Those are generalities; not an attempt to deny the existence of two sides to anything. There are geisha who cheapen or even disgrace their profession, beside those who grace it, make it dear not only to the hearts of men, but even of women. If wine flows too freely where geisha are present, it is not so much their fault as the men’s. If there are paramour loves where they are concerned, those things are but incidents, for which the geisha should no more be censured than the men.
Brief reference to what is generally known as “tea-house,” “ryori-ya” or restaurant, and “geisha house,” will not be out of place here, though not exactly essential to the intelligent following of events in the story. The geisha are almost in all cases brought together to live within some particular parts of town. This is more for the reason of convenience than from any other consideration. It is necessary for them to be within a circumscribed area so as to keep themselves within easy reach of the “kem-ban,” or the call station which receives the calls for geisha from “tea-houses”, or restaurants, and transfers them to the geisha houses.
Girls of the profession, as a rule, live or register themselves at the houses which are officially known and approved of as places for the conducting of such business. It is often a case that a house of this description advances money to a girl just entering on her professional career, an event involving considerable outlay mostly in lines of dresses and personal ornaments. The house which charges a certain rate for the girl’s registration, and often for board, too, takes for itself a certain percentage on her earnings, toward liquidation of such advanced accounts as there are.
The geisha herself is paid by the hour while she is present at any social party where her attendance is called, and such gatherings take place at tea-houses or restaurants. Whatever she may receive from guests, or her particular patron, as often the case, through her own charm, is accounted to her house which also shares in the benefit. When she has paid off her account to her house, she is financially free either to establish herself in the trade on her own account, or remain under the same registration to dispense with time and care to be claimed as mistress of such place, or quit the profession if she be so disposed. It is no rare occurrence that a geisha, smiled upon by fortune, ingratiates herself into sufficient capitalistic support to maintain her own house with several younger ones working under her. It is this kind of house that Tsuya, the heroine of the story, begins to manage, after she has gone a little way along her career in the geisha business which she espouses under the sway of her impelling heart as much as through certain circumstances thrust upon her life.
The party to which a geisha is called in takes place at such a restaurant, when not at a “tea-house,” as has special working arrangements with the “kem-ban,” or the call station. A “tea-house” which in many respects partakes of the character of a restaurant, is a name as vague as it is misleading; for it is a place for the sole purpose of holding geisha parties, and what is taken there is of more vigorous power than the green leaves beverage.
In addition to receiving and dispatching calls for geisha, the duties of the “kem-ban” include that of keeping track of their movements, from one place to another, and the work connected with keeping straight all their accounts receivable from tea-houses and restaurants. It sends out a man attendant to escort a geisha on her way to and back from tea-houses and restaurants. It is the character of such a man escort that Shinsuké, the hero of the present story, assumes in going out to the country villa of the military officer.
The liking that Tsuya seems to display for the geisha profession, even while living in comfort and apparent happiness under her father’s roof, is but an instance of the sentiment shared by so many of her sex. Always originators or forerunners in fashion, freely adored by men, independent of thought and aloof from cumbersome considerations of the conventions, it is no marvel that the geisha should appeal to so many tender hearts of the country. Tsuya’s partiality for the gay profession is in no wise to be accounted as a weakness arising from that particular side of her nature which is brought out in such glaring colours later in her life. Hers was decidedly a romantic temperament. Once placed in that life, which had ever held out to her alluring promises, she was drunk with her own brilliant success. In the mad whirl of joy and happiness, she allowed herself to be carried off until she lost sight of her own soul at some moments. She was too young and too inexperienced to fight against the temptations besetting her path. She was even pathetic in her impetuosity to pursue what she fancied to be the rightful guerdon of beauty and wit.
Her cup of joy was poisoned, and she knew it not. Blinded by her own brilliance, flattered by the homage so willingly offered at the alter of her beauty, she chose what she took to be a road of spring and glory, but to be deceived. For the way led not to a queen’s garden, but strayed off and trailed into a mist, such as oft seen across the face of the sky at the time of the cherry blossoms. Her own life is a song of the cherry,—beautiful, but for its beauty doth God grant it a spring of but a few fleeting days of glory.
THE TRANSLATOR.