Everyone was yawning.
    “Where should we go now?” Shunkichi asked. “Nowhere to go in the middle of the day really.”
    “Let us off at the beauty salon,” said Mitsuko and Tamiko. Shunkichi and Osamu didn’t object, and Mitsuko and Tamiko for their part seemed fine enough leaving Kyoko as the only woman in the car. Shunkichi and Osamu each gave in turn a brisk and rehearsed bow. The ladies waited for Natsuo’s goodbyes, and although neither girl’s date, he too saw them off warmly.
    	It was close to three o’clock in the afternoon in early April, nineteen fifty four. Shunkichi, driving Natsuo’s car, circled around the one way streets of town. Where to go? Of course, somewhere without many people around. The last two days there had been too many people around Lake Ashinoko. They could always go back to Ginza. Best to get Natsuo’s opinion.
    “Well, how about we go to that reclaimed land quarter out by Tsukishima. I saw a sketch out there once.”
    With all in agreement, they headed off.

   	They gathered even from afar that the area around Kachidoki-bashi was backed up with cars.
    “I wonder what happened?” said Osamu. “Maybe an accident?”
    But at second glance it was clear the drawbridge was about to be raised.
    “Tsk, let’s just forget it,” said Shunkichi, clicking his tongue impatiently.
    Natsuo and Kyoko, however, having never seen the bridge up, wanted to take a look. They parked the car and crossed in pairs over a portion of the iron bridge to get a better view, Shunkichi and Osamu looking somewhat uninterested.
	In the center was an iron fixture, and only there did the bridge open and close. Men holding red flags stood about the front and rear of the backed up clamour of vehicles, a chain blocking even the sidepath. A number of sightseers were also there and through the standstill sellers made their rounds with oil and boxed meals. The iron fixture ran through the train tracks and there was nothing above it but black and silence. People on both sides watched expectantly. Before long, the center rumbled to life, slowly raising its head to open a chasm. The iron guardrails on both sides, the dimly lighted columns, and the iron arch mounting them — all rose together. Natsuo found it beautiful.
	As the iron fixture rised dust fell from the hollows of the tracks like trails of smoke. Uncountable little shadows began to shrink to meet each rivet they cloaked, the shadows of the guardrails too mwarping their angles with movement. Then, the fixture was completely vertical, and they were still once more. Natsuo raised his eyes and watched a seagull brush one of the iron arch's now toppled pillars.
	Thus did the large iron gate unexpectedly block their path.