Studying the girl's physical appearance, and smelling her scent, Eguchi was experiencing mixed emotions. The smell reminded him of babies, but he realized that a young woman approaching twenty could not smell like milk. He might have actually returned to his own age of the innocence, "a passing specter" (idem, 20).

The author creates a very strong contrast between everything that old and young symbolize. Old age is represented only trough ugliness, decay, coldness, dark, bad smells. On the other hand, youth, the thing that Eguchi and all the rest of those visiting the house were hoping to find, is full of nursery smells, warm feelings, nice, melodious sounds. The story further unravels another possible explanation for the smell of milk Eguchi first sensed lying beside the girl. He was almost senile, but he still had something left from his virility that made him slightly different than Kiga, his friend...
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