Page:Tayama Katai and His Novel Entitled Futon (Reece).pdf/309

 to Tokyo. Tokio had once paid them a visit at this inn. These three people were full of deep emotions, contrasting the past and present situations, but they each tried to avoid letting them show on their faces. At five in the afternoon, they all left for the Shimbashi Station and entered the second-class waiting room.

Confusion and more confusion, crowds and more crowds, both those who were leaving by train and those who had come to see them off looked absent-minded; and the sounds echoing from the ceiling reached all the louder into the travelers' hearts. Sorrow, joy and curiosity were swirling everywhere in the station. At every moment crowds gathered; the crowd of passengers for the six o'clock evening Kobe Express was especially large, and in no time the second-class waiting room was an arena of jostling elbows. Tokio bought two packages of sandwiches at the Tsuboya upstairs and handed them to Yoshiko. He bought two train tickets and one platform admission ticket. He checked their luggage. Everything was ready, all they had to do was to wait for the time of departure.

All three wondered if they might see Tanaka among this crowd, but they could not spot him.

The bell rang. The crowd rushed towards the ticket gate. It burned with the desire not to lose an instant in boarding, and it fretted, and there was no little confusion. The three barely managed to slip through to the wide platform, then went into the nearest second-class coach.

Passengers continued to get on the train. There was a merchant who was preparing to sleep during the long journey, a field