Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Iwano Hōmei

I

I ended up spending the entire summer on the coast of Kōzu. Through a friend’s introduction, I had intended to rent a room at a certain temple, but when I went to inquire, they said they had various pressing matters and couldn’t accommodate guests that summer. So through the head priest’s referral, I ended up staying at a layperson’s house. I wanted to write a somewhat intricate script, so I avoided noisy inns. The neighboring establishment was a restaurant that kept a geisha on staff, so whenever guests came by now and then, it became quite clamorous. However, I didn’t dislike the buoyant tones of the shamisen, so instead I found it an appealing place to settle.

The room I occupied was on the second floor, and the second floor had no other rooms besides this one. From the ground of the neighboring restaurant, a tall fig tree grew thick and rose above the roof of my second floor. The green broad leaves of the fig tree may look fragile, but gazing at them somehow brought a serene, pleasant feeling—so I’d come to like them just as much as banana leaves or Chinese parasol tree leaves. Moreover, they were visible right beside the room where I worked.

Moreover, from the shade of those leaves, the beautiful garden of the neighboring restaurant was visible. Stone lanterns, numerous branching stone paths, a gourd-shaped pond—a form that Westerners would liken to something they’d never mention in front of ladies—low pines and willows with artfully pruned branches, and all the other contrived elements of that miniature garden style were unpleasant, yet the meticulousness of its upkeep counted as another redeeming feature. The section of that garden nearest my side—where a kitchen entrance stood—had been partitioned off from other areas by a low bamboo fence, and the well located there—also visible from my room—was one that the people at my house were permitted to use.

As for the family next door, it consisted of the master and his wife, their two children, along with the master’s sister and a geisha. The master and his wife were exceedingly good-natured and solely focused on their family business, working tirelessly from morning till night at cleaning the house and preparing meals. The master’s sister—named Otei—was a prominent figure from way back who held de facto authority as the proprietress there. When attending banquets hosted by local dignitaries, she commanded considerable influence as “old Madam Otei, proprietress of Ishidoya.” Yet at home, she would dismissively override the master and his wife; if even the slightest thing failed to align with her spiteful heart, she would put on such a ferocious demeanor that even stubborn customers who tried to argue would find themselves barked at by the household members.

Okimi, that niece—or rather, the daughter of the house—was sixteen but shared her aunt’s temperament. Though shy and charmless in front of guests, whenever she had no tasks herself, she would sit before the hearth, never taking her eyes off her bumbling parents as she impatiently directed them with her long chin. The year before, the geisha they kept had been unable to endure this girl’s sarcastic torment and drowned herself in the sea. After that, Ishidoya suddenly fell into disrepute, with many declaring they wouldn’t set foot there as long as that old woman and her niece remained. No wonder it wasn’t exactly a flourishing restaurant.

Because I could speak English, through the people at my house, the master of Ishidoya came to request that I teach English to his children. It was not a serious request either. Since Westerners occasionally visited and he struggled to interact with them, he asked me to specifically teach phrases like “Please come in,” “What shall we serve you?” “Would you like sake or beer?” “Shall we call a geisha?” “You seem to be in excellent spirits, sir,” and “Please visit us again.” I didn’t like it, but thinking it might be amusing to teach them during breaks from work, I had them compile a list of phrases and decided to have them gradually practice those while also reading from volumes one and two of the National Reader they were studying elsewhere. Miss Okimi and her younger brother Sho-chan came for lessons every day at a fixed time in the afternoon. Sho-chan was twelve years old and, being sickly, was somewhat slow-witted.

One day, Sho-chan came around eleven in the morning because there was no school. I begrudged having my precious time taken, so whenever I ended up giving them a half-hearted lesson, "Our geisha says she wants you to teach her too, Teacher."

he blurted out. "It’s too much trouble—I don’t want to," I answered, though looking back now, that geisha had already been scheming to deceive me from that very moment. Sho-chan was guileless, “Even if she tried learning anything, she’s such an idiot—would she even get it?” “Why?” “At that big banquet the other day, when she performed gidayū recitation, she called Kumagai no Jirō Naozane ‘Kumagai no Tarō’ and got laughed at—oh! There’s our geisha over there, the queen of layabouts.”

And as he pointed outside, I too turned in that direction. What came into view from the shade of the fig tree was a slovenly figure in nightclothes—an underrobe barely secured by its sash—clenching a toothpick between her teeth as she gazed and laughed toward us from the wellside.

“Sho-chan, shall I give you something nice?” “Ah,” he said, standing up and holding out both hands.

“Here it comes!” she called—her body bending supplely yet forcefully—and a black object flew over, missing Sho-chan’s hands to strike my shoulder.

“Oh ho ho ho! ‘My apologies,’ she said, her laughter crumbling into a cackle, then immediately spat white saliva and began washing her face. What came flying was my clasp purse. ‘This is mine. I must’ve dropped it when I went to the well earlier to drink water.’ ‘Well, good thing that fox didn’t get it.’ ‘How pitiful to say such things—what’s her name, hm?’ ‘Her name is Kichiyo.’”

“When you get back, make sure to thank her for me,” I said, opening the Merezhkovsky novel I’d been reading. Sho-chan had come from the back, so he left through the back, but while talking about that very matter, I caught a glimpse of Kichiyo’s bare face as she entered the house—her complexion was so dark that I felt a pang of disgust.

II

I went to Ishidoya that evening to soothe the fatigue in my head. And I deliberately went around back to avoid causing any friction.

“Oh, Teacher!” Madam Otei was first to spot me and came hurrying over. “For you to come through such a shabby entrance—” “Not at all—I never stand on formality—” “Well then, do come in.”

“Pardon the intrusion,” I said, stepping up from the wooden floor of the kitchen area and sitting down beside the large hearth. The master was seen sweeping the garden with his clothes hitched up. The mistress, looking every bit a servant herself, was working in the spacious kitchen area. Behind where I was sitting, there was a spacious room where a large mirror stood. Okimi stood before it, fussing over her appearance. In the narrow sunken hearth—cut to about one tatami mat’s length—four or five logs burned despite the sweltering heat while an iron kettle hung from gangi hooks in the ceiling bubbled violently.

“Thank you ever so much for always looking after the children,” Madam Otei formally greeted from across the hearth. “In any case, since I don’t have time to teach them properly, there’s no call for thanks.” “To study from dawn till dusk in this heat—what remarkable dedication you have.” “If I didn’t drive myself like this, I’d starve.” “Oh, come now—still, how splendid that you can work while amusing yourself, unlike ordinary folk, Teacher.”

“It’s the old adage about the poor having no time to spare.” “Not at all, Teacher—hey, Okimi, why don’t you serve the Teacher some tea?” Before long, Sho-chan returned from somewhere, sat down beside me, and started recounting the gossip he’d just heard around town. Okimi brought tea. Having heard that Otei’s doting on the two children as if they were her own and boasting about them was one reason people nearby disliked her, I had been handling things with that in mind.

“I’m at my wit’s end with these foolish children,” she said, “Oh, it’s nothing—both of them have such clever natures. They learn quickly and show such promise for the future,” I praised.

“Mother—truth be told, this gloom’s gotten to me—I need a drink. Let’s have them open up one fine room for us.” “Thank you kindly,” Otei said, signaling Okimi with her eyes, “The third room on the second floor with good ventilation would be best.” “Please show us there.”

“Ah, well—anywhere’s fine,” I said, standing up to follow Okimi. The tobacco tray arrived; fresh tea was served again. When I heard Okimi’s stock phrase—“What would you like to have?”—it struck me that had I been a Westerner, she would likely have attempted those broken phrases I’d taught her. With that realization came the image of her as an irksome, impudent girl. I told her to haphazardly throw together whatever was available, then clamped a rolled cigarette between my lips and stretched out.

First, nori was served, and after Okimi had poured a drink and left, I sipped at it in small gulps until two or three dishes were brought out. Then Otei came to join me. "You must be lonely by yourself—let this old woman keep you company." "That's quite all right—well, just one," I said, holding out my cup. The old woman talked about various things—how this house had thrived until two or three years ago; how lately customers had completely stopped coming; how cold-hearted the local people were—all while remaining oblivious to society's critiques of her own household's flaws, offering nothing but self-serving complaints.

Before long, when I heard unfamiliar footsteps in the corridor after someone climbed the steep stairs, Kichiyo appeared carrying a sake decanter. Gone was the bare face and disheveled attire I’d seen that morning—she had transformed into a proper geisha through and through. "I must apologize for this morning’s rudeness," she said, bowing with demure affectation that dripped mockery.

“I might be the one who came to offer thanks.” “If it’s just ‘might be,’ that’s no proper gratitude!” “No, truly—well then, thank you most sincerely.”

With that, I theatrically lowered my head in a bow. “Well, then I’m satisfied, aren’t I?” Kichiyo looked at Otei and fanned herself triumphantly.

“Goodness gracious,” said Otei, who had maintained an uncanny demeanor from the start, “what’s going on here? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?” “Oh well, Mother—this morning, I had someone pick up the clasp purse I dropped,” and with that said, what followed was elaborated by Kichiyo’s laughter. “In that case, you should’ve just kept your mouth shut—you would’ve made a tidy profit then.” “Really, I should have done that then.” “Unfortunately, if it had only been two or three sen in copper coins, even someone like Kichiyo-san would’ve been surprised.”

“This girl here is quite greedy.” “Oh Auntie, that’s not true at all.”

“Well, let’s have one,” I said, handing Kichiyo the sake cup. “Is the banquet room free now?” “Auntie, what do you say?” “At present, there are no bookings.” “Well then, I’ll add a jewel as this morning’s thanks.”

"That’s most kind of you," said the old woman as she poured sake into my cup in assent and went downstairs.

III

“Where were you born?”

“Tokyo.” “Where in Tokyo?” “Asakusa.” “Where in Asakusa?” “You’re so persistent, aren’t you? Senzoku-chō.” “Oh—that place with the pond like a drainage ditch?”

“How unfortunate for you—that pond was filled in ages ago.” “So after they filled it in, they built those shaky tenements—the second one down, right?” “How cruel you are,” she parroted his tone, “But even so, when I go home I can still play the proper young lady.” “Long live the lady geisha!” I pantomimed raising my sake cup. When I made her play the shamisen, she just plinked at it half-heartedly. Though thoroughly unamusing, I sang along in my drunken stupor.

“Enough already!” I snatched up the shamisen and tossed it aside. “Let me see your palm lines,” I said, making her hold out her right hand—but her fingers were thick and stubby, truly clumsy. “How old are you anyway?” “Twenty-five.”

“That’s a lie—you’re at least twenty-seven, aren’t you?” “Well then, keep thinking that!” “Do you have a father?” “Yes.” “What does he do?” “A geta shop.” “What about your mother?” “The geishas’ Katsuan.” “What about your brother?” “A shop clerk at a bazaar.” “What about your sister?” “I don’t have one.” “What about a younger sister?” “She was supposed to quit being a geisha.”

“Where does she work?” “Ōmiya.” “What will she do after being forced out?” “That person’s wife.” “Oh please—she’s just a mistress, isn’t she?” “A mistress isn’t worth anything.” “Then how about I make you my wife?” he said, pulling her body toward him. “Yes, please,” she replied, laughing as she pressed closer.

IV

The next morning, after finishing my meal, I sat at my desk and thought about what had happened the night before. When I saw Kichiyo cover the light bulb with an empty Yamato bag and cock her ear toward the staircase, I felt disgust at her fragility—the very epitome of superficiality—but still, human nature dictates that anything under one’s control—be it dogs or cats—becomes all the more endearing if it’s human, even an Okame mask of a woman. While she was here in Kōzu, I would dote on her; if I took her back to Tokyo, that would be interesting—and so my fantasies wandered from one scenario to another.

A seductive voice rose from downstairs and gradually made its way up to the second floor. It was Kichiyo. He had been about to open a book but found himself not entirely averse to the interruption.

“Good morning, Mr. Tamura.” “So it’s you?” “Am I not allowed to come?” She pressed her body snugly against me and sat down. That was all—her eyes spoke volumes. I tried to embrace her neck and kiss her, but she deliberately turned her face away, “You’re such a nuisance, aren’t you?” “If you hate it, then don’t come.” “Even so, you still came—I like someone like you.” “A businessman?” “Ah, a businessman.” “What kind of business?”

“The book-writing business.” “Does that kind of business even exist?” “Well, no, I suppose not.” “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” she said, tapping my shoulder. The fact that she saw me as a businessman made me feel disgusted again, but even if I were to boast about becoming a great literary figure who would one day sweep the nation, there was no way she’d understand, so I decided to play it off by deliberately grimacing, “Ow, ouch!” “No way! Does that even hurt?” she burst out laughing. She was playing with a fortune-telling turtle trinket.

“Why on earth are you dawdling around here?”

“I want to go back to Tokyo.” “If you want to go back, why don’t you just leave quickly?” “I told Mom that, you know—‘If you don’t come get me, I’ll die!’” “How dreadful! But your mother isn’t the type to cower over something like that.” “Mom dotes on me so, so much, you know.” “You’re getting full of yourself all on your own. Who would ever dote on someone like you? What on earth can you even do?”

“I can do anything, you know.” “First of all, your shamisen playing is terrible, your singing is off-key, and even from here, all I hear is you squawking away.” “Actually, I’ve always hated the shamisen—I liked dancing instead.” “Then go ahead and dance,” I said—yet when our eyes suddenly met, I felt such an urge to embrace her that, not wanting to seem clingy, I distractedly lay back with my hands folded behind my head. Resting my skull on them, I looked at Kichiyo’s profile as she fiddled with something on the desk: her complexion was dark, but her nose stood proud, with large eyes and mouth. Moreover, since she was tall, I thought that if she became an actor, her stage presence would be striking. I should clarify—I had come to organize materials for writing a script—one that would determine my future—and at the time, I thought that at least one actress would be necessary when it came time to perform it.

“If you like dancing, why not become an actor?” “I’m all for it,” she said. “Back in Kōshū, my friends and I did Gorō and Jūrō together.” “Bet this big backside of yours stole the show, huh?” She bumped into me from behind—

“Stop it now—you’ll make me spill the tea,” she said, brushing my hand away. “If you’re serious about becoming an actor, I’ll make sure to arrange everything for you.” “Where to—Hongō-za? “Tōkyō-za?” “Shintomi-za?” “Anywhere’s fine, you know—it’s all right here in my heart.” “If I become an actor, my younger sister will surely want to become one too.” “And my child—” “Huh? You have a child?” “She’s the daughter I had with my former patron.”

“How old?” “Twelve.”

“You spineless thing—I suppose you even ended up saddled with a child?” “That’s not how it is, you know.” “He’s from Aomori. Even after we cut ties, he still comes around about once a year to send some money for the child’s keep, you know.” “That kid’s quite the character, you know.” “Since she was five or six, she’s been so good at dancing that restaurants and teahouses come to borrow her.” “She’ll walk into the guests’ room all prim and proper like ‘Good evening,’ and once the dance is over, she’ll pester them with ‘Sis, where’s my tip?’” “Cheeky little thing.” “Since she loves plays, I’ll train her well, you know.”

Kichiyo immediately grew enthusiastic—once matters were settled, she began listing demands while lounging about: how acquaintances at teahouses and geisha houses must present ceremonial curtains for her debut, how her touring costumes would require such-and-such expenses—but I replied that when the time came, I’d manage it somehow, deciding first to let her mull it over for two or three days.

V

From then on, I went drinking at Ishidoya nearly every night. My motives were twofold—to see Kichiyo’s face and verify her resolve—but the moment her determination began appearing genuine, I promptly dispatched someone to solicit her parents’ opinion. She told me they’d replied that they would soon visit to discuss matters properly. Acting alone, I wrote to a theater-connected friend describing this woman’s qualities while striving not to overstate her flaws or merits, requesting he consider her and visit casually under pretext of leisure. He came claiming incidental business in the area. That evening I introduced Kichiyo to him, though by then my excessive involvement must have made us seem less like collaborators discussing an actress and more like lovers flaunting our affair. This friend—decades my junior—had arrived asking “Is Mr. Tamura present?” in his characteristic manner, then settled that night’s five-yen-odd bill before leaving. Pitying him, I hurried to his lodgings only to learn he hadn’t returned. Assuming he’d gone drinking cheap sake elsewhere again, I waited until dawn to revisit—yet still he hadn’t departed. A peculiar disillusionment washed over me. Weeks passed without word from him. Yet through every setback burned my fervor to fashion this woman into an actress.

VI

I used to receive baths at Ishidoya, but on days when it rained or was too cool for them to heat the water, I naturally ended up going to a nearby public bathhouse. Kichiyo also claimed that even if they prepared the bath at her place in the evening, it wouldn’t be ready in time for her banquet appointments, so she went to the public bathhouse. When I went [to the bathhouse], Kichiyo would arrive; when Kichiyo came [there], I would go. We hadn’t made any explicit arrangement, but occasionally she would invite me of her own accord. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was this man I’d often encounter in the bathhouse who would get his soap from the women’s side—I’d always thought him a repulsive, grinning creep. Once, from the women’s side, a not particularly ladylike hand reached out,

When I heard a voice say, “Master, soap,” it was unmistakably Kichiyo’s. The man was always washing near the women’s side. Even after getting out of the bath, these two would invariably chat while standing. The man, wearing only a loincloth, fanned himself with a hand fan as he leaned one hand on the edge of the bath attendant’s platform and faced the woman. She, clad in a white gauze Western-style nightgown with pleats—who knows where she had obtained it—stood nearby, cooling herself. Her face, made up after her bath, was tinged with a faint blush and looked almost unrecognizably beautiful.

There were many other geishas who came in as well, but what always stood out was how this woman would banter and laugh with this man. At first, I had thought this man was merely a regular patron, but upon learning of the soap incident, I realized he was my rival in love. No—there was no need to compete as a rival in love—but I had concluded that Kichiyo’s talk of wanting to become an actress was nothing but an utter lie. I couldn’t help but feel a sudden churning in my chest. She might have noticed my agitation, but I intended not to let it show on my face as I hurriedly dressed and left the place. What I regretted, thinking *Damn it!*, was that I had closed the exit’s sliding door too forcefully.

Today, resolved to go early to Ishidoya before that man or anyone else could summon her, I determined to call up that damn Kichiyo and give her a proper scolding, and went there. It was right after returning from the bath.

“Aunt.” I too had decided to follow the household’s practice and call Old Lady Otei by that name!—

“Today I’ll summon Kichiyo right now and drink my fill!” “We’re ever grateful for your continued patronage, but does it truly suit a teacher to indulge in such diversions?” “Nah, don’t you fret about it.” “Still though—while I’ve yet to meet your good wife—she must be home worrying all alone.” “How pitiful that is.” “The old woman doesn’t know a damn thing.”

“No, given a disposition like yours, Teacher, anyone married to you could easily imagine it, I must say.” “Even if she finds out, I don’t care.” “Teacher, you may be fine with that, but with us being by your side, we feel sorry for your wife.” “No need to fret over that, I tell ya.” I had responded cheerfully enough, but upon reflection realized she might have caught on to my infatuation with Kichiyo—it wasn’t impossible to interpret her words as hinting that with a wife at home, my plans were doomed from the start. Moreover, it could also mean she’d begun worrying—what if the debts piled up from all this drinking went unpaid? I deliberately feigned composure with a forced smile and made small talk with Otei, Okimi, and Sho-chan to pass the time. Because I secretly knew Kichiyo hadn’t yet returned from the bath.

“Kichiyo went to the bathhouse and still hasn’t returned—though she really should be back by now,” Otei said to Okimi.

“It’s already been an hour and a half—no, two hours,” Sho-chan interjected, glancing at the clock.

“She’s gone off to that soba place with Aoki again, hasn’t she?” Okimi moved her long chin. When I heard “soba shop”—since I too had been tricked by Kichiyo before and knew the situation well—I could fully infer why she’d gone there, and thought this was useful information. However, though I was teaching this clever but impudent girl, I secretly detested her. Despite her age, she would scrutinize others’ flaws from the sidelines, and when something displeased her, she’d say nothing but lash out even at her parents.

“She’s too strong-willed for her own good” was something her mother had once said to me. All the more so toward employees and such, she would adopt the most sarcastic manner, so Kichiyo would always seethe with irritation whenever she saw this girl. Kichiyo had often confided that discontent to me. Admittedly, it was ultimately her parents who were at fault for raising Miss Okimi to have such a temperament. According to public rumors, even before she had outgrown her childhood sleeves, they had extracted a large sum from a lecherous old man at a Hakone inn and made him pay up. Precisely because she was such an impudent girl, it was only natural that she was growing increasingly bitter.

“That bastard Aoki—next time he comes, I’ll give him a proper talking-to!” Otei retorted. “Since he can’t repay his debts, he sneaks around stealing meals elsewhere instead of coming here!”

The two children both burst out laughing. "Kichiyo’s being Kichiyo—even if she weren’t clinging to that man, customers are everywhere. But with *him* around, he’s ruining our business." That thought was indeed true. Even observing the situation since my arrival, there didn’t seem to be many catering orders to speak of, and paying customers were even fewer. Their sole reliance had been on Kichiyo’s earnings alone. Every evening, the family would gather around the hearth, waiting impatiently for Kichiyo’s income to come in.

Eventually, Kichiyo lumbered back in. “What were you dawdling around for? You need to get to the banquet room right away.” Otei did not press her too harshly in that instance. “Right.” Kichiyo replied nonchalantly, sat down by the hearth, and said, “Welcome.” She greeted me but then fumbled about where to put the rolled-up hand towel and soap she was holding, eventually placing them on the edge of the hearth,

“Care for one?” she said, reaching for the cigarette case near me. At that moment, Kichiyo seemed to catch sight of Okimi’s piercing gaze sitting behind me. Suddenly contorting her face into a fierce expression, she snapped, “What’s with that glare? You’re no toad yourself! “If you don’t like me leaving the towel here, then go hang it wherever you damn well please! “You insufferable little brat!” “What the hell’s gotten into you?” I barked at Kichiyo, then turned to Okimi—who silently looked down.

“If my being here’s such a problem, I’ll clear out anytime you like! Hmph—I’m no spineless coward like that geisha who drowned herself last year. Even dead, I’ll come back and haunt you all! Taka’s nothing but a hospitality joint—just you wait and see!” Kichiyo blustered vehemently.

I, feigning complete ignorance, made her shut her mouth—whereupon Otei, who had been seething until then, interjected,

“Oh, enough now.” “Oh, enough now.” “It’s just childish squabbling, Teacher—pay it no mind.” “Come now, Kichiyo—get ready, get ready.” “Fine then—I’ll go,” Kichiyo said grudgingly, rising to shuffle toward the dressing room with its towering mirror.

Seven

“So it was you in the banquet room, Teacher—hmm, I shouldn’t have said such things earlier. My apologies,” Kichiyo said as she entered carrying her shamisen. “...” I had been alone, fervently pondering how best to extract contrition from her—but confronted by her gentle voice and demeanor, all the knotted shapes of anger that had crowded my chest vanished like mist under sunlight. From the sake bottle she presented with a murmured “A drink?”, I accepted the liquor I had sworn inwardly to refuse. Yet with that stubborn tension still coiled in my chest, I couldn’t muster proper conversation.

“Are you angry?”

“...” “So you’re angry after all?”

“...” “I don’t know!” Kichiyo’s face flushed crimson as she stood up. I worried that if she went downstairs like that and told them I was angry—that I was jealous about what I’d seen at the bathhouse—it would diminish my standing as a man for life if those downstairs found out,

“Hey! Hey!” he barked in a commanding tone. Even so, she left—but convinced she wouldn’t stay gone for long, I waited alone, nursing my drink. True enough, she soon returned clutching a sake bottle. Her frosty demeanor made me want to break the silence first. “How about treating me to some soba too?” “Oh? You knew already?”

“Hmph, as if I’m some fool who wouldn’t know about that. You play all innocent about wanting to become an actress and beg for favors, while on the other hand, you’re disgustingly rolling around with some dirt-poor peasant or manure collector—a half-baked nobody!” “That’s just too pitiful, you know. If that person weren’t here, I couldn’t go back to Tokyo, right?” “Why’s that, huh?” “Then who’s going to take me in? You?”

“My involvement begins after you become an actress.” “Didn’t you say your mother would come to handle the arrangements for being taken in, without any complications?” “That’s exactly why I’m telling you she’s coming—”

So it became clear: her mother’s coming wasn’t specifically about the actress business but rather to negotiate being taken in by that man Aoki.

“So you’ll let yourself be taken in by someone like that and just rot away in this dreary backwater?” “Thanks for the concern—I’ll be heading back to Tokyo before you do.” “And what will you do once you’re back?” “I’ll get married, you know.” “Who’d ever take someone like you?” “With all due respect, there’s someone who’s even prepared clothing and is waiting for me.” “Then Aoki’s the poor one.”

“What’s there to feel sorry for him about? He’s a man who’s sunk a ton of money into this—no way he’ll back out now, you know.” “No matter how much of a fool he is, he can’t be that inept.” “Anyway, since the proprietress is such a nag and won’t keep me here, it’s just that every now and then I come out to Tokyo from over there, you know.”

When I realized that man was underestimating such matters, my disgust surged anew. “To get married, become a mistress, and still greedily chase after being an actress—you’re truly shameless.” “Exactly! With this plump body of mine, I’ve got to earn all I can while I can, you know.”

“Well then, I’ll wash my hands of this,” I said, sitting upright. “Since Aoki will come calling for you, go downstairs.” “He isn’t coming tonight—don’t be like that, come on,” Kichiyo cooed, leaning against me flirtatiously. “Everything I just said was a lie—all of it.” “I’ve made up my mind—make me an actress already!” “Even Mother’s bound to agree once I tell her, you know.”

If I could just forget the actress business—since there’d be no resentment or bitterness—drinking like this wasn’t such a bad thing.

Kichiyo once again wanted to quickly escape this detestable Ishidoya and become free. It seemed she was working to extract redemption money from Aoki by any means necessary; just earlier, she had again complied entirely with his demands and, in exchange, had apparently settled on some arrangement. Since all she needed was a single letter from her mother addressed to Aoki to become free by tomorrow, I was asked to forge it—something I’d never have imagined.

VIII

Aoki was a man who had opened antique shops in Hakone and Atami targeting visiting foreigners and ran a thriving business—but being wholly illiterate, he had fallen into near bankruptcy after blindly stamping loan documents for others. Recently, however, he had begun recovering somewhat. His current wife too had been a geisha at Ishidoya whom he redeemed. With a twenty-year-old daughter as the eldest, she already had three children. When they first set up their household, Otei of Ishidoya (her husband still alive then as the inn’s master), out of consideration, had provided them with nearly all necessities for housekeeping—from kitchen utensils onward—and even taught them rice-cooking without requiring their direct involvement. Yet as years passed, the new couple grew distant as if forgetting this kindness. Even now Otei still cited this matter for scornful gossip, but since Aoki had recently become the most frequent patron of their struggling inn—which had languished these past two years—she reluctantly lavished him with flattery to his face while disparaging him behind his back.

Aoki was not only Ishidoya’s rice supplier but also took pride in being Kichiyo’s patron. However, his actual financial struggles were something I had learned from the temple’s head priest when I first arrived in this town. There was no need to weave the priest into this story, but regardless, he often visited my room, and I often visited his. When he came drunk, he became quite the amusing priest and would start rambling about all manner of things. When I casually inquired about Kichiyo’s reputation, he told me locals called her the “Crow Geisha” due to her dark complexion. The day I heard this, I returned and advised Kichiyo to scrub her face more thoroughly. To my mind, her darkness stemmed more from slovenliness than nature.

“There’s no man in this Kōzu I’m so devoted to that I’d scrub my face to show him off,” was her reply at the time. I already knew from the priest that Tajima—an acquaintance of his serving as an officer at a small bank—had grown infatuated with Kichiyo too, but since I judged this man required no particular concern, I kept him beneath my notice. There’d been a message through Kichiyo that he wanted to meet me, but deeming it a nuisance, I’d rebuffed it. Given she wasn’t a woman to linger in this town—what with her constant talk of becoming an actress upon returning—I’d once urged the priest to counsel him against entertaining any notions of making her his wife and to spare himself pointless expenses. Here I was spouting such pious advice while forging documents—the contradiction within me then was, in retrospect, so glaring that my eyes must have been nearly blinded.

Kichiyo, who had received the most support from Aoki, looked down on even him from the start and thus tried to exploit my pen without hesitation. The attempt to use that document to neatly complete her exit procedures from Ishidoya occurred the next morning, but it did not succeed so quickly. While I was eating lunch, Kichiyo came to my room and, while serving me the meal, happily fiddled with a gem-studded ring glittering on her thick finger.

“What’s wrong?” I grew suspicious. “I took him hostage for you, see?” “Your mother’s letter got found out—didn’t it?” “No, last night I lost to this—” she pointed at her nose “—so there’s no cash now, ’kay?” “You idiot! Trying to fool me!” I found myself blaming even my own failures in this mess. “Honestly! You’re not half the liar you think you are.” “Brag all you want—you’re one lousy geisha!” “Now show me.”

“It must be worth quite a lot, don’t you think?” I took the ring she pulled out and examined it, but since it appeared to be gold-plated, “Idiot!” I threw it out again as if scolding.

“How crude!” Kichiyo flushed crimson and picked it up resentfully. “If such trash could buy your freedom, you’d be no better than those Daruma dolls cluttering this place.” “Even if I were a Daruma—no offense—I wouldn’t need your charity! Well then, how’s this?” She produced a gold coin from her obi sash. “This’d make a proper ring at least?” “Let’s see—” He lunged to snatch it, “No!” She jerked back. “Why bother? You’d just nitpick anyway.”

“Then do whatever the hell you want!” I finished my meal, had tea poured, and put away my chopsticks. Kichiyo stretched and,

“Oh, oh—I could just die already. When will Mom bring the money? Should I send another letter, I wonder?” “Even though she’s got a good patron, there’s no way she’d bring it, I tell you.” “But with all that, there’s no telling when he’ll back out.” “If that doesn’t work out, why don’t you just latch onto that young man again, hmm?” “If that doesn’t work out—then you?” “Don’t talk nonsense! I’m not some gutless Mr. Tamura—I’ll guarantee you this: a fickle thing like you will end up never leaving this place.”

“How hateful!” She stood up, holding a tray and earthenware teapot in both hands,

“Come by later,” she said and went downstairs from the second floor. Downstairs, Okimi’s voice could be heard calling, “Kii-chan, dinner.”

IX

That afternoon, a telegram arrived at Ishidoya. The telegram from Kichiyo’s mother stated that she had now departed Shinbashi. When I casually went to see, Kichiyo’s childlike delight was evident in her behavior. Despite me sitting by the hearth, she acted almost indifferent to this, merely fidgeting restlessly—not calm in the slightest. Aoki arrived there, likely having been notified. After coming to the hearth, he exchanged brief greetings with me and the household members, but even this he did in a restless manner.

“I haven’t yet informed your household, but today I will finally redeem Kichiyo.” “Since Mother’s coming to discuss that very matter, I’ll have you prepare an itemized bill for all expenses related to Kichiyo.” When Aoki said this and looked my way, I saw in his eyes what could only be described as triumph, conquest, vindictiveness, or perhaps pride—so much so that it occurred to me he might have caught wind of my relationship with Kichiyo and was now flaunting his financial leverage to spite me.

Furthermore, if I considered it more carefully, it occurred to me that Kichiyo might be spouting half-baked lies about me—calling me a dimwit, a simpleton, a jealous fool—all to curry favor with Aoki. After all, there was no way Kichiyo would honestly disclose our relationship; in truth, she might have completely become Aoki’s possession, and the two of them could be secretly ridiculing me as a clueless oaf, a blockhead, a lecherous fool—I felt intensely displeased.

However, showing my displeasure would make me look jealous—something I couldn’t do—and even if I couldn’t, I found myself utterly unable to purge it from my heart. Enduring this was truly agonizing compared to the carefree attitude I had maintained until now. Yet that immediate anguish soon faded. For Aoki promptly stood up and headed upstairs—but as he rose, he signaled Kichiyo beside him with a glance, so she followed after him, cheeks flushed crimson as she looked my way.

I pretended not to notice and faced Otei. “Well, good for Kichiyo-san—getting herself redeemed,” I said, blowing out tobacco smoke. “I did think that might be the case,” Otei said while forcefully tapping her long pipe, “but that one’s a proper fool. Even if someone scrapes together what little money they have to redeem Kichiyo, she’s not the sort to settle down in Kōzu. And even if they tried leaving her there, that man’s wife would never agree. If they’ve got that kind of money, they ought to pay back our debts first—don’t you agree, Teacher?”

“Well, Auntie, what you say is quite reasonable—but then again, once a man’s smitten, he’d want to do just that for her—” “Kichiyo’s a fool. “She’s dull with men and has no restraint with money. “Ten sen here, one yen there—what are we supposed to do about the things we hand over here? The fallout from all those places always comes back to us.” “Those who’ll go back should just go back, I suppose.” From beside them, Okimi interjected resentfully.

“They say the more foolish a child is, the more adorable—and indeed, that mother of hers does dote on her so,” Otei said to me resentfully. “Even someone like her, if she stays, things will manage themselves—but if she’s gone, we’ll have to go through the trouble of finding a replacement again. Hey, Okimi—go pour sake for those fools.”

Okimi, sneering, ordered her mother, who was working in the kitchen area, to prepare warmed sake.

I grew sick of Kichiyo, sick of Ishidoya, and even sick of myself.

When I was about to leave, two cars pulled up to Ishidoya’s front entrance. Then, getting out were a plump woman of forty-seven or eight—likely Kichiyo’s mother—and a man who appeared to be her husband. Not only her mother—her father came too. I returned halfheartedly, the disgust I’d been holding back now compounded by a kind of dread.

X

Kichiyo surely hadn't forgotten how I'd repeatedly urged her and how she herself had declared her firm resolve. Even if her parents refused consent and overturned that resolution—which was fundamentally unreliable—she must have at least spoken to them about it once. If she simply talked to them, her parents would undoubtedly come to consult me. Were they to show any enthusiasm toward me, they'd likely come immediately. No—if Kichiyo still hadn't informed them about me, they couldn't very well broach the subject with Aoki present. That oaf probably lacked the tact to subtly persuade her parents even without Aoki around. What would become of this whole affair? Thoughts and fantasies surged through my mind until nothing remained but this throbbing pulse and a heart that refused to settle.

Facing the desk by the window in the evening, sunk in brooding alone, as I gazed absently outside, the fig tree I had momentarily forgotten—with its large, dewy green leaves and plump fruit—refreshed my weary eyes, guided my exhausted heart, and made me think of home. If I returned to Tokyo, there was a fig tree in my own garden even larger than that one, and my child would always sneak off to its base and, while the fruit was still green, knock them down with a bamboo pole—but whenever my wife caught wind of the noise, she would rush out and scold the child. At such times they would invoke the name "Father," but when I myself was beset by grievances, pain, or loneliness, a wife with children offered almost no comfort. Indeed, women of our country—unlike foreign women—when they bore children, poured their very souls into that role alone, and many held the belief that merely maintaining dutiful fidelity toward their husbands sufficed. Then was there not a means or impetus—what I called true living love—sufficient to fully occupy the hearts of men striving to be active in society? I could only think of my wife as a semi-paralyzed animal. I considered whether I should just make Kichiyo my mistress and abandon the whole actress plan altogether.

That's right, that's right. For the current me, matters like turning her into an actress were now a distant concern—had I not already dissolved into Kichiyo’s heart? Though I talked tough to Kichiyo—telling her to show resolve and such—wasn’t the truth that my heart had already become putty in her hands? If I was already this much at her mercy, I thought, perhaps it would be better to devote myself wholly to stirring her true affections rather than raising thorny, half-formed schemes—only to be respectfully kept at arm’s length by Kichiyo or quietly detested by her parents.

My chest was softer than a fig fruit, and my heart had become more fragile than fig leaves.

Suddenly, the sound of waves reached my ears. I knew from swimming—it was the sound washing over that long, sagging coastline’s beautiful curve. The waves came rushing in with a sharp hiss only to retreat silently into the distance. As I listened—during those moments between their crashing arrival and vanishing silence—I felt my very soul being stolen away. Wasn’t this exactly like Kichiyo’s heart? I thought.

Rather than sinking into these trivial musings, I thought of refreshing all my thoughts by resuming the seaside bathing I'd long neglected. First, I tried hauling up my slouched body—forcing my elbows out stiffly, rubbing my chest, pounding my arms—but still finding no will to move, I went utterly limp and flopped face-down onto the desk.

“Huh!” I raised my head to find Ishidoya in full swing—the moment the shamisen’s notes rang out, Kichiyo’s flighty singing voice came through clearly. I recalled Aoki’s face and the figures of the parent couple when they had gotten out of the car earlier.

XI

That night, I didn’t sleep a wink. At times the shamisen sounded like waves, at times the waves sounded like the shamisen—as if in some half-dreamed reality, my nerves grew razor-sharp, my chest tightened unbearably, and something kept jabbing at the core of my mind. When dawn came, I must have finally succumbed to exhaustion and fallen asleep without realizing it—for when I opened my eyes, noon was already approaching.

Noticing a letter by my pillow, I reached for it from under the covers and saw it was from my wife. Thinking the money I’d told her to send had arrived, I hurriedly opened it, but finding no money order or anything inside, I couldn’t bring myself to read the complaints. I tossed it aside as if discarding it and got out of bed.

With a toothpick in my mouth, when I went downstairs, the mistress of the house, who had been washing something at the sink, stopped her hands—

“Good morning, Teacher,” she said with a laugh. “I overslept,” I said nonchalantly as I headed to the well, but that morning alone, passing through Ishidoya’s fence felt frightening, burdensome—truly disagreeable. Washing my face halfheartedly, I returned to my room and, while eating a combined breakfast and lunch, read the letter from my wife. I had informed her I was staying next to a geisha house, and since I kept requesting portions of the manuscript fee I’d left behind, she seemed to have noticed I was squandering money—though this wasn’t the first time I’d done such things, so with every trip she anticipates this anxiety—and was telling me to quit it and come home.

I too, when I thought I was being made a fool of, couldn’t help but want to leave—and yet, I also felt I couldn’t leave without confronting Kichiyo. Even if, by all appearances, I thought her a woman with no prospects, it was as though a command issued from some corner of my heart to cherish Kichiyo. Let things take their course—I told myself that no matter what crisis I faced, I wouldn’t vanish but rather accumulate experience from it. Being impetuous from the start, I spitefully wrote my wife an artificially upbeat letter: while I’ve been relying on the geisha next door for various things, she’s a woman of passion—though in truth, that’s a bald-faced lie—with whom I can become far more deeply involved than with you.

After I had gone out to send that letter, Kichiyo had brought her mother up to my room.

“Teacher, this is my mother.” “So… your mother,” I greeted her. “I must apologize for intruding while you were out, but my daughter has been in your care,” she said, raising her politely lowered head once more—and though I couldn’t discern her true feelings, there was something poisonous about her expression. Her body—unlike her daughter’s—was short in stature, bulging out fatly to the sides, like a pig’s torso with a human head attached. Moreover, her mouth twisted sideways every time she spoke. That her mouth twisted like that due to a nervous condition was an explanation her mother herself would later provide.

This marked my third visit to Kōzu, yet her mother went on about what a pleasant place it was, how ideal for escaping the heat while I studied, how enviable indeed to work while enjoying leisure—her circuitous chatter never quite reached the crucial point I’d been awaiting. Kichiyo, grinning all the while, kept glancing between my face and her mother’s, but eventually slumped against the desk in boredom and began pawing at its surface with one hand. Then, snatching up the letter I’d just finished reading and tucked away, no sooner had she glimpsed the sender’s name on the envelope’s back than her expression shifted slightly,

“Ugh,” she tossed it aside, “it’s from your wife.” “What do you think you’re doing?!”

Smoothly glossing things over, she said, “Teacher, this child truly doesn’t know how disrespectful she is to others—it’s such a problem.” “Oh, it’s nothing,” I replied, but found myself floundering over how to proceed. Reluctantly taking the initiative—“Well, actually”—I suggested that if her parents raised no objections and she herself were willing, we might make Kichiyo an actress. I went on to explain—though I doubted they’d comprehend even if told—that acting wasn’t the vulgar trade society imagined, nor the base occupation performers themselves had long accepted it as being. “Moreover,” I added, “when I eventually write a new script and bring it to stage, I’ll need at least two or three actors under my wing—actresses especially. This would serve as our starting point.”

“That’s quite reasonable,” Kichiyo’s mother nodded in agreement. “I’ve heard about this matter from her as well, but if you’ll handle everything and elevate her standing, we’ve no reason to object.” “What does your husband think?” “As for him—well, his opinion hardly matters now. I’m constantly fretting over household affairs alone. All I do is cause worry—there’s not a single thing worth relying on him for.” “I’m already by myself, endlessly bustling with housework and childrearing.”

“That’s no small matter.—Ms. Kichiyo also needs to set your mind at ease a little—”

“This child is so spineless—it’s such a problem, Teacher.” Her mother shifted her shoulders with exaggerated emphasis, glaring at her daughter as if denouncing her lack of grit. “She thinks she can just cling to me for everything and keeps whining ‘Come here! Come here!’ like a spoiled brat.” “But if you don’t come, what else could I do?” Kichiyo puffed out her cheeks. “Didn’t I tell you to hurry over because you said you’d fix things if you came, Mom?”

“Mo-om has her own errands too, you know.” “Your sister’s gotta start working at the park again too—I can’t just keep fussing over you all the time.” “It’s not like you’re a half-apprentice anymore—a redemption discussion for just fifty or a hundred yen should be manageable through direct negotiation, shouldn’t it?” “Your sister’s far sharper than you.” “Then do as you please!” “You see how she is, Teacher—it’s truly troubling.” “If you don’t thoroughly train her from now on, she won’t be of any use at all.”

“Oh come on—I’m practically too old to become an actress anyway. If I really decide to go through with it, I’ll figure something out myself.” “Kii-chan, you need to shape up,” her mother said, though her tone softened toward her daughter. “Even I’ve got some spirit, y’know.” Kichiyo came over to my lap, pillowing her head on her arm as she looked up at my face. “You’re my favorite person,” she said.

I felt awkward, but since I also didn’t want her mother to see through me as some naive fool, I pretended not to notice, “Since I’d like to meet your father as well, why don’t I take you both to dinner at the eel restaurant over there? Please come along too… Mother.” “That’s my favorite dish above all.—Now then, Teacher, I must say—even for someone like me—troubles never cease. You may have heard this from my daughter already, but the work of a geisha at Katsuian isn’t something just anyone can do. When items priced at two hundred, three hundred, or five hundred yen yield twenty or thirty percent profit, the earnings aren’t bad at all. But after running all over town to procure goods and taking them to clients, they demand exchanges—‘This one’s no good,’ or ‘That’s not bad but make it cheaper’—so those of us mediating never get a moment’s peace. When it comes to trips to the countryside, there are times when one has to make multiple round trips. I came this time too to secure a replacement for this child—if not for that, how could I possibly come out here idly in this harsh world?”

“You shouldn’t even bother preparing a replacement for that dreary house anyway,” Kichiyo said, sitting up. “Well, you see, Teacher—it’s business.” “That’s quite reasonable.” “As you’re well aware—there’s also the matter with Mr. Aoki. Today he’ll be arriving shortly, and we’ll finally reach a resolution. But until that’s settled, first and foremost, this child’s body can’t be freed, you see.” “Exactly. My only concern is her becoming an actress—whether Kichiyo continues her relationship with this Aoki fellow or not is irrelevant to me.” My words, having yet to broach the matter of money, were at least superficially noble.

“However, when this child becomes an actress, you’ll cover all the expenses, won’t you?” Kichiyo’s mother pressed without missing a beat. “That’s exactly right,” I answered energetically. But having no actual preparations in place for when the time came, I felt somewhat hesitant and unwittingly added, “I’ll manage something when it arrives—rest assured.” I was indeed of a mind to let things take their course.

Kichiyo’s mother then launched into small talk—never once letting up on her flattery toward me—while boasting that though money never stuck to her hands, she always kept silk on her back; that various playwrights (though I found it most regrettable to be grouped with those theater hacks) often visited; and that business had taken her everywhere from Kōzu to Nikkō, Shizuoka, and Maebashi. Her demeanor—simultaneously disarming yet scheming—and the way her mouth twisted with every word began to unsettle me, until I found myself thinking, “So this is the mother who shaped Kichiyo?” A fresh wave of revulsion washed over me.

12

Thinking it was already dinnertime, I left home, called out briefly to Kichiyo’s parents at Ishidoya’s corner entrance, and went ahead to the eel restaurant. The eel restaurant was across the street, and since I’d gone there occasionally before—and also because the proprietress was a flatterer—I didn’t hold back. “Proprietress,” I said upon entering, “we’ll have two guests today, you see.”

“Ah, I was informed of that earlier by Ms. Kichiyo,” said the proprietress, loosening one strap of her work sash. “She already notified you?” “What a quick one,” I remarked, beginning to climb the stairs. But the proprietress—for some reason—flusteredly stopped me and guided me to an unfamiliar downstairs room instead.

“Please wait a moment—the second floor will be available shortly.” “Guests, huh?” I remarked nonchalantly as I settled into place.

After the proprietress left, I suddenly noticed Kichiyo’s voice coming from the second floor. There was nothing particularly odd about a geisha being called to a restaurant—but in truth, as Kichiyo herself had confessed, the proprietress here had secretly been facilitating her growing closeness with that man from the small bank, Tajima. Tajima had racked up considerable debt to this establishment because of it, and what’s more, debts elsewhere had left him unable to keep his head above water. When I confronted Kichiyo,

“I may let him spend money,” she replied. “I have no other relationship with Mr. Tajima. If you just think about it, you’d get it, wouldn’t you? If I became his wife and stayed in Kōzu, people from all over might come out of nowhere to ambush me, you know.”

“So you’ve been wronging people left and right?” I pressed. But at any rate, since I knew she wasn’t a woman who would remain in this place, my suspicions were somewhat assuaged—to the extent that I had already conveyed an indirect warning about Tajima to the head priest. However, even after that, they seemed to be meeting every day or every other day without fail. Under these circumstances, it was indeed a fact that the men were growing increasingly impatient, and just as Kichiyo had calculated, they were becoming all the more unable to make a clean break. Moreover, one day, when Kichiyo was gazing outside from the second-floor window of my room,

“Psst, psst,” she beckoned, so I stuck my head out. “What?” I said loudly. “Be quiet,” she hushed me, then whispered, “That’s Tajima.” Sure enough, I caught a glimpse of the man’s profile as he passed by—a bit cocky, with a smirking sort of face. I had long been told of his manly appeal, but he turned out fair-skinned with what looked like smooth skin. At that moment—even if I could transform that crow-like geisha with her gaping pores into a man—I found myself wanting to make Tajima a woman instead. Given this, it went without saying that from before my involvement until now, I could no longer believe Kichiyo remained truly uninvolved with him. Of course, chastity wasn’t something to fuss over—that much was obvious—but when I considered how she took me in despite being entangled with Aoki and Tajima, and how even while having me and Aoki she wouldn’t discard Tajima, my bias only deepened my musings on the spinelessness of these wandering performers.

Convinced that Tajima must have arrived without a doubt, I stealthily climbed the staircase to the second floor. There were two eight-tatami rooms; entering the one at the far end, I hid behind a leaning shoji screen and pricked up my ears. “What the hell does your mother actually plan to do?” “How should I know what she’ll do?”

“Do you actually have no relationship with Mr. Tamura?” “You’re so persistent!—If there was one, what would you do?” “Then isn’t Aoki pitiable?” “Whether he’s pitiable or not—look, I won’t be troubling your stomach.” “Are you really going to become an actress?”

“Of course I will,” she said with a defiant lilt. “Even if you do become one,” he retorted, “you’ll turn useless quick enough and get tossed aside for sure.” “Then you’ll have no choice but to crawl back to being that wretched geisha of yours again.” “Well now,” she drawled, “I’ve been thinking about that too.” “If that’s all there is to it,” his voice tightened with urgency, “then make your damn mind up already and do as I say.” Tajima’s tone carried the sneer of a man mocking some hapless street performer, yet beneath it pulsed an undercurrent of raw sincerity. He seemed to have proposed—if circumstances allowed—keeping Kichiyo tethered to him as his possession. Particularly those final words came weighted with a breath that spoke of swallowed desperation. That “Isn’t it pitiful?” had likely been Tajima voicing his own plight through Aoki’s proxy, but Kichiyo met it with a barbed retort utterly devoid of compassion. Given her shallow nature, she’d already convinced herself that washing her hands of Kōzu—whether today, tomorrow, or some nebulous never—was assuredly safe, blithely trusting the wilderness to swallow whatever followed. Any lingering fondness for Tajima would amount to nothing grander than squeezing twenty or thirty yen from him as parting tribute on her way out. That much I could parse.

“I’m really going to get married, you know—who can say if I’ll ever make it as an actress,” she blurted out, voicing what needn’t have been said. “To what sort of man?” “A ward office official—he’s got clothes ready and everything waiting for me.”

Rather than imagining the scene in the next room, I found myself recoiling at this single remark. If this was true—and since I'd heard her mention "getting married" before—it now seemed Kichiyo's parents had brought forth this settled proposal. With that scheming mother of hers, she'd hardly balk at hatching such a scheme. "He's just some clerk scraping by on twenty or thirty yen a month—what good's becoming his wife?"

“At least he’s better than a debt-ridden fool like you.” “Don’t talk nonsense!” “He’s someone I’ve known since childhood—he’s been saying he wants to marry me for ages—even if his salary’s forty yen, his father’s house is nice, so…” “The house might be nice, but the salary part’s a lie—but hey, if that’s how it’s gonna be, we’ll all have no hard feelings.” “Well then, let’s settle it as such.” Kichiyo irritably began strumming the shamisen with loud, jarring notes.

“Stop it! Stop it!” he snapped, slapping at the shamisen. “Well then, just go home already. As I’ve said countless times, I’ve got a marriage proposal lined up.” “If you’re sending me away, do it properly.”

“What am I supposed to do?” “Like this!” “That hurts!” “Quiet!” The force behind this single remark was as if a robber had burst in brandishing an unsheathed sword. “……” I couldn’t bear it any longer and came downstairs from the second floor.

After a while, there was a clattering descent down the stairs, so when I peeked out from the lower room, I caught sight of Kichiyo’s back as she entered the bathroom. When I considered that anyone might feel that way, I found myself suddenly reminded of her coarse skin. As my own hair stood on end, I felt my heart had already become a hairy beast—its sharp nose now sniffing at another beast’s rear.

13

At the same time Tajima left, Kichiyo’s parents entered in his place. “The room is ready now, so please go upstairs,” came the notification this time from the landlady. I left my room and was about to climb the stairs once more when I ran into her parents. “We’ll take you up on that kind offer,” Kichiyo’s mother said with an ingratiating smile. “Teacher, we’ve all come together now.” “Well then, please come up,” I said, taking the lead toward the back of the second floor.

As for the old man—unlike the old woman—he seemed the type who appeared good-natured but lacked backbone, content to idle about with his hands in his pockets all day. It seemed likely that in his youth, due to his dashing presence, it had actually been the old woman who became infatuated—even pouring all her hard-earned income into covering his gambling losses while anxiously worrying, “Don’t let another woman take him, don’t let them take him.” Even as he aged, he hadn’t broken that habit—still relied solely on the old woman to fuss over him. This was the old man for you. I’d heard his job was making geta bases, but it probably wasn’t all that strenuous. (I had forgotten one thing—the old woman had said she’d definitely bring geta that suited me when coming, but there seemed to be no such gift.) He sat there looking thoroughly ill at ease, unable to manage even a proper first-meeting greeting—perfunctorily arranged his knees in some semblance of decorum, his backside never properly settling.

“The way Father carries himself—it’s simply appalling!” When the old woman said this, “Well, I’ve always gone by informality,” the old man said with a sly grin, laughing until his red gums showed. “Please make yourself comfortable. Don’t stand on ceremony,” I said, first settling into a relaxed position. “As for Father,” Kichiyo’s mother continued bluntly, “he was born a geta craftsman—sitting cross-legged all day facing his workbench suits him just fine.”

“You shouldn’t make such a fool of me like that,” said the old man with an awkward chuckle as he rubbed his head. “Once you’ve eaten your meal,” Kichiyo laughed airily at her parents while plucking shamisen strings nearby.

The only one who didn’t find it amusing was me. Having served them sake and provided a feast, then suspecting on top of it all that the three of them were mocking me, I even began to think of simply leaving without another word. Moreover, when I recalled what had just transpired in this room, a queasiness rose in my chest until even my own body seemed to have transformed into some filthy, hairy beast. Even the dishes that should have been fragrant carried to my nose the dim scent of that dimly lit room—especially from when Kichiyo had covered the lightbulb with a Yamato bag—and I found myself unable to touch my chopsticks.

My brooding mind was suddenly locked into the ascetic discipline of a monk, utterly severed from all bright realms of sweetness, joy, and pleasure.

Suddenly realizing, I saw the sun hadn’t yet set. The three were munching away without restraint. I once again brought the sake cup to my lips. “Teacher, you’re only drinking sake,” Kichiyo’s mother said, settling into her seat, “and not touching the side dishes at all?” “We’ll get to that eventually—well, how about a cup, Father?” I tilted the sake flask toward him. “That’s quite enough now, Teacher.” “Once my husband has two or three cups, he ends up like that.”

“But it’s still fine, isn’t it—?” “No, no more—I’m already like this,” the old man said, stretching out the knees he’d been patiently keeping folded until now and flopping onto his side. “Ah, if only we were here playing a game of flower cards like this—it’d be perfect, but—” “Father’s going to start up again soon—it’s such a problem. “Even with just the flower cards, Teacher, my worries never cease.” “Even if you say that, I’ve got no other pleasures, so what can I do?”

“Is he coming too?” Kichiyo gave her mother a meaningful look. “Oh, he’ll come,” Kichiyo’s mother answered lightly, then turned back to me. “Teacher, should we send Father home now?” “You may handle that as you please—if you’re uncomfortable, Father, I’ll have rice brought for you first,” I said, clapping my hands to call for the meal.

“Once Father has eaten his meal, he’ll go right home,” said Kichiyo’s mother, taking care of it. I had even considered completely withdrawing the actress proposal, and since I thought discussing it with this old man would get me nowhere, I ended the conversation at an appropriate point. As the figure of the idle old man—who had finished his meal alone and was now leaving alone—disappeared from the staircase, the phantom that replaced it before my eyes was none other than Kichiyo’s so-called “that person.” It occurred to me that this might be the ward office clerk waiting for Kichiyo’s return to Tokyo—the one who often came to play flower cards, perhaps having become a favorite of the old man.

XIV

What remained afterward were the three of us: Kichiyo’s mother，Kichiyo，and me. “This way，it’s better with just us family，” Kichiyo’s mother said，looking at her daughter’s face. “Did Aoki come?” Kichiyo stared intently at her mother’s face again. “Yes，he came.” “Did the negotiations get settled?” “It’s not going well，you see.” “I can’t stand this!” Kichiyo’s complexion changed. “So didn’t I tell you to handle this properly?” “There’s no use getting so discouraged—even your mother isn’t slacking off here—but if they’re still being cagey，it’s only natural to have second thoughts，you know?”

“What’s natural about that, huh? From the start you promised to take me in—so even though every month I’ve been treated like some mistress while you tried to keep me from spending a single extra coin, I’ve barely gotten any allowance at all, haven’t I? If you think you can make a fool of me, I won’t have it! I’ll march right into that junk shop and give them hell!” “Now now—no need to get wild-eyed. We’re before Teacher here. Truth is—he says he’ll hand over half tomorrow.”

“Half is useless! You cheapskate!”

“That’s how it is—if I’m going to take you in, I want you to think only of Mr. Aoki—” “It’s not like I’m some idiot!” “Now, listen here,” Kichiyo’s mother said, making a beckoning cat-like gesture to restrain her daughter, “isn’t that how things should proceed? You think just meekly agreeing to everything will do, huh? —‘That’s quite reasonable,’ they replied, you see—then they said there are some questionable points about you—”

"But I already told them Teacher has nothing to do with this!" “No, this person isn’t the issue, you know—it’s—” "I told you I broke things off with Tajima long ago!" "Damn it all!" I roared inside. "You’re just jealous, aren’t you?" The old woman smiled with feigned innocence, whether truly oblivious or pretending ignorance. “When you’re working banquets as a geisha, you can’t go picking clients—though you’d better show some tact about it—right, Teacher? That’s how it should be, no?”

“That’s correct,” I replied with reluctance. “Well now,” Kichiyo grinned shamelessly, “there was this incident. “In that banquet room upstairs, Mr. Aoki was present while Tajima had come down below. “I was juggling both men, see—got myself in a right fix with their jealous pressing. “Tajima cornered me from behind for a drinking bout, got dead drunk and belted out ‘Aoki’s a damn fool!’ loud enough to hear through walls. “Mr. Aoki being elderly kept his composure—so I sent him home first.”

Even as she spoke like this, Kichiyo showed no sign of suspecting that I knew what had just transpired—her demeanor remained entirely unguarded around me. I wanted so badly to lay my heart bare and show Kichiyo and the old woman my decisiveness—to utterly show them up—but I maintained an unaffected air, loath to be seen as just another stingy man joining the two already circling them.

“It’s a geisha’s duty,” the old woman said, turning to me, “to ensure such things don’t happen, isn’t it?” “That’s absolutely right,” Kichiyo chimed in. I gave this response aloud while inwardly sneering: "Not even a geisha—she lacks even a prostitute’s skills or a hellion’s cunning." “What’s the use blaming only me?” Kichiyo sharply narrowed her eyes. At times, the way her mouth twisted looked exactly like her mother’s.

“Now, let’s not dwell on what’s done,” the old woman said soothingly to her daughter, “but from now on, things will be critical for a while—you must be very careful. I’d like to ask Teacher as well, you see. I trust there will be no carelessness until Mr. Aoki settles matters with Ishidoya—since he says he will certainly hand over the remaining amount by the end of this month—this entire month is a crucial time. We must both, you see, ensure they don’t catch on—” The old woman’s manner of looking between Kichiyo and me with apparent concern carried, indeed, the dignity befitting a parent.

“Of course,” I replied again. The liquor I’d desperately downed now coursed through me fully—my taut nerves suddenly slackened, the unpleasant odor no longer clung to my body, and the old woman before me seemed to take on the aspect of my own mother. Moreover, Kichiyo’s seated figure swayed unsteadily in my vision like Fugen Bosatsu dwelling upon distant clouds, her cheeks flushed faintly crimson beneath their white powder through drunkenness—so beautiful, so endearing that it called to mind matters from fourteen or fifteen years past.

I married my current wife fourteen or fifteen years ago. Being slightly older than me, she was a woman of steady reliability in daily life, yet when I recall my wife at our wedding—her face flushing after just a cup or two of celebratory sake—she had been such an adorable bride that she could hardly bear to remain there. Now before my eyes, I saw the visage of that wife from long ago.

I hadn’t noticed when the lamp had been lit.

“Teacher is terribly deep in thought, aren’t you?” At the old woman’s words, I felt as though my pleasant dream had been shattered.

“I’ve had quite a lot to drink,” I said, throwing myself sideways. “Kii-chan,” the old woman signaled her daughter with a look. “Get a grip, Teacher.” Kichiyo stood up and came over to pour me a drink. Perhaps thinking she already had me twisted around her finger, she self-indulgently picked up her chopsticks, leaving nearly all the pouring to her mother. “Kii-chan, play something—Teacher, shall we liven things up a bit?”

Kichiyo’s jaunty shamisen playing began. I didn’t want to listen, “Wait,” I interjected, “I’ve never seen you dance before—have your mother play, and let me see you perform once.” “I haven’t danced in a while,” said Kichiyo, looking at me while still holding the shamisen on her lap and twisting her body sideways. ……… As I imagined young girls throwing tantrums on their way to or from dance lessons,

“Why not perform something you remember?” “But…” she shook her body again, simultaneously raising her left hand toward the ceiling and pausing mid-sentence— “I can’t dance in this bulky outfit, you know.” “Just pretend it’s part of serving drinks,” I blurted out, drawn into her increasingly guileless demeanor. “That sort of request is impossible, I tell you.” Kichiyo gazed imploringly at her mother.

“Well then,” said the old woman, glancing alternately at her daughter and me, “if I can’t play properly, that won’t do either. Try something simple—‘Waga Mono’ would work. Pretend you’re holding an umbrella, come on.” She took the shamisen from her daughter and tightened the strings.

“I’m just like a child.” Kichiyo bashfully stood up and assumed her stance. The old woman’s strings were remarkably taut. To the song “Waga—a Mono—o to,” Kichiyo began to dance, but even as she danced, “I somehow feel awkward, you know,” she said. Her bashful demeanor showed not the slightest trace of the woman who had deceived countless men until now, carrying instead a tenderness akin to a pure maiden having her garments stripped away one by one. Could there truly be such tenderness in this woman I’d sniffed out as nothing but a beast? Without even the presence of mind to judge her skill, I was simply staring vacantly, entranced—

As the lyrics “Matsu u mi ni i, tsuraaaki, oki i gotaatsu” faded away, the dance ended. The dancer pressed her palms against the tatami and bowed with elegant composure. The thought that there had once been a time when she danced like this made me want desperately to clasp the nape of her neck. “No more of that,” said Kichiyo—for the first time speaking like a woman of her age ought to—as she returned to her own tray and lifted her sake cup. “Mother, pour me one as my reward.”

“Here, I’ll pour for you,” I said, taking up the nearby sake bottle. “Even so,” Mother said, setting the shamisen down beside her,

“It’s quite impressive how well you remember it, I must say. “Teacher, when this girl used to go to her instructor’s place, it was such a problem. “Even though it was her own training to better herself, she’d demand a reward as if she’d done someone else’s work, you know. “That habit still hasn’t been fixed, I tell you. “The moment I mention anything, she immediately demands money—” “I don’t go around begging like that, you know,” Kichiyo smiled. “……”

Thinking it was more talk about money—which I had no desire to hear—we all promptly ate.

XV

With Mother having gone ahead, it was just Kichiyo and me left facing each other. At this point, everything I’d been bottling up in my chest suddenly surged forth. “I feel awful making you treat me like this, Teacher, don’t I?” Kichiyo gazed at me with coy eyes as she spoke—to which I responded, “Idiot!” I hurled the word at her with heavy, pent-up fury.

“Those terrifying eyes!” For a while, Kichiyo stared—then, contorting her face, she sidled up to me. “What’s wrong?” “Ugh, you’re filthy!” I pushed her away, glared, and snapped: “Do you think I don’t know? How far will you keep mocking people?” “What’s this disgraceful state here—from before I even arrived?”

Kichiyo seemed momentarily taken aback but adjusted her posture, “Were you listening?” she asked with visible discomfort. “Not just listening—it was practically like watching from the next room!” “I don’t care for Mr. Tajima at all, you know.” “This isn’t about caring anymore—it’s about disease spreading.” “That’s been cured ages ago, I tell you.” “How the hell would I know? The sores at your mouth’s edge prove you’ve been poisoned by some stray mongrel of unknown origin!”

I hadn’t mentioned it, but the way the sores at the corners of her mouth would heal and then reappear was something I’d been aware of from the start. Moreover, I now recalled how Otei of Ishidoya had once disparagingly claimed that the occasional clouding of those lively eyes was a symptom of syphilitic eye disease—and I shuddered. “Forgive me, please!” Shoving away Kichiyo, who had thrown herself against my chest, I stood up abruptly. “Let Mother be the one to say that for you. I’m a man too—if you just follow through properly on your end with what I promised her, I’ll certainly do it.” “But the rot in your body won’t heal unless you change it from your very soul—I’m not saying this out of jealousy, mind you; I’m saying it for your own sake.”

Though I was angry, tears spilled from my eyes. Nonchalantly taking out a handkerchief to wipe my eyes, I left the room. After exiting, I glanced back—but she, whether she understood or not—remained in the position where she’d been thrust away, her left hand pressed against the tatami, the edge of that sleeve brought to her mouth with her right hand. Her eyes stayed fixed on the matting.

The following day, in the morning, Kichiyo’s parents came to bid farewell. As for my having scolded Kichiyo—whether she had reported this to her mother or not—there was no particular mention made of it. In any case, I felt I had escaped a kind of unpleasant pressure, and I resolved to keep the actress issue from surfacing in my mind as much as possible. Moreover, I thought that from now on there was no need for me to take the initiative—if Kichiyo had any real mettle, she would find a way to approach me herself, and it would be best to wait for that.

“You’re not one to overlook things, Teacher—but this month is crucial, you know,” were her mother’s parting words once more.

“Of course,” I replied, but afterward a rebelliousness arose in me—what nonsense this “of course” was! And yet, in truth, even though I waited without going out—convinced Kichiyo would surely stop by on her way back from seeing her parents off—she did not come. My eager anticipation that she might arrive in the afternoon proved equally futile. That night too, she never appeared. The day after that as well, I waited until sunset, but she never came. She must have already gone to a banquet—after all, while Ishidoya itself wasn’t thriving, its sole geisha became quite the sensation whenever she stepped outside—so I resigned myself and picked up Merezhkovsky’s novel *The Forerunner*, which I had already read more than halfway through. When I first settled in Kōzu, I had raced through it in one go out of casual interest and made it that far, but once my mind began wandering elsewhere, I had nearly forgotten about it entirely—such was how things stood. Now, of all times, I found myself longing for the bachelor life of Leonardo da Vinci, this book’s protagonist.

I lay on my back with a pillow and began reading, but when I suddenly noticed, moonlight was spreading its glow throughout the room. The shoji on the window facing outward had been removed—this struck me as dangerous. It was a thought I’d harbored for days—with no way to know how many ties Kichiyo had forged, I, being an outsider, was most vulnerable to collective resentment. I might be ambushed by anyone at any moment. When no one passed by—even if on impulse—the thought of someone hurling a stone and injuring me seemed too trivial to risk. I rose, slid the shoji panels back into place but left them slightly ajar on both sides, then lay down again on my pillow.

My mind was scattered and unable to focus, so my eyes remained fixed on the open page, yet I couldn't make sense of what I was reading. Still I kept reading doggedly, but no new incidents emerged; Leonardo and Kichiyo alternately passed through my mind. One was the visage of an elderly bachelor who wrapped his overflowing thoughts and emotions in classical action. The other was the figure of a harlot—utterly unclassical in temperament, her heart so debauched it verged on insensitivity. These two appeared in my mind's eye like images in a revolving lantern, alternating without cease.

One contained blazing new passions within a vessel of versatility, yet ended unable to express even a love steeped in lifelong solitude. His life was noble, elegant, pure. When I considered the troubles of family life, the complications with women, and the various pains and fatigue that accompanied such things, I couldn't help feeling a vague nostalgia—wondering whether it might have been happier to live like Leonardo, remaining single and maintaining noble integrity. Yet when I reconsidered, this noble and disciplined semi-monastic life was something I had already passed through in thought and experimentation over a decade prior. It went without saying that something so naive could never satisfy who I was now. My nerves must have grown five—no, ten times more sensitive than Leonardo's.

When I thought this, the stench of decay within my chest—like that of an ancient temple’s graveyard—rose once more, and in that foul air, Kichiyo’s figure surfaced as if seizing its moment. The smile of her languid figure had become blood cells circulating through my veins; my muscles slackened, I felt utterly spent and disheartened, my hands heavier than usual, my legs wearier than normal.

My hypersensitive mind and body were decaying. They were breaking down. As if something solid were melting away—the strength to hold firm had vanished, and weight kept pressing downward, ever downward. Decadence, ruin, weariness, fatigue—I began to feel that wandering the realm of decadence might rather be my pride. When I let *The Forerunner* fall from my hand, Leonardo vanished—yet Kichiyo alone still would not leave me.

She was decadence in form alone—effortless, insensate—diverging from our conception of it through her lack of substance, depth, or true essence. Thinking this made even this loathsome, and I half-rose from my bed. When I did so, Kichiyo too ceased drifting through my mind’s eye. The heat being unbearable, I fanned myself wildly—when from somewhere— came a gentle voice pleading, “Forgive me, please.” Yet its owner still had not appeared.

16 Because I pressed her so forcefully, she flared up— "Could it be she'd decided, 'Fine, do as you please!'?" If so, then unless I went to her first, we'd never meet again. Not meeting would be better for me—but surely that woman lacked such resolve. That idiot—where was she now? What was she doing? Still clutching my fan, I went out under pretense of a walk to investigate.

At Ishidoya’s entrance, Kichiyo was nowhere to be seen.

Probably from having lain down for so long, my head felt heavy, and my eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Moreover, lately I hadn’t been exercising at all—shut up in the house, either brooding at my desk or else drinking—so my legs had grown spindly. In the cool blowing wind, I felt as though my body might float away. Treading firmly on the uneven path, again and again, I walked on, but every figure passing along the highway seemed to me an enemy. The shadow of myself cast by the moonlight also seemed somehow frightening to me.

Doing my best not to approach any passersby, I first passed in front of the usual eel restaurant. The sound of the shamisen and singing could be heard, but hers was not among them. Not knowing whether she was there or not, I checked two or three other nearby restaurants that seemed likely prospects. I had the feeling she wasn’t in those places either.

Aoki’s main base, so to speak, was Satomitei, two or three blocks ahead. Initially, due to his relationship with Kichiyo, he had been a patron of Ishidoya; however, as his debts mounted and he became unwelcome, he turned into a regular at that eel restaurant. However, after realizing the proprietress there had introduced Kichiyo to Tajima, he shifted back to Satomitei. If he messed up there, he would probably move to another, slightly more distant establishment. From an outsider’s perspective, it looked like a gradual retreat. According to what Kichiyo had told me, Aoki himself—

“It’s because I’m uneducated and old that I get mocked by the young ones and even betrayed by the woman I’m devoted to,” he had reportedly wept like a man. On one occasion, wanting to test his beloved’s loyalty, he ordered Kichiyo to arrange a meeting with a much younger geisha from their trade—one from Kichiyo’s own circle. Kichiyo coolly persuaded the girl as instructed and summoned Aoki aside to deliver her report.

“As long as Sis agrees—it’s fine.” “……” Yet upon hearing this, Aoki had instead expressed regret—insisting it wasn’t his true intention—and there were times when he’d tightly embraced Kichiyo’s shoulders as she stood there, declaring, “Are you such a heartless woman that even this means nothing to you?” while straining to show his utmost sincerity. When I considered it, even this libertine old man had possessed sincerity, and I pitied him. Kichiyo was the one—though it was such an absurd ploy—who remained an insensate creature, incapable of feeling even such ardent affection—an unfaithful wench—.

While thinking these things, I too chased after that insensate creature—that unfaithful wench—and came before Satomitei. It was always a gloomy house, yet it remained as hushed as ever. She didn’t seem to be there. But then the thought that they might be furtively fondling each other again made my blood surge, and my head grew hot as though about to ignite. I circled around to the back of the house, gripped by the image of a serpent several yards long flickering its crimson tongue as it prepared to coil around the building.

The rear was a rice field. The ears of rice, standing in rows stretching far into the distance, swayed in the wind and glistened. I wanted to become light as a cool breeze, formless as moonlight, and steal away to the rear second floor of Satomitei. However, my own black shadow reflected on the wooden wall was unbearably in the way.

As if trying to rid myself of that shadow, I warily circled around and came back out onto the highway.

As I walked back along the path toward my house, there were patches of darkness and pools of light—lamps casting their glow, electric lights shining—and even within those shifting contrasts of illumination and shadow, the road’s unevenness became apparent. Through the flickering lenses of my nearsighted eyes and from the precarious footing beneath me, an entirely different world opened up. The black shadows working at each doorway were like soldiers of hell—the pots, tools, vegetables uniformly lined in black before each shop were like demons’ possessions and food—and I wondered in amazement when I had managed to stumble upon this graveyard, this kitchen of the underworld.

When I happened upon someone humming as they passed by, it seemed the stench of rotting flesh from corpses could be heard emanating from their very voices. I—as if transformed into the god Izanagi-no-Mikoto—felt myself chasing a woman to hell's dim back entrance reeking of death, then returned home.

When I looked at the clock, it was already 10:30 PM. However, since it was still hot, I didn't feel like laying out the bedding. I fell onto my back, my entire body going limp as strength drained away, and stretched out my limbs.

Then something came flying in from the front, struck the rear window wall, rebounded, and went clattering down the staircase. For a stray bird, it seemed far too reckless and carried far too much weight. Startled, I immediately opened the front window,

“…” Who is it? Just as I tried to raise my usual loud voice, from below—

“Quietly, quietly”—not with words but through a hushing gesture—I saw the woman. It was Kichiyo. I immediately went downstairs and stepped outside. “……” She still hadn’t spoken. “Did I scare you?” Her drunken figure—having uttered this in her usual breezy tone—cast a soft silhouette across the moonlit ground. “Is it Aoki again?” “No, I’m heading there now.” “Then get out already!”

I deliberately pushed her away harshly and resigned myself that tonight too would end in failure. "Shall I give you another one?" She produced another apple she had been holding. "......"

I silently snatched it and stomped into the house.

17

After that, every time I met Kichiyo, I would act angry, tease her, laugh with her, or dote on her—and if I couldn’t grasp her intentions, she too would put on her business-like demeanor suited to each occasion. I had become completely indifferent to the earnest warnings my mother had given when she left. From Tokyo, my wife had stopped sending money and instead kept bombarding me with complaints that seemed half-seared with resentment. I could not help but imagine her swollen state of resentment, yet even as this unwelcome contrary impulse arose within me, I also came to feel that this latest incident contained a love that would grant me new life—something my wife could never hope to offer. And so, I sent a reply stating that even if I were to take a geisha as my mistress, I would never cause you all—(I believed I had informed my parents as well, so this implicitly included them)—any worry.

I always frequented Ishidoya, but it was Okimi there who first sensed the relationship between Kichiyo and me. Ironically, it seems she had sneaked into the adjacent room, spied on everything, laid out the plain facts, and confronted Kichiyo to torment her. Kichiyo, apparently irritated by this, was said to have retorted that eavesdropping on one’s own customers was rude—but since Okimi’s harassment differed from her usual behind-the-scenes bullying tactics,

“That little runt’s at that age now, so she’s burning up with jealousy, y’know,” Kichiyo thumped my chest. “Surely that can’t be the reason,” I replied.

However, it was true that after that, Okimi stopped coming to learn English.

Not only had this become a motive for me to feel somewhat awkward, but I also no longer wanted to visit places where my beloved was being bullied by a young girl. Moreover, whenever Otei caught sight of me, she would speak ill of Kichiyo—likely because, though I had elevated such a vulgar woman, she never imagined I was actually involved with her. Yet even so, now that she knew, it stood to reason she regarded me as equally vulgar; thus, I resolved it was better not to go. So when summoning Kichiyo, I called her to the eel restaurant instead, but the frequency of my drinking outings no longer matched what it once had been.

I now had time to study, but I could not put pen to paper for the script I had resolved to write. Instead, I began drafting an introductory account of the noble yet resentment-laden life of Leonardo da Vinci—that great classicist imbued with new ideas—by condensing a novel by Merezhkovsky that I had finished reading. One evening, as I was writing with a clear mind, Kichiyo came clattering up the staircase.

“...” Without saying a word, she immediately clung to me and burst into tears. Because it was so sudden, “What’s wrong?” I blurted out without thinking, taking her by the hand. “...” She lay face down on my lap for a while, her hand still entrusted to me, then finally lifted her head, released the sleeve she’d been biting, and said, “I had a fight with Aoki.” “Oh, that’s it?” I let go of her hand. “A lovers’ spat after getting all handsy? So you bring that mess to me—what’s that supposed to solve?”

“He found out, you know.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” I pretended not to understand, though I instinctively knew Aoki had caught wind of it. “What do you mean ‘what’? They say he sneaked in through the eel shop’s back door last night and eavesdropped.” So now, the me from that other night had become last night’s Aoki. Once more, the crimson tongue of that giant serpent seemed to flicker obscenely before my eyes. I suppressed this image and maintained my composure, “Is that what hurts?”

“He just wouldn’t stop doubting me no matter what—it got on my nerves, so I told him straight out: ‘I don’t need your help anymore.’” “Then what’s the problem?” “So he says he’ll cut me off completely now—you’re fine with that?” “Absolutely.” “You’ll clean up the mess afterward?” “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” I resolved. I’d even considered ending things before they reached this point, but with the expected funds never arriving, I found myself cornered. Yet now that matters had come to a head, I refused to back down. To my surprise, my resolve held firm.

“I’ll come once I’ve written a little more, so go on ahead,” I said, sending Kichiyo back ahead of me.

18 When I arrived at Ishidoya, Kichiyo, Otei, and the master were sitting around the hearth. Okimi and Sho-chan seemed to be sleeping, knowing nothing. The master appeared worried about how things would develop, while Kichiyo remained surprisingly composed. Otei was the first to speak. “Teacher, what an unforeseen predicament,” she began, maintaining her pretense of ignorance to the last, “though it’s shameful to burden you with such concerns—”

“Well, now that it’s come to this, I’ll take care of it.” “I’m terribly sorry about this—but Kichiyo’s at fault here. You shouldn’t have provoked him; you ought to have just left it alone.” “Since he’s the one who started digging it up, there’s nothing to be done about it.” “Once something’s done, no matter what you say, there’s no undoing it.” “Leave it completely to me,” I asserted with manly resolve.

“However,” the master said in a stiff tone, “if it becomes publicly known she’s that man’s belonging, our geisha won’t sell, you see—and if another impossible situation occurs, we’ll be left holding the bag—” “That’s already settled,” I replied airily, though his belittling tone rankled me. Yet considering the master’s relative naivety and that his scowling lack of charm was simply innate, I reasoned he’d spoken his raw thoughts—and in doing so, I found my own heart growing marginally more sincere.

“I’ll handle it somehow”—in truth, I had to arrange funds—“I assure you there’ll be no trouble, but even if Mr. Aoki settles his part, it’ll take through month’s end—so about those payment deadlines, please show some leniency,” I pressed. “That goes without saying.” The master forced a fleeting smile before his face stiffened into its usual scowl again. He turned to Otei and said, “If only Aoki had paid everything upfront back then, eh?”

“It’s because that guy’s a stingy miser, you see.” Otei tapped her pipe. “How about a drink?” Thinking she had probably understood by now, I urged Kichiyo upstairs. “Were you surprised that I cried?” When Kichiyo sat facing me, she said this.

“Nah.” Finding Kichiyo’s exaggerated attitude affected, I answered coolly. “There wasn’t a trace of wateriness in your eyes.” Calling for an inkstone and rolled paper, I drank as I wrote a letter to a certain senior colleague about securing funds. In it, I described a twenty-seven-year-old geisha—unremarkable in features, unskilled at shamisen, yet excelling in dance (this I wrote trusting Kichiyo’s own claims)—unusually tall for an ordinary woman, with large eyes and mouth that could make her an ideal actress with proper training. She had a child and a sister. There was hope of bringing them into the fold. Having steeled myself for potential failure, I asked them to temporarily advance the required hundred and fifty yen. The letter’s tone stayed dispassionate—my fervor having cooled since introducing her to my theater friend. Naturally, one’s regard for friends differs from that toward seniors. My sole concern remained whether they’d consent.

"Have you finished writing already?" Kichiyo asked impatiently. “Ah,” I replied weakly.

I lay down and gulped down three or four cups all by myself.

“I’ll write too,” said Kichiyo, taking up the brush this time. She sat on my outstretched leg, propped her elbow, and began writing something eagerly. I clapped my hands to summon someone and, assuming they were still awake, ordered them to buy stamps and mail the letter. One part was to reassure my family back home, but my heart constricted painfully at the thought of what I’d do if an unfavorable reply came. “...” Kichiyo too had finished a short letter and looked proud of it—

“Let me see that,” I said, taking it to look.

The kana characters were clumsily formed, but their meaning just barely came through. When I had previously asked her mother whether Kichiyo had finished elementary school, she'd answered that they never sent her to school—she could only manage to skim through newspapers at best—and even if she became an actress, she'd likely be terrible at memorizing lines. Then Kichiyo, from beside me, I recalled her retorting, "As if I'd ever freeze up on stage!" "It has been some time since I last paid my respects." "I am quietly gratified to hear you remain in good health and continue your duties without incident." "Regarding the recent matter conveyed through my mother—I write now with utmost pleasure."

I realized she was surely sending it to that ward office clerk. “Most pleased”—that must mean their union had been settled. Though truth be told, I had also considered that if that person were to consent and allow her to become an actress, then that would be acceptable as well. The continuation—

"As I shall soon return home, I shall explain all details upon meeting you in person." Respectfully, "From Kiku"

Kiku was Kichiyo’s real name. True to form, she hadn’t written the address. “You idiot! Writing your sweet nothings right in front of me, huh?” “They’re not sweet nothings—it’s an apology letter since I’ve been neglecting to write!” “‘Received from my mother, I am pleased’—Write the address! The address! Even if you hide it, I’ll find out anyway!” “Fine, I’ll write it.” Laughing, she said, “You write the envelope,” then brushed in “Mr. Nozawa.”

I wrote on the front of the envelope: "Mr. Nozawa, c/o Watanabe Residence (this being Kichiyo’s family home), Senzoku-cho, Asakusa Ward, Block ○, Number ○." While she claimed to have known him since childhood, she did not know either his name or his address.

“............” The previous forgery had seemed advantageous to me, but this act of ghostwriting now contained elements that would prove detrimental. I steeled myself to let matters take their natural course, suppressing the ache in my chest. Yet not wanting to reveal this despondency outwardly, I teased half-heartedly: “You must be longing most for the ward office clerk?” “No.” Kichiyo smiled faintly before twisting her lips. “Truth is, I still fancy Mr. Aoki most—he’s dependable—been looking after me forever.”

“Then what about me?” “From now on, I’ll be your—” Kichiyo leaned her shoulder and body against my chest as I lay there, moving her neck syllable by syllable, “mis—tress—” We had been dawdling until midnight when Otei came out and requested that we leave, as it was already time. I stood up, and my head spun dizzily as my legs wobbled.

Probably because she thought it dangerous, Kichiyo escorted me to my gate. I remember us casting two shadows under the moonlit sky.

19 The theater friend I had urged for a reply finally sent word saying they had spoken to one of the troupe’s principal members and that the rest would be handled after my return to Tokyo. When I reported this to Kichiyo, she said she felt awkward. When I pressed her for reasons, it emerged that if she were to join this troupe, an acquaintance who had been recruited in Tokyo years earlier—now transformed into their esteemed lead onnagata—would be there. She was indeed a geisha who could drain all enthusiasm from a room.

Moreover, the reply from my most crucial senior colleague proved thoroughly disheartening. She was too old to be fashioned into an actress, and having once been a geisha, likely lacked the stamina to withstand the hardships of stage training. It was counsel urging me to decisively sever relations instead. This aligned perfectly with what my heart's depths had ceaselessly voiced.

However, I was also a man; as a matter of pride, I had no intention of breaking a promise once made. Now, there was no choice but to stop relying on others and take full responsibility for the situation myself. In that case, I had to start by searching through my own closest household. So, I wrote a letter to my wife, telling her to pawn the household belongings and procure a certain amount of money. Even though I said “pawn,” since most of my own belongings had already been pawned, the actual targets were my wife’s clothes and their accessories—so I added that for any shortfall, she should go to my father’s house and have them provide what was needed.

My wife seemed to have anticipated this outcome. In truth, when Kichiyo’s mother came, I had already taken preemptive action by asking a friend near my Tokyo residence to procure funds. Not only had it been ineffective, but my friend had also cautioned my wife about most matters. My wife, not wanting to be called obtuse for remaining completely unaware of this, had first informed my father and then, in her frantic rushing about, nearly was knocked down while walking along the tramway with our child in her arms.

The older boy had picked up the phrase “How ridiculous!” from somewhere and was repeating it incessantly around that time. My wife took this as an omen of what was now unfolding. This too was perfectly reasonable, for before I had departed Tokyo, I had already been on the brink of quitting my job as an English teacher—a position that provided part of my living expenses—due to the publication of my “Decadence Theory.”

From my father came a strict written admonishment. Since he was ordering me to return immediately, my final letter appeared to have crossed paths with his, and this time, after consulting with my father, my wife came herself.

As I stepped out the front door to take a walk—my head feeling heavy—from the opposite direction came my wife in a rickshaw, holding our nursing infant. The gauntness of her face was striking, her complexion deathly pale. All that had happened up to now rose up in my heart at once, and I couldn’t help but be startled. “You fool!—You idiot!” The vehemence with which my wife alighted from the rickshaw was extraordinary. This was the first time I had heard such vile insults from my wife.

“............” Since she must have been quite agitated, thinking it best not to provoke her further, I calmly led her upstairs to the second floor.

The landlady who came to serve tea exchanged ordinary greetings with my wife, but from the very beginning wore an expression that seemed somehow apologetic. When she went back downstairs, my wife continued her torrent of abuse in a shrill voice loud enough to be heard outside. “Have you gone mad with lust? “Have you lost your moral fiber? “Have you forgotten your own family? “You don’t realize Father is absolutely furious with you—do you?”

“……”

I could only manage a wry smile. “Even with a child like this,” she said, deliberately placing the crying infant before me as if discarding it, “If it’s not cute enough for you, just throw it away or do whatever you like!”

“……” I had never held my own child before. As he wailed loudly, I picked him up, but feeling awkward, I couldn’t bring myself to soothe or comfort him.

“The child is a child—at least let it drink some milk,” she insisted, thrusting the baby into his hands.

“Really, really—what kind of demon has possessed you, making me worry myself sick like this?” my wife glared at me as though claiming some innate right to do so. I too—though it seemed unseemly to speak ill of the woman I’d been obsessed with until now—tried to reassure her through veiled words, explaining I wasn’t utterly infatuated, that this actress business was merely the assured first step in my professional endeavors. She refused to believe even that.

In any case, my wife had come as a hostage herself instead of pawning the house and belongings; if I thought I could manage it, she was telling me to return home and procure the money myself. So I decided to return to Tokyo the next day for the time being. Still, I thought it would be convenient for my wife after my departure to have Kichiyo introduced now—and also that it would be advantageous to have her subsequent movements monitored—so forcing the issue despite Kichiyo’s reluctance, I invited her to join us for dinner. The meal was brought from Ishidoya. Even as they spoke to each other, my wife kept rolling her eyes. Kichiyo kept acting shy. Acting as mediator, I found myself sympathizing now with the former, now with the latter, until the three of us finished our meal. When my wife, who normally didn’t drink sake, downed two or three cups and turned red, I teased her that it must be heated sake. She retorted that before leaving Tokyo, she’d been told at father’s house to stop worrying so much and just drink a little—and this was the first time she’d ever gotten drunk on alcohol.

I put my wife to bed and went to drink at Ishidoya again—to ascertain Kichiyo’s true feelings and bid her farewell. As I was about to leave around eleven o’clock, she stopped me at the second-floor landing. “You’ll start fooling around again as soon as you return to Tokyo, won’t you?” “Don’t talk nonsense! I’ve gone through hell for your sake!” “I’ll make you hurt even more.” Kichiyo pinched my shoulder with all her strength. When I returned to my wife, my breath reeked even more strongly of liquor than in the evening, earning fresh reproaches. But I apologized, and the matter settled without incident—though that night, her body felt half-rigid and cold, like a corpse’s.

20 The next day, Kichiyo came early and did not leave my side. “She’s such a jealous woman,” my wife muttered spitefully to me, but if addressed as “Mrs., Mrs.,” she didn’t seem to find her quite so hateful. When they engaged in friendly conversation, they would join forces to speak ill of me right before my eyes—my wife’s remarks sharp, Kichiyo’s feeble. “Have you been coming here long?”

“No, last September.” “Are you popular?” “Yes, wherever I go, they’re always going ‘Ki-chan this, Ki-chan that’ for me.” “Oh really,” she sneered, “aren’t you the little it girl. —How old are you?” “Twenty-seven.” When I heard this, I thought Kichiyo was being relatively honest. “Did you go to school?” “No.” “Can you read the newspaper?” “I can pick out the kana and read.” “And you think you can become an actress with that?” “I don’t know about that, but I’ve been on stage with my fellow geisha before.”

The two of them also had such exchanges. Thinking I might never return after going back to Tokyo, I took only the most essential books from those I'd brought and prepared a furoshiki-wrapped bundle as hand luggage. Though repeatedly urged that "It'll get late"—the words coming again and again—I kept postponing with half-hearted "Ah, it's fine"s until after lunch had passed, then after dinner too, before finally departing. From around that day onward, people stopped making advances toward Kichiyo. Being a small town, word must have spread quickly. I'd thought to show my wife around the coast myself, but since Kichiyo took charge of it, I left matters in her hands.

My Tokyo residence was in Shiba Ward, Akebune-cho. I arrived there past ten o'clock at night—after sending the rickshaw away, I was knocking on the closed door when someone walked past the house, then turned back and approached, “Yoshio, is that you?” It was my father. “I’m home,” I answered hurriedly, feeling awkward. Realizing Father had likely come specifically to check if I’d returned—that he’d been worrying enough to make this late visit—my body shrank with guilt. “Well, come in,” Father said. Waiting for the door to open, I ushered him into the sitting room.

The snoring of the two children my wife had left behind could be heard from the next room.

When I ordered tea, “I’ll light the fire now,” my wife’s mother replied.

“I don’t need any tea now, Granny,” Father said, then turned to me with an exceedingly stern demeanor. “What do you have to say for yourself this time?” “...” After I had calmed my mind a little, I answered while looking steadily at my father’s face. “Please don’t ask anything about this matter. I intend to suffer through it and settle it myself.” “I see,” Father said, perhaps having discerned my resolve to say nothing more. “Well then, it’s late today, so I’ll be going home.” “I want you to come to my house first thing tomorrow.”

With these words, Father left. Whether it was because I was reminded of my wife’s emaciation, Father too seemed to have grown thinner—and now Mother, sitting across from me—also had sunken cheeks. I felt as though I had been indulging myself while not giving bread to my family.

When I entered my study-bedroom, the many gold- and silver-lettered volumes lining the bookshelves each transformed into figures of their authors or protagonists, who took turns berating me, mocking me, and singing my praises. Among them appeared both a white-bearded old man resembling Tolstoy and a fashionable young gentleman like Maeterlinck. There were vigorous middle-aged men such as Hynek and women of unsurpassed brilliance like Mrs. Browning. They were all scholars, poets, critics, and creators—both famous and obscure—from foreign lands or our own country. These various people, seeking common ground in their words and arguments, transformed into this acquaintance and that among my circle. Just when I thought I had finally reemerged into the wide world after so long, I found myself awake in the darkness of my sickbed. From within the bundle I had brought back, Leonardo peered out with a solemn expression.

I felt my nerves sharpening with an intensity I hadn’t experienced in ages. …Bismarck’s head…Gladstone’s head…the severed heads of women I’d once loved…Father’s head…the heads of loathed friends…demonesses and waterfall yokai heads…These visions circled one after another around the lintel of the room where I lay awake on my back—a moment when even my ragged breath felt both agonizing and defiant—it was then I’d chanted in that new-style verse: “Demons! Rakshasas! Yaksha skulls! Are you specters haunting my nightly vigils?…With darkness brimming in darkness’s chalice, I plunge into abyssal gloom!”

Countless thoughts continued to rise uncontrollably, and it felt as though my very self had vanished somewhere. Amidst this—though I knew praise and censure were society’s default, and had steeled myself—the thought struck me forcefully: if I were to quit my teaching job, which partly sustained my livelihood for publishing *Decadence Theory* (I teach English merely as a technical skill, and have no desire to be sought as a mentor by modern students who view such skills as commodities to purchase), then yet another hardship would immediately arise—exactly as my wife had heard.

Yet at that moment, I steeled myself with the resolve that when the time came, I could compensate through even more diligent writing. Then, once again, from the depths of my mind arose the question: "What about the money to send to Kōzu?" This was the most pressing task. However, even regarding that, I had a resolve so clear it bordered on cruelty. Because of this, even my own home felt as cramped as someone else’s; after a lonely all-nighter—the likes of which I hadn’t experienced in some time—where even the sound of a fan being used on a summer night seemed reserved, I finally succumbed to the sleep I had long awaited.

21

Children wake up early. By the time I washed my face the next morning, they had already finished their meal.

She neither said “Welcome back” nor anything else, her demeanor seemingly filled with contempt. I supposed my wife’s loudmouthed mother, in a fluster, had been blabbering about my misdeeds while someone listened nearby. When I sat down to eat, the children came to my side and stood there motionless; the older sister— “School starts next month, you know.” I couldn’t forget the pressing matter of Kichiyo by month’s end. As for the younger brother, again, “Dad, get me some figs,” he said.

When they mentioned figs, my heart ached again as if mocked by that second-floor dwelling in Kōzu.

“I can’t eat any more yet,” I said, and distributed the souvenirs I had brought. My wife’s mother wore a worried expression but asked me nothing—instead recounting how the grandchildren had gotten into mischief during my absence: how the figs in the garden had begun ripening, how they’d wanted to pick them, how they’d started climbing the tree unsupervised, and how they’d fallen midway. Both children pulled displeased faces. “Grandma, where’s the key to the chest of drawers?”

I finally began to carry out my cruel decision. “I don’t know,” Grandma replied evasively. “There’s no way you don’t know. “There’s no way you’d be careless with any key while looking after my house!” “It’s true that I’ve kept it stored away safely, but Ochiyo told me not to hand it over—” “Chiyo is my wife! Such an excuse won’t hold water.” “Then I’ll get it out,” Grandma said curtly after bringing over the key and placing it before me before retreating toward the kitchen.

I went to the chest of drawers, opened each of its drawers one by one, and took out the principal garments to examine them. Most were my wife’s belongings. There were monba futae silk and mouse-gray crepe garments—a figured satin maru obi, a Hakata silk and satin day-and-night obi—a black crepe haori with a jeweled obi clasp—white crepe bought in Nagahama that had been stored away unused, and a light-blue crepe underskirt with lining, among other things. The image of my wife in her going-out attire floated before my eyes. And even the nostalgic scent of old times assailed my nostrils.

The voice and figure of my wife saying "I'm off now" when going out made me recall how they had gradually grown more composed and dignified as she aged. There was still an underrobe. ——A certain geisha from Osaka—a middle-aged woman—had come to Tokyo searching for her lover; unable to locate him, she stayed at my house for a time. Once she discovered his whereabouts, they set up a toy-like household together, but when her partner fell ill and their income vanished, she ultimately pawned this underrobe using my household ledger as collateral. After that, both of them disappeared without a trace, and since I thought it would be a waste to discard it, I took it out for my wife’s sake. Though slightly gaudy, there were times when my wife wore it and her usual gloominess seemed to lift.

And there was still one more underrobe—one far more gaudy than the rest. This was something I had bought for her when we first became a couple. My wife, being older than me, had preferred plain garments even back then, which was precisely why I went out of my way to purchase this—to make her appear younger. Now deemed unnecessary, I had stored it away under the pretext of saving it until the children grew older, yet its color remained undimmed—that blazing scarlet crepe still seemed to carry the scent of my wife’s youthful skin. Stealthily, I brought it to my nose and inhaled.

A voice seemed to ask, "Which is better—your current wife or Kichiyo?" "Of course, Kichiyo," I wanted to declare, but sensing someone might be eavesdropping deep within my conscience, I hesitated even to think it.

In any case, I bundled up all the items that seemed to have some value and boarded a hired carriage. I had the carriage dash toward the pawnshop. If I were to encounter a friend, it would be disastrous—with this thought, I made my way through Tokyo's familiar streets, moving furtively as if ashamed, all while feeling as though I were going to sell the wife who had been at my side for over a decade. I would not return to Kōzu again—for if I did, I might be mobbed under accusations that some vagrant had despoiled the town—and having resolved from the start to send only the money, I immediately sent a telegraphic money order addressed to Kichiyo.

22

In Kōzu, just as I had surmised, a backlash against me arose. True to being a schoolteacher, my initial reputation had apparently been that of an upstanding man—one who wouldn’t so much as approach the geisha next door. But as my private conduct gradually came to light—how I’d met with Kichiyo’s parents, how my wife had come to assist in her redemption—they began spreading every manner of truth and fabrication through that cramped little town.

Moreover, Kichiyo—being a fool—had likely blurted out half-boastful remarks about becoming an actress and supporting me, which stirred the locals’ malicious suspicions, leading them to believe I was using her to squeeze money out of them. In this, Aoki and Tajima—out of their bitter disappointment—must have exaggerated or fabricated the incident; had I fled swiftly, there would have been an uproar demanding they beat the priest who had summoned me. My wife had also been in danger, but it seemed she knew nothing at first. With Kichiyo as her guide, she went around sightseeing various places.

On the evening following my departure, Aoki went up to the second floor of Ishidoya and demanded that Kichiyo return the koban coins he had given her previously. “Once a man says he’ll do something!” “It wasn’t done lightly!” “You’ve toyed with people to your heart’s content—and now you won’t even give back what you took!” “What’s this—you heartless wench!” He tried to forcibly take it; she tried not to let it be taken. Chased down the stairs from the second floor, at the entrance to the dressing room when he caught her, the man thrust his hand into the woman’s obi. Seeing that even her struggles would prove futile against his strength, she spat, “Fine—take it then!” Wrenching the old koban coins from her obi herself, she hurled them down with a “Here—scramble for ’em like the trash you are!” then snarled, “Filth! Even touchin’ these makes me sick!”

My wife happened to be at Ishidoya and, it is said, witnessed this spectacle by the hearth alongside the family. “I ain’t never comin’ back to this house again!” Aoki picked up the thrown object, glared at Kichiyo, and left. “You thieving old man!” Kichiyo took a step forward with one foot while thrusting out her chin in a thoroughly spiteful manner, seething with resentment. The sight was so comical that everyone burst out laughing in unison. She too was drawn into it, directed a smile, came to the hearth, and took a seat.

To my wife, the bubbling of the vigorously boiling kettle seemed to perfectly mirror the agitation in Kichiyo’s heart.

In the spacious kitchen area stood a large hearth—though the firewood fed into it burned fiercely, the good ventilation kept the heat from feeling oppressive. "What a stingy bastard, eh?" Otei comforted Kichiyo with these words. "You should've thrown it right at his face!" Sho-chan chimed in, taking Kichiyo’s side.

“Ki-chan’s behavior was just too much!” Okimi said, making everyone burst out laughing again. “Anyway, it’s all because I’m such a fool, right?” Kichiyo turned away. “What on earth happened here?” My wife interjected in a mediating tone. "He came to take back what he gave me." “He got angry because you deceived him too much, didn’t you?” “It’s their own fault for getting fooled.” “Oh?” Feeling awkward at realizing her own husband had been deceived too, my wife quickly changed tack and said with half-mocking pity, “Poor thing—you thought you’d received something, but ended up with a huge loss, didn’t you?”

“Really,” Kichiyo laughed, “I was going to have it made into a ring, but he took it back.” While they were having this conversation, Kichiyo’s mother arrived with a woman. Kichiyo, suspecting that I too might become unable to follow through, had sent a telegram to Asakusa—which was why her mother came alone this time. The woman she had brought was a prospective geisha. While Okimi was glaring around at the assembled people, Kichiyo’s mother listened to the details from Otei and Kichiyo, and was also introduced to my wife. My wife, too, stated her thoughts to her mother and questioned her about the demands concerning Kichiyo’s future. The gathering had unintentionally become a serious, stiff affair. Kichiyo’s mother concealed her anxious state behind a polite smile.

Meanwhile, Kichiyo went out somewhere. She had gone to pay off the debts she had defaulted on here and there.

The master joined the meeting in her stead,

“There should have been some kind of response by now—” “Yes, that’s right…” My wife, feeling the full weight of responsibility, was struck by a loneliness as if standing alone under an alien sky. At the time of my departure, I had informed the master of Ishidoya that if I did not return promptly, I would send money by telegram.

For some time now, Sho-chan had also been missing, but he came rushing to our house,

“Ki-chan is currently paying off various debts,” he reported.

“Then the telegraphic transfer has arrived, hasn’t it?” my wife exclaimed involuntarily. “That won’t do—we must fetch her back immediately!” declared the mistress, taking Sho-chan with her as she rushed out, soon returning with Kichiyo in tow. “Has the remittance arrived?” my wife demanded irritably. “Yeah,” Kichiyo replied gloomily. “If you don’t inform us of such things, it causes problems!” “Show it here,” interjected the mistress as she stepped forward to inspect, only to discover twenty or thirty yen had already been spent on repayments. The error lay in my having sent it directly.

Afterward, my wife, the mistress, and Kichiyo’s mother went through a detailed accounting. Once they deducted my lodging fees and the portion meant for Ishidoya, there still remained enough to cover even the debts Kichiyo had carelessly racked up elsewhere. However, that too ended up being diverted toward my payments to the eel restaurant and such.

“Paying even the customers’ share is absurd, you know,” said Kichiyo, behaving as if handling her own money. My wife explained to her—though for reasons she never reported to me—that this wasn’t how things worked, negotiated with Kichiyo’s mother to assume responsibility for Kichiyo’s external debts, and promptly arranged a telegram to Asakusa requesting funds.

XXIII That evening, Ishidoya sent over a feast to my wife’s place, and Kichiyo’s mother came by for a visit with Kichiyo and the new geisha. “Where were you employed before?” Kichiyo’s mother asked my wife with peculiar bluntness. “I’m not such a hardened soul,” my wife replied, flushing as she laughed. “Well,” said her mother, “since there’d been incidents like this before—and all those geishas he kept bringing home—I’d say I’ve become quite the hardened soul myself in these matters.”

“That’s true, you know. When I was young, I too was made to endure so many hardships like that.” “Nowadays, it’s hardships for the children again—people say if you make your daughter a geisha, her parents can live easy as pie. But with nothing but useless children like these? How, how could that be? The troubles never end.” After this conversation, Kichiyo and her mother left. Still clinging to the hope of receiving some parting gift from Aoki, she went to summon him, but he had fled, and it seemed she couldn’t meet him.

My wife listened to the pitiful life story of the new geisha—fair-skinned but moon-faced—who had stayed behind, and in reaction to her hatred for Kichiyo, she felt sympathy for the woman’s wretched circumstances. Having come all the way from Tokyo, there was no sign that the mistress would take a liking to her. From this woman, my wife learned about Kichiyo’s household situation and discovered that there was indeed a man waiting for Kichiyo’s return—just as I had surmised—(this being Mr. Nozawa from the ward office), and that this time too, her mother had brought along a complete set of newly tailored clothes he had prepared for her. They must have been preparations for when she would be taken away to make the rounds announcing [her new position].

Someone who said, “I want to see Mrs. Tamura,” suddenly showed up. That was the aforementioned priest. Given these circumstances—since I had fled—the town’s chivalrous ruffians had begun to stir, seeking revenge on the priest in my stead. I managed to have someone persuade them to stand down, but— “Since it’s impossible to know when or what kind of danger might reach even you, Madam, it would be advisable to hurry back to Tokyo tonight.”

My wife turned pale, clutching her child. We had agreed that once a reply came from Kichiyo’s mother’s telegram, all three of us would return to Tokyo together. But when this proved impossible, my wife lent Kichiyo some pocket money at her request, hurriedly sorted our luggage, entrusted my leather bag to them both, and was escorted to the station by Ishidoya’s mistress and the priest before returning to Tokyo that night. “The one deserving hatred is Kichiyo; you are the fool; and pitiful is the geisha who took her place,” my wife told me through tears.

From the very next day, the hysteria my wife had been suppressing all year long erupted, and she became bedridden. The nursing infant could no longer drink its mother’s milk. On top of that, while we were away, my elderly mother had overfed our children, so they too ended up lethargically lying down and getting up.

My house transformed into a dwelling for the sick and emaciated; aside from the baby occasionally wailing in feverish distress, there was no conversation between us. In the stillness of a summer noon, amid the tepid scent of leaves and gloomy air, it seemed as though the very shadow of my own sweat-drenched anguish lay perfectly pooled. At this point, I grew utterly sick of that fickle Kichiyo.

I sat alone at my desk, overwhelmed by the most unpleasant emotions, nearly choked by involuntary waves of shame, but resolved that until I had fully settled this matter, I would not visit any friends nor even go to my father’s house.

This utterly abandoned household now rested entirely on my desperate exertions, but the first problem that came to my mind was, "What am I going to do about the end of this month?" And what's more, it was now barely two or three days away.

XXIV

Since panicking wouldn't change what was doomed, I resolved to first finish the manuscript I had started and continued condensing Merezhkovsky's novel through translation. Leonardo's life was truly noble yet tragic. That the power of unspoken love persisted until his dying days goes without saying. Among those who took him as their master, some grew impatient with his lack of progress and defected to his rivals, while others became so tormented by uncertainty over whether he was demon or saint—due to his overwhelming presence—that they hanged themselves in despair. There were also those who, in their overzealousness, ignored the Master's warnings and attempted to ride his workshop-style flying machine, only to crash and be left crippled for life. And Leonardo himself—without nationality or fixed abode, working yesterday for allies and today for enemies—calmly applied his scientific versatility to fortifications, architecture, designs, inventions, sculpture, and painting (though painting alone would immortalize his name, nearly all remained unfinished), until he was overshadowed by successors and disciples who doubled as rivals—Michelangelo and Raphael.

I envied that immense energy and absolute endurance to the core, but found it wanting that he had remained content with a classical attitude until his death. Decadence rather departs by leaving anxiety as anxiety. While wielding my brush amidst such rationalizing thoughts—from somewhere high above— “It’s because I am indulging myself,” a voice seemed to proclaim. And from somewhere deep within,

“Indulgence is life,” groaned a voice within. In any case, my heart—having detached itself from this indulgent state—was merely spinning rationalizations, and I felt with painful clarity that my present predicament and nervous hypersensitivity would cling to me relentlessly for as long as I drew breath. On the second day after revising my approach, I completed the manuscript and mailed it to a certain magazine publisher. True to my initial plan when beginning the work, I offered no philosophical arguments but confined myself strictly to an introduction. This would form part of this month’s expenses.

That evening, thinking Kichiyo must have returned by now, I went to Asakusa to retrieve the leather bag containing what I actually needed. One purpose was to gauge her circumstances. I disembarked at Kaminarimon Gate, cut through the park, and combed the area around Senzoku-cho behind the Twelve-Story Tower as directed. There stood a house marked Watase, but convinced this couldn't be the place, I walked on. It occupied a corner of a two-story tenement—a cramped, ancient, squalid spot likely housing rau pipe artisans and kiseru smokers. This hardly matched the residence of that mother who boasted of wearing silken finery year-round. Yet with no other Watase dwellings apparent, I doubled back and lingered before it—truthfully too daunted to enter—

“Oh, Teacher,” Kichiyo said, stepping out onto the wooden-floored entranceway. She wore her hair in an elaborate marumage chignon.

“...” After stepping over the threshold, I stood there in silence when “Oh, do come up,” she said. Looking around, my leather bag sat in the right corner of a dim eight-tatami room that must have once been a shopfront. Opposite this along the wall stretched a slightly lower wooden floor—likely the father’s workspace. Unfinished geta sandals and paulownia lumber lay scattered about. Beyond the eight-tatami area lay a living space without shoji screens, where a low chabudai table stood flanked by a man too bald for his years and a stout woman in her early forties finishing their meal and drinks. Seeing the bald man seated beyond the long brazier, playing master of the house—it had to be that Nozawa.

I entered the room and bowed to no one in particular. The woman greeted me politely, but whether the man had noticed me or not, he kept his eyes down on his meal, pretending not to see me. Kichiyo sat facing the man across the brazier, her demeanor somehow listless. “Oh, please finish your meal.” Thus, when I urged her out of awkwardness, “I’m already done,” Kichiyo said with a smile. “Where’s your mother?”

“She went to Akasaka; she’s not here.” “When did she come back?” “Yesterday.” “Did you bring my leather bag?” He asked this deliberately. “It’s over there,” she said, pointing. “I came to get it because I need it.” “Is that so?” Kichiyo indifferently tapped her long pipe.

While we were having this conversation, the remaining two finished their meal and climbed up to the second floor using a ladder of the sort a roofer would bring. A crone with a belly protruding like a sumo wrestler’s came over, “Kiku-chan, are you finished already?” said the crone as she cleared the dishes. Indeed, she was no longer Kichiyo; her real name was Kikuko. She moved back to where the man had been standing and used her pipe to indicate her own spot,

“Come over here,” came her imperious command. I obediently complied as instructed. Upstairs, they appeared to be handling their usual flowers.

“That’s what they’re doing, I suppose?” When I asked this, “That’s right,” Kikuko said cheerfully. Though I thought he was a fool—so much so that I wanted to declare I had no lingering attachments left—I questioned him half out of curiosity. Upstairs were her father and about two others. The woman who came up afterward (she had apparently arrived around noon) was the proprietress of Asakusa Park’s ○○ teahouse. The sores at the corner of Kikuko’s mouth seemed to have completely healed, but in their place, her eye disease had grown worse. While she had been working, the tension had at least kept the symptoms suppressed, but once that tension was gone, they must have suddenly flared up. Just as Otei of Ishidoya had said, when I realized she might indeed be a syphilis patient, my hair stood on end. When she had them examine her at Inoue Eye Hospital, they said it would be difficult to determine whether her condition would heal unless she was hospitalized for one or two months to observe it.

She put on black glasses. I said nothing about the actress issue.

A twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl came back from outside, “Sis, give me my treat,” she said, stretching out her legs by the brazier. Her face was unpleasantly flat, with two or three front teeth missing—a child who, even at a glance, had not a trace of loveliness about her. What Kikuko had said about being born to someone from Aomori and having a younger sister—this, it seemed, was referring to her. If—unlike merely hearing stories and imagining things—I had seen this child from the beginning, not only might the desire to groom her into a child actress or starlet never have arisen, but perhaps the entire issue of making an actress out of Kichiyo would never have come about at all. I had wanted to see another real sister of hers now, but since she had become a park geisha, she was not there.

“Teacher is right here, isn’t he? Sit properly.” When Kikuko said this, the child reluctantly reseated herself. “Kei-chan, do you want to become an actor?”

"I hate being an actor or anything like that!" said Kei-chan, shaking her whole body. Even if I turned a blind eye to Kikuko's failure to make that child into an actress as promised, I didn't have the courage to reproach her for it.

25 “Here, I’ll give you this—go play outside,” Kikuko said, tossing out a two-sen coin, and Kei-chan picked it up and left. Kikuko also went upstairs, leaving me behind.

Upstairs— “Now this is a crisis!” “It’s coming out! It’s coming out!” “What a lecher, isn’t he—?” “Come down already!”

“If only he’d go—it’s red.” “There it is!” “Damn it!” The sound of them flipping through the flower cards continued. When Kikuko was still in Kōzu, trying to please me, “When you return, our second floor will be available—come every other day and study there,” she had said, but that second floor must always be in that state. I was helplessly dragged into the abyss of decadence. Precisely because I had no lingering attachments, I now felt all the happier—and yet, in another part of me, I wanted to slip into that sort of society without their knowledge, become tainted by that sort of depravity, indulge in that sort of pleasure, and even catch a whiff of that sort of decadence. Like a skinny dog scavenging through a trash heap, my sense of smell grew keen, and I relentlessly pursued the object of my addiction.

Before long, Kikuko came downstairs and, “Father is absorbed in flower cards,” she said. He still retained some modesty and had apparently suggested showing his face for a moment. I must have said I didn’t want to meet him. It came back to me that when her father had said, “If we played flower cards here...” at that eel shop, he must have been trying to draw me into that world and test my interest. “Ah, well, it’s not like I’ll be playing flower cards anyway—”

Mother wasn’t there, and Father was avoiding me. The old woman had also gone off to the narrow kitchen area and was nowhere to be seen. Memories of Kōzu—which seemed as if a decade had passed—suddenly surged up in my chest, and I appeared to focus my silent resentment into nothing but a fierce glare.

“That scary face!” Kikuko stiffened earnestly, her diseased eyes fixed on me—gummy and bleary. But when their stickiness seemed to transfer to me, making me blink reflexively, she produced a scrap of crimson silk and wiped the discharge from both eyes herself. Since her mother would eventually come to greet me, I had them summon a rickshaw as-is. As I loaded my leather suitcase and prepared to leave, she said, “Leave some spending money for me, won’t you?” so I gave her a one-yen note I had.

“Do you think I’d ever come back here again?” Thus my heart screamed within my chest. When my wife saw I’d brought back my luggage, she kept asking from her sickbed about Kichiyo’s condition, but I found explaining it distasteful. “Since I’ve done that much for her, out of common decency her mother should come at least once—shouldn’t she?” “I suppose so,” I gave an evasive reply. “Even Kichiyo’s got her allowance sorted out, you know? And she said she didn’t have a switch to put up her chignon right away, so we lent her one—she ought to bring it over, mark my words.”

“If she’s gone blind, she can’t come, you know.”

My reply was evasive, but at the word "blindness," my wife’s eagerness jolted upright as she turned toward me,

“What?! “Has it already come on?” she retorted. Even if Kichiyo’s illness wasn’t that grave, both my wife and I shared the same bitter animosity—as if she deserved divine retribution and public shaming. But if hers was syphilis, mine was hysteria—wherever I turned, I found myself surrounded by tokens of my own decadence. How far did I mean to sink? “My decadence isn’t deep enough.” This was the cry of my scorched desperation.

Opening my leather bag and examining the books and half-written manuscripts inside, I earnestly reflected: all my work that summer—though I had carried various ambitions with me—amounted to nothing more than an introduction to Leonardo. Even that would become one of this month’s means of sustenance. As for the scriptwriting I had most fervently hoped to pursue—it’s safe to say I had hardly laid a hand on it at all. I received word that the school matter had been settled through a colleague’s mediation, but to retrieve my pawned items, I would have to work like a maniac on manuscripts for some time now.

I rubbed my arm, but somehow it didn’t feel like my own.

XXVI

After that, for forty to fifty days, aside from going to school to deliver unpleasant lectures, I went nowhere else and devoted myself to contemplation and creative work at my desk. Whether confronted with pleasant problems or unpleasant doubts, I felt as though I myself fit perfectly into them—as if my nerves had seeped and spread through all realms, from heaven’s edge to earth’s depths, permeating both light and shadow. Everything I did or undertook proceeded like a dream or phantom, advancing with an eerie lightness. Yet all I gained from it were several short compositions and two or three brief novels. Financially it would amount to little, but as creative work, I became convinced that even had I completed the script I originally desired, these would still stand as far greater masterpieces than that script.

My body was as emaciated as when I had fled to Kōzu early in the Doyō holiday, and my thoughts would not cohere at all. And I felt that the reason I so cruelly rarely thought of my wife, children, and home was precisely because they had sunk so deeply into my heart that I could no longer bring them to mind.

“Alright! Let myself have a bit of fun!”

Having resolved this, I tucked my meager wallet into my pocket and left the house—still as gloomy and unpleasant as ever. No—rather than leaving the house, in my current state, I began walking while carrying it on my back.

I boarded the train from outside Toranomon but ended up at Asakusa Park half-unconsciously. As I strolled along the edge of the pond and saw the Twelve-Story Tower, Kichiyo’s—that is, Kikuko’s—house came to mind. Thinking I might encounter someone among them, I walked cautiously around while scanning my surroundings. Even when I went out—since I was usually lost in thought—I rarely moved about in such a fidgety manner.

Kikuko ultimately never came to my house. Her mother was also the same. Could it be that Kikuko’s eyes have gone completely blind，I wonder? Or perhaps Nozawa，having run out of money，has stopped visiting as well? And has she gone out to work a second，third，fourth time? While thinking of such things，as I passed by where the ball jugglers were performing，I met a friend who lived near Azumabashi Bridge.

“Where are you going?” “Taking a walk.”

“You’ve come a long way, huh.” “Ah… I just came here for no reason.” “Let’s grab a drink somewhere” became the plan, and we headed together to the inner Tokiwa.

My friend, who had perhaps vaguely heard about the incident from that summer, began pressing me for details, so I recounted the actual events to some extent. Then, when my friend proposed going to Yoshiwara—thinking it might soothe my pent-up frustration—I agreed, and we sped northward by rickshaw along that road. By morning, I had no money left, and my friend carried only a pittance. With no alternative, I stayed behind while he went to call in favors from his connections.

“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” “Truly ridiculous.”

The two of them exchanged glances and burst out laughing. After exiting the main gate, we drank morning sake at a cheap shop and settled on heading to Hyakkaen in Mukojima afterward, but since I wanted to stop by Senzoku-cho, I decided to go there first. I set out with my friend with the fervor of embarking on a vendetta. Of course, it was the alcohol’s momentum that aided it. Since it was nearly eight in the morning, Kikuko’s mother was still there. “Teacher, I apologize for my long silence—I do intend to visit you soon,” her mother said in greeting, but I no longer paid any heed to such words.

“How’s Kiku-chan’s illness?” I felt as though I had charged into enemy headquarters. “As you can see,” her mother said with an air of genuine concern, “it’s been getting worse by the day—they say she won’t recover without hospitalization now! That’d cost nearly a hundred yen each month—” “Why don’t you get Mr. Nozawa to cover it?” I shot back with a sardonic grin directed at Kikuko. “It isn’t going quite so smoothly,” she laughed through clenched teeth while steadying her glasses with one hand.

Though her situation wasn’t entirely pitiable, I munched on the brought-out sweets with my friend and boastfully revealed the absurd overnight incident that had lasted from last night until morning. I wanted to subtly convey that I’d already forgotten about the ill-mannered Watase family. Then—whether her mother realized this or not— “Teacher, you really must stop lingering like this.” “We were in such a bind back in Kōzu too.” “With you absent and your wife having gone home—you can’t imagine how anxiously she and I fretted.”

“However, well, since it ended safely, that’s fine,” I said, remaining thoroughly cold. “Why, Teacher, things are anything but fine on my end.” “Ever since then, every single day has been filled with talk of this child’s eye disease—the worry never lets up.” She still seemed to be trying to win my sympathy.

“Serves you right!” My heart exulted in this thought, yet when I considered it, my wife at home was also afflicted by a grave illness. The same heart that had sneered at Kikuko’s sickness soon turned to mock my wife’s. My chest had grown too desolate—and I myself too exhausted—to find solace in simple mental diversions or frivolous verbal amusements.—Sympathy had withered at the root, leaving nothing to distill into remedy.

With my wife’s hysteria, I acquired Kikuko’s venomous eyes, and with both their illnesses, I piled soil upon my own decline as if cultivating rot. Failure, fatigue, bitter regret—even my lifelong efforts could bring no comfort to my heart; it would be like desecrating the unmarked graves of an old temple. Only the stench of decay was life itself.

When I thought this, my entire life flickered before my eyes like a half-dream—its elusive form now steadily seeping into the entity called “me.” And all tangible things seemed to have no connection to my being. Before my eyes floated nothing but the phantom of myself.

“Come on, let’s go,” my friend urged me.

“We’re going to Hyakkaen now,” I said, also rising to my feet. Cold-hearted! Cruel! These silent voices echoed in my head, but I secretly defended myself against them. If even the unpleasant scent of my wife and children still soaked into the depths of my chest, then the hateful scent of Kikuko would never leave my heart either. From now on, though I might encounter many women and taste bitter hardship arising from them time and again, I could not dig a cramped, formulaic grave for that reason. Whether it was cold-hearted or cruel mattered little—my weakened nerves required an intense injection. What I pursued was an injection that took immediate effect. Like sake, like absinthe—it was most potent while its smell remained strong. And that which naturally bore down upon us was our love, our longing.

While thinking about such things, I found myself having descended the entranceway before I knew it.

“Please give my regards to your wife,” said her mother. Kikuko, must have felt the constraints of her disability, showed us a lonely smile with lingering reluctance, “Teacher, if only my eyes were better, I would accompany you—”

Without answering that, I, together with my friend,

Thinking of "Goodbye" as a triumphant anthem, I withdrew from there.