The three of us came to a portion of the road turning east along the Iwasaki mansion. In an alley that was not wide enough to accommodate two rickshaws, we were in little danger of being seen. Ishihara left Okada’s side and marched before us like a leader. I looked back once more, but the woman was no longer in sight.
We stayed at Ishihara’s until late that night. It might be said that we were forced to keep Ishihara’s company while he drank a great deal of saké and ate the flesh of the goose. Since Okada did not say anything to Ishihara about his trip abroad, I decided to take him to the back room at Ishihara’s house to discuss it right away. When we were at the back room, I started by telling him how surprised I was and how much I praised his determination. Okada stared at me and said: “There is something that had been disturbing my mind the whole time while eating the goose and staying at Ishihara’s house, it had been annoying me and I actually want to share it with you right now since I am leaving tomorrow early in the morning”. I was amazed about how Okada’s face, from being smiley, turned into a serious and worried one, but I replied: “There is something I had been thinking about the whole time during our walk through Muenzaka and Ike-no-hata as well, but I will tell you about it after you tell me about your thoughts”. I was about to tell Okada that the beautiful girl we saw in the middle of the slope, kind of caught my attention; until he replied: “Well, you remember that girl that we saw at the middle of the slope? She kept looking at us”. “Yes, and I actually think she was looking at you”. I said. Okada kept going: “When I first told you the story of how she and I met, there was more to it. We drank tea at her house and we exchanged thoughts, because she wanted to thank me for saving her birds. After that, every now and then when I see her, I get this feeling of being bewitched by her beauty and I feel like she is the treasure that I have to reach. Her heavenly appearance makes my heart palpitate. She is as enchanting as the wild geese that where at the northern end of the pond, near Fukuchi and Suezo’s houses, before I scared them with that piece of stone”. After Okada said this, I was not really going to tell him that I also felt something for that beauty, since I think that girl was waiting for him in the middle of the slope. “I think that girl was waiting for you, Okada, and she may still be there. You should go and talk to her before you leave”. I said, delightful by the description that he had just given me of that girl. “You really think she is still there?” Okada replied in a surprising manner. “Yes”, I told him.
After that conversation that we had I returned to Ishihara’s dining room to make him company over the night, but Okada never returned that day. I looked for him the next day, but I could not find him, so this meant that he was already gone. I took a walk through the same direction he always used to, to remember our friendship memories. When I got to Muenzaka and walked down the slope, I found Okada and Otama together, which I got to knew her that same day when Okada called me to tell me what had happened. Okada had decided to stay with Otama and get graduated at the university, which make her happy, since she told us that she was under control of a usurer and Okada was like her hero, but that is another story that is out of my present narrative. Okada and Otama lived happily together in a house Okada bought at Ike-no-hata, since Otama wanted to be as close as possible to her father. I am glad all of this happened to them, since Okada became like kind of my best friend. Me? I flied out of the country and went to Germany with professor Baelz, since Okada had told him about me and he needed some help with his project.
Now that I have written this, I have counted on my fingers and discovered that thirty-five years have passed since then. Thanks to Okada’s decision to stay, I became very important all over the world. This is the story that is to it, and I feel like I should end it right away, so even though I did not get Otama to be my lover, I am now living happily with a German woman and I have had a splendid life, just as Okada has had too.
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