Five Women Who Loved Love

by Ihara Saikaku

  Then, when the well cleaners got down to the barrel planking close to the spring, an old two-headed nail came loose and the planking came apart. They sent for the cooper we have mentioned to make a new hoop for the barrel. When he had succeeded in stopping up the slowly flowing water, the cooper noticed an old woman with a crooked back who was fondling a live lizard.

  He asked her what it was, and she answered: “This is a newt which just now was brought up from the well. Don’t you recognize one when you see it? If you put this lizard in a bamboo tube and burn it, and then sprinkle its ashes in the hair of the person you love, that person will love you in turn.” She spoke with a great deal of conviction.

  This woman was formerly an abortionist known as Kosan from Myoto Pond, but when this profession was prohibited she gave up her cruel practice and worked at making noodle-flour with a mortar. Because of the hand-to-mouth nature of such an occupation, she had to work so hard that she did not even hear the temple bell sounding the end of the day. However, as she sank lower and lower in the social scale she learned the lesson of karma and she thought more about the future life.

  When she told the cooper about the terrible things that would happen to people who did wrong in this world, he paid no attention to her. Rather, he questioned her the more intently about the efficacy of burning a newt to help in one’s love affairs.

  Naturally, she became more sympathetic as he talked to her with such earnestness, and she finally asked: “Who is it that you love? I won’t tell another soul.”

  The cooper forgot himself, so much was he thinking of the one he loved, and as he beat on the bottom of the cask he let himself be carried away by his own words, pouring out all of his story to the old woman. “The one I love does not live far away. I love Osen, the maid of the house here. I have sent her a hundred letters without getting a word in reply.”

  The old woman nodded and said: “You don’t need any newts to win her. I can bridge the stream of love for you. I will disperse the clouds and make your love successful in no time at all.”

  The cooper was surprised to hear her undertake the matter so lightly. “If this will involve a great deal of money, I am afraid I won’t be able to supply it, no matter how much I would like to, for this has been a bad season for me. Naturally, if I had the money I wouldn’t begrudge it. All I can promise you is a cotton kimono dyed to your liking at New Year’s and a set of Nara-hemp clothes of second quality for the mid-summer festival of O-Bon. Is it a bargain?”

  “Love that can talk that way must be based on selfishness. I am not looking for that sort of thing at all. You know there is a great art in getting a person to feel love for you. In my lifetime I’ve helped thousands of people, and always with success. I’ll see to it that you meet her before the Chrysanthemum Festival in September.

  “. . . If you put this lizard in a bamboo tube and burn it, and then sprinkle its ashes in the hair of the person you love, that person will love you in turn.” She spoke with a great deal of conviction. . . .

  This set the flames of love burning more fiercely in the cooper’s heart and he cried: “My lady, I will supply you with all the firewood you will need to make tea the rest of your life.”

  In this world no one knows how long a person may live, and it is amusing to think that love should have made him promise so much.

  2. After the dance: a witch in the night

  There are seven mysterious things in the Temma section of Osaka: the umbrella-shaped flame before the Daikyo Temple; the boy without hands at Shimmei Shrine;2 the topsy-turvy lady at Sonezaki;3 the phantom noose of Eleventh Avenue; the crying monk of Kawasaki; the laughing cat of Ikeda-machi; and the smouldering Chinese mortar at the Bush-Warbler’s Mound. But these are just the magical tricks of old foxes and badgers. Much more to be feared are those demons in human form who play havoc with the lives of ignorant men.

  Our souls are dark indeed. And it was so dark the twenty-eighth night of July that hanging lanterns threw no light under the eaves of houseroofs. Street dancers, hoping to sustain their revels till dawn, shouted, “Just one more day to dance till the month is over,” but they too reluctantly broke up and returned to their homes. Even the vigilant dog of Four Corners fell fast asleep.

  At this late hour old Nanny, the mischievous crone in whom the cooper had put his trust, noticed that the entrance to the great landlord’s house was still open. She burst in, slammed the door, and tumbled down onto the kitchen floor, crying: “Oh, oh, it’s terrible. Give me a drink of water!”

  To those within the house she appeared on the brink of death, but her continued breathing encouraged them to call her back to consciousness, and without more ado she came to life.

  “What can you have seen that was so terrifying?” asked the landlord’s wife and her aged mother-in-law.

  “Well, it’s a shameful thing for an old woman to admit, but I went out walking the streets tonight. I went to bed early and couldn’t get to sleep, so I decided to go see the dancing. My, it was wonderful! I couldn’t get enough of it, especially the Kudoki4 songs with rhymes made up using yama and matsu. There was one fellow down in front of the Nabeshima mansion who sang exactly like Nihei, the great Donen5 singer of Kyoto.

  “I pushed my way through a crowd of men and watched the show with my fan as an eye-shade so that people couldn’t see what an old woman I was. But the men knew what was what, even in the dark. I wiggled my old hips in a most flirtatious way and was really quite sexy in this white gown and black sash. But no one so much as pinched my bottom. ‘A woman is a sometime thing.’6

  “So I started home again, my mind recollecting the old days of my youth, and suddenly near your gate I was hailed by a handsome young fellow of twenty-four or twenty-five. He was desperately in love, so tortured by his fatal passion that he had only a day or two to live in this Fleeting World. It was the cruel Osen, he said, upon whom his heart had fixed itself so hopelessly.7 He swore that within a week after his death his ghost would come to kill every member of this household. Oh, he was so frightsome! He had a great nose, his face was flushed with fever, and his eyes gleamed, just as if he were possessed by the tengu8 whose figure is paraded before the Sumiyoshi festival procession. I was so frightened that I had to run in here.”

  Everyone who had crowded around to hear her story was aghast, and the householder’s aged father wept a little.

  “To be unhappy in love,” he said, “is not unheard of. Osen is old enough to get married now, and we should keep this man in mind if he has a suitable livelihood. Providing he is not a gambler or widow chaser, and is thrifty and frugal, he might make a good choice. Of course, I do not know the man at all, but I can sympathize with him.”

  By the long silence which followed, it was plain that the others sympathized with him too. The shrewd old hen certainly knew her business when it came to promoting a love affair.

  It was now past midnight and, after she had been helped to her feet, old Nanny returned to her hovel. While she lay there plotting her next move, dawn broke through the east window. Nearby she could hear the sound of flint on steel, as a neighbor started up his fire. Somewhere an infant began to cry. Sleepily the tenants of that squalid quarter chased out the mosquitoes which had slipped through the breaks in their paper nets and plagued them throughout the night. One minute the women’s fingers were pinching at the fleas in their underclothes, the next pinching for some odd coins on the sanctuary shelf with which to buy a few green vegetables. Still, amidst the bitter struggle for existence, pleasure could yet be found by those who, through wedlock, had won partners for their beds. In what delights may they not have indulged, with pillows to the south9 and mattresses in utter disarray, violating the vigil of Kinoe-ne?10

  At last the sun rose to shine upon a brisk, breezy autumn day. The old woman tied her head up in a towel and treated herself for a headache, calling upon the services of Dr. Okajima without worrying how the bill would be paid. She had just served herself some broth of fresh herbs, when Osen came in fr
om the back alley to visit her.

  “How are you today?” Osen inquired sweetly, as from her left sleeve she brought forth half a melon pickled in the Nara style and wrapped in a lotus leaf, which she set down on a bundle of firewood. “Perhaps you would like it with some soy sauce,” she said modestly and made to go get it without waiting for the other’s thanks.

  “Wait,” the old woman insisted. “It is because of you that I am about to die before my time, and since I have no daughter of my own, you must pray for me when I am gone.” Then, reaching into a hemp basket, she brought out a pair of purple socks with red ribbons and a patched-up rosary bag, from which she removed her divorce papers. The socks and bag she gave to Osen, saying they would be keepsakes.

  Impressionable, as most women are, Osen believed the story and wept. “If there is truly someone in love with me, why didn’t he come for help from a love-wise person like yourself? If I had known his intentions, I should not have spurned him lightly.”

  Old Nanny saw that this was as good a time as any to come out with the whole story. “There is no reason to hide anything from you now. He did come to me many times, and the deep sincerity of his love for you was more touching and pitiful than I can say. If you should reject him now, my resentment will fall upon no one but you.” She spoke with all the cleverness that years of wide experience had given her, and, as was only to have been expected, Osen soon yielded.

  “I shall be glad to meet him anytime,” she cried, dizzy with emotion.

  Thereupon the old crone, delighted to have obtained such a promise, whispered: “It just occurred to me how you might best meet him. On the eleventh day of August you must make a secret pilgrimage to Ise.11 Traveling alone together, you would become fast friends and could spend your bedtime hours sweetly, heart murmuring to heart of undying love. And you know,” she added casually, “he is not at all bad looking.”

  Without further persuasion and before she had even seen him, Osen was consumed with love for this man. “Can he write letters himself? Does his hair fall long and pretty behind his head? I suppose, since he is a craftsman, his back may be a little stooped. Well, when we set out from here, I should like to stop at noon in Moriguchi or Hirakata, so we can get a room and go to bed early.”

  She was babbling on like this when the chief maidservant was heard calling outside: “Miss Osen, you’re wanted!”

  “. . . you must make a secret pilgrimage to Ise. Traveling alone together, you would become fast friends and could spend your bedtime hours sweetly, heart murmuring to heart of undying love. . . .”

  Osen quickly took her leave: “It’s all set for the eleventh then. . . .”

  3. As delicious as the water of Kyoto: the intimacy of lovers meeting in secret

  “The morning-glories are in bloom and it would be nice to have a look at them tomorrow early—nice and cool, too,” the lady of the house added as she began her instructions to the servants that evening. “I want you to arrange some seats out near the back hedge, away from the house. Spread out the flower-mats, put baked rice and toothpicks in the different compartments of the picnic box, and don’t forget the tea bottle. I shall take a bath just before six in the morning and then I want my hair done up simply in three plain rolls. As for a gown, let me have the hempen one with open sleeves and a pink lining. I shall wear my gray-satin sash with circle designs on it, the informal, two-piece one dotted with our family crest. I want you to take the utmost care in everything because we may be seen by people in the adjacent streets. So each of you must dress in decent-looking clothes. A litter should be sent at the usual rising time to my sister’s house in Tenjinbashi.”

  She put all the arrangements in the charge of Osen, who attended the lady upon her retirement into an ample mosquito net, at the four corners of which little bells jingled while Osen gently fanned her to sleep. Imagine so much fuss over nothing but some flowers in your back yard!

  But perhaps such vanity is not the weakness of women alone. At this time the master of the house was probably wasting himself and his money on Miss Nokaze of Shimabara and Miss Ogino of Shimmachi,12 buying both of them the same day, one for each end of his carrying-pole. Though he spoke of visiting Tsumura Temple each morning, and carried a shoulder pad13 for that purpose, it is much more likely that he went straight to the licensed quarter for a morning of sport and pleasure.

  Just before dawn on the eleventh of August old Nanny heard a light tapping on the door of her shanty.

  “It is Osen,” the girl outside whispered as she threw in a bundle which had been hastily wrapped in a large kerchief. Returning immediately to her master’s house, Osen did not realize that the old crone would lose no time in searching through the bundle to see what was there: five strings of cash worth about one farthing of silver each, and perhaps eighteen momme of pony-engraved silver pieces; nearly a peck of polished rice; a dried bonito; two combs in a charm bag; a one-piece sash of many colors; a silver and brown garment for cooler weather; a lighter gown, well worn, with a fan pattern; cotton socks, the soles of which were unfinished; sandals with loose straps; and a parasol on which Osen had naively written her address! The old woman quickly set about erasing the telltale characters in such a way as to leave no unsightly smear upon the parasol. As she did so, someone greeted her from the entranceway.

  “Old Nanny, I shall go on ahead now,” the cooper called in on his way past.

  Later Osen appeared, trembling a little. “Sorry to be late. I was detained at the house.”

  The old woman then took up the bundle of personal belongings and hastened with Osen down an unfamiliar byway. “It would be a great effort for me, but perhaps for the saké of the pilgrimage I should accompany you to Ise,” old Nanny suggested.

  Osen was plainly upset. “It’s a long trip for an elderly woman and you would find it hard going. Why don’t you take the night boat down from Fushimi after you have taken me to meet this man?” she replied tactlessly, for she had now no patience with anything that might upset the headlong progress of her affair.

  Just as they were crossing the Capital Bridge, along came Kyushichi, a manservant in the same household as Osen. He had come this way to watch the morning change of guard at Osaka Castle, but, his curiosity aroused when the two women came by, Kyushichi inevitably became a further obstacle in the path of the lovers.

  “Why, I have been thinking for some time of making the same pilgrimage and there could be no better companions for the journey than yourselves. Just leave your baggage for me to carry. Fortunately, I have plenty of spending money and can see to it that you suffer no inconvenience on that score.” From his excessive politeness one could guess that Kyushichi was inspired by some secret design on Osen, and old Nanny’s hostility was immediately aroused.

  “A young lady traveling in the company of a man! Now wouldn’t that seem most extraordinary to the people who saw us! Besides, the gods of Ise frown on that sort of thing. I have heard and seen enough of people who willfully disgrace themselves before society. Please don’t follow us.”

  “Well, I hardly expected to run into objections of this sort. Believe me, I have no designs on Miss Osen; faith alone moves me to this. In love, the gods will assure my success, without my having to solicit their protection, for my heart is true, true as the road we shall travel together. If the sun and moon favor us and Miss Osen so inclines, we can travel anywhere—to the capital perhaps. This would be just the time to spend four or five days there, seeing the maples of Takao in their bright fall colors and the blooming mushrooms of Saga. The master generally stops at a hotel in Kawara-machi, but I think we would find it awkward there. We could do better,” Kyushichi continued as if he would have everything his own way, “by taking some cozy rooms at the western end of Third Avenue. Then the old lady here could visit the Temple of the Original Vow, on Sixth Avenue.

  By this time the autumn sun was up over the mountainside, and the travelers were halfway past the pine-shaded banks of the Yodo River when they ran upon a man who looked v
ery conspicuous, seated beneath a cat’s-paw willow as if waiting for someone. On closer examination the old crone recognized him as the cooper. From the look in her eyes he could tell that something had gone wrong; it had not worked out as planned after he went on ahead of them.

  “You look as if you were going to Ise too,” old Nanny addressed him. “But why go alone? You seem to be an agreeable fellow and we’d like to have you spend the night with us somewhere.”

  The cooper was delighted, of course. “It’s so true: ‘The kindness of others always brightens a journey.’ I am certainly grateful for the invitation.”

  Kyushichi, on the other hand, looked bewildered. “It seems a little odd, especially with this young lady along, to have someone join us when you don’t even know where he’s going.”

  “Oh,” the old woman replied, “God watches over everything. And with a stout fellow like you along, what can possibly happen?”

  Thereafter the four of them slept in the same inn each night. Kyushichi, watching carefully for any opportunity to satisfy his secret desires, removed one of the sliding doors which separated him from the ladies and would peek in at them on his way to the bath. At night, when the four of them slept in a row, he stretched out his hand and tipped up the oil lamp so as to smother the light.

  Then, just as it was about to fail, the cooper exclaimed, “It’s awfully warm for fall,” and opened the window near him so that bright moonlight shone through upon the four sleeping figures.

  Again, when Osen made a pretense of snoring and Kyushichi moved his right leg over upon her, he was quickly detected by the cooper, who promptly started up a song about the Soga brothers, “Love plays mischief with all . . .” while beating time with the end of his fan. Osen then abandoned the pretense of sleeping and started to talk with old Nanny.