know.” “That’s true,” Ikuko responded. Then, as if she too was feeling
better, “I suppose we’ll go out again tomorrow morning, all three of us, to
see what’s happened to the leaves?”
‘‘I’m sure they’ll all have fallen.”
In the morning the three of them walked together to the path; just as
Ikuko had said, and looked at the ginkgo trees. A single night of winter
wind had left them looking miserable. There were still a few leaves on the
trees at the top of the path, but they were so thinly scattered that they ended
up giving the trees a wintry appearance, making them look cold. Here and
there among those trees that had still been leaved were ones that had lost
their leaves entirely—that were stripped completely bare. The mysterious
division that Soeda had discovered had collapsed. The row of bare trees at
the bottom had only seemed splendid because the line of yellow leaved
trees at the top had served as a background. Even on the bare trees at the
bottom a few leaves remained, scattered here and there, few enough to
count. Soeda noticed that those yellow leaves were trembling, as if
butterflies had come to rest on the branches.
