Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan.pdf/153

Rh Mr. Yamada’s maid-servant called at the shop that evening on her way back from an errand, and took away the razor.

O-Ume-san had prepared some groats for her husband, and she wanted him to take them before they got cold, but seeing him asleep, and noticing how exhausted he was, she refrained from waking him, lest he should again fly into a temper with her.

But it was now 8 o’clock, and she was afraid that if she delayed matters too long, she might also miss the chance of giving him his medicine. So she at last made up her mind to awaken her husband. Upon waking, Yoshisaburo was in a slightly better mood, and sitting up, he took his supper. As soon as he had finished it, he lay down again on his bed, and soon fell into another sleep.

A little before 10 o’clock, Yoshi was awakened once again to take his medicine. He had been half asleep, wrapped up almost to his head in his heavy bed-clothes, and his face was quite damp with fever. The shop was quiet. He looked around feebly. On a pillar near his bed hung the black leather strop. The dim light of the lamp, which burned with a weirdly yellow flame, shone upon the back of his wife, who was giving the baby her breast in the comer of the room. Everything in the room seemed to him stiflingly hot.

“Master! … master!” came the hesitating voice of Kin-ko from the door of the shop.

“Yes, what is it?” answered Yoshisaburo from