Father began at times to talk in his sleep, as it were.
"I have wronged General Nogi. I am truly without shame. No, I shall follow right after you."
He would toss out such words lightly. Mother found it eerie. She wanted as much as possible to gather everyone by his pillow. When he was of sound mind, the sick man, who was so often lonely, seemed to find even that a kind of hope. Especially when he looked around the room and did not see Mother's figure, Father would always ask, "Where is Mitsuo?" Even if he did not ask, his eyes told the tale. I would often rise and go call Mother. When Mother came to the sickroom, leaving the task she had been set aside just as it was, asking, "Do you need something?" there were times Father only stared at her face and said nothing. Then again, he would speak of things utterly disconnected. Suddenly he might utter gentle words, such as, "Mitsuo, I have caused you much trouble as well." Before such words Mother would invariably grow teary. After such moments she seemed surely to recall, by contrast, the Father of former times who had been hale and hearty.
"To think he says such pitiful things, but he was terribly harsh before, you know."
Mother spoke of the time she had been struck on the back with a broom by Father. My brother and I, who had heard this many times before, received Mother's words into our ears like a memorial of Father, in a mood entirely different from usual.
Father, gazing at the dimly looming shadow of death before his eyes, still had not spoken what might be called a last will.
"Ought we not ask something while there is time?" my brother said, looking at me.
"I suppose so," I answered. I thought it might be for better or worse for the patient to bring up such a thing on our own initiative. The two of us could not decide and ended up consulting our uncle. Our uncle too tilted his head.
"If he has something to say and dies without saying it, he will regret it; and yet, pressing him from our side may be bad as well."
The matter dragged on vaguely in the end. Meanwhile coma came. Mother, as usual knowing nothing, mistook it for ordinary sleep and was rather glad. "If only he can sleep so peacefully, it is a relief for those at his side," she said.
Father would at times open his eyes and suddenly ask where so-and-so had gone. That so-and-so was invariably the name of someone who had been sitting there just moments before. In Father's consciousness there were dark places and bright places, and only the bright places seemed to continue at intervals, like white threads stitching through the darkness. It was no wonder Mother mistook the comatose state for normal sleep.
By and by his tongue grew increasingly tangled. Often he would start to say something, but because the end trailed off unclearly, it made no sense. Yet when he began to speak, he raised a strong voice, as if one could not think him a dying patient. We, of course, had to raise our tone above usual and bring our mouths near his ear.
"Does it feel good to cool your head?"
"Mm."
I, with the nurse, changed Father's water pillow, and then placed an ice bag with fresh ice on top of his head. While the roughly broken, sharply pointed fragments of ice settled inside the bag, I gently held it in place outside Father's bald forehead. Just then my brother came down the corridor and silently placed a letter in my hand. With my free left hand I took the letter and was at once suspicious.
It was far heavier in weight than an ordinary letter. It was not even in a normal envelope. Nor was it a quantity that should go in a normal envelope. It was wrapped in half-sheet paper, the seam carefully pasted with glue. As I took it from my brother's hand, I immediately realized it was registered mail. Turning it over, I saw the teacher's name written there in a cautious hand. Since I could not let go, and could not open it at once, I tucked it into my breast for the moment.
