He snapped his fingers, flung out in impatient gesture. The pause was so sudden it produced, conflictingly, the effect of an abrupt sound, a trumpet blare in hushed stillness. Kent looked up. Jun-san had noticed it, too. Squatting on her silk zabuton in the background, her sewing had dropped to her lap, and she was looking at Karsten wonderingly, solicitously. She never spoke in English; it was generally accepted that she did not understand it, but Kent wondered whether she did not really understand more than they thought, whether she might not intuitively, from intonation, gesture, aided by such words as she must have picked up, gain at least some idea of the drift of their conversation.
The silence became uncomfortable, exasperating. "But why don't you take it up again? You are no man to mope about. You are not doing anything, just killing time reading magazines and novels. How can that satisfy you in the long run. Why, then, don't you take some of the advice that you have just given me?"
"I can't, or at least I won't, on account of—— That is, the woman is still here, in Tokyo, and I want to show her. It may seem to you contradictory, absurd, perverse. It doesn't sound logical, except, possibly, as a sort of heaping of coals on her head, to show her that I, at least, am faithful. I never told her what I knew, never blamed her. I think that in this way she is getting punishment far more subtle than anything I could inflict by abusing her, or by running after other women. Something must be going on in her mind. Still, who am I that I should have a right to punish any woman for turning to another man, after my sort of life? I only got what I deserved, after all. Anyway, my position happened to be such that I couldn't speak out, couldn't jump on the man or the woman. That rather governed my course. For, of course, one doesn't in that way, in such a case, when one is still agitated, shattered by anger, jealousy, disappointment, in all that whirl of emotions, just sit down and deliberately shape out a definite course of procedure, I shall do this, and I shall do that. No, one stews about, waits to figure it out, to decide what to do when one has become calmer, and then, if one has done nothing at the moment of crisis, at the impulse of sudden discovery, consternation, passion, then one gradually drifts into accepting the course which things naturally take, the path of least resistance. Yes, that's undoubtedly it, the path of least resistance."
He shook out his pipe into a huge brass bowl which was kept in the room for that purpose; took out his knife, began with over-careful deliberation to carve out the lava-like incrustations from the bowl.
"But the work you were doing?" Kent wanted to bring the conversation into a smoother channel. He was nervous, uncomfortable, with a sense of something undefinably grievous, tragic, as if it were, hovering, indefinitely threatening, closing about them from the darkness outside.
"The work!" Karsten kept scraping at the pipe bowl, methodically held it to the light, inspected it. "It took the heart out of me, this revelation, the sudden shock of it. It had been too perfect, this working away, always in festival spirits, in the atmosphere of affection, devotion, love, damn it, to use the banal old word. I thought I had the rest of my life all well ordered, that peace had come at last. I am too old to start again, and then, anyway, as I told you, there were other reasons. So the work—I have never looked at it since. But," he seemed struck by a sudden thought. "Jun-san," he was still intent with his pipe and did not look up. "Jun-san. Bring out the kodomo."
"Kodomo," child. The word puzzled Kent. What the devil——?
He looked past Karsten, as he sat there doggedly scraping at his pipe, to Jun-san. She had risen from her zabuton, was looking at the man with wonder. It grew into consternation; was it apprehension, fear? But she had turned and was going to the todana, wall closet, was drawing from it papers, loose and in bundles, reaching into the depth of the recess, pulling out still more. Then she turned and came towards them, arms filled, held in front of her. She advanced hesitatingly. By God, she was trembling; her eyes were misty with tears. Kent jumped up, but she did not look at him. In front of Karsten she stopped, held her burden towards him, silent, trembling. He laid away his pipe finally, looked up at her, stretched out his hands. She moved still nearer, as if to pass the papers over to him. Then her hands fell away, bundles dropping, loose papers fluttering to the floor, into the brass bowl. Karsten had risen, patted the woman on the shoulder tenderly, as one would a child. It was the first time Kent had seen him caress her. "Oh, you poor little girl, you poor little girl," the man's voice was hoarse, broken. "Come, you had better go to your house." She was weeping openly now, shaking. "Forgive me, Jun-san. Come."
The sliding door closed behind her. Karsten turned to Kent. "I might as well tell you now, of course. The woman was Jun-san." He turned abruptly to the papers, began gathering them. "These are nothing much, after all, Kent. Only notes of various kinds for a great Japanese drama that I thought I might construct. The Danes have a proverb that every sow thinks that her own pigs are the best. Probably I did the same." He carried the papers to the todana, put them out of sight. "We have had a melodramatic evening, haven't we, Kent-san, with your troubles and mine. It seems as if women must ever be the cause of our sorrows, yes, and our joys. Shikataganai. It can't be helped. Now let us have a drink and go to bed."