Setsuko Hara credited as playing...
Noriko Hirayama
- Kyoko: [after the rest of the family had left] I think they should have stayed a bit longer.
- Noriko: But they're busy.
- Kyoko: They're selfish. Demanding things and leaving like this.
- Noriko: They have their own affairs.
- Kyoko: But you have yours too. They're selfish.
- Noriko: But Kyoko...
- Kyoko: Wanting her clothes right after her death. I felt so sorry for poor mother. Even strangers would have been more considerate!
- Noriko: But look Kyoko. At your age I thought so too. But children do drift away from their parents. A woman has her own life, apart from her parents, when she becomes Shige's age. She meant no harm I'm sure. They have to look after their own lives.
- Kyoko: I wonder: I won't ever be like that. Then what's the point of family?
- Noriko: But children become like that, gradually.
- Kyoko: Then... you, too?
- Noriko: I may become like that in spite of myself.
- Kyoko: Isn't life disappointing?
- Noriko: Yes, it is.
- Tomi Hirayama: You may be happy while you're still young. But as you become older, you'll find it lonely.
- Noriko: I won't get that old, so don't worry.
- Noriko: Sometimes I feel I can't go on like this forever. Often I wonder, when I can't sleep, what will become of me if I stay this way. Day passes and night comes, yet nothing happens, and I feel a kind of loneliness. My heart seems to be waiting for something.
- Noriko: I'm not always thinking of your son, though you think I am.
- Shukichi Hirayama: I'll be happy if you forget him.
- Noriko: I'm not the nice woman she thought I was. If you see me like that, it embarrasses me.
- Shukichi Hirayama: No, it shouldn't.
- Noriko: Really, I'm quite selfish.