Pathway to Japanese Literature

Hirade Sonoko was the old geisha’s real name, but this carried an incongruous quality, like a kabuki actor’s registry name that refused to harmonize with its bearer’s essence.
Yet to use only her professional name Ko-sono no longer suited the dignity she now possessed as she gradually returned to an amateur’s unadorned simplicity.

Here, I think it would be best to simply refer to her as "the old geisha". People often spotted her in department stores at midday.

With her Western-style hair done in an understated manner, wearing an Ichiraku kimono in a respectable style, and accompanied by a single maid, she wandered through the store with a melancholy expression.
With her tall, sturdy frame and hands dangling limply, she moved with a stride as if being propelled forward, circling back to the same spot repeatedly.
Then, just as suddenly, she would glide away like a paper kite’s string and come to stand in some unexpectedly distant corner of the sales floor.
She was conscious of nothing but the midday loneliness.

In this way she found respite in midday loneliness, yet remained unaware even of that fact.
When an eye-catching item suddenly roused her from her visual trance, her bluish, horizontally elongated eyes opened leisurely to gaze at the object like a peony in a dream.
Her lips slightly chapped as in her youth—when she retreated to a corner, a smile surfaced there.
She returned to melancholy once more.

However, when she appeared at her professional venue and found a worthy rival, after first making a slightly dazed expression, she would start chattering away cheerfully without restraint.

During the time when the former proprietress of Shinkiraku was alive, whenever this proprietress, she, and one more person from Shinbashi’s Hisago area gathered at the same table and began casual conversation, exchanges rich in wit and unexpected leaps—deemed typical by working adults’ ears—would unfold.
Even geishas of considerable age would say "Let’s learn their way of speaking," abandon their clients, and gather around the old women.

Even when alone, she would often share her experiences for favored young women in her profession.

Beginning with her maiko days—when she knew nothing of the world—laughing so hard at the explicit banter exchanged between parlor guests and senior geishas that she soiled the tatami and dissolved into tears, ruining the gathering; continuing through her kept woman days when she fled with a lover only for her patron to take her mother hostage; even after becoming a madam who maintained two or three courtesans of her own yet still suffered the indignity of riding a twelve-yen round-trip rickshaw to Yokohama—payable at month’s end—just to borrow five yen in cash; she would not rest until exhausting the young geishas with laughter, retelling these tales with unchanged plots but varied in embellishments, her delivery so possessed it seemed a spirit drove her to sink bewitching claws unwittingly into her listeners.
The old geisha envied their youth—indeed, it seemed old age itself was cunningly tormenting them through its skilled methods.

The young geishas finally disheveled their hair, pressed their sides, and gasped out.

“Neesan, I’m begging you—please stop already!”
“If you make us laugh any more, we’ll die!”

The old geisha never spoke of the living, but regarding deceased acquaintances, she would share her unique observations that peeled back a layer of their being.
Among those people, there were unexpected amateurs and performers as well.

When the renowned Chinese actor Mei Lanfang came to perform at the Imperial Theatre, there was an anecdote—of uncertain veracity—about how the old geisha implored a certain wealthy patron who had sponsored the event: “Cost is no concern—please arrange a single meeting for me,” only to be gently rebuffed by that patron.

One of the geishas who had been tormented by laughter, partly intending it as revenge,
"Neesan," one of them asked, "they say back then you took out your bankbook from your obiage and showed that person, saying 'If it's money, I have this much.' Is that true?"
Then she

“Ridiculous! I’m not a child—what do you take me for, rummaging through obiage sashes…” She became like a child, fuming with anger. Regardless of its veracity, the young women often asked precisely to draw out these naive reactions from her.

“But,” Ko-sono said after laying out her entire argument, “you all—no matter how many men you cycle through—in the end, you’re all just searching for that single man. Now, looking back like this, what remains of being drawn to parts of this man and that man are mere fragments—pieces of the man you’re all searching for. So none of them could last long on their own.”

“And as for this man we’re searching for—” the young geishas retorted,

“If that could be clearly understood, there’d be no need for such struggles.”
She said this with the unadorned melancholic beauty of everyday life—as if it might resemble both the man of first love and one they could yet discover ahead.

“When it comes to that, I envy respectable women."
“Having parents decide for them—living their whole lives with one man, bearing children without hesitation, dying under those children’s care.”

After listening this far, the young geishas would comment that Neesan's stories were fine enough, but their aftermath left a sourness people couldn't abide.

From about ten years ago, when Ko-sono had built up modest wealth through years of hardship and gained freedom in choosing her parlor engagements, she came to vaguely desire a healthy, conventional life.
She separated her geisha business front from her residence in the storehouse-attached parlor at the rear—constructing a tenant-style entryway leading from the alley to the main street—one manifestation of this shift—and took in a distant relative’s child to raise as an adopted daughter sent to girls’ school—another manifestation of the same.
The shift in her artistic training toward new-era and intellectual pursuits could perhaps be called another manifestation of this.
She came to learn waka poetry from the author of this story through an introduction from an acquaintance in Shitamachi—and at that time spoke words to this effect.

“A geisha is like a utility knife—she doesn’t need to excel at any particular task but must be equipped to handle most general matters. Please teach me to that extent—lately, given my age, I’ve naturally been attending to more refined clients.”

The author spent about a year testing the skills of this elderly woman who was older than her own mother; while she wasn’t without talent for waka, it became clear that her temperament was better suited to haiku, so she eventually introduced her to a certain female haiku poet.

The Old Geisha, saying it was thanks for the instruction received thus far, sent over her regular craftsman to the author’s house and had a small downtown-style pond and fountain built in the courtyard.

That she had renovated her own main house in a Japanese-Western eclectic style and electrified it was undoubtedly due to her competitive spirit after seeing similar installations at the teahouses where she worked; yet once equipped, she sensed something both wholesome and mystical in the workings of these modern conveniences.

As she used devices like the geyser that turned water poured into its mouth instantly into hot water gushing from the spout, or the electric tobacco tray where pressing the pipe's tip ignited a pilot flame to light her cigarette, her heart trembled with fresh intensity.

“It’s just like a living thing. Hmm… All things must function this way…”

The direct and swift world born from that sensation made her reflect on the life she had lived.

"Our lives were like lighting and extinguishing lanterns in drowsy succession."

While growing vexed by the mounting meter fees, she took childlike delight in tinkering with the electrical equipment, rising early every morning for some time.

The electrical contraptions often malfunctioned.
The owner of a nearby electrical goods store named Makita came and repaired them.
As she hovered around the repairs, watching with fascination, she gradually acquired some knowledge of electricity.

“When negative and positive electricity combine, they generate various phenomena there.
Hmm… This resembles how people click together, doesn’t it?”

Her wonder toward culture deepened even further.

In a household consisting solely of women, there were often occurrences that required male assistance.
Thus Makita had been coming and going to handle both expenses and assistance in this area, but one day he brought along a young man and declared that electrical matters would henceforth be entrusted to this fellow.
His name was Yuzuki.
A cheerful and nonchalant youth, he looked around the house while remarking, "For a geisha house, there's no shamisen here."
Through his frequent visits, that casual demeanor of his and his refreshingly defiant youthful spirit gradually became a convenient target for the Old Geisha's words.

“Yuzuki-kun’s work is shoddy. It’s never lasted a week.”
“Not once has it held up for a week!”
She had come to use such words.

“Well of course—this tedious work.”
“It’s because there’s no passion rising up, you see.”

“What’s ‘passion’?”

“Passion, you say?”
“Hahaha, well now… In your society’s terms—let’s see—yes, that’s right—it means no arousal of desire.”

Abruptly, a pang of pity for her own life welled up in the Old Geisha. Without this so-called passion ever arising, the countless parlors she had attended and the numerous clients she had served throughout her life came flooding back.

“Hmm.”
“Is that right?”
“Then you—what kind of work would actually stir up that ‘desire’?”

The young man said it was about inventing things, obtaining patents, and making money.

“Then why don’t you just get on with it already?”

Yuzuki looked up at the Old Geisha's face, but—

“ ‘Just do it already’—as if things were that simple…” (Yuzuki clicked his tongue there.) “That’s why people call you all playwomen.”

“No—that’s not it. Since I’ve said this much, it means I’ve resolved to advise you. I’ll handle the meals, so why don’t you try your hand at it to your heart’s content?”

Thus, Yuzuki moved from Makita’s shop to one of the houses owned by Ko Sono.
The Old Geisha converted part of the house into a workshop exactly as Yuzuki instructed and purchased some research machinery for him.

From a young age, Yuzuki had struggled through his studies to finally graduate from electrical school, but being a man with purpose, he avoided becoming a company employee bound by routine. Instead, he took up work as little more than a day laborer-like temporary worker, making rounds to electrical appliance stores across the city—until one day, finding himself bound by Makita, a helpful man who happened to be his middle school senior from the same hometown, he ended up assisting with the shop’s affairs and lodging there for some time.
However, with Makita’s household having many children and trivial tasks piling up one after another—and Yuzuki being at his wit’s end just then—he readily accepted the Old Geisha’s patronage.
Yet he did not feel particularly grateful.
The businesswoman who had wrung ample easy money from men and lived wantonly—now aged and seeking to atone to her conscience—probably figured that anyone would want to do such things.
Even if he didn’t harbor the brazen notion that he was bestowing favors upon her from his side, he couldn’t feel burdened by the Old Geisha’s kindness.
For the first time in his life, free from daily sustenance worries, this quiet and steady-paced existence—devoted to cross-referencing book knowledge with laboratory results, tanning usable elements into his own ingenuity to create what the world had never seen—was happiness.
Yuzuki saw his own figure in the pillar-mounted mirror—his body, which even he deemed robust, clad in Azabu blues, his hair curled with a trowel-like iron, reclining obliquely in a chair while letting cigarette smoke drift—and thought himself utterly transformed from before; moreover, he privately deemed this appearance fitting for a young inventor.
Outside the workshop was an engawa veranda running along its perimeter, and in the rectangular narrow garden beyond it grew a few planted trees.
When he grew weary from work, he would go out to this engawa veranda, lie on his back gazing at the city’s slightly murky blue sky while letting his various daydreams drift into dozing reveries.

Ko Sono visited every four or five days.
She would thoroughly survey the entire house, take note of any parts where daily life seemed inconvenient, and later have someone from her household deliver what was needed.

“You’re remarkably low-maintenance for a young person.
You always keep the house tidy, and not a single dirty thing ever piles up.”

“Well of course. My mother died young, so I’ve been washing my own swaddling clothes and looking after myself since I was a baby.”

The Old Geisha laughed, “Don’t be absurd,” but her expression turned sorrowful as she continued:
“But isn’t a man who fusses over trivial details just the sort who’ll never amount to anything?”
“Even I don’t seem fundamentally inclined this way—it’s just what life’s worn into me,” he replied.
“If I notice even the slightest bit of sloppiness in myself, it makes me uneasy.”
“I don’t know why,” she said, “but if there’s something you want, please don’t hesitate to say so—no matter how much.”

On Hatsuuma Day, they would order inari sushi and eat with the relaxed ease of mother and child.

The adopted daughter Michiko proved capricious.
Once she began visiting, she came nearly daily trying to enlist Yuzuki as her playmate.
Having grown up in a society that treated romantic affairs like commercial transactions since childhood—no matter how her adoptive mother tried to shield her—this commodified approach to relationships inevitably seeped into her psyche.
She matured prematurely yet grasped only their superficial forms.
Youth slipped past her entirely; her heart ossified while retaining childishness beneath a thin crust of adult-like discernment.
Yuzuki showed little inclination for games.
When her interest found no spark, Michiko's visits ceased—only to resume lumbering back after long intervals.
With a young man being housed in her own home, she deemed it wasteful not to pursue amusement.
That the old mother had taken in this unrelated stranger also bred quiet resentment.

Michiko casually perched herself on Yuzuki’s lap.
With perfectly stylized affectation, she cast a sidelong glance,

“Guess how much I weigh!”

Yuzuki lifted and lowered his knees two or three times—
“For someone of marriageable age, you’re sorely lacking in emotional depth.”
“That’s not true! I got an A in conduct at school!”

Whether Michiko had deliberately misinterpreted the meaning of the word "emotional depth" that Yuzuki had used—or whether she had genuinely misunderstood it—

Yuzuki probed the girl's physique through her clothes.
There was an absurdity to it—like discovering the true nature of a malnourished child putting on the coquettish airs of a full-fledged woman—that he couldn't help but let out a derisive laugh.

“That’s quite rude.”

“Well, you’re the accomplished one.”
Michiko stood up angrily.

“Go ahead and exercise all you want—you’ll just end up with a build like Mom’s anyway.”

From then on, Michiko—though she herself didn’t know why—frequently harbored resentment toward Yuzuki.

For about half a year, Yuzuki’s sense of happiness persisted.
However, from that point onward, he began drifting into a vague daze.
While his intended inventions had seemed truly brilliant when still in the realm of fantasy, once he began conducting practical investigations and entering the research phase, he found that several similar designs had already been patented. Even if his own ideas were far more advanced, to avoid conflicting with existing patents, he had to significantly alter their configurations.
Moreover, doubts began arising as to whether such inventions would even find demand in society.
While there were excellent inventions that experts approved of yet never took hold in society, there were also simple ideas that proved remarkably successful.
That invention involved speculation was something Yuzuki had long been aware of, but it was only when he actually began working that he keenly felt how stubbornly its progress refused to bend to his will.

However, more than anything else, the cause that made Yuzuki lose his enthusiasm for this life lay within his own heart. Back when he had been working under someone else’s employ, he had endured his daily drudgery sustained by the longing that devoting himself single-mindedly to invention—free from life’s worries—would surely bring fulfillment; yet now that he lived precisely as he had envisioned, it proved monotonous and bitter. At times, this state of being excessively quiet—pursuing his ideas entirely alone without consulting anyone—made him feel as though he were doing something misguided, veering off in an absurd direction, and he was frequently seized by the fear that he alone might be left behind by society.

Doubts also arose regarding the pursuit of wealth.
Now that his life was free from worries as it had been lately, even when going out for mere diversion, something like watching a movie, stopping by a bar, getting slightly drunk, and returning home in a one-yen taxi sufficed entirely.
Moreover, if it was that much expense, then as he said, the Old Geisha gladly provided it.
And with just that, his own amusements were fully satisfied.
Yuzuki had been invited by his professional colleagues two or three times to engage in dalliances with women, but he felt no desire to seek anything beyond transactions; instead, he frequently found himself wanting to return quickly to his own home where he could be free and stretch out on his preferred bedding.
Even when he went out to amuse himself, he never once stayed out overnight.
He made only his bedding in a manner unbefitting his station, crafting items like down quilts by skillfully buying feathers himself from bird shops.

No matter how much he searched, he could find no greater desire arising within himself; upon discovering this strangely neutralized self, Yuzuki felt a chill in his heart.

He wondered if this meant he had become abnormal compared to other young men his age.

In contrast, what a woman that Old Geisha was.
While wearing a melancholy expression, there was an incomprehensible robustness at her core—even in her artistic training, she voraciously devoured one unknown thing after another.
It drove her forward, this constant alternation between satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

When Kosono came around again for inspection, Yuzuki broached a subject stemming from this.

“There’s a leading actress in French revue called Mistinguett.”

“Ah, then I know her.”
“On records… her phrasing was remarkable.”

“They say that old woman’s bundled all her wrinkles under her soles, but you don’t seem to need that yet.”

The Old Geisha’s eyes flashed sharply, but she smiled immediately.

“Well now—I’ve added quite a few Setsubun beans to my count over the years, so it might not work like before, but let’s test it anyway,” said the Old Geisha, rolling up her left sleeve and thrusting her arm before Yuzuki.

“You’re the one.”
“Pinch the skin here on your arm with your thumb and index finger as hard as you can and keep holding it.”

Yuzuki did as he was told.
After having Yuzuki do so, the Old Geisha pinched the skin on the opposite side of her arm with two fingers of her right hand and pulled—whereupon the skin caught between Yuzuki’s fingers slowly slid out and returned to its original shape.
Yuzuki tried once more with all his strength, but when the Old Geisha pulled, it slipped away and he couldn’t keep hold.
Both the supple slipperiness reminiscent of an eel’s belly and the mysterious white hue akin to parchment lingered in Yuzuki’s senses.

“That’s disgusting…”
“But that’s incredible…”

The Old Geisha wiped away the blood rising where the finger marks had formed on her arm with the sleeve of her crepe underrobe, then tucked her arm back in.

"It’s thanks to being trained in dance since childhood—all that hitting and striking."

But as she recalled the hardships of her childhood, her expression darkened.

"You there—you’ve been rather listless lately."

The Old Geisha stared intently at Yuzuki for a time.

“No—it’s not like I’m telling you to study or succeed quickly or anything like that.”
“Well, if I were a fish, I’d say I’ve lost my vigor—don’t you think?”
“The fact that a young man of my age—who should be drowning in self-absorption—is worrying about your years shows just how calloused my feelings have grown to irony, don’t you think?”

Yuzuki, marveling at her sharp insight, honestly confessed.

"I’m no good—I’ve lost all desire to exist in this world."
"No—maybe I was born without it to begin with."

"That may not be the case—but if it were, that would be quite troublesome."
"You seem to have gained a rather noticeable amount of weight, haven’t you?"

In truth, Yuzuki—originally a well-built young man—had puffed up with fat, taking on a spoiled young master’s appearance, his brown eyes now hooded by swollen upper lids and his jawline doubled into folds that even carried a certain alluring gloss.

“Yeah, my body’s in excellent condition—just going about things like this leaves me in this pleasantly drowsy state. Unless I really strain my nerves, I immediately forget even the things I ought to be mindful of.”
“That’s precisely why I’m always so uneasy in my daily life.”
“This is the first time in my life I’ve experienced anything like this.”

“Could it be you’re eating too much barley rice with grated yam?”
The Old Geisha, knowing full well that Yuzuki often ordered barley rice with grated yam from a local shop that advertised those very dishes, teased him thus—but quickly turned serious. “At times like these, you must find some seed of hardship, no matter what.”
“I’ve got my fair share of hardships on hand, you know.”

After two or three days passed, the Old Geisha invited Yuzuki to go out.
In the group were Michiko and two young geishas unaffiliated with the Old Geisha’s household whom Yuzuki did not recognize.
The young geishas were dressed in fine attire and addressed the Old Geisha:
“Thank you for today, Neesan,” they said politely.

The Old Geisha said to Yuzuki:

“Today I’ve arranged a consolation outing for your boredom,” she said, “and I’ve even properly paid these geishas’ travel expenses for the excursion.”
“So just imagine yourself as the patron and enjoy yourself without restraint.”

Indeed, the two young geishas attended to their duties diligently.
When boarding the ferry at Takeya’s crossing, the younger one said to Yuzuki, “Big brother, please give me your hand.”
And when stepping into the boat, she deliberately staggered and clutched Yuzuki’s back as if embracing him.
The scent of perfumed oil reached Yuzuki’s nose; before his chest swelled a plump white neck emerging abruptly from beneath the red-lined collar, thrusting into view up to where her nape’s hairline blurred into a bluish haze.
Her face remained slightly turned, revealing from thickly powdered cheeks—glossy like white enamel—a nose of moderate height standing out as distinctly as carved sculpture.

The Old Geisha was sitting on the partition in the boat and, while beginning to take out her tobacco pouch and lighter from her obi,

“It’s a lovely view,” she said.

Riding taxis and walking, the group toured the early summer scenery near the waters of the Ara River Floodway.
Factories had multiplied and company housing had been built in rows, but fragments of Kanegafuchi and Ayase’s former visage remained here and there amidst coal-cinder ground.
A few of the Ayase River’s famed silk trees still stood, while across the reed beds only shipwrights now remained.

“When I was kept at a Mukojima villa, my patron was fiercely jealous—he’d never let me beyond this neighborhood.”
“So I’d leave claiming to stroll hereabouts, while my lover disguised himself as a carp fisherman—mooring his boat under these embankment’s silk trees—where we’d have what you’d now call a rendezvous.”

As evening fell and the silk tree buds began to form, the shipwrights’ hammering sounds faded away unnoticed, and a pale river mist drifted faintly.

“We once discussed committing lovers’ suicide.”
“After all, you only needed to step over the gunwale to settle things—it got a bit risky.”

“Why did you stop yourselves from going through with it?” Yuzuki asked as he lumbered through the narrow boat.

“Every time we met, we’d discuss when to die, but while we were letting things drag on, one day a bloated corpse from a lovers’ suicide came floating down from upstream.”
“The man pushed through the crowd after staring hard and said,”
“‘When it comes to lovers’ suicides—that’s an ugly business.’”
“‘Let’s quit this,’ he said.”

“If I died, it might’ve been best for this man here, but I began feeling sorry for the patron who’d be left behind.”
“No matter how spine-chilling a man might be—when you provoke that much jealousy in him—it leaves an imprint afterward.”

The young geishas said, “When we listen to Neesan’s carefree stories from her era, our way of working nowadays feels so grindingly desperate—it just makes us sick.”

“No—that’s not it at all,” the Old Geisha said, waving her hand. “These days have their own merits, you know. Plus, everything gets handled quick as lightning now—isn’t it interesting how there’s all sorts of clever methods these days?”

Swayed by these words, the young geishas—with the elder primarily attending to the younger—began earnestly entertaining Yuzuki in coquettish fashion.

As for Michiko, she appeared profoundly unsettled.

Initially maintaining a disdainfully aloof attitude, she had stayed apart photographing scenery with her portable Leica, but abruptly began behaving with overfamiliarity toward Yuzuki, overtly demonstrating attempts to outmaneuver the geishas in currying his favor.

In such instances, the meager trace of defiance squeezed from the immature girl’s being—a carnal scent reminiscent of scrawny poultry flesh—peculiarly vibrated through Yuzuki’s senses, involuntarily drawing breath deep into his lung’s hollows.
Yet this proved ephemeral.
Nothing took root within him.

The young geishas seemed displeased by the girl’s provocation, but since she was Neesan’s adopted daughter and they were there in a professional capacity, they avoided undue exertion—refraining from overt flirtation when she made efforts, then resuming their attentions the moment her vigilance slackened.
To Michiko, this was as bothersome as flies swarming over her sweets.
Somehow seeming to vent her dissatisfied feelings, Michiko lashed out at the Old Geisha.

The Old Geisha paid little heed to everything, leisurely picking chickweed for canaries on the embankment and drinking beer with taro steamed in their skins as a snack in the iris gardens.

As evening fell and the group was about to enter Suijin's Yaomatsu for dinner, Michiko glared at Yuzuki.

“I’ll have a full Japanese meal by myself and go home alone!” she declared.
When the geishas, surprised, said they would see her home, the Old Geisha laughed.

“If I put her in a car, there’s no problem at all,” she said, calling out to a passing vehicle.

Watching the car’s receding form, the Old Geisha said:

“That child has picked up a hint of Otsuna’s mannerisms now, hasn’t she?”

Yuzuki found himself increasingly unable to comprehend the Old Geisha’s conduct.
He had initially supposed she might be tending to younger people as atonement toward her former lovers—a means of restoring her spirits—but this clearly wasn’t so.
Though neighborhood rumors had recently begun swirling about her “young swallow,” naturally she betrayed no such indications through her own behavior.

Why would she keep a grown man in such a brazen manner?

Yuzuki had recently stopped entering the workshop at all and had seemingly abandoned his inventive endeavors.
And yet, precisely because the Old Geisha particularly knew about this matter yet never spoke a word of it, her purpose as a patron became increasingly suspect.
From the glass window facing the veranda—which offered a view into the workshop—he averted his gaze as much as possible, stepped out onto the veranda, and lay down on his back.
As summer drew near, the old trees in the garden all put forth fresh green leaves, and from the remaining stones of the filled-in pond’s shore, Japanese irises and azaleas bloomed, attracting horseflies.
The sky was thickly blue and clear, while continent-like clouds, their hues muddied slightly by rain-laden air, drifted leisurely onward.
In the shade of the neighboring dried goods, paulownia flowers bloomed.

Yuzuki recalled his past—the times he had come and gone to various houses for work, sticking his head into musty cupboard corners beside soy sauce barrels to perform cramped tasks; the days he’d forgo packed lunches by receiving portions of midday stew from housewives and maids. What had felt burdensome then now lingered in his memory with unexpected nostalgia.
When he worked in Makita’s narrow second-floor room preparing budget sheets for design orders, children would come one after another and cling to him until their necks turned red and swollen.
They would take half-sucked candy drops from their small mouths and push them back in with strings of drool still dangling.

He began to think that perhaps he himself desired an ordinary life more than something as grandiose as invention.
Suddenly, Michiko came to mind.
The Old Geisha watched from her lofty position with an air of obliviousness, observing with magnanimity—yet she might actually be scheming to make him Michiko’s husband if possible, ultimately intending to have someone tend to her in old age.
But one couldn’t definitively conclude it was solely that.
He realized that such a self-important old geisha wouldn’t show favor to someone through such a petty scheme.

When thinking of Michiko—a girl whose form was impeccably complete yet whose core had ultimately failed to develop substance—Yuzuki wryly smiled as he likened her to a boiled chestnut with its watery, mushy interior; yet lately he noted Michiko’s strangely persistent attitude toward him—a blend of resentment and antagonism.

Her visits these days were no longer capricious; they became regular, occurring about every day or two.

Michiko entered through the back door.
She slid open the fusuma door between the tea room’s four-and-a-half-mat space and the twelve-mat guest reception room—partitioned within the main hall to accommodate the workshop—and stood upon its threshold.
She leaned one hand against a pillar while slightly twisting her body to display a coquettish pose, then tucked her other hand beneath her outstretched sleeve and struck a stance as if for a photograph.
With her head slightly bowed, her eyes peered sullenly over her forehead.

“Come here,” she said.

Yuzuki, lying on the veranda, just said, “Yeah.”

Michiko tried repeating the same thing once more, but when she received a similarly dismissive response, she grew genuinely angry.

“What a slovenly response! I’ll never come here again,” she said.

“What an incorrigibly spoiled girl,” said Yuzuki, raising his upper body while crossing his legs into a cross-legged position.

“Well now. A Japanese coiffure today,” he remarked, staring intently.

“I don’t know,” said Michiko as she spun around sharply and formed a sulky crease down the back of her kimono.
Yuzuki gazed with peculiar intensity at the contrast between the ostentatious allure above—where the vibrant obi knot gave way immediately to a stiff collar revealing a snow-white Mount Fuji-shaped glimpse at the nape of her neck—and the abrupt tapering below the obi from hips to hem, as starkly unadorned as a single clipped flower stem, the girl remaining utterly lacking in charm. He imagined this girl becoming his wife—trusting him completely in all matters, relying on him entirely while fussily attending to his needs.
There was a lonely sense that his entire life might unexpectedly become confined to compact ordinariness—yet simultaneously, the imagination of some obscure yet novel future, unknowable unless actually experienced, exerted a pull on his present state of mind.

Yuzuki wanted to find more charm that would enthrall him in Michiko’s small face—made up into an overly primped model of conventional beauty with voluminous bangs and sideburns that made her forehead appear smaller.

“Turn this way once more and look—it suits you perfectly.”

Michiko shook her right shoulder once but immediately spun back around, briefly adjusting her chest and sideburns with her hands.
“Quit nagging. There, how’s this?” she said, fluttering the dangling strands of her tasseled hairpin while savoring Yuzuki’s earnest gaze fixed upon her.

“I brought you a treat. Try to guess what it is.”

Yuzuki, resentful as he wondered whether this susceptibility to being toyed with by such a little girl had been laid bare even to himself—

“Guessing’s a pain. If you’ve brought it, then hurry up and hand it over already,” he said.

Michiko, instantly provoked by Yuzuki’s domineering attitude, turned sideways and said, “If you’re going to act so high and mighty when I kindly brought you something, I won’t do it anymore.”

“Hand it over,” Yuzuki said as he stood up.
Even as he himself was startled by his current demeanor, he puffed up his frame like an authority figure and lumbered toward Michiko while declaring, “If I say ‘Hand it over,’ won’t you hand it over?”

The peril of trapping his entire life within a tiny snare, and the desperate resolve to willingly throw himself into fully recognized dangers—propelled by some unknown traction—wrenched from him an extreme tension he had never known since birth. Greasy sweat streamed down his forehead as he fought against being overwhelmed by self-loathing. Michiko, still thinking his behavior was a continuation of his half-joking domineering act, watched him with mock disdain—but as the situation shifted markedly midway, she suddenly became terrified.

She backed away slightly toward the tea room.

“Who’d give it to you?” she muttered faintly, but as Yuzuki stared into her eyes with fiery intensity—gradually withdrawing his hands one by one from his pockets to place them on her shoulders—she let out two small “Ah!”s of terror, her unadorned face laid bare emotions that scattered her eyes, nose, and mouth into disarray.
“Produce it.” “Hurry up and produce it.”
The meaning of those words hung hollow as a heavy shudder coursed through Yuzuki’s arm.
The slow swallow of saliva through Yuzuki’s prominent Adam’s apple was palpable.

She widened her eyes as if they might split open and said in a tearful voice, “I’m sorry,” but Yuzuki—his face dull and pale like an electrocuted man’s, eyes fixed as before—only sent increasingly violent shudders from both hands into Michiko’s body.

Michiko finally perceived something from Yuzuki.
The words her adoptive mother often said—“Men are surprisingly cowardly”—suddenly came to mind.

When she thought of this splendid, full-grown man battling cowardice over such matters, Yuzuki began to seem as endearing to her as a large, docile farm animal.

She swiftly recomposed her scattered facial features into an ingratiating smile dripping with charm.

“You fool, don’t get so worked up—I’ll give you the treat.”

She wiped the sweat from Yuzuki’s forehead with a swift swipe of her palm.

“It’s over here—come on now.”

After glancing back at the sudden verdant gust rustling through the garden trees, she grasped Yuzuki’s sturdy arm.

On an evening when early summer rain fell like mist, the Old Geisha entered the garden through the brushwood door beside the entrance, holding an umbrella.
Wearing a subdued sitting-room garment, she stepped up into the sitting room, let down her hem, and sat.

“I’m on my way to an engagement, but I stopped by because there’s something I need to tell you.”

She took out the tobacco container and with her pipe pulled closer a Western plate serving as substitute tobacco tray.

“Lately Michiko from my household has been visiting quite often—not that I mean to lecture you about it.”

Since this concerned young people themselves, she mentioned the possibility of certain eventualities.

“That very ‘possibility’ is what I mean, you see.”

If they truly suit each other’s nature and love from the depths of their hearts, then I wholeheartedly approve.

"But if you’re just clinging to fragments of affection—some chance coming together—well, the world overflows with such tedious affairs."
"There’s no need to make Michiko your partner in this."
"I myself have labored through nothing but these matters my entire life."
"Then no matter how many times repeated, it amounts to the same."

Whether in work or in relationships between men and women, I want to see a pure, devoted figure—single-minded and untainted by impurities.

I want to witness such things up close and die with sincerity.

“There’s no need to rush or panic. Whether in work or love, I want you to avoid wastefulness and seize something you’ll have no regrets about—in one united strike.”

“Such pure things can’t be done nowadays—they don’t even exist,” Yuzuki laughed magnanimously.
The Old Geisha laughed too.

“In any era, such things rarely exist unless you set your heart on them.”
“So take your time—if you like, have some mugitoro—and carefully assess fortune’s lottery. Fortunately, you’ve got a strong constitution.”
“Your stamina seems likely to endure.”

The car came to pick her up, and the Old Geisha went out.

Yuzuki set out dazedly on a journey that evening.

The Old Geisha’s intentions had become fairly clear.
She was trying to make him do what she herself had been unable to accomplish.
But wasn’t what she—unable to accomplish it herself—was trying to make him do an impossible proposition in reality, whether for her or for him, or even for someone who had drawn fortune’s most favorable lot?
Is reality not something that gives fragments while dangling the whole before our eyes, luring humans onward one after another?

I can always resign myself regarding that matter.
However, she knows nothing of resignation.
In that regard, she seems to have a certain dullness.
But in some cases, dullness holds its own strength.

What a formidable old woman she was, Yuzuki marveled.
It somehow seemed to him as though she were halfway through transforming via some carapace.
He was struck by a tragic solemnity, but he also felt an unpleasant sense of being dragged into that reckless endeavor.
If possible, he thought, he wanted to escape from the endless escalator the old woman had him riding and burrow into a life like a stiff, homemade feather quilt.
To judge such thoughts, he had come to a seaside inn about two hours by steam train from Tokyo.
That was the inn managed by Makita’s brother where he had once come to inspect the electrical equipment at Makita’s request.
There was a mountain facing a wide sea where clouds drifted ceaselessly.
The act of attempting to quietly contemplate and organize his thoughts amidst such nature was something he had never before experienced.

Perhaps owing to his sturdy constitution, when he came here, the fresh fish tasted exquisite and bathing in the tide felt invigorating. Frequent guffaws kept welling up from within him.

First struck him as absurd—this old woman so captivated by infinite yearning yet living her cramped, minute-to-minute existence without ever realizing it. Then came the absurdity of his own predicament: like certain animals that cannot cross a line drawn around them, even here Yuzuki found himself unable to escape the Old Geisha's aura. When enveloped within it, he felt stifled and bored; yet attempting to break free only deepened his loneliness. Hence the absurdity of his current state—choosing an easily traceable destination for his escape while secretly hoping she would naturally seek him out, all under the pretense of running away.

The relationship with Michiko was also absurd.
Without understanding what was what, they had once brushed past each other like lightning.

After staying about a week, Makita from the electrical goods store—having been asked by the Old Geisha—came to pick him up with money.
Makita said, “There must be unpleasant aspects. You should quickly find a way to earn income and become independent.”

Yuzuki was taken back.
However, after this, he developed a habit of repeatedly running away.

“Mom, Yuzuki-san ran away again!”

Michiko, the foster daughter wearing a tracksuit, stood at the storehouse entrance and said this.
Setting aside her own emotions, there was an irony in how she took morbid satisfaction in her foster mother's agitation.
“Last night and the night before last too—he hasn’t come back to his own home, they say.”

After the New Japanese Music teacher had left, the Old Geisha—remaining alone in the compact tatami-matted room of the storehouse used as a practice space to review her lesson—placed the shamisen directly beneath her and, without betraying any awareness of the frustration welling within, turned a calmly composed face toward her foster daughter.

“That man.”
“He’s showing his usual habit again, hasn’t he?”

Taking a puff from her long-stemmed pipe, she grasped and straightened her sleeve cuff with her left hand, then examined whether the Oshima men’s striped kimono suited her—

“Leave him be—it’s not like I can afford to be lenient forever.”

And knocking the ash from her lap—*pon pon pon*—she began slowly putting away the sheet music.
Disappointed by her foster mother’s composed attitude—which had dashed her expectation of an explosive reaction—Michiko made a bored face and left for the nearby court with her racket.

Immediately after that, the Old Geisha called the electrical goods store and, as usual, requested Makita to search for Yuzuki.
The voice she unleashed toward this unreserved interlocutor carried such fierce sharpness—berating the young man she cared for over his selfishness—that its vibrations traveled from the mouthpiece through the receiver to resonate in her own gripping hand; yet within her heart, anxious dread fermented with a faintly sentimental quality into something resembling loneliness’s mild intoxication that paradoxically enlivened her spirit.
After moving away from the telephone receiver, she—

“After all, the young are so full of life.”
“That’s how it should be.”
Muttering this, she lightly pressed her sleeve cuff to the corner of her eye.
Each time Yuzuki ran away, she came to hold greater respect for him.
Yet whenever she imagined him never returning—each and every time—she felt it would leave an irreparable void.

In midsummer came an unusual occurrence—a draft waka poem seeking revision arrived from the Old Geisha (who by then should have been introduced to a certain woman and begun haiku studies) addressed to this story’s author.
At that moment,the author happened to be enjoying post-dinner coolness on a veranda overlooking a courtyard fountain—one previously installed by the Old Geisha as thanks for waka instruction—and there received the poem draft through an intermediary.Listening to water murmur from below,the author examined this long-awaited composition with keen curiosity.
Within lay a poem revealing glimpses of the Old Geisha’s recent state of mind—one I shall now share.
Admittedly,I applied minor edits—not from teacher-student decorum,but solely to enhance readers’ comprehension.
These touch only rhetorical elements,I assure you—leaving content’s essence unharmed.

Year by year my sorrow deepens
Yet life grows ever more vivid.