"Some liquor. I haven't got any money." I spoke under my breath to Tsuneko. I felt I wanted to drink till I drowned in it. Tsuneko was in the eyes of the world unworthy even of a drunkard's kiss, a wretched woman who smelled of poverty. Astonishingly, incredibly enough, this realization struck me with the force of a thunderbolt. I drank more that night than ever before in my life, more . .. more, my eyes swam with drink, and every time Tsuneko and I looked in each other's face, we gave a pathetic little smile. Yes, just as Horiki had said, she really was a tired, poverty-stricken woman and nothing more. But this thought itself was accompanied by a welling-up of a feeling of comradeship for this fellow-sufferer from poverty. (The clash between rich and poor is a hackneyed enough subject, but I am now convinced that it really is one of the eternal themes of drama.) I felt pity for Tsuneko; for the first time in my life I was conscious of a positive (if feeble) movement of love in my heart. I vomited. I passed out. This was also the first time I bad ever drunk so much as to lose consciousness. When I woke Tsuneko was sitting by my pillow. I had been sleeping in her room on the second floor of the carpenter's house. "I thought you were joking when you told me that love flew out the window when poverty came in the door. Were you serious? You didn't come any more. What a complicated business it is, love and poverty. Suppose I work for you? Wouldn't that be all right?" "No, it wouldn't." She lay down beside me. Towards dawn she pronounced for the first time the word "death." She too seemed to be weary beyond endurance of the task of being a human being; and when I reflected on my dread
