Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

If one were to attempt to leave behind a detailed account of a person’s life story, no matter who the subject might be, it would likely fill at least a small booklet.
How much more so, then, for Madam Sadayakko—whose life has been a tempestuous odyssey, a pioneer of Japan’s new actresses and a name that shone even among Western theater troupes—were one to document her story in detail, what vast microcosm of human existence might be revealed?
I wanted to spend my leisure doing just that and witnessing it.
I wished to hear every detail of her daily life and everything from her birth onward, and to faithfully render it in an autobiographical style.

However, that was also an exceedingly difficult task in its own right.
Though she was a devotee of art, as an actress she strove to prioritize popularity above all else, and it may be that she did not wish to lay bare every detail of her past at present.
Her past was the hardships she had endured together with her late husband Kawakami Otojirō.
I did not think it was anything shameful or worth hesitating to disclose, but as a woman—even one who had already gone so far as to hold her retirement performance in the imperial capital—she may have considered deference toward Mr. Fukuzawa, who had been looking after her affairs. Though I had tried broaching the matter two or three times before as well, she would only respond with a smile and a slight nod, and the fact that she never once set a date to speak of it remained truly regrettable even for that person herself.
I had wanted to ensure that Sadayakko’s retirement as an actress would not remain merely a superficial spectacle, but would endure as a commemorative act of substance.
And though self-indulgent of me, I had thought to contribute one collection both for the biographies of beauties—which I consider one of my life’s works—and for that person’s sake, hoping to create a special volume dedicated to the founder of new actresses, but that wish never came to fruition.
Regarding the various clippings I wished to reference, even when I asked again whether there were any inaccuracies, no clear reply was given, so I had no choice but to write by relying on my memory.
Because of this, my attempt to faithfully and accurately document the foremost actress without error ended in vain, and I find it deeply regrettable.

One of my acquaintances told me this.

“In the flower and willow world, there exists the concept of retired professional names—they do not permit the names of renowned courtesans to be casually bestowed upon those who come after.”
“If they had that level of discernment, it would be one thing—but there are cases where particularly esteemed names are reserved out of pride for having produced a renowned courtesan.”
“For example, in Shinbashi it’s Ponta, in Yoshicho it’s Yakko…”

That the renowned courtesan Yakko of Yoshicho was Sadayakko must surely be known to all.

The name Yakko had continued through two generations of famed courtesans.
Both generations were women celebrated as “Yakko” in Yoshicho.
The previous Yakko had been renowned solely for her beauty and perished young.
Though afflicted with severe consumption, it was said Venerable Fukuchi Ōchi loved her until his death, and she too contracted the same incurable malady at its root.
The later Yakko was Kawakami Sadayakko.

I met Sadayakko in the theater's backstage.
At Ichimura-za, after arranging for Kikugorō and Yoshiemon's troupe of young actors to perform elsewhere, she staged a scene from *Gunshin*—translated by Matsui Matsuba—marking the final active phase of her acting career now nearing retirement.
Having presented a small bouquet, I was invited into the dressing room.
In the entrance area stood a mulberry vanity, where Yoshiko (her adopted daughter at the time—formerly Sukufuku, a geisha from Shinbashi who later became film actress Kawada Yoshiko), her hair in a Western-style updo, was having her obi fastened by the female manager as she prepared to depart.
The eight-mat room felt cramped with bouquets, wreaths, and gifts displayed everywhere. Within an enclosure formed by low golden screens in the Shijō school style—flanked by a vanity, cosmetic stand, and round brazier—Sadayakko turned sharply toward us. Her appearance remained impeccable: that signature Western-style updo with front locks swept stiffly upward, a crisply worn kimono, and a broad round obi gleaming gold.
Her face—with its sunken cheeks and slightly angular jawline—stood out starkly, yet her eyes retained their beauty.

That said, no trace remained of her former self; the radiant elegance she had displayed on stage just moments before had been packed away along with the costumes and wigs, leaving her with the slightly imperious bearing of a nobleman’s wife. Realizing that this woman had such a side to her, I found my feelings slightly stirred.

On other occasions, I saw Sadayakko’s figure out and about many times. Many wore crested haori, but she was far more beautiful in foreign-style outfits. Once, when she rode a first-class car bound for Kōzu, the pure white shawl she wore deeply and luxuriantly accentuated her face. When I spotted her in Uchisaiwaicho, she had a long green shawl draped all the way down over the rickshaw’s lap rug—and that too suited her exceedingly well.

When I was invited to Shinbashi-za for the second time, that was when I first encountered her fully unveiled as an actress. At that time, she belonged to a Shinpa Theater troupe with Kitamura. Kitamura had assumed the role of Shiraito—the water-performing courtesan in Izumi Kyōka’s *The White Threads of the Waterfall*. Sadayakko portrayed a gentle, innocent young bride with a grand traditional chignon, her delicate natural features reminiscent of her twenties. During the intermission piece—if I recall correctly—Kitamura experimented with a new directorial style using a one-act play by Mushanokōji Saneatsu published in *Shirakaba*. The kyōgen depicted a love triangle where a lady-in-waiting beloved by her lord committed adultery and faced execution alongside her samurai lover: an unrepentant woman resolved to die, a terror-stricken young samurai desperate to live, and a lord with an idiosyncratic worldview. Kitamura Rokurō played the lord, Hanayagi Shōtarō the samurai, and Sadayakko the lady-in-waiting. The maidservant trailed her long-sleeved pure white kimono’s hem, let her pale aqua chirimen obi hang loosely forward, submitted to binding ropes, and bowed her head under the weight of her Shimada-style wig. Yet every movement—her gait and gestures—remained so stubbornly Sadayakko herself that it felt unsatisfying. Why couldn’t she manifest that graceful poise and delicate charm seen in Ophelia, Desdemona, Tosca, or Vanna casting herself before an enemy general—qualities she so confidently directed when portraying foreign women? After that act concluded, I visited backstage.

The table had been set with place settings, and the vacant spot was the seat prepared for me. Sadayakko was in the center, with the mirror stand behind her. Immediately next to her was Mr. Fukuzawa. Despite the lavish feast before them, they insisted they couldn’t eat without dried fish and had some grilled in the adjoining room. I thought to myself—Ah, this explains it—how occasionally during palace-like stage scenes, the smell of dried fish would waft from backstage, not quite breaking the illusion but certainly diminishing its enchantment—and such. When Mr. Fukuzawa said he wanted ochazuke, it was served in a dainty woman’s bowl with ivory chopsticks set alongside. The area behind Shinbashi-za’s backstage sloped toward the riverbank where many stylish residences stood, making street vendors’ calls frequently audible. Then Sadayakko—

“Quickly buy those peas for me—the salt-fried ones!”

she ordered.
“Mr. Fukuzawa had dismissed such things, but since I love them, I made him buy some, and as I ate them, I laughed and said, ‘This is too soft, so it’s not tasty.’”

From such behavior—acting like a spoiled child—one could hardly believe this was the same Sadayakko whose name had resounded even in the West.
They seemed like newlyweds living in domestic routine or lovers still delighting in a dream-like romance.
Sadayakko’s voice resonated softly and sweetly.

“Yesterday, I was yelled at and called ‘scrawny.’”
“The other day, Mr. Fukumomo—they said you’d gotten so thin…”

She laughed amusedly while letting her cigarette smoke curl.
I had noticed even without being told—her body was painfully emaciated.
Her shoulder bones jutted starkly, and her limbs were truly gaunt.
Yet her face showed no signs of wasting; with costume padding added, she fully regained her former countenance.

(Ah, those eyes are worth a thousand gold pieces.)

As long as those eyes shone with brilliance, she transformed into an ethereal beauty who would forever be seen as youthful.
Whether with Fukuzawa Tōsuke or others, repeating such transparent games must have felt achingly lonely to a disenchanted heart—yet Sadayakko, who seemed to delight in them, struck me as the very embodiment of chastity.
She wore a rough-patterned overgarment layered over a yukata, wound a Hakata men’s obi tightly around her waist, and had her hair pulled back into a tight backstage bun.
Her face in such moments held far more charm than when she assumed the bearing of a nobleman’s wife—evoking an air of wistful nostalgia.
When Kitamura came to discuss his traveling role, still in costume from the Shiraito act afterward, he handled the conversation with casual ease.

“We simply can’t grasp that part.”
“We exchange a few meaningless words, part ways as we are, and a few days later meet again on stage.”
“But since everything works out perfectly regardless, we just can’t make sense of it.”

Leaving Mr. Fukuzawa mid-conversation with others, I returned to my former seat in the audience.
Before long came the thudding footsteps of two or three people entering the sparsely populated dirt-floored entryway right behind me, but by then it had become time for Sadayakko’s stage entrance.

“Look, some people worry and say I meddle too much with Kawakami’s affairs, but I believe a man’s worth lies in being devoted to a woman.”

When I wondered who was speaking this peculiar social philosophy to whom, it turned out Mr. Fukuzawa was addressing me—who would later be deaf to it.
I became serious with a faint smile yet listened intently without turning around.

“If you let a man fall head over heels in love,”
“it becomes quite an ordeal.”
“A seal is required.”
“Honor must be staked.”
“In the worst-case scenario, saying ‘I misjudged you’ would be nothing but an excuse.”
“Once you fall in love, it must be all or nothing—but when it comes to that, women’s desires are all too clear.”
“Diamonds, kimonos, social obligations—on top of that, it’s about as much as buying a house.”

I thought, “Indeed.”
I felt that industrialists’ romances were governed by peculiar principles.
Yet what I sensed was entirely inverted.
Relationships between men—those founded on appraising character or mere infatuation with commercial prowess—reached rock bottom because, in our present age, one scarcely hears of men staking their lives on what might be called bushido-like vows. Should they lose their material wealth and social standing—or merely diminish them—the affair concludes neatly.
Love between men and women does not unfold so simply.
If surface harmony prevails, perhaps diamonds, social obligations, kimonos, and a house might suffice—but that constitutes a sorrowful, truly destitute love. Should any couple find contentment in romance confined to such measures, they must be deemed pitiable indeed.
I declare: the depths of romantic love—where emotion, sensation, and one’s entire spirit are poured forth—are a communion of souls and a grappling with life itself.
There must exist only life and death in that realm—an absolute permitting no admixture of lesser things.

(But he did not say “to someone he loved.”
He used the word “fell in love”—a phrase typically uttered lightly and casually.
There might be some calculation there.)

No sooner had I thought this than Sadayakko’s manner—worn thin yet rapturous, like earlier—rose before my eyes.

Then what of Sadayakko in her incandescent era?

I will write on without haste.
An old geisha from Gion—who had come from Kyoto four or five years prior and lodged at Sadayakko’s house in Uchisaiwaicho—once said this.

“When she returned from the theater, she would go upstairs and drink white wine before bed—I’d join her too.”
“Then we’d talk until bedtime.”
“But I make sure to pay respects every day at Mr. Kawakami’s memorial tablet.”
“Madam Sada doesn’t even offer incense or flowers.”
“She was such a strong woman—so strong that in the end, she and Mr. Kawakami didn’t get along well either, ending up in separate rooms over there and here, their finances split too, I hear—”

The old geisha’s talk was vulgar.
Though it sounded as though she was being accused of infidelity for not offering incense, given how splendidly she had carried on Kawakami’s legacy, he ought to have rejoiced in that alone.
To persist in upholding the will of her deceased husband—with whom she was said to have grown estranged—and maintain that renown indefinitely: no one could possibly know how much unseen hardship this entailed.
That headstrong Matsui Sumako—even if one might assume that in the prime of her popularity, being alone would grant her greater freedom—could she not charge forward without a shield once parted from Mr. Hogetsu?
That this was already a time of waning fortune, and she who had no partner capable of elevating her to shine as the troupe’s star—what anxieties she must have endured to keep the name Sadayakko from being forgotten—though the old geisha spoke of financial matters, for many years she had been one who devoted her entire being to Kawakami.
There was no reason to believe that the couple would grow cold over such meager savings.
The old geisha’s conjecture had likely only made sense within her own heart.
What the old geisha perceived as a marital financial dispute—might it not have been a misinterpretation of their separating business and household finances?
She too was a woman.
Her spirit was resolute, but her body was delicate.
There must have been times when her spirit bent under the strain.
At such times—knowing her husband’s habit of devoting everything to his endless business ambitions, those grand endeavors that disdained commonplace matters—she must have thought to at least ensure there would be no future worries.
Even for that strong-willed woman—when she recalled the long years of toil and tribulation, feeling she could no longer endure deprivation—might it have been her advancing age that compelled such preparations?

This was a little before Kawakami passed away.
When I spotted the Sadayakko couple in Hakone, Sadayakko had come from Miyanoshita to Tōnosawa wearing nothing but a yukata.
At such times, she was never seen as someone hoarding wealth for herself alone.
I believe she served her husband with utter sincerity—unreservedly and wholeheartedly.
Being strong-willed artists prone to self-absorption, they may have occasionally glared at each other with mutual resentment; or perhaps in Kawakami’s later years, discord grew between their hearts, making such days frequent.
Yet I consider Sadayakko a woman of unwavering fidelity.

A strong-willed woman, stubbornly pressing forward, determined never to show feeble tears—Sadayakko too seemed born as such a person.
Those of such innate disposition were clearly at a disadvantage.
Women who appeared fragile proved the more resilient.
They steadfastly protected themselves alone, then tenaciously persisted by hiding in others' shadows where relative safety lay.
The strong-willed relied solely on themselves and, without gauging how easily their strength might snap, strove to achieve everything at once.
Particularly those with robust senses of chivalry and sympathy tended more toward single-minded recklessness.

I am not trying to force Sadayakko into this mold out of my own temperament—as if everything must conform—but I do believe she too was genuinely competitive by nature.
And I simply cannot accept that someone with such a disposition, while meticulously calculating gains and losses, assisted Kawakami.
She was strong—so strong that she must have supported her husband Kawakami’s endeavors by pouring out her entire being like kindling to flames, blending her fervent faith with a dash of curiosity.
This stemmed not only from her bloodline—rich with the Edoite traits of traditional chivalry and curiosity—but also from being raised by a fiercely proud adoptive mother, and from her youth spent cloaking herself in fictional personas from plays and novels, living a fabricated life free of anxiety, even joyfully so. Thus, when she realized how vital her own strength was to her husband and his new ventures, she likely embarked on ventures so utterly devoted that to more calmly-minded observers, they might have seemed reckless gambles.
Such a person would never grow distant from others over mere money.
If that did occur, one must conclude that a rift emerging from within the marriage had surfaced, reducing even their material ties to the coldness of strangers.
By then, their affection had long cooled—yet on her part, this could only be seen as an obstinacy born of bitter frustration: lamenting how her youthful fervor, once so revered, had been squandered through sacrifices too costly and irreplaceable.

But if that were indeed the case, it was Sadayakko’s own misunderstanding.
She must have supported her husband.
She must have become a sacrifice for her husband, a puppet of his enterprise.
But that was only the beginning; fate took a turn.
Kawakami’s venture—having established Shinpa in theater and promptly introduced local customs, human sentiments, and ideas through translated plays—was ultimately successful.
While some behind the scenes mocked those early days as the Oppekepe era, Kawakami saw through his mission to establish a new frontier in theater.
And at the same time, Sadayakko established a position no less significant than Kawakami’s success.
It was the success and honor produced by her body that had endured hardships.
But, but, but—would there have been her present-day existence without a visionary like Kawakami there?

No, that was something Sadayakko herself knew better than anyone.
She upheld her husband—first Kawakami, second Kawakami in all matters.
Even she, with her unyielding pride, had been utterly devoted to Kawakami.

No hero or paragon exists without hidden depths.
Who could know virtues and flaws as thoroughly as a wife and husband?
Unless one were a fool mistaking tiles for pearls, even a husband deemed exceptional by others would have his inadequacies laid bare to his wife.
Only Sadayakko and Kawakami’s relationship could not claim exemption from these truths.
Yet even so, Sadayakko had regarded him as exceptional.
While she scolded him with one breath, she undoubtedly respected him with the next.

What did it mean to scold?
It meant she harbored contempt in her heart.
There must have been moments when she felt stains of disgrace too stubborn to erase.
It had been when her husband conceived reckless voyages to foreign lands, only to face destitution.
It had also been when food was denied to their troupe of nineteen.
In snowbound Moscow—in an America where they wandered through endless nights—she was said to have thrown herself into rescuing others from crisis.
That must have remained a painful memory for her.

Be that as it may, there were rumors that Kawakami had occasionally been humiliated by Sadayakko.

The foremost thing demanding respect was undeniably that she had been granted and guided through her first steps in stage life as an actress.
That her husband had made her take to the stage might have arisen from other necessities—or perhaps it had simply been a publicity ploy.
Yet regardless of its justification, as our nation's pioneer of new actresses, no matter how many great performers might emerge henceforth, the pioneer's crown must be bestowed upon Kawakami Sadayakko.
Whether her technique proved good or bad, whether her features counted as fair or plain—even through these alone her name would have endured. Yet how doubly fortunate that Sadayakko possessed beauty too, her stage presence never negligible.
She became a second Izumo no Okuni—nay, a world-class actress surpassing even Okuni herself.

People might say that perhaps it was the times that made her so.
Indeed, she emerged in a fortunate time.
And yet, she was born far earlier than the public’s demands and secured an unforeseen position.
Though Matsui Sumako’s name seemed more renowned and popular than that of her senior, it could not begin to match the brilliance of Sadayakko in her prime.
It was the sorrowful yet indisputable truth that aging dictates the ebb and flow of popularity above all else, and the chasm between having a fine mentor and lacking one that elevated Sumako—that coarse woman who could not become a person of elegant sensibilities, resembling a female chieftain—into the queen and luminary of the theater world.
Even if Sadayakko lacked scholarly learning, had she possessed even a modicum of foresight to discern the tides of the times, she would have remained forever the central star of the theatrical world.
Lacking creative power of her own, she merely maintained the qualifications as an actor that he had consolidated for her even after Kawakami’s death—but the tides of the times swiftly and drastically shifted.
She was pushed aside and marginalized, forced to tour regional areas under the guise of retirement performances.
The demands of the era required actresses, and many hastily-made actresses came and went.
Over ten years, while the Imperial Theatre continually replenished its candidates, it only managed to yield a few from its first cohort—Ritsuko, Kakuko, and Namiko—with the rest still remaining an unknown quantity.
As for the other troupes, having let their one and only Sumako die, what remained had become a state not even worth speaking of.

Even so, Sadayakko had already been forgotten.
It was not merely that she had been pushed beyond the sphere due to the excessive assumptions of those involved—that as an old woman she could no longer draw popularity—but rather because her once-brilliant mind from younger days had perhaps grown somewhat obstinate; in her youth, she had possessed the courage to plunge into even superficial artistry.
I think it was due to the degradation of her artistic path—in later years reduced to mere repetition, without any progress or depth of understanding, simply going through the motions of performance.
The exposure of her true worth in this manner could well be said to have been due to losing Kawakami.

If Kawakami had remained alive and on stage today, he might have clung to the crude remnants of Shinpa’s founding era, likely making his later years one of shame rather than honor.
Yet one could hardly imagine him staying motionless, frozen in time.
He would have probably operated as a shadowy strategist behind the scenes.
Undoubtedly, he would have capitalized on the rising tide of actresses’ golden age and devised methods to elevate Sadayakko further.

Even that—had he employed flashy showmanship tactics focused on surface spectacle as she might have desired, much like Mr. Fukuzawa’s current patronage—if it aligned with Sadayakko’s own wishes…

What was regrettable about Sadayakko was that she neither conceived ambitions of worldly success nor resolved to perish in artistic devotion.
I believe she lacked sufficient effort.
The effort I mean isn’t about forceful campaigns.
It concerns intellectual cultivation.
There had been a need to reshape one’s mentality for modernity.
Had that occurred—what stature might she hold today?
Art recognizes no age.

II

Sadayakko was the kind of person who would surely advance as long as she was guided forward. Perhaps there were those who would say that what she had already done was sufficient enough—that she had bloomed quite splendidly, that what came after should be left to those who followed, and that it might be better to leave at least a little behind. That was what was said by those who flipped through only the pages of the first half of Sadayakko’s life and deemed that sufficient. Even if one does not expect perfection, it was because I—this greedy soul—had wished to leave behind the pages until the very end as something splendid, adorning one representative woman born of the same era with better, more brilliant radiance. While there are small fragments of art that endure eternally, Sadayakko’s was a vast, expansive crystalline resonance enveloped in undulations. Had that crumbled in its final stages, would it not have rendered incomplete the form of what had been painstakingly built? From my idealistic perspective, though I sympathized with Sadayakko’s body seeking at least some ease in her twilight years, I could not bring myself to permit it. I wanted her to live for art and perish for art. When she had fought valiantly and laid her emaciated body upon the stage, how immensely, how profoundly we would have wept for her. We would have praised her. The beautiful actresses would have prostrated themselves at the feet of the woman who had carved open a thorny path before them until her death, wetting the hem of her robes with tears of gratitude, kissing her forehead, and burying her beneath their offerings of flowers. A throng of poets would have marched before the coffin, singing a splendid elegy. Musicians would have played mourning melodies, townspeople would have ceaselessly voiced their admiration, and writers would have compiled with solemn pens how she—from her birth to her death—was born to be such a person. I had wished for such an end for this person, the first actress. I did not think it unjust to have wished for that.

On the tea bowl distributed at her retirement was written in her own hand,

In any case, to live in seclusion—ah, wild chrysanthemum.

There was a poem inscribed.
I do not know whether she selected it herself or composed it herself, but even so, the opening phrase "in any case" carried connotations of rootlessness.
There was a sense of desperate resignation—of having no other choice.
A feeling of patching things over with a "Well, let's leave it at this."
One might call it a verse that bottled up grievances pressed down somewhere unseen.
"For the time being."
It wasn't impossible to render this as "somehow or other," but that would have been false.
For though her retirement might have been an impulsive decision, the production was so meticulously staged that no such motives could be read into it.
Everyone knew her home and future livelihood were secure; it was all too evident this wasn't some sudden Zen-inspired withdrawal from worldly affairs.
Thus one couldn't even imagine this "for the time being" implying retreat into grassy seclusion.
If indeed she had erected her late husband Kawakami's tombstone and chosen this moment to quit acting, then we must acknowledge the inevitability of Sadayakko's faded brilliance—for here was even this extraordinary woman treating theater as mere business.

I nearly let slip spiteful words without meaning to.
My speaking so stemmed truly from outrage at how swiftly the public forgot while seeing off this actress’s retirement, showing unexpectedly little sympathy.
I thought that even if their own theater company wouldn’t allow it, these Imperial Theatre-trained actresses might at least have shown some token through their own efforts—decorating her final stage to gladden their senior colleague who must have harbored such loneliness.

She was known overseas as Japan’s representative renowned actress.
In foreign lands rather than in Japan, her fame resounded all the more.
Not a single soul had followed in the wake of her pioneering spirit and relentless drive.
Over a dozen years had passed since then, yet had even a single soul scaled her fortress?
That was something anyone would have been confident about.
Even if they harbored the pride of “How could we ever lose to Sadayakko?”, from others’ perspective, such confidence was unwarranted.
It was not so much her artistry itself as her boldness and appearance that equipped her with the qualifications to remain unflinching no matter how grand the metropolis or theater she entered.
Sadayakko’s bewitching, voluptuous smile; her delicate, tantalizing allure; and her refined, exquisite grace—these possessed a charm and elegance that not a single other actress could yet hope to match.
In the theater circles of those lands, how wide must their eyes have opened in wonder when they discovered in this sole first actress of the Far East a grace reminiscent of pear blossoms troubled by rain.
Her delicate hands and the very demeanor of a woman of such grace had completely captured the hearts of the people in those lands.
That the stage presence of that strong-willed woman could be this delicate was something truly beyond belief for those who never witnessed it.
It was not my partiality that compelled me to say this.
She was recognized even by the foremost theater critics of those lands.
Arthur Symons also devoted several pages of his book to her.

That was the flower that blossomed from her past hardships.
The mere fact that she left behind an impression of Japanese women abroad that brought no shame was reason enough for those who followed to feel gratitude.
Though later actresses emerged in response to their era’s demands, it went without saying that her demonstrated success had served as their stimulus.
Both her overseas work and her return to Japan to showcase novel costumes occurred when today’s actresses were still infants.
While people claimed the schemer Kawakami concocted tales to pique public curiosity and elevate Sadayakko’s fame, many were captivated by her artistry and beauty.
The heroines she portrayed—in works like *Homeland* and Desdemona from *Othello*—were so magnificent they would be hard to find even in today’s Japanese theater world; they were neither commonplace nor crude.
Who could measure how profoundly young hearts were stirred by the novelty of welcoming Japan’s first actress and seeing longed-for Western dramas through this beautiful performer?
In Kyoto during Sadayakko’s prime, incidents like university students writing blood oaths to confess anguished feelings were hardly rare.
Had one attended to such matters, there would likely have needed to be another Sadayakko entirely—one dedicated solely to penning pained rejections for each letter and interview request, alternating between apologies and gratified replies.
Among literary figures, Mr. Akita Ujaku stood as one of Sadayakko’s devotees—a rosy-cheeked Waseda student at the time who embodied pure, fervent admiration.
Even now when this story surfaces, Mr. Akita nods without evasion,

“I was utterly infatuated, like one afflicted by illness—I simply couldn’t help but watch, no matter what it took.”

Having said this clearly, he was enveloped in a reminiscent smile, as if to say that old memories too were not without their pleasures.
In my eyes too, the beautiful phantom of Sadayakko floated up, and as we smiled together, when I thought that this vision had yet to fade from Mr. Akita’s eyes either, I was awed by the eternal power of beauty and the dominion of artistic force.

That story dates back fifteen or sixteen years—around Meiji 35 or 36 (1902–1903). It was around the time when Sadayakko first appeared on Japan’s theater scene following her second overseas tour through Western countries, where she had gained tremendous popularity. In Germany, the renowned scholar Dr. Virchow reportedly kissed her hand with utmost reverence; in France, Victorien Sardou—author of *Tosca* and *Patrie*—paid her a personal visit; in Russia, the Emperor bestowed upon her a diamond-encrusted watch. Tales abounded across every land: an admirer who laid his coat on hotel stairs and carried it home frantically after claiming her foot had touched it; a man who set off fireworks nightly near her lodgings to ease her travel weariness; crowds lining her carriage route chanting “Sadayakko! Sadayakko!” as they swarmed around it in layers. Rumors of her triumphs spread everywhere, churning her fame to new heights. It was only natural that the earnest young literary man Mr. Akita felt overcome, as though a goddess of beauty had suddenly descended from heaven. When Sadayakko reappeared without betraying her audience’s expectations, her popularity boiled over into a whirlpool of frenzy. At that time, poor student Mr. Akita—who had come from a remote village in Aomori—had to sell everything he owned for theater admission fees. Though called admission fees, these only granted him standing room in a third-tier corner—no box seats or prime floor spaces—yet even this strained a student’s budget when done daily. The young Akita, utterly consumed by Sadayakko fever, kept only his desk, a few books, and the clothes on his back while liquidating all else. In the end, he even tore off his room’s tatami mat surfaces to sell them—and it was said he remained enraptured day after day.

How great must Sadayakko’s triumph have been, trampling underfoot such Puritan-like fervor alongside all manner of accolades.
Even so, what one regrets about her is the lamentable fact that she awakened to art as her very life yet failed to rise to its call.
Though she became an actress out of unavoidable circumstances, once she had achieved such success—no matter where one might say she began her journey—there was but a single path forward; yet because her footing differed from the start, she could not devote her entire being, abandoning further refinement of her craft after merely basking in popularity. That her retirement’s justification rests solely on having repaid Kawakami’s debts, held a splendid funeral, and erected his memorial stone—this is what I find regrettable.
She had never intended to become an actress from the start—it was desperation amid overseas poverty that drove her—and though she later resolved to abandon it entirely, only to be persuaded by her husband and acquaintances to take the stage in Japan as well, one cannot help but lament how this actress’s entire career remained so reliant on others’ agency, devoid of originality, and how even across her long years as an actress, she never once grasped what her true calling might have been.
What is truly regrettable is that there was no one close to her who could have instilled in her even a fraction of the doctrine that art reigns supreme.
For her, pride was more vital than life itself; she must have thought that maintaining one’s resolve—how arduous it was, how gratifying, how utterly prideful—could never truly be known.
In accordance with the Eastern precedent of retiring after achieving merit and fame, she must have thought she had achieved a beautiful conclusion as a woman.
For Sadayakko—the first actress Japan’s new theater world had—one wanted her to devote herself endlessly to drama.
One wanted her to remain as a great actress—one who would have become the target for others to aspire to scale her fortress.
All of this, too, is because we cherish the beauty of Sadayakko’s stage performances.

Sadayakko is said to have had a quick temper.
That quick temper must have been both medicine and poison.
A strong-willed and quick-tempered person has no room for sarcasm.
As for that—is it not rather narrow-minded of the late Kawakami’s direct disciples, seized by peculiar sentiments, to refuse involvement in Sadayakko’s retirement performance consultations and even clash over the monument’s construction?
Writer Tamura Toshiko, who once enrolled in an actress training institute, evaluated Sadayakko thus: she was not someone with the tenacious pride of rural people—who might appear childishly charming, commendably earnest, or refreshingly naive—but rather a person possessing the spirited pride of an Edo native’s temperament; hence there were times she seemed fragile and times she seemed unapproachably formidable,

“I hate complaining so I keep quiet—but no matter what you do, people just don’t have any real consideration.”

When she said such things, she appeared no more than an ordinary beautiful delicate woman; yet when she drank peppermint and exhaled that fiery spirit—in those moments—one could sense the courage of a woman striving in society’s bustling world—or so [Tamura] remarked.
Even so, on days after performances, when one saw her figure—having sorted through flowers received during the show, remaining in the now tidied and empty room without returning home, leaning vacantly against something—there were moments when tears would well up unbidden.
It was said that Madam Sadayakko herself must have felt a kind of loneliness at such times.

Loneliness—a kind of loneliness—the kind tasted only by those proud in spirit.
This was a solitude Ms. Toshiko too had known.
Being such a woman herself, she alone must have discerned the nameless melancholy coiled within Sadayakko’s heart during her prime.

Sadayakko once remarked of the late Ichikawa Kumehachi:
“Had her spouse been truly exceptional, she might have carved a grander name in society—what a waste.”

So it was recounted.
This too could only have been uttered by Sadayakko herself.
Juxtaposing her own fortune against Kumehachi’s misfortune, she must have arrived at this conviction through bitter reflection.
From this alone, we grasp how profoundly she trusted her husband’s brilliance.
Even Kawakami had perpetually deferred to Sadayakko by half a step.
Though no less formidable herself, her unforeseen renown owed itself entirely to Kawakami’s influence—for her husband’s eminence became the foundation upon which she built her reverence.
This devotional heart remained unsullied within her breast through the years, rendering her artless charm and perennial freshness.
Within that same breast, surely, she preserved unto death the unjaded heart of a girl.

I cannot forget a whisper I once happened to hear in the corridor of the Kabukiza Theatre.
It seemed to be women from Shinbashi and Tsukiji dressed in chic attire, but their conversation appeared to concern the much-rumored matter between Sadayakko and Mr. Fukuzawa at the time.
The response from one of those middle-aged women came to my ears.

“That’s not right. The previous mistress was that sort of woman.”
“Madam Sadayakko isn’t like that—given who she is, she wouldn’t breathe a word about treasures until she’s endured all she can. And beyond that, she reads the mood so thoroughly it’s not just about snapping her fingers; she makes sure to scratch exactly where it itches without letting the other person get a word in. That’s why there’s simply no comparing them—as people.”

In those few words alone, I felt one could clearly discern the difference in standing between Sadayakko and the woman who had once been a favored mistress but was now no longer looked back upon.
It was merely a brief passing by, so there might have been topics I would have liked to hear even afterward.

As a matter of order, I must write a little about Sadayakko’s early life.
At the time when I still carried my tsubakuroguchi bag filled with practice books, walking daily from Daimon Avenue to Sumiyoshichō, I heard people expressing astonishment that there were geisha in Yoshichō who maintained private rickshaws.
In my own household too, we only used our family rickshaw for Father’s regular commute to the courthouse; given that my father represented absolute authority in all matters of importance to me, I naturally assumed these must have been truly exceptional geisha.
I had heard one was called Koteru of Chōjiya and the other Yakko of Hamadaya.
Koteru later became Ii Yōhō’s wife O-Sada-san, while Yakko became Kawakami’s O-Sada-san.
Though I’d also heard Hamadaya had a formidable matriarch, by the time I began observing carefully, only the memorial lantern of an elegant woman called Koyakko remained hanging there—the name Yakko had vanished.
Before long in that same Sumiyoshichō area near Ningyōchō-dōri appeared an entrance resembling a photo studio adorned with a black-lacquered signboard bearing golden characters: Kawakami Otojirō.
There I came to understand this was where Yakko resided.
Later still in Ōmori along the train tracks rose a small Western-style house whose white plaster construction stood distinct from its surroundings.
This too I learned was Kawakami’s new residence.
These events spanned from Kawakami’s founding at Torigoe’s Nakamura-za theater until his overseas travels.

Three

The years surrounding the Meiji Restoration—when successive feudal systems were shattered to give birth to today’s new Japan—were an era that saw many brilliant talents and exceptional geniuses emerge, nurtured and cultivated as they were.
Sadayakko was born belatedly into this age, yet also slightly ahead of her time.
She came into this world in Meiji 4.
And in later years, those who would become the pillars and foundation of her fame had already been placed in their destined positions, awaiting her arrival.

If her birth family had continued unbroken as in former times, the name Madam Sadayakko would not exist today.
She might never have become Kawakami Sadayakko, the pioneer of new actresses, but instead remained the wife of a respectable household, finding occasional diversion in theater-going.

The elderly discussed the Meiji Restoration using the term "collapse."
"Collapse" was likely a word that expressed the terrifying process—encompassing both destruction and construction—leading to reform.
The whirlpool of a world where all old customary institutions had been destroyed was particularly severe in Edo.
After the warrior class, prominent merchants went bankrupt one after another.
The Koguma family—a considerable establishment in Nihonbashi Ryōgaemachi (near the present-day Bank of Japan), close to the castle, which combined a bookstore and money exchange business while also serving as town officials—did not escape their number either.
The Koguma family's daughter Otaka was renowned for her beauty while serving at a noble household, and their son-in-law Kyūjirō was such a good-natured man that people called him a saint.
Even into such a harmonious family, the raging harsh societal winds blew without discrimination, and by the time their twelfth child—a beautiful daughter called O-Sada—was born, they had moved their residence to the vicinity of Shiba Shinmei and were operating businesses such as bookselling, medicine, and pawnbroking.
Moreover, as the couple had lived in luxury without recognizing it as such, they continued to maintain a rather extravagant lifestyle even while raising their daughters.
Although they were aware that their family fortune was gradually declining, they lacked the power to stem its collapse.
Finally, poverty closed in, and they came to part with their twelfth daughter.
And so it was that the girl called O-Sada came to be raised in another household from the age of seven, her foster family being a geisha house named Hamadaya in Yoshichō.

Hamadaya’s Kamekichi was a woman known for her stubbornness, her realm of her own, and her chivalrous spirit.
She prided herself on her reputation for extravagance.
The seven-year-old O-Sada, who had taken that woman as her foster mother, possessed a firm disposition unbecoming of a child, so without the slightest discrepancy, the hearts of foster mother and daughter came to align perfectly.
In this regard, it could be said that O-Sada’s Sadayakko shared more temperamental commonalities with her foster mother than with her biological parents.

Though raised by such a chivalrous geisha and though she honed her innate talents, the virtues Sadayakko possessed were all bestowed upon her by her good parents.
Elegance, virtue—an innocence ill-suited to the society in which she was raised—these were the gifts of being the sheltered daughter of a prominent family and her good-natured father.
Her single-minded disposition too must have been the birthright of an Edo-born downtown young lady.
It was into this foundation that her foster mother instilled chivalry, gallantry, and a sharp-edged worldly flair.
With her foster mother’s backing, by age fourteen she had already become the distinguished Koyakko of Hamadaya in Yoshichō.

Kamekichi, her foster mother—who had become even more strict after being widowed at twenty-nine—believed she had to instill in Koyakko, her beloved foster daughter, the traditions a proper geisha must uphold. The precepts she compiled under the title *Geisha Teikan* were born of her own lived experiences and the lessons she discerned from courtesans of ages past.
She said:

“If you wish to become a proper geisha, you must choose one patron to serve and remain devoted to them.”
“That is what defines a geisha’s integrity.”
“You must not let money blind you and sell your soul.”
“But you mustn’t be unsophisticated.”
“A geisha must be well-versed in worldly matters.”
“And you must inhabit a glamorous atmosphere.”
“There are plenty of quiet worlds elsewhere.”
“The essence of entertaining must never be rigid.”
“So it’s better to be foolish and fickle than your customers.”
“If one prefers logical matters, they wouldn’t come to have a geisha entertain them.”
“So it’s fine to be fickle, but if you let greed cloud your judgment, a geisha’s worth plummets.”
“You must devote yourself to one important patron and uphold their dignity at all costs—but when it comes to entertaining through your skills, perform boldly and scatter money from your own hand.”
“Since we’re not upright folk, we don’t voice complicated opinions.”
“But keep this firmly in mind—that this is play…”

That was the precept from when she was sixteen, having inherited the name of the first Yakko and when her renown as a beauty came to be widely celebrated.

The wise girl kept her foster mother’s teachings firmly close to her heart, but before long, it became publicly known that Marquis Itō Hirobumi, the Prime Minister of the time, was Yakko’s patron.
She became utterly fearless and ruled supreme.
In a society more uneducated and illiterate than the present, the Prime Minister’s influence was regarded as the supreme authority of all powers—so much so that people believed it even freely wielded the power of life and death.
And Marquis Itō—though some reviled him as a man of considerable selfishness while others revered him for his charm and strong favoritism—was, in any case, a towering figure among Meiji courtiers who scattered seeds of amorous intrigue wherever he went, thereby concentrating both power and popularity within the flower-and-willow world.
Yakko had chosen none other than the foremost figure of the age as her patron.
At home, the foster mother Kamekichi, known as the profit-seeker, kept a watchful eye.
And above all—a peony-like countenance blooming beside the slumbering Lion King; a fluttering butterfly-like demeanor playing about the male lion’s whiskers stirred by the spring breeze—she stood with the greatest pride of their world, resplendent as its foremost beauty.

She too was precocious by virtue of being a woman of that society. As recreation, she mingled with young popular actors. What she most adored were floral competitions—contests pitting seasonal blossoms against one another. Her skill at slicing gold leaf and the iron resolve drilled into her by Kamekichi—a shrewdness incongruous with her delicate looks—left even veteran geishas wide-eyed.

Yakko’s prime as a geisha likely lasted from seventeen or eighteen until around twenty-one.

She had been unconventional since her geisha days. Though the neologism “high-collar” for Westernized style didn’t yet exist then, she epitomized its purest form. Around twenty-two or twenty-three, she took up horseback riding and billiards. Her luxuriantly thick hair was twisted into a freshly washed Western updo, a small white square shawl draped triangularly over her shoulders. During Oiso’s burgeoning beach season, Yakko’s swimsuit-clad figure became a constant sight there—the very waters where she honed her famed aquatic skills.

“Yakko came to Tōryūkan in Ōiso… What a woman who acts like a man! In the bath, she’d lather herself white with soap without a care for the surroundings, covering the entire place in bubbles…”

There had been an occasion when the mistress of a certain noble family had said such things.
Her words carried a faintly resentful tone, yet—

“What can I say about that abundant hair of hers? To see her combing it in the bath and coiling it round and round—it’s truly so magnificent…”

She did not seem to feel kindly toward her audaciousness, yet she marveled at her beauty.
That was undoubtedly when she was around nineteen years old.

Later, around the time when I had finally begun to grasp a little about theater, there was an occasion when I heard that Yoshichō’s Yakko was to become Kawakami Otojirō’s wife—and just as everyone was astonished, I too heard it as if it were some grand sensational event.
I later learned that this was in Meiji 25 (1892), when Yakko was twenty-two years old.
As for why I took note of it as if it were a major event—as I mentioned before, Yoshichō was a nearby area; I often passed by the entrance of Hamadaya on my comings and goings, and I had naturally come to hear Yakko’s name.
Moreover, Kawakami Otojirō’s political plays, which had launched at the Nakamura-za Theater in Asakusa Torigoe, were tremendously popular—not because he possessed exceptional skill as an actor—but because students (Liberal Party activists) blending speeches with theater performances had piqued public curiosity and become the talk of the town.
At that time, I was engrossed in reading newspapers and publications like the *Kabuki Shinpō* here and there, so I had some knowledge of these matters not just from hearsay but also through my own eyes.
Moreover, since my father had many acquaintances among Liberal Party members, there were times when he engaged in various discussions.
In addition to Kawakami, he would comment on figures from political plays—like how Fujisawa Asajirō was a newspaper reporter or how Fukui had been at the *Tōzai Newspaper*.
It seems that even my mother was invited to attend [the performances] and went.
Even so, these were the fleeting interests of childhood—had Kawakami Otojirō not worn his Satsuma-gasuri kimono with striped hakama trousers, donned a red jinbaori war coat, carried a fan emblazoned with the rising sun, tied a white headband, and sung the Oppekeppō song, I might not have remembered it so distinctly.

However, through my child's eyes，Kawakami of Oppekeppō fame had never struck me as particularly remarkable.
Far more extraordinary was Yoshichō's Yakko—a geisha who commanded her own private rickshaw—or so I'd believed back then.
Why would she ever become wife to someone like him? This vague wonder occasionally surfaced in my thoughts.
Afterwards，until Kawakami-za rose in Misakichō，her name receded from public consciousness like tide withdrawing from shore.

However, that was merely because I had not encountered her name—for her, the pages of her new life were being turned day after day. And during those five or six years, Kawakami’s solitary overseas journey was carried out—a voyage undertaken to reseed his entire existence anew. At that time, he had supposedly considered abandoning political theater altogether, but upon reaching America resolved to reconsider; after thorough deliberation, he concluded his initial resolve had indeed been correct. Immediately upon returning to Japan, he became a fervent advocate for theatrical reform. He had come back bearing the fate of tasting every hardship inherent to stepping a stride ahead of the tides of his time. And so, naturally, in response to her husband’s heavy burdens, Sadayakko too was fated to shoulder half the load—the path of her life, which had finally begun to steady itself, grew steeper from that moment onward and branched into manifold directions—that very moment marked the turning point.

By the time the name of Kawakami Otojirō’s wife reached our ears once more, she was already worn out from ceaseless toil.
She—as she had stated in her interview for *Engei Shinbun* during her recent retirement performance—had married Kawakami after reaching an agreement through discussions, driven by her desire to leave geisha life behind and become an ordinary woman’s legal wife rather than be called a mistress; even becoming a policeman’s wife would have sufficed, so long as she could share a working life with a compassionate man. Yet strong-willed as she was, she could not bear for Kawakami, now her husband, to remain forever mired in his Oppekeppō antics.

After spending about a year and a half in the United States and returning under Baron Nomura’s accompaniment, Kawakami—bringing back his overseas experience as a souvenir—found himself compelled to stage a play for the troupe he had once led. Using Asakusa-za in Komagata, Asakusa Ward as his base, he raised the curtain with *Another Surprise*.
The audience’s roars at that time reached ferocious intensity, and here the future of Shinpa theater recognized the radiant hues of dawn.
The next challenge that arose—as the first step in theater reform—was constructing a Western-style playhouse, and Kawakami charged headlong into this endeavor by overcoming all obstacles.
Even so, no one could measure how much assistance had come from Yakko’s influence.

The name of the wife—daughter of Hamadaya Kamekichi and Yakko of Yoshichō—carried a hundred times more credibility than Kawakami, a poor student actor often mistaken for a fraudster.
Using her seal, the wife borrowed fifty thousand yen in capital and passed it into her husband’s hands; the foundation of Kawakami-za was then built upon that money.

Amidst both praise and censure, the couple’s labor of love—the Kawakami-za—was completed.
Just as construction neared completion, an awkward quarrel suddenly arose between them.
Moreover, this was no ordinary conflict born from material tensions during a moment of respite.
She had devoted herself entirely—first for her husband’s sake, second for men in general—to a degree of chastity rare in such circles, discarding all pride from her prime and staking her very life on proclaiming Kawakami an exceptionally manly figure.
Then came the discovery that he had fathered a child with another woman.
The woman was the kept mistress of a high-ranking official—Kawakami had even hidden her at Shiobara Hot Spring in Ueno Ōkkei.
Yakko felt she could no longer face her adoptive mother.
Yet being too strong-willed to succumb to bitter resentment, she still wished to voice her outrage to that mother rather than confide in others.
This proved doubly painful—since she herself had fallen for Kawakami first—and knowing how her adoptive mother had always admired his masculine qualities made speaking agonizing while igniting volcanic fury in the listener.
Though Kamekichi had forgiven Yakko for what might be excused as an artist’s dalliance while sternly forbidding illicit pleasures—now hearing this tale—she raged as if defiled.
Upon learning Kawakami had secretly fostered away his illegitimate child, she declared they must sever ties with such a husband.

When Kawakami was summoned to Hamadaya and arrived, his adoptive mother and Yakko greeted him with cold, fierce eyes.
When the three formed a triangular confrontation, Yakko suddenly severed her jet-black hair from the base of her topknot,

“Because I’ve brought shame upon Mother and have no face to meet her.”

With that, she abruptly stood and left.
Even Kawakami the schemer, for all his cunning, found himself at a loss for countermeasures—overwhelmed and utterly dumbfounded. Yet knowing full well the reasons without needing to hear them explained, he could do nothing but hang his head in defeat.
Even if he had wanted to ask his adoptive mother to mediate, she was a more formidable opponent than his wife, so he likely couldn’t bring himself to utter half-hearted pleas.
He apologized, saying he would go abroad once more, endure hardships, and then return to make amends—so she should keep Yakko under her care for now.
But Kamekichi would not hear of it.

“If you return it exactly as it was, then I will accept it.”

That was the adoptive mother’s answer.

Kawakami had no choice but to resort to imploring Baron Kaneko Kentarō, who shared a hometown connection with him.
This was because Baron Kaneko, during his tenure as Secretary to Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi, had urged Yakko to attend a banquet where Kawakami’s play was being performed, extolling at length Kawakami’s qualities as a dashing man.
Armed with such prior knowledge—and having heard that Kawakami never accepted invitations from upper-class noblewomen—Yakko first saw him partly out of half-amused curiosity, eventually inviting Kawakami along with her geisha friend Koteru for an entertainment gathering.
This connection led him to frequent Hamadaya; their relationship became publicly permitted by Lord Itō, and through Baron Kaneko’s mediation, they formalized their union as husband and wife.
Therefore, once matters had grown so entangled, he resolved with firm determination to knock on Mr. Kaneko’s door—for there remained no other recourse, as neither his adoptive mother nor Yakko would listen.
In return, he proposed it on the condition that they would leave absolutely no trace of negligence behind.
And at last, the matter was settled.

No sooner had one crisis passed than another arose—internal troubles and external crises kept striking in relentless succession.
Just as the couple had finally begun to exchange smiles again, yet another anxiety lodged in their chests—the unavoidable need for 10,000 yen to cover expenses like the completion celebration of Kawakami-za and its grand opening banquet.
Yet Yakko had already exhausted all she could give from her own resources, and even the original 50,000 yen remained untouched.
If only they could hold the opening ceremony, revenue would flow; clinging to this hope, they borrowed 10,000 yen from loan sharks at tear-inducing interest rates under crushing deadlines, threw an inaugural feast, and held a dazzling opening ceremony.

Kawakami-za—this theater that the couple had wished to preserve not only as a personal memento but also as a commemorative edifice marking the first step in a new movement for the theater world—stood revealed in the open fields of Misakichō as a compact Western-style structure.
The now ice storage facility that had been the massive Tokyo-za was also newly built at that time, while further back lay Misaki-za—a small theater serving as the regular playhouse for retired actresses.
In summer, the path to Tokyo-za and Kawakami-za became unbearably hot—a stretch of land without a wisp of shade where stifling heat rose from the grass.
Yet once inside the theaters—particularly Tokyo-za with its cavernous space and haphazard entrances—cool winds blew in without restraint, filling the playhouses with an atmosphere of summer respite.
Though Kawakami-za’s design—a blend of the Imperial Theater and Yūraku-za—proved terribly impractical for contemporary audiences, all those invited to the opening ceremony found themselves admiring Kawakami’s ingenuity.
Over a thousand guests spanning every social class fixed their gazes upon the stage center where theater proprietor Kawakami Otojirō stood, tracing the evolution of our nation’s Shinpa theater and expounding on Western theatrical history before concluding his address to rapturous applause.
How immense must Yakko’s joy have been as she stood beside him.
A fragment of their shared endeavor now stood realized; her husband had shown himself fully worthy of such grand ambitions, and in this moment all daily hardships were forgotten. When they bowed together at his speech’s conclusion—she so overwhelmed with happiness—she failed to notice the telltale clatter as her attached wig tumbled from her head, forgotten since that recent incident.
Noticing the rising laughter and looking up—only to confront this unimaginable scene—she saw the flustered stage director already lowering the curtain—

Blushing and heartache—her mind racing back to the opening ceremony—she secretly harbored this torment in her heart.
Not that this served as any moral lesson, but precisely because it was work done through reckless financial maneuvering, Kawakami-za had to be seized by loan sharks for a mere 10,000 yen.
Kawakami gathered comrades and put on a makeshift performance at Kabukiza.
To prevent their own theater from being seized, they staged performances at another venue—a course of action that garnered sympathy and yielded an 8,000-yen profit, which they used to settle that portion of the debt. Yet the remaining 4,000 yen plunged them into unrelenting hardship.

At that time, their residence was a small Western-style cottage in Ōmori. Tormented by loan sharks, Kawakami indignantly ran as a Diet candidate, advocating for a crackdown on usury and protection of Shinpa theater—but faced fierce opposition from an influential Tokyo newspaper, likely the *Yorozu Chōhō*, plunging his campaign into disarray.

These circumstances became the motive that led the Kawakami couple to conceive their small boat journey. It was Yakko who, having fully discerned her husband’s inner world of pessimism and vengeful thoughts, encouraged him with a resolve to die together if they must—to pioneer new territories of life with death-accepting determination and seek out a wellspring of vitality. Roused by his wife’s words, Kawakami prepared to slip away from the Ōmori house that had become a monument to their failure. It was recklessness beyond measure, but at that time, the fervor for small-boat expeditions—like Lieutenant Gunji’s venture from Ōkawa all the way to the edge of the Northern Kurils—still lingered in memory. Whether Kawakami’s cunning drew inspiration from this or he simply saw no alternative escape, those who had struggled through life’s treacherous paths now rowed their desperate small boat into the grim seas of the 210th day.

The small boat *Nippon Maru* was rowed out from Ōmori Coast toward the dark sea.
Those who noticed likely thought it merely an eccentric couple rowing out briefly before returning, but inside the boat lay only essential provisions.
Blankets had been stowed instead of bedding.
Yet how many days they meant to sail onward—even the couple held no clear aim.
The husband rowed; the wife braced herself for calamity. In their delirium, they strained toward what seemed a small island’s silhouette—only to reach the flank of battleship *Fuji* in Yokosuka Naval Port.

They were summoned to the naval station and interrogated, but having drifted without knowing their whereabouts, when they found relief upon spotting what seemed like an island's shadow, the night began to dawn—and upon explaining that it had been a battleship, they were pardoned. Moreover, the reprimand proved fortuitous, allowing them to receive various kindnesses; they were earnestly instructed about treacherous stretches of sea ahead and, after being seen off with great ceremony, rowed out into the open ocean.

Four

The pages of memory from then until she became Sadayakko would form a radiant tale—a string of tears—that would shine even after her body perished.
The raging seas of Enshūnada—they had somehow managed to navigate them, but near Kakegawa, an utterly exhausted Kawakami struck his flank against the gunwale and tumbled into the sea.
The boat capsized.
Sadayakko summoned every ounce of strength in that critical moment, hoisting her husband—who had sunk only to resurface—onto her back. Cutting through the raging waves, she swam desperately shoreward until miraculously escaping peril. Yet this ordeal left Kawakami groaning in agony at an inn in Awaji Sumoto.
Upon hearing this news, the disciples who rushed over transferred their ailing teacher to Kobe and simultaneously staged *The Parting of the Kusunoki Father and Son at Sakurai*—a historical drama well-practiced by the Kawakami troupe—at the local Daikokuza theater.
This met with favorable reception in the local area, and being a production of Kusunoki-sama’s play in Kobe—combined with the fact that contemporary newspapers had detailed Kawakami’s incident—the troupe’s popularity surged even higher, yielding more than enough funds for his hospitalization.
Kawakami’s recovery was swift.
However, once Kawakami regained his health, he would not be dissuaded from setting out on another sea voyage, entrusting himself once more to the capricious waves.
At that time, a proposal came to bring Japanese theater to the upcoming French Exposition.

For the couple who had been determined to pioneer a new life—even if it meant reaching a deserted island—this proposal was nothing short of a godsend. Without hesitation, they resolved to embark on the journey, and the twenty-one members of the Kawakami Troupe united to set forth.
Among them were only two women—needless to say, one was Yakko, and the other was Kawakami’s niece Tsuruko (Aoki Tsuruko, a noted actress active in America, later the wife of Hayakawa Sessue). Yakko had merely accompanied them as a spectator, while Tsuruko’s purpose was to study there.

The troupe disembarked in San Francisco, America.
Having trusted only the words of an intermediary they had brought along, they spent about four days after landing in a haze—only for the intermediary to flee.
All that remained was an enormous debt borrowed under Kawakami’s name without their knowledge, and when they went to inspect the theater that was supposed to be booked, they found it nailed shut.
Clutching at the faint hope that staging a performance might save them, the troupe—piling desperate measure upon desperate measure—soon found themselves unable to scrape together even basic sustenance. Reduced to the indignity of being expelled from their hotel, these souls with nowhere to go slept on park benches and wandered aimlessly, staggering like sick dogs. With no recourse but to stave off starvation by buying scraps of food, they endured efforts that wrung blood from their hearts until at last they managed to open at Boston’s California Theater. Yet actors as destitute as any mob of beggars—how could such wretches hope to draw crowds or succeed?
Their destitution pressed down on them with mounting intensity; no theater anywhere would take them on.
When theaters heard that pathetically feeble male actors were playing female roles, they were ridiculed as a farce and not even granted an audience.

The troupe, under the cold October skies of a foreign land, underwent fasting for days, slept rough, and endured hardships like the ascetic ordeals of saints.

It was the daughter of the owner of the Lyric Theater on Washington Street in Chicago who became the savior of this pitiful troupe on the brink of starvation. Miss Pottan had an interest in Japanese theater, so she convinced her father and decided to invite the Kawakami troupe. The theater owner had permitted Miss Pottan’s whims, but since he couldn’t stage a proper profit-driven performance, they were at least rescued under the condition that there would be no advertising whatsoever.

Even though the theater owner wouldn’t advertise, since they were opening the performance, it was only human nature to want as many spectators as possible. Even in the direst of circumstances, they had kept reserved—adorned in the costumes and armor worn on stage—the actors themselves advertised by parading through the snow-laden intersections and towns. Their tragic state of mind—starving as they were, clad in heavy armor, parading through snowy avenues with courageously stern expressions—was a pitifulness unimaginable to those unacquainted with true hardship. On stage, a foot soldier thrown by Kojima Takanori—who should have risen again to counterattack—remained collapsed where he had fallen, so utterly had they reached the height of exhaustion. When they received a hundred dollars and rushed into a hotel, every one of them who sat down at the dining table was in tears of joy, their faces streaming.

At that time, the troupe suffered bitter experiences due to the lack of actresses, so Yakko, unable to bear watching their plight, came to their rescue.
Out of obligation and human compassion, she who had never once set foot on stage before suddenly became a star actress—leaping to stardom in a single bound—in that foreign land where outstanding actresses shone like bright stars, though hers was but an impoverished traveling troupe.
However, for a time these were mere rural tours—a period that rather served as preparation for forging Madam Sadayakko’s essence—yet the troupe’s hardships remained truly severe.
When they reached Boston, Kawakami fell ill from strain and two troupe members perished as ghosts in a foreign land.

“Don’t do anything reckless until I’ve fully recovered.”

Kawakami kept repeating this from his sickbed, but for their livelihood, they had to disregard his instructions. If they continued passing days with nothing to do, they couldn’t rely on the troupe members’ unity—their spirits devoured by adversity—and to lift the troupe’s morale, appearing at the theater was their only option. So Sadayakko secretly led the troupe out, hiding this from Kawakami.

It was probably around that time.

Since they could do nothing about the two troupe members who had died, they entrusted all arrangements to a local funeral company.

When they returned from the theater, they found the deceased’s beards neatly trimmed, their faces beautifully made up, their hair combed with perfume applied, dressed in new formal attire with floral wreaths placed upon their chests, and laid to rest inside coffins.

They say that when the troupe members—who until yesterday had shared meals and forged unyielding unity through life and death—saw the deceased’s serene and immaculate appearance, so starkly different from their own wretched state of just days prior, now dignified in gentlemanly repose, they were struck by a peculiar thought: Is it better to be among the living or the dead? All they could do was bow their heads.

What struck them most profoundly was how even the fingernails of the deceased’s hands folded upon their chests had been meticulously polished—a detail that those in dire straits, who might apply stage makeup but were too harried by survival to attend to such refinements, gazed upon with deep emotion.

The French Paris Exposition that Kawakami had kept speaking of from his sickbed—it was precisely there that Madam Sadayakko’s reputation blazed resplendently.
Of the three triumphs that shone brightest abroad, one came in Washington, America, where through the efforts of the late Minister Komura, she was invited to an embassy soirée and first gained renown in high society.
Another came in England when meeting General Uemura led to presenting Japanese theater at Buckingham Palace—I distinctly recall Sadayakko appearing before the royal seats still wearing her Dojoji Temple Dance costume.
The third came in Paris, France, where Ambassador Kurino’s efforts secured their long-coveted invitation to the Exposition.
This event stood truly unprecedented both for them and Japanese theater.
Here in Paris—art’s fountainhead gathering all earthly refinement—at exposition grounds curating masterworks of art and craft.
The audience spanned not just nations but every corner of the globe.
That these actors—until yesterday mere provincial wanderers staging pauper’s plays—could now startle audiences here seemed beyond hope’s remotest thread. Yet the Kawakami Troupe’s popularity shook that land’s theater world beyond all dreams.
Before crossing to France, their Boston adaptation of Henry Irving’s *The Merchant of Venice* as *Shylock* saw one-dollar tickets bid to five—novelty aided, but triumph undeniable.
Returning home, the Kawakamis bore gleaming upon their breasts France’s Officier d’Académie Third Class Medal—honor prized by artists.

Sadayakko, Sadayakko—her name spread more widely overseas than in Japan.
Though nominally the Kawakami Troupe, they were welcomed not as his troupe but as hers.
Once having returned to Japan, they reorganized their troupe and, this time not as aimless itinerant actors but as a shining representative of Japanese theater, embarked once more for Europe in Meiji 34 (1901).
Needless to say, the troupe leader was Kawakami Otojirō, with Sadayakko as the star actress. Alongside prominent members such as the late Fujisawa Asajirō, Matsumoto Masao, and the late Doi Tsunemoto (Shunsho), they added an actress named Nakamura Nakayoshi—a stately beauty and truly skilled itinerant performer from the old school—bringing the total to twenty-six or twenty-seven members.
They toured France, Britain, Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Hungary, receiving a grand welcome wherever they went.
When they returned from this tour, even in their homeland of Japan, Sadayakko was welcomed: cosmetic companies eagerly released new products touted as Madam Sadayakko’s French souvenirs, and advertisements featured her charming face.
And it was due to Kawakami’s earnest request that she presented an honorable performance on the prestigious stage of her hometown, endorsed by foreign theater circles—her stage debut occurred at age thirty-three in Meiji 35 (1902), when she performed Desdemona from Shakespeare’s *Othello* under the name Lady Tsubone.
In October of Taisho 6 (1917), which marked the seventh memorial anniversary of her late husband’s passing, she held a retirement performance at the Meiji-za Theater in Nihonbashi-Kyūmachi, concluding her fifteen-year acting career, and staged the Italian opera *Aida*, adapted into a play by Matsui Matsuba.
Kawakami’s former disciples did not participate due to unresolved tensions over matters such as the bronze statue of Kawakami that Sadayakko had erected and his gravesite in his hometown (they had built a separate grave for their teacher beneath the graves of the Forty-Seven Ronin at Shiba Takanawa Sengaku-ji Temple, as Kawakami had wished, and held a funeral organized by Shinpa troupes in Tokyo). Fortunately, prominent Shinpa figures—Ii, Kawai, and Kitamura—stepped in to support the event. With floral wreaths, decorations, ornamental pieces, and stacked displays arriving from all quarters, Sadayakko’s dressing room and the theater corridors were lavishly adorned, suffused with a festive air akin to a grand purification rite or festival celebration.
The group organized by Mr. Fukuzawa received five thousand applications throughout the performance period, and the fact that many of these were invitations was spoken of as something splendid.

In praising Sadayakko—the pioneering actress who combined her birth name Sada with her geisha name Yakko from her Yoshichō days—I place her on equal footing with Izumo no Okuni, the primordial ancestress of actresses.
In this world, regardless of one’s circumstances, moral guardians enforce as law their corpse-like calmness, ignorance, subservience, servility, and conformity—and should one even slightly transgress these conditions, they cast women’s virtue into disarray.
Yet people live.
In women too, fierce blood courses.
Shouldn’t matters that stain a person’s soul be left to their own reckoning?
Because I am no moralist, when I see the valor with which they wrestle through life’s torments—battling desperately with slender arms, slashing through hardship after hardship—I find myself longing to honor their courage with tearful awe.

Ah!

Sadayakko.
The twilight years after retirement would be lonely.
To achieve merit, accomplish fame, and retire from public life—this was the teaching of ancient sages.
The loneliness of being forgotten—this too you must inevitably taste.
Yet I believe you were happy.
For you were both loved and loved others; all your weeping and laughter, suffering and joy, delight and consolation given and received—all were earnest.
Therefore few have truly savored sincerity’s noble essence as you have.
In this regard, it may be said you truly lived a life of purpose.
Here I humbly take leave of your radiant past—farewell, Madam Sadayakko!

―March 1920 (Taisho 9)―