文鳥 English

In October I moved to Waseda.

As I sat alone in my cavernous study, resting my composed face on my hand, Miekichi came and told me I ought to keep a bird.

I answered that I supposed I might.

But just to be sure, I asked what kind of bird, and he answered: a Java sparrow.

Since the Java sparrow appears in Miekichi's own fiction, I supposed it must be a beautiful bird, and asked him to go ahead and buy one.

But Miekichi only kept repeating the same thing — you really ought to keep one.

Yes, yes, I'll buy one, I'll buy one, I mumbled, still resting on my hand, and before long Miekichi fell silent.

It was only then that it occurred to me he had probably grown disgusted with my hand-propped chin.

Then, after about three minutes, he started up again, saying I ought to buy a cage as well.

When I agreed to this too, instead of pressing me further he launched into a lecture on birdcages.

The lecture was fairly elaborate, but I am sorry to say I have forgotten every word of it.

Only when he got to the part about how a good one runs to about twenty yen did I suddenly interject that surely something so expensive wasn't necessary.

Miekichi only grinned.

When I then asked where on earth one bought such things, he gave the utterly unremarkable answer that any bird shop would do.

And the cage? I asked in turn. The cage — well, that's — it'll be somewhere or other, he said, with a vagueness like grasping at clouds.

But surely you need somewhere in mind, I said, putting on a face as though this simply would not do, whereupon Miekichi laid a hand to his cheek and said there was supposedly a master cage-maker in Komagome, though being an old man he might well be dead by now — and grew altogether forlorn about it.

In any case, it was only natural that whoever had proposed the thing should bear the responsibility, so I promptly entrusted the whole matter to Miekichi.

Whereupon he immediately told me to hand over the money.

I certainly did hand it over.

Miekichi, wherever he had bought it, carried in his breast a folded silk wallet of nanako weave, and had the habit of stuffing every bit of money into it, whether his own or someone else's.

I myself witnessed him press a five-yen note firmly into the bottom of that wallet.

In this manner the money certainly fell into Miekichi's hands.

But the bird and the cage were not so quick to arrive.

Meanwhile autumn turned to Indian summer.

Miekichi came often.

He would talk at length about women and then go home.

Of the Java sparrow and the lecture on cages, not a word.

Through the glass doors, the sun fell pleasantly on the five-foot veranda.

If I was to keep a Java sparrow at all, I thought, then in such mild weather, set out on this veranda, it would surely sing all the better for it.

According to Miekichi's fiction, the Java sparrow cries chiyo, chiyo.

He seemed to have taken quite a liking to that cry, for he used chiyo, chiyo again and again in his writing.

Perhaps he had once been in love with a woman named Chiyo.

But he himself never said any such thing.

Nor did I ever ask.

The sun, in any case, went on falling pleasantly on the veranda.

And the Java sparrow did not sing.

Presently the frost began to fall.

Day after day I passed my time in that cavernous study, my cold face now composed, now disordered, propped on my hand and then not.

The doors were shut fast, doubled against the cold.

I did nothing but feed charcoal into the brazier.

The Java sparrow, in the end, I had forgotten entirely.

It was then that Miekichi came bursting in briskly through the gate.

It was still early evening.

Being cold, I had been holding my upper body over the brazier, deliberately warming my gloomy face, when I suddenly turned cheerful.

Miekichi had Horyu in tow.

A fine nuisance for Horyu, that.

Each of them carried a cage.

On top of that, Miekichi, in the manner of an older brother, carried a large box in his arms.

It was on this early-winter evening that the five-yen note turned into a Java sparrow, a cage, and a box.

Miekichi was immensely pleased with himself.

Just look at this, he said.

Horyu, bring that lamp closer, he said.

And yet the tip of his own nose had gone a little purple with cold.

Sure enough, a splendid cage had been produced.

The base was lacquered.

The bamboo had been finely shaved and then dyed.

And it had cost, he said, three yen.

Cheap, isn't it, Horyu, he said.

Horyu said, yes, cheap.

I myself could not really tell whether it was cheap or dear, but I said, well, cheap, I suppose.

A really good one, he said, would run to as much as twenty yen.

This made the second time twenty yen had come up.

Compared to twenty yen it was cheap, of course.

This lacquer, sensei, he explained at length — if you leave it out in the sun, the black tinge will fade and gradually the vermilion will come through — and this bamboo, you see, has been well boiled once already, so it's quite all right.

What exactly was all right, I asked, and he said, well, just look at the bird — isn't it beautiful?

It was indeed beautiful.

Set in the next room, viewed from about four feet away, it did not stir in the least.

In the dimness it looked pure white.

So white that, had it not been crouched inside the cage, one would hardly have taken it for a bird at all.

It looked somehow cold.

It must be cold, mustn't it, I asked, and he said that was precisely why he'd had the box made.

At night, he said, you put it into this box.

I asked why there were two cages, and he said the plainer one was for putting the bird in now and then, to let it bathe.

This sounds like rather a lot of trouble, I thought, when he added that since it would dirty the cage with its droppings, I ought to clean it out from time to time.

Miekichi was quite unyielding on the Java sparrow's behalf.

When I agreed, yes, yes, to all this, Miekichi next produced a bag of millet from his sleeve.

This you must feed it every morning.

If you don't change the feed, at least take out the dish and blow away the husks.

Otherwise the bird will have to pick out each good grain one by one from among the husks.

Change the water too, every morning.

You're a late riser, sensei, so that should suit you nicely, he said, showing the most extraordinary solicitude for the bird.

So I too agreed to see to everything.

Then Horyu, from his own sleeve, brought out a feed dish and a water dish and set them neatly before me.

With everything thus prepared down to the last detail, and pressed to carry it out, I found myself obliged, out of sheer decency, to look after the Java sparrow.

In my heart I had considerable doubts, but I resolved, at any rate, to give it a try.

If I couldn't manage it, I thought, someone in the household would surely see to it.

Presently Miekichi carefully set the birdcage into the box, carried it out to the veranda, said, I'll leave it here, then, and went home.

I spread my bedding in the middle of that cavernous study and lay down to a chilly sleep.

In my dreams the feeling of having taken on a Java sparrow was somewhat cold, but once I was truly asleep it was as tranquil as any ordinary night.

The next morning, when I woke, the sun was already shining on the glass doors.

At once I thought I really must feed the Java sparrow.

But getting up was such a bother.

Thinking, I'll do it in a moment, I'll do it in a moment, I let it go until it was well past eight.

Having no choice, I took the box's lid off and set the birdcage out into the light while washing my face, treading barefoot on the cold veranda floor as I did so.

The Java sparrow was blinking its eyes.

It must have wanted to be up much earlier, I thought, and felt sorry for it.

The Java sparrow's eyes were jet black.

Around the lids ran a fine line, as though a thread of pale pink silk had been stitched on.

Each time it blinked, the silk thread drew suddenly together into a single line.

and then, in an instant, rounded out again.

The moment the cage came out of the box, the Java sparrow tilted its white neck slightly and, turning those black eyes, looked at my face for the first time.

Then it cried chi.

I quietly set the birdcage on top of the box.

The Java sparrow flitted suddenly off its perch.

and then landed on it again.

There were two perches.

Blackish-green rods, set as bridges at a suitable distance apart, ran side by side across the cage.

Looking at the foot that lightly grasped one of them, I saw how delicate it was made.

At the end of the slender pale-pink toes were claws like shavings of pearl, curled snugly and comfortably around the perch.

Then, with a light flutter, something moved before my eyes.

The Java sparrow had already turned about on the perch.

It kept tilting its head this way and that.

Just as it seemed to catch itself mid-tilt and stretch its neck slightly forward, the white feathers flickered again.

Its feet landed neatly near the middle of the far perch.

It cried chi.

and peered at my face from a distance.

I went off to the bathroom to wash my face.

On the way back I stopped by the kitchen, opened the cupboard, took out the bag of millet Miekichi had brought the evening before, put feed into the dish, filled the other dish with water, and went out again to the veranda of my study.

Miekichi is a thorough sort of man, and the evening before he had carefully explained what to bear in mind when feeding it.

According to him, if you open the cage door carelessly the Java sparrow will simply escape.

So you must open the cage door with your right hand while holding your left hand beneath it, blocking the opening from outside — otherwise it's dangerous.

The same care must be taken when taking out the feed dish.

He even demonstrated the hand motions for me, but I forgot to ask how, using both hands like that, one was ever supposed to get the feed dish back into the cage.

Having no choice, I held the feed dish and pushed the cage door slowly up with the back of my hand.

At the same moment I blocked the opening at once with my left hand.

The bird turned briefly.

and cried chi.

I was at a loss what to do with my left hand, still blocking the opening.

It did not look like a bird that would watch for a chance to bolt, and I somehow felt sorry for it.

Miekichi had taught me something ill-advised.

I slowly put my large hand into the cage.

Whereupon the Java sparrow suddenly began beating its wings.

Through the gaps in the finely shaved bamboo, warm down went flying white, so violently did its wings clatter.

I suddenly grew disgusted with my own great hand.

The instant I managed to set the millet dish and water dish between the perches, I drew my hand back out.

The cage door fell shut of its own accord with a clap.

The Java sparrow returned to its perch.

Turning its white neck half sideways, it looked up at me outside the cage.

then straightened its bent neck and gazed at the millet and water beneath its feet.

I went off to the sitting room for my meal.

In those days it was my daily practice to write fiction.

Between meals I was generally at my desk, pen in hand.

In the quiet I could hear my own pen scratching across the paper.

It was the custom that no one entered that cavernous study.

There were mornings, noons, and nights when the sound of the pen struck me as lonely.

But there were also many times when the sound stopped short, or had to be stopped.

At such times my habit was to hold the pen between my fingers, rest my chin in my palm, and gaze through the glass at the garden being lashed by the wind.

When that was done, I would try pinching my resting chin.

and if pen and paper still would not come together, I would stretch that pinched chin between two fingers.

Just then, on the veranda, the Java sparrow suddenly cried chiyo, chiyo, twice.

I laid down my pen and went quietly to look, and there was the Java sparrow, facing me, thrusting its white breast out from the perch as though about to topple forward, calling chiyo loudly.

It said chiyo in a voice so lovely that I thought Miekichi would surely be delighted to hear it.

Miekichi had assured me, as he left, that once it grew tame it would cry chiyo — it certainly would.

I crouched down again beside the cage.

The Java sparrow turned its puffed-out neck this way and that a few times.

Then the whole white bundle of its body slipped lightly off the perch.

and its pretty claws came to rest with half their length hanging back over the rim of the feed dish.

The feed dish, which looked as though it would tip over at the slightest touch of a little finger, stayed as still as a temple bell.

The Java sparrow, sure enough, was a light thing.

It seemed somehow like the spirit of a light spring snow.

The Java sparrow dropped its beak abruptly into the middle of the dish.

and shook it two or three times from side to side.

The millet, which had been so neatly leveled, scattered pattering down to the floor of the cage.

The Java sparrow raised its beak.

A faint sound came from its throat.

Again it dropped its beak into the middle of the millet.

Again the faint sound came.

The sound was delightful.

Listening closely, it was round and fine, and yet remarkably quick.

It seemed as if a person no bigger than a violet were tapping away, one after another, at agate go-stones with a tiny golden mallet.

The color of its beak looked like crimson lightly mixed with purple.

That crimson gradually faded, and near the tip that pecked at the millet it turned white.

A white like ivory made half-transparent.

When this beak plunged into the millet it moved with great speed.

The grains of millet scattered left and right looked exceedingly light too.

Nearly turning itself upside down, the Java sparrow thrust its pointed beak into the yellow grains and swung its puffed-up neck this way and that without the least restraint.

There was no telling how many grains scattered onto the floor of the cage.

And yet the feed dish itself remained perfectly, silently still.

It must be a heavy thing.

The dish, I think, measured about an inch and a half across.

I went quietly back to my study and ran my pen lonesomely across the paper.

On the veranda the Java sparrow cried chi.

Now and then it also cried chiyo, chiyo.

Outside, the winter wind was blowing.

In the evening I watched the Java sparrow drink.

Hooking its slender feet on the rim of the dish, it tipped its head back and swallowed, as though treasuring it, a single drop caught in its small beak.

At this rate, I thought, one dish of water would last it ten days, and went back to my study.

That night I put it away in the box.

When I looked outside through the glass doors as I went to bed, the moon was out and frost was falling.

The Java sparrow made not the slightest sound in the box.

The next day too, I am sorry to say, I rose late, and it was again past eight when I took the cage out of the box.

It must have been awake in the box for a long while already.

Yet the Java sparrow showed not the slightest look of complaint.

The moment the cage came out into the light, it blinked its eyes at once, drew its neck in a little, and looked at my face.

Once, long ago, I knew a beautiful woman.

One time, when this woman was leaning against a desk lost in thought, I crept up quietly from behind and, letting the tasseled end of her purple obiage hang long, stroked it round and round across her slender neck, and she turned back languidly.

At that moment her eyebrows drew together slightly, in the shape of the figure eight.

and at the corners of her eyes and mouth a smile was just beginning to show.

At the same time she drew her shapely neck down toward her shoulders.

When the Java sparrow looked at me, I suddenly recalled this woman.

She has since married and gone.

The mischief I played with the purple obiage was two or three days after her marriage had been settled.

The feed dish still had about eight-tenths of its millet left.

though a good deal of husk was mixed in.

In the water dish, husks of millet floated all across the surface, and the water was badly clouded.

It had to be changed.

Once again I put my large hand into the cage.

Despite putting it in with the greatest care, the Java sparrow thrashed its white wings in alarm.

Even when one small feather came loose, I felt sorry toward the bird for it.

I blew the husks away cleanly.

The husks I blew away, the winter wind carried off somewhere.

I changed the water too.

Being tap water, it was terribly cold.

I spent the whole of that day listening to the lonely sound of my pen.

In between, now and then, the cry of chiyo, chiyo could be heard as well.

I wondered whether the Java sparrow too cried out of loneliness.

But when I went out to the veranda, I found it flitting back and forth between the two perches, this way and that, without a moment's pause.

There was not the least sign of discontent about it.

At night I put it in the box.

The next morning when I woke, outside lay a white frost.

The Java sparrow too must have been awake, but I could not bring myself to get up.

Even reaching for the newspaper by my pillow felt like a hardship.

Even so, I smoked one cigarette.

Once I've finished this one, I'll get up and let it out of the cage, I thought, watching the smoke drift from my mouth.

And there in the smoke, for a moment, I saw the face of that woman from long ago — neck drawn in, eyes narrowed, brows just faintly knit.

I sat straight up on the bedding.

threw a haori over my nightclothes, and went straight out to the veranda.

Then I took the lid off the box and let the Java sparrow out.

As it came out of the box, the Java sparrow cried chiyo, chiyo, twice.

According to Miekichi, the more tame a Java sparrow grows, the more it comes to cry out at the sight of a person's face.

The Java sparrow Miekichi himself once kept, he said, would go on crying chiyo, chiyo without pause as long as he was nearby.

What's more, it would eat from the very tip of Miekichi's finger, he said.

I thought that someday I too would like to try feeding it from my fingertip.

The following morning I was idle again.

Nor did I happen to recall the face of the woman from long ago.

I washed my face, finished my meal, and only then, as though suddenly remembering, went out to the veranda — to find the cage already sitting on top of the box.

The Java sparrow was already hopping merrily from perch to perch.

and now and then stretched its neck to peer out from below at the world outside the cage.

There was something quite innocent in the sight of it.

The woman with whom I once played that trick with the purple obiage had a long nape, a slender back, and a habit of tilting her head slightly when she looked at people.

There was still millet left.

There was still water left.

The Java sparrow seemed content.

I withdrew to my study without changing either the millet or the water.

Past noon I went out to the veranda again.

meaning, as a bit of exercise after the meal, to walk the five or six ken of the wraparound veranda while reading a book.

But when I looked, the millet was already seven-tenths gone.

and the water had turned completely cloudy.

I tossed the book down on the veranda and hurriedly changed the feed and water.

The next day again I rose late.

and did not so much as glance at the veranda until I had washed and eaten.

Back in my study, wondering whether, as the day before, someone in the household had already put the cage out, I poked just my face out onto the veranda, and sure enough it had been set out.

and the feed and water had been freshened too.

Relieved at last, I drew my head back into the study.

At that very instant the Java sparrow cried chiyo, chiyo.

So I put my withdrawn head back out to look.

But the Java sparrow did not cry out again.

It only gazed, with a puzzled look, through the glass at the frost in the garden.

In the end I went back to my desk.

In the study, as always, the pen went on with its rustling sound.

The novel I had been writing made considerable progress.

My fingertips were cold.

The Sakura charcoal I had banked that morning had gone white with ash, and the iron kettle set on the Satsuma trivet had nearly gone cold.

The charcoal basket was empty.

I clapped my hands, but it apparently did not carry as far as the kitchen.

I rose and opened the door, and the Java sparrow, unlike its usual self, sat perfectly still on the perch.

Looking closely, I saw it had only one leg.

I set the charcoal basket on the veranda and bent down to peer into the cage.

However long I looked, it had only the one leg.

The Java sparrow, its whole body entrusted to this one delicate, slender leg, sat there in silence, tucked neatly in the cage.

I found it strange.

Even Miekichi, who had explained everything about the Java sparrow, seemed to have left this one thing out.

When I came back after filling the charcoal basket, the Java sparrow's leg was still just the one.

I stood a while on the cold veranda watching, but the Java sparrow showed no sign of moving.

As I watched without a sound, its round eyes gradually began to narrow.

Supposing it must be sleepy, I turned quietly to go back into the study, but the instant I moved a foot, the Java sparrow opened its eyes again.

and at the same moment put out one slender leg from within its pure white breast.

I shut the door and fed charcoal into the brazier.

The novel grew steadily more demanding.

In the mornings I remained as much a late riser as ever.

Ever since someone in the household had once looked after the Java sparrow for me, I somehow felt my responsibility for it had grown lighter.

When the household forgot, I would feed it and water it myself.

and put the cage out or away.

When I did not, I would sometimes call for someone to do it.

It came to seem as though my only duty was to listen to the Java sparrow's voice.

Even so, whenever I went out to the veranda I never failed to stop before the cage and look in on the bird.

For the most part it seemed untroubled by the narrow cage, moving contentedly back and forth between its two perches.

On fine days it bathed in the thin sunlight through the glass and sang on and on.

But there was not the slightest sign, as Miekichi had claimed, of it singing deliberately at the sight of my face.

Nor, needless to say, did it ever eat directly from my finger.

Now and then, when it seemed in good spirits, I would put a bit of bread crumb on the tip of my forefinger and poke it a little way through the bars, but the Java sparrow never once came near.

When I pushed it in a little more boldly, the Java sparrow, startled by the thickness of my finger, only thrashed its white wings and fluttered about in alarm inside the cage.

After two or three attempts I felt sorry for it and gave up that particular trick for good.

Whether anyone in this present age is actually capable of such a thing, I very much doubt.

It is probably the work of some ancient saint.

Miekichi must have told me a lie.

One day, as I sat in my study as usual, my pen sounding out one dreary line after another, a strange noise suddenly reached my ears.

It came from the veranda, a rustling, rustling sound.

It might have been taken for a woman trailing the long hem of her robe, but it was far too grand a sound for any ordinary woman's.

It might better be described, I thought, as the rustle of the pleats in the trousers of the Imperial dolls, walking upon their tiered stand.

Setting aside the novel I had been writing, I went out to the veranda, pen still in hand.

and found the Java sparrow taking a bath.

The water had just been freshly changed.

It sank its light feet into the middle of the water dish up to its breast feathers, spreading its white wings from side to side now and then, and, pressing its belly down as though crouching in the dish, shook every feather of its whole body at once.

Then it hopped lightly up onto the rim of the dish.

and after a moment plunged back in.

The water dish measured no more than about an inch and a half across.

When it dove in, its tail spilled over the edge, and its head too, and its back of course as well.

Only its feet and breast were actually submerged.

Even so, the Java sparrow bathed away in evident delight.

I went at once and fetched the spare cage.

and moved the Java sparrow into it.

Then I took a watering can to the bathroom, drew tap water, and poured it splashing down over the cage.

By the time the can ran dry, the water falling from its white feathers had gathered into rolling beads.

The Java sparrow blinked its eyes without cease the whole while.

There was a time when, while that woman with whom I once played the trick with the purple obiage was at her work in the sitting room, I amused myself by catching the spring light in a pocket mirror from the upstairs room behind and casting it onto her face.

She lifted her faintly reddened cheeks, shading her slender hand before her brow, and blinked in puzzlement.

This woman and this Java sparrow were probably feeling much the same thing.

As the days passed, the Java sparrow sang more and more beautifully.

But it was often forgotten.

There was a time when the feed dish held nothing but husks.

There was a time when the floor of the cage was thick with droppings.

One night I came home late from a banquet, and there, with the winter moon shining in through the glass so that the wide veranda showed dimly bright, the birdcage sat silent atop its box.

In the corner of it, the Java sparrow's body, faintly white and floating there, seemed on its perch scarcely to be there at all.

I turned back the cape of my overcoat and at once put the birdcage into its box.

The next day the Java sparrow was singing away as lively as ever.

After that there were times, even on cold nights, when I forgot to put it away in the box.

One night, as I sat absorbed as usual in the study listening to my pen, there came suddenly, from the direction of the veranda, a clatter of something toppling over.

But I did not get up.

I went on writing my urgent novel just the same.

It would be irritating to go to the trouble of getting up only to find it was nothing, so though it did trouble me somewhat, I merely pricked up my ears a little and feigned not to notice.

That night I did not go to bed until past midnight.

On my way to the lavatory, still uneasy, I went by way of the veranda just to be sure —

The cage had fallen from the top of the box.

and lay overturned on its side.

Both the water dish and the feed dish had been knocked over.

Millet was scattered all across the veranda.

The perches had come loose.

The Java sparrow clung fearfully to the bars of the cage in silence.

I resolved that, from the next day on, I would never let a cat onto this veranda again.

The next day the Java sparrow did not sing.

I heaped its dish high with millet.

and filled its water to overflowing.

The Java sparrow, on its one leg, did not move from the perch for a long while.

After lunch, I thought to write a letter to Miekichi, and had gotten two or three lines in when the Java sparrow cried chi.

I stopped my pen on the letter.

The Java sparrow cried chi again.

I went out to look, and found both the millet and the water considerably reduced.

I left the letter as it was and tore it up.

The next day the Java sparrow again fell silent.

It had come down off the perch and was pressing its belly against the floor of the cage.

The feathers of its breast, slightly puffed out, looked ruffled like small ripples on water.

That morning I received a letter from Miekichi, asking me to come to a certain place about the matter in question.

As the request was for by ten o'clock, I left the Java sparrow as it was and went out.

When I met Miekichi, the matter dragged on at some length, and we ended up having lunch together.

and dinner together too.

and even made an appointment for another meeting the next day before I went home.

I returned home around nine at night.

I had entirely forgotten about the Java sparrow.

Being tired, I went straight to bed and fell asleep.

The next day, the moment I woke, I thought at once of the matter in question.

However willing the girl herself might be, marrying her off to a place like that could hardly end well; being still a child, she was no doubt simply resigned to going wherever she was told to go.

Once she went, there would be no easy way out again.

There are a great many people in this world who fall into misfortune even while feeling content.

So I thought, picking my teeth, and having finished breakfast I went out again to settle the matter.

I returned around three in the afternoon.

I hung my overcoat at the entrance and, meaning to go through to the study by way of the corridor, came out onto the familiar veranda to find the birdcage already set out on the box.

But the Java sparrow lay flipped over on the floor of the cage.

Its two legs, held stiffly together, were stretched out in a straight line with its body.

I stood beside the cage and watched the Java sparrow closely.

Its black eyes were shut in sleep.

The color of its eyelids had turned a pale blue.

In the feed dish nothing had gathered but husks of millet.

Not a single grain remained to peck at.

The water dish had gone dry down to its gleaming bottom.

The sun, having swung round to the west, slanted in through the glass doors and fell aslant across the cage.

The lacquer on the base, just as Miekichi had said, had somewhere along the way lost its black tinge, and the vermilion had come through.

I gazed at the vermilion base, colored now by the winter sun.

I gazed at the emptied feed dish.

I gazed at the two perches, bridging the cage now to no purpose.

And I gazed at the stiff Java sparrow lying beneath them.

I stooped and took the birdcage in both hands.

and carried it into the study.

I set the birdcage down in the middle of the ten-mat room, knelt properly before it, opened the cage door, put in my large hand, and closed it around the Java sparrow.

Its soft feathers were stone cold.

I drew my fist out of the cage, and when I opened my closed hand, the Java sparrow lay quietly in my palm.

I kept my hand open and stared for a while at the dead bird.

Then I set it down gently on the cushion.

and clapped my hands sharply.

A young maidservant of sixteen came, said yes, and put her hands to the floor at the threshold.

I abruptly snatched up the Java sparrow from the cushion and flung it down before her.

The girl looked down at the matting and said nothing.

Because no one fed it, it's finally died, I said, glaring at the maid's face.

Still she said nothing.

I turned back toward the desk.

and wrote a postcard to Miekichi.

"Because no one in the household fed it, the Java sparrow has finally died. To shut a creature no one asked for into a cage, and then fail even to fulfill the duty of feeding it, is the height of cruelty."

Such was the content of it.

I told the maid to go post this, and to take the bird along with her.

The maid asked in return where she should take it.

Take it wherever you like, I shouted, and startled, she carried it off toward the kitchen.

Before long, in the back garden, the children were making a great fuss, saying they would bury it, they would bury it.

The gardener I had hired to tend the garden was saying, young miss, somewhere around here should do.

Reluctant as I was, I went on moving my pen in the study.

The next day my head felt somehow heavy, and I did not finally get up until about ten.

As I washed my face and looked out at the back garden, I saw, near where the gardener's voice had come from the day before, a small notice board standing beside a clump of green horsetail.

It stood a good deal lower than the horsetail.

Putting on my garden clogs, crushing the shaded frost underfoot as I went, I drew near and found written on the face of the board: Do not climb this mound.

It was in the hand of Fudeko.

That afternoon a reply came from Miekichi.

It said only that it was a pity about the Java sparrow, and nowhere did it say that the household was at fault, or cruel.