Page:Tayama Katai and His Novel Entitled Futon (Reece).pdf/157

 letters in one corner of his letter to send him her photograph, but later he smeared it out with ink. Good looks are essential for a woman. A man ignores an ugly woman, no matter how talented she may be. In his heart Tokio thought that she must be ugly as usually is the case of a woman who wants to study literature. Yet, he hoped that, if possible, she would be a woman of acceptable appearance.

Having obtained permission from her parents, Yoshiko, accompanied by her father, visited Tokio's home in February of the next year; it was just the seventh day after Tokio's third son was born. In the room next to the drawing room, Tokio's wife was still lying in confinement and upon being told by her elder sister, who was staying in their home to help her, that the young pupil was beautiful, Tokio's wife was not a little troubled. Even the elder sister felt some uneasiness wondering what her brother-in-law was doing having such a young and beautiful woman as his pupil. Tokio, facing Yoshiko and father who were seated side by side, talked in great detail concerning the life of literary men and their purposes, and sounded out in advance her father's views on her marital problem. Yoshiko's family was one of the three wealthy families in Niimi-Chō, both of her parents were devout Christians, particularly her mother who was an outstanding devotee and who was said to have once studied at Dōshisha Girls School. Her elder brother had been a professor, since returning from England, of a certain national university. Yoshiko, upon graduating from an elementary school in her home town, went to Kobe, and entered a women's college in that city, where she enjoyed a fashionable campus life. Those girls' schools which were founded