strolling grandly over the roof

For weeks he had forced himself not to look for Isobel, but this effort of will was no longer needed. He was like a man who stops writing letters to a friend he is soon to meet in the flesh.

Jessica Anderson, An Ordinary Lunacy, 1963



Mid-May had passed, and after the bell he heard the cry of a kite.
“So it’s here again,” he muttered to himself, listening from bed.
The kite seemed to be strolling grandly over the roof, and then it flew off toward the sea.
Shingo got up.
He scanned the sky as he brushed his teeth, but the kite was nowhere to be seen.
But it was as if a fresh young voice had departed and left the sky over the roof serene.

Yasunari Kawabata, The Sound of the Mountain, serialised 1949 – 1954, tr. Edward J. Seidensticker