Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/91

corner. From then on what had been a vague yearning was transformed into the most violent of passions.

One morning a year later Seikichi received a visit at his house in the Fukagawa district. It was a young girl sent on an errand by a friend of his, a certain geisha from the Tatsumi quarter.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said timidly. “My mistress has asked me to deliver this coat to you personally and to request you to be so good as to make a design on the lining.”

She handed him a letter and a woman’s coat, the latter wrapped in a paper bearing the portrait of the actor Iwai Tojaku. In her letter the geisha informed Seikichi that the young messenger was her newly-adopted ward and was soon to make her debut as a geisha in the restaurants of the capital. She asked him to do what he could to launch the girl on her new career.

Seikichi looked closely at the visitor, who though no more than sixteen or seventeen, had in her face something strangely mature. In her eyes were reflected the dreams of all the hand­ some men and beautiful women who had lived in this city, where the virtues and vices of the whole country converged. Then Seikichi’s glance went to her delicate feet, shod in street clogs covered with plaits of straw.

“Could it have been you who left the Hirasei Restaurant last June in a palanquin?”

“Yes, sir, it was I,” she said, laughing at his strange question. “My father was still alive then and he used to take me occasionally to the Hirasei Restaurant.”

“I have been waiting for you now for five years,” said Seikichi. “This is the first time that I have seen your face but I know you by your feet…. There is something that I should like you to see. Please come inside, and do not be afraid.”

So saying, he took the hand of the reluctant girl and led her upstairs into a room which looked out on the great river. He fetched two large picture-scrolls and spread one of them before her.