Shimamura had disturbed it to figure out whether it was alive or dead, and on a subdued but happy note it is revealed that it is alive. He struck at it with his fist, and it fell like a leaf from a tree, floating lightly up midway to the ground" (90). Of particular importance is the moth: "The moth did not move. The novel's second part begins with Shimamura in his room observing the early autumn insects that have entered it. And so Komako's love, like a piece of Chijimi, is worn and then discarded Shimamura himself is struck by the thought that the cloth must last much longer than most romances. Shimamura is in the unique position, as an intellectual, of being aware of the entire history, and yet by his dilettante personality, he is unable to return any feeling. The young women living in the long, desolate winters of the snow country who made Chijimi would have had little other opportunity to expend their energies and attain some sense of fulfillment other than making the beautiful cloth but this in turn would end up as the playthings of wealthy men, who would find the cloth attractive for its light coolness but not be able to discern its weighty emotional background. Though it may at first seem like a mostly irrelevant interlude to the story of Shimamura's and Komako's romance, the reflection on Chijimi cloth, its production, and eventual use by worldly men such as Shimamura encapsulates the meaning of the whole story.
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