十一

Even amid such restless intervals, I still had the composure to sit quietly. At times I even found the leisure to open a book and read ten pages at a stretch. My luggage, once tightly bound, had somehow come undone. I took out various things from it as I needed them. I looked back on the summer's daily routine I had resolved in my heart when I left Tokyo. What I had done fell short of even a third of that routine. I had repeated this kind of unpleasantness countless times before. But rarely had work gone so far from plan as this summer. Though I thought this must be the way of the world, I was weighed down by a disagreeable feeling.

While sitting behind this discomfort, I thought of my father's illness on one hand. I imagined what would happen after my father's death. And at the same time, I brought to mind the matter of Sensei on the other. At both ends of this unpleasant feeling, I gazed upon the figures of two men, utterly different in station, education, and character.

As I left my father's bedside and sat alone with arms folded among my scattered books, my mother appeared.

"Why don't you take a little afternoon nap? You must be terribly tired."

Mother did not understand my state of mind. Nor was I such a child as to expect that of her. I simply thanked her. Mother still stood at the doorway.

"How is Father?" I asked.

"He's sleeping peacefully just now," Mother answered.

Mother suddenly came in and sat beside me.

"Has Sensei sent any word yet?" she asked.

Mother believed what I had said at that time. At that time I had assured her Sensei would surely reply. But even then I had no expectation whatsoever of a reply such as my father and mother hoped for. I had fallen into the same result as if I had deceived Mother knowingly.

"Why don't you write him another letter?" Mother said.

If writing useless letters, however many, would comfort Mother, I was not one to grudge the trouble. But pressing Sensei with such matters by post was painful to me. I feared being looked down upon by Sensei far more than being scolded by Father or sullying Mother's mood. I even suspected that perhaps the reason no reply had come for that request was something of this sort.

"Writing the letter is no trouble, but matters like this are never settled by post. I'd have to go to Tokyo myself and plead in person."

"But with Father in that condition, who knows when you could go to Tokyo?"

"That's why I won't go. Until it's decided one way or the other—recovery or not—I mean to stay right here."

"Well, that goes without saying. With a grave patient who might take a turn any moment, who could just go off to Tokyo as they please?"

At first, in my heart, I pitied Mother, who knew nothing. But I could not understand why Mother raised such a matter at this agitated time. Just as I had the composure to sit quietly or read amid my father's illness, I wondered if Mother, too, had enough room in her heart to forget the patient before her and think of outside things. Then Mother began, "You see—"

"You see, while your father is still living, I think he would be so relieved if your match were settled. At this rate it may not be in time, but even so, since nothing is certain yet, do your filial duty and give him that joy while he is still with us."

Poor me, placed in circumstances where I could not perform my filial duty. In the end, I sent Sensei not even a single line.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”