Sosuke had brought a cushion on to the veranda and plopped himself on it, cross-legged, and was now basking in the midaft-ernoon sun. After a time he tossed aside the magazine he held in his hands and stretched himself out full length on his side. It was a beautiful Indian summer day. The rhythmic clip-clop of geta * in the streets of the hushed town fell pleasantly on his ears. Raising himself up on his elbow, he looked out beyond the eaves of the house at the beautiful, clear sky, blue all over. Viewed from the tiny veranda, it seemed extremely vast. It made quite a difference, he reflected, to be able on an occasional Sunday to gaze leisurely at the sky like this. He looked squint-eyed directly into the sun, but only for a moment.
The light was too blinding, and so he turned on his other side till he faced the shoji behind which his wife, Oyone, was at work sewing. ''What wonderful weather!'' ''Yes.'' She added nothing more. Since Sosuke too was not eager, seemingly, to start a conversation, they fell back into silence. After a time it was Oyone who spoke. ''Why don''t you go for a walk?'' Sosuke grunted noncommittally and did not move. Several minutes later when she chanced to look out of the window of the shoji onto the veranda, Oyone saw that her husband was asleep. He had both knees pulled up close to him, shrimp-like, and his black head was buried in his folded arms, face completely invisible.
''If you go to sleep there, you''re sure to catch cold,'' she cautioned. Her speech was almost that of a native Tokyoite, but not quite. It had the inflections common to graduates of girls'' academies all over Japan. Sosuke opened his eyes but did not raise his head. ''It''s all right. I won''t fall asleep,'' he answered in a low voice. All fell still again. A passing jinrikisha rang its bell two or three times.
A cock crowed in the distance. The sounds reached Sosuke without his really listening to them, as he basked in the warm sun-beams that pierced through the weave of his newly-made kimono and penetrated to the bone. Suddenly, as if recalling something, he called out to his wife, ''Oyone, how do you write the character for kin in kinrai ?'' Oyone showed no surprise that he should have forgotten how to write this simple character, nor did she laugh the shrill laugh peculiar to young women. ''It''s the character for oo in oomi ,'' she replied. ''But that''s what I can''t remember--the character for the oo of oomi .'' She half opened the shoji and drew the character for kin on the veranda floor with her long ruler, saying only ''It''s this.'' The point of her ruler rested where it was at the end of the last stroke of the character as she stood for a moment gazing at the transparent sky. ''Yes, of course,'' said Sosuke, without looking up at her.
This lapse of memory did not strike him as particularly humorous and he did not laugh. Oyone too passed the incident off casually. ''This is really fine weather.'' She spoke half to herself. She returned to her work, leaving the doors to the veranda open. Sosuke lifted his head slightly from his arms and said, ''Characters are funny things, aren''t they?'' For the first time he raised his eyes to his wife''s face. ''Why?'' ''When you begin to doubt how to write even the simplest char-acter, you get completely confused. The other day too I had a hard time recalling the character for the kon of konnichi.
I wrote it down on paper and looked at it. Something seemed wrong. And the longer I looked, the less like kon it seemed. Haven''t you ever had that experience?'' ''No, certainly not.'' ''Then it''s only me.'' ''I think something''s wrong with you.'' ''I suppose I''ve got a pretty bad case of nerves.'' ''Yes, I think so too,'' she agreed, looking into his face.
Finally he rose. He stepped over her sewing box and thread, walked through the chanoma where she was working and opened the doors to the next room, which was the parlour. Since the southern exposure was blocked off by the front vestibule, the shoji at the other end of the room appeared indistinct to his eyes, adjusted as they were to the broad sunlight. He opened these too and stepped onto the eastern veranda. Here a high cliff, which seemed to press down upon the eaves of the house, rose from beside the veranda, so that even the morning sun, which should have come streaming in, could not easily disperse the shadows. Grass was planted on the slope, but there were no stones to hold the bank in place, so that there was always fear of a landslide. Strangely enough, none had ever occurred. Perhaps for that reason the landlord had left it untouched for so long.
The grocer, who had lived in the neighbourhood for some twenty years, had explained at the kitchen door one day that the slope had once been covered with a bamboo thicket and that when the trees had been cut down the roots had been left in place. The soil was thus firmer than one might expect. Sosuke''s response had been that if the roots had remained in place, why hadn''t a new crop of trees flourished? The grocer had answered that once you cut down trees like this, they do not easily grow back. But that, in any case, the embankment was firm, and whatever happened it would not come crashing down on them. He had spoken with great assurance, as if the cliff were his responsibility, and then had taken his departure. The embankment displayed nothing of autumn colour. The only indication of autumn was the absence of the smell of fresh grass and the dishevelled ragged appearance of the slope. Neither the susuki nor the tsuta nor any of the other lovely grasses of autumn were to be seen.
Instead, two stalks of moso bamboo rose abruptly at the middle of the slope and another three near the top, remnants of a former time. These were slightly tinged with gold, and gave the impression that if one stood directly behind them as they were struck by the sun, the warmth of autumn would come into view just over the cliff. Since Sosuke always left the house in the early morning and didn''t return until after four, he seldom had the leisure to view the top of the cliff at this time of day with the sun high in the sky. He came out of the dark toilet and washed his hands. As he let the water run over his fingers, he happened to look up beyond the eaves of the house and he recalled the bamboo. At the top of some of the bamboo stalks he saw a rich growth of leaves, looking very much like the stubble of a monk''s close-shaven head. The leaves, folded one upon the other, appeared to be entranced by the autumn sun as they gazed heavily downwards in complete silence, not a single one stirring. Sosuke closed the shoji, returned to the parlour, and squatted down before the low table.
The room could be called a parlour only because it was where they received their guests. It was really more of a study or a little sitting-room. On the northern side of the room was the tokonoma, in which hung a very odd token scroll, with a rather pathetic flower vase, the colour of burnt amber, before it. There were no pictures on the walls, only two bent brass nails that caught the sunlight. There was also a bookcase with glass doors, but with nothing inside of sufficient interest to catch the eye. Sosuke opened the drawers of the table, which was gilded in gold and silver, and began to rummage through them for something. Not finding what he was looking for, he closed them with a bang. Then he opened the lid of his inkstone case and began to write a letter.
He finished the letter, sealed it, and paused in thought for a moment. Then he turned to his wife in the next room and asked. ''What was Aunt Saeki''s address in Naka roku bancho?'' ''Wasn''t it number twenty-five?'' Oyone replied. Sosuke wrote it on the envelope. ''A letter won''t do. You''ve got to go and see her.'' ''At any rate, let''s try a letter first, even if it''s useless. If that fails, I''ll go and have a talk with her.
'' He spoke emphatically, and when his wife did not reply, he added, ''That ought to be good enough, don''t you think?'' Oyone did not seem sure enough of her opinion to contradict him and she did not press her objection. Sosuke, letter in hand, stepped at once from the parlour into the vestibule, then outside. Oyone left her place only when she heard him leaving the house. She went to the entrance to see him off. ''I''m going for a short walk.'' ''Please do,'' Oyone answered smiling. Half an hour later Oyone heard the front door open. She put aside her sewing and went out along the veranda to the vestibule, expecting to see her husband back.
Instead it was his younger brother, Koroku, school cap on his head and a long, black woollen mantle that reached almost to the floor about his shoulders. ''It''s hot,'' he said, as he unfastened the mantle. ''Isn''t that too much . a heavy thing like that in this fine weather?'' ''I thought it would get cold when the sun went down,'' Koroku explained. He followed his sister-in-law into the next room. Seeing the kimono she was working on, he commented, ''I see you''re as busy as ever,'' and sat down in front of the charcoal brazier. Oyone put away her sewing and sat opposite him. She took the tea-kettle off the brazier and began to put in more charcoal.
''Please don''t bother about tea.'' ''You don''t care for tea? Then how about some cake?'' Oyone asked laughing. '.