“Natural enough for your mother to show such concern for her daughter, but for your father to obsess like this. You’ve been protected too much!” Jūkichi exclaimed as he skimmed through her father’s letter. He picked up the next letter, which was from his mother to Tokiko. “Jūkichi is a cranky sort of fellow. I am certain, dear Tokiko, that you are having a difficult time with my son. Please do your best with him. . . .” Jūkichi abruptly stopped reading and hastily put this letter aside.
“You have only just left your father’s and come here, so you haven’t experienced much of the world. You don’t realize how crucial it is for a woman’s future to choose the right husband,” Jūkichi declared.
“Even I know that much,” Tokiko replied, “I saw what happened to my sister when she divorced. I don’t want to suffer the way she did.”
“That gentle-looking sister of yours, a divorcée? Then she’s remarried?” he asked, comparing in his mind his wife and her sister. “You must care a great deal for your sister. At night I hear you calling out to her in your sleep. You never say the names of your mother and father.”
“I talk in my sleep?” Tokiko asked, looking disconcerted. “It’s odd because I don’t like my sister much. Our personalities are entirely different.”
Tokiko wondered why she had been dreaming about her sister, to whom she seldom spoke with familiarity. In response to Jūkichi’s persistent questioning, she told him the story of her sister’s divorce. Tokiko’s father had forced his eldest daughter to marry a wealthy benefactor’s son, a young man who had insisted on having Tokiko’s sister as his bride, despite being refused on several occasions. Perhaps because the young man was suffering some sort of mental illness, he could not keep a job, and he spent his days hovering around his wife with a silly and lascivious grin on his face. It soon seemed to the young woman that she too would become ill in this situation, and she fled to her parents’ house.
“My mother was constantly harassing her, ‘Why did you run away? Why didn’t you stick it out?’ Day after day, my sister was berated by the family. That’s why when I left home to come here, my father told me several times to never cross his threshold again!” As she was recounting these incidents, Tokiko recalled her sister’s deep depression and her constant tears. She remembered how her sister remained indoors, ashamed to go out and be seen in public.
“But you and your sister only did as your father told you. If someone’s to blame for a bad marriage, it’s him. Don’t let them intimidate you.”
“Things don’t work that way in my family.”
The couple occasionally shared this sort of conversation, but Jūkichi never attempted to please his wife with flattery or words of affection. He never once offered to take her out for a walk. Since she had not had her father’s permission when she stayed with her aunt in Tokyo, she had not once attended the theater or vaudeville halls. She had hoped that after her marriage she might be free to visit some lively, entertaining places, but Jūkichi did not show the slightest inclination to take her out.
“I’d love to see the cherry blossoms falling this year,” Tokiko muttered to herself one afternoon.
“Well, then, go to the banks of the Edogawa. There are lots of cherry trees there. You can go by yourself any time you like,” Jūkichi observed nonchalantly.
“But the flowers there aren’t famous. I wanted to see the blossoms at Ueno in the evening.”
“Cherry blossoms are about the same everywhere you go!”
“They aren’t, either. I don’t want to see the flowers in bloom. I want to see them scattering on the evening breeze.”
Tokiko felt a desire to weep as she looked at the falling blossoms. After dinner, she went out into the small garden, took the ribbon out of her hair, which she let flutter in the breeze as she sang “Die Lorelei.” A puppy crawled in through a hole in the fence and circled the garden sniffing the ground.
“Come, Snowball. Come here!” Tokiko called and began playing with the puppy.
That night, Tokiko wrote letters to her mother and friends. She also began recording her thoughts again in her diary, which she had neglected for a long time.
VII
For the first week after the wedding, a guest or two visited every day. Some of Jūkichi’s friends came to see the new bride. One old friend that Jūkichi had not seen for a year arrived with the attitude that he had dropped by to see what kind of woman Jūkichi had finally decided to marry. The aunt from Aoyama visited all in a flurry to see how her niece was doing, and she even went in to inspect the kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Yazawa visited frequently during their daily walk and entertained everyone with lively gossip. When Jūkichi and Mr. Yazawa withdrew to talk about serious matters, Mrs. Yazawa spoke candidly about what she had observed in the house. Tokiko made a point of remembering the things she was advised to do, and she also felt free to talk about her own feelings. Tokiko’s old-fashioned long sleeves and the countrified pattern of her kimono caught Mrs. Yazawa’s eye. “You’ve trained in classical Japanese dance, haven’t you?” Mrs. Yazawa observed, surveying Tokiko’s dress and demeanor.
Jūkichi did not wish to speak with his guests about his new wife. He did almost no work; instead, he often napped with a collection of poetry in his hand. After about a week, as if he were finally rested, Jūkichi went out after dinner. A fine spring rain was falling. Jūkichi strode lightly down the road with his umbrella on his shoulder. Lanterns hanging from eaves of shops had been lit. He felt it had been a long time since he had been touched by the open air. He looked, with fond remembrance, on the figures of men and women on the road and in the shops. When he reached the Edo River, he did not feel like returning home, and so, with no particular destination in mind, he hopped aboard a streetcar. He suddenly became aware of the fresh beauty of the four or five young women in the car. They seemed far more attractive than young women had seemed before his marriage. “There certainly are a lot of pretty girls around these days,” he thought, unaware of what his thoughts signified.
The streetcar was bound for the Honjo district of the Hongō ward. Jūkichi got off at the main avenue in Ueno and entered a beer hall at the corner. He ordered coffee and sat sipping it as he gazed out the window at the street. The bustle of people in the rain stirred his sentiments. He suddenly was overcome by an irrational desire to find happiness. How he longed to forget his sense of lack of fulfillment and lose himself in tears of joy! But what should he do? Where could he go? He aspired to nothing.
Jūkichi left the beer hall and wandered around the neighborhood. It rained harder. Drops from the edges of the umbrella fell on his sleeves. He entered a narrow side street. In front of him was a place he had visited before, an establishment called Kawachiya. He intended to ignore the place and pass on when a dark shadow stepped out and called his name. It was a shrewish-faced, unattractive maid.
After a brief conversation, Jūkichi opened the front entrance and went upstairs. On a night in February he had come here to listen to a performance of traditional ballads in the Shinnai style, but the rendition of “Akegarasu” was third rate at best, and he had left. He had told that girl Komatsu, “I’ll never see you again.” He wondered what had become of her.
“It is funny you should ask. We were just gossiping about her,” the maid replied politely. “She left this district. You didn’t know?”
“Did she shift her contract to another geisha house?”
“No, she left for the provinces. She said she saw you on the avenue at around the end of the year.”
“That’s right. She was wearing black-rimmed glasses. I pretended I didn’t recognize her. Too much trouble.”
“The way she left here wasn’t very nice. It was like she ran out on her debts. She was popular, though. Had a lot of customers!”
“She told me that she wanted to pay off her debts by the end of that year, and in the coming year she was going to open her own geisha house,” Jūkichi recalled.
Jūkichi had been involved with the woman for more tha
n three months, but he was not inclined to find out more information about her. “She was a foolish, unappealing woman,” he declared. He showed no sign of fondness for her.
“Even we could tell you didn’t particularly like her. But you stayed with her longer than with any other geisha. What did you see in her?”
“Nothing really. I had some extra money, that’s all. She was convinced I’d fallen in love with her. When I told her I wasn’t going to see her anymore, she was conceited enough to believe I’d be back for certain.”
“You’re a decisive guy, aren’t you!”
“That’s not it. If there isn’t something exceptional about a woman, I can’t become passionate about her. It’s true I became involved with the woman, but nobody will blame me or become jealous. She wasn’t going to die for love, and she wasn’t going to despise me, either. I had no interest in her.”
“You’re a strange one!”
The maid offered to call him a woman, but he refused. Neither was he in the mood to return home. “Shall we go to a vaudeville hall?” he offered. She replied that she was the only maid on duty and couldn’t leave the house. Jūkichi did not want to go by himself. So he stayed and drank several cups of saké he did not enjoy and gossiped with the taciturn maid about a few of the geisha he had known, the rise and fall of restaurants, geisha houses, and other businesses in the district. Bedding was spread, and he lay down.
The rain beat gently against the window. Jūkichi heard the sensual voices of women in the alley calling out to one another. He remembered the vulgar songs he had learned in this house. That night he slept soundly for the first time in many nights.
The same night, Tokiko recorded the following in her diary: “Since my days as a student I’ve had my hair done in a modified Western style, but at Mrs. Yazawa’s urging, today I changed to a style more appropriate to a young married woman. The hairdresser offered me formal congratulations and said that I’d undergone my coming-of-age ceremony. I was embarrassed. I gave the hairdresser a gift of fifty sen. My husband suggested we should have Mrs. Yazawa’s gift of a bolt of cloth made into an underskirt and a half-coat, and we took the measurements. But we had no cutting board, so it was difficult to get the correct ones. The maid then brought us a drying frame, so we were able to spread out the cloth and measure it. My husband went out for the evening and hasn’t returned. The maid and I talked late into the night. After eleven, she began yawning. Said she didn’t know when my husband would return. I let her go to bed and stayed up alone. The crying of the Chinese infant next door and the howling of neighborhood dogs combine in the rainy night to create a mood of indescribable loneliness. I’m fully awake, but the clock just struck two, so I will go to bed.”
The next day dawned bright and beautiful. Jūkichi came home shortly after noon, carrying his umbrella. Tokiko felt a certain constraint in front of Jūkichi, but for the rest of the day she made certain to remain close by to serve his needs.
The old maid had a toothache and left for her daughter’s house to recuperate for four or five days. Jūkichi left the house every day. When he returned, he said nothing about the mess the house was in, the disordered main room and the dirty kitchen. Mrs. Yazawa visited for the first time in several days. Tokiko had gone to bathe at the public bath.
“How’s everything?” Mrs. Yazawa asked Jūkichi, who was preparing his own tea in the kitchen.
“Your young lady has left this place in a fine mess! I have to walk around in this dust and dirt.”
“The kitchen hasn’t been cleaned, either,” she said. Unable to sit still, she went to get a broom and began sweeping.
“I don’t mind about the housekeeping, but sometimes I’m shocked by her stupidity. She’ll sit in some sticky, dirty place wearing one of her best kimonos.
Last evening, she was boiling bamboo sprouts. The pot was full, more than we could ever eat. I suppose she’s used to cooking for large families in the countryside, but is she so dumb she can’t tell the difference between a household of ten and one of two? The other day I called in a servant girl from a neighborhood sushi shop to help with the chores. Tokiko treated her like a guest, seated her at the same table with me, and served both of us. Maybe she enjoys playing house.”
“She’s twenty. She’s not a child.”
“I don’t know. If I were in my twenties and she looked like a fairy-tale princess, playing house might be kind of fun,” Jūkichi laughed. “What about Kaneko? Is she still acting like a child?”
“No, not at all,” Mrs. Yazawa replied emphatically, shaking her head. “She’s an intelligent, perceptive young woman. A bit of a tomboy, though.”
“I dislike women who are insensitive. First, it’s impossible to carry on a conversation with Tokiko. She hasn’t grown accustomed to Tokyo life, and she hasn’t the slightest idea how to please a man. She’s just a puppet in the shape of a woman. I wouldn’t mind if she were like one of those beautiful, lifelike dolls created by the master Yasumoto Kamehachi, though.”
As Jūkichi repeated his usual poisonous denigration of his wife, he became quite enthusiastic. Mrs. Yazawa looked displeased as she cleaned the kitchen.
“She’s afraid of you, you know. Why don’t you be kind to her? Take her out and show her something of the world!” Mrs. Yazawa said irritatedly.
“Even her voice grates on my nerves. Then every time she speaks, she has to end in the register of an upper-class Tokyo lady. It’s quite comical to hear provincials try to speak like Tokyo sophisticates.”
“She must have picked that up recently. It’s not like her to be pretentious.” Mrs. Yazawa was considering whether to caution the young woman about her language when Tokiko returned, refreshed, from her bath. “The Tokyo lady has arrived,” Jūkichi observed chuckling and went into the front room.
Mrs. Yazawa listened as Tokiko spoke about her insecurities, then led her by the hand to her husband’s side.
“Let’s get along, you two!” Mrs. Yazawa said and attempted to join their hands.
Tokiko leaned against Mrs. Yazawa. “Will you be my mother?” she asked sweetly.
“Of course! I’m delighted to have this fine grown-up daughter!” Mrs. Yazawa responded.
Jūkichi laughed bitterly. While Mrs. Yazawa was there, he carried on a cheerful conversation, but as soon as she left, he fell silent.
The couple were merely two people inhabiting separate rooms in the same house. They made attempts at familiar conversation, but not once did their hearts come together in intimacy.
Jūkichi felt that a stranger, a young woman to whom he felt little connection, had been placed in his care.
Tokiko never once, however, communicated her loneliness and sadness to members of her family. Although her aunt from Aoyama repeatedly questioned her about her situation in her new household, Tokiko did not confess her true feelings.
“Once a woman’s married, she must decide that her husband’s house will be the place where she dies. No matter how she suffers, she must never leave her husband. If you don’t have the courage to endure, you will never be a real woman. Never forget, for even a moment, that you have no other home to return to. If your husband’s bad tempered, you should see that as your fault and work to improve his temperament. Pleasing your husband in every regard is your duty and your means for self-fulfillment as a woman!” As assertive as a man, the aunt gave her speech at the first opportunity in their conversation.
“I shall never return to my parents’ house,” Tokiko replied.
Lectured to by her mother and father and instructed by such books as Virtues of Chaste Young Ladies and The Mirror of Feminine Virtue, which she had read so assiduously for many years, Tokiko was intent on staying with Jūkichi and making their marriage a success. In her diary she wrote, “No matter how cruel my husband is, if I honestly do my best, my efforts will be rewarded with his love.” From then on, as one would record the weather of the day, Tokiko would start off each day’s entry to her diary with the observation “Today husband in good
humor” or “Today husband in bad humor.” Convinced that her husband was a cruel person, Tokiko felt a melancholy sort of pride in identifying with the heroines presented in The Mirror of Feminine Virtue as her models of valiant, self-sacrificing womanhood.
One day, Jūkichi spied Tokiko in the next room looking bored. “If you want, you can go out and see some sights in the city. There’s no pressing need for you to stay in the house.” His tone was gentle. Encouraged, Tokiko replied cheerfully, “I have a number of errands to run. They’ve been piling up. I won’t be out amusing myself.” Tokiko did not want Jūkichi to think that she would be having fun.
“You don’t have to work so hard,” Jūkichi said with a chuckle. “Staying inside all the time is bad for your health. I don’t need you getting sick on me.”
“I’m healthy. You’re the sickly one.”
“Maybe you’re right. I’ve gotten sicker since I’ve been married.”
“My heavens!” Tokiko said, opening her eyes wide in mock surprise. “Judging from what you talk about in your sleep, I thought the source of your illness was somewhere else!”
“I talk in my sleep? First I’ve heard of it,” Jūkichi said. He knew his heart was not at peace even in sleep. “What do I say?”
“You seem to be suffering. You’re so negative. And you keep saying a woman’s name.”
“What woman is that?” Jūkichi asked in true wonderment. Taken aback by his sudden seriousness, Tokiko hesitated before answering. At length, she replied with a smile, “Do you know a woman named Sū?”
“Sū?” It took Jūkichi some time to recall the woman. Probably Osuzu. He had once been infatuated with her, but it had been years since she had crossed his conscious mind.
Remembering her, he asked his wife, “Isn’t there a man or two you think of fondly from the time before you came here?”
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series) Page 30