Natsume Soseki - To the Spring Equinox and Beyond

Keitaro's eyes first went to the white scarf around the woman's slender neck. The couple immediately turned into the thoroughfare and, opposite the side Keitaro was on, were about to retrace the way they had come. Keitaro crossed over. The two walked along rather slowly, glancing into each gaily decorated shop front. Behind, Keitaro had considerable difficulty in keeping his pace attuned to their excessively slow steps. The man had an aromatic cigar in his mouth, and as he walked, slightly colored puffs of smoke were exhaled into the night air. When they were wafted behind by the wind, they gave an agreeable stimulus to Keitaro's nose. Sniffing, he patiently traced their slow steps.

The man's height when observed from the rear made him look a little like a Westerner, and the strong odor from his cigar helped somewhat in maintaining the illusion. Then Keitaro's association of ideas transferred itself to the man's companion. He imagined the woman as the foreigner's mistress, her leather gloves a gift from the man. As he secretly amused himself with this fantasy, which he knew was quite unreasonable, the two reached the streetcar stop where they had met. Halting a moment, they soon crossed the tracks to the other side. Keitaro did the same.

Again they went from the corner of Mitoshirocho over to the farther side. Keitaro crossed to the same side. The two walked on toward the south. About fifty yards from the corner was another of those iron poles painted red, next to which they stopped. Realizing for the first time that they were going to head southward by way of the Mita line, Keitaro decided he too should take the same car. Both looked back toward his direction simultaneously. Their action was quite natural because the streetcar would come from that direction. Nevertheless, Keitaro felt ill at ease. He turned up the brim of his hat and pulled it down forcefully. He passed his hand over his face. He went and stood as far back as he could under the eave of a house. He looked around in different directions. These were trying moments for him as he waited impatiently for the streetcar.

Presently it came. Keitaro thought that he could avoid being suspicious if he deliberately got on after they did, so he lagged behind the others. The woman stepped up onto the motorman's platform, almost treading on her long coat trailing behind her. But, unexpectedly, the man, contrary to Keitaro's thought that he would immediately follow her, showed no sign of doing so. He remained stationary, his hands in his cloak pockets.

Only at that moment did Keitaro realize that the man had escorted her only to see her off. Actually, Keitaro was more interested in the woman. If the two had to separate, he wished of course to abandon the man and stand by her to know her destination. It was, however, only about the conduct of the man in the black fedora, not the woman, that he had been entrusted to report on by Taguchi, so he restrained himself from leaping onto the streetcar platform.

From the motorman's platform she gave a little salute with her eyes and disappeared within the car. As it was a winter night, all the windows were closed. She did not take the trouble to open one and lean out. Nonetheless, the man remained motionless, waiting for the car to start. It began to move, electric power carrying the lighted windows southward as if it had recognized that there was no further occasion for an exchange of goodbyes between the two. The man took the cigar from his mouth and threw it to the ground. Then turning around, he went back to the concourse that forked into three streets, this time heading left and stopping by the foreign goods shop. The streetcar stop there was fresh in Keitaro's memory, the place where the stranger had run up against him, causing him to drop the bamboo walking stick.

Keitaro stealthily followed his man. As he looked at various items in which he had little interest — neckties in the new fashion, top hats, blankets with fancy stripes — he thought that this furtiveness was taking the fun out of spying. He was not ready to say he was tired of the work, but now that the woman was gone, he suddenly began to feel to a much greater degree the constraints imposed on him, although they ought to have been the same as before. Since he had been asked to observe the man in the black fedora for only two hours after his alighting from the Ogawamachi stop, he had already done his duty, so he would sooner return to his boardinghouse and go to bed.

The streetcar that the man seemed to be waiting for came. He laid his long hand on the iron rod at the entrance and lifted his body adroitly onto the car, which had not yet come to a complete stop. Keitaro, who had been hesitating until then, suddenly thought he hadn't a moment to lose. He jumped up into the car. It was not that crowded, so there was enough room for the passengers to see each other's faces. As soon as Keitaro entered the car, he attracted the attention of several who were already seated, among them the man in the black fedora. In the man's eyes Keitaro saw a surprised recognition, but nothing of the suspicion of being spied on. Relieved, he chose a seat on the same side.

He wondered where the streetcar would take him and, looking toward the front of the car, saw "For Edogawa" written in black characters. Each time the car came to a halt, he stole a furtive glance at the man, prepared if the other should transfer to do the same. The man was looking mostly either straight before him or down on his lap, his hands all the while in his pockets. His demeanor seemed to be that of a person lost in musing over something without actually thinking about anything in particular. But as the streetcar was nearing Kudanshita, he began glancing out the window, often craning his long neck, as if trying to ascertain something. Keitaro too was drawn into peering through the window into the obscurity outside. Presently, above the noise of the running vehicle, his ears caught the sound of raindrops striking the windowpanes. He looked at the bamboo cane he was carrying, wishing it were an umbrella instead.

Ever since they had been in the restaurant, Keitaro had taken notice of the man's personality and also of the look in his eyes, which seemed to indicate that he had no doubts about the world around him. The result was that Keitaro suddenly thought it much more sensible, even though it was late now, to speak frankly to the man and to report to Taguchi only those facts which the man himself admitted, rather than trying to gather material under such restricted conditions. With this thought in mind, Keitaro began to devise the best means of introducing himself.

Meanwhile, the streetcar came to the end of the line. The rain seemed to be getting heavier and heavier, for when the car halted, the sound of a downpour suddenly attacked Keitaro's eardrums. The man in the fedora muttered to himself, "What a bother," and lifted the collar of his cloak and rolled up his trouser cuffs. Keitaro used his walking stick for support as he rose from his seat.

As soon as the man got off into the rain, he caught one of the rickshaws coming up for hire. Keitaro hired another at once. "Where to, sir?" his rickshawman asked as he lifted the shafts. Keitaro ordered him to follow the rickshaw ahead of them. The man shouted and began running desperately.

When the rickshawman had run the straight road to a point below the police box on Yarai Slope, he again asked which way Keitaro wanted to go. The other rickshaw was nowhere to be seen. Keitaro raised himself from under the rickshaw hood, but not a trace of the other was in sight. He was at a loss about where to direct the rickshaw in the driving rain, his walking stick held firmly against the rickshaw floor.