“Of course, I am to blame for the whole thing—if it comes to that,” she went on. “But the more I hear of your story about killing them, the better and more solid reason I think you had for doing it. About Seiji’s woman, too, it was a case of squaring yourself with him,—I don’t see anything particularly wrong about it. In fact, I’m even glad you did it. I am, indeed!—Now, look here, Shin don, if you didn’t give yourself away, the old man, of Narihira-cho, wouldn’t hand in the case to the officer, would he? There’s nobody else wise to the game. They don’t call too much honesty a virtue, nowadays!”
“How you talk!” he was astounded, and fixed on her a stern lode of rebuke. But as he began with his persuasive effort, his was a tone of beseeching tenderness.
“There is something in what you say, but I would never forgive myself if I were to stay away from the hand of the law. Step out, own up everything, and take the punishment I deserve,—that’s what I owe to my master, my old father, and Kinzo, and no less. The fact is, I have something to ask you,—it’s the last wish of my life. I want you to quit this sort of life—the earlier even by a day, the better,—and go back to your folks. The master took it so badly about you that he’s kept to his sick bed ever since last year; and if this you do not know, I do. Let him see you again, and I know he will be happy; he will never be the one to nurse grievances against you for so long a time, or to keep harping on what’s done and past. About the account you owe to Tokubey, you can tell your father and he will be just ready to settle it off for you, I am sure!”
“Enough of that! I wouldn’t think of it for a moment!” she turned her face away, in an instant huff. “I know I belong where I am now, as I told you a while ago. All that of being a lady means nothing to me, not to my taste. If you love me, let me be!”
“There you are again, with your old perversity! What a heart that should—that you could be deaf to this from the lips of a man about to die! For this I should have suffered! No soul so rotten I have seen or heard of but thinks of what should be done for the love of his parents. Or, can it mean that you yourself, knowing of the worst in the trade of the geisha, have become rotten even to your heart?”
“Rotten,—yes, rotten I am! Have no more goodness to think of my papa or mama,—not even in my dreams!” She pulled herself up with wilful petulance. As suddenly almost, she turned and collapsed, burying her face on his shoulder; she began to appeal and beseech, in a voice broken by violent sobs. “Why have we found each other again after such a long time, if only to quarrel and make us feel miserable? Because you are not right, Shin don! You shall have your wish,—your last wish, as you say,—ask me anything and I will do it. But never shall you give yourself away! If you want to die, I will not let you! If you talked of it as a thing for some time after, it might be different. That you would go to-morrow when we’ve met only to-night,—oh, you are too heartless!”
Swept over by the violent passion of the woman who would listen neither to reason nor rhyme, Shinsuké was overwhelmed into a helpless silence, though his mind gave no promise of change. She was at last brought round to another mind. “Perhaps, I shouldn’t press my own way, too much. Let us be friends again, at least. And stay a couple of days or so with me, upstairs in our place.” She was insistent, begged, appealed to his heart.
“Knowing of harsh words between us and they not made up, I couldn’t go to my death in peace;” Shinsuké aired what was aimed at once to be an apology to his conscience and an attempt at glossing over his own weakness before her: he had given way to her entreaty.
“We can’t be quite at home or free to do all our talking in here. Before you should change your mind, let us leave this place. We’ll drink over at our place, upstairs.”
At last, Tsuya was now a happy woman, happy beyond measure. Lifting herself to her feet, uncertain to respond to her mind, she took him by the hand and urged him to go, persistently.