“I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.”
The principal is, of course, pure evil. The other adults are mostly unaware of the epic battle shaping up around them. Only when evil is about to triumph do the young people at last understand the true nature of their power.
Unaware that various animals have taken these tropical fruits, Handa continues along her journey, at which point a goat bumps into a tree and a bunch of tangerines fall into Handa’s basket.
“You know that theory: if you put a frog in water and keep slowly turning up the heat, it doesn’t jump out because it doesn’t realize it’s slowly being boiled to death.”