The Makioka Sisters

by Junichiro Tanizaki

I must ask you not to tell Koi-san I have written. It could do no good, and might possibly do harm, if she were to know.

  I am writing in a very great hurry, to be sure that my letter will reach you at the Hamaya. I suppose you have had trouble reading it, but I hope you will understand the haste. Writing everything as it has come to me, I have said much that is foolish and rude. You must forgive me.

  Sincerely,

  OKUBATA KEISABUR

  Leaning on her elbows and shielding the letter between her hands, Sachiko reread several key passages. Then, to avoid Etsuko’s prying eyes, she put it back in to the envelope, folded it double, slipped it into her obi, and went out to sit in a rattan chair on the veranda.

  It had been too sudden. She could think of nothing until the beating of her heart subsided. How much would be true? Now that she had Okubata’s accusations before her, she had to admit that she had been too lenient with Koi-san. She had let Itakura become too familiar. She had been careless in letting him come and go as he would, whether or not he had business, and in not thinking it strange that he should come so often. But in the role that so concerned Okubata—as a candidate for Koi-san’s hand— they had not even thought about the young man. They knew nothing of his antecedents. All they knew was that he had worked as a boy in the Okubata shop. The truth was that from the outset they had considered him on a level below them. He had suggested playfully, had he not, that they might let him take O-haru for his bride? Who then would have thought that he might have designs on Koi-san herself? Had the playfulness been only a trick?

  But Sachiko could not believe that, even if Itakura had such ambitions, Koi-san could think of taking them seriously. She could not believe the accusations as they concerned Koi-san. Whatever mistakes Koi-san had made in the past, had she no pride? However faded and fallen, was she not always a Makioka? Tears came into Sachiko’s eyes. Okubata was worthless, but one could imagine, and even approve of, his marrying Koi-san. But could Koi-san even consider a liaison with the other young man? Had not her whole manner toward him, her way of speaking to him, been as to one beneath her? And had he not seemed to accept it, almost to enjoy it?

  Was there then no basis for Okubata’s suspicions? He spoke of evidence, but the fact that he had not even hinted at what the evidence was might mean that he had only vague misgivings. To keep Koi-san from making a mistake, he had perhaps stated his warnings in the most exaggerated terms. Sachiko did not know what his “ways of investigating” might be, but it certainly was not a “fact,” for instance, that Koi-san and Itakura had gone swimming alone together. Lenient though Sachiko might be, she would not allow such complete indifference to the proprieties. It was Etsuko who had gone alone with Itakura. Whenever Koi-san went swimming, Etsuko and Yukiko and Sachiko were with her; Koi-san and Itakura had really been left alone very little. The other sisters had not meant especially to chaperon her, but since Itakura was such an entertaining talker, they always came in to listen. Sachiko had not once noted anything strange in his behavior or Koi-san’s. Had Okubata then built a fantasy on irresponsible rumors?

  Sachiko wanted very much to think so, but something, she could hardly say what, came to her as she read the letter. She had thought Itakura a member of a class with which they had nothing in common; and yet she could not say that she had on no occasion had suspicions of the sort Okubata described. She had vaguely sensed that there was something behind the devotion to Koi-san and those constant visits to the Ashiya house. And she could imagine how deep would be the gratitude of a girl who had been rescued at such peril. Consciousness of class always intervened, however, to make her dismiss the matter as not really worth thinking about. If the truth must be told, she had avoided thinking about it. Her consternation came from the fact that what she had not wanted to see, what she had feared to see, was with no preliminaries and no hesitations hauled out before her by Okubata.

  Already homesick, she felt, after reading the letter, that she could not waste even another day in Tokyo. She must hurry home and learn the truth as soon as possible. But how ought she to proceed? How could she keep from angering Koi-san and Itakura? Should she talk to her husband? Or should she take full responsibility upon herself, and discover the truth in the strictest secrecy, telling neither Teinosuke nor Yukiko? Would it not be best, if Okubata’s allegations should prove true, to separate the two without wounding them and without letting anyone else know? Sachiko turned the possibilities over one after another in her mind. The really urgent need was to keep Itakura from the Ashiya house. “He seems to be visiting your house every day even now”—that was the sentence that most disturbed her. If indeed the seeds of an affair were sprouting, then this was their chance to grow and flourish. “I hate to think what might- be happening now, with Teinosuke out of the house in the daytime and you and Etsuko and even O-haru in Tokyo.”

  How careless she had been! Who if not Sachiko herself had hit upon the idea of taking Yukiko and Etsuko and O-haru to Tokyo, and leaving only Taeko behind? It was as though she had built a nursery especially for those sprouting seeds—or for seeds that would send out sprouts if there had been none before. Should she blame her sister and Itakura, or should she blame herself? In any case, there was no time to be wasted. Even as she sat there, time was passing. She was seized with an intolerable restlessness. If she had to wait a day or two before she could go back to Osaka with Etsuko, what defense measures should she take in the meantime? The quickest solution of course would be to telephone Teinosuke and have him prevent Taeko’s seeing Itakura. But that would not do. She wanted to keep Teinosuke from learning of the affair. Another possibility was to tell Yukiko everything, send her back to Osaka that night, and have her watch unobtrusively over Taeko. Yukiko would be easier to talk to than Teinosuke. But even assuming that Yukiko would agree, Sachiko would have no excuse for bundling her off to Osaka when she had only just returned to the main family. The step least likely to arouse suspicion, then, would be to send O-haru back immediately. She need tell the girl nothing. O-haru’s presence in the Ashiya house would impose certain restrictions on Koi-san even if it did not entirely keep her from meeting Itakura.

  But Sachiko hesitated again. O-haru was such a talker. There was no telling what rumors she would start if she became suspicious. A clever girl, she might guess why she was being sent back early. And, on the other hand, she might allow herself to be bribed. For all her cleverness, she yielded easily to such temptations. She would be no problem at all for a talker as persuasive as Itakura. Sachiko concluded that she could entrust the mission to no one. She must go back to Osaka. After the examination, today or tomorrow, she must take a night train back, however late it might be.

  Seeing Yukiko’s parasol on the bridge by the Kabuki Theater, she went quietly back into the room, sat down at the dresser, and powdered her face. Then, as if she had remembered something, she opened her cosmetics case—she tried not to let Etsuko see— and poured the cap of the pocket flask a third full of brandy.

  19

  SACHIKO was no longer interested in art exhibits—and yet a little art might take her mind off her troubles. In the afternoon the three of them set out for Ueno Park. After two exhibits, Sachiko was exhausted, but not Etsuko, who still had to see the zoo. It was six before they finally dragged themselves back to the inn. As for dinner, Sachiko could not bear the thought of going out to a restaurant. She invited Yukiko to have something with them at the inn. They had finished their baths and were sitting down for dinner when O-haru came in flushed and sweating, her summer dress quite wilted. She and O-hisa had taken the subway from Asakusa, and she had come alone from the Ginza to thank Sachiko. And this is for Miss Etsuko—she took out some candy and several postcards.

  “Thank you. But you should take this to Shibuya instead.”

  “I have much more. I sent it on with O-hisa.”

  “Really, you should not have bought so much, O-haru.”

  “Did you see the falls?” Etsuko was looking at the postcards.

 
“Yes, thank you, I saw everything. The shrines, the falls, the lake.”

  For a time, the talk was of Nikko. O-haru was challenged when she said that she had seen Mt. Fuji too.

  “Not Mt. Fuji!”

  “Definitely Mt. Fuji.”

  “From where?”

  “From the train.”

  “You can see Mt. Fuji from the Tobu Line?”

  “You just saw a mountain that reminded you of Mt. Fuji.”

  “No, it was definitely Mt. Fuji. Everyone on the train was pointing at it.”

  “Can you really see Mt. Fuji? I wonder. From where on the Tōbu Line would it be?”

  Sachiko, who had been thinking about Dr. Sugiura since that morning, had O-haru call his office from the inn. He had just returned to the city, and he could see them the following morning, the sixth. Reconciled to the possibility that, even though-he was due back on the fifth, the doctor might be delayed two or three days, Sachiko was much relieved. She asked the inn to reserve three berths for the following night, if possible berths in a series. “You are going back tomorrow?”—Yukiko was startled. With the examination in the morning, answered Sachiko, she might be a little pressed, but if she did her shopping in the afternoon it would not be impossible to take a night train. Although Sachiko herself had no special reason to rush home, Etsuko was already late for school. They might go shopping together if Yukiko and O-haru would come to the inn at about noon. Sachiko knew she should go once more to the Shibuya house, she said as she saw Yukiko and O-haru off after dinner, but she simply could not find the time. She hoped Yukiko would apologize for her.

  She was indeed “pressed” the next day. After the examination at Dr. Sugiura’s office and a trip to a pharmacy for the medicine he prescribed, she and Etsuko took a cab from Tokyo University and arrived at the inn to find Yukiko and O-haru waiting. Yukiko wanted first to know the results of the examination. Dr. Sugiura’s diagnosis had in general agreed with Dr. Tsuji’s. Dr. Sugiura added that the illness was particularly common with children who had outstanding artistic abilities. There was nothing to worry about. Depending on how she was trained, the girl might excel in one field or another. The important thing was to discover where her talents lay. He advised dieting and wrote out a prescription, and only the prescription departed from what Dr. Tsuji had advised. In the afternoon, the four went shopping. The hot weather had returned, and though there was a breeze, it was a stifling day. They had to make frequent stops to refresh themselves, at the German Bakery, at the Colombin, on the seventh floor of the Mitsukoshi Department Store. O-haru, who followed after them with only her head showing over the packages, was sweating as freely as the day before. Each of the others also had two or three packages. It was time for dinner when they returned to the Ginza to pick up odds and ends. Deciding not to go again to the German restaurant (they needed a change, she said), Sachiko suggested the New Grand instead. Dinner would take less time there than at the inn, and it would be good to spend these last moments with Yukiko— who knew when they would see her again?—over a glass of beer and the foreign cooking of which she was so fond. They rushed back to the hotel, packed, and went to the station. After a brief conversation with Tsuniko, who had come to see them off, they boarded a sleeper on the eight-thirty express.

  Tsuruko took advantage of a moment when Etsuko had stepped down to the platform with Yukiko. Sachiko was standing in the car door.

  “Have you had any more proposals for Yukiko?” Tsuruko spoke in a very low voice.

  “Not since the one you know of. But I am hoping for something soon.”

  “This year? Next year is bad, you know.”

  “I know. I have been asking everyone.”

  “Good-bye, Yukiko.” Etsuko waved a pink georgette handkerchief from the door. “When are you coming again?”

  “I wonder.”

  “Make it soon.”

  Yukiko did not answer.

  “You will come soon, Yukiko? Be sure to come soon.”

  They had two lower berths and one upper. Sachiko put O-haru and Etsuko opposite each other and took the upper herself. She lay down in an under-kimono, but she made no real effort to sleep. The image of Tsuruko and Yukiko and their tear-filled eyes lingered on and on. This was the eleventh day since her arrival in Tokyo; and she thought she had never before had so restless and unsettling a trip. First those noisy children, then the typhoon, and she had crawled off to the Hamaya only to be hit by the letter from Okubata. The one day she had really enjoyed was the day she had had lunch with Tsuruko. It was true that their primary mission was accomplished: they had seen Dr. Sugiura. But they had not .once gone to the theater. And all yesterday and today Sachiko had raced through the dusty streets of Tokyo in the worst of the heat. What a dizzying two days they had been. Only on a trip could one think of rushing about to so many places in so short a time. The memory alone was enough to exhaust her. She felt less as if she were lying down than as if she had been thrown down from some high place, and yet she could not sleep. Knowing well enough that a sip or two of brandy might make her doze off, she did not have the energy to get up for it. And with her all the while was the unhappy question that would have to be answered as soon as she reached home. It took shape and vanished and took shape again, cloaked in doubts and shadows. Was Okubata right? And if he was, what should she do? Did Etsuko suspect anything? Had she told Yukiko of the letter?

  20

  ETSUKO started back to school after a day’s rest. Sachiko, on the other hand, only felt more exhausted. She would call in a masseuse and lie down for a nap in the middle of the day, or she would go out to sit on the terrace.

  Perhaps because it reflected the tastes of one who preferred spring, the garden had little in it to attract the eye: a rather forlorn hibiscus in the shade of the hillock, and a clump of hagi1 trailing its white flowers off toward the Stolz fence. The sandalwood and the plane trees, such a profusion of leaves in summer, were limp and tired. The green of the lawn was much as it had been when she left, and yet the sun seemed a little weaker. The garden carried just a suggestion of coolness, the smell of a sweet olive reminded her that in Ashiya too autumn was near. They would soon have to take in the reed awning. These last two or three days she had felt an intense affection for the familiar garden. It was good to go away now and then. Possibly because she was not used to traveling, she felt that she had been away at least a month. She remembered how Yukiko treasured every minute, how she would walk through the garden, stopping here and there, when she had to go back to Tokyo. Yukiko was not the only child of Osaka, Sachiko knew. This was a most unremarkable little garden, but even here, smelling the pines, looking at the mountains and the clear sky, she thought that there could be no finer place to live than the suburbs of Osaka. How unpleasant Tokyo was, how dusty, gray, pushing. Yukiko was fond of saying that the very feel of the Osaka air was different, and she was right. Sachiko would not have to move. She could not begin to describe how much luckier she thought herself than Tsuruko or Yukiko. Sometimes she would say to O-haru:

  “You had a very good time for yourself, going off to Nikko, But for me there is not one good thing in Tokyo. Home is the best place in the world.”

  Taeko reported that she had been meaning to start work on her dolls again (she had left them untouched through the summer), but that she had not wanted to leave the house while Sachiko was away. The day after Sachiko’s return, she set out for her studio. There was no telling when the sewing school would open again, and the dancing teacher was no longer living. With nothing to keep her busy except her dolls, then, she thought she might take up French. Why not have Mme Tsukamoto come in, suggested Sachiko. She herself had stopped when Yukiko went to Tokyo, ” but if Koi-san was interested they might study together. That would never do, laughed Taeko—she was only a beginner and she would not be in a class with Sachiko; and besides, the French woman charged too much.

  Itakura called while Taeko was out. He only wanted to say hello. After about twenty minutes or a half hour on
the terrace he went around to the kitchen to hear about Nikko.

  It was true that Sachiko wanted a good rest before she grappled with her problem, but as a matter of fact the suspicions she had brought back from Tokyo showed a strange tendency to fade as the days passed. The shock when she had opened the letter, the fears that had clutched at her heart all through the following day, the nightmare that had tormented her on the train—the feeling of intolerable urgency—began to leave her the moment she was at home in .the clear morning sunlight. She began to feel that there was no need at all for haste and confusion. Had it been a matter that concerned Yukiko, she would have refused from the start to listen. She would have dismissed the rumors as libelous, whatever they were and whoever brought them, but there had been that newspaper incident, and Taeko was basically different from Sachiko and Yukiko. Sachiko could not trust her altogether; that was why Okubata’s letter had struck home.

  Meanwhile, Taeko was her usual bright self. She could not possibly have such a dark secret, thought Sachiko. The earlier consternation began to seem a little funny—perhaps in Tokyo Sachiko had caught something of Etsuko’s nervousness. That wearing, rankling city must surely affect the nerves of one as delicate as herself. Had her fears been morbid, then, and was her view of the situation now the right one?

  About a week after her return she found an opportunity to ask Taeko.

  Taeko, back early from the studio, was in her room looking at a doll she had brought with her. It was a doll on which she had taken special pains: an old woman in sombre kimono and garden sandals, crouched under a stone lantern. She was listening to autumn insects, one was to imagine.

  “You have done a beautiful job, Koi-san.”

  “It is rather good, I think.”

  “Beautiful. Much the best thing you have done lately. You were right to make in an old woman. There is a sort of sadness about it… .” Sachiko paused when she had finished praising the doll. “Koi-san, I had a strange letter while I was in Tokyo.”