Page:Tayama Katai and His Novel Entitled Futon (Reece).pdf/237

 "Of course, you may say so. But, if you stay here, I'll be unable to supervise her, as one can never tell when love might not be able to be controlled."

"I'm sure, such a thing will never happen to us."

"Are you able to swear to that?"

"If I can just study quietly, nothing will happen."

"That's what worries me."

For a long time they had been seated facing each other repeating this rambling conversation. Tokio encouraged him in various ways to return home by pointing out the advantages for their future, the manly sacrifice he would be making and how it would expedite their progress towards marriage. Tokio saw that Tanaka was neither the handsome man nor the intellectual that he had imagined. What made an immediate impression on Tokio when he first met Tanaka in a sultry room having three walls at the inn located in Sanban-Chō in Kōjimachi was his thoroughly unpleasant attitude, fostered by Christianity, which was too smug, and unsuitably mature for his age. His speech smacked of the Kyoto dialect, his face was pallid--he did have a certain gentleness about him, but what had moved Yoshiko to choose him from all the young men there were was a mystery to Tokio. What Tokio found the most unpleasant about him was his lack of simple-hearted frankness, and his attitude to justify, for form's sake, his own sins and shortcomings by making various excuses. However, to tell the truth, these impressions were not perceived immediately nor clearly reflected into his passionate brain; on seeing a small traveling bag lying in a corner of the room and a pitifully worn out plain white