No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

140
of us met face to face it was as if we immediately
metamorphosed into dogs of the same shape and pelt,
and we bounded out through the streets covered with
fallen snow.
That was how we happened to warm over, as it
were, the embers of our old friendship. We went together
to the bar in Kyobasbi and, eventually, we two
soused dogs visited Sbizuko's apartment in Koenji,
where I sometimes spent the night.
I shall never forget. It was a sticky hot summer's
night. Horiki had come to my apartment about dusk
wearing a tattered summer kimono. He told me that
an emergency had come up and he had been obliged
to pawn his summer suit. He asked me to lend him
some money because he was anxious to redeem the suit
before his aged mother found out. The matter apparently
concerned him genuinely. As ill luck would have
it, I hadn't any money at my place. As usual I sent
Yoshiko oat to the pawnshop with some of her
clothes. I lent Horiki what he needed from the money
she received, but there was still a little left over, and
I asked Yoshiko to buy some gin with it. We went up
on the roof of the apartment house, where we celebrated
the evening cool with a dismal little party.
Faint miasmic gusts of wind blew in from the river
every now and then.