Page:Tayama Katai and His Novel Entitled Futon (Reece).pdf/189

 best to send him home, but, seeing how exhausted he was, I had no heart to send him home right away. (Please forgive my weakness.) Although I intended to abide by your advice that during my studies, I should not experiment with my ideas dealing with love, I suggested, without thinking, that he stay for one day at an inn, and go sightseeing, as he was a stranger in Tokyo. Sensei, please forgive me. Although we are now in the throes of passion, as we are endowed with reason, we will not repeat our conduct which lacked common sense as in Kyoto causing misunderstandings. Upon my oath, this will never happen again.

Kindest regards to your wife.

During the reading of this letter, he was filled with mixed emotions, and felt as if a burning fire were passing through his mind. Tanaka, a young man of twenty-one, was actually in Tokyo. Yoshiko met him. Who knows what they did. What she recently said to me might have been complete lies. They might already have had relations when they met at Suma on their summer vacation. Was not their conduct in Kyoto to satisfy their desires? Was not Tanaka's present behavior due to his longing to see her resulting in his following her to Tokyo? He might have clasped her hands and embraced her. What they did upstairs in an inn, under no supervision, was anyone's guess. Whether she was soiled or not was in doubt. While thinking of these things,