"I'm not acting, you little idiot. I'm going to kiss you."
"Go ahead."
"No, I'm not qualified. I'm afraid I'll have to give up the idea of
marrying you. Look at my face. Red, isn't it? I've been drinking."
"It's just the sunset shining on it. Don't try to fool me. You promised
yesterday you wouldn't drink. You wouldn't break a promise, would
you? We hooked fingers. Don't tell me you've been drinking, It's a lie—
I know it. is."
Yoshiko's pale face was smiling as she sat there inside the dimly lit
shop. What a holy thing uncorrupted virginity is, I thought. I had never
slept with a virgin, a girl younger. than myself. I'd marry her. I wanted
once in my lifetime to know that great savage joy, no matter how
immense the suffering that might ensue. I had always imagined that the
beauty of virginity was nothing more than the sweet, sentimental
illusion of stupid poets, but it really is alive and present in this world.
We would get married. In the spring we'd go together on bicycles to see
waterfalls framed in green leaves.
I made up my mind on the spot: it was a then-and-there decision,
and I did not hesitate to steal the flower.
Not long afterwards we were married. The joy I obtained as a result
of this action was not necessarily great or savage, but the suffering
which ensued was staggering—so far surpassing what I had imagined
that even describing it as "horrendous" would not quite cover it. The
"world," after all, was still a place of bottomless horror. It was by no
means a place of childlike simplicity where everything could be settled
by a single then-and-there decision.
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