professed to remember me also. We expressed exaggerated surprise and laughed a great deal. There were many things to discuss even without resorting, as people always did in those days, to questions about each other's experiences during the air raids. I said, "You haven't changed a bit." "No, I'm an old woman already. I creak at the joints. You're the one who really looks young," "Don't be silly. I've got three children now. I've come today to buy them some sea food." We exchanged these and other greetings appropriate to long- separated friends and asked for news of mutual acquaintances. The madam suddenly broke off to ask, in a rather different tone, if by chance I had ever known Yozo. I answered that I never bad, where- upon she went inside and brought out three notebooks and three photographs which she handed to me. She said, "Maybe they'll make good material for a novel." I can never write anything when people force material on me, and I was about to return the lot to her without even examining it. The photographs, however, fascinated me, and I decided after all to accept the notebooks. I promised to stop by again on the way back, and asked her if she happened to know where my friend lived. As a fellow newcomer, she knew him. Sometimes, in fact, he even patronized her shop. My house was just a few steps away. That night after drinking for a while with my friend I decided to spend the night. I became so immersed in reading the notebooks that I didn't sleep a wink till morning. The events described took place years ago, but I felt sure that people today would still be quite interested in them. I thought that it would
