Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/72

 “It all took considerable arranging. Because I was being kept at Maruji’s, I couldn’t spend my nights away. I had to sneak out at odd hours, and I began to neglect lessons and to lose pupils. There were warnings from my old teacher. My relations with the world narrowed, and I was pressed for money. But the infatuation only grew deeper—that is the way with infatuations. I began to think that I did not want to send her out again as a geisha. It had been decided, true enough, that she would move, and yet I wanted to keep her even a day longer as an ordinary woman. I strained my credit to the breaking. I was sure that if she were to find out she would insist on moving to a new house immediately. To forestall the possibility, I pretended that I had all the money in the world. One day I would bring her a length of Akashi crape, since it happened to be summer, the next I would bring a bottle of perfume. Thinking that it must depress her to be shut up on that second storey all day long, I would take her to the movies in parts of town where we were not likely to be seen, and on the way back we would go to some restaurant for dinner.

“Not knowing the real facts, she was deliriously happy. ‘If only I could go on like this!’ she would say, almost in tears. I could no longer be satisfied with seeing her just in the daytime. I would tell Maruji that my mother was ill, or I would say that the weather was warm and a rich patron had invited me to his country villa. After three days or so I would put on a sober face and come back to Shimbashi.

“But secrets will out. The world is a small place, sir. The family of the old woman who cooked for Maruji had a house a few doors away from the place I had taken for Kimika. I hadn’t the faintest idea that my dirty linen was out in public, and I only made matters worse when I tried to give a sweet answer: ‘Leave you now? You must be joking. Surely we’ve gone beyond any talk of separating.’

“ ‘Sōkichi. There’s a limit to making a fool of a person.’ Maruji gave the straw mat a sharp rap with her pipe. ‘I’m a geisha too. If you’re so much in love with her, go ahead and