The Makioka Sisters

by Junichiro Tanizaki

  The clouds are passing.

  The pines reach out for the moon.

  —TEINOSUKE

  The night of the full moon.

  Here, one shadow is missing.

  —SACHIKO

  The moon tonight—

  Yukiko sees it in Tokyo.

  —ETSUKO

  After these three came Taeko’s ink wash. Teinosuke suggested changes in Sachiko’s poem, which in the first draft had read “there is one shadow too few,” and in Etsuko’s, which had read “a moonlight night” instead of “the moon tonight.”

  “Now we will have O-haru write something.”

  O-haru took the brush and wrote with surprising readiness, though in a tiny, awkward hand.

  The autumn moon shows itself

  There among the clouds.

  —HARU

  Sachiko took a plume of autumn grass from a vase and folded it into the letter.

  1The Tokyo mat (about two yards by one) is slightly smaller than the Osaka-Kyoto mat.

  24

  SHORTLY AFTERWARDS a rather sentimental answer came from Yu-kiko. Quite overcome with delight, Yukiko had read the poems over and over again. She herself had sat alone looking at the full moon from an upstairs window, and the letter brought memories, as though it had happened the evening before, of her last moon-viewing in Ashiya.

  There followed the usual silence.

  O-haru slept with Etsuko after Yukiko left. Not half a month later, however, Etsuko took a dislike to her and drove her out in favor of O-hana, and in another half month O-hana was driven out in favor of O-aki, the scullery maid. Etsuko was a bad sleeper for a child. As always, she talked excitedly for a half hour or so after she went to bed. Unlike Yukiko, the maids would not listen to her, and it annoyed her to have them go to sleep first. The more annoyed she became, the harder it was to sleep. Presently, in the middle of the night, she would storm down the hall and slam open the door to her parents’ room.

  “I have not slept a wink,” she complained loudly, bursting into tears. “That O-haru. There she is, snoring away. I hate her. I detest her. I am going back in there and kill her.”

  “You are not to get excited, Etsuko. When you are excited you have trouble sleeping. Try telling yourself it makes no difference whether you can sleep or not.”

  “But I might sleep late in the morning and be late for school again.”

  “Must you shout so?” Sachiko’s voice too would rise. Climbing in bed with the child, Sachiko tried to soothe her. Nothing seemed to help, however. She could not sleep, she could not sleep. Soon Sachiko would lose her temper and start scolding, and Etsuko would be screaming louder. The maid meanwhile slept happily on, quite oblivious of the commotion. So it was every night.

  Though they knew of course that the “B-shortage” season had come, they had neglected their vitamin injections in the excitement of seeing the main house off for Tokyo. The whole family was to some extent suffering from beriberi. Perhaps, thought Sachiko, that was the trouble with Etsuko. Putting her hand over the child’s heart, she noted a slight palpitation. The next day, under protest, Etsuko was given a vitamin injection. After four or five more injections, which Sachiko administered on alternate days, the palpitation stopped, Etsuko’s complexion seemed to improve, and she no longer complained of fatigue. But the insomnia was worse. Since the ailment did not seem serious enough to require a visit from Dr. Kushida, Sachiko talked to him over the telephone, and was told to give the child an adalin tablet each night. Unfortunately one tablet was not enough, and two tablets made her oversleep. Sometimes they let her sleep in the morning, and when she awoke she looked at the dock by her pillow and began wailing. She would be late for school again. It embarrassed her to be late, she would not go to school at all.

  If, on the other hand, they awoke her in time for school, she pulled the quilt over her head and protested that she had not slept a wink. When she awoke again, she would be in tears because she was late. Her likes and dislikes among the maids fluctuated violently, and she frequently used strong words: “I’ll kill you,” or “I’ll murder you.” Her appetite, never good for a growing girl, was worse than ever. She would eat no more than a bowl of rice, and with it only the sort of food old people like—salted seaweed, bean curds—and she would wash the rice down with tea. Very fond of Bell, the cat, she liked to pass food under the table. If the food was even a little greasy, Bell got the better part of it.

  She was extremely fastidious, on the other hand. She would complain that Bell had touched her while she was eating, or that a fly had lighted somewhere, or that the maid’s sleeve was dirty. Her chopsticks had to be washed two and three times in boiling water. Presently, to save time, the maids were bringing her a pot of tea with which to wash the chopsticks at the beginning of every meal. Flies were a particular problem. She had a great horror of flies—when they lighted on her food, of course, and even when they flew near. That fly definitely touched something, she would say, and quite refuse to eat; or she would nag the others for assurances that it had not. When something slipped from her chopsticks, even upon a clean tablecloth, she refused to eat it.

  One day, walking with Sachiko, she saw a dead rat, crawling with maggots. A hundred yards or so beyond, she called to her mother: “Did I step on it? Do you think I stepped on it?” She clung to Sachiko and spoke in a frightened little voice. “Are there any maggots on me?”

  Startled, Sachiko looked into the child’s face. They had made a detour of at least eight or ten yards to avoid the rat.

  Could a child only in the second grade have a nervous breakdown? Sachiko had thought little of Etsuko’s difficulties and had been quick to scold, but the rat incident aroused her. She had Dr. Kushida come the next day. Nervous prostration was not uncommon in children, said Dr. Kushida, and very probably that was Etsuko’s trouble. Though he was sure it was not the serious ailment they seemed to think it, still, to make very sure, he would introduce them to a specialist. Dr. Kushida himself could take care of the beri-beri, and he would call a specialist—Dr. Tsuji in Nishinomiya would do—that very day. Dr. Tsuji appeared in the evening. After questioning Etsuko, he concluded that she was indeed suffering from nervous prostration. He gave detailed instructions on how she was to be treated: it would be necessary first of all to cure the beri-beri; they might have to give her medicine to stimulate her appetite and modify her strange eating habits; although she should be allowed to go to school late and to leave early as the spirit moved her, it would not do to have her quit school or try a change of air—with something to occupy her, she would have less time for brooding; they should take care not to excite her and they should not scold her when she was unreasonable, but should try patiently to make her understand.

  It did not follow, of course, and Sachiko preferred not to think, that Etsuko had become ill because Yukiko had left her; yet Sachiko, at the end of her wits, could not help feeling that Yukiko would manage to be more patient with the child. In the circumstances, there was no doubt that Tatsuo would let Yukiko return to Ashiya—and that Yukiko, if Sachiko wrote to her of Etsuko’s condition, would return even without his permission. But Sachiko, reluctant though she was to make an issue of the matter, did not want it said that she had surrendered after a scant two months. She passed her days, then, telling herself that she must wait just a little longer, that she must struggle on alone while she could.

  As for Teinosuke, he was opposed to calling Yukiko back. This fussiness, this way of washing chopsticks in hot water or tea, and of refusing to eat something that had fallen on the tablecloth— it was quite in the style of Sachiko and Yukiko, he argued, from long before Etsuko’s illness. It was unwise and should be stopped immediately; it was the cause of the child’s nervous troubles. They should be a little more adventurous, they should steel themselves to eating even the food a fly had crawled over, and demonstrate that one virtually never became ill as a result. They were wrong to be so noisy about antiseptics and sanitation and to pay no attention to order an
d discipline. They must begin immediately to order the child’s life.

  So Teinosuke argued, but his recommendations had little effect. To Sachiko it seemed that one as strong and healthy as Teinosuke would never understand the feelings of one like herself, so quick to catch each passing ailment. To Teinosuke, it seemed that the chances of catching a disease from chopsticks were one in ten thousand, and that this constant disinfecting only lowered one’s resistance. When Sachiko said that grace and elegance were more important for a girl than his “order,” Teinosuke answered that she was being old-fashioned, that the child’s eating habits and play hours should follow a strict pattern. Teinosuke was a barbarian who knew nothing about modern sanitation, said Sachiko; Sachiko’s methods of disinfecting were ineffective in any case, answered Teinosuke. What good did it do to pour hot water or tea over chopsticks? That would kill no germs, and besides Sachiko could not know what had happened to the food before it was brought to her. Sachiko and Yukiko misunderstood Occidental ideas of sanitation and cleanliness. Remember the Russians? How they had eaten raw oysters without a second thought?

  Teinosuke preferred not to be too deeply involved in domestic problems, and particularly with regard to Etsuko’s upbringing he was of the view that matters might best be left to his wife. Lately, however, with the outbreak of the China Incident, he had become conscious of the need to train strong, reliant women, women able to support the man behind the gun. One day he saw Etsuko at play with O-hana. Taking a worn-out hypodermic needle, Etsuko gave her straw-stuffed Occidental doll a shot in the arm. What a morbid little game, Teinosuke thought. That too was the result of a dangerous preoccupation with hygiene. Something must be done.

  But Etsuko trusted Yukiko more than anyone else in the house, and, with Sachiko backing Yukiko, a clumsy effort to intervene could only lead to quarreling. He therefore awaited his chance, and Yukiko’s departure seemed to provide it. The truth was that he pitied Yukiko deeply, and, important though the rearing of his daughter was, he feared the emotional effect it might have on Yukiko were he to drive a wedge between her and the child. He might make her feel that she was unwanted, a nuisance. Now the problem had resolved itself, and he was sure that Sachiko without Yukiko would be more easily managed. Although he was extremely sorry for Yukiko, then, and although he would not have refused to let her come back had she asked, he could not agree to calling her back for Etsuko’s sake. Yukiko knew how to control Etsuko, and she would be a great help, but it seemed to him that at least one reason, even if a remote one, for Etsuko’s nervousness was the way Yukiko and Sachiko had trained her, and that he and Sachiko should bear the trials of the moment and take this opportunity to lessen Yukiko’s influence. Would it not be well to change their training methods, gradually, of course, so as not to stir up rebellion? For the present they should not ask Yukiko back.

  In November Teinosuke had two or three days’ business in Tokyo. He visited the Shibuya house for the first time. The children were thoroughly used to Tokyo life, he found, and had learned to use standard Tokyo speech at school and the Osaka dialect at home. Tatsuo and his wife and Yukiko were to all appearances well and happy. Cramped place though it was, they said, they hoped he would stay with them. But it was a cramped place indeed, and he took a room at an inn after doing his duty and staying with them one night. The next day, when Tatsuo and the older children had gone out and Yukiko was upstairs cleaning house, Teinosuke had a chance to talk to Tsuruko.

  “Yukiko seems to have settled down nicely.”

  “Well, you may not have noticed, but …”

  So the story began. When they first arrived, Yukiko had cheerfully helped with the house and with the children, but—not that she refused to help even now, of course—but sometimes she would shut herself up in the little room upstairs. When Tsuruko began to wonder what might have happened and went up to investigate, she would find Yukiko at Teruo’s desk, lost in thought, sometimes even weeping. This was happening more and more often-—at first it had been only once every ten days or so. Sometimes even after Yukiko came downstairs she would pass a half day without saying a word, and occasionally she would be unable to hide lier tears from the others. Tsuruko and Tatsuo had been very careful. They could think of no reason why she should be so unhappy. Possibly, then, it was that she longed for Osaka—in a word, they could only conclude that she was homesick. They thought to distract her by having her take lessons in tea ceremony and calligraphy, but she showed not the slightest interest. They had been truly delighted, Tsuruko continued, at Aunt Tominaga’s success and Yukiko’s quiet return, and they had not dreamed that to be with them would be so unpleasant. If indeed they drove her to tears, perhaps they should try to change. But why should they be so disliked? Tsuruko herself began to weep. Still, she continued, hurt though they were, they could not but be moved at the depth of this forlornness, and they sometimes felt that, if her longing for Osaka was so great, they might better let her do as she wanted. Tatsuo would never consent to having her live permanently in Ashiya, but they might say they were leaving her there until they moved into a larger house, and they might see whether a week or ten days in Ashiya would revive her spirits. They would have to find an appropriate excuse, of course, but it was sad to see Yukiko grieving, sadder indeed for those who had to watch than for Yukiko herself.

  It was a very short conversation, and Teinosuke offered only vague condolences. They must be very upset indeed, he said, and part of the responsibility unquestionably lay with Sachiko. He did not mention Etsuko’s illness.

  Back in Ashiya, he told Sachiko everything he had heard.

  “I never thought she would dislike Tokyo so,” he concluded.

  “Do you suppose she dislikes being with Tatsuo?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Or she wants to see Etsuko?”

  “There must be all sorts of reasons. Yukiko is just not the kind to live in Tokyo.”

  Sachiko thought how even as a child Yukiko had endured in silence, only sobbing quietly to herself. She could see, as though before her eyes, that figure bent weeping over the desk.

  25

  ETSUKO was given sedatives and put on a diet. They discovered that she would eat Chinese food even if it was a little greasy; and the beriberi left with the cold weather, and her teacher agreed not to worry too much about homework. In due time, and with less discomfort than they had expected, the child began to recover. The need for rescue had disappeared, but when she heard Teino-suke’s story Sachiko thought she could not rest until she had seen Yukiko again.

  She wondered if she had been cruel to Yukiko the day of Aunt Tominaga’s visit. She should not have done what she did—she had almost ordered Yukiko from the house. She should have interceded to ask for more time. Taeko after all had been allowed two or three months. The determination to show that she could get along by herself must have been especially strong that day. And Yukiko had been so docile and unresisting—Sachiko could hardly bear to think of her. Yukiko had gone off in fairly high spirits, taking almost nothing with her; and that, when one thought about the matter, was obviously because she had faith in Sachiko’s assurances that they would find a pretext to call her back. Yukiko was quite justified in thinking that she had been deceived and made a fool of. After sending her off in the secure knowledge that she need stay only long enough to soothe the feelings of the main family, they had shown no sign of plotting for her return. And no one said a word about Taeko, who was still in Ashiya.

  Sachiko wondered what her husband would think. In view of Tsuruko’s tone, they need expect little resistance from the main house. Would he say even so that it would be best to wait? Or would he agree that there could be no objection to asking Yukiko down for ten days or two weeks, now that four months had gone by and Etsuko was quieter?

  On January 10, as Sachiko was coming to the conclusion that she might best wait until spring before raising the question, a letter came from Mrs. Jimba, who had been silent since sending the photograph. Had they thought about t
he proposal, she asked. Sachiko had told her not to expect an immediate answer, but was Yukiko favorably disposed? If it seemed that a marriage could not be arranged, Mrs. Jimba wondered whether she might trouble Sachiko to return the photograph. If, on the other hand, Yukiko was inclined, however slightly, to accept, it was still not too late. Mrs. Jimba did not know whether or not they had investigated the gentleman, but there was only one thing she thought they should know in addition to what he himself had written on the back of the photograph: that he was quite without property, and depended entirely on his salary. Perhaps Yukiko would be displeased at this news. The gentleman had investigated the Maki-okas thoroughly, however, and, having somewhere had a chance to see for himself how attractive Yukiko was, had sent through Mr. Hamada the warmest assurances that Yukiko was the bride he wanted, no matter how long he had to wait. Mrs. Jimba added that she herself would gain favor with Mr. Hamada if they would agree to meet the prospective bridegroom.

  For Sachiko, Mrs. Jimba’s letter was a godsend. She wrote to Tokyo immediately, enclosing the letter and the photograph. They had this proposal, she said, and Mrs. Jimba seemed in a hurry to arrange a miai—although, in view of the unfortunate experience they had had with Segoshi, Yukiko would no doubt be unwilling to have a miai before they had finished investigating the man. If there was no objection, therefore, she would hurry with the investigation; but she wanted to know first what Tatsuo and Tsuruko thought. Five or six days later came an answer, a surprisingly long one for Tsuruko.

  January 18

  DEAR SACHIKO,

  Late though it is, I want to wish you a Happy New Year. I am delighted to hear that you had a pleasant holiday season. We ourselves, being in a new city, hardly felt that the New Year had come at all, and our celebrations were most confused. I have always heard that the cold in Tokyo is particularly hard to bear, and in fact I have never seen anything like it. Not a day passes without that cold, dry north wind. This morning the towels were frozen like boards and crackled when you picked them up. I do not remember that this ever happened, in Osaka. They say it is warmer in toward the city, but here we are high up and far out. Nearly all of us, even the maids, have been in bed with colds, and only Yukiko and I have managed to escape with no more than colds in the head. It does seem to be true, though, that the air is cleaner than in Osaka. A kimono I have been wearing for ten days is still fairly clean. Tatsuo’s shirts were always dirty after three days in Osaka, but here he can wear them four days.