LITMIR.BIZ

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a word used to tease or ridicule someone ignorant of women. A popular remark was: "He's in love, so we know he hasn't had a woman yet."

      To them the relationship between father and son was that of mutual friendship. But with their mothers—even with the mothers of their close friends—they behaved like spoiled children. When they got disillusioned by women who at first had attracted them, they came running home to their mothers. They only thought of their women as "things" as time went on, and this nursed the overly-indulgent nature of their mothers' love. There was a case of a young mother who, out of spite for her husband's having taken a mistress, took on a lover herself. Her son found out and kicked her in the face. His friends heard of this and treated him with the greatest respect. He was looked up to as a matured man.

      All the group were very good friends, but theirs were not the generous friendships each had had in his high school days. There was no element of self-sacrifice in their relationships, but instead a carefully balanced system of debit and credit. If the debit column grew too long, the friendship would break up. Everything they did and said was calculated; they never risked a wild venture that might drastically upset their accounts. In a sense, there were certain standards which had to be adhered to and which served as a basis for their special morality. Their conception of friendship was that of being accomplices in crime. There was a common bond formed by their savage or immoral acts—acts which were not wholly attributable to their youth—and this welded the bonds of their friendships.

      This group of young men was mixed up in all sorts of sleezy doings—with women, questionable businesses, fights, and even blackmail. These involvements occurred frequently and were always considered the result of youthful mistakes. Their elders would either ignore their faults or else excuse them because they were "young."

      If the adult world feared them as a dangerous force, second only to communism, this fear was groundless. A new generation brought forth new sentiments and a new code of morals, and these youths were growing up in such surroundings. They stood erect, like cactus, without looking down to see that they were blooming in barren soil.

      The young unconsciously tried to destroy the morals of their elders—morals which always judged against the new generation. In the young people's eyes, the reward of virtue was dullness and vanity. While the older generation thought it was growing ever more broad-minded, but actually grew narrower in outlook, the young looked for something broad and fresh to build on. And besides, who started measuring naked human feelings in terms of material things?

      Tatsuya was no exception. He behaved like a spoiled child with his mother, but with his father it was quite different. One day, soon after he had joined the boxing club, he happened to see his father in a first-class railway car between Tokyo and Yokosuka. Tatsuya was on his way home from a training session. He got on and came home in the same car as his father. Sitting still on a roomy seat beside his father, he was the picture of the dutiful teenager next door who went to school every morning on the same train as his father.

      That evening after supper he felt thoroughly worn out. He stretched himself out and muttered: "I can't stand it. I think I'll get a first-class train pass during training. It's so much more comfortable."

      His father heard him and lowered his paper noisily.

      "What's that? Where do you get such silly ideas? You're still in college, you know. If your training tires you so much, you'd better give it up. In any case, I haven't got money to waste on a pass for you."

      "Money to waste?"

      For a moment Tatsuya felt nothing but hatred for his father.

      Sunday about a month later he was watching his father training for the annual alumni boat race.

      "Your old man's still pretty fit. Just look at these muscles," his father called out. "Training was training in my day. Go ahead, punch me, boxer!"

      He felt his father's muscles. His stomach was still lean and solid. His father tensed, and Tatsuya punched him as hard as he could in the stomach, sending the older man reeling backward.

      "Hey, what are you trying to do. I didn't mean for you to take me so seriously," his father said as he slowly picked himself up, a shocked, cold look in his eyes.

      The next day when his mother told him that his father had spit up blood, Tatsuya said nothing, but a few days later, after some hard sparring, he returned home with his face horribly swollen. He went straight into his father's study.

      "I got a real work-out today," he said, "Look at my head."

      This was Tatsuya's rather peculiar attempt to make amends to his father, and he was disappointed when all his father did was look worried and ask if he was all right.

      Tatsuya had long given up on love as well. His only notion of it was limited to an image of himself and a woman in a forest somewhere, where they played about naked among the trees. He had no clear picture of the woman either; whether she was the younger or was innocent did not matter.

      With this attitude, it was natural that he should not have expected anything special from Eiko over and above simple sex. But for some reason when he danced with her for the first time he did not immediately try to imagine how she looked under her clothes. Generally Tatsuya was not very demanding of the women he dated. When he had gotten to know them intimately, he had inevitably been disappointed, so that now he acquired girls just as a woman would add a dress of the latest style to her wardrobe. Tatsuya was always picking up some new girl, dropping her, and finding another.

      On certain occasions, he and his friends regarded women as indispensable accessories. They enjoyed showing up sporting a new girl friend. If someone appeared with a girl everybody knew, it was like wearing an old suit that everyone had seen many times.

      If they can say that changes in fashion mirror the history of women, they could change it around to say that changes in women mirrored the history of the young man Tatsuya, and it would have been true. But though his attitude to women was one of changes, it was also one of simple repetition, because Tatsuya would end up bored by each successive girl. Each affair started out hot but soon cooled off until Tatsuya simply dropped the unfortunate girl.

      But what was it that Eiko had that attracted and fascinated him?

      One day in early summer she came to see him at his home in Zushi; she was on her way home from nearby Hayama where she had been getting the family summer house ready for the warm weather.

      Tatsuya took her out sailing, and by the time they got back it was already getting dark. Eiko decided to spend the night at Hayama rather than go all the way back to Tokyo.

      Tatsuya suggested that they eat at his house. After dinner he asked her if she wanted to take a bath before he took her home. Tatsuya's room was in the garden, separated from the rest of the house. She decided to bathe and went off to the bathroom in the main building. When she returned, Tatsuya met her at the door.

      "I think I'll take a bath myself. Can you wait a while? There's nobody waiting up for you at Hayama anyhow."

      Tatsuya's room contained two sections and a spacious hall-like passage with gym mats on the floor and a punching bag hanging from the ceiling. Eiko went into the hall and took a jab at the bag. It hardly moved. She enjoyed looking at the training equipment and walking on the canvas mats.

      After his bath, Tatsuya sluiced himself down with cold water. Suddenly he made up his mind for the first time how he felt toward Eiko.

      He covered the upper part of his body with a towel and went in and stood beyond the shoji, the paper-covered lattice door that divided the hall from the other room.

      "Eiko!" he called out from outside, and sensing her turn round towards him, he thrust his erection through the thin white paper.

      There was a dry snap as the paper ripped. Eiko looked startled, then she flung the book she had been reading at the screen with all her might. The book hit its target and fell to the floor.

      For a moment Tatsuya felt the thrill and excitement of the boxing ring. He had found a tough opponent and braced himself for the attack.

      He slid the door aside and entered

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