Fine weather. I decided to send in a sick-report to Mr. Satō and take today and tomorrow off. Last night Kindaichi returned the two yen I had lent him the other day, so I wasn't hard up for cigarettes today. I began writing my story. I called it"Magnolia," but later changed it to "The Wooden Horse."
The appetite for writing and the sexual appetite seem closely related. When the keeper of the lending library came and showed me some oddities, somehow I found myself wanting to read them. So I borrowed a few. One was The Flowery Night of the Hazy Moon; the other, Trade Secrets of Love. For about three hours I copied The Flowery Night of the Hazy Moon in Roman letters in my notebook.
I went to bed after writing three pages of "The Wooden Horse." I was yearning for Setsuko, but not because of the lonely sound of the rain. Because of having read Flowery Night!