"IN any case, let's decide what to do about Hiroshi. It would be best to tell him, and if it's too hard for you to, I suppose I can." Takanatsu's manner of speaking was not quite impatient. He was used to acting with efficiency and dispatch, however, and he launched into the main problem as soon as they were seated in the restaurant, unable to waste even the few minutes while the sukiyaki was stewing.

"No, please don't. I should do it if anyone is to."

"You should, of course. But the point is that when the time comes you don't."

"Anyway, leave the boy to me. I know him better than anyone else—you may not have noticed the way he was behaving today."

"How was that?"

"Catching you in your mistakes, showing off his Osaka accent—he never used to be that way. He doesn't have to be so playful, no matter how well he knows you."

"I did notice that he was livelier than he needed to be. You think he was acting?"

"He was indeed."

"He thought he had to go out of his way to entertain me?"

"Partly that, I suppose. But the truth is that he's afraid of you. He likes you and at the same time he's afraid of you."

"Why should he be afraid of me?"

"He has no way of telling what an impasse we've come to, of course, but I suspect he sees your visit as a sign things are going to change. We could go on indefinitely as we are without you, but with you here, a decision may come out. Or so he probably thinks."

"And he's really not glad I came?"

"Well, you bring presents, and he likes that. He's glad to see you. He's fond of you, but he's afraid to have you come. We feel rather alike about it, I think, Hiroshi and I, and that's one reason I hate to break the news to him. He doesn't want to be told any more than I want to tell him. I can see it in the way he acts. And he can't be sure what you might say. He probably knows there are things I myself would leave unsaid, and he's afraid he might have to hear them from you."

"And so he makes noise to cover his fright?"

"In a way the three of lis, Misako and Hiroshi and I, are alike. We're all different, of course, but we're weak in the same way, and all of us would tend to leave things as they are. Then you come along and it seems as though we're to be forced to a decision. To tell you the truth, I'm a little afraid of you myself."

"Maybe I should wash my hands of the whole thing."

"No, not that. I'm afraid, as I say, but even so, it would be better to have the matter out finally."

"All in all, the outlook couldn't be cloudier. What about this fellow Aso? Maybe we could begin with him."

"But he's like Misako and me. He says that as long as Misako refuses to act, there's nothing he can do."

"He's right, I suppose. He could make himself look like a home-wrecker."

"We've promised to talk it over and agree on a time good for the three of us. We're to consider everyone's interests."

" But that means you will forever do nothing. Really, what can be accomplished unless one of you finally takes the initiative? Your good time will never come."

"That's not quite true. Spring vacation this month would have been a good time, for instance. One of the things holding me back has been the idea of having Hiroshi in school when the break comes. I can't stand the thought of him away by himself, completely upset, maybe breaking into tears right in class. During a vacation I can go off somewhere with him, take him to the movies. I can do something anyway to keep him occupied until the first shock passes and he begins to adjust himself."

"Why haven't you done it this month, then?"

"Because it's bad for Aso. His brother is going abroad early next month and Aso would rather not worry him with family problems while he's getting ready. It would be much better to wait till he's out of the country, Aso says."

"So that the next opportunity will be summer vacation?"

"That's right. Summer vacation is longer, too, and the chances will be better."

"And something will come up then, too, and we'll have another delay. Really, there's no end to it all." Takanatsu's hand, thin but strong-looking, heavy-veined over the knuckles, trembled slightly as though gripping something heavy. The sake was possibly having its effect. He reached over and flicked the ashes from his cigar, and they fell like heavy flakes of snow into the water around the base of the brazier.

Kaname always felt a certain unreality when he talked to this cousin, back from China every two or three months; the conversation always proceeded as though the only question were: "When is the divorce to be?" Actually the earlier question: "Will there be a divorce?" was still far from answered. Takanatsu took it as firmly decided that there was to be a divorce and worried only about the time and the method. He was not on his own initiative insisting on a divorce; it was simply that he had been called into consultation only on the question of means—the more basic question, he could assume, having already been settled. Kaname for his part was not purposely displaying a strength he did not feel; but perhaps a contagious air of strength and virility about Takanatsu stirred him to a bold enthusiasm and led him to suggest more decision than he should in honesty have allowed himself. More than that: part of the pleasure he got from Takanatsu's visits lay in the feeling they gave him of controlling his own destiny. Quite unable to take action, sunk in daydreams of what it would be like once action was finally taken, he found that Takanatsu's visits stimulated the daydreams to a pleasant new liveliness, an immediacy, as though they were about to become realities. Still, it would not be right to say that he used Takanatsu only as a sort of vehicle for turning out more vigorous daydreams. Rather he hoped that through Takanatsu the daydreams might turn into something solid.

A separation is always sad. Regardless of who is involved, there is a certain sadness in the mere fact of a separation, and Takanatsu was of course right that nothing would ever come of their waiting arm in arm for the perfect moment. There had been none of this hesitating when Takanatsu himself had left his wife. After he made up his mind he simply called her into the room one morning and informed her, and spent the rest of the day explaining his reasons. And when it was settled, they lay in each other's arms all night, the final parting before them —"She cried, and I cried—I wailed, too," Takanatsu told Kaname later. Kaname had crane to Takanatsu with his problem because the latter had been through the experience and because Kaname had watched with some envy the firmness he had shown. Kaname could tell himself that the sort of man who could face sorrow squarely and who could weep as the situation demanded was more composed when the crisis had passed—that, indeed, without some such ability one could not make a break at all. But Kaname was not up to following the example. He was guided by a Tokyo-bred sense of how to comport himself, and with his dislike for the unrestrained Osaka drama he could only with revulsion see himself as the contorted, weeping principal in a scene from an Osaka melodrama. He wanted to carry through cleanly, without disfiguring tears. He wanted the decision to be as though he and his wife had arrived at it in complete harmony, their separate feelings melted into a general, embracing consent.

And he did not think that was impossible. His case was after all not like Takanatsu's. He had nothing against his wife. They simply did not excite each other. Everything else—their tastes, their ways of thinking—matched perfectly. To him she was not "female," to her he was not "male"—it was the consciousness of being hubsand and wife and yet not being husband and wife that caused the tension between them, and had they not been married they could probably have been excellent friends.

Kaname felt, indeed, that there was no reason why he need stop seeing her after they had separated. He saw no reason why, with the passage of the years, he could not meet her pleasantly and without rancor as the wife of Aso and the mother of Hiroshi. When the time came, of course, it might not be so easy to do, out of deference to Aso and public opinion, as it seemed now, but the sorrow and regret which the simple word "parting" carried with it would be lessened he did not know how much if they parted with at least the intention of seeing each other again. Misako had once said: "You will let me know, won't you, if Hiroshi is ever seriously ill?—you must promise me you will. I should hate to think I couldn't see him. Aso says he wouldn't mind." Kaname felt sure that "Hiroshi" included "Hiroshi's father," and he of course wanted similar permission from her. They had not been entirely happy perhaps, but they had after all lived together as husband and wife, gone to bed together and got up together, for more than ten years, had even had a child together. Was there a law requiring that once they parted they must be to each other as strangers passing in the street, that if the worst came they might not even meet at one or the other's deathbed? If as time went by they acquired new mates and new children, the desire to see each other might fade, but at least for the present the reservation with which they would part was the best comfort they had.

"As a matter of fact, there's another point. You may laugh, but it wasn't only because of the boy that I wanted to make the break this month."

"Oh?" Takanatsu looked questioningly at Kaname, whose eyes had fallen to the brazier and whose lips were curled slightly in an uncomfortable smile.

"I spoke of a time that's good for all of us, but one of the things I wanted to consider was the season. Some seasons would be so much sadder than others. It would be hardest to separate in the fall. Much the saddest time of the year. I know a man who was all ready for a final break, and then his wife broke into tears and told him to take care of himself with the winter coming on, and he canceled the whole thing. I can see how that might happen."

"Who was it?"

"No one in particular. I heard the story somewhere."

"You seem to go about gathering examples."

"I keep wondering how other people managed. I don't especially go around asking, but I seem naturally to hear of every sort of case. But then ours is rather an unusual one and there aren't many precedents that help."

"The best time of the year, then, is when it's warm and sunny, like now?"

"That's my theory. It's still a little chilly but it's getting warmer, and before long the cherry blossoms will be out and after that the new leaves— everything to make a separation as easy as it could be."

"Have you come to this conclusion by yourself?"

"Misako agrees. If we're to separate, it should be in the spring."

"Splendid. That means, I suppose, that now you have to wait till next spring."

"Summer wouldn't be too bad... but my mother died in the summer. July. I can remember it so well. Everything should have been warm and alive, but summer that year was sadder than I'd ever thought it could be. The sight of green leaves made me choke up with tears. There was nothing I could do."

"You see, then? It makes no difference whether it's the spring or any other time of the year. If something happens while the cherries are in bloom, you choke up when you see cherry blossoms."

"I've wondered myself if that might not be true. But if I let myself think so, my chance goes and I find myself with no hope at all."

"And you might end up by not getting a divorce?"

"Do you think so?"

"The question is: do you?"

"I honestly don't know. The only thing I know is that the reasons for getting a divorce are all too clear. We didn't get on well before, and certainly we can't go on being married to each other—we really aren't any more—now that this affair with Aso has developed. Or I should say now that I've encouraged her into it. That's all I really know. Misako knows it too, but we can't make a decision between being sad for a little while and being wretched for the rest of our lives. Or rather we've made the decision and have trouble finding the courage to carry it through."

"Suppose you think of it this way: if you're no longer married anyway, then it's only a question of whether you go your own ways or not—a question of whether you go on living in the same house or not. Might that make it easier?"

"I've tried that. But it isn't as easy as you'd think."

" Because of Hiroshi? It's not as if he'd have to stop calling Misako his mother, though."

"I suppose it's a common enough thing for families to be separated. In the civil service the father has to live abroad or in the provinces and leave the children in Tokyo. And in the country where there are no schools, children have to live away from home. I could think of it that way if I had to."

"You're telling yourself how sad it all is. Really it isn't so sad as you let yourself think."

"But, after all, sorrow is a very subjective thing. The real trouble is that Misako and I have no resentment against each other. If we did, it would be easier, but each of us thinks the other is perfectly right, and that makes everything impossible."

"It might have been best of they'd grabbed the reins and eloped."

"As a matter of fact, before we found ourselves in this tangle Aso apparently suggested that. But Misako laughed and said she couldn't possibly do it unless he gave her ether and carried her away unconscious."

"How would it be if you were to work up a quarrel?"

"No good. We would know we were acting. 'Get out,' I'd say. 'I'm going,' she'd answer, and when it actually came to doing it, one or the other would break into tears."

"A problem couple if there ever was one. Deciding to get a divorce and then putting every possible obstacle in the way."

"It would be good if there were some sort of mental anesthetic you could take.... How was it when you left Yoshiko? You were able to hate her, I suppose."

"I did feel some resentment, but I felt a great deal of regret at the same time. I doubt if it's really possible to hate anyone except another man."

"But—this will sound strange, I know—don't you suppose it's easier to divorce a woman with a past? She doesn't take the matter too seriously, and she's known plenty of men before you and can go happily back to her old life."

"You probably wouldn t say so if you'd had the experience." Takanatsu's face clouded slightly, but he quickly recovered and went on in his brisk manner: "It's probably like your seasons. There's no type of woman it's easier to leave than any other type."

"I wonder if that's true. I've always thought the courtesan type—could you call it?—would be easy to leave and the other type hard—the mother type. Maybe I'm thinking only of my own problem, though."

"But the very fact that a divorce means so little to your 'courtesan type' makes it in a way sadder. Then, too, if she arranges herself a good marriage it's another thing, but if she goes back to the gay life, it reflects on you somehow. I'm quite past it all myself, of course, but you can't say it's easy to leave either a loose woman or a prim one."

The conversation died and they turned to the food for a time. They had drunk very little, but the slight flush of intoxication persisted surprisingly, and with it a heavy, springlike drowsiness.

"Shall we have dessert?"

"All right." Kaname turned moodily to press the button.

"I suppose, as a matter of fact," Takanatsu began again, "all women these days have a little of the courtesan in them. Misako herself isn't a pure maternal type."

"Oh, but she is, though, basically. It's just that she's covered it over lately with a coating of the other."

"You may be right. The matter of the coating is important. It's got so that to some extent every woman tries to make herself look like an American movie star and naturally takes on a little the look of your courtesan. It's happening in Shanghai too."

"I can't say I haven't tried to push Misako in that direction."

"Because you're a woman-worshipper. Woman-worshippers prefer the courtesan to the mother."

"That's not quite the point. The point is—what shall I say?—to go back a little, I've tried to push her in that direction because I've thought the courtesan type would be easier to leave. But it hasn't helped. If she really had changed through and through, it might have worked out as I hoped, but she has only a thin covering and at the crucial moment the metal underneath always shows through and makes everything seem more impossible than ever."

"What does she think?"

"She says she's degenerated—she's not so plain and decent as she once was. It's true, of course, but at least half the fault is mine."

A new thought came to Kaname, and with it he seemed to see himself displayed in all his chilly inhumanity. In the years since he married Misako he had been obsessed with one question: how to leave her. "I must get away, I must get away"—it was as though he had married for that one purpose. He had told himself, however, that though he could not love her, he could at least treat her with respect. But if this was not the most unmixed contempt, what could be? What woman, maternal type or wanton type, lively and sociable or reserved and withdrawn, could bear the cold loneliness of being married to such a man?

"I wouldn't object if she honestly were a courtesan," Kaname finally added.

"I'm not so sure of that either. Do you think you could tolerate the sort of thing Yoshiko did?"

"That's beside the point. Forgive me for saying so, but I wouldn't consider marrying a woman who's actually been a professional. I've never taken to geisha. What I have in mind is a smart, intelligent modern woman with something of the courtesan in her."

"And would you like it then if she played the courtesan after you were married?"

"She would be intelligent, I said. She would have some self-restraint."

"You are being very demanding indeed. Where, I wonder, will we find the woman to satisfy you? You really should have stayed single—all woman-worshippers should be single. They never find the woman who answers all the requirements."

"One try at it has been enough. I'll not get married again—for a while at least—maybe for the rest of my life."

"You'll marry again and make a mess of it again. All woman-worshippers do."

The waitress came with dessert and interrupted the conversation.