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gargling. Keitaro looked up and exchanged a few words about whether Sunaga had caught cold, but continued to stand where he was. Finally Sunaga told him to come up. Keitaro cautiously asked if it was all right to. As if not understanding, Sunaga nodded and withdrew behind the shoji.
    As Keitaro walked upstairs, he thought he heard a slight rustle of clothing in the inner room below. On the second floor he noticed nothing unusual except for a padded dressing gown with a black collar which his friend seemed to have been wearing and had discarded on the mats. From Keitaro's temperament and from his intimacy with Sunaga, it might have been expected he would ask straight out about the woman who had given him such concern, but owing to his sense of having wronged his friend in giving too free a rein to thoughts not altogether innocent, and because of his awareness that his imagination had settled on a conjecture too cynical to mention directly, Keitaro was deprived of the courage to ask freely who the girl was who had just entered the house. Instead, as if trying to hold back a thought that wanted to rush forward, he said, "For the time being I'm abandoning my dreams. I've come to the realization that earning a living is more important."
    He asked quite seriously that Sunaga introduce him to the uncle he had previously spoken of, the one living on Uchisaiwaicho, saying he wanted to have an interview with him for that very purpose. This uncle was the husband of the younger sister of Sunaga's mother. He had gone into business after leaving government service and was now connected to several companies. Sunaga apparently had no intention of asking his uncle for help in finding a position. Keitaro remembered Sunaga's once saying that this uncle had offered him any number of possibilities, but that none of them appealed to him.
    Sunaga had arranged, he said, to see his uncle that morning, but a sore throat had prevented him from going out. In a few days he would be able to, so at that time he would definitely speak to his uncle about Keitaro. Then he added, whether as a precaution or for some other reason, "He's a very busy man, you know. Besides, he has job applicants from all over. I have no idea what he'll say, but it wouldn't hurt to go see him." Keitaro interpreted these words as a warning not to expect too much. One interview would at least be better than none, and in contrast to his usual behavior he pleaded with Sunaga to inquire on his behalf.
    Actually, though, Keitaro was not as worried or as anxious as his words implied. It was true, as he had himself asserted, that he had been and still was racking his brains and wasting no effort running about trying to find a job since his graduation from university. But there was exaggeration in the painful tone of voice— in half of it at least—with which he appealed to others, claiming he had not yet been given even the first glimmer of hope. He was not, as Sunaga was, the only child in his family, but like Sunaga he had only his mother at home, his younger sister having married. While he had no house or lot to rent as Sunaga did, he did own a small plot of farmland in the country. This tenanted land brought him yearly yields of rice—not much, but enough so that when the harvest was converted to cash according to the market price, he had no difficulties over the twenty or thirty yen required for his room and board each month. Furthermore, many a time had he requested extra expenses from his indulgent mother as if, so to speak, he were preying on himself. Under these circumstances, his clamoring for a position, though not altogether false, was certainly raised aloud through vanity in the hope of boasting about it to the people back home, to friends, and even to himself. Had the position itself been his real concern, he ought to have worked harder at the university in compiling a better record, but romantic that he was, he had made it a point to be as idle as he possibly could, the