六

After that, I began to visit the master from time to time. Every time I went, he was at home. As my meetings with him grew more frequent, I called at his door more and more often.

Yet the master's attitude toward me was much the same when we first exchanged greetings as it was later, after we had grown close; it hardly changed at all. The master was always quiet. At times he was so quiet as to seem almost lonely. From the very start, I felt there was a strange inaccessibility about the master. And yet, somewhere within me, the feeling that I simply could not help drawing near to him exerted a powerful pull. Perhaps, among all people, I alone held such a feeling toward the master. But since that intuition of mine alone was later confirmed by fact, even if I am called callow, even if I am laughed at as foolish, I nonetheless find my foresight, which had anticipated this, to be reliable and glad. A person who could love others, who could not help but love them, and yet who could not spread his arms to embrace those who would enter his bosom—that was the master.

As I have said, the master was quiet and composed at all times. But now and then a strange cloud would cross his face. Like the shadow of a black bird cast upon a window. It seemed to fall, and then, though it did vanish, it vanished at once. The first time I noticed that cloud upon the master's brow was at the Zoshigaya cemetery, when I unexpectedly called out to him. In that uncanny instant, the current of my heart, which until then had flowed pleasantly, stalled for a moment. But it was merely a temporary check. Within five minutes my heart had recovered its usual resilience. I forgot entirely that dark seeming shadow of cloud. It was on a certain evening, not long before the end of the little spring warmth, that I was unexpectedly made to recall it.

As I spoke with the master, I suddenly pictured in my mind the great ginkgo tree he had specially pointed out to me. Counting the days, I found that the master's monthly visit to the grave would fall due exactly three days thence. That third day was one of my easy days, with classes ending at noon. I said to the master:

"Master, have the ginkgo trees at Zoshigaya already shed their leaves?"

"They have probably not yet become bare branches."

The master answered thus, and gazed at my face. For a while he did not look away. I said at once:

"When you go to visit the grave next, may I accompany you? I should like to walk about there with you."

"I go to visit the grave, not to take a walk."

"But you might as well take a walk while you are at it; would that not be just right?"

The master gave no answer. After a while he said, "Mine is nothing but a true grave visit," and seemed intent on separating grave visiting from walking entirely. Whether it was an excuse for not wishing to go with me or what, the master at that moment struck me as strangely childlike. I resolved to press on further.

"Then even if it is a grave visit, please take me along. I too shall pay my respects at the grave."

In truth, the distinction between grave visiting and walking seemed to me almost meaningless. Then the master's brow clouded slightly. A strange light appeared in his eyes. It was a faint unease that could not be dismissed merely as annoyance, aversion, or awe. I was at once strongly reminded of the memory of when I had called "Master" at Zoshigaya. The two expressions were exactly the same.

"I," said the master, "for a certain reason I cannot speak of to you, do not wish to go there to visit the grave together with another. I have not even taken my own wife there yet."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”