A woman thus allowed out of the Yoshiwara would perhaps have looked out of her kago (palanquin) as she was borne along through the streets, and wondered at the novelty of her surroundings. Then she might have become impatient, owing to her anxiety after her parent’s health, and urged the kago-ya (bearers) to hurry forward. Arriving at her parents’ house she would perhaps have found her father, seriously ill, lying in squalid wretchedness, and have been met by her poor old mother who, taking her daughter’s hand in her own, might have been overcome with deep emotion and wept bitterly. Then came long consultations about the future, and the day of grace began to draw to a close, for it was a rule that courtesans out on leave had to return to the Yoshiwara before 5.30 p.m. By and by the sad and solemn tones of the temple bell at Asakusa would give her warning that her time had expired, and urged on by the yarite (an old brothel hag), whom she had perforce brought with her, she rose and bade farewell to her weeping parents, and re-entering her kago was carried back to her life of gilded misery well-nigh blinded by an agony of helpless tears.

Although the rules relating to the passage of the �-mon (great gateway) were as above, there were some prostitutes who attempted to run away from the Yoshiwara, owing to an irresistible desire to see their lovers, or being heavily in debt. When such an event happened, the brothel-keeper concerned sent out men on all sides to trace the absconding woman, or applied to the police office (mem-ban-sho) for her capture, and as detectives were immediately set to work to ascertain her whereabouts, nearly all runaway women were caught and ignominiously brought back to their masters. When an absconder was brought back, she was censured for her ill-considered step by the master, yarite, and bant�, and all the expenses incurred in connection with her detection and capture were added to her debt: this had the effect of prolonging the term of her servitude in the brothel. Sometimes private punishment was meted out to her by the master if he thought she deserved it. When an elopement was attempted twice or thrice in succession, the woman in question was generally re-sold to one of the prostitute quarters outside the Yoshiwara through the agency of a zegen (procurer): this practice was called “Kuragae� (change of saddles). It is said to have been the custom that when the keeper of a brothel outside the Yoshiwara was in treaty for the purchase of a “kuragae� prostitute, he sent his bant� to the house to which she belonged as an ordinary guest. The bant� spent the night with her, and the mi-no-shiro-kin (price-of-the-body) was settled according to his report.

Yūjo by�-shi oyobi j�-shi no koto.[37]
(Of the death and double-suicide of courtesans.)

The Yoshiwara Ō-kagami, (�原大鑑) says that as the life of a courtesan is generally spoken of as “the painful world� (Ku-gai 苦界) its really painful nature may be well imagined. Not only does a woman who has fallen into this unhappy position become a mere plaything to gratify the lusts of immoral men, but her freedom is so curtailed by circumstances that she cannot even sleep and eat independently, and therefore often has her constitution ruined owing to her irregular mode of eating and drinking. Others fall sick by reason of excessive anxiety over monetary affairs, and others fall a prey to loathsome and, perchance, virtually incurable diseases.

When a first-class prostitute (j�t� no yūjo) was sick, if the master of the brothel had been to much expense in procuring her, he would spare no pains to cure her illness, and if the matter was serious the woman would be removed to the master’s villa, (which was situated, perhaps, in the vicinity of Imado or Sanya), for treatment. Such an invalid would be closely attended by a kamuro (female page), and sometimes the master himself went to some temple to pray for her recovery. If, however, the yūjo happened to belong to a lower class, and was not particularly popular, the attitude of the brothel-keeper would be entirely different, and the treatment of the girl would be simply entrusted to some quack doctor, the poor creature being meanwhile thrust into an out-of-the-way gloomy room where she would pine away unseen by the other inmates of the house. When her condition was considered very precarious, the master, in order to avoid the trouble and expense involved at death, used to summon her parents and hand the sick woman over to them together with her sh�mon (document of engagement). When a yūjo died in a brothel the matter was reported by the monthly manager (tsuki-gy�ji) of the Yoshiwara to the nanushi, and the latter summoned her parents or surety to take delivery of her corpse. In the event of the home of her parents being far away, the remains of the yūjo were interred by the brothel-keeper in the D�tetsu (general burial place) on the bank in the presence of her surety. This place was also known as the “nage-komi� (the “throwing-in-place�). There is an old poem illustrating the sad future which is in store for some unfortunate sh�gi: it runs:—

“She is hurried to the grave in a pauper’s coffin, with but one solitary little maid to mourn her.�

Alas! this description was only too true in many cases.

Besides natural death, there were many yūjo who committed suicide, together with their sweethearts, owing to various reasons, among which the most powerful were either their inability to live together in conjugal felicity with each other, or their pecuniary embarrassments. Such double suicides had been known as shinjū (心中 “the inside of the heart or mind�), but about the era of Ky�h� (1716–1735) Judge Ōoka Echizen-no-Kami, (who is regarded as the Japanese Solomon), gave it out as his opinion that the word shinjū (心中) if read reversed would make chūshin (中心 = loyalty) and that it was absurd to call the double suicide of a man and woman, owing to love affairs, “loyalty�. He therefore ordained that this kind of suicide should be called “aitai-jini� (相�死 = “death by mutual consent�) and that word was accordingly adopted.