they do after going to bed and what they do on rising in the morning; they go on living with their world successfully divided in two, as if total oblivion had intervened. My trouble was that I could not yet successfully cope with this extraordinary phenomenon. At the end of November I went drinking with Horiki at a cheap bar in Kanda. We had no sooner staggered out of that bar than my evil companion began to insist that we continue our drinking somewhere else. We had already run out of money, but he kept badgering me. Finally—and this was because I was drunker and bolder than usual —I said, "All right. I'll take you to the land of dreams. Don't be surprised at what you see. Wine, women and song .. ." "You mean a cafe?" "I do." "Let's go!" It happened just as simply as that. The two of us got on a streetcar. Horiki said in high spirits, "I'm starved for a woman tonight. Is it all right to kiss the hostess?"
I was not particularly fond of Horiki when he played the drunk that way. Horiki knew it, and he deliberately labored the point. "All right? I'm going to kiss her. I'm going to kiss whichever hostess sits next to me. All right?" "It won't make any difference, I suppose." "Thanks! I'm starved for a woman." We got off at the Ginza and walked into the cafe of "wine, women and song." I was virtually without a penny, and my only hope was Tsuneko. Horiki and I sat down at a vacant booth facing each other. Tsuneko and another hostess immediately hurried over. The other girl sat next to me, and Tsuneko
