I loved his hearty robustness, I thirsted after it, but in spite of that I couldn’t keep pace with it, and it made me hate myself. In the old days. He was the eldest son of a large family; without being aware of it he got his sunny outlook from them, and I had been drawn to it. But what I needed now was the Tanabes’ strange cheerfulness, their tranquility, and I didn’t even consider trying to explain that to him. It wasn’t especially necessary, and I knew it would be impossible anyway.
