was older than the other women, so she had attracted Junji’s attention. It
turned out that they both lived in North Kamakura, and so that evening they
went back together on the train. When the conductor came to collect their
tickets, Kiriko handed him the money necessary to change Junji’s third-
class ticket to second-class before Junji could get his money out. It was
quicker for her to open the handbag on her lap than it was for Junji to
rummage through his pocket, but her movements suggested that she had
been planning to pay.
Sometime after they passed Yokohama, Kiriko opened her sketchbook
and started to draw something. It seemed to Junji that her face became
more and more beautiful as she alternately glanced up at him and looked
down at the paper. They were sitting across from one another. Junji leaned
forward and looked at the sketchbook—Kiriko was sketching his face. He
took the sketchbook from her without saying a word. He looked at it for a
moment or two, then took out his own pencil and began adding to the
sketch she had started, drawing over it.
“Hey, hey—stop it!” she said, taking the sketchbook back. But Junji felt
embarrassed at having his face drawn, so he stole the book back from her
and added some more to the sketch. Kiriko leaned forward this time, but
she was evidently unable just to sit and watch—she couldn’t just leave the
drawing to him, it seemed—and she took the sketchbook back again,
starting once more to draw. This same cycle of taking and having taken was
repeated over and over, and in this manner Junji’s face continued to be
drawn. The outline of his face grew blurry in certain places, places where
the lines Kiriko had drawn and the lines Junji had drawn overlapped
excessively. Even a few unnecessary shadows had appeared. But all during
the time they drew Junji’s face together, a warm affection for Kiriko had
been welling up inside of him. It seemed to him that even the drawing
expressed this emotion. He had stopped feeling the shyness he had felt at
first at having his face sketched—indeed, drawing over the drawing Kiriko
