An art professor with a good social status, Dr. Saito is a confident, pleasant man. believes he met Dr. Saito before the war and that Dr. Saito knows his work, but tells Ono that does not think Dr. Saito was acquainted with Ono’s work or that the two older men had met. Ono’s depiction of himself as a prominent artist is called into question by Setsuko’s claim that Dr. Saito was not familiar with his work.