She burst out laughing. "What a nuisance you are. You may already have become an addict, for all I know." Her crutches clacked as she hobbled over to the shelf to take down some medicine. "I can't give you a whole box. You'd use it all up. Here's half." "How stingy you've become! Well, if that's the best you can do." I gave myself a shot as soon as I got back home. Yoshiko timidly asked, "Doesn't it hurt?" "Of course it hurts. But I've got to do it, no matter how painful it is. That's the only way to increase the efficiency of my work. You've
noticed how healthy I've been of late." Then, playfully, "Well, to work. To work, to work." Once, late at night, I knocked on the door of the pharmacy. As soon as I caught sight of the woman in her nightgown bobbling forward on her crutches, I threw my arms around her and kissed her. I pretended to weep. She handed me a box without a word. By the time I had come to realize acutely that drugs were as abominable, as foul—no, fouler—than gin, I had already become an out-and-out addict. I had truly reached the extreme of shamelessness. Out of the desire to obtain the drug I began again to make copies of pornographic pictures. I also had what might literally be called a very ugly affair with the crippled woman from the pharmacy. I thought, "I want to die. I want to die more than ever before. There's no chance now of a recovery. No matter what sort of thing I do, no matter what I do, it's sure to be a failure, just a final coating applied to my shame. That dream of going on bicycles to see a waterfall framed in summer leaves—it was not for
