Page:Tayama Katai and His Novel Entitled Futon (Reece).pdf/167

 And, as soon as Yoshiko, a prospective woman novelist, returned from school, she spent most of her time writing letters instead of turning out compositions. This resulted in her having many boy friends. It was noticed that a large number of the letters she received were in masculine handwriting. A student of a teachers' college and a student of Waseda University, among her boy friends, were said to have occasionally visited her lodgings.

In the section of Dote Sanban-Chō in Kōjimachi where Yoshiko lived, there were not many girl students who were as stylish as Yoshiko. In this neighborhood there were many old-fashioned merchants' daughters. Some distance from Yoshiko's present lodging, in the direction of Ichigaya Mitsuke, Tokio's wife's parents lived. Therefore, Yoshiko's modern style that she had learned in Kobe, had all her neighbors raising their eyebrows. Tokio often heard about Yoshiko's behavior from his wife who quoted her sister as follows:

"Today my sister was telling me again that Yoshiko-san is such a troublemaker. She doesn't mind her boy friends coming to see her but she says they go out together to visit the temple of [Acala] in the evening, and she doesn't return home until late at night. . . . Of course, Yoshiko-san won't misbehave, but she can't stand the neighbor's gossiping, she says."

Whenever Tokio heard this sort of grumbling, he always took Yoshiko's side replying, "Such old-fashioned persons as you just can't understand Yoshiko's feelings. People seem to think it suspicious if they see a man and woman so much as strolling or talking together, but, after all, thinking or speaking like that is in itself old-fashioned.