64
she had definitely sold her emotions by false pretense. On several occasions he thought that she had deceived him. However, as he was a man of letters, he could afford to analyse his own mind objectively. A young woman's mind is not easily judged. Her warm pleasing affection was perhaps a natural development characteristic of the expression of her eyes which looked beautiful, her attitude which seemed gentle was perhaps all unconscious, and unintended like the kind of solace that the wild flowers give to the person who looks at them. To concede a point, even if she loved me, I am her teacher and she is my student; I am a married man who has a wife and children while she is a beautiful flower in her prime; then what good would it have done for us to be increasingly conscious about each other? Wait, going one step still further, when I received that passionate letter complaining implicitly and explicitly of her mental anguish, transmitting the last of her emotions, just as if the power of nature would oppress my person, I did not solve her riddles for her. With her modest woman's nature, how could she press more frankly for an answer from me? Having been disappointed from that kind of mental state, she might have created the recent affair.
"Anyway, the time has passed. She already belongs to another!" he inwardly screamed as he walked along, and he tore his hair.
He wore a striped serge business suit with a straw hat; and he went down the slope bending forward slightly and using a walking stick of wisteria vine. It was mid-September. Although the lingering heat was still unbearable, the sky was filled with a serene autumnal tinge, and the strikingly deep blue color stirred the man's feelings.
