AI-Generated Graded Readers 　　Masaru Uchida, Gifu University 　　 　　Publication webpage: 　　https://www1.gifu-u.ac.jp/~masaru/a1/ai-generated_graded_readers.html 　　 　　Publication date: May 11, 2026 　　 　　About This Edition 　　 　　This book is a simplified English adaptation created for extensive reading practice. 　　The text was translated from Japanese into English and simplified using ChatGPT for intermediate English learners as part of an educational project. 　　 　　Target reading level: CEFR A2-B1 　　 　　The adaptation aims to improve readability while preserving the narrative content and spirit of the original work. 　　 　　Content Note 　　 　　This adaptation is based on a historical literary work. It may contain expressions, attitudes, or depictions that some readers may consider inappropriate or offensive by today’s standards. Such elements have been retained or reflected where necessary in order to preserve the historical and literary character of the original work. 　　 　　Source Text 　　 　　Original work: Gan (雁) 　　Author: Mori Ōgai (森鷗外) 　　 　　Source: Aozora Bunko (青空文庫) 　　https://www.aozora.gr.jp/ 　　 　　Original Japanese text available at: 　　https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000129/card45224.html 　　 　　The original work is in the public domain in Japan. 　　 　　Copyright and Use 　　 　　This simplified English edition is an educational adaptation intended for non-commercial use only. 　　 　　The source text is provided by Aozora Bunko, a digital library that makes Japanese public domain literature freely available. 　　 　　For information about Aozora Bunko and its usage policies, see: 　　https://www.aozora.gr.jp/guide/kijyunn.html 　　 　　This edition is an AI-assisted translation and simplification prepared for educational purposes. 　　 　　Disclaimer 　　 　　This edition is an independent educational adaptation and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Aozora Bunko.

Mori Ōgai, The Wild Geese [Gan] (Simplified Edition, Adapted and Simplified from Japanese by ChatGPT)
　　
Part 1: The Student Next Door

　　This is an old story. I remember by chance that it happened in the thirteenth year of Meiji. At that time, I was living in a boarding house called Kamijo. It stood just across from the Iron Gate of Tokyo University. The main person in this story lived in the room next to mine, with only one wall between us. The next year, in the fourteenth year of Meiji, Kamijo burned down by fire, and I lost my room too. For that reason, I remember clearly that these events happened in the year before the fire.
　　Most of the men who lived at Kamijo were medical students. Some other people there were patients who went to the university hospital. In many boarding houses, there is one guest who has special power. Such a man usually has enough money, speaks easily to the landlady, and knows how to please people. When he walks past the place where the landlady sits by the square fire box, he always says a friendly word. Sometimes he sits across from her and talks about common things. He may seem selfish, asking for food and help when he drinks in his room, but he also brings money to the house. So the landlady respects him, and he uses that respect as he likes.
　　But the man who had power at Kamijo was very different. His name was Okada, and he was a student one year below me. He was already near the end of his studies. The first thing one noticed about him was his good looks. He was not a thin, pale, weak-looking handsome man. His face had good color, and his body was strong and well built. I have almost never seen another man with such a face. Much later, I knew the writer Kawakami Bizan when he was still young, and he looked a little like Okada. But Okada, who was a boat-racing man then, was much stronger in body.
　　A good face helps a man anywhere, but a good face alone cannot make him respected in a boarding house. Okada also lived in a very balanced way. He was not the kind of hard student who tried to take first place in every examination. Still, he did his work properly, and he never fell below the middle of his class. When it was time to study, he studied, and when it was time to rest, he rested. After supper, he always went out for a walk, and he always came back before ten. On Sundays he went rowing, or else he took a long walk. Except when he stayed with the rowing team before a race, or when he went home during the summer holiday, everyone knew when he would be in his room and when he would be out.
　　Because Okada lived so exactly, people trusted him more and more. If someone forgot to set his watch by the sound of the gun that marked the hour, he went to Okada’s room to ask the time. Even the clock at the front desk of Kamijo was sometimes corrected by Okada’s pocket watch. The landlady began to praise him, not because he spent money wildly or spoke sweetly to her, but because he was steady and dependable. Of course, it also helped that he paid his bill every month without trouble. She often said, “Look at Mr. Okada.” Then another student would answer first, “Well, of course I cannot be like Okada.” In this way, before anyone noticed it, Okada became the model boarder of Kamijo.
　　Okada’s evening walk usually followed one of two roads. One road took him down quiet Muenzaka, around the north side of Shinobazu Pond, and then toward Ueno Hill. After that he passed the busy streets near Hirokoji and Nakacho, entered the grounds of Yushima Tenjin, turned near a dark temple, and returned to Kamijo. Sometimes he came back another way, turning toward Muenzaka again from Nakacho. The other road took him through the university and out at the Red Gate. Since the Iron Gate closed early, he entered by the gate used by hospital patients and crossed the grounds. Then he walked along Hongo Street, passed shops, went by Kanda Myojin, came down toward Megane Bridge, walked a little in Yanagihara, and returned through one of the narrow side streets. He almost never chose any other road.
　　What did Okada do on these walks? Mostly he stopped at secondhand bookshops and looked at old books. Some of the shops in Ueno Hirokoji and Nakacho still remained for many years after that. There was also one on Onarimichi. The shops in Yanagihara later disappeared, and most of those on Hongo Street changed their places or owners. Okada seldom turned right after leaving the Red Gate, partly because Morikawa-cho was narrow and uncomfortable. Another reason was simple: in those days there was only one secondhand bookshop on that side. His road was shaped not only by streets, but also by books.
　　In today’s words, Okada had a taste for literature. But this was before new novels and plays had become common. It was also before the haiku of Shiki and the poems of Tekkan appeared. People who liked literature read magazines printed on Chinese-style paper or white paper, and they enjoyed poems written by Chinese-learning men about new things in the world. I was also a reader of one of those magazines, so I remember the feeling of that time. I think the first Western story translated into Japanese that I ever read appeared there. It was about a student at a Western university who was killed on his way home. In such an age, Okada’s literary taste was simple: he liked to read new-looking poems and writings made by men trained in Chinese learning.
　　I was not very friendly with people. Even when I often met someone inside the school, I did not talk unless I had a reason. I seldom even took off my hat to students who lived in the same house. But I became a little close to Okada because of secondhand bookshops. My own walking roads were not as fixed as his, but I walked strongly through Hongo, Shitaya, and Kanda. Whenever I saw an old bookshop, I stopped and looked. Because of this, I met Okada many times in front of bookshops. At last, one of us said something like, “We often meet at old bookshops, don’t we?” That was the beginning of our friendly talk.
　　One day, at a bookshop near the foot of the hill below Kanda Myojin, I found a Chinese copy of Jin Ping Mei. I asked the shop owner the price, and he said seven yen. I asked him to make it five yen, but he said, “A little while ago, Mr. Okada said he would buy it for six yen, and I refused.” By chance I had enough money that day, so I bought it for the full price. Two or three days later, when I met Okada, he spoke first. “You are a cruel man,” he said. “You bought the Jin Ping Mei that I had found.” I answered, “Yes, the bookseller told me that you had offered a price. If you want it, I will give it to you.” Okada smiled and said, “No. We live next door to each other, so I can borrow it after you read it.” I was glad to agree, and in this way Okada and I, who had long lived side by side without real friendship, began to visit each other’s rooms.

Part 2: The Woman on Muenzaka

　　In those days, the south side of Muenzaka belonged to the Iwasaki house. But it was not yet closed in by the great wall that people came to know later. There was only an old stone wall, dark and rough, with green plants growing between the stones. Above the wall, many trees grew freely. Their roots and the grass around them could be seen from the road. The place did not look carefully kept. It had a quiet, half-wild air, and it made the slope feel lonely.
　　The north side of the slope was very different. Small houses stood close together there. The best-looking one was a small private house with a wooden fence around it. The others belonged mostly to working people. There was a small shop for household goods and a tobacco shop, but not much else. One house was easy to notice because a woman taught sewing there. In the daytime, many young women sat inside the window and worked. When students passed by and the window was open, the girls often looked up, talked, and laughed among themselves.
　　Next to that busy sewing house, there was one quiet house. Its lattice door was kept clean, and the entrance looked neat. In the evening, the ground near the door was sometimes wet, as if someone had sprinkled water there. In cold weather, the paper screens were shut. In warm weather, bamboo blinds hung down. Because the sewing house beside it was so lively, this house seemed even more silent. It stood there like a house that wished not to be noticed.
　　Around September of that year, Okada came back from his home town after the summer holiday. Soon after that, he went out after supper, as usual. He passed the old buildings where the anatomy room had been placed for a time, and then he slowly began to go down Muenzaka. At that moment, a woman who had just returned from the bath came to the quiet house beside the sewing teacher’s house. The season was already becoming autumn, and few people were outside to enjoy the evening air. The road was empty for a short time. As Okada’s wooden sandals sounded on the slope, the woman put her hand on the lattice door, stopped, and turned around.
　　The woman held a small bamboo basket in her left hand. In it were a towel, a soap box, a small washing bag, and other bath things. Her kimono was simple, but neat. Her body looked light and a little tired. At first, the sight did not give Okada any strong feeling. But he noticed her freshly arranged hair, thin and soft at the sides, and her long, pale face. Her nose was high, and her face had a lonely look. For only a moment he saw her clearly, and then he walked on. By the time he had gone down the slope, he had almost forgotten her.
　　Two days later, Okada again walked toward Muenzaka. When he came near the same quiet house, the woman he had seen after her bath suddenly returned to his mind. He looked toward the house. There was a small window with bamboo pieces fixed across it, and the paper screen was open a little. Inside, he could see a potted plant. Because he looked a little more carefully than usual, his steps became slower. This gave him a few extra moments before he passed directly in front of the house.
　　Just when he came to the front of the window, a white face appeared out of the gray dark behind the plant. The face was the woman’s face. She was looking at him and smiling. This surprised him, but he did not stop. He passed on, as he always did. Still, after that evening, he could not think of the house in the same way. It was no longer only a quiet house on Muenzaka. It had become the house where a woman waited at the window.
　　From then on, almost every time Okada walked past that house, he saw her face. Sometimes she seemed to appear just as he came near. Sometimes she was already there, quietly looking out. Little by little, she entered the world of his thoughts. At first, she came only now and then, like a small picture that returned without reason. But soon she began to take a larger place there. Okada wondered whether she was waiting for him, or whether she was simply looking outside and met his eyes by chance.
　　He tried to remember the time before he had seen her returning from the bath. Had there ever been a woman’s face at that window? He could not clearly say yes. He remembered only that the house beside the noisy sewing teacher’s house had always been clean and quiet. He had once wondered what kind of person lived there, but the question had never gone further. The screen or the blind had usually hidden the inside. So Okada finally decided that the woman had lately begun to open the window and watch for him. This thought did not trouble him. Rather, it gave the evening walk a secret warmth.
　　After they had exchanged looks many times, Okada began to feel close to the “woman at the window.” About two weeks later, one evening, he passed the window and took off his hat without thinking. It was only a small bow, but it changed everything. The woman’s pale face suddenly turned red. Her lonely smile became a bright smile. After that, Okada always bowed to her when he passed the house, and she always answered him with her eyes and face.
　　Okada liked old Chinese stories. One of his favorite books was Gusho Shinshi, and he especially loved one story about a strong man with a great iron hammer. He could say the whole text from memory. Because of such stories, he had long wanted to try some kind of martial art, but he had never had the chance. Later, when he began rowing, that wish found another form. He worked hard at rowing, improved quickly, and was chosen by his friends as one of the racing men.
　　There was another story in the same book that Okada liked. It was the story of Xiaoqing, a beautiful and sorrowful woman. The woman in that story seemed to live for beauty, even while death waited near her door. Such a woman deeply moved Okada’s heart. For him, women were beautiful and lovable beings. He felt, perhaps without knowing it, that they should keep their beauty and sweetness even in sad lives. This feeling came partly from the poems and old-style writings he liked to read. They had quietly taught him to see women through a soft, sad, dream-like light.
　　Even after Okada had bowed to the woman at the window for a long time, he did not try to learn who she was. From the house and from her clothes, he could guess that she was probably a kept woman. But this did not make him dislike her. He did not know her name, and he did not strongly try to know it. He thought once that he might read the small name board near the entrance. But when she was at the window, he felt shy about looking. When she was not there, he feared the eyes of neighbors and people passing by. So the little wooden board under the eaves remained unread, and the woman at the window remained nameless to him.

Part 3: Suezo and Otama’s Past

　　The woman at the window was named Otama. I learned her history only after the main events of this story were already over. Still, it is better to tell it here, because without it, her life on Muenzaka cannot be understood. In the days when the medical school was still in Shitaya, the student dormitory stood in an old gate building. The windows had thick wooden bars, and the place looked almost like a cage. The students lived there in a rough and noisy way, like young animals with too much strength.
　　At that dormitory there were men who did small jobs for the students. One of them was named Suezo. The students could send these men out to buy food or small things, and the man received two sen each time. Suezo was already over thirty when he began this work. He had a wife and children, but his life was poor. Among the other job men, he was easy to notice because he looked cleaner and more careful than the rest.
　　The other men often had rough beards and careless clothes. Suezo, however, shaved his face neatly, and his lips were always closed tight. His clothes were simple, but he kept them clean. Sometimes he even wore a better cotton kimono and an apron. He did not look like a man who would stay forever in a small job. There was something hard and quiet in him, as if he were always saving his strength for another purpose.
　　At some point, I heard that Suezo would lend money to students when they had none. At first, it was only fifty sen or one yen. Then it became five yen, ten yen, and more. He began to make the borrowers write papers, and he made them renew those papers when they could not pay. Before long, Suezo was no longer just a servant of the dormitory. He had become a real moneylender.
　　How did he get the first money? I do not know. It is hard to believe that he saved it all from two-sen errands. But when one human being puts all his energy into one purpose, many things become possible. By the time the school moved from Shitaya to Hongo, Suezo had already left his old work. He had moved to a house near Shinobazu Pond. Even then, careless students still came in and out of his house, because they needed his money.
　　After he became successful, Suezo began to feel unhappy with his wife. She was plain, noisy, and hard in her manner. He had once lived poorly with her, and she had shared that poor life with him. But now that he had money, he began to look at her with different eyes. He wanted something more pleasant and more beautiful. Then he remembered a young woman he had seen long before, when he still walked through narrow back streets on his way to the school.
　　The young woman lived in a dark little house near Neribei-cho. Suezo had passed that house many times. The boards over the dirty water in the lane were often broken, and at night a small cart was pulled under the eaves, making the road even narrower. At first, what caught Suezo’s attention was the sound of a shamisen coming from inside. Later he learned that the player was a pretty girl of sixteen or seventeen. Her name was Otama.
　　Otama lived with her father, and her mother was dead. Her father made candy figures and sold them from a small street stand in Akiba Field. Though the house was poor, Otama was always neat. Her clothes were simple but clean, and she took care of herself. When she stood near the door and someone passed, she quickly went back inside. Suezo did not openly ask questions, but little by little he learned these things. That was the way his mind worked: he gathered facts without seeming to gather them.
　　Then a great change came to Otama’s poor house. The cart under the eaves disappeared. The broken boards in the lane were repaired. The entrance was changed, and a new lattice door was put in. One day Suezo saw shoes at the entrance. Soon after that, a new name board was placed there. It said that a policeman lived in the house.
　　Suezo soon learned the story from talk in the neighborhood. The policeman had come to live with Otama and her father as a son-in-law. Otama’s father had loved his only daughter more than anything, and he had not wanted to give her to a hard-looking policeman. He asked many people for advice, but no one clearly told him to refuse. Some people said, “You should have let her become a geisha trainee earlier. A girl that pretty is not safe at home.” Others said, “If the policeman wants her, you cannot easily run away. He will find where you have gone.” In the end, the poor father gave in.
　　But after about three months, another change came. One morning, the house was closed, and a paper was put on the door saying that it was for rent. Suezo asked around while he was shopping, and he heard what had happened. The policeman already had a wife and children in his home town. That wife suddenly came to the house and made a terrible scene. Otama ran out, saying that she would throw herself into a well, but a woman next door, who had been listening, stopped her just in time. Otama had believed that the policeman was truly her husband. The policeman, however, had treated the house as if he were only staying there for his own pleasure.
　　Otama’s father had known nothing about legal papers or family records. When the policeman said, “I will take care of all the steps,” the father believed him. After the shame became known, the father could no longer stay in the same neighborhood. He moved with Otama toward Nishi-Torigoe. He had to buy back his candy cart, which he had once sold to a secondhand dealer. The move and the trouble cost him much money, and his life became harder than before.
　　For a time, Suezo forgot about Otama. But after he had more money and more freedom, he suddenly remembered her again. By then, Suezo knew many people and could use them to find things out. He had someone search around Nishi-Torigoe, and at last he found Otama and her father behind a theater, next to a cart man’s house. Otama was still unmarried. Suezo did not go directly to them at first. Instead, he sent a person to say that a rich merchant wished to make Otama his kept woman.
　　At first, Otama said she did not want such a life. She had already been hurt once by a man, and she was not a bold woman. But she was gentle, and she loved her father. She knew how poor he was, and she understood that his trouble had come partly because of her. Little by little, the talk moved forward. At last, it was arranged that Otama and her father would meet the patron at Matsugen. The “rich merchant” was, of course, Suezo himself.

Part 4: Two Houses

　　Suezo thought about money more than anything else. But as soon as he found where Otama lived, he began to think about a house for her. He did not even wait to know whether she would truly agree. He walked around the neighborhood and looked at many houses. Among them, two houses pleased him. One was near Shinobazu Pond, and the other was on Muenzaka.
　　The house near the pond stood a little back from the road. It had a small garden, with a few trees inside a low fence. From outside, one could see a window with bamboo bars. There was a paper saying that the house was for rent, but people were still living there. An old woman of about fifty showed Suezo through the rooms. She said that her husband always rented new houses, but moved away as soon as they became a little old.
　　The old woman complained as she showed him the house. “This house is still so clean,” she said, “but my husband says we must move again.” The rooms were truly neat, and the house had been well cared for. Suezo thought it was not bad. He wrote down the rent, the deposit, and the name of the agent in his notebook. Then he left and went to look at the other house.
　　The second house was a small house halfway up Muenzaka. There was no sign outside, but Suezo had heard that it was for sale. The owner was a pawnbroker from Yushima, and an old man had lived there until recently. After the old man died, his wife was taken back to the main family house. The sewing teacher’s house next door was a little noisy, but the house itself had been built as a quiet place for an old person. From the lattice door to the clean entrance, everything looked simple and calm.
　　That night, Suezo lay in bed and thought about the two houses. Beside him, his wife had fallen asleep while putting the children to bed. Her mouth was open, and she was snoring loudly. This did not trouble her, because she was used to Suezo staying awake at night to think about money. He looked at her face and compared her, in his mind, with Otama. He felt a secret pleasure, and his thoughts moved between business and desire.
　　At last Suezo chose the Muenzaka house. The house near the pond had a fine view, but he did not need another view. He already lived near the pond, and a rented house would bring many small costs. It was also too open, and people might notice too much. If his wife passed by with the children and happened to see something, there would be trouble. The Muenzaka house was darker and quieter, but fewer people went that way except students on walks. That suited him better.
　　Suezo also thought like a businessman. Buying the house at once felt heavy, but the wood and materials were good for the price. If he insured it and later sold it, he believed he could get his money back. After deciding this, his imagination became warmer. He saw himself going there in the evening, after bathing and dressing neatly. He imagined opening the lattice door and finding Otama waiting inside, lonely and pretty. He even imagined buying clothes for her, but he warned himself not to waste money.
　　Suezo liked dressing well. He was careful with money, but he was not the kind of man who never spent anything. Some men save money so hard that they seem to live with fire on their fingernails. Suezo was not exactly like that. He saved money fiercely, but he also liked to look clean and respectable. Even when he had been only a servant at the medical school, he had changed into better clothes on holidays and looked almost like a small merchant.
　　Because of this, the planned first meeting with Otama became an important event for him. He wanted the meeting to take place at Matsugen, a proper restaurant. He felt that he was stepping into a new part of his life. But when the time came, a problem appeared. Otama needed suitable clothes for the meeting, and so did her father. The old woman who was arranging the matter became troubled, because Otama’s father insisted that he must come too.
　　Otama’s father said, “Otama is my only daughter. I have no one else in the world. My wife gave birth to her after many lonely years, and then my wife became ill and died. When Otama was still a baby, she became sick too, and the doctor almost gave her up. I left my work and cared for her day and night. I saved her life, but after that I was poorer than before.”
　　He also said, “Some people once told me to marry a widow with money and send the child away. I refused them all, because I could not leave Otama. Then, because we were poor and foolish, she was hurt by a false man. I still feel shame and anger about that. I wanted to give her to a good, honest husband if I could. I never wanted her to become a kept woman. But people say this patron is a serious and respectable man, and Otama will soon be twenty. So I have agreed, but I must go with her and meet him myself.”
　　When Suezo heard this, he was not pleased. He had hoped that Otama would be brought to Matsugen by the old woman. Then he could send the old woman away as soon as possible and enjoy being alone with Otama. But if the father came too, the meeting would become almost formal. It would feel like a son-in-law meeting his wife’s father. This cooled Suezo’s warm excitement and made him uncomfortable.
　　Still, Suezo wanted to appear like a generous and respectable businessman. He decided to pay for the clothes of both Otama and her father. Usually, a man in his position might give a fixed sum of money for such preparations, but Suezo did not do that. He knew a tailor who made his own clothes, so he ordered suitable clothes through that shop. He only asked the old woman to get Otama’s size. Poor Otama and her father misunderstood this careful, stingy act. Because no money was put directly into their hands, they thought Suezo was treating them with special respect.

Part 5: The First Meeting at Matsugen

　　Matsugen stood in Ueno Hirokoji. I do not remember that it ever burned down, so perhaps the same room remained there for a long time. Suezo had asked for a small, quiet room. He entered from the south-facing doorway, walked a little way along the hall, and was shown into a six-mat room on the left. A man in a work coat was rolling up a large sun shade made of dark paper. The maid said, “The evening sun comes in until it gets dark,” and then she left.
　　Suezo sat with his back to the alcove. There was a hanging picture there, and a single white flower stood in a small vase. He looked sharply around the room, as he always looked at things. Outside the room there was no real garden. A fence stood beyond the room, and between the fence and the house there was only a narrow strip of ground. Still, the moss had been watered, and it looked fresh and green. Outside, the road was dry and white with dust, but inside the fence the air seemed cooler.
　　Soon the maid brought tea and something to keep away mosquitoes. She asked what he wished to order, but Suezo said he would wait until the others came. Then he sat alone and smoked. At first the room felt a little hot. After a while, a weak wind came from the hall, carrying faint smells from the kitchen and other parts of the house. It was enough to cool him a little, so he did not take up the dirty fan that the maid had left near him.
　　Suezo leaned against the post beside the alcove and let the smoke leave his mouth in rings. While he waited, he gave himself up to his thoughts. When he had first seen Otama years before, she had still been almost a child. What kind of woman had she become now? How would she look when she entered this room? He still felt that it was troublesome for the father to come. He wondered whether there might be some way to send the old man home early.
　　Then he heard several footsteps in the hall. The maid put her face into the room and said, “Your guests have come.” Behind her came the voice of the old woman who had arranged the meeting. “Please come in. The gentleman is an easy person, so you do not need to be shy.” Her voice had a thin, sharp sound. Suezo quickly stood up and went into the hall.
　　At the corner of the hall stood Otama’s father. He was bending his body a little and seemed unsure whether to come forward. Behind him stood Otama. She was not frightened. Rather, she was looking around with quiet interest. Suezo remembered her as a round-faced, pretty girl. But now her face had become longer and more delicate, and her body looked slimmer and more graceful. Her hair was simply arranged, and she had not painted her face heavily. She looked almost natural, and because of that she seemed even more beautiful than Suezo had imagined.
　　Suezo looked at her as if he wished to take her whole image into his eyes. He felt great satisfaction. Otama, on her side, had come with a sad and firm heart. She thought she was selling herself in order to help her poor father, so she had decided to accept almost any kind of man. But Suezo was not what she had feared. His skin was rather dark, his eyes were sharp, but there was some charm in his face. His clothes were quiet and tasteful. For one moment, Otama felt as if the life she had thrown away had been given back to her a little.
　　Suezo spoke politely to the father. “Please come this way,” he said, pointing toward the room. Then he looked at Otama and added, “Please.” After they entered, he called the old woman aside into a shadowed corner. He put a paper-wrapped thing into her hand and said something in a low voice. The old woman showed her dark, ugly teeth and smiled in a way that was half respectful and half mocking. She bent her head two or three times and went away.
　　When Suezo returned to the room, Otama and her father were still sitting near the entrance, close together and full of care. Suezo smiled and asked them to come farther in. Then he told the maid to bring food. Soon sake came with a small dish, and Suezo first offered a cup to the father. When he began to talk with the old man, he saw that the father had once lived in a better way. His new clothes did not make him look like a man suddenly dressed up for a restaurant. There was still something proper and calm in him.
　　At first Suezo had felt irritated because the father was there. But little by little, his feeling became softer. He had not expected such a quiet and serious talk. He tried to show every good part of himself that he had. At the same time, deep inside, he was pleased. This meeting, which he had feared would be troublesome, might help Otama trust him. A gentle girl like her would perhaps feel safer if she saw him speaking kindly with her father.
　　By the time the food was brought in, the three of them almost looked like one family resting at a restaurant after a small trip. At home, Suezo often acted like a harsh master toward his wife and children. His wife sometimes fought back and sometimes obeyed him in silence. But here, after the maid left, Otama sat with a red face and a modest smile, and poured sake for him. Suezo felt a quiet pleasure that he had never known before. He did not ask himself why such a feeling never appeared in his own home. He was not a man who could think that deeply about his own life.
　　Suddenly, outside the fence, there came the sharp sound of wooden clappers. A street performer called out, asking for support. The shamisen upstairs stopped for a moment, and a maid spoke to someone outside. Then a voice began to imitate famous actors. The maid who had come to change the sake bottle said, “Oh, tonight this is a real performer.” Suezo did not understand and asked, “Are there real ones and false ones?” The maid answered, “Lately some university students go around doing this.” She said they dressed just like performers and even used instruments, but their voices showed who they were. Suezo laughed strangely and said, “Such students cannot be good at school.” He was thinking of the careless students who came to borrow money from him.
　　Otama had been listening quietly. Suezo looked at her and asked, “Otama, which actor do you like?” Otama answered, “I do not have any favorite actor.” Her father quickly added, “She hardly ever goes to the theater. Ryuseiza is very near our house, and the young women in the neighborhood often go to look in. But Otama never goes. Other girls hear the loud music and cannot stay at home, but she is not like that.” The old man’s words naturally turned into praise of his daughter. He could not help it, because Otama was the one treasure of his life.

Part 6: A New Life, but Not Freedom

　　The matter was settled, and Otama moved to the house on Muenzaka. But the move was not as simple as Suezo had first imagined. Otama said that she wanted her father to live as near as possible. She wished to visit him often and look after him. From the beginning, she had planned to send most of the money she received to her father, so that he could live without trouble. She even hoped that he might have a young maid to help him. Because of this, Suezo found that he was not only preparing one house for Otama. He also had to help move her father.
　　Otama said again and again that she did not want to trouble her patron. She said that she would pay for her father’s life from her own money. But once Suezo had heard the plan, he could not act as if he knew nothing about it. He liked Otama even more after meeting her, and he wanted to show her his generous side. So it was decided that when Otama moved to Muenzaka, her father would move into the other house near Shinobazu Pond. It cost Suezo more money than he had expected, but he paid it calmly. The old woman who helped with the arrangements often opened her eyes wide at the way he spent money.
　　The two moves were finished around the middle of July. Suezo seemed to be greatly pleased by Otama’s fresh speech and modest manner. In his moneylending business he could be hard, cold, and severe. But toward Otama he used every gentle method he knew. Almost every evening he came to the house on Muenzaka. He did not stay all night, but he came so often that Otama began to expect him. It was strange to see this other side of Suezo, as if a harsh man had suddenly found a soft face hidden inside himself.
　　A girl named Ume was placed in Otama’s house as a maid. She was only thirteen, and she was almost still a child. The old woman had arranged this too. Ume could cook simple meals and do small housework, but the house was still very quiet. Otama had no real person to talk with during the day. As evening came, she found herself hoping that Suezo would come soon. Then she noticed her own feeling and smiled sadly at herself.
　　In Torigoe, Otama had also stayed at home alone after her father went out to sell candy figures. But in those days she had work to do. She sewed and thought, “If I finish this much, I can earn this much money. Father will be pleased when he comes home.” Because she had a purpose, she had not felt lonely, even though she did not have close friends among the girls nearby. Now the hard worry of daily life had been taken away from her. At the same time, she learned for the first time what boredom was.
　　Her father’s new life near the pond was also strange. He had worked hard for many years, and suddenly everything had become too easy. At first he was happy to enter the clean house. He asked the country maid to draw water and cook rice, while he cleaned and arranged small things by himself. In the evening he watered the garden, smoked, and looked out toward Ueno and Shinobazu Pond. He saw the evening mist come over the water and the trees. He thought, “This is good. I am thankful.” Yet from that same time, he began to feel that something was missing.
　　What was missing was Otama. He had raised her by himself since she was a baby. They had lived so closely that they could understand each other almost without words. When he came home from outside, she had always been there. When he saw something from the window, he wanted to say, “Otama, look at that.” A large fish jumped in the pond, or a foreign woman passed with a bird on her hat. Each time he wished to show it to his daughter, and each time he remembered that she was not there.
　　After three or four days, the old man became restless. The maid’s small mistakes began to trouble him. He had not used servants for many years, and he was too gentle to scold her harshly. Still, everything she did seemed different from the way Otama would have done it. One morning, when she served breakfast and put her thumb into the soup bowl, he could not remain silent. “You do not need to serve me anymore,” he said. “Please go over there.” The poor girl did not know what she had done wrong.
　　Later that day, he went outside to clear his mind. Even as he walked, he looked back at his gate from time to time, worrying that Otama might come while he was away. He reached the place where a small bridge led toward Muenzaka, and for a moment he thought of going to her house. But he felt strangely shy, almost formal, as if he were no longer free to visit his own daughter. If he had been her mother, perhaps there would have been no such distance. He did not cross the bridge. Instead, he walked by the pond and saw Suezo’s large, closed house from outside. Looking at that strong gate, he felt a lonely pain that he could not put clearly into words.
　　A week passed, and Otama still did not come. The old man’s love for her went deep inside him and became painful. A faint doubt rose in his mind. Had she become comfortable and forgotten her father? He did not truly believe this, and he could not hate her. He only played with the thought, as if saying the opposite of what he really felt. Sometimes he went to Ueno Park or to a small theater at night, imagining that Otama might come while he was away and feel sorry not to find him. Even then, if he saw a young woman with Otama’s hairstyle, he looked at her carefully for a moment.
　　Otama also wanted to know how her father was living. She had never been separated from him before, and she often thought of visiting him. But Suezo came almost every day, and she feared that he might be displeased if he found her away. Sometimes he left around eleven at night. Sometimes he only stopped for a short time, smoked, and went away again. But there was no day when she could be sure he would not come. During the day she could have gone out, but Ume was too young to leave in charge of the house. Otama also felt that the neighbors might watch her, so she did not like going out in daylight.
　　Three days after Otama moved in, something happened that broke her small courage. A vegetable seller and a fish seller had both promised to come to the house, but that day the fish seller did not come. Otama sent Ume down the slope to buy some fish. She did not especially want fish every day, and she herself was used to simple meals. But she did not want people to say that her house never bought proper food. She also did not want Ume to feel badly treated in a house supported by a generous patron.
　　Ume soon came back with a crying face. Otama asked what had happened. Ume said she had gone into a fish shop and asked the price of some small fresh fish. The woman in the shop asked where she had come from. When Ume answered, the woman’s face changed. “I am sorry for you,” she said coldly, “but go home. We do not sell fish to the kept woman of a moneylender.” Then she turned away and smoked, as if Ume were no longer there. Ume was so hurt and angry that she ran straight home without going to another shop.
　　As Otama listened, the color left her face, even her lips. She sat silent for a long time. Many feelings mixed inside her, and she could not separate them. She did not simply hate the fish seller. She did not even clearly hate Suezo because he was a moneylender. What hurt her most was the sudden shape of her own fate. She had done nothing wrong, yet the world seemed to push shame upon her. The old pain of being deceived, and the newer pain of becoming a kept woman, came back with a sharper color.
　　Ume did not understand all this. She only saw that her mistress was deeply troubled. Then she remembered that there was still no food for lunch. “That woman was terrible,” she said. “Who would buy fish from a house like that? There is another shop near the little shrine farther down. I will go there at once.” She looked at Otama as if she were on her side. Otama was moved by this simple kindness and smiled a little. Ume hurried out again.
　　Otama remained still after Ume left. Tears slowly rose, and she pressed a handkerchief to her eyes. In her heart she heard only one cry: “It is bitter. It is bitter.” But she had long been used to giving up. After a while, that habit began to work in her again. She stood, opened the closet, took out a plain white apron that she had sewn herself, and tied it around her waist. Then she gave a deep sigh and went into the kitchen.

Part 7: Father and Daughter

　　One evening, Suezo came to Otama’s house and sat down on the cushion across from the square fire box. From the first night, Otama had always taken out that cushion when he came in. Suezo sat there with his legs crossed, smoked, and talked about small things in the world. Otama usually sat on her own side of the fire box, touched its edge, moved the fire tools, and answered him with few words. The fire box stood between them like a low wall. Because of that wall, she seemed able to face him without feeling completely lost.
　　Sometimes, while they talked, Otama suddenly forgot herself and spoke for a longer time. What she told him was not large or important. It was only about the small joys and troubles of the years when she had lived alone with her father. Suezo listened less to the meaning than to her voice. To him, her voice was like the soft sound of a small insect in a cage, and without knowing it, he smiled. Then Otama noticed that she had been talking too much, turned red, and quickly returned to her usual quiet answers.
　　Suezo enjoyed these evenings in a way that was new to him. He was used to sharp business talks, angry borrowers, and hard plans about money. But here he sat before a young woman whose thoughts seemed almost clear to him. Her simple words and shy actions made him feel as if he were resting in warm water after hard work. He did not understand it in a fine way, but something in him was being softened. Like a wild animal becoming used to people, he was being changed a little by this quiet room.
　　After three or four days, however, Suezo began to notice that Otama was not calm. When he sat down in his usual place, she stood up for no clear reason, moved things, and seemed unable to stay still. She had been shy from the beginning, but this was different. She avoided his eyes, took time before answering, and seemed to be hiding something. Suezo watched her closely as he filled his pipe with tobacco. At last he said, “You are thinking about something, aren’t you?”
　　Otama was half-opening a drawer of the fire box, though she was looking for nothing. She looked at him with her large eyes and said, “No.” Suezo had been frowning, but her face made him smile again. “No? That is not true,” he said. “Your face says, ‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’ as clearly as words.” Otama’s face became red at once. She was silent for a while, because she did not know how to begin.
　　At last she said, “I have been thinking for a long time that I should go and see my father. But many days have passed.” Suezo laughed a little and spoke as if he were scolding a child. “Is that all? Your father lives only near the pond. If you think of the large Iwasaki house across the street, he is almost in the same house as you. You could go even now if you wished. But tomorrow morning will be better.” Otama looked at him secretly while moving the ash with the fire tool. “Still, I have thought about many things,” she said.
　　“Do not make such a hard matter of it,” Suezo answered. This time his voice was gentle. “There is nothing to think about so much. How long will you stay like a little child?” In the end, the matter was settled easily. Suezo even said that if she found it hard to go alone, he would come in the morning and walk with her for the short distance. Otama was relieved, but she did not tell him the deeper reason for her wish. She wanted to speak to her father about the pain that had entered her heart.
　　Lately Otama had thought many things about Suezo. When she met him face to face and saw his clever, kind-looking manner, she wondered how such a man could do such an unpleasant business. Sometimes she even dreamed of speaking to him and asking him to leave moneylending for an honest trade. This was not a possible thing, but she thought of it because she still did not hate him. Suezo, however, felt that something was hidden in the bottom of her heart. When he left after eleven and walked down Muenzaka, he guessed that someone might have said something painful to her. But he could not know who had spoken or what had been said.
　　The next morning, Otama went to her father’s house near Shinobazu Pond. Her father had just finished breakfast. Otama had hurried, thinking she might be too early, because she did not spend much time dressing. But the old man rose early. He had already swept the entrance, sprinkled water outside, washed his hands and feet, and eaten his lonely morning meal on the new tatami.
　　The house was quiet in the morning. From the window, one could see tree branches moving softly in the fresh air. Beyond them lay the pond, covered with large green lotus leaves. Here and there, pale red flowers had opened that morning. People had wondered whether the north-facing house might be cold, but in summer it was a place anyone would like to live in. Otama looked at it and felt glad. Since she was young, she had often wished that she could one day give her father an easy life. Now that wish seemed to have come true, but one bitter drop was mixed into the happiness.
　　When the old man heard the gate open, he looked toward the entrance. Before he could see her, he heard Otama call, “Father.” He wanted to stand up at once and welcome her, but he held himself still. He had planned to say something like, “So you did not forget me.” But when she came in quickly and stood near him with love in her face, he could not say such words. He only looked at her. She seemed more beautiful than before, almost as if she had been born again during the ten days apart.
　　The maid came from the kitchen and asked whether she should take away the breakfast tray. She stared at Otama with open surprise. The old man spoke to her sharply. “Take it away quickly, and bring fresh tea. Use the good tea on that shelf.” Otama said, “Please do not trouble yourself with good tea for me.” But her father stood up, took a tin box from the closet, and put sweet rice crackers into a dish. He spoke proudly of the shops nearby and said the place was very convenient.
　　Soon father and daughter were talking as if they had been together yesterday. They remembered a comic storyteller they had once heard, and Otama laughed at the memory. The old man watched her with pleasure, but after a while he asked carefully, “How are things? Does your patron come sometimes?” Otama answered, “Yes,” and then stopped. Suezo did not come only sometimes. He came almost every night. But she could not say this easily. After thinking, she said, “Things seem to be all right, Father. Please do not worry about me.”
　　The old man felt that her answer was not enough. He asked, “What kind of man is he?” Otama tilted her head and said slowly, “I do not think he is a bad man. It has not been long, but he has never spoken harshly to me.” Her father said, “He cannot be a bad man.” Otama suddenly felt her heart beat faster. She had come to tell him her pain, but now she saw his peaceful face and could not do it. She decided not to open that dark box before him.
　　Instead, Otama spoke in another way. “He has made money by many means, so I was afraid of what kind of heart he might have,” she said. “But perhaps he is trying to be a man with courage and kindness. Even if he is only trying, that is still better than nothing, isn’t it?” Her father looked troubled. “You speak as if you do not fully trust him,” he said. Otama smiled a little. “I am becoming stronger now. I do not want people to make a fool of me anymore.”
　　Her father looked at her in surprise. His gentle daughter seemed suddenly older. “I have been made a fool of all my life,” he said. “But it is easier on the heart to be cheated than to cheat other people. Whatever work you do, you must not treat people wrongly. You must value people who have helped you.” Otama answered, “Do not worry. You always said I was honest. I am honest. But I do not want to be deceived again.” Then she told him that Suezo had a wife, though the old woman had said his wife was dead. “If he lies to his wife about me,” she said, “he may not tell me only the truth either.”
　　The old man sat still and forgot even to knock the ash from his pipe. He looked at his daughter as if she had suddenly become greater than he had known. Otama then stood up and said she must go home. “Now that I have come once, it is easy,” she said. “I will come often from now on. The maid at my house is still a child, and I must help with the noon meal.” Her father told her to stay for lunch, but she refused. Before leaving, she gave the maid a little money, put on her sandals, and went out through the lattice door.
　　Otama had entered that house meaning to cry with her father over her unhappy life. But she left the gate with surprising strength. While trying not to give him new pain, she had shown herself as strong and well. In doing so, something sleeping in her own heart had awakened. She felt as if she had depended on others until now, but had suddenly learned to stand by herself. She walked beside Shinobazu Pond with a clear face. The sun was already bright, and the shrine on the island was red in the light, but Otama did not even open the small umbrella she had brought.

Part 8: Otsune Finds the Shadow

　　One night, Suezo came home from Muenzaka and found Otsune still awake. The children were already asleep. Usually, when the children slept, she lay down too. But that night she was sitting alone with her head bent. She knew that Suezo had come into the mosquito net, but she did not turn her face toward him.
　　Suezo’s bed was placed a little apart, near the wall at the back of the room. Near his pillow there was a cushion, a tobacco tray, and tea things. He sat down on the cushion, lit his pipe, and spoke in a soft voice. “What is the matter? You are still not asleep.” Otsune said nothing. Suezo did not try again at once. He thought he had already offered peace by speaking first, and if she did not answer, that was her choice.
　　Suddenly Otsune raised her head and looked at him. “Where have you been until now?” she asked. Since they had begun to keep servants, she tried to speak more politely than before. But when she was alone with her husband, her old rough speech often came back. Suezo looked at her once with sharp eyes. He understood that she had learned something, but he did not know how much she knew. He was not the kind of man who gave useful facts to an enemy too early.
　　“I know everything now,” Otsune said. Her voice was sharp, but it almost became a crying voice at the end. Suezo answered gently, as if he were very surprised. “What a strange thing to say. What do you know?” His calm face only hurt her more. She began to cry and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “How cruel you are,” she said. “You told me you had business, but you have made a kept woman for yourself.”
　　Otsune moved closer and held Suezo’s hand with all her strength. Suezo shook her hand off and put out the burning piece of tobacco that had fallen on the tatami. She held his hand again, crying harder. “What kind of man are you?” she said. “You get money and act like a great patron. But you do not even make one new kimono for your wife. You leave me to care for the children, and then you enjoy yourself with another woman.”
　　“Stop it,” Suezo said in a low, strong voice. “The children will wake up. The servants will hear you too.” At that moment, the youngest child turned in sleep and said something in a dream. Otsune lowered her voice without thinking. She pressed her face against Suezo’s chest and sobbed. “Then what should I do?” she asked. Her anger had not gone away, but it had changed into fear and helplessness.
　　Suezo began to speak as if he were explaining a simple mistake to a foolish child. “There is nothing for you to do,” he said. “You are too good-hearted, so someone has pushed you into this. Who told you such words as ‘kept woman’?” Otsune first refused to say. Suezo pressed her again and again. At last she said that the wife at Uokin, the fish shop, had told her. When Suezo heard this, he acted as if everything had become clear.
　　“I thought it must be something like that,” he said. He lit his pipe slowly and looked at Otsune with kind eyes. Then he began his lie. He said that a man named Yoshida, who had once often come to his house, owed him money. Yoshida had gone to a hospital in Chiba and had stopped sending money to a woman he had kept in Tokyo. This woman, Suezo said, had asked Suezo to speak to Yoshida for her. She had also asked him to help her move to a cheaper and cleaner house. So, Suezo said, he had helped her move into the house on Muenzaka.
　　He mixed truth and falsehood very carefully. He said he had gone there only to discuss money and smoke two or three pipes. He said the neighbors were gossiping because the house stood next to a sewing teacher’s house, where many women talked all day. “Who would be foolish enough to keep a woman in such a place?” he said, and laughed as if the idea itself were stupid. Otsune listened closely. She still feared that he was deceiving her, but when Suezo used difficult words from newspapers and spoke like a man who knew the world, she always felt weaker.
　　For a short time, Suezo’s explanation worked. Otsune’s jealousy did not disappear, but its fire became lower. Still, the house on Muenzaka truly existed, and Otama truly lived there. Because of that, talk did not stop. Servants brought small pieces of news to Otsune. Someone had seen Suezo enter the lattice door again. Someone had seen him near the house in the evening. Each time, Suezo had an answer. If Otsune said that business could not always happen at night, he said, “Who asks for money early in the morning?” If she asked why things had not been like this before, he said, “My business was smaller then.”
　　Suezo’s money business had really become wider. Before he moved near the pond, he had done almost everything by himself. Now he had a place like an office near his home, and another place in Ryusenji-cho. Students who needed money did not always have to walk far. Those near Nezu came to the office, and those near Yoshiwara went to the other place. Later, that other place even worked together with a tea house, so that young men could enjoy themselves first and pay later through Suezo’s business. In this way, Suezo built a hidden road for pleasure and debt.
　　About a month passed without a greater quarrel. Suezo’s clever words had kept the house from breaking open. Then, one morning, a new crack appeared from an unexpected place. Suezo happened to be at home, so Otsune said she would go shopping while the morning was still cool. She took a maid with her and went as far as Hirokoji. On the way back through Nakacho, the maid gently pulled her sleeve from behind. “What is it?” Otsune asked sharply. The maid did not answer, but pointed to a woman standing at a shop on the left.
　　Otsune looked unwillingly, then stopped without meaning to. At that same moment, the woman turned around. Otsune and the woman looked straight at each other. At first Otsune thought she must be a geisha. If she was a geisha, Otsune thought, there could hardly be another so well made and so beautiful in Sukiyacho. But in the next moment Otsune saw that something was missing. The woman had no showy manner. Her clothes and body were beautiful, but there was no proud display in the way she stood. She was quiet and natural.
　　The woman was Otama. She had visited her father early that morning and had stopped at the shop to buy tooth powder on her way home. She did not know who Otsune was. When she felt someone stop nearby, she turned, but she saw nothing that seemed important to her. She leaned her small foreign-style umbrella against her knee, opened the little purse from her belt, and looked inside for small silver money. Her neck bent softly as she searched.
　　Otsune had already walked four or five steps past the shop when the maid whispered, “Madam, that is her. That is the woman from Muenzaka.” Otsune only nodded. The words did not strike her like new news, because she had already known it in her body. The maid would not have pulled her sleeve only to show her a beautiful woman. There was also another sign. The small umbrella beside Otama’s knee was the same kind as the one Suezo had brought back for Otsune from Yokohama.
　　More than a month earlier, Suezo had returned from Yokohama with a foreign-style sun umbrella as a gift. Its handle was too long, and the cloth was too small for Otsune’s short body. When she held it, it looked almost foolish. She had put it away and never used it. Now she saw that Otama had the same kind of umbrella. At once Otsune understood. Suezo had probably bought one for Otama and had bought one for his wife only because he was buying the other. What had once seemed like kindness now became an insult.
　　As they turned toward the pond, the maid tried to please her. “She is not so beautiful, is she?” the maid said. “Her face is flat, and she is too tall.” Otsune answered only, “You should not say such things.” Then she walked on quickly. The maid followed with an unhappy face because her words had failed. Otsune’s heart was boiling, but her thoughts would not take a clear shape. She wanted to strike Suezo with words, yet she did not know what words to use.
　　She thought of her own clothes, her children’s clothes, and the small refusals she had heard from Suezo for years. He had said that boys needed only one simple coat. He had said that it was wasteful to make fine clothes for little girls. Yet he had bought fine things for that woman. Otsune and Otama seemed as different as Otsune’s old Japanese umbrella and Otama’s foreign one. The thought made her burn with shame and anger. Then the maid suddenly cried, “Madam, where are you going?” Otsune looked up in surprise. She had been walking with her head down and had almost passed her own gate. The maid laughed without care.

Part 9: The House Becomes Heavy

　　After Otsune returned from shopping, Suezo was no longer at home. When she had gone out in the morning, he had been sitting with his pipe and reading the newspaper. If he had still been there when she came back, she did not know what she would have said. She only knew that she had wanted to throw herself against him and say anything that came into her mouth. But now the room was empty, and her anger lost its first sharp force.
　　There were many ordinary things waiting for her. She had to prepare the noon meal. She had to sew the children’s lined clothes, because they would soon be needed. She ate with the children, judged their little quarrels, sewed again, prepared the evening meal, and made the children take their baths. After supper, the children went out to play and came back tired. The maid came from the kitchen, laid out the beds in the usual place, and hung the mosquito net. Otsune made the children wash and sent them to sleep.
　　If Suezo did not come home for supper, Otsune always left his meal ready. She covered the tray to keep flies away, put the kettle on the fire box, and placed everything in the next room. She did all this almost like a machine. Her hands moved in the old order, though her heart was not in the work. The more she moved through these small duties, the more her first wish to attack Suezo became weak. It was not forgiveness. It was only tiredness.
　　At last Otsune took a fan and sat inside the mosquito net. Then the picture of the woman she had seen that morning came back clearly. At this very hour, she thought, Suezo might be sitting in that woman’s room on Muenzaka. She could not keep her body still. She wanted to go there and stand outside the house. She wanted to see whether light came through the door, or whether she could hear even a small sound of voices.
　　But she could not go. To leave the house, she would have to pass near the maid’s room. The screen had been taken away there because of the heat, and the maid Matsu was probably still awake, sewing. If Matsu asked, “Where are you going at this hour?” Otsune would have no answer. If she said she wanted to buy something, Matsu would offer to go in her place. So Otsune could only sit and think, “What shall I do? What shall I do?” Her thoughts went around the same road again and again.
　　She remembered how strongly she had wanted to see Suezo when she came home that morning. But if he had been there, what would she really have said? Perhaps she would have spoken foolish, broken words. Then Suezo, who was clever with his tongue, would have given some easy answer and deceived her again. She knew she could not win a quarrel with him. At last she decided only this: it was useless to throw herself against him violently. She would not do that.
　　Then Suezo came in. Otsune kept silent and touched the handle of her fan as if she were busy with it. Suezo noticed at once that she had not given him the usual greeting. But he was in a good mood, so he did not become angry. “Oh,” he said, “you look strange again. What is the matter now?” Otsune still said nothing. She had decided not to fight, but when she saw him, her pain rose again and made silence difficult.
　　Suezo put his hand on her shoulder and shook her lightly two or three times. “You are thinking about some foolish thing again,” he said. “Stop it.” Then he sat down on his own bed. Otsune said, “I am wondering what I should do. I have no home to return to, and there are the children.” Suezo answered, “What do you mean, what should you do? You need not do anything. The world is peaceful.” His light words hurt her more than an angry voice would have done.
　　“You can speak so easily,” Otsune said. “It does not matter to you if something happens to me.” Suezo answered that nothing needed to happen to her. She only had to go on as she was. Otsune said bitterly that she was useful only because she looked after the children. If she were gone, a beautiful new mother would come for them, and the children would become stepchildren. Suezo said this was nonsense. “They have both parents,” he said. “There is no reason for them to become stepchildren.”
　　Then Otsune spoke of the foreign umbrellas. Her voice became sharper. “You will have the beauty and the ugly woman carry matching umbrellas,” she said. Suezo pretended not to understand. Otsune then said plainly that the umbrella he had brought her from Yokohama had not been bought only for her. “You bought one for the woman on Muenzaka,” she said, “and then you suddenly thought of buying one for me too.” As soon as she said the words directly, the shame and anger came up in her again.
　　Suezo was startled because she had struck the truth. But he showed an amazed face and laughed it away. “What a foolish story,” he said. “Do you mean that Yoshida’s woman has an umbrella like yours? When I bought yours in Yokohama, they said it was a sample, but by now they must be selling the same kind everywhere in Ginza.” He called it a false charge, like something in a play. Then he asked whether she had met the woman somewhere.
　　Otsune said she could know the woman because everyone nearby knew her. “She is beautiful,” she added in a hateful voice. This time, Suezo’s usual lies did not fully work. Otsune had seen Otama with her own eyes, and the sight had been too strong. She could not make herself believe that everything might be only a mistake. Suezo wanted to ask how and where she had seen Otama, but he knew that asking too much would be dangerous. So he did not press her.
　　Instead, he attacked Otama’s beauty. “Beautiful?” he said. “Do people call that beautiful? Her face is rather flat.” Otsune did not answer. Yet the words softened her feelings a little. She hated Otama, and therefore she was pleased to hear Suezo find fault with the woman’s face. That night, after many painful words, husband and wife made a kind of peace again. But in Otsune’s heart, the pain remained like a thorn that could not be pulled out.
　　From that time, the air in Suezo’s house became darker and heavier. Sometimes Otsune sat looking into empty space, unable to do anything. When a child asked for something, she scolded roughly, then noticed what she had done and apologized or cried alone. If the maid asked what food to prepare, Otsune might not answer, or she might say, “Do as you like.” The children, who had once been kept clean because Suezo liked order, began to play outside with messy hair and torn clothes.
　　Suezo hated this disorder. He liked the inside of his house to be careful and clean. But he knew that he himself was the cause, so he could not easily scold Otsune. He usually liked to correct people in a joking way, but now even his jokes seemed to make her feel worse. So he began to watch her silently. Then he noticed something strange. Otsune was worst when he was at home. When he was away, she often woke from her dull state and worked more normally.
　　Suezo thought about this in his cold, clever way. Perhaps, he thought, the sight of his face made her illness worse. He had tried not to make her feel hated or left alone, but perhaps his presence worked like bad medicine. So he tried the opposite. He began to leave the house earlier than usual and come home later than usual. But the result was terrible. When he left early, Otsune asked where he was going and tried to stop him. When he came home late, she met him with tears and cried, “Where have you been until now?”
　　Sometimes she held his clothes and would not let go. Sometimes she stood in the entrance and blocked his way, even though the maid could see. Suezo disliked open disorder more than almost anything. Once, when he pulled himself free, Otsune fell, and the maid saw it. If he then stayed and asked what she wanted, Otsune gave questions that had no simple answer. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked. “What will become of my life?” Suezo understood that his plan of early leaving and late returning had failed completely.
　　Then he thought again. Otsune became worse when he stayed at home, yet she also tried to keep him at home when he wanted to go out. So, he thought, she herself was pulling him close and then making herself unhappy. This reminded him of a geisha he had once seen when he was collecting a debt from a student. The geisha had told the student, “A woman loves only a man who sometimes strikes her.” Suezo remembered those words now and took them seriously. He thought perhaps Otsune wanted him to strike her.
　　Suezo looked back at his own life. To make money, he had bowed to everyone who could help him. He had let himself be stepped on if there was profit in it. He had never wasted strength on anger when interest could be counted instead. He did not strike debtors; he squeezed them through papers, dates, and money. He did not strike his wife either. If Otsune wanted that kind of man, he thought, it was too bad for her. He could press bitter money from a debtor until nothing was left, but he could not beat anyone with his hands. That was Suezo’s strange conclusion.

Part 10: Otama Sees Okada

　　The number of people passing along Muenzaka began to grow. September had come, and the university classes were beginning again. Students who had gone back to their home towns for the summer returned all at once to the boarding houses around Hongo. In the mornings and evenings the air was already cool, but the middle of the day was still hot. At Otama’s house, the green blind that had been hung when she moved in still had a fresh color. It covered the inside of the bamboo window from top to bottom, leaving almost no open space.
　　Otama often sat behind that blind with nothing to do. Near her, on a pillar, there was a holder with several round fans in it. Some had pictures by famous painters. She leaned against the pillar and looked out at the road without clear thought. After three in the afternoon, students began to pass in groups of three or four. Each time they passed, the young women at the sewing teacher’s house next door became noisy, like small birds. Their voices made Otama look more carefully, almost without meaning to.
　　The students of that time were not gentle in appearance. Many looked rough and strong, like men who would later be called political young men. A few looked like gentlemen, and those were usually students near graduation. If a man had a white face and fine features, he often looked light, proud, and not warm. If he did not look that way, he sometimes seemed rough and frightening to a woman’s eyes, even if he might be a good student. Still, Otama looked at them day after day. She did not think she was looking for anyone, but something was slowly beginning inside her.
　　One day she suddenly felt it and was frightened. Until then, she had had only one clear purpose: to make her father happy. For that purpose, she had persuaded even her strict father and had become a kept woman. She had told herself that she was falling as low as she could fall, and that this sacrifice gave her a kind of peace. But when she learned that her patron was a moneylender, she had lost that peace. She had wanted to tell her father everything and suffer together with him. Then, after seeing his quiet life near the pond, she could not pour even one drop of poison into his cup.
　　From that time, Otama decided to keep her pain inside her own heart. At the same time, she felt for the first time that she was standing alone. She began to watch herself secretly. When Suezo came, she no longer met him with simple, open feeling. She treated him more carefully and more kindly, but another self seemed to stand a little away and look on. That hidden self laughed at Suezo, and also laughed at Otama, who still belonged to him. When she first noticed this, she felt cold with fear. Later she became used to it and began to think that her heart had to be that way.
　　After that, Otama treated Suezo more warmly, but her heart moved farther from him. She no longer felt deeply thankful for what he gave her. She no longer felt that she must feel sorry if she received his care without loving him. At the same time, she began to think that even though she had no special training or art, it was a pity for her to end as Suezo’s thing. While watching students pass on the road, she began to imagine something impossible. Perhaps among those students there might be one strong and kind person who could save her from this life. When she suddenly understood that she was thinking this, she was shocked.
　　It was at this time that Otama came to know Okada’s face. To her, at first, Okada was only one of the students who passed outside her window. But he was different from the others. He was a handsome young man with a healthy red face, yet he did not look proud or showy. There was no false elegance in his way of walking. Otama noticed this and began to feel, without clear reason, that he was someone she could like and trust. After that, when she looked from the window each day, she waited to see whether that student would pass again.
　　She still did not know his name or where he lived. Yet because they met eyes many times, she naturally began to feel close to him. One day, without thinking, she smiled at him first. It was not something she had planned. She was a quiet woman, and she did not decide in her mind, “I will make him love me.” For one moment, the careful guard over her heart became weak, and the smile came out by itself.
　　When Okada first took off his hat and bowed, Otama felt her heart jump. She also felt her face become red. She understood at once that the bow had come from a sudden feeling in him, not from a cold plan. That made her happier than a more careful act would have done. The silent, uncertain friendship across the window bars had entered a new stage. Again and again, Otama remembered the way he had taken off his hat. She pictured his face and movement in her mind and felt joy each time.
　　But a kept woman who lives apart from her patron has troubles that other people do not know. One day, a man of about thirty came to Otama’s house. He wore a work coat turned inside out. He said he was from Shimosa, that he was going home, and that he had hurt his foot and could not walk. He asked for help. Otama wrapped a ten-sen silver coin in paper and sent it out with Ume. The man opened the paper, looked at the money, and laughed in an unpleasant way. “Only ten sen?” he said. “Perhaps there is a mistake. Go and ask again.”
　　Ume’s face became red. She picked up the money and came back inside, but the man followed her without any shame. He sat down across from Otama at the square fire box, where she had been adding charcoal. He began to talk about many things, but the talk had no clear order. He spoke several times about when he had been in prison. One moment he spoke big words, and the next moment he complained. He smelled strongly of sake, and Otama felt sick and afraid.
　　Otama wanted to cry, but she held herself still. She took out two blue fifty-sen notes, the kind used then, and wrapped them in paper while the man watched. Without saying anything, she put the money into his hand. The man was satisfied more easily than she expected. “Two half-yen notes are fine,” he said. “Sister, you understand things. You will rise in the world.” Then he stood up, walked unsteadily, and left the house. After he was gone, the room seemed quiet, but Otama’s fear remained.
　　Because of this event, Otama learned that she needed friendly neighbors. When she cooked something unusual, she began to send a little of it by Ume to the sewing teacher next door. The teacher was named Otei. She was over forty, but there was still something young about her. Her skin was white, and her speech was refined. She had once served in the inner rooms of the Maeda family until she was about thirty. Then she married, but her husband died soon afterward. When Otama said she wanted to practice writing, Otei kindly lent her copybooks.
　　One morning, Otei came to the back door to thank Otama for something that had been sent the day before. They stood there and talked for a while. Then Otei said, “You know Mr. Okada, don’t you?” Otama still did not know the student’s name. But in one quick flash, she understood several things. Otei meant the student who bowed to her. Otei must have seen that bow. And now Otama had to act as if she knew him. So quickly that Otei could not notice her moment of doubt, Otama answered, “Yes.”
　　“He is such a fine gentleman,” Otei said. “And I hear that his behavior is very good.” Otama surprised even herself by asking boldly, “Do you know him well?” Otei answered, “The landlady at Kamijo says that although many students live there, there is no one else like him.” After saying this, Otei went home. Otama stood still, feeling as if she herself had been praised. Then she repeated the words softly in her mouth: “Kamijo. Okada.”

Part 11: Suezo’s Birds

　　As time passed, Suezo did not visit Otama less often. He visited her more often. Until then, he had usually come in the evening at a fixed time. Now he began to come at other, less regular hours too. The reason was Otsune. She followed him with the same painful words again and again. “Do something. Please do something.” When she became impossible to quiet, Suezo suddenly escaped from his own house and went to Muenzaka.
　　At such times, Suezo always said the same thing to Otsune. “There is nothing to do. You only have to live as before.” But Otsune could not accept that. She said she could not return to her parents’ home. She said she could not leave the children. She said she was no longer young. In this way, she named every wall that stood around her life. Suezo only repeated, “There is nothing to do. Nothing has to be done.” Then Otsune grew angrier and angrier, until he could no longer bear the room.
　　Suezo thought in a hard, dry, almost mathematical way. Because of that, Otsune’s pain seemed strange to him. He felt as if she were standing in a room with three walls and one open door. The open door was behind her, yet she cried that she had no way out. To Suezo, the answer seemed clear. “The door is open. Why not turn around?” That was all he could think. Her life was easier than before, he told himself. He did not beat her, starve her, or stop her from living. A new thing called Muenzaka had appeared, yes, but he did not think he had become colder or more cruel to his wife.
　　Of course, there was selfishness in this thought. Even if Suezo gave Otsune the same food, clothes, and words as before, the past could not simply continue. Otama existed now. For Otsune, Otama was like a thorn in the eye. Suezo had no wish to pull out that thorn. Otsune could not explain this clearly, because she was not a woman who thought in a careful line. But the open door Suezo imagined was not truly open. A heavy black shadow had fallen across it, and that shadow was Otama.
　　One day, after another quarrel, Suezo quickly left his house. It was a little after ten in the morning. He thought of going straight to Muenzaka, but he saw the maid outside with one of the children. So he changed his road on purpose and went through the Kiridoshi area. He had no real place to go. He only walked quickly through Tenjin-cho and Goken-cho, as if he had urgent business. Now and then he muttered angry words under his breath.
　　When he came to Shohei Bridge, a geisha walked toward him from the other side. For one moment, he thought she looked like Otama. As she passed, he looked closely and saw that her face was covered with small spots. At once he felt pleased. Otama was far more beautiful. He stopped on the bridge for a while and watched the geisha’s back until she disappeared into a side street. This small comparison, foolish as it was, improved his mood.
　　Suezo walked on toward Yanagihara. Near the river, a man had opened a large umbrella under the willow trees. Beneath it, a girl of twelve or thirteen was dancing a street dance. As usual, people had gathered around to watch. Suezo stopped for a moment too. Then a man in a workman’s coat almost struck against him while passing. Suezo quickly turned and looked at him. The man looked back for only a second, then moved away.
　　“Fool,” Suezo muttered, and put his hand into his sleeve to feel his pocket. Nothing had been taken. The man had probably been a pickpocket, but he had chosen the wrong person on the wrong day. When Suezo had fought with Otsune, his nerves became sharp. Small things that he usually missed came into his eyes at once. He could almost feel danger before the other man had fully decided to act. On such days, even his strong self-control became a little loose, though most people would not notice it.
　　Suezo felt as if he had been away from home for a long time. He turned back along the river, took out his pocket watch, and looked at it. It was only eleven. Not even half an hour had passed since he had left home. This annoyed him. He still had too much morning before him, and he did not know what to do with it. So he walked again without a clear purpose, through Awaji-cho and toward Jimbo-cho, looking as if some important business were waiting for him.
　　Near Imagawa-koji there was a cheap eating house with a sign for rice with tea. For about twenty sen, a person could get a tray, pickles, and tea. Suezo knew the place and thought of going in for lunch, but it was still a little early. He passed it and turned toward the broad street before Manaita Bridge. There, on the right side, stood a bird shop. From inside came the bright noise of many birds calling at once.
　　Suezo stopped in front of the shop. High under the eaves hung cages with larger birds. Below them were cages with white pigeons and other birds. Farther inside, many small cages were piled in rows. The smallest birds made the loudest and liveliest noise. Bright yellow foreign canaries were especially many and noisy. But while Suezo looked more carefully, another kind of bird caught his eyes. These birds were small, with deep red color on their bodies. They were red finches.
　　Suddenly Suezo thought that such birds would suit Otama very well. He imagined them hanging near the window of the Muenzaka house. He asked the old shopkeeper the price. The old man did not seem eager to sell, but Suezo bought one pair. After Suezo paid, the old man asked how he would carry them. Suezo thought they were sold with a cage, but the old man said they were not. After some talk, Suezo made him sell a cage too and put the two birds inside it.
　　The old man pushed his dry hand roughly into a cage full of birds, seized two of them, and moved them into the empty cage. Suezo asked whether he could tell which was male and which was female. The old man answered unwillingly, “Yes.” Suezo was not sure, but he did not argue. He took the cage and turned back toward Manaita Bridge. This time he walked more slowly. Now and then he lifted the cage and looked inside.
　　The angry feeling with which he had left home had almost disappeared. A soft feeling, which usually slept somewhere deep inside him, came to the surface. The little birds seemed frightened by the movement of the cage. They held tightly to the perch, drew in their wings, and hardly moved. Each time Suezo looked at them, he thought of Otama. He wanted to carry them quickly to the Muenzaka house and hang them by her window.
　　When Suezo passed Imagawa-koji again, he went into the cheap eating house for lunch. A maid placed a black tray before him. Suezo put the birdcage on the far side of the tray, where he could see it while eating. The small red birds looked pitiful and pretty to his eyes. In his heart he was thinking of Otama, who also seemed pitiful and pretty to him. The meal was not special at all, but Suezo ate it with real pleasure.

Part 12: The Snake

　　The red birds that Suezo bought for Otama became, by strange chance, the cause of the first real words between Otama and Okada. When I think of that day, I remember the weather very clearly. It was the season when people worried about strong autumn winds, but the dangerous days had passed without a great storm. Even so, the sky still looked uneasy. Clouds moved in a strange way, and sometimes the air became as hot and wet as summer again.
　　One Sunday evening I came back to Kamijo from my father’s house in Kitasenju. Most of the students were out, and the boarding house was very quiet. I went into my room and sat there for a while with no clear thought. Then I heard the sound of a match being struck in the room next to mine. I had thought no one was there, so I called out at once. “Okada, are you there?”
　　“Yes,” he answered, but his voice was not clear. By that time Okada and I had become close enough to speak easily through the wall. Still, his answer sounded different from usual. I thought that he too must have been sitting alone in a dull, empty mood. Then I wanted to see his face, so I called again. “May I come in and trouble you?”
　　“You would not trouble me,” Okada said. His voice was clearer now. “I came back a little while ago and was just sitting here doing nothing. Then I heard you come in next door, and that made me feel like lighting the lamp.” I went out into the hall and opened the sliding door of his room. Okada was sitting at his desk by the window, with one elbow on the desk. The window faced the Iron Gate, and outside it a few dusty trees stood in the narrow space along the building.
　　Okada turned toward me and said, “It is strangely hot and wet again today, isn’t it? There are two or three mosquitoes in my room, and they are troubling me.” I sat down near his desk. “Yes,” I said. “My father calls this the slow remains of the storm season.” Okada smiled a little at that. Then he said that the changing sky had made him unsure whether to go out or stay in. In the morning he had lain around reading the Jin Ping Mei that he had borrowed from me. After lunch his head felt heavy, so he went out with no purpose and met something strange.
　　“What happened?” I asked. Okada looked toward me and said, “I killed a snake.” I answered at once, half joking, “Did you save a beautiful woman?” Okada said, “No. I saved a bird. But a beautiful woman was connected with it.” This sounded interesting, so I asked him to tell me the whole story. He turned again toward the window, as if he were still seeing the road outside, and began.
　　That afternoon, the clouds were running fast across the sky. Now and then a sudden wind rose, threw dust up from the street, and then stopped. Okada had hurt his head by reading Chinese fiction for half the day, so he left Kamijo and walked without any clear plan. As usual, his feet turned toward Muenzaka. He said, “After reading that kind of book, I must have looked very foolish as I walked.” He had gone down the slope a little when he saw several people gathered on the left side of the road.
　　The people were standing before the house that he always noticed, though he did not tell me that part. They were all women and girls, about ten in all. Most of them were young sewing students from next door, and they were making a great noise. Okada did not yet understand what had happened. Still, because everyone was looking at one place, he followed their eyes and saw the cause. A birdcage was hanging above the window of Otama’s house.
　　Inside the cage, one red bird was beating its wings wildly and crying. At first Okada did not understand what was frightening it. Then he looked more carefully and saw a large snake. The snake had pushed its head between the thin bamboo bars of the cage. The cage did not seem broken, but the snake had forced open a space large enough for its head. Then Okada saw something worse. There had been two birds. One was still flying in terror, but the other was already caught in the snake’s mouth. One wing was held between the snake’s jaws, and the bird hung there as if dead from fear.
　　A woman who seemed to be the mistress of the house spoke to Okada in a hurried but careful voice. She asked whether he could do something about the snake. “The young ladies from next door came at once when they heard the bird cry,” she said. “But we women cannot do anything.” One of the girls added that the sewing teacher was away. Even if she had been there, the girl said, she was an old woman and could not have helped. When Okada told me this, he said, “The mistress of the house was quite beautiful.” But he did not say that he had known her face before and bowed to her every time he passed.
　　Okada stepped closer and looked at the snake. The cage hung near the window, close to the sewing teacher’s side of the house. The snake had probably come along under the eaves from the narrow space between the two houses. Its body lay across a wooden support like a thick rope, and its tail was still hidden near the corner post. It was a long snake. Perhaps it had come from the trees and grass of the large Kaga grounds across the road, disturbed by the strange weather. Okada hesitated for a moment, because the situation was not easy even for him.
　　“Do you have a knife?” he asked. Otama told the little maid to bring the large kitchen knife. The maid looked troubled, as if she did not want a fish knife used on a snake. Otama understood and said, “It is all right. I will buy you a new one.” Then the maid ran inside and brought the knife. Okada took it, threw off his wooden sandals, and put one foot up on the low window. He was good at using his body, so he could climb and hold himself easily.
　　With his left hand he caught the wooden support under the eaves. With his right hand he pressed the knife against the snake’s body. The knife was not very sharp, so he did not try to cut through in one blow. He pushed the snake against the wood and moved the blade back and forth again and again. The snake’s scales gave a hard, unpleasant feeling under the blade. At that moment, the snake had already drawn the caught bird’s head into its mouth. Even with its body badly hurt, it did not let go and did not pull its head out of the cage.
　　Okada kept moving the knife. At last the snake’s body was cut in two. The lower half fell first onto the plants below the window, still moving in waves. Then the upper half slipped down from the window frame and hung from the cage, with its head still inside. Because the dead bird made the head too large to come out easily, the snake’s weight pulled the cage to one side. Inside the tilted cage, the living red bird still flew and beat its wings, as if fear had given it new strength.
　　Okada jumped down. Until then, all the women had held their breath. Some of the girls now ran back into the sewing teacher’s house. Okada said, “The cage must be taken down, and the snake’s head must be removed.” But blood was dropping from the cut body onto the window board, and neither Otama nor the maid had the courage to go inside and untie the cord. Then a sharp young voice called out, “Shall I take the cage down?” Everyone looked around. It was a boy from a sake shop, who had stopped to watch while carrying bottles and an account book.
　　Otama asked the boy to help. The maid led him inside, and soon he appeared at the window. He climbed onto the window board and stretched up with all his strength. He untied the cord from the nail and took down the cage. Since the maid would not take it from him, he carried it out through the front door. The living bird sat on the perch and trembled. The dead bird was still half inside the snake’s mouth, because the snake had tried to swallow it until the last moment.
　　The boy asked Okada if he should remove the snake. Okada told him how to pull the head out without breaking the bamboo bars. The boy did it well. Then he pulled at the dead bird and said, “Even dead, it will not let go.” By then the sewing students had lost interest and gone back next door. Okada looked around and said, “Well, I should be going now.”
　　Otama seemed to wake from a dream when she heard this. She looked at him, tried to say something, and then turned her eyes away. At that moment she noticed a little blood on his hand. “Oh, your hand is dirty,” she said. She called the maid and had water brought to the entrance. Okada told me that the blood was only on his little finger, and he was surprised that she had noticed it. While he washed his hand, the boy suddenly cried out that the living bird had almost escaped through the hole made by the snake.
　　Okada told the boy not to let go of the cage. Then he asked Otama for some strong thread. Otama thought for a moment and said, “Would hair-tying cord do?” Okada said it would be excellent. The maid brought some from the dressing table, and Okada tied it across the broken part of the cage, both up and down and side to side. When he had finished, he said, “I think my work is done now,” and went out through the door.
　　Otama followed him and tried to thank him, but she seemed unable to find enough words. Okada asked the boy to throw away the snake. The boy said he would put it in the deep ditch at the bottom of the slope, if he could find a rope. Otama said there was rope inside and told the maid to bring it. While they were busy with this, Okada said, “Good-bye,” and walked down the slope without looking back.
　　After telling me the story, Okada looked at my face and said, “Well, for the sake of a beautiful woman, I worked quite hard, didn’t I?” I answered honestly, “Yes. Killing a snake for a woman sounds almost like an old myth. But somehow I do not think the story will end there.” Okada laughed and said, “Don’t be foolish. If it were unfinished, I would not tell it.” I think he said this without pretending. Still, even if he believed it could end there, he may have felt a little sorry if it truly did.
　　I had said only that the story sounded like a myth. But another thought had come to my mind, and I did not tell him. Okada had gone out after reading the Jin Ping Mei, and I wondered whether he had met, in real life, a woman like one from that book. Everyone among the students knew the name of Suezo, the former school servant who had become a moneylender. But not everyone knew that the woman on Muenzaka was Suezo’s kept woman. Okada did not know it. I did not yet know Otama’s full history, but I knew at least this: Suezo was the man who kept her in that house beside the sewing teacher’s place.

Part 13: Otama Wants to Speak

　　On the day when Okada killed the snake, Otama’s heart changed with surprising speed. Until then, Okada had been like a beautiful thing seen behind a shop window. A woman may want such a thing, a watch or a ring, but still know that she will never buy it. She looks at it whenever she passes the shop, and that small pain becomes almost a pleasure. But there is another kind of desire, stronger and more painful. When a woman decides that she must have the thing, she can no longer rest. Okada had once been only something Otama wanted from far away. Now he suddenly became something she wished to reach.
　　Otama wanted to come closer to Okada because he had saved the bird. First she thought of sending him a gift by Ume. But what should the gift be? She thought of buying country cakes from Fujimura, but that seemed too ordinary. Anyone could think of such a thing. Then she thought of sewing something small for his desk or his arm, but that seemed too childish, like the love of an innocent young girl. She could find no idea that pleased her.
　　Even if she chose a gift, another trouble remained. Should she simply send it with Ume? She had name cards, which she had recently ordered in Nakacho, but only adding a name card seemed too cold. She wanted to write a short note. But she had left school early and had not practiced writing for many years. She did not trust herself to write a proper letter. Of course, she could ask Otei, the sewing teacher next door, who had once served in a fine house. But that was impossible. She did not plan to write anything shameful, yet she could not bear to let anyone know that she was sending a letter to Okada.
　　These thoughts moved in her mind again and again. She thought of them while dressing, then forgot them while giving orders in the kitchen, then remembered them once more. That evening Suezo came. While she poured sake for him, the same thoughts returned and troubled her face. Suezo noticed and asked, “What are you thinking about so deeply?” Otama smiled without meaning and answered, “Oh, I am not thinking of anything.” Her heart beat hard, but by now she had learned how to hide things. Even Suezo’s sharp eyes could not easily see what she was hiding.
　　After Suezo left, Otama slept and dreamed. In the dream, she bought a box of cakes and hurriedly sent Ume to Okada with it. But after Ume had gone, Otama suddenly remembered that she had sent no name card and no letter. She felt a shock of shame and fear. At that moment she woke. The room was dark and quiet, and nothing had really happened. Still, the dream left her more restless than before.
　　The next day, Otama did not see Okada. Perhaps he did not go out for his walk, or perhaps she missed him. The day after that, he passed as usual. He glanced toward the window, but the inside of the house was dark, so their eyes did not meet. On the following day, when the usual hour came, Otama took up a grass broom and began to sweep the inside of the entrance. There was almost no dust there, but she swept carefully, as if she had a real reason to stand near the door. She moved her own sandals and Ume’s wooden sandals first to one side and then to the other.
　　Ume came out from the kitchen and said, “Oh, please let me sweep.” Otama answered, “No, it is all right. You watch the food on the fire. I have nothing to do, so I am doing this.” Ume went back, and Otama stayed by the entrance with the broom in her hand. Just then Okada came down the road. He took off his hat and bowed to her. Otama’s face became bright red. She stood as if a stick had been put through her body. She could not say even one word, and Okada passed by.
　　As soon as he was gone, Otama threw down the broom as if it had burned her hand. She took off her sandals quickly and went inside. She sat by the square fire box and moved the fire with the iron tool. “What a fool I am,” she thought. “I waited for him, and yet when he came, I said nothing.” She had planned everything only as far as standing outside. She had not planned the first word. She could not call him “Mr. Okada” in a familiar voice, and she could not simply say, “Excuse me,” while looking at his face. Even when she thought about it calmly afterward, she still did not know what she should have said.
　　Then another thought came to her. Perhaps she had not needed to call him at all. If she had quickly stepped outside, Okada would surely have stopped. Once he had stopped, she could have said, “Thank you for helping us the other day,” or something like that. Such words would have come by themselves. She thought and thought in this way, turning the fire with the iron tool. Then the lid of the kettle began to jump from the steam, and she moved it aside a little to let the steam out.
　　After that, Otama tried to think in two ways. One way was to speak to Okada herself. The other was to send Ume with a gift or message. But evening became colder day by day, and it was no longer natural to keep the window open. The garden and entrance had always been swept once in the morning, but after the snake trouble, Ume swept them morning and evening. So Otama could not easily use sweeping as an excuse again. She began to go to the public bath later than before, hoping to meet Okada on the road. But the bathhouse at the bottom of the slope was too near, and she never met him there.
　　Sending a gift also became harder as the days passed. A gift sent soon after the snake trouble would have seemed natural. But after many days, it would look strange. For a time, Otama forced herself to give up. She thought, “I still have not thanked him. Because I have not thanked him, I still owe him something. He must know that I feel grateful.” Then she thought that perhaps this was better than a poor, clumsy thanks. But this did not satisfy her for long. She wanted to use that feeling of gratitude as the first step toward him, and she suffered each day because she could find no way.
　　Otama was strong in spirit. In the short time since she had become Suezo’s kept woman, she had learned the pain of that position. Some people looked down on her openly, and others secretly envied her. This had made her grow a little proud and a little cold toward the world. But at the root of her nature, she was still good and not used to dealing with people. For that reason, it felt terribly difficult to come closer to a student living in a boarding house. Even when she opened the window on fine autumn days and exchanged bows with Okada, nothing changed. She had spoken with him once, and had even handed him a towel, but it had not made a road between them. After that, everything became just as it had been before, and this made her painfully impatient.
　　When Suezo came and sat across from her with the fire box between them, Otama sometimes thought, “What if this were Okada?” At first, each time she had that thought, she blamed herself. Later she became used to it. She could think of Okada while answering Suezo in the right tone. Sometimes, when Suezo was close to her, she closed her eyes and thought of Okada instead. At night she sometimes dreamed that she was with Okada without any difficult steps or fears. In the dream, she felt, “Ah, I am happy.” Then suddenly the man beside her became Suezo. She woke in fear, and her nerves were so troubled that she could not sleep again. Sometimes she lay awake and cried from anger and shame.
　　Before she knew it, November had come. Fine, mild days continued, so it did not look strange to open the window. Otama could see Okada’s face almost every day again. When cold rain had kept her from seeing him for two or three days, she had become low in spirit. Still, she never troubled Ume with selfish orders, and she never showed an angry face to Suezo. At such times she only sat with her elbow on the edge of the fire box, looking empty and silent. Once Ume asked, “Are you feeling unwell?” Now, because she saw Okada often again, Otama became unusually light-hearted. One morning, she left the house more easily than usual and went to visit her father near the pond.
　　Otama visited her father about once a week, but she had never stayed there for more than an hour. Her father did not allow it. He was always kind when she came. If he had something good to eat, he gave it to her and made tea. But after that, he soon told her to go home. It was not only because he was old and quick in feeling. He thought that, since she had been placed under a patron’s care, it was wrong for him to keep her freely at his own house. Once Otama had said, “The patron never comes in the morning, so I can stay a little longer.” Her father had not agreed. “He may have some need at any time,” he had said. “Unless you have received leave from him, you must not stay here too long.”
　　Otama always worried that her father might learn Suezo’s real business and feel pain. Each time she visited, she watched him carefully. But he seemed to know nothing. Since moving near the pond, he had begun reading borrowed books during the day. He liked true-story books and old war stories. At that time he was reading a long book about Mikawa history and said it would keep him busy for a long while. At night his eyes became tired, so he went to small theaters and storytelling halls. He did not talk much with neighbors, and so he had no chance to hear much about Suezo.
　　This was fortunate, because some people near him had already found out who Otama was. They wondered about the beautiful woman who visited the old man and learned that she was the kept woman of a moneylender. If noisy neighbors had lived beside him, the old man might have heard the ugly talk. But one neighbor was a quiet government worker who liked writing practice, and the other was a woodblock carver who kept to himself. Neither man was likely to break the old man’s peace. So when Otama came, he knew her only as his dear daughter. He always took off his glasses to see her face directly, because looking through glass felt too far away.
　　That day, Otama found her father in a good mood. He put down the book he had been reading and told her a story from it. He gave her a large light rice cracker, which he had bought at a new branch shop in Hirokoji. Again and again he asked, “Is it still all right for you to stay?” Otama smiled and said, “Yes, it is all right.” She stayed until nearly noon. In her heart she thought that if she told him how Suezo now sometimes came without warning, he would send her home even more quickly. She had changed without fully knowing it. She no longer worried so much that Suezo might come while she was away.

Part 14: The Chosen Day

　　The weather became colder little by little. In front of the kitchen sink at Otama’s house, a few boards had been set into the ground where people stepped in wooden sandals. In the morning, white frost lay thick on those boards. The rope of the deep well was cold to the hands, and Otama felt sorry for Ume. She bought gloves for the girl, but Ume thought it was too much trouble to put them on and take them off for every little job. So she kept the gloves carefully put away and still drew water with bare hands.
　　Otama worried when she saw Ume’s hands becoming rough. She told her, “The worst thing is to leave your hands wet. When you take your hands out of the water, dry them well at once. When your work is finished, do not forget to wash them with soap.” She even bought soap for Ume. But the girl’s hands still became rougher, and Otama felt sorry each time she noticed them. She thought it strange, because she herself had once done the same kind of work and had not suffered in that way.
　　Otama had once woken early and risen at once. But now, on cold mornings, she had begun to stay in bed. When Ume said, “There is ice at the sink this morning. Please sleep a little longer,” Otama would pull the bedding around her and remain there. In the warmth of the bed, her thoughts sometimes grew loose and free. Pictures came into her mind that she would not have allowed in ordinary daylight. At such times, a bright look came into her eyes, and a warm red color spread from her eyelids to her cheeks.
　　One morning, the sky had been clear all night, the stars had shone, and frost had fallen before dawn. Otama stayed in bed for quite a long time. Ume had already opened the shutters, and the morning sun was entering through the front window. At last Otama rose. She wore only a narrow belt and a warm house coat, went out to the veranda, and began to clean her teeth. Then she heard the lattice door open with a sharp sound. Ume’s bright voice said, “Welcome.” A man’s steps came straight in.
　　“Ah, you are a sleepyhead,” Suezo said, sitting down in front of the square fire box. Otama was still holding the tooth-cleaning stick in her mouth. She quickly took it out, turned aside, and said, “Oh, please excuse me. You are very early today.” Her face was warm from sleep, and she smiled in a slightly confused way. To Suezo, she looked more beautiful than ever. Since coming to Muenzaka, Otama had become more beautiful day by day. At first he had liked her innocent, girlish charm. Now she had gained something more dangerous and more attractive.
　　Suezo misunderstood this change. He thought Otama had begun to understand love because of him, and this made him proud. But even Suezo, with all his sharp eyes, was mistaken here. Otama had changed because her life had changed too quickly. She had suffered, thought about herself, and learned a colder, more watchful heart. She had also become a little careless in manner. Suezo did not understand the reason. He only felt that this new carelessness drew him more strongly toward her.
　　Otama pulled a basin near her and said, “Please turn the other way for a moment.” Suezo lit a cigarette and asked, “Why?” She answered, “Because I must wash my face.” He said, “That is all right. Wash it.” Otama said, “I cannot wash while you are looking.” Suezo laughed softly and turned his back toward the veranda. In his mind, he thought she was wonderfully innocent. Otama loosened only the neck of her robe and washed quickly, with less care than usual.
　　After a little while, Suezo turned back toward her. Otama did not notice until she drew the mirror stand near and saw his face reflected in the mirror, with the cigarette in his mouth. “Oh, you are terrible,” she said. But she did not become truly angry. She continued smoothing her hair. Suezo watched the white skin at the back of her neck and the round softness of her raised arms. He thought that if he kept silent, she might hurry too much, so he began to speak slowly, as if there were no need to rush.
　　“Do not hurry,” he said. “I did not come so early because I had business here. The other day, when you asked me, I said I might come tonight. But now I have to go to Chiba for a little matter. If things go well, I may come back tomorrow. If not, it may be the day after tomorrow.” Otama was wiping her comb. She turned around and said, “Oh.” Her face showed a little worry, or at least it seemed so to Suezo.
　　“Be good and wait for me,” Suezo said, half joking. Then he put away his cigarette case and stood up at once. Otama began to say, “But I have not even served you tea.” She threw the comb almost carelessly into the comb box and rose to see him out. By the time she reached the entrance, Suezo had already opened the lattice door. He went out as suddenly as he had come.
　　A little later, Ume brought the breakfast tray from the kitchen. She put it down and knelt with her hands on the floor. “I am very sorry,” she said. Otama was sitting by the fire box and moving the ash away from the charcoal. She smiled and asked, “What are you saying sorry for?” Ume answered that she had been too slow to bring tea for the patron. Otama said, “Oh, that. I said it only as a greeting. He did not mind at all.” Then she picked up her chopsticks and began to eat.
　　As Ume watched her mistress eat, she saw that Otama looked especially happy. Otama was not a woman who often showed a bad temper, but that morning her face was unusually bright. A soft red still remained on her cheeks, and the shadow of a smile had not left her mouth. Ume wondered why, but her simple mind did not go very far with the question. Otama’s good mood passed to her, and she also felt happy.
　　Otama looked at Ume for a moment and said, “Would you like to go home?” Ume looked back in surprise. In those days, a servant girl could not easily visit her own home except on fixed holidays, even if her home was in the same city. Otama said again, “The patron will not come tonight. If you want to go home and stay there, you may. You do not have to clean up after breakfast. Go soon, enjoy yourself today, and stay the night. But tomorrow morning, come back early.”
　　Ume’s face became bright red with joy. In her mind, many pictures of home appeared at once. She saw the entrance where two or three rickshaws stood because her father was a rickshaw man. She saw the narrow place where only one cushion could be spread between a chest and a fire box. She saw her father sitting there when he was not working, and her mother with her hair always falling a little over one cheek. These pictures passed quickly through her small head, and she could hardly keep still.
　　After breakfast, Ume still took the tray away. Even though Otama had told her not to clean up, she thought she should at least wash the bowls and plates. She had begun to wash them in warm water when Otama came into the kitchen with a paper-wrapped gift. “Oh, you are cleaning after all,” Otama said. “There is so little to wash that I can do it. Your hair was done last night, so it is all right. Change your clothes quickly. I have no real gift for your family, so take this with you.” Inside the paper were blue half-yen notes.
　　After hurrying Ume out of the house, Otama tied back her sleeves and went into the kitchen. She began washing the bowls and plates that Ume had left. This was work she knew well from the old days, and she could have finished it much more quickly than Ume. But that morning she washed as slowly as a child playing with a toy. One plate stayed in her hands for a long time. Her face shone with a lively red color, and her eyes seemed to be looking at something far away.
　　Her thoughts were full of hope. Until that morning, she had been unable to decide how to approach Okada. But when Suezo said he would go to Chiba, her heart suddenly ran forward like a boat pushed by a strong wind. Suezo, who might have stopped her, would be away for the night. Ume, who might have been in the way, would be at her parents’ house. Until the next morning, no one would control her. Otama felt as if this smooth turn of events must be a sign that her wish could come true.
　　She told herself that Okada would surely pass before the house that day. Some days he passed twice, going and returning, so she could not miss him both times. Whatever it cost her, she would speak to him. If she spoke bravely, he would surely stop. She knew she was a kept woman, and worse, the kept woman of a moneylender. But she also knew that she had not become ugly. She had become more beautiful than when she had been an innocent girl, and her unhappy life had taught her some things about how men looked at women.
　　She thought, “He cannot hate me at once. If he hated me, he would not bow whenever our eyes met. And when the snake came, he helped me. Perhaps he would not have stopped if it had been another house.” She knew these thoughts were bold, but she could not stop them. She felt that because she thought of him so much, some part of her feeling must have reached him too. While she continued thinking in this way, the warm water in the small tub became completely cold, but she did not notice.
　　When she finished and returned to the fire box, she could not sit still. She moved the clean ash with the fire tongs two or three times, then suddenly stood up and began to change her clothes. She was going to the woman hairdresser in Doho-cho. Her usual hairdresser was a kind woman and had once told her to go there when she wanted her hair done for a special day. Otama had never gone there before. But this was not an ordinary day, and she wanted to be ready when Okada passed.

Part 15: The Goose

　　There is a story for children in the West about one small nail. I do not remember it well, but I think the story says that one nail came out of a wheel, and because of that, many troubles followed. In this story, one dish at supper had the same kind of power. It was a dish of blue fish cooked in miso. I had lived on boarding-house food for a long time, and there were some dishes I hated with my whole body. This fish dish was the worst of them. When I saw it on my tray, I seemed to smell all the old, dirty dining rooms of student life.
　　One evening that dish was served at Kamijo. Usually, when the tray came, I began to eat at once. But that night I sat still and looked at it. The maid noticed my face and asked, “Do you dislike blue fish?” I said, “I do not dislike blue fish itself. If it is grilled, I can eat it. But this way of cooking it is too much for me.” The maid offered to bring eggs instead, but I stopped her. I told her not to trouble the landlady and not to say that I disliked the food. Then I stood up, put on my hakama, and decided to go out for a walk.
　　I called through the wall to the next room. “Okada, are you there?” He answered clearly, “Yes. Do you need something?” I said, “Not exactly. I am going out for a walk, and later I may stop at Toyokuniya. Will you come?” Okada answered at once, “Yes. I have something I want to tell you too.” I took my hat from the hook, and the two of us left Kamijo together. It was a little after four in the afternoon. We did not talk about where to go, but when we came out of the gate, we naturally turned to the right, toward Muenzaka.
　　As we began to go down the slope, I saw Otama standing in front of her house. I touched Okada with my elbow and said, “Look, she is there.” Okada said, “Who?” But he understood my meaning and looked toward the house with the lattice door. Otama was standing outside, and she was more beautiful than usual. I could not say exactly what was different, but her face seemed to shine. Her eyes were fixed on Okada, as if she saw no one else. Okada looked surprised, took off his hat quickly, bowed, and then began walking faster.
　　I was a third person, and perhaps for that reason I was shameless. I turned around again and again to look back. Otama continued watching Okada for a long time. Okada walked with his head slightly bent, and he did not slow his steps. I followed beside him in silence. Many feelings fought inside me. The main feeling was a wish to stand in Okada’s place. I tried to deny this in my own mind, but I could not completely do it. I did not think I wanted to give myself to that woman. I only thought how pleasant it must be to be loved by such a beautiful woman. Then my imagination went further. I told myself that I would not run away as Okada did. I would speak to her, keep myself pure, love her like a sister, and help her out of the mud. My thoughts had reached this foolish dream before I noticed it.
　　We walked in silence until we came to the crossing at the bottom of the slope. When we passed the police box, I finally spoke. “This has become a serious matter, hasn’t it?” Okada said, “What has?” I answered, “Do not pretend. You must have been thinking about that woman since we passed her. I looked back many times. She kept watching your back for a long while. Perhaps she is still looking this way now.” Okada said, “Please stop. I told you the whole story because you are my friend. You do not need to tease me more.”
　　Soon we came to the edge of Shinobazu Pond and stopped for a moment. Okada pointed toward the north side of the pond and said, “Shall we walk that way?” I agreed, and we turned left along the water. After about ten steps, I looked at the houses on the left and said, almost to myself, “Here are the houses of Mr. Fukuchi and Mr. Suezo.” Okada answered that the two men might not be as opposite as they looked, because even a famous political man could be criticized for money. I defended Fukuchi without much thought. Perhaps I simply wanted to keep him far away from Suezo in my mind.
　　A few houses beyond Fukuchi’s fence, there was a small house with a sign that said “River Fish.” I said, “When I see that sign, I feel as if they serve fish from Shinobazu Pond.” Okada laughed a little and said that it surely was not a place opened by the heroes of an old bandit tale. Talking in this light way, we crossed a small bridge toward the north side of the pond. There we saw a student-like young man standing on the bank and looking at something. When he saw us, he called out, “Hello.” It was Ishihara, a man who loved jujutsu and read no books outside his school subjects. We were not close to him, but we did not dislike him.
　　“What are you looking at?” I asked. Ishihara said nothing and pointed toward the pond. Okada and I looked through the gray evening air. In those days, reeds grew thick from the small waterway near Nezu to the bank where we stood. Farther out, the reeds became thinner, and broken lotus leaves and dry stalks stood in the dark water. Between these dry stalks, about ten wild geese moved slowly. Some did not move at all. The whole view was lonely and cold.
　　Ishihara looked at Okada and said, “Can you throw a stone that far?” Okada answered, “I can throw that far, but I do not know if I can hit anything.” Ishihara said, “Try.” Okada hesitated. “They are probably getting ready to sleep,” he said. “It seems cruel to throw stones at them.” Ishihara laughed and said, “You are too soft. If you will not throw, I will.” Okada picked up a stone unwillingly. “Then I will only make them fly away,” he said.
　　The small stone flew with a faint sound. I watched it closely. Suddenly one goose let its raised neck fall heavily. At the same time, two or three other geese cried and beat their wings, sliding over the water. But they did not really fly away. The goose with the fallen neck stayed where it was and did not move. “You hit it,” Ishihara said. He looked at the pond for a while and then added, “I will get that goose. When the time comes, you two must help me a little.”
　　Okada asked, “How will you get it?” I also listened with interest. Ishihara said that the time was not yet good. In thirty minutes it would be dark, and then he could get it easily. He told us to stay nearby and help if he asked. He also promised to treat us to the goose afterward. Okada said this sounded interesting, but asked what we should do for thirty minutes. Ishihara answered that he would walk around near the pond and that we should go somewhere else, because three men standing there would be too noticeable. I suggested that Okada and I walk around the pond once, and Okada agreed.
　　We crossed the edge of Hanazono-cho and walked toward the stone steps of Toshogu. For a while neither of us spoke. At last Okada said, almost to himself, “That was an unlucky goose.” Without any clear reason, the woman on Muenzaka appeared in my mind. Okada then said to me, “I only threw at the place where the geese were.” I answered, “Yes,” but I was still thinking of Otama. After a little while I said, “Still, I want to see how Ishihara gets it.” This time Okada only said, “Yes,” and walked on, thinking about something. Perhaps he was thinking of the goose.
　　As we passed in front of the red gate of Benten, Okada seemed to force his thoughts in another direction. “I had something to tell you,” he said. Then he told me something I had never expected. He had decided to go abroad before graduation. He had already received his travel papers from the Foreign Ministry and had sent a notice of leaving to the university. A German professor, Professor W., had hired him to help with the study of diseases in East Asia. The professor would pay his travel money and a monthly salary.
　　Professor Baelz had introduced Okada because the professor wanted a student who could speak German and read Chinese texts easily. Okada had gone to see Professor W. in Tsukiji and had taken a test. He had been asked to translate several lines from old Chinese medical books. One passage was difficult, but he managed to pass. The contract was made at once. Okada would go to Leipzig with Professor W., and later he could take a doctor’s examination there. The texts he translated for the professor might even be used for his thesis. The next day he would leave Kamijo, move to Professor W.’s place in Tsukiji, help pack the books collected in China and Japan, travel with him to Kyushu, and then sail from there.
　　I stopped several times while listening. “I am surprised,” I said. “You are very brave.” I thought we had walked slowly, but when I looked at my watch, only ten minutes had passed since we had left Ishihara. We had already gone around much of the pond and were near the back of Nakacho. “If we go on like this, we will be too early,” I said. Okada suggested that we stop at Rengyokuan and eat soba. I agreed at once, and we turned back toward the famous soba shop.
　　While we ate, Okada spoke more calmly about leaving. “It is a pity not to finish after coming this far,” he said. “But I cannot become a government student abroad. If I miss this chance, I may never see Europe.” I told him that he was right. If he became a doctor there, graduation here would not matter much, and even without that, the chance itself was important. He said he would go almost as he was, because Professor W. had told him that Western clothes made in Japan would not be useful in Europe. We talked of travel, of guidebooks, and of how impossible it was for us to imagine the world beyond Japan.
　　When I looked at my watch again, only five minutes remained before the promised time. We hurried out of Rengyokuan and went back to the place where Ishihara was waiting. The pond was now dark. The red shrine of Benten could be seen only faintly through the evening mist. Ishihara pulled us to the water’s edge and explained his plan. We had to stand on the bank and guide him. He pointed to broken lotus stalks and said he would walk along an invisible line between them. If he went too far right or left, we had to call out and correct him.
　　Okada said it sounded like a problem of position and direction, and asked whether the water was deep. Ishihara said there was no danger of going over his head. Then he quickly took off his clothes and stepped into the pond. The mud rose only above his knees at first. He lifted his feet like a heron and moved forward with a heavy sound. Sometimes the ground became deeper, then shallow again. Soon he had passed the first lotus stalk. After a while Okada called, “Right.” Ishihara moved right. Then Okada called, “Left.” Ishihara had gone too far, and he corrected himself.
　　Suddenly Ishihara stopped and bent down. Almost at once he began to return. By the time he passed the farther lotus stalk, we could see the thing hanging from his right hand. He came back to the bank with mud only halfway up his thighs. The bird was larger than I had expected. Ishihara washed his legs roughly and put on his clothes again. During all this, no one passed by. The place was still quiet enough for such a strange act to happen unseen.
　　“How shall we carry it?” I asked. Ishihara answered while putting on his hakama. “Okada’s coat is the largest. He must hide it under his coat. We will cook it at my place.” Ishihara rented a room in a private house in a narrow side street behind the Iwasaki grounds. He quickly explained the best road. There were two ways to go there, one by Kiridoshi and one by Muenzaka. Both had a police box, but Kiridoshi was brighter and busier. So, he said, the quiet Muenzaka road was safer. Okada gave a bitter smile, but he took the goose. However he held it, a few inches of wing showed below his coat, and the lower part of the coat spread out strangely. Ishihara and I would have to walk close beside him and hide his shape as well as we could.

Part 16: No Second Chance

　　“Now we walk like this,” Ishihara said. He and I placed Okada between us, and the three of us started along the road. From the beginning, we were all thinking about the police box at the crossing below Muenzaka. Ishihara began to give us a serious lesson about how to pass it. I understood only part of what he said, but his meaning was something like this: the heart must not move; if the heart moves, a gap appears; if a gap appears, the enemy will use it. He even spoke of a tiger that does not eat a drunken man. Perhaps he was only repeating something that his jujutsu teacher had once told him.
　　Okada could not remain serious. “Then the policeman is the tiger, and we three are the drunken men,” he said. Ishihara gave a sharp cry, “Silence!” We were already near the corner that led toward Muenzaka. When we turned that corner, we entered a side street where the backs of houses stood against the land beside the pond. In those days, carts and other things often stood along both sides of that narrow road. From the corner, we could already see the policeman standing at the crossing.
　　Suddenly Ishihara, who was walking on Okada’s left, began to speak in a strange way. “Do you know how to find the volume of a cone?” he asked Okada. “No? It is easy. You take the area of the bottom, multiply it by the height, and divide by three. If the bottom is a circle, you use pi. Pi is about 3.1416. I remember it to many more numbers, but more than that is not really needed.” He spoke as if this were the most natural subject in the world.
　　While Ishihara was talking about cones, we passed the crossing. The policeman was standing in front of the police box on the left side of the road. He was watching a rickshaw running toward Nezu. He looked at us only once, with no interest. His eyes passed over us like a small wind and went away. The goose remained hidden under Okada’s coat, though the coat still looked strange. Ishihara’s plan had worked better than I had expected.
　　After we had passed the crossing, I asked Ishihara, “Why did you suddenly begin to talk about cones?” But as I spoke, my eyes saw a woman standing halfway up the slope and looking toward us. At once my heart moved strongly. On the way back from the north side of the pond, I had been thinking less about the policeman than about this woman. For some reason, I had felt that she might be waiting for Okada. My thought had not deceived me. Otama had come out two or three houses beyond her own house, as if to meet him before he reached her door.
　　I tried to look at both Otama’s face and Okada’s face without Ishihara noticing. Okada’s healthy red face became even redder. He lifted his hand to the front of his hat, pretending that he only happened to move it. Otama’s face, however, did not move. It was as still as stone. Her beautiful wide eyes seemed to hold endless regret. She had waited for him, prepared herself for him, and now he was passing with two other men and a dead goose hidden under his coat.
　　I heard Ishihara answering my question, but his words did not enter my heart. Perhaps he said that Okada’s coat looked like a cone, and that this had made him think of the formula. I did not care. I was looking at the woman and at Okada. I felt that something important was being broken before my eyes, and yet I could do nothing. Okada could not stop. Otama could not call out. Ishihara, who knew nothing, kept talking as if nothing had happened.
　　Ishihara had also seen Otama, but he seemed only to think, “What a beautiful woman,” and then forget her. He continued to speak proudly. “I first taught you the secret of staying unmoved,” he said. “But you two do not have enough training, so I had to turn your minds somewhere else. Any question would have done, but because of Okada’s shape, the cone formula came to me. Thanks to that formula, you passed the policeman in a natural way.” He seemed very pleased with himself.
　　Soon we reached the place where the road turned east along the Iwasaki grounds. There we entered a narrow side street where even two single-person rickshaws could hardly pass each other. Now there was almost no danger. Ishihara left Okada’s side and walked ahead like a guide. I turned back once more, but Otama was no longer visible. The slope had swallowed her again.
　　That night, Okada and I stayed at Ishihara’s room until late. We can say that we kept Ishihara company while he drank sake and ate the goose. Okada did not say one word about going abroad. Because of that, I held back many questions that I wanted to ask him. Instead, I listened to Ishihara and Okada talk about rowing races and student life. The room was small, the air was thick with the smell of sake and cooked bird, and the evening slowly became night.
　　When Okada and I returned to Kamijo, I was tired and a little drunk. I had no strength left to speak with him. We separated in the hall and went to our own rooms. I lay down and slept heavily. The next day, when I came back from the university, Okada was already gone. His room, which had been on the other side of my wall for so long, had become empty.
　　In old stories, a great event may begin from one small nail. In this story, the dish of blue fish at the boarding house played that part. Because that dish appeared at supper, I went out for a walk. Because I asked Okada to come with me, he passed Otama at the wrong moment and could not stop. Because of that, Okada and Otama never met again. This was not the only result, but the rest lies outside the story of the wild geese.
　　I am writing this story now and counting the years on my fingers. Thirty-five years have passed since those events. I knew one half of the story because I was close to Okada and saw it with my own eyes. I learned the other half later, after Okada had gone, when I came to know Otama by chance and heard it from her. It is like looking at two separate pictures through a special glass and seeing them become one image. This story was made by joining what I saw before and what I heard afterward.
　　Perhaps the reader wants to ask, “How did you come to know Otama? When did she tell you these things?” But the answer to that question is also outside this story. There is no need to imagine useless things. I was not a man who could become Otama’s lover. That much is clear enough.