Morning Mist 295
After seeing him to the door, Yoshihidé pushed the postcards out of sight. “The old man’s in his second childhood. We don’t know what to do with him.”
I left towards evening. As I passed the hedge, I saw X squatting by the boiler, busily shoving in wood. I spoke across the hedge to his wife, who was bustling about the kitchen. Though he was less than a yard away from me, X’s attention did not leave the bath. I might as well not have been there.
Some two weeks later, Yoshihidé called me in for consultation. Thereafter I frequently visited the X house. Yoshihidé had chosen the girl he wanted to marry, but his parents would not give their consent.
To make quite sure of my ground, I met the girl and talked to her. She was bright and good-natured, a girl in whom I could find no fault. Everything promised a happy marriage, and I concluded that I must help him. With the girl’s permission, I went cautiously to work.
On my next visit, I introduced myself as before, and again was questioned about Nishikata-machi. This time Yoshihidé had told me what to do. I expansively admitted knowing everyone on the list. As Yoshihidé had predicted, X’s happiness was extraordinary. His spirits brightened, his memory seemed to come back, and by fits he spoke of how it had been when I had come visiting as a school friend of Yoshihidé’s.
I even went home with a present.
It was a commodity new on the market: the spring clothes-pin. Bringing a large cloth bundle from a back room, X dropped two bunches of clothes-pins into my hand. He had some days earlier passed a night stall by the station, Yoshihidé told me, and bought out the stock of clothes-pins.
I had heard that X was an expert calligrapher, and I next brought a door plate to be inscribed. I have said that my name is Iké Takeichirō. Because it can be misread Ikétaké Ichirō, I asked him to leave a space between the first character
