after the apartment. Shigeko had always been left to play in the superintendent's room while her mother was away, and now she seemed delighted that an interesting "uncle" had turned up as a new playmate. For about a week I remained in a state of daze. Just outside the apartment window was a kite caught in the telegraph wires; blown about and ripped by the dusty spring wind, it nevertheless clung tenaciously to the wires, as if in affirmation of something. Every time I looked at the kite I had to smile with embarrassment and blush. It haunted me even in dreams. "I want some money." "How much?" she asked. "A lot ... Love flies out the window when poverty comes in the door, they say, and it's true." "Don't be silly. Such a trite expression." "Is it? But you don't understand. I may run away if things go on at this rate." "Which of us is the poor one? And which will run away? What a silly thing to say!" "I want to buy my drinks and cigarettes with my own money. I'm a lot better artist than Horiki." At such times the self-portraits I painted in high school—the ones Takeichi called "ghost pictures" —naturally came to mind. My lost masterpieces. These, my only really worthwhile pictures, had disappeared during one of my frequent changes of address. I afterwards painted pictures of every description, but they all fell far, far short of those splendid works as I remembered them. I was plagued by a heavy sense of loss, as if my heart had become empty. The undrunk glass of absinthe. A sense of loss which was doomed to remain eternally unmitigated stealthily began to take shape.
