The main character of the story, Tadasu, `a great pleasure to address the events of the past and try to revive them one by one. ' The events of the past mainly revolve around the physical and psychic bond between a child and his mother, embodied here as symbolically, through the nipple: `I was looking for my lips the tip of her breast, took it in my mouth, rolling it under my tongue. I pulled into the milk. The scent where the milky smell mingled with the scent of her hair ... ' When her mother died, her father remarried a `maiko ', that barely ten years older than Tadasu. It becomes the replacement for his mother. When she gives birth to a half-brother Tadasu, the child is placed in a remote village in knowledge. Meanwhile, the family became the subject of insinuations of the villagers to be `a threesome '.
This story is an excellent introduction to the work of the great Japanese writer, J. Tanizaki, who excels in decortication intimate relationship disorders. His stories shine with suggestive themes approach, subtlety and restraint of emotions and tone appearance reserved. Highly recommended reading.
