六

I had more or less forgotten about the matter of the marriage proposal. Looking at the faces of the young men who crowded around me, not one of them seemed weighed down by domestic concerns. They were all free, and each and every one of them appeared to be unattached. Even among such easygoing people, if one were to step into their inner circles, perhaps some had already taken wives under the compulsion of family circumstances, but childlike as I was, I failed to notice. And those who were placed in such special situations, being considerate of those around them, likely took care not to speak of such private matters that had little to do with students. Looking back on it later, I myself was already among them, yet I did not even realize that, and merely walked the path of study in childlike cheerfulness.

At the end of the academic year, I again bundled up my luggage and returned to the countryside where my parents' graves lay. And just as the year before, within the home where my father and mother had doted on me, I saw once more the unchanged faces of my uncle and his wife and their children. There I breathed again the scent of my hometown. That scent was still, to me, a nostalgic thing. It was surely a welcome change to break the monotony of the school year.

Yet amid that same scent in which I had been raised, I was suddenly confronted by my uncle with the marriage question right under my nose. What my uncle said was merely a repetition of last year's persuasion. His reasons were the same as before. Only, whereas the previous time he had urged me there had been no specific candidate, this time he had neatly secured the very person in question, and so I was all the more troubled. That person was my uncle's daughter—that is, my cousin. If I would take her, it would be convenient for both of us, and my father in his lifetime had spoken of such a thing, my uncle said. I too thought it would be convenient. That my father had said such a thing to my uncle I considered entirely possible. But this was something I only became aware of when my uncle told me; it was not a matter I had known before being told. So I was surprised. Surprised, yet I well understood why my uncle's wish was not unreasonable. Was I careless? Perhaps I was. But the main cause was likely my indifference toward that cousin. From childhood I had constantly gone to visit my uncle's home in the city. Not only did I go, but I often stayed there. And I had been close to this cousin since those days. As you well know, there is no instance of love arising between brother and sister. I may be arbitrarily extending this accepted fact, but I believe that between a man and woman who are in constant contact and grow too familiar, the fresh feeling that gives rise to the stimulation necessary for love is lost. Just as one can smell incense only at the moment it is first burned, and just as one tastes sake only in the instant one begins to drink, I can only think that love's impulse too has such a critical point existing in time. Once one passes through it calmly, the more familiar one becomes, the only thing that increases is closeness, while the nerves of love gradually grow numb. However much I reconsidered, I could not bring myself to take this cousin as my wife.

My uncle said that if I insisted, he would put off the marriage until my graduation. But he also said that as the proverb has it, good deeds should be done quickly, and if possible he wished to have at least the wedding cups finished while we could. For me, who had no desire for the match, either way was the same. I refused again. My uncle made a displeased face. My cousin cried. Not because she was sad at not being joined to me, but because, as a woman, it was bitter to have a marriage proposal rejected. Just as I did not love my cousin, I well knew that she did not love me either. I went back to Tokyo.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”