Seeing me buy nothing but books, the mistress told me I ought to have at least a few clothes made. In truth, all I owned were some cotton garments woven in the country. Students in those days did not wear silk-lined clothing against the skin. I had a friend, a Yokohama merchant or something of the sort, whose household lived quite stylishly, and once a bolt of habutae silk underwear was delivered to his place. Everyone laughed when they saw it. The fellow was embarrassed and made all sorts of excuses, but he simply tossed the hard-won underwear into the bottom of his trunk and never used it. Then a whole crowd of us gathered around and deliberately made him put it on. As ill luck would have it, lice took to that underwear. My friend must have thought it a lucky chance; he rolled up the famed underwear, and on the pretext of going for a walk, threw it into a great muddy ditch at Nezu. I, walking with him then, stood on the bridge and laughed as I watched his performance, yet not the slightest feeling of waste arose anywhere in my breast.
Compared with those days, I had become considerably more grown-up. Still, I had not yet the prudence to have formal clothes made for myself. I held the strange notion that until I graduated and grew a beard, there was no need to worry about dress at all. So I told the mistress that I needed books but not clothes. The mistress knew the volume of books I bought. She asked if I read every one I bought. Among my purchases were dictionaries, and while these naturally ought to be looked into, there were not a few whose pages I had not even cut, so I was at a loss for an answer. I realized that if I was going to buy what I did not need anyway, books and clothing were much the same. Moreover, under the pretext of all the kindness I received, I wanted to buy the young lady some obi or bolt of cloth to her liking. Thus I left everything to the mistress.
The mistress would not say she would go alone. She ordered me to come along as well. And the young lady, she said, must come too. We, raised in an atmosphere unlike the present, as students had no habit of strolling about with young women. In those days I was even more a slave to custom than now, so I hesitated somewhat, but plucked up my resolve and set out.
The young lady was dressed up most finely. Though her natural complexion was fair, she had applied powder so liberally that she stood out the more. People in the street stared at her as she passed. And those who looked at the young lady would surely turn their gaze back upon my face—which made for a strange spectacle.
The three of us went to Nihonbashi and bought what we wished. Even in buying, our minds changed in various ways, so it took more time than expected. The mistress would specially call my name and consult me, "What do you think?" Now and then she would hold a bolt of cloth vertically from the young lady's shoulder to her chest and tell me to step back two or three paces and look. Each time, I gave my opinion like a full-grown man: that won't do, or that suits her well.
With such doings time passed, and we returned at the dinner hour. Saying she would treat me to something as thanks, the mistress led me into a narrow alley off a vaudeville house called Kihara. The alley was narrow, and the eating house was narrow too. Knowing nothing of the geography there, I was near astonished at the mistress's knowledge.
We returned home after nightfall. The next day was Sunday, so I shut myself in my room the whole day. When Monday came and I went to school, first thing in the morning one of my classmates teased me. He asked in affected tones when I had taken a wife. Then he praised my wife as a great beauty. It seemed he had somewhere caught sight of the three of us setting out for Nihonbashi.
