Free Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata Page A

that venomous jealousy. Of ugly suspicions, clinging to her breast like the ugly birthmark.
    He was deeply uneasy.
    Had he not hoped for the same thing?
    One’s heart could indeed move from mother to daughter; but if, still drunk in the embrace of the mother, he had not sensed that he was being passed on to the daughter, had he not in fact been the captive of withcraft?
    And had his whole nature not changed after he met Mrs Ota?
    He felt numb.
    The maid came in. ‘Miss Ota said she would stop by again if you were busy.’
    ‘She left, then?’ Kikuji stood up.
2
    ‘It was good of you to telephone this morning.’ Fumiko looked up at him, showing the full curve of her long, white throat.
    There was a yellowish shadow in the hollow from throat to breast.
    Whether it was a play of light or a sign of weariness, it somehow gave him rest.
    ‘Kurimoto is here.’
    He was able to speak calmly. He had come out feeling tense and constrained, but at the sight of Fumiko the tension strangely left him.
    She nodded. ‘I saw Miss Kurimoto’s umbrella.’
    ‘Oh. That one?’
    There was a long-handled gray umbrella by the door.
    ‘Suppose you wait in the cottage. Old Kurimoto will be leaving soon.’
    He wondered why, knowing that Fumiko was coming, he had not sent Chikako away.
    ‘It doesn’t make any difference as far as I’m concerned.’
    ‘Come on in, then.’
    Shown into the drawing room, Fumiko greeted Chikako as if she did not suspect the hostility. She thanked Chikako for her condolences.
    Chikako hunched her left shoulder and threw her head back, as when she watched a pupil at tea.
    ‘Your mother was such a gentle person. I always feel when I see someone like her that I’m watching the last flowers fall. This is no world for gentle people.’
    ‘Mother wasn’t as gentle as all that.’
    ‘It must have troubled her to die and leave an only daughter behind.’
    Fumiko looked at the floor.
    The mouth with its pouting lower lip was drawn tight.
    ‘You must be lonely. Suppose you take up tea again.’
    ‘But …’
    ‘It will give you something to think about.’
    ‘But I’m afraid I can’t afford such luxuries.’
    ‘Come, now.’ Chikako dismissed the remark with a sweep of her hands, which had been folded on her knees. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m here to air the cottage. The rains seem to be over.’ She glanced at Kikuji. ‘Fumiko is here too. Shall we?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘I thought I might be allowed to use the Shino piece you have in memory of Fumiko’s mother.’
    Fumiko looked up.
    ‘And we can all exchange memories.’
    ‘But I’ll only weep if I go into the cottage.’
    ‘Let’s weep. We’ll all have a good cry. I won’t have my way with the cottage once Kikuji is married. It’s full of memories, of course, but then …’ Chikako laughed shortly, and was sober again. ‘Once we’ve arranged everything with Mrs Inamura’s Yukiko, you know.’
    Fumiko nodded. Her face was expressionless.
    There were signs of fatigue, however, on the round face that so resembled her mother’s.
    ‘You’ll only embarrass the Inamuras, talking of plans that aren’t definite,’ said Kikuji.
    ‘I’m speaking of a possible engagement. But you’re right. It’s the good things that attract the villains. You must pretend you’ve heard nothing, Fumiko.’
    ‘Of course.’ Fumiko nodded again.
    Chikako summoned the maid and went out to clean the cottage.
    ‘Be careful,’ she called back from the garden. ‘The leaves are still wet here in the shade.’
3
    ‘It was raining so hard here that you must have heard it over the telephone.’
    ‘Can you hear rain over the telephone? But I wasn’t listening. Could you hear the rain in my garden?’
    Fumiko looked out toward the shrubbery, from beyond which they could hear Chikako’s broom.
    Kikuji too looked out. ‘I didn’t think so at the time, but afterward I began to wonder. It was a real cloudburst.’
    ‘I was terrified at the