Page:Tayama Katai and His Novel Entitled Futon (Reece).pdf/193

 "Didn't she say in her letter that she would have him leave right away?"

"Will he go home?"

"Who knows!"

At the severe tone of her husband's voice, she kept quiet. After a while, she said, "That's why I really dislike a young woman wanting to become a novelist. Not only the person wishing to become a novelist, but also the parents who sent her are disgusting."

"Still, I bet you're relieved," he was about to say to his wife, but stopped, and instead said, "Well, anyway that doesn't matter. In any case you would not understand. . . .Instead of talking, how about serving saké."

His obedient wife picked up a saké bottle and poured the saké into a ceramic saké cup filling it to the brim.

Tokio drank saké continuously, as if without saké he could not be relieved of his worry. At his request for the third bottle, his wife became anxious and said, "What has happened to you recently?"

"Why?"

"You have been drinking too much."

"What's wrong with drinking too much?"

"Because you have something to worry about, haven't you? You have no need to worry about Yoshiko-san, or do you?"

"Nonsense!" Tokio scolded her, but his wife was not put off and said, "But if you drink too much it will harm you. It's time you stop. If you go into the lavatory and again go to sleep there, because you are so heavy, two of us, O-Tsuru (the servant) and I, will not be able to help you."