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still angry with Satoko, who always had a ready supply of fresh ambiguities and riddles to disconcert him. And he was also angered by his own indecision when faced with finding a solution to her teasing.
    When he and Honda had been resting in the grass on the island, he had indeed said that he was looking for “something absolutely definite.” What it was he didn’t know, but whenever this bright certainty seemed to shine within his grasp, the fluttering sleeves of Satoko’s aquamarine kimono interposed themselves, trapping him once again in the quicksands of indecision. Though he had sensed something definite, a flash of intuition, distant, unattainable, he chose to believe that Satoko was the barrier that prevented him from taking a single step toward it.
    It was even more galling to have to admit that his very pride, by definition, cut him off from all possible means of dealing with Satoko’s riddles and the anxiety they provoked. If, for example, he were now to ask someone: “What does Satoko mean about not being here any more?” it would only betray the depth of his interest in her. “What could I do,” he thought. “No matter what I did to convince them I wasn’t interested in Satoko but only in an abstract anxiety of my own, nobody would believe me.” A multitude of such thoughts raced through his head.
    Ordinarily a bore, school under these circumstances offered Kiyoaki some relief. He always spent his lunch hours with Honda, even though Honda’s conversation had taken a somewhat tedious turn of late. On the day of the Abbess’s visit, Honda had accompanied the others to the main house. And there Her Reverence had addressed them with a sermon that had completely seized his imagination. Now he couldn’t wait to assault Kiyoaki’s inattentive ears with his own exegesis of each point.
    It was curious that while the sermon had left the dreamy Kiyoaki quite indifferent, it struck rationalistic Honda with the force of cogency.
    The Gesshu Temple on the outskirts of Nara was a convent, quite a rarity in Hosso Buddhism. The gist of the sermon had strongly appealed to Honda, and the Abbess had been careful to introduce her listeners to the doctrine of Yuishiki
     
∗ by using simple examples of no sophistication at all.
    “Then there was the parable that Her Reverence said came to her when she saw the dog’s body hanging over the falls,” said Honda, thoroughly caught up in himself. “I don’t think there’s any doubt whatever that her use of it shows how fond she is of your family. And then her way of telling it—court phrases blending with old-fashioned Kyoto dialect. It’s an elusive language that is filled with all sorts of subtle nuances. It certainly did a great deal to heighten the impact.
    “You remember that the story is set in Tang China. A man named Yuan Hsaio was on his way to the famous Mount Kaoyu to study the teachings of Buddha. When night fell, he happened to be beside a cemetery, so he lay down to sleep among the burial mounds. Then in the middle of the night he awoke with a terrible thirst. Stretching out his hand, he scooped up some water from a hole by his side. As he dozed off again, he thought to himself that never had water tasted so pure, so fresh and cold. But when morning came, he saw what he had drunk from in the dark. Incredible though it seemed, what had tasted so delicious was water that had collected in a human skull. He retched and was sick. Yet this experience taught something to Yuan Hsaio. He realized that as long as conscious desire is at work, it will permit distinctions to exist. But if one can suppress it, these distinctions dissolve and one can be as content with a skull as with anything else.
    “But what interests me is this: once Yuan Hsaio had been thus enlightened, could he drink that water again, secure in the knowledge that it was pure and delicious? And don’t you think that the same would hold true for chastity? If a boy is naïve, of course, he can