Spring Snow Read Online Free PDF Page A

Satoko. And the other one, the woman in the gray tunic everyone’s making such a fuss over, who’s she?”
    “Her? Oh yes; that’s Satoko’s great-aunt, the Abbess of Gesshu. I didn’t recognize her at first because of that curious hood.”
    Her Reverence the Abbess was indeed an unexpected guest. This was her first visit to the Matsugaes, hence the conducted tour of the garden—something that Kiyoaki’s mother would not have undertaken just for Satoko but was quite happy to do for the Abbess. Her great-aunt’s visit to Tokyo being such a rarity, Satoko had no doubt brought her to see the maple leaves. The Abbess had taken great delight in Kiyoaki when he first came to the Ayakuras, but he could not remember that far back. Later, when he was in middle school and the Abbess had paid a visit to Tokyo, he had been invited to the Ayakuras, but he had had the opportunity to do no more than pay his respects. Even so, the Abbess’s pale face with its air of quiet dignity and the calm authority in her voice had made a lasting impression on him.
    Kiyoaki’s voice had brought the group on the shore to an abrupt halt. Startled, they looked toward the island as if pirates had risen before their very eyes from the tall grass beside the decorative iron cranes.
    Pulling a small fan from her obi, Kiyoaki’s mother pointed toward the Abbess to indicate that a respectful greeting was expected. Kiyoaki, accordingly, made a deep bow from where he stood on the island. Honda quickly followed suit, and Her Reverence acknowledged them both. His mother then opened her fan and waved it imperiously, its golden sheen suddenly giving off scarlet reflections. Kiyoaki urged Honda to hurry up, knowing that they must come back from the island at once.
    “Satoko never misses a chance to come here. She’s taking advantage of her great-aunt,” grumbled Kiyoaki with a show of bad temper, while helping Honda by hurrying to cast off the boat. Honda, however, viewed Kiyoaki’s haste and his grumbling with some skepticism. The way Kiyoaki had lost patience with Honda’s steady, methodical movements and had seized the rough rope in his own unseasoned white hands to try to help with the unpleasant task of unknotting it was enough to raise doubts about the Abbess being the cause of his eagerness.
    As Honda rowed back to the shore, Kiyoaki looked dizzy, his face picking up a red flush from the reflection of the maple leaves floating on the water. He nervously avoided Honda’s eyes in an attempt to deny his vulnerability to Satoko. For each moment brought him closer to the young woman who knew altogether too much about him, about his childhood, even about his body’s most intimate details, and to whom he seemed tied by almost overwhelming bonds of emotion.
    “Why, Mr. Honda! What a good oarsman you are!” said Kiyoaki’s mother admiringly when they reached the shore. Her pale, classic face had a persistently melancholy cast, even when she laughed. Yet her expression was a façade rather than a true indication of her deeper emotions. She was in fact almost invariably insensitive. She had raised Kiyoaki to tolerate his father’s dissipation and boorish energy, but she was quite incapable of grasping the complexities of her son’s nature.
    Satoko’s eyes were riveted on Kiyoaki from the moment he stepped out of the boot. Strong and calm, affectionate from time to time, they invariably unnerved Kiyoaki. He felt, not without reason, that he could read criticism in their glance.
    “Her Reverence has honored us with a visit today, and we shall shortly have the pleasure of listening to her speak. But first we wanted to show her the maple leaves. Then you gave us such a fright by that rude shout of yours. What were you doing on the island in the first place?”
    “Oh, just watching the sky,” Kiyoaki replied, being as enigmatic to his mother as possible.
    “Watching the sky? And what’s there to see in the sky?”
    His mother was quite unembarrassed