Page:Tayama Katai and His Novel Entitled Futon (Reece).pdf/207

 completely supervise her conduct."

"Oh? That's a good idea. To tell the truth, since Yoshiko-san is such a strong minded person, an uneducated person like me can't...."

"No, I didn't mean that. I don't think it'll be good for her, if I let her have too much freedom; therefore, I'm going to carefully control her behavior by letting her stay in my house."

"That's will be better. For Yoshiko-san, too. . . . she has nothing unusual for these times, and she has no particular faults, but the only thing wrong with her is that she goes around casually strolling with her boy friends in the evening. I keep telling her, 'If you would just stop doing this one thing. . . .' At which Yoshiko-san always starts to laugh and says, ‘Here we go again with your quaint ideas.' The other day I heard that a plain-clothes policeman from the police station at our corner got suspicious of her and her boy friend's behavior because they were so frequently walking around the neighborhood and stood watching in front of our house. Of course, since she has done nothing wrong, it doesn't matter."

"When was that?"

"I believe it was towards the end of last year."

"It's too bad she has to be so untraditional," Tokio said.

Looking at the hands of the clock which pointed to half-past ten, he continued, "I wonder what's the matter? Such a young woman to be walking around alone so late."

"She will be back soon."

"Does this sort of thing happen very often?"

"No, it seldom happens. It's a summer night, she probably thinks it's still early evening."