This story in the original Japanese can be found here.
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The “Masked” Ones
When I was in college I was having the most intimate correspondence with fellow contributor to the third or fourth edition of Shinshicho. That I, who never had any intention of being a writer, ended up becoming a writer was entirely due to their bad example. Entirely? I am not sure if entirely is the most appropriate word. At that time I was hanging out with the Waseda crowd, aforementioned fellows excepted. It is clear that that crowd was also a bad influence on my pure self.
The most important point is that crowd. The group of Hinatsu Kounosuke, Saijou Yaso, and Moriguchi Tari published their society’s magazine, “Mask.” Once or twice with Sanguu Makoto I associated with Saijou in his red lamp-lit parlor. It was in that parlor that I was introduced to Natsume and Moriguchi, by my mentor Yoshie Kogan. I hardly remember what we were talking about at the time. But I do remember being dumbfounded returning to a deserted Ōkubo in the rain on a night a ghost story came up.
However, after that Yoshie fell out of touch with Saijou and the gang. But when I was in Ohomachi in Kamakura, Natsume also moved to Hase, and so I ran into him occasionally. Natsume’s eight-mat tatami room, at the time, was in a similar rented house, and so the wind blowing in from time to time, even after shutting the sliding doors, from the wall with the alcove was amusing. Although after he left Kamakura at some point I became estranged from Natsume. I hear they are all in good health. Natsume publishes long essays about poetry in Chūōkōron magazine occasionally. The wind probably no longer blows in from the alcove in the room where he wrote that manuscript.
(May 1914)