fine. “But I’ll go and properly inquire tomorrow just to be safe. “—It’s definitely fine, so let’s go, okay? Don’t back out now.”

Nine

Before them, rending the crystalline air, the volcano stood towering in deep azuki-brown. Smoke rose steadily from its summit. Tobacco fields; dwarf tree groves—then more tobacco fields. As the slope steepened, Aokigahara's bracing horizon spread dozens of miles into the distance on both sides. Nobuko's car resonated with a deep-throated roar as it climbed relentlessly upward. Speeding through five o'clock's dewy morning air—sun already up—Nobuko's cheeks and lips felt chilled and stiff.

They crossed a bridge. Upon climbing the steep slope—shaped like a hairpin turn and wedged between cliffs—a quaint hot spring town came into view ahead. Along both sides of the slope, inns and souvenir shops lined the street. In the middle of the road ran a ditch with white steam rising, while the strong scent of hot water hung thick in the air.

The car passed close under the eaves; at every inn, there was not a single guest still asleep, and the place was bustling with activity. Yukata were hung out to dry on handrails thrown wide open; morning sunlight streamed abundantly into every room. Newly arrived guests, Western umbrellas tucked under their chins, watched their car depart. At souvenir shop storefronts, crudely painted red and green hollowed wooden crafts were lined up. It was a rustic, lively morning scene in the hot spring town. Nobuko was in high spirits and did not particularly mind the lack of a room. That summer had been exceptionally crowded throughout the vacation; even when Nobuko's group arrived, Yoshidaya's entrance remained in such a state that about twenty overflowed newcomers were present. They spent one night at Yoshidaya's manager's house. One of the souvenir shops diagonally across from Yoshidaya conducted business on its first floor while using the second story to accommodate summer overflow guests. A young Yoshidaya employee carrying tiered boxes could be seen transporting vermilion-lacquered trays. Even there was no space for them, and they were settled in the room immediately behind the shop. In the dim storage area, a soft pink sash lay visible. At night when their lights went out, the store's remaining illumination cast the shadow of a carved eggplant onto the shoji screen.

The room that had finally become available was originally part of the Kobayashi Ward government office residence.

“But this is fine—actually better. It’s quiet here in this mountain dwelling…” There were an eight-tatami room and a six-tatami room. The eight-tatami room became theirs. While the six-tatami room had a view, its immediate proximity to the road below the embankment meant passing guests could constantly peer inside. The eight-tatami room faced the main government residence across a narrow vacant lot, while on the left stood a cliff thick with kumazasa bamboo grass. There ran a bamboo hot-water pipe characteristic of rural hot spring towns. Amidst the kumazasa bamboo grass, gentian flowers bloomed damp with mountain mist.—

The rustling of plateau-like green trees, the light, brisk air. Even the roads they traveled by car filled Nobuko with an almost sensual sense of liberation. In nature, there seemed to be an especially abundant supply of elements that invigorated human beings. Nobuko strongly felt the desire to become spontaneously lively. She seemed to be carefully measuring herself—the increasing amount of her own liveliness. Gradually, gradually—if this vitality overflowed, perhaps the various specks of dust lying between her husband and herself might be washed away... Just a little more... Just a little more... When she said to Tsukuda,

“Hey, don’t make such a sullen face—let’s do this instead, okay?” when she took out the playing cards, or, “Look! There’s a flower like this here!”

When she called out like this, Nobuko would usually be inwardly anticipating the decline of her energy gauge. Yet even at the hot spring resort, Tsukuda remained as unresponsive to her overtures as he had been at home. Trimming his nails, he offered a reply that diverged from what she had said— “In the end, I couldn’t get anything done this summer,” he muttered. “Did you have particular plans?” “Since my own time is limited to summer vacation, naturally there were countless things I wanted to do.”

When they went for a walk and reached the observation deck, they found a group of young people gathered in front of the shooting range, laughing and enjoying themselves. On a natural stone veranda, a couple watched cheerfully as children played tag in the plaza before them. Streaming past Nobuko and the others, people made their way along the path through the grass toward the distant amusement park. Everyone seemed carefree, appearing to enjoy with ease nature's vastness and the bustling crowd of small humans within it. Nobuko too, walking mixed among such people, felt her heart leap with pure joy again and again. And indeed, she even reached such an innocent state of mind as firing Kilk pellets at the shooting range—but this too proved only temporary.

When she returned to the room and faced her husband, an oppressive heaviness closed in on her. Being among crowds felt more bearable. Even amidst the outdoor brightness, whenever they thought they had melted into one another, they would suddenly sense their separation and share a lonely, aching sorrow. At such times, an indescribable restlessness tormented Nobuko. She acted lively and made spiteful remarks to Tsukuda.

One morning, when she came out from the bath, Tsukuda was on the veranda talking to a maid standing in the garden. "So we can make it a day trip then?" "Yes, it's quite manageable if you start out a little early." "How does one go from here—would we ascend from beside Sesshoseki?"

"Yes. There's a slightly steep section there, but you'll soon reach the main path—since many visitors come that way, once you get there, you'll naturally make it to the summit."

“Where?” “Since you’ve come all this way, I thought you might want to climb Mount Nasu.”

While eating breakfast, Tsukuda said to Nobuko, "You probably won't manage it anyway—will you wait for me?"

“Well… I could wait, but…” The thought of spending the day in solitary idleness made her reluctant to comply.

“How many *ri* is it?—If I can go, I want to go too.” “They say it’s about three ri up and down, but since it’s a continuous climb—I wonder—”

“I’ll go then—I’d rather go than stay here all alone.”

Tsukuda looked inconvenienced, but Nobuko asked the maid who had come to clear away the trays for straw sandals and fastening cords.

When they woke up, there was mist, but after eight o'clock, the weather turned splendid. The hiking path that emerged from the mountain trail through the trees onto the main road was now completely open. It wasn’t just hot spring visitors accompanied by women and children leisurely weaving their way through the bear bamboo grass. Along one side of the path, about two and a half ken wide, a trolley track had been laid. “Oh, it goes all the way up, doesn’t it? I wonder what runs on it.” A man with a gap between his front teeth, accompanied by a boy of about fifteen, was walking alongside Nobuko and the others when—

“They’ve really cleared this area well...” “They use this trolley to transport sulfur down to the factory at the base—apparently the output’s quite substantial.”

he said, having overheard this.

As they climbed, the tall trees grew sparse. As sunlight intensified, Nobuko opened her parasol. Against bamboo-covered slopes under a sparkling azure sky, how vividly must that lone red parasol have glowed. Nobuko thrilled with childlike wonder. This scenery surpassed in grandeur anything seen from their automobile ride to Yumoto. The gently undulating bamboo mountains rolled onward unimpeded. Through August's swelter far below stretched a pearlescent horizon tinged cerulean. The path's twists hid fellow hikers from view, leaving only occasional voices. Those human sounds deepened their sense of the mountain trail's luminous stillness.

They ate lunch at a hot spring called Ōmaru at the foot of the mountain. Through rocks worn smooth by rushing thermal waters in the open-air bath, crowds of men and women bathed naked. It looked like something from an ukiyo-e print. Beyond that point, the landscape transformed completely into volcanic terrain. Bleached skeletons of trees snapped at mid-trunk stood jagged among the bamboo grass. Makeshift huts for sulfur miners dotted what little flat ground existed along the path, giving the mountain its distinct industrial character. When leaving Ōmaru, Nobuko leaned heavily on the walking stick she'd received from a kind gentleman traveling with his daughter, laboring up the slope. At last the summit came into view. One final steep climb remained just below it. Drenched in sweat, Nobuko stopped short before this last ascent.

“Let me rest for a moment!”

Tsukuda had already taken off his jacket before reaching Ōmaru. Even so, he was drenched in sweat. “It’s awful because there’s no shade—ah, a cool breeze!” As Nobuko stood enjoying the pleasant breeze, she gradually began noticing the eruption’s rumble. The sulfur trolley could be seen descending along the mountainside’s far slope near the summit, with no human figures visible anywhere on the trail above or below. Ahead stretched a desolate path—a single winding trail disappearing toward Santo Hut across scorched earth. The distant mountain ranges below. They lay utterly still under the two o’clock sun’s scorching glare. Where not even rolling pebbles made sound, only the crater’s roar—like some gigantic bellows—could be heard. The noise neither swelled nor faded as they trudged onward until—abruptly—it ceased, filling Nobuko with terror that the whole mountain might explode.

“Let’s just go.” “Hmm.” The path’s ruggedness, nature’s oppressive might. They fell silent and scaled the slope in one breath.

“We finally made it! You endured that well, didn’t you? I was prepared that we’d surely have to turn back halfway.” “If we start climbing properly, we’ll manage somehow.” The crater lay in a lateral opening near the summit. Molten sulfur flowed out as blazing lava from it. Around the flame-colored areas, cooled portions had solidified like stalactites of an extraordinarily vivid yellow. The midsummer azure sky and sulfur’s hue formed a striking color scheme. Dozens of sulfur miners could be seen working earnestly on the desolate mountainside, as if compelled to silence by some unease.

In less than half the time they had taken to ascend, they returned to the small teahouse at the mountain pass.

“Oh, they’ve closed the shop. I did want to rest here.” “It must be because the weather’s worsening. Well, we might as well go straight back.”

The fog thickened deeply, and even when they looked back at the summit they had just descended, it was no longer visible. "Is it raining below?" "Well... I think it should be fine since there's wind." As they clattered down the slope in unison with their descending momentum, a solitary drop struck a face. "It's starting to rain..." "It must be an evening shower." Plop, plop—the raindrops gradually thickened. Nobuko opened a red umbrella. The rain covering the high mountain differed completely in rainfall between its upper and lower parts over just a short distance of about a hundred meters. When they had descended about halfway, the area was already in heavy rain. The red clay path had turned to mud. Thunder roared, and lightning flashed broadly across the white dead trees that jutted ghostlike from the bamboo grass. Nobuko shuddered.

“This way we can walk faster.” Tsukuda had Nobuko put her arm through his. “Since we’re nearly there, let’s wait out the rain at Ōmaru before continuing.” Nobuko’s red parasol was of no use at all. The sheer silk kimono was soaked through to the skin. The waterlogged straw sandals grew heavy and sodden, squelch, squelch, kicking up mud beneath Nobuko’s feet. “It’s not letting up at all—the clouds aren’t breaking anywhere—really, let’s stop by Ōmaru for a bit.”

………… Tsukuda increased his walking pace. Nobuko broke into a half-run to match his pace and spoke again. “The thunder—I can’t stand it, really. Hey, no? Aren’t we stopping?” “It’s alright. The thunder’s far off.”

“...But I really want to rest for a bit—because I feel unwell.” They emerged beside the woods curving toward Ōmaru. Nobuko pulled Tsukuda’s arm and stopped. “Are you really against it?” “Let’s keep going straight, alright? Stopping now would be pointless.” “Because it’s crowded?” Tsukuda gave an ambiguous snort. “Anyway—come on, let’s walk.” Soaked through like this, Nobuko couldn’t comprehend her husband’s refusal to take shelter at Ōmaru. She grew all the more resentful at being forced onward without explanation. Money wasn’t the issue……

Once past Ōmaru, they encountered a thunderstorm so fierce with blinding white sheets that nothing ahead remained visible. The wind poured down sideways through bamboo grass covering the mountain, making the umbrella catch the wind like a parachute and nearly lifting her bodily into the air. At a bend where her toe suddenly caught on a stone, Nobuko—carried by momentum—was thrown forward onto both knees before she could react. Tsukuda, who had been holding her arm, was yanked off balance and lost his footing. Trying to recover, he planted one foot against Nobuko's back and leapt over, barely managing to avoid dropping to his knees.

Nobuko descended the nearly six-kilometer mountain path soaking wet. Autumn came early to the mountains, and from that day onward, there were frequent rainstorms typical of summer’s end.

“Well now! This is a real tempest!” The innkeeper rushed in wearing his raincoat. “Truly... this is a storm unlike any in recent years. It’s enough to make an innkeeper weep!” The river below swelled with rainwater, flowing with tremendous roar. From noon onward, voices bustled about in confusion as people braved the rain. Peering through gaps in the veranda’s storm shutters, one could see laborers in straw raincoats working to divert stones rushing down with the rapids’ force. Being shut indoors by this dark deluge held a strangely novel quality for Nobuko. Behind the single-layered shutters at the cliff’s edge came the sound of rain lashing against bear bamboo. The hot spring’s increased flow gurgled through its bamboo conduit. Through the rain drifted the hot spring’s sulfurous scent, stronger than usual. Nobuko fondly recalled how as a child she would stand on a footstool to eagerly watch summer storms through the casement window.

Tsukuda spent such days lazily taking out his wallet, counting coins at the desk, and taking naps. Nobuko, “Let’s do something fun,” urged her husband.

“Since we’ve made the effort to come here for enjoyment, we should try to make it as pleasant as possible.” Tsukuda looked at Nobuko with a reproachful gaze and countered, “Did you come here solely to have fun?” Their eyes locked unintentionally. A dull dread pulsed through Nobuko’s chest. “Why? Isn’t that why we came?” “I came because I thought it would benefit your leg.” Nobuko felt desolate, as though the precarious candlelight that had flickered between them had been suddenly blown out.

“So even the other day—we shouldn’t have stopped by Ōmaru either?” Tsukuda, however, fell silent and did not answer. Such emotional discord never vanished from between them until their return. After seven days there, they departed separately—Tsukuda to Tokyo, Nobuko to K—as if parting after a quarrel. The train began moving, showing Tsukuda’s black-uniformed shoulder through the window. Her own train also started moving, heading in opposite directions.—Nobuko felt as though she had begun moving toward a place she would never return to.

Six

One

Inside the wide mosquito net, lying down, Nobuko spoke to her mother in sporadic fragments. Around them lay the cool darkness of a rural summer night. "So you see—marriage truly is such a complicated thing..." Takeyo's slow voice resonated as if descending from the high ceiling. "When temperaments differ too much it won't work, yet it's equally natural for two strong-willed souls to clash.—You, from what others observe, always seem inclined to choose someone weaker than yourself—someone with a servile streak."

Nobuko lay on her back atop the pillow, eyes open, clasped hands tucked beneath her head. "Do you think so...? I consider myself the weak one—even regarding Tsukuda. If I could become more thick-skinned and resolute—if I could truly control him—the situation might change. But he has such an unyielding core... There's something about him that remains entirely beyond my grasp." "Those who understand society... know precisely how to maneuver someone like you."

"I can't keep exchanging these polished pleasantries whose depths I already know—all while letting myself get pushed further into a corner. Relationships where hearts don't meet directly... I can't sustain them." "If I tried to take decisive measures, then again, I can't bring myself to do so... I'm hardly in a position to act strong-willed." "It varies from person to person." Takeyo suddenly raised her voice with force. "If it were me, I'd cut it all off in one go—the very thought of being dragged along by someone who doesn't truly love me would be unbearable."

Nobuko couldn't bring herself to believe that Tsukuda held not even a speck of love for her. In his capacity as her husband, he maintained an interest—or at least the sort of regard a man might feel toward the woman who had become his wife. Yet understanding this only made Nobuko's anguish more acute—precisely because she found no comfort in such conventional affection. "But then—what becomes of my own feelings? If he truly doesn't love me, must my love abruptly disappear?" "Because life refuses such tidy resolutions—that's why we're left clutching this ache." "In truth, people rarely suffer from another's lack of love. More often, they're tormented by the love still clinging to their own hearts."

“So you—still love Tsukuda?” A chill draft of loneliness swept through Nobuko’s heart. The root of that melancholy—known to every daughter in society who married only to see it crumble and return home—lay coiled within her mother’s blunt question. After a long pause, Nobuko spoke. “I don’t believe failing at conventional married life means I must strangle whatever affection remains. There’s no obligation to mimic how others conducted their marriages. Whether mending or ending things—each of us should have our own way.”

“A man like Tsukuda wouldn’t understand such things—from the very beginning, you… your goals were different.” “If that’s how it is, then so be it. If living with me brought you any good at all, then I’m satisfied with that." “So as long as he doesn’t start saying self-destructive things about us separating…—I detest self-destruction more than anything. The thought that I’d create such a lost soul in this world makes me shudder and drains all my courage.”

“…”

Faintly, there was a sign of Takeyo sitting up in the darkness. Nobuko turned her head toward her mother. “What is it?” “No—it’s gotten rather cool. I thought I’d put on the feather quilt.—What about you? Is that alright?”

Nobuko struck her chest draped with a hemp night robe. "I’m fine."

Takeyo, “The countryside makes this much difference, doesn’t it?” Muttering like an elderly person, she seemed to have fallen asleep again, but suddenly raised her voice as if remembering something. “Oh, it’s nothing. Either way, there’s nothing worth worrying about.” “About what?” “What that man says.”

“What do you mean by that?” “But you already know that, don’t you? He isn’t the sort of person who’d go dying or anything. He’s not some naive young fool.” “I can’t dismiss it so lightly.” “Then just you wait and see!” Takeyo spoke in a voice that was both cheerful and challenging. “If he were truly that kind of person, I’d look up to him. I’d grovel however needed to atone for my misjudgment.” Nobuko felt a wave of disgust and fell silent. Having gotten serious and spoken so openly, her own rashness became distasteful to her. To speak of a person’s life and death in this manner was a terrifying thing. Nobuko pulled her night robe up to her chin and turned over. Takeyo, apparently thinking that Nobuko had grown sleepy,

“Shall we sleep now?” she muttered with a yawn. “It must be because the air’s so good—ever since coming here, I’ve completely forgotten about things like insomnia.” “...” “Well then, goodnight.” “—Good night.”

Before even ten minutes had passed, her mother's peaceful, untroubled breathing began to reach her ears. Takeyo appeared thoroughly satisfied that Nobuko had been spending several days with her after such a long time. No matter what feelings Nobuko had come with. Nobuko lay with eyes open, listening intently to the solitary faint breath. Drawn by that sound, the flood-like surrounding darkness and her earlier somber mood seemed to ebb and flow in regular rhythm. She quietly slipped out of bed. The mosquito net's hem fell onto the cool rattan mat with a heavy thud.

Walking down the corridor, phosphorescent moonlight shone on the closed shoji screens. Nobuko pressed her face against the glass window set into the storm shutters and looked outside. Moonlight bathed the entire garden. Had one walked through it, they would have been enveloped in waves of glittering liquid light that might cling to their hair, while rounded azaleas and cypress leaves stood tranquil with sharply defined black shadows cast behind them. The trees and lawn seemed dreamlike, as if living beings. On such a moonlit night, human souls might easily travel great distances. Hundreds of miles away, a wife and her mother had held such a conversation. Were that exchange to resonate with Tsukuda's soul this night—what would he feel?

Nobuko became frantic and rubbed the glass surface brimming with moonlight two or three times with all her strength, as if trying hurriedly to scramble the undulations of the soul passing through the storm shutters and spreading into the moon-steeped night air—attempting to block and contain them.

II

When October came, Nobuko returned to Tokyo. About a month earlier, when Tsukuda and she had taken the same line north to Nasu, the scenery had been completely different. Autumn lay all around.

As the train entered Ueno Station, Nobuko, who had opened the window early to call a redcap, watched the platform. A departing steam train stood on the opposite track, where amidst the bustle of farewells and cargo loading, several greeters stood attentively eyeing each carriage of our now-stopping train. Among that crowd, Nobuko thought she recognized an unexpected profile. A man who looked exactly like Tsukuda stood waiting in his overcoat and mountain hat. She had written him about her arrival time. Nobuko felt such emotional agitation that her whole body flushed hot. Had he come to meet her? Was that him? I never imagined he'd come! Nobuko leaned further out the window. She waved toward the Tsukuda-like figure as a signal. But failing to catch her target's attention, a redcap came running beneath the still-gliding train's window.

“How many pieces?” “Is this all?” While trying not to lose sight of the figure standing beyond earshot, Nobuko handed over the trunk. “What number?” “Twenty-eight.” She hurried to the pillar where the man stood. When she finally thought it might be her husband, violent palpitations seized her, leaving her unable to keep her mouth firmly closed. Suppressing words of thanks with visible impatience, she came straight forward about three feet—but upon properly seeing that face again, a strange grimace like tearful laughter twisted her mouth before she abruptly turned aside.

It was not Tsukuda.— Walking slowly across the concrete to the ticket gate this time, Nobuko keenly contemplated how blissful people welcomed home like that must feel. Upon reflection, it had been an error from the very start to fantasize about her husband coming to meet her. He was someone who had never once come to the station when she departed from or returned to Tokyo. Moreover, there existed no expectation that he might even be asked to welcome her gladly. Last early summer, she had returned from that same countryside in identical fashion. Her present emotions differed completely from then. This much Nobuko understood clearly. This return had not been driven by thoughts of mending their marital relationship, but rather pressed by considerations of how most rationally to alter it. A profound fear regarding their mutual fates also existed—particularly toward Tsukuda's position. However irredeemable matters had become, love yet remained in Nobuko's bond with her husband. She absolutely could not countenance letting others resolve their affairs. If rupture must come, she wanted it broken through their own will and some necessity that would leave no future regrets. Such was her state of mind. Though knowing better, when the rickshaw's shaft lifted, Nobuko scanned once more through the sparse crowd clustered around luggage carts on the sunken earthen floor—water-splashed where sunlight didn't reach—searching against reason. The man bearing Tsukuda's exact profile had already vanished from that vicinity.

Shortly after Nobuko returned, there was a two-day holiday. Nobuko had brought out a zabuton cushion to the engawa. It was a clear autumn day. Beside the tsukubai stone basin, roses left behind by previous residents had put forth two small salmon-colored blooms. Behind the rose bushes stood an old bamboo fence, and beyond it rose the even more weathered siding of the neighboring house. The siding was black but weathered by years of wind and rain, its darkness faded to a dim pale ink where greenish fine mold had seeped in like scattered moth-wing scales. Against this backdrop, the two yellow-tinged roses appeared vividly beautiful. Glossy deep-crimson branches with slender lines; leaves whose color began to be tinged by the night mist. It seemed that for the weathered black siding there could be no better adornment, and for the autumn roses no surroundings more harmonious than this.

Nobuko savored with pleasure the poetic sentiment of this secluded corner. Why do society’s beautiful people never think to adorn themselves with such border designs along their hems? Are not what we call splendid garments precisely those that incorporate this kind of naturally perfected beauty—the sort that leaves an indelible impression without deliberate intent?

Then, at that moment, Tsukuda—who had turned away and was sweeping under a single pine tree—looked toward Nobuko. “How is it? Interesting?”

“This.” Nobuko took her eyes off the roses and held up the book she had been clutching in one hand all along. “—An adventure story… It starts off like something by Harunami.”

“But isn’t that author from an older generation…” “Old-fashioned it certainly seems—”

Nobuko turned to the preface. “It says around the fourth century.” “Hmm…”

Tsukuda cut short that line of conversation and stood at the center of the garden stones in the roughly ten-tsubo yard, looking around in all directions. He found something and went to the stone basin with a displeased expression.

“There's no excuse—you've left these footprints again.” He stamped down on one spot with the old slipper on one foot, stamping repeatedly. “Toyo! Toyo! Toyo!”

From the gate, Toyo stretched her neck. “Did you call for me?” Toyo said. “—Did you step here with your geta this morning?” “...Well.” Toyo cast a sidelong glance toward Nobuko on the engawa and then, looking flustered, lowered her eyes to where Tsukuda was standing.

“Don’t walk around so carelessly—am I the only one cleaning properly here?” “Yes, sir.” “—Bring me the flower shears.” Even while taking the shears, Tsukuda meticulously reiterated the matter of the footprints. Nobuko, sitting nearby, felt acutely uncomfortable. It seemed to her their maid was being soiled by the unresolved detritus of their marital situation. With the flower shears, Tsukuda first trimmed a broken dead pine branch hanging downward before approaching beneath the roses. Ducking under the fatsia plant, he began snipping withered buds that had failed to bloom from the side. Nobuko watched in silence. Tsukuda gradually worked the shears until he moved to cut even the two half-open blooms that had captivated Nobuko’s gaze.

“Oh, please don’t do that. They’re beautiful.” “Even if we leave them like this, they’ll just wither soon. We should cut them and arrange them in water.” “But if you cut them, the whole look of the place will change—is that really all right? Even if we leave them as they are…”

Tsukuda, still holding onto the branch he had seized, said.

“I’m only thinking of cutting them because leaving flowers too long harms the trunk.” Nobuko felt it would sound affected to verbalize how those two yellowish salmon-pink roses gained their rich elegance precisely through their surroundings. “If only they could truly keep blooming like that!” “Then I’ll stop—do as you please.” With a sullen face, he ducked under the fatsia again while muttering: “—Such flowers! When they were far more beautiful, no one came to look at them.”

Back when this tree had been covered in roses—some thirty days prior—she had been staying in the countryside, spending each evening listening to the resonant chorus of insects and watching the lawn yellowing. The emotions she had harbored during that time, and their current state of hearts—tangled in debate over whether to trim the roses or not within this garden bathed in translucent autumn light—wrenched at Nobuko. The condition of two hearts that should have loved each other fiercely now severed from connection, merely drawn by a negative force that kept them from parting completely—pulling and being pulled in turn—pressed painfully upon her. On some clear autumn day years hence, should this ordinary scene from today ever rise unbidden from memory's depths—herself sitting thus on the veranda, Tsukuda's figure in the garden, those two exquisite roses—what might they tell her?

The next morning at dawn, Nobuko peered through the glass door at the garden. The roses, wet with dew and drooping, bloomed as vividly and unchanged as they had the day before. Their innocent vividness and purity wounded Nobuko’s heart with uncanny intensity. She passed by as if averting her eyes.

Three

Eight in the evening.

Smirnov was reading aloud from Hafez’s poetry. Following after him, Tsukuda read each passage with careful intonation—the guttural, monotonous voices of the two men made the surrounding air feel heavy. In response to Smirnov saying something in a low voice, Tsukuda hurriedly reiterated, “yes. yes.” A voice answering could also be heard—all of these things were tormenting. Nobuko began moving around the room.

Even though not much time had passed since returning, Nobuko had fallen into a kind of self-loathing over her waning passion these past few days. This time upon coming back, she realized her husband could no longer treat her as an ordinary woman. Overwhelmed yet unable to grasp the crux—whether she ought to fear this or pity him—she felt she had settled on letting sleeping dogs lie. Regarding her time in the countryside, Tsukuda neither asked about her experiences nor spoke of his own life during that period.

"As long as you return... Welcome home anytime." "Baby."

However, she was not innocent like a true infant. Nobuko was a woman and his wife. Between them, even their marital relationship had lost its naturalness. There existed neither hope rooted in familialism nor the pure force born from primal desire's blazing flare. Tsukuda's somehow condescending manner—even those very acts at times—emotions that seemed to proclaim they were for Nobuko's sake—to Nobuko, sensing this was agonizing and humiliating. She even hated, found frustrating, and grieved over her own youthful desire—this vibrant longing to be caressed that welled up unbidden within her during such moments. She wept with resentment toward her husband, who made her feel this unreasonable humiliation even toward her fleeting youth that would never return. Their relationship was wrong—had gone awry. To Nobuko, there was no other way to perceive it. When viewed individually, people who were neither particularly wicked nor cruel could become entirely different beings when placed within a certain relationship.—And she herself knew all too well that it was precisely there that correction must be applied.

When she had resolved to return from the countryside, Nobuko had believed she was thinking of Tsukuda. She had thought she was returning with good motives—wanting to obtain the best resolution, not wanting to pointlessly destroy their life. However, when she reflected on herself frittering away each day through indecision that seemed to involve more than mere self-restraint, Nobuko found herself unable to keep from pacing about like this. Tsukuda, out of his characteristic patience and cunning, was clearly trying to formally treat yesterday’s matters as yesterday’s matters. If this was how they were going to proceed, then so be it—that was the line of thinking. She began to feel that perhaps she herself was unconsciously taking advantage of that situation. While attacking him, wasn’t she ultimately entrusting her own lack of courage?

Nobuko had finally altered her circumstances by taking a new lover, as often happens—yet she doubted this lifestyle that merely amounted to shifting from man to man, being in essence but a repetition of her past existence as some man’s wife. Her aversion to married life did not stem from comparing Tsukuda with others. She had discovered countless dissatisfactions—both in the conflicts arising from their incompatible personalities and in what might be called the conventions of matrimony: those accepted ways of perceiving and navigating marital substance between men and women at large. Tsukuda was Nobuko’s first husband. And he would likely remain her last. Nobuko herself would need either to be reborn an entirely different woman, or for society’s sexual mores to undergo some radical transformation allowing more natural coexistence. In other words, her inability to sustain married life with Tsukuda stemmed not merely from him being her partner. To phrase it laboriously: through Tsukuda—this man whose union with her had introduced into their shared life a middle-class mentality she found intolerable, an emotional stagnation, feeble hypocrisies, and what passed for a work ethic that seemed ultimately reducible to pension certificates—Nobuko had realized she simply could not harmonize herself with these elements. Hence she felt pure pity toward Tsukuda. Not because he alone desired such an existence uncritically. She could apologize for the reckless passion that had bound her to him while believing he shared her desires. Yet as an individual, Nobuko possessed an unshakable foundation within her heart to act on her convictions without remorse.

Yet why couldn't she stop wavering? Was it love's doing? Was it merely the habit formed through years of married life? Or were humans such pitiful creatures that even a straw's breadth of lingering affection made them—foolish beings—incapable of dividing it as a keepsake and living apart? Unless some psychological violence intervened—unless some man appeared to wrest her from Tsukuda by force—would she remain powerless to resolve her own fate?

If she were to lay bare her innermost self, Nobuko couldn't believe there wasn't the slightest hesitation toward a future of living solely by her own efforts. It was unthinkable that Tsukuda didn't notice this subtle weakness. In his heart, no matter how much Nobuko raged, he saw through it with a "Just try to go through with it," all while indulging her with "Baby, baby" in their life—Nobuko hunched her shoulders as if shielding herself from something unbearable.

Suddenly, there was a harsh clatter of a spoon striking a teacup. In the opposite room, the recitation had ceased at some point. Footsteps carried in a drink. ――Had he finished already? Nobuko felt unbearable revulsion at remaining in this room. Speaking with her husband was agony. She wanted to burrow quickly into some dark, deserted corner. I want to sleep until the world changes…… The sliding door creaked open. Footsteps sounded on the wooden floorboards. Nobuko instinctively looked toward the outer veranda. "I want to hide!" Her heart pounded like a wild creature at the thought. Yet even Nobuko found this impulse startlingly abrupt. Why? Before she could stir, the door slid open. Nobuko turned her startled expression toward Tsukuda as he entered.

Tsukuda looked at Nobuko, who stood gripping the back of a chair with a somewhat puzzled expression. He was holding a shallow box in his hands. Nobuko said in a voice as dry as her throat, “Do you need something?” she herself asked. “...Mr. Smirnov gave me this...” Tsukuda looked Nobuko up and down as if he had sniffed out an unusual atmosphere. “Won’t you come over here? Over here.” Nobuko, still gripping the back, sat down on the chair from the side.

“...I’m not myself tonight.” “I’ll take my leave.” “Please... do as you must.” He placed the box on Nobuko’s lap and left. It contained sugar-preserved Persian jujubes.

IV

It was a certain evening in December.

Nobuko was sitting in the maid’s room.

About three feet away, Toyo, with her ruddy cheeks and full-bosomed figure resembling one of Renoir’s country girls, was diligently winding wool yarn. On the wall were pasted prints of beautiful women from a newspaper supplement, and a red collar washed with benzene hung over the window. Nobuko moved her hands pleasantly. When she was little, she would sit before her mother and help wind thread. She recalled the box of Komachi threads—neatly and beautifully wound skeins filled with an assortment of colors. It had been kept in the camphorwood chest. When opening the drawer, the pungent scent of camphor would waft up. How old must Mother have been then? She even felt a certain calmness within herself.

“Toyo, how did you usually do this? Were you able to manage alone?” “With regular thread, I can pull and wind it tight without trouble—so I can do it alone—but...” Toyo misinterpreted Nobuko’s question as boredom and abruptly quickened her movements. “It’s all right—take your time. I’m finding it enjoyable too—if you tell me, I’ll help from now on.” “Thank you...” Toyo made a faint expression. Nobuko sensed this and spoke, disguising her awareness with a laugh.

“Though of course, you can’t really count on someone like me who’s never home.” When five or six strands of four-ounce thread formed slender coils around Nobuko’s wrist, Tsukuda’s voice called from his room. Toyo hurriedly bowed her head, scooted closer, and removed the wool yarn.

Tsukuda was at his desk. “What do you need?” “Just a moment.” “What is it?” Nobuko stood by the desk and looked at her husband. Tsukuda, his legs wrapped in a blanket, arched backward in his chair and stared fixedly at Nobuko. With furrowed brows, a wrinkled forehead, and a pained gaze, he continued staring while taking Nobuko’s hand that hung by her side. Nobuko found his expression somehow oppressive. “What is it you need?”

“Tonight I have something serious to discuss.” Nobuko withdrew her hand from Tsukuda’s grasp.

“Then wait a moment, will you?” Nobuko went to the adjacent room to get a chair. As she went, she felt something like anticipation mixed with an unfathomable anxiety. What was he going to say?

“Move it a bit that way—yes, thank you.”

Nobuko placed a chair diagonally across from him. Tsukuda remained silent for a while with his arms crossed, then took out a piece of folded pocket paper from beside him. He handed it to Nobuko. "You may find it unpleasant, but look—this came out last night." Nobuko unfolded it and looked. She shuddered. She put it down once, then looked again. In the paper was a bloodstain resembling a pressed large morning glory with torn petals, its pink hue tinged with black.

“When was this? Last night?” “After leaving the bath—when I came here, I started choking strangely. When I tried to clear my throat, that came out.” “And today?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Nobuko returned the paper to the desk. "How strange—you must rest no matter what—why did you stay silent? Salt water helps, you know. If you drink it right when it happens..." Tsukuda took Nobuko’s hand again.

“For a long time now, I’ve pushed my body too hard, so I was certain I wouldn’t last much longer.” “I thought things would surely change once we returned to Japan, yet somehow I’ve managed to hold out until today.” “I know you’ve been suffering greatly too, but I wanted us to live together at least while I’m alive—since it won’t be much longer—so I said various things... but I’ve lost any right to stop you. Please... be free.” “I won’t try to stop you anymore.”

Nobuko had been somewhat moved by what she had seen. But what Tsukuda said sounded too sentimental. As she thought this, he pulled Nobuko closer by the hand and said imploringly.

“There’s truly no need for restraint. “If it comes to this, even if you hadn’t said anything like that, I wouldn’t think of keeping you by my side... you see.” Nobuko remained silent. Tsukuda stared at Nobuko for a long time, then, “Ah...” He let out a sigh and leaned back against the chair. He shook his head as though overwhelmed by emotion. “It’s finally come…” To Nobuko, what Tsukuda was saying didn’t quite resonate. The notion that illness was a separate matter had become painfully clear—that she could leave now that he was ill—yet Nobuko felt his proposal carried a contradictory urgency driven by tragic resolve.

“But—there’s no need to rush into thinking that way. First of all, we don’t even know what this illness really is yet—” Nobuko maintained a composed demeanor as if trying to placate him, even managing to smile. “What will you do if this turns out to be some misunderstanding you’ve worked yourself up over?” “That’s absolutely impossible—I know this for certain.” “Just consider it carefully.”

Nobuko had, before she knew it, pressed down on Tsukuda’s arm through his kimono. “Even a maid couldn’t leave her sick master behind—you shouldn’t say things that can’t be done.” “It’s not impossible.” “How come? Do you truly believe I’ll gladly do as you say? Anyway, it’s not the time to make such a big deal out of things—let’s call Mr. Tsumura tomorrow.”

This was a peculiar emotion. Into Tsukuda, who sometimes thought of killing her, and into Nobuko, who wished to escape this relationship—who thought how happy she would be if she could escape—something like a sad joy gradually crept into their hearts. She said calmly. “What brings happiness... I don’t know anymore. Lately, we’ve become terribly poor people—in spirit—so perhaps if we try to make ourselves useful in any way, we can manage.”

Tsukuda’s illness had altered the focus of their lives, consequently bringing about a shift in both their emotional states; Nobuko suddenly felt this might unexpectedly open a new phase in their shared existence. At the very least, a shared purpose to cure the illness had been bestowed upon them—

Instead, feeling as though she’d been given a jolt of energy, Nobuko shifted her chair.

“It’s certainly nothing serious, but you should lie down now.” Tsukuda was completely dejected and went to bed just as Nobuko told him to.

“Come on, cheer up!” “That old-fashioned way of thinking won’t do!” “If that’s how you feel, you’d have to become Mr. Mizuno’s disciple.”

Mizuno was a professor at an institute of technology whom they had come to know in New York. While conducting dye research there, his lungs became affected, and he suffered severe hemoptysis. He promptly entered a sanatorium across the Hudson River, spent a year resting with exemplary discipline, and achieved full recovery. When he returned to the city in mid-October, Nobuko too was introduced to him for the first time. At that time, combining his delight at speaking Japanese after so long with the boundless satisfaction of one who had completed a great undertaking, he spent the whole night recounting to them his illness, the latest treatments he had received, and the course of his recovery.

Following the advice she had unconsciously retained from his account that time, Nobuko placed a hot water bottle in Tsukuda’s bedding and removed the charcoal brazier from the room. While doing these things, she recalled how Mizuno had— “There was a thicket of raspberries in the garden, you see, and when the snow piled up, Japanese robins would come fluttering over to play.” and remembered the tone in which he had spoken, reminiscing as though truly comforted by that scene.

V

Nobuko returned to her desk and wrote a letter to Tsumura. "He says that two nights ago, he coughed up phlegm mixed with blood and is extremely concerned about it." "I earnestly request that you deign to examine him at least once."

She, “Toyo”

she called.

“Please deliver this to the school tomorrow morning at nine o’clock and bring back their reply without fail.” Tsumura was the school doctor at Tsukuda’s institution. Anticipating an early morning, Nobuko retired early that night. Tsukuda slept soundly, unaware of Nobuko’s entry into the room, his faint snores barely audible. Lying down, Nobuko recognized her inner agitation despite believing herself perfectly composed. Though someone had spoken uncertainly about the illness to avoid discouraging her husband, she harbored little doubt it was consumption. She knew he had suffered anal fistulas in his twenties. His intestines had always troubled him. His native province led all others in such afflictions. Yet the condition seemed mild enough, and at forty, sudden deterioration appeared unlikely. With fragmented medical knowledge, she reached this general conclusion.

And yet—why didn't she feel this as a sudden misfortune? Nobuko wondered. Lying in the darkness like this, listening to his breathing—no particular shock worth making a fuss over, no sudden surge of grief reached her. At the same time, Nobuko noticed that the tenacious discord between them had completely vanished—if only for tonight. It was a neutralized state. Even if their marital relationship were removed—was it because he, as a person, needed the assistance of her healthy self?

Pity……pity akin to love…… Those words flickered and faded like sparklers. Nobuko considered his state of mind during the day he had concealed the facts and found herself enveloped in a solemn mood. Nobuko turned over. Tsukuda appeared to be sleeping facing her way. In the cold night air, she felt his exhalations mingling with hers between their two beds. That sensation roused an abnormally sharp awareness in her. Nobuko involuntarily held her breath and, startled, opened her eyes wide in the darkness. After exhaling the breath she had unconsciously retained for so long, she found herself unable to naturally inhale while still facing him. She turned onto her back within the futon as slowly and carefully as possible. Nobuko felt a bitter irony toward herself.

When morning came, Nobuko had a dream. Tsukuda had coughed up blood, so she was in the middle of calling a doctor. Where exactly the telephone was—only the sensation in her palm gripping the receiver and the gleaming nickel mouthpiece remained clearly visible. Beside her stood the maid wearing a striped kimono. She disliked being questioned by this ignorant maid about Tsukuda having coughed up blood and, stretching up toward the mouthpiece, desperately— “Tsukuda has coughed up *blood*.”

she said.

With that, she woke up.

Even after waking, the sensation of her tongue carefully forming the word *blood* lingered with strange vividness, and Nobuko felt a sorrowful emotion.

Tsumura appeared around one o'clock. Tsukuda explained his condition in detail. They had completely assumed the demeanor of doctor and patient. “That must be worrying for you. However, professions that require speaking for long hours—like us both—are often affected. Even if it’s not tuberculosis. Moreover, if you examine them with X-rays, seven or eight out of ten people will show traces of it. In other words, they contract it within the unconscious and have it healed within the unconscious. The human body is quite remarkably designed in that way.”

He took out the stethoscope with a hand that appeared both ruddy and nervously delicate. "Well—let me examine you." Tsukuda removed his shirt with solemn determination, baring his chest—a broad, thick expanse of unblemished flesh framed by sturdy ribs. "You have an excellent skeletal structure." The doctor spoke while running his fingertips over Tsukuda's skin in what seemed a psychotherapeutic gesture. "Observe—your skin shows ample subcutaneous fat, healthy circulation, and good elasticity. If this were an authentic case, such conditions wouldn't persist."

“Take a deep breath.” “Now take a small breath.” “Take another deep one.” Nobuko watched nearby, and in that moment found her husband truly pitiable. Following Dr. Tsumura’s instructions, he earnestly furrowed his brows and drew a deep breath. He carefully took small breaths. Nobuko had never seen him so serious and wholehearted in any circumstance. He too wanted to live. That was true honesty. The bridge of Nobuko’s nose turned sour and began to sting. When she returned after preparing the washbasin, Tsukuda was already wearing his kimono.

“How is it?” Tsumura answered while discreetly wiping the stethoscope with a small piece of alcohol-scented absorbent cotton. “I don’t detect any particular abnormalities—well, perhaps just a slight… a very slight murmur on the left side, but that degree of thing is something anyone might temporarily experience.” Tsukuda had been taking meticulous care of himself since morning, not even putting force into his voice. He felt encouraged by Tsumura’s diagnosis alone.

“Thank you. When something colored came out, I was completely startled.” “That’s true for laypeople. But in fact, that’s more reassuring—since you’ll start taking care early on…” Nobuko was about to say “restroom” when she thought of something.

“I’m terribly sorry to trouble you, but while you’re here, might I have you take a look at me as well?” There was nothing wrong with Nobuko. Tsumura said he would come again tomorrow with a respiratory specialist from K Hospital and left.

“Look! Didn’t I tell you?” Nobuko said after seeing the doctor out and returning. “No—we still can’t be certain,” he replied. “Not until a specialist examines it.”

“Oh, come on.” Nobuko laughed. “You hysterical young lady! Won’t you be satisfied unless it’s something serious?” However, that night, as Tsukuda tried to go to bed and pulled up the bedding, he coughed up a small amount of blood again. His mental agitation was so intense that he turned deathly pale and trembled with limbs like ice.

VI

On Sunday, Nobuko went to Dōzaka.

A car was parked at the gate. Nobuko asked at the entrance. "A guest?" "The Miss Sudas are here." "And Father?" "He is with a guest."

“He has a guest.” “Oh, a different one.”

By the fireplace were the three Suda children, Nobuko’s three younger siblings, and her mother. When they saw Nobuko enter without warning, they all at once raised their voices in unison, “Wow!” they cheered. “Hi. “Perfect timing. “We only arrived about an hour ago.” “What luck—we were just saying we should try calling you.” “Right.—It’s been a while.” Nobuko removed her gloves while greeting her cousins.

"Long time no see. The last time we met was at Jun-chan's wedding, wasn't it?" "But Nobuko, you never come visit us at all!" When she wedged herself in and sat down, Tsuya-ko emerged from beyond the curtain partition wearing a deep yellow wool sweater. "Are you staying over tonight, Sis?" "Well—" "Tsuya-chan, you're looking so stylish today—what's the occasion? That sweater." "Suzu-chan knitted it for me."

“It’s a nice color. That shade looks good on a child.” “Tsuya-ko’s black hair makes it suit her even better—what will you give in return, Tsuya-chan?” Tsuya-ko had been thinking, but now looked embarrassed, “I’ll knit one for you too!” she replied. Then, Tamotsu whirled around abruptly.

“Huh? You’re going to knit it? That bag Tsuya-ko knitted—I saw it, and it’s completely shoddy. Red, small, and full of holes!” Everyone burst out laughing. Through the high window, the frost-covered yuzuriha treetops stood peacefully tranquil, as befitted a winter Sunday.

After about thirty minutes had passed, Nobuko asked her mother.

“I came because I needed to ask Father something—is his guest staying long?” “I suppose so.” Takeyo looked at the clock.

“Oh my, it’s been over two hours now—it should be ending soon, since it seems to be something related to the company.” “They could stay over today, I suppose.” “Let’s have them stay then.” Nobuko was eating steamed sushi while, “Today is absolutely out of the question—there’s a patient in the house.” she said. “Oh?” Takeyo asked, sounding surprised. “Is it Mr. Tsukuda?” “He’s been in bed since the other day.” Takeyo muttered casually. “It’s that stomach trouble again, I suppose. Still as weak as ever.”

“It’s not his stomach this time.—”

At that moment, her father entered. "Oh. You're here." Nobuko and the others all stood up in unison. "Good day." "Good afternoon, Uncle."

“Hiya!” Father joked and slid his glasses down to the tip of his nose. “This is quite a crowd! The number of children in our house has doubled! I can’t tell which one’s which anymore!” After the commotion subsided, Nobuko asked her father. “Father, you were looking at a good sickbed catalog once—does that still exist?” “Well—if we search for it, of course it exists—but shall we buy it?” “I think I want one.”

He poked at the fireplace flames and asked, “Just one?”

he asked back. “—If we’re buying one anyway, wouldn’t two be better? It’s healthy—we’d use sickbeds too if only that stubborn old lady would agree.” Nobuko, wanting to settle the matter she had come for, continued without indulging in his jokes. “Since Tsukuda isn’t feeling well, we have to be cautious moving around when he’s lying on the tatami, so for now I’d like to buy just one.” “—Where?” “In the desk?”

Following Nobuko, Father also came to the desk.

“It’s probably not there—it should be in that binder over there. Take a look at the B section.” They found the catalog, passed by the children playing hopscotch, and sat facing each other in front of the hearth. Father looked worried. “What’s wrong? Has he been unwell all along?” Nobuko answered lightly, just as she had prepared her plan. “It seems he overexerted himself and aggravated his throat. The doctor says he should rest for about a term.”

Nobuko felt her mother, from across the room, listening to her words with a penetrating expression. "That won't do—have you consulted a trustworthy doctor?" "You know about it, Father. Mr. Serizawa from K."

Nobuko examined the catalog and telephoned the store. They said they would deliver it on Monday. At his third thorough examination, Tsukuda had confirmed what had initially been suspected - a slight infiltration on the left side. Nevertheless, Nobuko resolved not to disclose the full details of his condition to her parents unless circumstances absolutely compelled her. As she prepared to leave, the maid came to summon her.

“Madam requests that you please come to the kotatsu.” Nobuko intuitively sensed her mother’s purpose and found it unpleasant. When she reluctantly opened the sliding door, Takeyo—still warmed by the kotatsu—turned only her head. “A shower’s started—somehow. “It’s too noisy over there, so I wanted to have a little talk here.” Nobuko slid her knees under the kotatsu.

“About Tsukuda’s illness… —Is he really all right?” “What do you mean?” “—It’s not just some simple throat issue, is it?”

“Why?” “I thought his complexion wasn’t normal when he came that time.”

Nobuko felt obligated to provide her mother with some measure of reassurance, “Anyway, there’s nothing to worry terribly about. Since I’m this healthy and active, isn’t it proof he’ll be fine? It’s just that we’re being cautious as the cold season approaches.” she said. “Your being all healthy and active isn’t any guarantee—it’s truly troubling—so tell me, will he really recover fully in just one term?” “Probably, I suppose.”

Nobuko smiled with a dark expression. "Well, he's human—who can say for certain?" "But if Tsukuda had tuberculosis all along, marrying you without disclosing it would be criminal." "Even supposing that were true, it couldn't have existed beforehand. It's too cruel to think that way." "You may be healthy now—but your body is your greatest asset in life. Have you told your father back home?"

“There’s no need for that yet.” “But there are various things…” Nobuko surmised that it concerned money. “Is he really all right—”

Nobuko flung off the kotatsu futon.

“Well then, I’ll be taking my leave today. Thank you for everything.” “Is that so.” Takeyo rose reluctantly as well. “You really must be careful. If even you take on some strange burden, the household will disown you.” As she was leaving the room, she muttered sarcastically.

“Well, for that person, this must actually be rather convenient.” “Once it comes to this, even if I tell you to leave, you can’t just go…” Nobuko felt her mother was hateful, yet had hit upon the truth.

7

Carrying a tray bearing a heavy soup bowl, Nobuko quietly opened the sliding paper door. Because there was no charcoal fire whatsoever, the air in the room felt pure and refreshing. The mild sunlight through the glass door glittered on the metal fittings of the sickbed. "It feels nice here—my head feels so clear." There was no reply.—Nobuko thought she’d made a mistake and hunched her shoulders. Tsukuda appeared to be asleep. Nobuko suddenly moved with stealthy footsteps and approached the bedside. She set the tray down on the small table beside her without making a sound and peered over the pillow. He was not asleep. He lay on his back staring at the ceiling. His lips tightened, his gaze—with eyelids strained taut—fixed on a single point. Wondering what it was, Nobuko too briefly looked up at the ceiling.

“What are you doing?” “…………” “Were you sleeping?” Tsukuda slowly moved his eyes over Nobuko’s face and gazed at her—standing there so vigorously—with a look that seemed both anguished and imploring. “I wasn’t sleeping or anything.” With his accusatory tone, Nobuko noticed for the first time that Tsukuda was holding a small Bible in the hand she couldn’t see. When she saw that, she felt an indescribable discomfort. Since her husband had taken to bed, she had already witnessed such scenes several times. Each time, the same fresh, piercing, all-encompassing discomfort welled up in her chest. Even if he had chronic nephritis, would Tsukuda still make such an expression with a Bible in hand? For Nobuko, it was an unbearable feeling—something miserable and shameful—to see Tsukuda, who since returning to Japan had spent his days without so much as glancing at the Bible, now treat himself like one cast into the most wretched circumstances after taking to bed, gloomily twisting the scripture in his hands. She restrained her emotions and sipped her soup as if she had seen nothing.

“Now, please eat while it’s hot. Once it cools down, well—Cook is Cook, so there’ll be nothing to be done about it.” Tsukuda sat up on the sickbed with a gaze that seemed to rebuff Nobuko’s forced cheer. He silently took the spoon. While sipping the soup as if it were a duty, he occasionally raised his eyes—the whites starkly visible in his nervous gaze—to look at Nobuko beside him. Nobuko felt constrained, as if she were being interrogated for reasons she couldn’t comprehend. “What’s wrong?—Are you feeling unwell?”

“No.” “Then eat to lift your spirits, alright? You’re already in recovery. There’s no need to feel so down—it’s better to stay composed.” “Thank you…… It was delicious.” Tsukuda returned the plate, wiped around his mouth with a serviette, and said. “It’s pitiable… You’re healthy, after all.” “Why?” “That’s exactly why… I—” “Is it about your illness?” Tsukuda let out a heavy sigh instead of replying.

“Of course anyone would prefer health over illness—but once it's come to this between us, there's nothing to do but try our best to recover properly.” “That’s all well and good—but... how should I say this...” Nobuko spoke carefully to avoid sounding sarcastic.

“It’s about mental attitude—why won’t you treat this illness like any other internal disease? If there’s no immediate danger, you ought to convince yourself it might even sharpen your mind.” “Anyway…it’s a sickness that prevents happiness.” This time Nobuko looked down at him through a haze of dread, deliberately……This dark truth stood revealed.

Nobuko regarded her husband's illness simply as an illness. Tsukuda did not view it so simply. He claimed it was because Nobuko's unsettled life tormented him— Holding the plate, Nobuko stood perfectly still. She felt a composed calmness in her heart, as if realizing there remained no escape even now. The illness held no power to halt this soundless clash between heart and heart. Since her husband was ill now, she naturally tended to and helped him—but when pressed to essentials, wasn't she still refusing to truly accept him? In the same way, did Tsukuda too constantly assail Nobuko like this within his heart?

Nobuko went to the kitchen with a gloomy heart and silently handed the empty soup plate to the maid. In those moments when she was innocently chatting and adjusting Tsukuda's pillow, Nobuko would suddenly remember this matter. Her mind's eye opened wide, illuminating the terrifying darkness at the core of these two people who spoke so casually.—Nobuko suddenly felt suffocated, her lips trembling. Even my attempts at thorough nursing care for Tsukuda do not stem from love. I don't want to be cruel—it's ultimately for my own self-satisfaction. Something even whispered this to Nobuko. If I had been a more uncompromising person, I would have kicked away such pretense of benevolence.

Even her own simple acts, which she had been performing quite naturally until now, suddenly struck her as strangely hypocritical, and with a heart bitter and aching, Nobuko hurried to finish what she had started. Tsukuda could only perceive this as Nobuko's fickleness and dislike of hassle, which she understood all too well. Nobuko was sad. If I were Tsukuda, I would surely feel resentment—this was agonizing.

One evening, Nobuko had been in her room for some time. When she came to her senses, the entire house was deathly quiet. She strained her ears to listen. Only her own room remained; everything around it seemed to have vanished into silence. Nobuko was assailed by anxiety. Shoving aside the chair with her body, she stood up and opened the adjacent sliding paper door. The lamp was lit. The futon on the sickbed swelled upward with the shape of a human body lying beneath. There was nothing unusual. Nobuko found it odd—why had such anxiety gripped her? Casting her large shadow on the wall at the foot of the sickbed, Nobuko entered the room. But when she saw her husband's condition, her words caught in her throat.

He was reading the Bible—Nobuko understood she had no right to criticize it, whatever his state of mind might be. Whether he tried to read it cheerfully or in a way that indulged sentimentality— Yet in this world, there existed ways of doing things that grated on one’s nerves. For instance, even when eating the same food, there were ways of consuming it that made one furious just to watch. What was Tsukuda trying to make her realize with this Bible?

Nobuko looked down at Tsukuda's face. He likely sensed both that Nobuko was looking down on him and that her gaze held emotions as intense as stomping feet, yet not a single eyelash stirred. He kept his obstinate stare fixed on the wall by his feet. Nobuko was gradually losing her patience. She spoke in a low, crushed voice. "Give that here—please, I'm begging you..."

As she said this, she reached out her hand. “…………” Tsukuda, having taken the Bible out from the futon, gripped it with such force that his thumb turned viper-like as he readjusted his hold. Nobuko could no longer restrain her violent emotions. “—Give it here.” He attempted not to yield it. “Give it here.” Oh, what was I trying to do? This was bad for Tsukuda’s health. Things might turn dreadful. Let something terrible happen—in one decisive stroke! With one decisive act! Tsukuda glared fixedly at Nobuko with a pale face, raising and lowering his hand as he tried not to relinquish it. Nobuko earnestly pursued the Bible. In the midst of pursuing it, Nobuko grew frightened of herself and tears plopped down in heavy drops.

“I said give it here! If you’d just hand it over, none of this would be happening!” Nobuko slammed the Bible she had seized beneath the sickbed. They both wept.

Eight

By late February, Tsukuda’s health had almost returned to normal, with only minor restrictions such as not attending school, staying in bed late into the morning, and refraining from going out at night.

The winter-withered garden had grown moist, and on this day when gazing intently at the tree branches, one could discern a faint gloss and swelling buds that whispered of tender early spring.

Tsukuda was repairing the gate by the well. Thickly bundled and wearing a woolen hat like those used for skiing pulled down to his ears, he looked like a man of about fifty.

“—Should you be exerting yourself so much?” “Shall I hammer it in for you?” “No need, this much is fine.—Just fetch me some wire.” Nobuko began heading toward the storeroom.

“Ah, and then please look at the clock—it’s on the desk.”

Nobuko returned with a bundle of wire and wire cutters. “It’s ten minutes to one.” “Already? Then I’d better get ready.” Tsukuda hurriedly began finishing his work. “Were you planning to go somewhere?” “Yes, you must get ready too.” “How sudden.” Nobuko glanced back at Toyo and laughed. “If you had told me sooner, we would have prepared accordingly. What would happen if you spent two whole hours primping?” Into the room where Nobuko was changing clothes, Tsukuda came to wash his hands.

“I’ll wear a kimono.” “Oh—you never usually wear kimonos—where exactly are we going?” “It’s fine. It’s somewhere we can go as we are.” “Where?” “You’ll understand when we arrive.” “Ugōsaka?” “No.” “—Is it truly a place one can visit without knowing anything? Somewhere interesting?” “Well… I imagine it might be.” While gathering tabi socks and other items for her husband, Nobuko mentally combed through every possible destination they could be heading to.

“Hey, just tell me the initials, and I’ll guess.” “You’ll see when we get there.” This was the first time such a thing had happened since they had married. Tsukuda was not the sort of person to get carried away by excitement, nor one to devise delightful surprises meant to please others. It was rare to find a man who, even when going out, never forgot to return at the appointed time. They boarded the train from their neighborhood.

“Hongō… Sakanachō. “Two tickets.”

Sakanachō... Nobuko sat down beside Tsukuda and blinked rapidly as she thought. Their social circle was limited. The number of places they had visited together wasn't so small that she couldn't recall them. Sakanachō—Nobuko involuntarily,

“Ah, I know!” she blurted out. “You should know I’ve figured it out.” Tsukuda faced forward, keeping his arms crossed under his coat, and asked in return, “Where?” “But I’m still not sure… I thought it might be Mr. Sakabe… He’s supposed to be in Tokyo now—somewhere around the university’s main gate, wasn’t it? His lodgings…”

Tsukuda laughed ambiguously. “Then just leave it at that.” Sakabe was one of their close friends who taught botany at a regional university. Whenever they came to Tokyo, they never failed to meet him. Sure enough, when they arrived in front of the university’s main gate, Tsukuda stood up. “Let’s get off.”

And they turned straight past the fruit shop. In front of a Western-style restaurant stood a cook in white uniform and apron, his large chef’s hat crowning vacant eyes that followed their movement. A little further ahead before a shrine, a balloon vendor had laid out his wares. Nobuko walked through the tranquil afternoon thoroughfare with complex emotions. What strange creatures married people were—or humans in general. That these two who had wept together so bitterly mere nights before should now walk side by side—her husband’s unannounced decision to bring her visiting Sakabe kindled something like tenderness within her.

On the right side of the slope descending from Hongōdai toward Koishikawa, there was a gate bearing a used sign that read "Boarding House." Tsukuda entered through it. To the maid who passed by with her skirt tucked up, he called out. “Is Mr. Sakabe here?” “Please go right ahead.”

The maid aligned two pairs of slippers while observing Nobuko.

Tsukuda proceeded down the corridor encircling the inner courtyard without waiting for guidance. "Oh! You’ve been here before without me knowing!" As if signaled by that voice, Sakabe appeared beneath a pillar at the corner where the corridor curved sharply like a key. "Ah." "You did come after all! Do come in." Sakabe’s room was a quiet place with a window overlooking the trees and roofs below the slope. Nobuko perched on the windowsill. "This is rather nice—not what one expects from a boarding house."

“—The landlord here has known me since my student days when I boarded here. He’s quite the Sakabe loyalist.” While preparing tea himself, Sakabe asked Tsukuda: “How goes it? Everything proceeding smoothly?” “Hmm. “I feel perfectly fine now myself, but I’ll hold out through March. “Though it does weigh on me.” “Ha ha ha! “That’s the salaryman spirit—resting when you should be working means it’s not proper rest! Best to rest thoroughly when you can and stockpile your latent reserves.”

Nobuko found she could speak freely—but only with Sakabe. "So, Mr. Sakabe—what wonderful thing do you have in store today?"

“Why?” "But—you two had this all planned out beforehand, didn’t you?" “Now this is a predicament, ha ha ha! Had we known to prepare some special entertainment, but it’s too late now—you’ll have to pardon us with tonight’s feast.” Sakabe studied Nobuko intently with his double-lidded eyes, their corners creased with faint wrinkles. “—You remain as spirited as ever.” Nobuko’s shoulders sagged as her lips twisted wryly. Sakabe, seeming to pierce through her emotions, swiftly continued,

“No—you really are in good spirits.” he said.

“All living things being energetic is natural. True vitality, depending on how you look at it, is like a reflection of a divine heavenly force.” Last summer, when Tsukuda was traveling through the Kansai region and Nobuko was commuting to the hospital from their Ugatsuka home, Sakabe had come to Tokyo. Hearing about their whereabouts from the caretaker at their Akasaka house, he visited them in Ugatsuka. Nobuko introduced him to her father, and the three shared dinner together. At that time, they had mainly reminisced about their days at C University.

Nobuko, “You weren’t such an authority back then like you are now,” she said with a laugh. “You were so earnest! Look how you treasured those moldy apples!” “Hmm.”

Sakabe gazed at Nobuko’s face for some time with the same straight, level gaze he used when peering through a microscope, then suddenly spoke. “You—this might be rude to ask—are you happy?” Nobuko felt as if something had pierced clean through the very center of her aching chest. Yet out of embarrassment, she replied with a laugh, “Are such cellular changes showing?” “...There’s no use discussing this—it’s fine.” “Well, I’ll just do what I can.”

Still laughing, Nobuko found herself unexpectedly in tears. No one had ever spoken to her like this—in such a manner. Meeting Sakabe again now brought back those feelings from that time once more.

“―If one were to say this year has no snow―” Sakabe, his back hunched in Japanese clothes that made him look like a different person, pulled out a thick paper folder from under the desk. “Having this printed was another reason for my visit―” Nobuko cleared away the confectionery bowls and tea utensils. “If I launch into technical explanations, things get tedious again―the photographs themselves convey the essentials.” “First―this would be―how to put it―the prologue, perhaps?”

It was a photograph of a single tree resembling cherry blossoms. Its trunk extended straight up, spread its branches wide to either side, and bore blossoms. Nobuko and the others gazed in silence. “Next, this one.” “After the storm? The power lines were severed, houses had collapsed—” Rather than talking with Sakabe or anyone else, Tsukuda, who was in the role of listener, asked.

“Where? Looks like Manchuria, doesn’t it?” “Ah, North Manchuria. It’s a terrible sight, isn’t it? This shows the force of seasonal winds that blow annually during certain periods.” The next was a photograph where the treetops of several large trees were all twisted to one side, and one side looked completely bare and withered.

“Do you understand the connection?”

Nobuko grew intrigued. She eagerly compared them,

“Yes, I understand! I really do!” she exclaimed. “And then—” The six photographs showed how the trees in a certain region of Manchuria—stunted in their growth by the annual seasonal winds—transformed according to a fixed pattern. They became deformed. It was a study of that process. “—This is material you gathered long ago, isn’t it?” “—Has it been nearly ten years, perhaps?” “……But even within the same field of research, yours is splendid. Mine is unbearable. After all, I have to dig out—literally excavate—the factual material itself.”

“Won’t it work in Japan?”

“Poverty leaves no time—you have to eat to survive.” Nobuko, who had been gazing at the photographs again and again, said: “Everyone has to eat—it’s no different for anyone.” “Nine out of ten people are like that.” “That’s right.” Tsukuda said, seeming offended by Nobuko’s unexpected words.

“But with my research, I can’t even become a teacher.” “Even teaching in your own field isn’t easy for you. Having to always deal with students below your own ability level—and after all, true laboratory work is a different matter. On the contrary, lecturing on other subjects while steadily pursuing one’s main profession might offer a purer form of enjoyment.” “—There’s truly no time at all.” “How many hours do you have?” “Eleven hours.”

“In that case, it’s still manageable—”

“—With work like mine, finding even a single phrase can take not just a day, but sometimes three or four days without success.” Nobuko was inherently someone who felt stimulated by passionate work approaches, regardless of her own specialty. Having just witnessed Sakabe’s relentless efforts to forge ahead regardless of obstacles, her husband’s complaints about his own work grated against what might be called her very soul of labor. “It’s almost as if the inability to work properly has become Mr. Sakabe’s responsibility now…”

Thereupon, in a way even Nobuko hadn’t anticipated, the tangled frustrations of their married life became entangled. “That’s why you should do as I say.” “Then we won’t have that tiresome business of school using research as an excuse and research using school as an excuse.” “What an absolute mess, ha ha ha!” Sakabe laughed in mediation.

“What do you mean?” “What do you mean by ‘as I said,’ Ms. Nobuko?” Nobuko said smoothly, with an outwardly bright cheerfulness. “I made an excellent proposal. “We’ve had enough of playing at being husband and wife—pretending to have some grand significance while not accomplishing a single proper thing—so let’s just go back to being student lodgers again, I say.” “That’s better, don’t you think?” “And then, if the two of us just try to do what we can by truly making use of our abilities, that would be enough, don’t you think…”

What had begun lightly grew weighty, and Nobuko’s face assumed a sorrowful look. She understood perfectly well that Tsukuda had not brought her there intending to make her speak this way. Had her husband not been present—had she not seen his face, heard his voice, or watched his fingers crack their joints—she likely would never have uttered such things. This realization filled Nobuko with particular anguish. She fell into sullen silence.

Tsukuda sighed, "—It's rather difficult." he said. "We both have our own work to attend to, you see."

Sakabe lit the charcoal brazier in the room where daylight was waning. "If that were all," he said, "you should've reached mutual understanding from the outset—it wouldn't pose much difficulty. No—this runs deeper. It's about roots. The roots are what count."

Sakabe continued thinking for a while. “I’m bringing up plants again, but you see—there’s a specific place where grasses and trees can thrive. In their most natural, ideal state, that is.” “Simply being above ground isn’t enough—some grasses can only survive at particular northern latitudes.” “Others exist solely near the equator.” “We could keep them from withering through artificial means—greenhouses and such.” “But here’s the tragedy—plants sustained that way never bear fruit. Never reproduce. That’s what makes it terrifying.” “Humans too might preserve biological life under any circumstance—to a point.” “But without genuine soil, there’s no fruition.” “This sounds idealistic, but I believe we should strive to create—and offer each other—that authentic earth when possible.” “Since we’re speaking frankly—you two needn’t force yourselves to keep struggling in some cramped flowerpot that doesn’t fit.”

Tsukuda muttered through his teeth. “The ideal may be that way—but I cannot do it—that’s not how it works.” “What—the kind of thing Ms.Nobuko was referring to?” “Yes, that’s right.”

“...I do think it would feel rather wonderful to let a bird that wants to fly soar to its fullest and see what happens.” Nobuko sensed that Sakabe clearly harbored goodwill toward her and was siding with her. Her emotions stirred. While his kindness pleased her, hearing him voice such sentiments in that well-meaning tone grew painful.

“That’s all well and good.” “It’s not something to be settled through debate.” “I’m terribly sorry you got caught up in this.”

They talked until five o'clock.

“Since we’ve gone to the trouble, let’s have dinner somewhere.”

“Since it can’t get too late tonight, I’ll take my leave today.” “Please come to my house instead—if it’s home, you can stay as long as you like.” When they exited into the hallway, Sakabe stopped.

“Ah, wait a moment—I have something to give you.” Sakabe asked them to adjust their geta and descended into the courtyard. When he returned，the three or four inches of his wrist that had been submerged in water—that portion alone—appeared cold and had turned bright red. “What?” “These are rare in Tokyo—marimo algae.” Standing on the wooden floor of the entrance, he wrapped the velvety round algae in paper he had brought from the front desk and handed it to Nobuko.

Nine Leaning on the veranda with her hands, Nobuko peered into the tall glass bottle. In the water of the bottle, the marimo algae Sakabe had given her lay submerged.

“—Somehow its color seems to be worsening—it won’t rise up at all.” “Is that so?” “Can there really still be nutrients inside after all this time?” “Well…”

After a moment, Nobuko asked.

“When will Mr. Sakabe be departing for the South Seas?” “There’s still one or two months left, isn’t there? Since it hasn’t been fully settled yet.” Nobuko placed the glass bottle with refreshed water in the sunlight. “...What do you think of Mr. Sakabe?” Tsukuda adopted a guarded expression, as though trying to decipher Nobuko’s true meaning.

“What if it’s exactly as you imagine?” “Well, he’s still that same man as always.” “Your feelings haven’t changed? Like before?” Tsukuda returned her gaze with an unexpectedly accusatory look. “Why do you ask?” Nobuko had sensed that part of their friendship had begun changing since their recent joint visit to Sakabe. To her, this development was regrettable for all three of them. She also felt partially responsible for it. She had laid everything bare before Tsukuda, wanting him to voice any displeasure he might harbor.

“Is it truly still the same as before?” “There’s no possibility it could be otherwise.”

From the new term in April, Tsukuda began attending work.

On the first morning he went out, standing behind him as he put on his shoes in the same clothes he had worn since around last year's end to see him off, Nobuko was struck by emotion. For Tsukuda and for Nobuko alike, his illness had been nothing more than a temporary and ordinary ailment. Only the illness had improved. He had returned to his former self. To him unchanged in his familiar uniform. When she saw that figure—that figure which stirred in her chest a sadness and disgust welling up like an undertow—...

“Take care.” She bowed her head but couldn’t immediately rise with energy from that spot. The churning alternation of love and hatred toward her husband surged anew through Nobuko’s heart. Wherever she went, she suffered. Thus she moved restlessly about, seeking somewhere—anywhere—a resting place for her heart.

Nobuko often went to Dōzaka and stayed there. One day, a call came from Tsukuda to Nobuko in Dōzaka. “Could you come back tomorrow? Just for a bit—Mr. Sakabe says he’s finally leaving on the 28th, so I thought we could have a meal together.” The next day, the three of them went out for dinner.

It was now fully early summer. Against the night sky, the street trees rustled their tender young leaves. They put aside the lingering awkwardness from their somewhat strained parting the other day, chatting cheerfully as they strolled about. That night, Nobuko returned to Akasaka. When morning came, though the stars had shone clearly the night before, a misty rain was falling.

In the midst of this, Toyo, without holding an umbrella, was peering into the pond.

“What’s wrong?” “There’s something strange about one of the goldfish.” “How so?” “When I got up this morning and looked, there was one that could barely swim, and all the others were eagerly chasing after it from behind. I thought they were trying to help the weakened one swim, but they were actually tormenting it.” Toyo, “There it goes again!” “Stop it! Stop it!” “Stop it! Stop it!” clapped her hands over the water. “Why are they tormenting it? Poor thing.”

Nobuko also tried to help by separating out the weakened goldfish, but when she looked for a net, she couldn’t find one. “These things are strange, aren’t they? The other night, I saw a dog that had been hit by a car yelping and trying to escape, only to have a whole pack of other dogs chase after it and bite it.” As they were occupied with this, Nobuko noticed that the glass bottle that should have been on the veranda all this time was missing. “Oh, what happened to that bottle?”

“Which bottle are you referring to?” “You know, the blue perfectly round one—remember? The one I trimmed with scissors that had those circular algae inside.” Over about three months,the marimo algae had gradually lost its initial vivid green color.When viewed through water,fresh scaly deposits became visible around its spherical form.The last time she returned from Dōzaka,Nobuko noticed: This wouldn’t do—it was starting to wilt.She should try trimming it again.

With that, she had Toyo assist her and carefully picked off the debris from the algae’s surface.

“Could this be the one?” Toyo eventually brought out the empty, thoroughly dried bottle with an air of expecting reprimand. “It’s gone? The algae?” “The master poured this into the ditch the other day—might he have discarded it?” Nobuko stayed silent for a time, watching Toyo hold the empty glass bottle that dully reflected the rainy sky.

“That’s enough.” Toyo looked as though she might apologize, though Nobuko knew it wasn’t her fault. Nobuko hurried away to wash her face. She had loved that marimo algae. Not just because Sakabe had explained its rare living conditions to her—its shape and color had been endearing too. If Tsukuda had received it from someone else, he wouldn’t have tossed it away so callously. The thought made her ache with regret; even that living marimo now seemed pitiful to her. He hadn’t mentioned a word about it last night—even though she had told Sakabe how the algae was deteriorating.

Past two o'clock, Nobuko left home and went to Maruzen. Last night, the topic had come up that Sakabe would go to Maruzen today to order reference books. “Maruzen—I think I’d like to go see something there too.”

Then Tsukuda said. "If you're going, please tell Mr. Sugi to come collect the items that need returning from what I had sent back the other day." Until her departure, the marimo algae matter clung to Nobuko's mind. That he had deliberately discarded it became truly distasteful to acknowledge. She hesitated momentarily. Yet as she dwelled on it, she grew irritated with her own fixation. She instructed Toyo: "When he returns, tell him I went to Dōzaka after finding something for Mr. Sakabe at Maruzen."

Having said that, she left.

When she went up to the second floor of Maruzen and looked around, Sakabe had already selected several books and was talking with the shop clerk about something. Nobuko first carried out her husband’s message. Sakabe showed Nobuko a good book on botany written in a popular style.

“I think we have much to learn from this manner of writing—what do you think?” *The Life of Plants* The prose bore some resemblance to works Fabre had written for children. Nobuko looked through another shelf but failed to find what she wanted. Sakabe purchased a book to read during his voyage, and within an hour they left Maruzen. The morning’s fine drizzle still showed no sign of ceasing. The entire city resembled one sodden overcoat. Then a damp, clinging mist rose—blurring the distant high-rise buildings. Holding his open umbrella aloft while avoiding collisions with oncoming pedestrians, Sakabe—

“Well, what shall we do?” Sakabe asked Nobuko. “What dreadful weather—this really makes you not want to walk at all.” “Where are you heading back to?”

“Me? Today I’m going to Dōzaka.” “Then how about we have some tea before parting?”

They entered a family-style café. Sakabe was always talkative, but that day especially, his topics seemed inexhaustible. He spoke of the botany book he someday wanted to write—similar to what they had discussed earlier—and about certain anthropological plans he hoped to pursue as secondary objectives during his upcoming South Seas voyage. What Nobuko always found fascinating when conversing with Sakabe was how he applied a synthesizing genius to his botanical work. Whenever he discussed slime molds, his explanations invariably connected them to some aspect of contemporary human social existence. They never stayed confined to microscopic observations. This quality gave his conversations their vitality and appeal. As they talked, the café lights abruptly switched on. The marble tables and mirror-embedded pillars suddenly gleamed with Ginza's characteristic nocturnal brilliance.

“Well now, shall we make our move?”

“Oh, we’ve talked quite a lot today, haven’t we?” Sakabe looked at his watch.

“What time is it?” “It must be past four.” “Twenty minutes past.” He was settling the bill and thinking,

“How about it? Since we have to eat anyway, why don’t we have dinner somewhere nearby?” Nobuko said, “I suppose so,” but then continued, “Here’s an idea—if you’d rather not spend your last evening alone before departing tomorrow, please come to Dōzaka. It’s perfect timing since my father is returning today.”

Sakabe seemed to grasp Nobuko's emotional state, “I see.” he said. “Meeting Mr. Sasa would be quite pleasant too—shall I accept your invitation then? You don’t mind the suddenness?”

“That’s fine—better than going elsewhere.” Nobuko called the Dōzaka house. Along the way, seizing on some turn in their conversation, Sakabe—

“As for today’s matter… perhaps it’s better left unsaid.”

he muttered as if to himself.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, judging by his recent condition, Mr. Tsukuda is a type of patient—mentally speaking.” "Therefore, I think one must treat patients with the consideration they require." "In other words, we shouldn’t go so far as to tell them things they needn’t hear.”

“……”

It was an unpleasant remark. Nobuko had not expected such words from Sakabe.

Sakabe’s words left a strong impression that weighed on her for days afterward. For years, Nobuko had safely enjoyed their unreserved companionship. Conversations with him were always stimulating and engaging. He too appeared to take pleasure in her intellectual curiosity and playful nature. Though their relationship had developed as naturally as that of an uncle and niece with a considerable age gap, she now found herself growing wary of him for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate. When she considered that the men’s instincts—the one who had given her the marimo and the one who had discarded it—might have been opposing each other implicitly around her carefree self, Nobuko felt profoundly desolate. I’m not someone who takes sides with either... And yet...

The days continued to be strangely cold. Nobuko had developed intestinal issues, so she remained listless. Unable to get any work done, she borrowed her mother's haori jacket over her unlined kimono and spent her days wandering aimlessly around the house.

One day, Nobuko got out of bed with unusual resolve, determined that today would be the day. She went clattering to the dining room in her indigo-dyed komon-patterned kimono with Genroku sleeves. Unusually, her parents were sitting at the table.

“Good morning.”

As Nobuko began to speak, Takeyo waved the newspaper she was holding toward her and said in a hollow voice. "What a terrible thing has happened!" When she looked, her father was reading another sheet with an expression she had never seen before. Nobuko peered over his shoulder at the newspaper page. When the three-column bold headline came into view, she received a shocking blow that sent goosebumps rising from her neck. She sat down there, spread out another sheet, and read it in one breath. The characters she read were comprehensible, but their implications were too much, leaving her with the sensation that it all overflowed beyond rational comprehension. An incident was being reported—a respected literary figure had committed suicide with a certain married woman. Nobuko trembled with inexpressible sadness and awe as she reread it. Unable to speak, she left the room, abandoning her parents who had finally begun to talk.

Mr. X was an artist of upper-class origins, well past forty, endowed with cultivation and talent alongside profound emotional sensitivity. An idealist who had lived preserving his solitude as a father to two children since losing his cherished wife. While the poetic quality of his works and exceptional circumstances cultivated young female admirers across society, Nobuko—drawn not from that quarter—found herself powerfully captivated by the intense inner conflict he appeared to be undergoing to refine himself into both a greater artist and human being. His recently completed novel had afforded her numerous insights in this regard. The Mr. X she comprehended had, these past two years, been nearing the juncture where he must inevitably make a pivotal transformation in both artistic practice and personal existence. There—push through! Then he might ascend from the second heaven to the first. How fervently she must have awaited that moment. Nobuko had reached an age where she could no longer consider artists' fates—that interplay between singular temperaments and their milieus—as matters foreign to herself. She had waited. And look—

Right in the midst of that expectation came today’s report. In a form she had never even dreamed of. He had leapt. Upwards? Downwards? What Nobuko could feel with her entire being was not a rational answer to that question, but that he had done it. He was not a man who lied. It was nothing but such dreadful confirmations. The incident possessed sincerity’s formidable power to silence people, containing something beyond human strength. That pained Nobuko. She was in excruciating pain. The reverberation had reached down to the very roots of her being—this fragile existence now trembling unstably.

Nobuko could not eat. For a whole day, she sat alone, adrift in emotion. That night, she tried to sleep but couldn’t. A tension surpassing tears seized her mind.

The funeral service was held the following morning. Nobuko joined her father in the procession. As she advanced over the white cloth spread beneath her feet to the front of the altar and encountered once more the deceased's gentle visage in a photograph surrounded by countless white flowers, a pain identical to—no, greater than—what she had felt upon reading yesterday's newspaper constricted her anew. He leapt. Upwards? Downwards? Tears welled up. From an external perspective, she had not been close enough to the deceased to weep so. Before the relatives assembled at the ceremony, Nobuko felt self-conscious yet could not suppress her tears.

Seven

One

The streetcar began laboriously descending the narrow tracks between Kudanzaka and the moat, applying its brakes. When it had advanced about one-third of the way, a man holding a red flag came trotting up from ahead. He shouted something to the driver. The driver urgently tightened the brake harder with both hands. With an unpleasant creak, the streetcar came to rest in an unstable position on the steeply sloping road.

“What’s going on? What happened?”

The conductor got off. Several men muttered and strained to peer forward from the windows. “Due to blasting work, we will be stopping for thirty minutes.”

“—Oh, come on.” With that, the agitated men returned to their seats as if their anticipation had been dashed.

The car fell completely silent for a moment. Gradually, scattered conversations began to break out.

A little over a month had passed since the Great Kanto Earthquake, but the people of Tokyo had not yet fully recovered from the frenzy of that time. People would fall into conversation whenever they gathered—carried by a residual urgency that compelled them to discuss flame patterns and escape routes—as if still rehearsing survival strategies.

Aimless small talk began circulating among strangers in the car, but an especially loud hoarse voice pierced through and seized Nobuko's attention. The man was extolling Amakasu—whose public trial would commence the next day—as the supreme model of Japanese masculinity. In a provocatively hateful tone, he repeatedly declared they ought to slaughter socialists wholesale. The crude artificiality of his performance bred discomfort, and Nobuko clearly wasn't alone in sensing this. The young man seated before her grew increasingly vexed by the unavoidable diatribe, fidgeting with his shoe tips until he abruptly turned toward the window framing the moat below and whistled out strains of La Traviata. Clear October sunlight bathed Kanda's leveled burnscape stretching beyond.

“Tch.” Before long, there was a tsking sound from behind Nobuko as she stood there. “This is unbearable! We’ll take root here!”

Nobuko looked at her watch. More than thirty minutes had already passed. “If they don’t give us a proper ‘boom,’ we’ll be stuck here forever no matter how long we wait!” “Let’s just get off! There’s nothing around here anyway—it’s only three blocks or so.”

She took a seat in one of the vacant spots that had opened up afterward.

Under the autumn sun glaring against the high brick cliff behind them, the side where the sunshade door had been lowered felt stifling. Next to her sat a man with thinning hair, wearing a summer suit without a necktie, its soft collar soiled. In his left hand he held a notebook, licking the tip of a short pencil as he polished his writing. He read his own sentences repeatedly with rhythmic cadence, as if reciting from a dramatic kodan storybook.

“Once the flesh perishes, its soul shall wander—wander and...” Having reached an impasse there, he began repeating from the start again—“HITOTABI, NIKUTAISHISURU YA”—with relentless persistence. The reactionary man, finding no audience, eventually fell silent. Suddenly, a thunderous boom shook the earth as an explosion resounded. The train windows rattled violently in unison. “They’ve done it!”

The passengers, exhausted from waiting and dazed, suddenly perked up to gaze out the windows. From beside the remnants of a large brick building—half-burnt and standing solitary—a hazy yellowish cloud of smoke rose. Another blast followed. The majestically ascending smoke merged heavily with the earlier smoke still hanging in the air. When the smoke dispersed, the tall building that had stood there moments before had vanished without a trace. The vastness of the sky and the sun's brilliance felt unnervingly vivid. It was an awe-inspiring yet desolate scene.

Suddenly, a woman's voice speaking through tears startled Nobuko. When she came to her senses, there sat next to her a haggard-looking woman of about thirty-five or thirty-six clutching a bundle. The moment a thunderous boom resounded, the woman glanced around frantically—with no particular person in mind—and blurted out: "Is it safe to stay here? Tell me, is it really safe?" Her voice resonated as though she were speaking while crying and sucking in her lips.

“—Since everyone’s here, it must be safe... I suppose.” But when another thunderous boom sent up a dust cloud in the distance, she panicked again and lost all composure. “Oh... are we truly safe?”

Nobuko felt a miserable sort of sadness that seemed to engulf even herself. “It’s all right. That’s the sappers doing their work—rest assured.” After waiting over twenty more minutes, the streetcar finally lurched into motion. Nobuko was on her way to Dōzaka to collect old magazines and clothing. She had not directly experienced the earthquake disaster. But the sight of the metropolis, now like ruins, struck her heart with great force. A reactionary vitality of life had seized all the citizens. She felt a coalescence of the sense of survival she had been lacking until now and had become involved in work visiting earthquake disaster victims alongside several other women.

For the four years since their marriage, Nobuko's inner life had been an unending grapple with her husband. A person who worked four years in a factory filled with nothing but terrible machinery noise would surely have their eardrums damaged beyond hearing ordinary sounds. Nobuko's mental state stood in complete crisis. Through mental anguish that grew increasingly tense and strained, she was becoming a kind of monomaniac. When alone in quiet moments, she became a solid mass of terror at how long this life might continue. No longer shedding tears, calm enough to be called composed, she thought: How to escape here? Would he truly die soon as he himself claimed? If he died, everything would settle so naturally—she contemplated such things. Obsessively, without tiring through the day, she continued dwelling on these thoughts. Yet when considering actual escape methods, Nobuko's mind showed a state as though all resolute will had rotted away. She found herself nearly incapable of forming any decisive resolution. She thought and thought. Even in her dreams, she witnessed herself persisting in this agonized rumination.

That summer, Nobuko had been taken by Tsukuda to his hometown. She had made the second floor her room, though it wasn't a proper second floor but rather an attic storage space. On the wide plank flooring, she laid out five tatami mats and lived with her desk placed in the corner. There was a small three-by-one ken window through which the treetop of a large oak could be seen. Brown cicadas droned ceaselessly in that oak tree all day long. Amidst endless green rice fields where no breeze stirred through daylight hours, the August heat hung thick with humidity - and the cicadas' relentless drone made the swelter even more unbearable. Wiping her streaming sweat with a damp cloth, Nobuko endured each day with sickly persistence.

Contrary to all expectations, the earthquake disaster violently jolted Nobuko out of that state of lost will. Surprise first made her stand firmly on her own feet. Then, the universal momentum of rebuilding daily life became the bellows that ignited a fire in her heart. On September 7th, she walked back from Dōzaka to Akasaka. On the way, when she reached Kudan and looked back the way she had come, the desolate burnt ruins of Tokyo lifted their face and pressed in on Nobuko. She could not forget that profound impression.

That autumn, Nobuko came to viscerally understand life's vital energy anew.

II

One October morning, after putting away the meal, Tsukuda— “Could you go buy some paper to paste on the walls around here?”

Tsukuda said.

The Akasaka house had sections of its walls collapse during the earthquake. And so the month passed by like that. “It’s impossible for amateurs. You should fix it properly now.” “Let’s just do it ourselves—there’s no knowing when they’ll come.”

Nobuko went out to buy the wall paper in the color Tsukuda had instructed and paste. A precarious paperhanging operation commenced. After spreading newspapers across the tatami, Nobuko daubed paste on the paper, pinched it up, and passed it over; Tsukuda, perched on a chair, pressed it onto the wall. They labored through morning and afternoon at this task. By nature, Nobuko quickly wearied of such chores. "Why don't we stop here for today?" She made this suggestion once or twice when reaching natural pauses. Tsukuda—as when he'd constructed the cement pond in their garden earlier—proved incapable of moderating his efforts once begun. He would drive himself and those around him to utter exhaustion through his persistence. This occasion followed the same pattern. Then came footsteps crunching gravel outside. Clutching the paste brush, Nobuko strained to listen.

“Excuse me.” Nobuko, upon hearing that voice, jumped over the round basin where she had prepared the paste and hurried to the entrance. “Is Sis here?” “Of course I am!” “Oh—hello.”

Kazuichirou came. He had gone from Odawara to Kamakura on September 1st and remained missing until the 5th. By mid-month, he had finally returned to Tokyo by warship. It was his first time going to Akasaka since then. “This is quite something. May I come up?”

“Come on, of course! Kazuichirou’s here.” With that, Nobuko called out to her husband who was working. Kazuichirou followed behind Nobuko, avoiding the newspapers strewn about everywhere, and tiptoed into the inner room. “Good day—” “Welcome.” Tsukuda remained standing on the chair with his back turned to Kazuichirou, offering only a brief greeting—Nobuko, sensing the awkwardness, led Kazuichirou into the adjacent room.

“The tea’s ready—won’t you come have some?” “I don’t need any.” Every now and then, after going to check on her husband, Nobuko would chat about various things with Kazuichirou, whom she hadn’t seen in some time. The conversation showed no signs of ending, and she was glad he had come to visit. Nobuko thought regretfully how much more relaxed both Kazuichirou and she herself could be if Tsukuda would stop pasting the walls and at least join them for a cup of tea. The awareness that Tsukuda was working clouded her enjoyment. Before long, Tsukuda came into the six-tatami room where they were, tucking a roll of paper under his arm and carrying a step stool with a paste basin placed on top.

“Please move aside for a moment.” “Since I’m at it, I want to finish this part here too.” “Really now, why don’t you stop and relax? Especially since Kazuichirou has come all this way.” Nobuko wouldn’t have minded if wind came through the walls all day. Yet Tsukuda began clearing away the tea tray himself and spread out newspaper.

Resignedly, they,

“Come on, let’s get out of here, quick!” And this time, they went to the tearoom. Kazuichirou was sitting on a chair.

While talking and opening the partition's shoji screen, Nobuko began working in the kitchen. She meant this as a celebration of her brother having returned safely. "Any special requests? I can treat you properly today." "That's grand—but really, anything's fine." "You must've gotten scrawny eating brown rice."

“Yeah, I’m fine now.” “As long as I get to eat with you, Sis, you really don’t need to go to so much trouble.” “It’s tough doing it alone.” “What should I make? There’s absolutely nothing good around here.”

Just then, Tsukuda entered. But this time without renewed warning, he began vigorously stripping the yellow walls from one end. Kazuichirou silently stood and went to the eight-tatami room, but finding newspapers strewn across the tatami there too, he apparently had no choice but to move the chair out to the engawa. Standing on the threshold between kitchen and tearoom, looking up at Tsukuda's combative demeanor, Nobuko struggled to discern her husband's feelings. What reason could Tsukuda possibly have for venting his frustration even on Kazuichirou? Nobuko was deeply dissatisfied.

“I’ll take care of this part myself someday, so won’t you stop for today? The whole house will end up with nowhere to eat meals.” “I’m not eating anything yet.” She involuntarily bristled but, not wanting Kazuichirou to hear, firmly tugged the pocket of Tsukuda’s trousers as he stood on the step stool. “What is it?” Nobuko leaned up to her husband’s ear and whispered, “You see, I want to let Kazuichirou eat his meal in peace today. Since this is his first visit since coming back. Please, won’t you?”

Tsukuda hesitated momentarily before whirling back to face the wall again. Rather than respond to Nobuko's whisper, he soliloquized loudly enough for all to hear. "All you ever do is come here and eat—it's utterly pointless!" Nobuko barely held herself in check. Her heart overflowed with tears and loathing. She became convinced he was deliberately trashing room after room out of resentment—whether toward her doting on Kazuichirou more than himself, or from misconstruing her brother's unguarded familiarity—thereby denying them any space to settle. Why must he extend this treatment even to Kazuichirou? As she stood glaring at Tsukuda's back, Kazuichirou emerged from the eight-mat room with heavy, grating footsteps.

“I’m going home.” Nobuko felt as if her throat were constricted and couldn’t get a response out. “…………” “Who needs food?!”

Kazuichirou took a hat from the hat rack, put it on, and began putting on his shoes. Before Nobuko, Kazuichirou crouched. Immediately left of the pillar, Tsukuda’s two legs—spread wide on the stepping stool—came into view. Nobuko felt a violent urge to suddenly sweep those legs aside and overturn Tsukuda then and there. Having finished putting on his shoes, Kazuichirou looked at Nobuko,

“Goodbye.” he said.

It was already nearly seven o'clock.

It was truly unbearable; she finally said. “See you later, then—forgive me.”

When the lattice door closed behind him, Nobuko couldn’t stop her tears. When she thought Kazuichirou might not have had any money, Nobuko felt even more unbearable. She forcibly dragged Tsukuda down from the stepping stool. She grew heated and argued. At that point, Tsukuda, as was his habit, “That wasn’t my intention.” With that single tactic, he protected himself until Nobuko was completely exhausted. When she later recalled that moment, Nobuko felt Tsukuda’s inner loneliness and her own desolation press upon her heart. Nobuko did not believe her own sadness and anger were wrong. The thing flowing in the single depth of her own feelings—that was desolate. That was a new awareness—that before she knew it, her father and brother had become more dear and precious to her than her husband Tsukuda.

Four years ago—at the beginning of their romance, when they had been about to marry—how fiercely she had rebelled against her parents and others; this recollection rose vividly in Nobuko’s heart. At that time, she had rebelled against the various traditions passed down through blood in both form and spirit, nurturing a grand aspiration to become a different kind of existence—one that was freer and more resolute. Now that their marriage—this graft—had proven increasingly unsuccessful, was she being drawn back into the fold of her blood relatives through some instinctual force where blood called to blood? The mysterious power of instinct. Yet Nobuko held this conviction: she would not flutter back to where she had struggled to emerge. No matter how injured it might be, a snake could never return to last year’s shed skin.…

III

The year changed.

After April began, one day, Nobuko was talking in Narasaki’s study. From the study window, the high ground of Tabata was visible. For several days the wind had been strong, and at last there was calm weather with sunlight and scenery. “The view has changed, hasn’t it? Compared to when we last came up here—”

“Of course it has—it’s fully spring now.”

Sahoko stood up from the chair opposite her. Then, turning her profile toward Nobuko, she peered outside through the glass. "I wonder what became of the magnolias—they were truly lovely when I sat in that room all this time. Had you come sooner, you might have seen them." Her hair was gathered in a chignon, but strands flared at the temples, lending an elegant grace to her classically beautiful profile. After a slight pause, Nobuko spoke. "—Still, you do possess a particular strength, don't you?"

“Hohoho.” Sahoko returned to her original spot while laughing in her characteristic way. “Things have gotten quite serious, haven’t they?” “But I do think—anyway, there’s something about coming to your place that makes me feel I can’t just come up here with my usual lazy attitude.” “It feels constricting—I’m too unworldly, you see.” “I’m such a fool about that.” Sahoko was over a decade older than Nobuko and her senior in literature. From her fourth or fifth year at girls’ school, Nobuko had been familiar with Sahoko’s works. Here was a predecessor who had already set foot on the path she herself now sought to tread—for years, this awareness had filled her with both respect and creative stimulation. Yet their actual interaction had begun through chance. A friendship had blossomed where they inspired each other’s strengths and spurred one another’s work. The image of Sahoko—silently battling hardships for years while refining her art without bending—had been potent medicine for Nobuko. Even when her married life grew unstable and her heart brimmed with grievances she couldn’t act upon, Nobuko found herself unable to voice these troubles to Sahoko. Sahoko might know even greater sorrows. Wasn’t she enduring them with such steadfastness? That was what Nobuko believed.

As their conversation continued and she partially conveyed these feelings, Sahoko— “You overestimate someone like me.” Sahoko laughed pensively. “But you know—though I’ve now reached a point where I can look at life somewhat objectively and calmly, I lost many good things I once had to get here. To gain one thing, humans must sacrifice another—that’s how it is, isn’t it?”

Sahoko was translating the biography of a Russian noblewoman who had been Europe's most respected female mathematician and writer in the late nineteenth century. "How goes the translation—have you completed it?" "Ah, it will be published soon. Once it's out, you must read it." "You'll understand why I cannot help loving Sonya." "She truly feels like one of us—one of our women."

There was a knock at the door. "Yes, come in." The young maid greeted Nobuko and announced the visitor. "Ms. Yoshimi has arrived." "Oh!"

Sahoko swayed her body on the chair and looked back at Nobuko. "A rare visitor has come—today is such a good day, with nothing but beloved guests around." "Nobuko, you don't mind, do you?"

“——”

Unable to even discern whether Yoshimi was a woman or a man, Nobuko sat in a daze. “Please come in.” she said.

“Well then, this way. And please prepare some delicious tea and bring it here.” When the maid closed the door and left, Sahoko explained to Nobuko with an expression that seemed to radiate joy from beneath her somewhat pale skin. “She’s a very old, very dear friend of mine—a bit eccentric perhaps, but pure-hearted and straightforward. Even though she only comes around a few times a year, I’m sure she’ll become a good friend to you too.”

Immediately, footsteps sounded on the stairs. A knock. The door opened, and before Nobuko—who had felt curiosity and expectation from Sahoko’s words—a woman appeared. “Hello.” “I was just speaking ill of you, saying you rarely come around.” “Aren’t you the one who’s worse? After all, the last time you came was the first time in ages.” There was something different in the way these two conversed compared to the atmosphere between Nobuko and Sahoko, and Nobuko found herself smiling involuntarily as she watched their exchange.

“Let me introduce you—Ms. Sasa Nobuko, this is Ms. Yoshimi Motoko, someone who’s carved out quite the position leeching off her father.”

Motoko said with a wry smile, “What a strange introduction.” “Still, I do manage to feed myself at least.” “I edit for ××××.”

Nobuko involuntarily looked at Motoko’s face. The first impression of Motoko as a willful, emotional, and combative personality felt utterly disconnected from what Nobuko perceived as the organization’s journal—something that seemed abandoned by its time, which Motoko had apparently seen once or twice. Motoko looked flustered, “Ugh, this is unbearable.” Motoko blushed and laughed. Nobuko also began to laugh. In Motoko’s blushing face—jujube-shaped, wheat-colored, and smooth-textured—she sensed an intensely childlike, pure charm.

“Oh, that’s such a tiresome magazine.”

“Yes. Since we don’t put money into it, we can’t make anything good—it’d be better to shut it down, but...” While eating Osaka sushi, Sahoko said: “Now, I may be a homebody and an unreliable friend, but I happened to visit Ms. Yoshimi’s house the other day.” “There she was—this person had stacked mountains of things on a huge, magnificent desk, leaving just this much space—” With both hands, she shaped a width of five or six inches.

“She’s working in that tiny space.—What an absurd person! If I had such splendid furnishings in that perfectly settled second floor, I’d show you how much studying I could do!” “Are you renting the second floor?” “—” Before Motoko could respond, Sahoko explained. “No, she’s occupying an entire house—settling herself on the second floor with a married couple living downstairs.” “How wonderful—I’m almost envious!” “You see? Even Ms. Nobuko says so.” "No matter how you try to explain it away, you’re in a fortunate position."

It was immediately apparent that Motoko had chosen her kimono, obi, and various small cords with particular flair and was wearing them. The life of this woman—who could dress in such a manner, whose specialty was Russian literature, who had become mistress of her own house and lived freely—struck Nobuko as intensely carefree and independent.

Around five o'clock, Sahoko asked, “Nobuko, you can take your time, right?” “Yes,” Nobuko replied, “today I’m determined to enjoy myself thoroughly.” “Then let’s all go to Jishōken,” Sahoko said. “I’ll just check with Father first.” Having decided to proceed, the three strolled through Tabata’s evening streets—where old-fashioned plant nurseries still lingered—all the way to the tea house. Along the way, they passed through a temple grounds. “I walked here one snowy morning,” Motoko remarked, looking around, “early after staying at your place.”

Motoko looked around the area. “Oh right—we had that lovely snow viewing, wasn’t it around five o’clock? I was so surprised, you know—leaving so early like that!”

At Jishōken, they were shown to the inner tea room. For Nobuko, it was her first time since the earthquake. The walls were damaged here and there, but with a small folding screen placed in the corner, the room’s appearance wasn’t unpleasant. About thirty minutes later, Narazaki also arrived. "It’s already too dark to see, but there must have been something enshrined deep in this garden…" In the distance was a garden where Taikan—probably—had gotten drunk on a moonlit evening at this house and, carried away by inspiration, painted bamboo in ink on a low white earthen wall.

Since no one was drinking alcohol, the meal ended quickly. It felt almost disappointingly abrupt. "Just wolfing down food like this feels so crass and tedious." "You're rushing things along again, aren't you?"

Everyone laughed. On their way back, along the stepping stones from the entrance to the dark gate, the maid walked ahead, illuminating their footing with a paper lantern.

Again along the streets of Tabata, this time the four of them walked in single file all the way to the tram stop. There were no passersby, a slight wind picked up, and the kimono shop's banner fluttered. Nobuko went by train to Manseibashi together with Motoko. Nobuko went to Akasaka, and Motoko returned to Ushigome.

IV

For over ten days, despite the fine season, Nobuko remained shut away. The day before visiting Narazaki, she had rewritten a novel she had more or less completed, but found little enjoyment in the work's satisfaction. A sense of unexpressed fullness lingered—the awareness that her entire heart had not poured forth—leaving her strongly convinced upon finishing that this work held scant significance for her true inner growth. In that novel, Nobuko had merely grazed the edges, artfully and ambiguously touching upon the inner workings of her married life. When she finished writing, Nobuko became conscious of her own vanities—her fondness for superficial niceties and weak-willed tendencies. While actually floundering in the mud as a wife, she had felt a small feminine stubbornness hardening within her—making it impossible to honestly acknowledge, even to herself, the filth of the mire she sank into or her own foolishness.

The desire to kick the ground hard once, dive into her work as though leaping into the sea, be thoroughly washed from head to toe, and become a crisply renewed self had instead grown fiercely within Nobuko. She had come to clearly feel that even maintaining this mere semblance of married life with Tsukuda—whose heart had completely drifted away—ultimately stemmed from her own cowardice. Until now, she had not been able to avoid thinking that her own indecisive feelings stemmed from a lingering affection worth cherishing and a certain degree of goodwill that sought to find a way to hurt him as little as possible. Now that she thought about it, however, even that seemed to contain elements of self-centeredness. In other words, wasn't there a self-serving calculation at play—that she wanted to achieve her aim as comfortably as possible, with plausible justifications, without being thought too badly of by him or those around her? Rather than explaining how Tsukuda was an unsatisfactory husband to her, what Nobuko herself needed first was simply the courage to declare: I can no longer love him—I absolutely refuse to remain his wife. Given that no matter how much she might be coaxed, she could not spend her life as his faithful wife—and given that she herself evaluated and believed this—why did she not steel herself with resolute composure, even if hated or called an egoist? —Within herself, there seemed to be jealousy toward the sympathy Tsukuda would likely receive (though she recognized it as worldly and refused to acknowledge its true value), and when she thought of this, Nobuko despised herself.

Motoko came visiting unexpectedly. Nobuko felt an unexpected surge of joy. They had parted the previous night after agreeing to meet again soon and visit each other, but Nobuko hadn't imagined Motoko would keep her promise this quickly.

“—You beat me to it after all, didn’t you?”

“You’re being lazy too, aren’t you…” “That’s mean.”

While going up, Motoko asked, “Are you busy?” “I’m free now.”

“Why don’t we go out for a bit? I came thinking I’d invite you for a walk if you’d like, but—”

Nobuko had Motoko wait while she got ready and left the house. The day was so brilliantly clear that sunlight glared harshly without a parasol. As it was before lunchtime, they first went to Ginza. After finishing a light meal and Motoko making a stop at K Newspaper for an errand, they passed alongside the Imperial Hotel and entered Hibiya Park.

“Hibiya feels so unfamiliar. How many years has it been since I last came...?” Motoko asked in surprise, “—You don’t go out much?” “What’s the use of trudging around a place like this alone anyway?”

Near the gate accessed from Uchisaiwaicho, makeshift barracks still stood lined up beneath the shade of trees along the main thoroughfare. Shops selling nothing but food continued down the street. "Drinks and Snacks Available"—a signboard proclaimed this invitation. From shops offering sweet red bean soup and New Year's stew, wonton vendors, wastewater ditches, and crude cooking areas rose a stifling, unhealthy odor that drifted into the dust-whitened springtime avenue lined with trees. Nobuko emerged beside Hyoutan Pond where she had often played as a child wearing oversized ribbons. Under a lush green plane tree facing the water stood a single unoccupied bench. Having walked some distance, they settled there.

“We really can’t go without a parasol anymore—it’s so hot, isn’t it?” Motoko began using the magazine she held to fan herself. “But it feels nice—the ducks look positively cheerful, don’t you think?” Perhaps because of the barracks, even though it wasn’t Sunday, the area was relatively crowded. There were many men in light green work clothes and happi coats. They sat smoking cigarettes and reading newspapers while resting on benches and iron fences around the pond. The pond—which reportedly had its waterfowl scavenged and eaten during the earthquake—now brimmed with rippling water. Glittering sunlight shimmered across its surface. Two ducks swam vigorously through the water. They occasionally stretched upward so suddenly that their egg-colored webbed feet became visible, flapping their wings with vigor. Water splashed noisily. Above the spray, a low small rainbow formed faintly for an instant. It made an innocent, intense, beautiful sight.

Right beside them was a man in a patterned happi coat, but Nobuko conversed with Motoko in a relaxed, pleasant mood about various matters. More often than not, it fell to Nobuko to broach new topics. Chekhov, Saikaku, the Kinkaishū. Having recently read the Kinkaishū with its fervor vividly reawakened in her, Nobuko had been speaking ardently about it when she suddenly pulled a peculiar face and halted mid-sentence. "Wait—have I been misspeaking this whole time?"

“The name?” “Did I say ‘Tamoto’? Once or twice—” Motoko burst out laughing. “I knew something sounded odd!” “That’s mean—you can’t just sit there smirking without saying anything!” Though Motoko too had started laughing, Nobuko felt awkward and flushed slightly. “But really—since you said it first, I just thought ‘Oh, that’s right!’ Anyway it doesn’t matter as long as we understand each other. What’s in a name?”

Recalling this blunder, the two of them laughed and laughed, remaining on that bench for about two hours.

“How about you? I absolutely detest taking the same path both coming and going on a walk—I simply can’t rest unless I manage to take a different route somehow.” As they walked along the path leading toward Sakuradamon, Motoko said. Such clearly defined preferences were so typical of Motoko that Nobuko found it interesting. They waited for the streetcar at Sakuradamon, but it did not come for a long time. It soon became clear there was a malfunction at the Hibiya intersection. The setting sun illuminated the crisply open square, making the outlines of figures waiting at the streetcar stop appear small. From there, following the moat, they walked to Miyakezaka. While walking under the willows, not a single streetcar came from Hibiya to pass them.

Even during that walk, Nobuko felt herself considerably uplifted.

5

One day, Nobuko went to Dōzaka. Mother was out.

When she learned this, she went around from the garden gate to the veranda of the retirement house. The sewing box was out, but Grandmother was nowhere to be seen.

“Grandmother.”

When she called out twice, Grandmother emerged from the kitchen, "Who's there? Tsuya-ko? Come in." As she said this, she came out. When she found Nobuko already settled before the sewing box, she grew slightly flustered, "Oh, it's you!"

She laughed. “When did you get here? Your mother’s unfortunately gone out, I’m afraid.”

"I actually came to see you today, Grandmother." “Here, have a seat.” Grandmother placed the thick damask cushion she had received at her "ki" jubilee celebration on the far side of the charcoal brazier. “I just got back from Suda yesterday, y'see. But even there—what’re we gonna do now? I was up all night thinkin’ ‘bout it, couldn’t sleep a wink.” Grandmother's second daughter—Nobuko's aunt—had been part of the Suda household, but was crushed to death during the earthquake. Afterwards, it fell to the eldest daughter—fresh from girls’ school—to manage affairs.

“I suppose we’ll just have to hire a housekeeper then.” Grandmother did not answer; cradling the Raku teacup between both hands, she took a sip. “Since the earthquake—senile as I already was—I’ve gone even more senile, y’know. Shizuka was taken from me... Hoshina died... Why does a useless old thing like me keep clinging to life?” Last September in Tokyo, Grandmother had witnessed the deaths of her own flesh and blood—her daughter and brother. Nobuko listened to this lament with pity.

“Since the season has turned milder, why don’t you go relax in K for a while, Grandmother?” “Hmm... If we don’t tend to it, that hut’ll just remain a thatched shack.” “I want to go there soon myself—won’t you come with me?” Grandmother looked at Nobuko with surprise.

“Really? If you're going, then I tell ya, I wanna go too.” “I’m fine with that too. When would be good for you, Grandmother?” “If not today, I tell ya, I’m fine with any day—” Grandmother asked, suddenly displaying an elderly restlessness as she tapped her pipe. “—How’re ya gonna manage the house? Did you ask Mr. Tsukuda about it?” “That’s all right.” Nobuko answered simply and lightly to cut off her grandmother’s concerns. “Since I want to leave early next month, please make sure you’re ready to come with me, Grandmother.”

Stiffening her neck and nodding firmly in acknowledgment with a satisfied air, Grandmother answered, “Alright.”

Grandmother answered.

Without waiting for her mother to return, Nobuko left the house. Next to the streetcar stop stood a merino fabric store, and among the Yuzen textiles hung for sale in the shopfront with fixed-price tags, there was one pattern that immediately caught her eye. The price being reasonable, on impulse Nobuko had one jou of it cut. As she gazed at the vibrant crimson design from afar, she recalled how in the country house—from the bedding's shoulder pads to the floor cushions—everything was uniformly brown and black.

Tsukuda had returned home slightly before Nobuko. As soon as he saw her face, he asked, “Did you go to Dōzaka?” “Yes.” “Or was there a phone call?” “No, that wasn’t it—I went to invite Grandmother.” “I see…” “Since I want to go back to K again, I went to invite her.” Tsukuda made a displeased face and fell silent, twisting his face—which had been turned toward her—toward the desk. Is it all right if I go? Or perhaps... it would be all right? Nobuko sensed her husband’s expectation that she would voice these questions herself, but she deliberately maintained her silence. In her heart lay a composure born from self-sacrifice.

After a while, Tsukuda interrogated her in a blatantly quarrelsome tone. “Are you going for a change of scenery, or to leave me?—I have my own affairs to consider, so I must ask.” Though his tone seemed fierce, Nobuko instinctively realized Tsukuda wasn’t speaking with full sincerity. Until now, she had always foolishly accepted his words at maximum value and tried to resolve matters on the spot—a approach that brought only repeated failures. Noticing this pattern now, she asked in return with a peculiar smile playing on her lips—

“What are your thoughts on this?” Tsukuda could not bring himself to venture making a judgment either way and glared at Nobuko sidelong with hatred. When she saw his face, instead of fear, a fragmented, spiteful laugh burst forth—startling even herself. She said slowly in a voice that was gentle yet venomous. “—Hateful?” Tsukuda made a terrifying expression as if stabbed through his body. The husband’s suffering seared itself into Nobuko’s soul. Ah, he was suffering—suffering. However, Nobuko—as if intoxicated by the pain carving through both her husband and herself—let a frozen smile hover at her lips and, as though announcing joyous news, enunciated each word clearly,

“I’m hateful, so hateful I can’t bear it either—this feeling of you being devoured…” she whispered. A choking surge of hatred toward Tsukuda and self-loathing welled up within her. Nobuko left the room with a feeling as if her vision were darkening.

She was scheduled to depart for K on the seventh or eighth. As usual, Tsukuda went to school every day, and when he returned in the evening, he would always subtly check the state of the room while trying not to be noticed. He probably returned home wondering whether Nobuko had made preparations for the trip today and how she had done so. As the day drew nearer, he could no longer bear waiting for her, who had done nothing, and one day,

“If you’re really going, you should get your things ready.” he said provocatively. Just by sensing Tsukuda’s casual yet luggage-anticipating mood upon returning home, Nobuko was already thoroughly exhausted. She did not have the energy to make elaborate preparations. Nobuko said indignantly,

“I don’t need anything worth making a fuss over—it’s just me, you know.” She answered curtly. The vague awareness that the mistress would be gone made even this educated, understanding maid work restlessly while concealing her anxiety—a sight that pained Nobuko. The oppressive, disintegrating atmosphere before a household collapses.—

On the eve of her scheduled departure, Nobuko awoke around ten o'clock. She sat up on her futon and gazed at the other now-vacant bedding, the narrow garden visible through the glass pane, and the bamboo fence beyond. From the neighboring house came a voice speaking with peculiar clarity: "It seems komon patterns are back in style these days." The shrill vulgarity of that voice, combined with the hushed texture of morning tatami beneath her, impressed itself upon Nobuko's consciousness with abnormal vividness. Everything felt familiar yet final—each detail appearing as if witnessed for the last time. How often had she awakened on these mats only to think Ah, am I still here? with inexpressible anguish? Life truly was strange, Nobuko reflected—precisely because this space held such suffering, leaving even the house itself felt impossibly difficult. The utterly ordinary omoto plant at the bamboo fence's base now dominated her awareness. Nobuko planned to slip away quietly when her husband was absent. Truly! Considering Tsukuda—that man she'd loved and hated with every fiber of her being, investing her entire existence in both his virtues and flaws—even a randomly recalled pebble became entangled with memories of his voice or particular glances. When imagining Tsukuda likewise recalling her minutest details, Nobuko felt their five shared years collapse upon her like folded screens, crushing her breath beneath their weight.

After having black tea and toast, Nobuko stood up from the table and called the maid while rising.

“Just a moment—the suitcase in the storage room, take that out and clean it, please.” “Will you be leaving?” “Ah. “I need to be in Dōzaka starting today.”

She took the suitcase out to the engawa veranda and covered it with a glossy cloth. Beside her, Nobuko gathered her diary and other necessary stationery from the desk. On top of packing just a few lined garments and serge clothes for changing, she placed manuscript paper. “Is this all of your luggage?” “If I need anything else, I’ll let you know—you’ll send it over, won’t you?” “Oh, that—” While seeming to find it difficult to speak, she asked. “When might you generally be returning?”

“Would it be a problem if I didn’t return?” With that, Nobuko forced a playful laugh, brief and fleeting.

She had a rickshaw summoned. She sent only the luggage ahead to Dōzaka. Because the suitcase was small, the thin cords binding it repeatedly to the rickshaw stood out conspicuously.

Even so, she hesitated to leave before Tsukuda returned. Nobuko, her heart swaying sorrowfully, lingered until past three o'clock. But when she imagined him coming through the lattice door as usual with that voice and those eyes, she suddenly felt driven to leave the house.

“Well then, please take care.” For about two blocks before reaching the main street stretched a side lane lined with hedges on both sides. Walking along it while clutching the fukusa-wrapped bundle, Nobuko grew conscious of what might be behind her and found herself involuntarily quickening her pace—an unpleasant sensation she couldn’t shake. The street ran perfectly straight, continuing at a right angle until meeting the distant thoroughfare. The rectangular block containing Nobuko’s house formed a concave shape around it. Tsukuda always followed the same route home from work—coming along the right side of the concave shape, turning left at the tobacco shop corner, and entering this very side lane where Nobuko now walked. Since it was always a narrow path with little foot traffic, he would spot her retreating figure from afar the moment he rounded that corner. What if some circumstance made him return thirty minutes early today and catch sight of her just as he turned? Might he not come striding up from behind or whistle? Tsukuda knew perfectly well she’d be leaving today regardless. Then why did these fugitive emotions weigh so heavily upon her? Defying her own impulses, forcing herself to walk at an agonizingly slow pace along the gravel-strewn path, Nobuko thought of feelings she could share with no one—and bitter tears welled in her eyes.

Six

The day she arrived in the countryside, the region was gripped by stormy May weather. When the rickshaw reached the desolate single road connecting town to village, a coarse, broad wind came sweeping down that solitary path from mountain ranges leagues away. As the canopy roared with a sudden gust, the rickshaw man threw his full weight against the shafts, clinging to them as he ground to a halt. In those moments, Nobuko stared fixedly at a faintly white road stretched across the dusk's face and a sky churning with black storm clouds that burned an intense indigo solely along the mountain's edge. This passionate, darkly anxious sky seemed to mirror her heart's condition.

Grandmother cleared bamboo thickets, went into the storehouse, and worked busily every day. Then she discovered all sorts of invisible things and stirred up commotions throughout the entire house. “Go check the field and call Yojirou over if he’s there.” When Yojirou came around to the engawa veranda, Grandmother was tapping her pipe against the edge of the hearth. “You! Don’t know nothin’ ’bout the tea caddy?” “When I was in Shimane, there was this carpenter doin’ work for us—tea man he was—said if you store tea in this here caddy, it won’t get damp. But I done nothin’ but keep it safe all this time.”

“Madam Retiree, didn’t you sell that to Mr. Furuta?” Grandmother unexpectedly pursed her lips, “Me? Did I?”

she retorted in exasperation. "Why in blazes would I do such a thing?!" "—This is getting troublesome..."

Yojirou turned a perplexed smile toward Nobuko. “Madam Retiree truly did sell it.” “When Mr. Furuta said, ‘This here’s a fine tea caddy,’ since you couldn’t take it to Tokyo nohow, you went and let him have it.” “I delivered it myself for a five-yen note—no mistakin’ that.” “So… I’ve gone that durned senile…? Swear I ain’t got no memory o’ sellin’ it…” Yojirou, realizing he was under suspicion, spoke up rough-like,

“Since I was the one who delivered it, I’ll take the five yen and go retrieve it.” “...Reckon so...”

When Yojirou returned ambiguously to the fields without resolving the matter, Grandmother later pursued Nobuko all the way to the desk area. “I’m tellin’ ya, it’s downright vexin’. Takin’ advantage of an old fool’s dotage—you never know what mischief folks’ll get up to.” “That copper pot we searched for t’other day—I’m swearin’ to ya, I sold it to Yamamoto!” she insisted. “Grandmother.” “Since senility comes with age and can’t be helped, you ought to just settle into it peacefully.” “You’re addled most times, but then you’ll go and be terribly clear-headed when it suits ya—that’s what makes it all the more bothersome.”

“Hmm… But Nobuko—what d’you reckon? Did I really sell it?” When her mind was unclouded, Nobuko would involuntarily laugh with a “Hahaha—” “How should I know? If you’re so concerned, go ask them properly yourself.” she would say. But when her nerves were already frayed by her own thoughts, being pestered with endless questions would make her snap. “Grandmother, you ought to try staring at the sky more often—just let your mind wander.”

Nobuko fashioned a table in the corner of the six-mat room, using old book boxes as legs and topping them with a rosewood desk. Beyond the corridor lay a garden, and past that stretched a field. When she opened the small shutter on the shoji screen, there came into view a low grassy embankment separating garden from field, along with part of a vigorous row of plum trees. In the slanted afternoon light, this narrow arboreal line where thicket met ruined garden merged the charm of decay with early summer's vivid green brilliance into one beautiful scene. Her state of mind remained gloomy, sensitive, hollowed-out with desolation. During her previous stay here—when she'd alternated between hating Tsukuda and self-flagellation—her restless heart had kept nature's essence from penetrating deeply. Now Nobuko's psyche submerged itself with morbid clarity into these surroundings. She felt with visceral intensity how the natural forces ceaselessly shaping this rural world connected to the life energy governing both her existence and Tsukuda's. The myriad desires and instincts within this woman called herself. That twenty-year-old passion that had set everything ablaze in rose-tinted flames, leaving no room for shadows—even carnal desire had burned bright as pure vitality then. Tsukuda had appeared at thirty-five after long wanderings, bearing weariness and craving respite. His very exhaustion had stimulated her youthful spirit—that part of her desperate to feel awe, make sacrifices, shed tears, lose itself in fervor. Intoxicated by her own ardor, she'd claimed Tsukuda through sheer force of will. Had the passion at her core burned out through this conquest, leaving their shared life smoldering at mere ember warmth, peace might have endured. As Professor and Mrs. Tsukuda—finding marital joy in thrift, savings, pensions—they could have harmoniously aged into their forties, fifties, until reaching the grave. But Nobuko's passion proved too vast to expend on one man alone. Her life force—abundant as cells nourished by Hokkaido cows' milk—remained voracious and unquenchable. What she sought wasn't her husband's slogan-like pursuit of "our peace"—that meager existence requiring neither expenditure nor absorption. She believed even shadows doubled when two gathered; surely a man and woman united should live each new day more abundantly, expansely, profoundly through their very union.

Tracing back to the source, it was ultimately a single passion—a terrifyingly raw tidal surge of the heart that manifested as both love and hatred; an instinct within her very essence that fiercely clung to freedom and independence; and how this instinct was nature’s only meaningful staff granted to her trusting and receptive disposition—one that became profoundly entangled in human interactions—these truths Nobuko had come to understand through the long, quiet days in the countryside that dawned and faded in stillness. As the one who had let her taste love and married life’s bright-dark medley of emotions with her whole being—even if it ended in ruin—Tsukuda had never been a passing figure to her. Depending on how one considered it, perhaps she ought to feel gratitude—if only for having liberated her rather completely from that marital-life fantasy which any woman would inevitably become ensnared by at least once…

Her fluctuating emotions—Nobuko’s feelings toward Tsukuda had softened relatively. There were even times when she would recall the period they had suffered through together and feel compelled to mourn it collectively. Finally, she wanted to send at least one last good letter for the sake of their shared memories. One evening, filled with the emotion of reminiscence, Nobuko sat down at her desk. She spread out the paper and took up the pen. But when she tried to write the first character and noticed—for some reason—the door of her emotions had already snapped shut. No matter where she started, no matter what she wrote, it all felt like nothing but trivial, desolate, hollow words. The small gratitude toward Tsukuda, the parting words from her sincere heart—when written down, she felt only the fear that all these would give him an impression of falsehood and artificiality. On the contrary, the many hateful words, the venomous words she herself had once spoken to Tsukuda came surging back one after another with startling vividness. His cold sarcasm and ugly, self-destructive words that had responded in kind, along with the look on his face and in his eyes at that time, now vividly resounded in her eardrums as if she were hearing them anew. Beneath the night lamp, Nobuko felt with terror that words were living entities. Words spoken by humans surely live exactly as they were spoken. Is it not that the words they exchanged in anger and resentment now manifest the power to rend them apart?

――Nobuko carefully tore the letter paper she hadn't managed to write a single word on into tiny fragments, lost in contemplation. She shifted her chair and let the white scraps flutter down directly above the wastebasket before stepping out into the garden. A large moon hung encircled by an even larger halo, while the lawn gave off a damp night odor. From beside the dark creeping pine in the far corner emerged the figure of an old woman returning with hot water. "What a fine moon we've got," "……"

“—Good night to ya.” “Good night.” As Nobuko remained unresponsive, the old woman—resembling an aged female elephant—narrowed her eyes exaggeratedly as she passed by, “There’s a fine song, I tell ya—when you want to meet someone far away, let the moon be your mirror.” With the hand holding a rolled-up wet hand towel, she struck a silly pose as if teasingly pestering Nobuko.

Seven

Nobuko's pleasure was the letters from Motoko. Before departing for the countryside, at Nobuko’s request, they had gone to Kamakura together. It had been necessary to watch the moving pictures beforehand. Motoko had accompanied her in that as well. Had she been living with her grandmother—with whom she could only discuss pots and pans—the letters that had been exchanged like a conversational partner for other matters would have gradually become essential to Nobuko’s daily life. From time to time, Nobuko would write down the various emotions and thoughts that overflowed her chest—regarding matters with Tsukuda and other things—on large or small sheets of paper without concern for sequence, and send them to Motoko. From Motoko came responses where she shared her opinions on each and every one of those matters. Motoko was, as Nobuko had initially perceived, a woman of emotion who nevertheless maintained a kind of practical equilibrium—whether one called it composure or worldly knowledge. To Nobuko’s impulsive surges of emotion and bouts of deep contemplation, she responded with affectionate irony, sensing both goodwill and absurdity in them.

“Someone like you is utterly clueless about the world, I think. Even today’s letter—I could tell you’d been fantasizing about Mr. Tsukuda in that same old way. Admiring someone like me is pure foolishness. After being idealized beyond reason only to have them come crashing down in disillusionment—nobody wants that kind of treatment.”

“And another thing—

“I may be a fool, but you’re quite the fool yourself.” “And a fool in some strangely elaborate way.” “You have a knack for declaring your own foolishness with such brazen flair.”

Thinking it was exactly so, Nobuko read Motoko’s letter over and over and laughed cheerfully. Depending on her mood that day, Motoko would sometimes meticulously write small, evenly rounded characters like aligned grains of rice, while other times she’d scrawl increasingly large letters toward the end of her correspondence like a petulant child. Though she carried herself with an air of great composure, Nobuko perceived with affection that at her core, Motoko was tender-hearted, kind, and honest—she had come to sincerely cherish the serendipity of having met her. What infused vitality into Nobuko’s hollow, empty heart—so prone to despondency—was this newfound connection with Motoko.

One evening, Nobuko was on the engawa with her grandmother. Grandmother lay on the chaise longue while Nobuko brought out a footstool and sat beside her. They had quarreled earlier that afternoon over the wages of their recently hired maid and had just reconciled. When lunch ended, the maid suddenly requested her pay, saying she needed money urgently. It was the 25th. Though they had hired her through a caretaker with a promise of 15 yen, Grandmother—despite having agreed—abruptly devised a stingy plan to pay 13 yen instead, claiming there were fewer people to manage. Nobuko protested this was unfair and grew unreasonably angry. After making up, Grandmother uncharacteristically relaxed and told Nobuko old stories. Long ago, there was an old woman at a house called Takayama. When her grandfather was appointed junior councilor, the hard-of-hearing woman misheard the title as "three-ri-in-all-directions official" and suspiciously inquired about it. The story went that the equally deaf retiree being questioned had solemnly replied "That it is"—Grandmother, herself seventy-nine but dealing with two even older senile women, found their exchange so amusing that she imitated the response in a soldierly tone of "That it is," making Nobuko laugh with her spirited performance. While calling her to dinner, the maid handed Nobuko two letters. The lower one was a Japanese envelope identical to those Motoko always used. Having already received one that morning, Nobuko doubted it could be from her and suspiciously turned it over to check. It indeed came from Motoko. It bore the evening date of that same day.

“My work will likely reach a temporary conclusion on the 28th. When I thought I’d have some free time for a while, I suddenly wanted to come see you there. Since I mustn’t be a bother, if it’s inconvenient, please don’t hesitate to send an immediate reply. If it suits you for me to come, I’ll generally depart at 1 o'clock on the 28th.” Nobuko had been reading as she walked, but the unexpected joy made her chest feel tight. Flushed with excitement, she thought about sending a telegram urging her to come right away but managed to compose herself and sat down at the dining table. Still in high spirits, she informed her grandmother.

“Grandma, it’s wonderful! Ms. Motoko is coming on the 28th.” “Hmm… We’ve nothing proper to serve—this is troublesome.” “Don’t fret over that! I know how inconvenient things are here.” Cheerfully lifting her chopsticks, Nobuko suddenly felt emotion surge so violently that the rice she’d swallowed seemed to catch in her throat. The very force of this joy gripping her now made her realize with pitiful clarity—terrifying in its sharpness—how starved of happiness she’d been these five years. Even a friend could bring such warmth and joy. Why had Tsukuda never once given her any delight worth remembering with pride? True, his visits to this country house had been forbidden by Dōzaka. But had he possessed even a shred of tenderness, surely in five years he might have created some small, indelible happiness—in some moment, some place. That she could be so easily pleased, yet so desperately hungry for joy—it struck her as almost mystifying. Was there truly nothing? No single instance where she’d felt Tsukuda’s warmth intimately close? The possibility of utter absence horrified her; she raked through memories with frantic hands. What surfaced were scenes of herself pleading earnestly to make him believe her sincerity, herself straining to smother despair with stubbornness—or else only those dark, flame-like matters between man and woman. Each memory vivid enough to endure came laced with tears streaking her cheeks, with the acrid taste of tears searing through her chest. And yet through it all, she’d remained life’s prime mover—stirring, craving, thrashing. ――

Returning to her desk, writing a reply postcard to Motoko, having it sent, and yet continuing to dwell on all these things, Nobuko felt a trembling sadness. Since resolving that she couldn’t live with Tsukuda, Nobuko had firmly resolved not to let the experiences gained through her mind and body go to waste. She was determined not to let it end in mere misfortune or failure. Let something new be born from it all! Therefore, her mind had worked rather rationally, tending to survey or dissect the path she had lived—using the issues of era and gender as its backdrop.

However, with the warmth overflowing from Motoko’s unhesitating heart, Nobuko’s emotions broke through that dam. She keenly felt that she had wasted her youth from twenty to twenty-five—those young years when any passion or joy could have been purely received like fire—in vain and meagerness, and that those years would never return in her lifetime. A heart that cherished life filled her to the very tips of her hair. While cursing the spinelessness of both Tsukuda and herself in her heart, Nobuko continued to sob soundlessly for a long time. While crying, while having her suffering gradually alleviated bit by bit through crying, Nobuko thought. Am I the only woman in the world with a heart like mine? Was the joy of the life I wished to attain so extravagantly excessive that it could not exist in this world? —God, God. And am I such an excessively flawed woman that I cannot be loved by anyone?

VIII

On the day Motoko was to come, Nobuko could wait no longer and went to the station to meet her. There was a violent thunderstorm from the afternoon. When she left home, the storm had temporarily abated, but by the time she returned from town it might grow fierce again, and if no rickshaws were available, Nobuko thought she would have no choice but to stay overnight in town. She brought a small comb and other necessities. Last summer, lightning struck the village rickshaw driver's house. He became so startled at that time that he fell ill. From then on, whenever there was a severe thunderstorm, that rickshaw driver's legs would stiffen and he couldn't move. From the city, in such weather, there was not a single rickshaw driver who would brave the famously wind-battered highway all the way to the village.

Fortunately， by the time they were on their way back， only the wind remained. The fierce wind whirled through all directions of the pitch-dark night path—only its roar could be heard. Motoko， looking somewhat anxious from the front rickshaw，

“It’s awful... Is it still going to be this bad?”

A voice called out. "Only a third remains!" Though she had enunciated clearly with deliberate force, her words scattered in the wind before reaching Motoko. "Huh?" The questioning voice echoed back, but Nobuko stayed silent, jostled by the rickshaw's motion.

The next morning, when the eastern shutters were opened, Motoko—

“Oh! I had no idea this place had such a beautiful view!” she exclaimed, her astonishment renewed.

“Two surprises in a row! Last night, I was actually feeling a bit daunted wondering what kind of place I’d come to, but...” The clear northern sky washed clean by lightning and rain; the distant alluring mountain range; the charming forest crowning hills to the left—this vibrant beauty made even Nobuko stare in wonder. "Can’t you tell the air feels different somehow? It’s wonderfully refreshing and invigorating, don’t you think?"

"I had no idea F Prefecture contained such a place!" "I’ve only been as far as Kyoto in Kansai—but I far prefer the scenery here to there. What about you?" "That region’s merely ordinary—an ordinary sort of beauty." Grandmother emerged and began repeating,

“Thank you ever so much for coming—it’s downright shameful I can’t offer proper hospitality out here in the sticks,” she repeated. Nobuko,

“Even at eighty, she still hasn’t forgotten those formal airs, has she?”

Nobuko whispered to Motoko and burst into laughter.

In the cupboard was a single lap blanket with an old-fashioned coarse checkered pattern in green and brown on a dark navy background. Nobuko spread it out on the garden lawn. The two of them flopped down prone on top of it. Motoko pulled out some grass protruding between the lap blanket’s tassels, inserted it into the tip of her slender pipe, and invented a blowgun-like game. “Here, let me try. I could shoot it much, much farther!” The grass was too light and instead didn’t fly far at all. “Ah, my shoulder’s sore from holding it all wrong.”

Before long, Motoko lay on her back, cupping her hands to shield her forehead as she gazed intently at the horizon. The fragrant aroma of grasses and sun-warmed earth wafted about them... A peaceful, joyous trust filled Nobuko’s heart. She recalled how when they had gone to Kamakura before, the two of them had similarly basked in the sun on a sandy rise beside the hotel in this manner. When she was with Motoko, she felt a comforting sense of grounding, a calmness, and a pleasant liberation from the stifling aspects of conventional femininity. This was an entirely new emotion for Nobuko.

Taking out the binoculars her deceased grandfather had used and putting them on, they peered at the clouds and gazed at the mountains. The lush, beautiful mountain slopes, when viewed through the binoculars, showed sparse trees that resembled the skin of a wild boar.—They began talking. Serious conversations, carefree chatter, reminiscences—the topics were endless, and Nobuko listened to Motoko’s honest accounts of her life up to now. A postcard reply from Narasaki arrived in response to the joint contribution they had sent. In it,

"I was certain Ms. Yoshimi would be there by now. How about that? My clairvoyance is quite impressive, don't you think?"

it read. They read it together and laughed.

Motoko stayed for three days before returning to Tokyo.

The chaise longue where Motoko had lain before rising remained in the corner of the room, still bearing its feather quilt. At night, with the sliding paper doors left open between rooms, Nobuko wandered back and forth through the illuminated study and darkened adjacent chamber until she felt—without quite knowing when it began—a vigorous longing for life coursing through her very core. Her entire being seemed to have been imperceptibly claimed by this current. The sadness that had kept her awake like physical agony one week earlier, when she received notice of Motoko’s visit, now appeared to have been a harbinger announcing this awakening of life’s desires. When she had desperately yearned for a new existence, when she had strained to discover a different mode of living, she hadn’t even known where such possibilities might dwell. Unbeknownst to her, the season had arrived. One morning she awoke abruptly, and as people might suddenly perceive spring’s fullness permeating heaven and earth, looking about her with fresh awareness, she realized the tides now flowing around her were no longer those of the past.—This conviction stirred Nobuko profoundly.

The next day, with a heart that had reached an even firmer level of resolve, Nobuko began writing a letter to Tsukuda. When she tried to compose a letter imbued with mutual respect, her softened mood did not flow out smoothly as it had on that night long ago, resulting instead in an oddly methodical arrangement of courteous phrases. Dissatisfied, she tore it up repeatedly until finally abandoning the effort and resolving to simply set down the essential points. The reason I came to the countryside this time is that I wish for us to make a clean break and enter separate lives; and that I hope you will forgive my weakness in being unable to either act on this or speak of it to you while in Tokyo.

"This matter was necessary only for me from the beginning, and was never something you recognized as necessary." "I believe that is likely still true even now." "But please grant me this now." "And I sincerely wish for us to establish a relationship where we need not harbor mutual hatred."

She remained gazing at the two letter sheets for some time after finishing writing. Was she moved? Or was she indifferent? Her own heart refused to clarify its state. Nobuko meticulously aligned them, folded them into an envelope, and personally carried it out to post.

As she looked up on her way back, the sky blazed with sunset. Streaky clouds floated in vivid hues across the lofty heavens. Lightning flickered intermittently. The mulberry fields, cedar windbreaks, and even distant mountain ranges melted entranced into the shimmering glow. The air hung crystal-still. Entrusting both body and mind to nature while gazing skyward—ah—the sensation of that weight finally lifting pressed upon her urgently, and Nobuko felt she wanted to embrace both the surrounding serenity, vastness, and beauty along with Motoko far away, yearning to rejoice together.

She wanted to go to Tokyo... She began walking. She wanted to go to Tokyo... She wanted to go. She wanted to go. The tempo gradually quickened until Nobuko could no longer endure staying still. When Motoko had left, Nobuko had wanted so desperately to go with her that it nearly overwhelmed her. She restrained that impulse by reminding herself she hadn't yet properly defined her position regarding Tsukuda. Now at least matters had reached some resolution. Even if she went to Tokyo for two or three days, she reasoned a month's patience wouldn't be wasted. Nobuko flipped through the calendar pages, wondering if this might be a busy time for Motoko. Even considering Tokyo travel, she recoiled from visiting Ugusaka—that place of constant comings and goings where Tsukuda might appear at any moment. Her plan had been to go directly to Motoko's residence. There she would absorb nothing but the city's vitality and Motoko's acerbic yet invigorating encouragement, avoiding all other encounters.

Nobuko walked briskly, but suddenly realized she had not brought a single unlined garment. "I can’t walk around Tokyo in June wearing lined garments," she thought. A brilliant idea occurred to her. She hurried back home, took out a blue-striped lined garment from the chest of drawers, and brought it to the old woman living beyond the fields—the one who had sung her the folk song "If Only the Moon Were a Mirror." She breathlessly requested: “Remove all the lining from this and sew up the hem and collar for me. By the morning of the fourth. —Since it’s being made into an unlined garment.”

It had been redyed, with the lining now white, making it look rather absurd, but Nobuko thought it would be fine since she’d be wearing a haori over it.

Nine

She had intended not to inform the house in Ugusaka, but changed her plans because she encountered an unexpected person on the train to Tokyo. At the public telephone near Motoko’s house, Nobuko called her mother. When she informed her mother that she had returned to Tokyo the previous evening, “Hmm...”

Mother let out a voice laced with suspicion and unpleasant excitement. "There's something strange—Tsukuda isn't in Akasaka."

Nobuko could not determine what that meant. "I haven’t been to Akasaka, so I don’t know." “Where is he?”

“He’s at Ms. Yoshimi’s place.” “Anyway, Tsukuda isn’t in Akasaka.” Takeyo repeated it again, as if threatening. “He sent a telegram from K asking when you’d return.” Because her mother was being evasive and spoke with pointed significance, Nobuko addressed the crux directly.

“When I met Mr. Johnston on the train,” she said, “he told me he wanted to see me without fail, so he’s coming up to Ugusaka tomorrow. I’ll go too, so I’ll ask all about it then.”

Mother had been thinking, but resolutely—

“Come here this instant.”

“Come here right now,” she said. A prolonged silence hung between them on both ends of the line. “Then I’ll go,” Nobuko said, and hung up the phone.

As the taxi jostled her along, Nobuko wondered whether Tsukuda had gone to K. After reading the letter, he must have gone yesterday to where Nobuko had left the day before. Of course, Nobuko had not thought that everything would be resolved with just that letter. Tsukuda had read the letter two or three times, realized Nobuko was serious, and resolved to go—she could well imagine the state of mind he had been in at that time. He had likely set out with seven parts anxiety and three parts confidence. For Nobuko had first expressed her desire to separate a full two years earlier. She had even gone so far as to live separately in Kamakura for a time, but in the end, she had yielded to his tears and immediate fervor and returned. He may be somewhat stubborn this time, but she needed only to approach it with equal firmness and persistence. Such habitual attitudes of Tsukuda as a husband became clearly visible, and Nobuko felt both fed up and angry, to the point where she even lost some of the fairness she had maintained toward him. A cold, rebellious feeling that she was no longer the same person as before even surged up within her.

Nobuko entered the room where her father and mother sat with stern expressions. To K—the place she had forbidden him to go—Tsukuda had departed without permission. A telegram asking when Nobuko would return had arrived, nonsensical in context, yet the sender's whereabouts remained unknown. With various complications having settled but no way to predict what lurked beneath, her parents were deeply displeased, feeling both discomfort and inconvenience. While Nobuko understood their feelings, their apparent stance of taking Tsukuda's side—wanting to rebuke her or force an apology—wounded her. The marital turmoil did not stay confined between husband and wife but spread to those around them, compelling everyone to expose the unpleasant shadows in their hearts. Though she considered it her own responsibility, Nobuko felt an ironic pity toward the delicate parental logic that seemed to forbid both loving and despising one's spouse.

When she told them about the letter she had sent to Tsukuda, her parents fell silent. Before long, Takeyo said,

“—This concerns your entire life. You mustn’t act without thorough consideration,” she said, her tone solemn for the first time. “—And I can’t imagine someone as emotional as you enduring solitude forever.”

“I know that too—I’ve spent not just a year or two, but far longer thinking about it. But you see, I’ve reached a point where I can’t endure this any longer—beyond all reason. A fish can’t survive without water—and no one would blame the fish for that, would they?—I believe people can find themselves in exactly such circumstances.”

“You’ll likely meet him tomorrow anyway, but you should think carefully—though in the end, well, that might turn out for the best…” Truly courageous people are gentle. If only I could be granted even one-hundredth of that gentleness and have my final meeting with Tsukuda. Nobuko went to bed with these thoughts.

Early the next morning, Nobuko was awakened by a call from Tsukuda.

“A call from Akasaka.” When she heard this voice, even before her eyelids had fully opened, she felt an unpleasant emotion sweep through her chest. To compose herself, she adjusted her kimono and stepped out to the wooden-floored area.

“Hello?” Abruptly,

“Hello? When are you coming back?”

Tsukuda’s acute, parched-throated voice pierced her eardrums.

“Mr. Johnston is coming for tea today.” “Once that’s over—” “Are you busy?” “——…” “If you’re that busy, then come back whenever you damn well please!” A clatter sounded as the receiver was slammed down.

Nobuko could not return to sleep and remained awake. Within less than an hour, another call came from Akasaka.

“Hello, is this Ms. Nobuko?”

This time, instead of Tsukuda, it was the low, flat voice of his close friend Oda. Not knowing what to say, she remained silent. “When are you coming back?” “I think it will probably be around eight o'clock... but you—are you there?”

“Yes, I stayed over last night—well then, please go ahead.” The phone went dead with a click, mid-sentence. When she imagined Tsukuda and Oda—the two men—talking restlessly while standing in the room, saying things like “Well then, I’ll call her next time,” the scene felt unnervingly ominous. Nobuko felt ashamed.

10

She arrived in Akasaka after nine o'clock.

From the corner of the main street, walking along the dark, sleepy side street where not a soul passed, the light from Tsukuda’s room streamed brilliantly through the gaps in the bamboo fence, reaching all the way to the street. Feeling a slight chill at her unlined kimono’s shoulder as she gazed at it, Nobuko opened the dark lattice door. Tsukuda burst out with the force of a snapped bowstring.

“Nobuko?” “—I’m home.” He grabbed Nobuko's hands as though unable to wait for her to remove her geta, then urgently led her into the unlit room at the far end. Nobuko floundered in the darkness, bumped into a chair, and grabbed onto it. Tsukuda still did not release her hands; while holding her with one arm, he slid a chair over and sat her down, then embraced her with a maddened strength. He—

“Do you still love me?” As soon as he said that, he began crying like a child. He pressed his cheek against Nobuko’s while weeping. He stroked her hands, her shoulders, her hair—then with his large trembling palms, as if to crush her, he ran his hands over every part of her body. Nobuko remained perfectly still, allowing him to do as he wished. His heavy head leaned heavily against her chest. Feeling his endless tears soak warmly through her kimono, she cradled his head and gently stroked his hair with quiet sorrow. Her eyes adjusted to the dark, revealing how her husband’s shoulders heaved with each sob. Staring vacantly at this sight, Nobuko shuddered in self-appalled horror as she whispered inwardly:

“Ah… I’m not crying… I’m not crying…” Horrified at herself for not breaking into sobs alongside her husband, Nobuko desperately stroked his head. She too felt such sudden chills and nausea that her body shook—so achingly sad, so excruciatingly painful. But no matter how she tried, the tears refused to come. That they had to suffer like this; that their dead love would never revive; even the despairing realization that all of this would soon return to what it once had been—these thoughts filled Nobuko with a suffocating anguish that stole her very breath.

Ah... Nobuko pulled Tsukuda’s head even closer to her chest and rested her cheek against his hair. —The person I loved! The one who had once been so dear and beloved—how many tears must have flowed between us!…

Unable to utter a word or shed a tear, her chest stiffened with anguish until Nobuko felt she might lose consciousness. She closed her eyes and staggered. Tsukuda hurriedly supported her and laid her down.

Tsukuda, in a tempest of passion, seemed to rend Nobuko's heart asunder only to try reclaiming it within himself. Nobuko initially resisted. Yet in the end, weeping violently, she cast herself into his embrace with her own savage grief. Adrift between bottomless anguish that wounded her very core and turbulent sparks of carnal desire, she knew the kanji for "end" loomed vast and wordless above them—inscribed across the bodies of these two sorrowful lovers.

The next day, Tsukuda did not go to work.

“When I went to K, I had already submitted a leave notice through next week.” “If it took three days, I thought we’d come to a decision one way or the other.” Nobuko felt that her husband was now committing his full strength. Driven by the conviction that total exertion might make her reconsider. It became a form of confinement. Though the day hung cloudy and humid, they kept the shoji tightly closed and knelt facing each other all day on the tatami before the narrow bookshelf. He only stood during meals. Even then, Nobuko was made to sit in the corner where she’d often pondered alone—still wrestling with what amounted to a single response—while Tsukuda prepared the food himself. They finished eating. Then he would begin again, sometimes gently, sometimes terrifyingly.

“Even after I’ve begged you this much… won’t you reconsider? Even I must have had my flaws, and I’m telling you I’ll fix them from now on—even after all this—you still refuse to live together?” Nobuko looked up at him listlessly and asked. “You say you’ll fix your flaws—then tell me, where exactly were you wrong?” “How should I know that!” He answered resolutely, squaring his shoulders.

“I don’t believe I was at fault.” “But since you insist such flaws exist, am I not declaring my intent to mend them?”

Nobuko sighed and said. "So let's stop this water-throwing argument, shall we? If we must assign blame, we're both at fault—that's mutual punishment in a quarrel. But at least let's act like halfway reasonable people and stop wounding each other more." After a long silence, Tsukuda spoke thoughtfully. "Even working women—like Ms. Narasaki—manage admirably that way. Surely you could do the same too. Besides, as Oda said—we all endured those same struggles fifteen years ago."

Nobuko twisted her lips into a bitter smile.

“—Are you Ms. Narasaki?—First of all, why do you assume I can survive on nothing but work?” “It’s utterly absurd—I was born a woman long before I ever wrote those clumsy novels, and yet here I am, undeniably a woman—…” “In that case—” He stroked the back of Nobuko’s hand as one might soothe a child, speaking in a coaxing tone. “Why try to leave someone who loves you this deeply? Hmm? I’m not destined for longevity anyway. At least stay by my side until I die—please stay, won’t you?”

Tsukuda had been watching Nobuko with tear-filled eyes, but when she remained silent, his expression turned venomous. And then he said coercively, “—I read through your entire diary while in K.” —Around the unattended desk, he must have frantically rummaged everywhere in his emotional turmoil. One could sense his heart racing—whether he might find some stone of hatred, some stone of consolation, something to anchor this baseless, stirred-up anxiety. She had left the diary out on the desk. In it were written in detail her feelings of devotion toward Motoko.

“…………” Tsukuda lost patience and fired another bullet. “When I opened the cupboard—from all that clutter inside—the letter you sent to Hagisaka came out.” “From Nasu. “—I never thought you were someone who’d write such letters.” “Truly unexpected.”

The heat, the anguish. Nobuko’s head felt foggy. Night came again. He tried to spread both arms over Nobuko like a moth seeking death. “Ah, what should I do! What am I supposed to do with myself?!”

Nobuko burst into loud, unstoppable sobs and lost consciousness while weeping uncontrollably.

On another similarly terrifying second day, Nobuko’s nerves began to wear thin. When evening came, she implored Tsukuda as if in prayer.

“Look—wearing each other out until we go mad amounts to nothing! If you're going to make such desperate moves now that it's too late... why couldn't you have recognized my true feelings long before?” “You thought I could never leave no matter how I suffered—that you could just dismiss me entirely...”

“I don’t know about women, but once married, a man simply can’t live alone—not in the physical sense—” “That may be so.—…But what you truly need is a woman to be your wife.” “It’s only because I’m your wife that you think you can’t leave me.” “It’s not something limited to Nobuko, you know.” “It’s not because it’s Nobuko—at all—…”

Glaring at Nobuko as if to bite her, Tsukuda,

“So you’re absolutely refusing then?” he pressed. Nobuko nodded deeply in understanding. “Absolutely?” “Yes… Absolutely…” “Fine then! That’s the answer I wanted to hear!” Fiercely, he stood up. And he took paper and a pen from the desk. “Well, since it’s all settled, let’s create an inventory list for the luggage.” On white letter paper, he drew a horizontal line across the center and wrote the initials T at the top and N at the bottom.

“Well then—the desk…do you need it?” “As for the chairs, I feel bad too, but I’ll keep just three.” “And then the chest of drawers—” Tsukuda was deathly pale. His cheeks looked gaunt and sunken. With his index finger gripping the pen unnervingly tight, Nobuko watched him write in a daze. Dividing belongings…claiming possessions…hearts broken yet objects remaining…what a vile, wretched transaction. Nobuko burned with shame—if only all these furnishings would vanish this instant—the insolence! she thought.

“Look, you really don’t have to write it down. I don’t need anything.” “If I just have books and pottery…” Tsukuda threw down the pen with a clatter, “Ah, if Father knew about this, how he would…” and began to sob while clutching his head. To Nobuko, this felt slightly theatrical. Could their parents’ influence possibly matter between them now?—And yet cold tears overflowed from her eyelids, slid down her cheeks, and dripped onto her lap.

Tsukuda staggered over and brought wire cutters from the closet. Then he went out to the engawa and crouched before the small birdcage built into the corner. The bullfinches and society finches flapped their wings toward him. He stared intently at them for a while,

“Ah, I’ve no more use for these things!” Muttering this, he began cutting through the cage wire with the shears. Snap, snap—from where she sat, Nobuko saw the mesh peel back from one end. The birds, startled by this sudden violence, huddled in a corner and raised a pitiful uproar. When the hole grew large enough, Tsukuda struck at the flapping remnants of wire. A society finch shot through the gap into the garden like a flung pebble. Then came bullfinches, then more society finches. Some alighted at once on the daphne’s dense branches beneath the engawa. Others flew to distant plum tree tops and chirped as if distrusting this sudden expanse of liberated air. Then—who knows why—one society finch fluttered back to the veranda. Tilting its head repeatedly at the torn opening, it hopped lightly back into its former cage. Both had been transfixed by the birds’ movements, but when Tsukuda saw this return, he seized Nobuko’s hand as if he himself might break.

“Ah, ah… Even the birds return… Yet you… You…” A bitter feeling welled up, and Nobuko averted her eyes. I can’t bear to become a caged bird. That was what she felt. In the path of Nobuko’s gaze lay the evening sky. Before the murky, egg-yolk-colored dusk of the city, the garden’s pine tree stood black. Each pine needle appeared vividly distinct in its darkness.