The Makioka Sisters

by Junichiro Tanizaki

  “She looks so young.” Teinosuke, who was seeing them as far as Osaka, glanced at Yukiko across the aisle. As though it were a fresh discovery, he whispered his admiration to Sachiko. And indeed there were few who would have believed that Yukiko was in that troublesome thirty-third year. Thin and sad though the face was, the make-up set it off wonderfully well, and the kimono was, of all Yukiko owned, the one that best suited her, a delicate summer kimono and under-kimono of semi-diaphanous georgette, the sleeves two feet long. On a quiet purple ground, the bold plaited-bamboo pattern was broken here and there by flowers and white waves. They had telephoned Tokyo to have it sent by express when they decided to make the trip.

  “She does look young. There are very few people her age who could wear that kimono.”

  Yukiko looked at the floor, aware that she was being discussed. If one had been searching for faults, one could have remarked on that dark spot over the eye. The evening before Yukiko and Etsuko had left for Yokohama to see Peter Stolz off—it must have been in August—Sachiko had noticed that the spot was back after having disappeared for some time, and since then, though it was sometimes dark and sometimes faint, it had never entirely left her. There were times when a stranger might not have noticed at all, but a shadow was always to be detected by those near her. And the spot had become quite unpredictable. Whereas it had once come and gone in a monthly cycle, one could never be sure now when it would be dark and when it would fade. Teinosuke, much disturbed, said that if injections would do any good then injections she should have, and Sachiko urged her sister to see a specialist. They had been told by the doctor at Osaka University, however, that a long series of injections would be necessary, and that since the spot would disappear in any case when Yukiko was married, it was hardly worth the trouble. And the spot did not seem to bother people once they were used to it. Much though it might upset the family, it was a very small blemish indeed. More important, Yukiko herself did not seem worried. They had therefore done nothing.

  When viewed from a certain angle, the spot stood out under heavy powder like mercury in a thermometer. Teinosuke had noticed it as he watched Yukiko at the mirror that morning, and he was sure it would attract attention. Sachiko guessed what he was thinking. Each of them knew that the other saw this unfortunate development as a new shadow over a proposal unpromising from the start.

  Etsuko suspected that the trip was for more than fireflies. “Why are you wearing a kimono, Mother?” she asked as they changed trains in Osaka Station.

  “I thought Mrs. Sugano might be offended if I wore foreign clothes.”

  “Oh.” Etsuko was not satisfied. “Why?”

  “Why? You know how particular country people are when they get old.”

  “What are we going to do today?”

  “I have told you, I believe, that we are going to look at fireflies.”

  “But you and Yukiko are so dressed up.”

  “You know how it is when you go hunting fireflies, Etsuko.” Taeko came to Sachiko’s rescue. “You must have seen it in pictures—princesses with all sorts of court ladies, and long sleeves trailing off like this.” Taeko demonstrated with gestures. “They have fans in their hands and they run around the lake and over the bridge after fireflies. You have to run around in a pretty kimono—otherwise a firefly hunt hardly seems like a firefly hunt.”

  “What about you, then?”

  “I have never owned a good summer kimono. Sachiko will be the princess, and I will have to be a servant in foreign dress.”

  Though Taeko had recently been in Okayama for the third of her visits to Itakura’s grave, she seemed in good spirits. The tragedy had left no visible scars. Now and then she would send her sisters into spasms of laughter, and she managed her boxes of candy and tins of cake like a juggler.

  “Look, Yukiko, Mt. Mikami.”

  Etsuko, who seldom went east of Kyoto, was enjoying her second trip around Lake Biwa, and remembering all the famous places she had had pointed out to her the year before—Mt. Mikami, the long bridge at Seta, the site of Azuchi Castle, and so on. Just beyond Notogawa the train pulled to a stop—on a curved embankment through the rice paddies, they saw as they leaned out the windows. It was impossible to tell what the difficulty was. A pair of crewmen climbed from the locomotive and walked back and forth peering under the cars, but whether they did not know what was wrong or were not saying, they gave only vague answers to the passengers’ question. They thought it would be five or ten minutes at most. Presently a second train pulled up. The crewmen came for a look, and one of them ran back toward Notogawa.

  “What is it, Mother?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Did we run over something?”

  “Do you see anything?”

  “But they ought to know we are in a hurry.”

  “Silly train, stopping in a place like this.”

  Sachiko too thought at first that someone had been run over, but they seemed to have been spared at least that ill omen. For all Sachiko knew it might be the usual thing for a train, not on a remote branch line or a small private line, but on the main line of the Government Railways—it might be the usual thing for such a train to waste upwards of a half hour out among the rice paddies. She did not travel much, and she could not really say. Still she thought it odd. And the foolish, absent-minded way the train had slowed down and clanked to a stop, almost as though it were making fun of Yukiko’s miai. Always when Yukiko had a miai something came up to spoil the day. Sachiko had been hoping that this time they would escape—and now, when they had all safely boarded the train and everything seemed in prospect of going well—now, to have this happen. She felt her face cloud over, try though she would to hide her dejection.

  “We are in no hurry. Suppose we have lunch while the train is resting,” joked Taeko. “We can have a much pleasanter lunch.”

  “An excellent idea.” Sachiko set about reviving her spirits. “The lunch will lose all its flavor in this heat unless we hurry and eat it.”

  Taeko was already taking down bundles and baskets from the rack above.

  “How are the egg rolls, Koi-san? Has anything happened to them?”

  “The club sandwiches are in more danger. We will have them first.”

  “You are an eater, Koi-san. Your mouth has been full ever since we left Osaka.” Yukiko seemed to have none of the forebodings that troubled her sisters.

  Some fifteen minutes later the train moved jerkily off. A new locomotive had come out to meet it.

  3

  THEY HAD last been invited to Ogaki, for a mushroom picking, the autumn before Sachiko was married. She was already engaged, and the wedding came two or three months later. It would have been 1925, fourteen years before, when Sachiko was twenty-two, Yukiko eighteen, and Taeko fourteen. Mrs. Sugano’s husband had greatly amused them with his heavy midland accent. They remembered how Tatsuo frowned when finally they were unable to hold back their laughter. Proud of being related to a family that figured in the chronicles of Sekigahara, Tatsuo had been looking for an excuse to display the Suganos to his wife and sisters-in-law. He also took much pleasure in showing them the battlefield and the ruins of the barrier gate at Fuwa. Their first visit was in the worst of the heat, however, and they were exhausted by the time he had finished dragging them over dusty country roads in a battered automobile. On their second visit they had to see the same famous places again. Sachiko was thoroughly bored. She had a pride an outsider would not understand in being a native of Osaka, and since the great heroes of her childhood were the losers at Sekigahara,1 she had little interest in that battle.

  The second visit was in a sense to help unveil the garden cottage, just then finished. Called the “Pavilion of Timelessness,” it was connected with the main house by a long L-shaped gallery, and it was for the old man’s pleasure—naps, chess, special guests. Though it showed more attention to detail than the rest of the house, there was nothing that struck one as discordant or ostentatious. Indeed the cottage had a
bout it the pleasant expansiveness of the well-to-do country family. Shown again to the Pavilion of Timelessness, they noted that it had mellowed into an even quieter, more tranquil little house than they remembered.

  As they were looking out over the fresh garden foliage, Mrs. Sugano came in to greet them formally, and to introduce her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. The daughler-in-law, whose husband, the present head of the family, worked in an Ogaki bank, held a baby in her arms. A boy five or six years old hid shyly behind her. The daughter-in-law’s name was Tsuneko, the boy was Sōsuke, and the baby girl was Katsuko. The introductions finished, Mrs. Sugano set about renewing the acquaintance, and again the youthfulness of the sisters came up for discussion. When she had heard the automobile and had gone out to receive them at the gate, said Mrs. Sugano, she had seen Taeko climb from the automobile, and wondered if it was young Etsuko—but then of course her eyes were not as good as they might be. Then came Yukiko and Sachiko, whom she took for Taeko and Yukiko— and a little girl—and no Sachiko. She was first able to identify them properly when she came out to the cottage. Tsuneko too was surprised: she had never met them, she said, but she had heard enough about them to know fairly well how old they would be. She had been unable to decide which was which when she saw them get out of the automobile. She hoped they would forgive her for asking, but was not Miss Yukiko a year or two older than she? Tsuneko was thirty, explained Mrs. Sugano. It was natural that Tsuneko, married for some years and already the mother of two children, should have aged, and for all the special care she had obviously taken with her dress, she looked almost like Yukiko’s mother. And Taeko too, Mrs. Sugano went on. When she first came here, she was a little bigger than the girl (pointing to Etsuko); and if the next time was 1925 and she was fourteen or so then—Mrs. Sugano blinked with astonishment—it seemed as if the last ten years and more had not happened. She should not have confused Taeko and Etsuko, but even here face to face she could not see that Taeko had aged in the least. A year or two, no more. Taeko looked like a girl of sixteen or seventeen.

  After tea, .Sachiko was called to the main house, and five or ten minutes with Mrs. Sugano proved enough to make her regret that they had accepted the invitation. What astonished her most was the lack of information. Mrs. Sugano knew nothing of the matter that most worried them, Mr. Sawazaki’s character. She had never even met the man. The Suganos and the Sawazakis had long respected each other as old families, and the former head of the Sawazaki family had been most friendly with Mrs. Sugano’s husband, but since her husband’s death she had had little or nothing to do with the younger Mr. Sawazaki. As far as she could remember, he had never visited this house, and she had never met him. She had not written to him before she set about arranging the miai. Through mutual acquaintances, she heard that he had lost his wife two or three years before, that he was looking for a second, that nothing had come of proposals thus far, and that, though he was past forty and had children by his first wife, he hoped to take for his second an unmarried lady in her twenties. Having had Yukiko on her mind for some time, Mrs. Sugano thought she might arrange a meeting, even though Yukiko was past the specified age. She knew that she should have found an appropriate go-between, but just any go-between would not do, and she had concluded that rather than waste time on empty forms she would act immediately. A little rashly, she had written to the gentleman: she had such and such a lady among her relatives, and she wondered if he would like to meet her. When she heard nothing from him, she concluded that he was not interested, but then it appeared that he had been quietly investigating on the basis of her letter. After about two months an answer finally came. This was the letter, she said, and handed Sachiko a very brief note: Mr. Sawazaki had much valued the friendship of the old gentleman and regretted that he had neglected Mrs. Sugano herself since her husband’s death; he was most grateful for her letter and thanked her from his heart; though he should have answered sooner, he had been occupied with his own vulgar affairs; he would very much like to meet the lady; if he could be given two or three days’ notice, his Saturdays were generally open, and he thought they might arrange the details by telephone. Sachiko could only describe the letter as routine. She was astounded: how to explain it, when old families like the Suganos and the Sawazakis were so extremely careful to observe the most elaborate of forms at such times? And was it not a piece of impetuousness, effrontery almost—quite out of keeping with her years—for Mrs. Sugano to send off a letter to a stranger without even consulting the Makiokas? Sachiko had never before encountered this impetuous streak in Mrs. Sugano’s nature. Whether or not it had become worse with age, she thought she could see a suggestion of the authoritarian that made her understand why Tatsuo so feared this oldest of his sisters. And it did not entirely make sense for Mr. Sawazaki to have accepted the invitation. Perhaps he was afraid of insulting the Sugano family. Sachiko tried not to show her dissatisfaction. Mrs. Sugano went on, not quite by way of apology, to explain that she tended to be quick and impatient and greatly disliked tedious formalities, and that she had thought everyone would understand everything once a meeting was arranged. The details could be taken care of later. She had not investigated Mr. Sawazaki, but in view of the fact that she had heard no disagreeable rumors either about him or about his household, she felt sure that he could have no serious defects. They might save time by questioning him directly on points they did not understand. She could answer none of Sachiko’s questions. Mr. Sawazaki had two or three children—she was not quite sure whether it was two or three, and she did not know whether they were boys or girls. Still she seemed pleased with herself for having arranged a meeting. She had called Mr. Sawazaki as soon as she had received Sachiko’s letter, she said, and he would come from Nagoya the next morning at about eleven. Though she could promise no feast, she would have Tsuneko get something ready, and she thought just the three of them, herself, Sachiko, and Yukiko, should see him. They could all go hunting fireflies tonight. She would arrange tomorrow for young Mr. Sugano to show Taeko and Etsuko the battlefield. She would send them off with their lunch (she was delighted with her plans) and the miai should be over by two. One never could tell about marriage negotiations. Knowing that Yukiko was in that troublesome thirty-third year, Mrs. Sugano had been astonished to find that she looked no more than twenty-four or twenty-five— did she not satisfy Mr. Sawazaki’s conditions in full?

  Sachiko could not help wishing that she had an excuse to put the miai off and to devote this trip to the fireflies. She had brought Yukiko on the basis of but one letter from Mrs. Sugano because she had had complete faith in the latter and had assumed that the groundwork was carefully laid, and now she saw of how little importance both the Suganos and the Sawazakis seemed to think Yukiko. She knew that Yukiko would be hurt if she knew the truth, and that Teinosuke would be even angrier than she was herself. It was not hard to imagine the contempt Mr. Sawazaki must have for a lady who proposed by letter to him and his tens of millions—nor was it hard to see that he was less than serious about the negotiations. Had Teinosuke been along, they could have pleaded what should be common sense—that they would like to investigate the man, and that they would like at least to go through the form of having an intermediary. A woman alone, helpless before the widow’s enthusiasm, could do nothing so bold. And Sachiko had to think of her brother-in-law in Tokyo. Sad though it was for Yukiko, there was nothing to do but follow Mrs. Sugano’s wishes.

  “Suppose you change clothes if you are too warm, Yukiko. I am thinking of changing myself.”

  Back in the cottage, Sachiko signaled to Yukiko that the miai was not today, and started to untie her obi. She tried to blame her dejected gesture on the heat. She would say nothing about the unpleasant details to either Yukiko or Koi-san. Since she was only making herself unhappy, for today at least she would forget. Tomorrow was another day, and this evening they could hunt fireflies. It was not Sachiko’s nature to brood, and she set to work mending her spirits. Even so she felt a clutching at her hea
rt as she looked at Yukiko, unaware of what had happened. With a show of jauntiness, she took out an informal summer kimono.

  Etsuko was suspicious. “Are you wearing that to the firefly hunt, Mother?”

  “I am feeling just a little warm.” Sachiko reached to hang up the discarded kimono.

  1 Osaka Castle was the main seat of the anti-Tokugawa faction, defeated at Sekigahara.

  4

  THE HOUSE was a strange one, but it was probably less the strange house than sheer exhaustion that kept Sachiko awake. She had gotten up early, she had been rocked and jolted by, train and automobile through the heat of the day, and in the evening she had chased over the fields with the children, two or three miles at least. But she knew that the firefly hunt would be good to remember. She had seen firefly hunts only on the puppet stage, Miyuki and Komazawa murmuring of love as they sailed down the River Uji, and, as Taeko had said, one should put on a long-sleeved kimono, a smart summer print, and Tun across the evening fields with the wind at one’s sleeves, lightly taking up a firefly here and there with one’s fan. Sachiko was enchanted with the picture.

  The firefly hunt was in fact rather different. If you are going to play in the fields, you had better change clothes, said Mrs. Sugano, laying out four muslin kimonos—prepared especially for them?— each with a different pattern, as became their several ages. Not quite the way it looked in the pictures, laughed Taeko. In the dark, however, it hardly mattered what they had on. They could still see each other’s faces when they left the house, but by the time they reached the river it was almost pitch dark. “The river” was actually no more than a ditch through the paddies, a little wider than most ditches, with plumes of grass bending from either bank and almost closing off the water. A bridge was still faintly visible a hundred yards or so ahead.