end of the year, wasn't it? He always chooses the end of the year, just when everybody is frantically busy. He'll prove the death of me if he keeps on doing such things." The madam of the bar in Kyobashi was the recipient of Flatfish's discourse. I called, "Madam." "What? Have you come to?" She held her smiling face directly over mine as she spoke. I burst into tears. "Take me away from Yoshiko." The words came as a surprise even to myself. The madam rose to her feet and breathed a barely audible sigh. Then I made an utterly unpremeditated slip of the tongue, one so comic, so idiotic that it all but defies description. I said, "I'm going somewhere where there aren't any women." Flattish was the first to respond, with loud guffaws; the madam tittered; and in the midst of my tears I turned red and smiled despite myself. "An excellent idea," said Flatfish still continuing his inane laughter. "You really ought to go to a place with no women. Everything goes wrong as soon as women are around you. Yes, a place without women is a fine suggestion." A place without women. And the worst of it was that lily delirious ravings were later to be realized in a most ghastly way. Yoshiko seemed to have got the idea that I had swallowed the overdose of sleeping pills by way of atonement for her sin, and this made her all the more uncertain before me. She never smiled, and she looked as if she could hardly be persuaded to open her mouth. I found the apartment so oppressive that I would end by going out as usual to swill cheap liquor. After the Dial incident, however, I host weight noticeably. My arms and legs felt heavy, and I often was too lazy to
