My friend Kumamotto was silent for a while, and I was not sure whether he were gazing at the Garden of Fulfilled Desire or into space.
“They say my mother was extraordinarily beautiful,” he added hurriedly, somewhat shamefacedly but still proudly. “She came from a noble family which was reduced to poverty by the abolishment of the feudal system. Her father, a samurai through and through, went into business, but fared badly; and his youngest child, who became blind at a tender age for lack of medical care, was trained to be a masseuse and helped support her helpless parents.”
His words were interrupted by the signal of a passing masseuse. It looked as if without being conscious of it he were listening whether also this voice would not force a sigh from the strings in the little temple of the tokoniwa. The next moment he shuddered and continued with a tired voice:
“For ten years my honorable parents lived together in great happiness and perfect contentment. Then I was born their first and last child. For my mother did not survive my birth” . . .
He took off his glasses and began to clean them vigorously, breathing on them again and again. I saw him without them for the first time and could not help noticing his bulging, filmy, bloodshot eyes, reminding me of the eyes of some sort of large insect. It was to be seen that he had inherited from his mother his weak, abnormal sight.
“My father died only last year,” added Kumamoto, putting on his glasses again, but not yet turning towards me.” Throughout his whole life eccentric, towards the last he became childish. It was his mania to buy semi and set them free. And daily he spent long and happy hours here, by his Garden of Fulfilled Desire. He died sitting, with a smile on his face.”
The clattering of countless pairs of wooden sandals, the occasional cries of children, voices of adults, the tinkling of the bells of newspaper deliverers running by, the signal of the blind masseuse waning around the corner, and a hundred other sounds confusedly echoed into the quiet room.
“That is all, sir,” my host whispered with a sigh.
“I thank you with all my heart, Mr. Kumamoto,” I said, and then, noticing his gloomy expression, I added playfully: “But is that really all? Own up to it, my dear friend, that even you sometimes wait for the string to resound once more.”
But my host answered only with his embarrassed; buzzing laugh;
