After a while, we came to a little path which seemed to lead up to a house on a small hill. The hill was covered with a mass of green foliage. At the foot of the path was a gate, and on one of the columns was a sign telling us that we were at the entrance to a tree nursery. We knew then that the path did not lead to a private estate. Looking up at the gate, Sensei said, "Shall we go in?"
But he had hinted only, and his hints were to me like a vast threatening cloud hanging over my head, vague in outline and yet frightening. The fear within me, nevertheless, was very real.
Vainly, I searched my heart for an answer.
"But there is no one whom you might call the object of my love," I said. "I have not hidden anything from you, Sensei."
I received from him only two pieces of correspondence that might strictly be called "letters." One of them was the simple letter that I have just mentioned, and the other was a very long letter which he wrote me shortly before his death
He seemed quite relaxed as he stood there, and his voice was calm. But there was on his face a strangely clouded expression.
"Of course, my last remark would lead one to suppose that the husband is self-reliant. Which is laughable. Tell me, how do I appear to you? Do you think me a strong or a weak person?"
"Somewhere in-between," I answered.
I was not overly worried about my father, in spite of the warnings that Sensei had given me since winter concerning his illness. Rather, I felt sorry for my mother, whose life after my father's death would, I knew, be very lonely.
I want you to keep everything I have told you a secret, even after I myself am dead
In them the bathers would drink tea, rest, have their bathing suits rinsed, wash the salt from their bodies, and leave their hats and sunshades for safe-keeping.