Horiki remarked that it was funny how stingy I had become. Or, as Shigeko had it, I had stopped being so nice to Shigeko. Without a word, without a trace of a smile, I spent one day after the next looking after Shigeko and drawing comic strip, some of them so idiotic I couldn't understand them myself, for the various firms which commissioned them. (Orders had gradually started coming in from other publishers, all of an even lower class than Shizuko's company— third-rate publishers, I suppose they'd be called.) I drew with extremely, excessively depressed emotions, deliberately penning each line, only to earn money for drink. When Shizuko came home from
work I would dash out as if in relay with her, and head for the outdoor booths near the station to drink cheap, strong liquor. Somewhat buoyed after a bout, I would return to the apartment. I would say, "The more I look at you the funnier your face seems. Do you know I get inspiration for my cartoons from looking at your face when you're asleep?" "What about your face when you sleep? You look like an old man, a man of forty." "It's all your fault. You've drained me dry. 'Man's life is like a flowing river. What is there to fret over? On the river bank a willow tree ...'" "Hurry to bed and stop making such a racket. Would you like something to eat?" She was quite calm. She did not take me seriously. "If there's any liquor left, I'll drink it. 'Man's life is like a flowing river. Man's river . . .' no, I mean 'the river flows, the flowing life'." I would go on singing as Shizuko took off my clothes. I fell asleep
