Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

It was around autumn of that year when Omasu moved from her initial home in Shitaya to the Kōjimachi area. In the Shitaya house where she had first settled after gaining her freedom, Omasu spent three months from late spring through the sweltering summer. It was a small single-story house located in an alley just off the bustling Hirokōji thoroughfare, with the home of a male acquaintance right across the way.

Having just started her new life, Omasu didn't own many clothes. Having been steeped in the ways of the pleasure quarters, her manner of speech and daily conduct still lacked composure. To Omasu’s eyes—freshly moved there from a spacious residence—the damp narrow garden partitioned by a blackboard fence that revealed from above the bald crown of a neighboring old man, alongside wind chimes; the kitchen where opening the water inlet made voices from the opposite house’s living room audible as if cupped in one’s palm; all of it felt like having her nose forcibly stuffed, unbearably stifling.

During those early days, when Omasu sat before the brazier in the living room during daylight hours, she felt unbearably lonely. After mopping the coarse wooden veranda, polishing the brazier, and bathing, there was nothing left to do. The image of the cheerful house where she had long grown accustomed to living floated before her eyes. The man would come by now and then during the day, carrying a briefcase on his way back from the company. There were also times when he would leave home after dark. The man was a married man.

Omasu tied her hair in a round chignon and similar styles while preparing sake in the kitchen. On the meal tray they had bought together at Hirokōji lay arranged the man’s favorites—horse mackerel and grilled sea bream crackers. They would get eel bowls from the neighborhood and eat them together. Compared to when he used to visit wearing suits faded at the shoulders, the man’s financial circumstances had improved markedly. Dressed in a Mairyū kasuri-patterned lined kimono with an ornate stiff obi sash and gold-rimmed glasses, he carried himself with such crispness that not a trace remained of his former student-like demeanor.

The man, quick with tasks like preparing sake, rarely appeared listless when visiting. Company work and money-making schemes perpetually occupied his thoughts. Upon rising from the bedding, he would promptly check his watch and depart. The tightly shut wooden entrance door swung open in haste.

When the man left, Omasu's heart reverted to its former loneliness. She came to regret having gotten involved with a married man.

“How cruel of you to deceive me by saying there’s no such thing as that wife!” Not long after moving in, when Omasu had inadvertently learned about it from the old woman across the way, she had fiercely berated the man.

“Who said such a thing?”

The man opened his fawningly gentle eyes but showed no surprise.

“That’s a lie.” “Everyone’s heard about it. I know all about that woman who came from Kyoto before, and how you were cozy with some widow somewhere.” “Heh heh,” the man laughed. “Doesn’t that Kyoto woman still send you things now and then?” “Quit spouting nonsense.” “I was thoroughly fooled.” The man rose from the bedding wearing an underkimono. Omasu knelt on one knee beside him, drawing on her rolled tobacco. Her long-lashed eyes—weary-looking—were bloodshot. She pinched his exposed knee and ground her tobacco’s ember into it. The man leapt up in shock.

II

However, the man couldn’t keep feigning ignorance forever. He explained that the wife he had married three or four years prior was two years his senior and had supported him since his days as a student lodger under her care. At that time, she had a small amount of money and lived with her mother. “See? Using keeping up appearances as an excuse to stay apart for now—you’ve been lying to me all along!”

The two came to sit by the long brazier and drank tea. In the lamplight cast upon the meal tray, the woman—her thin lower lip bitten between teeth, pensive eyes fixed ahead—appeared pale, her features sharply defined. “But that matter will be settled soon. Besides, that woman has a chronic asthma condition—I can’t very well spend my whole life with her.” The man muttered as he put away his kiseru pipe into its case. “Asthma, she says. What’s asthma?” “It’s a disease where your throat wheezes.”

“No, there were such customers.” “That one?”

Omasu laughed as if remembering. “It happens when you drink or neglect your health—that thing right?” “Gross isn’t it?” “You’re staying with that wife?”

Omasu scowled and looked at the man’s face. The man was grinning slyly. "But you can’t just abandon someone who’s done so much for you." "How could you do something so heartless?" "It all ultimately boils down to money."

“No, she won’t leave over money.” “Besides, someone like that couldn’t settle anywhere else.” Omasu’s eyes grew contemplative. Yet she couldn’t press him further. “I want to see your Kami-san just once.” Omasu spoke as if testing the man’s resolve. “Pointless.”

The man laughed derisively. "Besides, if this gets out, even if I were to pay her off, it would be inconvenient."

“So after all, you’re scared of Kami-san.”

“It’s not about being scared—she’s just a nuisance.” “Then your Kami-san must be the jealous type, you know.” “How about you?” “No, I don’t do that. While we’re at it, you could show me around Tokyo and then I’ll just go back to the countryside.”

Omasu laughed as she said this, but she couldn't help feeling the scars from her time in the trade.

When the neighborhood fell silent, Omasu found it unbearable to be there alone. Even after going to bed, there were many nights when she couldn't easily fall asleep. In Omasu’s mind—so long attuned to the nocturnal world—the faces and voices of her many comrades and elderly women still seemed to cling stubbornly to the depths. A night’s bed with nothing to embrace proved more exhausting than her long years of service. The sounds of taiko drums and shamisen also came back to her.

The face of Kami-san beside the man and the state of the room would appear before her eyes.

Three

“Omasu-san, come here—let’s play flower cards.”

At the house across the way where Omasu typically spent her days, Ochiyo-baasan would call out from the entrance when loneliness struck. In that house, the eldest son—who had been friends with the man during his childhood—was working at a mine in a distant province. Ochiyo-baasan, who had a modest fortune, now lived comfortably without any particular work, overseeing her younger son’s education while keeping a single maid. Since coming here, Omasu had relied on Ochiyo-baasan for matters related to the kitchen and shopping. She had her hair styled by a hairdresser, was taken to the bathhouse, or brought along to variety theaters.

“Since she knows nothing at all, please teach her a little something.”

When he brought Omasu here, the man made that request to Ochiyo-baasan. “Asai-san, is it really acceptable for you to do such a thing?” “What will you do if this gets out?” “Even I will be resented by your wife.”

Ochiyo-baasan said in a slightly forceful tone.

The old woman had been separated from her husband early on, had spent a long time raising her children, and had lived alone ever since. When dealing with Asai and others, her tone would sometimes become oddly stiff. Even an irritated look would appear in her eyes when topics about women came up. The night-owl old woman wore a lonely expression as she fiddled with her beloved flower cards beside the long brazier. “How about tentatively for a year?” said the old woman, her face stiffening as she looked at Omasu.

“I’ve just subtly squeezed a bit more out of the master regarding that Kami-san matter.”

Omasu sat down and abruptly blurted out. “So what does Asai-san say about it?”

“He says he’ll send her away.” “I’m not so sure about that. She’s a woman who’s endured great hardship for that man since his student days. And besides, she’s now properly registered as his legitimate wife after all.” “But he says it’s because her asthma is unbearable, so he’ll send her away.” “You’d best not do such a thing. Even if you force your way in that far, you won’t rest easy, I tell you.”

“I don’t care either way. If he wants to keep her, let him keep her; if he wants to send her away, let him send her away.”

Omasu spoke in a resigned tone and looked at the parent card with her thin hands, their joints elongated.

“That’s you—the dealer.” Ochiyo-baasan handed all the cards to Omasu. “This one’s on me, Auntie.” Omasu deftly scattered and dealt the cards with her skillful hands. Her eyes darted about as if excited, her mind grew agitated, and she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm. The thought that even the old woman was making a fool of her felt unbearable. “What’s this—you’re at it again?” Hearing the noise, the middle-school graduate son came down from upstairs. Then he sat down beside his mother and kept a watchful eye on the game.

Omasu moved with reckless haste. "That's no good, Auntie. You can't be pulling cards so absentmindedly like that." Omasu remained silent and played along, but soon cut the game short and left. And then, upon returning home, she found herself weeping alone for no apparent reason.

Four Just as she began dozing off, Omasu was startled awake by the raucous voice of the neighboring old woman. In her exhausted mind, she had been seeing nothing but fragmented dreams. Within those dreams, shards of disparate things were chaotically woven together. There appeared Asai—who hadn’t shown his face for two or three days—wearing the Western suit from when he first started visiting her; there too passed the familiar clerk from the Nihonbashi hat wholesaler, walking right through the dim shopfront where Asai sat with another woman, pretending not to recognize her. Omasu tried to call out, but as though some large hand were pressing down on her chest, her voice wouldn’t come.

Thinking it was the shrill voice of a young wife arguing in the hallway, when she opened her eyes, it turned out to be the neighboring old woman. The old woman, whom Omasu had heard had come there as a second wife, was berating that bald-headed old man with vulgar language.

Oh, they’re at it again. While thinking this, Omasu finally realized she lay alone inside a mosquito net in the house where she was hidden. Pale streaks of morning sunlight filtered into the room. Outside, another sweltering day appeared to be breaking over the city. From the waterside in the alley came splashing sounds and the sharp clatter of a bucket handle. The old woman seemed to rant while shuffling between parlor and kitchen—her voice swelling and fading with each change of location. Between her tirades, the old man muttered indistinctly. Such midnight quarrels between them had happened many times before. The meaning had grown clear to Omasu too: at the home of that sullen, tight-lipped old man with his pallid face—Kami-san would often flee.

“That old man’s so stingy, no one will stay with him.” Ochiyo-baasan had said that, but there seemed more to it than just that. “No—it’s surely because that old man makes the nights unbearable.”

Omasu had told Ochiyo-baasan about it, but the old woman merely made a strange face.

Omasu, who hadn’t slept well, felt her mind dull and sluggish, heavy as sediment. And as she lay in bed smoking tobacco, the neighbor’s clock struck six. Whenever she slept in and was subjected to Ochiyo-baasan’s sarcastic remarks, Omasu found herself reverting to the diligent disposition of her younger years—so much so that she no longer wished to lead the idle days she once had. She had even tightened how she used her pocket money.

“How much is your income these days?”

Omasu occasionally asked Asai such things.

Asai’s income wasn’t fixed each month. “How much does your household’s living cost?”

Omasu was concerned about that as well. “Well, that isn’t fixed either.” “But living expenses don’t amount to much.” “But she sometimes drinks.” “Then she goes out squandering money on pleasure.” “That’s his little indulgence.” “That can’t possibly last.” “That wife of yours—I tell you she’s careless about something.”

Asai, too, was growing disgusted with it. "If it were me, I’d show you how to keep things proper."

Omasu said with apparent confidence. And she would often make calculations of living expenses. That was of the greatest interest to Omasu. “Oh, calculating another household’s living expenses won’t do me any good. How ridiculous. Let’s not, let’s not.” Omasu laughed listlessly after saying this.

Five

After settling here, the face of a friend she had visited briefly once came fondly to mind again. This friend named Oyuki was a woman who had lived in the same house around the same time as Omasu. Oyuki, who had once been another man’s mistress and even borne a child, was considerably older than Omasu. Omasu was closer than anyone to this woman of refreshingly straightforward demeanor. The woman’s husband had once been a fairly renowned new actor. He had also been involved in political movements long before. Omasu knew that man well—the one with the bitter twist to his mouth and narrow, elongated eyes.

“Aoyagi’s come around again.” The rumor about that man—who would quarrel with Oyuki and storm off, only to return from his aimless wandering and plant himself in his mistress’s room—reached Omasu’s quarters first. Having returned from his itinerant work, Aoyagi—looking as haggard as a vagrant and utterly penniless—came tumbling back to Oyuki’s place. Yet despite all her claims of being through with him, she had been waiting for the man’s return all along. Even in that household, Oyuki—once their top earner—had grown increasingly self-destructive by then, due to a mother who exploited her own daughter. She would guzzle alcohol by the bottle and, when in foul moods, harshly dismiss customers. Both of them—had they been but a few years younger—might well have committed a love suicide, so decayed were their hearts. To Omasu and the others watching nearby, there were times when things seemed utterly shocking.

When she left that place, Oyuki had nothing to her name. The chest of drawers was completely empty. The well-off clients she once had no longer came around. Oyuki had run to the man’s place with nothing but the clothes on her back.

When Omasu first visited the house behind a certain theater in Asakusa, she couldn’t quite grasp what Aoyagi did for a living. "My husband’s been up to some strange things lately."

Oyuki had Omasu sit across the long brazier and abruptly began to talk. Her complexion had grown so sallow it was nearly unrecognizable, and her hair remained in its usual combed-up style. Her tall frame wore a high-collared, striped twin-patterned lined kimono. Oyuki was already a middle-aged woman approaching thirty. “Huh, what’s he doing?”

Omasu asked while taking out a bag of monaka souvenirs there. From there, the clatter of wooden stage props and the strains of theater music could often be heard. “Go on, take a guess.” “Speculation?” “It’s nothing that clever.” Oyuki lit her kiseru pipe and passed it to Omasu. “Company?”

“That man—do you think he’s capable of honest employment?” As she spoke, Oyuki retrieved various items from the soot-blackened closet—a slender box and what appeared to be a grimy incense burner wrapped in yellow paper. “Since your husband’s so resourceful, have him buy this scroll.” “It’s something old, but apparently good.” The soot-stained scroll depicted a rock formation and bamboo.

Six

In the sweltering heat of midday, Omasu went to visit there again.

Omasu felt an unbearable lethargy in her body from the previous night’s lack of sleep, yet her mind remained in the same agitated state as before. When she emerged from the dim alleyway into the broad street, the harsh sunlight seared painfully into her bloodshot eyes, threatening to make her dizzy. Inside the covered hood of the rickshaw she had hired along the way, Omasu kept pondering the man’s state of mind. At Oyuki’s house, both husband and wife were napping in the afternoon heat. Aoyagi lay on his back with eyes red-rimmed like frayed cloth, tinted glasses perched on his face, wearing a straight-sleeved summer yukata secured by a tie-dyed heko obi, his long shins propped upright. A short distance away, Oyuki too lay motionless as if lifeless, her head resting on a vermilion-lacquered pillow with a round fan pressed against her face. A cool breeze drifted through the room while outside, the neighborhood stood quiet like a grove. From somewhere came intermittent clangs of iron plates and the wails of children that typified backstreet life.

“How soundly they’re sleeping. They’re quite carefree, aren’t they?”

Omasu went upstairs but did not sit down, instead gazing for a while at the unsightly sleeping forms of the two. “No matter what a man might say,” she thought, “I’d never end up with someone like this. What does he intend to do by proceeding like this?”

Omasu moved closer to the brazier and smoked tobacco as she pondered these things. “Oh, Omasu-san, you’re here.”

With that, Oyuki soon woke up. "You've caught us in quite a state. When did you get here?" Oyuki adjusted her collar and smoothed her hair as she came to sit before the brazier. Omasu gave a dry chuckle. "You actually came out in this heat." "I was just so bored I couldn’t stand it, so I came to visit." "Huh, even you have those kinds of days?" Oyuki stoked the brazier’s embers and called out, "You there! You there!" to rouse Aoyagi. Aoyagi stirred slightly, but after turning over, he fell back asleep as he was.

As Oyuki ate the ice she had ordered from the neighborhood and the two of them engaged in idle chatter, it soon passed three o'clock.

The zinc roof of the house, after being battered by the blazing sun, now cast shadows, and the neighborhood that had been napping until then suddenly stirred with signs of awakening.

Omasu began talking about Asai’s circumstances, but Oyuki wasn’t truly listening. “Huh, that man’s got a wife?” “But that’s just fine.” “Such men are the ones with real resourcefulness, I tell you.” “No matter how resourceful they are, I can’t stand fickle men.” “Even a rickshaw puller would be fine—I’ve truly come to think it’s better to be with someone who’s alone.” Aoyagi abruptly opened his eyes. “He’s such a sound sleeper.” Oyuki looked at him and laughed wanly. Aoyagi sat up, running his thick yet supple hands over his chest and armpit area. Then with a puzzled look, he stared intently at Omasu’s face.

“It’s been a while.” Omasu returned a formal greeting. Aoyagi looked awkward and kowtowed.

“As you can see, it’s a ruin of a house… I’ve completely fallen into ruin myself.” “But it’s quite a respectable business you have.” “Well... this path—it’s one I’ve chosen out of fondness—so I’m just muddling through.” “I keep thinking—before long, this guy might end up selling his body again, you know.” “You’re beyond help.” Oyuki laughed. Before long, Aoyagi headed to the bathhouse with a hand towel.

VII "He’s changed so much, hasn’t he? His scalp’s started showing through." Omasu laughed while discussing Aoyagi. "Ah, he’s completely changed," she continued. "He keeps complaining about how troublesome it is getting late, but he’s well aware of it himself. What’s more, I’d thought he’d have more influence in that world—but he’s utterly useless. All the people he used to help have stopped coming around." "But since he can do anything, isn’t that something?" Oyuki countered.

“No, every last one of them is half-baked, so he’s no good. But if he keeps up this line of work, he can get into all sorts of houses—probably figures he’ll scrounge up some odd jobs there. And anyway, he won’t do anything worthwhile.” Oyuki smiled wryly.

“Compared to that, you’re lucky, Omasu-san. You’d best endure it for all you’re worth.”

Oyuki began talking about when she first became the mistress of a certain man—now a diplomat—back during his student days. And Oyuki—who had been destined to be made a legitimate wife by the woman there—was the daughter of a fairly prominent rural family. The two of them had even had a lovely girl together. “Why don’t you go there?” “It’s no use. They won’t have anything to do with me. Even back then, we couldn’t reach an agreement.”

Oyuki’s eyes shone as if recalling those days. At that time, Oyuki had just barely passed twenty years of age. The image of her own dignified self—a noblewoman-like figure with a pure white complexion and slender stature—rose nostalgically before her eyes. “That’s how it ended up.” “Kuroda… That man’s name is Kuroda.” “He’s got a face like a pug mid-sneeze, but that’s what makes him striking.” “Now he’s a minister and isn’t even in Tokyo anymore.” “Back then, there was this man who kept coming over—he’d play go and drink sake.” “He was quite a handsome man.” “When Kuroda was away, he’d corner me and say nothing but vulgar things.” “So since I ended up angering that man—and he was exactly that sort—he turned around and slandered me to Kuroda.” “They say she was bought in the country, or she had a man, or her chastity’s questionable—all that nonsense.” “Even so, Kuroda was in love with me and meant to make me his legal wife, but his father wouldn’t consent.” “To make matters worse, my mother was that drunken libertine.” “Because they’re just trying to exploit me—it’s unbearable.” “Kuroda must’ve gotten fed up with it all too.”

“Don’t you want to see your child?” “Even if I wanted to meet her, they’d never let me now.” “Even so, back then, I’d entrusted things to Kami-san from the ice shop and had him bring me to that teahouse about twice.” “I went once too.” “Of course, I never breathed a word about being her mother.”

“Isn’t that just dreary?” “It can’t be helped. I just don’t have that kind of luck.” “Why don’t you go ask for some money or something?” “Why, the wife’s a real pillar of strength, you know.”

VIII “You’ve resigned yourself rather easily.”

Omasu found similar memories freshly stirred within her. Before she had even come to Tokyo, there surfaced recollections of the relationship she’d once had with the young master of a teahouse in a rural town where she’d stayed for a time. Back then, Omasu had still been young. In surviving photographs from those days, her resolute eyes—the firm cheeks and set mouth—all pulsed with a vital bloom of youth. Bundled in coats with scarves pulled to her nose, that sharp-featured face and petite frame radiated a tenacious spirit that could see anything through, an unyielding will not to be defeated.

In Omasu’s hometown, girls of fair complexion and delicate features were almost all made to enter teahouse service—Omasu was no exception. Having grown up in a farming family, she had until then spent her days doing things like minding children and enduring many hardships.

The young master of the teahouse, who had only just graduated from middle school, would occasionally send discreet overtures through rented parlors. In the red-light district of a port town where waves could be heard, dozens of aged brothels stood in rows—their dim earthen entrances hung with pale chartreuse curtains. There were stylish Kansai-style sushi shops and bathhouses with rounded pomegranate-shaped entrances. From the snowmelt season when willows at the quarter’s center sprouted buds, through November sleet that pattered against dark wooden eaves, Omasu lived in that house. When town gossip forced her to leave, she continued holding thoughts of the man even after moving to Tokyo. For years she had imagined herself someday occupying that wife’s place. Letters from him still arrived occasionally.

“There’s nothing to be done now that this person’s dead.” About three years prior, when word of the man’s death had reached Omasu’s ears, she had been crushed to find her reliance abruptly rendered hollow. Omasu once again had to choose a man from among the visiting customers, but such a man proved elusive. Over time, various men came there. Those she initially deemed suitable later revealed flaws, while those who showed her kindness here stirred no affection in her heart. Either their ages proved incompatible, or their occupations held no appeal. The only ones meeting both criteria came with family entanglements. They were married men.

As time passed, Omasu gradually grew older. In Omasu’s heart as she was about to leave, there remained only these two: a stiff young shop employee and Asai. In her heart, Omasu compared herself to Oyuki, who had constantly bared herself for men’s sake. “Aren’t you just hopeless?” “It’s not like this amusement will last forever.”

From the time they were together, Omasu had occasionally said such things to Oyuki. But Oyuki herself could do nothing about that. Part of it was that her mother—who had clung to her so persistently she’d even moved in as a temporary mistress—hadn’t allowed Oyuki to think only of herself, but there was also the fact that from her days under Kuroda’s care onward, that same blood had coursed through Oyuki’s own veins.

Their heartfelt conversation continued uninterrupted until sunset. “What’s so great about that man anyway?” Omasu mocked Oyuki. “Once it’s come to this, there’s no good or bad left.” “It’s hopeless.”

Oyuki, who had come out to see Omasu off that far, laughed as she said that.

In the town, cool shadows of light shifted, and from the damp ground rose the scent of earth.

IX

After sunset, the wind didn’t stir even once. Omasu got down from the rickshaw and stepped into the sultry alley when suddenly her heart surged with the hope that Asai might have come during her absence. The alley she had grown accustomed to living in remained as quiet and peaceful as ever. Her mind—thrown into disarray by Oyuki’s rambling talk devoid of real hopes or worries—could not help but feel a calm and joy akin to returning to her usual self. Omasu felt as though her entire life was tethered to Asai alone. The man’s reliability surged back into her heart with greater force than usual.

“I’m home.”

Omasu, who had gone out after entrusting the key, opened the lattice door of Ochiyo-baasan’s house and called out, “I’m home.” The lamp in the sitting room was dimly lit. Outside the water outlet came vigorous splashing sounds suggesting the maid was performing her ablutions, while in the earthen-floored entryway sat Asai’s geta as expected. “Oh my, they’ve started up again upstairs.” With a restless nostalgia—part apologetic toward Asai, part wanting to act sulky—Omasu hurried up the ladder stairs.

On the well-ventilated second floor, in the shaded area by the closed shoji window, Asai, the old woman, and the neighborhood doctor who often visited had gathered in a group, their eyes gleaming as they were engrossed in flower cards. The doctor—who would tease Omasu with remarks like “I’ll examine you, examine you” every time he saw her—sat wearing a garishly patterned yukata with his sleeves rolled up and one knee raised. His bold-featured face somehow reminded her of Aoyagi’s demeanor, making her feel uneasy.

“Welcome back.”

The doctor called out.

“Where did you go and what were you doing?” “Since Omasu-san wasn’t here, Asai-san was in such a state.” Asai let out a hearty, insider’s chuckle.

Omasu pulled the tobacco tray—where cigarette butts smoldered in the fire container—closer and smoked with composed detachment. And as if probing what the man had been up to these past two or three days, she glanced now and then at Asai’s face, but it bore nothing more than a slightly deeper tan than usual. “Hasn’t Kami-san noticed?” After being involved for about two years, Omasu returned home shortly before or after Asai and began to speak while opening the stifling surroundings. The maid from across the way even brought over some embers.

Asai was smirking. “So, have you managed to get around Tokyo a bit now?”

“Nah, I was feeling bored, so I went to visit Oyuki-san’s place in Asakusa.”

Omasu took her sweat-dampened underkimono—clinging to her back—and white crepe underskirt, spreading them out toward the veranda as she spoke. “Ugh, I’m drenched in sweat.”

Omasu remained completely naked, cooling off there for a while.

“Do you want to eat something?” “Yeah, why don’t we go out for something to eat?” “Nah, it’s boring. Let’s not.” After wiping herself down in the kitchen, Omasu wrapped a thin Hakata sash over her yukata and fetched ice and chilled sweets from the corner ice vendor. Then she firmly shut the entrance’s wooden door and came inside. Omasu set about folding Asai’s haori and tidying away his belongings with a fervor that seemed determined to compensate for all the loneliness of these past few days in one go; beside the man sipping his sake in small draughts, she fanned him and refilled his cup. And she found herself dissatisfied with Asai’s manner of frequently checking the time.

X

Asai, who had stayed there that night, awoke rather late the following morning. The day was scorchingly hot again.

Late last night, lying in bed when she heard insects singing from grassy patches and beneath stones here and there, it felt as though cool autumn had arrived—the predawn light casting shadows on the walls, the cup and water pitcher by the pillow, even the touch of the tatami mats—all carried a chill. Yet to her sleep-deprived mind and body, the lingering daytime heat clung all the more oppressively, a muggy swelter that seeped into bone. After seeing Asai off, Omasu slipped once more into the futon damp with the night’s lingering odors, her listless body sprawled drowsily in a half-dream state as she tried to divine some unknowable thought. That lassitude seemed to seep and spread to the very marrow of her bones. The sunlight streaming through the shoji and the neighborhood sounds—Ochiyo-baasan’s voice among them—invading her eyes and ears felt terrifying.

“If we keep this up, it won’t turn out well for either of us.” Omasu recalled what Asai had said in bed the previous night.

“It’s the truth.” “It’s a sin.” Omasu lay with her chest bared against the pillow, muttering as she smoked. Before her eyes rose the lonely figure of his wife keeping house in Kōjimachi. The anguish felt all too real, as if it were her own. “It’ll definitely be discovered someday.” “If it is discovered, that would be a disaster.”

Across Omasu’s face drifted the pallor of torment and anxiety, like someone rousing from a nightmare. “Hmph.” Asai snorted.

“How long do you think this can go on? Even I can’t sleep properly at night anymore. For one thing, I feel ashamed—honestly, I’m sick of it all. You must find it tedious too, splitting your money two ways.” “But that woman’s no good either. If she were at least a competent homemaker with a decent temperament, I wouldn’t have stooped to such foolishness myself. That’s the real problem here.”

“But they say she’s done quite a lot for your sake.” “Even if she did her utmost, it was just dispatching someone to the pawnshop—hardly any real trouble. And I’ve been providing for her more than adequately these days.”

While he was away, his wife would go around playing flower cards at acquaintances' houses, drink sake, or buy snacks—Asai complained about these things to Omasu. Moreover, whenever she fell ill, he had to get up even in the middle of the night to nurse her. That alone gave Asai more than enough reason to dislike his wife. The mother of the wife he lived with hadn't been kind to him either. The room remained perpetually disheveled, with not the slightest attention paid to meals.

To Omasu, Asai was pitiable, but she also felt sorry for his wife. The thought of making his wife leave sometimes struck her as heartless and other times seemed spineless.

Omasu couldn’t stay in bed for long. And just when she seemed to drift into a fitful doze, she would jolt awake again.

From that day on, Asai stayed here for three or four days at a stretch. He would go out now and then to take care of business and come back. Around that time, Asai had begun expanding his ventures into various matters.

XI

“I think I’ll go check on the house today.”

Asai left the futon one morning and, gazing at the sky through a slightly opened gap in the shoji, muttered. The sky was a clear, deep blue, and patches of white drifting clouds moved as though alive.

In Asai’s wearied mind rose images of the desolate house, now masterless, and the despairing face of his wife who found no rest even at night. Lately, he had also begun worrying about the four-year-old girl he’d recently brought from elsewhere and had his wife raise. Her hair disheveled, the image of his wife—who must be searching this way and that through acquaintances’ and friends’ homes—appeared vividly before his eyes.

“If we’re not careful, she’ll come here too.”

Omasu said, sitting up on the futon. Before long, after Asai left for the neighborhood bathhouse with a toothpick between his teeth, Omasu tidied up the room and hurriedly swept out the dust. Then she brought out her mirror stand, smoothed her hair, arranged her sidelocks and bangs, and applied her makeup. Her bloodshot eyes and flushed cheeks appeared beautiful to her own gaze in the mirror, but the prominence of her cheekbones and the sharpening of her nose suddenly cast a shadow of loneliness in her heart. The sorrow of things cast aside once their colors faded welled up in her chest.

“Once you’ve been in the trade, there’s just no escaping it.” What Asai had said came back to her.

"I need to do something soon…"

The necessity of preparing for her own frail constitution weighed more heavily on Omasu’s mind than ever before. That it seemed to be a man’s fickleness—shifting restlessly from one thing to another—was something she couldn’t avoid contemplating. If only she secured herself against destitution should she be cast aside, she felt she might always retain her hold on that vulnerable spot in a man’s heart—the insatiable desires that drove them. A cold current flowing deep within her own heart now made itself known to Omasu, impossible to ignore.

“That wife of his—if you ask me, she’s a fool.” Omasu found herself thinking that too. She even felt something like a victor’s pride. Asai returned from the bath with a brightened face, finished breakfast using last night’s leftovers, and promptly left after getting ready. Omasu visited Ochiyo-baasan’s house to distract herself from the unpleasant feelings she always had when seeing him off.

“Well now, even so—to think you could lie about for three or four days straight without growing bored!”

The look in Ochiyo-baasan’s eyes—who seemed on the verge of saying just that—was severe.

Omasu took out the Meisen fabric bolt she had bought with Asai the day before and showed it there. “I’d like to have this made into a lined haori.”

The old woman picked up the fabric bolt and examined it. Then she cut the thread, took out the measuring tape, and measured the length together. "What do you think of the pattern?" Omasu asked, as if trying to humor the old woman. “Isn’t it a bit too drab?” "I prefer subdued things. I’m an old woman now, you know." Omasu spoke with apparent confidence about her competence in managing the household.

XII

Asai’s wife suddenly came to visit there.

“Pardon the intrusion.” When Omasu saw the woman with her hair tied up in a bun opening the lattice door while speaking in a somewhat stiff voice, she immediately recognized who it was. The wife wore a soft unlined kimono, her obi sloppily tied, giving off an unkempt appearance. With her tall stature and the largeness of her facial features in her oval face, her presence was imposing, but her complexion was poor and forlorn. The wife opened the lattice door, looked between the faces of the two seated in the visible tea room, then fidgeted while still holding her umbrella.

Omasu sat turned sideways, her head bowed.

“Oh! I was wondering who it was—Mrs. Asai, is it?”

Ochiyo-baasan left that spot and came over. “Please come in.” “Thank you very much.”

The wife wiped her sweaty forehead with a handkerchief before climbing up to offer greetings. She kept staring pointedly at Omasu. "This person here is from the neighborhood," Ochiyo-baasan said while protectively shielding Omasu. "Is that so?" Omasu's face had gone rigid. Finding no suitable words, she fixed a hollow smile toward the wall while keeping her eyes sharply trained on the wife. She watched intently for what the wife might say next.

“Mr. Asai also seems to be doing quite well lately, which is most fortunate.”

Ochiyo-baasan made polite conversation while pouring tea. "What do you mean by that?" The wife laughed emptily. "I wouldn't know about outside matters, but there's nothing good happening at home." "And do you realize? With this child around lately, the caregiving's become so exhausting I can scarcely manage." The wife spoke in broken fragments.

“So they say. That they went and adopted one.” “What do you mean?” “It’s a child born between a restaurant maid and her lover from some teahouse, they claim. They took it in because they couldn’t have their own, but I can’t make heads or tails of it. They come around here often enough.” “They do turn up now and then, you know.” Omasu listened intently to their exchange while drawing slowly on her pipe, yet found it strange how calmly she could observe herself placed in such circumstances.

“I’ll come back later.”

After tidying away the bolt of cloth in the corner, Omasu said this and left that spot. Then, from the water inlet left slightly ajar, she quietly slipped into the house.

About thirty minutes of anxious, interminable time passed. The wife soon left. “Seems she’s been making the rounds asking questions.”

After seeing off the guest, Ochiyo-baasan hurriedly slipped into her wooden clogs and came over. “Omasu-san, it was wrong to keep her waiting so long, you know.” “What did you take me for?”

Omasu frowned deeply.

“That’s not something you could ever understand—it’s not like I can bring myself to say anything either.”

Thirteen

After moving to Kōjimachi, Omasu would occasionally catch glimpses of Asai’s wife out shopping or running errands, observing her from a distance. By that time, having spent a summer, Omasu’s appearance had changed remarkably. The crude way of speaking and awkward behavior she had exhibited when first entering society had largely diminished. In her preferences for combs, half-collars, geta clogs, and such, a subdued elegance akin to that seen in the wives of respectable Shitamachi households had begun to emerge. Even the contours of her face, which had once held a certain angularity, had softened so much that it was nearly unrecognizable.

“You really do wear such hatefully enviable outfits.” As Omasu visited wearing her newly tailored kimono, Oyuki tugged at her obi and underkimono sleeves while examining them and spoke with envy. “You should wear flashier things while you still can.” “No, gaudy clothes don’t suit me at all. And those sorts of things would just cause trouble later on.” Around that time, Asai began frequenting the villa in Negishi where a former rather large woolen goods merchant from Nihonbashi—one who had shuttered his shop—now lived in retirement. This bankrupt merchant had resolved to entrust his financial reorganization to the shrewd Asai. Asai also started dipping into various other enterprises. He showed particular skill in laying corporate foundations and transferring rights to capitalists.

Asai found a house to relocate Omasu just four or five blocks from his own home, considering the ease of coming and going. New chests were brought in there, and chic tea cabinets installed. “They say it’s darkest under the lantern—this might work better after all,” Asai remarked with a laugh as he had Omasu pour him sake, she who had just settled into the new place. It was already that season when one might drape a lined haori over summer-weight silk. On the new gateposts stood inscribed Omasu’s surname, while from their Hirokōji days remained a dog they’d acquired elsewhere. Plush silk cushions lay spread across fresh green tatami still fragrant with rush reeds. Even in these minor furnishings showed Asai’s thriving finances—pleasantly evident in every detail.

Stripped down to just a white shirt and wearing gold-rimmed glasses, Asai’s vibrant face as he sat across the room seemed to brim with vigor for action. Never before had the man’s reliable strength appeared so powerfully in Omasu’s eyes as it did at that moment.

Nevertheless, Asai’s demeanor showed no significant change from when he had worn faded Western clothes. The gentle, low tone of his voice and his aversion to gaudy attire were perfectly in keeping with the disposition he had honed through long years among women and pleasure quarters.

Even after moving here, in Omasu’s eyes, the face and figure of the wife she had stared at so intently in Ochiyo-baasan’s home persistently clung to her vision.

“I got a good long look at your precious wife.”

Omasu often told Asai such things during that time. “Hmm. “My wife didn’t say anything about it. “She seemed to find it a bit strange, though.” “That’s her inexperience showing.”

Omasu said sympathetically. "I even notice how you act when you're alone with her." Omasu stared at the man's face—his strong jaw and gentle eyes—with eyes gleaming with excitement.

Fourteen

Like one entering a labyrinth, that neighborhood where exits and entrances proved difficult to find fell into hushed stillness at dusk, as if deep within a cavern, for no sounds from the streets ever reached it. Occasionally, the sound of a nearby doorbell would ring out, or footsteps walking along the coal-cinder-paved path would be heard—and that was all. When growing weary of being alone together in their room where they faced each other, Asai would take the woman out for cheerful excursions to the bright lights of distant main thoroughfares or ride streetcars all the way to areas like Hibiya and Ginza.

One day, Omasu was led by Asai through a quiet town lined with neat gates and two-story houses. The two of them were walking back along their return path after having gone out to purchase a bathtub large enough for both of them to enter together. Until they bought the tub, Omasu had argued about the inefficiency of heating baths in their small household, but Asai had wanted to gaze at women positioned in various locations. When they came to the sparsely lit town, Asai abruptly stopped speaking. Having distanced himself slightly from the woman to walk along the gutter’s edge, his footsteps suddenly halted before a bay window. The circular electric lamp above the lattice door cast its light upon the shoji screens of the window fitted with narrow lattices and the geta cabinet in the earthen entryway. Omasu immediately sensed it.

“Stop it.” Omasu made warning gestures from her position, but the man remained beneath the bay window for some time. The house stood silent. “So that’s your main residence?”

Omasu began to speak while looking back after walking some distance. Asai merely laughed with a “Hmph.” “Quite the nice house.” Omasu muttered as if talking to herself. “But even if I were to walk past it properly, I still wouldn’t feel at ease.” “You’d probably think I’m pitiful or something.” “Heh heh,” Asai let out a laugh. Even after returning home, Omasu asked Asai various things. “That woman is resolute.” “She’s good at dealing with people, and even when I’m not around, she has the skill to manage tasks properly and handle affairs as they come.” “I can’t very well ignore that.” “In that respect, she’s not lacking as my wife, but—”

Asai began to speak. “Then why don’t you take proper care of her?” “That’s not how it works.” “A woman can’t subsist on that alone.” “In fact, I prefer one without such skills.”

With that, Asai laughed. During the day, Omasu would pass by the front of that house and look around. She occasionally caught sight of his wife standing in front of a greengrocer’s shop. His wife was carrying a round-faced child—one with charming eyes and mouth—using a carrying cloth. Omasu hurried past them. When winter came, Asai visited his home even less. Even when he returned occasionally to check on his wife and child, he couldn’t stay settled there for a single night. The wife, her hysteria having worsened, would suddenly lunge at his collar upon seeing Asai’s face or smash dishes against the tatami. Asai fled to Omasu’s place pale-faced, clutching a briefcase filled with important documents.

“Hey, look at this!” Asai discarded the haori—its chest cord’s loop torn off—there, and sat down dejectedly before the brazier.

Fifteen

After neglecting it for over a week, Asai suddenly decided to show his face at the main residence one afternoon. He wanted to see any letters that should have arrived there, and feelings of anxiety and pity toward his desperate wife began seeping into his chest—now emptied of anger—spreading through him gradually. He couldn't help considering the kindness and skills of the wife who had long supported his impoverished self. "It's troubling because she hasn't done anything bad enough to me to warrant a divorce."

Asai would occasionally furrow his brows in perplexity, as if suddenly remembering something. Each time this happened, a dark shadow fell across Omasu’s face.

“You’re far too fickle.”

Omasu had come to doubt the man’s heart. “Trying to play nice with both sides won’t work.” She wanted to say just that, but the terror of divine retribution that would follow after letting him go always dulled her resolve. When Asai returned home, his wife was sleeping in the back with their child, but upon hearing her husband’s voice interrogating the maid, she scrambled upright and positioned herself before the mirror atop the chest of drawers. After hastily smoothing the sides of her bobbed hair and slapping powder across her face, she emerged.

“Welcome home.” The wife wore a hysterical, lonely smile on her parched lips. The mottled traces of powder across her well-defined nose struck Asai as profoundly forlorn. “Last time too—when that woman Aiko came from Kyoto—it was just like this.” Asai immediately remembered. Back then, his heart hadn’t yet drifted so far from his wife. Her presence hadn’t yet faded so completely. The oval face and slender limbs he recalled bore none of today’s gaunt angularity.

During his time as a law student in Kyoto, he had grown close to this woman who amassed considerable savings through marrying wealthy patrons. When she heard that Asai had acquired a house, she used this as a pretext to come up to Tokyo with her mother, who had relatives there. Asai left her in Ochiyo-baasan's care and laid out his relationship with his wife since that period. The woman instead found herself sympathizing with the Asai couple. After having various men show her around Tokyo for about a month, she became satisfied and docilely returned home. Rumors of that elegant, charming woman lingered for ages as conversation material among Ochiyo-baasan and others.

“I must say, Mr. Asai, you really managed to send that woman back.” Ochiyo-baasan praised the woman to the skies.

Even after the woman returned to Kyoto, Asai consulted with his wife and often sent various gifts. The woman also sent Kiyomizu sencha tea bowls and gave half-collars to the wife.

“I wonder what’s become of Aiko-chan.” When the correspondence ceased, the wife too would occasionally fret over that woman’s circumstances.

“She must have gotten married by now.”

Just as she was saying that, unexpectedly another package arrived from the woman. The woman still appeared not to have settled her circumstances. It was thought she might be working as an attendant at an inn or teahouse.

Asai would occasionally find himself preoccupied with thoughts of that woman, but along with the impressions of various women he had met since beginning his life of indulgence, even that gradually faded away.

Sixteen Asai felt stifled merely imagining his wife sitting beside him watching his face, but his wife too—organizing letters as she spoke—could not bring herself to stay long by her husband’s side when he paid no heed to her words.

“That Shizu-chan, you know...” The wife watched her husband rummaging through old documents from the closet chest while fidgeting with her thin, desolate collar, then drew near him once more with a voice tinged in nostalgia. “Shizu-chan has had a slight fever since yesterday, you know.” Asai crouched before the closet organizing letters and documents, vigorous rough breaths passing through his nose beneath a short-trimmed mustache.

“Does she have a fever?” Asai’s gold-rimmed glasses glinted as they turned this way, but his restless eyes soon fell back to the documents, apparently giving little serious thought to the child.

“……Are you saying you’ll suddenly bundle all that up and take it somewhere?” The wife plopped down right there and spoke beseechingly. “Since poor Shizu-chan is sick like that, couldn’t you at least settle down and stay home for a while?”

Asai adjusted his clothing piece by piece, then with a relieved expression moved closer to the brazier and began smoking his tobacco. The house—where he had come to live since last winter at the request of an acquaintance of its owner—even boasted a storehouse and was quite spacious. Through the glass-paned shoji screens, faint sunlight filtering into the garden illuminated sasanqua camellia branches where small birds cast flitting shadows. Eventually Asai, having gone into the back room, touched the sleeping child’s forehead and checked her pulse, but she opened her eyes wide and gazed curiously at his face.

“Shizu-chan, it’s Papa.”

The wife called out from beside them. “Oh, it’s nothing serious. If you just give her some patent medicine, she’ll recover right away.” Asai muttered.

“But I feel so uneasy myself—if you’re going out, you must at least tell me where you’re off to, or I’ll truly be at my wit’s end.”

Asai was laughing.

“If you’d just behave properly, none of this would’ve happened.” “And if you’re going to make such a racket in the kitchen and then claim I’m out womanizing, that’s another matter entirely.”

That evening, by the long brazier, when the two of them were sitting face-to-face, Asai grew somewhat serious and began to speak.

The effects of the three or four cups of sake she had drunk were showing on his wife’s face. “Moreover, until now I’d kept quiet about this, but you’re rather poor at managing household affairs, aren’t you?” Asai concluded in his usual low, gentle tone. “Don’t just blame others—what exactly have you been doing while I was away?” “It’s because you’re hiding something that even I go arrange flowers occasionally when bored.”

“I’m not saying that’s wrong. What I’m saying is it’s not right to lose even the clothes on your back and indulge yourself.” Asai brought up things he had noticed for some time—the recent absence of his wife’s newly purchased ring and the occasional silk underkimono that should have been in the chest—but he did not press the matter vehemently.

“We’re both equally at fault here—half-and-half,” he laughed dismissively and dropped the matter.

Seventeen

One evening, while Asai and Omasu were out at the year-end market in Shitamachi, his legal wife suddenly barged into their empty house. The legal wife's painstaking efforts to uncover the location of Omasu's kept residence had been no simple task. Every time Asai left home, she would slip money to rickshaw pullers or—when he traveled on foot—hire young men to tail him discreetly from behind. Yet the cautious Asai never once headed directly toward Omasu's quarters, regardless of circumstance.

“It’s quite all right, Madam...” The young men said this and reported back to his wife. “It can’t be helped. He must’ve shaken you off.” In the end, the wife could no longer remain docile. Important stock certificates would go missing from where they should have been, or bonds would disappear. Each time she discovered this, the wife’s eyes changed. At times she would visit the homes of Asai’s acquaintances dressed in her finest attire, only to then wander the neighborhood with her hair undone and face ghastly pale—still in house clothes while dragging her child along—or lie buried under quilts for two or three days straight.

Whenever she caught sight of Asai coming to retrieve a letter or something, she would suddenly grab him by the lapel and lunge at him like a warrior, or else go rampaging through the rooms like a madwoman.

“There’s no need for such violent antics—we can talk this through properly.” Asai finally managed to calm his wife and sat her down. The wife, her hair disheveled, threw herself forward and began weeping quietly but ceaselessly like a child. Asai, who had finally tried to flee, found himself forced to turn back home from a couple of blocks away because his wife came chasing after him barefoot.

In the quiet town of early evening, lights still glimmered here and there through windows, and voices could be heard. "I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth."

The wife walked alongside Asai, panting heavily. Her face was weary, her lips pale as a corpse’s. A cold wind blew through the hair clinging to her face and neck.

After that incident, for two or three days, the wife remained bedridden like a patient.

“I’ve grown thoroughly sick of this.” When Asai returned to Omasu’s place, his face was ashen as he heaved a sigh. “It’s pure madness.” “There’s nothing to be done... not when things have come to this.”

Omasu furrowed her brows. "I’ll just put it aside for now." Asai forced a wry smile.

The wife was suddenly drawn to a dog wandering the street right near Omasu’s house. The dog’s tawny shaggy fur and the spots on its nose were also familiar to the wife. The dog had followed Asai and occasionally appeared near her vicinity as well. “Madam, that shaggy dog is down on the tram street.”

She recalled how the maid who had gone out shopping had once reported the same thing. Eventually following the dog into that quiet district, the wife had come to that area for shopping that day as well. “Pochi, Pochi, Pochi.” It was quite some time later that the dog—which had entered through the back door of the newly built house—was called inside by a woman’s voice from within. “What can you do? You’ve gotten your paws all dirty like this.”

Several dustbins were out at the narrow alley entrance where the wife stood lingering, and those words drifted to her ears. That evening, she powdered her face into presentability, dressed herself neatly in formal attire, and made her way over.

Eighteen When Asai and Omasu returned home—laden with battledores and playthings meant for a child, carrying these alongside the boxed tempura they had eaten on their way back—the young woman distantly related to Omasu who had been minding the house heard their lively approaching footsteps and hurried to appear at the entryway. “Oima, I’m home.” While soothing the dog that whined and clung to them, they made their way into the tea room—warm with steam from the iron kettle—stroking their chilled cheeks as they went.

“Right after you went out, a woman came to visit.” Oima hurriedly put away her sewing that she had brought out there and began to describe how the wife had come. “Huh? What kind of woman?” Omasu asked hurriedly while taking off her new coat.

“Though I couldn’t make her out clearly, she did have this sort of aged face about her.” “A tall, thin woman.” “So when I told her you both were out, she left straight away without giving any name or anything.” “It’s definitely Oyanagi-san.”

Omasu said without even sitting down.

"I thought the same." Oima said while shifting her lovely eyes toward them. Her face glowed beautifully rose-colored. "There’s no way this could’ve gotten out."

Asai tilted his head and muttered. “It must have been you she tailed.” Omasu’s eyes took on a calculating gleam. Asai’s smile reached only his eyelids. “If it’s meant to be found out, no amount of caution will stop it forever. “She’s grinding away at her end, after all.”

“Even so, she’ll surely come again.” “Depending on how things go, she might still be somewhere around here.”

Omasu said uneasily, “Just imagine if she barges in on us like this—that would spell real trouble. No matter what happens, I won’t meet face-to-face with that woman.” The thought that they would have to move their nest yet again had finally occurred to them.

“Maybe I should go stay at Oyuki-san’s place for a while.” Omasu proposed. “Let’s just get out of here. If we’re found out, it’ll be all sorts of trouble.”

Entrusting the aftermath to Oima, the two slipped away from there. And when they cautiously reached the main street, they hurriedly boarded a streetcar. The streetcar was empty. And it raced through the dimly lit late-night town at full speed. Jostling their weary bodies, they searched here and there for a house that might escape Oyanagi's notice, yet they could not shake the persistent image of her pale face clinging to them relentlessly. “We have to make a clean break of it.”

Omasu said, her eyes dark.

Carrying token gifts, they knocked on the gate of a friend’s house in Hongō—it was already past midnight. That friend was a magazine reporter whom they had recently become acquainted with through Ochiyo-baasan. “My, you’re terribly late…” The wife, who had known Asai from before at Ochiyo-baasan’s house, emerged in her nightclothes and opened the gate. There stood Omasu, laughing. On the face of Asai, who stood in the shadows, lingered the flush of alcohol he had drunk along the way to fend off the cold.

Nineteen

After passing a restless night at that house where even basic nighttime necessities were sorely lacking, that afternoon Asai went out to search for nearby lodgings where he could leave Omasu for the time being.

“So they’ve finally found you? How dreadful… dreadful,” said the friend’s wife while nursing her child of about three, her eyes carrying a look that seemed to fret over Omasu’s circumstances.

“Well, I suppose they’ll settle things this time.” “There’s no telling what will happen.” At that moment, the two women were engrossed in conversation beside the damp tea room’s brazier. Even after moving to the boarding house they had selected as temporary refuge, whenever the room grew stifling after Asai went out, Omasu would often bring tea sweets to that unguarded parlor and visit. There she began styling her hair.

"I think I’d like to have a child of my own, you know."

Omasu said, casually rubbing her cheek against the soft face of the child she had scooped onto her lap. “Please give me one. At my place, they say we can have them one after another.” “Nuh-uh, no way I’d give you one!” “You gotta raise ’em right.” After two or three days had passed, various personal belongings were brought into the previously empty boarding house room. Omasu grew concerned about the state of her home, which seemed as though something had happened, and stealthily went to check on it. At the house, in addition to Oima—who attended sewing and cooking schools every day—there was a sturdy-looking elderly acquaintance they had entrusted with looking after the place while they were away.

“Ah, there there, it’s just you. You’re doing all this for me.” Omasu sniffled as she stroked the head of her beloved pet clinging to her familiar lap and chest, breaking the dried sweets she had bought and feeding them into its mouth. “Has anyone come since then?” Omasu asked from behind Oima—who was writing a letter to send to the countryside by the bright window—as she inspected the entire house, but there was still no sign that Oyanagi had come.

“What could be happening here?” Even when nothing happened, Omasu found that very absence unsettling. She felt as though some misfortune lay in wait there for her. “Sis, isn’t this all just so dreary?” Oima spoke up from beside Omasu, who was taking out a change of clothes from the chest. “What’s the use of having all these kimonos when you’re just a social outcast?”

To Oima’s fresh eyes—she who had only just left the nest of her respectable country family—Omasu’s peculiar way of living appeared both vexing and pitiful. “That’s how it is for you folks.”

Omasu was laughing. Unable to use the public bath, Omasu descended to her own bathhouse and worked—kindling the bathwater, wiping down the long-neglected long brazier with a cloth. At dusk, Omasu was alone, her body immersed in the limpid water, feeling an ease as though she had hidden herself away at some unfamiliar hot spring, lingering there in a daze.

Twenty

It was when the year had grown thoroughly late that Omasu finally settled into the newly rented two-story house in Akasaka. Until then, she had shuttled countless times between the boarding house and her former home, but the bustling year-end townscapes she glimpsed in passing only rendered her precarious state of mind—as though suspended midair—all the more unsettled.

“Even if New Year’s comes like this, there’s nothing to be done about it.” “It’s as if I’m on a journey.” Omasu said this while eating a meal with Oima in the tea room of a house that might be vacated at any time, using her favorite stews—dishes she couldn’t have managed in the cramped boarding house—to share the table. There, Asai too—having spent the day walking to handle company business and his own errands—came by on those very same feet. “I dropped by the house today.”

Asai approached the brazier with restless eyes. “When the master returns home, Her Ladyship requests that you come see her—even just for a moment.” With those words delivered, a messenger had come from Oyanagi yesterday morning. Upon hearing this, Asai went to check on the situation there. “What was it like?” Omasu asked. The uncertainty surrounding their separation negotiations had been needling both their minds since that incident, but in Asai’s heart—now wholly detached from his wife—there still lingered occasional faint stings of remorse and anguish.

“Hmm, nothing’s really changed.” Asai smiled bleakly as he recalled—exactly as he had just witnessed—the desolate, neglected state of the house he had abandoned, and Oyanagi’s anguished face, her hands spread in despair as if still clinging to him. “Did you try bringing up the matter?” “I tried broaching the subject too, but once things get to that point, women become impossible to understand—couldn’t get any coherent response from her.” “That’s only natural. So what did she say?”

“Ultimately she’s just saying I should throw you out.”

Asai was recalling how Oyanagi had asked various things about Omasu, among other matters. "After all, there’s no way the two of you will reach an agreement on your own." "You should get someone else involved."

“Even so, it’s hard to work with them right under my nose. I need to find a house quickly.” The luggage was soon quietly moved into the new house. With its beautiful second floor containing two rooms, the place seemed cleaner in its surroundings and more comfortable than their previous home when compared. The belongings that had multiplied considerably in such a short time took Omasu from morning till evening to put away properly. Feeling invigorated for the first time in ages, she set about sweeping and wiping every corner.

When she stepped out onto the second-floor veranda beneath stylish flower-shaped electric lamp shades, the reddish brick buildings of the Third Regiment’s barracks came immediately into view before her eyes, while in the neighborhood below—where decorative bamboo and New Year pine displays stood fully erected—spring seemed already to have arrived. From the direction of the bustling street came the sound of a military band’s fanfare. “Well now, it seems we can stay here a good long while.”

Turning to look at Asai, who was arranging decorative objects, Omasu began in a buoyant, cheerful tone—

Twenty-One Days filled with restless rustling of the heart continued endlessly from year's end into spring. Omasu busied herself taking wide-eyed Oima out countless times to shop for trifles in the year-end town streets and preparing layered food boxes in the kitchen—yet what struck her as most novel was her own manner as a proper housewife, tending to every domestic detail for the first time. In a second-floor room adorned with a silver-ground folding screen depicting mountain waterscapes—a housewarming gift from Inkyo the retired draper—Omasu and her husband spent New Year's Eve late into the night with Asai's Go rival Kobayashi, that jovial lawyer, and his former-geisha mistress, drawing favorite flower cards in boisterous revelry.

Each time people came with year-end gifts, the doorbell that had been ringing with their comings and goings fell silent; and each time Omasu was called downstairs by Oima, she could finally settle down and join the group. All social engagements that had previously been conducted at the main house were now to be transferred here this year. Year-end gifts adorned with ceremonial cords were piled high in the downstairs tea room.

In front of Oima and others，Omasu proudly thought of how well-connected Asai was at the company. “Hmm，beer again? I can’t fathom why people would haul in such things，” she said，sitting by the long brazier with her round chignon—arranged earlier that evening—firmly in place，a frown on her face. “Madam，Madam—this year you’re entering a fortunate cycle，” said the lawyer.

The hard-drinking lawyer, even thoroughly drunk, still wouldn’t let go of the clinking sake cup from his hand.

“Oyanagi-san’s side will be fine—I’ll settle the talks for you.” “In exchange, I’ll be the one resented.” “It’s a bit ruthless, but I’ll certainly do something like that for your sake, Madam.” The lawyer thrust the sake cup toward Omasu with his thick-veined hand. “Oh no.” “There’s no need for that.” “I don’t care what happens to me.”

Omasu turned sideways and smoked tobacco. The New Year's Eve bells came through the damp air of the hushed night.

In the parlor where their friends had withdrawn, the couple spent a while brewing tea and such, sitting face to face as they conversed quietly. The white ash in the beautifully leveled paulownia brazier had turned ashen in the piercingly cold predawn air, and on the faces of the two—their drunkenness fading—showed deep fatigue and traces of excitement. Outside, the laborers still hadn’t ceased entirely. Dawn was still a good while off.

The next morning dawned clear and fine. The whirring of kites could be heard in the sky. In the parlor left as disheveled as the night before, the sight of two figures sleeping under a plush futon appeared strangely novel to Omasu’s weary eyes—like a newlywed couple or something of the sort. A pale red electric glow drifted dreamily through the room. *Somehow, it feels like you and I are holding a wedding.* After changing clothes, Omasu sat face to face with Asai in the lower parlor decorated with toso sake flasks and the like—alone, she thought this. Just then, Oima came out with a beaming smile and, saying “Congratulations,” bowed shyly. A healthy flush rose beautifully to her made-up, smooth-textured cheeks.

Omasu saw Asai—dressed in a frock coat and departing on the tug-of-war float—off at the entrance, then sat there respectfully, her face faintly flushed from the toso sake.

The house suddenly grew quiet. The sound of battledores could now be heard here and there. By the time she had finished attaching the collar of her formal underkimono for New Year visits—all by herself—it was already noon, and the festive New Year’s mood had somehow begun to wane.

Twenty-Two

The first month of the New Year—filled with games and visitors—peeled away like a phantom from the calendar page hanging on the pillar beside the long brazier. In spring, Omasu went out with Asai to visit Inkyo at the house in Negishi—where the two of them had once called together—and went to see plays with that crowd. In the villa where Inkyo had once borrowed around ten thousand yen by putting it up as collateral through Asai’s efforts, he lived with his mistress named Oyoshi. He managed his monthly expenses by collecting scattered loans from his days as a wholesaler, but the old man, long accustomed to luxury, still found it insufficient. From time to time, old scrolls were taken out and antiques were sold off. Oyoshi—fair-skinned and plump, with charming eyes—had only recently arrived from southern Sagami as a servant when Inkyo’s wife, who had managed the household before retreating to her rural Tokyo home after a hysterical breakdown that left her mentally unhinged alongside these children already attending middle school, was still overseeing domestic affairs.

Inkyo, the fifty-three- or four-year-old retiree with a stomach ailment, had been drunk since morning as usual when Omasu came to visit. His eyes—prone to fits of temper—had clouded to a murky hue, their usual erratic quality remaining unchanged.

The warm sun shone upon the broad flat lawn of the garden—where trees and goldfish in the pond had been neatly protected from frost—and Inkyo’s living room lay as tranquil as the home of someone who lacked for nothing.

“You’ve both come together. Why don’t we all go somewhere to eat something delicious?”

Inkyo made a strange gesture, shaking his long, slender neck as if slightly unsteady.

A discussion began regarding where would be best. "Rather than you drinking and inconveniencing everyone, wouldn't it be better if we went to see a play today?"

Oyoshi spoke up from beside them. "A play would be fine, but let's go somewhere we won't be recognized." "Places we know just cost money—ain't no way around that." Inkyo said gruffly. "As for me, no matter how far I've fallen, I can't stand going out to pleasure spots and pinching pennies." "Mr. Asai, that's simply my nature."

Inkyo’s circumstances, which could not help but reach a dead end now, seemed to be seen through by both Asai and Omasu.

“Oyoshi-san… I wonder what will become of her, carrying on like that.” When they went outside, Omasu asked anxiously. “She doesn’t seem to be putting any money aside on her own, does she?” “Kimonos and such—no matter how many she makes, it’s only so much.”

“Still, she’ll last another two or three years.” Asai was smirking.

The two couples would sometimes get together to stroll around Asakusa or go watch sumo matches. And there they would sit on edge beside Inkyo—always drunk and picking fights with neighboring patrons—while Oyoshi pressed a handkerchief to her mouth, cheeks flushed crimson, only to giggle quietly afterward.

“What’s so funny?” Inkyo’s forehead veins bulged as he barked at Oyoshi. Declaring this too was hilarious, Oyoshi exchanged glances with the Asai couple and doubled over laughing.

Twenty-Three

“Would it be all right if I stayed at your house for a while?” After the month changed, during Asai’s absence—he had gone to Izu for a hot spring cure to treat his hemorrhoids—Oyuki came to Omasu’s place one day still wearing her everyday clothes. When Oyuki was still at her previous residence, she had once come over to stay after supposedly quarreling with Aoyagi, but on that occasion, Aoyagi soon came to take her away.

Aoyagi, wearing black glasses, had briefly met and greeted Asai on that occasion before leaving. Asai found it unpleasant having such a disreputable-looking man frequenting the place, but Omasu secretly lent Oyuki pocket money from time to time. "He says he’s going to publish a book of songs he wrote himself." Oyuki came asking Omasu to help secure funds for Aoyagi—whose theater career had completely collapsed—to publish his self-composed songs styled after popular tunes.

“That man’s no good. You’ll be miserable your whole life. Why don’t you cut ties with him now and go beg Kuroda for help? If it’s about that matter, consulting my husband might get him to negotiate with them.” Omasu felt exasperated watching Oyuki get dragged around by some no-good performer, but the pair—steeped in their rotten bond for so long—had decayed beyond any hope of remedy.

Oyuki, wearing an apron over her half-collared kimono, slid smoothly toward the brazier, her rough-textured face wearing a slack smile. Not a trace could be seen of the resigned disposition that had long clung to this woman.

“Huh.” “Did you two have another fight?”

Omasu asked casually. “No, that isn’t it.” Oyuki puffed on her tobacco pipe, smirking all the while.

“Aoyagi’s going to do some work.” “What work?” “Big work, I tell you.”

Oyuki was still laughing. “Is he going to deceive even a widow?”

“Well, something like that, I guess.” “The mark’s another young lady.” “Huh, that’s downright wicked of him.” Omasu gazed at her friend’s face as she thought this. Oyuki flushed slightly as she said, “He says it’d be a problem if I stayed at home for that.” “Is he gonna bring her home?” “Most likely, yes.”

Oyuki was looking down awkwardly. "I thought he wasn't such a bad person... Why?"

Oyuki muttered. “Since his art’s gone nowhere, resorting to his looks to make money—that man’s sunk low.” “When I imagine some young lady falling for that man, I can’t help pitying her.” “You do realize she’s from a proper family? If this scandal hits the papers, it’d be unbearable.” “That’s precisely where Aoyagi’s planted his hook.” “Have you laid eyes on this young lady?” “No.”

Twenty-Four “But I do want to feel that way again.” “When we were young, didn’t everyone have experiences like that—some bigger, some smaller?” Oyuki recalled the young lady’s detached composure—a state she could nearly envision in both face and manner from the heartfelt phrases in the letters Aoyagi had supposedly received, along with belongings like rings and hair tools that had passed into his possession. The young lady was the daughter of a minor industrialist, but she had come to understand one thing alone—that her still-young, flashy stepmother was not a woman of respectable character.

“Come on, don’t you remember when the two of us went into the dressing room together?”

Oyuki vividly remembered how—back in their provincial town—she and Omasu would attend their Tokiwazu music teacher’s lessons together; how her heart would stir at the sight of local actors in stage costumes when they came to visit the teacher; how she’d wear the hairpin one actor gave her, delighting in its charm; how they’d timidly pass through dark backstage corridors holding hands to visit those actors’ rooms. The visage of the actor who had played roles like Kawaba no Miyuki in *Asagao Nikki* left the deepest impression of all.

“Come to think of it, it was when the three of us went together.” “What were we even crying about back then? All three of us sobbing our eyes out without even watching the play—can you believe it?” “We must’ve thought we had to cry or else we’d be doing something wrong.” Oyuki struck Omasu’s hands and laughed until tears welled in her eyes. “You’re being silly.” Omasu also smiled wryly. “We were still just children back then.” “We were barely fourteen or fifteen, you know.” “But we did have some allure back then, didn’t we?” When Oima, wearing purple hakama trousers, returned saying “I’m home,” Omasu was simmering the evening meal over a gas flame in the kitchen, while beside her, Oyuki peeled something’s skin as she remained engrossed in idle chatter.

“She’ll get better with time, that girl—”

Oyuki muttered while watching Oima’s retreating figure enter her own room.

“Having a girl like that by your side will only bring trouble.” “No, of course not.” “Compared to when I first saw her, she’s completely changed.—That age was the best, wasn’t it? She seemed so free from worries.” “I wonder what I’ve even been doing all these years.—To think I’ll end up dying like this, doing such things.”

As she said this, Oyuki’s profile appeared miserable in Omasu’s eyes. The listless, lackluster life before her evoked an involuntary pang of pity.

“When I was still there, I had some spark left in me, you know. But since leaving, everything’s just turned dull.” “Still, if Mr. Aoyagi keeps up with those schemes, he can’t feel too good about himself either.” “It’s nothing like that.”

After peeling what needed to be peeled, Oyuki placed it into a mesh basket and handed it to the maid by the water spout. Then, leaning her back against a pillar, she squatted there.

“Hey now, what’s up with you and this here?” Oyuki stuck out her pinky finger. “Got anyone hitched to this one yet?” “Nah, still no luck.”

Omasu furrowed her brows. “When the month changes, Oyanagi’s brother is supposed to come from the countryside for that discussion, though.” “If only my Aoyagi would settle down too and manage something proper like this.” Oyuki muttered as if to herself.

Twenty-Five “Omasu-san, I think I’ll go check on my place today.”

One evening, after four or five days had idled away in idle chatter and games of flower cards with Omasu across the brazier, Oyuki—as if suddenly remembering something—tucked the kiseru pipe she’d left daily by the hearth into its pouch and went out. “You’re truly fortunate.” Oyuki gazed at Omasu’s newly tailored kimonos—shown to her after being taken from the chest—and remarked enviously; yet as she lingered there day after day, she came to properly grasp just how much more affluent Omasu’s life had grown of late.

That day, they had their hair styled together by the hairdresser making afternoon rounds, but Oyuki felt a pang of vulnerability seeing in the mirror how the base of her scalp—once far thicker with hair than Omasu’s—had grown distressingly thin. Through the veranda’s shoji doors where the dressing table stood, pale sunlight streamed in, casting her sallow face a sickly yellow in the mirror’s reflection.

“Hey, this bald patch has really spread out.”

Oyuki laughed with amusement as she stroked the thinned area at her center part with fingertips while using a fine-toothed comb to fix her hair’s wayward strands. “Another ten years and there’ll be no hair left here at all.” Omasu settled her freshly styled coiffure and watched from beside her, tobacco smoke curling upward. The bleak life of her friend—who since sixteen or seventeen had been made a mistress and forced into the trade—those fifteen or sixteen shadowed years came flooding back.

“They always said drinking burnt baby mice would help, but it’s useless,” Omasu thought bitterly. She had been remembering those old wives’ tales. “My body’s failing me,” Oyuki sighed. “There are moments when it all feels too much,” Omasu replied. The two women laughed loudly with the hairdresser, their boasts echoing through the room. When Oyuki returned days later after visiting home, Asai’s residence—fresh from his spa retreat—had slipped into disarray.

Omasu’s face—having descended from the second floor where a visitor waited—appeared more taut than usual and pensive, but as she sat by the long brazier cluttered with meal preparations, gazing at the warmed sake steeped in its copper pot, her eyes took on a knowing glint when meeting Oyuki’s expectant expression, and she smirked. Oyuki immediately grasped what that meant. “Since Oyanagi-san’s brother came from the countryside, they had to settle things quickly.”

“Oh, so that brother came?” “No, someone mediating—a lawyer.” “It seems like it’s going well.” “Hmm, hard to say.” Omasu took up her kiseru pipe, puffing on the tobacco while maintaining a thoughtful expression.

“I absolutely cannot accept this.” Omasu thrust out her pinky finger. “But her brother—he’s some government official out in the countryside—is apparently insatiably greedy.” “And depending on how much money changes hands, they say it’ll settle however he wants.”

Omasu muttered anxiously.

“Moreover, they’re making such noble-sounding claims at their place.” “...to secure their own future prospects.” Omasu was not sitting there calmly.

“What happened to that young lady?”

As she stood up, Omasu asked. "No good—it didn’t work out in the end after all." Oyuki smiled bitterly. “Who’d get taken in by that old man?” “And when you came and saw how filthy the house was, you must’ve been appalled.”

Twenty-Six Before long, Omasu—who had taken a sake decanter and gone upstairs—sat beside Asai and Lawyer Kobayashi as they discussed various matters. She listened to their conversation while pouring drinks for twenty or thirty minutes before promptly descending again. Kobayashi had already met with Oyanagi’s brother twice at her house by the time Asai returned to Tokyo after receiving the telegram about her brother’s arrival. “What sort of man is he?”

As Omasu listened to Lawyer Kobayashi recounting how the negotiations were progressing, she grew eager to ask questions. From Kobayashi’s account, it appeared Oyanagi’s chronic hysteria had grown even more severe since that incident. After spring came, she spent each despairing day in the lonely house where Asai never once showed his face, but occasionally took the child along to quietly visit Lawyer Kobayashi’s wife under the pretext of checking on Asai’s situation. Each time, she would repeat from her own lips all the hardships she had endured with Asai until now.

“The moment his pockets start warming up a bit, he goes and gets tangled with that sort of woman.” “It’s the woman’s fault, you know.” “Asai will come to his senses soon enough.”

While saying such things, Oyanagi would occasionally make as if to confront Kobayashi—who wouldn’t even disclose his whereabouts—but each time she was placated by Kobayashi’s wife and went home. That Lawyer Kobayashi was not at all on her side soon became clear to Oyanagi. “Even you’re being cruel, Lawyer Kobayashi!” Oyanagi came to Kobayashi’s side as he tried to proceed with negotiations with her brother from the countryside and, before he could open his mouth, worked herself into a frenzy and pressed him relentlessly. Her face, which seemed unable to find peace even at night, became gaunt, the flesh sunken.

“Please give the money meant for me to that person and sever all ties.” Oyanagi stated this yet refused to consent.

“If that’s the case，why don’t you just bring that person into your household?” Even Oyanagi had finally reached the point where her resolve began to crumble. Omasu felt Oyanagi’s anguish as if it were resonating in her own chest. The pale face of Oyanagi and her lonely，slender figure—which she had caught sight of two or three times at Ochiyo-baasan’s house and along the way—floated vividly before her eyes. “After all，you’re the one to blame.”

Omasu gazed at Asai’s face as she thought this. Asai’s eyes, which seemed gentle enough to never be surprised by anything, gleamed shrewdly.

“Her brother?” “Yeah.” Lawyer Kobayashi gazed at Omasu, “He’s about my age—forty-seven or eight. The tax official doesn’t seem particularly upstanding either. Once we wine and dine them and flash some cash, I guarantee it’ll settle cleanly. Their hunger for money’s plain as day.” “Will all the money end up in that person’s pockets?” Omasu asked.

“It’s bound to end up that way.”

Asai laughed bitterly. "What does it matter whether the money ends up benefiting Oyanagi-san or not?"

Lawyer Kobayashi said. When she went downstairs, Oyuki wore an expression as if she had stumbled into an unexpected situation and was sitting forlornly with her legs casually arranged beside the brazier. As Omasu came and sat before her, the joy overflowing in her chest could not be concealed from her face.

Twenty-Seven Kobayashi, who had a habit of lingering whenever he started drinking, did not leave until quite late after playing two or three games of Go with Asai. “It’s started again.” When the clatter of Go stones from upstairs grew distinct, Omasu—who had just been hearing about that young lady from Oyuki—exchanged glances with Oima doing needlework beside her and muttered. From Oyuki’s mouth came such an embarrassing story that Oima flushed crimson, pressed her sleeve to her face, and slumped sideways.

“This time Aoyagi’s telling me to help out too, but no matter what, I just can’t bring myself to do such a sinful thing.” “In other words, it’s about whether I’ll go make a scene at the site or not, right?” “Huh, doing such a mean thing—it’s just like a theater play, isn’t it?”

Omasu’s eyes grew wide. “I’ve truly grown sick of it all.” Oyuki looked down embarrassedly. “Wouldn’t doing something like that be considered a legal crime?” “Who can say?”

Oyuki wore a wry smile. At that moment, Kobayashi, who had come staggering down, entered the tea room and left while teasing the women. “Ma’am, from tonight onward, you can sleep soundly.” Kobayashi exhaled liquor-tinged breath and,

“In return, this time it’s your turn.” “I’ll declare this plainly.”

Kobayashi said this and went out while being seen off by the group. "What an awful thing to say." After Oyuki and Oima had fallen asleep, Omasu came to Asai’s bedside—where he lay in his futon—and brooded over it while smoking tobacco. Vivid before her eyes was Oyanagi’s menacing face as she lashed out at Kobayashi in bitter frustration, along with the image of her leaving her long-inhabited Tokyo home to board a train with her brother and return to the countryside.

“That alone was my blunder.” Asai raised his agitated face and said. “I don’t have any other faults that people could criticize me for.” “Having learned my lesson from that, I’ve resolved to never get involved with women again.” “That won’t work.”

Omasu stared fixedly at his face. "No, that sort of woman is rather unusual." "This outcome is that wench's natural fate." "I don't find her pitiable in the slightest." The long years of torment inflicted by Oyanagi welled up in Asai's mind. "But I'll be cursed by her my whole life." "Don't spout nonsense."

Asai laughed. “It’s only natural she’d regret it. Now that I mention it, who can really know what that woman was up to when she’d leave the house for two or three days, parading around like some flower? You could easily doubt her chastity if you tried.” “Did something like that actually happen?” “Well... even if that’s not exactly how it was... Anyway, I feel unburdened now. Who knows how many times I’ve had blades waved at me over that woman. And then there’s her chronic illness. I’d say I’ve endured as much as any man could.”

“Once her night blindness clears up, she’ll surely find some excuse to come back.” “As if I’d agree to such a thing!” Asai snorted derisively.

Twenty-Eight

The girl who had been raised by Oyanagi was handed over to Omasu shortly before Oyanagi and her child were finally about to leave Tokyo. When Asai returned from Kobayashi’s house, having had the child bring along playthings he had bought on the way, Omasu curiously started talking to her and lifted her onto her lap. “This is your mother. From today on, be obedient and listen to what you’re told.”

When Asai said this, the child grinned sheepishly, and Omasu felt relieved she showed no shyness toward anyone. The child brought over that afternoon was already tumbling about alone with toys by evening. "How carefree she looks," Omasu remarked to Oima as they watched from the sidelines. "You can see bits of the master in her here and there." Omasu murmured while studying the girl's profile, though she could only attribute this to her own imagination. As Asai had claimed, it appeared true this child was born to an acquaintance—a former maid at a Nihonbashi restaurant—and her student lover. The woman had apparently given Asai this burdensome child when starting her independent life, then left to work at hot spring resorts near Tokyo.

“What does it matter either way? You’ll have a time when you’ll want a child yourself eventually. If you just think of this one as your own, that’ll be enough.” Asai said this and laughed indifferently. The child’s precociousness for her age became increasingly apparent to Omasu as days passed. The child had come to know how to read Omasu’s expressions. The fact that she could not form any connection with the child on her own was gradually becoming clear to Omasu. The child had apparently been manipulated for a long time by the hysterical Oyanagi, who would strike and beat her when filled with hatred, or lick her cheeks and squeeze her breathlessly when overcome with affection.

“...I don’t find her cute or hateful.” When Asai—sitting with the child beside him, feeding her from his own chopsticks as he faced his evening drinking tray—asked about her feelings toward the girl, Omasu could only give her usual reply. During their outings as a trio, Omasu’s heart would fill with loneliness at memories surfacing—times when she and Asai had turned to glance at couples strolling through places like Hibiya Park, leading a finely dressed child by the hand.

“It would be strange for just the two of us to walk together now.” Asai would say this and take them to places like the zoo or Asakusa that might delight the child. Though the strange animals and mechanical dolls they saw together appeared novel even to Omasu’s eyes, watching Asai’s fatherly manner—carrying and steadying the child when boarding or alighting from streetcars—left her with an inexplicable sense of loneliness. “Shizu-chan... Shizu-chan...” Omasu would occasionally call out to the distractedly occupied child and tug at her soft little hand, but she still couldn’t bring herself to feel enthusiastic.

“Mom...” When the house grew lonely without her father, the child would cling to Omasu as if suddenly remembering—wanting to be held—yet even Omasu herself felt unsatisfied by her own inability to summon feminine tenderness or motherly sweet words. Omasu took out some dried sweets from the tea cabinet and gave them to the child.

Twenty-Nine A boy around Shizuko’s age would sometimes come to the gate and call out things like, “Let’s play, Shizuko-chan!” “Coming!” Shizuko would call back from inside and come running out holding a rubber ball, though sometimes the boy would be invited into the house as well. The pale-complexioned, frail-looking boy would take out various toys and play with Shizuko for a while, but he seemed to grow bored almost immediately.

“Young master, what does your father do?” While being drawn in by the innocent sight of the two children playing together amiably, Omasu found herself recalling her own harshly raised childhood. At Omasu’s house on the outskirts of town, her father would go out to the small fields he owned and work vigorously and diligently. When summer came, under the eaves where persimmon branches cast their ever-familiar shade year after year, beside her gloomy mother who sat quietly at the loom clattering away with the shuttle, her little brother lay in his cradle sucking on a pacifier, being rocked by her older sister self. When summer came, she could also recall herself carrying that child on her back, picking and eating Japanese pepper berries along the banks of the Nogawa River.

The boy was soon taken by the maid who had come to pick him up and went home. "My dad's a professor." The child answered Omasu’s question. The fact that this Professor was a renowned professor at a certain university was relayed to Omasu by the maid, who had grown familiar enough with her to occasionally chat at the gate. “Even so, does the Professor come around as often as four or five times a year?” The maid who said such things knew nothing about the Professor’s residence in Koishikawa. However, it was known only that the child’s mother had suddenly conceived the Professor’s child while working as a live-in maid at his villa in Zushi, and that out of fear of the wrath of the wife who had married into the family from a prominent household, this matter had been kept absolutely secret from anyone other than the Professor.

The plain-looking mother who would go out to the gate and sometimes watch the child—her figure with its bobbed hairstyle had since caught Omasu’s attention. The Professor, who appeared to be around fifty, would occasionally come by in casual clothes via rickshaw, but this was merely to deliver the lump-sum living and child-rearing expenses in March or April. The woman had stubbornly maintained her single life for many years. And as her savings grew by three thousand, four thousand each year, she lived each day with nerves stretched taut, finding joy in watching the child grow. The relationship between the woman and the child was closer to that of a nursemaid and infant than mother and child. The resolve of the woman who had vowed to live her entire life without a husband and raise her child grew ever firmer.

“She’s frighteningly strict with discipline!” Having grown closer to the mother, Omasu had observed the woman’s oddly refined manner of speaking to the child and recounted this to Asai. “You see—there’s a perfect example right in the neighborhood,” Asai remarked. “That’s still just greed at work, isn’t it?” “That’s part of it, but there’s parental love too.” “But she bore that child herself—it can’t possibly be the same, can it?”

When going out, Omasu always took Shizuko along. The child grew more comfortable with her mother day by day. Word of Oyanagi’s frequent illnesses since returning to the countryside had reached the couple’s ears from time to time. “If she dies, it’ll all land on you.”

Asai sometimes mocked Omasu.

Thirty

Omasu, who had returned from traveling here and there for less than a month after Obon with her husband—who had taken a vacation from his company—and bringing Shizuko along, found her face and wrists sunburned and her flesh seeming to tighten, yet her health was not particularly robust. On days spent gazing at verdant mountains and rice fields, drinking wine with fresh fish they had brought while lulled by the refreshing sound of mountain streams in hot spring inns where she wove peaceful dreams she hadn’t known in over a decade—in those moments, her withered spirit seemed to revive. But the instant she returned to Tokyo’s murky air, life’s weariness settled heavily upon her once more.

Even as the train reached the soot-darkened shade of summer trees around nostalgic Oji, the sound of water still clung to her ears, and the shapes of mountains had not yet faded from her eyes. The heavy, oppressive visage of nature she had long beheld finally began to churn her stomach.

“Shizu.” “We’re in Tokyo now.” Omasu felt her heart pound as her nerves tightened. When they arrived at Nippori, lamplights began flickering in the houses. On Omasu’s face—she who until yesterday had lingered by rocky ledges where waterfalls dripped and strolled beneath groves of white birches and Japanese walnuts swaying coolly in green shadows—her own long-lived life amidst bustle came to be wretchedly reflected upon, and she pitied Oyanagi, who was living in the countryside with her brother and mother.

“If I could live my whole life in a place like this, how wonderful that would be.” Omasu murmured to her husband with eyes that seemed to hold tears.

The image of the quiet mountain temple where her uncle had lived floated before Omasu’s eyes—a place she had visited two or three times as a child. “If you were to cast me aside,” she said, “I would go there and live out my days.” This vision of mountain life, devoid of distractions, drew her heart into the helplessness of solitude and life’s ephemeral nature. “No matter what people say,” she murmured, “there’s nothing like one’s own home.” Emerging from the bath where Oima had assisted her, Omasu sat on the veranda in her rumpled yukata. Beneath the glow of the Gifu lantern, she fanned herself with an air of weary contentment.

From under the eaves where the bamboo blind had been rolled up, pale cloud shadows drifted across the distant sky. The starlight glistened like water. Having neatly combed her wet hair, she saw two or three dishes prepared by Oima arranged on the tray where Asai sat. Asai gazed with apparent interest at Oima’s skillful preparation of dishes—her repertoire having seemingly expanded considerably through that summer’s training—and began sipping his sake in small increments. To Omasu’s eyes, Oima’s face and eyes had remarkably gained color, luster, and moistness over the course of that single summer—a change that stood out starkly.

“You’ve really filled out.” “She’s become quite womanly.” Asai also gazed at her face with apparent pleasure. “The young ones are indeed different. Someone like me—no amount of traveling would help.” “Oh, that’s just... It must be because you’ve been looking only at country women.” “I’ve gotten so plump—what am I to do?” Oima poured sake into the cup Asai had set out.

Thirty-One

When winter came, Omasu once again had Asai send her to the hot springs in Izu to take the waters, but even then she couldn’t stay there long. Omasu—her slender waist prone to coldness layered with woolen and twisted-thread waist wraps—had occasionally consulted doctors before this too, but her condition showed little sign of improving with superficial treatments. “You must steel yourself and receive fundamental treatment.”

Asai said this to Omasu when she grew pale and despondent during her episodes of discharge, but she still couldn’t bring herself to commit to it. “I used to have no problem getting examined before, but lately, I just can’t stand climbing onto that table.” Omasu said this, and even the hospital visits she was supposed to make daily for a while had started slipping into neglect. Even when departing for Izu, Omasu couldn’t help but feel preoccupied with Oima, who had recently seemed to awaken to something. The sight of that maiden-like figure with her bobbed hair serving meals beside Asai, along with her lively young voice, made Omasu fret more than a little.

Omasu would quietly approach the bathroom door where she had Oima scrub Asai’s back, or suddenly open it to check.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Omasu tried to catch Asai’s attention. Asai chuckled ambiguously. Oima kept scrubbing his back vigorously, her face showing no awareness of anything else. When going out alone with Omasu to their regular Mitsukoshi and such places, Asai never failed to select patterns that suited Oima and clothe her in fashionable items. “Oima-chan, the master bought this for you. You should have it tailored and wear it.”

Omasu laid out the items there and had Oima bow in thanks, but she found herself both pleased and envious of that. Omasu couldn’t help but reflect on her own life—so full of hardships she had endured at Oima’s age.

At the hot spring resort in Izu, Asai stayed for about two days amusing himself. In the coastal mountains, the treetops were beautifully tinted, and each day’s sky stayed flawlessly clear. Upon a low hill stood a green mandarin grove where golden fruits glimmered here and there under the mild autumn sun. After bathing, in the quiet room where they could hear the mountain stream’s murmur, the two sitting face to face found none of that carefree abandon they had known when first together. Whenever they spoke or reminisced, their words dwelled either on bygone days or uncertain futures.

“Hey you—!” Asai stood rigidly at the mountain base where the sea and houses could faintly be seen, then shouted in a loud voice. And he laughed forlornly by himself. The voice created no significant echo, vanishing forlornly into the mountain air. “Careful, careful!”

Asai stepped firmly onto the crumbling mountain path beneath his feet and grabbed Omasu’s hand.

“Oh, you…” Omasu pulled at his hand, but her heart was steeped in loneliness. In all directions where the scent of mandarins lingered, insects here and there in the grass were ceaselessly chirping. Omasu would occasionally stare fixedly at the man’s grinning face. A mischievous scheme seemed to float there.

**Thirty-Two**

In the lonely room that Asai had left behind, Omasu spent her days lying down or sitting up with a body wearied by the baths, though occasionally she would slip on straw sandals and go out for walks. Beyond the river visible through the room’s glass-paper doors toward the Yamate foothills, a waterwheel creaked with a slow, labored rhythm as it turned all day. On drizzly days, smoke rising from thatched houses amid the cedar groves would melt into the pale, moisture-laden air, while children’s cries and the clucks of chickens could be heard here and there. A fine, spring-like rain seeped through the bright eaves.

From the room of an elderly couple—carefree country retirees who had come to stay in the neighboring quarters—the clatter of Go stones and the tap of kiseru pipes against the rim of a bronze brazier frequently drifted over. But now and then, the feeble cough of a young man idling in the gloomy room at the far corner next door would startle Omasu’s heart as she sat lost in thoughts of Tokyo. “It’s been raining every day—can’t do much about that.”

Stepping out into the corridor and gazing at the scarlet carp in the garden pond edged with sago palms and Japanese banana plants, she found the man in the dotera robe approaching her side, puffing on his tobacco, and speaking. The man appeared to be not yet thirty, with a fair complexion and a pleasantly agreeable face. From time to time, Omasu had caught sight of that figure strolling along the riverbank with a haori coat of luxurious fabric draped over his shoulders. "That it is." Omasu answered amiably enough, but compared to her former self—who had once been so adept at trading frivolous banter with men—she now found it strangely tiresome to exchange even these few words with a stranger.

In the deep night when every room had fallen utterly silent, Omasu’s ears would sometimes be startled by the rushing sound of the rain-swollen river. The scene of the second-floor bedroom in a Tokyo house came into view, its electric lights glaring brightly. From the collar of a nightgown with Yuzen-patterned shoulder padding emerged Asai’s sleeping face, his mouth tightly set and features sharply defined. Downstairs, Oima’s glossy hair and plump white hands floated up like illusions as she slept. The thin veil of her weary mind would occasionally sink drowsily into sleep, only for the river’s rapids to clamorously surge back to her aching ears, or for the gaunt figure of the man in the neighboring room to appear terrifyingly in the dim predawn lamplight.

Then, the sound of the night watchman’s clappers drew near.

Just before dawn, Omasu went out alone toward the bathhouse. In the bathhouse where no human figures could yet be seen, only the sound of bathwater steadily filling the tub reached her ears, while warm smoke swirled hazily in the lantern’s shadow. Women who seemed to have gynecological issues—Kami-san-like figures—and sharp-eyed old women soon began filing in one after another. By the time Omasu emerged from the bath, outside had already begun to brighten with a pale dawn light. “Tomorrow morning I must return.”

Omasu, who had been thinking all through the night, found her spirits somewhat lifted with the morning, the hazy delusions in her mind vanishing as if wiped away. In the rain-cleared sky, the mountains stood out with unusual clarity. Along the river visible from the room as well, a gentle light flowed. On the breakfast tray lay a postcard from Oima expressing concern about her illness. At home, there seemed to be nothing amiss.

Omasu, who had finally cut short her planned three-week stay to barely two weeks, arrived home as if dragging herself there—growing increasingly impatient with the sluggish trains that clattered along perilous coastal cliffs, passed through desolate rice fields still bearing flood marks, and wound through pine groves.

Omasu, who had finally cut short her planned three-week stay to barely two weeks, arrived home as if dragging herself there—growing increasingly impatient with the sluggish light railways that clattered along perilous coastal cliffs, passed through desolate flood-ravaged rice fields, and wound through pine groves. The mind that had grown accustomed to the hot spring inn room’s lonely silence—so profound it seemed to ring in the depths of her ears—now reeled under the hustle and noise of the town at dusk.

Omasu wore a disappointed look as she plopped down before the long brazier and glanced around the room. "Oh, that was quick!"

Oima brought in the luggage and such. Asai had not yet returned.

“Lately, he’s been coming home so late. “That’s why I was so dreadfully lonely I could hardly stand it. “Hey, Shizu-chan.” Oima had been in the kitchen until now, still wearing her white apron as she tidied up scattered magazines and such. Shizuko wore a bashful expression as she fiddled with the small marquetry mirror stand—a souvenir that Omasu was taking out from her bag. “My, what a lovely thing you’ve received.” Oima leaned in closer to inspect it, her skin having grown even paler since winter.

Oima also leaned her face in close, but since winter had come, her skin had grown even paler. With a dissatisfied look, Omasu left the brazier’s side, entered the back room where a chest of drawers stood, went upstairs to turn on the lights in the unoccupied tatami room. When she opened the closet, there caught her eye the colors of Yuzen silk nightwear shoulder pads and pure white bedding wrapped around a futon. “Nothing had changed at all.”

After changing clothes downstairs, Omasu washed her dusty face and combed her unkempt hair with a hand mirror she had taken out from her bag. “Oh, nothing really… When you’re not here, Sis, the house gets so quiet.” “And Brother’s away so often anyway.” “He’s definitely cheating on me, you know. “He must’ve thought to do it while the demon was away.” Omasu laughed forlornly. And as Oima folded up the discarded clothes and changes of attire to put them away in the back, she called out, “Just leave them like that for now. “I’ll air them out once,” she called out.

Omasu, whose body still retained the bath’s warmth, finished her evening meal of tea over rice and lay down slightly atop a zabuton cushion—her body still feeling as though it swayed with the train’s motion—gazing at the household account book and notes left during her absence.

“No one came?” “Not a soul,” Oima paused her chopsticks, her eyes taking on a thoughtful look. “Oh, right—that Ms. Kami from Negishi came by twice. Seems some kind of incident cropped up over there.” “Is that so?” said Omasu, lifting her face, but Oima merely blushed and kept laughing without saying more. “You’re such a strange child.” Omasu muttered impatiently.

“Sis, are all men really like that?” Oima turned a serious face toward her but soon averted her gaze and burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” “But it’s just so funny!” Oima covered her face with her sleeve and laughed again. “Ugh. You’ve started getting ideas, haven’t you?” “You’ve gone and gotten romantic notions.” Omasu frowned. “That’s not true!” “Asai must have teased you about something, didn’t he?” Omasu felt like teasing her, but Oima’s unfazed demeanor took all the fun out of it.

Thirty-Four Until around one o’clock, when Asai returned by rickshaw, Omasu waited, alternately lying down on the bed and sitting up. She occasionally went down to check the lower tatami room. Until just moments before, Oima—who had recently been sleeping with Shizuko—had kept a lamp burning at the bedside while reading something, but by then she had already fallen into a deep sleep. That evening, when Omasu pressed Oima twice about what she had mentioned earlier, Oima—prone to abruptly shifting from childlike innocence to an affectedly mature demeanor—merely said, “It’s nothing important,” and would not elaborate further. Oima was meant to return home after finishing her home economics studies, but she often consulted Omasu about whether to live in her countryside hometown or stay in Tokyo as she preferred. Yet even concerning matters like marriage or living independently, her own feelings appeared thoroughly muddled.

“Why don’t you talk to Asai and have him find you a good husband?” Each time, Omasu would casually say that. “A skilled merchant or a company employee would be best.” “Things like manly demeanor don’t matter at all.” Omasu had said as much, but from the time Oima had first come to rely on her, she had begun sensing flickers of how Oima’s heart had drifted far from her own. That household of Oima’s—which seemed as approachable as her own home where they could come and go freely—being something she couldn’t shape as she wished felt both lonely and somewhat of a relief.

“She’s getting more and more cheeky.” During moments when the couple gossiped about Oima, Omasu would bring it up with Asai, but Asai, who listened with a laugh, showed no sign of accepting her concerns. “It’s because you dote on her that she’s getting even worse.” “Don’t be ridiculous—that’s just how society works.” “You really do prefer younger women after all.”

Asai was grinning slyly.

“That’s why it’s better to send her back to the countryside already. After all the trouble of looking after her, it’d be pointless if we ended up quarreling. It will definitely come to that in the end…” “That might be for the best.” Asai didn’t argue back, but even for Omasu, pushing Oima away left her heart lonely. Over and over, Oima’s innocent way of trying to stay in their good graces struck her as endearing. “She doesn’t have any such deep intentions.”

At the very moment Omasu seemed slightly remorseful, she couldn't help but admire how magnanimous the words Asai spoke were—perhaps precisely because he was a man. Asai, who had come up to the entrance, seemed somehow unsettled. The weariness on his alcohol-flushed face was apparent even to Omasu at a glance. "Isn't it a bit early?"

Asai sat down before the brazier where embers still glowed and began speaking. Lately he had been visiting that woman’s house regularly—today too they’d surrounded him, playing hanafuda cards late into the night—and now his nerves, steeped in three or four days of such revelry, lay frayed between excitement and exhaustion. In such moments, Oima’s youthful form with her bundled hair would take shape in Asai’s mind like some pale blue vision reflected through eyes clouded by a sickly yellow tinge.

"I don't like young women, you know." To Omasu, who seemed about to speak, the image of Oima would occasionally surface in Asai's mind—he who had been repeating those words all along.

Thirty-Five

On the cat board, Omasu cut into the bitter yōkan she had bought along the way, and as the two drank tea while talking in hushed tones, they soon tidied up the area and went upstairs to the second floor. "For that old man to get involved with something like that—he must be really past his prime." When Asai half-jokingly recounted the rumor about Inkyo of Negishi’s servant girl becoming pregnant, Omasu knit her brows and made that remark. In Omasu’s heart as she spoke with her husband—who had been sent home late at night by a familiar woman in a rickshaw—for the first time in a while, there was an impatience akin to when she had once waited for Asai to visit her.

Omasu had also caught sight of the servant from Negishi in the Tokyo suburbs once or twice. Both Inkyo and his mistress Oyoshi had turned pale over the troublesome matter brought by the man claiming to be the woman’s uncle—the one serving as her guarantor. Asai intervened and neatly settled the matter for them. It soon became apparent to Asai that the woman had another man. Asai met once with the uncle—who had failed in business and was holed up in Fukagawa—and by turning the tables on him, settled the incident neatly with a small sum of money.

“But Inkyo still seems to think it’s his own child. It’s funny because he’s making a face like my approach was a bit too efficient.” Asai closed his heavy eyelids and laughed wearily. “You’re quite the one to fall for women yourself.” Omasu pressed the tobacco she still held against Asai’s mouth.

“Heh,” Asai sighed, his face still lingering on the scent of the woman he’d been with until now. Omasu had long noticed that Asai had formed a rather deep relationship with that woman, but during these periods, his activities only intensified. His income swelled, and he indulged his whims freely. Omasu used these intervals to manage the household efficiently—preparing necessities and setting aside whatever money she could.

“Don’t fuss so much about it. You can’t make money unless you’re out having fun.” When Omasu gathered with other women—mistresses like Kobayashi’s—to swap stories about their men, she would always say this. “Sure, it burns me up thinking you’re cheating—but if I just keep working myself to the bone saving money, it doesn’t seem so terrible anymore. That’s how I’ve been feeling lately.”

Omasu had even said such things.

By the time they awoke the next morning, the wooden doors of the veranda had already been opened. On the railing, Omasu’s kimono from the previous night had been hung, and the pale winter sunlight had grown quite long. The familiar sound of Shizuko’s singing voice also drifted up from downstairs.

Thirty-Six

Before long, due to an unexpected marriage proposal, Oima was to be called back to the countryside.

Before it was finally decided that Oima had to go—even if just briefly—to that detested countryside of hers, two or even three letters had come from her brother. Her brother worked at the county office—a position that spared him from laboring in rural fields—yet when an opportunity arose through someone’s diligent efforts to marry Oima into a locally prominent family that owned a substantial silk mill, he abruptly sought to reclaim the sister he had wholly entrusted to Asai.

The man who was to be her groom had previously spent some time in Tokyo. When tracing the strangely tangled family connections, it became clear that distant ties between that household and Oima’s family, the promising prospects of their silk mill, and the man’s reputation as a steadfast individual had thoroughly swayed her brother’s heart. The marriage proposal her brother had brought now weighed on Oima’s tender heart—only just awakened to Tokyo’s allure—like a millstone. Even the carefree daily life of Omasu and her husband, which she observed each day, had begun to seep into Oima’s heart as if shrouded in a beautiful haze.

“Brother, what should I do?” When Oima showed him that lengthy letter, Asai felt infuriated by her brother’s unreasonable demands. Oima was to be called back to the countryside, and Omasu—who appeared to consent to this—had taken the child and gone to visit Lawyer Kobayashi’s mistress’s house, their usual haunt. “No matter what I say, it’s not really my place to interfere, but…” Asai, too, for Oima’s sake, could not avoid choosing the safe path.

“But what do you think, Oima-chan?” Asai gazed at Oima’s face while rolling up the letter. “Me?” Oima looked up at him with pleading eyes. “I want to stay in Tokyo. If I can just become independent here, I have no desire to go back to the countryside at all. Do you think I could become independent?” “If that’s how it is, we’ll have to make those arrangements again. Putting that aside for now—if you truly can’t bear returning—I could propose it to your brother myself. Even from my perspective, his approach seems rather self-serving.”

However, what Asai had proposed was unlikely to be accepted in the countryside. "In any case, send her over once." "As soon as this letter arrives, send her immediately"—with these words, the brother pressed Asai again urgently. The letter was laid out before Omasu as well.

The couple was just about to take Oima and head out toward Ginza for year-end shopping. The sound of Omasu’s rustling clothes echoed busily as she bustled about on the freshly replaced blue tatami wearing new tabi socks, while Oima’s manner of preparing her geta seemed to bubble with excitement. Asai, his restless mood for going out now disturbed, sat down beside the brazier and kept gazing at the letter.

“They were saying to send her back after all, weren’t they?” Omasu came closer while adjusting her collar. “It would be better to send her back.” She added with a grimace.

“Country people are so troublesome.” Asai quietly placed the letter into the brazier’s drawer and stood up. “In that case, we must prepare to send her off.”

Thirty-Seven When the day finally arrived for Oima to depart, even if Asai went out, he promptly returned home. While Omasu was away at the hospital, Oima sat alone downstairs in the sitting room, sewing her new kimono. Shizuko had taken out a box containing doll bedding and clothes that Oima sewed for her piece by piece, along with various large and small dolls, and was playing beside her. Inside the box, as was customary, a folding screen was set up, and the doll family lay sleeping.

“Girls start playing these annoying little games from such a young age, don’t they?”

Omasu would occasionally gaze at it with a puzzled look and laugh. "If Big Sister goes back home, you won’t be able to get anyone to sew doll clothes for you anymore." Asai, who had come in from the cold outside, stood there abruptly and said while removing his gloves. "That’s not true. Big Sister will be back soon." Oima started to say something to Shizuko, who was gazing at her with a lonely expression, then stood up while brushing off thread scraps and brought out Asai’s change of clothes there. The underkimono to be worn tomorrow morning was half-finished there. In Oima’s heart vaguely floated scenes of entering her provincial town dressed entirely in Tokyo style—her pride in that moment; reuniting with her brother and mother to declare her unshakable resolve; regaining her freedom; and the mingled joy and anxiety of returning to Tokyo once more.

“Once she goes back, that’ll be the end of it anyway.” Omasu had said this even in front of Oima, but the path of decline awaiting her had not yet taken clear shape in Oima’s mind. “I will come back no matter what.” “I’ll definitely be back by New Year’s.” Oima insisted each time. Asai sat by the brazier, eagerly flipping through the train timetable he had bought.

“This one looks good. The morning express...” Asai pointed to that section and showed it to Oima, who was making tea.

Oima placed her hands there and leaned in close, gazing at the timetable spread out on the tatami. A suffocating tightness rose in her chest, as if some powerful force were crushing her body. Now that her departure for the countryside had been settled, whatever had been wedged between them was suddenly lifted from their hearts.

“When I come out next time… may I come back here again?”

Oima suddenly raised her head as if recalling something. “Of course.” Asai nodded in reply, yet a secret desire—to place this woman somewhere else—had freshly surged within him. “But trying to properly help Oima here might prove inconvenient.” Asai spoke while sensing his own dangerous curiosity—the sort that seemed to stir women into action. From behind the hushed room’s fusuma door could be seen Shizuko’s figure turned away as she dressed and undressed her dolls. Those eyes occasionally looked back this way.

The old maidservant, who had gone out to buy vegetables, and Omasu, returning from the hospital, happened to meet.

The next morning, when Oima was leaving, Asai was still asleep in the second-floor bedroom. The commotion downstairs reached his drowsy ears.

Before long, Oima came upstairs and appeared at the bedside in her traveling attire.

“Well then, I’ll be going back for a while.” Placing her hands there, Oima offered a formal farewell.

Thirty-Eight After sending Oima back, Asai felt a simple loneliness filling his heart—as if suddenly released from the distress that had been constricting his chest these past days. While Omasu, who had taken Shizuko to see Oima off at the station, did not return until nearly two hours later, Asai lay drowsing in his bedroom, adrift in aimless thoughts; yet he found himself vaguely dissatisfied by this scene—like a stage play that had ended without proper resolution. Soon a new curtain seemed poised to rise there, through his manipulation alone.

“I’m home. Thank you for everything.” Omasu, who on her way back had taken Shizuko’s hand and strolled leisurely through Ginza before buying small celluloid dolls and animals, rolled several of them across Asai’s bedside and laughed with apparent amusement. “Take a look at this, will you?” “Hm-hm.” Asai, also laughing, picked up the animals with weights attached to their rears and gazed at them. “When I go outside, young women catch my eye, you know.”

Omasu murmured as if remembering something as she was about to rise from the bedside. “When it comes down to it, a woman’s prime is only from sixteen or seventeen to twenty-two or twenty-three. Their complexion is completely different. Men aren’t so bad, but when women get old, they’re completely done for.”

Asai was still chuckling softly. When Asai left his bed, finished his breakfast, dressed himself in his new Western-style clothes, and departed the house, courage and cheerfulness surged once more through the healthy veins of his entire body. In the crowded train car where he sat spreading open his newspaper, even that morning's impression of Oima had already begun fading from his mind—yet he found himself inexplicably intrigued by what might become of the woman's circumstances upon her return.

As Asai’s gaze fell upon the bold, stimulating print of bloody tabloid crime reports—murders and suicides—the matter of Oyanagi, who had reportedly gone mad after returning to the countryside, suddenly surfaced in his mind. Asai closed his eyes and tried to imagine the wretched fate that had befallen the woman he had parted from. Back when they were together, her repugnant habits, lewd body, slovenly life, profligacy, chronic illness, and hysterical jealousy had entwined themselves around his heart—and even now, whenever these memories surfaced, they stirred his heart with intense hatred.

"Oima too might end up like that once she gets older," Asai thought. He even considered this. A feeling of pity toward Oyanagi—who had been dragged down by her money-blinded brother into the abyss of despair—gradually seeped and spread through his chest. The fact of Oyanagi's madness had been learned through a letter from her brother addressed to Kobayashi. From the letter's wording, it could be inferred that the severance money she took had quickly vanished. Even while she was still in Tokyo, Kobayashi's account made clear that much had already been squandered by her brother's hand. By the time she returned to the countryside, little remained that could be called Oyanagi's own. Her brother, having unexpectedly obtained a large sum, was suddenly gripped by reckless speculation fever and appeared to have pocketed the funds to gamble on market ventures.

It was at the beginning of this winter that Oyanagi suddenly declared one evening that she would go to Tokyo and began causing a commotion. Resenting being treated as a nuisance by her sister-in-law—who had many children to look after—Oyanagi had already started two or three major fights with her brother before this.

“Now，it seemed she was cursing her own brother more than you or your wife.”

Asai had also been told such things by Kobayashi.

Thirty-Nine

Asai entered the company office and sat down at his usual desk—cluttered with account books and ledgers—but his mind remained unsettled. At the company, which operated in building contracting and real estate brokerage among other businesses, Asai had recently come to occupy a considerable position; but reaching that point had required various personal vicissitudes. Asai, who no longer had to bow his head to anyone within the company, would sometimes look back on the past and could not help but gaze at his own feet where he stood. The various women he had been involved with flashed through his mind. Ever since joining forces with Omasu—skilled at managing finances and keeping him in good spirits—his reach had expanded rapidly.

“If you stay with someone like Oyanagi-san, you’ll never get anywhere in life.” There had been a time when Omasu had told him such things, and Asai found himself nodding in agreement within his heart. “Besides, I’m just in the prime of my working life. If I just steer clear of women from now on, I could build up a respectable fortune.”

Asai muttered this to himself, but even that alone seemed unlikely to bring him day-to-day satisfaction. "You should take a little from the women too, you know." Omasu said this as if making a joke.

“Then that still won’t do.” “It’s precisely because I spend money that it’s interesting.” As he dealt with customers and wrote replies to letters, noon soon arrived. Amidst his absorption in tangled office work, thoughts of Oima would occasionally surface in his busy mind. He found himself eagerly anticipating what kind of letters the girl would write now that they were separated, yet he could already imagine the vexations—both internal and external—that would arise were he to make the woman his own.

Around four o'clock, Asai left the company with a friend and soon entered a new avenue not far away. The narrow alley was lined on both sides with small food shops. Before long, the two men arrived at the entrance of a compact restaurant Asai frequented. After removing their shoes at the entryway, they were led by a stiffly formal woman to a chic private room on the second floor. A formal meal tray bearing chopsticks and sake cups was promptly placed before them. A woman with impeccable manners—so rigid it felt awkward—poured their drinks. Exchanging light, tasteful banter, the men began sipping slowly as topics shifted to company executives and rumors about directors. Stories of womanizing further enlivened the drinking atmosphere.

By the time they left that place, lamplight already flickered in the town. A short while before departing, Asai found himself drawn to the woman from Akasaka who had called the company. Asai had not met that woman for some time. "What's this? No matter when I call, you're never there." The woman asked with a laugh about Asai's well-being. "I've heard a few things about you from others."

“What? What’s that?” Asai replied with a somewhat flustered manner, though he thought it was likely some private matter he’d heard about from Kobayashi’s mistress or others within their circle.

For the first time in years, that evening, Asai quietly visited the house where Omasu used to live. As he climbed the broad staircase of the house—where almost none of the women from those days remained—the image of his former self, who had once made this his sole playground, rose before his eyes. “Well now! If it isn’t our mold-covered guest,” came the voice from the corridor. “You managed not to forget the way after all these years.” Caught by the old granny acquaintance, Asai stood rooted there wearing a thoroughly bewildered expression.

Forty

When she had first returned home, only two or three letters had come; then Oima, whose communication had abruptly ceased, suddenly came up to Tokyo after the tenth day of January the following year. It had been clear from the first letter that the marriage arrangement—entirely decided by her parents’ and brother’s will alone—was unlikely to be broken as Oima wished; yet as the negotiations dragged on, signs that the other side’s parents were beginning to change their minds could be inferred from later correspondence. From other families as well, marriage candidates with more substantial financial standing had been brought forward than from Oima’s own household. Among the marriage proposals that had been initiated earlier, there were one or two matches that had quite pleased the parents.

"...They say he fusses over nothing but refinement, so he's given the mediators endless trouble before." "I did meet that man at the matchmaking session, but truthfully I never properly saw what sort of person he was." "It was held at the mediator's house, but I shut my eyes tight and resolved to marry him anyway..."

Such things were written in the letters at first. “……It seems that due to the mediator’s irresponsibility, there was some misalignment in the negotiations." "The very notion of trying to place me into such a wealthy family was mistaken from the very beginning……."

The letter that arrived at year's end had such things written in it. "Wealthy family this, wealthy family that—just how much do they really have?" As he read the letter aloud to Omasu while questioning her, Oima's wilted demeanor struck him as pitiable. "Even if they've built it up, it's just first-generation wealth—nothing so grand, I'd say." In Oima's mind, having newly arrived in Tokyo, the turmoil she'd experienced around those events still hadn't fully settled. When Oima—wearing Omasu's altered old coat and bringing back luggage once sent away—arrived at their home, the Asai couple stood by the dinner table teasing Shizuko with boisterous laughter; but Oima, feeling self-conscious, lingered hesitantly outside, seeming too awkward to even show her face there.

“Look, Sis has come. It’s your favorite Sis, you know.” Omasu, leaning against her own knees and gazing shyly at Oima’s face, began to speak to Shizuko, but her own face showed no expression. “Hmm, hmm.” As Asai smoked his tobacco, he offered casual responses to Oima’s gradually unfolding story, but soon his eyelids grew heavy, and he withdrew upstairs. “I’ve never had such a dreary New Year as this one.”

Oima stepped back, took out the souvenirs she had brought from her luggage, placed them there, and with a finally settled expression, began to speak. “And by going there, I truly came to understand what I disliked about the countryside.” “No matter what I have to do, I’ve decided I’ll live in Tokyo.” “So, it’ll be settled here after all.” Omasu said offhandedly.

“What kind of person is the groom? Has the marriage arrangement been settled already?” The man who still couldn’t put Oima out of his mind—rumors of his still-unsettled marriage arrangement had reached even her ears.

Forty-One The fact that the man who had been chosen as her husband—after the increasingly strained emotions between him and his parents and others had clashed—had fled alone to Tokyo following Oima’s arrival in the city became known through a letter the man soon sent to her. The letter signed “Muro Shizuo” was exceedingly brief in wording, yet passion yearning for Oima overflowed between the lines. Muro had just turned twenty-four. “……I would like to meet you directly just once and have you fully hear what I hold in my heart. I would be satisfied with that……” Such self-deprecating words were strung together.

“What a foolish man.”

Omasu laughed at the letter Asai was reading aloud in a low voice, but Oima appeared utterly unmoved. "But making her hesitate like this is pitiful, don't you think? We ought to do something for her, don't you think?"

Omasu glanced back at Oima. "How do you think she feels getting a letter like this?" "Doesn't feel bad, I'd say."

Asai placed the letter there while laughing. "If they can settle things between themselves, what will the parents do?"

Having said that, Omasu asked Asai. Omasu could not overlook the pensive expression in Oima’s eyes—now even more lustrous than before her return home—as they lingered on Asai. One night while sleeping together, Omasu—appearing to realize Asai’s absence—suddenly woke. The image of a scene she had once seen in a moving picture—now emerging in the dream she’d just had—rose to her weary mind. Amidst a grove of deep green trees swaying in the wind, a single pallid road stretched endlessly onward. There, the faint figure of a man chasing a woman could be discerned. That seemed to be Asai and Oima. Suddenly within a white bed, Oima’s large face with mongrel-like eyes and Asai’s well-formed head loomed into view. Asai’s sleeping face—unlike any she had seen before—appeared yellow and murky in the faint red electric light, striking Omasu’s awakened eyes as eerily unsettling.

To Omasu’s eyes, which were fixedly staring at the ceiling, the figure of Oyanagi—who had gone mad and died—appeared vividly.

The notification from Oyanagi’s brother—reporting that she had died after sometimes breaking free from her family’s restraints and rampaging through the house in desperate attempts to go to Tokyo—had reached Asai only recently. Oyanagi rushed out of her bedroom in the dead of night and hurriedly ran to the police box through the desolate countryside town, still wearing nothing but her underrobe and bare feet. “Forgive me for troubling you, but right now a man has broken into my house saying he’ll kill me….”

Oyanagi said this with a pale, corpse-like face, only her sunken eyes gleaming.

There, the brother came chasing after her. A fierce struggle between the brother and Oyanagi began by the roadside. Terrifying strength dwelled in Oyanagi’s emaciated arm. Oyanagi, who had been dragged away, was bound with a soft sash and laid down in her bedroom, but she no longer had the strength to struggle.

While her brother was away, Oyanagi would sometimes act out violently, giving her elderly mother trouble. With the help of people from the neighborhood joining forces, the mother finally managed to tie her daughter to a pillar. When signs of madness began to appear, they took her to the wellside, and the people doused Oyanagi’s head with water.

Oyanagi’s body visibly deteriorated.

Forty-Two

When news of Oyanagi’s death arrived, Omasu had separately sent a condolence gift; but her brother at that time appeared to be in such dire financial straits that he could not even afford proper medical care for his bedridden sister. Before her death, numerous pleas for money had come to Asai through Kobayashi. Asai granted one out of every three such requests. “If only that money had actually reached Oyanagi-san.”

“In the end, that’ll just become fertilizer for her brother.” “What does a madman know?” Asai smiled bitterly. The tragic circumstances of Oyanagi’s death were imagined in various ways. The madwoman, who had sunk into terrible despondency, rarely spoke even to her brother or sister-in-law under normal circumstances. The mother nursing the patient confined to a separate room would only occasionally whisper timidly. Her manner—alternating between fearing her brother and being wary of her sister-in-law—was vividly apparent in every movement. At even the slightest noise or voices outside, her eyes would fly open in anxiety, her sharp nerves having grown deeply suspicious.

A considerable time later, after Kobayashi had conveyed such matters—which reached Omasu from her mother, who had come to visit once when she happened to be in Tokyo—Omasu began to occasionally have dreams of Oyanagi.

“There’s something off about your nerves too.” “There’s no telling if Oyanagi isn’t haunting you from beyond the grave.” Asai jeered. Muro Shizuo, who had received no response whatsoever from Oima, came to visit Asai after a considerable time had passed. He paced back and forth before the gate repeatedly before finally entering. When his tall, lanky figure came into view of Omasu—who had casually stepped outside—she recognized him instantly as the sender of the recent letter, but with Asai absent, she couldn’t determine whether to invite him inside. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to simply turn away this young man who knew so much about her household.

After some time passed, Muro—who had been shown upstairs—left behind souvenirs he had purchased on his way and soon departed without any substantive conversation; however, during their casual talk, he hinted at his own resolution: that for the time being he would remain in Tokyo and either re-enter school or, if that proved impossible, sell his body somewhere to devise a way to support himself. “Oima, why don’t you bring some tea or something?”

Omasu descended to the lower floor and whispered to Oima, who had withdrawn to the back, but Oima did not respond. "I hope to have the honor of meeting your husband soon and hearing your various opinions."

Muro left with those words, wearing a somewhat satisfied expression. "He’s not such a bad man, you know." "I tell you, he’s a fine catch."

Omasu later spoke to Oima, who was tidying up the room. “But wasn’t it their side that broke off the engagement?” “But you can’t act recklessly. It wouldn’t be good for him either.” When Asai returned home that evening and heard about Oima’s situation, he echoed these sentiments—yet it seemed to him that with a single strategic move of his own, he could bend the fates of those two however he wished.

Forty-Three Asai continued to welcome Muro—who kept visiting from time to time—with goodwill and curiosity, even going so far as to take him out to eat in the downtown area together with Omasu on one occasion. Muro—who would turn bright red after just two or three cups of sake—was drawn out by Asai’s frank demeanor and spilled his innermost thoughts in a torrent of words, but the young man’s obsessive fixations and neurotic gloom left Asai feeling ill at ease.

"When you're young, everyone goes through that sort of experience." "There comes a phase when no other woman in the world seems to exist."

Asai responded lightly but disliked being perceived as unsympathetic. “Anyway, why don’t you wait a bit longer now, watch for the right moment, and try talking to her family in the countryside again?” Though stating a moderate opinion befitting Oima’s guardian, Asai felt his interest grow stronger—this desire to keep the woman’s heart tethered to him indefinitely. Were Oima to marry this man—such possibilities played out vividly in his mind.

“Excuse my impertinence, but in your opinion, what are the feelings of the person herself?” “For me in this situation, that remains the foremost issue…”

Muro asked this. "There's nothing particular to say—she doesn't have any clear thoughts." "After all, she's still young."

Asai answered, but Omasu interjected from beside him. "If we act now, that girl could be swayed either way." After leaving that place and parting with Muro along the way, the Asai couple—who had recently sold their villa in Negishi to open a shop selling Western liquors, canned goods, and tobacco on Kanda’s main street—stopped by Inkyo’s place before returning home. "I wonder how he’d feel," Omasu began while picturing Muro’s figure in her mind’s eye within the train car, "being so fixated on one woman like that—if his wish actually came true."

“If it’s that man, he’d protect Oima alone his whole life.” Asai chuckled softly at the corner of his mouth. “But even so, that doesn’t seem very interesting.” At Inkyo’s house in Kanda, it was mentioned from Oyoshi’s mouth that the shop’s business was better than initially expected.

Inkyo had drunk too much and hurt his stomach, so he was lying down in the back room.

Two or three young men were reading newspapers and greeting customers in front of the counter where Oyoshi sat, but since moving here, her lifted spirits became evident through her animated face and demeanor. A twenty-four- or twenty-five-year-old man named Kiyokichi, who had experience in such business, seemed to be managing everything; but for Oyoshi—who had long been dispirited from humoring the difficult Inkyo—interacting with these young shop employees through recording sales and conducting transactions held a certain novelty.

“Thanks to your help, I must say things are more or less coming together.”

Oyoshi spoke to the two who were hunting for unusual foods and such. The gentle-mannered Kiyokichi came over and showed them various goods and such.

“The master, you see, truly doesn’t understand a thing, I must say.” Oyoshi prepared the tobacco and handed it to Omasu as she spoke. “If it weren’t for this person here, we couldn’t run the shop at all.”

Oyoshi said while looking at Kiyokichi, who was beside her wrapping the couple’s purchases. Those long, large eyes of hers had a dewy luster. “Oyoshi-san isn’t even thirty yet, you know.” As Omasu left that place, she addressed Asai.

Forty-Four

After Shizuko, who had developed a rather serious case of pneumonia from a mere cold, was admitted to a pediatric hospital within the same ward, Omasu had to stay there nearly every day. Even when at work, Asai—constantly preoccupied with Shizuko’s illness—was so unsettled he could scarcely focus on his tasks. The cold that had begun to relent retreated once more, and for days on end, the cherry branches—which had brought spring-like softness and vitality—seemed to shudder against the piercing remnants of winter’s chill. In the hospital room, mist sprayed from the inhaler left running nonstop, clinging to the white ceiling and fogged glass windows, leaving the blankets and futon perpetually damp.

Asai—who never neglected to bring toys on his way—would often spend half a day or more alternating between lying down and sitting up in the hospital room, keeping watch over the patient drifting in and out of a comatose state from high fever; meanwhile, Shizuko wheezed through labored breathing, her body having grown so frail she lacked even the strength to mind the fine droplets trickling down her face and hair. In the thick, billowing mist, as the lonely electric light began to glow, Asai—who had been gazing at the thermometer he’d just placed—bade Shizuko farewell and quietly left the room.

“Tomorrow Papa will bring you something nice again, so even if it’s a bother, you must keep those compresses on properly.” Asai put on his hat and peered once more at the child’s face as he spoke. Is she really my own child? The ever-present doubt Omasu had lived with—never finding a moment to examine—now rose again in her heart at this juncture. Whether such natural affection could truly blossom toward a child not of her blood remained beyond her grasp—she who had never known childbirth herself.

"If you want to see this child’s mother, I’ll introduce her anytime." Asai brought up the matter of that woman living in the countryside near Tokyo, but Omasu herself could not see it as desirable for Shizuko to develop homesickness through associating with such a woman.

“Please send Oima-chan over here right away.” Omasu began to say to Asai as he was leaving, leaning her face out the doorway. By the sickbed during lulls when nurses were absent, they had grown so emotionally entangled that they’d already exchanged several arguments about Oima. “What do you mean by keeping my unmarried daughter at your side?” “Oima has Muro too.” Asai snorted through his nose. But since coming to the hospital, the very possibility of situations where he and Oima might be left alone at home filled Omasu with anxiety.

“Papa and Sis, what were you talking about here?” After Oima—who had been stationed by the patient’s side—left for her shift change, Omasu would ask such things of Shizuko, who gazed at her face with clouded yet perceptive eyes, but she could glean nothing from the child. Unable to wait any longer for Oima’s belated arrival, Omasu entrusted the patient to the nurse and emerged from the stifling hospital room where she had been confined since morning.

Outside, night had grown quite deep. The sky held dewy starlight, and spring evening air brushed against her face with soft moisture. Alighting from the rickshaw, she clattered open the lattice door. From the solemn quiet of inner rooms, Oima hurried out—but Asai lay sprawled by the brazier as though nothing concerned him. The dinner table remained set there.

Forty-Five By the third week of her hospitalization—on a chosen warm day before Shizuko was brought home—Muro had visited the hospital once or twice himself, that place where one couldn’t let down their guard. Muro managed his monthly expenses—somehow making ends meet—with money he occasionally procured from the branch office in Nihonbashi. The unexpected pocket money his mother secretly sent there, tucked inside kimonos and letters addressed to that office, was no small sum either.

“Depending on how things go, I’m thinking of renting a house here in Tokyo.” Muro had grown so close to Omasu that he would come to the patient’s bedside and share private talks about how his relationship with his family hadn’t become as hostile as they’d initially feared. “But they’d never accept Oima in the countryside.” Omasu would occasionally probe.

“No, that’s not necessarily so,” Muro replied. “It’s become known that there’s a patron like Mr. Asai involved.” “Once we settle matters with his country family,” Omasu countered, “he isn’t the sort to abandon his wife entirely. Of course he can’t accomplish anything grand, but I expect he means to do something substantial.” She had grown so fondly familiar with this distantly related man—their bond strengthened through their Tokyo acquaintance—that she found herself revealing details of her personal affairs and financial situation.

Muro showed Omasu letters from a sister concerned about her runaway brother. The words carried such childlike naivety and tenderness that they felt almost painfully raw to Omasu, who had grown up without such familial warmth. She found herself remembering the brother who had died of beriberi heart disease back when she still worked as a geisha. This brother from whom she'd parted in childhood had spent years working at a trading firm in Kobe. Through occasional news from their mother in the countryside, they could barely confirm each other's survival - their relationship had grown that distant.

“You mustn’t go wasting money on such things and worrying everyone.”

Omasu saw Muro off at the hospital room doorway while saying those words, then they parted. Their conversation had remained somber for some time.

Shizuko, who had been discharged from the hospital, was made to sit on the futon laid out in the downstairs tatami room, her face still completely pallid with no signs of recovery. Dolls, household tools, picture books, and other playthings that had been brought in a basket were spread out all over there.

Outside, the spring wind kicked up white dust, and beside the hand-washing basin in the parched garden, a variegated camellia bloomed.

“Thank you for your trouble.” Asai called out to the women—so busy they scarcely had time to properly arrange their hair—while gazing at the patient he had finally secured as his own. The child stared about with wide, azure-tinged eyes entranced by the unfamiliar surroundings. “I ought to do something for Oima as thanks.” Asai began to say. “Since she wants a ring, should I buy her one?”

Oima was carrying blankets imbued with the scent of medicine and a merino futon up to the second floor to air them out in the sun.

Forty-Six

After the distribution of aired bedding and such was completed, the pearl-inlaid ring that Asai had bought in passing from Ginza one evening was taken out from his briefcase before Omasu. “Hmm, let me take a look,” Omasu said, picking it up with her gloved hand to examine it. “How chic—eighteen-karat gold, I wonder?” Omasu slipped it onto her slender finger and held it up to the light to examine. “It’s cheap, but it can pass as decent. “Give it to Oima.”

Oima, who owned nothing more than a simple ruby ring and a heart-shaped one, would sometimes compare her hands with Omasu’s when going out, growing dissatisfied—a fact Asai had long been aware of. Oima’s dissatisfied expression wasn’t limited to just the ring. The contents of Omasu’s dresser and vanity—growing more abundant with each passing month—gradually began to captivate Oima’s heart, which had initially regarded such things with scornful sidelong glances. The serge coat that had been remade and given to her before she once went back to the countryside had come to seem terribly shabby to the present Oima even for brief outings.

“No one wears coats like this anymore.”

Oima kept insisting, as if it were Omasu’s fault or something. Oima’s growing willfulness was both infuriating and disheartening to Omasu. “That’s more than enough for you.” “What do you think will happen if you keep wanting nothing but nice things from now on?” “You’d do well to remember how things were when you first arrived here.” Omasu couldn’t help but bring up how Oima had been when she first arrived—still unaccustomed to Tokyo—and the kindness both Asai and she herself had shown in caring for her all this time.

To Omasu, who would go out with Asai and such, Oima would sometimes show a displeased look. “Since there’s no pearl one, I’ll keep this for myself.” With those words, Omasu placed the ring into her pouch. “In that case, you keep that one, and I’ll get you something else with a high-relief design instead.”

Asai said with a laugh.

“You mustn’t. It’s because you pamper her so much that she’s grown utterly presumptuous. She’s changed completely these days. It’s your fault.” “But there’s no helping it. When people count on me like this, I have to do my part properly. And if Muro’s arrangement gets settled from here on out, all the more reason I can’t just abandon it.” Their quarrel grew fiercer, starting from Oima’s usual antics and spiraling into other matters. Even that woman in Akasaka—the one always indulging herself under pretense of flower arrangements—came spilling from your lips.

“No matter how hard I work to manage things, it’s utterly pointless.” “At home there’s Oima-chan making extravagant demands, and out there I’m being wrung dry—what good does it do for me alone to fret?”

Omasu’s tone grew slightly more animated. “Don’t be absurd! Whose doing do you think it is that you can wear kimonos to your heart’s content? Whatever I do out there—whether I’m fooling around or whatever—I haven’t done anything so irresponsible that you’d have cause to complain.”

For the usually kind-hearted Asai, an uncharacteristic remark escaped his lips.

Oima was in the kitchen, where not a sound could be heard, listening to it.

Forty-Seven The next morning, Omasu took entirely into her own hands Asai’s meal preparations—tasks that had always fallen to Oima each day—and busied herself meticulously with an air of confidence. In how she cut and arranged the pickles too, she felt her own methods—having long understood Asai’s temperament—suited his mood perfectly. “Good morning.” Before Oima’s eyes, Omasu deliberately put on a solemn face and offered her husband a formal greeting. Asai had just come downstairs from the second floor. Since returning from the hospital, Oima had grown noticeably listless; with eyelids still swollen and a sleep-dulled face, she stood before the mirror in the dimly lit tearoom, fussing with her hair or dabbing on face powder.

Oima, who was usually restless, this morning had a face stiff with tension that showed not even a trace of liveliness, and her words to Omasu and others came heavily. Last night’s quarrel between Omasu and her husband had escalated so fiercely that even after Asai went upstairs, Omasu—still in a foul mood toward her—climbed up after him in a barbed tone. The ring she had refused to accept, which had been tossed onto the step board, had vanished somewhere. These things—along with the hushed stillness of the second floor after their fight died down—gnawed at her sleepless mind until frustration and sorrow soaked her pillow paper through.

On a damp, rainy evening—one where she had assumed Asai was either at the hospital or with that geisha he frequented named Nanako—the memory of him returning home drunk well past midnight, after she had already closed the front door, rose vividly before Oima’s eyes. By the time she finished hurriedly lighting the fire and boiling water, with Asai at her side, their conversation had drawn them upstairs to lay out the bedding—it was already past two o’clock. Amidst anxiety and terror, a dreamlike, fleeting half-night passed.

Secret opportunities were created by Asai two or even three times over. Even when facing Omasu’s terrifying countenance at the patient’s bedside, Oima found her heart gnawed by a sense of helplessness. A coquettish arrogance and unrestrained lust had gradually begun to thrust her shameless self before Omasu as well. After handing Asai the toothpicks and powder herself, Omasu took the metal basin filled with lukewarm water drawn from the copper kettle, along with the soapbox, out to the veranda beyond the glass-paned door. In the garden, most of the camellias decayed into rust-colored hues, while early summer sunlight streamed through the young leaves of maples and other trees. From somewhere came the slow sound of a distant clock.

Even during breakfast, Omasu sat right beside Asai and attended to him. And whenever Asai began to say something, she would respond politely with “Haah, haah.” Her straight hair was neatly combed back, and the light blue headscarf made her dusky face appear strikingly spirited. “I’ll handle the second floor.”

Omasu watched Oima—who had been doing nothing but hiding in the shadows—begin ascending to the second floor and started to speak. The second floor's flooring still remained untouched. "You mustn't come up here, Shizu-chan—" Oima called down in a grudging voice to Shizuko, who had poked her face out midway up the step ladder.

Forty-Eight

In the house without Asai, when Omasu could no longer bear just exchanging glances with Oima, she would take Shizuko out to visit places like the home of the mother and child said to be the professor’s illegitimate offspring or Inkyo’s shop in Kanda. At such times, Omasu felt a loneliness in her heart, for Oyuki—with whom she could share unguarded personal stories—had gone on a working trip to the Tohoku region with Aoyagi and was not in Tokyo.

“This time, I’m going to be in a play too,” she said.

Shortly before departing on her trip, Oyuki had come to Omasu’s place to say goodbye and, as usual, stayed for about two days while laughing mockingly at her own changing circumstances. Aoyagi no longer had any stages left to climb in Tokyo. It was autumn in the countryside—the season when the harvest had ended and income flowed in. It seemed some contract had been concluded somewhere, for Oyuki’s attire appeared comparatively neat. The newly tailored coat and umbrella also caught Omasu’s attention. Omasu found herself pondering deeply—as she often did about Oyuki—how much longer this woman could maintain such a carefree attitude, yet there was no discernible change in Oyuki’s disposition; if anything, she seemed to take pride in it.

“So my act will be Agoya.” Omasu didn’t truly understand what Agoya meant. “Huh—you can do something like that?” “It’s all just imitation anyway.” “Depending on how things go, I might take it on tour through Hokkaido.” “If that happens, we’ll make piles of money—then I’ll pay back what I owe you.” After saying this and leaving, Oyuki sent no further word. The wretchedness of Oyuki—clinging to some mediocre performer who’d never rise to fame, carelessly growing older year by year—struck Omasu as pitiful indeed. Yet in her own moments of frustration, she felt constrained by her diligent nature—utterly incapable of adopting even momentarily Oyuki’s carefree attitude.

“In the end, that woman might just drop dead in a ditch somewhere.” Though Omasu occasionally discussed rumors about Oyuki with Asai, she couldn’t help but contemplate her own fate—clinging to this man whose affections drifted from woman to woman. “Still thinking about that sort of thing?” Whenever Asai noticed the kimonos in Omasu’s dresser or the savings passbook in her household chest—concrete evidence she never neglected preparing money and goods for her eventual future—he would offer this remark with his habitual bitter smile. Yet during jealous quarrels, he’d spitefully hurl those very preparations back in her face.

However, during their harmonious times, that money had again been transferred to Asai’s side according to the circumstances of each occasion. “The master took it from me again.”

Omasu would later have moments of startled realization about these things, but in those instances, she still couldn’t bring herself to keep up any pretense of concealment. As she spent the day strolling outside with Shizuko, the hatred she had felt toward Oima when leaving the house could not help but gradually melt away within Omasu’s desolate heart.

The shop in Kanda was thriving ever more. The youthful glow of Oyoshi’s complexion seemed enviable to Omasu. Having sat in the tearoom whiling away the hours with tiresome family talk, Omasu boarded the streetcar with a mood wholly unlike what she’d felt when arriving.

Forty-Nine

Omasu grew restless in the streetcar, thinking Asai must have already returned home by now, yet she found herself repeatedly pondering what Inkyo had told her. "You should send Oima-san away somewhere while you still can." "Depending on how things go, I could have my relatives take her in for the time being." Inkyo, as usual, shook his alcohol-flushed face and said. Oyoshi, who offered no opinions on such matters, occasionally blushing, responded to Omasu’s conversation.

“Poor Oima-san too. She must want a husband—why not have her marry that wealthy family’s son?” Omasu could not help considering the young woman’s fate even after sending her away. She was loath to let Oima’s brother in the countryside learn what her husband had done. She found herself unable to simply hate them both for their deeds. The town’s flickering lamplight and blue willow shadows drifted past Omasu’s darkened eyes, dreamlike, keeping pace with the streetcar’s motion. A cool summer evening wind blew through the window, moistening her parched skin like wilted leaves reviving.

What was the use of thinking so far ahead? Omasu soon returned to her usual self. She couldn’t go on enduring these wretched feelings forever—she had to do something. She recalled how she had once pulled Oima close and wrung her dry. Around that same period she had heard what sounded like an apologetic confession from Asai too—but even then things between them didn’t truly resolve. “What’s wrong? Why don’t you tell me everything?”

Omasu pressed Oima in a calm tone, but Oima remained silent, keeping her head bowed. Her eyes were clouded with tears. "...Then that's too cruel of you, Oima." Omasu found herself pitiable for having finally come to be treated this way. Overcome with jealousy, she felt like tearing Oima apart—or clinging to her and weeping—but still she couldn't bring herself to lose composure.

The hearts of the two, chilled by regret and shame, were drawn back together once more. The absence of Asai's figure beside her even when they slept at home would sometimes abruptly fray Omasu's nerves in the late-night hours when she lay awake. In the lonely glow of the predawn electric lamp, Omasu had to wait with feigned composure for time to pass, her anguished heart battling those cruel yet sweet illusions. "I must separate Oima quickly."

Omasu agonized over such thoughts until she grew frantic, yet still no method came to mind. "When the day comes to wound that child," she said, "there's nothing I won't do."

Omasu vented her complaints to Asai. “If you do that, it won’t end well for you either.” Asai was laughing.

Fifty

It was around the time when cool weather began to set in that year that Omasu, taking advantage of Asai’s absence while he was away in the countryside visiting his uncle—the same uncle whose financial support he had relied on during his student days—consulted with Kobayashi and others and finally succeeded in hiding Oima. Even before that, there had been no end to the frequent conflicts between Omasu and Oima. Oima would sometimes gather her belongings in some secluded corner and try to slip out of the house in a fit of anger, or act as if she had resolved to die—to the point that Omasu grew unsettled—and then spend two or three days with a gloomy expression, shut away in the dreary four-and-a-half-mat room next to the kitchen. The marriage proposals that Kobayashi had brought in for Oima only threw her rebellious heart into further confusion.

“I’m sorry for causing you worry, Sis.” “As for my body… it matters little what becomes of it. Please do as everyone sees fit…”

Oima uttered such resigned words while her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Anyway, why not let her be independent as she wishes?” “Once I’ve taken responsibility, I have obligations to fulfill.” With Asai’s opposition framed this way, those plans ultimately fell through. After Asai departed for the countryside, Omasu hit upon the idea of bringing Muro along too—the three of them wandering Asakusa, sharing meals, trying to familiarize Oima with the man. “Even now, you’re still hung up on that person, aren’t you.”

When Oima was absent, Omasu quietly questioned Muro, but keeping this secret from the man felt terrifyingly hollow. "Why do you ask?"

Muro grinned slyly, as though he wanted to say just that. "That person is such a nuisance too." Omasu couldn’t help but hold back the secret that had nearly reached her lips. "Why don’t you try asking her properly yourself?"

At that moment, Oima, who had gone out briefly, entered. The three of them sat talking in a neat private room at a fowl restaurant, drinking beer and cider. Beyond the bamboo blinds draping the corridor railing, in the garden's artfully arranged pond, cool water cascaded while large scarlet carp glided beneath. The sunlight had already grown faint upon the azure water's surface. Shadows from blue-tinged garden trees fell across their faces—still flushed from bathing—as they sat. Oima spread a handkerchief over her plump knees and occasionally wet her throat with cider, but she scarcely exchanged words with Muro.

At times, Muro would fall into a gloomy silence. “You’re truly so earnest.” Omasu poured beer for him and such, but Muro only took occasional sips with a pained expression. “Why don’t you two go somewhere together next time?” Omasu began speaking with growing confidence but ultimately botched it herself.

In the evening, the three of them left there and soon returned home by train.

“No good. No good.”

Omasu entered the house and, without even removing her kimono, plopped down and let out a sigh.

"He doesn't understand people's feelings at all—what on earth is wrong with him?"

Fifty-One

Omasu had found a seemingly respectable house near Kobayashi’s place and moved Oima there. A considerable time had passed since then when Asai finally returned from the countryside.

That house belonged to an elderly couple—salaried workers—who were related by marriage to Kobayashi’s mistress. Having received a basic assortment of personal belongings from Omasu, Oima—now set to live on the second floor of that house—left Asai's residence one evening, feeling both the anxiety and interest of someone establishing a household for the first time. The items Omasu had gathered from around there for Oima’s sake mostly left her dissatisfied. Oima found her heart lingering over Omasu’s dressing table, combs and hairpins, collar fasteners, paper holders, and other assorted personal effects.

“If I buy a new one, I’ll give it to you, but for now make do with that. A mirror stand should be more than enough for now.” Omasu said this while smoking tobacco by the long brazier, but Oima’s tenacity seemed to cling to her like a persistent vine, making it irksome. Oima, who had been fidgeting restlessly with something in her room for what felt like an eternity, finally left the house dejectedly when dusk had deepened enough to obscure people’s faces.

“Shizu-chan, goodbye.” Oima left through the gate while calling out to Shizuko, who had clung persistently to her side as she packed her belongings. Early the next morning, Oima entered claiming she had forgotten something and rummaged through the closet in her accustomed room, while Omasu watched in silence.

“If it’s now, I don’t care how many times you come, but once the master returns, you must not.”

Omasu pressed her point to ensure she was heard. "Oh, I won't come around again, I promise." The exhaustion from Oima's sleepless night of agonizing over her circumstances showed through even beneath the white powder covering her rough skin. Her eyes had lost their clarity too. Long after the early-rising couple downstairs had gone to bed, Oima would sometimes flick the lights back on to sit at her desk, or quietly slide open the wooden door of her sweltering room to press her feverish face against the night breeze. The room still trapped the day's residual heat like a lingering illness, making the night restless and unbearable. Only when dawn's damp chill crept in did her frayed nerves - worn thin by resentment and helpless frustration - finally settle into uneasy calm.

Oima played with Shizuko and the others for a while but soon left to go back. “Muro-san will definitely ask about you. I wonder what I should tell him.” Omasu brought up rumors about Muro two or three times in an attempt to pique Oima’s interest, but Oima remained composed each time. “Cousin, you’re being quite selfish.” Oima seemed to want to say that and more.

Omasu also took Shizuko along two or three times, bought some tea sweets on the way, and visited the second floor there.

From the latticed second-floor window, the neighbors gathering at the water tap below and the back gates of their houses were clearly visible. By the water tap, the hot lingering summer sun blazed relentlessly.

Tedious days continued day after day.

When she sat still in her room, Oima sometimes felt her stagnant mind might go mad.

Fifty-Two "I did consider consulting you, but since that would have complicated matters, I sent Oima-chan away while you were out." Omasu addressed Asai in formal tones as he returned from his trip, still unaware of recent developments. Asai was finally unpacking souvenirs from his uncle in the countryside—a man whose health remained uncertain, neither recovered nor declining. Omasu had heard this story long ago from Asai himself: how in his uncle’s household, a tragic incident had occurred decades earlier when the wife discovered her husband’s affair with her own younger sister and slit her throat in rage and shame.

“That’s how it would be.” When Asai told her about the younger sister who couldn’t bring herself to sever ties with her brother-in-law no matter what her elder sister said, and about that elder sister who had entered a storehouse, donned a white kosode, and slit her throat with a razor, Omasu had dismissed it all as nothing more than an old-fashioned tale from some distant countryside—the sort you might hear in a puppet theater ballad.

“What would you do if you were that sister?” Asai posed it as a jest. “If it were me, I wouldn’t kill myself or anything of the sort. I’d cast them out.” Omasu laughed as she said this. That incident she hadn’t recalled in years now rose vividly in her mind. She could see clearly her uncle who had cultivated grapes in the village and labored over wine-making. She imagined what sort of woman that wife who’d taken her own life must have been, and it struck her how the same blood seemed to flow through both uncle and nephew.

Asai had noticed that Oima’s whereabouts were being concealed, but he did not press the matter deeply at the time, though he felt uneasy that her future had been settled according to Omasu’s plans. “If you sent her out, fine. But where did you send her? Let’s hear it.” When under the influence of alcohol, Asai would press Omasu as though suddenly recalling something. “If you intend to hide things from me and act on your own, then I too shall henceforth refuse any consultation regarding Oima.”

Asai said this seriously as well. "No matter how much you hide her, if I decide to search, it's not difficult." "If push comes to shove, I could enlist the police's help or stir up the countryside and start poking around." He threatened. "Then go ahead and search if you want." Omasu insisted, but ultimately she couldn't keep hiding it. Even to settle matters with Muro, she couldn't manage without Asai's assistance.

It was not long after this that Oima began frequenting Asai's residence without disclosing her whereabouts.

53 “Coming to your place really clears my mind, Sis.” Having grown tired of the stifling inn room upstairs, Oima—who had come to visit Omasu—said this while gazing at the expensively furnished beautiful room and the immaculately maintained garden. By the sleeve fence, the leaves of the well-branched Japanese allspice had already begun turning yellow this year too. The autumn breeze rustled through the carefully shaped branches of potted pomegranate and zelkova trees she had diligently watered during her stay. Lately prone to sentimentalism, Oima’s heart couldn’t help but seep with helpless melancholy even at such sights. At Asai’s house—now livelier with an additional young maid and a boy claiming to be his sister’s son from the countryside—Oima felt mild resentment whenever she visited from her peripheral position. In the early evenings, people gathered in the downstairs parlor to laugh over their newly acquired gramophone. Through Oima’s eyes, Shizuko’s markedly matured demeanor after this single summer threw her own changing emotional circumstances into sharp relief.

“So, Oima-chan, are you finally going to have your wedding with Mr. Muro?” Asai, still at the dining table after his evening drink, called out when Oima—who had been avoiding him—suddenly came over and sat down. Oima had been on the veranda with Shizuko clinging to her, the mats damp with moisture. “Does Mr. Muro come by sometimes?”

Asai asked. “No.” Oima felt awkward being questioned about Muro, whom she had been taken by Omasu to visit at the inn again today.

“There were certain reasons, so I’ve sent her away for now.” Omasu had initially given this explanation but found herself unable to disclose Oima’s whereabouts to Muro; seeing the man’s desperate clinging demeanor pained her to observe. Even when seated directly across from him, Oima’s sparse replies only served to aggravate Muro’s irritation further. The torment of his apparent suspicions regarding their forced separation had become visible in Muro’s silently watchful eyes. Having left the inn behind, the three ultimately parted ways without addressing the issue during their journey.

"Oima deserves pity too." When Oima fell behind during their walk, Omasu murmured this like a veiled challenge, but Muro made no move to inquire further. In the parlor, they changed out several gramophone records. Having noticed Omasu's expression and withdrawn from Asai's side, Oima listened intently with the others. Yet the shrill singing and shamisen strings only churned her lonely heart more violently.

“Let’s all walk you there as a bit of exercise.”

As Oima was about to leave, Asai began to speak. Following Asai, who had slung a haori over his yukata and donned a Panama hat, Omasu also stepped outside, her bare feet thrust into sandals.

Through the dark townscape, the three of them wandered aimlessly. The Milky Way flowed low in the sky, and the night deepened with a damp stillness. "It’d be pitiful to send her back alone. Let’s escort her all the way to the villa." Asai laughed and followed persistently. The three had reached a point just two or three blocks before Oima's lodgings.

“We mustn’t—it’d be troublesome if we overstay.” “We’d be overstaying our welcome.” Omasu came to a halt at a crossroads corner, laughing. A watery wind blew through their sleeves and hems. 54 To the second floor where Muro would often visit Oima, Asai went together with Omasu or brought Shizuko along, occasionally making an appearance. After a young man managing a branch store connected to Muro’s family began frequently visiting Asai about Oima’s situation, Asai too found himself unable to avoid taking an active role in the matter.

“The old master doesn’t mean to say this marriage proposal is absolutely unacceptable, you understand.”

Wearing a work apron and looking every bit the respectable merchant, the man continued the discussion with those words. “It’s simply that it would now be discourteous to the person who previously arranged another marriage proposal for us.” Asai, who had accepted each of these explanations without question, proceeded to personally persuade Oima himself. At such times, no contradictions seemed to exist in Asai’s mind. He could only believe that with time, the cracks in Oima’s heart would be neatly sewn up or pressed smooth on their own.

At Asai’s direction, the formal kimono bearing the hem pattern he wanted to see on Oima was ordered when the three of them—Asai, Omasu, and Oima—visited Mitsukoshi not long after that at the end of October. Before Oima could clearly state whether she agreed or disagreed, the matter had been naturally settled. Oima would occasionally speak up in an agitated tone, voicing her own desires about the preparations to Asai alone. Each estimate Omasu prepared proved unsatisfactory to Oima’s rebelliously spoiled disposition.

At Asai’s place, during those occasional meetings with Muro when Oima would fuss over her hair and kimono, her fidgety demeanor began to appear hateful even to Omasu’s eyes. Oima would leave almost immediately after Muro departed, as if to flaunt it to Omasu. “When she acts like that, I just can’t stand it anymore. I don’t care about you at all anymore.”

Omasu, seeming irritated, later spoke to Asai. “It’s just her wanting to have as many preparations made as possible—even excessive ones.” By the time it was decided that only a private wedding ceremony would be held in Tokyo before year’s end, that clerk had come to Asai’s place time and again, while letters arrived from Oima’s brother and expenses for the preparations were sent. The matter progressed without any complications. Whenever a new kimono was completed, Asai would send for Oima, have her put it on in the parlor, and admire her. Under the bright electric lights of the lower room, Oima stood there looking delighted, her face flushed, her plump and smooth-skinned body clad in a lustrous yuzen silk crepe underkimono. The peeling toenails of her feet, having cast off the dirty tabi socks, appeared coquettish.

“Oh, splendid!”

Asai called out while gazing at her figure from where he stood. "You look lovely, Oima-chan."

Omasu watched from the side with entranced eyes. "I never experienced anything like that even once." "I never had that either." Asai sighed from beside her. "You did have it though. With the previous Kami-san." "No." Asai smiled faintly. "You mustn't stare so captivated." Noticing something in Asai's excited gaze, Omasu hurriedly removed it.

55

“Thank you very much.” After neatly folding the removed kimono and covering it with paper as before, following Oima’s departure, the couple felt a sweet irritation in their hearts, as if something were lacking.

There, atop a chest of drawers covered in pale green cloth, sat a new dressing table among other items. "Why don't you try it on too?" Asai began to say to Omasu while folding Oima’s underkimono. “Me?” “Such gaudy things don’t suit me.” Slender-bodied Omasu, with her subdued tastes, quickly stopped after slipping just one sleeve through the kimono’s opening. “I’ve been that way since I was young.” The vivid figure of Omasu from that time, preserved in a photograph, floated up before Asai’s eyes. Her rounded face—with its spirited, tightly set mouth—seemed much paler than now, and her clear eyes with long eyelashes still held passion. In the photograph, Omasu wore her voluminous hair tied in a ginkgo-leaf loop, a white scarf fashionable at the time wrapped up to her chin, and a coat. Omasu—who had worked in a rural town and was said to have had a bold love affair with the student son of the household—was just eighteen or nineteen.

Old stories between the two of them began to be unearthed again. The story of when she first ventured into her trade and met that man resounded anew in Asai’s ears, which seemed starved of human warmth.

“Hey, you.” Omasu began speaking in a reflective tone. “Once that person’s wedding is over, shouldn’t we ask someone to mediate and exchange ceremonial cups?” “Before we get too old—shouldn’t we have such a photo taken too?”

Omasu said this and laughed forlornly. "It’s so unsettling, isn’t it?" Asai also let out a hollow laugh, as if pitying the woman.

“We’re not that old yet.” Asai, who had been lying down, said while stroking the area near his temples where two or three strands of white hair glimmered. After winter arrived, he had put on some weight, but as he gazed at his wife’s face, the haze still lingered around the corners of her eyes. “To do that, we must first start by healing your body.” “Why don’t you check into the hospital and go through with the surgery?” “It’s just a month of endurance.” “No!”

Omasu shook her head. The anxiety of not knowing what would become of the household during a month-long hospitalization had persistently eroded Omasu’s resolve until now. “Since both this year and next are ill-omened years for us, let’s have the treatment once it’s the year after next or so.”

Time passed with their heartfelt conversation. Lately, when returning from visits to a woman who had quit her profession in the pleasure quarters and opened a cosmetics shop in Shiba with her savings, he would occasionally stop alone at Oima's second floor to rest his exhausted body. Oima brought out a quilt from the closet and quietly draped it over Asai as he lay there.

Having stayed up late arranging flowers and drunk morning sake whose effects were now fading, Asai awoke to a faint chill that quivered like rotting flesh. Oima sat alone by the bedside brazier, her makeup meticulously applied and haori freshly changed. While soothing his parched throat and stomach with the tea Oima had brewed, Asai maintained a composed expression as he discussed her fast-approaching wedding arrangements.

56 Around three o'clock, when the winter sunlight filtering through dusty paper screens had begun to fade feebly, Asai finally managed to slip away. To his nerves, worn thin from dissipated pleasures, even the bright outdoor light and dry blustery wind seemed overwhelming. The quilt he had been using until moments ago lay bundled there, and even the room's air began to feel oppressive. "Shall I go out that far with you?" Oima too felt uneasy about being left alone in the room where they had been shut in together until now.

“Say…is it wrong?” Oima said coquettishly as she adjusted her hair before the mirror. Asai stared fixedly at her pitiable profile—that side of her face which seemed to be suppressing both the frustration and shame she felt toward her own manipulated emotions—with eyes that held a cruel glint.

“Shall we go somewhere one last time before parting?”

Asai had just said that and, driven by momentary interest, incited Oima; however, Oima appeared to hesitate, her face flushing red as she looked down.

“Where are we going?” Asai asked the woman, who seemed to be getting carried away, with an expression of waning interest, though a faint sense of dissatisfaction seeped into his heart. “Anywhere is fine—there are still so many places I haven’t seen.” “Once the wedding’s over, you should have Muro-san take you around various places.”

“That may be true, but before that…” When she heard Muro’s name, the splendid wedding looming near flashed through Oima’s mind, yet even that vision remained unsteady. The marriage proposal she had been swept into without knowing when—distracted daily by restless preparations—now pressed more heavily upon her conscience. Even so, Oima would sometimes envision the pleasures of managing a household with her own hands and the pride she might feel as a proper wife. Merely imagining the day she would inherit the household of Muro—reputed to be wealthy—made her anxious heart flutter as if leaping.

"You really are fortunate," Asai said. "If you just endure, you can manage a wealthy household worth 100,000 yen." Oima found it odd that Omasu—who seemed to think of nothing but her dislike for Muro—would speak such persuasive words, and that Omasu herself, who had recommended the marriage proposal yet now grew irritable over it, was being scorned.

Around the time the electric lights began flickering on, the two of them were strolling along Ginza Street. In the streets just after sunset, people were streaming out for walks. On the parched paving stones, the clamor of geta and shoes resounded noisily as the cold wind whipped up white sand around the cheerful shop lights.

“A place like this is always the same no matter when you come, isn’t it?” Oima swayed with a coquettish gait as she spoke discontentedly. Her figure, accentuated by the new half-coat and neck wraps she had recently acquired, drew occasional glances from passersby. “Take me somewhere more interesting, won’t you?” Oima entwined herself around Asai and whispered.

57

The next morning when Oima went to visit, both Asai and Omasu were still asleep upstairs. After Asai’s nephew left for school, the tearoom fell silent. There, Shizuko sat forlornly cutting up scraps of colored paper. As if trying to sniff out the state of the house after Asai—with whom she had parted nearby just last night—had returned home, Oima paced restlessly around the room. The younger maid was diligently wiping down the glass shoji on the veranda.

After the clock struck nine, Omasu finally came downstairs. Her eyes seemed dazzled by the bright light below. Sitting down before the brazier, she said nothing and absently smoked her tobacco. The evening before last, Omasu had again spent a long time lingering around the neighborhood of the mistress’s shop that Asai had been frequenting lately. It had come to light that Asai was transporting a portable safe containing stock certificates and important documents to his mistress—just as he had done for himself back when Oyanagi was still around—and through this, Omasu came to understand that their affair was gradually deepening. The mistress’s mother, bringing boxes of sweets and playthings for the child, had come one day when Asai was away to pay her respects to the wife, saying she wished to become acquainted—this act plunged Omasu’s heart even deeper into an abyss of suspicion.

“This time, it’s the real thing.” Omasu could not help believing that Kobayashi’s ominous predictions had finally come true for her. Ever since Oima’s marriage arrangement had been finalized, Asai’s heart had grown increasingly drawn to his mistress. "What a detestable hag." “Flattering me like that—she’s trying to wrap me around her finger.”

Omasu did not want to make crude maneuvers like an ordinary woman. She handled the situation politely without committing to anything and sent the woman away amicably—yet that old woman’s doughy flesh, deferential posture, and smilingly cunning face embedded itself in her mind and wouldn’t come loose. “We’ve been so indebted to the master for his many kindnesses that we kept saying we simply must come pay our respects properly—but what with managing the shop...”

The old woman entered the tearoom and spoke familiarly to Omasu and the child.

When Asai was away, the scene of that old woman and her daughter being fawned over immediately came to Omasu’s mind. She could even imagine the face of the woman she had never met. “Now that we’ve had this chance to meet, please do come visit us whenever you like.” “And let’s get along well.” In the words the old woman had spoken as she left, Omasu felt a fierce insult. “Why, she’s a shrewd old hag, I tell you. That mother and daughter are scheming like birds of prey after your money, I tell you.”

Omasu later confronted Asai resentfully, but he merely smirked. As Omasu waited for Asai—whose return was late—the beautiful mistress’s laughter reached her ears, and a lewd-eyed pale face floated into her mind. Buffeted by the cold wind, Omasu kept pacing restlessly around the vicinity of the shop the old woman had told her about. Sometimes she would circle to the opposite side and try to peer through from a distance, but the shop’s interior behind its glass-paneled shoji screens remained indistinct.

Before long, the shops in the area closed, and the quiet, dark town's night deepened painfully late. Omasu still could not bring herself to leave that place.

58 The next day, intending to spend half the day out, Omasu took Shizuko with her to visit Oyoshi’s shop and other places, but weighed down by lingering concerns, the conversations failed to flow as smoothly as usual.

“This time—no matter what I do—it’s hopeless.”

Omasu spoke to Oyoshi and her husband in the usual tearoom. "When I try to reason with him, he throws my own logic back at me—saying he won’t tolerate such sloppy arguments. Then when I say I’ll return to the countryside, he retorts that if I leave of my own accord, he won’t give me a single penny. I’ve tried everything." "But once it gets to that point, it’s completely hopeless."

The more she argued, the more infuriating Omasu found it to feel the cold pulse of the man’s heart slipping away from her. One night, in a fit of frustration, she had even taken a razor from her dressing table and nearly plunged it into her throat—such was the intensity of her despair—but then the thought of the mistress who would come after her flashed through her mind, pulling her back. “No matter what I do, I won’t end up like Oyanagi-san.”

Omasu quickly steeled both herself and her heart. "If you want to turn Mr. Asai into an old man," he said, "you've got to start by getting your hands on your own body first—that's what I think."

Inkyo said with a laugh. “Just look at our Oyoshi here—she’s gotten so plump that an old man like me can’t satisfy her anymore. Seems she’s taken to batting her eyes at the young lads in the shop, and there’s no stopping her.” Inkyo wobbled his head unsteadily and grimaced. Oyoshi’s eyes, fresh and tinged with blue, were wide open, her face flushed. “And here’s another strange thing—when we put her out in the shop, compared to when she’s not there, there’s a huge difference in sales.”

As Omasu listened to the old man’s spirited talk—carried away and ranting on about himself—a meek loneliness gradually seeped and spread through her chest. The reckless desire that had schemed to lure Oyoshi out for an extravagant shopping spree had, at some point, been betrayed by her own unceasingly earnest household diligence. On her way back, Omasu took a stroll around Hibiya Park. As the sunlight began to fade over the moat’s waters, she boarded a train from there.

“Welcome home.” The previous evening when Asai returned late, Omasu had come out to greet him, placing both hands on the genkan floor in a meek bow. She removed the kimono—who knew who had dressed him in it—and after putting a robe on him, stored it away in the chest of drawers. Omasu had neatly arranged her hair and worn an undergarment with the half-collar Asai favored. For Asai—wearied by his escapades—stretching his limbs in the spacious bed of his own bedroom, where he would sleep for the first time in nights, felt pleasant.

Omasu washed her face and combed her hair, then showed Asai the letters that had come the previous night from Muro’s parents with various requests, and as was her custom, brought up the topic of the wedding to Oima.

59

A house meant to provisionally receive Oima as Muro's residence was soon arranged in the Yamanote area by staff from the branch store. One evening, an erudite man who frequented Asai's residence wrote betrothal gift lists and adorned elegant betrothal packages with ceremonial cords. Soon these items were arranged festively in the tokonoma alcove of the lower guest room. Red and white silk-floss congratulatory gifts from Oyoshi and her husband also stood there, adding color to the display.

“What pleasant things.”

Omasu sat in the center of the tatami room, gazing at them as she murmured. Oima, who had moved back two or three days prior, grew self-conscious each time these items were brought in. Though her heart—drawn to the precipice of anxiety—had come under suspicion, she still found herself unable to avoid them. "I truly feel so wretched—I can't bear it any longer." In Omasu's absence, Oima sighed and began speaking to Asai, but he remained silent as though declaring nothing could be done.

Oima’s figure, standing rigidly in a corner of the kitchen and lost in deep thought, would occasionally catch Omasu’s eye. “Oima-chan, you’ve come to hate the idea of getting married, haven’t you?” Omasu inquired with feigned concern. The apprehension that some unforeseen collapse might occur would sometimes cloud Omasu’s heart. “It’s not like I’m trying to force through something that’s stalled, you know. If you’re going to break it off, now’s the time.” Omasu paused her chores, seating Oima there while fretting.

“Just tell me clearly. If you act recklessly and end up in an irreversible situation later, that would be a problem, wouldn’t it?” Oima couldn’t help but dwell on the unpleasant emotions between herself and Omasu that would follow if the marriage were broken off, the increasingly stagnant dark atmosphere in Omasu’s household, and her own anxious life. Oima was biting her lip, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m getting fed up—honestly, I’m the one who wants to cry more than you, Oima-chan.”

Omasu stood up again and went toward the back.

Asai was drinking celebratory sake with that meddlesome man who was supposed to deliver the betrothal gifts the following morning. In the bright room lined with wedding furnishings, a suggestive atmosphere drifted. Asai listened to the man’s explanations while gulping down sake. “You odd man—Oima-chan is crying.” Omasu sat before the brazier in the lifeless tatami room after the man had left and, smoking tobacco, began to speak. Trays and sake bottles lay scattered about there.

“You should be the one to get a good sense of her feelings—I won’t say a thing.” Asai lay sprawled on the zabuton cushion, his eyes closed. The electric light’s pallid glow illuminated his forehead that seemed to have sobered. “Well, fine. Hand me my haori.” “Hand me my haori.” With that, Asai abruptly sat up and took out his watch from his obi to check the time. “You make sure to tell them properly. “It’s not my place to intervene now.”

Asai was drinking tea as he said this. "I don’t care anymore." After obediently seeing Asai off, Omasu came to the tatami room and sat down restlessly.

60

On the day of the private ceremony attended only by close associates, Omasu and her husband accompanied the mediator couple. Five rickshaws departed from Asai’s house around five o’clock in the afternoon. Through gaps in the rickshaw curtains, Oima’s round face—heavily made-up in a shimada hairstyle, her white collar layered with three formal underkimonos—appeared faintly pale in the twilight gloom. The Asai couple followed behind. When Asai returned home with a dazed expression after rushing about on company business since morning, Omasu and Oima had already bathed and were seated before the dressing table in the lower guest room, their makeup completed with help from an attendant hairdresser. In the room cleared of its usual tools lay their formal underkimonos alongside accessories like long juban undergarments and dressing aids, where people moved through preparations in hushed tones. A solemn stillness filled the air.

Omasu, her hair done in a round chignon adorned with pale combs and hairpins, deftly finished putting on her kimono and retrieved the tobacco pouch tucked into her obi. She smoked in silence while waiting for Oima’s bridal preparations to be completed. “Even if you make all this fuss, within a year you’ll be managing a household and getting grubby,” Omasu muttered, looking up at Oima as the hairdresser adjusted the lifted back portion of her hairstyle from behind. “How very true,” said the experienced hairdresser.

The experienced hairdresser stepped back and gazed at the shape of the obi.

“But it is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, after all. Though for someone like me, with such poor husband luck, going through it twice would be quite the ordeal.”

The hairdresser gave a social smile.

Omasu and Asai let out hollow laughs. Oima wore a face that seemed both strained and anxiously shy, remaining silent. She couldn't clearly grasp the true nature of her marriage to Muro. The ceremony that day was extremely modest, with her father and mother—who had wavered for a long time about attending—ultimately unable to come due to family circumstances. After the sake cups had been emptied, Oima sat alongside Muro in his black formal kimono at the front of the alcove decorated with betrothal gifts and other ceremonial items. A pair of hanging scrolls painted with pines and cranes hung there. Relatives of Muro who had come from the countryside as substitutes and employees from the branch store lined up alongside them. Through the introductions by the meddlesome couple, once the greetings from all present had concluded, the ceremonial cups for solidifying kinship ties were passed around in order. A stifling moment thick with exchanged glances passed quietly by.

Around the time when a man in a frock coat—apparently serving as Muro's uncle figure, a rigid silk manufacturer from the countryside—presented the sake cup he had brought before the Asai couple, the atmosphere of the gathering finally began to loosen. "This time, it's due to an unusual bond..."

With that, the man placed both hands on the tatami and made another courteous bow.

Asai also politely returned the sake cup. Talk of the silk industry and such soon began between the two. Omasu and her husband left there after the seats had fallen into disarray. Oima’s tired figure was no longer visible at the gathering.

“We're just getting started. Let’s drink all night!”

The uncle took Asai’s hand as he stood up and detained him.

They returned quite late. The couple sat facing each other endlessly in the tearoom where Shizuko and the others had fallen asleep, sipping tea while still in their formal attire. "Why don’t we ask that person to share a ceremonial cup with us?" Omasu, wearing a beaming face, headed to the back to change.