Status Updates From Spring Miscellany: And Lond...

Like the fruit that had been green the day before and was now as sweet as honey, the entire valley was in the process of ripening.

... Seated around a large table we consumed the pheasant simmering in a pot. And I sincerely wished good luck to the pale young man in the gaudy kokura silk hakama. After my visitors had taken their departure, I wrote him a few words of thanks. And I added that he need no longer worry about the money I had lent him the year before. (p. 69)

... The truth is that I do not know where to start. I have to edit an article for the paper. I have promised to read two or three short stories sent to me by an unknown young man who would like to know my opinion of them. ... The books I am supposed to have been reading in the course of these two or three months are piling up on my desk like a mountain. (p. 35)

... Behind the surrounding wall of the house, there is a pine tree. At the approach of winter, a gardener comes to gather up the dead pine needles and uses them to cover the beds of the little garden.
When Kii-chan comes home from school and starts to get bored, she goes out to play, ... , at the back of the house. That is where her mother and grandmother starch the washing and put it out to dry. ... (pp. 29-30)