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honor her virginity as she had already given herself to Tanaka. He might as well have gone ahead and obtained satisfaction for his own lust. When Tokio thought along these lines, Yoshiko, whom he had placed on a pedestal, now seemed to him like a streetwalker, and he began to think that not only her body but also her refined manners were distasteful. Suffering with intense agony, he hardly slept that night. Tokio, hands folded on his chest, reflected: He might as well carry out his desires. In any case, she was not what she had been. The way things were, by sending her boy friend back to Kyoto and taking advantage of her weakness, he might have his way with her. Suppose he had stealthily crept upstairs to the room where Yoshiko slept and told her of his helpless love, what might have happened? She might suddenly sit up and admonish him, or she might have screamed and called for help, or she might have sympathized with his passion and sacrificed herself to his desires. But suppose she had agreed to his lust, how would she be able to meet him next morning? She would no doubt be unable to endure meeting him face to face in the clear light of day. She must be sleeping late in the morning without eating breakfast. As these thoughts passed through his mind, he recalled Maupassant's short story The Father. He remembered how keenly he was moved particularly by a scene where a young girl wept bitterly after surrendering to a man's will. On the other hand, another power seized him and fought furiously against his gloomy imaginations. Worry after worry, anguish after anguish, he tossed around in his bed; he heard the sound of the clock striking two, and then three.
