Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/54

 pickles struck her as extremely insipid. Her parents’ house was fairly near and she now began stopping by on her way back from the hairdresser’s or the public bath. She would slip in by the back door and ask for some pickles, which she then mixed in a bowl with rice and tea and gulped down greedily. Yet the knowledge that she now belonged to another family made her ashamed of these visits and took away most of the pleasure.

Her husband liked Kanako’s hair best when she did it up in a marumagé. At first she used to take great trouble in arranging it and would tie the chignon with a red band. Yet gradually she became imbued with the drab, gloomy atmosphere of the household. The mood that had buoyed her up during the early months of her marriage disappeared and she no longer took any pains with her coiffure. Why make her hair beautiful when everything else was so unlovely?

It was just at this time that Sōichi came home late one night thoroughly drunk. Earlier in the evening Kanako had sat downstairs with the younger sister and listened to records. Then she had heated the saké for her father-in-law to sip when he came back from the bath-house. Wasao returned and said that he would wait for his son to join him at his saké, as was their habit in the evenings. Time went by, but still the young man did not return. Wasao was reminded of his son’s nocturnal outings in the past and the saké failed to produce its usual enlivening effect. He began to mumble some half-hearted apology on behalf of Sōichi. It made Kanako rather uncomfortable and she took the first opportunity to leave him and go upstairs. Ten o’clock passed, then eleven, and still there was no sign of Sōichi. Kanako became impatient. She emptied some old photographs out of a drawer and examined them. Then she began to rummage through some old magazines and story books which had been gathering dust in a cupboard. At that moment she was aware of a pungent smell of saké. Sōichi was back. Without a word he sprawled out on the floor like a refractory child and