Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan.pdf/159

Rh scene after another that might be enacted after this young fellow had left his shop, and the thought of it made him feel sick. Lathering the soap with the coldest water, he rubbed the young man’s chin and cheeks desperately. While he was doing this the youth was trying to peep into the mirror. Yoshisaburo was so disgusted with this vulgar young man that he was almost tempted to vent some abusive language upon him.

Sharpening the razor once more upon the strop, the barber began shaving the youth’s chin and throat. But his razor had no edge on it, his hand shook, and while he was bending his head over his customer, he could not stop sniffing. In bed his nose had not run in this way, and it annoyed him. He was often obliged to stop his work to wipe his nose, but as soon as he started again, the intense itching of his nostrils caused him to sniff and snivel again worse than ever.

Then the baby began to cry in the inner room, and O-Ume-san left the husband to go to her lonely child. The young man, though being shaved roughly with a blunt razor, remained cool and unconcerned, and his strange insensibility to the roughness of the shave now irritated the barber’s nerves to quite an unbearable extent.

Yoshisaburo had another sharp razor, which he was accustomed to use, but somehow he did not feel inclined to take it out. Whether his razor was sharp or not he did not care very much. But unconsciously he soon became sensitive, and when he found any small rough