196 Hayama Yoshiki
and also your own name. And you’ll be careful too, won’t you? Goodbye.”
The din of the children once more surged about Matsudo Yoshizō. He glanced at the name and address at the end of the letter and gulped down the rice wine that he had poured into a tea cup.
“I’m going to drink myself silly!” he shouted. “And I’m going to break every damned thing I can lay my hands on.”
“I see,” said his wife. “So you can afford to get drunk, can you? And what about the children?”
He looked at his wife’s bloated stomach and remembered his seventh child.
Hayama Yoshiki (1894–1945)
This story was first published 1926
Translated by Ivan Morris
