After sending three letters to Uehara, Kazuko receives no reply. Feeling depressed, she asks her brother careful questions about Uehara. Naoji explains that Uehara encouraged him to start a publishing company and act as the agent for a group of young writers. Kazuko is convinced that Uehara has not been affected in any way by her letters. 

Feeling a sense of “disappointed love,” she decides to visit Uehara. Just as she is preparing to make the trip to Tokyo, her mother falls sick. She has a terrible cough and a high fever. When this does not pass, Kazuko fetches the village doctor. Though the doctor assures Kazuko that her mother will recover, her mother remains in bed. The doctor returns and diagnoses Kazuko’s mother with seepage in her left lung. This, he says, is “no cause for alarm” (103).

Kazuko is relieved, though she is hurt by the realization that Naoji is still the mainstay of her mother’s pleasure in life. After a week, Kazuko’s mother has still not recovered. Kazuko writes to Uncle Wada, who sends a doctor from Tokyo. 

Doctor Miyake is an old aristocratic man who once served as a court physician.