But, the woman greets this with "a face so impassive yet cold, and eyes so expressionless yet hostile, that Esther's overture fell quite flat." "Okay, okay, if that's the way you feel about it, she thought to herself" (1440).
Shortly, the cold hearted, drunken man leaves the bus, but first he further berates his Asian neighbors. Another man immediately tries to reassure Esther and others on the bus that all American's are not like that man. He is gentle in nature, as he too departs. The rest of the ride is uneventful for Esther. When she arrives at Buro's room, she breaks into sobs, which she cannot control. Buro seems to feel he understands the reason for his wife's behavior and consoles her by assuring her she has simply missed him. All Esther can do is to "bravely (smile) and answer him with the question, yes, weren't women silly" (1441)?.
It is fear that drives Esther Kuroiwa to the point of committing, as Yamamoto calls it, a "grave sin of omission" (1438). She distances herself from the hostility she is forced to endure, only to find herself struggling to rectify her moral being, as she defines attempts to improve her (and others) predicament. With this "omission" (1438) and realization of helplessness, Esther is caught in a web of nothingness, steeped in guilt. When she is confronted with a moral dilemma, she turns away, then remembers, then judges herself and attempts to help. Her actions are unsuccessful, however, and she rides out this feeling of nothingness until the pressure builds and her emotions explode. Under this tremendous pressure she succumbs to a broken spirit. A spirit she cannot represent honestly to even her husband. .
Esther is acutely aware of the tenseness in the woman sitting next to her on the bus. She notices how the flowers on the woman's lap tremble (the woman's only movement). She notices another man smiling in empathy at the trembling woman, but doubts the woman is aware of his gaze.
