Mirror

My bookstore is haphazardly piled with books, in which I squatted, killing the early spring "pine within" the silent time. I read books and write essays. When I get tired of that, I write haiku. In any case, since I was a peaceful citizen, I could just live my life comfortably.

　　One day, the wife of another family came to my house after New Year's Eve with her children. The wife had a mantra: "I wish youth would last forever." So, the girl brought is five years old, she still retains the beauty of the girl in the past.

　　That day, there were plum blossoms in the study. So, we talked about plums. In the meantime, the girl named Chie, sitting lonely, just stared blankly at the plaque and interior decoration of the study.

　　After a while, I felt so sorry for Chie that I said to Madam, "Take her over there and talk to her mother." Because I thought that talking to her mother for a while might be a good way not to make the child feel lonely. At that moment, the lady took out a mirror from her bosom and handed it to Chie while saying, "This child will never be lonely as long as she has this."

　　I asked her why, but it turned out that when her husband was recovering from his illness at the villa in Teko, she took Chie to and from Tokyo and Teko two or three times a week. Every time Chie sat in the train, she was extremely bored. To relieve her loneliness, she played pranks and pranks that she could not help. Sometimes she would grab an old man from somewhere else and ask, "Do you, ah, know the French language?" It was really a headache. Madame gave her comic strips, taught her to play the harmonica, and tried everything to relieve the child's boredom. In the end, when she was given a mirror to play with, she just sat honestly all the way through without moving. Chie looked into the mirror, sometimes applying white powder, sometimes scratching her hair, or deliberately squinting her eyebrows, playing with herself in the mirror with great fascination.

　　The lady explained the reason for giving her daughter a mirror to play with. "You're a child, after all, you forget everything when you look in the mirror." She added.

　　In a flash, I felt faintly malicious towards the lady, and could not help laughing playfully and making a cold comment on the matter:.

　　"You will also forget everything when you sit in front of the mirror, won't you? The difference with Chie is only that she is lonely on the train and you are lonely in the human world."