‘You certainly have a good eye,’ broke in Zenkō before Kin could reply. Kin herself, who during the past few days had been helping Tomo in assessing all kinds of girls, had sometimes found herself more alarmed than impressed by the sensitivity and acuity of Tomo’s judgment. It startled her to find that a woman who in normal social situations had never talked critically of others nor shown much positive interest should be able, when the occasion required, to make such a thorough-going appraisal of other women.

It had been the same with the girl that Oshigi the haberdasher had brought along. Quiet-spoken with good, regular features, she was the kind of girl that Kin would have jumped at, but Tomo shook her head.

‘They said she was sixteen,’ she declared with seeming reluctance, ‘but she’s at least eighteen. Besides, you know, I don’t think she’s quite inexperienced.’

Kin was skeptical, but on further inquiry discovered that the girl had indeed had an affair with her elder sister’s husband, a craftsman.

‘I wonder how you can tell?’ said Kin, gazing wonderingly at Tomo, who dropped her eyes as though embarrassed at her own accomplishment.

‘I wasn’t always like this,’ she said, heaving a sigh as though in deprecation of her present self. It seemed that she had acquired the ability to see through to a woman’s true self in the course of witnessing Shirakawa’s various affairs. Kin was not usually one to bother herself too deeply with the preoccupations and tribulations of others, but little by little as she accompanied Tomo in her search for a concubine she seemed to divine the nature of that ‘distinction acquired through suffering’ of which her daughter Toshi had spoken.

Tomo was sitting by the night table looking through a pile of photographs of beautiful women when Etsuko came up silently and looked over her shoulder.

‘What pretty people! Who are they, Mummy?’ she asked, the red cloth on her hair tilting inquisitively to one side. Tomo did not reply but gave Etsuko a few of the photographs and said,

‘Etsuko, which do you like best?’

‘Now let me see …’ said Etsuko fanning the photographs out in her hand.

‘This one,’ she intoned in her child’s voice, and pointed to the middle photograph. It was a half-portrait, done against a white background, of a girl of fourteen or fifteen with her hair done up high in a style then popular among young girls and her arms tightly folded. The forehead with its conical hairline like Mt. Fuji and the strikingly large eyes like half-shaded spheres of black jade had awoken a response in Etsuko’s childish mind.

‘I see. You too …,’ said Tomo as though surprised, and taking the photograph she gazed at it again.

‘Tell me, Mummy. Who is it?’

‘It doesn’t matter, you’ll know soon,’ said Tomo as she gathered the photos together again.