‘In plays or in books the concubine’s always a bad woman, isn’t she? Giving the wife a hard time or causing trouble about inheritances and so on … We’ve never done anything like that – we’ve been very good, I think, don’t you?’

‘The virtuous concubines … But then, other people would never believe it if we told them.’

‘I don’t care what other people think. Just the fact that we’ve been able to live like this for ten years is enough to prove to each other that we’re not bad, isn’t it?’

‘You know, being loved by a man like the master – it’s not that I dislike it, of course – but it can’t help being different from falling really in love with someone around the same age as yourself, can it?’

At this point it occurred to Suga that she would never have been able to talk in this way before it was decided that Yumi should leave. And it occurred to her, too, that if Yumi became Iwamoto’s wife and could come calling and be called on as an outsider to the family, she would have someone to talk to in a different way from hitherto. Suddenly she felt as though a bright window of light was shining into the closed confines of her heart.

‘Yumi, have you noticed how the master lately has taken to talking about nothing but his health? I mean, what with bathing his eyes and gargling and so on, he may look well but he’s getting on in years even so. You wait and see – before long he’ll be just as indifferent to us as he is to the mistress.’

‘Yes, and with things the way they are at Tsunamachi, he wants to make himself look young again whenever he goes there. I really do think the young master’s a strange kind of man. Whenever the master goes there he’s always in such a good mood and gives him a lot of money to take himself out somewhere. Why, any normal person would surely sense something was up, but he doesn’t have the remotest idea. I really feel sorry for him in a way, but… but he’s not a normal man, is he?’

‘Even so, he doesn’t have any trouble in having children, does he?’

‘Who’s to say whose child it is? More like animals, I call it.’

Yumi spoke with sharp contempt, but the immorality of it all did not trouble her so much as her words would suggest; the words did, however, trouble Suga.

‘Oh no, the child’s the young master’s all right, or so they say. The master’s long past having children, according to the mistress. I think so, too. I’m not strong, but you – when you marry Mr. Iwamoto, you’ll be having children in no time.’