Free Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination by Edogawa Rampo

Lieutenant Sunaga (who had once been on his staff and was now his guest tenant) and his wife, so much so that it had become a well-rehearsed line of conversation whenever he saw her. But this was all extremely distasteful to Tokiko, and she tried to avoid the general as much as possible. Occasionally, when the tedium of life with her silent, crippled husband became unbearable, she would seek the company of the general's wife and daughter, but usually only after first making sure that the general was absent.
    Secretly, she felt that her self-sacrificing spirit and rare faithfulness well deserved the old man's lavish praise, and at first this had tickled her vanity. But in those early days the whole arrangement had been a novelty. Then it had even been fun, in a way, to care for one so completely helpless as her husband.
    Gradually, however, her self-satisfaction had begun to change into boredom, and then into fear. Now she shuddered whenever she was highly praised. She imagined she could see an accusing finger pointing at her, while in her ear she heard a sarcastic voice rasping: "Under the cloak of faithfulness you are leading a life of sin and treachery!"
    Day by day the unconscious changes which took place in her way of thinking surprised even herself. In fact, she often wondered at the fickleness of human feelings.
    In the beginning she had been only a humble and faithful wife, ignorant of the world, naive and bashful in the extreme. But now, although her outward appearance showed little change, horrible passions dwelt in her heart, passions awakened by the constant sight of her pitiful, crippled husband—he was so crippled that the word was utterly inappropriate to describe his condition—he who had once been so proud, and of such a noble bearing.
    Like a beast of prey, or as if possessed by the devil, she had begun to feel an insane urge to gratify her lust! Yes, she had changed—so completely! From where did this maddening impulse spring, she asked herself. Could it be attributed to the mysterious charm of that lump of flesh? As a matter of fact, that is all her husband was-just a lump of flesh! Or was it the work of some uncanny, supernatural power which could not be defined?
    Whenever General Washio spoke to her, Tokiko could not help feeling conscious of this inexplicable sense of guilt. Furthermore, she became more and more conscious of her own large and fat body.
    "An alarming situation," she kept repeating. "Why do I continue to grow so fat like some lazy fool?" In sharp contrast, however, her countenance was very pale, and she often seemed to sense that the general looked upon her body dubiously while uttering his usual words of praise. Perhaps this was why she detested him.
    It was a remote district where they lived, and the distance from the main house to the cottage was almost half a city block. Between the houses there was a grassy field with no regular paths, where striped snakes often crawled out with rustling noises. Also, if one took a false step, he was immediately in danger of falling into an old abandoned well covered with weeds. An uneven apology for a hedge surrounded the large mansion, with fields sprawling beyond it.
    From the darkness where she stood Tokiko eyed the gaunt, two-storied cottage, their abode, with its back towards the far grove of a small Buddhist shrine. In the sky a couple of stars seemed to twinkle a little more brightly than the others. The room where her husband lay was dark. He was naturally unable to light the lamp, and so the "lump of flesh" must be blinking his eyes helplessly, leaning back in his squat chair, or slipping off the seat to lie on the mats in the gloom.
    What a pity! When she thought of it, chills of disgust, misery, and sorrow seemed to run down her spine.
    Entering the house, she noticed that the door of the room upstairs was ajar, gaping like a wide black mouth, and she heard the familiar low sound of tapping on the mats.
    "Oh, he is at it again," she said