We walked side by side to the station. The sweater kept me comfortable in the night air.“Okay, I’ll keep plugging away,” she said.“Wasn’t much help, was I?”“No, actually, it took a load off me just to be able to talk.”We caught trains going in opposite directions from the same platform.“You’re really not lonely?” she asked one last time. And while I was searching for a good reply, her train came.

Don't forget - you're the one who swam across the freezing sea at night.

In other words, Shozaburo Takitani was now alone in the world. This was no great shock to him, however, nor did it make him feel particularly sad or miserable. He did, of course, experience some sense of absence, but he felt that, eventually, life had to turn out more or less like this. Everyone ended up alone sooner or later.

Да, я – никто. Ты абсолютно прав. Одиночка, дрейфующий в ночном океане. Протяну руку – вокруг пустота. Закричу – никто не отзовется. Ни с кем на свете меня ничто не связывает.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm racing with my own shadow

Who can really distinguish between the sea and what's reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?

Then when dusk began to settle he would retrace his steps, back to his own world. And on the way home, a loneliness would always claim his heart. He could never quite get a grip on what it was. It just seemed that whatever lay waiting "out there" was all too vast, too overwhelming for him to possibly ever make a dent in.