"Saku, do you sometimes think over various things?"
"I have nothing special to think about, so. ."
"You say you don't think? That's good. It's best not to think about anything."
"If I do, I don't have the brains to put things right, so there's no point in trying to."
"How lucky you are!"
My outburst startled her. Perhaps she felt I had ridiculed her. I was sorry I had spoken in that way.
To my surprise, my mother returned from Kamakura that evening. At that moment I had been sitting on a rattan chair in the shade of the open hallway upstairs watching the sun setting and listening to Saku, barefoot in the front garden, sprinkling the grounds. When I went down to the entrance, I was even more surprised to see Chiyoko instead of Goichi, whom I had expected to accompany my mother home. She was just coming up from the stepstone behind my mother. I had been sitting on that rattan chair with no thought in mind of Chiyoko at all. And if I had actually thought of her, I couldn't have done so without linking her to Takagi. I believed that for the time being these two couldn't possibly leave the stage at Kamakura. Even before exchanging greetings with my mother, whose sunburned complexion had slightly darkened, I wanted to ask Chiyoko why she had come. And those actually were my first words.
"I came to bring my aunt home. Why? Does it surprise you?"
"That was very kind of you," I replied. My feelings toward Chiyoko after my trip to Kamakura differed considerably from what they had been prior to the visit. And there was a considerable difference between the feelings I had during the visit and those I had experienced since returning home. Furthermore, there was quite a difference in my feelings on seeing Chiyoko together with Takagi and having her here before me separated from him. Chiyoko said she had accompanied my mother because entrusting her to Goichi's care would have been too great a worry. While Saku was washing and wiping her feet from working in the garden, Chiyoko acted the faithful niece she used to be by taking a summer kimono from my mother's dresser and helping her change out of her traveling clothes.
I asked my mother if she'd had a nice time since my deparature.
"Nothing particularly eventful happened," she replied with a satisfied look on her face. "Yet," she added, "it's been a long time since I've had such a good time, thanks to all of you."
It sounded to me as if my mother were acknowledging to Chiyoko, who was beside her, the kindness owed her. I asked Chiyoko if she planned to return to Kamakura that evening.
"I'll stay overnight."
"Where?"
"Well, I could go to Uchisaiwaicho, but the house is so big that it would be too lonely. I wonder if I should spend the night here — it's been such a long time since I stayed over. May I, Auntie?"
It seemed to me that Chiyoko had left Kamakura with the definite intention of spending the night at my home. I confess that in less than ten minutes I had been compelled, while sitting before her, to observe, estimate, and again interpret her words and behavior from a certain angle. My awareness of this made me feel uncomfortable. Moreover, my nerves felt too worn out for that kind of effort. Was I being unavoidably obliged to make my mind work in spite of my desire not to? Or was Chiyoko forcing me to move against my will? Whichever it was, it annoyed me.
"Chiyo-chan, you didn't have to take the trouble to come when Goichi could just as easily have done it."
"But it was my responsibility. I was the one who invited my aunt down, wasn't I?"
"Then I ought to have asked you to accompany me home, since you invited me too."
"Then you ought to have listened to us and stayed longer!"
"No, I mean the time — at the time I was leaving."
"Well, I would have looked like a hospital nurse then. Of course I wouldn't have minded looking like one. I'd have come with you. Why didn't you speak up at the time?"
"Because it seemed that if I had, I might have been turned down."
"I'd have been the one most likely to have been turned down if I had offered to accompany you, wouldn't I have, Auntie? When, on this rare occasion, you finally accepted our invitation, you looked sullen and serious the entire time. You really are a little sick."
"Maybe that was why he wanted you to accompany him," my mother said laughing.
Until just about an hour ago when my mother had returned, I hadn't in the least expected Chiyoko to be coming with her. I don't have to repeat that here, but I had expected that the information my mother would bring me about Takagi would almost certainly be about Chiyoko's future. I had also anticipated the sorrow of seeing the mild face of my mother darkened pitifully with anxiety and disappointment. But at that very moment I actually saw the opposite. Unchanged before me were aunt and niece, as intimate as they had always been. Each of them added her warmth and freshness to the other's and, to my own pleasure, to me as well.
Sparing time from my evening walk, I talked with them as we enjoyed the coolness in the upstairs room. At my mother's request I hung at the end of the eave a Gifu paper lantern with the seven autumn flowers printed on it and lit the small candle inside. Chiyoko suggested turning off the electric lamp because it gave off too much heat and did so without waiting for anyone's consent, throwing the matted floor into darkness. The moon had risen high in the windless sky. Leaning against a pillar, my mother said the moon reminded her of Kamakura.
"It seems strange somehow to see the moon at a place where we can hear streetcars," said Chiyoko, who had grown accustomed to living at the seaside for the past several days. Settled in my rattan chair, I flapped a round fan.
Saku came upstairs a few times. Once she brought in a tobacco tray with a charcoal fire and placed the set near my feet. The second time she came in carrying a tray with ice cream ordered from a neighborhood shop. Each time I couldn't help comparing the two young women, one who accepted as her lot in life the position of a humble maid, as though she had been born back in the feudal age when strict class distinctions existed, the other endowed with enough pride to behave as a lady in no matter whose presence. Chiyoko took no more notice of Saku's existence than she would have of any other woman's. On the other hand, Saku, after she stood up to return downstairs, did not fail to look back at Chiyoko from the head of the staircase. Reminded of the two days I had passed at Kamakura with Takagi living close by me, I looked with pity at Saku who, though she had stated quite definitely she had no need to think because she had no subjects to think about, was now presented with the elegant and poisonous question of one Chiyoko.
"What about Takagi?" was often at the tip of my tongue. However, because something other than a simple interest in information was driving me forward, something nastily mixed with ulterior motives, each time I was about to bring up the topic, I felt I was being scolded from afar for the unfairness of the question, so that I finally thought it unworthy of me to ask. What's more, I felt that as soon as Chiyoko departed and my mother was alone with me, we could freely talk about him. In truth, though, I wanted to hear about him directly from Chiyoko and to definitely keep in mind what she thought of him. Was this induced by jealousy? If anyone listening to my story says that's what it was, I have no objection. As I view it now, it seems hard to call it by any other name. And if so, am I that much in love with Chiyoko? If the question comes to that, I can't help being at a loss for an answer. As a matter of fact, I did not feel the pulsation of that passionate a love for her. It may then follow that I am two or three times more jealous than most men. Perhaps I am. A more appropriate criticism, however, might be that it was all due to my inherent egoism. Let me add only one thing: From my point of view, if jealousy of Takagi still kept burning in me even after my departure from Kamakura, it was not only because of some defect in my disposition, but because Chiyoko herself was deeply responsible. I won't hesitate to assert that due to the fact that it was Chiyoko who concerned me, my defect came to dye my heart in a deeper color. Then which aspect of Chiyoko was corrupting my character? The answer to that question was beyond my comprehension. And yet it occurs to me that possibly it was her kindness that was affecting me.