‘The master takes great care of me. He says I’m not as strong as most women and I shall die young if I overdo things … That’s why that happened to Yumi. The master’s used to geishas and courtesans, so he knows a lot about how women work. Right from the start, I’ve looked on myself almost as a daughter, so I’ve never felt jealous or anything. Perhaps it’s the difference in our ages. But even the mistress doesn’t know that, so you mustn’t tell anybody.’

As she finished speaking, Suga’s face looked suddenly grown-up and her eyelids veiled her gaze. Without her realizing it, an immense vacancy had spread itself across her bewitching features, draining them mysteriously of all expression.

After Kin had left with the dissatisfied look still on her face, Suga sat for a while prey to some inexplicable sadness, rubbing the kitten’s throat and gazing out with tear-filled eyes at the rabbit’s-ear pink of the sasanqua blooms in the garden. Despite herself she felt ashamed that she should feel no jealousy toward her rival Yumi, when her mother and Kin were both so obviously distressed.

Although she had been reared in the plebeian districts of Tokyo, her parents had been decent people, and she knew nothing of relationships between men and women. At dancing lessons she had always taken the male role and, in her character as this or that popular romantic hero, was used to being clung to by the heroine; at such times the dancing teacher had often told her to put more ‘sensuality’ into her dance, and sensual desire and love had become inseparably associated for her with the brilliant costumes of the dance and with the music for voice and samisen that accompanied it.

Even since her arrival in the Shirakawa household and her discovery of men’s nature – a discovery made through her body and in the dark, far from bright colors and music – Suga had cherished in her heart, quite untouched by her direct relationship with Shirakawa, a shining world of enchantment where the heartrending strains of the old ballads came drifting in forlorn snatches, and the brilliant colors of trailing sleeves and skirts wove in and out with tantalizing deliberation. For some strange reason, this fantasy in no way negated the actuality of Shirakawa.