The House of the Sleeping Beauties

by Yasunari Kawabata

  "Mother." It was like a low groan. "Wait, wait. Do you have to go? I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

  "What are you dreaming of? It's a dream, a dream." Old Eguchi took her more tightly in his arms, thinking to end the dream. The sadness in her voice stabbed him. Her breasts were pressed flat against him. Her arms moved. Was she trying to embrace him, thinking him her mother? No, even though she had been put to sleep, even though she was a virgin, the girl was unmistakably a witch. It seemed to Eguchi that he had not in all his sixty-seven years felt so fully the skin of a young witch. If somewhere there was a weird legend demanding a heroine, this was the girl for it.

  It came to seem that she was not the witch but the bewitched. And she was alive while asleep. Her mind had been put into a deep sleep and her body had awakened as a woman. She had become a woman's body, without mind. And was it so well trained that the woman of the house called it 'experienced'.

  He relaxed his embrace and put her bare arms around him as if to make her embrace him. And she did, gently. He lay still, his eyes closed. He was warmly drowsy, in a sort of mindless rapture. He seemed to have awakened to the feeling of wellbeing, of good fortune, that came to the old men who frequented the house. Did the sadness, ugliness, dreariness of old age leave the old men, where they filled with the blessings of young life? There could be for an old man worn to the point of death no time of greater oblivion than when he lay enveloped in the skin of a young girl. But was it without feelings of guilt that the old men paid money for young girls actually add to the pleasure? As if, forgetting himself, he had forgotten that the girl was a sacrifice, he felt for her toes with his foot. It was only her toes that he had not already touched. They were long and supple. As with her fingers, every joint bent and unbent freely, and in that small detail the lure of the strange in the girl came over to Eguchi. He wondered what he should say, where he should touch, to get an answer from her.

  "You aren't dreaming any more? Dreaming that your mother went away?" He probed into the hollows along her spine. She shook her shoulders and again turned face down. It seemed to be a position she liked. She turned toward Eguchi again. With her right hand she gently held the edge of the pillow, and her left arm rested in Eguchi's face. But she said nothing. Her soft breath came warmly to him. She moved the arm on his face, evidently seeking a more comfortable position. He took it in both hands and put it over his eyes. Her long fingernails cut gently into the lobe of the ear. Her wrist bent over his right eye, its narrowest part pressing down the eyelid. Wanting to keep it there, he held it in place with his hands. The scent that came through to his eyes was new to him again, and it brought rich new fantasies. Just at this time of ear, two or three winter peonies blooming in the warm sun, under the high stone fence of an old temple in Yamato. White camellias in the garden near the veranda of the Shisendo. In the spring, wistaria and white rhododendrons in Nara. The 'petal dropping' camellia, filling the garden of the Camellia temple in Kyoto.

  That was it. The flowers brought memories of his three married daughters. They were flowers he had seen on trips with the three, or with one of them. Now wives and mothers, they probably did did not have such vivid memories themselves. Eguchi remembered well, and sometimes spoke of the flowers to his wife. She apparently did not feel as far from the daughters, now that they were married, as did Eguchi. She was still close to them, and need not dwell so on memories of flowers seen with them. And there were flowers from trips when she had not been along.

  Far back in the eyes on which the girl's had rested, he let the images of flowers come up and fade away, fade away and come up. And feelings returned of the days when, his daughters married, he had been drawn to other young girls. It seemed to him that the girl tonight was one of them. He released her arm, but it lay quiet over his eyes. Only his youngest daughter had been on a farewell trip he had taken with her a fortnight before she was married. The image of the camellia was specially strong. The marriage of his youngest daughter had been the most painful, Two youths had been in competition for her, and in the course of the competition she had lost her virginity. The trip had been a change of scenery, to revive her spirits.

  Camellias are said to be bad luck because the flowers drop whole from the stem, like severed heads. But the double blossoms on this great tree, which was four hundred years old and bloomed in five different colours, fell petal by petal. Hence it was called the 'petal dropping' camellia.

  "When they were thickest… " said the young wife of the priest to Eguchi "… we gather up five or six baskets a day."

  The massing of flowers on the great camellia was less beautiful in the full sunlight, he was told, than with the sunlight behind it. Eguchi and his youngest daughter were sitting on the western veranda, and the sun was sinking behind the three. They were looking into the sun. But the thick leaves and the clusters of flowers did not let the sunlight through. It sank into the camellia, as if the evening sun itself were hanging on the edges of the shadow. The Camellia Temple was in a noisy, vulgar part of the city, and there was nothing to see in the garden besides the camellia. Eguchi's eyes were filled with it, and he did not hear the noise of the city.

  "It is in fine bloom." he said to his daughter.

  "Sometimes when you get up in the morning there are so many petals that you can't see the ground…" said the young wife, leaving Eguchi and his daughter.

  Were there five colours on the one tree? He could see red camellias and white, and camellias with crinkled petals. But Eguchi was not particularly interested in verifying the number of colours. He was quite caught up in the tree itself. It was remarkable that a tree four hundred years old could produce such a richness of blossoms. The whole of the evening light was sucked into the camellia, so that the inside of the tree must be warm with it. Although he could feel no wind, a branch at the edge would rustle from time to time.

  It did not seem that his youngest daughter was as lost in the famous tree as Eguchi himself. There was no strength in her eyes. Perhaps she was less gazing at the tree than looking into herself. She was his favourite among his daughters, and she had the willfulness of a youngest child, even more so now that her sisters were married. The older girls had asked their mother, with some jealousy if Eguchi did not mean to keep the youngest at home and bring a bridegroom into the family of her. His wife had passed the remark on to him. His youngest daughter had grown up a bright and lively girl. It seemed to him unwise for her to have so many men friends, and them again she was liveliest when she was surrounded by men. But that there were among them all two whom she liked was clear to her parents, and especially to her mother, who saw a good deal of them. One of them had taken her virginity. For a time she was silent and moody even in the security of the house, and she seemed impatient and irritable when, for instance, she was changing clothes. Her mother sensed that something had happened. She asked about it in a casual fashion, and the girl showed little hesitation in making her confession. The young man worked in a department store and had a rented room. The girl seemed to have gone meekly home with him.

  "Is he the one you mean to marry?"

  "No, Absolutely no." replied the girl, leaving her mother in some confusion.

  The mother was sure that the youth had had his way by force. She talked the mother over with Eguchi. For Eguchi it was as though the jewel in his hand had been scarred. He was still more shocked when he learned that the girl had rushed into betrothal with the other suitor.

  "What do you think?" asked Eguchi's wife, leaning tensely toward him. "Is it all right?"

  "Was she told the man she's engaged too?" Eguchi's voice was sharp "Has she?"

  "I wonder. I didn't ask. I was too surprised myself. Shall I ask?"

  "Don't bother."

  "Most people seem to think it's best not to tell the man you're going to marry. It's safest to be quiet. But we aren't all alike. She may suffer her whole life through if she doesn't tell him."

  "But we haven't decided that she has our permission."

  It did not, o
f course, seem natural to Eguchi that a girl accosted by one young man should suddenly become engaged to another. He knew that both were fond of his daughter. Well acquainted with both, he had thought that either would do for her. But was not this sudden engagement a rebound from the shock? Had she not turned to the second young man in bitterness, resentment, chagrin? Was she not, in the turmoil of her disillusionment with the one, throwing herself at the other? A girl like his youngest daughter might very well turn the more ardently to one young man from having been molested by another. They need not, perhaps, reprove her for an unworthy act of revenge and self-abasement.

  But it had not occurred to Eguchi that such a thing could happen to his daughter. So probably it was with all parents. Eguchi may have had too much confidence in his high spirited daughter, so open and lively when surrounded by men. But now that the deed was done there seemed nothing strange about it. Her body was put together in a manner no different from the bodies of other women. A man could force himself upon her. At the thought of her unsightliness in the act, Eguchi was assailed by strong feelings of shame and degradation. No such feelings had come to him when he had sent his older daughters on their honeymoons. What had happened may have been an explosion of love on the part of the youth. But it had happened, and Eguchi could only reflect upon how his daughter's body was made, upon its inability to turn the act away. Were such reflections abnormal for a father? Eguchi did not immediately sanction the engagement, nor did he reject it. He and his wife learned considerably later that the competition between the youths had been rather vicious. His daughter's marriage was near when he took her to Kyoto and they say the camellia in full bloom. There was a faint roar inside it, like a swarm of honeybees.

  She had a son two years after she was married. Her husband seemed quite wrapped up in the child. When, perhaps on a Sunday, the young couple would come to Eguchi's house, the wife would go out to help her mother in the kitchen, and the husband, most deftly, would feed the baby. And so matters had resolved themselves nicely. Although she lived in Tokyo, the daughter seldom came to see them after she was married.

  "How are you?"

  "How am I? Happy, I suppose."

  Perhaps people did not have a great deal to say to their parents about their marital relations, but Eguchi was somehow dissatisfied and a trifle disturbed. Given the natures of his youngest daughter, it seemed to him that she ought to say more. But she was more beautiful, she come into bloom. Even though the change might be physiological one from girl to young wife, it did not seem that there would be this flower like brightness if a shadow lay over her heart. After she had her baby her skin was clearer, as though she had been washed to the depths, and she seemed more in possession of herself.

  And was that it? Was that why, in 'the house of the sleeping beauties', as he lay with the girl's arm over his eyes, the images of the camellia in full bloom and the other flowers came to him? There was of course neither in the girl sleeping here nor in Eguchi's youngest daughter the richness of the camellia. But the richness of a girl's body was not something one knew by looking at her or by lying quietly beside her. It was not to be compared with the richness of camellias. What flowed deep behind his eyelids from the girl's arm was the current of life, the melody of life, the lure of life, and, for an old man, the recovery of life. The eyes on which the girl's arm rested were heavy, and he took the arm away.

  There was nowhere for her to put her left arm. Probably because it was awkward for her to stretch it taut along Eguchi's chest, she half turned over his face again. She brought both hands together over her bosom with the fingers interlocked. They touched Eguchi's chest. They were not clasped as in veneration, but still they suggest prayer, soft prayer. He took the two clasped hands between his own hands. It was as if he were praying for something himself. He closed his eyes, probably in nothing more than the sadness of an old man touching the hands of a sleeping young girl.

  He heard the first drops of night rain falling on the quiet sea. The distant sound seemed to come not from an automobile but from the thunder of winter. It was not easy to catch. He unfolded the girl's hands and gazed at the fingers as he straightened them one by one. He wanted to take the long, slender fingers in his mouth. What would she think, awakening the next morning, if there were tooth marks on her little finger and blood oozing from it? Eguchi brought the girl's arm down along her body. He looked at her rich breasts, the nipples large and swollen and dark. He raised them, gently sagging as they were. They were not as warm as her body, warmed by the electric blanket. He thought to bring his forehead to the hollow between them, but only drew near, and held back because of the scent. He rolled over the face down and this time took both the sleeping tablets at once. On the earlier visit he had taken one tablet, and then taken the other when he had awakened from a nightmare. But he had learned that they were only sleeping medicine. He was quick to fall asleep.

  The voice of the girl sobbing awakened him. Then what sounded like sobs changed to laughter. The laughter went on and on. He put his arm over her breasts and shook her.

  "You're dreaming, you're dreaming. What are you dreaming of?"

  There was something ominous in the silence that followed the laughter. But Eguchi too was heavy with sleep, and it was all he could do to feel for the watch at his pillow. It was three thirty. Bringing his chest to her and drawing her hips toward him, he slept a warm sleep.

  The next morning he was again aroused by thr woman of the house.

  "Are you awake?"

  He did not answer. Did the woman not have her ear to the door of the secret room? A spasm went through him at indications that was the case. Perhaps because of the heat from the blanket, the girl's shoulders were exposed, and she had an arm over head. He pulled the quilt up.

  "Are you awake?"

  Still not answering, he put his head under the quilt. A breast touched his chin. It was as if he were suddenly on fire. He put his arm around the girl's back and pulled her toward him with his foot.

  "Sir! Sir!" The woman rapped on the door three or four times.

  "I'm awake. I'm getting dressed." It seemed that she would come into the room if he did not answer.

  The woman had brought water and toothpaste and the like into the room.

  "And how was it?" she asked as she served his breakfast. "Don't you think she's a good girl?"

  "A very good girl." Eguchi nodded. "When will she wake up?"

  "I wonder."

  "Can't I stay until she's awake?"

  "That's exactly the sort of things we can't allow." The woman said hastily. "We don't allow that even with our older guests."

  "But she's too a good girl."

  "It's best just to keep them company and not let foolish emotions get in the way." She doesn't even know she's slept with you. She won't cause you any trouble."

  "But I remember her. What if we were to pass in the street?"

  "You mean you might speak to her? Don't do that. It would be a crime."

  "A crime?"

  "It would indeed."

  "A crime."

  "I must ask you not to be difficult. Just take sleeping girls as sleeping girls."

  He wanted to retort that he had not yet reached that sad degree of senility, but held himself back.

  "I believe there was rain last night." he said.

  "Really? I didn't notice."

  "I definitively heard rain."

  On the sea outside the window little waves caught the morning sunlight in near the cliff.

  3

  Eight days after his second visit old Eguchi went again to the 'house of the sleeping beauties'. It had been two weeks between his first and second visits, and so the interval had been cut in a half.

  Was he gradually being pulled in by the spell of girls put to sleep?

  "The one tonight is still in training." said the woman of the house as she made tea. "You may be disappointed, but please put up with her."

  "A different one again?"

  "You called just bef
ore you came, and I had to make do with what I had. If there is a girl you specially want I must ask you to let me know two or three days in advance."

  "I see. But what do you mean when you say she's in training?"

  "She's new. And small."

  Old Eguchi was startled.

  "She was frightened. She asked if she mightn't have someone with her. But I wouldn't want to upset you."

  "Two of them? I shouldn't think that would be so bad. But if she's so sound asleep that she might as well be dead, how can she know whether to be frightened or not?"

  "Quite true. But be easy with her, She's not used to it."

  "I won't do a thing."

  "I understand that perfectly."

  "In training?" he muttered to himself. There were strange things in the world. As usual, the woman opened the door a crack and looked inside. "She's asleep. Please, whenever you're ready." She went out.

  Eguchi had another cup of tea. He lay with his head on his arm. A chilly emptiness came over him. He got up as if the effort were almost too much for him and, quietly opening the door, looked into the secret room of the velvet.

  The 'small' girl had a small face. Her hair, disheveled as if a braid had been undone, lay over one cheek, and the palm of her hand lay over the other down to her mouth. And so probably her face looked even smaller than it was. Childlike, she lay sleeping. Her hand lay against her face, or rather, the edge of her relaxed hand lightly touched her cheekbone, and the bent fingers lay from the bridge of her nose down over her lips. The long middle finger reached to her jaw. It was her left hand. Her right hand lay at the edge of the quilt, which the fingers gently grasped. She wore no cosmetics. Nor did it seem that she had taken any off before going to sleep.