Toward evening I went with the sisters to the station where, as my mother had ordered, I was to greet my uncle coming from Tokyo. The sisters were dressed in yukata of the same pattern and were wearing white tabi. What pride glowed in their mother's eyes as she looked after their retreating figures. And with what more than commonly high value did my mother set on that picture of me walking alongside Chiyoko. The painful thought that nature had used me as a means of deceiving my mother made me look back as I went through the gate. I saw that she and my aunt were still staring after us.
About halfway to the station Chiyoko stopped suddenly as if she had been reminded of something. "Oh dear, I've forgotten to invite Takagi-san," she said. At these words Momoyoko glanced at me. I stopped walking but said nothing.
"We don't have to, do we?" Momoyoko said. "We've already come this far."
"But he asked me to call him a while ago," said Chiyoko.
Momoyoko hesitated, again looking at me.
"Ichi-san, did you bring your watch? What time is it?"
I took it from my kimono sash and showed it to her. "There's still time. You can go back and call him if you like. I'll go on ahead and wait."
"It's too late for that. If Takagi-san intends to come, he'll come by himself. We can apologize afterward for having forgotten, and it'll be all right." After discussing it for a minute, they finally decided not to go back.
As Momoyoko had predicted, Takagi hurried into the station before the train arrived. "That was quite unfair of you," he said to the sisters, "when I asked you to let me come along. Hasn't your mother come?" He then turned and greeted me affably.
That evening, supper was later than usual, not only because it had been put off until my uncle and cousin arrived, but also because my mother and I had joined in as late arrivals. Further, as I had privately feared, there was a scene of great confusion with rice bowls and pairs of chopsticks busily moving around. Laughing, my uncle said, "Ichi-san, it's like some scene at a fire, isn't it? Occasionally, though, I find it enjoyable having a meal all noisy like this." It seemed to me he was indirectly apologizing. My mother, who is used to quiet meals, looked quite pleased. Despite the fact that she's shy, she actually likes that kind of spirited gathering. She kept praising the small saurel, broiled and lightly salted, that they were serving that night.
"If you ask a fisherman for them," my uncle said to her, "he'll bring them seasoned, as many as you like. If you want, take some with you when you go back. I'd thought of giving you some earlier, since I know you like them, but I didn't get a chance to. Besides, they don't keep too long."
"Once I ordered them at Oiso and brought them back to Tokyo," my aunt said, "but unless you're quite careful with them on the way, they. . you know. ."
"Get rotten?" Chiyoko asked.
Momoyoko said to my mother, "You don't like Okitsu bream? I like it better than these."
"Okitsu bream's very good too in its own way," my mother gently responded.
I remember such trivial talk because I took particular notice of the contented look on my mother's face at the time and also partly because I liked the salted saurel as much as she did.
Incidentally, let me mention something here. There are two sides to me in my tastes and disposition in which I'm very much like my mother and quite different from her. This is something I've never told anyone else before, but actually for a number of years I've made a meticulous study, unnoticed by anyone and merely for my own personal knowledge, of where and how I'm different from my mother and where and how we're similar. If ever she had asked me why I was doing such a thing, I wouldn't have been able to reply. I've asked myself and haven't been able to come up with a definite reason. But the result has been this: When I found a trait I shared with her, even if it was a defect, it made me quite happy. And if I had a trait that she didn't, even if it was a strong point, that displeased me very much. What concerned me most of all was that I looked only like my father, that my features had nothing in common with my mother's. Even now when I look at myself in the mirror, I imagine that if I had inherited more of my mother's facial features, even if they made me look more homely, it would have made me feel much better about myself, much more like I was my mother's child.
Since the supper hour was delayed, we got to bed exceedingly late. Moreover, the sudden increase in the number of people gave my aunt a great deal of trouble in finding room for all of us and arranging the beds. The three males were put together in one room and lay inside the same mosquito net. My uncle found it difficult settling his stout body in the summer heat and busily flapped a round fan.
"Ichi-san, how do you like it, this awful heat? We'd have been much more comfortable in Tokyo tonight, huh?"
Goichi, lying next to me, agreed with me that we would have. Not one of the three of us could account for our coming so far down to Kamakura to lie huddled this close together inside a mosquito net.
"Well, this is fun too," my uncle said, settling the question once and for all. But the heat remained to keep us from sleeping.
Goichi, with a boy's curiosity, asked his father one question after another about the fishing excursion. And my uncle, half in jest, told a pleasant story about the fish yielding themselves up of their own accord if only we could get ourselves into a boat. I found it somewhat odd that not only did my uncle relate the story to his son but every so often calling my name made a listener out of me in spite of my having no interest whatever in it. However, as I had to make some response, I found myself committed before his talk ended to joining the fishing party. As I had earlier had no intention of going, this change was totally unexpected. My uncle, looking thoroughly unworried, soon began snoring loudly, and Goichi as well soon fell into a calm sleep. I alone deliberately kept my sleepless eyes closed and reflected on various matters late into the night.
When I awoke the next morning, I saw that Goichi had slipped off somewhere. With my head still on my pillow for want of sleep, I was traveling along a path that could be called neither dreaming nor meditating. Occasionally I stole a glance at my uncle's sleeping face. I thought he looked like a quite different species. And I wondered if I too looked as free from care as he did while sleeping and being observed by others.
Goichi suddenly came in. "Ichi-san, the weather today, what do you think?"
Urged to go and take a look, I rose and went out to the open veranda. A soft curtain of mist hung over the entire area in the direction of the sea. Even the trees on the nearer headlands did not appear in their usual color. "Is it raining?" I asked.
He jumped down onto the ground and glanced at the sky. "A little."
He seemed so worried about the day's boating trip being called off that he even dragged his two sisters out to the veranda and time and again repeated, "Well? Well? What do you think?" He at last seemed to have reached the conclusion that his father's opinion as the final arbiter was necessary, so he went to wake him up.
With sleepy eyes my uncle glanced in apparent indifference over the sky and sea. "From the appearance of things, I'm sure it'll be fine before long."