Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/327

Rh doubtful. But the most powerful and most unpopular person in the whole establishment was named Yarité, or Spear-Hand. She was responsible for the behaviour of all under her charge, and might administer corporal punishment. If a girl were summoned before the local justice, it was she who escorted her and answered the questions of the judge. Her room faced the top of the staircase, and none could pass to the inner chambers without propitiating the dragon on the threshold.

But to pass from the inner chambers to the world without the Yoshiwara was rarely permitted to such closely guarded prisoners. The prison might be known as the "House of the Myriad Flowers," or the "House of the Eight Banners," or the "House of the Ten Thousand Plums," but it was none the less a prison. Not one of its inmates, neither "Evening Mist," nor "Filmy Cloud," nor the "Face of Evening," could glide imperceptibly from its vigilant constraint. If her parents were dangerously ill and lived not too far away, a girl was sometimes allowed to visit them, being given a label, which she must return at sunset. If she were ill herself, she might consult a doctor outside the quarter; and all had the privilege of going in a party to Mukōjima in the season of cherry-blossom. But no other exeat was accorded. A runaway was invariably caught, and the expenses of capture were deducted from her subsequent earnings. At the age of twenty-five she was sure of regaining her liberty.

It must not be supposed that the five years' durance were years of unrelieved servitude. As month followed month, the monotony was broken by a round of kindly festivals. On New Year's Day the whole household was assembled by Spear-Hand to pay