His announcement of himself was received and echoed among the waiting hands as “the guest that the master of Narihira-cho had sent,” serving as a sort of pass-word commanding suave attention. He was shown into a good sized room way in back, an isolated suite which looked on a garden with clusters of green foliage amongst which a lantern was seen in a flickering glow behind its paper shade of trellis frame. He could scarce believe that amidst the place of gaiety and pleasures so boisterously pursued, there should be a place of such sequestered peace, and of such refined taste.
“Let me see a girl called Somékichi, and I want no other geisha”: his request, voiced as it was in a tone of such uncompromising insistence, gave a suggestion of mockery. He might well have been taken for a man about town who, so assured of his own matchless comeliness, had come with his mind bent upon this rage for masculine passion, purposely attired in a simplicity that was almost ungainly, to make his conquest all the more romantic and savoury.
It was after time had drawn out to be burdensome for Shinsuké, who sat waiting with his back leaned against the alcove post, that the door directly behind him was opened. Showing a slight and dainty tilt in the head which supported elaborately made coiffeur, Somékichi had entered; she was no other than the girl of his quest. She was dressed that night in a lined dress of striped blue crepe over an under-gown of silk finely dappled on a bluish brown ground, girt with a sash of black satin heavily embroidered chrysanthemum flowers with gold threads, showing below, at each step, the fringe of chequered silk petticoat, and in a toilet of light powder. A change into a piquant brilliancy, quite befitting a girl reputed to be the sensation of the place.
A quick glance at the back of the man, and Tsuya broke into a flurry, pattering her soft bare feet as if they clung at each step to the fresh covered mat on the floor, and coming round in front, face to face with him, she gave a little cry of keen happiness. In an instant, her face lost its colour for the suddenness of happy shock, but, in the next, she sank herself close before him, almost upon his laps.
“Oh, what happiness to find you again and safe!” she said, pressing her hands strongly upon his knees, as she spurted out her joy. “How I wanted to see you! Oh, how I longed!”
“To-morrow I am to give up myself,—and such a girl as this.”—forthwith, the thought flashed through his mind. He was conscious of a mad desire to live rising in his mind.
It was a long story since they parted from each other, at the closing of that unforgettable day, the twentieth of December;—and she was the first to give her account. On the same evening, soon after Shinsuké was called away, the boatman’s wife announced that there was little doing that evening and all were due for an evening off, and all of the servant maids and hired men were sent out somewhere under such pretext. The wife and Tsuya, left alone in the house, were having a chat when that downpour of rain came on. Amidst those torrents, Seiji came home heavily drunk, followed by two or three strangers. Without a word or warning, he had her bound, hand and foot, and thrust into a palanquin in which she was carried off to the home of Tokubey, at Sunamura. Everything having been undoubtedly prearranged, there were waiting for her there a merry batch of men, half a dozen or so of ruffians, including Tokubey himself, apparently intent on having a jolly time of it. She was dragged out in the midst of those men who sat in a circle for their feasting, to be mocked and jeered at. About her own life, however, she was never in much fear; for, those men were all gloating over her with unexpressed desire, she felt. The worst they would do, therefore, would be selling her off to a brothel after they had made unsuccessful attempts to win her mind; they would not harm what they prized dear. Upon such reasoning thought, she felt herself physically protected and accepted the situation boldly. They would oft threaten her with death, but never would she wince or yield. She was only in deep concern for Shinsuké, for whom her heart would yearn that she could sleep neither by day nor by night.
What she had expected was to come out before long. The boatman Seiji had her placed—as bad as locked her up—in a room for the obvious reason which was to bring him there every day.
“I have been in love with you ever so long,” he owned. “The fact is, that it was all a part of my plan to inspire Shinsuké with the idea to run away with you. Whatever wickedness I am guilty of, was from my desire to get you. So, feel for me, and be my mistress, as I ask you. Consent, and all you wish for shall be yours!”
To her question about Shinsuké’s whereabouts, however, he would never give clear cut answer. “Oh, that one?—Well, you may as well forget about him,” he would say sometimes. “I’ve sent him back to his old man’s home, the other day.” There was of course no question but this was a lie. It was as certain that the while he kept up his pretense, the boatman had never taken their case either to her folks or Shinsuké’s, since he took the couple under his roof. Tsuya had concluded that Shinsuké had ten to one been murdered, and yet she was not so easy to give him up for lost for all time.