Summary
This short final section begins with the revelation that Matsuda has died. Having heard the news, Ono takes a walk in the now-familiar landscape of the Bridge of Hesitation. He talks about wishing that he had visited Matsuda more in the final months of his life. He did, he says, manage to visit him one last time. He tells us about that visit, which took place eighteen months after the previous one. Ono says that he went to Matsuda's house and was let in by Miss Suzuki. Miss Suzuki seemed excited, which made Ono think Matsuda rarely got visitors. She also mentioned that Matsuda had grown stronger in the last year and a half.
We enter Matsuda's house alongside Ono. Ono thanks Matsuda for a letter he wrote during Ono's recent illness. Matsuda asks how Ono is feeling now, and Ono assures him that he's better, though he now walks with a cane. Matsuda says, only half-jokingly, that he wishes he and Ono could commiserate about their ill health together. Then talk turns to Ono's family. Ono reveals that Noriko is pregnant and that Setsuko is about to have a second child. Matsuda says that he never wanted to marry or have children when he was young, but that Ono is lucky to have two grandchildren on the way. Then talk turns to art. Matsuda asks if Ono is painting, and Ono says that he has been painting some watercolors of plants and flowers. Matsuda expresses that he is glad to hear this, since Ono has not painted for a long time. Matsuda implies that Ono gave up painting because he was disappointed by his own failure to leave a legacy.
Ono replies that Matsuda, too, had always wanted to leave a legacy and make an impact. They reminisce about their China crisis campaign and their more general disagreements concerning the role of art in society. Now, they both say, their perspectives are necessarily narrower. For one thing, Matsuda can hardly leave his house. Indeed, Matsuda says, they shouldn't blame themselves for their pasts: they were both ordinary men born at an extraordinary time, and have faced great challenges as a result. Matsuda then invites his old friend out to the garden to feed the carp in his pond. Outside they smell burning, probably from a neighbor cleaning his garden. Ono remarks that the smell of burning still reminds him of the war. He notes that it will soon be five years since his wife's death.
They feed the carp quietly in the sunny garden when suddenly, a young boy appears in a tree overlooking Matsuda's pond. When Matsuda greets him, he clambers down out of sight. Matsuda explains that the boy likes to watch him feed the carp, but that he is shy and disappears rather than have a conversation. He must simply like to watch "an old man with a stick" feed the carp. Ono replies that today, the boy saw two old men with sticks. Matsuda then says rather suddenly that nobody cares about the two of them anymore. Nobody, he says, blames them for their mistakes. Only they see the flaws in their own careers.
Still, even as Matsuda says this, Ono looks at his friend and sees that he isn't truly disillusioned. Rather, he believes, Matsuda is proud of his life and the small legacy he's left. Both of them acted according to their convictions, and Ono is proud of this. Now Ono describes a final scene from his past. After winning the prestigious Shigeta Foundation award, he says, he went to visit his old teacher Moriyama. Even a night of partying with his pupils and receiving praise from fellow artists did not, he says, fill him with satisfaction—he felt such deep satisfaction only later, on his visit to Moriyama. Ono explains that Moriyama's career had gone downhill. In fact, at this point his old teacher was illustrating magazines, just as he'd once said that Ono was going to have to do. Ono wonders how Moriyama will treat him and decides how he will respond, resolving not to address the man as "Sensei." However, upon arriving near Moriyama's villa, he sits to eat some oranges on a mountainside. He feels a deep fulfillment in that moment, and decides that it isn't even necessary to visit Moriyama. Ono believes, he tells us now, that he was only able to feel that level of fulfillment because of the bold choices he'd made on the basis of principle. Someone like the Tortoise has probably never felt like that, he believes.
Now, back in the present, Ono describes the walk he completed after hearing about Matsuda's death. He strolled to the old pleasure district. Where the Migi-Hidari once stood is an office building, and in the building's yard is a bench. Ono thinks that the bench is located just where his old table in the Migi-Hidari was. That day, he says, he sat on the bench and watched young workers chat at the door of the office building. They seemed less exuberant and rowdy than the old-Migi-Hidari crowd, but they had the same joyousness and companionable attitude. He feels, he says, that their future is bright, and he wishes them well.
Analysis
While the second half of the previous section focused on moments of upheaval in Ono's life, this section's topic is fulfillment. It describes two moments of peace, and its tone is one of unsentimental calm and loveliness. Ishiguro has taken a novel highly untraditional in its structure—this book winds and wanders from past to present to past again, and its narrator is unreliable—and given it a fairly traditional resolution. This traditional resolution involves far fewer time jumps than the other parts of the book, and it describes a condition of general well-being and peace. It is, more or less, a happy ending, though a realistic and nuanced one. By giving us this straightforward ending, Ishiguro implies that Ono's internal narrative of his life finally matches the objective, external reality. Now that Ono has managed to contextualize and demystify his past, the narrative is smoother and less fragmented.
When we hear that Matsuda is dead, it seems as if we are about to see yet another tragic loss throw Ono's sense of self into disarray. After all, Matsuda is the last living person from his youth with whom Ono still socializes. But the chapter's tone is calm as it begins. Ono focuses on the sunny day, the familiar settings, and the routine events that follow the news of Matsuda's death. This suggests that Ono is experiencing this death as a natural part of life. Matsuda, unlike Michiko and Jenji, dies at an old age of natural causes. His death prompts reflection for Ono, which takes the form of this chapter, but it doesn't disrupt his day or his mood to a great degree. He is finally experiencing loss as a non-dramatic, normal event. This differs greatly from his "loss" of Kuroda (not by death but by his own betrayal), which arrives in the form of a dramatic, poetic scene. Ono's life and his perception have come a long way.
Ono is able now to experience Matsuda's death as a normal part of the aging process, and this fits into a broader pattern in the section. For once, Ono isn't resentful of or threatened by young people. When the book ends, he is expressing his well-wishes towards a group of young people working in a new office building. He recognizes himself and his friends in them, and rather than fearing that they will replace him, he feels at peace knowing that he has left a good world and a prosperous Japan for them. This is striking, since, at dinner with his family, when he wished the younger generation well his tone had been sarcastic. After his confrontation with Setsuko, or perhaps after the illness he alludes to, his sarcasm is gone. He is genuine in his hope for Japan's young people. Ishiguro makes sure his protagonist is rewarded for this growth, not just with a feeling of inner peace but with two new grandchildren, so that he has an even greater stake in the improvement of the world after his eventual death.
This section's flashbacks to Ono's visit to Moriyama showcase the fact that he has felt this kind of peace before. Though that moment of peace came during a time of artistic success for him, he didn't feel peaceful as a result of that success. In fact, the feeling of peace caused him to go home, rejecting an opportunity to boast about and think about his new reputation. Rather, Ono felt at peace when he was alone, surrounded by natural beauty. His new hobby of painting flowers points back to this moment and shows that he is turning to similar avenues for fulfillment. He is focusing on nature and is working on art as a solitary pursuit rather than for the sake of fame. Finally, at the novel's end, Ono seems to have come to terms with his past.
