...of unobtrusiveness

That day too you greeted me with your usual unobtrusive consideration, or better, unobtrusive pity. Our silence, of course, was quite routine too…
How long would this silence, like some broken instrument, go on between us? Even the everyday exchange of pleasantries and gossip had petered out, leaving at best an elementary, sign-like conversation, absolutely minimal. But even in this instance I did not blame you. Moreover, I was amply prepared to look upon it as a part of your pity for me. A broken instrument is liable to produce cacophony; better let it remain mute. The silence was painful for me, but how much more distressing it must have been for you. How fervently I hoped we could somehow use this opportunity to resume talking once again.
Even so, you should have at least asked me why I was going out. Although it was an exceptional event for me to go out bright and early on a Sunday for the whole day, you did not show the slightest surprise.
You quickly regulated the fire in the stove and at once withdrew to the kitchen, and as soon as you had brought a hot towel you went to check on the hot water in the bath. You had not abandoned me, but neither did you stay close to me. I wondered whether all housewives were like that - I am talking about your excessive impersonality. Indeed you acted cleverly. You manipulated time beautifully, with the precision of electric scales, attaching no unnaturalness to our silence.
To overcome this silence, I tried to put on a show of anger, but that did not work. When I saw your heroic efforts to remain calm I at once backed down, quite aware of my own willful self-conceit. The icy lump of silence that lay between us was apparently too deeply frozen to melt under just any pretext. The questions I had prepared as I walked along - possible opportunities for conversation - were so mamny matches held against an iceberg.
Of course, I was not so optimistic as to imagine I could succeed, like a wily salesman, by showing you two specimens of face models and asking which you preferred. The first requirement was that my mask should not appear to be a mask; thus, it would not do to reveal to you the real motive of my question. To do so would be malicious sarcasm. From now on, unless I took up hypnotism, my questions would have to be indirect. But I had no further ideas. I had been optimistic, thinking that I could adapt myself to circumstances, as I had fortunately been able to do so far. For example, I went through various of my friends’ faces with your tastes in mind.
However, you were not a fish living by nature in silence. Silence was an ordeal for you. I myself would be the first to be hurt by any rash mention of faces; you were concerned about this and were trying to shield me. I blamed my own frivolity, but, saying not a word, I by-passed the silence, returned to my study, and locked up today’s booty and my instruments for mold-casting in a cabinet. Then, as usual, I began to take off my bandage in order to cream my face and perform my daily massage. But my fingers stopped unexpectedly in mid-air; I was lost in another dialogue with no one.
- Only my lost face knew how many hundreds of thousands of degrees it would take to melt this silence. And perhaps the mask was the answer. But I could not make it without your advice. Hadn’t I been checked into complete inactivity? If I did not break the vicious circle somewhere, it would end in a stupid impasse, repeating the same sequence. I could not give up the whole thing as useless now. Even if I couldn’t melt away the whole silence, at least I had to try to light a flame.
I rewound my bandage with the determination of a diver putting on his equipment. When my scar webs were exposed I had no confidence of ever overcoming the pressure of the silence.

[The Face of Another, Abe, K.]