make more sense if I asked some magazine to publish the whole thing as it was, rather than attempt any clumsy improvements. The only souvenirs of the town I could get for my children were some dried fish. I left my friend's house with my rucksack still half-empty,
and stopped by the coffee shop. I came to the point at once. "I wonder if I could borrow these notebooks for a while." "Yes, of course." "Is the man who wrote them still alive?" "I haven't any idea. About ten years ago somebody sent me a parcel containing the notebooks and the photographs to my place in Kyobashi. I'm sure it was Yozo who sent it, but he didn't write his address or even his name on the parcel. It got mixed up with other things during the air raids, but miraculously enough the notebooks were saved. Just the other day I read through them for the first time." "Did you cry?" "No. I didn't cry . . . I just kept thinking that when human beings get that way, they're no good for anything." "It's been ten years. I suppose he may be dead already. He must have sent the notebooks to you by way of thanks. Some parts are rather exaggerated I can tell, but you obviously suffered a hell of a lot at his hands. If everything written in these notebooks is true, I probably would have wanted to put him in an insane asylum myself if I were his friend." "It's-his father's fault," she said unemotionally. "The Yozo we knew was so easy-going and amusing, and if only be hadn't drunk—no, even though he did drink—he was a good boy, an angel."
