with my forehead pressed against her breast. This was my daily routine. ... et puis on recommence encore le lendemain avec seulement to même règle que la veille et qui est d'éviter les grandes joies barbares de même que les grandes douleurs comme un crapaud contorne une pierre sur son chemin. . . . When I first read in translation these verses by Guy-Charles Cros, I blushed until my face burned. The toad. (That is what I was—a toad. It was not a question of whether or not society tolerated me, whether or not it ostracized me. I was an animal lower than a dog, lower than a cat. A toad. I sluggishly moved—that's all.) The quantities of liquor I consumed had gradually increased. I went drinking not only in the neighborhood of the Koenji station but as far as the Ginza.
Sometimes I spent the night out. At bars I acted the part of a ruffian, kissed women indiscriminately, did anything as long as it was not in accord with "accepted usage," drank as wildly—no more so—as before my attempted suicide, was so bard pressed for money that I used to pawn Shizuko's clothes. A year had passed since I first came to her apartment and smiled bitterly at the torn kite. One day, along when the cherry trees were going to leaf, I stole some of Shizuko's underrobes and sashes, and took them to a pawnshop. I used the money they gave me to go drinking on the Ginza. I spent two nights in a row away from home. By the evening of the third day I began to feel some compunctions about my behavior, and I returned to Shizuko's apartment. I unconsciously hushed my
