K’s evasive replies were still plainly evident in his attitude the next day, and the day after that as well. He never showed the slightest inclination to broach the matter on his own. Not that there was any opportunity, either. Unless the wife and daughter both happened to be out of the house for the whole day, the two of us could hardly sit down at leisure to discuss such things. I understood this well enough. And yet, even understanding it, I began to feel strangely restless. The result was that, though at first I had intended to wait for him to come to me and had been quietly preparing myself for that, I now resolved that if the chance arose, I would be the one to open the conversation.
At the same time, I silently observed the goings-on in the household. But neither the wife’s manner nor the daughter’s bearing showed any particular change from ordinary times. If no real difference had appeared in their behavior before and after K’s confession, then his confession was one made solely to me; it was certain that it had not yet reached the person most concerned, nor the wife who stood as her guardian. Thinking this, I felt a little relieved. Rather than forcing an occasion and bringing the matter up in an artificial way, I decided it would be better to avoid missing whatever chance nature might provide, and so I left the question alone for the time being, untouched.
Said like that, it sounds perfectly simple, but in the actual course of my heart there were rises and falls, just like the tide coming in and going out. Watching K make no move, I read all sorts of meanings into it. Observing the words and gestures of the wife and daughter, I even doubted whether their hearts were truly as they appeared on the surface. And I wondered whether the complicated machinery installed in the human breast could, like the hands of a clock, point clearly and without deceit to the numbers on the dial. In short, please understand that after taking the same matter this way and that, I at last settled here. To put it more precisely, the word “settled” may not in fact have been one I had any right to use on this occasion.
Then school began again. On days when our schedules matched, we left the house together. If it was convenient, we also returned home together. Seen from the outside, K and I were as close as ever, with nothing changed. But inside, each of us must surely have been thinking his own thoughts. One day, I suddenly closed in on K in the street. The first thing I asked was whether his earlier confession had been confined to me alone, or whether it had also reached the wife and daughter. The attitude I was to take from then on had to be decided by his answer to this question, I thought. He stated plainly that he had not yet opened up to anyone else. Since things were as I had surmised, I was secretly pleased. I knew well that K was more reckless than I. I was aware that I could not match his nerve. But at the same time, strangely, I trusted him. Though he had deceived his adoptive family for three years over his schooling, his trustworthiness toward me was in no way diminished. If anything, that was what made me trust him the more. So however suspicious I might be, it was impossible for me to deny his clear answer in my heart.
I also asked him how he intended to handle his love. I asked whether it was no more than a confession, or whether, following that confession, he meant to achieve some practical result. But when it came to that, he gave no answer. He fell silent and walked on looking down. I begged him not to keep anything from me, to tell me everything as he truly felt. He declared unequivocally that he had no need to hide anything from me. And yet to the very point I wanted to know, he offered not a single word in reply. Since we were in the street, I could not very well stop and press him to the bottom of it, so I let it go at that.
