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himself, I am only dreaming; besides, I’m already fully conscious of the significance of those howling dogs because I’ve written about them, this is no time for howling dogs. At that moment he was in effect beholding himself over the entirety of his thirty-five years of life, from professional bantamweight boxer to author or playwright in reality; at the same time he had shaken off the feeling of having been pulled abruptly backward out of his dream and the physical sensation that lingered after sobbing, and was beginning to tingle with the first indications of his daytime bliss.
    Thereupon he began for the hundredth time the game that was his chief source of pleasure now, imagining, with all the fine precision of a timetable, his mother setting out from home on the occasion of his death. The plan was to go into operation just before he entered the final coma, when he had managed to ascertain from the doctors while still fully conscious that death was a certainty within the next few days, when, in other words, the final stage in the accomplishment of his death had been successfully completed.
    On that chosen morning, when a cable from the doctor was almost certain to persuade his mother, who never believed a word he said himself, of the objective necessity of setting out finally from the depths of theforest, he would first have the acting executor of the will place a long-distance call to the airport in the provincial city and verify that all flights were on schedule. And he would have her inquire about weather conditions, not only at Haneda airport in Tokyo but also at Itami in Osaka. All in order. He had heard that the pass known in his region as “ninety-nine-curve-pass” was paved now, which meant there was scarcely any likelihood of serious obstacles along the only route out of the valley in the forest to the provincial city on the plain. His mother would leave the valley in a three-wheel truck, emerge from the forest, speed across the plain at the bottom of the pass to the provincial city and be in time for her flight. She would change planes at Osaka on schedule and arrive in Tokyo on schedule, head upright, eyes closed, speaking to no one and, if some overfriendly passenger persisted in speaking to her, pulling from her tight sash the card that had arrived in the mail with her plane ticket. On the card was written: “This old woman does not speak to strangers. In case of emergency, please help her contact the following address.”
    When it was time at last he would telephone the valley deep in the forest and determine whether the three-wheel truck had left with his mother in it. If she had set out already, the house of his birth, known locally as “the Manor in the valley,” would be deserted. In that case the wife of the postmaster (he was also head of the telephone office), who sat all day in front of a switchboard that was still manual, would take his call.
    ____I can see the three-wheeler coming back across the wood bridge, yessir!, she was certain to report, amused by the strange request phoned all the way from Tokyo, to look and see whether a three-wheel truck was heading for the concrete bridge that crossed to the highway out of thevalley. The old lady from the Manor house is setting in it, wearing her urn of ashes of her war dead in a wooden box upon her bosom. She must have went around by the Monkey Shrine to pay her respects before she leaves the village, yessir, and she just now came back across the wood bridge and now they’re a-heading out towards the highway, and the old lady from the Manor house is setting straight up alongside the driver, with her eyes closed, and that box upon her bosom, yessir!
    ____Does it seem as if her eyes are closed because she isn’t feeling well? he would ask with just a touch of eagerness, exposing a weakness he could never quite control where his mother was concerned.
    ____Goodness, no! That old lady doesn’t think anybody but herself is human, so she always