A spring-time case

by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

This confinement went on for rather a long period of time, from the twentieth of December to around February. Patient and determined as the boatman was, he was met by as dogged a mind on her part who would yield herself neither to threat nor cajolery. She was not freed from this state of confinement until Tokubey who had followed the affair was at last moved to make intercession for her, and perhaps convinced Seiji that he would be better rewarded otherwise than by torment. Now placed under strict watch, she was sometimes running on little errands, and at some other times was served with servile flattery that was but disgusting. It was to a new line of tactics, of thawing her heart with kindness, that Seiji’s mind had swung to, now.

Tokubey was a man of about the same age as Seiji, but of a mind, presumably, capable of deeper craft and design; under a consistently suave appearance he never permitted himself to show a ruffled or real man. It was a fact that under casual observation he could be taken for a man of good sense and heart. He interposed his mind between Seiji and Tsuya, with a different tune for each one, as he meant to make him or her dance thereto. Tokubey was particularly attentive to make use of sly moments to impress her mind with his kindness, which was as cheap as its motive was thin. “So, this man, too, has his eyes on me!” Tsuya was quick to perceive it, and began to give herself an air of one leaning on his growing kindness, to put him off his guard as much as possible, to make him the more open to attack, later on. The first chance she should get, she would flee from Sunamura and set out on her quest for Shinsuké.

One evening when she was waiting upon him—and upon his whims—with drinks, she said between soliloquy and question: “I have given up Shinsuké for good and true; but I’m wondering what’s become of the man.” Whereupon, quite to her surprise, Tokubey’s lips dropped a story that gave her a dreadful inkling of what had hitherto been completely screened from her. That Seiji caused, on that night, his faithful Santa to kill Shinsuké on the riverside road; that the same Santa, for some reason or other, got a new notion into his head, after his deed, and killed the boatman’s wife by strangling, to run away with their money; that Seiji had since taken to himself a third wife;—all these things told by Tokubey, though not as information at first hand, appeared to fit in line with circumstances of the case. Tsuya felt that she had been now brought where she should abandon all hopes for Shinsuké. From that hour she had set her heart, she said, upon taking vengeance, somehow—some when,—upon Seiji for the sake of the man lost to her forever.

It was shortly after this that Tokubey made his proposition to the boatman which was somewhat in the following strain:—“You will have to wait for ever to win the girl over, for your purpose. But she is too precious a jewel to be sunk into the mud of a brothel. Suppose you let me have her for a good price, and I’ll see if she wouldn’t appear as a geisha through our house at the Naka-cho.” Seiji found it difficult to give her up, and it was his reluctant consent that he gave at last, when he broke himself of his desire and washed his hands of her.

“Were you yet a maiden it would make all the difference. And what I ask you to be is a geisha. Will you not do this, just to meet me half-way, if for nothing else?” Tokubey’s demand, because it was garbed as a humble entreaty, could not very well be turned down. If she were to be sold off to a house, she would fare far worse; there was no getting away from that. Tokubey had saved her from this infamy, and, besides, what he proposed to her and begged her to do was on the ground where her chastity of body, at least, was to be protected. It had taken on such a complexion that Shinsuké, she thought, would not feel himself wronged, even if he were to know of it in the world beyond. Since she would rather stay away from her parents’ home for good, there had to be something to keep her independent, and what was now being pondered upon appeared to her to be of all things the one for which she was by nature best equipped. Once she had made up her mind upon the subject, it was a proposition such as she could scarce have better,—if she were to make it upon her own terms. Her agreement, therefore, was given without much farther ado.

Since her appearance as a geisha, she had quickly won her way to the line of first-raters. She had worked the debt off herself, and was now in a free position to work on her own account. To be true, she was under more or less obligation to Tokubey, yet she was mistress of herself and of a house. When she had found herself again free to act on her mind, she secretly engaged men to work on the case of Shinsuké, whom she could never forget. Her effort, however, was rewarded with no success beyond what came to bear out Tokubey’s story, in regard to Santa’s deed and the boatman’s new wife. All this collaborating to point to Shinsuké’s death, she had now little else save to accept it finally. And so, everything was flung to the winds, in the face of fate. She had nowadays come to live a care-free life, if he forgave her for saying this, and lived much the way after her own mind, enjoying what gaiety her independent ways and buoyant nature could glean out of her new life. And there was no business so delightful as that of the geisha, in her opinion; nothing so sweet as to wheedle money out of dolts of men who knew no better. Now, to crown her happiness, she had refound this night her long-lost sweetheart, and what happiness to think that it was now in her power to make it possible for him to live and be as happy as she was.

Even as she went on with her account, she had taken a good quantity of drinks. Her eyes which now looked into his were as flushed as if blood threatened to exude out of their corners. “Fill my cup, sweetheart!” she asked, with her cup held out, as she drew nearer to him. “It’s ever so long since you gave me a cupful!”

“Tsu chan, it is myself that must ask your forgiveness! I’m no longer a man fit to live with you!” Whereon, Shinsuké suddenly adjusted himself into a solemn attitude, taking her hands off himself, as she pressed still nearer to him. The account of his dreadful crimes he gave, and he gave it in full and so straight as if he might have meant to fling it into the face of the young woman raptured over her own cup of joy.

“—So, you see that I should go and take my punishment, even to-morrow. I owe no less to that man of Narihira-cho. To die—to die, if once I can see you—my mind has been made up, now a long time! Forgive me all!” He broke into tears, as he flung himself on the floor.

“If you must die, I will not live, either. But how you worry yourself, like the man you’ve always been!” Without much display of any particular emotion, Tsuya gave utterance to her mind, her body left loosely heaped just as it had broken down, like a drunken man in his final loss of legs, even to the point of a belch that tersely punctuated her words.