Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/273

Rh to the reels winding and winding above the girls heads a group of men who grow continually fatter and fatter!”

Sakai paused for a minute to wipe the sweat from his brow, and then in a voice deliberately lowered, went on.

“And you know, I have a feeling—it’s horrible to think about it—but still I have the feeling that something will happen to mother in that mill before I get safely through the university. My mother holds to it almost like a religion that the ruin of the Sakai family is our fault and that we must somehow restore it. Not only that, but, as a mother, she naturally feels a deep joy and an object in life is giving a proper education to her only child. I can understand that feeling quite well.

“But so long as she’s in that mill, isn’t she, too, just one of those miserable silkworm cocoons? An invisible silken thread is drawing, drawing at her life, too…”

Words seemed futile as an answer.

We were third-year high school students. It was a winter’s day with graduation close at hand. Late at night, in spite of the snow, Sakai came to my lodgings.

“What’s the matter?” Looking at his face, bloodless and like that of a man just come from a tomb, I felt intuitively that something serious was wrong.

“My mother is dead. … Too late, too late.”

Almost snatching from him the telegram he had received, I recalled his prophetic words and a cold shiver ran down my spine.