"Yes, but it must be done quickly; for opposition is being organised. First, there was the Salvation Army and the missionaries. Now, there are Japanese people, too, people who make a cry and say this licensed prostitute system is not suitable to a civilised country, and it is a shame to Japan. Also, there may be a political change very soon, and a new Minister."
"Then we would have to begin all over again, another fifty thousand yen to the other side."
"If it is worth it?"
"My father says that Osaka is the gold mine of Japan. It is worth all that we can pay."
"Yes, but Mr. Fujinami Gennosuké is an old man now, and the times are changing."
The master laughed.
"Times change," he said, "but men and women never change."
"It is true," argued Ito, "that rich and noble persons no longer frequent the yukwaku (pleasure enclosure). My friend, Suzuki, has seen the Chief of the Metropolitan Police. He says that he will not be able to permit Oiran Dochu another year. He says too that it will soon be forbidden to show the jor[=o] in their windows. It will be photograph-system for all houses. It is all a sign of the change. Therefore, the Fujinami ought not to sink any more capital in the yukwaku."
"But men will still be men, they will still need a laundry for their spirits." Mr. Fujinami used a phrase which in Japan is a common excuse for those who frequent the demi-monde.
"That is true, sensei," said the counsellor; "but our Japan must take on a show of Western civilisation. It is the thing called progress. It is part of Western civilisation that men will become more hypocritical. These foreigners say our Yoshiwara is a shame; but, in their own cities, immoral women walk in the best streets, and offer themselves to men quite openly. These virtuous foreigners are worse than we are. I myself have seen. They say, 'We have no Yoshiwara system, therefore we are good.' They pretend not to see like a geisha who squints through a fan. We Japanese, we now become more hypocritical, because this is necessary law of civilisation. The two swords of the samurai have gone; but honour and hatred and revenge will never go. The kanzashi (hair ornaments) of the oiran will go too; but what the oiran lose, the geisha will gain. Therefore, if I were Fujinami San, I would buy up the geisha, and also perhaps the inbai (unregistered women)."