After making a visit to my native home during a journey to the southeast, I found myself in the city of S, where I had once taught school for a year. It was only thirty li from my native village and could be reached in less than half a day by boat. The atmosphere was bleak and dismal after the late winter snow, and inertia and a desire to revisit once familiar scenes caused me to put up at the Lo Ssu Hotel, which had been built since my earlier stay in S. I went around to call upon some of my old colleagues that I thought might still be in the city, but none of them was to be found, having gone I knew not where. Passing by the school, I found its name and features changed and unfamiliar. The city was not large; in less than two hours I had exhausted the interest that it held for me, and I began to feel that this visit had been ill-considered and unnecessary.
The hotel rent did not include food, which had to be specially arranged for and was insipid and tasted like mud. From the window there was nothing to see but a spotted and dirty wall covered with dead moss; above, the sky was leaden, a grayish white without relief. A light snow was beginning to fall. As I had not eaten much at the midday meal and had nothing to amuse myself with, I very naturally thought of a restaurant that I used to go to, known as the One Stone Lodge. It was not far from the hotel. So I locked my room and went out on the street and walked in the direction of
