a very different, very damaged city. However, my life continued much the same as it had done before. I continued to paint and to try to sell my work, supplementing my income with various other activities but often reliant on the money which my children were now able to earn.
My affair also continued.
This brings me now to the winter of 1947-48 and the time of the crimes of which I was accused, convicted and sentenced to die.
Of course, I have been over this period and these events many times with many people. But once again I must state, I give this account now, not in the hope of saving my own life, only in the hope of sparing my family further shame.
As well as the murders, attempted murders and robbery at the Teikoku Bank on 26 January 1948, I was also convicted of forgery and fraud. These crimes of forgery and fraud are the crimes of which I am guilty and of which I want to speak first as they are also crimes which have a bearing on the Teikoku Bank case.
Sometime in the autumn of 1947, I received a cheque for 楼1,000 from a person whose name I can no longer remember. That day, I had little money on my person and so I went to a branch of the Mitsubishi Bank in order to cash the cheque. However, on the way to the bank, I realized I had forgotten my own personal seal. And it was then that I made my first mistake. For rather than return home for my own seal, I went into a shop and had a seal made in the name of the person who had sent me the cheque. I then proceeded to the bank.
Inside the bank, I went to the counter and took a ticket. I then sat down on a bench and waited for the number on my ticket to be called. But beside me on the bench, I noticed another ticket, another number. At that moment, the number on this ticket was called and on instinct, without thinking, I stood up and approached the counter. This was my second mistake. For at the counter, I received 楼10,000 in cash. Of course, this was a huge amount of money and, moreover, it was not mine to receive. But I said nothing, took the money and sat back down to once again wait for my own number to be called. When my number was called, I received my 楼1,000 at the counter and immediately left the bank, still with the 楼10,000 I had received under false pretences, if somewhat by accident or chance.
Of course, I felt most guilty. Then suddenly I had what I believed to be a good idea. I caught a cab to Ueno Park and got out just below the statue of Saig? Takamori. I quickly went into the mouth of the subway station, where over two dozen homeless children were gathered as usual. Here I mumbled some Buddhist mantra as I distributed 楼200 to each of the children until I had finally gotten rid of the 楼10,000. And that, I hoped, was the end of that and I tried to think no more about what I had done.
However, about one week later, while searching through my coat pockets, I came across the bankbook which I had also received when I had taken the 楼10,000. I have no idea where this thought came from, or what on earth possessed me, but I thought I should use the money in this account for the benefit of the Society for Tempera Painters, of which I was a member and from which I had repeatedly been forced to borrow money. In fact, I confess I had embezzled money from the society and I now wished to cover up my crime. So I began to think of a way in which I could take the money out of the account, which was in the name of a Mr Hasegawa.
I visited a seal-maker again, and this time I had a seal made in the name of Hasegawa. I then doctored the bankbook using other seals to show that there was over 楼200,000 in the account. Finally, I visited a moneylender who was living in ?mori. This first moneylender was obviously suspicious of me and refused my request to borrow money from him on the strength of the money shown in the bankbook. However, he introduced me to a second moneylender who agreed to write