One day it happened that the father, caught in a heavy rainstorm, asked shelter in a little house at the roadside. Here he found a beautiful young woman playing exquisitely upon the harp-like musical instrument called the koto. She welcomed him charmingly, made him comfortable, served him tea. When the storm had passed the old man thanked her for her hospitality and departed. But he had been so struck with her beauty and grace that he made inquiries about her.
"Ah," exclaimed the one of whom he asked, "she is none other than Yoshino, wife of your disinherited son!"
Upon hearing this the father relented. He sent for the young couple, took them to live in his own mansion, and directed the daughter-in-law to resume her original name, Tokuko—which means "virtue."
However, I have noticed that in Japan and all other lands, romantic stories making heroines of courtesans have to be dated pretty far back. The living courtesan is but rarely regarded as a romantic figure. She is like a piece of common glass.
But a piece of common glass, buried long enough in certain kinds of soil, acquires iridescence. This iridescence is not actually in the glass, but exists in a patine which gradually adheres to it. Under a little handling it will flake off.
I suspect that it is much the same with famous courtesans the world over. When, after having been buried for a hundred years or so, they are, so to speak, dug up by novelists and playwrights, there adheres to them a beautiful iridescent patine.
It is best, perhaps, to refrain from scratching the patine lest we find out what is really underneath.
It takes two hours to do a geisha's hair, but the coiffure, once accomplished, lasts several days