Page:Tayama Katai and His Novel Entitled Futon (Reece).pdf/317

 one of the days when the cold wind blows briskly from the Musashi plains. He could hear a tremendous noise like roaring waves from the branches of the old trees. When Tokio opened a shutter of an east window as Yoshiko did on the day she departed for her home, light streamed into the room. Her desk, bookcase, bottles, and powder plate were left as before. It seemed as if his loved one had, as usual, gone to school. Tokio opened a drawer in her desk. He found there an old discarded ribbon which was soiled. Tokio picked it up and sniffed its fragrance. After a while, he stood up and opened the sliding door. There were three big wicker trunks tied with rope and ready to be shipped to Yoshiko; piled beyond them were Yoshiko's daily used futons--a yellowish green mattress with an arabesque design, and a similar patterned, thickly wadded bed counterpane. Tokio pulled them out. His heart throbbed with indescribable emotions on smelling the oily and sweaty fragrance of his loved one. Pressing his face on the stained velvet neckband of the counterpane, he smelled his loved one's odors to his heart's content.

The mixed emotions of sexual desire, sadness, and despair suddenly attacked him. Tokio spread out the mattress and put the counterpane on top, he buried his face in the cold and soiled velvet neckband and cried.

The dimly lit room--outside the wind was blowing hard.

(1907)