Again the whole thing seemed so funny to me, for reasons I can’t explain, that I burst out laughing. The lady turned red, and smiled a little. I couldn’t stop laughing. Even though I knew that it would have a bad effect on the proprietor, it all seemed so strangely funny that I laughed until the tears came. I suddenly wondered if the phrase “the great laugh at the end of the world” that occurs in one of my husband’s poems didn’t mean something of the sort.

And yet it was not a matter that could be settled just by laughing about it. I thought for a minute and said, “Somehow or other I will make things good, if you will only wait one more day before you report to the police. I’ll call on you tomorrow without fail.” I carefully inquired where the restaurant was and begged them to consent. They agreed to let things stand for the time being, and left. Then I sat by myself in the middle of the cold room trying to think of a plan. Nothing came to me. I stood up, took off my wrap, and crept in among the covers where my boy was sleeping. As I stroked his head I thought how wonderful it would be if the night never never ended.

My father used to keep a stall in Asakusa Park. My mother died when I was young, and my father and I lived by ourselves in a tenement. We ran the stall together. My husband used to come now and then, and before long I was meeting him at other places without my father’s knowing it. When I became pregnant I persuaded him to treat me as his wife, although it wasn’t officially registered, of course. Now the boy is growing up fatherless, while my husband goes off for three or four nights or even for a whole month at a time. I don’t know where he goes or what he does. When he comes back he is always soused, and he sits there, deathly pale, breathing heavily and staring at my face. Sometimes he cries and the tears stream down his face, or without warning he crawls into my bed and holds me tightly. “Oh it can’t go on. I’m afraid. I’m afraid. Help me!”

Sometimes he trembles all over, and even after he falls asleep he talks deliriously and moans. The next morning he is absentminded, like a man with the soul taken out of him. Then he disappears and doesn’t return for three or four nights. A couple of my husband’s publisher friends have been looking after the boy and myself for some time, and once in a while they bring enough money to keep us from starving.

I dozed off, then opened my eyes before I was aware of it to see the morning light pouring in through the cracks in the shutters. I got up, dressed, strapped the boy to my back and went outside. I felt as if I couldn’t stand being in the silent house another minute.