Was it possible, then, that everything she had lived for was vain and profitless? No: she shook her head in firm rejection of the idea. Her world was a precarious place, a place where one groped one’s way through the gloom; where everything one’s hand touched was colorless, hard, and cold; where the darkness seemed to stretch endlessly ahead. Yet at the end of it all a brighter world surely lay waiting, like the light when one finally emerges from a tunnel. If it were not there waiting, then nothing made sense. She must not despair, she must walk on; unless she climbed and went on climbing she would never reach the top of the hill.

Taking a deep breath, she shifted the heavy umbrella in her hand. Tightly clasped in her other hand was the cloth hold-all containing her papers. She looked up, and saw the gently sloping road stretching up far away from her. She thought she had covered three-quarters of the way, but it was still scarcely a half.

She closed the umbrella to use as a walking stick and pulling the shawl up over her head trudged on once more.

The following Saturday Etsuko came with her youngest daughter Kuniko to stay the night, their first visit of the New Year. Tomo was up as usual, but had felt sick since early morning and could scarcely take any food. By the time she had finally reached home on the evening of the snowfall she had barely been able to take more than a single pace without resting. Opening the lattice door of the side entrance and seating herself on the edge of the raised floor inside the hall, she felt faint and unable to speak.

When Suga came out to welcome her home, Tomo did not look up but gestured with her hand and said:

‘Warm water.’

Startled to see Tomo with the snow-covered shawl still over her head Suga, when she brought the water, had peered into Tomo’s face as she sat hunched forward on the step.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing. I’m just a little tired,’ said Tomo without opening her eyes. ‘Please don’t tell the master.’

She went to bed early that night but was up as usual the following day. She knew that Etsuko was coming on Saturday and felt she must not under any circumstances take to her bed before then. A dread lest she should not be able to get up again put strength into her weary limbs.

Etsuko’s husband Shinohara was by now a leading barrister. His relations with his wife Etsuko were good and his attitude as son-in-law to Yukitomo and Tomo left nothing to be desired, so that even Yukitomo who scorned his own son Michimasa was obliged to pay him a grudging respect. Partly out of deference to the other’s position as a man, he rarely objected to any suggestion made by Shinohara. When something occurred that was beyond her own powers to deal with, Tomo would let Shinohara know via Etsuko and have him make the suggestion to Yukitomo.