Diary of a Mad Old Man
By Junichir? Tanizaki (1960)
1. Old man Utsugi writes a salacious diary—not daily, because he's recovering from a stroke, but often enough to tell us that his mind still whirs with a lust that his clapped-out body can't consummate. The diary has its share of humdrum jottings (“It's a week since I began using traction”), but as time goes by it becomes a sweet and moving ledger of his desire for Satsuko, his daughter-in-law. (He and his wife share a house with their married son.) A former chorus girl, Satsuko is saucy and sexy and brazen enough to tell Utsugi that she never locks the door when she showers. Taking this as the invitation it's meant to be, he enters her shower stall. “Kneeling, I crammed her first three toes into my mouth. I pressed my lips to the wet sole of her foot, a foot that seemed as alluringly expressive as a face.” The young woman exploits his clumsy, despairing lust by extracting expensive gifts from him. In exchange, she gives an old man little bursts of life.
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