「そりゃ
「御前の方の音って?」
「そらよく
「ええあれですか。あれは
「じゃやっぱり大根おろしの音なんだね」
「ええ」
「そうかそれでようやく
「
「じゃとてもむずかしいんだね」
「ええもうとうに。ここを
"Be that as it may, what was that sound from your side?"
"That sound from our side?"
"Yes. There was often this sound, like someone grating daikon, was there not?"
"Ah, that. That was cucumber. The patient complained of a burning sensation in his legs. He asked me to soothe them with cucumber juice, so I was often in there with cucumber and grater."
"So I wasn't entirely wrong, imagining the grating of daikon."
"True."
"It all fits now. -- Tell me, what was the patient's affliction?"
"Rectal cancer."
"Then his prospects were not at all good."
"I'm afraid not. He was taken back home, but he passed away shortly thereafter."
I returned silently to my own room. In my mind, I thought through the contrast between one man, now deceased, who'd vexed his neighbor with the sound of grated cucumber, and another man, now convalesced, who'd made his neighbor envious with the sound of his leather strop.