Schoolgirl Read Online Free PDF Page B

nose to the grindstone. It would be my greatest pleasure—it's the way I should be living anyway. But nevertheless, Mother still treated me like a child, without the slightest faith in me. Mother loved it when I said childish things, she acted so thrilled the other day when I made a show of pulling out the ukulele, plunking away on it and being silly for her. "Oh, is it raining? Are those raindrops I hear?" she feigned, teasing me, and she probably thought I was actually being serious about some silly ukulele. I felt so wretched I wanted to cry. Mother, I'm an adult now. I know all about the world now. Don't worry, you can talk to me about anything. If you were to confide everything to me, even things like our household budget, telling me exactly how it is, then I certainly wouldn't pester you to buy me shoes. I'll be a steady and frugal daughter. Really and truly. In spite of all that. "Oh, In Spite of All That"... wasn't that the name of a song, I chuckled to myself. At some point I realized I was standing there like an idiot, both hands idly thrust into the cooking pot, my thoughts ranging from one thing to another.
    Oh, I almost forgot. I had better offer the guests something for supper. What should I do with that big fish? In the meantime, I should cut it into three pieces and marinate them in miso paste. That will make it taste great. With cooking, you just have to trust your intuition. There was a bit of cucumber left, so I put that out and doused it with sanbaizu sauce. Then—my specialty—egg omelet. Then one more dish. Yes, that's it. I'll cook "rococo." This is something that I have invented. Various and sundry items found in the kitchen are mingled on each plate—ham and omelet, parsley, cabbage, spinach—beautifully and skillfully arranged, economical and trouble-free, if perhaps not the least bit delicious. But it presents a surprisingly lively and gorgeous table, and manages to appear as a quite sumptuous meal. There was the green grass of the parsley beneath the omelet, then beside it the coral reef of the pink ham poked its head out, and the golden cabbage leaves were spread out on the plate like petals on a tree peony or like a fan of feathers, with the lush spinach a pasture or a lake, perhaps. Serve two or three plates like this, and guests will be unexpectedly reminded of King Louis. Of course that won't happen, but anyway, since I can't offer much in the way of cooking, the least I can do is try to fool guests with something beautiful that bedazzles them with its outward appearance. With cooking, it's all about the way it looks. That's usually enough to fool anyone. But cooking rococo requires a particular artistic inclination. You must have an uncommonly keen sense of color. Or at least my level of delicacy. When I looked up the word "rococo" in the dictionary the other day and saw that it was defined as a decorative style that was elaborate yet devoid of substance, I had to laugh. It was an apt description. Heaven forbid if beauty were to have substance. Genuine beauty is always meaningless, without virtue. It goes without saying. Which is why I love rococo.
    As always happens, while I was busy preparing the meal and adding things here and there, I was overcome with an extreme emptiness. I felt depressed, and dead tired. I lapsed into overload from all my effort. Nothing mattered anymore. In the end, who cares?! I told myself desperately and, no longer concerned with taste or appearance, I flung things about in a messy clatter. Looking decidedly displeased, I brought the meal to the guests.
    Today's visitors were particularly depressing, Mr. and Mrs. Imaida from Omori, and their son Yoshio who turned seven this year. Mr. Imaida was probably already near 40 but he had the pale complexion of a handsome man, which disgusted me. Why did he have to smoke those Shikishima cigarettes? For some reason, filters on cigarettes seem dirty to me. If you were going to smoke, then it had to be unfiltered. Smoking